Steven Havill - Bag Limit

Why they were hunting in such rugged country in the first place was something any eager hunter could explain…that’s where the deer went when hunting pressure increased. James Walsh hadn’t had time to fill us in on all the details, but their morning hadn’t been one of pursuing the wily eight-point buck. The image that had stuck in his mind was that of his two step-children up above him, their voices raised in argument. And then he’d witnessed Scott Gutierrez push his sister off the rocks.

Part of that story made sense. The two younger hunters would be farther uphill, eager to hunt-maybe eager to argue. Walsh himself might have been feeling the first uneasy symptoms of the cardiac attack that was going to kill him in a few minutes.

Shortly before seven, then, he had witnessed the episode. Perhaps it was 6:55, with the sun just peeking over the eastern horizon. When Connie had pitched over backward to slam into the rocks below, Jerry Walsh had shouted-screamed something-to attract Scott Gutierrez’s attention. Realizing that his stepfather had witnessed the deed, Gutierrez without hesitation had thrown his rifle to his shoulder and let fly.

The roar of the heavy hunting rifle must have reverberated across the slope of the mountain like a howitzer, and as the jacketed slug crashed into a rock near Walsh’s head, his pulse rate would have leaped exponentially.

I tried to imagine him diving for cover, wild-eyed and gasping for breath. The little grove of stunted oak was all he had. He said he’d pumped a few rounds back up the hill, and through the brown leaves had seen his assailant take a tumble.

That was how I imagined it. And by the time the last rolling echo died away, Walsh was left lying there, wondering what the hell to do as his pulse hammered and skipped. And then he’d remembered his cellular phone, and fumbled it out, punching in 9-1-1. At 7:02 AM, Ernie Wheeler had picked up the call.

And where was Scott Gutierrez now? Bob Torrez had been first on the scene, sometime around 7:30. That would have given Gutierrez almost half an hour…and with the terrain, it was conceivable that he’d continued to move, unseen, even as the troops gathered down below.

I scanned the side of the San Cristobals. The ground lay in a series of wrinkles and folds. A strong back-country hiker could cover a lot of country in a half hour, could easily travel far enough to be out of sight. Off to the west, a large ridge folded down toward the state highway, four miles away, hiding where the pavement curved up through the mountain to Regal Pass. To the east, the terrain sloped gradually toward the flat country just north of the little village of Maria right on the border.

My watch said that it was twelve minutes after nine. The young man could have been hiking for more than two hours. He could be damn near to the border if he had headed south-straight up to the peak and over the other side.

There was no reason for Scott Gutierrez to go in any of those directions. What made sense was that he’d come back down the mountain the same way he’d gone up-making sure that James Walsh was no longer a threat. He’d come down to find that he hadn’t hit Walsh with a stray shot-the man was stricken with a coronary. Gutierrez would return to the camp and make his decision there. His sister had fallen, his stepfather had had a heart attack. Nicely done.

But that hadn’t happened. For one thing, that scenario didn’t account for James Walsh still being alive to tell his version of the story. Second, the Durango was still parked down below. Scott hadn’t taken it.

Instead, one of those high-powered bullets that had been singing across the canyons had clipped Gutierrez solidly enough that he’d dropped his rifle, left a patch of blood on the rocks-and then staggered off, disoriented and out of control.

I took a deep breath. That’s what made sense to me. There would be no way to predict in what direction Scott Gutierrez was moving, if in fact he was still moving at all. He had the answers that I wanted. Now it was a question of whether he bled to death before he was found.

The sky was clear and calm, sunshine streaming in at angles that carved dramatic shadows on the rocks. The helicopter extraction of Connie French went like clockwork, once she’d been gently neck-braced and IV’d and splinted and then strapped securely into the lightweight aluminum gurney. Nevertheless, it must have been a hell of a ride, dangling far below the chopper as it swung away from the mountain.

The state police chopper pilot made it look easy, the brightly colored helicopter appearing as if it had been painted in place against a canvas backdrop. Less than two minutes later, the ground team caught the gurney as it hung suspended near the ambulance. The transfer to the ambulance went just as quickly. An occasional dust devil was kicked up by the blades’ downwash and spun off to dissipate among the rocks.

In minutes, the chopper angled away, and the ambulance was easing out the dirt road for its rendezvous with the Med-Evac plane waiting at the Posadas Airport with Deputy Taber.

Odds were slim that Connie French would regain consciousness, but if she did, her version of the story would be interesting to hear.

James Walsh’s body came down the mountain less dramatically.

All the possibilities and images kept parading through my mind in an endless cycle. “Goddamn useless,” I muttered. I hauled out the heavy binoculars again and rested my elbows on the hood of the Bronco with my belly braced against the fender. With my glasses off, I scrutinized the mountainside, scanning ahead of each member of the search party.

My cell phone chirped to interrupt my concentration. It was the undersheriff.

“Sir,” he said, “this doesn’t add up.”

“No shit,” I said. I couldn’t have told him why it didn’t, but I was glad someone else shared my apprehensions. “Where are you?”

“I’m still at the original site. Up on top.” I swung the binoculars and saw him standing on the promontory from which Connie French had launched-or been launched. Torrez’s use of the phone, rather than the very public radio, wasn’t lost on me.

“What have you found?”

“Not much,” he said. “But Scott’s rifle is a hundred and sixty feet from where Connie fell.” He paused, and I could see him moving off in that direction. “That’s where the blood is, too.”

“Right.”

“It would take a few minutes to get over there from here, sir. That’s one thing. If it happened the way Walsh says it did, that doesn’t add up. Scott pushes Connie, she falls, Walsh yells, Scott fires. Walsh ducks for cover, and returns fire. All in a matter of seconds. These aren’t two guys who are hunting each other, jockeying for position. You know what I mean?”

“Yes. More of a reflex thing.”

“Exactly. But somehow, Scott gets hit. At least, that’s what Walsh says. He manages to travel a hundred and sixty feet before dropping his rifle.”

“Or his blood.”

“Yes, sir.”

“A hundred and sixty feet isn’t much, Robert.”

“Up here, it is. And it’s on an angle, uphill.” I saw him stretch out his arm. If he had taken a step or two away from the edge of the rock, I’d have been happier.

“All right. I’ll buy that. What makes sense to you?”

“I think that if Scott was hit, he was struck near the place where he dropped his rifle, and where there’s the trace of blood. Not way over here. But…” He stopped.

“But what?”

“His rifle fell eight or nine feet, down in a jumble of smaller rocks. It wedged up against an old stump.”

“That’s what Pasquale said.”

“And it hadn’t been fired, sir.”