Dead or Alive

Chapter Ten

Arranging for the horses and gathering all their supplies and equipment held Kerney and Clayton up well past midnight. They delayed pushing off for another twenty minutes while a just-arrived state game and fish officer briefed them on the major trails into the mountains, the best places to find good water and forage for the horses, and the location of several line camps and old cabins to use in case of severe bad weather. He gave them a set of clearly labeled keys that would get them through locked gates on private and public land, some Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Geological Survey topographical maps to guide them, and a global positioning system receiver loaded with more maps.

“The GPS should keep you from getting lost,” the officer said with a smile. “Watch out for the black bears. It’s the tail end of their mating season, and they get seriously irritated when interrupted.”

“We’ll keep that in mind,” Clayton said, throwing a leg over the saddle of the roan gelding he’d picked out to ride.

Kerney mounted a buckskin quarter horse and took the reins of the two packhorses from Frank Vanmeter’s outstretched hand.

“I’ll have aircraft in the air before first light,” Vanmeter said.

Clayton looked skyward. “Maybe not.”

Both Vanmeter and Kerney looked at the clear night sky and then glanced at Clayton questioningly.

“The wind has shifted, the pressure is dropping, and we’re in for a blow,” he explained.

“And you know this how?” Vanmeter asked.

“At dusk, the crows were cawing, the swallows stayed close to the ground, and the hawks weren’t soaring as high as usual.”

“So, it’s like some Apache insight into the natural world, right?” Vanmeter said.

Clayton laughed. “Actually, I learned it in a wilderness survival class I took years ago.” He turned to Kerney. “Let’s go. We’re a good five hours behind Larson, and I want to close the gap before the rain comes.”

“Lead on, Chief,” Kerney replied as he waved a good-bye to Vanmeter.

Clayton shot him a look over his shoulder. “I hope you mean that in the nicest possible way.”

“I do,” Kerney replied as he fell in behind Clayton. “I’m sure you know it was the gringos who came up with the idea of calling the leaders of the Apache bands chiefs. They couldn’t grasp the concept of a warrior society without one person holding absolute authority.”

“And it’s still true today,” Clayton replied. “Have you been studying Apache history?”

“I figured with an Apache son, I’d better learn something about it,” Kerney said.

After a pause, Clayton said, “I think my mother was wise to choose you to mate with.”

“Now that’s a compliment I bet a father rarely hears,” Kerney replied with a laugh.

The two men fell silent as they followed Larson’s trail west across the rolling rangeland. In the deepest part of the night, the wind picked up, the temperature dropped, and the short prairie grasses swirled in cross breezes that whipped through the plains. Soon, lightning flashes were cutting the night sky, illuminating the mountaintops as cascading rolls of thunder roared down the slopes.

Massive, boiling clouds that had been hidden from view came over the peaks of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Clayton and Kerney broke their horses into a fast trot.

“We’re going to have to take shelter before this storm comes in,” Kerney said as he came up alongside Clayton.

“We can hole up in Miami,” Clayton said, “but we’re gonna get wet along the way.”

Damp but safe under shelter in an empty barn on the outskirts of Miami, they shook the rain off their ponchos, hung them over the door to a stall, and watched the deluge start. Lightning strikes lit up the sky and wind-driven rain battered the cottonwood trees that bordered the road through the settlement.

“This weather sure doesn’t help us any,” Kerney said as he wiped down his horse with an old towel he’d found in a rag bin. When he finished, he got more dry rags and moved on to the pack animals.

“It shouldn’t delay us that much,” Clayton said as he dried his mount. “If Larson hasn’t found shelter, he’s been slowed way down on making tracks. When it clears, we’ll circle the village, cut his trail, and follow his tracks. After this storm, fresh hoofprints won’t be hard to find.”

“Plus,” Kerney added, “Larson didn’t do a good job of loading his packhorse. The animal’s left rear hoofprint is deeper than the others.”

“You noticed that, did you?”

“I grew up on a ranch, remember, so I’m not a complete novice when it comes to tracking livestock,” Kerney said as he spread a blanket on a bed of straw and stretched out on it. Some distance away on the open prairie a big lightning bolt struck. “Wake me when it’s time to move.”

“How can you sleep through this?” Clayton asked.

Kerney closed his eyes. “Watch me.”

Drenched and cold to the bone, Craig Larson dug his heels into the flanks of his frightened horse and pushed on. He tugged at the reins of the reluctant packhorse and it grudgingly raised its head and picked up the pace. When he crested a small rise, he stopped and listened. Although he couldn’t see it through the sheets of rain, close by he could hear the roar of the usually dry creek that wandered along the foot of Coyote Mesa.

Larson dismounted and slowly walked the horses to the edge of the creek. Four feet below him, brown, foaming water filled the creek, rising fast, carrying with it tree branches, plastic bottles bobbing up and down, and other debris. He’d have to find a better place to cross. He got back on the horse and rode away from the mesa, toward the grassland where he knew the creek forked and ran between shallow banks. Once there, he dismounted and walked the skittish horses through the knee-deep, swiftly moving water safely to the other side. If he’d arrived five minutes later, he might not have made it across and would have been stuck waiting for the water to recede.

Born and raised in the Big Empty, Larson knew better than to be out in bad weather with lightning strikes hitting all around. But there wasn’t anyplace close by where he could stop and hunker down. Going into the town of Cimarron would surely get him caught or killed, and it was way too risky to head for the ranch headquarters where his brother’s bosses lived. By now the cops probably had all the area ranchers on alert looking for him.

Under a piece of canvas he had fashioned into a make-do rain slick, Larson slogged on, knowing that with the creeks rising fast, the Cimarron River up ahead would be running full and angry. Although it wasn’t a broad river, he could be stranded on the bank waiting for the water to drop. If the skies cleared by daybreak and he was still there, he would be easy to spot from the air.

He looked up, searching for a break in the cover, a hint of predawn light, but it was far too early and the storm was parked low overhead. If it stopped raining but stayed heavily overcast well into the morning, he might still be able to reach the mouth of Dawson Canyon undetected.

Beyond the Cimarron River, he’d have two highways and another river to cross in order to get there. That’s if he made it through the storm and across the plains in one piece.

A lightning bolt seared through the cloud cover and hit the ground half a mile away. The horses shied at the thunderclap that followed, but Larson kept his seat and held fast to the reins of the packhorse.

He hadn’t sat a horse in years, and his butt was sore and his legs ached. Rain ran down the brim of the cowboy hat he’d taken off the coatrack in Kerry’s front room, and then it splattered against his face. Behind him the packhorse slogged through the mud of the rutted ranch road with its head lowered. This was a doozy of a storm that would have every rancher on the plains thanking the dear lord for the moisture come Sunday morning at worship.

In spite of the piss-poor weather, his sore butt, and the obstacles he faced up ahead, Larson felt exhilarated. This was life the way the old-timers had lived it. They fought the elements and anything or anybody that got in their way, including the law. So with gumption and a little luck he just might avoid being bush-whacked, or shot by a sniper from an airplane, or surrounded by a posse of cops. And if he made it to the high country, he could do some payback shooting of his own.

A sudden tension on the packhorse’s reins made him look over his shoulder. The load the animal was carrying had shifted precariously. Larson cursed, dismounted, and with cold hands tried to undo some of the knots he’d tied so he could adjust the load. But the soggy ropes were swollen shut. He tried forcing a knot to give with the tip of a hunting knife, but all he managed to do was cut through it. He tried repositioning and tightening the pack frame, but it was cinched as far as it would go. Fumbling with the loose ends of the cut rope, he managed to retie it, got back on his horse, and cursed again. He’d have to slow down his pace even more or risk seeing his provisions, weapons, and equipment strewn along the ground.

He moved on through the storm with a little less enthusiasm than before. It seemed like ever since he’d stabbed that corrections officer in the eye with a stick and made his getaway, stupid little glitches had come along to fuck things up for him.

Lightning cracked, loud and close enough above him to send a shiver of electricity down his spine. His gelding did a dizzying three-sixty twirl, and the pack animal reared, pulled the reins free from his hand, and galloped off into the gray night. He clamped his legs tight and fought to stay in the saddle as his horse spun again. The horse planted both front hoofs, bucked hard, stomped its forelegs, shook its head, and made another full circle before coming to a shaky, snorting stop.

Larson took a deep breath. With an unsteady hand he turned his gelding in the direction where he’d seen the packhorse disappear into the night, and started after it in a slow trot.

Some time after the downpour had diminished to a steady drizzle, Clayton shook Kerney awake. He sat up and looked out the open barn door. Darkness and a blanket of fog made it impossible to see more than two feet.

“I’ve got Frank Vanmeter bringing in people to start searching around here pronto,” Clayton said. “They’ll go door to door first to check on the residents, and then do field searches, including the mesas, when the fogs lifts.”

Kerney stuck his head out the barn door and looked at the sky. “Which won’t be anytime soon.” He looked at Clayton’s damp, saddled roan gelding. “What have you been up to?”

“Out cutting Larson’s trail,” Clayton said. “When the storm hit, he was well past the village on a straight path for Miami Lake, due west of here. You would have figured that he would have kept going directly for the mountains, but I found his tracks doubling back toward the village.”

“Maybe he backtracked to seek shelter,” Kerney said.

“I don’t think so.”

“Why not?” Kerney asked as he threw his saddle on the back of his horse.

“Because he didn’t make a beeline when he doubled back,” Clayton replied. “Instead he wandered partway up a mesa trail before trying to hide his tracks on some rocky ground. I found some fresh horse apples and several hoofprints from his pack animal. He headed west again.”

“So it was a feint to throw us off.”

Clayton nodded. “But I thought it best to have Vanmeter and his people do a sweep anyway.”

Kerney cinched his saddle. “Good thinking.”

He put the bridle on the buckskin and walked him to the barn door where Clayton waited, sitting in the saddle and ready to go. “So, I take it we’re heading west, young man,” he said.

Clayton nodded and handed Kerney the reins to the two packhorses.

“Lead on,” Kerney said as he mounted up and stared out into the soupy, dense fog. “But try not to guide us into trees, buildings, barbwire fences, ditches, or any moving vehicles,” he said.

Clayton pulled the hood of the rain poncho over his head. “I’ll do my best.”

Larson chased the pack animal into a thick fog that enveloped and disoriented him. He knew he would be in a hell of a fix if he couldn’t find that animal. Already, half of his equipment, gear, and provisions was spread along the last five miles of rangeland. But as far as he could determine, several weapons and all of the ammunition were still strapped to the pack frame, and that’s what he needed most.

With his head bent over the neck of his horse and his eyes glued to the tracks on the ground, Larson didn’t spot the animal until he heard it whinny. He looked up to see it lying in the mud, struggling without success to rise. He dismounted and walked to the animal. It had broken a front leg and the shattered bone showed just above the fetlock.

Cursing the worthless, stupid beast, Larson put a bullet in its brain, and retrieved the weapons and ammunition, all of which had fortunately remained securely tied to the pack frame.

He put the Colt and Ruger handguns in the ammunition bags, tied them to his saddle horn, stuck the 9mm Glock autoloader back in his waistband, and slung the lever-action 30.06 Winchester over his shoulder. He’d been carrying the Weatherby Mark V in the saddle scabbard, so the only rifle he had to leave behind was the Remington Safari.

He looked around for the satchel with the money and the jewelry, and it was nowhere to be seen. Through the fog, Larson sensed a slight lessening of the charcoal gray sky. Should he risk backtracking to find it? He checked Pettibone’s Omega wristwatch, looked again at the sky, and decided against it, although the idea of losing the satchel pissed him off. It was getting on to first light and surely the cops would be out in force looking for him, even if the storm stuck around and dumped more moisture.

He mounted up and turned the horse in the direction of the Cimarron River. After twenty minutes of steady riding, he reached the banks and walked the horse to the edge of the fast-moving water. Larson guessed it was no more than five or six feet deep and twenty feet across, but if he tried to swim across on the horse they could both be swept away.

Back when he’d cowboyed on the ranch there had been a landing strip close to the highway that ran from French Tract to Cimarron. An old plank bridge on a ranch road to the landing strip crossed the river at that point. His best bet was to go there and hope that it hadn’t been washed out.

Larson followed the river, found the ranch road, reached the intact plank bridge, and gave a sigh of relief. It had been rebuilt and reinforced with riprap, and native trees and vegetation had been planted along the riverbed to control erosion. He crossed over the river and rode to the gate that accessed the highway at the end of the landing strip. As he expected, it was locked.

He took the Weatherby out of the scabbard, blew the lock into a dozen metallic pieces, unwrapped the chain from around the gate, and walked the horse through. He couldn’t see more than ten feet in either direction, but there was no sound of traffic on the two-lane highway. He closed the gate, led the horse across the pavement to the far fence line, remounted, and headed west, hugging the fence line, looking for another gate.

Four vehicles passed him by in a twenty-minute stretch, headlights dim and flickering in the soupy fog. But he stayed invisible in the murkiness.

The anger Larson felt about losing his equipment, provisions, and supplies lifted somewhat. He was halfway to safety, with one more river and one more road to cross. Once in the forest, he’d hunt for his food and build a shelter, if need be. But it might not come to that. People lived in the mountains. There was a resort in the high country, some summer cabins, even some mining operations, if they hadn’t been shut down, which happened periodically. There might be slim pickings where he was going, but there were pickings nonetheless.

At a painstakingly slow pace, Kerney and Clayton tracked Larson through the fog until it lifted and revealed scattered provisions and gear on an open expanse of rangeland. They followed the litter to the dead packhorse.

Clayton swung out of the saddle and gave the animal the once-over. “It broke a foreleg,” he said. “Larson put it down.”

“It’s the only killing he’s done so far that makes any sense,” Kerney said. “How far behind are we?”

Clayton got back on his horse. “I’d say we’re no closer than we were when we started out. But he lost his provisions, and left behind a rifle.”

“Well, that’s something,” Kerney said glumly.

“Are you all right?” Clayton asked, eyeing Kerney closely.

Kerney nodded but said nothing in response.

Above, the sky had lifted and patches of blue broke through the fast-moving cloud cover. In the distance they could hear the sound of approaching airplane propellers and helicopter rotors.

Clayton looked up. “We’ve got air support now. That’s something to cheer about.”

Kerney keyed his handheld radio and made contact with Frank Vanmeter. He gave him their location and asked to have all aircraft concentrate the search to the west, north, and northeast of their position.

“You’re sure of that?” Vanmeter asked.

“I don’t think there’s a chance that he’s going to turn around,” Kerney replied. “Not this close to the foothills and canyons. Tell the pilots and spotters to look for a horse and rider only. The pack animal is dead, and most of Larson’s supplies are scattered near our twenty.”

“That’s encouraging.”

“I wish I shared your optimistic outlook. Stay in touch.” Kerney fell in behind Clayton, who’d picked up the trail, heading northeast.

The breeze turned blustery. Over the mountains the sky was a cloudless pure blue. Soon a hot July sun, still blocked to the east by the remaining clouds of the vanishing storm, would begin drying out the land. But it was going to be a muddy twenty-four hours before the puddles, sinks, ditches, arroyos, and dirt roads began to firm up.

Kerney pulled up even with Clayton, who gave him a questioning look.

“What?” he asked.

“You look kind of pale,” Clayton said.

“I’m just fine,” Kerney said firmly.

“Okay. Never mind.” Clayton pointed at the fresh tracks that showed Larson had picked up the pace, and spurred his roan into a trot.

Larson’s decision not to cross the next river right away, but to follow it to the highway that ran from Cimarron to Raton, proved to be the right move. By the time he reached the highway, the torrent in the Vermejo River had subsided and he was able to cross it and the pavement as well on a railroad spur that ran deep into the canyon to several coal mines.

When the sky began to clear, he left the spur for the cover of the old cottonwoods that hugged the bank of the river, and within minutes he heard the drone of an airplane engine. He brought his horse to a stop and through the thick foliage watched a small plane fly low along the railroad spur and disappear in the direction of the Dawson cemetery.

At one time, there had been the town of Dawson, a village of 1,500 people living and working in one of the most productive coal mining districts in the Southwest. In the early 1950s it had been shut down and dismantled by the mining company that owned it. But the cemetery remained, with hundreds of grave markers of miners killed in two of the largest mining disasters in the nation’s history.

As a teenager, Larson had come to several of the annual reunions of the descendants of the old-timers who had lived, worked, or grown up in the town of Dawson, and its colorful and tragic history was part of the folklore of the area.

He waited until the sound of the engine faded before continuing on, and then stopped again when the airplane returned and banked low over the river, heading east. He wondered if the cops were tracking him yet, or still searching for him on the mesas near Miami.

When it was all clear he kept riding, past the adobe shell of an old, roofless two-story ranch house, a collapsed barn, an irrigated wheat field, and a large pasture where fat cattle grazed on lush grasses. Where the spur spanned the Vermejo River again, he walked the horse through a muddy field, found a fast-running but shallow place to cross, and followed the tracks all the way to where the adjacent road ended at a locked gate posted with “No Trespassing” signs. A fork in the road allowed visitors to tour the cemetery, but access to the old town site was denied.

Larson returned to the railroad spur until it bridged the river once more. He remounted his horse, dropped down into the grassy valley, and splashed through the water and up a muddy bank. Since his last visit many years ago, the old smokestacks to the coke ovens had been torn down, but through the trees near the base of a small mesa he could see the outline of the two or three structures still standing. In the past, one had been used as a line camp by cowboys during summer months when cattle were in the high country. If the line camp was still in use, maybe he’d be able to resupply his provisions before moving on.

At the sound of an approaching helicopter, Larson spurred his horse to a gallop. He reached cover under a stand of trees in front of one of the old buildings just as the whirlybird swooped low on the other side of the river and hovered for a moment over an old weather-beaten cabin close to the bank, before continuing up the canyon. When it flew out of sight, Larson circled around the line camp looking for any sign of recent occupation. There were fresh tire tracks in the road at the front of the house, but no vehicle. All the window shades were drawn, so he couldn’t see inside. The front door was padlocked.

Larson figured the padlock meant no one was home. He led the horse up on the porch, used the Glock autoloader to destroy the padlock, and got himself and the animal inside with a minute to spare before the chopper returned and hovered overhead.

When the chopper left, Larson let out a big sigh of relief and looked around. The front room had a small propane cook stove on the counter, next to a sink with an old-fashioned hand pump. There was an ice chest on the floor, but it was empty. However, the pantry held a variety of canned meats, beans, soups, crackers, dried food, and bottled water. A twin bed in the back room was made up with sheets, a pillow, and a lightweight blanket, and the closet held a couple of changes of jeans and long-sleeved cowboy shirts on hangers.

Larson walked his horse into the back room, unloaded the ammunition bags, grabbed the Weatherby from the scabbard, and closed the door on the animal. Hungry, he set about fixing a meal, figuring he’d stay put at least until he ate, maybe longer if the chopper or the airplane kept coming back. He opened a can of meat, put it in a skillet, turned on the camp stove, and let it simmer while he poured a can of beans into a pot and put it on the second burner.

While the food warmed, he positioned the small dining table directly in front of the open door, arranged all the weapons he had on the table, made sure every gun was fully loaded, and put additional ammunition close at hand. Should people come calling, he was ready.

When the meat and beans were warm, he sat behind the table looking out toward the river valley, gobbled the food down, and mopped up the bean juice with some crackers. The chopper came back twice more while he ate.

Larson knew he couldn’t stay long; the cops had to be on his trail by now. Hopefully the chopper would move on to other canyons that wound up the mountains, especially the one with a Forest Service road that could take you all the way to the Colorado border.

He waited thirty minutes, and when the chopper didn’t return, he went and retrieved the horse from the back room, where it had dumped a load of fresh horse apples on the floor.

Larson thought that was a hoot. As he packed food he’d raided from the pantry into his saddlebags, he heard the sound of a vehicle approaching on the dirt road. He picked up the Weatherby, stood back from the open door, and waited. Soon a pickup truck pulling a horse trailer came into view. Larson used the rifle’s scope to look into the cab. Only a driver was inside the vehicle, an older man with a droopy mustache, wearing a sweat-stained straw cowboy hat.

Larson sighted in on the driver and followed him with the Weatherby as he drew closer. Just when the man noticed the open door to the line camp and started to turn the truck around, Larson shot him through the windshield.

The truck careened into a tree and the horse trailer skidded over on its side and slammed into the bed of the pickup. Larson first checked the driver, who was dead with a big hole in his chest that spurted blood. He dug the man’s wallet from his hip pocket and read the name on his driver’s license. One day, Truman Goodson’s name would be added to the plaque at the St. James Hotel that listed the people killed by Craig Lee Larson, “Last of the Western Desperadoes.”

Larson pried open the rear doors to the horse trailer. Two fine-looking cow ponies were inside, both busted up pretty bad. It was a damn shame, as either one of them would have been a far sight better than the horses he’d taken from the stables at the ranch. He put them both down, walked his gelding out of the line camp, gathered his weapons, mounted up, and rode off.

He started counting up how many kills he had made, and decided he should have finished off the prison guard and that scumbag Lenny Hampson who’d squealed on him to the cops. Also, he should have iced that young couple with the baby. Maybe the sheriff he’d shot and crippled had died. Add up all his kills, throw in the ones he let get away, and it would have been a damn impressive list. Too bad he hadn’t thought it through before he got in the groove.

Looking back, he should have written down their names for posterity so when the commemorative plaque went up at the St. James Hotel, nobody was left off. But since the cops would ID all the victims anyway, that wasn’t a problem. His big mistake was not thinking to leave instructions about the plaque with his brother, Kerry.

Thinking he needed to kill more cops to add to his luster as a badass bandito, Larson headed for the base of the mesa behind the line camp, where he could easily find cover if the chopper came back.

Following Larson’s trail under a blue sky in full sunlight proved easy enough to do. By noon, Clayton and Kerney had reached Dawson Canyon, and when they got to the melting shell of an old two-story adobe ranch house, they stopped to water and feed their horses.

Standing over the hoofprints of Larson’s animal, Clayton scanned the low mesas that squeezed the narrow valley. “If Larson was going to skip over to the next canyon, he would have had to do it right about here.”

“His tracks keep following the railroad spur,” Kerney said, “so I don’t think he’s trying to outfox us quite yet.” He opened one of the maps the game and fish officer had given them and studied it. “Besides, the most reliable water source in the area is right here on the Vermejo River. The map shows that the canyons on either side of us drain the runoff from the high country by occasional streams and dry creek beds.”

Clayton nodded as he bit into a sandwich, chewed, and swallowed. “How far into Dawson Canyon does the railroad spur go?”

“About fifteen miles from where it crosses the highway, and ten miles or so from the old Dawson town site.”

Clayton took another bite and chewed it down. “It would make sense that Larson would use the spur line as the fastest route into the tall pines. Once he’s in the dense forest, it’s going to be damn hard to find him and flush him out.”

Kerney put the map away and swung into the saddle. “Let’s get moving.”

“Aren’t you eating?”

Kerney shook his head. “Grumpy gut.”

“That’s why you look so pale. You got a fever?”

“Mount up and let’s go.”

Clayton pulled himself up on his horse. “You didn’t answer the question.”

Some years back, Kerney had been gut shot by a drug dealer during a gunfight, which had forced him to be more careful than most people when it came to what he ate and drank. “I haven’t been doing a good job of minding what I eat,” he explained.

Clayton eyed Kerney with concern. “Let me know if you need to stop or something.”

Kerney handed the reins to the packhorses to Clayton and took the lead. “I’ll be just fine.”

“I knew you’d say that,” Clayton called out. “You’re such a tough guy.”

“Give it a rest,” Kerney called back as he slowed the buckskin to a walk across a muddy patch.

Within the hour, they entered the Dawson town site and came upon the crashed pickup truck and overturned horse trailer under a canopy of trees that had blocked any view from above. The driver and the two horses he’d been hauling in the trailer were dead.

“This guy Larson just doesn’t stop,” Clayton said, cursing as he speed-dialed Frank Vanmeter to give him the news and request assistance.

Kerney looked at the old house, which must have surely been a residence for a mine manager or superintendent back when Dawson was truly a town. He walked over to the truck and horse trailer and studied the skid marks. “I bet Larson shot the victim from inside the house, through the open door.”

Clayton snapped shut his cell phone. “The poor guy never saw it coming.”

Kerney walked across the remnants of an old sidewalk, went up the dirt path, entered the house through the open front door, and gave the interior a quick once-over.

“Are there any other victims?” Clayton asked when Kerney stepped back outside.

“No,” he replied, “but he’s re-provisioned himself, although it’s hard to tell how much he took. I’d guess he’s got two or three days’ worth of food. What’s Vanmeter’s ETA?”

“Thirty minutes, maximum.” Clayton put his foot in the stirrup and looked at Kerney. “We’re not going to wait for him, are we?”

“Nope.” Kerney swung into the saddle. “Let Vanmeter know we’re pushing on.”

“I already did.”

Kerney shook his head in mock disbelief. “Then why in the hell did you ask me?”

“I read somewhere that it’s important to give retired people a sense of empowerment.”

Kerney grunted. “You know, I’m starting to think that maybe it’s the company I’ve been keeping lately that’s giving me my grumpy stomach.”

Clayton shook off the barb and gritted his teeth before smiling. “Touché.”

“You’re damn right, touché.” Kerney dropped the reins against the buckskin’s neck and the horse stepped out nicely, showing Clayton its rump.

Figuring it was time to throw off whoever might be following him, Larson left the railroad spur far below where it dead-ended. The canyon had narrowed considerably and the tracks squeezed through tapered gaps where the thick pine forest dropped down to the rocky roadbed.

He paused for a few moments to let the gelding graze on bunchgrass along the side of the spur. Then he walked it through the overgrown forest, winding his way around stands of trees too dense to penetrate and making slow progress as he moved up the side of a mountain. The tree canopy cut the bright sunlight down to a dusklike glimmer, and except for the scurrying of squirrels and an occasional birdcall, the forest was quiet.

He reached the crest of the mountain hoping for a fix on the horizon so he could get oriented, but all he saw before him was another steep, thickly forested incline. Winded, he sat under a tree and tried to convince himself that he wasn’t lost.

There was no way he could go back to the railroad spur. If there was a posse on his trail, that would be just plain foolish. He checked the time on Pettibone’s Omega and looked up, trying to use the sun to get a general sense of direction, but the light was too diffused.

He decided to follow the ridgeline for a while before climbing the next crest in hopes of finding a break in the forest that would give him a better sense of direction. The ground underfoot was a hazardous combination of moist, rocky soil covered by a thick layer of pine needles, and he’d already turned his ankles several times on some loose stones.

Larson searched for a route between the two crests, gave up after twenty minutes, and started up the next steep incline. The woods were so thick that no matter how hard he tried to avoid low branches, his face stung with welt marks and there were scratches along the shoulders and flanks of the horse.

He topped the next crest and grunted in disgust at the wall of tall pines on a steep slope that greeted him. The slight tinge of panic that had been growing in his gut turned to bile in his throat. He turned on his heel and did a three-sixty, hoping for a view of anything that would give him a hint of which way to turn, but found nothing.

Larson found himself sweating and laboring for breath in the thin mountain air, his throat dry and his body aching. He could go no farther without resting. Even his jaded horse looked ready to drop. He unsaddled the animal, tied it off to a nearby tree, and stretched out, using the saddle as a pillow.

How long had he gone without sleep? Two days? More? Killing that old cowboy at the line camp felt like it had happened days instead of hours ago. What was the cowboy’s name? Larson couldn’t remember.

He reached into his shirt pocket and took out the cowboy’s wallet. Truman Goodson, that was his name. Before he dozed off, Larson decided he needed to make a list of all his kills before he forgot their names completely.

Where Larson’s trail left the railroad spur, Clayton and Kerney paused, rested their animals, studied maps, and considered their next move.

Kerney ran his finger over a map. “If Larson doesn’t get disoriented, and keeps traveling northeast, he’ll be in mountain wilderness until he reaches the paved highway that runs from Raton to the York Canyon coal mine.”

“If he makes it through the mountains to the highway, which is iffy, I doubt he’s going to ride his horse into Raton,” Clayton replied.

Kerney nodded in agreement.

“And if he doesn’t make it through the mountains,” Clayton added, “chances are slim we’d ever find his body.”

“That’s unacceptable,” Kerney said. “Let’s have Vanmeter saturate the road to the coal mine with uniforms. Constant 24/7 patrols, plus officers stationed at every mile marker along the length of the pavement.”

Clayton nodded. “And if he changes direction?”

Kerney pointed on the map to where the spur line ended. “If he cuts back, eventually he’ll intersect the river somewhere above the end of the railroad tracks. At that point I’d guess he’d follow the river north to the York Canyon coal mine.”

“We won’t know what he does unless we follow him,” Clayton said, “and I suggest we don’t. At least not right away.”

Kerney looked up from the map. “Explain yourself.”

“Where Larson is headed, it’s all up and down, except for two major north-south drainage ravines. Unless he gets totally lost and confused, he’ll reach one or the other of them sometime tomorrow. But if we stay on the spur right-of-way, we can gain a hell of a lot of ground on him and, with an early start in the morning, cut across both ravines if necessary and pick up his trail that way.”

Kerney folded the map. “Let’s get game and fish to put some people on horseback behind us to keep Larson from sneaking down the mountainside.”

“We should keep some planes in the air over our sector during the daylight hours to cover any breaks in the tree cover,” Clayton said. “That should keep Larson on the move.”

“Call Vanmeter, give him our coordinates, tell him what we want, and ask him to get the ball rolling,” Kerney said.

Clayton hesitated before keying the handheld. “You do know with all this, we could still lose him out there.”

Kerney shrugged. “Larson’s luck can’t hold forever. It’s time for us to catch a break.”

The sound of an airplane overhead woke Larson. He sat up, looked skyward, and listened as the sound of the engine receded and then returned again. He told himself that it was nothing to worry about, but decided to get moving anyway while he still had enough light to see by. He saddled the horse, led it to the ridgeline, and found a game trail that wound under old growth trees to a rock outcropping. There he discovered a pool of fresh rainwater in a shallow stone basin.

Both Larson and the horse drank from the pool. When he finished and looked up, he could see through the undergrowth a large burn area of blackened trees that extended to the top of the next summit. Above was blue sky. Staying hidden under the canopy, Larson made his way to the burn area. The shadows cast by dead trees told Larson the direction of the sun.

He checked the time on Pettibone’s Omega. Toward dusk, when the planes stopped flying for the night, he’d cross to the next ridge line, make camp, get his bearings in the morning, and move on.

Larson took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Maybe his luck was still holding. His good spirits returned. This might turn out to be fun again after all.