Bag Limit

Chapter Forty-five

Sergeant Howard Bishop moved with surprising speed for such a big man. Even as James Walsh’s eyes rolled back in his head and his hands spasmed up against his chest, Bishop leaped forward, grabbed Walsh by the coat at the shoulders, and swung him away from the small tree against which he’d been leaning.

Striking out with his boots, he cleared the largest rocks while I scrabbled an almost clear patch of ground. Of average build weighted down by an expanding beer belly, Walsh was no child. Bishop handled him as if he were, and stretched him out on his back.

With practiced motions, the deputy lifted Walsh’s chin, cleared the airway, and took a deep breath. I dropped down on the strickened man’s right side. His carotid artery was easy to find, but instead of a nice, steady pulse, the artery jiggled under my touch as the man’s heart spasmed into a string of fibrillations.

It’d been a long time since I’d done chest compressions on a human being. The mannequins that the EMTs entrusted to us during the CPR refresher courses didn’t complain about mangled technique, and they didn’t die. I felt for the xiphoid process at the end of Walsh’s sternum, moved up a bit, took a deep breath, and used my considerable weight behind straight arms to do the work.

For what seemed like the rest of the day, I pumped while Bishop breathed, the two of us working in sync while I prayed that the two EMTs would just levitate up the hill. In reality, we worked for no more than three minutes before Al Langham dropped down beside me, puffing like a steam engine.

“Jesus, what a place,” he said.

“You ready for me to get out of your way?” I gasped. He listened with the stethoscope and even as he did so, his eyes were as much on me as on Walsh.

“You all right?” he snapped.

I nodded, continuing the compressions. The sun was almost hot, bouncing off the rocks.

“Then just keep doin’ what you’re doin’ for a couple of seconds.” Even as he said that, the radios barked.

“Sheriff?” Torrez said. “Call me when you can.” He was either a mind reader or was watching us through binoculars.

“He’s going to have to wait,” I panted.

Langham turned to the large aluminum case that he’d lugged up the hill, and then he and Judy went to work. But James Walsh had chosen a bad spot to have a coronary. In another minute, his heart gave up on the wild, run-a-way rhythm and flat-lined. The EMTs went the whole gamut for the next ten minutes, but eventually we sat back, exhausted. I touched Walsh on the neck, feeling skin that was already going cool to the touch.

“Shit,” I said.

“That just about covers it,” Al Langham said. “Where’s the rest of the hunting party?”

“I wish we knew,” I said. I pulled the radio from my belt. “Linda, call dispatch and tell Gayle she’ll have to reach us by phone. Then come on up.”

“I’m on my way,” she said. She was more eager to climb a rugged mountain than I was just to shift position to rest an aching knee.

“And there’s no point in you two heading back down yet, Al,” I said. “Not until we know what they find up above.”

“That’s good news,” Al said, and lit a cigarette. He’d unpacked a black plastic body bag, and he and Judy stretched it out.

Bishop nodded at Walsh’s rifle, still lying where he’d dropped it under the oak scrub. “I want pictures of that before it’s touched,” I said. “Of this whole area where he was sitting.” I straightened up with radio in hand, taking time to suck some air into my lungs.

“We’ve got some O2 with us, Sheriff,” Langham said, my actions not lost on him.

“No, I don’t need oxygen. I’ll be fine. Mountain climbing is not my thing.” I raised the radio. “Robert, what did you find?”

“Sheriff,” he began, but his radio barked a long complaint of static. “Sheriff,” he said again, “we’ve located Connie French.”

“Is she alive?”

“Alive but unconscious. My first guess would be multiple fractures and internal injuries. A helicopter would sure make things easier.”

“All right. Any sign of her brother?”

“Negative, sir. Tom and Wade are working the area, but nothing yet.”

“All right. Linda, did you copy that?”

She didn’t respond immediately, but I’d probably caught her between boulders. “Yes, sir,” she panted after a minute.

“Let me see if I can reach dispatch by phone. If not, we’re going to have to keep you down at the radio.”

“Yes, sir.”

A dinosaur when it came to most new gadgets, I still viewed the little cellular telephones as nuisances that distracted motorists. This time, the gadget served its purpose. Gayle Torrez’s voice came through perfectly.

“Gayle, I’ve got a list for you,” I said. “First of all, we’re going to need a helicopter. It’s rugged, high country, so you better see if the State Police Jet Ranger is somewhere in this part of the state. While you’re at it, find where the Med-Evac plane is. And then see what personnel you can rustle up. We may need to cover a lot of ground before this is over.”

“Yes, sir,” she said. “Do you want me to put in a call to state police for ground support as well?”

“Hell, yes. Whoever you can find. Jerk the Forest Service out of bed, too.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ll get back to you in a little bit.” I shifted to the handheld radio. “Robert, is Connie stable?”

“That’s negative, sir. She’s got an open compound of her right arm, what looks like a broken hip, and a really nasty injury to the back of her head. I would guess a fracture.”

I looked at Al Langford. “We’ll get some help up there, Robert. Al and Judy are on their way. You think it’s going to be all right?”

“Probably,” Torrez said. “There’s no sign of Gutierrez in the immediate area.”

“What the hell is going on here?” Langford said.

“I wish we knew,” I said, and lifted the radio again. “Robert, are you and Doug going to need more help with Connie in addition to the EMTs?”

“That’s negative, sir. But they need to hustle. She’s in deep shock, and her position is head down and really awkward. I don’t want to move her until we can stabilize her neck, but we don’t have any way to do that.”

“Ten-four. They’re on their way. And Gayle’s looking for the chopper.”

James Walsh was bagged and ticketed for his trip down the hill, but he was going to have to wait. The backboard went up the hill with Al and Judy.

“I’ll go on over with them and see what Bobby wants to do next,” Bishop said.

“Well, wait a minute. I’m going to go back down to the vehicles and sit the radio,” I said. “Linda needs to be up here where she can do some good, but somebody needs to be able to communicate.” I slipped the phone back in my pocket. “All I need is to have us all up here, and the battery in this thing goes dead. I’ll send her up. Show her what we need.”

“All right.” Bishop didn’t sound overly eager, but that was understandable considering his choices. He could either scramble over rocks until he was purple in the face with bruised hands and barked knees, or sit in the sun with a bagged corpse.

“Sir, this is Linda,” my radio crackled.

“Go ahead.”

“Gayle said that John Rivera was en route from the Forest Service office, and that the chopper is in Las Cruces, sir. Their best ETA is less than an hour.”

“Copy that,” Torrez’s voice interrupted. “Tell ’em to firewall it. Make it a short hour.”

“Yes, sir and sir? The Med-Evac plane is in Deming. They’ll meet the chopper at Posadas.”

“Outstanding,” I said, “I’m coming down. We’re going to need you up here.”

“Affirmative.”

I craned my neck and looked uphill, spotting a patch of brown. “Thomas, do you copy?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Were you able to find the location where Connie was standing before she fell?”

“That’s affirmative, sir.”

“How far did she fall?”

“It looks to be about thirty feet, sir. And that’s with a strike about halfway down. There’s a ledge that she would have hit. We found her rifle and a little day pack partway down.”

“Any sign of Scott?”

“That’s negative. A little patch of blood, though.”

“Is there any way to tell what direction he might have gone?”

“Negative, sir. And the way this terrain is, he could be anywhere.”

“Make sure nothing is disturbed. Linda’s on her way up. One of you guys needs to be with her.”

“Yes, sir.”

I holstered the radio. Down below, I could see Linda Real standing beside one of the county units, waiting for me. I glanced at my watch. I had twelve minutes before Judge Lester Hobart would expect me in his chambers. If I hurried, I could be halfway back to the trucks by that time.

“Linda?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have Gayle give Judge Hobart a call. Advise him of the situation, and tell him that Cliff Larson will be attending the hearing this morning instead of me. If that’s not going to work, he’ll just have to reschedule.”

“It’s a hell of a good time for somebody to rob a bank,” I said to Bishop as I turned to start down the mountain.