Cut and Run 6 - Stars and Stripes

statement.”
    Zane caught his hand and ducked his head so Ty would meet his eyes. “Will you try? Please.”
    Ty stared at him, held captive. Zane so rarely busted out the cartoon bunny eyes, it worked on Ty every time he did it. Damn him.
    “Of course, Zane,” he whispered. He squeezed Zane’s hand. “Just . . . don’t get your hopes up, okay?”
    Zane nodded, looking pleased as he let go of Ty’s hand.
    Ty huffed at him. He headed for the pump house first, taking his time as the sun beat down on his shoulders and waves of heat shimmered in the distance. He shed his shirt, leaving the paper-thin Henley underneath to protect him from the sun.
    It took him nearly half an hour to traverse the entire scene. He was aware of the others getting restless, spreading out, finding shade, grumbling, napping. He pushed all that away, trying to focus on the tidbits of evidence he could find in the sand and shrubs.
    Finally, the others lost patience with him.
    “What’s the news, Grady?” Joe called out.
    Ty winced and wiped at the back of his neck with the buff he wore. “A car was parked here, by the pump house. It had been here for a few hours.” He bent with a plastic bag in his hand and picked up a husk of a cigarette with it. There were several nearby, telling the tale of someone waiting there. “It was a four-wheel drive vehicle, a truck or possibly an SUV.”
    “Yeah, thanks Sherlock, we know that from what Harry said,” Ronnie grumbled.
    Ty nodded, unperturbed. “There were three men, and after they parked, two headed that way, toward the perimeter fence.” He pointed toward the large, artfully camouflaged fence that abutted the Carter Garrett Ranch and the Roaring Springs Sanctuary.
    Everyone in the group squinted off into the distance. The fence was about two miles away, across rolling hills and deceptive flats. No wonder the shooters had parked so far away if their goal was the sanctuary; the land wasn’t passable by vehicle from here.
    “When they returned, there were five of them. That’s six perps total. They were carrying something heavy, and they made two trips.”
    “How do you know that?” Annie asked, sounding impressed.
    “Their footprints are deeper on the return,” Ty answered. He held up a different plastic bag that contained a shell he’d found in the rubble next to the adobe pump house. “They scrambled when they saw Harrison, fired from a .44. You’re lucky, sir, that they had rifles and not small arms.”
    “Impressive,” Harrison said with a nod.
    Ty turned where he stood and cocked his head at the fence in the distance. “That’s a long-ass way to drag a drugged tiger.”
    Zane came up to stand beside him, placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. It was basically a “good boy” pat on the head. Ty bit his lip to keep from grinning like an idiot.
    “Maybe they thought there was security?” Zane suggested. “They parked next to the only structure in the area, on the side that would hide them from the preserve.”
    “Everything points to an inside job, so they wouldn’t be worried about security. They parked here because they couldn’t get their truck any closer.”
    “And they returned with more men than they went in with? You’re sure?”
    “I’m betting someone went in through the front, bypassed the security, nabbed a key since none of them were missing, and just waltzed on out.”
    “I’d hate to carry a tiger in a cage over two miles across this terrain,” Zane said.
    “I’d hate to carry a tiger at all.”
    Zane hummed and narrowed his eyes, then glanced around at the others. Harrison was scratching his head. “Dad, is it possible what you saw under those tarps was animal cages?”
    “They could have been alien spaceships for all the look I got at them.” Harrison rubbed at his arm, obviously sore.
    Ty glanced up at the sky. They had many hours of daylight left. “You should send your dad home,” he whispered to Zane.
    “Good luck with that,” Zane said, then turned away and headed back to the group.
    Ty watched him walk away, then returned his attention to the ground. He continued to look around the old pump house, scanning the area for anything he might have missed. The boot treads were all worn to nothing, no way to tell shoe sizes or height and weight, nothing but their numbers.
    He stepped up to the crumbling doorway of the pump house and peered in, not sure if the structure was sound. Shafts of light filtered through the broken roof.