Estelle saw three other vehicles parked in various spots near the worn Forest Service sign that announced Jackman’s Wells. One of the vehicles sported a race official’s placard on the door. Half a dozen people stood near the trucks, two with clipboards and stopwatches.
She pulled the truck well away from the narrow two-track and backed it under a gnarled piñon. Movement up on the mesa face caught her eye.
“What am I seeing?” Leona asked, leaning forward as Estelle pointed.
“Just above the slag pile,” Estelle said. “I saw a flash of color.”
And sure enough, an instant later a lone cyclist appeared, his bike thrust forward with his weight over the back tire. He sailed down a particularly steep section of trail, deftly avoiding the strewn rocks and limb wood. A hundred yards behind him, three other riders formed a pack, locked in the chase.
“Well, we timed that just right, didn’t we, dear?” Leona said. “I’m glad to be out of their way. And look at that. They started a minute apart, and still collect in bunches.” She pulled out a glossy race program, ready to match numbers with names. “Who are you rooting for? Thomas?”
“That would be good,” Estelle said. She leaned over and looked at the proffered roster. Thomas Pasquale carried number 58, just about halfway through the field. She’d seen the list before, recognizing only a handful of names. Number 8 had been reserved for Terry Gutierrez, the young rider from Socorro who had sailed off the cliff during a practice circuit. Terry’s girl-friend, April Pritt, would have raced with number 121 on her back had the lacerated knee not ended her chances.
“Oh my,” Leona said, beaming. “This is fun. What absolutely marvelous timing.” Camera in one hand, race program in the other, she bundled out of the truck, then turned to rummage her floppy safari hat out of a voluminous handbag.
The cyclist, face gaunt with effort, shot by without a glance at them or a nod to the other spectators, despite their encouraging cheers.
“Number 18,” Leona announced. “That’s somebody something from Belen…I can’t read this without my glasses.” She extended the program toward Estelle, who waved it off good-naturedly. “Wow. That means that he’s passed the first seventeen riders!” the county manager chortled as she watched the cyclist disappear into the trees.
Seconds later, the chasing pack shot by, and it became even more apparent that, with the race now three hours old, the starting order had little to do with placement. Number 6, a chubby young man in bright yellow with thighs so thunderous that they threatened the integrity of his spandex, led numbers 37 and 78, and Estelle was impressed that the third member of the trio sported silver gray hair sprouting out from under his blue plastic helmet.
“He started almost an hour and a half behind the leader,” she said. “And still caught him.”
Both Estelle and Leona leaned against the warm grill of the Expedition, and as the trio of bikers raced away down the mesa, the mountainside near Jackman’s Wells grew silent, even the piñon jays puzzled mute. After a moment, she heard voices high above near the mesa rim, too far away to distinguish what was said. The metallic sounds of jounced bikes drifted through the trees.
Each time she saw a cyclist plunge into sight, Estelle held her breath, searching for the husky figure of Tom Pasquale, riding under number 58. She knew that expecting a top finish was wishful thinking. Tom was no pro rider. The young deputy had taken up bicycle riding less than two years before as a way to shed some weight and counter the cumulative effects of eight-hour shifts spent on his butt in a patrol car. A powerful young man, true enough. But the kind of endurance needed for this race was new to him, tempered by only a few practice sessions on the mesa when he could steal the time.
Forty-five minutes later, she watched with mounting apprehension as number 115, a girl with a bloody right elbow, trotted down the trail, her bike jangling along beside her. “Ouch,” Leona remarked. “We should be seeing young Thomas pretty soon now.”
“Long ago,” Estelle said. The girl stopped by the small cluster of race officials and spectators. One of them took her bike to examine the front wheel while another tended to the elbow, and in that space of time, half a dozen more riders clattered down the trail, far off the pace and content to enjoy the bike ride.
“In a minute,” Estelle said to Leona, and she walked over to the group, one of whom she recognized as Richard Overmeyer, the new principal at the middle school. He glanced up and greeted her.
“Sheriff,” he said. “Amazing event, huh?”
“Yes it is. How many more to go?”
Overmeyer had a clipboard with roster, and it appeared that he had checked off the riders as they passed. He consulted his list. “We’ve seen about a third of ’em,” he said. “Race radio says there’s a big crowd just coming off the rim.” He flashed a smile. “This is a tough course.”
“How about number 58?”
“That’s…” And he scanned the numbers. “Pasquale. One of you guys. He hasn’t come through yet.”
“Can you check up the hill?”
“Sure.” He pulled the small race radio out of the pocket of his jacket. “Benny,” he said, “status check.”
“Go ahead,” a disembodied voice replied.
“Number 58. That’s five eight.”
“Copy. Just a sec.”
“If he abandoned up near the top, it’d be quicker just to hook a ride back down to town on the east side,” Overmeyer said. “A lot of riders will do that. It’s a nice ride up from the village, but once you go by the halfway mark, there ain’t no easy return.” He grinned. “Although I don’t guess I need to tell you that. You guys know this mountain as well as anybody.” He rested the clipboard on the hood of his pickup. “How’s that boy of yours doing?”
“That’s 58,” Estelle said, and Overmeyer shook his head.
“No, I meant your little boy. What, he’s in second grade now?”
“The boys are fine,” Estelle said, wondering in what context news of her son, or sons, had reached the middle school already. “I think they’re up the hill watching the race with their father.”
“Dick, you there?” the voice asked.
“Go ahead.”
“Fifty-eight went through check station three about fifty minutes ago, and through station four at eleven thirty-two.” Estelle glanced at her own watch. At twenty-five minutes after noon, Tom Pasquale should have roared down the hill long ago, becoming a checkmark on the Jackman’s Wells list just ten minutes or so after passing station four. Timers at that point were perched on the rim of the mesa, just before the road started its torturous route down the west mesa face.
She easily pictured half a hundred ways that the young man could have vaulted off into space somewhere, dashing his fancy plastic helmet against the rocks.
“Dick?” the voice asked.
“Go ahead.”
“We just had the last rider check through on stage one,” the voice said, referring to the first mesa check station where paved road turned to dirt. It had taken that competitor three hours just to pedal from downtown Posadas up the paved road to the turn-off, a distance of only twelve miles. “That’s number 111, and he’s abandoning. We’ll clear out here in a bit. You counted 58 yet?”
“Not yet.”
“They’ll be along. We’re hearing that a couple of ’em are working on flat tires. Just a sec.”
They waited patiently, and then the disembodied voice said, “Yeah. Fifty-eight is headed down now. He and a couple others got tangled with some rocks and had to change a front tire. That ravine just below the rim is a real bitch.”