heriff Montoya arrived. He had two passengers in the Suburban with him, a sixty-something white-haired man wearing sunglasses, a black suit and narrow black tie, and a shorter, forty-something man dressed the same way.
These guys watched Men in Black one too many times, Hunter thought.
They converged at the body, and Montoya introduced the older man. “This is Mr. Jones, he’s with the federal government.”
Hunter said, “Well what do you know, we’re with the federal government, too.”
The younger man extended his hand to Hunter, “Ashton Dean.”
She shook it and said, “Hunter Kincaid. You go by Ash?”
“My name is Ashton.”
A corner of her mouth twitched. She introduced her partner to him as she wondered if ol’ Ashton Dean was also with the government, since the Sheriff only mentioned Jones.
Jones looked at the body for a good minute without talking. Thirty seconds into it, Hunter shifted her weight from one foot to the other. Her nostrils flared after fifty seconds of silence, and she glared at the Sheriff. Jones spoke ten seconds later, “Was there anyone else with him?”
“No,” Hunter said.
“Are you sure you didn’t miss any tracks?”
“I’m sure. We double-checked the trail. Was he with someone you need to tell us about?”
Jones ignored her question and said, “Tell us everything, starting from the beginning.”
Gary stepped in front of Hunter to keep her from smarting off. He said, “Sure. We started on the River before daylight…”
It was four AM when Hunter, driving with her head halfway out of the window so she could use the headlight’s low beams to check the silted riverbank for sign, spotted the faint track coming out of the Rio Grande. They were a quarter-mile upriver from the small Mexican village of Las Vibras. At first the tracks were indistinct, hardly more than smudges, but Gary and Hunter figured it was a single person, and probably male because of the stride.
As they followed the slight indications of passage, with one of them driving the Jeep and the other on foot, the Agents realized this one knew the desert. He’d crossed at night to avoid the heat, and he walked fast, not wavering his direction except to avoid cactus, Spanish daggers, and ocotillo.
Trading off on who drove and who tracked on foot in the places they couldn’t drive, the two Agents followed the sign by flashlight for three hours until the sun winked a sliver of yellow above the eastern horizon.
That’s when the man’s trail went crazy.
He went left, then right, and doubled back, then raced forward to another gulley, where the tracks showed he stayed for a while. Then it was off again, weaving and twisting from one draw to the next, from one patch of cenizo to a cluster of boulders. It seemed he tried to throw someone off his trail, except didn’t brush out any tracks.
His trail became harder to follow when the terrain grew rougher as they approached the eastern side of the Chinati mountain range. She found fewer and fewer tracks in the rock. They were losing ground on the man, and knew they had to make a decision. Gary said, “I think he’s planning to go through Tinaja Prieta Canyon.”
Hunter said, “I think so, too.”
They split up, with Hunter following on foot while Gary drove the Jeep in a wide loop to avoid a series of arroyos and washouts. That’s when he got Hunter’s call about the body. He radioed Headquarters and had them contact the Sheriff’s Office, then drove to Hunter and the dead man.
Gary finished the story by saying to the white-haired man, “And then you two arrived.”
Mr. Jones nodded. “Neither of you took anything off the body?”
“What are you implying?” Hunter asked.
“I said did you take anything off the body?”
Hunter put her hands on her hips, “I just wanted to make sure I heard right, that we’re being asked if we’re thieves.”
Mr. Jones said, “I’ve seen enough, Sheriff. Take us to Marfa.”
Hunter stepped in front of him as he moved toward the Sheriff’s vehicle. “You never told me your first name. I like to know who I’m dealing with.”
“Someone who’s way above your pay grade.”