Michael McGarity - Serpent Gate

Such an admission would end Ordway's career in law enforcement.

From what Kerney had seen of Ordway during the past four weeks, he would be no great loss to the profession.

He dropped some bills on the table to cover Robert's meal and the tip, and smiled at the waitress. She lowered her gaze and got busy wiping down the immaculate countertop.

A railroad town established in the early part of the century, Mountainair sat among the foothills to the Manzano Mountains. A state highway dissected Main Street, curved in front of the local elementary school, and continued past a gas station, motel, and some abandoned commercial buildings before making a straight run west toward the mountains. Main Street, a two- block-long strip with some retail stores, a post office, and a National Park Service building, boasted no trees, no traffic lights, and no pedestrians. Some of the buildings were vacant, and barren display shelves behind plate-glass windows created a rhythm of continual decline.

Kerney drove the strip several times looking for Robert, who was nowhere to be found. He stopped next to the post office and spotted Neil Ordway's police car parked in front of the town hall and police station.

The police station, which housed the police dispatch office and the magistrate court, had a concrete front with a thunderbird design perched above an ornamental pillar that separated two entry doors.

Ordway's office took up the second floor of the adjacent town hall.

Kerney wondered if Ordway had snagged Robert in spite of his warning to leave the man alone. He switched his police radio to Ordway's frequency. If Robert was in custody, Kerney would know it when Ordway left to take him back to Las Vegas. He would keep looking until then.

Mountainair had no distinct neighborhoods to speak of, except for a string of middle-class, ranch-style houses and a few restored Victorian cottages near the high school. Even there, scattered between neat yards and tidy homes, an occasional empty lot with an old foundation or a sagging, weather-beaten house open to the elements broke any impression of a well-defined neighborhood.

Kerney did a slow patrol and checked each empty house before heading across the main drag, where the pavement quickly turned to dirt, and a string of houses, several churches, some shacks, sheds, and uninhabited cabins sputtered to a stop at a fence to an unused pasture.

Kerney kept looking, found nothing, returned to the main drag, and stopped at the grocery store to buy two packs of cigarettes. Ordway's cruiser was still parked outside city hall when he came out. He headed east on the state highway in the hope that Robert might be hitchhiking out of town. He drove to the Estanda cutoff before giving up and turning around to scout the road west of town. He shut down the hunt near the Abo Ruins National Monument and made his way back to the village.

He topped out at the hill on the outskirts of Mountainair just as a small herd of pinto horses swooped up a shallow arroyo and trotted along the highway fence. It was a pretty sight, and Kerney slowed to watch until the horses disappeared into a draw.

Mountainair had faded with the demise of dry land farming and the decline of railroad traffic. But its beautiful setting pulled tourists in and kept the place alive. It was a gateway to the wilderness that spread over the southern end of the Manzano Mountains, which were brushed at the summits with the first dusting of snow.

To the south a heavily forested mesa sheared off half of the horizon, and thick, slow-moving clouds in me blue gray November sky rolled toward the village. Kerney had been taught by his ranching father to read the weather, and the day promised moisture sometime soon.

Mountainair was not completely unfamiliar to Kerney. After finishing a brief stint as the interim sheriff of Catron County in the southwest part of the state, Kerney had looked at a section of land for sale in the high country outside Mountainair. It was summer grazing pasture infested with cocklebur, hound's-tongue, and prickly pear cactus-sure signs of overgrazing. It would take years to bring it back, and Kerney needed land that he could put to use immediately to produce income and make the mortgage payments, if he was ever going to get back into ranching.

With only enough money for a modest down payment, everything else he'd looked at was either way out of his price range or too small in size for raising cattle.

Kerney's parents had lost their ranch in the Tularosa Basin when White Sands Missile Range, a top-secret testing facility in the heart of south-central New Mexico, had expanded. The day they moved, military policemen and federal agents escorted the family oS the spread to the Rocking J Ranch, where Kerney's father had taken a job as foreman.

That was the day Kerney's dream of owning a ranch was born. He had kept his hopes alive for almost forty years. While living on the Rocking J, during his college years, in "Vietnam as a platoon leader near the end of the war, and throughout his career in law enforcement, Kerney had never let go of the dream.

He wondered if he would ever be able to achieve it.

It didn't look promising.

He pulled up in front of Pop Shatter's hotel to find Ordway using a side-handle baton in a wrist lock on Robert to force him toward the squad car. The waitress watched the action through the plate-glass window of the dining room.

"Let him go," Kerney ordered, slamming his car door to get Ordway's attention.

"Butt out, Kerney," Ordway said.

"This is my business."

Kerney quickly closed the distance to Ordway.

"Move, Cordova," Ordway commanded. He applied more force to the hold.

Robert gasped in pain and lurched toward the police car.

"I said, let him go," Kerney repeated, grabbing Ordway's shoulder.

"Sure thing, hotshot," Ordway said as he pulled free, released Robert, and swung at Kerney with the baton.

Kerney kicked Ordway in the nuts. He dropped the baton, fell to his knees, and grabbed his groin.

After disarming Ordway, Kerney looked for Robert, who stood next to him, bouncing on his toes in delight.

"Kick him again," Robert said, as he threw uppercuts into the air.

"Wait for me by the fence."

"Fuck you," Robert replied, still punching the air.

"You lied to me."

"What?"

"You promised me some smokes, man."

"They're in my car, on the passenger seat. Go get them. Then wait by the fence."

"Okay," Robert grumbled, moving away.

Kerney moved behind Ordway, stood him up, put the baton against his throat, and applied some pressure.

"You're not a man who takes advice easily," he said.

"Fuck you," Ordway gurgled.

"I could file charges against you," Kerney said.

"Unlawful arrest. Use of excessive force. Do you want that kind of grief?"

Ordway thought about it and shook his head.

"I didn't think so." Kerney released the pressure, pushed Ordway out of kicking distance, and circled around to look the man in the eyes.

"Take my advice, Ordway. Find a civilian job. I don't think you're cut out to be a cop."

Ordway's expression turned ugly when Kerney locked his handgun, baton, and car keys inside the police cruiser.

"That should slow you down," Kerney said to Ordway.

"Get in my car, Robert."

"Why?"

"I thought you wanted to go to jail."

Robert beamed.

"Can I smoke in your car?"

"No, but I'll stop along the way so you can have a cigarette or two."

"That sucks."

"Humor me," Kerney replied. kerney let Robert sit up front weaning no cuffs. He fought off Cordova's bad smell by running the air conditioner with the window cracked, even though the cloudy late afternoon had dropped the temperature into the low forties.

"You're supposed to cuff me and lock me in the back. I'm an escaped mental patient."