Steven Havill - Bag Limit

For a heartbeat or two, she looked as if she might want to ride along, but I shook my head. As I left the kitchen, I pointed at Tadd. “Lunch today is my treat,” I said, and left before he had time to answer.

Ernie Wheeler was standing by the dispatcher’s console, a cup of coffee in one hand and a pencil in the other. He was in the process of saying something to Deputy Jackie Taber as I walked in-and both of them laughed. Ernie saw me walk through the door and his face immediately went serious.

“Sir,” he said, and set the coffee down on a small table behind him, well away from the console and all of its sensitive electronics equipment. “There’s a hunting accident of some kind down at the head of Borracho Springs.”

“Who’s on the way?”

“The undersheriff, Deputies Pasquale and Bishop, an EMT crew, and we just heard that Doug Posey is on his way with another Game and Fish officer. They were running a roadblock over near Animas. Oh, and Linda Real just headed out.”

I turned and looked at Taber. “Stick around for a bit, all right?” She nodded.

“Do you know what happened?” I asked.

“All we have is the original call-in, sir. It’s a cellular phone call from a Jerry Walsh. Here, I can play it for you.”

I waited while he manipulated the autotape. It was a slick gadget, allowing us to record all telephone or radio communications, and play back at any time, with the record feature still engaged. If someone called while we were listening to a previous recording, even that call was locked in and recorded.

“What time did this come in?”

“I logged it at seven-oh-two, sir.”

The first thing I heard was Deputy Wheeler announcing himself, followed by a bunch of static and unintelligible voices. Wheeler’s voice was loud in comparison.

“Sir, I can’t understand you. Please try to speak slowly and distinctly.”

“God, I need help,” a man’s voice then said, and we could hear loud breathing, as if he were running and trying to talk at the same time. “He’s pushed her off, and now he’s taken a shot at me.”

“Where are you, sir?”

“I’m…just a second…I don’t think he can see…oh, shit.” Sounds of scuffing and scraping followed, with more unintelligible background. “Hello?” the voice said finally.

“Sir, where are you?”

“Listen,” the man said, sounding more in control. “This is Jerry Walsh. I need help, before my stepson goes crazy and starts up again. There’s no time…”

“Where are you, sir?”

“I…I’m not sure. I think we’re in a ways from Borracho Springs. That’s just past the camp. About three miles off…no, five or six miles in from Fifty-six, then on Forest Road 122, I think it was.”

“Has someone been hurt, sir?”

“My stepdaughter,” Walsh said. “She fell. He pushed her right off those rocks…no, wait a minute.” More loud breathing and scuffling followed. “That son of a bitch is trying to work his way around so he can get another shot at me.” A loud noise in the background could have been a muffled gunshot or a car door slamming. “Son of a bitch.”

“Sir…”

“You gotta send help. Oh…Christ…what’s this?” For the count of five, the phone was silent. Then the voice whimpered, “Not now. Come on…”

The recording went dead.

“We weren’t able to raise anything else, sir,” Ernie said. “The caller identification says it’s a cellular number issued to Jerry Walsh of Del Rio, Texas.” He paused to see if the name registered. It didn’t for a moment, and without waiting for me to plod through all my memory files, Wheeler added, “Scott Gutierrez’s stepfather.”

“There’s nothing else on the tape?”

“Nothing, sir. That’s all we know.”

“Hunting accident, hell,” I said. “They’re down there shooting at each other, for Christ’s sake.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Jackie, let me have the keys to the Bronco.”

She handed them to me, and Wheeler was in the process of saying, “Sir, do you want…” but he was talking to my back.

“Jackie,” I said over my shoulder, “the unmarked unit is right here by the door. Make sure it’s got a full tank. Then stay put. I don’t know if someone’s going to be heading back up this way or not, but I sure as hell don’t want any door out of the county left open.”

The Bronco smelled a little of perfume when I slid in, and I had to kick the seat back so the steering wheel didn’t hit me under the chin. It was one of our newest units, and I headed south on Grande with the engine screaming.

“Three oh eight, this is three ten.” I rounded the curve onto State 56 just as Torrez came on the air.

“Three ten, three oh eight. Go ahead.”

“Three ten is just leaving the village. Ten-twenty.”

“About…” Torrez said and hesitated, judicious as ever. “About a mile on Forest One Twenty-two off Fifty-six. Coming up on Borracho Springs. Three oh six is right behind me.”

“Did you copy that shots were fired?”

“Ten-four.”

“Then be careful.”

“Ten-four.”

“Three oh six, did you copy?”

Pasquale’s voice didn’t carry the same note of glacial calm, but he managed to make his cryptic, “Ten-four, three ten,” sound as if he were responding to a minor fender bender in a parking lot.

Three miles east of the Broken Spur Saloon, a dirt road intersected State 56 and angled off to the south. The county didn’t bother to blade it, since school buses didn’t make pickups anywhere along its length. After less than a mile, the road cut into Forest Service property and became Forest Road 122. Once a year in late summer, the U.S. Forest Service drove the grader along it to knock the rocks off and fill the ruts as far as Borracho Springs, one of the premier camping spots for hunters.

The spring hadn’t dripped out of the rocks in years, but it was obvious by the litter and trash that water wasn’t the drink of choice anyway when a day of hunting was over.

The terrain rose swiftly after the campsite, blending into the rump of the eastern slope of the San Cristobals-rugged canyons with jagged and crumbling granite that had killed its share of careless hikers and hunters.

Fourteen minutes later, I braked hard for the turnoff onto the dirt road, damn near sliding past it. The Bronco jounced across the cattle guard and fishtailed on the loose gravel.

For the first mile, I didn’t need to lift my foot. The road was the width of the Bronco and fairly smooth. I rounded a sweeping corner where the road avoided a deep arroyo and came upon a Posadas County Emergency Services ambulance parked by the fence in front of the Forest Service cattle guard.

An EMT stepped out of the unit and across the road. I opened my window and slid the Bronco to a stop.

“Sir, the undersheriff told us to wait here until he was sure of the situation,” she said. I didn’t bother to take time trying to remember who she was.

“Outstanding,” I said. “Stay put.” She nodded and stepped back. “Were you behind Linda Real?”

“Yes, sir. She went on ahead.”

“Wonderful,” I said. In another mile, the Forest Service road cut its way up out of the bunchgrass and creosote bush into the few scattered live oaks, juniper, and cholla. Why the deer liked the area, only they knew.

Gigantic boulders dotted the rising slope. Many of them were large enough to hide a house-much less an unbalanced young man with a high-powered, scoped rifle. The route wound this way and that and finally, just after the road reared damn near vertically to climb over a massive granite dike, it cut hard to the right, around the flank of mountain that hid Pierce Canyon and Borracho Springs. A bullet-riddled sign announced BORRACHO SPRINGS, 1/2 MILE, with an arrow pointing off to the right.