Page 34 of A Triple C Ranch Christmas Wedding
Everyone in the room waited quietly for what he would say next.
“There was this big group of horses being led onto a semi by a guy who wasn’t treating them right. He was beating them in the head, things like that. Well, I got mad and asked the people around me, ‘What the hell is going on? Why isn’t anyone stopping him?’ and you know what they said to me?”
“No, what?” Lucy asked, on the edge of her seat about what he might say next.
“They told me ‘That’s just Irv. He’s a kill buyer. One more day, and all those horses will be dead. He doesn’t care what condition they’re in, just how much they weigh, for the horse meat.’”
“What did you do?” Red asked.
“I started to go over there to stop him, but a man grabbed my arm and said, ‘Stop, son. He can have you arrested. He’s got ownership of those horses, and there’s not a thing you can do. Even if you could stop that one, another will step up in his place. Canada exports eight million dollars a year in horse meat. There’s big money in it, and men who will kill you to stop you from interfering with it.’ So, I stopped and had to just watch him leave. I couldn’t get arrested in Canada. I had to be back at work the next evening, and it was an all-day drive.”
“Oh, my God,” Lucy said. “I had no idea. People eat horse meat?”
“In some places in the world, it’s considered a delicacy,” he nodded. “So, they pay more for it.”
“That’s horrible,” Red said, anger tightening her features.
“Yes, it is. That was the first time I learned that horse slaughter existed,” he said. “Like most people in the U.S., I had no idea it even happened. Had never heard of such a thing.”
“How awful,” Lucy said, her eyes wide with shock. Many of the women around her wore similar expressions.
“Them sons a bitches, like Zeb, go around buying up horses, and take ’em over the border to sell to the slaughterhouses. I been keeping my eye out for that sort for years now. And I try to let the others know, if someone bidding on a horse has a tendency to take ’em to Canada.”
“So, it’s illegal here but not up there,” Red shook her head. “Well, it ought to be.”
“Sellers up there will tell ya, it’s the same as selling cattle for meat. They don’t see a difference with what our cattlemen do. A cattleman raises his cattle for meat, sells them, and nobody here blinks about it, except the vegetarians and vegans.”
“Well, that’s different,” Red said, getting more wound up. “Not the same at all!”
“Different countries do different things,” Timbers said, shrugging. “You’d be surprised at what some people will eat. They’re raised to eat certain animals and think nothing of it.”
Red frowned at him. “I’m not blaming the children, who don’t know any better but adults ought to!” She was fired up now, her face reddening to match her hair. “We raise our horses for pets, or working horses, or racehorses. We treat them good. Then, these buyers take them up to Canada and sell them for meat? So, they end up in some foreign country on the dinner table? The buyers and those sellers ought to be shot!”
“Many Texans still say horse thieving is a hanging offense,” Jack said. “And as many have said, hanging is too good for them.”
“Can’t hang ’em,” Buck said. “That’s not lawful. But we can send ’em to jail. And make sure everybody knows ’em for a horse thief.”
“I doubt that would matter up in Canada,” Red said. “You don’t give an animal a name, and teach it to trust you, take your kids for rides on it, and then sell it by the pound for somebody’s table. People need to know what’s happening to their pets. Or the horse from the racetrack, or the one that’s plowed their fields. It ain’t right what they’re doing up there!”
“Most of the time, if I tell a seller that a man’s come to bid on their horses and take them to Canada to sell them, they won’t sell their horses to him,” Buck said. “You’re right that most people don’t know. I been doing my best to tell them.”
“Good,” Red said. “That’s important.”
“Yep. I been fighting that battle for years. I knew what Zeb was up to,” Buck said. “Just hadn’t caught him red-handed at it.”
“So, to Zeb, you were the enemy,” Jack said. “I’m surprised he wasn’t the one who took your prize-winning buckles.”
“He’s still angry at his accomplices about that,” the sheriff said, joining in the conversation, as everyone turned to look at him. “We’ve got them all on theft,” he nodded. “Zeb was in possession of all ten horses. His two accomplices, T-Zone and Snake, were each in possession of stolen buckles. They’d split them between themselves. He didn’t know they had taken them.”
“They didn’t cut him in,” Red said. “That’s thieves for you.”
“So, we knew their claims, that they weren’t here at the ranch during the break in, were lies,” the sheriff said. “When they were told they’d be arrested for the theft of those buckles, they ratted on Zeb fast, hoping to get a lighter sentence.”
“Course they did,” Red snorted. “They’d turn in their own mothers, if it got them off lighter.”
Lucy remembered what Jack had told her about Red. How she’d gotten away from a crazy ex and his wild motorcycle gang before she came to the Three C’s Center for women. Then the motorcycle gang had come after her. Timbers had saved her, and now she was with Timbers, who seemed like the perfect guy for her.
She must know a bit more about criminals than the other women here at the center. She’s quite a character. Though cynical, she seems nice though and obviously cares about the horses. I’m glad she’s helping Buck with the horses at the Triple C now, while he recovers.
