“No, sir.” Torrez dropped the phone from his ear and regarded it with impatience. “Nothing.”
“And nobody’s come out since that call?”
“Not as far as we know.”
“We came in from the west,” Posey said. His was the slow, measured cadence of West Texas. “By the way, sir, this is Officer Wade Kearns.”
I shook hands with the young critter cop, then stood with my hands on my hips, gazing up at the mountainslope. “Well, this is a hell of a deal,” I said.
Torrez nodded. “If he was calling from a spot just beyond the springs, then he should be just above these rocks. He should have heard us approach.”
“Give him a holler,” I said.
Torrez nodded and slipped into his unit. The public address system was spectacularly loud, and all of us stared uphill as if we could see the undersheriff’s words bouncing off the rocks.
“Mr. Walsh? James Walsh? This is the Posadas County Sheriff’s Department. Can you hear us?”
We waited, straining. There was no breeze to tickle the vegetation, just the sound of our own pulses in our ears.
Torrez repeated the message, waited a minute, then said, “Scott Gutierrez, can you hear me? This is Undersheriff Robert Torrez. Can you hear me?”
The hills remained silent.
Torrez tossed the mike onto the seat of his unit. “We need to go on up,” he said.
Chapter Forty-four
I knew that the undersheriff was right…we couldn’t sit around the campfire drinking coffee until someone decided to roll down off the mountain. Still, we held none of the advantages. The 911 call had involved three people, and every one of them had reason to be armed with a high-powered rifle that could fire a round farther than any of us could see on the best of days.
There was every possibility that our movements were being watched at that moment through a nice, clear telescopic sight.
Sergeant Howard Bishop, who normally spent his days managing the department’s civil caseload, looked up the steep, rugged canyon and shook his head. “You’re shitting me, right?” he mumbled.
“Channel three,” Torrez said. He checked his handheld radio and slipped it back on his belt. “Tom and Wade, go right. I’ll go left with Doug. Howard, why don’t you follow the water course right up the middle.”
Bishop nodded without enthusiasm. If we had to climb all the way to the summit, where the view of northern Mexico was terrific on a clear day, that would mean nearly three miles-all of it steep, all of it treacherous. Not all of it would be uphill. Like an old blanket dumped on the floor, the terrain was a series of folded saddlebacks, each one progressively higher and steeper until it reached the final ridge. It was a matter of hiking up, then down, then up still higher, then down, then up again.
He patted his ample belly as he regarded the task. No one had thought to bring a cooler of beer, either.
I lagged even farther behind, in no hurry to have my heart explode trying to solve a family dispute that-considering the silence of the mountain-had already been resolved one way or another.
Ten minutes later, I had ambled my way far enough up the hill, a hundred yards or so, that I could look back and see the road that snaked into Borracho Springs from the state highway. It tracked about as straight as a snarled ball of grocer’s string.
I found a comfortable boulder and leaned my back against it. By supporting my shoulders, I could hold the binoculars still. I swept the hillside, finding each officer in turn. Tom Pasquale and Wade Kearns were already approaching the crest of the first saddleback.
Off to the left, I saw Robert Torrez striding around a jumble of boulders about the size of a Motel 6. Ahead of him was a promontory of bare granite that would afford a commanding view. Doug Posey had split off, circling the rock motel in the opposite direction.
Howard Bishop plodded a hundred yards ahead of me. He stopped, hands on both hips, considering a route.
“Sergeant Bishop.” It was Tom Pasquale’s voice on the radio. I took mine off my belt and turned the volume up.
“Go ahead,” Howard said. He was breathing hard.
I swung the binoculars to the right and picked up Pasquale. He was standing under a gnarled juniper, his own glasses glued to his eyes. He was looking downhill toward Bishop.
“About fifty yards in front of you at eleven o’clock,” Pasquale said. “There’s a man sitting under a grove of scrub oak.”
I swung to my left, but the terrain blocked my view from below. Bishop hadn’t moved.
“How clearly can you see him?” he asked.
“Full view,” Pasquale said. I turned to watch him again, and saw that the young deputy had dropped to one knee to steady his hands. In a moment, Wade Kearns appeared beside him.
“So what’s he doing?” Bishop said. He hadn’t moved and I’m sure didn’t relish being a big, slow-moving target.
“Nothing. I can’t see his face, though. He’s wearing a red vest over blue. Blue jeans. There’s a rifle on the ground beside him.”
“He doesn’t have it in his hands?”
“Negative. His arms are folded.”
“Howard, we’re headed that way,” Torrez said. “Tom, you stay right where you are and keep us posted, all right? If he makes any move at all, you let us know.”
“Yes, sir. He’s covered.” Pasquale was being literal. He had replaced his binoculars with the scoped rifle that had been slung over his shoulder. Kearns had left the position and was working his way east toward Bishop.
“Okay, I see him,” Torrez said after a couple of minutes. “Has he changed position? Any movement at all?”
“Negative, sir.”
We converged on the man, but as we approached from three directions, he never made a sound.
“Bob,” Pasquale said at one point, “he just moved his right hand to his right knee.”
The radio clicked twice in response. I stopped, breathing hard, and said, “If he makes a move toward that rifle, you let us know, Thomas.”
“Yes, sir. He’s not doin’ anything at the moment.”
“So don’t blink,” I said.
If he’d been in the mood or condition to enjoy it, James Walsh had a marvelous view to the north, looking out over Posadas County on a crystal-clear November day. But the view just then was the last thing on his mind. I was the last to reach his position. By the time I pulled myself around the last interruption of rocks, Torrez was on the radio to Linda Real. In that rugged country, the little handheld radios were only slightly more efficient than pitching rocks with messages rubber-banded to them.
“Linda, have the EMTs bring their unit forward,” he said. “Tell ’em we’ll have at least one to transport, but they’re not to start up the mountain until we give the all-clear.”
I didn’t hear her response because I was too busy wheezing air into my own lungs. I reached out a hand to the nearest rough granite face and steadied myself, looking James Walsh in the face. He opened one eye and saw me, and we both knew exactly what was wrong with him.
His arms had been crossed over his chest in an effort to control the crushing pain that must have felt as if his Dodge Durango were parked on his ribs. His bluish lips were frosted with a pink froth. Sweat beaded his ashen forehead. First on his knee, his right hand now dropped down to the ground for support.
“Glad you could make it,” he murmured and tried a wan smile. Torrez knelt by his side and checked his pulse at the wrist while he scrutinized the man’s face. Walsh kept his eyes closed. “He’s up there,” he whispered.
“Mr. Walsh, the ambulance is on the way,” Torrez said. “Before I let ’em risk coming up the hill, though, I have to know what happened. Where are the others?”
Walsh slowly opened his eyes, having a hard time focusing. Torrez moved slightly so that Walsh could see him without turning his head. “Off to the east,” he said, and gagged. Wade Kearns handed Torrez a small water bottle, the kind cyclists carry clipped to the bike’s frame. Walsh took a sip and pushed it away.