“It would be neat. So Freddy agreed to that?”
“Sort of. He didn’t want to, but I can be fairly persuasive.” Her pained smile came at considerable price, Estelle guessed. “When I told him there was probably even a right way and a wrong way to clean the skull so it wasn’t ruined, he understood that. So that’s what we did. We packed it up as best we could, we had our lunch back down in the shade in Bender’s Canyon where the fossils were supposed to be, and then…just kinda hung out.”
“But Freddy did come back out by himself. And he brought a flashlight with him.” Estelle pointed at the opening. “Rocks have been moved recently. Freddy might have done that?”
“I don’t know. If he did, he didn’t tell me. I know he talked to Mr. Underwood a lot on Tuesday morning. And then we went to the bio room during lunch, even, and Mr. Underwood showed us what he’d found out…that it was for sure a jaguar, not a mountain lion. There was still a little cape of fur left on the back of the skull, right where it would join the neck?”
“Had he called the Fish and Wildlife Service at that time?”
“No. He was going to, that afternoon. He wanted to know if Freddy would agree to talk with the newspaper, and Freddy thought that was sort of neat. They did that after school on Tuesday. Mr. Dayan came over.”
“You’re sure all of this was on Tuesday?”
“Yes. And this past week, I was buried in work, so I got Freddy to agree to come back here on the weekend…I mean, like now? I said I’d go with him and help…whatever he needed.”
“And he agreed to that.”
Casey nodded. “So much for promises.”
“As far as you know, he didn’t tell anyone else about this location? He stuck with the Borracho Canyon story?”
“Yes. I told him that I thought that was silly. I mean, who’s going to find this spot, anyway? But he said just to let it be. He knew what he was doing. Oh, sure.”
“You were both in school Tuesday and Wednesday, but you didn’t see him on Thursday?”
“No. I don’t know where he was…I mean,” and she gulped, “I didn’t know. His stupid phone was broken, so I didn’t reach him. And then I tried to call his house Thursday night, and nobody answered. I didn’t know about the deal with Butchie until yesterday in school. So I thought that Freddy probably was with his family up in Albuquerque.” She thumped the boulder with her fist. “And all that time, he was out here somewhere, so hurt…”
Estelle squeezed Casey’s shoulder. She thought about her conversation with Bobby Torrez. If something, or someone, had been responsible for Freddy’s losing control of the ATV, then just as surely there was someone who had looked down into that arroyo after the crash…perhaps had even clambered down to the arroyo bed and approached close enough to see the aftermath of the wreck, to witness Freddy’s final struggle.
Casey Prescott didn’t need to be haunted by that possibility.
“I need to go back to the truck for just a moment,” Estelle said. “I’ll be right back. Would you like a bottle of water?”
“No, thanks. I don’t think so.”
Estelle nodded and hugged her again, just a one-armed caress that also said, “stay here,” and then she made her way back down the slope to the truck where she threaded the case for her small digital camera onto her belt, and pulled the big Kel-lite from its boot on the far side of the center console. “I just love this,” she said aloud, mocking her own impatience. But she knew exactly what Sheriff Robert Torrez’s first question would be when she reported finding the little cave.
Chapter Seventeen
Walking back up the side of the mesa, Estelle came to the conclusion that she knew exactly the emotion that had driven Freddy Romero’s return trip to the cave after finding the skull. Sure, there were proper ways to do this…especially for the undersheriff of Posadas County, who had access to all manner of resources, equipment, and personnel. All of that took time. And Estelle could not bring herself to wait. Just a quick look-that would be enough to satisfy her.
Casey Prescott looked at the flashlight, and wilted. “You’re kidding.”
“I have to see a little more than a cigarette lighter will show,” Estelle said. “Trust me. I don’t like caves any more than you do.” She took a deep breath and dropped to her knees, regarding the narrow slit. The even flow of cool air said that this was more than a tiny irregularity, a small pocket. On the far western side of the mesa, the network of caves had attracted considerable interest, even talk of another national monument or park…at the very least, a site of spectacular interest, perhaps on a par with Lechuguilla, the huge cave system in the southeastern part of the state that rivaled some of Carlsbad’s branches. It was conceivable that this could be more of the same. That would be enough to take anyone’s breath away.
What had caused the overhang that now housed the happy packrat was anyone’s guess. Perhaps decades ago, someone had dug a small exploratory pit, then given up. When the house-sized boulder had crashed down from above, loose rocks could have skidded away, causing the overhang.
“When Freddy crawled in here, how far did he go?”
“Oh, not far. Just his shoulders. I had one hand on his left foot the whole time,” Casey said, and Estelle laughed.
“I won’t go even that far.” She adjusted the hardware on her belt around to the small of her back, and then handed first her jacket and then the small two-way radio to Casey. “Maybe you’d hold this so it doesn’t get all grunged up.” A broken juniper limb, with a wand of dried needles on the end, made a fair probe, and Estelle carefully swept the cave entrance, not hard enough to disturb the dust, but enough to annoy any critters into announcing themselves. Loose rocks, most the size of a basketball, plugged the cave opening-perhaps Freddy’s work. It wasn’t the neat work of a stonemason, just a quick effort at camouflage. One at a time, Estelle moved the jumble, at the same time watching fragments that hung down from the ceiling. Finally satisfied, she grasped the light and found that in the widest portion of the slit, she could work her way forward on her elbows and toes.
The light revealed a fairly smooth ceiling, dotted here and there with tiny brown bodies. One of the bats yawned, showing needle teeth. “Yes, there are bats,” she said.
“Oh, boy.”
“Okay,” she said, and inched forward a bit, cranking the light around to illuminate the jumble of rocks that arched around her. The silence and cool air could have been refreshing under other circumstances, like when strolling through Carlsbad Caverns on a nice walkway with a printed tour booklet in hand.
By shifting a football-sized rock, she could inch forward a bit more. By the time her belly rested in the cave’s entrance, she could see that the ceiling was studded with a vast puzzle of interlocking rocks, some poised for the slightest jar or tremor or bump of a shoulder. Several that had fallen littered the floor of the cave.
Estelle wiggled another foot forward and stopped. The beam of the flashlight was harsh, and several of the little brown bats were fretful, one of them fluttering to a new perch.
Off to the left, a fragment of metal winked, and Estelle juggled the light to free one hand. Slipping her ball-point pen from her breast pocket, she deftly hooked the artifact, a heavy brass buckle with the remnants of a leather belt still attached.
“Hello,” she said.
“That’s probably far enough,” Casey responded.
“Did Freddy ever mention anything other than the cat’s skeleton?” Estelle’s voice sounded amplified by the chamber, small as it was. “Anything at all?”
“No. He wanted the rest of the skeleton.”
“But that’s out with the main packrat’s nest,” the undersheriff said. And cats don’t wear belts. Loath to move the buckle, she shifted the light and saw that the brown patch of rotting hide was in fact dust-covered black. Ever so gently, she slipped the pen under one edge and lifted. She had no trouble recognizing the object, especially since there was one almost identical to it strapped to her own waist.
For a long moment she held the pen so that the holster was elevated. It was no longer attached to the belt. Although the rats and mice and who knew what other sets of teeth had chewed the leather to bits, enough was left to judge shape and size. It was a perfect fit for a heavy-framed automatic.