Blanco County 04 - Guilt Trip by Ben Rehder Read Free Book Online

thousand acres of prime ranchland purchased by Samuel Colby six generations ago.
    Pieces of the ranch had been snipped off and sold over the years, a huge chunk auctioned during the Depression, and Phil Colby had actually lost the remainder for several years due to a problem with property taxes in the late nineties. He’d been struggling financially, beef prices in the basement, but now he was back on his feet. What he’d done was, he’d finally opened the gates to deer hunters willing to pay a fair price. That income boosted Colby’s bottom line considerably and kept the ranch solvent. He wasn’t wealthy—far from it—but he was able to live without the fear of losing the land on which he was so deeply rooted.
    Then came the question of high fencing.
    Colby knew he could charge the hunters higher fees to hunt behind a deer-proof fence—but Colby didn’t believe in high fences, feeling that they gave the hunter an unfair advantage on all but the most immense ranches. He went so far as to remove the high fence that had been erected when his ranch was temporarily out of his hands. It wasn’t just a personal decision; it was Colby’s opinion that ranchers with high fences were violating the law, restricting the movement of animals owned—according to the Parks and Wildlife Code—by “the people of the state of Texas.”
    He felt strongly enough about the issue that when Scofield announced plans for a high fence the previous fall, Colby decided to take his neighbor to court. Marlin had warned Colby that he was fighting a losing battle, that his lawsuit would be tossed out.
    “Screw ‘em,” Colby said. “It’ll make a statement.”
    “And what would that statement be?” Marlin asked.
    “High fences suck,” Colby replied, grinning wide.
    That was Colby—just as ornery as hell and willing to take a stand.
    It turned out Marlin was right. Colby hired an attorney, the attorney filed the suit, and it was dismissed the first day in court. Vance Scofield’s lawyer had pointed out that current law allowed a property owner to erect a fence of any reasonable height. The judge saw no reason to disagree. It was all a fairly civil proceeding, until afterward, when Colby and Scofield exchanged some words and nearly got into a fistfight in the corridor.
    In the end, Colby felt that he had achieved his goal—to draw attention to the topic. In the eyes of the press, Colby was the common man against the wealthy, David versus Goliath. He practically had folk-hero status in some of the blue-collar hunting camps around the state.
    Now, just a few months after the whole spectacle, Vance Scofield was missing. So, as Marlin maneuvered up his long caliche driveway, he wasn’t surprised to see a familiar blue truck parked in front of the house. Phil Colby was sitting in a rocking chair on the porch, drinking a beer, Marlin’s dog, Geist, sleeping at his feet.
    As Marlin mounted the steps, Colby called in falsetto, “How was your day, dear?”
    Marlin plopped into a chair next to the swing. He hadn’t been this tired since the end of deer season. “Oh, your average nightmare.”
    “Just got back into town,” Colby said. “I heard about Scofield.”
    “Yeah, where the hell were you? We could’ve used you out there.” Colby was a member of the Blanco County Search and Rescue Team. Marlin couldn’t imagine that Colby’s feelings about Scofield would have kept him away from the river.
    “Went to the cattle auction in Fredericksburg,” Colby said. He tilted his beer bottle. “You look like you could use a cold one.”
    “That’d be nice.”
    Colby shook his empty bottle. “Well, grab me another one while you’re at it.”
    Marlin glared at him. Colby had a key to the house, and he was known to make himself right at home. That suited Marlin just fine, although he occasionally gave Phil some grief for leaving the beer supply low.
    “ All right, then, allow me,” Colby said, rising. He returned with two fresh bottles