Michael McGarrity - Tularosa

The horse stood still, legs quivering. Hunched over, eyes cast downward, he went looking for the footpath that would get them off the mesa. The trail started at a rock face along a narrow ledge, then made a series of sharp switchbacks. The old ranch road intercepted the trail on the first step up the mesa. They would have to walk the next two miles, leading the horses. Kerney found the trailhead and returned to give Sara the news. She groaned silently at the prospect and dismounted without comment. As she hobbled behind the packhorse she wondered if she would ever get dry and warm again. She assumed Kerney was taking them to shelter, but she had no idea where they were going or how long it would take to get there. She damn sure wasn't going to ask. There was no way Kerney would hear a whine or a whimper from her. The two of them trudged along on gimpy legs, waterlogged, leading miserable, tired animals. There was enough humor in it to make Sara smile every now and then, in spite of the pain shooting up her leg. The switchback trail was barely passable and in places only faintly discernible. Scattered rocks and saturated earth along the way made for tough going. The mud turned to thick slop as the intensity of the rain increased.

The cloud sank lower and the rain turned to hail. Sara's only reference points were the trail at her feet and the backside of the packhorse in front of her. She sighed with relief when Kerney signaled her to stop. He stood between two superficial ruts filled with water, intersecting the path.

It had to be the jeep trail. When he failed to move on she joined him and asked what was wrong. The hood of his rain slick dripped water down the brim of his hat as he bent to study the tire tracks in the mud.

"These are recent," he said.

"It looks like somebody's cut a new route."

"Going where?"

"As far as I know, nowhere. It dead-ends up at the rock face." He pointed up the trail. She might have missed it in the rain. "Drops straight off or goes straight up. There's no way out."

They were quiet for a moment, neither one of them enthusiastic about the obvious need to follow the tracks.

"The storm should break soon," Kerney suggested, wiping his nose with a damp hand.

"Let's go have a look," Sara said, with as much energy as she could muster. The tire tracks gave out in a circle of flattened grass where the vehicle had turned and backed up near two twisted, intertwined cedar trees close to a seamless cliff that cut off forward movement. At the base was a steep plummet to a smaller mesa below. On the canyon floor a bighorn browsed serenely within yards of a cascading flood of water rushing toward the mouth of Sweetwater. Kerney looked at the cliff. It matched perfectly with the bighorn watercolor. They tied the horses to the trees and took a closer look. The lower branches had been cut away to allow passage to the rock face.

A tent-shaped crevice in the granite had been care fully filled in with stones and small boulders. It took only a few minutes to remove the rocks. The air that wafted out of the darkness brought the smell of decaying flesh with it. Standing at the entrance, Sara used her flashlight to illuminate the cave. It was high enough for Kerney to stand upright and deep enough to hold two dozen or more people. The ground was smooth stone, except for a pile of loose shale at the back of the cave. They walked to the mound, and Sara held the flashlight while Kerney removed the shale. Under layers of rock the outline of a body emerged, wrapped in a tarp. Gagging on the stench, Kerney peeled back the sheath. Escaped gases from the decomposed body had blistered Sammy's face so that it looked burned. He was barely recognizable.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit," Kerney said, spitting the words out. He turned away, gasped for fresh air, and looked at Sammy's face again.

"Let me help," Sara said. Kerney brushed her hand away.

"I'll do it," he said hoarsely. He felt around Sammy's neck until his fingers touched the dog tags, undid the clasp, and carefully pulled loose the chain. The canvas beneath Sammy's head, crusted with dried blood, claimed tufts of hair as Kerney turned the rigid body on its side. The back of Sammy's head was crushed. Kerney's breath whistled out of him through his clenched teeth.

Underneath Sammy's torso was a sketch pad. He handed Sara the pad and the dog tags, fished Sammy's wallet out of his back pocket, and gave it to her.

With her mouth covered to fight off the stench, only Sara's angry eyes showed.

"This sucks," she said. Kerney said nothing. Slowly, he wrapped Sammy in the tarp, his hands tucking the material as though he were putting the boy to bed. Standing, he swallowed hard against the bile in his mouth and the piercing anger in his chest.

"Let's get out of here," he growled, pushing past her and into the moist, fresh air that smelled like earth, pine needles, and cedar.

Sara's flashlight beam caught a dull glitter in the fine dust near the feet of the corpse. She picked it up and held the light close to inspect it. It was an old military insignia, two crossed cavalry sabers with a company letter beneath the sheathed blades. She put it in her pocket and joined Kerney outside. Savagely, Kerney restacked the rocks to seal the entrance. The violence in his movements as he worked warned Sara that no help was wanted. Finished, he walked to the edge of the mesa. The high winds and rain were gone. Dreamlike on the skyline, the Sierra Blancas gathered the last of the clouds to their crowns. The basin, damp in wet tones of brown, green, and gray, glistened in the sunlight. *** Below him on a sprawling foothill, the shape of the 7-Bar-K ranch house jumped out at him. The living windbreak his grandfather had planted on the north side of the house was now a dead row of cottonwood trees. A pile of lumber was all that was left of the horse barn, and a few random fence posts marked the remains of the corral. The stock tank, almost covered by drifting sand, showed a rusted lip to the sky. A truck was parked in front of the log porch. East of the ranch, on the flats in the distance, sunlight bounced off a cluster of metal roofs. It had to be the test site. The sound of Sara's voice startled him.

"Are you all right?"

"Not by a long shot," he answered.

"Kerney… I'm sorry."

"I know." He refused to look at her.

"You'd think this old place had seen enough suffering over the years." He pulled himself together and forced a smile.

"I know it must hurt, but…" His interruption came before she could continue.

"It's okay." Tears made lines in the dirt on his face. He blinked more away.

"Let's dry out, clean up, and get some rest. I don't know about you, but I'm a complete wreck." They rode down toward the ranch in the unusually cool air the storm had left behind, Kerney in the lead. Sara prodded the gelding along until she was even with Kerney's shoulder. He would not look at her.

The small desk, positioned with a view out the window, gave Eppi Gutierrez a clear line of sight to Big Mesa. He made his last entry in the daily log on the status of the bighorn herd, closed the book, and looked up. Coming down the old trail, two riders on jaded horses trailing a pack animal picked their way through the sandy bottom. His apprehension grew as he watched them come closer. In all his overnights at the 7-Bar-K he'd never seen anybody come down that trail-it went nowhere. He put his logbook in a metal box, found his holstered sidearm, and watched their approach through the front window, nervously snapping open the hammer flap. The riders dismounted at the tailgate of his truck and walked the horses to the porch. Both were limping, the man rather badly, the woman less so. They looked exhausted. He unholstered the pistol, hid the weapon behind his right leg, and stepped outside. The man spoke before he could challenge them.