In his rush to dive off the main county road, Dale Torrance had done a fair job of blocking himself in. Looking ahead toward the saloon, the bulk of the building would block his view of Tony Abeyta’s county unit, and the general roll and rise of the prairie would block the paved highway from view. Others could follow his dust plume with ease, but he would have no way of knowing what lay in wait.
Unless he stopped in just the right spot to watch the twisting trail behind him, he would never have seen Bob Torrez as the undersheriff slammed the back door on Dale’s escape route.
Trying to crawl into the mind of a petrified teenager to understand his actions was futile, but I found myself doing just that. If Dale assumed that all the cops who had been chasing him had been faked out by his clever ruse, then he had to assume that we were at that moment still on County Road 14, closing in on the state highway-with that intersection just a quarter of a mile west of the saloon.
When we reached the pavement, Dale knew we’d have a choice…if he was thinking at all, that is. Would we assume that Dale had headed southwest for Mexico or Arizona, and turn right to follow? Posadas to the left didn’t offer much refuge, and if we didn’t know that the kid had turned on the rough trail, then heading east on the state highway didn’t make much sense.
I grimaced as we jounced over a particularly badly installed cattle guard. “He’s going after the girl,” I said.
“Don’t doubt it,” Larson replied.
“He thinks he’s going to sneak in from the back. He thinks he can hide the truck from the road that way.”
“Got to be,” Larson agreed. “That boy ain’t the sharpest tool in the box.”
“Panic time,” I said, and slowed for the second cattle guard that marked the boundary of the state highway’s right-of-way. “He’s not thinking at all. Even if Christine wants to go with him, where does he think he can go?”
“Maybe he thinks we just don’t care all that much.”
“Oh, sure.”
“Well, when Bobby dropped back there at the beginning, that thought might have crossed his mind.”
“Three oh eight, three oh four.” The voice in the distance prompted me to reach out and turn up the radio a bit.
“Three oh eight.”
“Three oh eight, he’s stopping behind the bar.”
“Does he know you’re there?”
“Negative. He can’t see the unit.”
“We’ll be there in a minute or so. Let him go on inside, and block his vehicle.”
“Ten-four.”
Once on the pavement I accelerated hard, approaching the saloon from the west just in time to see Abeyta’s unit disappear around the backside of the building.
“Three oh eight, the truck’s parked and the driver’s door is open,” Abeyta said. “He’s gone inside.”
“Ten-four. Just block the vehicle. Don’t go in.”
I slowed to turn into the parking lot and saw a fair-sized convention. Victor’s truck was parked near the kitchen door on the west side, as usual. Since it was late Saturday afternoon, the bar traffic was picking up, with an assortment of vehicles nosed up to the railroad tie barrier in front of the saloon. Last in line was the Border Patrol unit, and I saw Scott Gutierrez leaning casually against the front fender.
My back tires hadn’t left the pavement when the kitchen door burst open. Dale Torrance was doing a fair imitation of flying backward, pursued by Victor Sanchez. The bar owner’s shoulders were hunched for combat. Torrance bounced off the side of Victor’s truck, but he was game. He lashed out a quick blow that caught Victor on the cheek. Whether Victor was stunned or just goddamned surprised that someone would have the guts to hit him back wasn’t clear, but it gave the Torrance boy an opening. He shot back through the door, into the kitchen.
Victor Sanchez found his footing and lunged after him.
“Well, shit,” Larson muttered.
I pulled to a stop beside Sanchez’s truck and even before I was out of the car I could hear the bar owner’s voice bellowing inside, followed by a metallic crash.
Tony Abeyta appeared from behind the building, and I heard the approach of Torrez’s unit, chewing its way up from the arroyo.
“Tony, go around and make sure he doesn’t skip out the front,” I said, and the deputy nodded. “Scott’s out there, too.”
Abeyta broke into a jog toward the front of the building.
“Let’s see what kind of party we’ve got,” I said to Larson, and he nodded dubiously. I agreed with him. It might have been better retirement insurance to wait patiently outside, ready to grab and bag whatever pieces of Dale Torrance sailed out.
Chapter Twenty-two
The kitchen of the Broken Spur smelled of grilled chicken, chile, and onions, spiced by the tang of broiled hamburger and good strong coffee. Under other circumstances, it would have been a marvelous place to spend some time. No one was in the kitchen, though. Three burger patties spat and dripped on the grill, and off to the side, a mound of hash browns sizzled-all untended.
From the other side of a narrow doorway, I heard a shout, then another shout followed by a loud metallic bang, as if someone had walloped the bar top with a frying pan. Immediately on its heels came something akin to a rebel yell.
I made my way through the kitchen to the swinging door into the barroom. My hand was about to push it open when it slammed inward toward me, the painted plywood surface smacking the palm of my hand and sending shock waves rippling up through my elbow and shoulder.
Jerking backward, I stepped first on Larson’s foot, heard him grunt, and then regained my balance by using him as a wall.
Victor Sanchez halted in the doorway. He was breathing heavily, mouth firmly clamped shut in a thin line livid with anger. His nostrils flared with each inhalation. His black eyes regarded me for about the count of three, and then he turned slightly to indicate over his shoulder.
“That worthless little sack of shit is in there,” he said. “Get him out of here.” I saw his eyes shift and narrow. Undersheriff Robert Torrez strode through the kitchen door from outside, followed by Deputy Tom Pasquale.
Sanchez pushed past me, studiously ignored Torrez and Pasquale, and picked up the grill spatula. He dabbed gently at the patties while the grease hissed.
I pushed the doorway again and entered the saloon.
“Ho!” somebody said, and from off in the corner somewhere I heard somebody else reply to that observation with a snicker. At about the same time, Tony Abeyta appeared in the main entrance, with Scott Gutierrez’s blocky form behind him. I hesitated for a moment to let my eyes adjust to the smoky darkness of the place.
One man was standing at the bar, both arms under him as he stood on his tiptoes, leaning his weight on the lip of the counter so that he folded at the belt buckle. It gave him a good view of the floor behind the bar, an area of apparent interest for him and several others.
“Nobody needs to call the cops,” the guy leaning over the bar said as he glanced our way. The snicker repeated itself, maybe with good reason. Damn near half of the Posadas County Sheriff’s Department, with backup from the U.S. Border Patrol, had secured Victor Sanchez’s saloon.
Mindful of my elbows and all the neatly stacked glassware, I made my way behind the bar. About halfway up, right behind the draught beer dispenser handles, order gave way to mess, the floor covered with busted glasses and two bottles that lay on their sides, gurgling themselves empty on the rubber mat.
Christine Prescott got to her feet when she saw me approaching. Two men were with her, and about that time I could see the soles of a pair of boots, toes pointing up.
Christine wiped her face with the back of her hand and said something to one of the men. He glanced over his shoulder, saw us, and scrunched to one side. Christine pushed past him.
“Are you all right?” I said when she was close enough that I didn’t have to yell. I reached out a hand and rested it on her left shoulder, looking her hard in the eye.