Prolonged Exposure

Chapter 43

At ten minutes after ten that morning, three white Posadas Rural Electric Co-op trucks ground their way up a steep, narrow two-track that angled eastward, working its way up the south slope of the San Cristobal range.

The second and third vehicle in line were standard one-ton four-wheel-drive utility trucks, their beds including enough gear and utility boxes to make a plumber drool with envy. Leading the pack was a high-slung Chevy Kodiak, a big blunt-snouted diesel-powered monster that carried the cherry picker and about four tons of other expensive equipment, including a generator big enough to power half of Posadas.

Behind in Regal, six bemused Electric Co-op workers sat on the steps of the Iglesia de Nuestra Madre Catholic church, watching us rumble off into the distance, leaving behind as collateral a handful of high-mileage patrol vehicles, my daughter Camille, and Deputy Skip Bishop.

I rode in the lead truck and tried to make myself comfortable while at the same time fighting not to crush Estelle every time the Kodiak waddled and jolted over another set of rocks. Half the time, I needed the palm of my hand up on the roof liner to keep my skull from making dents.

Bob Torrez idled through a particularly dense stand of junipers, their limbs raking the side of the truck. The trail curved north into a narrow canyon, switchbacked out again, and then actually ran downhill for a while before angling up into a dense thicket of scrub oak.

“This road is supposed to fork somewhere up there,” I said.

“Supposed to,” Bob grunted. He looked right at home with the yellow hard hat. I looked in the rearview mirror and watched the two trucks behind us-Eddie Mitchell and Tom Pasquale in one, and Martin Holman and Tony Abeyta bringing up the rear.

I had a nagging apprehension that we were putting all our eggs in one basket, but we now knew that Andrew Browers had driven south, just as we had suspected. There had been no way to conceal the tire tracks of the heavy RV when he had turned off of the state highway and headed south.

With one of the department Broncos, Deputy Tom Mears and Dale Kenyon had set off to follow the tracks. As they worked their way south and we formed a pincer coming north, Andrew Browers would be caught in the middle.

I chose to put the largest truck first because I wanted to be able to see, and its windshield being six or seven feet off the ground made that easy.

We drove out of the canyon, and for a moment, directly ahead and below, Mexico stretched out to the horizon. The clouds were beginning to break, the last strands of moisture burning off. To the east, I could see an airplane making lazy circles as it worked its way along the border.

We turned left, following the terrain, the oak brush as high as the doors of the truck. Another hump in the side of the slope brought us to an old slag pile, where years ago someone had hoped to strike it rich. “Tierney said that once we went by the stone foundation, the fork was about six-tenths of a mile,” I said.

The miner had managed to dig a great scar in the earth, but then he had ran up against granite so hard and empty, he’d gotten discouraged. He hadn’t gone deep enough to bother with shaft supports. Just beyond the slag pile was a small heap of rubble that still showed some organization.

“That’s the foundation, I assume.”

Torrez nodded and pointed. “I’ve been hunting down this way. Got a eight-pointer about four miles south of here. This trail would have to cut downhill a bunch. I wasn’t anywhere near this far upslope.”

“Tierney promised a fork,” I said.

And sure enough, as the odometer rolled six-tenths, the trail did split. The right fork angled into another grove of oaks, and the left switchbacked up so steeply that we all held our breath as the big truck reared and bucked, its all-wheel-drive system clawing for purchase on the loose rocks. The other two vehicles held back until we’d cleared the top. The two-track crested a rise almost immediately and then skirted a grass and cactus meadow.

We rolled for a hundred yards on packed soil, almost highway-smooth.

“This is better,” I said.

“Until up there,” Bob said. I could see jagged rocks ahead, and then the power lines as they appeared in the saddle-back. “About another mile and a half.”

I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the second truck pull over the hill and accelerate across the smooth grass.

“Pasquale wants the lead,” I said. “As always.” He pulled up within ten feet of our back bumper.

Torrez took the opportunity to rest his arms on the steering wheel, leaning forward and gazing up the side of the mountain toward the cut. “I wonder where he is,” he said. “What do you suppose he’ll do?”

Estelle’s mouth was set in a grim line. “That depends on how smart he is, or thinks he is,” I said. “He won’t know it’s not the electric company until we’re on top of him.”

Bob slowed the truck to a walk, and I glanced at him. He was looking in the rearview mirror. “The sheriff may be having trouble with that last switchback,” he said.

Sure enough, Holman’s vehicle hadn’t crested the rise to the meadow. Torres stopped the truck and I said into the handheld radio, “Hold up for a minute, Tom.” We sat for thirty seconds, the big diesel idling.

That thirty seconds was Pasquale’s limit of patience. I could imagine the taciturn Eddie Mitchell enjoying the ride.

“We’ll go check,” Pasquale said. The kid could drive backward as well as forward, and he reversed across the meadow. I had visions of him losing it at the last moment, the fifty-thousand-dollar electric company truck sailing ass-end-first right off the edge, crashing to junk on the rocks.

He jarred to a halt, skewed sideways, and I saw both doors fling open. From a hundred yards away, it looked as if one of the deputies was pointing, but then I saw several puffs of smoke, followed eventually by the rapid pop-pop-pop of pistol fire.

“What the hell,” I said, and almost instantly the radio cracked to life.

“He’s got the truck!” Mitchell shouted.

Torrez jammed the Kodiak into reverse and we jolted backward off the trail, sod and rocks flying. He spun the wheel and floored the accelerator, and we shot forward, cutting back onto the ruts. I saw Mitchell’s stocky figure race over the edge while Pasquale dashed to the truck.

Even with the diesel of our truck bellowing for all it was worth, Pasquale had the smaller unit turned around by the time we arrived. He headed downslope without a moment’s hesitation, and I could see the tires of his truck crashing over rocks big enough to high-center a passenger car.

We crested the hill in time to see Holman and Abeyta standing by the side of the road, gesticulating. Their truck, without them in it, had already backed far enough down the two-track that it had reached the fork, and it was now heading south on the other trail.

“Go get the son of a bitch!” I heard Holman shout over the radio. Tom Pasquale needed no more incentive. We had a grandstand view as the two Electric Co-op trucks careened pell-mell down the narrow two-track that would along the foothills of the San Cristobals. The Border Patrol aircraft that had been orbiting farther to the east had swung overhead, a fast Cessna Sky Master that was going to be of little use other than providing eyes in the sky.

Torrez eased down the hill, keeping the pace at a crawl as the heavy truck shifted this way and that on the rocks. Holman sprinted up the hill to meet us, his face purple with rage.

“He’s alone!” Holman shouted as he jumped up on the driver’s side running board of the Kodiak. “He doesn’t have the child or the woman with him!”

“Oh Christ,” I said, “what’s he done with ’em?”

“He must have left them behind, with the camper,” Estelle said.

“Or under any number of humps in the sand along the way,” I said. “He knew exactly what the hell he wanted.”

Tom Pasquale had slowed just enough for Eddie Mitchell to jump back aboard, and Mitchell certainly deserved a medal for bravery. No more than a hundred yards separated the trucks, and Pasquale was gaining.

“I don’t think he hit him,” Holman said. “There was just an instant when Browers was out in the open, and Pasquale got off three shots.”

“He was waiting for you?”

“I don’t know,” Holman said ruefully. “One minute we’re fine, and the next instant he’s standing right where I am now, on the running board of the truck, sticking a pistol in my ear. He wanted us out, and I didn’t argue with him.”

“Wise,” I said. “Bob, if we go any farther, we won’t be able to see them when they get below that swath of oaks.” He stopped the truck and the four of us climbed down.

“He’s got Tony’s gun now, too,” Holman added. With a pair of binoculars, Bob Torrez watched the race.

“It looks like Pasquale is chained to his back bumper,” he said, and below us and to the east we saw the two trucks dive into a copse of elm scrub where a mountainside spring had created a tiny patch of green. “He’s got a quarter of a mile, and he’s at the fence.”

And, at that particular point, that’s all that separated the United States from Mexico, a well-made steel-post six-strand barbed-wire fence. Torrez raised the glasses and swept the view. “No federales, either.”

The Cessna swooped low, entering a hard bank, keeping the two roaring trucks in clear view.

“There will be,” I said.

The two-track swerved out onto a flat, dry section of prairie, and Andrew Browers saw his chance. He skidded right, off the road, roaring through the low brush, hitting hummocks so hard that half the time his truck was airborne.

And less than a hundred feet behind him were Pasquale and Mitchell. I knew that trying for a spectacular tire shot was impossible. All Mitchell could do was hang on with both hands and feet and hope that Pasquale didn’t miscalculate and put them on their roof.

“He’s going to go for it,” Torrez said.

I held up the radio and thumbed the transmit button. “If he goes through that fence, you just go right after him,” I said.

“They can’t go into Mexico,” Holman said.

“Sure they can.” I glanced at him and held out the radio. “Do you want to tell Pasquale to stop?”

“Hell no,” Holman said.

Browers crashed the fence dead center, taking one of the steel posts right on the massive power winch on the front bumper of the truck. We saw a burst of sand and flying metal, and the two trucks had themselves a doorway into Mexico.

“Veracruz by nightfall,” I muttered, but I had spoken too soon. Tom Pasquale had other plans. Even as one vehicle swerved violently to the left to avoid a deep arroyo, the second merged with it. We saw a cloud of dirt fly heavenward, and the two vehicles jarred to a halt.

For a moment, it was impossible to tell what was happening, but then Torrez said, “They’ve got ’em,” and a wide grin split his features. He shifted the glasses a fraction. “And here come the troops.”

I looked in the direction he was pointing and saw two vehicles approaching on the Mexican side of the fence. “This should be interesting,” I said.