Steven Havill - Scavengers

Posadas County Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman parked her Expedition between the deputys unit and the chain-link fence surrounding the gravel pit. She sat for a few minutes with the engine switched off and the drivers-side window open. Five hundred yards east, Deputy Jackie Taber stood on a slight rise in the prairie, waiting.

With the radio on the short-range frequency, Estelle pushed the transmit bar. Do you need anything from your vehicle, Jackie? Given the choice whether to jolt and jar over the prairie in the stiffly sprung department unit or walk, it was predictable which route the deputy had taken. It wouldnt have surprised Estelle to see Jackie sitting on a rock, sketch pad in hand.

Thats negative, maam.

Ill be over in a few minutes. The radio barked static twice by way of confirmation. In the distance, a raven vented a single raucous croak of his own, irritated at being driven away from his lunch. The sound floated clear and clean with no wind to play tricks. Beside the Expedition, a few sparse wands of prairie grass stood delicately motionless, their seed hulls long since blown.

The rest of the prairie was bare limestone gravel, a rough table of rocks running the gamut from irregular pinhead grains to great sharp-edged slabs the size of Volkswagens. Wedged in here and there were scrawny creosote bushes with February-bare limbs, cholla cacti spotted with the peculiar mange that reduced them to gray skeletons, and little gray stick-sprays that in a few months would bloom tiny flowers the color of the blistering summer sun.

Dispatcher Gayle Torrez had hit it right when shed described this particular patch of southeastern Posadas County as bleak. Estelle Reyes-Guzman had worked for the Posadas County Sheriffs Department for twelve years, not counting the nine months that she, her physician husband Francis, and the two boys had spent in Minnesota. Not once in more than a decade had she occasion to visit this spot. Not once had the need for human law intruded on this stretch of nothing.

An enterprising goat would have to work hard to keep his belly off his backbone here. Rattlesnakes could find a lizard, horned toad, or packrat to sink fangs into every couple of weeks. An ambitious coyote might find something lean to kill on his way through to greener pastures. The ravens would clean up slim pickings afterward. That was it. Even the easy-to-please vultures were still wintering down south where thered be lots of dead things stinking in the sun. And now someone had found a pile of bones that hadnt once been a jackrabbit, steer, or lonely, wandering burro.

Estelle didnt bother to ask dispatch for details. If Jackie Taber said a body was lying out on the prairie, then there was a body. With a fatality, no matter the cause of misadventure, the call from dispatch to the sheriff or undersheriff was automatic. Estelle regarded the expanse of barren prairie in front of her. Whoever had died had done so without much of an audience.

To the south, the nearest set of prying eyes lived at the Bordwell ranch, but it was unlikely that old Milton Bordwell had ridden this far afield to find a place to drop dead, even though this land had once been his. And if Milton had witnessed the incident, he would have called Sheriff Robert Torrez. The two were hunting buddies from decades back, until Milton became too crippled to hike the rugged San Cristbals.

With no oil lurking in underground puddles, no uranium ticking away in the rocks, and no copper spreading its filaments through the matrix, Milton Bordwell had grown tired of paying property taxes on prairie too useless to graze a steer. He sold five hundred acres to Dale and Perry MacInerny for two hundred and fifty dollars an acre and figured hed made the best of the deal.

Dale and Perry knew exactly where the wealth was. Had this day not been a Sunday, the cacophony of their stone crusher, front-end loaders, and the ponderous trucks with their belly-dump trailers would have made the Posadas County undersheriffs quiet contemplation impossible. MacInerny Sand and Gravel supplied builders and highway contractors across southern New Mexico and northern Mexico. Dale hadnt told his brother yet, but when the hole behind the chain-link fence sank deep enough, he planned to offer it as a landfill to some rich, garbage-fouled city.

Estelle looked at the massive padlock that secured the gate through the MacInernys fence and let her gaze travel along the silver expanse of fencing toward the east, beyond the final corner post that marked MacInernys gravel pit, out five hundred yards to where the deputy waited patiently.

Jackie Taber had found a spot where she could watch both her vehicle and the bones. She stood on the rock-strewn rise, silhouetted against the morning sun. From any other direction, the buff tan of her uniform blended with the roll of prairie to make her all but invisible. A large woman with square shoulders and thick waist, her military experience still showed in the calm, easy way she carried herself.

Estelle grinned. Perfecto, she said aloud, and rummaged through the bulky camera bag until she found the lens that would let her frame the picture as she saw it in her minds eye. She twisted the lens onto the camera and got out of the Expedition, bag slung over her shoulder.

The deputy didnt stroll to meet her, didnt wave or shout. She stood quietly in her chosen spot and waited, a study in patience. Estelle hiked half the distance, stopped, and unslung the bag. She knelt and braced the camera, composing the scene so that Deputy Tabers figure stood on the left, backlit by the hard morning sun, sharply contrasted with the tawny reach of prairie in front of her. No other man-made object intruded to spoil the view-no road, no power line, no stock tanks. The natural rise of the terrain hid the corpse. That was just as well. The victim was not Estelles idea of calendar art, regardless of his condition.

After shooting four different exposures, the undersheriff bagged the camera and continued on. Other than turning her head to watch Estelles progress over the rocks, Deputy Taber hadnt moved an inch.

This is a peaceful place, Estelle said as she approached.

It is now, anyway, Jackie Taber replied. Her soft, gentle voice contrasted with her burly appearance. Stetson riding a military two fingers above the bridge of her nose, Jackie stood with her hands at her sides, perfectly at ease. She didnt ask why Estelle had taken the long-range photographs, but had watched the undersheriff choosing her route, taking time to examine everything-as if the five-hundred-yard hike was a Sunday outing with no particular agenda.

Reaching the deputy, Estelle halted and turned, looking back toward the gravel pit for reference. Wow, she said. She lowered her heavy camera bag to the ground as she looked for the first time at the body.

The corpse lay fifty feet away on an east-facing grade, spread-eagled on its back. From a distance, the body looked complete and fresh.

Anyone we know?

Im not sure that theres enough there to recognize, the deputy said.

Without drawing any closer, Estelle regarded the corpse for a moment, and then looked east. Power line towers marched north-south, visible now from the rise as black Ts against the brown prairie more than a mile away. To the south, she could see the foothills of the San Cristbal Mountains. The interstate five miles to the north was out of sight and hearing, an asphalt slash across the prairie.

Jackie Taber watched as Estelle turned in place, taking in the panorama. Completing the circuit, her inspection returned to the corpse. You didnt see any tracks anywhere? No vehicle tracks? Estelle asked.

No, maam.

What a hike. Who called it in?

The deputy looked up at the blank sky and then grinned at Estelle. A student pilot was flying over here this morning on a flight from Las Cruces to Lordsburg. She saw it.