The Pot Thief Who Studied Billy the Kid (17 page)
Read The Pot Thief Who Studied Billy the Kid Online
Authors: J Michael Orenduff
Then I opened it again and asked, “Why waste all that time and effort digging a grave? Why not just toss
the body
over the ledge?”
“Someone might find it.”
Th
e
conversation had a familiar ring to it. “So what?
The corpse isn’t going to sit up and announce who killed it.”
“But if the person who finds the body
–
unlike someone I won’t mention
–
reports it to the police right away, at least they’ll know the guy is dead.”
“The guy is going to be dead
for
a long time
, Suze
. What difference does it make how soon it’s reported?”
“If it’s reported early,
the CSI guys might be able to find clues that will identify the murderer.
”
“CSI?”
“Crime scene investigation.”
“
Oh, right. Well, t
he clues are just like the dead guy – they aren’t going anywhere either.”
“They migh
t. Buzzards could carry some
away. Ants could—“
“
Stop. I just ate half a pound of meat and hot chiles. I don’t want to hear this.”
I took a gulp of water and said, “
From what you said, burying the guy is m
ore likely to preserve clues than is throwing him into the gorge.”
“Well, we won’t know why he buried him until the police catch him.”
“I don’t think there’s a him to catch.”
“You think the murderer was a woman?”
I chuckled. “No, I don’t think there
is
a murderer. I think the dead guy died of natural causes a
thousand
years ago.”
“Well, Hubie, that’s what you’re going to find out when I winch you down th
at cliff
.”
My stomach turned.
no Lino
17
New Mexico Highway 6 south
eas
t out of Belen crosses dry desolate country, but I love it because it follows along the railroad route called the Belen cutoff
, a major part of railroad lore
.
The cutoff was built by the
Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway
in 1908
to
bypass the steep grades of Raton Pass
. As many as 1
5
0 trains a day roll past the southern end of the Manzano Mountains. That’s one
about
every
ten
minutes.
Unfortunately, no
t a single one of them is a
passenger train.
New Mexico
now
has it
s own passenger train
, the sparkling Railrunner that shuttle
s
passengers
to points between
Santa Fe
and
Belen, but Belen is the end of the line.
You can’t take the Belen cutoff around the
south end of the
Manzanos
and on
to the rest of the country.
Since losing the Bronco, I’
d
been thinking about public
transportation. Susannah and I were cruising along NM 6 consuming
a dollar’s worth larfonof gasoline every four
miles.
A current ad for a train company claims they can
move a ton of freight
five hundred miles
on a
single
gallon of fuel.
I did the mat
h
in my head. They could move
Susannah and
me
from Belen to Willard
for thirteen cents!
Okay, I know it’s not that simple. They’d have to have conductors and ticket taker
s
and other things associated with passengers. But how
expensive
can it be? The Crown Vic
was going to guzzle sixteen dollars worth of gasoline to get us
from Belen
to Willard. Sixteen dollars versus thirteen cents.
As we neared Willard my thoughts
moved
from transportation
to the matter at hand.
“What are we going to say if
your family asks why we’re borrowing a truck?”
“
T
ell them we need a winch.”
“What if they ask why?”
“Just tell them your Bronco was stolen.”
I shook my head. “What I’m trying to find out is how we avoid tell
ing them what we’re going to do.
”
“Why would we avoid telling them?”
“You don’t think they might find it just a tad unusual that you’re going to lower me into a cliff dwelling so I can partially unearth a corpse and examine
its
hand?”
We rode along in silence while
I
thought about how I felt about the
entire
Incha
u
stigui clan knowin
g about my unearthing a corpse.
I reached no conclusion on that topic, but something else occurred to me.
“There’s also the fact that telling them will make them accessories to a crime.”
“All they’re doing is lending us a truck.”
“And i
f they know
we’re going to use it to commit a crime, then they
’
re accessories. An
d
remember that ARPA allows any
v
ehicle used in illegal digging to be confiscated.”
“But you won’t be digging for pots. You’ll be digging to see if there’s something to report to the police. You’re being a good citizen.”
“Actually…”
“You
are
going to dig for pots?”
“Well, I figured as long as I was going down there anyway…”
“What about you
r
rule of never digging in a grave?”
“
W
e already ha
d
this discussion
.
You
said it wouldn’t be grave robbing to dig
close
to a grave. I know where the body is because I
put that stone on it
. And like you said, there surely aren’t any other bodies there. So I figured I’d check the hand then dig around el dint sewhere to see what I find.”
“Maybe you should dig for the pots first, Hubie. Knowing how squeamish you
are, you probably wouldn’t
be able to
search
for pots after examining the hand.”
She was right.
I watched the trains.
We
didn’t
go all the way
to Willard. We turned off the highway six miles
short of the village
onto a dirt road to Broncho. I don’t know if the place was named after a type of horse by someone who couldn’t spell or by someone who thought the dry air was good for the lungs. I didn’t see any signs of human habitation, so I’m not even sure there
is
a place
, but
it
is
on
the topo
maps
.
After five miles
,
we arrived at the Inchaustigui home, a two s
tor
y house
of local fieldstone
surrounded by western catalpas. A big reddish d
og with a pointed snout and
floppy
ears
rocketed off the
front porch and ran circle
s
around Susannah as we approached the
house
.
Susannah’s
mom greeted us at the door. I had
met
Susannah’s family
briefly a
few times when they visited
her
in Alb
i> f>
u
querque,
but I got a big hug like a member of the family.
“It’s nice to see you again, Mrs. Inchaustigui.”
“
Mrs. Inchaustigui
is my mother-in-law.
Call me Hil
ary, Hubie.
”
She led us t
o
the kitchen and gave us a choice of water or coffee.
I ch
ose a cooling glass of water.
Susannah’s father, Gus, was at a ranchers meeting in Las Cruces.
The two sons were out somewhere mending fences or
fending off coyotes
. Hilary called them on a cell phone.
“You can use Matt’s truck or Mark’s truck. We also have a ranch truck with a winch. What
are you planning to do with it?
”
Susannah said, “I’m going to lower Hubie
into a cliff dwelling so
he
can
dig up a dead guy he found there.”
So much for not telling them what we planned to do.
Hil
ary
seemed unfazed
by our plan. “Is it a mummy?” she asked me.
“That’s what I want to find out.”
“He was digging for pots,” Susannah chimed in, “and found a body. Actually
,
all he found was a hand.” She looked at me. “It must have
been attached to a body, right?
”