Dead or Alive (11 page)

Several area ranchers with private planes were flying aerial reconnaissance missions with volunteer spotters over the vast tracts of open range and the thousands of square miles of remote high country. Sheriff's posse reserve officers were out on horseback riding into remote canyons, through large, dense cactus flats, and up dry arroyos and draws looking for any sign of recent foot or vehicle passage.

Clayton ran the manhunt from his unit. As time allowed, he knocked on doors in rural areas to ask if anyone had seen Janette Evans's truck, backed up officers doing searches of abandoned or vacant properties, and spelled officers for breaks at the various roadblocks set up around the county. With each passing hour the odds of catching Larson decreased, and the continued massive effort to find him was based solely on a hope and a prayer that he might have gone to ground in Lincoln County.

An hour before dusk on the third day of the search, Clayton stopped at the diner on Capitan's main drag, got a container of coffee to go, returned to his unit, and went over a computer printout that showed all the rural locations that had been canvassed so far. On the slight chance that a hint of Larson's whereabouts might have been missed during the first go-round, Clayton had ordered another heavy concentration of close patrols in areas with remote ranches, vacation cabins, or second homes, at all forest campgrounds, at mountain trailheads, and along river bottomland, especially near Fort Stanton, where there were caves that could be used to hide out.

He'd divided the county into sectors to be covered, and assigned all but one to his deputies. He had taken the Fort Stanton area for himself, and had just spent the last four hours tromping along the Bonita River searching the caves.

Before driving home for dinner—it would be the first meal with the family since Paul Hewitt had been shot and Janette Evans killed—he decide to check the Twin Pines Adventure Bible Camp at the base of the Capitan Mountains. He finished his coffee, drove east on Highway 380 to the county road turnoff, and made his way along the rolling, juniper-studded rangeland to the Bible camp.

When Clayton had first joined the Lincoln County S.O. as a patrol deputy, he'd made it a point to introduce himself to as many rural residents as possible during his work shifts. After his initial visit to the Bible camp, he'd looked up the citation posted on the gate and found that it basically said that Jesus had suffered on the cross to give mankind the opportunity to live a righteous life healed from sin.

A nominal Christian like most Apaches, Clayton wasn't all that comfortable with the notion of a single, all-powerful deity. The traditional religion of the Mescalero was a personal, family, and tribal matter, not a theology to spread hither and yon.

The camp had been quite an eye-opener for Clayton. It operated year-round, but summer was the busy season, when teenagers came to ride horses, shoot rifles, mountain bike, backpack, rock climb, play volleyball, work out in the gym, study the scriptures, and engage in Christian fellowship.

He parked at the camp director's house just as a spirited group of laughing teenagers came down the lane on their way to the worship center. He crossed the porch, knocked on the front door, and watched as the kids passed by, clowning, screeching, and teasing each other in the private world that adolescents inhabit.

The camp director, Reverend Gaylord Wardle, a soft-spoken, middle-aged man with a big, benevolent smile that Clayton had instantly mistrusted at their first meeting, opened the door. He greeted Clayton warmly.

“We're keeping a close watch on our flock,” Wardle added before Clayton could speak. “We're doing head counts four times a day. No campers are allowed to leave the ranch unsupervised. All are present and accounted for, and we've posted the photographs of the fugitive that another officer dropped off to us in every ranch building.”

“That's very good,” Clayton said. “Have you or your staff encountered any strangers on the county road?”

Wardle shook his head. “There has been virtually no traffic. With that murderer still at large I think people are afraid to be out in the mountains on their own, away from civilization. The only vehicles we've seen have belonged to the Forest Service or the neighboring ranches.”

“Call 911 immediately if anyone unknown to you, your staff, or the campers shows up here unannounced.”

“Wouldn't that be overreacting a bit?” Wardle asked. “After all, we do have photographs of the culprit.”

“Appearances can be easily altered,” Clayton countered.

Wardle stroked his chin. “Yes, of course. I didn't think of that.”

Clayton stepped off the porch. “Thank you for your time.”

“Of course. Each day at prayer we ask Jesus to protect all the men and women in law enforcement who are working so hard night and day to keep us safe. Thank you so much for all that you do. Are you any closer to capturing this madman?”

“Not yet,” Clayton replied with a wave as he walked toward his unit.

He drove slowly through camp and out the open gate. On the county road he stopped, got out of his unit, and in the glare of the headlights took a close look at the surface of the road. It had rained in the mountains recently, just enough to wash away evidence of any vehicles traveling into the forest. But there was a set of fresh footprints on the road along with a set of hoofprints headed toward Capitan Gap.

He got a flashlight from his unit and followed the footprints a few yards past the gate, where the tracks left the road and cut through the woods parallel to the Bible camp access road. He got the local phone directory from his unit, paged through it, and dialed Gaylord Wardle's phone number on his cell phone.

“Are you patrolling the access road to the camp?” Clayton asked when Wardle answered.

“Yes,” Wardle replied. “I've assigned nighttime sentry duty to several of my young-adult counselors, just to keep an eye on things, and we're also locking the gate at lights-out.”

“Have you armed the counselors?” Clayton asked, hoping Wardle hadn't been that stupid.

“Yes, with .22 rifles, but for their own protection only. Not to worry, they're all National Rifle Association certified instructors.”

Clayton had no legal authority to order Wardle to disarm his counselors, but that didn't stop him from offering some unsolicited advice. “To avoid a tragic accident, I suggest you lock up all your firearms, Mr. Wardle, including the twenty-twos your sentries are carrying.”

“These young men are certified instructors,” Wardle repeated in a bit of a huff, “and at Twin Pines we teach and practice the right to bear arms.”

“That is your right,” Clayton replied. “But your gun-toting counselors probably won't be much of a match for a killer on the run with nothing to lose.”

“I appreciate your concern,” Wardle said icily. “Good-bye.”

Clayton disconnected, sat in his unit, and studied the computer printout of all the canvasses and field searches that had been conducted since the start of the manhunt. A sheriff's posse member had traversed part of the Capitan wilderness area on horseback, passed through the gap, followed the four-wheel-drive trail to Seven Cabins Canyon, and then ridden cross-county to hook up with the Summit Trail that led to Capitan Peak before doubling back to check the only campground in the area, along Spring Creek.

There had been no sightings of anyone, but Clayton knew a regiment of searchers on foot and horseback could easily miss a person who didn't want to be found in the vast expanse of forest and wilderness in Lincoln County. Although the Forest Service had removed all back-country hikers from the Capitan Mountains wilderness area, and was routinely checking all access points into federal land, Clayton made a note to have a deputy do a daily drive-by of the Bible camp starting tomorrow. Given limited resources, that was the best that could be done. He put the printout aside and started for the Rez, eagerly anticipating a home-cooked dinner with his family.

 

 

Clayton got home just as Grace, Wendell, and Hannah were sitting down to eat. They waited for him while he locked his sidearm in the gun case, washed up, filled his plate with barbecue short ribs and potato salad, and joined them at the table.

During dinner, the children dominated the conversation. Wendell, who attended the Boys and Girls Club several afternoons a week during summer vacation, talked with great excitement about disassembling an old computer that had been donated to the technology class at the club and learning all about what went into making the machine work.

Hannah, who attended a morning arts and crafts program run by volunteers, was having a grand time learning basket making and enlarging her Apache language skills at the same time, which was a requirement for participating. On the table in front of her was a small traylike basket, no more than four inches in circumference, done in the traditional star motif with four tapered points.

“What do you have there?” Clayton asked.

“My teacher said it is well balanced,” Hannah said modestly.

Clayton raised an eyebrow. To the Mescalero, balance was essential to the circle of life, a key concept in the Apache world-view. His daughter's work had been highly praised. “Did she?” he asked.

Hannah nodded solemnly and held the basket out to her father. “It's for you.”

Clayton wiped his mouth, took the basket from his daughter's outstretched hand, and carefully inspected it. Hannah had used split yucca leaves to weave her basket, and for a girl not yet six years old, the workmanship was darn good.

Hannah kicked her feet against the rung of her chair and kept her eyes glued to her father's face as she waited for his reaction.

“It is well balanced,” Clayton finally said, speaking in the Apache language. “My daughter is too generous with her gift.”

Hannah beamed delightedly.

After dinner, Clayton summoned up enough energy to shoot some baskets with Wendell at the hoop he'd installed over the garage door. Under the glare of exterior lights, Wendell faked, dribbled, and ran circles around Clayton, firing layups, jumpers, and hook shots at the basket with reckless abandon.

Taller than the boys on the Rez his age, Wendell had sprouted at least another inch since summer recess and was showing signs of becoming quite a good athlete. He had quickness, speed, and excellent hand-eye coordination. Clayton, who had lettered in cross-country track and basketball in high school, looked forward to the time when he could watch his son compete and cheer him on.

When bedtime came, he tucked the children in and then joined Grace on the couch in the living room.

“Did Wendell question you about the manhunt for Riley Burke's killer?” she asked.

“No. Why?”

“He's been telling Hannah that you're going to catch and scalp the man who murdered Grandfather Kerney's friend and shot the sheriff.”

Clayton grinned. “Why, that little Apache savage. Where did he get that notion?”

“It's not funny, Clayton. I don't like him scaring his little sister. Hannah was very troubled by what he said.”

“I'll talk to him.”

“Are you going back out tonight?”

“I should.”

“You've given every officer in the department a night off except yourself.”

Clayton sighed. “I keep seeing Paul Hewitt lying in his hospital bed staring up at me, unable to move. The look in his eyes haunts me. I just don't want to stop until I catch the scumbag.”

“And scalp him,” Grace added.

“That too.”

“I hope you know that you're not going to remain the chief deputy next January when the new sheriff takes office.”

Clayton nodded. Touting similar clean sweep positions, both candidates had long ago made known their selections for the chief deputy job. If elected, the Republican candidate, Sergeant Rudy Aldrich, planned to appoint a police officer crony from another department, and his Democratic opponent, the Capitan police chief, had tapped a retired state police captain for the job.

“It may happen sooner than that,” he said. “I've heard that the chairman of the county commission is going to call for a vote to have the state revoke Paul's police officer certification based on his permanent incapacity to serve. If that happens, the sheriff's position will be considered vacated, and since the majority of commissioners are Republicans, they'll probably appoint Aldrich as interim sheriff to give him a leg up in the general election.”

“I can't believe they'd do that.”

“Dirty politics in the sheriff's office have been a part of Lincoln County since the days of Billy the Kid.”

“Would you be willing to stay with the department as a lieutenant under Aldrich?”

Clayton covered a long yawn with his hand. “I couldn't work for him. He's an autocratic backstabber and not very bright.”

Grace stood, reached down, and caressed Clayton's cheek. “Why don't you get some sleep?”

“The roadblocks come down tomorrow. I need to get back out there and make the rounds.”

“Rest first.”

Clayton stretched out on the couch. “Maybe a short nap. Wake me in an hour.”

Grace squeezed Clayton's hand. “Okay.”

Ten minutes later she returned from the kitchen to find Clayton on his side sleeping soundly. She had no intention of waking him. Hopefully, he would sleep undisturbed throughout the night. She picked up the book she was reading from the coffee table, turned out the lights, and went quietly down the hall to check on the children before retiring to the bedroom.

 

 

Gregory Dennis Cuddy had attended the Twin Pines Bible Camp for the first time at the age of fourteen. Since then, he'd come back eight consecutive summers. In his third year, he'd joined the staff as a peer counselor. Having just graduated with a bachelor's degree in religious education from Ross Wentworth Bible College, a private evangelical institution in Brownwood, Texas, Greg was now the youth minister assisting Reverend Wardle and teaching Bible study twice a day.