Free Double Prey by Steven F. Havill Page A

were clear. Both coming and going, Freddy Romero had chosen the same route over this particular rise. At the crest of the hill, there were no ATV tracks. He’d felt comfortable enough that he’d used the little hill as a ramp, both coming and going.
    “I think that he just overcooked it,” Gastner said. “He comes up here and ramps off, maybe a little crosswise after skidding around that sinkhole. If he does that, if he’s not absolutely goddamn straight, then he’s heading toward the left side of the trail. And pow. Right there.”
    Two dozen feet from the crest of the rise, just after the ATV had slammed down, a shower of gravel and broken rock marked the first contact. A sharp-edged limestone rock the size of a wide-screen television had been dislodged from the ridge. Gastner bent over and pointed at the bright aluminum traces, and the black scuff of rubber. “Pow,” he said again. “My guess is that with this catching the left front tire, he just loses it.” He straightened up. “I mean, what’s he got here between the trail and the arroyo?”
    “Maybe four feet.”
    “Exactly. And with an exploded tire, the rig doesn’t turn like it should. He doesn’t even have the time to grab the brakes.”
    “So tell me something,” Estelle said. “Why was he over here? Why on Bender’s Canyon Trail?”
    “Because.” Gastner shrugged.
    “Just because?”
    “That’s what Freddy Romero does,” he said. “Or did.”
    “Why park on the Borracho Springs road, and then ride all the way over here?”
    “Couldn’t tell you.”
    “He found the cat skeleton earlier this week, in a cave up in the mountains somewhere. I’d think he’d be attracted back there. Maybe that’s what he planned originally when he parked where he did. For some reason, he changed his mind.”
    “That’s not four-wheeler country,” Gastner observed. “Not that I spend a lot of time trying to haul my fat carcass up that trail, but from what I remember, the only way you’d get a mountain bike up there, let alone a four-wheeler, would be to hang it from your shoulder while you hike.”
    “Bobby will be here before long,” Estelle said. “It’ll be interesting to hear his take on all this.”
    “Anyway, it was Freddy, remember,” Gastner said. “He drives out somewhere and parks, off-loads the damn ATV, and goes raring and tearing around the countryside. Who knows where or why.”
    Estelle lifted the camera and peered through its tiny viewfinder at the trail that swept down off the little rise to cross the dry mud flat. “Nothing will show,” she said to herself.
    “What’s to show?”
    “Well, there isn’t a lot of traffic on Bender’s Canyon Trail. A rancher now and then.”
    “You’d be surprised. Herb Torrance gets this way regularly and Miles Waddell, off and on. Maybe Gus Prescott, although why I wouldn’t know. His property is to the east of here. Then there’s the hunters, the bird watchers, and people who just don’t know where the hell they are…”
    “Who turned around back at the homestead?”
    “Can’t tell you. And those turn-around tracks could be days old. Even weeks. We haven’t had any rain now in at least that long.”
    “Which is longer?” she asked. “To turn around and go back out to 14 that way, or continue on the trail, loop around this mesa, and come out on the State 17 farther north?”
    “Six of one. If I remember right, the north end of the trail, where it loops around the backside of the mesa behind Waddell’s ranch, is actually in more open country. It’d be smoother, I’d think. Except in rainy weather, maybe.”
    “Huh.” Estelle shook her head in frustration. “What puzzles me is why Freddy didn’t just drive his pickup down the state highway for another two miles to the intersection with County 14, and park there to off-load his four-wheeler. If he’d done that, we probably would have run into each other. Park there,
then
go exploring. Why park at Borracho, two miles