Steven Havill - Scavengers

“You’re going to do it,” Estelle breathed. Sure enough, Isidro Madrid set off at a fast jog, due south toward the border fence. She toed open the gate just enough to slip through and sprinted the few yards to the cover of the station wagon. At the same time she heard a thump inside the building. Already twenty yards away, Isidro heard it too, and started to sprint, dodging through the short scrub and cactus.

“ Alto ahí! Policía! ” Estelle shouted. Isidro surely had sensed something wrong from the moment he had discovered the car locked-but still the barked command took him by surprise. Instinctively, he turned and in doing so tripped and fell hard. The duffle bag acted as a cushion, and he scrambled to his knees, the pistol seeking a target. Estelle crouched behind the fender of the car, Beretta extended across the wide yellow hood. Isidro was less than thirty yards away-an easy shot.

“ No te muevas, Isidro, ” she said. Isidro didn’t move, but not because of her command. He stared hard, searching for a target. He saw Estelle behind the car just as she shouted, “There’s nowhere you can go, Isidro.” She switched to English. “Drop the weapons.”

An expression of incredulity spread across his face as he contemplated his chances with this slight, soft-voiced woman who now crouched behind his abandoned car. He could see the black automatic, could see that she held it steady and sure. The light played on the heavy, fresh scar that marred the corner of his left eye.

“And who are you?” he asked in lightly accented English.

“Drop the weapons, Isidro,” Estelle repeated.

She saw his eyes flick to right and at the same time heard the faint shuffle of feet behind her. Tomas Naranjo had sidled to a position just inside the garden gate. The black muzzle of the shotgun protruded.

Estelle turned her head just enough that she could talk to Naranjo without taking her eyes off Isidro. “I want him alive, Tomás,” she said quietly.

Isidro mouthed a curse and dove off to his left toward a stout clump of saltbush, leaving the duffle bag behind. Estelle snapped off two quick rounds, keeping her aim low, before the right windshield pillar interfered. Dust kicked behind Isidro’s feet but the second round connected. It looked as if someone had jerked a rug out from under the fleeing man. He tumbled, his form nothing but a shadow behind the scrubby bush.

Fifty yards separated him from a gentle rise in the prairie. Behind her, Estelle heard the howl of a car racing into the village, its sound muffled by the buildings. In a moment, Tom Pasquale’s Bronco appeared, shoveling dust and gravel with its front bumper as it careened around the east end of Paulita Saenz’s home and dove across a sharp dip.

Isidro Madrid didn’t wait to negotiate. He appeared from behind the saltbush, the automatic in his hand roaring. A slug whanged off the top of the station wagon, another chewed into the adobe to the left of Naranjo, and a third kicked sand in front of Pasquale’s Bronco as it slid sideways to a stop.

So loud that it made her ears ring, Naranjo’s shotgun bellowed, and Estelle saw the pattern of buckshot blow gravel to the left of Madrid’s flying feet. He dodged sideways, legs pumping like a hotly pursued wide receiver. As he ran, he pumped rounds indiscriminately behind him.

Estelle took a deep breath and clenched the Beretta with both hands. She pulled the trigger at the same time that Naranjo blasted another round from the shotgun. Isidro Madrid was in midturn, trying to avoid a cluster of acacia. Instead he crashed into the stout shrub. Estelle saw the rifle fly from his grip.

Pasquale, gun drawn, sprinted toward Madrid. The man pushed himself to his feet, the automatic digging into the gravel and sand as he did so. Holding his automatic with both hands, Pasquale advanced on Madrid.

“Drop it,” the deputy barked. Madrid turned and looked south. The cut border fence was less than fifty yards away. His left pant leg above the knee was blood-soaked, and his right foot refused to bear his weight. He turned back to Pasquale, and then watched as Estelle advanced toward him.

“ Todo se ha acabado. Isidro, ” she said. “It’s finished.”

So sudden was his movement that both Pasquale and Estelle came within an ounce of squeezing the trigger. Isidro Madrid dropped the automatic, but at the same time collapsed backward to land on his rump, legs awkwardly folded under him. He supported himself on his right elbow and closed his eyes, swaying in pain. He opened them only when Estelle’s shadow fell across his face.

She looked down at him, and found herself considering that a good swift kick would roll him into a small cholla cactus less than a foot behind him.

“No, you don’t want to do that,” Pasquale said. He stepped around Estelle and in a moment had handcuffed Isidro Madrid’s hands behind his back. He pulled the handheld radio off his belt and keyed the mike.

“We’re secure down here,” he said. “Requesting an ambulance for Mr. Madrid.”

“Ten-four,” Torrez’s voice said.

“I don’t want to do what?” Estelle said to Pasquale. She watched impassively as the deputy quickly frisked Madrid, then sliced the blood-soaked trouser leg away from the man’s thigh. One of the shotgun pellets had raked a furrow four inches long, a nasty quarter-inch deep track that bled profusely.

“My foot,” Isidro said through gritted teeth.

“Hurts, huh,” Pasquale said. He secured Madrid’s ankles with nylon ties, then looked at the neat bullet hole through the fancy leather around the heel of Madrid’s right foot. On the other side, the hole was considerably larger. “You’re not bleedin’ to death, so we’ll let the EMTs deal with that.”

He straightened up and grinned at Estelle. “I could see it in your face, Mrs. Guzman.” He reached out and touched the cholla gently with the toe of his boot. “Not that he doesn’t deserve it.” He pulled a small card out of his pocket. “Isidro, I’m going to read you your rights.” Madrid mouthed an obscenity and Pasquale shrugged. “Well, all right, then. You don’t need to hear it. We can drag your carcass about fifty yards south, and Captain Naranjo can read you your rights in Mexico. How about that?”

Naranjo limped his way over, the shotgun cradled under his arm. He regarded Isidro with distaste. “I would consider that a favor for which I would be long in your debt, officer.”

“You can’t do that,” Isidro Madrid said.

“We can’t?” Pasquale said, and then shrugged. “Well, then, shut up and listen.” As he read the Miranda statement, first in English and then in Spanish, Estelle walked over to where Isidro Madrid had dropped the rifle.

She lifted it carefully by the wooden stock. The scope was loose, perhaps jarred in the fall. The gun’s caliber, 44 Remington Magnum, was stamped on the barrel. She turned the gun over and looked at the hammer. Sure enough, it was tucked under the body of the scope difficult to reach. The small part that would have made it easier to use was tucked in an evidence bag in Posadas.

“Do you have a minute?”

Estelle looked up to see Sheriff Robert Torrez standing in the door of her office. With the clock ticking at double speed before Benny Madrid’s arraignment that afternoon in District Judge Lester Hobart’s court, a sea of paperwork still needed to be processed and a dozen phone calls returned-including one to a federal prosecutor in Las Cruces who’d taken an interest in the border-crossing exploits of the Madrid brothers. Whether he was going to queue up with Mexican authorities to wait his turn was still open to question.

“No, but that’s okay,” Estelle replied. She saw the dark circles under Bob Torrez’s eyes, but knew that his fatigue was nowhere near as consuming as his disappointment at missing the final chase. Isidro Madrid had simply run the wrong way, and the sheriff had been left to protect Lucy and Wally Madrid from their duct-taped, cuffed, and hobbled son in the bathroom. “Your office?”