“Lights,” I said. “Let’s make some noise.”
Torrez pulled on the lights, and the sand and cholla and creosote bushes sprang into stark life, softened here and there by the remains of bunchgrass.
“And I want them to know it’s us,” I said and reached down and threw the little toggle switch that turned on the light bar on top of the Bronco. “Even if he’s just shooting at coyotes.”
Bob Torrez’s reply to that wishful thinking was to trigger the electric release for the shotgun that rode in the center vertical rack. I pulled the weapon out and set the butt on the floor between my feet.
I was a fair enough shot if the sun was just right and the ground under my feet was level, if the target was stapled into position downrange and the wind wasn’t blowing, if I had remembered the correct pair of glasses.
Not one of those conditions was in play just then, so a shotgun filled with five rounds of double-ought buck was a comfort. But what made my skin crawl was considering where those five, quickly fired rounds had gone.
“No one shot back,” I said aloud. Torrez didn’t answer.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
We reached the fork in the two-track where one path led steeply up a graveled grade, beaten smooth by the constant traffic to and from the crash site.
The right-hand fork angled away sharply, following the bottom of what at one time had been a fair-sized arroyo. The sides steepened, dotted here and there with stumpy growth and cacti. The trail surface was packed gravel. In a heavy rain, the place would be a certain trap as run off from a thousand acres of bunchgrass prairie funneled down the limestone rocks and collected.
Torrez reached out and turned the handle of the spotlight, but we didn’t need it. The confines of the arroyo focused the glare of the headlights, and the winking of the red and blue lights on top of the Bronco bounced off the rocks and sand in surrealistic patterns.
“The area that Boyd uses for a backstop is just around the next bend or so,” Torrez said quietly. The Bronco’s back tires spun in the loose sand and we lunged this way and that against the ruts in the arroyo bottom. As the engine labored, Torrez reached out and tapped the four-wheel-drive button on the dash.
We rounded the corner in a spray of gravel and damn near crashed into Johnny Boyd’s pickup truck, parked squarely in the middle of the tracks. With no time to stop and a violent wrench of the wheel, Torrez took the high ground. We slid sideways and I heard a loud bang as the left rear hit something far more solid than sand. We jolted to a stop crosswise in the arroyo, squarely in front of Boyd’s truck, its headlights silhouetting us in grand style.
“Not good,” Torrez muttered, and I damn near hit my head on the dash as he slammed the truck into reverse and the Bronco shot backward. He spun the wheel and turned on the spotlight at the same time, so that three powerful lights illuminated the scene ahead of us.
Hocker’s Suburban looked huge and black in the harsh light. Sergeant Mitchell’s unit was parked beside it.
Twenty yards in front of us, frozen in place by the drama of our charging, sliding entrance, stood Johnny Boyd. He held what looked like a short, black weapon. Off to the right were three other figures—two looking as if they were in a passionate embrace, and a third sitting awkwardly in the rough gravel.
“What the hell is this?” I said and grabbed for the door handle.
Bob Torrez was far faster, far more agile, than I. In the time it took me to open the door and work both myself and the shotgun out of the Bronco, he was braced against the driver’s-side door, handgun steady against the Bronco’s windshield post.
“Put down the weapon, Johnny,” he bellowed. I hefted the shotgun, and in the awkward, harsh light, I could see that Boyd was turned with the muzzle of the weapon facing away from us. He didn’t move.
“Eddie, are you all right?” I shouted.
By then, I could make out who was who, and evidently Mitchell wasn’t about to break his embrace with Neil Costace. The two of them were plastered against the front fender of Mitchell’s vehicle, with the FBI agent bent backward until his head was touching the windshield wiper.
“We’re just fine,” I heard him say matter-of-factly. “Tell that asshole to put down the rifle.”
I pumped the shotgun, the mechanical racking loud and deadly on that soft night air. “Johnny, do as he says.”
“I’m not going to put his in the dirt,” he said, and for an instant, I couldn’t believe what I’d heard.
“You what?”
“I said I’m not putting this weapon down in the dirt. Tell those two clumsy morons to stand off, and we’ll see.”
The tone of his voice saved his life. I couldn’t guess what the circumstances were that had led to this strange tableau, but Eddie Mitchell was busy restraining one of the agents, not the rancher. On top of that, Mitchell’s back was turned to Boyd.
“Bring that weapon over here.” I snapped out the order just loud enough for him to comfortably hear me. “Put it on the hood of the vehicle.”
Boyd thought about that for a minute, then turned his head toward Mitchell and Costace. “Have you got ahold of him?”
“We’re fine,” Mitchell said.
And then, for the first time, I heard Neil Costace’s voice, almost conversational. “Goddam it, all right,” he said, as if he’d just lost a long-standing argument.
“Don’t get itchy,” Boyd muttered, and he held the weapon by its fore end over his head with one hand and walked toward us. I lowered the barrel of the shotgun, but Torrez’s weapon never wavered. The rancher reached our unit and slowly lowered the rifle and laid it on the hood.
“Back off,” I said, and he did so, standing easily ten feet away, hands on his hips. Torrez moved quickly and secured the rifle. It was one of those small rifles patterned after the larger military M-14, identical to those mounted in each one of our department vehicles. He popped the clip and racked the bolt back in one swift motion. A live round clattered against the hood of the truck and slid off into the gravel.
“Put that thing in the truck,” I said. “Now, what the hell is going on here?”
“Why don’t you ask those stupid sons a bitches?” Boyd muttered and at the same time, he fished a cigarette out of his shirt pocket.
Eddie Mitchell took a step backward, and Neil Costace shook himself as if his joints were all out of place. He held out his hands, fingers spread and palms toward the deputy, then he knelt beside Walter Hocker. The only portion of the conversation I could hear was the cursing.
I stepped around the door and approached Boyd. He stretched out his arms, wrist to wrist, in the voluntary “cuff me” position.
Torrez started to oblige, but I waved him off. In the gleam of the lights, I could see the brassy glint of live rounds still in the assault rifle’s clip. If Johnny Boyd had wanted to clean house, he could have done so long before this.
“Stay here,” I told him, and trudged across the gravel toward the other men.
Walter Hocker was on the ground, his right leg stretched out in front of him, the other twisted under his rump. He was leaning on his left elbow, trying to cradle his right arm. His eyes were partly closed, and as I approached, he opened them and grimaced at me.
“What happened to you?” I asked. There was no blood pumping out onto the sand, so he obviously hadn’t been shot. But his right wrist wasn’t going in the direction it was supposed to.
“Ohhhh,” he said, a long heartfelt exhalation of breath that was part groan, part general commentary on the state of things.
“Sir,” Sergeant Mitchell said, “this all needs some explaining.”
“I can see that. Why don’t you give him a hand up?”
“Nah,” Hocker said immediately and leaned over even farther as if to protect himself from further assault.
“Bob,” I shouted over my shoulder, “call an ambulance.” I knelt down, holding the shotgun’s butt in the sand. Hocker was biting his lip, his eyes now closed.
“Mr. Boyd fir
ed off a string of rounds,” Mitchell said. “We weren’t expecting it. Agent Hocker jumped back and tripped. I think he broke his leg. I heard it pop.”
“My hip,” Hocker said through clenched teeth. “It’s my hip, goddam it.”
I reached out a hand and touched Hocker’s right hand. He flinched backward. “That’s broken,” I said. “Even I can see that. How did it happen?”
“I kicked him,” Mitchell said.
I looked up sharply, first at him and then at Costace. With a grunt, I pushed myself to my feet and stepped over so that I was practically nose to nose with Eddie Mitchell.
“Suppose that I didn’t have to pry this out of you one sentence at a time. Tell me what the hell happened.”
“Mr. Boyd fired a string of shots that startled us. He fired into the bank over there.” Mitchell pointed off to his right. “Agent Hocker startled, twisted, and fell backward and in the process, broke his hip. When that happened, I was the only person actually facing Mr. Boyd. I knew that he had not fired at us, but apparently Agent Hocker thought that he had. Apparently Agent Hocker thought that he had been hit, and apparently Agent Costace thought the same thing. Agent Hocker drew his service automatic and was about to return fire. I was sure that at such short distance, he would hit Mr. Boyd. I didn’t have time for anything else, so I lashed out with my foot. The toe of my boot struck Agent Hocker’s wrist and knocked the weapon out of his hand.”
Mitchell took a breath. “Apparently, in the heat of things, Agent Costace mistakenly thought that both Boyd and myself were assaulting Agent Hocker and himself. He was in the process of drawing his own weapon when I tackled him. We struggled and I was able to successfully pin Agent Costace against the side of the Bronco.” Mitchell stopped again and a faint grin twitched the corners of his mouth. “And then you and Sergeant Torrez arrived.” He paused again. “And that’s what happened, sir.”
I suppressed the urge to break out in laughter only because Hocker was still on the ground, his breath coming in little seething gasps between clenched teeth.
“Just apparently wonderful,” I said and looked across at Neil Costace. I’d known him for a long time and could read from the expression on his face that there was no point in asking for his version of the events.
“Let me find Walt’s handgun,” he said instead.
I stalked over to Boyd and glared at him. He drew on the cigarette, not the least bit impressed. “And what was the point of firing that weapon?”
“And what was the point of them being out here in the middle of the night snooping around my private property?”
“Johnny…” I started to say, but I was so angry that the words just sputtered into silence.
The rancher shrugged and gestured toward his pickup truck. “They were all excited about finding samples of my brass. So I told ’em I had some in the truck, if that’s what they wanted. I guess they thought I meant empties. I’d brought the little two-twenty-three from the house.” He nodded at the weapon that Torrez had taken. “So I took the rifle out of the gun rack and fired off a few rounds.” He shrugged again. “I guess they weren’t ready for that. If they want the gun, you’ve got it.”
“You guess,” I said. “You’re damn lucky you weren’t killed.”
“So are they,” Boyd said evenly. “If your deputy hadn’t been here, there’s no telling which way this might have gone.”
I pumped the shell out of the shotgun and put the weapon back in the vehicle. “The ambulance is en route,” Torrez said, and I nodded.
“Let’s see if we can make Hocker any more comfortable while we wait,” I said.
I could hear a siren far in the distance, but it would take the softly sprung ambulance a while to reach us—and I didn’t envy Hocker his ride back into town. Costace had retrieved Hocker’s gun, and he stood beside the vehicle with it in his hand, looking disgusted.
“Did you find the brass you wanted?” I asked and Costace nodded.
“I showed Mr. Boyd one of the samples that you collected over at the windmill. He said it was probably his. He says the last time they were out here shooting the two-twenty-three was during his son’s spring break from college.”
“And he doesn’t know how the casings got there, does he?” I said.
“No, he doesn’t.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Johnny Boyd didn’t move an inch from his spot by the hood of the Bronco. He leaned against the vehicle patiently, and the only sign of nerves was his lighting of one cigarette after another. We made Walter Hocker as comfortable as anyone with a fractured hip and wrist could be, and in due course, the ambulance winked its way into the narrow canyon.
When it left, I took Eddie Mitchell by the elbow. “Well, that’s that,” I said. “Let’s have us a little conference over at my unit.” Neil Costace fell in step with Bob Torrez, and I let them go ahead, my hand still on Mitchell’s arm. I pulled him to a stop.
“I’m proud of you, you know,” I said quietly. “I’m not sure you had to kick quite so hard, but that was quick thinking.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“We could have had a real tragedy.”
Mitchell nodded and looked uncomfortable.
I grinned. “You think you’re going to get this kind of excitement working for Burkhalter?” A ghost of surprise flicked across Mitchell’s face. “He’s content, by the way, to wait until this whole mess is wrapped up before you sign on with him.”
“That’s good, sir.”
“For us, it is. I’m hoping you’ll reconsider, of course. But I’ll understand if you don’t.” I patted his arm once more. “I want to show you something.”
We joined the others, and Johnny Boyd lit his tenth cigarette.
“Now that we’ve had our fun for the evening, there’re two things I want to ask you, Johnny,” I said as I walked around to the passenger door of the Bronco. I reached inside and pulled out the tangled piece of aluminum that included the letters of the Bonanza’s registration. I held it so that the headlights caught it. “What do you suppose this is?”
Boyd reached out and took the crumpled metal in both hands, turning it this way and that. “From the airplane, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
He tapped the aluminum. “Registration letters. What else am I looking at?”
“That’s what I’m asking you.”
He frowned, the smoke from the cigarette curling up into his eyes. He cocked his head and studied the metal. “That’s all I see.”
“Those letters mean anything to you?”
He looked up at me askance. “No. Should they?”
“Nothing at all?”
This time he removed the cigarette and turned a bit so that more light bounced off the white metal. “Well, I guess I could tell that this airplane wasn’t United States registry. We use numbers. Canada, Britain, some of the others use all letters like this. And you said Holman’s brother-in-law was from Canada, so I guess I’m not surprised.”
“How do you happen to know that?”
“Know what, Sheriff?”
“That many foreign aircraft carry only lettering. No numbers.”
Johnny Boyd laughed shortly. “When my son was growing up, we had so damn many model airplanes hanging from the ceiling and parked from every flat surface that his mother about had a conniption every time he’d bring home another one. That and buying one flying magazine after another. “A man’s bound to learn a little something from all that.”
“So if you’d seen this aircraft flying low overhead, your first reaction would be what?”
“Just what do you want to know, Sheriff?”
“I want to know what your first reaction would be.”
“I’d wonder how the hell some Canuck got himself lost in New Mexico.” He drew deeply on his cigarette. “And if I saw him crash into a mountain, I’d call you and let you sort it all out.”
“You wouldn’t think it might be a state aircraft?”
“Why would I think th
at?”
“Unusual lettering?”
“It’s not unusual, Sheriff. It’s Canadian.”
“But you didn’t know that until after the fact.”
Boyd took the cigarette out of his mouth and carefully ground it out on his boot heel, then reached for another. Patiently, as if he were issuing a critical set of instructions, he said, “Sheriff, do you remember a month ago when the governor stopped in Posadas? He and the highway commissioner flew into the Posadas airport. You remember that? Then they went to some luncheon?”
“I remember. Sheriff Holman attended. I didn’t.”
“That was a state plane that brought them. You want to know the registration? I was driving up the highway when they took off, and I watched ’em because it’s kind of a pretty airplane. A jetprop Commander. And the registration is right on the tail.”
“And you remember it?”
“One-four-four NM.” He lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply. “With the N that they carry coming first. N-one-four-four New Mexico. Don’t take my word. Hell, no one else does. Check it out. N-one-four-four New Mexico.”
I put the torn piece of aluminum back in the Bronco. The other officers stood by silently, waiting for some cue from me. “Johnny,” I said, “did George Payton call you tonight?”
As if the word “call” was a prompt, the phone on the front seat chirped. Torrez reached in a long arm and answered it. He listened for a moment, then said, “No. Everyone else is just fine. Tell her that he’ll be home in a few minutes. The sheriff is talking to him just now.”
He switched off and tossed the phone back on the seat. “Your wife called the office,” he said to Boyd. “She heard shots and was worried.”
Boyd nodded and turned his attention back to me. “Yes, George called me.”
“Did he tell you that federal agents had been at his shop inquiring about your firearms collection?”
“Yes.”
“He called me first, to ask if he should cooperate,” I said. “I told him that he should.”
“What’s your point?”
Out of Season Page 21