THE TELEPHONE ANSWERING machine’s light was winking red when I arrived at the office in the morning, and the message was a welcome one for a change: “This is Allen Schute with Security Underwriters in New York. I have a job for you if you can handle it. Would you please give me a call before noon your time?”
I dialed the area code and local numbers Schute had recited—a Murray Hill exchange, meaning midtown Manhattan—and worked my way past a receptionist and a personal secretary to the man himself. I hadn’t done any jobs for Security before, but I’d heard of them: a big underwriter who, for a percentage of the moneys saved, would determine if an injury claim was false. And apparently they’d heard of us; Schute wondered if Kirk and Associates could take an assignment on short notice. I allowed as we might.
“We’ve received a tip about a claimant in a motorcycle accident who’s just moved to the Denver area. We’d like to clean this one up as soon as possible—we’re facing a statute of limitations on it.”
I said fine and we settled on the fee schedule, and Schute gave me the particulars. One William “Billy” Taylor, who claimed permanently debilitating leg and back injuries as the result of a car-motorcycle collision, had recently left the metropolis of T’s Corner, Virginia, and moved to the Denver area. He was supposed to be looking for work as a roofer.
“With a bad leg and back?”
“That’s what we hear from his ex-girlfriend. She’s the one who tipped us off that he submitted a false claim. Now, she may or may not be telling the truth; they had a big fight and she ended up in the hospital, I understand, with a few broken bones and a craving for revenge. But we did have our doctors look at him following the accident, and they suspected then that he was faking it. But you know about back injuries—they can’t be determined with any accuracy, so we went ahead and settled out of court. Christ, the way juries are making awards nowadays, we were afraid to take it to court. Which he knew, of course.”
“Do you have a local address?”
Schute gave me all the information he had, which wasn’t that much. Taylor’s mailing address was a rural route near Erie, Colorado, a small town about forty miles north of Denver. His ex-girlfriend said he was staying with some motorcycle buddies there. Schute read off a list of Taylor’s known acquaintances in the Denver area and mentioned Ace Roofing as a possible source of information. “Apparently it’s run by a buddy of Taylor’s who moved out there a couple years ago. After he got off parole.”
“What was he busted for?”
“Moonshining. No big thing among local law enforcement in that corner of the state. But the feds get pretty excited about it.”
“Do you have a description of Taylor?”
He did, and was delighted to learn my office had a fax machine. A few minutes later, the machine murmured and then beeped the arrival of a three-page police file, which noted that Taylor—thirty-two years old, five eleven, one eighty-five, black hair and blue eyes—was affiliated with a group whose interest in motorcycles was not solely recreational. In fact, it edged into the criminal. Fortunately, I didn’t have to arrest the guy; all I had to do was photograph him on the job or on his motorcycle, thereby demonstrating his ability to lead a normal life. But to do that, I had to find him.
Erie, Colorado, was named after Erie, Pennsylvania, because of the coal mines that meandered under the surrounding prairies. The seams had played out decades ago, and except for the name of a bar and a handful of relics in local museums, there was no reference to mining anymore, and no one made their living at it. I cruised down the cracked and ragged pavement of the town’s single main street: A small pizza restaurant, a fast-food drive-in, a liquor store, and four or five bars. The rest of the town’s income came from highway maintenance work, school teaching, and, especially, jobs outside the community.
Aside from a few kids riding bicycles up and down the lone stretch of lumpy pavement, the town seemed deserted. Over many large store windows boards warped from long weathering, and rock facings whose stains hadn’t been blasted for years said the town was a quiet eddy out of the mainstream of progress and development. The dirt streets wandering off between houses implied that was the way the residents liked it. Maybe they had found a set of values different from that of hustling, hungry Boulder just across the county line; then again, maybe they hadn’t. Most of the homes were small bungalows huddled under large cottonwoods, but here and there newer apartments ruptured the tree line, stark and boxy and hinted of pending change.
At the north end of the street, I found the post office. It was the newest structure in town and looked like the central warehouse of a lumberyard, with its low-pitched roof, wide eaves, and freshly stained boards. The woman behind the counter scratched a pencil in her heavily dyed black hair and said, “Just a minute,” when I showed her Taylor’s address and asked where it was. She came back with a county map glued to a square of cardboard and covered with plastic film.
“Here we are.” A smudge of ballpoint ink was “here.” Her finger traced a line of road. “You go down Briggs—that’s right out front there. Where it turns east, go down to County Road Five and turn south maybe half a mile. You’ll see the mailbox on your left—says ‘Wilcox,’ but they’re the original owners. Don’t live there now.”
“Do you know Mr. Taylor?”
The blue-black hair shook no. “Only people I see regular are those with boxes or who use general delivery.”
I thanked her and followed the ragged and lumpy asphalt strip around to the graveled county road. A thin haze of dust hung over the glare of dirt and stone to powder the weeds that filled the roadside ditches. Treeless land rolled gently toward the horizons. Here and there were patches of dark green corn or silage crops watered from narrow irrigation ditches, the glint of aluminum siphons leading off between rows from the water running down the concrete slit. But for the most part, the land was brown and dry and empty of everything except an occasional wire fence that swung past like a long pendulum anchored to some point at the edge of sky. To the west, ranges of mountain, blurry with dust and heat, lifted abruptly from the yellow of prairie to the blue and gray of icy rock. Already, clumps of white clouds rose like billows of smoke from behind the farthest peaks, and by early afternoon they would build into towering thunderheads that would sail, stately and slow, toward Kansas. That was the rain promised by Uncle Wyn’s arthritis, and if the prairie was lucky, a curtain of water from the dark bottom of one of those swelling columns would sweep across the cracked and gaping clay. Aside from a white-chested hawk that hung wagging above a gentle rise of land, I was the only thing moving in the shallow bowl formed by the grassy ridges.
The mailbox, anchored in a rusty milk can, had the route number nailed to the upright and the name Wilcox painted in faded red on the metal. Beneath it dangled an orange newspaper box labeled “Times-Call.” A two-rut road led across a narrow cattle guard and wound over a knoll to make a pair of dimples in its crest of tall, dry grass. I pulled the rented Subaru onto the weedy shoulder and walked up the lane. The heavy sun pressed down on the tawny swell of earth, and the grass sang with the high-pitched keen of insects.
From the ridge, the ruts led down into the next shallow valley toward a cluster of dull tin roofs surrounded by a small stand of cottonwood trees. I squatted in the high grass, using binoculars to study the farmyard and buildings. The house itself was a roofed basement whose walls lifted about four feet above the earth. It was the kind that people built to get started, moving into the basement and planning—if the floods didn’t wash away the crops or the drought blow them away—to eventually add a main floor and then maybe a second one, and to rise in the world with the house.
Apparently, things worked out for the original owners only enough to justify a peaked roof over the basement and a porch lined with rusty metal chairs in the shape of seashells. Close to the house, a blue pickup truck sat in the shade of one of the trees, and as I watched, a large German shepherd plodded listlessly toward the house and disappeared under the porch. Beneath another tree were the shadows of motorcycles, possibly four or five. From this distance, they looked heavy and fast and had the bulk of Harleys. On a rise beyond the broken-down corral, the wide dish of a satellite receiver aimed into the hot sky. Surrounding the little island of trees and roofs, the dry prairie stretched bare and vacant. It was a lousy place to live if you wanted rich, green fields and neighbors close enough to visit. But it was fine if you were afraid someone might want to sneak up on you. And a hard one for surveillance if you were the sneakee. I shot half a dozen pictures with the telephoto just to prove to myself I’d been here, and then crept back over the ridge and down to my car.
Driving the dirt section roads that carved the county into large squares, I circled the farm looking for alternate approaches. To the north, a tall radio tower flashed its warning strobes every few seconds to fend off low-flying airplanes, and farther east—too distant to be heard—I glimpsed the rectangles of semi trucks gliding up a rise on I-25. After a while, I swung that way and joined the river of traffic back toward Denver, mulling over the problem of surveillance.
I reached the office after lunch. Bunch was in the small cubicle that served as workshop and storage room for his electronic equipment, and he told me he was sketching out a closed-circuit loop system for the Hally Corporation. “That’s what they decided on, so what the hell. It’s their loss.”
It was what we were afraid of—quick work and low profit. “How big’s the plant?”
“Just one building. I’ll draw up some options, show them the different degrees of protection. But don’t be too cut up if they stick with the cheapie.” He finished rolling a spool of sensor tape. “What’s with the new insurance job?”
I told him about Taylor and the farm, and he nodded glumly. “More squat-and-peek work.” Then he perked up. “But, hey, what do you say we try a night gig? That way we can check out the infrared gear. From what you say, it’ll be harder than hell to eyeball the place during the day, anyway.”
It was as good a plan as any, and it was nice to see him finally eager to do some insurance work. I handed him the list of Taylor’s known associates. “See what you can find out from Dave Miller on these people. My guess is some of them have local records.”
Bunch glanced over the names and grunted. Dave Miller, of DPD’s vice and narcotics section, was Bunch’s contact in the police by virtue of being his ex-partner. Miller would do favors for me, but not as readily as he did for Bunch.
“Did you talk to Nestor’s co-workers?”
Bunch nodded; he’d been busy while I was up in Erie. “They didn’t tell me much more than we already knew. He showed up on Tuesday, worked all day, didn’t show up Wednesday.”
“He was seen leaving the plant?”
“At four thirty-seven.”
“Somebody timed him?”
“No.” Bunch glanced at his small notebook. “One Arnold Castillo was getting on his bus and saw Nestor. The bus usually makes its pickup there at four thirty-seven, and the driver swears she was on time that day. Of course, they always say that.”
“Nestor rode the bus?”
“He walked. Told people it was for his health, but they think it was to save a few bucks. Poor bastard.”
“Did you go over the route?”
“A little under two miles from the plant to his apartment house. At most a forty-five-minute walk each way.”
“Anyone along the way notice him?”
“Haven’t checked that out yet. I figure I could use a little help.”
Why not? I’d spent the morning wandering around the prairie; might as well spend the afternoon wandering around Denver. Detectives walked a lot. “We ought to make another visit to missing persons, too, for Serafina Frentanes,” I said.
Bunch paused as I locked the office door. “Oh yeah? Listen, Dev, you got to start cutting back on the charity cases. We won’t have time for anything else if you keep that up.”
Surveying Nestor’s probable route home used what little was left of the afternoon. It didn’t take long for folks to look at a photograph and shake their heads no. And much of the route was past the mesh and board fences of light industry or down streets busy with commercial truck and car traffic, so that residents closed the fronts of their small houses against the noise and did most of their living at the back. Bunch and I parked in the shade of the elevated freeway near the apartment building and compared notes.
“Some people remembered seeing him now and then, but nobody could say anything about last Tuesday,” he said.
That was the sum of my information, too. “Back to homicide?”
“Might as well start there.”
The sergeant who cleared us through the flimsy security gate of the lobby remembered Bunch. “You making a fortune rattling doorknobs now, Bunchcroft?”
“We’re helping the citizens of our fair community, Baker. Supporting law and order, protecting the Constitution, safeguarding the flag.”
“Yeah. And ripping off people who don’t want to show their faces around a police station, right?”
“Helping people in distress, and—believe it or not—doing it for no money.”
“Right. I sure believe that.”
We went up the oversized elevators to the crimes against persons office. “I never did like that bastard when we worked the same precinct. Always had a smart mouth and nothing to back it up.”
“He’s making more money than we are.”
“A lot of people are doing that, Dev. It doesn’t mean they’re not bastards.”
That was true and left little to argue. The elevator doors slid open to an empty hallway, and we followed it down to the CAP office. The civilian receptionist who handled the evening shift made us wait for Detective Sergeant Kiefer, a stocky man whose horn-rimmed glasses and sweater made him seem more like a college student than a cop. “You say it’s a Hispanic female, Dev?”
We knew each other, and that saved a lot of time. Many cops—maybe most—have little affection for private detectives, even those who might bring the answer to a missing persons case or an unidentified corpse. “Serafina Frentanes.” I described her and showed Kiefer the photograph. “She’s an illegal.”
“You check with immigration? Maybe they grabbed her and hustled her back across the border before she dropped the kid.”
“Yeah,” I lied. “We looked into that. They don’t have anything on her.” But they would if we brought her to their attention. And on Felix as well.
“Ah. Well, I don’t remember a stiff like that. Seven months pregnant—I’d remember something like that.”
From what I knew of the man, he remembered every corpse he investigated, and the paper record bore out his statement. Bunch and I rode in silence down the elevator and paused outside Police Administration to look over the surging traffic.
“You think the disappearances are related, Dev?”
“I don’t think Nestor and Serafina went off together, if that’s what you mean. Nestor would have needed every cent he could grab. Besides, she disappeared before he did.”
“Yeah. It doesn’t make sense. But it is a coincidence.”
And coincidences were suspicious. “Did you ask his employer about the hospital visit?”
“Cut himself on the line. Happens a lot, I guess. All anybody knew, he went back to work that afternoon so he wouldn’t lose any hourly. Come on, I’m starved. We’ll swing by Warner and then grab something to eat.”
The records office clerk at Warner Memorial Hospital was polite but firm: no access to files without authorization by the patient or his designated representative, which in most cases meant either the employer’s personnel officer or a representative of the insurance company responsible for verifying treatment and costs.
“Honey, the man’s missing. He could be hurt bad or in trouble. We’re trying to find him.”
“He was properly discharged from this hospital, mister, and don’t you call me ‘honey.’ I don’t have to put up with that from you or anybody else!”
“Crap, they’re getting touchy.” Bunch turned his Bronco onto Colfax Avenue and headed toward Bannock Street and a medium-cheap restaurant we both liked.
“I don’t think ‘touchy’ is the word you want.”
“No touch-ee no feel-ee, that’s for sure. Damn women’s lib.”
“Suave is in, Bunch. Neanderthal is out. You should wear your hair long and blow-dried and be sensitive. Glasses would help too.”
“Yeah? Next you’ll be telling me to take a bath.”
“This is September, isn’t it?”
“Come on—you know I take one every other Saturday.” He led the way into the restaurant. “Change my socks, too, every New Year’s.”
One of the virtues of the restaurant was its food: another was its prices. But speed of service was something else, even this early in the dinner hour. We managed to get back to the office in time for me to make the last pickup with a special delivery letter to the business office of Warner Memorial Hospital from Kirk and Associates’ Medical Underwriters. The ornate letterhead looked satisfyingly impressive—one of an arsenal of Kirk and Associates’ supposed endeavors—and the message requested verification of charges and services on one Nestor Calamaro, whose claim was submitted on … case number … dates of service, etc. I even thoughtfully included a prestamped return envelope for their convenience.
While I did the work, Bunch took time for a jog along the Cherry Creek bike path on his more or less daily run of four or five miles. In my mind’s eye, I could see the winding concrete ribbon that meandered along the creek’s banks, sheltered by occasional small trees and by the high retaining walls that channeled the course away from the boulevard straddling it and provided mural space for graffiti artists. I should have gone with him; I needed to flush out my system with a good sweat. But instead, I made an appointment to visit Mrs. Chiquichano, owner of the barracks that had housed the two missing people.
She lived in the Bonnie Brae area, a settled neighborhood of formerly medium-priced houses, some of which were now in the several-hundred-thousand-dollar range. Her address was a Tudor cottage with sharply pitched roofs, windows peeking from shaded gables, stucco walls bearing trellises of ivy, and bay windows that reached out to gather in sunshine. A yard full of mature trees brought shade and foliage up to the eaves, and a brick walk wound from the street past a large blue spruce to the front door. It looked like something photographed for The American Home, and the house, like the manicured lawn, showed the care of someone with a lot of time to work it or a lot of money to have it done right. Even as I parked and stood a moment looking, a dark-haired woman was finishing up the Cadillac parked in the drive, wiping a chamois across the gleaming black of the long hood and bending to scrub at a speck of something on the chrome hub.
“Mrs. Chiquichano?”
Wordless, she bobbed her head toward the house and silently watched me cross the spongy lawn, go up the walk, and rap with the iron knocker. Another Latin woman finally opened the door. This one, too, was short and had rounded Indian features. “Yes?”
“I’m Devlin Kirk. I called for an appointment to see Mrs. Chiquichano.”
“Please to come in. This way, please.” The woman led me into the entry and gestured at a living room that was overcrowded with deeply stuffed armchairs, end tables crowded with doodads, lamps shaded with brocades and tassels, heavy, patterned curtains across the windows, a variety of rugs, paintings with florid gilded frames, and even—where space allowed—potted plants that struggled for light in the gloom. The rhythmic, sleepy tick of a large clock echoed sinuously from behind a bamboo chair whose intricate back spread like a peacock tail. “Please to sit down. I will call the madam.”
It seemed safer to stay mobile; I stood. A few minutes later, the sound of heels clacked on the occasional strip of wood floor that peeked out at the edges of carpets.
“Mr. Kirk? You said you had important business with me?”
She, too, was short and with her wide face and high cheekbones could have been an older sister of the other women. Older and more responsible and in better command of her English. Hers was a bearing of authority, and she verged on careless scorn when she dismissed the maid who had let me in.
With a quick gesture, she ordered me to a chair. Her hair was pulled back into a knot and held by a pair of long needles. It showed streaks of gray that swept past her ears.
“I’m looking for Nestor Calamaro, and I wonder if you might be able to tell me anything about him.” I handed her a business card with its little logo for Kirk and Associates, Industrial Security and Private Investigations.
She wasn’t impressed. “About him?”
“If he had any friends—what he did in his spare time. Anything that might give me an idea where he could be.”
“What is your interest in this one?”
“His aunt is worried about him. She hired me to look for him.” I smiled. “I understand you come from the same village in El Salvador?”
The black eyes stared back without warmth. But beneath the hardness was caution. “Not the same village—the same region. My home was a farm, not a village.”
“I understand, too, that Nestor was an illegal immigrant.”
She set the card on the gleaming corner of an end table that held a large potted fern, a sparkling ashtray of cut glass, an oval picture frame with what looked like an old sepia wedding photograph, and a ceramic miniature of a shepherd girl with blond hair and a blue frock. “I don’t know about that. I rent rooms. I don’t have to ask for the documentation to rent rooms.”
I nodded at the woman servant, who was pushing a noisy vacuum cleaner down the strip of carpet that led from the front door through the entry. Apparently my shoes had tracked in some dust. “Does she work for you?”
“And I do not have to answer no questions from you, Mr. Kirk.”
“No. No, you don’t, Mrs. Chiquichano. That’s true. And I’m not trying to threaten you. I’m only trying to find a man who disappeared and whose family is worried about him.”
“I do not know what happened to him.” She stood and I did too.
“Did he owe you any rent when he disappeared?”
For the first time she smiled a bit, a grim clench of cheek that stretched her lips across the unevenness of her teeth. “My boarders pay in advance.”
“And you take care of the rest of their money too, is that right?”
“I do not know what you mean.” Her hand pushed the air and me toward the door. “I work for my living. I work hard to make my living in this country. I do not know who you talked to, Mr. Kirk, but nobody can say not one evil word about me. I come to this country, I work hard, now I have my business. Many people who don’t do so good are jealous of me and they talk, but none of it is true.”
“That’s fine, Mrs. Chiquichano. It’s always good to see the virtues of capitalism rewarded. But a man has disappeared—someone you are familiar with—and you don’t seem too curious about where he might have gone.”
“It is not strange. Every now and then someone disappears. Especially if they are undocumented. Especially if immigration finds out about them.”
“You think that’s what happened? Immigration got him?”
“It happens all the time. I told you, I get my rent in advance.”
“Have any other people recently disappeared from your apartment house?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“But I heard about a woman a month or so ago. I heard you were asking the neighbors about her.”
Mrs. Chiquichano’s face hardened into something like a Mayan stone carving, and her eyes were equally expressive. “I said no, Mr. Kirk. Good-bye.”
“Do you think immigration got her, too?”
The door closed firmly. The woman polishing the Cadillac stopped again to silently watch me walk back to my car. In the rearview mirror, I could see her stare after me as I drove away.
Bunch steered the Bronco onto the shoulder of the dirt road and turned off the lights. We sat for a few minutes to let our eyes adjust to the black of empty fields, and gradually we could see that the blackness wasn’t quite so absolute. To the west, where Boulder lay against the foothills, a vague glow gave dim silhouette to the nearest rise of earth. Behind us, over Denver, the sky was even lighter. And to the north a string of strobe lights periodically made a tall exclamation point in the night.
“How high you think that radio tower is?” Bunch asked.
I squinted at the blue-white flash of lights. “Oh, just a rough guess: nine hundred ninety-eight feet, three and a quarter inches.”
Bunch looked at me.
“I read up on it when I was looking for surveillance sites—it’s some kind of experimental tower for the Bureau of Standards. Just under a thousand feet high.”
“What kind of experiments?”
“They bounce radio waves off it from Boulder, for one thing. And there’s a platform at the top to study air pollution patterns that come up the I-25 corridor.”
“You wanted that for surveillance? Man, I definitely would not go to the top of that thing!”
I hoisted the monopod for the telephoto and the battery pack for the night scanner. “They wouldn’t let us anyway. And it’s pretty secure at night—I checked it out. So we’re stuck on the ground.”
“Good.” Bunch nodded. “A quick trip in, a few shots, a quiet sneak out. That’s the civilized way.”
We had parked on a section road that, we estimated from the crisp new Geological Survey map, was directly behind the old Wilcox farm and about a mile distant. Bunch took our bearings from an engineer’s directional compass, and we crawled between strands of barbed wire and started across the weedy prairie. What had looked smoothly rolling during the day was uneven and rough in the dark, and despite the heavy leather of my hiking boots, I could feel the occasional jab of cactus spines against my ankles. A narrow but deep gully cut a black line at the base of the first hill, and we wandered along its lip in the dark searching for handholds to scale down the bank. Somewhere ahead a coyote gave a quavering bark, and off to the north beyond the flashing tower another answered, three quick yips and a long, dying howl. Once, we stumbled across some bird’s nest and the night exploded into startled screeches and a drumming of frantic wings. In the distance down the ravine, a rabbit squealed its life away as an owl or coyote or fox found its supper.
“Should be up here not too far,” I said.
Bunch wiped the sweat from his eyes and lifted his cap to welcome the night breeze that brushed across the rise of land. “I don’t see any lights yet.”
“Won’t, until we’re almost there. It’s in a little valley and surrounded by trees.”
“Just one dog?”
“That’s all I saw.”
“I hate dogs.”
We crossed the next low ridge and stumbled downhill and then began climbing again. From the top, I could see the wink of house lights clustered like a handful of sparks in the dark below, and beside me Bunch grunted in satisfaction. “I was beginning to doubt you, Dev.”
I had been wondering too; the dark makes time and space different. “That’s damned insulting, Bunch. In fact, it hurts deeply.”
“Sorry about that.” He stood spraddle-legged. “Wait a minute before we move in—got to bleed the old lizard.” I heard the splash of urine against the hard earth. “Okay—ready for action.”
We moved cautiously down the slope, worried not about being seen but about being heard by the German shepherd, which no doubt cruised the farm when it grew cool enough to move around. Easing to within thirty yards of the farmhouse, I set up the monopod and camera, and Bunch plugged the battery pack into the infrared scanning device. Through the scope, objects came out of the darkness as pale green silhouettes—a cluster of motorcycles parked under a tree, the same pickup I’d seen earlier, the sides of the house with its illuminated windows and doors like fuzzy black squares in the green. Bunch adjusted the telephoto lens and shot a few pictures of the vehicles and their license plates; then, slowly, we moved the awkward equipment closer to look for people.
“See that dog anywhere?” he asked.
“Not yet.”
The farmyard was level and packed and free of weeds and rocks. The remnants of horse smell drifted out of the barn on the mild breeze, and overhead the dry clatter of cottonwood leaves sounded like the patter of a light rain. From the farmhouse came the deep pulse of a stereo, and an occasional figure moved past the stubby, unshaded windows that ended just above ground level.
“See Taylor?”
“Can’t see much of anybody yet.”
“Maybe the dog’s inside.”
“Just keep that can of dog repellent handy,” I said.
A spring creaked and the back door slapped as a female figure came up to ground level to toss something from a basin into the dirt behind the house, her gestures a ragged movement of blurry green in the scope. Then the door creaked and slapped again. Bunch and I, camera ready, eased up to the house through a pale blue glow thrown by the mercury vapor light high on its pole. Crawling to the window ledge, I shot a quick series of pictures of the room, catching a bearded man sprawled on a couch and staring numbly at the flicker of television. Another, whose beard was cropped close to his face, tilted a beer can. In the background, a woman with stringy hair wearing a loose Mother Hubbard dress hauled a baby across the room on her hip and said something to one of the men, who might have been Taylor. Unfortunately, the photograph would also show that he wasn’t moving and actively able.
“Shit, Dev, look out!”
Behind me, with a single deep bark, the German shepherd bounded from the darkness around the barn and raced through the steely gleam of the farm light. I ran from the window and sprinted hard toward Bunch, who threw a stick at the dog and then sprayed a cloud of repellent toward its open mouth. I heard a voice shout something, and a door banged open to the sound of running boots.
“This way, Dev.”
I dashed toward Bunch’s voice, the dog barking crazily now and whining and trying to run after me even as it stumbled to rub its eyes and muzzle and writhe in the dirt. Behind its contorted shadow, a smaller one zipped fast along the ground, legs blurred with speed.
“Watch it, Bunch!”
“Oh, shit—” He held the spray can out behind him as he ran, knees lifting high to pull his legs away from the almost silent lunge of jaws. “Oh God, I hate dogs!”
I grabbed the monopod and night scope and raced up the ridge. Bunch labored behind with the power pack and cameras. The can sputtered into an empty hiss, and he swore and threw it hard at the feinting shadow at his heels and swung the battery case by its strap, trying to hit the dog. From the porch of the farmhouse, the heavy boom of a shotgun spurted flame our way, and I heard something angry whistle overhead. I ducked and plunged across the ridge and then down and up the gully on the other side, scarcely aware that Bunch was cursing and struggling after me.
On the other side, I paused and saw him dragging one leg as he ran. From that leg hung a small form almost horizontal to the ground, flopping with each long stride.
“Bunch, you have a passenger!”
“Laugh, damn you, Kirk! Just keep laughing, goddamn you!”
“Kick him loose.”
“I can’t—it’s a pit bull!”
“Hold it, Bunch—hold up.” I kicked the dog hard in its ribs, and it coughed twice and chewed deeper.
“Owww! Quit it—you’re making him mad!”
“Hold still!” Jamming the leg of the monopod at the back of its jaws, I twisted the animal’s mouth open, and Bunch yanked his leg away. The dog growled and swung after me, the teeth a rip of white against the black earth.
“Bunch, where the hell are you going?”
“I ain’t staying here!”
He was gone, leaving me to back away from the snarling dog, which sprayed saliva and blood as it rushed to get past the sharp monopod leg and make acquaintance with my own. “Bunch!” I jabbed at the dog’s chest and it yelped, pulling back, and I charged after it. The animal turned into the dark and I did too, running under the weight of the equipment and hearing a growling breath circle around me. Wheeling once more, I held the dog at bay as I stumbled backward and dueled with its teeth. “Bunch, you son of a bitch, help me with the goddamn fence!”
“Nobody helped me.”
“I’ll dump this crap. So help me God, I’ll leave all this stuff!”
In the distance behind one of the long, dark ridges, I heard the snarl of motorcycles like hornets swarming from a nest. Bunch pulled the Bronco down into the ditch and up close to the fence and leaned out the window to grab the gear.
“Not the monopod—not yet!”
“Christ, I hate dogs.”
I jumped on the aluminum running board and made a last savage jab at the rabid-looking beast, feeling the metal leg hit something that resulted in a very satisfying yelp. “Go—goddamn!”
He did, the vehicle rocking up on one side as he floored the gas and surged across the ditch and onto the gravel road. Behind, blinded by dust and falling farther and farther back into hazy darkness, the pit bull tried for one last bite of me or the tire or anything else it could sink those jaws into.
“Stop a minute, Bunch! Let me get in—hold up, goddamn it!”
He slammed on the brakes and I scrambled in, tossing equipment and looking back for the snap of teeth. “Okay—go!”
“Did you get the battery pack?”
“No—you had it.”
“I put it on the hood. Damn thing must have fallen off.”
A line of bobbing headlights crested a ridge in the black far behind us and dropped out of sight. “Can’t go back, Bunch. Here come the boys.”
“Shit.” He lurched the Bronco forward, and we drove without lights and peered through the dark for the next section road that would lead back toward I-25.
“That goddamn dog still chasing us?” Bunch used the gears rather than the brakes to slow for the hard turn.
“Yes,” I said without looking. I didn’t have to look.
“Dogs!” He reached down and groped around at something below the dash.
“Will you watch the road, Bunch! You’re doing sixty miles an hour without lights!”
“I’m watching. My goddamn leg’s chewed halfway to the bone and hurts like a bastard.”
“I hope the dog wasn’t rabid.”
“He wasn’t. Just high on crack. Damn, that hurts. Goddamn dog bites really hurt.”
We scratched from the gravel onto pavement, and Bunch flicked on the headlights and stepped harder on the gas. At the next intersection, we turned onto a county highway and slowed to blend with the occasional car or pickup truck. A few minutes later, a pair of motorcycles came up fast, and we watched in the rearview mirrors as they rode beside each car for a few seconds to check it out and then speeded up to the next.
“Duck down—they’re looking for two people.”
I slid into the darkness beneath the dash, my knees tight against my chest. The rattle of engines pulled up to the driver’s side and hung there for a long time. I saw Bunch glance toward them, and his hand hovered over the Python Magnum slung in its holster riveted beside the steering column. Then the engines revved and the bikes pulled away.
“Two of them,” he said. “They split up to go both ways on the highway.”
“You’re getting blood all over the floor mats.”
“Like to have that dog’s guts all over the mats.” He muttered something else.
“What?”
“I said it’s too bad about the battery pack.”
“I’m not going to complain about the cost, Bunch.”
“That’s not the problem.”
“What’s that?”
“It has our name on it.”