- Hard Fall Read online

  From what it sounded like, this was a body recovery, not a rescue. With that kinda damage, if she'd survived the fall, the wait while we were notified probably finished her off. I didn't want to think it was hopeless. There's always a little voice saying maybe in the back of my mind and whispering rush,

  'cause it's amazing what the human body can tolerate. Still, I didn't bust any speed limits getting out there.

  So far I was the only sworn officer to show. Everyone else was on their way to our little party, mine and Kabe's. Suited me enough to have a little time just to be near him, in another twenty minutes or less we'd be overrun. I waited, mentally sorted through the things that needed sorting, and watched Kabe fight with a hay bale, trying to break it for the horses, and I smiled.

  On days like this, take your humor where you find it. Any good hand knew that you flaked a sheaf off, shook out the dust and then tossed it in the feeder. And a little was always better than a lot at one go. Yeah, you had to feed more often, 17

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  but a working animal foundering on too much food—not something any ranch needed to deal with.

  "You might want to break that into a couple flakes." For that I got a dirty look. Carlos, T's other full-time hand, just watched like he thought Kabe might shoot all the horses and blame it on him. I shrugged. "Just saying." At least Kabe worked. Couldn't fault him there. Didn't need to be told, just jumped in when he saw Carlos dragging over the hay.

  "'Cause you know all about horses?" Boy, that tone was snide. "Or you just like hassling me, just because?"

  Attitude rolled off him like the delicious smell of his skin under the sun. I couldn't blame him much. "Maybe." What it had to look like: big, beefy cop coming 'round every day, checking up. The con in him likely figured I was fishing for an excuse to bust him back. Not like there weren't guys who'd do that.

  Me, I just wanted to bust him, bareback, tied to a pipe fence with his rear in the air and those expensive jeans around his ankles. Hey, if I'm going for fantasy, might as well go whole hog.

  Carlos copped a gap tooth grin and spit his chaw. Nasty habit, but the man was older than dirt, so you couldn't tell him nothing. Worked for T's pa before he worked for T. Carlos drawled out, "Joe knows a bit about horses."

  Kabe snorted and tossed another solid quarter bale into the feeder. It landed with a ringing chung of hollow pipe and lodged in the slot. "Shit!" The curse grated with anger and humiliation. No one wanted someone else to be right ... least of all a cop.

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  God saved me from a pissing contest with the crunch of rocks on the dirt road. Small miracles are how He shows us He loves us. I looked over my shoulder and down the way.

  Two four-wheel drives headed up the drive. One vehicle, well if you washed it it'd be white with a bright green stripe along the side ... that'd be Fred with the law enforcement ranger he said he'd bring; Smokey the Bear hats and all. The second vehicle, an old Toyota Land Cruiser, didn't look like anything special, but I knew it. Belonged to Ramon Piestewa, the local Bureau of Land Management contact. I had to give myself grief over the fact that I can pronounce a Hopi surname and not figure out Kabe's. Guess it's just a function of where I grew up.

  Lots of agencies for our little party, but the general locale where the fall occurred could have been anywhere near three jurisdictions. Part of the Harding Ranch was private land, some of it leased from BLM, and many of the bluffs overlooked the National Park Service territory. No matter who eventually got the case, I would play nice since my patrol car wouldn't ever make it back where we need to go. I needed a ride out ... and, more important, one back.

  Fred clambered out of the NPS pickup, hand still in a brace, and pushed the broad brim of his hat up. A wry smile flashed as he raised the black-wrapped wrist in mock salute.

  "Hey, Joe." He ambled over, waving at the other park service employee. "This here's Nadia Slokum, one of our law enforcement rangers."

  "Howdy." Nadia reminded me of a polecat. Small, sleek and ornery as all get out. The kind of woman who would smile 19

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  sweetly as she ripped your arm out of your socket and beat ya with it. "Joe Peterson, Garfield County Sheriff." I held out my hand, prepared to yank it back if she seemed about to bite it off. "Don't reckon we've met before."

  "Naw." The grip that took mine was rock solid and full of work calluses. Up close, enough gray streaked her hair to put her probably well past forty. Hard to tell though with people who lived their life outdoors; sun made them older, fresh air kept them younger than most city folk. "Transferred in from Everglades, worked the Trace, Alcatraz and Andersonville before that." NPS people always prefaced who they were by where in the system they'd been. "Certainly, not as flat as I'm used to." She snorted as she dropped the shake. It came off efficient, not rushed. "Spent the first few days feeling like I was walking on a slant. Since I hadn't tied one on and didn't run a fever, figured it must have been altitude sickness.

  Didn't realize how high it is up here."

  I always liked people who copped to being human. "Yeah, elevation'll get to you if you ain't prepared." I smiled and pushed the dust around with my heel. "Doesn't usually last more than a couple days."

  The whiny protest of a misused door screeched across the morning. All of us, even the stock, swung our heads to stare as Ramon clambered out of his truck. Folding the bill of his BLM cap in his hand like a taco shell, he adjusted the angle to shade his eyes. I swear he'd been wearing the same damn cap since I'd met him years back. "So who gets to claim it?"

  Trust ol' Ramon to bring it up in that halting, rolling take on English he had.

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  "Little early to be arguing about jurisdiction," Fred scratched under the edge of his brace, "don't you think?"

  "Never too early to establish what protocol governs."

  Ramon acted like it meant nothing to him. All of us, even the new gal, could spot what utter hooey that act was. BLM had the most acreage and the fewest personnel 'round these parts. They always wanted to land on top of the pile. Ramon cottoned to the top of the top, and sometimes didn't much care how he got there.

  Politics ... get more than two people together and it becomes a problem.

  "Well, I can cut it short." There's problems and then there's problems. I was never much for messing in ol'

  Ramon's head. "I figure there's three of you and only one of me ... we'll let the Fed control until we know for sure. Plus one of y'all has to give me a ride in, so I figure I'm the beggar here."

  That earned me snorts all around. "Okay then." Nadia's drawl held a flavor real similar but not at all like any of those around her. "Well, then you're riding with BLM." It took me a hair to realize she didn't know Ramon's name. "I don't think we could squeeze you in between the two of us." That once up and down I got was of someone who appreciates what she sees but didn't have any compunctions to go play with it.

  "How many people you got in those shoulders, boy?" Suited me fine. After all, I worked out to be noticed. Had to take what came under those circumstances ... so long as she didn't try and get my phone number.

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  Ramon sniffed like an old woman. "Guess that means I got to clean out my seats. Who's this Kabe character who brought the news out? He coming too?"

  "Lest you want to be driving in circles." I jerked my chin toward where Kabe fought with breaking that wayward feed out of the chute not a few feet away. He'd crawled up on the back to try and get at it. "Kabe, you gotta take us back. You figure you can find it?"

  His grunt called me stupid, though his words were polite enough. "Pretty sure I can." Hopping off the lip of the feeder, he jammed his hands in his pockets and shrugged. Little trickles of sweat, visible through his open shirt fr
ont, etched the line of his collar and ran along his jaw.

  "Fine." I had to steel myself something awful to keep from licking my lips. Lord Almighty, what that skin would taste like.

  "You'll ride out with Ramon and me."

  Another shrug was followed by a disinterested,

  "Whatever." How hard did he have to study to manage that, I wonder?

  Nadia clucked the roof of her mouth with her tongue.

  "Fred, why don't you check in with your search and rescue team?" She spoke over her shoulder, heading back to the NPS

  truck. "See if anyone else is on their way. I'll dig out the maps and EMS stuff from the back." For a second she paused and smiled back at us. "Haven't even had a chance to look over the gear I inherited."

  Kabe glared at their backs as they all walked away. Once they were out of earshot, he turned on me. What I rated was only slightly less poisonous. "You let them walk all over you 22

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  and just caved." His face was tight and sour. It made him look like a pouty kid.

  "Who cares?" I mimicked his shrug and jammed my hands in my pockets. "It's all police procedure." Studying the sky gave me a chance to put the thoughts into words. "See, it doesn't matter if my badge number is above or below the date on the evidence bag. Or whether we use yellow or red stickers. So long as everything's logged, I'm fine. It's not worth a jurisdictional pissing match."

  "Yeah, but you lost the first battle, they know now that you're a pushover." Hmm, now that was interesting.

  Somehow I'd made the leap from the guy giving the hassle to the guy getting hassled. Maybe it was because they were all Feds and I was local law. 'Bout the only thing I could think of that might span that divide.

  I grinned. Kabe hadn't been here long. Local politics, well it's a fine art. "Possession is nine-tenths of the law. You, of all people, should know that one."

  "Huh?"

  Since he seemed to be having fits with the concept, I laid it out for him. Slowly. "Fred can't climb," a jerk of my head toward the Ranger's truck, "none of the others know how,"

  and then back indicating the mountains. "I go down to the body, then it's my scene. Don't matter who thinks they're in charge." The sight of his eyes going fish wide gave me chuckles. When it wound out of my system, I asked, "By the way, you have gear? I mean here?"

  "Gear?" This boy was slow on the uptake sometimes.

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  "Yep." I hoped it was just 'cause he was out of his element, not that he suffered stupid. Stupid could get you killed out on a face. "Climbing gear, I understand you know how. I wouldn't think that you'd come up into God's staircase without it." Figured I needed to clarify that we'd do this old school, traditional climbing, not freestyle stunts like the one that landed Kabe in the pen. "And, I'm talking trad gear, hot shot. This is S&R, not free sport solo."

  "Yeah." He stared at me. "I got the medieval crap."

  Like pulling taffy through a sieve. "Get it." It came out as more of a growled order than I would have liked. Not much to be done once the words were spoken, though.

  "Why?"

  Shaking my head, I went back over the not so fine details.

  "Because Fred can't climb, the other two are damn near useless, none of the rest of the Search and Rescue team is available and I ain't stupid enough to go down a wall by myself." With the pressure of my thumb, I pushed my class-b Stetson, the dirty-white western style, back on my head.

  While I might go summer weight with short sleeves and straw cowboy hat, I wouldn't be caught dead in the kelly green polo and baseball cap we could use as an alternate. No criminal in their right mind took you seriously if you looked like you were headed out for a round of golf.

  "Actually, I can go down plenty easy, it's the coming back up, hauling a body, that takes two." 'Course I was probably going to have to strip down to my undershirt. I didn't like exposing it 'cause it's the temple garment with the tiny slashed symbols on my pecs. It's ugly as all sin, which I 24

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  guess is its purpose ... promoting modesty and all. But my uniform shirt, besides looking like a renegade from a St.

  Patrick's Day parade, had too many flaps and pins and patches to rest in a harness well. My tan pants would just have to do.

  Kabe glared some more. Boy had enough piss in him for twenty. I kept it neutral, not letting him know how much the heat in those eyes got me going. I'd like nothing better than to tap into that restless passion, just to see how deep it went.

  Instead, I prodded a different direction. "You gonna stand there with your finger up your butt," just 'cause I don't cuss don't mean I can't be crass, "or you gonna make yourself useful?" Long seconds of silence ticked off the clock and then Kabe turned on his heel and stalked back towards the main house. Well, please and thank you must've been in short supply 'round him.

  A cough let me know Fred stood a pace or so back off my shoulder. "What are you doing, Deputy?" Sometimes I think Fred guessed at things others might just leave be. Not that I minded much. Fred might take a jab now and again, but he ain't never done it 'round anyone 'cept me and him.

  I rolled my hip a bit so that I could look at him without really moving much. "What you on about?"

  "Well, if I didn't know better, Joe," his grin cracked his face in a fair imitation of drought-parched clay as he ambled over.

  "I'd say the country boy in you was up to something."

  "Well, Fred, I wouldn't have to be up to something, if you hadn't mucked up your hand like a moron." My snort carried all the grief he'd gotten for weeks on how it happened. No 25

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  glamorous yanking a kid off the rim or wrestling a coyote bare-handed, ... naw, Fred sprained it catching a regulatory manual as it dropped off a shelf. "Nobody else is in earshot."

  Not that I'd radioed Noreen to check recently, but Fred didn't jump in and correct me. Sorta hoped that Fred found my dispatcher had struck out, since I didn't really want anyone else but Kabe to help. "Jack's got his hands full."

  Crossing his arms, Fred joined me in holding up the front end of my car. "Uh-huh." Layers of syrup flowed off his drawl.

  Uncomfortable with the predatory silence, I felt compelled to fill it up with excuses. "T asked me to keep an eye on the kid. I figure he should make himself useful." Same thing that got most suspects in hot water. Still, couldn't stop myself.

  "Uh-huh." Fred scratched his free arm with the back of his brace.

  "You know he's got a record." Small town, small ranger station ... everybody knew everything about anyone new within days. 'Cept maybe Ramon. People didn't much trust BLM. People didn't much trust Ramon; had a habit of shooting off his mouth, repeating everything that ever hit his ears. "Kid can climb though. Real adrenaline junkie stuff. Could put some of those sport climbers we have to pull off the hoodoos to shame."

  He let me stew in my half-truths for a while. "Uh-huh."

  "You know," I growled in the same tone I got when I thought people were leading me on, "that not quite word you keep using is really grating on my nerves."

  "I just have to tuck a few burrs under your saddle now and again." He bumped my shoulder with his. "Can't let Deputy 26

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  Joe Peterson get all high and mighty." With a grunt he stood and stretched. "And," I got a full dose of Fred's knowing too much smile, "that ex-con is long past kid. Don't you be fooling yourself there and making up justifications for your own mind." My mouth wasn't half open to deny it when Fred's black glare shot me down. "Never cared one way or another, never had cause to say nothing. There's a deep load of angry in there, Joe. I don't want to see you get hurt when it all comes boiling out." Reaching out, popping my shoulder with his fist, he took some of the sting out of his words. "Lot of people respect Deputy Joe. Hate to see that go down
'cause you couldn't resist playing with a silk-coat varmint."

  The slam of the big front door jerked our attention. Kabe dropped down the front steps. A Mana harness, pretty much as stripped down as you could get and still be considered traditional climbing gear, dangled from one hand. Ropes, pack and much abused rock shoes were slung on his back. Kabe'd switched out of his jeans into a set of battered climbing shorts and high-tech sleeveless shirt. Damn stretch material didn't hide much. And with light-colored fabric across brown skin, every fine feathering of muscle stood out under the sun.

  Lifting weights was one of the few pastimes granted to inmates and Kabe'd apparently used his time to hone his body to climbing perfection. There wasn't enough fat to keep a coyote warm on his frame.

  Lord, maybe this was the king of all bad ideas.

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  27

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  Chapter Three

  Ramon'd managed to shove enough junk aside for Kabe to squeeze in the back and me in the front. The man must carry his entire life around with him. There was hardly room for my feet under the dash. I shifted and slung my arm over the back of my seat. Kabe, knees slung out wide, elbow pitched on the open window, stared out at the passing meadows.

  I took him in for a moment, indulged myself ... tortured myself. From my position, I had a straight shot right into his package. Those painted on climbing shorts didn't leave much to the imagination. Finally, I remembered why my bones were being shook apart in Ramon's dodgy four-wheel drive. "Why don't you tell me what happened?" Deputy Joe slid down onto my mind and told me to ignore how tight my own pants were.

  Kabe rolled his head and gave me a blank-faced stare. I recognized that look from when I worked state corrections. It didn't say "I'm cooperating," but it didn't say "I ain't cooperating," neither. Mostly what it did say was "Don't get me beat."