“Nothing. He’s evaporated. We’ve got fifty people on this mountainside, in broad daylight, and an aircraft circling overhead. We can’t find him. Not a damn trace.”
“Estelle stopped by for a few minutes a little bit ago. She asked if there was anything that she could do.”
“I wish,” I said. “There are certainly other places I’d rather be, I can tell you that. Have Jackie get right back to me the second she knows something.”
I tossed the phone on the hood of the Bronco and was reaching for the binoculars when I heard the shout, far over to the west. It was too far to recognize the voice or the words, but in an instant my radio brought confirmation.
“Sheriff, we’ve got him.”
Chapter Forty-eight
What kept Scott Gutierrez staggering west might have been as simple as the warmth of the sun on his back and the gentle downslope of the terrain as one fold blended into another. He might even have imagined that he was making his way downhill toward Borracho Springs.
More likely, he’d just moved. His instincts drove him to put distance between himself and the man with the rifle down below, and that’s what he had done-for 890 yards.
Deputy Thomas Pasquale found Gutierrez curled up in a tight ball, deep in a thicket of mountain mahogany. Each stem was about the diameter of a finger, tough and resilient. The young man had wedged his way into the thicket by feel, laid his head on his arm, and passed out. The brush provided a canopy, shielding him from view from the air.
I watched the rescue effort through binoculars, and quickly picked up Undersheriff Robert Torrez. He stood perfectly still just west of where the rifle had been found, and examined the route across to where Pasquale waved his arms. The EMTs had already started clambering their way toward the victim, moving as quickly as the rugged terrain would allow.
Torrez picked his way across, stopping frequently to readjust his route and peer at the ground. After a minute, I realized what he was doing. Ever the hunter, he was following what little sign Gutierrez had left behind-telltale spatters of blood that to a less trained eye simply blended with the earth or the lichen on the rock faces. Now that Gutierrez had been found, and emergency help was on the way, Torrez took his time, reconstructing the route.
The seventeen minutes that it took Al Langford and Judy Parnell to reach Scott Gutierrez after Tom Pasquale’s first triumphant shout seemed hours.
People converged on the spot from the east and from below, including another backboard raced up the mountain from the waiting ambulance. I waited patiently, watching. Eventually, my telephone chirped and I snatched it up eagerly.
“Yes?”
“Sir,” Robert Torrez said, “we’re bringing him down now. Al says he’s stable. He’s sedated pretty good.”
“He’ll have to be, for that trip,” I said. “Whoever is carrying that gurney better be surefooted.”
“They’re doin’ all right,” Torrez said.
“How is he?”
“I can’t tell, sir. It looks to me like the bullet came at him from the left, but it’s hard to tell. Took a chunk out of the bridge of his nose, and then did a tap dance over his right eye. Kind of a grazing shot. A quarter inch more and it would have blown his face off.”
I winced. “Just the one injury?”
“As near as I can tell, sir. That one’s sure enough, though. He wouldn’t have had a clue about where he was going.”
“He wasn’t conscious at all when Pasquale found him?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, be careful. Bring him down easy, Roberto.”
“You betcha.”
***
The last vehicle drove out of Borracho Springs at 11:05 that morning. Shortly before that, two of Scott Gutierrez’s supervising officers from the U.S. Border Patrol had arrived. They didn’t stay long.
They would have left a lot happier if I could have told them exactly what had happened, and been able to explain Gutierrez’s role in the whole affair. As it was, they lingered just long enough to satisfy themselves that it had been a family quarrel of some kind, and to receive a guarantee from me that as soon as we had details, they’d be among the first to know. Driving into Posadas and waiting at the hospital didn’t appear to be on their agenda, but that was their business.
Of more interest to me were events in Las Cruces. I had heard no word from Deputy Taber, and the deafening silence made me nervous.
Shortly after eleven-forty, I closed the door of my office for a few moments of peace and quiet, ignoring the lengthy list of return calls that Gayle Torrez had kindly organized for me. I had looked at all the notes, and then at her. “But Taber hasn’t checked in yet?”
“No word,” Gayle said. “I talked to her a few minutes ago, and Connie was still in surgery.”
“You have the number handy?”
“Sure.”
With that in hand, I retreated to my office. The young man who answered the phone in Las Cruces sounded polite and efficient, and it took him less than a minute to find Jackie Taber.
“Sir, Connie is still in surgery,” the deputy said. “The head injury is not real good news, I guess.”
“Nothing else so far?”
“No, sir. She’s been in surgery for almost three hours, and they haven’t looked up once.”
“If you get a chance, try to pry one of ’em loose long enough for a progress report. They found Scott, by the way. He’ll probably be okay. One bullet hit him a grazing shot across the face. He’d wandered about a half mile west of where we found Connie.”
“Was he able to tell you anything?”
“Not yet. So you stick close at that end, and we’ll see what we can find out up here.”
“Yes, sir.”
I hung up and leaned back in the chair, letting the old, soft leather upholstery cushion my sore joints. I was allowed no more than five seconds before the phone buzzed. I groped for it without opening my eyes. “Yes?”
“Sir,” Gayle said, “your grandson is on the phone. He wanted me to make sure I wasn’t interrupting anything before I put him through.”
I looked at my watch. I’d made some vague promise about lunch, but I couldn’t remember what it was. In any case, I had eight minutes to make up my mind.
“Put him on,” I said.
The phone clicked. “This is Tadd, Grandpa.”
“How was your morning?” I asked.
“Neato,” the kid said. “We messed around all morning, and I kinda lost track of time. I wanted to check with you about lunch, but I asked Mrs. Torrez not to bother you if you were awful busy.”
“I’m not.” I spread out the callback notes, scanning the names. They could all wait. “Are you guys ready to eat, then? Are the Guzmans there?”
“Sure thing. Well, Dr. Guzman isn’t. He’s over at the hospital, I think. I called to ask you if you wanted me to put something on the grill?”
I gathered the notes and tossed them to one side. “Save it for supper, Tadd. I’d hate to see you rush a masterpiece. Let’s grab a burrito at the Don Juan.”
Tadd laughed. He muffled the phone, but I heard his bellow anyway. “You owe me five bucks!” A voice in the background mumbled something that I couldn’t hear.
“Who was that?”
“My dad,” Tadd said. “I made a bet with him that you’d suggest that.”
“It’s terrible to be so predictable,” I said. “I tell you what. There are a number of odds and ends hanging right now. How about if you guys just meet me there rather than me driving over to the house? I’m heading out the door right now.”
“You got it, Grandpa.”
As I left the office, Gayle’s phone was ringing, and I paused as she answered it. “If it’s Jackie Taber, I’ll take it,” I said.
She nodded, listened for a few seconds, and shook her head, then she put her hand over the receiver. “It’s Leona Spears,” she mouthed, and her eyes twinkled as I raised the corner of my lip.
“Tell her highness that it’s all a right-wing conspiracy, and the election has been called off,” I said over my shoulder.