Halfway into the road trip, late afternoon turned into evening and Clayton pulled off at a roadside picnic table on the lightly traveled two-lane highway. Grace served up a spread of homemade fried chicken, potato salad, and double chocolate brownies, and the family ate dinner in the cool of the gathering darkness without one vehicle passing by the whole time they were there.
Back in the car, the children fell silent and soon nodded off. It was pitch dark by the time they left the highway and rattled over the cattle guard and ruts in the dirt-and-gravel road that led to Kerney’s ranch southeast of the state capital. The motion jarred Wendell and Hannah awake.
“Are we there yet?” Wendell asked in a sleepy voice.
“Almost,” Grace answered.
“I need the bathroom,” Wendell said.
“Can you hold your water for a few minutes?” Clayton asked.
Wendell shook his head. “I need to go really bad.”
“Me too,” Hannah said.
“Okay.”
Clayton slowed to a stop and everyone piled out. Wendell relieved himself at the side of the road while Grace took Hannah in search of some privacy behind a tree. Above, at the lip of the canyon where Kerney’s ranch house sat, a small pack of coyotes screeched, chattered, howled, and snapped. The commotion lasted a long minute.
“Are they hunting something?” Wendell asked his father.
“I think they may have caught their prey.”
“How can you tell?”
“From the sound of it. Now they’re fighting over the kill.”
“Maybe we’ll get to see it,” Wendell said.
“Maybe.”
With everyone back in the car, Clayton drove through the canyon and up the hill.
“Grandfather’s house is just ahead,” Clayton said.
“Can we see Grandfather’s horses?” Hannah asked as the headlights briefly illuminated the horse barn across the wide pasture.
“In the morning,” Grace replied.
Clayton wheeled into the driveway, and the headlights of the sedan froze a pack of coyotes surrounding a form lying on the ground in front of the house. The animals turned toward the sound, their eyes glistening in the reflected light.
“What is that?” Grace asked as she tensed up.
Clayton braked to a stop. “I’m not sure.”
“That’s a body out there,” Grace said.
“We’re too far away to tell what it is.”
“A body?” Wendell asked. He unbuckled his seat belt and hung over the back of the front seat. “Where?”
Clayton backed up quickly, killed the headlights and engine, reached across Grace, and grabbed a flashlight from the glove box. “Everybody stay here.”
“If that’s a body, you have to take us away from here right now,” Grace insisted.
Clayton touched Grace gently on the arm. Her demand was not unreasonable. It was especially important to avoid ghost sickness with children, and doubly important to protect them from being taken by the dead, who often wanted company to travel to the other world.
“I will, but not yet,” he said.
“Now, Clayton.”
“You know I can’t do that.” Clayton got out of the car and looked at Grace through the open window. “Stay here and keep the children with you.”
“Let me go with you, Dad,” Wendell pleaded.
“Stay in the car with your mother.”
Wendell sulked and slumped against the backseat of the sedan.
“Stay put, sweetie,” Clayton said to Hannah.
“Can I sit with Mother?” Hannah asked.
“Go ahead.”
She climbed into the front seat and sat on Grace’s lap.
As Clayton approached the coyotes, he picked up some rocks and started pelting them. The animals, three adults and a juvenile, backed off a few yards and then held their ground. He reached the body lying faceup and looked at it. Not much had been eaten, but the man’s face was a mess, and some feeding had been done where the man’s shirt had been shredded around the chest and two entry bullet wounds were visible.
He knelt down and moved the body just enough to pluck a wallet from a back pocket of the blue jeans. The dead man was Riley Burke, Kerney’s neighbor and partner. He took a quick look around. Three pickup trucks were parked in the driveway. One belonged to Kerney, one probably to Riley Burke, and the third had a magnetic sign on the driver’s door that read “Lenny’s Auto Body Shop,” followed by a phone number.
He returned to the sedan, opened the trunk, and pulled out an old wool blanket he kept there for emergencies.
“Who is it?” Grace asked.
“Not now,” Clayton replied. Wendell was wide-eyed and standing bolt upright in the backseat. Hannah was frozen on Grace’s lap. “I’ll tell you more later.”
He walked back to the body, covered it, and dialed 911 on his cell phone. While he waited for dispatch to pick up, he swung the flashlight beam in an arc to keep the coyotes at bay, their eyes flashing back at him in the night.
Clayton quickly identified himself when dispatch answered, gave his location, reported the dead body, and asked to be put through to New Mexico State Police Chief Andy Baca.
“Please identify yourself again and repeat your location,” the dispatcher said after a brief pause.
“I’m Lieutenant Clayton Istee with the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office,” he repeated forcefully, “and I am at Kevin Kerney’s ranch outside Santa Fe. There is a dead man who appears to have been shot twice in the chest. I need state police officers and a forensic team sent to my twenty right now, and ask Chief Baca to call me on my cell phone immediately. Have you got all that?”
“Affirmative. Did you ID the body?”
“I did and it is not, repeat not, Chief Kerney.”
“Ten-four. I’ll call Chief Baca and have him contact you.”
“Roger that. Do you need directions to my twenty?”
“Negative. I have a sergeant responding and more officers will be on the way shortly. ETA is under twenty minutes.”
“Ten-four.”
Clayton disconnected and heard the beeping sound of another cell phone coming from the pickup truck parked next to Riley Burke’s body. He retrieved it and saw on the screen that Riley had missed six calls, the earliest five hours ago, the latest within the half hour. He wondered why no one had come looking for him, especially with his parents and wife living so close by.
From the driveway came the sound of the sedan’s engine turning over, followed by horn-honking. He put some rocks on the four corners of the blanket covering Riley’s body to keep the coyotes away and walked back to the car. Grace sat behind the wheel.
“I can’t stay here with the children waiting for you,” she said. “We’re leaving. I’ll get a room in town for the night and call you to let you know where we are.”
Clayton nodded. “I may be here for some time.”
“The week is ruined,” Grace whispered.
“Don’t think that way.” He watched Grace turn the car around and drive down the road before returning to the ranch house. The coyotes had closed in on the body. Clayton chased them off before they could do additional damage, and they snarled in protest.
Chief Baca’s call came as Clayton was about to use the house key Kerney had given him to make a quick tour of the ranch house.
“Dispatch says the dead man is not, I repeat not, Kerney,” Andy said. “Is that true?”