Free Wild Sorrow by SANDI AULT Page A

of an engine in the distance. Turning my binoculars toward the sound, I saw an ATV puttering along slowly about a mile away on BLM land, traveling in the direction of Pueblo Peña and the Indian school. I threw my field glasses in the passenger seat, fired up the Jeep’s engine, and drove. I knew the turf was too rugged for me to get far, but that ATV was barely idling along, so I hoped I could get near enough to get a better look at it before I had to turn back.
    I sped out onto the scrubland and managed to close a half mile of the gap between us before the driver of the ATV must have spotted me coming. That buggy tore into high gear and suddenly veered away from the ruin and out onto the high plains to the north. I knew from my previous day’s survey of the surroundings that the ground to the north was riddled with arroyos. But nonetheless, I gave chase, knowing full well I didn’t have the machine for it. The ATV raced across a dangerous, high-desert obstacle course, and I pursued, barreling up and down the landsliding slopes of red dirt arroyos, my Jeep taking to the air and Mountain and me along with it. We rocketed over sage-covered berms and rattled over ripple rock outcrops, the wolf jostling around in the back trying to keep from crashing into one side of the cargo area and then the other. I pushed the Jeep to its limits, calling out a litany of warnings to Mountain as I went, “Look out, buddy. Brace yourself! Get ready! No, get down. Hang on.” I talked to the Jeep, too, as we blasted up out of a gully onto a slender, soft-dirt ridge that skirted the brim of a craterlike depression. “Come on, baby! Come on!” I struggled to keep the wheels from dipping to either side and drawing us down into a roll. Mountain stood up in the back and lowered his head to look out the front window, keenly aware that we were on the hunt. We shot over the slickrock, careening at a teetering angle on the sandstone edges and ledgy slopes leading along a low white brow at the end of the canyon. Here, the river played out and panned into a wide, waterless streambed blanketed by a foot-thick base of dry quicksand. All through the chase, the ATV had barely eluded me at every turn, but now that we were down in the wash, it scooted through the silt, while my Jeep’s wheels spun, churning into the dry sand, losing traction.
    After several tries, I managed to get one wheel onto rock and the four-wheel drive gained enough purchase to propel the car slowly forward onto some rocky soil on one side of the dry gulch. But while I struggled to keep the Jeep from bogging down in the sand, the ATV raced away and out of sight around a bend.
    I pulled up onto some solid ground and got out, letting Mountain out, too. A stand of slender, bare willows stood waiting for spring, when this dry riverbed would swell with life from the snowmelt. A mile in the distance, high on the top of a vertical cliff, Pueblo Peña looked—as Scout Coldfire had said—like a castle in the air.

10
    Latchkey ATV
    It took me the rest of the afternoon to get back. I called Roy on the Screech Owl and reported the incident with the ATV. “It’s suspicious that the ATV seemed to be headed to Pueblo Peña and then veered away when I pursued,” I said.
    â€œYou’re right about that, especially since a vehicle like that would be the most likely means for transporting a body out there to that old school. Did you get a look at the rig, maybe get a model, an identifying plate, anything?”
    â€œNo. I didn’t get that close. I couldn’t tell you much about the ATV, except that it seemed bigger than most. And it was so dusty, I couldn’t tell if it was dark green or black.”
    â€œThat’s too bad. You be sure to report the incident to the FBI.”
    â€œI will,” I said. “I’ll call Diane as soon as we’re done.”
    â€œGood,” Roy said. “I just hope it wasn’t a