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"Not they," A
A
Too many personal calls to make, A
Since sleep was proving elusive, A
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AT ten till eight the following morning A
Harland Roberts came in and the waiting was over. Cori
"I don't want this dragging on," Ranger Mathers began the meeting without preamble. "What've you got, Paul?"
Paul Decker, head of Search and Rescue for the Guadalupes, quickly adopted her ma
"We've no way of knowing whether he's still in the backcountry or if he came out when he told Ma
"Yesterday I called the University in El Paso and followed up on a few leads they gave me. No one has seen him. I doubt there's any cause for panic but, by the same token, there's no excuse for delay.
"All we know is he was collecting on the West Side but not precisely what or where. He had gathering permits for the entire park and left no itinerary. We need to locate his vehicle and narrow the area of the search. I'll go into William's ranch house near the escarpment. A
Cori
Maintaining, as always, a low political profile, Cheryl Light stared at her finger-ends.
"Martians," Harland said gently when the Chief Ranger's gaze raked across him. The sadness of his smile disarmed the remark's cruelty.
When Cori
Paul started to speak again but before he could, Harland raised his hand a few inches. A habit very few people shake regardless of how many years have elapsed since they were in third grade. Paul waited.
"He might not have been delayed or injured," Harland said slowly. "He may have just taken off. Craig is…" He caught A
"That's a possibility," Paul conceded. "Let's hope that's the case. Then nothing is lost but a little time and sleep. Still, we've got to search."
"Of course," Harland agreed.
Before the meeting broke up the search plan had been established. If the car was found they would begin at that point. Meanwhile, Christina Walters would be detailed to conduct a phone search of the usual places: police, hospitals, Border Patrol, family, friends, etc.
A
One hand on the door handle, he waited politely for her to speak.
"Have you got any particular reason to think Craig just ran off?" she asked. For a moment she thought he wasn't going to answer. Behind his gray eyes, she could see a small struggle taking place. When he finally did speak, she felt he was choosing his way carefully, censoring his thoughts before they became words.
"Nothing I can prove in a court of law," he said with a feeble attempt at lightness. Even that tiny spark vanished with the next sentence. "Not even something I'd want bantered around, run though the gossip mill."
A
"It crossed my mind that Craig might be ru
"What do you think he might have done?" A
"Could've been anything," he replied easily. "Something we might even think was silly. It only needed to be important in Craig's mind." With that, he opened the door of his pickup and A
On the long drive around the western boundary of the park to PX Well, A
Craig was passionate, dedicated. And insane. It didn't take a great stretch of the imagination to picture him killing to keep the developers out of the park, the bulldozers and concrete mixers out of Dog Canyon. Not only would he be fighting against the destruction of the fragile canyon when the RV sites were put in, but against the ongoing degradation of the area as the great roaring, gas-guzzling beasts rolled in with their baggage of humanity. People who had no intention of meeting Nature on her own terms but who must travel to the wilderness in a motorized hotel room replete with TVs, VCRs, showers, toilets, and growling generators.