“Robert, do you copy?”
“Sure do. And, sir, we’ve done all we can for the girl. Doug is going to stay with her and assist the EMTs when they get here. If you could get someone to light a fire under that helicopter, it’d be appreciated.”
We both knew that magic couldn’t be counted on, but it never hurt to hope just a little. It was more than eighty miles to Las Cruces as the Jet Ranger flew. If the state police pilot had been strapped in with fingers poised to throw switches when he got the call, that still meant that Connie French had an hour of agony to wait. It would be just as well that she was unconscious.
A steady stream of law enforcement personnel continued to arrive until the campground looked like a goddamned discount store parking lot. We had a string of Search and Rescue civilians, state police, Forest Service, Game and Fish, and Posadas County sheriff’s deputies daisy-chained across the lap of the San Cristobal Mountains, scouring the rocks for some trace of Scott Gutierrez.
The list also included three grim-faced members of the United States Border Patrol. One of them was Taylor Bergmann, and I beckoned him off to one side.
“So, tell me,” I said, “do you know anything about this?”
Bergmann’s icy blue eyes surveyed the mountainside, and the various specks of color that inched across its face.
“Clueless,” he said and shrugged. “We’d only met a few days ago. In fact, the night of the accident when the kid got killed? That was the third time I’d met him.”
“You had no knowledge that his sister might be involved in something? Or that he might be?”
“No, sir, I did not.”
I turned to see a Suburu station wagon wending its way into the symposium. Frank Dayan leaned forward against the steering wheel, eyes big. I waved him to a spot where he wouldn’t block the ambulance.
“What we need to do, Agent Bergmann, is find Scott Gutierrez. He’s up there somewhere, he’s hurt, and he’s the one with all the answers just now. Undersheriff Torrez is right about there,” and I pointed past Bergmann’s shoulder. “They’re right at the base of that thing that looks like a petrified ballistic missile. Check in with him, and he’ll tell you what he wants you to do.”
Bergmann responded with a curt military nod and set off up the hill at a fast jog trot.
“What the hell’s going on?” Dayan asked. He had a camera with a large lens hanging from his neck. The light cotton jacket, polo shirt, and chinos would work just fine, but his penny loafers would serve him for about thirty seconds up on the rocks.
“Frank, we’ve got a mess. One man is dead from a heart attack.” The newspaper publisher pulled a small notebook from his back pocket. “Where’s Pam?” I asked, referring to the stout girl who served as his editor.
Dayan looked pained. “Who’s the victim?”
“His name is Jerry Walsh. We haven’t even had time to check his license for the correct spelling of his name. He suffered a coronary, and died while we were talking to him. The second victim apparently fell a distance of about thirty feet. She’s in bad shape, and we’ve ordered a helicopter from Las Cruces.”
“Med-Evac?”
“No. State police. Right now, the problem is getting her down off the mountain. Then we’ll transfer to Med-Evac at Posadas.”
“How did she fall?”
“I’m not sure yet,” I said. Dayan looked up quickly, his pencil poised. “I’m not sure yet,” I repeated.
“And that’s it?” He scanned the mountainside as if counting all the people.
“Evidently not,” I said. “Ah, thank God.” The heavy whup-whup-whup of the Jet Ranger’s blades carried for miles.
“Where is she?” He squinted and leaned forward. “Over by that group of people up there?”
I nodded. “It’s going to be a trick.”
“I need a picture of that,” Dayan said. “Can I go up there?” I looked down at his shoes. “I’ve got some gear in the car,” he said quickly.
“Have at it, then.”
As the helicopter approached, I realized I was hearing two aircraft. Coming in from the west, a Cessna Sky-Master, that strange hybrid beast with one engine pushing and the second pulling, moaned over the top of the mountains and settled into a wide orbit over the area. It was a state police unit as well, and his cautious approach told me that he was already talking to the helicopter pilot.
I turned up the state police radio in the Bronco just loud enough that I could hear the conversation, and then settled against the fender of the unit to watch the show. There wasn’t much I could do except watch-and wonder where the hell Scott Gutierrez was hiding.
Jerry Walsh had called 911 just about the time I took my first bite of pancakes. Dispatch had logged the call at 7:02. It was hard to choreograph the skirmish, however it had happened, with the little information we had, but while domestic disputes may brew for days, weeks, even years, the actual violence that culminates is initiated and concluded in a matter of seconds.
Why they were hunting in such rugged country in the first place was something any eager hunter could explain…that’s where the deer went when hunting pressure increased. James Walsh hadn’t had time to fill us in on all the details, but their morning hadn’t been one of pursuing the wily eight-point buck. The image that had stuck in his mind was that of his two step-children up above him, their voices raised in argument. And then he’d witnessed Scott Gutierrez push his sister off the rocks.
Part of that story made sense. The two younger hunters would be farther uphill, eager to hunt-maybe eager to argue. Walsh himself might have been feeling the first uneasy symptoms of the cardiac attack that was going to kill him in a few minutes.
Shortly before seven, then, he had witnessed the episode. Perhaps it was 6:55, with the sun just peeking over the eastern horizon. When Connie had pitched over backward to slam into the rocks below, Jerry Walsh had shouted-screamed something-to attract Scott Gutierrez’s attention. Realizing that his stepfather had witnessed the deed, Gutierrez without hesitation had thrown his rifle to his shoulder and let fly.
The roar of the heavy hunting rifle must have reverberated across the slope of the mountain like a howitzer, and as the jacketed slug crashed into a rock near Walsh’s head, his pulse rate would have leaped exponentially.
I tried to imagine him diving for cover, wild-eyed and gasping for breath. The little grove of stunted oak was all he had. He said he’d pumped a few rounds back up the hill, and through the brown leaves had seen his assailant take a tumble.
That was how I imagined it. And by the time the last rolling echo died away, Walsh was left lying there, wondering what the hell to do as his pulse hammered and skipped. And then he’d remembered his cellular phone, and fumbled it out, punching in 9-1-1. At 7:02 AM, Ernie Wheeler had picked up the call.
And where was Scott Gutierrez now? Bob Torrez had been first on the scene, sometime around 7:30. That would have given Gutierrez almost half an hour…and with the terrain, it was conceivable that he’d continued to move, unseen, even as the troops gathered down below.
I scanned the side of the San Cristobals. The ground lay in a series of wrinkles and folds. A strong back-country hiker could cover a lot of country in a half hour, could easily travel far enough to be out of sight. Off to the west, a large ridge folded down toward the state highway, four miles away, hiding where the pavement curved up through the mountain to Regal Pass. To the east, the terrain sloped gradually toward the flat country just north of the little village of Maria right on the border.
My watch said that it was twelve minutes after nine. The young man could have been hiking for more than two hours. He could be damn near to the border if he had headed south-straight up to the peak and over the other side.
There was no reason for Scott Gutierrez to go in any of those directions. What made sense was that he’d come back down the mountain the same way he’d gone up-making sure that James Walsh was no longer a threat. He’d come down to find that he hadn’t hit Walsh with a stray shot-the man was stricken with a coronary. Gutierrez would return to the camp and make his decision there. His sister had fallen, his stepfather had had a heart attack. Nicely done.