Serpent Gate Read online

  Only the police cruiser was in the driveway when Carlos drove by. Felix directed him to park on the street and wait.

  After an hour, with no sign of Kerney and the snow piling up, Carlos got anxious. “We will be stuck here if we don’t leave soon,” he said.

  “We’re wasting time,” Delfino agreed.

  “Where else can he be?” Felix asked Carlos.

  “I do not know,” Carlos answered. “He has no girlfriend, he sees no one socially, and he does not go to clubs or saloons. All he does is work.”

  “Check his dossier,” Felix told Delfino.

  “He investigated a cop killing in Mountainair recently,” Delfino said. “Maybe he went there. Where is this place?”

  “Southeast of Albuquerque,” Carlos replied.

  “You have a map?” Felix asked.

  “In the glove box.”

  Felix got the map, unfolded it, and, using a pen flashlight, looked for the town’s location. “It’s not too far,” he finally said.

  “Let us visit Mountainair,” Delfino suggested. “Judging by the name, I’m sure it’s very picturesque.”

  “The roads could be very bad,” Carlos said.

  “You are here to drive us, not advise us,” Felix snapped. “Delfino is right; it is better to search for the gringo than to sit here and risk discovery. If we do not find him, we will come back.”

  Carlos nodded, cranked the engine, and made a U-turn. Except for a few snowplows and sand spreaders that were busy clearing one lane in each direction, the highway out of town was virtually deserted.

  • • •

  The blizzard made Kerney’s trip south unbelievably grueling. At times, he was forced to crawl along at ten miles an hour, and on several occasions his unit spun out on black ice without warning. Only the absence of traffic averted an accident.

  In Estancia, he contacted the sheriff’s department by radio and got directions to Nita Lassiter’s house. He turned east into the teeth of the storm, and soon the car wipers were thudding against a rock-solid ice buildup on the windshield. He had to stop repeatedly and scrape the glass, while the storm raged around him, kicked along by gale-force winds.

  The drive put him in a foul mood. Born and raised in the desert of the Tularosa Basin, Kerney didn’t like snow much, and his aversion to it hadn’t changed in spite of the years he’d lived in Santa Fe working for the police department.

  He found Nita’s house. Facing south, it had a wall of windows running the length of the structure. All the inside and outside lights were on, creating a lonely beacon that barely cut through the whiteout of the storm. It was the only sign of habitation he’d glimpsed since leaving the outskirts of Estancia.

  Her four-wheel-drive truck was parked by the front door. He knocked and the door flew open. The look of relief on Nita’s face dropped away as he stepped inside.

  “I thought you were Robert,” she said.

  “You haven’t found him?” Kerney replied as he unbuttoned his coat. He hung it on the rack in the small entryway.

  “No. I have all the lights on in case he’s nearby.”

  “He would need to be within a few hundred feet to see them. Have you searched outside?”

  “Twice,” Nita answered as she led him into a large room that contained a living area, dining alcove, and kitchen. “Everywhere,” she added.

  Kerney nodded and looked around. The house was passive solar with exposed adobe walls, insulated glass panels, a corner fireplace, and brick floors. Doors at both ends of the room led to bedrooms.

  “I have people looking for him,” Kerney noted, “although I doubt it will do much good in the storm. Let’s hope he’s found shelter.”

  Nita sank into a low-backed tufted leather chair that faced a sofa. “He put a pair of my underwear in the commode and rummaged through my bedroom dressers. I have no idea why he did it.”

  “Where have you looked for him?”

  “I covered every back road between Estancia and Manzano, until the storm closed in and I couldn’t see beyond the hood of my truck. We need to find him.”

  “In the morning,” Kerney said wearily as he went to get his coat. The cold weather had stiffened his bum knee, and he had to force it to work.

  “You can’t possibly go back outside,” Nita said as she followed him. “Stay here. I have a guest bedroom.”

  Kerney shook his head. “I can’t do that.”

  “You look exhausted.”

  “I’ll be fine.” Kerney slipped into his coat.

  “Are you always so bullheaded?”

  Kerney turned and looked directly into Nita’s eyes. “Under different circumstances I would gladly accept your offer, Ms. Lassiter. But you are a confessed cop killer, and I’m the guy who busted you. Staying here tonight is not an option; it would be misconstrued.”

  “No one needs to know.”

  “My presence here is a matter of official record. Both the county sheriff’s office and the state police dispatcher know exactly where I am.”

  “You’re right; you can’t stay.”

  “I’ll get a room at the Shaffer Hotel in Mountainair.”

  “Will you at least call me when you arrive so that I know you made it safely?”

  “I’ll do that. Try to think of where Robert might be heading.”

  Nita nodded and forced a smile, but her eyes were worried.

  “What’s wrong?” Kerney asked.

  “I don’t want anything to happen to Robert.”

  “Robert is a survivor, just like you,” Kerney replied evenly. “He’ll be all right.”

  “Have you always been such an optimist?”

  “I have my black moments every now and then.”

  “When was the last one?”

  “The day I had to shoot you,” Kerney replied.

  Kerney’s unexpected response shook Nita. “I’m sorry that happened. You must think I’m terribly weak.”

  “I think you’re a woman who needs to get on with her life.”

  “In prison?”

  “I hope not, Ms. Lassiter.”

  “It wasn’t fair of me to say that.”

  “No harm done.”

  As soon as Kerney said good night and slipped out the door, Nita wanted him to come back. With all the constraints that existed between them, she knew he wouldn’t. But she could sense Kerney’s loneliness ran as deep as her own, and that left her feeling very sad.

  13

  Ugly things had happened in Robert’s dreams, forcing him awake. Paul Gillespie’s face floated through his mind. The face changed into El Malo; horns snaked out of his forehead like worms and his eyes turned fiery red and evil.

  Robert opened his eyes, found himself in total darkness, and scrambled to his feet. He could feel the pressure of the walls and ceiling gripping him—pushing him down—and his heart pounded in his chest.

  He ran, stumbled against something, groped his way toward a current of cold air that blew against his face, and found a broken window. He crawled out, fell on his knees, and ran until a pain in his side forced him to stop.

  Gasping for air, he turned and looked back. The setting moon behind the church made the spire look like a dagger stabbing the sky. He shivered in the cold, but the tension in his body lifted, and he felt better now that he was outside. Then the voices returned.

  He could only use his right thumb to plug his ears; somebody had put a plaster cast on his left arm. He tried to rip the cast off, but the plaster was too hard and thick. He gave up and started walking down the road. Snowdrifts buried the road and covered all but the tops of the fence poles along the highway.

  Somewhere, Robert had gotten a new coat, and it felt warm. But the air was frigid and his feet were cold. He looked down at the boots that flapped against his ankles, wondering where they had come from. As he walked, snow seeped over the boot tops, soaked his feet, and made it hard to move. He stepped carefully to keep the boots from coming off in the snow.

  There was no traffic on the r
oad. Everything was silent and still. He stuck his thumb out as soon as he heard the sound of an engine and the scrape of a plow on the pavement behind him. An orange highway department snowplow slowed to a stop. Robert got in.

  “Did you go off the road?” the driver asked. “I didn’t see your car.”

  “No, I’m just walking.” Robert stared at a pack of cigarettes on the dashboard. “Got a spare smoke?”

  “Help yourself.”

  Robert grabbed a cigarette and lit it.

  “Looks like you got banged up a little,” the man said, eyeing the cast on Robert’s arm and his missing teeth.

  “Got in a fight,” Robert replied, thinking maybe it was true. “No big deal.”

  “Where are you heading?”

  “Mountainair.”

  “I can take you as far as the maintenance yard in town.”

  Robert nodded. “That’s cool. Got any coffee there?”

  “The pot is always on.” The driver dropped the transmission into gear, lowered the blade, and began plowing his way toward Mountainair.

  Robert puffed on the cigarette and tried to concentrate on where he was supposed to go after he got to town. Nothing registered. The voices were gone, replaced by a noise like radio static.

  Close to town, with the sun just up and the glare off the snow bouncing into the sky, a state police car passed them. Robert turned his head to follow the car, thinking that if he got out and waited, the cop might come back and take him to jail. He shrugged off the thought and snorted. Cops were assholes.

  The driver gave him a strange look.

  Robert bummed another cigarette and stared out the window. He liked the way the snow covered everything and made things look clean. His feet started to hurt as the driver turned into the maintenance yard. It felt like somebody was sticking pins into his toes.

  He jumped out of the truck and went with the driver into the empty office.

  “Got any rubber bands?” Robert asked.

  The driver rummaged through a desk drawer and held out a handful. Robert pulled them over his boots. Maybe they would help keep the snow out.

  “What happened to your laces?” the driver asked.

  “I don’t like them.”

  The driver filled his thermos, gave Robert a cup of coffee, and went outside to load sand into the truck’s spreader. When he returned the hitchhiker was gone.

  • • •

  Nita found Kerney sitting in the Shaffer Hotel dining room picking over a light breakfast. The room was full of railroad workers just in from a night of clearing a freight derailment at Abo Pass. Snow and mud had been tracked into the room, and small brown puddles had formed under the tables where the workers sat.

  Nita dropped her coat over the back of an empty chair and joined Kerney at the table. “Good morning,” she said.

  “Morning,” Kerney answered, inspecting her outfit. She wore insulated boots, jeans, and several layers of sweaters. “Going somewhere?”

  “With you,” Nita replied.

  “That’s not possible.”

  “Do you want to waste time trying to find your way to Serpent Gate, or do you want to get there in a hurry?”

  “There are a lot of other places Robert could be,” Kerney said.

  “I’ve already looked everywhere else.”

  “Then I’ll start at Serpent Gate.”

  “It’s not that easy to get to. Do you have a four-wheel-drive vehicle? It’s going to take one to get in.”

  “No, you’re not going.”

  “Then I’ll go by myself,” Nita said as she started to rise.

  “Hold up.”

  “Robert is out there, and I’m going to find him if you won’t.”

  “Why are you so sure he’s there?”

  “Can’t you figure it out? What happened to me—and Robert—took place at Serpent Gate. He’s always gone back; I never have.”

  Before Kerney could respond a patrol officer entered the room and walked quickly to the table. He gave Nita a questioning glance and a tight nod before addressing Kerney.

  “No luck so far, Chief,” he said. “I covered all the major roads in a ten-mile radius.”

  “Robert may come here,” he said as he laid some bills on the table to cover the meal and the tip. “Pick him up if he shows. Don’t scare him off. He doesn’t like cops much. I’ll be on my handheld radio if you need me.”

  Kerney stood up, took Nita’s coat off the back of the empty chair, and held it out. “Let’s go to Serpent Gate.”

  • • •

  Carlos tried to act cordial and relaxed with Felix and Delfino, but his attempts at small talk were rebuffed. He drove through the night while one man slept and the other stayed awake, watching him. Even when he had to take a piss along the side of the road, he had company. When he suggested a meal stop, the idea was rejected. Carlos had to come up with a plan to save himself, and soon.

  The blizzard had made travel almost impossible. Felix had ordered him to take the interstate in the hopes that the road would be in better condition. But south of Albuquerque the highway became a nightmare, and Carlos missed the exit to Mountainair because of a fierce whiteout that obliterated the road signs. When he got back on track, it took hours to travel fifty miles to Mountainair.

  Carlos drove into the village with a low sun in his eyes. It wasn’t much of a town from what he could see: a cheap motel or two, boarded-up businesses, a school, and a main street that sputtered to a stop after two long blocks.

  “I need some coffee,” he said to Felix as he slowed to let a crazy-looking man with missing teeth scurry across the street, the coat draped over his shoulders flapping in the breeze.

  “We’ll get some to go,” Felix said. “I saw a sign for a hotel restaurant. It should be on the right, a block down.”

  Carlos made the turn and saw the man in the flapping coat run across the road toward an abandoned warehouse next to some train tracks. In front of the hotel, a man, woman, and a cop came out the front door.

  Carlos accelerated. “That’s Kerney,” he said as he passed the trio in front of the hotel. He went around the block and returned in time to see Kerney and the woman pull away in a pickup truck.

  “Are you positive?” Felix asked.

  “Completely.”

  “Don’t follow too closely.”

  The cop paid no attention as Carlos cruised by. Carlos let several vehicles pass him, but kept the truck in view. The road had been sanded and plowed, but black ice slowed traffic. Several miles beyond the village, Carlos topped out at the crest of a hill and panicked. The pickup was nowhere in sight. He started scanning for the truck off the roadway.

  “You’ve lost them,” Felix snapped.

  The highway divided a slender valley cut by wandering arroyos that gradually opened to a large pasture. To the south, a half circle of hills hid the mainline railroad tracks from view. Fresh tire tracks entered a ranch road.

  Carlos squinted against the glare of reflected sunlight on the snow and caught sight of the truck traveling toward the hills.

  “There,” he said, pointing.

  “Follow,” Felix ordered.

  At the gate to the ranch road, the car lurched to a stop in the middle of a snow-filled ditch. Carlos tried backing up, and the wheels spun without grabbing. He got out to take a look and Delfino joined him. The rear wheels were deep in snow to the top of the hubcaps.

  “We’ll have to dig the car out,” Carlos said.

  “Leave it here,” Delfino replied. “Open the trunk.”

  Carlos unlocked the trunk and watched Felix and Delfino slip backpacks over their shoulders.

  “Let’s go,” Felix said to Carlos.

  “I’ll wait here,” Carlos replied.

  “Move,” Felix said, stepping out to take the lead.

  “The police will notice the car.”

  “Today it is just another stranded vehicle in a snowbank,” Felix replied. “Let’s go.”

  The sun gave no warmth and
the glare off the snow was intense. Carlos followed Felix while Delfino stayed behind him. They walked single file at a fast pace in the ruts left by the truck. Behind him Carlos could hear the even breathing of Delfino close at hand.

  Wind gusts seared against his face, his breath froze on his mustache, and his sunglasses fogged up. On the back side of the hills, the road dipped under a double set of train tracks. At the top of a rise beyond the tracks, Carlos spotted the pickup.

  Felix saw it also. He holstered his handgun, took off the backpack, and removed an Uzi submachine gun. Delfino did the same.

  “Take Carlos to the trestle and wait for me,” Felix ordered Delfino. He left the road and started a loop in the general direction of the truck.

  From the trestle Carlos and Delfino watched Felix approach the truck. He checked the bed and the cab, returned to the tailgate, crouched down, and signaled them to approach. With Delfino at his side, Carlos trotted to the pickup. Beyond he could see two figures moving toward a low ridgeline.

  “Get down,” Felix said.

  Carlos ducked behind the tailgate.

  “How do you want to take them?” Delfino asked.

  “From both flanks,” Felix said. The figures up ahead were small dots against a white backdrop. “Carlos, you go with Delfino.”

  Carlos took out his handgun, glancing at Delfino for a reaction.

  “Take the point,” Delfino said.

  Carlos broke trail through the crust of snow, his legs sinking into drifts up to his knees, slowing his pace. He looked back once; ten steps behind, Delfino had the Uzi pointed directly at him. He scanned the left flank for Felix; he was nowhere in sight.

  Carlos was a sitting duck. All he could do was keep moving.

  • • •

  From inside the old grain warehouse, Robert watched the cop in the squad car. The man just sat in the cruiser with his engine running, tailpipe exhaust billowing like frost in the cold morning air. Robert knew if he went to the hotel, the cop would beat him up, just like Ordway had.

  He didn’t know what to do. Seeing Kerney and Nita together had left him with a mean, jealous feeling, and his head felt full of hissing snakes. He had to get away and never come back, but where should he go? He went out the rear of the warehouse and scrambled down a small embankment to the train tracks. Behind him stood the old train station. Maybe east, he thought, to Texas.