Steven Havill - Scavengers

The driver was using the illumination of a single parking light to wend his way through the scrub. His eyes would be on that little patch of yellow, unable to see far ahead into the darkness. On top of that, the growing light in the east would backlight anything he might see.

They were close enough now that if she stood up and turned on the light to survey the arroyo in front of her, Estelle knew that the occupants of the approaching car would see her. If she took her chances and dropped over the edge, a ten foot fall awaited her-jolting under the best of conditions, crippling if her luck ran out. She remained crouched, watching.

In a moment the car turned east as it chugged around some obstacle in the desert, and Estelle took the opportunity. Releasing her grip on the azote , she cupped her hand over the flashlight and turned it on, once more holding it close to her body. Sweeping the light from left to right, she saw that she was still twenty feet from the break in the edge where the cattle trail broke the crown of the arroyo.

She snapped off the light, felt for the cactus and flinched as her hand grazed one of the thorns. She found the freshly cut handle, hefted the cholla to break it from the grip of a small acacia, and crouched low, scuttling along the edge of the arroyo, its core now a dark shadow off to her left.

Something stung her knee as she turned, sliding down onto the trail. A rattle of stones fell away, and she froze, breathing hard. The car was less than a hundred yards away, exhaust note deep and labored. A third of the way down the cattle trail and sheltered by the bank of the arroyo, Estelle turned on the flashlight, directing the beam up the arroyo. Around the corner, the spot where the cows ambled up and out of the cut was a good fifty yards away. She could reach the far side, and scramble up and out of the arroyo. If they saw her, she’d be on the open desert, racing toward the fence-a nice running target for a hunter.

If she stayed, they might not find her. And there was the chance that the approaching car carried someone altogether innocent-a late night check for wayward cattle, or goats, or whatever…even though there wasn’t a single fresh patty or dropping to be seen.

Estelle knew exactly what had happened. They’d dumped Eurelio, and sauntered back to enjoy the rest of their booze under a stunted tree somewhere-maybe in a deserted shepherd’s shack. And then they’d heard, piercing on the night air from miles away, the wail of the Posadas ambulance siren. The coincidence of that had awakened even their booze-fuzzed minds. With the night quiet again, they were returning, cautiously, to make sure that Eurelio hadn’t somehow been resurrected when their backs were turned.

“Ay,” Estelle whispered, and launched herself up the arroyo. She snapped on the flashlight and sprinted as fast as she could, lurching and weaving on the uneven ground. As she rounded the corner and headed upstream, a blast of light swept overhead. The driver had turned on his headlights as he swung around the final corner. They would be looking for their own footprints, moving cautiously. Estelle tightened her grip on the azote , kept the flashlight low, and locked her eyes on the cattle trail where it ramped up the side of the arroyo.

As she hit the incline of the trail, she heard a vehicle door open. The voices were low and urgent. She snapped off the flashlight and slowed her pace. The arroyo would shield her from view for a few seconds, and she made her way with careful steps, trying to avoid dislodging rocks. She reached the top and looked over her shoulder.

Behind her, the car was parked with its headlights on, but facing northwest, so the lights illuminated empty desert. A flashlight bobbed and weaved as at least one man made his way toward the arroyo. At one point, they stopped, the flashlight turning. Estelle could see two figures silhouetted against the headlights. Moving slowly, she shrank back away from the arroyo, keeping low.

By the time the two men had reached their side of the arroyo, she had managed to put nearly twenty yards between herself and the bank. She heard the rapid fire Spanish and paused, listening.

“Right here,” one of the men said.

“Are you sure?”

“Certainly. I’m not stupid.”

What followed was a string of volatile curses as they played the light across the arroyo bottom, seeing the tracks where Eurelio had dragged himself. Estelle held her breath, keeping her face turned away. The light stabbed this way and that.

“It’s impossible,” one of the men said. “You saw how he was hit.”

“Let’s find out, Benny,” the other man said. “Let me get another light and the rifle.”

Estelle took a deep breath, turned her head, and waited until the flashlight across the arroyo was headed back toward the car. She clenched the step of the azote in one hand, the flashlight in the other. Without the light, a sprint across the desert would be a hopeless demolition derby.

“Okay,” she whispered, and driving as hard as she could, sprinted toward the border fence, keeping the light low. She had managed a good fifty yards when she miscalculated and crashed into a stout clump of greasewood. The cactus tore backward and slammed into her leg even as she pitched hard to the ground, her left shoulder grinding into the dirt. A shout echoed across the arroyo behind her, but she ignored it. She knew that the two men couldn’t cross the arroyo and catch her-she was confident that she could outrun two drunks under any circumstances. But bullets were hard to beat.

She dashed no more than another two dozen steps before the first loud crack of a rifle exploded behind her. A bullet snapped by yards to her right. Another round sang over her head, and she took one last look down the beam of the flashlight and then snapped it off, running on memory. Three more reports and a symphony of shouts pursued her.

And then, breath heaving in painful gulps, she saw a dark figure ahead of her.

“I’m okay,” she shouted. “Go on back.”

She and Deputy Taber rounded the small hill and with a heartfelt groan of relief, Estelle saw the tangle of old barbed wire that marked the border. She stopped, dropped the azote , and bent at the waist, hands on her knees.

She felt Jackie Taber’s hand on her shoulder. “You’re all right?”

“Fine,” she wheezed. “Out of shape.” She straightened up. “They came back to make sure about Eurelio. They must have been where they could hear the ambulance siren, and got spooked.” She sucked in a breath.

“And they saw you and tried for a moving target,” Jackie said. Estelle heard the shake in her voice.

“Nah,” she said. “Not to worry. I knew they couldn’t hit me. Not at night, not with a scope.”

“That’s why you ran so fast…nothing to worry about.”

Estelle managed a nervous laugh. “Yeah, well…” She held up the azote and turned on the flashlight so Jackie could see it. “I don’t think they know that I have this,” she said in triumph. She pulled at her pocket. “And a shell casing. And a name. They’re dead meat.”

“What’s the name?”

“One of them called the other ‘Benny.’ ” She heaved another deep breath and cringed at the stabbing pain in her leg. “ Por Dios , but I want to arrest somebody right now.”

“In here?” Sheriff Robert Torrez’s voice was muffled by the examining room door, followed by a rap of his knuckle. The door swung open before Estelle had a chance to say “come in,” and she pulled the flimsy hospital gown into a semblance of modesty.

The physician’s assistant, Jolene Oliver, looked up and turned on her stool to glare at Torrez. “Do you mind?” Jolene carried her two hundred and thirty pounds on a five-foot-two frame, fourteen inches shorter than the sheriff. In contrast, she possessed hands so dainty they might have belonged to an eight-year-old. Her electric blue eyes peered at the world through gold-rimmed granny glasses whose lower rims nestled in deep troughs under her eyes. She pursed her heavy lips with disapproval and pulled an edge of Estelle’s gown down to cover the area of thigh on which she had been working.