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Twenty minutes after sunrise on Wednesday, November 20, the Blanco County Sheriff’s Office received a call from a motorist reporting a zebra grazing on the shoulder of Highway 281.
“You sure it’s a zebra, sir?” Jean, the dispatcher on duty, asked.
“Well, I ain’t no Jack Hanna, but I know a zebra when I see one. The black and white stripes sorta give it away.”
“Sir, where exactly are—”
“Oh, hang on a sec.”
“Sir?”
Jean could hear the man laughing. “Now there’s a dadgum camel. This is crazy. It’s standing in the middle part of the highway.”
The connection was poor.
“The median?”
“I’m not a comedian. I’m telling the truth.”
“I said ‘the median.’”
“There is no median. Just a turn lane. Buncha cars are starting to back up. Gonna get messy.”
“Where are you located, sir?”
“On Highway 281. Should I stop and try to round up this camel? I wouldn’t even know how to do it. Do they bite?”
“Sir, please remain in your vehicle. Where are you on Highway 281?” Jean had a hunch.
“About two miles south of town,” the caller said.
“South of Johnson City or Blanco?”
“Blanco.”
Exactly where Jean suspected the caller would be located.
“I have a unit en route,” Jean said. “What is the camel doing?”
“What’s it supposed to be doing? Tap dancing?”
“I mean is it moving or giving any indication it might step into traffic?”
“It’s just standing there, but we’ve got a pretty good traffic jam going on now, so I don’t think anybody’s gonna hit anything. I’m creeping along in the breakdown lane. Oh, God.”
“What’s happening, sir?”
“Now I’m seeing one of those other things. I can’t remember what it’s called.”
“An animal?”
“Well, yeah, an animal. The kind that spits at you.”
“A llama?”
“Right! It’s a dang llama! Oh, Lord, you’ve got about fifteen or twenty animals loose out here. I don’t even know what most of these are. It’s like a dang African whatchacallit. Savanna.”
“Which side of 281 are you on?”
“Southbound.”
“Do you see a tall red fence on your side of the highway? The west side?”
“I do, yeah.”
“That’s the entrance to—”
“It’s a zoo! No wonder!”
It was, in fact, the location of Safari Adventure, a zoo and sanctuary that featured a wide variety of exotic animals from several continents.
“Sir, do you see the front gate?” Jean asked.
“Yep, and the damn thing is wide open. And there’s a second gate after that, and it’s open, too. You want me to close ’em?”
“I really can’t ask you to do that,” Jean said. It was against her training.
“But I bet you want them closed, so no more animals can get out, huh?” the caller said.
“Are there any other animals nearby?” Jean asked. She was pretty sure there were no predators at that zoo—if she remembered correctly—but she couldn’t ask a civilian to place himself in a dangerous position. On the other hand, if it was safe, he could help stop a bad situation from getting worse.
“I see a lot of animals behind the fences, but none of ’em are near the gates right now,” he said. “Hang on, let me put it in park.”
Jean waited. She heard a vehicle door closing.
“I’m seeing all kinds of deer and weird-looking cows and some other things I don’t even know what they are,” the caller said. “This is a trip. I can’t believe I never visited this place. I always drove right past it.”
“Are you able to—”
“I’m at the outer gate and I can see that the chain was cut. Got some bolt cutters on the ground and—holy crap!”
“Sir, what’s happening?”
“There’s a body in here. In the tall grass between the gates. A dead guy.”
“Are you sure he—”
“Oh, yeah. No question. This guy is absolutely dead. He’s blue and—hang on—he’s stiff and he ain’t breathing.”
“Sir, I need you to exit the property and get back into your vehicle. I have multiple units en route.”
“Want me to close this outer gate behind me?”
“No, sir. Don’t touch anything. Please just get back into your vehicle and remain on the scene until the units arrive.”
“Check it out,” Red O’Brien said. “Haven’t seen one of them in a long time.”
“One of what?” Billy Don Craddock said from the passenger seat. He was too busy looking down at his phone.
They were driving east in Red’s old Ford truck. They’d driven south through Blanco just minutes earlier, then turned left on Ranch Road 32, heading for a ranch east of Canyon Lake.
“A hitchhiker,” Red said. “If you’d quit screwing around on Facebook for half a second, you might see the world around you.”
“Sometimes it ain’t worth seeing,” Billy Don said, but he looked up anyway, just in time to see the guy as they passed. Young guy in an orange jacket. Blue backpack on his back.
Red could tell from the hitchhiker’s general attitude that he didn’t expect to actually get a ride. No eye contact at all as he walked backward, right thumb extended. No bounce in his step. He was just going through the motions. And the man was right. Red drove past him without the slightest inclination to stop.
A few seconds later, Billy Don said, “We should turn around and pick him up.”
“What?”
“Pick him up.”
“Why?”
“Why not?”
“Well, that convinces me,” Red said.
“Good.”
“I was being sarcastic.”
“Oh.”
“There’s not enough room in here for three of us, especially since you count as two people.”
“I’ll squoosh over.”
Red didn’t reply.
Billy Don said, “My grandma used to say it’s nice to be nice.”
“Well, my grandma used to say it’s nice not to be murdered by a drifter.”
“Dude, there’s two of us,” Billy Don said. “Besides, it’d be an adventure.”
Red kept driving.
“That guy back there might be one of the best people you’ll ever meet,” Billy Don said. “Hell, he might have the secret to happiness or a long life.”
“Or scabies,” Red said. “Or body odor. Or a knife.”
“Like I said, there’s two of us,” Billy Don said. “Besides, we got backup in the glove compartment.”
He meant Red’s Colt Anaconda. Big old .45 revolver.
“Still no,” Red said.
“You ’member that time your truck broke down in August and it was about a hunnert and five degrees out?”
Red turned up the radio on an old song by the Edgar Winter Group.
“And that kid in the Jeep gave you a ride home?”
Red kept driving.
“And he didn’t even—”
“All right!” Red said. “Jeez. If it’ll shut you up.”