PARADISE

Sam bender had been at a long trot since a hour before daylite.  the leggy bay he rode was a tough long geared ground covering horse that could take you from here to there in a short time with little effort. Sam was headed to his most remote water on the ranch, the paradise well. it lay in a basin  that was in the mile wide buffer zone of the barry goldwater bombing range. the pilotes in training practiced there and it was unfenced.  Sam kept about 50 head of cows there. they were held in place by the water from the well. no other water was in reach for them. but the water was pumped with a pump jack and needed to be started periodicly to fill the storage tank. . the road to paradise was rough and slow and it was sometimes a half day to drive there . it made sense to sam to go a horseback. start the well and check the cows. he could cut across country faster than by the road while checking feed conditions and maybe see some of his cows. the bay had a ground covering shuffle that didn't tire a man out.
   as Sam topped a rise over looking the basin he knew something was wrong. he could hear cattle bawling and a flock of buzzards was circling the corrals below. the little tin shack had its door standing open and cattle were walking in and out the door. Sam spured the bay off the hill and down the trail to the corrals.   as he neared  the corral the stench of something dead reached his nose. . rounding the corner of the corrals he almost rode over the top of a corpse lying by the fence. he had been dead for a few days and the varmits had been at him.  Sam gagged and rode on. the water trough was dry, the float had been broken allowing the storage tank to run dry.  he rode to the well and tied his horse and went into the shack for the can of gasoline he had stashed there.  the can held 5 gallons of gas but only a quart or so remained. returning to the pump he poured the gas into the tank and started the motor that ran the pump jack.  water started gushing into the trough in a few minutes and the cattle were crowding around trying to drink. he had to fight them back with his rope in order for the trough to fill. the smell from the dead man was horrific.
   after a hour  the little motor ran out of gas. the cattle had all gotten a drink and the trough was half full. sam had scouted around the corrals and found lots of footprints and a set of tire tracks that led off to the bombing range.  the tin shack where he stored salt and the gasoline was a mess.the hasp that kept the door shut has been ripped off and one hinge was torn from the door. he found the float for the trough in the corral and found that it had been removed and broken. someone needed a drink. he repaired the float and was just finishing when he heard a motor coming off the hill.  a blue four wheel drive chevy truck was walking its way down the hill .  stepping into the stirrup he straddled the bay and rode around the corral to meet the truck. it rolled to a stop and a short, pot bellied man with gray hair got out.
  " my god man whats that stench? " the man asked.
   " dead man over there " sam answered. " can you go for the authorities or at least stop at my ranch house and let the folks there know whats happened here?"
   the pot bellied man was starting to turn white and a gag reflex was taking over. he climbed into the truck and , started the engine and backed away. he waved out the window as he started up the hill. 
   later as the sun was going down sam saw his ranch truck creeping over the hill. coaly and sissy were bringing the deputies. a hour later the deputies had loaded the corpse in a body bag and were on the way back to the hiway. coaly had brought a can of gas and had the pump jack going and sam had eaten a bean burro that sissy had brought. it was a long ride home that night in the moonlite.  it had been a long nasty day. where the corpse had lain was a dark black spot. the deputies had thought the man had died from thirst, but sam knew better.  it was a drug deal gone bad. the man had been shot and bled out.   another unexplained death of someone no one knew.