Hermit's Peak (3 page)

Dale stretched his back to ease the tightness from the long drive and looked around. Off in the distance, he could see the outline of Hermit's Peak, two massive summits that stood like the hindquarters of a prehistoric animal. His gaze traveled to some smaller button-nose peaks that dipped off at the front end, and suddenly Hermit's
Peak looked like an upturned face with a gaping mouth staring into the sky.

He switched his gaze to Kerney and found him saddled and mounted.

“Let's get going,” Kerney said.

“Slow down, cowboy.”

“Slow down, shit,” Kerney said with a grin. “I want to cover it all before sundown. Saddle up.”

Dale grinned back. It had been a long time since he'd seen Kerney look so damn happy.

 • • • 

An old ranch road petered out at the base of the mesa where a stock trail began, winding through a dense thicket of juniper and piñon pine trees. Halfway up the trail got rocky, and the horses picked their way carefully through loose stones and small boulders. They hit the top and encountered a stand of young ponderosas that gradually thickened into a dense climax forest. Kerney turned to look at the rolling valley below. His eyes followed the cuts defining the deep running streams that converged in the village of San Geronimo. Nestled in a shallow depression, the village was mostly in ruins, kept barely alive by the few ranching families who still lived there. The church stood, as did a vacant school and a few homes. But the remaining buildings were weathered empty shells surrounded by piles of hand-cut stone rubble.

The hills beyond the village cut off from view all but the uppermost third of Hermit's Peak, and the mountain looked like two giant loaves of homemade bread set out to cool on a windowsill.

“Every time I look at that mountain, it seems different,” Kerney said.

“You're not wrong about that,” Dale said, buttoning his jacket. A broad stream of clouds blocked the sun and chilled down the air. “It will be the last nice view we have if these woodlands don't give way to some open country pretty soon.”

“You don't like fighting your way through the brush?”

“Nope. Reminds me too much of work.”

“Pray for open country,” Kerney said.

They came out of the trees a thousand yards from the ridge line, where the ponderosas dwindled away and grassland took over. A barbed-wire fence barred their passage and they followed it, looking for an opening.

As he rode, Kerney eyed the wide mesa. There were small stands of piñon and juniper trees sprinkled over the land and folded rock outcroppings along the edges of shallow depressions. The land sloped westward, and several wandering arroyos had cut through the thin layer of soil down to the rock plate before draining into intermittent catchment basins.

From the map Erma's lawyer and executor, a man named Milton Lynch, had supplied, Kerney knew there was no live water on the mesa. But two windmills tapped groundwater, and Kerney was eager to find them. If they were in working order, it would ease the expense of putting cattle on the land.

They entered the grassland through an old cedar pole gate, and moved down an arroyo into a dry basin. The open range, Kerney guessed, took up four thousand acres of the ten section tract, and showed no sign of
recent use. He figured the neighboring rancher who leased the grazing rights had decided to rest the land for a season or two.

As they came out of the basin, Kerney caught sight of a windmill and stock tank. A black dog with brown stockings limped away from a grove of trees, carrying something in its mouth. Even from a good distance away, the dog looked skinny under its thickly matted fur.

It heard the horses, stopped, turned, and retreated in the direction of the trees. Kerney couldn't quite make out the object in the dog's mouth. As he closed in for a closer look the dog froze, dropped the object, skirted around Soldier, and scampered for cover, yelping in pain as it ran.

“That pooch isn't doing too well,” Dale said.

“It doesn't seem so,” Kerney said as he broke Soldier into a trot toward the object on the ground. He looked down, fully expecting to see a dead rabbit. It was a chewed-up athletic shoe.

He dismounted and retrieved it. It carried a name brand and seemed to be sized to fit a woman. The faded label inside the tongue, barely readable, confirmed it.

Dale caught up, looked at the shoe in Kerney's hand, and shook his head. “That dog sure isn't much of a hunter. A retriever, maybe. Do you want to leave it here and move on?”

“No, it's hurt. Maybe it got dumped or left behind by campers. We'll round it up.”

As Kerney started to remount the dog broke cover, carrying another shoe, moving as quickly as the lame hind leg allowed.

Kerney took his boot out of the stirrup, looked up at Dale, made a face, and shook his head.

“Now what?” Dale asked.

“A dog carrying one shoe I'd call mildly curious. But a dog with two shoes piques my interest.”

Dale laughed. “Maybe it just likes to collect shoes.”

“Maybe.” Kerney looked around the empty mesa. “But from where?”

“Good point.”

“Think you can fetch that dog for me?” Kerney asked.

“Sure thing,” Dale said, reaching for his rope.

“Bring the shoe back with you.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Check out that stand of trees.”

“Don't you ever stop thinking like a cop?” Dale asked as he broke Pancho into a trot.

“Probably not.”

Kerney walked Soldier to a lone juniper at the edge of the grove, tied him off, looked into the shadows, and saw nothing. He pushed his way through some low branches, and knelt down on a thick mound of needles, letting his eyes adjust to the dim light. The dog had dug out a small hollow at the base of a piñon tree. Kerney's eye caught a touch of color in the loose dirt. Using a twig, he brushed away the dirt and uncovered a comb. He backed away and scanned the ground of the surrounding trees. He saw a scrap of fabric that looked like denim. Next to it was a half-buried bone, with a human foot still attached.

Kerney had seen enough. Whatever else there was to be found, he would leave to a crime scene unit and the
District State Police Office in Las Vegas. He came out of the grove as Dale rode up, carrying the dog over his saddle.

“Find anything?” Dale asked, as he handed Kerney the shoe. It matched the first one.

“The shoes were left here,” Kerney replied, “with some human bones.”

“No joke?”

“No joke.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I left my cell phone in your truck. We'll head back and call the district office.”

“What about the dog? It's a neutered male. I make him to be about five or six years old. He needs a meal bad and he has a gimpy hip.”

Kerney looked at the mutt. Mostly black, with brown markings around the eyes that matched his stockings, he had flecks of gray on his chest and a salt-and-pepper tail. He was hairy, filthy, skinny, and scared.

“I'll keep him,” Kerney said impulsively.

“You need to give him water, food, and a name,” Dale said.

“I'll call him Shoe, for now,” Kerney said, as he opened his saddlebags and reached for one of the sandwiches he had packed for lunch.

He handed it to Dale and the dog wolfed it down. Dale cupped his hands and Kerney poured water from his canteen into them. Shoe lapped it up and Kerney gave him more.

He untied Soldier's reins and mounted up.

Dale held Shoe out to him. “He's your dog. You might as well get used to his smell.”

Kerney sided Soldier over to Dale, took the dog, put him across the saddle, sniffed, and wrinkled his nose. “We'll head to that stock tank and clean him up a bit before we turn back.”

“Good idea,” Dale said.

“We should still have part of the day to explore after things settle down.”

“What happens next?”

“Officers and a crime scene unit will come out and search the area.”

“Damn, I'd like to see that.”

“I'm sure you will.”

“You sound grumpy.”

“This is not the way I wanted to spend my weekend.”

“Do you think you've got a murder on your hands?”

“I always think the worst when people turn up dead.”

“Maybe you should call this place Skeleton Mesa.”

“That's cute, Dale.”

Dale shrugged his shoulders. “Just a suggestion. I think that dog likes you.”

Shivers ran through the dog as it laid across the saddle. Kerney could feel it breathing heavily. He ran his hand over the dog's back to calm him and scratched his ears. The dog looked at him with serious eyes. “Not yet. But I think he will.”

Kerney spent more time than he liked briefing the two officers who showed up at the old cabin. Russell Thorpe, the rookie patrolman who responded to Kerney's phone call, had brought along his field training supervisor. Thorpe was a new academy graduate in his last week of on-the-job training before being released for independent patrol.

Six feet tall, with a weight lifter's build and a boyish face, Thorpe nervously questioned Kerney under the watchful eye of Sgt. Gabriel Gonzales. Kerney figured that Gonzales had warned him not to screw up in front of the deputy chief.

After double-checking Kerney's statement for accuracy, Thorpe bagged the two sneakers as evidence and went to the patrol unit to call for a response team. Sergeant Gonzales tagged along to oversee, and stood by the open door of the patrol car while Thorpe transmitted radio messages.

Kerney found Dale stretched out on the seat of his
truck, snoozing. In the back of the extended cab, Shoe was curled up in a ball. He fashioned a collar and leash out of some rope, put the collar around Shoe's neck, got the dog out of the truck, and shook Dale awake.

“Got any flea powder?” he asked when Dale sat up.

“In the tool box,” Dale said. “There's a bottle of equine spray.”

“That will do.”

Kerney found the bottle, tied Shoe to the front bumper, and began spraying. Fleas started jumping off the dog.

“Chief.”

Kerney turned to face Sgt. Gabe Gonzales. Twenty years on the force had set deep creases on either side of the sergeant's face. His eyebrows turned up at the corners of his eyes, and a stubby chin gave him a squared-off, serious cast.

“We'll have a helicopter here in thirty minutes with a crime scene unit,” Gonzales said.

“Good enough.”

Kerney rolled Shoe on his back and squirted flea spray on his stomach. The dog started scratching busily.

Gabe eyed the dog's performance. “You might want to spray the inside of the truck, while you're at it,” he suggested.

“Good idea,” Kerney said. “Did your rookie do his job right?”

Gonzales smiled. “By the numbers. He'll be a good one.”

“Pass on my compliments,” Kerney said.

Gonzales smiled and nodded. “I'll do that, Chief. Do you want a copy of the field report sent directly to you?”

“You bet,” Kerney said.

Gonzales went back to watch over his rookie, and Kerney finished up with the dog. He fed him some lunch meat from the cooler, put him in the horse trailer, and then sprayed the inside of the truck. He put a basin of fresh water in with the dog and added a sock. Shoe took the sock in his mouth, shook it, wagged his tail, and sat, looking pleased with his new possession.

“Are you ready?” Kerney asked. He turned to find Dale holding out Soldier's reins and grinning. “What are you smiling about?”

“Hell, I'm having a good time. Cops, skeletons, homicide. This sure beats watching a police show on television.”

“We'll stop by the crime scene so you can have some more fun,” Kerney said as he took the reins and swung himself into the saddle.

“That's what I wanted to hear.”

 • • • 

They cleared the tree line on the mesa as the sound of a chopper broke the silence. They entered the open grassland and the state police helicopter passed overhead, veering in the direction of the first stock tank.

It took half an hour by horseback to reach the grove where Kerney had found the bones. He slowed Soldier to a stop and watched. Gonzales and Thorpe were doing a field search around the perimeter of the trees, while two crime scene techs worked in the shadows under low branches.

Dale sidled up to Kerney. “Aren't you going to see if they found anything else?”

Kerney didn't want to interrupt the search. “We'll wait and watch for a few minutes.”

Finally, a figure emerged from the grove and Kerney recognized Melody Jordan, a senior crime scene technician who specialized in forensic pathology. Jordan did all the preliminary assessments of human remains for the department.

Aside from being highly competent, Melody was an attractive woman. No more than thirty, she had lively brown eyes, a mouth with a sexy little pout, and wheat blond hair. Born and raised on a ranch in the Hondo Valley, she had a frank and casual style that Kerney found charming.

Melody walked in his direction, pausing briefly to brush some pine needles out of her hair. When she got close, he introduced her to Dale. She shook Dale's hand, stroked Pancho's neck, and looked Soldier over before turning her attention to Kerney.

“You made quite a find here, Chief,” Melody said.

“How so?”

“We've recovered a pelvis and some bones from the lower extremities. Femurs, fibulas, and feet. The pelvis strongly suggests it was a female. I'd guess she's been dead about a year. Maybe less.”

“The skeleton is incomplete?”

“So far. There are some tool marks on the bones. From the looks of it, I'd say the body was sawed or cut up.”

“Was she killed here?”

“That's hard to say. Maybe not.”

“Was she dismembered here?”

“I don't know. We're looking for trace evidence now. If we find fibers, hair, or bloodstains, we'll have a clearer picture. But don't count on anything: weather probably washed it all away. I'll take the usual soil samples for analysis. Maybe we'll get lucky and some foreign matter will turn up.”