As he trotted the horses down the gravel road, loud, shrill whistles blew, the heavy equipment stopped moving, and all was quiet for a moment before an explosion ripped open an exposed coal seam at the far end of the pit. The dust from the blast formed a dense cloud that floated over the valley and coated the stately mountain evergreens above the pit.
Clayton covered his mouth with a handkerchief and rode away from the mine.
All morning long, radio stations in Raton had broadcast half-hour bulletins about the police manhunt for Kerry’s brother. People were warned not to open their doors to strangers, pick up hitchhikers on the roads, or let their children out unsupervised. Listeners also heard that the reward for information leading to Craig’s capture had reached fifty thousand dollars.
On one of the hourly news shows, a newsman interviewed Truman Goodson’s widow, who broke down crying, demanding Craig be brought to justice. Kerry looked up Mrs. Goodson’s address in the phone book and took the fifteen hundred dollars cash he’d held back from his brother to buy a new deer rifle and put it in an envelope without a note or return address, put four first-class stamps on it to make sure it got there, and dropped it in the mailbox on the highway.
On a talk radio show, a trucker called in to say there were dozen of cops concentrated along Highway 555. He cogitated on the idea that they were flooding the high country looking for Craig. Another caller reported a rumor that the police had recovered out on the prairie a fortune in jewels and a pile of cash that Craig had stolen from a bunch of people he’d killed that the cops didn’t know about.
All the police would say officially was that the manhunt for Craig had intensified and the public would be advised as soon as he was apprehended.
Kerry had gone to work in the morning only to be interrupted by a state police investigator accompanied by Everett Dorsey, who for the umpteenth time questioned him about where Craig was heading with his stolen horses and supplies. For the umpteenth time Kerry played dumb.
When he did get to working again, he was bothered by an Albuquerque television news reporter who barged in asking for an interview while a truck with a satellite dish on top of it idled outside. Kerry clammed up, closed the barn doors, and wouldn’t open them until the reporter and his truck left.
When he was finally alone except for the cop on the ranch road watching him, he locked up the garage, walked back to his house, gathered up a coat, a rifle, and some ammunition, and put it all in his truck along with some bottled water, crackers, and a jar of peanut butter in a small backpack. By force of habit, he checked his oil, coolant, and tire pressure before climbing into the cab.
One summer long ago when they were kids, they had been loaned out by the rancher they worked for as summer help to fix up a corral at the Vermejo Resort Ranch. It was on a high-country pasture deep in the forest an hour off a jeep trail by horseback. They’d camped out at the corral for two nights, and in their free time had found a small cave in the mountainside hidden by thick underbrush. It had all kinds of Indian paintings on the walls and ceiling, and from the looks of it nobody had used if for years.
Kerry figured if Craig was really in the high country and the cops were all around him like the radio said, he would head for the cave to hide out because that’s where they had talked about what fun it would be to live like the old-time mountain men.
He would go there to look for him. Maybe he could talk Craig into giving himself up. Then people would stop thinking bad things about him.
He fired up the truck and took off. Half a mile down the highway one of those unmarked state police cars came up behind him, but Kerry didn’t mind. Where he was going, the cop couldn’t follow.
He turned off at the first ranch-road gate along the highway, locked it behind him, and kept going. In his rearview mirror he saw the car stop, turn around, and head back toward town.
As he drove Kerry wondered what had happened to make Craig so bad-sick in the head.
Craig Larson stuck to the trees for cover and followed the highway for several miles in both directions just to check things out. There were cops everywhere watching and waiting for him. He faded deeper into the woods and traveled in the general direction of the Vermejo Resort Ranch. Back when he was a kid, the ranch catered in the fall and winter months to rifle and bow hunters looking to bring home a trophy-size elk, bear, or deer. In the spring, the bird hunters came for the wild turkey season. During the summer, the lodge operated as a dude ranch and nature study center for wealthy vacationers. Guests could go on fake cattle roundups complete with campfire sing-alongs at night, take horseback camping trips into the wilderness, go on guided nature and wildlife hikes, or just stay put at the ranch headquarters, where they could play tennis, swim in the Olympic-size pool, get spa treatments, and drink martinis in the bar. He doubted anything had changed.
Larson had only been there once, years ago, when he and Kerry had fixed up an old corral in a bad state of repair. At the time, the owners were planning to buy a small herd of buffalo and graze them on a broad high valley tucked between two peaks. A sturdy fence had been built to keep the buffalo from straying, and the repaired corral would be used to cull a few head every now and then for slaughter so the lodge could serve up gourmet buffalo steaks, burgers, and roasts to the paying guests.
Larson wondered if he could find his way to that valley. It would be a hell of a lot of fun to stampede the animals and shoot them down just like the old buffalo hunters used to do. He wondered how many he could kill in an hour or so.
As he continued toward the ranch, the canyon narrowed. Staying out of sight of the highway became more and more difficult. Time and again he had to dismount and climb upslope at a steep angle to avoid being seen. About the only traffic on the road was cop cars going back and forth and some dump trucks traveling down the canyon toward Raton.
At the high point of one crest, Larson found himself looking down at a rock quarry where gravel and stone were being mined and loaded on the dump trucks. He eyeballed the grade at the back end of the mine and decide it was too steep to traverse with the horse. But if he backtracked, he would be in sight from the road when he went around the entrance to the quarry. That wouldn’t do.
The Omega wristwatch Larson had inherited from Pettibone by way of murder told him the quarry would probably shut down for the day in another hour. He decided to wait. He found a fairly level area under a big pine tree that had been hit by lightning some time back, and stretched out for a nap. It had been another draining day.
Other than a bad gut stemming partly from an old gunshot wound that had cost him a few feet of his small intestine, a persistent cold and sore throat with postnasal drip, and an accompanying fever, the doctors at the hospital couldn’t find anything wrong with Kerney. They asked questions, had a nurse draw blood, checked his vitals, and tried to keep him overnight for observation. Kerney wasn’t having any of it.
They let him go with a prescription for antibiotics, told him to get some over-the-counter meds to deal with the gut and nasal symptoms, and gave him a referral to see a specialist in Santa Fe for a colonoscopy. The thought of it held little appeal.
After picking up his meds at the hospital pharmacy, Kerney met Frank Vanmeter in the parking lot next to the empty helicopter landing pad.
“Where’s the chopper?” he asked. “I need to get back up the mountain pronto.”
Vanmeter shook his head. “You’re not going anywhere tonight; Chief Baca’s orders. Even if the chief was inclined to let you return to duty, Agent Istee said he wouldn’t be able to meet up with you until morning.”
“Have you and Clayton snookered me?”
“You could say that,” Vanmeter said with a smile as he opened the passenger door to his unit. “I’ll give you a ride to the motel. Take a hot shower, call your wife, get a good night’s sleep, and if you’re better in the morning, maybe Chief Baca will let you return to duty.”
Kerney settled into the seat. “What else did Agent Istee have to say for himself?”
“Seems our boy Larson is leading him on quite a merry chase. He’s doubling back and stopping frequently to cover his tracks. Clayton says he’s no closer to him than he was when you got airlifted from the coal mine. But now
