“That would be good.”
“What are you thinking, sir?”
“You’re assuming that I am, Thomas. I’d like a bolt of inspiration out of the night.” I sighed. “Right now, I’m thinking that they dumped the kid’s body somewhere between Cat Mesa and the border crossing. That’s as brilliant as I can be at the moment.”
He turned and looked at the dash clock. “It’s just coming up on eight. Hasn’t even been that many hours since he went missing.”
“Four too many,” I said. “Look, I don’t have a radio in this rig, but you have my cell. Give me a buzz if you need to. I’m going to be working some of the two-tracks down this way.”
“You bet.” He touched his right hand to the brim of his Stetson and then swung the Expedition around in a tight circle, the fat tires loud on the gravel. I stayed parked, watching his tail lights fade down State 56 until he rounded Salinas Mesa. Long after the lights disappeared, I could hear his engine and tires, a distant complaint in the dark.
The ranch road to Gus Prescott’s tired little place intersected the state highway less than a quarter mile from Moore, and I turned onto the two-track, feeling the tires nestle into the powdery dust. For a quarter mile the lane wound north across the prairie, through grass cropped to the nubbins by too many cattle over too many years. A tight left turn presented a steep grade down to the Salinas Arroyo, the graveled crossing now bone dry. I stopped on the downgrade, letting my headlights flood the crossing. If someone had parked a big rig here, they’d done so in the middle of the road, leaving no marks on the shoulders. As I had at Moore, I shut off the engine, letting all the night sounds in. Again, I dialed Patrick’s number.
I knew that he had carried the gadget in one of those nifty little leather holsters on his belt, right beside the holster for his utility knife. Those and the snuff can in his hip pocket made up the only tool kit a cowpuncher needed.
But no harsh electronic melody broke the stillness. It had occurred to me that perhaps the thugs had taken the phone, or smashed it, or any number of other possibilities. But it was worth the try. From far off to the west, a sharp wail of tires on concrete drifted to me. Tom Pasquale’s heavy SUV, probably driven at his usual eighty miles an hour, had crossed the expansion joints and grooved surface of the bridge across the Rio Guijuarro. I restarted my Chevy but left the lights off, drove down into the arroyo and up the other side, bumping across another half mile of prairie until I could see the lights of Prescott’s mobile home.
They didn’t need company, and I didn’t need conversation, so I turned around and retraced my tracks. A mile down State 56, a well traveled lane cut through BLM property, then angled up the face of Salinas Mesa.
That two-track was narrow and infrequently used. Grass, sage, and a host of other opportunists grew in the mounded center. They brushed the bottom of my SUV, fried to aromatic perfection by the hot catalytic converter. In a hundred yards, a wide expanse of undisturbed blow sand paved the tracks. No one had driven this road in the past week. The Chevy bucked as I steered up out of the ruts, and the prairie was so dry the grass clumps crackled and turned to dust under the tires.
The evening wore on as I methodically worked my way southwest, ducking off State 56 at each opportunity, looking for tracks or scuff marks. At the bridges over the Salinas and Guijarro arroyos, I stopped and climbed out of the truck, crossed the guard rail, and then took my time sliding down beside the concrete bridge buttresses. In both cases, the arroyos were dry, and the Guijarro, much wider and inviting, was scarred by four-wheeler tracks.
For long minutes, I stood in the bottom of the Guijarro and waited as the night seeped into my bones, as if the Big Answer was going to roll down the Guijarro like a wall of storm water and engulf me. It didn’t, and I wished that I had worn a heavier jacket. The tight interior of the SUV felt good when I struggled out of the arroyo and slipped inside.
I could remember instances when I’d told my deputies to be patient, to let each of the little puzzle pieces swim into place. Now, I told myself the same thing. The state highway department had begun stockpiling crusher fines in preparation for a paving project, and I swung off the highway and circled behind the uniform mountain of steel gray stone. One of the neighbors had done the same thing, then found a spot near the middle where they would be invisible from highway traffic. They had backed up tight against the pile, dropped their tailgate, and shoveled a truckful. I had no doubt that the theft would be repeated until the low spot in someone’s driveway was nicely graveled.
Off in the distance, I could see the halo of the single parking lot light at the Broken Spur Saloon, the one oasis on this lonely stretch of highway that Victor Sanchez had turned into his private goldmine. Once southwest of the Spur, the highway would curve gently southward, heading up the back flank of the San Cristóbal mountains, those jutting, rugged peaks that formed our own border fence. Over the top of the mountains at Regal Pass and then down to the border crossing-and the mountains could hide countless corpses in their ravines, rock slides, and brush fields.
A mile before the saloon’s parking lot, my headlights picked up the large Forest Service sign, blasted by dozens of bullet holes, that announced Borracho Springs Campground and the Borracho Springs Trail. The campground lay more than two miles off the highway, after Forest Road 122 forked off the county two-track.
I slowed, looking for the narrow turn-off marked on each side by highway reflectors. Both markers were askew, the usual target of careless drivers. The Chevy thumped onto the rough two-track, and I jammed on the brakes, shoving the transmission into park before the tires had stopped rolling.
The flashlight was inadequate, but I didn’t have one of those nifty swiveling spotlights on the SUV. Still, the marks were obvious. The first post, one of those flat things made out of tough fiber, had been caught dead center by someone who’d turned too tightly, dragging a wheel over the lip of the bar ditch and culvert. The scatter of gravel was fresh-that is, it lay on top of a myriad of other tracks. I was no Daniel Boone, but any idiot could see that.
Crossing behind the idling SUV, I inspected the other marker. It was bent and cracked, the indestructible material not so indestructible after all. The tire marks angled across the end of the culvert, dropping down into the ditch and then up and out across the marker. On the way out to the State highway, someone had not minded his turn and hooked the marker, dragging it under the axle.
That’s easy to do on a narrow road, even easier to do with a trailer that didn’t track immediately behind the truck during a turn. I’d done the same thing a number of times, and always felt like an idiot when I did.
Returning to the truck, I sat for a moment, letting my pulse settle a bit. There were dozens of explanations, of course. A hunter, a rancher, a tourist. In and out.
The first mile of the two-track belonged to the county, and they graded it once a year or so. I let the SUV inch along at idle, windows still open, nudging the gas only when a slight grade slowed progress. As I did so, I kept the cell phone on my lap, touching the autodial every hundred yards or so.
The intersection with Forest Road 122 appeared in the wash of my headlights. The fork to the left angled off into the prairie, ending at a windmill and cattle tank. Most of the tracks headed for the campground, and I turned that way, toward the boulder gardens at the base of the mountain.
The campground included two concrete firepits, two Port-a-Potties, and a bullet-riddled Forest Service sign that pointed off toward the rugged country, announcing Pierce Canyon and Borracho Springs, ½ mile. More important, the spot featured a donut of space large enough to swing around even the most awkward rig. I stopped, leaning forward against the steering wheel. The fresh tire cuts swung in an arc around the perimeter of the clearing.