Trial By Fire

“DPS cars have shotguns in them. They may have rifles as well. Maybe we could borrow-”

“Borrow nothing,” Robson declared. “We’ll bring him and whatever firepower he has along with us.” He turned back to the pilot. “Fly us back to the junction,” he ordered. “See if you can find a spot in this godforsaken place to set this thing down.”

The pilot swung the helicopter in a tight circle, returning the way they had come. Below them they could see another towering plume of dust rising skyward as a Gila County deputy roared toward the shooter’s position. Since the bad guy was no longer moving, the distance between the two vehicles was closing fast. Robson, for his part, was trying to send out a warning that the deputy needed to exercise caution in approaching the scene, but due to varying frequencies between agencies, no one seemed to be in direct communication.

When Robson finished with the radio transmissions, Ali touched the pilot’s shoulder. “What about the coordinates you put in from the e-mail?” she asked. “Can you show me where that was? While you guys go after the shooter, maybe I can find Sister Anselm.”

Knowing they were out of range, the pilot nodded and sent the helicopter into a steep dive. “There,” he said a minute or so later. “Isn’t that her, there on the left, down in that gully?”

Ali peered outside, straining to pick out details on the ground. Finally she saw a tiny spot of something that was bright green-not the grayish green of the surrounding desert shrubs and prickly pear. If the figure dressed in brilliant green was Sister Anselm, she was lying in the middle of a deep gully, stretched out on a bed of reddish-brown sand.

“See that big rock back up by the road?” the pilot said. “If you use that boulder as a marker and go straight north from there, you should be able to find her.”

“Good thinking,” Robson said. “You go to her and see what you can do to help her. In the meantime, that DPS officer and I will fly back in to give the deputy some backup.”

Ali knew he was right. From the looks of it, and especially if Sister Anselm had been shot, they were already too late to save the nun’s life, but the deputy was driving solo into an ambush.

Back at the highway, the pilot determined that the only place he could set the aircraft down was on the blacktop itself. Once they landed, Robson leaped out of the helicopter. The man didn’t look like much of a sprinter, but he was. He galloped across the distance between the helicopter and the parked patrol car with surprising speed. Ali hesitated for only a moment before she, too, leaped from the helicopter. By the time Ali caught up with Robson, he and the highway patrol officer, Milton Frank, were already retrieving weapons from the DPS vehicle.

As Frank and Robson started toward the helicopter, Ali stopped them. “While you two handle the shooter, please give me your car keys, Officer Frank. We spotted the woman that man kidnapped a mile or so from here. She’s lying in a gully just off the road. She may already be dead, but it’s possible she’s injured. I need to help her.”

Frank turned to Robson. “Is she a cop?” he asked.

“Yes,” Gary Robson said. “She is.”

“Oh,” said the officer, tossing her the keys. “Why didn’t you say so? It’s against regulations, but under the circumstances, I think they’ll give me a pass. Do you know how to use a police radio?”

“I can figure it out.”

“There’s some first-aid equipment in the trunk if you need it.”

“Water?” Ali asked.

“That, too. Be careful you don’t run over the spike strips as you leave.”

With that, he and Robson set off at a run for the helicopter. Once the aircraft was airborne again, Ali looked up and down the deserted roadway, hoping to see some sign of arriving backup, but there was none. Grabbing first one set of spike strips and then the other, she dragged them off to the side of the road and left them there. Then, as she scrambled into the patrol car, she heard the familiar text message alert coming from her cell phone.

Inserting the key in the ignition, she was tempted to ignore the message, but she didn’t. When she looked at the readout, she was astonished to see the text message was from Sister Anselm. It contained one word only: “Help.”

“Coming.” Ali sent her one-word text message reply, then she started the patrol car’s powerful engine and swung it around in a circle and then on to the rutted dirt road.

The surface of the Forest Service road had never been intended for use by ordinary passenger vehicles. The patrol car, which was fine on the highway, had a hard time managing on the primitive surface. Periodically the vehicle would scrape bottom on the low spots, and the wheel base was the wrong size to negotiate the ruts left behind by the heavier vehicles and equipment that usually traveled this way.

Over the police radio, Ali heard the sound of voices speaking urgently back and forth, but she was too preoccupied with concentrating on her driving to listen to what was being said or to guess how much of it applied to the current situation. The only thing she did manage to make out clearly was the single a

The boulder the pilot had pointed out earlier turned out to be a lichen-covered monolith. Once Ali reached it, she had difficulty finding a suitable place to pull off and park. She didn’t want to leave the DPS car blocking access for other arriving vehicles.

Finding a wide enough stretch of shoulder, Ali parked, took the keys, and hurried around to the trunk. Inside she found a case of bottled water, a chest labeled First Aid, and a lightweight survival-style blanket. She took the chest, two bottles of water, and the blanket. Not that Sister Anselm needed a blanket for heat right then. It was just the opposite. From what Ali had seen, the injured woman seemed to be baking in direct sunlight with no chance of shade. Ali hoped to use the blanket to create some shelter from the scorching sun.

Carrying the supplies, Ali raced back to the boulder. Once she left the roadway, Ali found she was in desperately rough terrain. Twenty yards or so from the road, she was standing at the edge of a deep ravine. She was shocked. The view of the scene from the helicopter had flattened the landscape. There had been no way to tell the depth of the gully, or that there was a twelve-foot, boulder-laced dropoff between the surface where Ali now stood and the spot where Sister Anselm had landed, lying still and silent, sprawled facedown in the sandy bottom.

“Sister Anselm,” Ali called. “Can you hear me?”

There was no answering response, no movement.

There was no sign of footprints leading up or down the steep path, and there were none leading to or from Sister Anselm’s body. She hadn’t walked there or been carried there. She had been thrown there. Or pushed.

Ali was outraged. The bastard just dropped her, Ali thought. He tossed her away like she was so much garbage.

“Sister Anselm,” she called. “I’m here. I’m coming as fast as I can.”

Again there was no acknowledgment from the prone figure in the sand below.

Ali soon discovered that climbing down the steep bank was easier said than done. For one thing, it was eroded. Places that appeared to offer a firm foothold crumbled when she put any weight on them. Unable to manage the steep descent safely while carrying her load of supplies, she finally gave up. First she stuffed the blanket inside her tracksuit. Then, taking care to aim them in a direction where they wouldn’t pose any further danger to Sister Anselm, Ali sent the water bottles and the first-aid kit tumbling down the bank.

Close to the bottom but with no visible footholds remaining, Ali finally jumped the last three feet or so, making a jarring two-point landing. The sand looked soft but it wasn’t. She grunted as sharp pains radiated out from both knees, then scrabbled across the hot sand to retrieve her supplies. When she finally reached Sister Anselm’s side, she knelt near her head, hoping to shield her from some of the sun’s fierce heat.