Dead or Alive

Chapter Four

Long before dawn, Kerney was back in the horse barn finishing up the chores he’d started the night before after arriving at the ranch. He mucked out stalls, laid down fresh straw, cleaned water troughs, put out feed, shoveled fresh manure from the paddocks, and curried the horses.

Every good cowboy and rancher knew that grooming horses wasn’t done to make them look pretty, but to stimulate a healthy coat and treat any small cuts and sores that would otherwise go unnoticed. The process also included inspecting and cleaning hoofs and checking for thrush, a fungus infection.

Although he enjoyed the pleasure of being close to the animals and the satisfying routine of caring for them, it didn’t keep him from worrying about Riley’s young wife and parents. They had to be devastated at their loss and struggling hard to accept it, and he wondered what he could do to ease their pain and assuage his own sense of guilt about Riley’s murder.

As a cop who over the years had delivered the news of sudden death to many grieving families, Kerney knew that words of sympathy, no matter how heartfelt, seldom gave relief. Surely there was something more tangible he could do for the family. He just didn’t know what would be acceptable to them.

Jack and Irene Burke, like many other small ranchers, were land rich and cash poor, and Riley and Lynette had brought more in the way of shared hopes and energy to their young marriage than tangible assets. Should he sell the horses and give the proceeds to Lynette as her share of Riley’s half equity in the partnership? Would Lynette, an excellent horse trainer in her own right and Riley’s unpaid assistant, be willing to step into Riley’s shoes and take over as Kerney’s partner? Or would it be too painful for her to work day in and day out at the very place where Riley had been randomly gunned down?

He had left for London secure in the knowledge that the partnership was in good hands. But now there was no way without help that he could keep the cutting horse enterprise going and live full-time with Sara and Patrick in England. Maybe it would be best to sell the stock, give the proceeds to Lynette Burke, find a reliable live-in caretaker for the ranch, and wait until Sara retired before trying again to operate the ranch as a business. He decided to hold off on making any decisions until he knew what Lynette wanted to do.

He finished scraping his stud horse Comeuppance’s hoofs and turned him loose by himself in a large paddock near the barn. Like any stallion, he would attack the geldings and try to drive them away or kill them if given the opportunity.

On a selfish level, Kerney didn’t like the idea of getting rid of the stock and dissolving the business. He would then have no legitimate reason other than plain homesickness to make frequent trips back to the ranch.

By sunup the horses were watered, fed, groomed, and inspected. He saddled Hondo, and with the exception of Comeuppance, he trailed the stock up the hill behind the ranch house into the fenced north pasture. He watched them for a while against the backdrop of the morning sun cascading over the slightly misty Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The geldings pranced and high-stepped while Patrick’s pony, Pablito, cantered off in the direction of the windmill. Sara’s favorite gelding, Gipsy, a bald-faced, dark sorrel, trotted back to the gate, snorted, and shook his head as if to signal his displeasure that Hondo couldn’t join him. Then he kicked up his heels and galloped away.

The fun of being back at the ranch made him feel guilty all over again about Riley’s murder. He dismounted, unsaddled Hondo, and turned him loose in the pasture with Gipsy and the other stock. As he walked down the hill with saddle and bridle slung over his shoulder, he wondered what in the hell he could do about any of it.

After breakfast, Kerney cleaned himself up, called Jack Burke, and asked if he could pay a visit. Usually a man of unbridled enthusiasm, Jack sounded emotionally numb and dispirited as he told Kerney to stop by anytime.

Kerney said he was on his way and disconnected quickly to avoid blurting out anything about Riley’s death or Jack’s loss. He still had no idea what he might say, only that he needed to say it in person.

The Burkes lived on a ranch road fifteen minutes from Kerney’s place, in a two-hundred-year-old hacienda sheltered by ancient cottonwoods at the edge of a broad, sandy arroyo. Kerney felt a sudden sense of dismay when he saw Riley’s pickup truck parked in front of the small, enclosed yard that bordered the nearby foreman’s cottage where Riley and Lynette had set up housekeeping.

Jack greeted Kerney on the steps of the screened hacienda porch, shook his outstretched hand, and explained that Irene and Lynette were meeting with the pastor of their church to discuss the services for Riley.

“I’m sorry I’ve missed them,” he said.

Jack nodded listlessly as he ushered Kerney into the living room and gestured at the couch next to his favorite easy chair.

Kerney sat, waited for Jack to settle himself, and asked, “Have the services been set?”

“Not yet,” Jack replied. “We’re still arranging for family to come in. Mine from Deming and Lordsburg, Irene’s from Texas, Riley’s cousins from Spokane and Boise, and Lynette’s parents from Wyoming. It takes a while to get everybody together.”

“I don’t have any words for you, Jack.”

Burke held up his hand to stop Kerney. “That’s good, because there aren’t any, and they all ring hollow in my ears anyhow. Soon, we’ll gather to celebrate Riley’s life. You, Sara, and Patrick have to join us.”

Kerney nodded affirmatively. Last night on the telephone, Sara told him her boss, the admiral, had approved her leave request, and she was ready to book a flight as soon as Kerney gave her the date for the funeral. “We’ll all be there.”

“Good,” Jack replied, gazing down at his tightly clasped hands in his lap. “Good,” he said again, the word barely audible. He tried to brighten. “How is Patrick?’

“He’s fine, Jack.”

“Good. That’s good.”

For a long time, Kerney sat in silence with his friend, imagining how horrible it must feel to lose a son who’d grown into such a fine young man. Jack wasn’t crying or blinking back tears, but he was tensed up tight, every muscle in his hands, arms, face, and neck bunched and corded, a thousand-yard stare in his eyes.

Kerney wanted to tell Jack to let go, give in to the grief, and have a gut-wrenching cry, but he didn’t say a word. Instead, he remained seated and unmoving on the couch for a long, uneasy time until Jack rose, excused himself, walked down the hallway to the bedroom he’d shared with Irene for over thirty years, and closed the door behind him.

Kerney waited awhile for Jack to return. When he didn’t come back, he quietly let himself out. He drove home with a great sadness pressing down on him.

After shooting the cop and the old lady on the highway outside Carrizozo, Craig Larson was camped out no more than thirty miles away in some mountains off a seldom-used Forest Service road.

He didn’t know much about Lincoln County, and he’d been anxious to get off the pavement as soon as possible in case a swarm of cops was converging on him. After passing through the village of Capitan, he left the highway for a well-maintained dirt-and-gravel road that ran directly toward some northerly mountains. For several miles he traveled through grassy rangeland before gradually ascending toward what appeared to be a mountain gap. Soon he was driving through woodlands and he felt safe enough to stop and see what exactly there was in the truck.

There were grocery bags on the floor in front of the passenger seat that he hadn’t had a chance to look into and others in the truck bed. He pawed through them and found an assortment of canned goods, coffee and other supplies, two large jars of spaghetti sauce, ground beef, eggs, carrots, potatoes, a large bag of apples, cheese, crackers, four gallon jugs of water, and basic toiletries including soap, shampoo, and women’s disposable razors. According to the sales receipt the woman had purchased them at an Albuquerque discount supermarket several hours before he’d shot her dead. The nice timing gave him a chuckle. What a bummer if he’d offed her before she’d done his shopping for him.

There were two old canvas tarps folded under the bench seat of the truck and a first aid kit with one of those shiny fold-up space-age emergency blankets that were supposed to keep you warm and did a fairly good job of it. There was also a shovel for digging out the truck if it got stuck. Apparently, the old biddy believed in being prepared.

The only thing she hadn’t provided was a mess kit. He’d have to improvise and empty some cans to cook in. It would be a sin to waste the fresh meat and eggs.

He drove through the forest and half a mile on, he came to a side road with a partially open gate. A wooden sign attached to the gate read “1 Peter 2:24.”

Larson wondered what in the hell that scripture passage said. He guessed some kindhearted Christians had a mountain ranch down that road. Maybe he could take them hostage and use their place as a hideaway until the heat cooled off.

He decided to do nothing and lie low for a while. He drove on and the road soon turned into a rough, narrow, seldom-used track that cut through a dense forest. About two miles beyond the gate, Larson found himself deep in the woods with no signs of any human habitation, no more gates, no additional side roads, and no hiking trails. His only reference point had been a faded Forest Service marker that told him what road he was on, but he didn’t have a clue if it traversed the mountains, joined up with another Forest Service road, or simply petered out into a dead end somewhere up ahead.

He slowed to a stop and thought over his situation. If he went deeper into the mountains only to reach a dead end, the cops could box him in if they picked up his trail, and he’d have no chance of eluding capture on foot. Even if there wasn’t a dead end up ahead, the fuel gauge on the truck was showing about an eighth of a tank, which meant he might be forced to hike out of the mountains even if the cops were nowhere around.

Larson reflected on the gate with the scripture sign. Maybe St. Peter was telling him it might be necessary to slaughter a few Christians. It would be a sin to waste that opportunity, he thought, and laughed long and hard at the repetition of the words in his mind. He turned the steering wheel and drove deep into the woods, until he was out of sight of any vehicles that might pass by.

He walked back to the road, scuffed out the tire tracks with his boots and a stick, and kicked duff over them to hide any sign that could lead someone to the truck. Then he set up camp using the truck as a shelter. He shoveled pine needles in the truck bed and covered them with one of the canvas tarps, stretched the other tarp across the bed, tied it taut with some rope he found in the glove box, and put some small dead and down twigs and small branches over the tarp to keep it from flapping in the wind.

Larson tilted the driver’s-side mirror and looked at his face. His beard was growing in nicely, and he figured if he let it grow and shaved his head, the combination might give him a reasonably good disguise. He started to hack away at his hair with the small pair of scissors from the first aid kit and soon realized it would take a while to get it cropped short enough to shave. With nothing better to do, he kept clipping until his fingers got sore and his empty stomach started grumbling. He got into the truck, sat down on the passenger seat, opened a can of tuna fish and wolfed it down, grinning at himself in the visor mirror. Already he looked different with his hair cut short.

He threw the empty tuna fish can into the trees, got back out of the truck, and started to work with the scissors again. When his hair was short enough, he took a disposable razor out of the pack, splashed some water on his head, lathered up, and started shaving the rest of it off.

By his second morning in the mountains, Craig Larson had an itchy head from a dozen or so small razor cuts, as well as a twitch to get moving. Not once had he heard a vehicle on the road since he’d arrived. A horse and rider had passed by late the first morning, but by the time Larson reached the road, they were out of sight.

He was pretty sure the cops had no idea where he was. With the truck’s radio turned down real low, he’d listened to the news just enough to learn that Paul Hewitt, the sheriff he’d shot, was a paralyzed cripple, and the old lady he’d killed, Janette Evans, a former Lincoln County clerk, had been loved and respected by all. Supposedly, every cop and concerned citizen in the state was looking for lovable Janette’s truck.

Larson decided to leave the truck where he’d hidden it, walk back to the “Bible Gate,” and have a look around before figuring out his next move. He followed the forest road down the mountain until he got close enough to see the gate and then hiked through the woods paralleling the side road, expecting to come upon either a small ranch in a clearing or a vacation cabin in the woods. Instead, he encountered a large riding ring filled with teenage girls and boys on horseback, cantering in circles under the watchful eye of a wrangler.

From behind a tree, Larson watched for a minute. The girls looked quite tasty in the saddle as they bounced and jiggled. He moved past a barn, several stables, and a couple of equipment sheds. Beyond them, he found an enormous log lodge with a pitched shingled roof and a modern-looking building with a vaulted, needle-point roof. A number of railroad cars placed next to Old West-style false-front buildings lined several lanes near the lodge and the vaulted-roof building, which Larson figured might be a church. He wasn’t sure what the false-front buildings and railroad cars were used for, but guessed they might be housing quarters for guests.

He stayed in the trees and out of sight, but moved close enough to read a sign nailed to a post in front of the vaulted-roof structure, which told him it was the worship center. He’d entered some holy-roller summer Bible camp.

Off to one side of the worship center was a compound Larson took to be staff housing. Under a stand of leafy trees, some cabin-size houses and several larger ranch-style residences were partially hidden by evergreen junipers. Laundry hung on clotheslines, toys for toddlers filled small porches, swings and slides stood in backyards, and dogs yipped and yapped behind chicken-wire fences.

Larson retreated and the barking dogs fell quiet as he made his way back to the forest road and started hiking up the mountain toward the truck. Since slaughtering a couple of Christians to hide out at a remote mountain ranch was no longer an option, he would have to rethink his plans.

The image of those teenage girls so sweet and pretty on horseback stuck in his mind. Maybe he should kidnap one of them, steal a vehicle, and just find another hiding place where he could enjoy some female company until things quieted down.

Chief Deputy Clayton Istee of the Lincoln County S.O. saturated his jurisdiction with every available resource in an attempt to find and capture Craig Larson. All sworn department personnel were called back to duty, including one deputy who willingly cut short his vacation in California and flew home to join the manhunt. All municipal and city police officers eagerly joined in, as did district state police personnel, game and fish officers, Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management officers, several New Mexico livestock inspectors, and dozens of local volunteers who were enraged about the murder of Janette Evans and the paralyzing injury to Paul Hewitt.

Even Sergeant Rudy Aldrich of the Lincoln County S.O., who was also the Republican Party candidate for sheriff in the November general election, had managed to set aside partisan politics for the time being and give his full attention to the manhunt.

Several area ranchers with private planes were flying aerial reconnaissance missions with volunteer spotters over the vast tracts of open range and the thousands of square miles of remote high country. Sheriff’s posse reserve officers were out on horseback riding into remote canyons, through large, dense cactus flats, and up dry arroyos and draws looking for any sign of recent foot or vehicle passage.

Clayton ran the manhunt from his unit. As time allowed, he knocked on doors in rural areas to ask if anyone had seen Janette Evans’s truck, backed up officers doing searches of abandoned or vacant properties, and spelled officers for breaks at the various roadblocks set up around the county. With each passing hour the odds of catching Larson decreased, and the continued massive effort to find him was based solely on a hope and a prayer that he might have gone to ground in Lincoln County.

An hour before dusk on the third day of the search, Clayton stopped at the diner on Capitan’s main drag, got a container of coffee to go, returned to his unit, and went over a computer printout that showed all the rural locations that had been canvassed so far. On the slight chance that a hint of Larson’s whereabouts might have been missed during the first go-round, Clayton had ordered another heavy concentration of close patrols in areas with remote ranches, vacation cabins, or second homes, at all forest campgrounds, at mountain trailheads, and along river bottomland, especially near Fort Stanton, where there were caves that could be used to hide out.

He’d divided the county into sectors to be covered, and assigned all but one to his deputies. He had taken the Fort Stanton area for himself, and had just spent the last four hours tromping along the Bonita River searching the caves.

Before driving home for dinner—it would be the first meal with the family since Paul Hewitt had been shot and Janette Evans killed—he decide to check the Twin Pines Adventure Bible Camp at the base of the Capitan Mountains. He finished his coffee, drove east on Highway 380 to the county road turnoff, and made his way along the rolling, juniper-studded rangeland to the Bible camp.

When Clayton had first joined the Lincoln County S.O. as a patrol deputy, he’d made it a point to introduce himself to as many rural residents as possible during his work shifts. After his initial visit to the Bible camp, he’d looked up the citation posted on the gate and found that it basically said that Jesus had suffered on the cross to give mankind the opportunity to live a righteous life healed from sin.

A nominal Christian like most Apaches, Clayton wasn’t all that comfortable with the notion of a single, all-powerful deity. The traditional religion of the Mescalero was a personal, family, and tribal matter, not a theology to spread hither and yon.

The camp had been quite an eye-opener for Clayton. It operated year-round, but summer was the busy season, when teenagers came to ride horses, shoot rifles, mountain bike, backpack, rock climb, play volleyball, work out in the gym, study the scriptures, and engage in Christian fellowship.

He parked at the camp director’s house just as a spirited group of laughing teenagers came down the lane on their way to the worship center. He crossed the porch, knocked on the front door, and watched as the kids passed by, clowning, screeching, and teasing each other in the private world that adolescents inhabit.

The camp director, Reverend Gaylord Wardle, a soft-spoken, middle-aged man with a big, benevolent smile that Clayton had instantly mistrusted at their first meeting, opened the door. He greeted Clayton warmly.

“We’re keeping a close watch on our flock,” Wardle added before Clayton could speak. “We’re doing head counts four times a day. No campers are allowed to leave the ranch unsupervised. All are present and accounted for, and we’ve posted the photographs of the fugitive that another officer dropped off to us in every ranch building.”

“That’s very good,” Clayton said. “Have you or your staff encountered any strangers on the county road?”

Wardle shook his head. “There has been virtually no traffic. With that murderer still at large I think people are afraid to be out in the mountains on their own, away from civilization. The only vehicles we’ve seen have belonged to the Forest Service or the neighboring ranches.”

“Call 911 immediately if anyone unknown to you, your staff, or the campers shows up here unannounced.”

“Wouldn’t that be overreacting a bit?” Wardle asked. “After all, we do have photographs of the culprit.”

“Appearances can be easily altered,” Clayton countered.

Wardle stroked his chin. “Yes, of course. I didn’t think of that.”

Clayton stepped off the porch. “Thank you for your time.”

“Of course. Each day at prayer we ask Jesus to protect all the men and women in law enforcement who are working so hard night and day to keep us safe. Thank you so much for all that you do. Are you any closer to capturing this madman?”

“Not yet,” Clayton replied with a wave as he walked toward his unit.

He drove slowly through camp and out the open gate. On the county road he stopped, got out of his unit, and in the glare of the headlights took a close look at the surface of the road. It had rained in the mountains recently, just enough to wash away evidence of any vehicles traveling into the forest. But there was a set of fresh footprints on the road along with a set of hoofprints headed toward Capitan Gap.

He got a flashlight from his unit and followed the footprints a few yards past the gate, where the tracks left the road and cut through the woods parallel to the Bible camp access road. He got the local phone directory from his unit, paged through it, and dialed Gaylord Wardle’s phone number on his cell phone.

“Are you patrolling the access road to the camp?” Clayton asked when Wardle answered.

“Yes,” Wardle replied. “I’ve assigned nighttime sentry duty to several of my young-adult counselors, just to keep an eye on things, and we’re also locking the gate at lights-out.”

“Have you armed the counselors?” Clayton asked, hoping Wardle hadn’t been that stupid.

“Yes, with .22 rifles, but for their own protection only. Not to worry, they’re all National Rifle Association certified instructors.”

Clayton had no legal authority to order Wardle to disarm his counselors, but that didn’t stop him from offering some unsolicited advice. “To avoid a tragic accident, I suggest you lock up all your firearms, Mr. Wardle, including the twenty-twos your sentries are carrying.”

“These young men are certified instructors,” Wardle repeated in a bit of a huff, “and at Twin Pines we teach and practice the right to bear arms.”

“That is your right,” Clayton replied. “But your gun-toting counselors probably won’t be much of a match for a killer on the run with nothing to lose.”

“I appreciate your concern,” Wardle said icily. “Good-bye.”

Clayton disconnected, sat in his unit, and studied the computer printout of all the canvasses and field searches that had been conducted since the start of the manhunt. A sheriff’s posse member had traversed part of the Capitan wilderness area on horseback, passed through the gap, followed the four-wheel-drive trail to Seven Cabins Canyon, and then ridden cross-county to hook up with the Summit Trail that led to Capitan Peak before doubling back to check the only campground in the area, along Spring Creek.

There had been no sightings of anyone, but Clayton knew a regiment of searchers on foot and horseback could easily miss a person who didn’t want to be found in the vast expanse of forest and wilderness in Lincoln County. Although the Forest Service had removed all back-country hikers from the Capitan Mountains wilderness area, and was routinely checking all access points into federal land, Clayton made a note to have a deputy do a daily drive-by of the Bible camp starting tomorrow. Given limited resources, that was the best that could be done. He put the printout aside and started for the Rez, eagerly anticipating a home-cooked dinner with his family.

Clayton got home just as Grace, Wendell, and Hannah were sitting down to eat. They waited for him while he locked his sidearm in the gun case, washed up, filled his plate with barbecue short ribs and potato salad, and joined them at the table.

During dinner, the children dominated the conversation. Wendell, who attended the Boys and Girls Club several afternoons a week during summer vacation, talked with great excitement about disassembling an old computer that had been donated to the technology class at the club and learning all about what went into making the machine work.

Hannah, who attended a morning arts and crafts program run by volunteers, was having a grand time learning basket making and enlarging her Apache language skills at the same time, which was a requirement for participating. On the table in front of her was a small traylike basket, no more than four inches in circumference, done in the traditional star motif with four tapered points.

“What do you have there?” Clayton asked.

“My teacher said it is well balanced,” Hannah said modestly.

Clayton raised an eyebrow. To the Mescalero, balance was essential to the circle of life, a key concept in the Apache world-view. His daughter’s work had been highly praised. “Did she?” he asked.

Hannah nodded solemnly and held the basket out to her father. “It’s for you.”

Clayton wiped his mouth, took the basket from his daughter’s outstretched hand, and carefully inspected it. Hannah had used split yucca leaves to weave her basket, and for a girl not yet six years old, the workmanship was darn good.

Hannah kicked her feet against the rung of her chair and kept her eyes glued to her father’s face as she waited for his reaction.

“It is well balanced,” Clayton finally said, speaking in the Apache language. “My daughter is too generous with her gift.”

Hannah beamed delightedly.

After dinner, Clayton summoned up enough energy to shoot some baskets with Wendell at the hoop he’d installed over the garage door. Under the glare of exterior lights, Wendell faked, dribbled, and ran circles around Clayton, firing layups, jumpers, and hook shots at the basket with reckless abandon.

Taller than the boys on the Rez his age, Wendell had sprouted at least another inch since summer recess and was showing signs of becoming quite a good athlete. He had quickness, speed, and excellent hand-eye coordination. Clayton, who had lettered in cross-country track and basketball in high school, looked forward to the time when he could watch his son compete and cheer him on.

When bedtime came, he tucked the children in and then joined Grace on the couch in the living room.

“Did Wendell question you about the manhunt for Riley Burke’s killer?” she asked.

“No. Why?”

“He’s been telling Hannah that you’re going to catch and scalp the man who murdered Grandfather Kerney’s friend and shot the sheriff.”

Clayton grinned. “Why, that little Apache savage. Where did he get that notion?”

“It’s not funny, Clayton. I don’t like him scaring his little sister. Hannah was very troubled by what he said.”

“I’ll talk to him.”

“Are you going back out tonight?”

“I should.”

“You’ve given every officer in the department a night off except yourself.”

Clayton sighed. “I keep seeing Paul Hewitt lying in his hospital bed staring up at me, unable to move. The look in his eyes haunts me. I just don’t want to stop until I catch the scumbag.”

“And scalp him,” Grace added.

“That too.”

“I hope you know that you’re not going to remain the chief deputy next January when the new sheriff takes office.”

Clayton nodded. Touting similar clean sweep positions, both candidates had long ago made known their selections for the chief deputy job. If elected, the Republican candidate, Sergeant Rudy Aldrich, planned to appoint a police officer crony from another department, and his Democratic opponent, the Capitan police chief, had tapped a retired state police captain for the job.

“It may happen sooner than that,” he said. “I’ve heard that the chairman of the county commission is going to call for a vote to have the state revoke Paul’s police officer certification based on his permanent incapacity to serve. If that happens, the sheriff’s position will be considered vacated, and since the majority of commissioners are Republicans, they’ll probably appoint Aldrich as interim sheriff to give him a leg up in the general election.”

“I can’t believe they’d do that.”

“Dirty politics in the sheriff’s office have been a part of Lincoln County since the days of Billy the Kid.”

“Would you be willing to stay with the department as a lieutenant under Aldrich?”

Clayton covered a long yawn with his hand. “I couldn’t work for him. He’s an autocratic backstabber and not very bright.”

Grace stood, reached down, and caressed Clayton’s cheek. “Why don’t you get some sleep?”

“The roadblocks come down tomorrow. I need to get back out there and make the rounds.”

“Rest first.”

Clayton stretched out on the couch. “Maybe a short nap. Wake me in an hour.”

Grace squeezed Clayton’s hand. “Okay.”

Ten minutes later she returned from the kitchen to find Clayton on his side sleeping soundly. She had no intention of waking him. Hopefully, he would sleep undisturbed throughout the night. She picked up the book she was reading from the coffee table, turned out the lights, and went quietly down the hall to check on the children before retiring to the bedroom.

Gregory Dennis Cuddy had attended the Twin Pines Bible Camp for the first time at the age of fourteen. Since then, he’d come back eight consecutive summers. In his third year, he’d joined the staff as a peer counselor. Having just graduated with a bachelor’s degree in religious education from Ross Wentworth Bible College, a private evangelical institution in Brownwood, Texas, Greg was now the youth minister assisting Reverend Wardle and teaching Bible study twice a day.

An East Texas boy who loved to fish and hunt and excelled at sports, Greg had been a high school football star. But when a knee injury ended his athletic career, he took it as a sign from God to enter the ministry. In the fall, he would begin his studies for a master’s in theology.

At six feet and two hundred and ten pounds, Greg Cuddy was every mother’s dream of how a grown son should look. He was the all-American boy with light brown hair, an athletic physique, strong masculine features, and a rich baritone voice that would serve him well from the pulpit.

As a teenager, Greg had seriously considered a career as a forest ranger or a game and fish officer, but the call to preach the word of Jesus had been too strong for him to resist. However, he knew that he wouldn’t be happy with the sedentary life of a church-bound minister. He had already decided that once he had his master’s degree in hand and was fully ordained, he would serve Jesus as a career navy chaplain in the Marine Corps.

In addition to his role as youth minister, Greg also supervised the Twin Pines adventure program and served as the camp’s riflery instructor and range master. When word came that the local sheriff had been shot, the woman who’d stopped to help had been murdered, and the killer was on the loose in the county, Reverend Wardle had naturally put Greg in charge of camp security.

Greg enthusiastically instituted a head-count policy, had campers team up in a buddy system so no one went anywhere alone, and assigned the staff to a rotating nighttime sentry duty schedule.

Tonight was his turn to pull a shift. After lights-out, he went to the armory and retrieved the lever-action .22 Marlin model 1897cb his parents had given him on his fourteenth birthday, loaded it, and made a walking tour of the campus before driving a staff pickup down to the gate to make sure it was locked.

After finding everything secure, he sat in the truck with the windows open, the motor and lights off, and let his mind wander. The last several days had been a rush for Greg. He liked the feeling of being in charge of camp security. It was kind of like being sheriff of Twin Pines. He liked the buzz that came from doing something that seemed a little dangerous. The idea of putting it on the line to protect others appealed to the image he had of himself as a natural born leader.

Now he was thinking that maybe he should delay graduate school in the fall, put off becoming a full-fledged minister for the time being, and enlist in the Marine Corps. With a tour of duty under his belt as a jarhead, surely he would be more accepted by other Marines once he became a navy chaplain.

Above the murmur of a slight breeze in the treetops, he heard some twigs snap in the underbrush. He stiffened, clutched the stock of his Marlin, and listened intently to the ensuing silence for a while before relaxing and taking a deep breath.

Wildlife abounded in these mountains. It could have been a deer, a coyote, a porcupine, maybe even a black bear or a mountain lion, although the big cats were rarely seen.

As Greg put the Marlin aside and reached to switch on the engine, a burning pain exploded inside his brain, a flash of white light burst in front of his eyes, and his head hit the steering wheel.

Craig Larson opened the door to the Bible camp pickup and in the glow of the interior dome light looked at the slumped form of the young man he’d coldcocked with the butt of the Lincoln County sheriff’s handgun. On the bench seat next to him was a sweet-looking lever-action .22 rifle. Larson reached across the kid and grabbed the rifle. It was fully loaded with .22 long cartridges, a nice addition to his arsenal.

He decided not to kill the kid right away. He’d left behind too many bodies—alive and dead—that had kept the cops on his heels and within striking distance. Of course, until the last several days, he’d been in such a big hurry to get away from the cops there had been no time to even think about properly disposing of the bodies.

He tapped the kid on the back of the head to make sure he stayed unconscious for a while, wrestled his limp body to the passenger side of the cab, searched his pockets, and found a key that unlocked the gate barring the road. He got the bundle of money and jewelry he’d stashed under a pine tree, along with the pistol he’d lifted from Roach’s luggage at the Albuquerque motel, slid behind the wheel, fired up the truck engine, and looked over at the cross dangling from a chain around the kid’s neck.

Larson chuckled as he closed the driver’s-side door and drove through the open gate. He’d come down the mountain to steal a vehicle from the Bible camp so he could get moving again, and the Christians—God love them—had made it so damn easy. Praise Jesus.

As he drove, Larson reviewed in his mind the route he’d selected from a state highway map in the old lady’s truck. He knew from the radio news broadcasts that the cops had thrown up roadblocks around the county, and although he didn’t know exactly where they had their checkpoints, he figured he was bound to run into one of them at the junction to U.S. 70, a major east-west highway up ahead.

Larson’s plan was to travel east for a spell before heading north. He glanced over at the inert form of Gregory Dennis Cuddy, who, according to his driver’s license, wasn’t going to get to celebrate his upcoming twenty-third birthday. The kid, who had unwittingly supplied Larson with transportation and a loaded rifle, might still be of service. The Texas state line was only a few hours away. Why not dump Cuddy’s body—Kid Cuddy, Larson decided to call him—on a Texas highway before traveling back into New Mexico and heading north? That might get the cops swarming to a place where Larson wouldn’t be.

It was a worthy idea, but first Larson had to find out if he had a roadblock to contend with, and if so how to get around it. Although the Bible camp pickup truck probably wouldn’t raise suspicion, and Larson looked quite different with a shaved head and the start of a beard, he wasn’t about to just drive up to the roadblock and try to bluff his way through.

He stayed within the speed limit on a road with no other traffic, passing through the historic village of Lincoln, where few lights were on in the inhabited houses that fronted the highway. Beyond Lincoln the road was fairly straight with gentle curves every now and then, but he still kept a light foot on the accelerator. As the hills on either side of the highway receded, he came around a long, easy bend and caught sight of flashing emergency lights in the distance.

He slowed just as the truck headlights illuminated a real estate sign at a driveway offering a horse ranch for sale, turned in, quickly drove off the gravel lane, and parked the truck under some trees in a pasture that bordered a riverbed. He killed the lights and engine, and waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Across the way stood a house and horse barn accessed by a wooden plank bridge that spanned the river. Everything appeared dark and quiet.

Larson reached over and felt Kid Cuddy’s neck for a pulse, found it, and tapped him on the skull for good measure, to keep him knocked out.

Kid Cuddy, the knocked-out king, Larson thought with a smile. Kid Cuddy, down and out for the count. Soon to be that way permanently.

Larson had no idea where his heightened sense of humor had come from, but he was enjoying it immensely. He switched off the dome light to keep the cab dark when he got out of the truck, picked up the Marlin, stuck the semiautomatic in his belt, and started walking down the shoulder of the highway toward the flashing emergency lights, a short quarter mile distant.

When he was close enough to take a good look, he crouched down in some bushes and shaded his eyes from the flashing lights. He spotted one officer sitting in a black-and-white state police patrol car parked diagonally facing his direction. Orange cones and road flares placed across the pavement served as barriers to stop traffic.

Larson could see the cop clearly. He had a clipboard resting on the steering wheel and was writing something down under the bright glare of a halogen task light. Larson moved closer, until he was no more than fifty yards away, and waited a good five minutes to make sure there wasn’t a second cop somewhere off in the bushes taking a dump. The cop’s driver’s-side window was open and Larson could hear the low sounds of sporadic radio traffic.

Larson had grown up in northeast New Mexico hunting rabbits, rodents, and varmints with a .22 as a kid, before moving on to larger animals and more powerful weapons. At a range of fifty yards on a still night with a clear target and a sweet rifle loaded with long rounds, one good head shot was all he needed to take the cop out.

Larson patted the rifle, silently thanked Kid Cuddy for his Christian generosity in providing him with such a fine weapon, brought the stock to his shoulder, held his breath, sighted down the barrel, and gently squeezed the trigger, thinking this was really going to piss all the other cops off.

Out of the corner of his eye from his hospital bed in the partially darkened room, Paul Hewitt could see his wife sleeping in the chair, her head resting against a pillow supplied by the night nurse. He’d married Linda almost twenty-five years ago and she was still his girl.

Small-boned and only five-foot-three, she managed to seem taller. Paul attributed it to her slender legs, narrow waist, and long neck, which gave the appearance of height. She wore her dark brown hair long, and he loved it when she wrapped it in a French twist and used her grandmother’s hairpins to hold it in place.

Soon after they married, Paul had asked Linda to agree to an end-of-life power of attorney stipulating that in case of a catastrophic injury or terminal illness he was not to be placed on life support. At the time, he’d joked about having “do not resuscitate” tattooed across his chest. Linda had countered his power of attorney with one of her own, stipulating the same conditions.

A man who loved life, Paul longed for death. Below the neck he felt nothing, not even the sensation of his diaphragm moving as he took a breath and slowly exhaled. He was angry at Craig Larson for not killing him and for inflicting a cruel and horrible burden on Linda. He closed his eyes.

Because he was a cop, and a good one at that, Paul knew how to ask questions and get people talking. Fortunately, the spinal cord injury had not caused aphasia, so over the past two days he’d chatted with doctors, nurses, physical therapists, nursing aides, and medical students about his condition. What he’d learned was depressing and disheartening. Physical therapy would consist of someone else moving his arms and legs to keep his muscles from atrophying. He would have to be turned in his bed to avoid sores. He would require laxatives and enemas in order to have bowel movements, would be forced to wear a bag to defecate into and a urinary device to piss into. He would have to be wiped and cleaned, washed and dressed, hoisted and lifted, fed and shaved. Because of his injury, he would now and forever be susceptible to bouts of pneumonia, bone fractures, urinary tract infections, cardiovascular disease, pulmonary embolisms, and a host of other complications.

Linda, as his primary caregiver, would require support, possibly therapy, certainly some regular relief from the stress of looking after her husband. Couples counseling was considered essential to deal with the initial and ongoing trauma of both living as a quadriplegic and living with one.

The miracle of modern medicine that had kept Paul Hewitt alive was a crock of shit.

He opened his eyes. Linda was standing over him, smiling.

“Kill me,” he said.

Her eyes widened in shock. “Don’t say that.”

“Find someone who will.”

“Never.”

“Get me a lawyer.”

“What for?” Linda asked.

“I want a divorce,” Paul said, shutting his eyes to block out the sight of his wife’s face.