“That’s encouraging. Does he have any favorite night spots?” She shook her head. “Any friends with whom he’s apt to spend the night?” Again a shake of the head. “As far as you know,” I prompted.
“As far as I know, no. And neither Mom or Dad could think of any place he might have gone. It’s not like him to go out without telling someone. Dad went out to check a couple places where they used to hunt together. Mom stayed at home, in case he showed up or called.”
I walked over and looked at the map. “The most likely thing is that he took a header somewhere, Amy. That happens. If a person’s out a couple miles, it doesn’t take much to incapacitate him to a point where he just has to sit, wait, and sweat it out.”
“He’s got a trick knee from football,” Amy offered hopefully.
“There you go, then. He’s probably sitting somewhere under a tree, waiting for us to find him. What was he wearing?”
“Jeans. Some freaky heavy metal rock T-shirt.”
I smiled some encouragement. “Let’s find him right now.” I’m not sure she bought my feigned optimism, but I didn’t give her a chance to brood. “Gayle, call Jim Bergin at the airport and tell him we’re on the way. He gets to fly a county contract. If he’s not there, call him at home and get him up. Amy, let’s go.”
Technically, I was giving the county commissioners about thirty-seven reasons to put me on the rack. Twenty-four hours hadn’t passed, and Scott Salinger wasn’t a missing person yet. Taking a civilian on an air search was another, especially on a county voucher. The list went on, but I wasn’t about to sit around, waiting for answers. Amy Salinger and I were worried for the same reason-people like her brother didn’t simply walk away without a word unless something was very wrong. We drove quickly to the airport.
“He’s on the ball,” I said, pointing as we drove in toward the parking area. “If your brother drove his car off a rough road somewhere, this is the quickest way to find him. You can see a lot from the air in country like this.” On the apron in front of his small office building was Bergin’s Piper Arrow. He had a small cowl flap up and was peering inside. When he heard us grind to a stop on the gravel, he snapped the flap closed and walked quickly around the wing. He stood at the trailing edge, and the cabin door was open.
“Morning, Sheriff. Your dispatcher said not to linger over coffee. That’s a tough request.”
“We appreciate it.”
“Where are we going?”
“Local search.”
“I guessed right, then. Marijuana field tip-off again?”
“Go ahead and get in back, Amy,” I said, and she stepped lithely up on the wing, then squirmed inside the narrow confines of the airplane. “No marijuana field, Jim. Missing person. We’re looking for a blue-and-white Ford Bronco. Probably one occupant. Probably went hunting. My guess is up on the mesa somewhere. Let’s head that way, and then we’ll play it by ear from there.”
Jim Bergin nodded and climbed in. I followed, settling more stiffly than I would have liked. “You got to slam it,” Bergin said after my first abortive attempt with the door. He reached over and whumped it shut, then stretched to push the top lock closed. He twisted around to make sure Amy was secure, glanced my way, and then busied himself with the plane.
“Amy,” I said, turning so she could hear me, “does Scott usually park and then hike some distance, or is he a dyed-in-the-wool four-wheeler?”
“He loves to hike, Sheriff.”
I nodded and watched Bergin. He was reading a plastic laminated check sheet methodically. After some twisting, pumping, and switch-snapping, he unlatched a small plastic window, craned his head to see as far around the airplane as he could, and then yelled, “Clear” so loud I startled.
“Who the hell are you talking to?” I asked.
“You never know,” he said, and grinned. The engine came to life promptly and settled into a cowl-shaking idle. Bergin seemed to be running most of his checks as he taxied out, and then, with a healthy bellow, we were airborne.
Posadas lost a good deal of its significance from the air. Almost immediately, I could look ahead and see the main Consolidated Mining building to the north, up on the rise of the mesa. We passed directly over the lake and cleared the edge of the mesa behind it by no more than five hundred feet. Bergin came back on the power and began a methodical sweep pattern, flying east-west tracks a mile apart.
“You holler if you see a vehicle,” he shouted. Almost immediately, I saw Todd Baker’s county car, stark white against the brown and green of the mesa. I keyed the hand-held radio.
“Three-oh-six, Airborne.”
“Three-oh-six, go ahead.”
“We’re over you now. See anything?”
“Negative, Airborne.”
“Three-oh-six, is it possible to tell fresh tracks?”
“Negative. Too dry.”
“Ten-four. I don’t think there’s much more you can do up here. Head back down and stay central. We may need you later somewhere else.”
Baker acknowledged, and on our next pass up the mesa, we saw the dust from his patrol car spiraling up through the trees. “Do you know where your father went?” I shouted back at Amy. She shook her head and leaned forward.
“He didn’t say.”
“Where did they hunt?”
She twisted her face up in thought. “There’s a bunch of old cattle drinkers north and east, over by Bailey. They used to go out there for dove, things like that. I think they hunted deer over by Las Notchas.” I nodded. Bergin continued his tracking, smooth as silk. The wind was blowing slightly, and I noticed he held the plane in a slight crab. I saw a flash of moving metal and tapped Bergin on the arm, pointing. The Arrow immediately stood on one wing and turned so fast my stomach kept going west. We flashed over the treetops, skewed sideways against the wind, and I had a good view of a startled face looking up from the cab of a green Forest Service truck. If he had a radio, he didn’t have our frequency. I bounced a message back to Gayle by way of 306, and shortly we had confirmation from the Forest Service that their man downstairs hadn’t found an unattended Bronco.
All our efforts were concentrated in just seeing as the mesa fell away toward the open wide valley to the north. The mat of pinon and juniper below us was broken only by an occasional dirt road. Amy Salinger tapped me on the shoulder. “I know he used to come out here once in a while,” she shouted, pointing at the flat hot prairie. “Rabbits.” It was a rabbit heaven, all right. Stock tanks dotted the landscape, with barbed-wire fences stretching out across the thoroughly grazed bunch grass.
The country was a checkerboard of ownership…some private, some Bureau of Land Management, some state reservation. If a person wanted to get out away from everyone and everything, this was the place. But there was no Bronco. Jim Bergin looked over at me and raised an eyebrow.
I turned to Amy. “I hope somebody checked to make sure he didn’t go back out to the football camp.”
She shook her head. “He didn’t. That was our first thought.”
“How about flying back around the edge of the mesa,” I suggested to Bergin. “Right around the edge.” He nodded and the Arrow turned south. I scanned the trees and brush. I tried to climb inside the adolescent mind for answers, but that was a lost cause. I found myself thinking that as long as we didn’t find anything, or hear from anyone, all was to the good. Deputy Todd Baker scotched that wishful thinking just as we rounded the west end of the mesa, with Posadas still hidden by its center bulge. The reception wasn’t great, but he was understandable.
“Airborne, Three-oh-six.”
“Airborne.”
“Airborne, I have a blue-over-white Bronco, Sam Victor one, five, niner, niner. One-half mile east of County Road 43, on the Consolidated access.” Before the deputy had finished, Jim Bergin pushed the throttle forward and we banked sharply toward the east. Todd Baker was one of those officers whose voice on the radio always sounded like a recording. He would have said, “I don’t like cabbage,” in the same tone as “The world is ending.” Only his pregnant wife could get him excited.