Michael McGarity - Mexican Hat

"Put search and rescue on standby," Kerney said, as he headed for the door.

"And tell your father."

The kid's eyes brightened. This might turn out to be as good as the Elderman Meadows murder. He was keying the microphone before the door slammed behind Kerney.

Kerney found Jim's truck and started up the trail at a fast pace, his anger with Stiles building as he ran. Going into the canyon alone was dumb, and failing to call in made it worse-raising the possibility that something had gone wrong.

He pushed himself to run faster, and his knee almost buckled in protest.

He hated the damn thing for slowing him down. The pain that ran like a spike up his thigh he could handle, it was the permanent sub par performance the knee caused that really pissed him off.

Finally the knee locked up and he was forced into a slow trot. Pockets of white clouds, empty of any rain, blocked the late-afternoon sun and cooled him down, but he had lost a lot of body fluid and his mouth felt like dry cotton. He started sprinting again when he saw Stiles sprawled in front of the mine entrance. Breathing hard, he reached Jim and bent over his body. He was alive but unconscious.

His face was a bloody mess, and his left eyelid was almost torn off. A bullet had cut through muscle in Jim's left arm and he was bleeding freely. On the ground were the shattered remains of a flashlight.

Using his handkerchief as a tourniquet Kerney stemmed the flow of blood and checked Jim's pulse.

It was fast and erratic, and his skin felt cool to the touch.

Jim's day pack yielded a first-aid kit. Working as quickly as possible, Kerney cut off the sleeve with a pocket knife, cleaned the wound with hydrogen peroxide, and bandaged it. When he saw the small dark stain on Jim's shirt pocket he flinched. Quickly he ripped the shirt open and found nothing but a deep bruise on the rib cage. If the flashlight casing and batteries hadn't stopped the bullet. Stiles would be dead.

He pulled a soggy handkerchief from Jim's shirt pocket and took a whiff.

It smelled like motor oil.

Using the hand-held radio, Kerney called Henry Lujan at the lookout tower, gave his location, and reported an officer down. He picked Stiles up, carried him to the creek, stretched him on the ground, raised his feet, and covered him with a sweater and tarp from the day pack. He flushed Jim's face with water, cleaning off the blood and some of the rock fragments, working carefully around the eyes. Then he gently put gauze over each eye and taped them for protection. Stiles moaned as Kerney finished up.

"You're going to live," Kerney said.

"Jesus, Kerney, is that you?"

"It's me."

"I can't see a fucking thing."

"Your eyes are patched."

"Am I blind?"

"I don't think so. Who shot you?"

"Didn't see him. It happened too fast. The son of a bitch probably followed me up the canyon."

"No. I saw only your tracks on the way in. Who knew you were coming?"

Stiles forced a small laugh.

"Probably half the county. I used the police frequency to give my destination. Every citizen with a scanner could have been listening."

Kerney started stuffing some aspirin in Jim's mouth.

"What are you doing?" Stiles mumbled, his mouth half full of capsules, as Kerney put the canteen to Jim's mouth.

"Aspirin," he explained.

"It will dull the pain a bit." K-erney watched Stiles drink deeply.

When Jim finished, he treated himself to a swallow, and looked around for a chopper landing site. The canyon was too narrow for a helicopter to fly in, and there was no adequate clearing where it could set down.

He looked back at Jim. Stiles needed to get to a hospital as quickly as possible.

"Can you walk?" Kerney asked.

"Help me up," Stiles replied weakly.

Kerney stuffed the gear back into the pack, slung it over his arm, got Stiles to his feet, and walked him a few yards down the canyon. Jim leaned heavily against him, wobbly and uncoordinated. Walking him out wasn't going to work; he would have to be carried. Kerney put the day pack on Stiles and slung the man on his back. When Jim protested that he could make it under his own steam, Kerney told him to shut up.

Each time Kerney stopped for a brief rest, Jim told him a bit more of what had happened. They heard the chopper long before it passed overhead, and soon the distant sound of sirens echoed through the mountains. Kerney picked up the pace. After a long stretch without stopping, Kerney stumbled and almost fell flat on his face. He put Stiles down and collapsed next to him.

"Almost there," he said, gasping, trying not to sound completely winded.

His chest was heaving, and his knee felt as if someone had pounded it with a hammer.

"Let me try to walk."

"There's no need," Kerney replied. Four search and-rescue team members came into view, trotting quickly up the canyon.

"We're about to be rescued."

Stiles turned his head in the direction of Kerney's voice.

"Did I remember to thank you?"

"You just did," Kerney answered, removing the day pack from Jim's back.

He turned Stiles over to a paramedic, who did a quick check of vital signs, started an IV, elevated Jim's feet, and wrapped him in a blanket.

The patches over Jim's eyes were removed, the damage quickly assessed, and fresh dressings applied. Kerney's spirits sank as the paramedic pointed to his own left eye, shook his head, and made a face, before ordering his companions to put Jim on a stretcher.

Kerney followed the men to the landing zone. No time was wasted getting Jim in the chopper and on his way to the hospital. At the barricade a half mile farther down the canyon, he found a gathering of men and vehicles, including Omar Gatewood, two deputy sheriffs, a Game and Fish officer, and one of Carol Cassidy's permanent rangers. For some unexplained reason, two sheriffs patrol cars had emergency lights flashing, the colors almost completely washed out in the bright aquamarine sky. It must be for crowd control, Kerney reckoned, eyeing the canyon, empty except for the small circle of men, thinking that he was starting to catch Jim's offbeat sense of humor.

Sheriff Gatewood pulled Kerney aside for a briefing.

They stood next to Gatewood's patrol unit. The police radio cracked with traffic about the ambush.

"What in the hell happened up there?" Gatewood demanded.

Kerney filled Gatewood in with an absolute minimum of facts.

"Who would want to shoot him?" Gatewood asked, as though Kerney could supply the answer.

"The more important question is why was Jim shot," Kerney proposed.

"Hell if I know," Gatewood admitted, tugging an earlobe.

"I'll send the boys up the road to see what they can find." He waved his hand in a come-here gesture at the officers.

"Give your boss a call," he added.

"She wants to see you."

"What's up?" "Can't say," Omar said, bending down to brush dirt off his shiny boots with a handkerchief. He walked to meet the officers halfway, issued some orders, and caught up with Kerney at his truck.

"I'm going to make sure Jim gets a special commendation out of this."

"That's a good idea," Kerney replied, trying to bite back the sarcasm.

It didn't work.

"After you do that, why don't you dispatch a deputy to patrol the Mangas road and get a reconnaissance chopper in the air, just on the off chance they may spot somebody coming out of the forest."

Gatewood's expression changed to a scowl.

"You got a bad habit of telling me what to do, Kerney. You know that?"

"Wrong, Gatewood. I'm just suggesting that maybe you ought to get your priorities straight." He threw Jim's day pack in the cab, fired up the truck, and left Gatewood in a puff of road dust. In the rearview mirror he saw Omar bending down to brush off his boots with a handkerchief one more time.