Brian Garfield: Relentless

“They must have cut the phone and telegraph wires at both ends of town,” Cunningham said. “Everything’s dead except the radio. They had everything figured out-it took a lot of planning. This was no amateur job.”

“But they’re on the main highway,” Buck Stevens said. “They’re on the main road because there aren’t any secondary roads. We can nail them easy. Maybe those Nevada cars have got them by now.”

Watchman looked at his watch. They had been here twelve or fifteen minutes. He said to Cunningham, “Did you get a make on the car?”

“Not really. The play went around the other end. It was an old car-maybe an Olds, Buick, something like that.”

“Anybody get a look at the driver?”

No answer.

Whipple said nervously, “I did notice one thing. One of them had an ugly scar on his wrist-here, like this.”

Watchman’s eyes locked on Stevens’ and Stevens nodded emphatically.

Watchman took Cunningham by the arm and walked him toward the front door, talking while he moved. “They’d have known what the highway situation is around here. They must have allowed for it. I wouldn’t be surprised if they hadn’t doubled back and taken cover somewhere right here in town. You’d better get all your men looking for them.”

“What about you two?”

“We’ll head west, try to catch them in a pincer between us and those Nevada cruisers. If we don’t find them we’ll have to assume they doubled back. I’ll get on the radio and have another Highway Patrol car dispatched from Fredonia to block off the road west of here-we didn’t pass them coming in but they may have tried to get back that way while we’ve been inside here jawing. Now get moving, Jace.”

Cunningham stiffened a little: he didn’t like taking orders from Sam Watchman and in fact he was under no obligation to do so but it was obvious that Watchman was right and Cunningham was enough of a cop to know that. In the end he nodded and swung away and Watchman got into the car and reached for the radio mike.

The cruiser surged along the highway. Beyond the San Miguel hills there was a long stretch of level flat pavement, thirty-seven miles without a single turning. Watchman was brisk: he had the situation securely in his mind and he barked terse commentary into the transmitter, sealing the net. The last thing the dispatcher said to him in reply was, somewhat drily, “Looks like we’ve got some federal stuff horning in, Sam-FBI special agent heading up your way by Lear jet. I guess the G-men want to hog some credit.”

He was doing eighty but he had his eyes alertly on the road and he saw the pinpoint glitters in the road just ahead: he hit the brakes hard but he saw he didn’t have room to stop so he released the brake and steered off the highway, bumping violently across the shoulder and crashing through the bits and pieces of sagebrush and stunt growth. Stevens was holding on tight: “What the fuck?”

“Guerrilla spikes on the road.”

There was a hundred-foot patch of them-twisted nails welded into little grappling-hook shapes to impale tires and blow them out.

Watchman got out and walked over to the road. He didn’t waste time looking at the spikes; what he was looking for was tracks in the dirt alongside the road. He didn’t find any. He walked back to the car, got in and started forward, pulling back onto the pavement beyond the patch of spikes.

Stevens said, “What was that all about?”

“They went by here fast and they dropped those things behind them to slow down anybody coming after them. So they wanted to buy a little time-what for?”

“I don’t get it.”

“And they didn’t come back this way. There’s no sign of the car detouring around that patch. The only tracks were the ones we left. They’re still out ahead of us.”

“Then they’ve run into those Nevada cars by now.” Stevens looked at his watch. “In fact we ought to intercept them ourselves any time now.”

Way out ahead, several miles, the sun winked on something that might be an approaching car. Watchman swept both sides of the unrolling highway with close attention. His knuckles on the steering wheel began to ache: he was thinking of Jasper Simalie-upright, forthright, downright, a sweet old man and no gunslinger; Jasper would have had trouble hitting the ground with his hat and Jasper hadn’t been one for empty heroics. It was impossible to believe he had been trying to get to his gun when the bandit had shotgunned him. No; it had been cold-blooded, casual, unnecessary murder.

Stevens was talking into the radio: “Driver’s license in the name of Steven D. Baraclough, Seven-Niner-Niner South Steward Avenue, Tucson. Vehicle is yellow and green nineteen fifty-seven Buick fordor, Arizona license plates Bravo X ray One Four One Three Five Charlie. Registered to John P. Sweeney, Fredonia. Repeat, Steven D. Baraclough, B-a-r-a-c-l-o-u-g-h…”

The money was of no special concern to Watchman but because of Jasper Simalie he had a personal stake in this. They were going to pay for that.

Hold on now. Let’s just don’t fill the air with bullets, Tsosie. Sure, a little good old-fashioned Innun-style retribution-let’s start a massacre, folks.

His knuckles eased on the wheel and he made a face.

Stevens was still on the radio: “… patch of nails on the highway eight miles west of San Miguel. Better send somebody out there with a broom and get it swept off.”

The approaching vehicle winked in the distant sunlight and Watchman’s eyes kept scanning both sides of the road. When he saw the downed phone cables he pulled over and stopped. The roof-top flasher was still revolving like a red lighthouse beacon and he left it on when he got out of the car.

The telephone-telegraph poles ran along quite close beside the road here and that must have been why they had chosen this spot to cut the wires. Stevens said, “Piece of rope over there, see it?”

Watchman walked over and got down on one knee to examine it. Stevens came crunching along and Watchman said, “They slung one end of the rope over the wires and tied both ends of the rope to the back bumper of the car. Pulled the cables down. They must have done the same thing beyond the other end of town.”

“Cute,” Stevens said with a sour downturn of his mouth.

Watchman stood up and turned a slow circle on his heels. His eyes were narrowed in a thoughtful squint. The wind rubbed itself against him, cool and thin, and the clouds were building and darkening over the western quarter of the sky. About two hundred yards off the road to the right stood a clump of stunt growth-withered trees, bushes nourished by some fitfully intermittent underground stream. Up ahead by the roadside several sections of barbwire fence were down. Watchman walked back to the car and started it up and when Stevens got in, asking questions, he rolled the car forward to the break in the fence. Several sets of tire tracks went off the road here and rutted across the flats to the clump of scrub-oak and sycamore. Nothing but sagebrush flats surrounded the grove, miles of open ground beaten into pale colors out to the horizons, here and there a weathered bush.

Stevens said, “Jesus, you don’t think they’re trying to hide in there?”

The approaching car was slowing down-the Nevada cruiser. When it pulled over by Watchman the visiting trooper stuck his head out the window. “What’s happening?”

“Let’s have a look and find out.”

The Nevada cop got out of his car and Watchman said, “I guess you didn’t pass anybody.”

“A couple of pickups and a Jeep. I checked them out and let them go.”

Buck Stevens said, “Where’s your partner? They said two cars.”