things are a bit more complicated.”
“How so?” Kerney asked.
“Kerry Larson is on the loose,” Vanmeter replied. “Going where, we don’t know. He left the ranch, passed through a locked pasture gate with a key, and slipped his tail. If he’s not careful, he could get shot by somebody who thinks he’s his brother.”
“Great,” Kerney said as they pulled up to the motel.
In his room, Kerney followed Vanmeter’s advice and took a hot shower before calling Sara.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“In a motel room in Raton.”
“It’s not like you not to call.”
“Sorry about that. I’ve been tracking Larson on horseback with Clayton the last two days.”
“Have you got him?”
“Not yet, but he’s almost surrounded. Does that sound as lame to you as it does to me?”
“I’m trying not to scoff.”
“We’ll get him.”
“You sound all stuffed up and congested. Are you okay?”
“Just the sniffles, nothing more.”
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely.”
“I was on the phone with Grace earlier. She’s worried about Clayton. You do know that Paul Hewitt died in his sleep?”
“We heard. Clayton took it pretty hard, but he’s coping.”
“He needs to call home.”
“I’ll let him know in the morning.”
“Isn’t he with you at the motel?”
“No, he’s camped out on Larson’s trail, and Larson’s hiding somewhere on a resort mountain ranch that stretches to the Colorado state line. We’ve got over two dozen officers up there with him.”
“Patrick and I are leaving in the morning for London.”
“So soon?”
“My emergency leave is up, Kerney. Jack and Irene are driving us to the airport.”
“How are they doing?”
“A little bit better. When you get back to the ranch, Lynette wants to talk to you about taking over the breeding program.”
“Did she say anything more about it?”
“No, but two days ago she found out she’s pregnant.”
“That’s heartbreaking,” Kerney said.
“In a way. But in another way she’s delighted. So are Jack and Irene. When will you be joining us in London?”
“As soon as this gets wrapped up.”
“You’re sure?” Sara asked.
“I’m sure.”
“Hold on, there’s a young man here who wants to talk to you.”
Sara turned the phone over to Patrick, and Kerney spent a few minutes reassuring his son that he’d see him in London. He promised to take him riding in Hyde Park soon after he got home. He said good night to Sara, took his meds, set the alarm clock, and went to bed, determined to be rid of what ailed him by morning.
Clayton made camp at dusk, fed the horses, fixed a big meal, and settled in for the night. He remembered his conversation with Paul Hewitt in the hospital and the comment the sheriff had made about going skydiving without a parachute as soon as he finished his rehab. He couldn’t shake the thought that somehow Sheriff Hewitt had found a way to kill himself. Maybe he’d just willed himself to stop breathing. He wondered what the autopsy would reveal, and if it would ever be made public.
Clayton worried about Kerney until Frank Vanmeter called him on the handheld to say the illness wasn’t serious, and that unless Kerney’s symptoms worsened, he would rejoin the search in the morning. He’d missed Kerney’s company. The last two days with him chasing Larson to hell and gone had been the best time he’d ever spent with his father. The man who only a few short years ago had been a stranger was now a true friend.
He tried to call Grace on his cell phone but couldn’t get a signal. He raised Vanmeter on his handheld and asked him to relay a message to Grace letting her know he was okay.
“Anything else you’d like me to pass on?” Vanmeter asked.
“Tell her I’ll call as soon as I can,” Clayton replied.
“Ten-four.”
Clayton ended the transmission, spread open a map on his sleeping bag, and used a flashlight to study it. Except for one drink in a streambed, the horses had gone without water since afternoon. In the morning, he needed to get them to the nearest water source before setting out on Larson’s trail. He noted the closest water to his position, judged it to be less than two miles away, folded the map, and turned off the flashlight. He’d skip breakfast and get started before daybreak. That way he’d be back on Larson’s trail early.
Where the rangeland ran against the foothills, a Forest Service road cut through a canyon and traveled deep into the mountains before ultimately hooking up to a state road that led to the tiny village of Costilla, just south of the Colorado border. There were some primitive campgrounds along the way, up around Ash Mountain, but for the most part the area was mainly wilderness.
For all his adult years, what Kerry Larson loved to do best with his free time was hunt, and time and again he had gone into the backcountry looking to take his annual buck during deer season. In the last twelve years he’d rarely failed to bring a big one home for the freezer.
Kerry knew every Jeep trail, game trail, old abandoned mining road, footpath, and backcountry trace in those mountains. And by nightfall he was five miles beyond where he’d hidden his truck, sitting next to the bank of a crystal-clear stream that fed into the Vermejo River, wrapped in his coat to keep away the chill, eating peanut butter and crackers for his supper.
He figured to be north of the lodge at the ranch by mid morning, and no more than two hours away on foot from the valley where he and Craig had found that cave so long ago. If Craig wasn’t already there, he would wait for him. And when he came, Kerry would make him give himself up to the police.
Kerry washed down his peanut butter and crackers with some water, curled up on a bed of pine needles he’d fashioned next to the streambed, and let the sound of rushing water lull him to sleep.
Craig Larson slept well but woke hungry. Hiking up and down ravines, canyons, and mountains, sometimes having to almost drag his horse to come along behind him, had given him quite an appetite. He checked the supply of food he’d taken from the pantry at the line camp in Dawson where Truman Goodson had caught his bullet. He was down to one can of sardines. He ate it quickly and saddled his horse. It was time to get more provisions, and that meant paying a visit to the ranch lodge. But first, he needed to find water and grass for the horse.
After two hours of difficult riding over rocky ground and through dense tree cover, Larson broke clear into a long finger-like meadow ringed by tall pines, causing a startled doe and her fawn to bolt for the woods. He dismounted and walked the horse to a stream where they both drank before he turned the animal loose to graze on the tall grass.
Larson wasn’t exactly sure of his location, but he knew he was beyond the coal mine and the gravel pit and more or less parallel to the pavement that dead-ended at the ranch. Eventually he would top out on a summit that overlooked the valley where the lodge nestled. Once there, he’d stop and make a plan on how to conduct his attack.
