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Books & Poetry

Mystery short story winner: My Brother's Keeper

By JUNE MARIE AVERY

Winner of the fifth annual Tony Hillerman Mystery Short Story Contest
Sponsored by Cowboys & Indians and Wordharvest

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It was another Southwestern Sunset.

The sheriff resisted the temptation to pause his unit at the drop-off from New Mexico State Highway 130 between Weed and Mayhill. No time to enjoy the crisp mountain air and the ribbons of orange, pink, and gold streaming across the sky. He glanced at his reflection in the rearview mirror; his black hair was streaked with silver now, and the laugh lines didn't fade with his smiles. The lawman shrugged his lean shoulders and steered the four-wheel drive onto Willowtree Ranch Road. He was looking forward to a visit with the Gordon twins. Although he'd known them all his life — they'd been in high school with his dad — he still waited before speaking to either of them for fear of getting them confused. His dad said Joe was a little taller, but the sheriff couldn't tell the difference. At nearly 70, the old bachelors still worked from sunup to sundown. Their hardscrabble spread was beautiful, but beauty didn't buy many beans.

Like a stone in a pond, the vehicle dropped below the horizon off Highway 130 onto the switchback leading to the ranch house. Sixty-foot ponderosas crowded the rutted ranch road and forced the sheriff through hairpin turn after hairpin turn on his descent. It seemed not a single tree had been sacrificed for convenience. The two-mile journey to the homestead took 20 minutes even on a summer's evening. In winter's grip, it could take an hour or more, if you could get through at all.

As he crossed the cattle guard in front of the ranch house, he breathed a sigh of relief that his county unit hadn't high-centered on the last rutted curve. He honked his horn as he pulled up in front of the adobe ranch house with a rusted tin roof. One of the twins came out of the barn, battered Stetson in hand, wiping the sweat from his forehead. The lanky rancher, Joe or Ben, carefully wiped his hands on the worn bandanna from his hip pocket before extending his calloused hand to the sheriff. As the two men shook hands, the sheriff could feel the work-swollen knuckles of the older man's hand. He struggled to find a clue that would identify the man. Some said even their mother, Faye Ellen, had had trouble telling them apart and had tied a blue ribbon around Ben's wrist until they could talk. Even their belt buckles were identical, won for team roping in the Otero County Rodeo 50 years ago. They bought their shirts in Artesia. Bennie's Western Wear ordered two each of the soft plaids with snaps the twins preferred. They bought five new sets every year.

"Evenin' Sheriff," the twin said politely. "How's about a glass of sweet tea? Ben's out runnin' fence, so's he won't be back till late."

"Joe, how's it goin'?" The sheriff followed the now identified older twin through the living room of the ranch house and into the kitchen. The living room was still filled with the same chintz Faye Ellen had favored and was kept as scrupulously clean as if she'd not died 30 years before. Only the big-screen TV and satellite receiver in the corner were new additions since her death. Identical tan leather recliners sat equidistant from the television, separated by a lamp Joe had made 50 years before in shop class from a set of elk antlers. The tanned hide of the animal rested on the floor in front of the chairs. In a handmade frame above the lamp was Ben's acceptance letter from the University of New Mexico, dated 1958. Not that he'd been able to attend the university. The boys' father had keeled over in the campfire during branding their senior year at Weed High School, so plans for college for Ben were shelved.

The kitchen still contained Faye Ellen's pride and joy, a gas range that ran on butane, the first in the valley. The sheriff had eaten many an apple pie from that oven in Faye Ellen's time. It was still sparkling clean, but the crocheted potholders were frayed and faded now. The cabinets were clean, too, but needed a coat of paint. The sheriff sighed with relief as he eased his 45-year-old frame onto the cracked vinyl of the kitchen chair and stretched out his long legs, clad in the brown denim of his uniform. As he sipped from the chilled glass of sweet tea, the sheriff spoke. "I wanted to warn the two of you that the highway is going to be closed for the next week as they resurface the road. You'll need to come and go by the back road."

Joe squinted down at the sheriff, confusion chasing another emotion, fear perhaps, across his faded denim eyes. "You came out here just for that, boy?" he asked as he looked at him across the table. He took a sip from his glass of sweet tea from the sun-tea gallon jar on the counter by the sink, and reached for another of the lemon sandwich cookies from the jar in the center of the Early American table covered with a worn oilcloth. The sheriff wondered if Joe had been spending too much time down at the Mayhill bar again. With a puzzled frown at the tea jar by the sink, the sheriff shook his head. "No, to be honest, that was just my excuse. I was also wondering what you and Ben had decided about the offer from Sacramento Shangri-La. The Joneses up the road gave them the option on their land. Everybody knows that the deal will fall through if you boys don't sell up."

"We ain't decided yet, Sheriff. I lean toward keeping the ranch and Baby Brother wants to sell up. 'Course he was always the wild 'un!" the old man chuckled, showing the teeth bought in Juarez a few years back. Even they were identical, just a little too white to be natural.

Feelings were mixed up and down the valley about Sacramento Shangri-La. The development plans included 250 ranchitos with houses planned in the $75,000 to $125,000 range and 100 ranchos with houses in the $150,000 to $250,000 range. The development would have its own indoor/outdoor swimming pool and an 18-hole golf course. The ninth hole was supposed to tee up somewhere near the Willowtree homestead. Some folks were excited about the plans, hoping to make Weed a growing resort/weekend community like nearby Ruidoso. Others wanted to keep the isolated ranching community unchanged.

Few differences marked the twins. Ben had a sweet tooth and Joe didn't. One of the twins, the sheriff couldn't remember which, had a scar where he'd nailed his thumb stringing barbed wire when they were just boys. The sheriff replied, "I think you'd be able to keep your house. The way the Joneses explained it, that's what they're gonna do."

Joe sighed as he finished his tea. "Ben wants to move to one of them retirement villages near Alamogordo. He thinks he can get a widow woman to put up with his ways. I just dunno," he mumbled as he looked at the daisies on the faded red tablecloth.

Joe stood and turned toward the sink to pour another glass of tea. The sheriff, stretching his tired back, watched as Joe shook out a tray of ice into a bowl in the freezer. The sheriff caught himself staring at the worn Western belt holding up the old man's Wranglers. There was one more difference. Both twins had their names tooled into the leather of their belts. The leather vests they both wore made it difficult to read Joe's name. In fact, as he bent over the sink, the "e" looked more like an "n."

The sheriff jerked upright. Sweet tea, not plain tea. The twin had eaten cookie after cookie as they had talked. Wasn't it Ben who had the sweet tooth? Joe had said Ben was running fence, but the sheriff knew that Joe would never let Ben run fence alone. The lawman remembered now: It was Ben who'd nailed his thumb to a post and almost bled to death before Joe found him right after they'd had to take over running the ranch.

"Where's Joe, Ben? Where's your brother?" the sheriff asked in a quiet voice.

The scarred hand had reached again into the cookie jar. Ben froze. Collecting himself, he stuffed a whole cookie into his mouth. Around the crumbs, Ben spoke. "Guess you figured it out. I'd hoped you'd believe that I'd just run off and left Brother to run things. The Sacramento Shangri-La folks offered us $250,000 for the ranch. Joe wouldn't hear of us selling. He said the Willowtree Ranch had been in the family for over a hundred years and wouldn't be sold as long as he drew breath."

Ben's lined, craggy face crumbled. He tapped his foot and looked at the cracked linoleum floor, the telltale tea jar by the sink, then past the faded curtains to the suddenly loud jay squawking at an interloper. His blue eyes looked away from the sheriff's into the past. "I just wanted to have some fun, see the world. I never wanted to stay here. Joe never wanted to leave. I had a scholarship, you remember? I was gonna be a lawyer or a teacher or a doctor, anything but a rancher. Then Pa died and Ma and Joe needed me, so I stayed for a few years. That was 50 years ago."

Ben blinked tears from his careworn eyes as he raised his gentle voice. "Fifty years ago! But I owed him my life. We argued long into the night the other night. It musta been past 11 when we finally turned in. I was still mad. Joe just wouldn't listen to reason!

"I tried to make up with him the next mornin'. I thought maybe, just once, he would listen to his younger brother. I made his favorite biscuits, just like Ma's. Joe just poured sorghum over his plate, cleaned it without thanks, and then told me we would run the north fence line that day. I realized he'd never change. Twenty minutes older 'n me and he was always the boss. Before I realized what I'd done, I turned from the sink and whacked him with Ma's big skillet. He fell out of his chair like a poleaxed steer. There was a little blood on his temple. I was so mad — I just stepped over him and gathered up my gear. I expected him to run after me yellin' like usual. I was just glad he was quiet for once. Glad!

"It was only when I came back through the kitchen and he still was sprawled out so still there by the stove, his eyes open and starin', that I realized he was gone. I cleaned him up, gave him a shave though it was a Tuesday. Then I fixed him up in his best gray suit and built him a nice box like we done for Pa and Ma. He's up there next to them." Ben pointed with his chin up the mountain to the small family cemetery. "I almost called you then, but I had me an idea. I thought I'd wait a month or two, pretending to be Joe. I'd tell everyone that lazy Ben'd run off. I'd decide I couldn't run the ranch m'self and sell up. I thought no one would ever know the difference." Ben buried his head in his work-reddened hands. Sobs wrenched his lanky frame.

The sheriff keyed his shoulder mike and notified dispatch. Ben was still sobbing quietly as the sheriff gently took his arm and led him away.

The next day, the sheriff returned down the winding road to the ranch. He stepped out of his unit and followed the trail up the side of the hill behind the house to the Willowtree family plot. He looked around the tiny cemetery. There, in the corner, was a marker at the head of a fresh-turned mound.

Issue: March 2009