Double Prey

Chapter Six

The Expedition used by Deputy Dennis Collins during the day shift still smelled new, everything meticulously in place, the four water jugs that were stored in the back full and sealed. Collins had even added a large cardboard box full of military MRE’s to his stash. After her sedan, the big SUV felt like a behemoth.

They pulled out onto Bustos, and Estelle drove west. In less than two minutes, she turned onto Twelfth Street and then pulled in to the curb in front of her home. Two doors down, the Romero house was silent, the driveway empty.

“A moment,” she said. “Need anything?”

“Not a thing,” Gastner replied. “Give my greetings to your mother.”

Inside the house, Estelle found the three volumes she sought in the bookcase by the living room fireplace. Her mother, comfortable in her rocker, was working through an enormous volume of Spanish history, perhaps motivated by Irma’s interests. She tucked a crooked finger in her place as she watched her daughter.

“What’s Reubén done now?” she asked, eyes twinkling. The old man, her uncle, had died eight years before, independent and feisty to the last.

“Padrino recalled that Reubén used to talk about seeing a jaguar, mamá. If he did, he would have mentioned it in his journal.”

“Not the same one you were talking about yesterday. That’s not possible.”

“No. But Padrino was wondering about the date.”

“Don’t lose those. The first one is all before the war anyway. You don’t need that one.”

“Mother, please,” Estelle laughed. “I won’t lose them. And neither will Padrino. ” She kissed the old woman on the forehead.

“Irma is coming over for lunch,” Teresa said. “What are we going to do without her?” She raised an admonishing finger. “But she needs to go, you know. She has her own life.”

“That’s right, mamá. ”

“But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.” Teresa Reyes smiled. “You be careful out there. That’s not your car you’re driving. What are you two up to?”

“I don’t think we know. I’ll stop by for lunch if I can.”

“You do that. Bring Padrino.”

Back out in the SUV, Estelle passed the three volumes to Gastner. Bound in red and black imitation leather with raised welts on the spines, the books were designed to look like old world masterworks. He opened the first volume.

“January 7, 1916 to…” and he gently fingered to the last page. “June 1, 1936.” He glanced across at Estelle. “He moved here from Mexico in 1940, so that’s in volume two.” The second volume opened with an entry for June 11, 1936. “This is where to start, then.” Estelle heard the excitement in Gastner’s voice.

“He wrote each evening, I remember,” Estelle said. “He always had to have just the right black pen.” Gastner leafed through the pages, shaking his head slowly. The handwriting was angular, bold, easy to read, so uniform that it almost appeared to have been printed.

“You’ve read through these?”

“Skimmed,” Estelle said. “That’s a project I keep promising myself.”

He chuckled. “No more promises for me. I’m going to indulge myself now.”

As she drove south on Grande toward the intersection with State 56, she could see that Gastner was already hooked.

“I knew you had these, but I never looked at ’em,” he murmured. “Not a single entry in English.”

“Reubén used to say that English was not the proper language for written records. He used to talk about all the records that exist in Spain for the various voyages back in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, about how he would like to go to Spain and spend a year, just reading.”

“Who wouldn’t.”

“I guess lots of people don’t share an enthusiasm for the past.”

“Unfathomable.” He closed the volume and selected another. “Might as well start at the end and work backward. His last entry was September 12, 1996. It’s hard to read.”

“By then, he was so arthritic that he could hardly hold a pen.” Estelle let the big SUV creep up to seventy on the state highway. She scanned the vast, tawny prairie, watching for the plume of dust that would mark passage of a truck or ATV.

“I knew Reubén as a stonemason,” Gastner mused. “You need a fireplace, Reubén was the one to call. A fancy fence, facing on a house, whatever. I don’t recall that he spent much time hiking and exploring. That about right?”

“He wasn’t a hiker,” Estelle said. “I lived with him for almost four years, and I don’t remember anything beyond a walk to the shed or to the truck. He was fascinated by the night sky, and once in a while we’d go outside with binoculars and see how many constellations we could name. The nearest night light was miles away, and the sky could be so black. And meteor showers-when those happened, it turned him into a little child again.”

“So…he didn’t spend a lot of time hiking in the mountains.”

“No. To him, the San Cristóbals were something to create the weather. He watched them, watched the clouds form, enjoyed the winds. A couple of times, Bobby tried to get him to go hunting with him. He’d just laugh.”

“Then the odds that he saw the big cat over in the Cristóbals are pretty slim.”

“I would think so.”

“Huh.”

Estelle glanced over at Gastner. He was frowning not at the diary on his lap, but into the distance, his heavy features set in that characteristic bull-dog expression that said he was shuffling puzzle pieces about, looking for a fit. After a moment, he returned his attention to the diaries, running a finger along each line of each entry, looking for the magic word that he would find floating in the sea of elegant Spanish.

Twenty minutes later, Estelle slowed and turned the SUV onto a rough two-track where Forest Service signs announced Borracho Springs Canyon. As soon as the truck hit the rough county road, Gastner closed the diary and put it on the floor with the other two volumes. The trail was a welter of tracks, including the periodic knobby prints of a four-wheeler.

In two miles, the road forked, joining Forest Road 122. Bullet-ripped signs announced both the Borracho Springs Campground and the hiking trail that wound up the mountain to join the ridge trail to Regál Pass…a twelve-mile hike through the most rugged country in Posadas County.

As they approached the fork, Estelle saw a flash of metal through the runty junipers and piñons. Just beyond the intersection, an older model Dodge pickup was parked off the two-track. Its tailgate was missing, but two oil-soaked planks with wooden traction cleats ramped into the bed. Tire prints ripped into the dry, dusty prairie behind the truck.

“Freddy’s.” Estelle felt a pang of apprehension. If the boy’s truck had been here all night, something was very wrong. For a moment, both she and Gastner sat in the Expedition, surveying the site.

“He isn’t going up there on an ATV.” Gastner nodded at the vast slab of mountain rising ahead of them. “The road only goes as far as the campground. So why unload here?”

“I don’t know.” Estelle slid out of the SUV, careful where she put her feet. It didn’t take an expert tracker to see where Freddy Romero had driven the ATV. He’d driven it out of the Dodge and then headed back toward the state highway. No tracks led back toward Borracho Springs.

The pickup was unlocked, not surprising since the right-hand wing window was held together by duct tape and didn’t lend itself to security. The driver’s door creaked on bent hinges as Estelle opened it. The cab smelled of motor oil, tobacco smoke, and beer. A small cooler rested on the floor on the passenger side, and Estelle reached across and tipped open the top, revealing a blue freezer pack and two cans of Corona. The cans and freezer pack were cool to the touch.

A cell phone in its nylon holster lay on the seat. Estelle slipped it out and touched the key pad. The small screen came alive promptly, then dissolved into a jumble.

“That’s why didn’t he take it along,” she mused aloud. Gastner moseyed up beside her and leaned on the truck’s door.

“So, where did he go? If that was Freddy that you saw yesterday…” He waved a hand off toward the north. “If that was him, he parked here, and then drove the ATV way the hell and gone over there. I gotta wonder why he did that.” He pushed himself away from the truck and walked a few feet on Forest Road 122. “And sure as hell he didn’t drive up this way.”

“Let’s hope his luck is better than his brother’s.” She knew there were dozens of ways to come to grief on an ATV-a moment’s inattention, a simple misjudgment, or a mechanical break-down miles from the nearest highway or ranch. With his cell phone left behind, Freddy Romero’s bad luck had only multiplied.

“Let’s see what comes of all this.” Back in the Expedition, she dialed dispatch and waited for half a dozen rings before Gayle Torrez answered.

“Posadas County Sheriff’s Department, Torrez.”

“Gayle, Bill Gastner and I are down at Borracho Springs. We’ve found Freddy Romero’s truck parked down here. It appears he unloaded his four-wheeler and took off somewhere. I don’t think he has his cell phone with him. Would you contact Mr. or Mrs. Romero up in Albuquerque and tell them we’ll be in touch as soon as we have some answers?”

“No Freddy though?”

“No Freddy. At least not yet. He left a pretty clear set of tracks, so we’re going to follow up on that. Has Bobby come in the office yet?”

“In and then out again. He’s back in Cruces, but says he’ll be home this afternoon.”

“Okay.” Estelle mentally riffled through the list of available staff. The county was still hers, and if there was a call in the village of Posadas, she was half an hour away.

“Jackie is having coffee with David Miller,” Gayle said. Estelle had noticed with some amusement that of late Deputy Jackie Taber, denizen of the graveyard shift, often managed to find a moment to converse with the young state policeman when their paths crossed-perhaps one or both of them helped managed their activities so that paths did cross. Estelle heard a voice in the background. “She says she’ll cover for you until you’re clear,” Gayle added.

“Good enough. And if Freddy has already contacted his parents, let me know.” She switched off and glanced at Gastner. “You want a job?”

The former sheriff laughed. “Not even a remote chance, sweetheart. Thirty years is long enough. Now I’m embarking on an in-depth study of life on the sidelines.” He shifted in his seat. “You’ll remember that I came along merely on the promise of some breakfast…which we still have ignored.”

“Have an MRE, sir.”

“You know, the brownies in those things are really pretty good. And the crackers and cheese aren’t bad. So don’t tempt me.”

They followed the ATV’s tracks back to the highway, and then southwest along State 56. A mile beyond, the saloon’s parking lot was heavily graveled, but the ATV’s tracks marked the grass perimeter, then actually passing close to the east wall of the building. Behind the saloon and the owner’s modest mobile home, behind a scattering of defunct cars and trucks some of which had slipped down into the arroyo, a two-track cut sharply down the bank. A brown pond of water marked one of the flats in the arroyo bottom, and tracks crisscrossed the gravel and sand.

“We can assume he went this way,” Gastner said. “Maybe.”

“I saw him turn into the saloon parking lot, and then disappear behind the building.” She urged the Expedition into four-wheel drive and turned into the arroyo. The decent was so steep that the rear bumper gouged gravel at the bottom. A ledge of rock half-way up the other side bucked the Expedition, and it kicked sand and gravel, with nothing but a view of the sky as they reared up and out on the far side.

“I haven’t been here in a long time.” Gastner lowered his window. “It’s going to get hot today.” The two-track meandered across the prairie, already beginning to shimmer in the heat. The lane headed toward the low mesas to the north. For the first half mile, the going was reasonably smooth, the dried vegetation between the tracks raking the underside of the SUV, the fragrance powerful. Sand and prairie scrub gave way to a vast, gentle dome of gravel and rocks where the tracks of the ATV vanished.

“Stop a second,” Gastner said at one point. He twisted in his seat and looked eastward, then reached across for the binoculars that rested in the center console. “It’d be a hell of a walk, no matter which way he went. Herb Torrance’s place is way the hell off to the west, and Prescotts’ is a long hike back to the east, off behind those little hills, there.” He searched the prairie for a moment and then shrugged. “The only thing that makes sense to me is that Freddy was headed to where this trail crosses Bender’s Canyon.”

“Maybe so.” She shut off the engine and they sat in silence, letting the breeze waft through the vehicle. In the distance, two ravens made sure everyone knew there were intruders.

“You don’t have a whole lot of choices,” Gastner said. “From here you can cut down this grade and end up T-boning into Bender’s Canyon Trail. Then you hang a left, and head back toward the county road. Or you can go right along the trail and go northeast, around the backside of Herb Torrance’s spread. You’ll swing around to the county road again…eventually…or continue on north to the state highway.” He patted the door sill as if marking time. “Or, we could get out and walk for a bit and make like trackers, trying to pick up the ATV’s footprint.” He squinted up at the blank blue of the sky.

Estelle popped her door, and Gastner grimaced. “That’s what I thought.”

“If Freddy had come home last night, I wouldn’t be concerned,” the undersheriff said. “But I’d hate to think that he might be lying out here somewhere with a broken leg…or worse. That would have made for a long, long night.”

Gastner touched his cap back and wiped his forehead. “No danger of hypothermia, though. You ought to have Bergin up flying if you want to search this country. You could hide a tank out here, you know.”

“That’s next, Padrino. ”

For less than five minutes, the two searched the balding top of the rise. The most logical route-straight ahead-turned results. The ATV’s knobbed tracks showed up on the north side of the slope, cutting across the rough terrain to join the two-track that came in from the west.

Estelle jogged back to the Expedition, and after thumping and bumping down off the slope, the relative smooth going on the two packed tracks of Bender’s Canyon Trail felt like a paved highway. The trail crossed the canyon bottom twice before settling down on the north side of the arroyo. The tracks were easy to follow where they cut into the softer ground. For another mile, the two-track wound almost due east, then swung wide around the buttress of a ragged mesa. Car-sized boulders had peeled off the mesa rim above them, and at one point the trail squeezed between a jumble of rocks that towered a dozen feet above the SUV’s roof.

“Herb always called this ‘the window,’” Bill Gastner observed as Estelle maneuvered the vehicle through, less than an inch clearance beyond the side mirrors. “He’s lost a lot of paint off his trucks and livestock trailers in this particular spot.”

The trail turned north, the country opening up to prairie that rolled in gentle waves like a tan blanket snapped not quite flat. They could see Bender’s Canyon Trail winding ahead of them, up the rise of open country.

“Freddy probably puts more miles on that ATV of his than any other kid in the world,” Estelle said.

“I admire him,” Gastner said. “You know, most kids are content to rod it up and down the streets, or dust up vacant lots. This kids goes on adventures. I love it. If I wasn’t so goddamn fat and old and creaky, I’d buy me one and chase after him.”

“I’m starting to wish that someone had gone with him,” Estelle added.

The two-track climbed the rise, and then bordered a stand of dense juniper and scrub as another deep arroyo closed in from the northeast. A small foundation, now nothing but a uniform line of limestone rocks emerging a few inches from the dirt, edged the runty junipers and creosote bush. An old corral, the posts gray and smooth, enclosed an area behind the foundation, and the remains of a fence meandered off into the distance. Various rusted machinery parts, a scattering of cans, and the tiny cab of an ancient truck marked a spot where someone, sometime, had felt that he’d found paradise.

“Morris Trujillo’s grandfather,” Gastner said, and Estelle looked at him with amusement. “Efugio. He came back from the Philippines in 1943, deaf in one ear and with a plate in his skull. He tried to live here for a couple years, couldn’t make it work, and then moved into town.”

Estelle surveyed what was left of the tiny homestead. “And left his truck behind.”

“We could make up all kinds of interesting stories about why that happened,” Gastner laughed. “It’s a 1928 Ford.”

“And you know that how?” The vehicle fragment included little besides the firewall and one fender.

“I found a number plate on the firewall.”

“Are those your tracks?” She nodded at a set of vehicle tracks imprinted in the soft soil near the corral.

“Nope.” The road narrowed even more, squeezing along the arroyo.

“Next century storm, the arroyo is going to chew a chunk out of the two-track,” Gastner said. Just to the east, practically under his elbow, the arroyo yawned deep and wide, a great gouge across the prairie. “Herb was telling me that most of this was cut in one night, back in 1955.” He glanced at Estelle. “Can you imagine a rain that hard? And that’s something else that Reubén might talk about in his journal. He was here then.”

“Only from time to time,” Estelle said. “He built his cabin over off the county road in 1956.”

“Have you considered translating these?”

“I do. I just haven’t done it yet.”

“Maybe Teresa would find it interesting.”

“I don’t think so. She can read them effortlessly enough as it is, but she doesn’t spend a lot of time looking back at family history. History of the world, sure, but not family. I think it makes her a little sad.”

“Remarkable woman. That’s about all I do these days, is look back.”

Estelle eased the truck onward, and they nosed up a sharp rise just north of the homestead. Just as they crested the knoll, she spiked the brakes and the SUV jarred to a halt. They faced a swale where the two-track swooped down through a graveled wash that joined the main arroyo. They could see tracks from the ATV, so close-set and characteristic, cross the wash and shoot straight up the other side. Estelle leaned forward, hands locked together on top of the steering wheel.

A second set of four-wheeler tracks were also visible just on the near side of the rise facing them, tracks that swerved erratically toward the crumbling arroyo edge.