Dead or Alive
Page 23
Throughout the morning, Craig Larson stayed lost until the distant sounds of heavy machinery reached him in the thin mountain air. He followed the sound for hours, winding his way up and down canyons and across the ravines wet with standing pools of murky rainwater from yesterday’s storm. He let his horse drink from them before gulping down the gritty water himself, and although it smelled like burned ash from the recent forest fire and tasted muddy, it didn’t seem to do him any harm. He stayed under the trees with his jittery horse for a good half hour, upwind of an adult bear wallowing in a large pool of water, until it ambled away.
He climbed toward the top of the next ridgeline as the growing sound of engines told him that human activity was close at hand. On the crest, he stayed hidden and looked down into a large valley at an open-pit coal mining operation. It had cut into the earth a good hundred and fifty feet below the surface soil and shale-like substrate. He guessed a good thousand acres were being actively mined while another thousand had been reclaimed with native grasses and shrubs.
There were two monster electric shovels loading ore onto gigantic trucks, and at the far end of the pit, massive front-end loaders were excavating coal from what looked like a blast area. A gravel road left the valley in a direction Larson reckoned hooked up somewhere with the railroad spur. He was glad to be well north of it.
He climbed down from his horse, tied the reins on a tree branch, got some canned food out, and ate it for lunch as he watched the machines and considered his next move. Above him, a single-engine airplane dipped into the valley and flew back and forth across the mining operation.
Finished with his food, he threw the empty tin away, grabbed the Weatherby out of the saddle scabbard, and for the fun of it, sighted the weapon on the big, low-moving electric shovels, the front-end loaders, and the trucks hauling the coal. He zeroed in on the shovel operators, wondering if he could take them out. With the distance to the targets, the constant movement of the machines, and the breezes that were kicking up in the thin mountain air, it would be awesome marksmanship.
Larson decided not to bother. He put the Weatherby away and set out to ride the perimeter of the valley mine under the tree cover. Hopefully, something would turn up to give him a sense of what to do or where to go next.
As he circled, his view of the valley expanded to include another part of the operation where the coal was crushed before being transported to the railhead. He continued the loop, riding for a good hour before arriving on the opposite ridgeline overlooking the valley. From there he headed north until the sound of rubber on pavement made him get out of the saddle.
He tied off his horse to a tree and walked through the forest until he could see a strip of blacktop. It had to be the highway that ran from Raton, past the coal mines and up to the Vermejo Resort Ranch and its fancy lodge, where millionaires came to hunt big game during the day and drink martinis at the bar at night.
He spotted a state police car parked at the side of the road. Within minutes another black-and-white passed by heading toward Raton. He walked on until he could see the access road to the mine, where a state cop car was parked next to a black SUV. A state police officer and a security guard stood talking between the vehicles.
Larson returned to his horse. The cops had figured out exactly where he planned to go and had set a trap for him. There were probably more stationed along the highway waiting to cut him off, with a posse of cops likely coming up behind him on horseback. It was time to make a new plan.
He heard the repetitive thud of a chopper overhead coming up the narrow canyon the highway snaked through. More cops most likely. In his mind it sounded like stop the cops being played over and over again.
That’s what he needed to do, but he had to be smart about it. Run and gun, gun and run, might be the best way. Take a cop out and move on. Then take another and another and another. Make them pay to the max for all the shit they’d put him through. But first, he needed to scope out what he was up against before he pulled the trigger on the first one.
He mounted up and disappeared into the forest, thinking he and not the cops would call the shots.
After hours of riding, Clayton and Kerney cut Larson’s trail at a wildfire burn area that had destroyed a good four thousand acres of timber, sterilized the thin layer of topsoil, and exposed the washed gray granite, hardened quartz, and sandstone rock of the mountainside. They found a disturbed area where Larson had camped overnight, called it in, and kept moving, dropping into the ravine where tracks and sign showed Larson had paused to drink. In the next ravine, they found fresh bear scat and recent hoofprints that traveled even higher, until they topped out on a crest that overlooked an huge open-pit coal mine.
Kerney and Clayton looked down at the raw, gaping wound in the land.
“Well, we all like our cars and electric lights, I guess,” Clayton said.
“Don’t we, though,” Kerney replied, thinking resource extraction could be a whole lot less wasteful. “At least they’re making an effort to reclaim the land. That didn’t use to happen.”
Clayton grunted and moved off to inspect the area for more signs of Larson. Kerney’s gut wrenched and he scurried into the woods and promptly lost all the food in his stomach. Most of the morning he’d been feeling all right, but in the last hour or so the sweats and the chills had returned along with a gut that felt like it was about to explode.
“I’ve called in a chopper to take you to Raton to be looked at,” Clayton said when Kerney returned to the horses.
“I’m not going.”
“Don’t be stubborn. You’re sick. We’ll drop down into the mine so the chopper can pick you up.”
“I don’t want you going up against Larson alone,” Kerney said.
“I won’t be. We’ve got a picket line of uniforms spread out along the length of the highway, so I’ve got all the backup I need.”
“Uniforms sitting in squad cars aren’t the same as someone in the saddle next to you.”
“I’ll be careful,” Clayton said.
Kerney shook his head in protest. “I’m staying.”
“You’re going,” Clayton said flatly. “A sick partner doesn’t do me any good and could get us both killed.”
Clayton was right and Kerney knew it. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll get myself checked out.”
They picked their way carefully down to a cut that took them to a gravel road where monster ore trucks rumbled by, kicking up dust so thick it stung the eyes.
“You know,” Clayton yelled over the sound of a passing truck, “if you eat food during a storm supposedly you either lose your teeth before you get old or your stomach stays cranky.”
“Who told you that?” Kerney yelled back.
“Moses Kaywaykla, my uncle by marriage. In fact, if you’re eating and there’s a lightning flash, you’re supposed to spit the food out right away.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“To further your continuing education about Mescalero traditions and beliefs.”
“Oh, and I just thought you were telling me I had a cranky stomach to make me feel better.”
“Your sarcasm is duly noted. Actually, I thought it would take your mind off it.”
Kerney laughed in spite of himself. Up ahead, a state police helicopter came over the tree line and landed on reclaimed flats planted in clover, saltbush, and side oats grama grass.
Clayton broke the roan gelding into a canter and Kerney followed suit on his buckskin, the packhorses loping behind. They reached the chopper to find a lady paramedic standing by. She ordered Kerney off his horse, checked his pulse, listened to his heart and lungs, took his temperature and blood pressure, prodded his gut with her fingers, and told him to get in the chopper.
Kerney hesitated. “What’s the verdict?”
“Don’t know,” the paramedic replied with a smile. “Your heart’s strong and your blood pressure is okay. Maybe food poisoning or some intestinal bug, but we’ll let the doctors decide.”
“Negative,” Vanmeter replied.
“That means he’s probably discovered we’ve been waiting for him and he’s either doing an end run or moving laterally. I’m going back to pick up his trail.”
“You shouldn’t do it on your own,” Vanmeter cautioned.
“I’ll keep my distance,” Clayton replied, lying through his teeth.
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 t
o 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 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.”