Chapter 14

The receptionist appeared at the door, her telephone headset cord dangling down the front of her dress. "Atwood, the Deputy County Clerk is on line three. Do you want to return..."

"I'll take the call in my office, Emily," he replied before she could finish her question. They could hear Atwood speaking as he walked around his desk to sit down, while Petra was wrapping his hamburger, hoping to keep it fresh until he finished his call.

"Hot damn," Atwood's voice sounded like an excited teenager.

"How many, I mean, how much?" There was a period of silence before Atwood's voice became very friendly, "Oh come on, Javier. You can tell me now. I'm going to find out anyway."

Had anyone from the back room seen Atwood, they would have watched him rise half a foot off the seat of his chair then reseat himself as his shoulders relaxed. His voice turned serious, as if he were talking to a judge sitting behind his bench in a courtroom. "Is the Secretary of State going to investigate or will they send the Rangers?"

When Gail appeared at his open office door Atwood motioned her inside and pointed at one of the chairs in front of his desk. She was soon followed by Howard. They sat quietly trying to glean as much as they could from the one-sided conversation.

Atwood finally completed his call and hung up the telephone. For a moment he dropped his head as if he wanted to rest his chin on his chest. He straightened up and looked at Gail a moment as a smile began to form on his face, and then he turned to Howard.

"I know Gail has been keeping you informed and in the process she's probably been educating you. She's a wonderful teacher just ask Petra." He paused for a moment then continued, "A County Clerk's job is to keep the papers that become legal records. Their fear of destroying something important is probably greater than their fear of death."

As he spoke, Atwood relayed some of the information he had learned from Deputy County Clerk Javier Mendoza. While one of the clerks in the office was searching for some of the documents Atwood had requested, she discovered an old file folder at the back of one of the drawers in a fire proof file cabinet. The folder was of much newer age than the other folders in the drawer. The clerk opened the file, thinking she could discover where it should be properly filed. Instead of being misfiled, it had been placed at the rear of the drawer to prevent it from being discovered.

Inside the file were carbon copies of receipts for tax payments. The receipts covered a span of over twenty years. She checked the most recent receipt against the office records in the computer, rather than checking an older receipt which would have meant a much more difficult search. The computer showed the payment had not been recorded. She copied the receipts in the file and returned it to where she had found it, then walked across the hall and asked to use a telephone in the County Commissioner's office.

Before the day was over, the young clerk was sitting in an interview room telling her story to a representative from the office of the state's Secretary of State. At least one of the receipts for taxes paid was on land now owned by Howard Pleas. Another receipt was for land now owned by Frank Pleas. As additional information was verified, it would be provided to the Law Office of Atwood David Atwood, legal representative of Howard Pleas.

Howard and Gail looked at each other in stunned silence. Atwood was apologizing for his profound mistake in leading them to believe the bank officer had forged the paid receipts. It was what he truly believed, the copies looked like they had been doctored and were of such poor quality they did not appear to be authentic. He admitted he was almost at a loss in determining what crime the bank officer had committed other than some kind of fraud or conspiracy.

Atwood threw his hands in the air and exclaimed, "I'm getting too old for all this. I need to retire and go fishing."

"I didn't want to own any of that bank anyway, Atwood," Howard declared. "I just want to straighten out the ownership of my ranch. I need to know if the rightful owner of the land is Santos Aguirre or me. Did Santos's grandfather, or great-grandfather, or how ever many greats it was, actually legally obtain the property or was there some kind of a swindle? And I'd like to know that before the feds bury his ass at the back corner of some basement in a federal prison."

"Well then," Atwood grinned. "Get out of here and let me get back to work. Oh, Gail — before you leave today, call the state archive office and ask how far along they are on that list of documents I requested. I'm trying to do some of my work with copies from the online site, but there are a few words that aren't legible. Olivia says she can't tell if the words mean some ancestor 'can have' something or if it says he 'cannot have' whatever that individual was distributing to the grandsons."

Gail walked out of Atwood's office turning to go toward her office. Howard grabbed her hand and pulled her to the rear of the office, into the break room, closing the door behind them.

"I need a kiss."

"Howard."

"Just a little one, just because I feel so good."

Gail turned her face up to him and then stood with her arms around him, breathing slowly, trying to calm down from the intensity of the time they had spent in Atwood's office.

Howard's hands rubbed up and down her back, feeling her beginning to relax. "It's okay, Sweetheart. We're doing great. The stress is just going to make us stronger."

"You know what I miss. Howard?" Gail spoke against the buttons on the front of his shirt.

"What?"

"I miss sitting on that old couch watching the steaks cook in that brick fireplace. They don't taste the same when I broil them in the oven."

"We don't have room on that tiny patio for a good grill. So, how about if I bring you one of those portable charcoal grills with a lid on it. I can cook the steaks over charcoal or wood, whichever you prefer."

"Okay," she straightened up and smiled. "Can you bring one home tonight? I took steaks out of the freezer this morning."

"Yes dear."

"Howard, let me know when the fire is hot enough and I'll bring the steaks out. The salads are made and I've already set the table."

A short while later, Howard stuck his head in the door to tell Gail he was ready for the steaks. She carried the pan outside and placed it on the small table between two lawn chairs.

Howard reached for the pan, but Gail stopped him, "Do this first" She offered him a small bundle of white envelopes.

Howard looked at the envelopes in his hand, "These are... ?"

"All my letters."

"Why, Baby? Why are you burning them now?"

"I don't need them anymore. I learned something about myself as I was writing them but it didn't really sink in until I was staying with you and had a chance to read them again. That's when I really learned that all those people I felt were against me weren't really doing anything to me. I was doing it to myself, letting them take advantage of me."

"Okay."

"Howard, I can't say I'll never let anyone take advantage of me again. But at least I know I can overcome being a victim of myself. I'm too busy to feel sorry for myself. I'm enjoying what I have now, which is a good job I enjoy and the most wonderful man in the world to love me as much as I love him."

"Yeah, I think we've both allowed all the rocks to fall then we mixed a little better mortar and built a much stronger wall using the rocks from both of our walls."

They watched in silence as Howard fed each envelope into the fire where it would flame brightly for a short while. Then it would slowly turn to ashes with an occasional thin ash wafting upward with the smoke. After feeding the final envelope to the fire and watching it disintegrate, Howard put the steaks on the grill. They watched again, silently, as the bacon wrapped around the venison began to sizzle.

"Gail, if Howard can take the day off Thursday, I need you to go to Austin and get the last batch of documents we requested. That dumb clerk said they were going to send them regular mail."

Gail looked up from her computer monitor to tell the agitated man in her door, "Atwood, Friday was Howard's last day at the hardware store. Pepper said he's going to borrow the money to build a big lumber yard and hire a general manager. Howard's going to take a year or so off and see if he can be a real rancher."

"Are you okay with that?"

"Oh yes, very much. Frank and Melanie are moving to Houston so she can help her mother. Howard wants to buy Frank's half of their house and remodel it for us. We've closed a few home improvement loans for some of the other homeowners in that area. It's really starting to look nice with all the houses being redone."

Atwood took a step back to allow Howard to walk into Gail's office and take a seat in one of the chairs in front of her office. The older man chuckled a moment, "I know you're anxious for this meeting, but aren't you a little early?"

"I thought Gail said two o'clock."

"Damn," Atwood exclaimed, looking at the clock at the end of the hall. "I got to get cracking. Aguirre's shysters will be here in a few minutes." He added as he walked away, "Don't forget about Thursday."

Howard turned to Gail, "Thursday?"

"Atwood wants me to go to Austin on Thursday to get the rest of the records from the state archives so they won't try to send them by regular mail."

"Oh good, I need to go to San Antonio and Austin to check on the brand."

"The brand?"

"Yeah, cattle brand. They're registered in the county, but old Spanish law required them to be recorded in the book in San Antonio. I'm trying to find out who registered it."

"So you want to go look at the book?"

"Either that or talk to someone who can tell me what to do next. It should have been, but the brand was never registered n this county."

"What does it look like?"

"Oh wow. Well it's sort of like the reverse of an old fashioned lower case 'g'. Like a circle on the top, a line going down the right side and a small oval on the bottom. There's a pendant, a triangle shaped flag, attached to the line between the circles and two little tails hanging down from the lower oval. Dad had a small pen and ink drawing of it framed over his desk at the house. I guess it would have been about the size of the actual brand that would appear on the animal's left side. Dad eventually used a tattoo instead of a brand.

"I can't find that picture anywhere. Melanie cleaned out the house when she and Frank moved in there. I brought some of the stuff out here and she trashed the rest."

"You have to help me here, what's the significance of the brand?"

"I think Santos was using my Dad's brand."

"What does that mean?"

"I'm not sure. It's an old 'quién sabe' brand with that pendant and the bottom curlicues.

"'Quién sabe' like the words for 'I don't know'?"

"Yeah, sort of, it's actually 'who knows?' I think I discovered the original brand was the two circles and the line, registered to a Magoo guy in Mexico. Then it was passed down a few generations. A son would take his father's brand and add a little something to it, like another pendant or a curlicue and that became his brand. One of those got to a generation of men who were using Pleas as their last name then Santos started using it on some special purebreds. But his name's not on any records as owning it."

"Does that mean his cattle belong to you?"

"I don't know yet. I'm wondering if it was one of those deregistered in the early 1940's."

"How would you get answers?"

"That's a good one. Brand law in the state is probably as complicated as the laws you deal with."

"Are you serious? It's that complicated?"

"Oh yeah. I found the 'dog irons' at his place. I've got 'em in the truck."