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"Craig's tent is desert camo," Harland said. "He was bragging about it to me the other day. It'll be a bitch to find in broken country."
Cori
Several minutes later she returned in the midst of a discussion of Craig Eastern's probable itineraries. Cori
"Due to the fires, all helicopters in the Southwest region are in use. Highest priority. It will be a week or ten days before they can guarantee us one for this search."
"Paulsen's got one," A
"Jerimiah D.? That's right," Harland added. "He has."
Christina went without the nod, and returned to report that Paulsen's helicopter was undergoing repairs. The rotor was in Sante Fe being worked on. As soon as it was ru
The meeting adjourned at five after six. Search dogs had been promised by the El Paso Police Department in two days' time. At present all their dogs were in use searching for a ten-year-old boy lost in the Gila National Forest.
Tomorrow A
It was, Paul pointed out, better than sitting on their hands.
Christina would continue her search by phone.
Harland was waiting at PX Well when A
The sight of the waiting horse trailer gave the old horse back his youth. Then he saw Roberts and began to flag. Gideon stumbled half a dozen times in the last quarter-mile. He was putting on a show for Harland.
A long drink of water was waiting for the horse and a cold Milwaukee Black Label for A
Harland opened a can for himself, sipping to her gulps. More of a promise never to tell on her than a serious drinking of beer. A
"Not a damn thing," she said to his questioning look. "Davy Crockett couldn't track a tank over this kind of country. Yours Truly was totally baffled. We played it by ear. Followed the obvious animal trails, sought out the snakiest-looking country. Not so much as a gum wrapper. Maybe the Martians did beam him up." She leaned her head back against the warm metal of the trailer and poured another quarter of a can of beer down her throat. It was the finest beverage she'd ever tasted. Heaven was just Hell in the shade with a cold beer.
"Maybe tomorrow," Harland said.
"Maybe tomorrow."
Tomorrow brought the dog from El Paso and the policewoman who worked with her. The dog's name was Natasha Osirus. Her handler, Betsy McLeod, called her Nosy. Nosy was an eleven-year-old golden retriever trained to search. Serious, almost grave, she was terribly dedicated until Betsy produced a well-chewed Raggedy A
Noon found Paul, A
The next woman had loved the place, the land, the house. A
Now the paper hung in colorless ribbons. Collared lizards peeked unfathomable eyes up through gaps between the floorboards. Black-throated sparrows nested under the elevated porch. Some days, on West Side patrol, A
Nosy, her snout full of Craig's scent-socks, a shirt, the EARTH FIRST! cap Paul had taken from Eastern's apartment- made short work of the house and, on Betsy's command, began to circle further afield. At every other step the poor creature got sand burrs or mesquite barbs in her paws. Betsy, walking with her, pulled out the stickers and murmured comfort. The dog was too well trained to quit working, but it was easy to see her concentration was affected.
No trail was found. With the heat, the stickers, the varied smells of visitors who'd come to see the Williams ranch house, Paul was not confident Nosy could sort out one six-day-old track.
Betsy was sure. Nosy was loaded back into the jeep and A
At four o'clock they reached PX Well. Nosy was more comfortable with her paws tied up in canvas, and the well had been so long in disuse that there were few human scents to sort through, but the end result was the same: no sign of Craig Eastern.
After supper that night, A
The phone search, Christina said, had become so general as to be absurd. Craig had few friends and was a virtual stranger to his one living relative-a sister in Brownsville. Christina was down to calling his grammar school teachers and the night security guards at the University lab where he worked. No one had seen or heard from him.
The following day, at the Marcus entrance to the park, Betsy and Nosy sniffed out a tarantula, a great granddaddy of a western diamondback rattler, and two Texas horned lizards. The three remaining entrance gates didn't produce even that much in the way of results. Come sundown, Betsy loaded Nosy back into her Camaro and headed for El Paso.
The next morning's Incident Command Meeting was glum. Nothing to report. The Forest Service, pressured by Cori
Cori
Frank Kanavel, the rancher owning the property along the boundary between the gate to the Williams ranch road and PX Well, had let some "snake guy" from the park leave his car on his property for two days. More than a week later he comes back from his sister's wedding in Lubbock to find the damn thing's there again. Did the park think they had an open invitation to walk over his land any time they wanted, trample down his fences, upset his cows?