CHAPTER 3: THE HUNT

When Dominic Black hopped out of the first helicopter arriving on-scene in the town of La Plata, he already knew the opportunity had been lost and his boots-on-the-ground had completely blown what should have been a fabulous opportunity.

Two other members of his team – minus the pilot – also jumped out and began circling the sizzling steel husks to glean whatever information they could, and quickly.

In the fading fire of the now-gutted vehicles at the old gas station, Dominic wanted to chew someone out for ignoring his instructions, but he had a suspicion the duo who had responded first to this tip – and thus the two who had obviously ignored his orders – were as equally charred as those vehicles were.

Two fire trucks from the La Plata Area Fire & Rescue squad were on-hand shooting water and foam on the sizzling vehicles and the air around the scene smelled like burning plastic and rubber. The area was bathed in a flashing explosion of red and white emergency lights – and a healthy crowd of onlookers, as well.

The second helicopter – the one that hadn’t landed – continued to circle the town, illuminating buildings and vehicles, streets and dusty backyards, in a grid growing wider and wider.

Dominic stood in silence for a long moment before he stepped closer – as close as he could comfortably get – to the burnt, steel husks of those vehicles. He could feel eyes on him, but he forced himself to study the simmering and hissing vehicles and try to sort the crowd out in his peripheral vision only. While his chopper still idled loudly behind him, the other member of his team who had disembarked and circled the gutted vehicles came back up to him.

Their uniform was the same – black fatigue pants, boots and gray shirts with a specialized logo on the left breast pocket. The logo was a yellow hexagon, trimmed in black, and inside the shape was a curved arm forming a fist. Most people who saw it, instantly thought of the Arm & Hammer Baking Soda logo, but without the hammer. Apparently, whoever had designed the logo hadn’t been paying attention to what it resembled and, in the end, it didn’t matter.

The Sheriff spoke before Dominic could even turn around.

“I take it those are your men inside those vehicles,” she said, her voice even and deep – a statement of fact and not a question as there was no doubt and they both knew it. “There was nothing we could do for them. When we arrived on-scene, it was already too late.”

When he turned to face her, the sound of the helicopters’ rotors, the spraying water – and anything else – sort of faded into the background for a moment.

Sheriff Lolo Mufa wasn’t a woman who was scared easily. In this town, in this barren part of the country, she certainly couldn’t afford to be. Her clientele was tough and gritty – sometimes downright mean – and her grandfather had once told that policing these people was a bit like trying to herd up a nest of copperheads. But there was something off about the man surveying the burned-out cars.

She knew he was a werewolf – as were the other agents of The Arm that had jumped from the helicopter – but that’s not what bothered her. She dealt with wolves and shapeshifters daily and those things were just aspects of a person just a bit more dangerous than someone mentally ill, deranged or prone to violence. It was something else for her, as a cop, to be aware of.

But this man was different…

When he turned to face her, to focus squarely on her, his eyes were utterly void of anything remotely… human. She realized that he had a dead man’s eyes – as they were dark and flat, a bit glazed over, as if pure sight wasn’t all that important to him and he relied on other senses to act. She didn’t think she took an involuntary step back, but she couldn’t be sure.

“Witnesses?” he asked.

She forced herself to maintain eye contact.

“None,” she said.

“No one saw a thing?” He asked this with a hint of humor, an eyebrow raised. He spoke louder, just below a yell, so that – while not breaking eye-contact with her – the gathered crowd could hear. “Two men get killed and set on fire, right out here in the open, and no one saw a damn thing?!”

The Sheriff maintained that eye contact but cocked her head a bit towards the assembled crowd behind her – two of her deputies and a large group of locals.

“Did anyone see what happened to those men?” She called out. “If you did, I encourage you to step forward and tell this man what you saw.”

There were a couple of grunts, mostly sentences like ‘I didn’t see a thing’ and ‘nope’ and ‘didn’t see nuthin.’ Eyes stared down at boots, at the gritty dirt, but most looked right back at Dominic and his men with a hostility to match his own. Lolo felt herself emboldened by their support.

“They were in the Cactus hassling our bartender,” a tall woman with a dark complexion called out. She was covered in tattoos and her hair hung in long, dusty braids around her shoulders.

“Not much more to it than that,” the sheriff said. “Best if you just collect your men and be on your way.”

Her suggestion hung in the air for the longest time, as both groups stared at each other. Dominic studied the sheriff, her stoic demeanor, and dark, focused eyes – and the townsfolk behind her, a gritty group of hardened men and a few equally hardened women. Harley-Davidson’s, ATV’s and old pickup trucks lined the streets.

“Those men were federal agents,” he said.

“Were they…?” Lolo asked. ‘And what legitimate federal agency did they represent?”

Finally, Dominic smiled – although it never quite reached his eyes and it reflected no good-measure in it.

“Sheriff, we’re on the same side here,” he said.

“Are we…?” Lolo asked, not even attempting to return his grin.

“The two people you are so obviously trying to cover for – the woman and her child – are not what they may seem to be,” he said. “There are things related to this investigation that you’re not privy to – no offense. It’s my job to see this through and bring them in. Not providing assistance…” He shook his head. “I’m sure you’re well aware of the penalties for hindering a federal investigation.”

But finally – finally! – Lolo had a moment where she could actually smile sarcastically and meet his bullshit head-on.

“What federal investigation?” She asked with that incredulity in her voice. “The Arm? I know what you are – we know what you are.” She gestured to the crowd behind her. “You guys are so sealed from oversight there isn’t a court anywhere that would support you if you wanted to charge me or my office for hindering your investigation. Especially when that investigation involves helping you track down a woman and her little girl. A woman and a little girl who stayed with us for almost a year without so much as a squeak of trouble. No sir, they’re not dangerous or wanted or part of an investigation – they’re just two people you want.”

It was his turn to smile: “Who says we want both of them?”

Lolo felt herself hesitate - and she hated that - but his eyes were so cryptic and menacing, that grin so evil, it startled her. She feared again for their two friends - mother and daughter - even moreso.

“All the more reason they should be kept from you,” she said. “And do you really want this…?” She again gestured to the others. “This is a hardened, violent people and they will scrape and claw to defend themselves and my office. This is harsh land and a worn-out old beat-down town, but it belongs to them, in the end. They DID elect me, after all. Probably better – less messy – to just collect the bodies of your men and head on out, I would think.”

The fire chief and his lieutenants were there, as were her deputies and big Marvin Parker and the others.

“I’ll be inside with the people that pay my salary,” Lolo called out. “This place doesn’t look like much, but their burgers are the best.”

She hated leaving him behind her, allowing him access to her as she walked away, but she also knew the importance of this moment and the implications. After all, they couldn’t just stand there facing each other all night, could they? Whatever was going to happen was going to happen regardless.

Once she had reached the relative comfort of the people, she allowed herself to breathe.

Dominic stifled his initial reaction – his primal urge – to deal with this situation. But he also had just enough pause to realize the state the world was in. He could guess some of the patrons were normal, everyday humans – good ‘ol homo sapiens – but undoubtedly some of them weren’t. There would be werewolves and there would be vampires and, in a town like this in a land like this, there might even be others with skills, thirsts or hungers The Arm wasn’t even aware of. If they had to go through these people, Dominic was certain they could, but at what cost?

In a minute, it didn’t matter.

He approached Dominic with a tablet.

“They didn’t die in vain,” he said. “One of our guys got a tracker on the child.”

He showed his boss the tablet screen, which showed computer coordinates of the tracker – revealing where the little girl was, and currently on the move.

“They’re southbound on the 371 just past Farmington,” the lieutenant said.

“What’s down that way?” Dominic asked.

“Nothing but open land – and the Navajo Nation.”

“They hitched a ride on a truck – and the driver might not even know,” Dominic handed the tablet back and headed back to the chopper. “Let the other bird know.”

“What about the bodies?”

Dominic was already buckling into the chopper: “Let these people deal with them. I’m sure they’ve done it before, they’re savages.”

As the helicopter took flight, swirling the smoke and the dust and the debris around those now-junk vehicles into cyclones and swirls, eyes on it from inside one of the taverns – the one with the best burgers around – watched. When it was gone, and it shot off over the dark horizon with another destination clearly locked on, there was a collective sigh from inside.

The woman closest to the window watched the helicopter fly off before she turned back to the others.

“They didn’t touch the bodies in the cars,” she said.

“Which direction did they head?” Lolo asked.

“Southeast,’ the woman told her. “Probably in hot pursuit of a little tracking device that, right at this moment, is headed towards White Rock and then to Albuquerque after being duct taped to the back of a Yellow Freight rig.”

The Sheriff, seated at the bar and just starting to pour copious amounts of salt and ketchup on her fries, glanced to a spot a few seats down from her, where a frighteningly thin and weather old man nursed a beer.

“What do you think, Chopper?” Lolo asked. “Got room for two well-done bodies out at the dump?’

The old man wagged a thin, boney finger at her: “I’ll make a deal with you, sheriff. You buy me my next beer and I’ll see to it those crispy guys out there are taken care of. The coyotes have been getting grumpy lately because there hasn’t been anything fresh for them to eat.’

Lolo nodded her affirmation: ‘Next round is on the taxpayers of San Juan County.’

Big Marvin scratched his sideburns a moment.

“Me and some of the boys will get the vehicles hauled out there first thing in the morning,” he said. “Might as well haul everything to the dump.”

By the time the sheriff had finished her meal – by the time they’d all finished up – a wrecker from that auto shop and one of the locals with a flatbed trailer loaded up both of those gutted vehicles, and the dead bodies inside, and drove them far south of town to ‘ol Chopper’s dump. There they removed any license plates, VIN tags or anything else that might make the vehicles readily identifiable, and dumped them alongside the other junk relics he kept out there.

The burned bodies inside were taken out, strapped onto a sheet of plywood behind an ATV and hauled out into the grasslands where they were unceremoniously dumped.

A pair of charred dead bodies? Like roasted hogs beneath that desert sky? The scavengers were already licking their chops by the time the ATV roared back towards civilization.

And when they got back to town, a tractor-trailer rig cruising southbound on New Mexico State Road 371 was pulled over by a pair of black helicopters – one of which simply landed in the road ahead of it and dared the truck driver to play chicken. The truck driver, of course, did not.

And he stood by, in the presence of a team of Arm agents, as they searched his truck from front to back, pouring over every inch…

… until their tracking device was located up inside one of the wheel wells of the trailer, sealed to the metal with some duct tape and super glue.

When he learned that he’d been duped, Dominic stood on the side of that dust-swept old highway and stared back into the darkness from which they’d emerged. He should have seen this coming. He should have anticipated the people – if they really were people and not other things – would try to further throw him off the trail. But they’d been so close…

So damn close….