Uncertain Justice

"Okay." The sheriff spread a large scale U.S. Geological Survey map of the area open on the hood of the four by four he used as a patrol vehicle. "This is where the helicopter crew reported seeing the hiker," he glanced at his watch after putting a dot on the map with his pen, "about an hour and a half ago. They only saw him for a couple of seconds ... never did find him again.

"Now ... a lot of this country is more up and down than it is level," Barton remarked, "so a hiker isn't going to make very good time unless he's on one of the established trails. The guy they saw was nowhere near the Continental Divide Trail or the Colorado Trail. But there are a number of smaller paths that he could use, as well as some forestry roads. Or ... he could be going cross-country.

"He was seen walking a little bit west of due south, but we don't have a clue whether he's still heading in that direction or not. If the man is even slightly intelligent, he's going somewhere else now."

Working quickly, the sheriff laid his ballpoint beside the distance scale and marked the distance he wanted on the barrel of the pen with his thumb. He laid the pen's barrel flat on the map and used a fingernail to set that distance from the place where the fugitive had last been sighted. Using that as the diameter, the sheriff drew a rough circle on the map. He leaned back, shaking his head.

"In terrain like this, a couple of miles per hour is about the best he can do ... but he's going to have a good two, maybe two and a half hour head start on us. He's going to be somewhere in this circle.

"Gentlemen, that's four or five miles in any direction away from the starting point. If I remember my high school geometry, we've got between fifty and seventy-five square miles to search right now, and it's only going to get worse. While we've been talking, we've added a couple more square miles that we're gonna have to go over inch by inch." Sheriff Barton backed away from the map to let others absorb what he'd said. He paused, glaring at the offending map.

"Remember, we don't have any idea what route this guy is taking, how fast he's moving or if he is moving. If we don't get a real big break, we're going to have to look behind every tree, every bush, and every rock in that circle because we won't know whether he's there or not until we check.

"And while we're doing that ... he could be traveling as fast as his legs can go getting away from us or he could get a comfortable distance away from where he was seen and go to ground ... and only he knows which." He studied a sky dissolving slowly from blue to black.

"Pretty soon, it's going to be pitch dark out here and there aren't any streetlights out here. If it turns cloudy--and it probably will at this time of year--you won't be able to see your hand in front of your face without a flashlight. Inside an hour, even with a light, he could be standing a couple yards away and if you aren't shining it right at him, you won't see 'im.

"If he's real unfriendly ... well, we could have even bigger problems. Do we know if this guy is carrying?" He turned to the state patrol officer for an answer.

"Underwood is supposed to have a shotgun and a .357 Magnum revolver. The guy we want was seen with a shotgun but there was no report of a pistol at all," the state trooper commander mused. "We don't know about any other weapons."

He snorted. "Hell, we're only assuming they're the same person. Could be we got a couple o' crazies wandering around southern Colorado. Wouldn't surprise me all that much ... who knows?" He shrugged his shoulders expressively.

"Yeah ... well...," continued the sheriff, "we do know a couple things. If the guy the chopper crew saw is our man, he surprised two officers over by La Junta at gunpoint, took their side arms away from them, and put both in their own handcuffs.

"Before that, he shot a District Attorney down in Texas. That takes a particular brand of cojones you don't see every day. People ... do not make the mistake of thinking this guy is afraid of you. He isn't and he's proved it already."

The sheriff quit talking and began to fold the map. He'd repeated himself some but, overall, he was pleased he'd been able to get a lot of information across.

"I'd like to piggyback on a couple things you mentioned, Sheriff." Winters paused to get his thoughts in order. "One, if this is Underwood, he's a twenty-year veteran of the U.S. Army. He's familiar with firearms and we'd better assume he's pretty good at using them. Second...."

He paused to find the words he wanted.

"Second, like Sheriff Barton said ... and again, if this is Underwood and if he's the man who kidnapped those two cops ... he's demonstrated a couple of times he won't hesitate to get into ... ahhhh ... potentially violent confrontations. We're not hunting for rabbits out here. Be careful! Consider this man armed and super, super dangerous. Everyone stay alert and we'll get this guy. Remember your officer safety, okay?"

The group of state troopers, sheriff's deputies, and several forest rangers, had all been quiet while Sheriff Barton and Commander Winters laid things out for them. A few raised their eyes to inspect the high mountains surrounding them. It was getting colder by the minute. Some reflected on the fact their wives and girlfriends could be waiting for them with hot dinners and welcoming arms right about now. Two reserve deputies wished they'd invested in a better grade of Kevlar vest.

"Anyway ... thanks, Sheriff. Fifty square miles? Lot of territory," concluded the senior state trooper. He was deliberately working on his people skills ... time to mend some fences.

He looked around to include the rest of the group in the discussion. "It's not going to be easy," he remarked, "but I can't see us just sitting around not doing anything until morning. Our air support will be back overhead in 15 minutes or so. I think we need to push this guy while we have the chance. Otherwise, we may never see him again.

"Anything else?" He waited. "I'm open to suggestions here."

One or two in the group shuffled their feet and pretended fascination in the mountain peaks high above them. They directed their gaze everywhere except toward the commander. Others frowned as they considered what they could contribute.

"Uh ... how sure are we of the place where the 'copter first saw the guy?" The young deputy who spoke had been one of the frowners.

"Pretty darn certain, actually." The reply came from the sergeant who had been designated as liaison for the air operations and had talked at length with the pilot as the chopper left the scene to refuel at Salida's airport. "They evidently caught him crossing one of those cleared areas that run under the power lines. He was right beside one of the big steel towers, they said."

"Well...." The deputy hesitated in the presence of so many senior personnel before plunging ahead. "Curt Barnett over in Mustang Springs has those dogs he's trained for huntin' and I heard he's done some trackin' tryin' to find folks that get lost. I don't know, but maybe he could help find this guy with them dogs. Ya reckon? I mean ... if they have a place where they know the guy's been, shouldn't it be pretty easy to find his trail?" He was asking more than he was telling, but Commander Winters didn't hesitate.

"Good idea." If they could get an idea of which direction the man was fleeing, that would cut down the area they had to search considerably. The commander walked over to the cruiser he'd driven to the pass and spoke on the radio for a couple of minutes.

"Hey, son," he called to the young deputy, "can you tell my dispatcher how to get to where that guy Barnett lives?" As the young man stumbled closer, the commander handed the microphone to him and walked back to the group.

"What about a good tracker? Anyone know of ... someone around here who can do that?" The commander struggled with political correctness and his real desire to know if there was an American Indian living somewhere nearby. He identified Indians as being close to nature and able to trail someone through the wilderness. He was aware he couldn't let anyone know he thought that way, though--no telling who might get pissed off and motivated to file a suit.

"That's no problem," replied the sheriff. "We can have a dozen men familiar with hunting and tracking here in the morning--but you can't do it in the dark ... no way."

"Okay, you guys are the experts." The commander gave in without protest. "Can you set that up for us?" At the grizzled sheriff's nod, he dropped the subject to pose a final question.

"Is there anything else we can do tonight?" he asked the group. He saw a number of shaking heads and heard the non-committal noises indicating he'd probably gotten everything he could from them for the moment.

"Well, if anyone thinks of anything, let me know, okay?" He smiled to show them he was just one of the boys. Grabbing his air liaison officer by the elbow, he walked the man over to the SUV outfitted with a small forest of antennas. Behind him, the group broke into several smaller ones.

A dark sedan drove in from the east and pulled into the parking lot. The supposedly unmarked vehicle stood out clearly as a government vehicle from one agency or another. The cheap wheel covers and uninspired paint job were neon signs proclaiming the obvious.

Commander Winters watched the car as he talked to the trooper he'd escorted to his vehicle. In a moment, three men and one woman in conservative business suits exited the car and peered around to orient themselves.

"Damn!" Winters complained. "What is the FBI doing here?" No one had an answer.

The four agents across the way huddled briefly with their heads close together to discuss some arcane matter. They straightened and the stocky male agent with the youthful face separated from the gathering. He began to stride purposefully across the pavement toward the hapless State Police officer. The other three waited impassively near their car and continued to catalog everyone in view.

Two miles away, the van from the independent television station in Pueblo was laboring up the steep pass. When it arrived, the commander appointed himself as spokesman for the taskforce.

§

Miles couldn't feel his legs any more. The earlier pain had given way to numbness and he had to watch his feet to make sure they actually moved. He couldn't feel their impact on the ground any longer. Waves of pain from legs and back were thoroughly filtered now by an all-encompassing fatigue. Now they were only bits of information sent to a brain too tired to respond.

Any other time, he would have long since given in to cramped, aching muscles, but that wasn't an option tonight. He had to get as far away as he could from where he'd been spotted. If he didn't, he'd be in jail before the sun rose.

At first, he'd aimed for the rock chimney high on the mountain but he was past that landmark now. Since leaving it behind, he'd tried to stick to a reasonably straight course by keeping the Little Dipper to his left but the sky turned overcast and took that away too. His only means of keeping a reasonably straight course now was to keep the downhill slope to his left front as he descended diagonally across the mountain. It wasn't very good, but it was all he had.

Eventually, his body had to give in to the need for rest. When he couldn't lift his foot high enough to get over a small branch laying flat on the ground, he stopped.

Staggering to a big log, he eased his body into a sitting position straddling the trunk. He swayed slightly as his inner ears struggled to keep him from falling over. He would have removed the backpack but he was afraid he'd never be able to get it back on if he did.

He was out of the valley where he had been spotted, but climbing the high ridge at his best speed had sapped most of his strength. Since then, Miles had just been trying to keep moving and gain every yard of distance he could. He was near collapse. It seemed to him the sun had been down for hours.

Rousing, he pulled his second canteen from its place on the side of the pack to exchange with the empty one. A handful of raisins and peanuts replenished his energy a little. He wondered how long he could stay where he was. He rested, panting in the cold night.

§

Curt Barnett arrived an hour or so after sunset in a rusty utility truck of indeterminable age. There were five dog cages on the bed, four of them occupied. Their barking showed their canine displeasure with the trip along the dirt road that was the only access to the line of towers carrying power across the mountains. Barks alternated with whining requests for release. The dogs were frantic to be set free. Curt got out and pulled four long rope leashes from behind the seat.

A deputy walked over to offer his help but Curt brusquely declined. He didn't like for other folks to handle his dogs--confused 'em, was all that accomplished.

He fussed with the lines, getting everything untangled and arranged to his satisfaction. He watched suspiciously as a heavyset man in a state trooper's uniform came closer.

"Mr. Barnett? I'm Commander Winters, Colorado State Patrol. We're sure glad to see you," remarked Winters. "Thanks for volunteering to help." The trooper extended his hand but Curt was busy and didn't see it. Winters dropped it hastily to his side. Ever since his run-in with the sheriff in the early evening, he'd been trying hard to get along with people to whom he couldn't give orders.

"Yessir," was Barnett's response as he continued to straighten out the harness for the dogs. "Y'all lookin' for thet guy onna TV--that Underwood feller?"

A flatlander by birth and residence, it took Winters a moment to decipher the words spoken by the man from the high mountains. People who live in small towns isolated from the rest of the world for even part of the year by drifting snow tend to develop unique speech patterns.

"Uh ... yeah, that's his name." Winters stumbled through a reply. He was getting tired and it was beginning to show. Today had begun with a normal morning routine in Pueblo until he'd received the call from Denver to take command of the search near Monarch Pass. It was well past sunset now. Winters was a senior administrator and not a man accustomed to being on his feet for such long periods. The ankle he'd broken in a foot chase twenty years earlier was beginning to throb.

Curt nodded in the darkness at the officer's confirmation of his suspicions. Untangling the last of the harnesses, he paused and looked at the commander.

"Looky heah ... yuh reckon I'll be gittin' some of that re-ward money for this feller? I mean, if my dawgs come up on 'im and tree the guy, it's the same as if I captured 'im, don't yuh think?" Curt held still, waiting for the trooper to reply.

"Ahhhh, sir ... I don't know anything about a reward. No one has said anything about it to me ... but," he continued, "if there is one that has been authorized, I'd say you certainly would be in the running for it."

Winters hurried to retract what the dog handler might regard as an official promise. "But what the heck do I know?" Commander Winters exaggerated a fatalistic shrug. "I'm like a mushroom, Mr. Barnett. They keep me in the dark and feed me shit all the time."

Barnett snickered, sharing with Winters the common man's contempt for those unseen few who rule the lives of ordinary folk. His interest in the reward deflected for the moment, he got busy readying the dogs.

One by one, he pulled the cages to the back of the truck and opened the doors. He snapped a chain lead from each rope to each dog's collar. When all were in their harness, Barnett allowed them to jump to the ground. The four dogs promptly took off in as many different directions.

"HEEL! HEEL, DAMMIT!" Barnett yanked roughly on the ropes to pull them back. Gradually, he restored order and allowed the dogs to precede him toward the group of men highlighted by the flashlight each one held.

"Thet whar they want me to git started?" he queried Winters.

"Yes, sir ... that's right where he was last seen." Winters didn't see Barnett's lip curl in contempt at the city folks who were trampling the place where they wanted his dogs to set up and find this kidnapper feller. Didn't they know they were tromping all over whatever sign they was over there?

When he was near the tower, Curt took the dogs in a wide loop around the group of uniformed officers. They picked up a scent a good distance from the tower. Flicking on his lighter, he knelt to find the deep imprint of a boot. The trail was headed in toward the tower though; this wasn't what he was looking for.

He led his dogs farther around a circle that had the metal tower as its center. If them damn fools hadn't ruined the trail by standing right on top of it, he could probably have let the dogs run in along the tracks he'd already found and on past the tower. As it was, he would have to try locating them on the other side. He wasn't a quarter way round the circle before the dogs began baying again.

Curt let them pull him along for a few steps so he could get an idea of where they were headed. Bending low, he held his lighter close to the ground and saw tracks of a booted man--headed away from the tower. The distance between footprints indicated the man was running; the depth showed the man weighed a lot or had a heavy load.

"Ohhhh, real smart, huh?" he said to himself. "You layin' a false trail for me, Big Guy, or did ya decide to backtrack?" he wondered aloud. Standing, he imagined a line from the tower through this track and extending out in front of him. If the hunted man kept going the way he was, he would go over the shoulder of the mountain about halfway up.

It was hard going up that way, but U.S. 50 was off somewhere in that direction and there was enough traffic at this time of night to make it possible the dogs could lose the scent on the pavement. He'd better get going. Snapping the leashes, Barnett urged the dogs on. He didn't want to lose that reward.

In the poor light, Barnett didn't notice his youngest and largest hound had a collar that was too loose. Another time, he'd have stopped every so often to check things, but another time there wouldn't have been a big reward just out of reach.

§

It couldn't be said that he slept, or even dozed. It was just that awareness retreated so far Miles couldn't see or hear anything not immediately in front of him. He revived only when trembling in his arms and legs became severe enough to intrude into his consciousness.

He'd cooled off from the exertions of climbing the mountain and now he was cold. The body's automatic mechanism for generating heat had kicked in but that was counter-productive tonight ... he couldn't afford the energy his muscles used to shake his extremities.

He reached around to pull the parka from its lashings. It was impossible; he couldn't reach it with the pack on. Mechanically, he began to take it off. His fingers got all the catches undone finally and he dropped the pack against the side of the log.

"Oh geez...." he murmured aloud as the weight came off. He stripped off the light outer shell and the middle layer of fleece he'd worn all day and pulled the parka over his shoulders, leaving it unzipped a few inches. If he wasn't careful, the night's exertions would cause his body to overheat and that was as dangerous as freezing.

Recovering in the warmth of the lightweight parka, he looked around. The log he sat on was an old one, partially buried in the ground. He was pleased to notice he'd selected the end that was under the cover of some still standing trees. He couldn't be easily seen from above or from any distance away.