Sandi Ault - Wild Penance

They froze for an instant, all three of them turning to look at me like startled antelope.

And then I charged.

They took off.

My long hair, still damp with sweat, was flying into my face, my open mouth. I pumped my legs harder, ignoring the ache, the fatigue. The lookout darted across the asphalt, up the curb, and around the left side of the restroom building and disappeared behind it, presumably toward a getaway vehicle on the opposite side of the roundabout. But the two who had been bent over searching through my Jeep got a slower start, and as I closed on them, they both broke to the right, toward the gorge, where a row of concrete picnic shelters overlooking the view lined the loop road. The lone man was gone, out of sight now-I’d never get him. But these two were in range, and I knew I could overtake them if I just kept running.

I had surprised them when I gave chase-maybe they hadn’t expected that of a woman. As I ran, I chided myself for having yelled at them and blown my opportunity for a stealthy approach. They soon realized they were headed for a dead end and the lead man started to correct course, cutting left and back through the center of the roundabout, making down the right side of the restroom structure.

The second man followed suit, but he was starting to slow, and I pushed myself and maneuvered to close the gap. His thin jacket flapped around the sides of his arms as it blew open. He nearly tripped over the curb that divided the road from the center grounds, then struggled with his footing, recovered, and went on. But it slowed him down. I could almost touch him now; I was just two yards behind him, and I could smell the stink of fear blowing off of him as the cold air hit his sweating body.

As I closed in behind him, I heard a little whine in his breathing, a high-pitched plea from his lungs for rest. He cut to the left, passing behind the restroom building, and I was right on his heels.

Suddenly, a fast-moving black shadow flew from behind the back wall and delivered a breath-propelling blow to my abdomen that sent me reeling backward. The air from my lungs rushed on before me in a spray of fine white mist. Whhhoooossshhhhh.

I hit the ground, the impact jarring my spine, my brain disconnecting as suddenly as a downed power line. I couldn’t move for a minute; all communication between mind and body had been interrupted. Then I began to reconnect… and wish I hadn’t. Oh, my back! It hurt the worst-that and my head, which must have hit hard. But I was okay. I sat up. Nothing broken. I was still slightly stunned as the cloud slowly cleared in my head, my senses gradually reengaging. I sat for a few seconds, looking around me, reading out my body’s messages. I was all right.

I took my time getting up and heard two car doors slam near the highway, ka-thunk! Then the roar of an engine as the car sped off to the west, toward Tres Piedras. I started back to my Jeep. Its doors were still yawing open from the robbery I had interrupted just minutes before. I saw my bag on the ground where the thieves had ditched it. I picked it up and went through it. Everything was still there-my wallet, credit cards, even the small amount of cash inside. I looked in the car. My handgun was still locked in the glove box, undisturbed. The standard car stereo and BLM radio remained intact on the dash. I looked in the floor of the backseat. My shotgun and rifle rested in place. I checked the rear cargo area. My backpack had been rifled through, but nothing was missing. Nothing of value had been taken.

Confused, I stopped looking through the cargo area and straightened, the backpack still dangling from my hand. I scanned in every direction, studying the panorama around me for answers. The pink light had fled across the mesa and left a soft mauve blanket over the desert. A solitary truck rumbled across the gorge bridge, its rear lights creating a neon reflection along the silver railing of the structure that stretched out like a fiber-optic red tail. And way out in the lap of the big mountain that shelters Taos from the blistering cold northern winds that sweep down the spine of the Rockies, tiny lights twinkled on as night overtook day. Suddenly I felt a stab of white-hot burning in my chest as I realized what was gone.

My book! They had stolen my book!

When I went to the command center tent to report the theft, the deputy on duty seemed relieved to have a visitor to break the monotony of his evening. But he was not particularly excited about taking a report on the theft of my book, especially when he learned that all the valuables that normally would have been stolen had been left intact. I recalled Jerry Padilla’s warning not to talk to anyone except the task force members about the incident that morning, so I didn’t mention what the book was about, or that I thought the theft of it could possibly be tied in some way to the crime that had occurred earlier that day. I decided I would wait and let Padilla know that the next time we talked.

I headed west to my cabin, which sat alone in the pines on a remote piece of property that backed to forested foothills and Forest Service land. As I drove up my long dirt drive, my headlights illuminated something white pinned to the door. I killed the lights, then the engine, stopping thirty yards from the house. I reached into the glove box, took out my handgun and readied it, then slid silently out the driver’s side and eased the car door shut. I panned the property in front of my cabin from east to west. No sign of anyone; however, it was so dark I couldn’t see far. I crouched low as I made my way on foot to the end of the drive. I stepped up on the porch, scanning the ground around my place once again, but there was no one in sight. Still holding my pistol up in both hands, I walked to the door. A note written with black marker on a white paper towel had been secured to the wooden door with several pushpins. It was too dark to make out the fuzzy letters where the ink had bled into the fibrous paper, so I opened the door of my cabin and flipped on the light. I scanned the one main room before I glanced at the note. It read:

Woman down! Help!

Bennie

I gave a sigh of relief. I knew Bennie. Bennie was a friend. This was the kind of thing Bennie did.

But just the same, perhaps because of the other events of the day, I didn’t relax until I crossed through the main room to the pass-through hallway on the other side that led to the bathroom-a shed-style addition that had been added on years after the original one-room cabin had been built. I looked in the narrow closet on one side of the hall as I went through, checked behind the shower curtain in the bathroom. No one there.

I went back outside and pulled my Jeep to the end of the drive, turning it around to face nose-out, ready to go, the way I always parked. I got my shotgun and rifle out of the back and grabbed the little cloth pouch that Momma Anna had given me with the prune pies in it. After I took all this inside, I went back once more for my backpack, boots, and duty clothes, and I took my sidearm with me when I went.

It was a rare night outside of the months of July and August that I didn’t want a fire in the woodstove at night. Here in mountainous northern New Mexico, the sunny days of early April held the promise of spring, but the nights clung to the cloak of winter. I opened the doors to the firebox and stirred the ashes around with a little shovel until I saw a few coals from last night’s fire pulse red. I left the doors open to let air onto the glowing coals, threw in a handful of twigs for kindling, and laid a couple logs on top of that. Next, I took the cast-iron kettle to the kitchen sink, filled it with water and set it on top of the woodstove, then got the mug I’d washed after my morning coffee and put a little pouch of tea in it for when the water came to a boil.