The Sheriff (2 page)

“I can’t tell what that is. For the record, I’m Andrea Allen and alone out here. There’s nothing close at hand to defend myself from wild animals or— Good grief, what is that?”

She kept recording, squinted. Still couldn’t make it out. “The lights have disappeared. I don’t know what’s weaving toward me, but I think I’m going to get back in the car and roll up the windows.”

Proud of herself for continuing the recording, she felt with one hand until finding the window handle. It was the first time she was grateful she’d paid extra for electric windows. But she wasn’t in her car, she was in Sharon’s old sedan. Backseat ready, she pushed the lock and shut it, then moved to the front door.

During the transfer, she lost where the movement was, spotting it again when she found the handle. Closer. More in focus. A man. Staggering.

She dropped the camera on the seat, using both hands to tug at the window stuck on the old car. “Not now. Uh. Give me a break.”

“Help.”

“Help? Not likely.” She ran to the driver’s side. If she couldn’t get locked inside her car, she didn’t have to stay there.

Marfa was nine miles away. This was a police matter.

“Please. Help. Night of aliens.”

She heard him loud and clear as he tripped and stumbled into her. Shirtless, his skin horribly dirty. His lips parched and cracked. With his short-cropped military cut, she could see the gaping wound on the side of his head. There were cuts and bruises all over his arms. Some fresh, some old.

Where was the nearest hospital? Alpine. She couldn’t leave him.

He fell into her arms, knocking her into the car frame. She kept him moving, guiding his fall onto the backseat. She pushed at his legs, tried folding them so the door would close.

“Come on, man. Help me...out...here.” He was unresponsive and most likely unconscious. She ran to the other door, forgetting it was locked, wasting precious time reaching through the window. She yanked and pulled until he budged enough to bend his knees on top of his body and shut both doors. It had to be uncomfortable, but the man wasn’t complaining.

“Hospital!”

She left everything on the viewing platform, including her cell phone, only having a moment of disappointment about not documenting evidence. This guy was clearly not from a UFO. It looked as if he’d been in the desert for days.

There was no question the man’s life was much more important than any research. She pointed the car east toward Alpine. Marfa was closer and had a doctor but no hospital. The dashboard lights showed smudges of the man’s blood on her hands and forearms. She felt the stickiness of a heavy damp saturation just above her hip.

“Are you bleeding to death?” she screamed at the unconscious stranger and threw on the brakes. “Were you attacked by coyotes or something?”

Twisting to look at him closer, she searched the middle compartment for anything, even napkins. There was nothing here to stem the loss of blood. She pulled her long-sleeve shirt over her head and shifted to reach his body, searching with her hands until she found a wound. Her fingers found a distinct puncture. She’d never seen one in real life, but there was no mistaking the bullet hole.

Dear Lord.
“What happened to you?”

She pressed the shirt into his side, moving his arm into a position to hold it in place. He moaned.

“Thank God you’re alive, but who knows how long that will last.”

The lights were closer, then gone again.

Using all the training her father had taught her about control, she forced her thoughts to slow and hold herself together. She readjusted in the seat and buckled the seat belt in place before putting the car in Drive.

One at a time, she swiped her hands across her jeans to remove the man’s damp blood before pulling out of the parking lot. She dipped her head to her shoulder, trying to push a loose piece of hair, stuck across her cheek, off her sweaty face.

What in the world was she getting involved in? A secret chopper? Maybe a new stealth plane? “Are you military or something? I sure hope you’re not a fugitive or a drug runner. But whoever you are, you’re dying and I have to get you to a hospital.”

Nothing was around for miles. No homes, no businesses, no help.
Help?
She should call for help. Where was her stupid phone?

Oh, no. It was in the chair where she’d dumped Sharon’s bag. She needed to call, tell someone she had an injured man and get directions to the hospital in Alpine. She turned in the small lot, prepared to jump from the car and dial on the way back. A one-or two-minute delay was better than getting lost. Maybe they could send an ambulance to meet her.

Bright spotlights blinded her in all her mirrors. She couldn’t see and tilted the rearview up.
Forget the phone.
She punched the gas and could smell the smoking rubber of the slightly balding tires.

“It’s following us!” Whatever
it
was, it was practically on top of the trunk.

The road was straight so she couldn’t stop or it would crash into her. There was no way to outrun it in an old four-cylinder economy.

“Now what?”

Colored lights flashed. The inside of the car looked like a blinking neon sign. She could barely see the two-lane highway, and then whatever followed rammed the little car. Andrea’s neck jerked back. Her body smashed against the seat belt. Her wrists slammed into the steering wheel. Her father would be proud she didn’t scream—as much as she wanted to let out a string of obscenities at whoever was flying that thing.

Another hit. The thing had to be a chopper. The man in her backseat had to be in serious trouble and now so was she.

The car skidded sideways onto the shoulder and beyond. She maintained her grip, steering through the grass on the side of the highway. The chopper blocked her path back to the road. They bounced a few seconds before she aimed at the wire between fence posts and gunned the little engine again.

She had no idea what was out here. She could be headed straight to a small boulder or a ravine. The unknown was definitely frightening, but not as much as the chopper on her tail.

As suddenly as the thing appeared behind her, it was gone. No lights. No sounds. She wanted to slow down, but it wasn’t safe. Too late she wished she had when a slab of broken foundation forced the car sideways.

It rolled.

She screamed.

Chapter Two

Driving this empty length of pavement could put him to sleep if he wasn’t careful. Pete Morrison stretched his neck from side to side, turned the squad car’s radio up a bit louder and rolled down the window for fresh air. A quick trip out to the Lights Viewing Area and back to the office for some shut-eye.

Probably just a plane and a waste of taxpayer gas.

“I saw some strange stuff out there,” a trucker had told Dispatch. “I don’t believe in UFOs or nothing like that, but if it is, I want the credit for seeing it first. Okay?”

“Sure thing” had been the standard reply to every driver who thought he’d seen a UFO. And each report had to be checked out. It was Marfa, after all.

Griggs would get an earful in the morning about honesty and the law. This was the third time in two weeks Pete had covered the son of a gun’s night shift at the last minute because of
illness
. Everyone knew the deputy had gone to Alpine to party. If he wanted to change shifts, he just needed to ask. There were twelve other deputies on the payroll, and yet Pete was covering. Again.

Partying hadn’t been something he’d personally wanted to do for the past couple of months. But since Griggs had transferred from Jefferson Davis County, he’d been covering his shifts a lot. Covering wasn’t the problem. He got extra pay and could normally sleep on the back cot. Nothing ever happened in Marfa beyond speeding citations and public intoxication.

Tonight was one of the exceptions. He’d make a quick pass by the official Marfa Lights Viewing Area, drive back and get some shut-eye.

“Dispatch, I’ve got an all clear. Not seeing anything unusual. But I might as well make a run to the county line.”

“Okey dokey, Pete. This is Peach. See you in a while.”

He laughed at Peach’s official acknowledgment. No sense trying to get her to change. Everyone called her Peach. She insisted on it. Her sister, Honey, got the day shift since she was older. He supposed nicknames were better than Winafretta and Wilhilmina. They’d been in Dispatch for as long as his dad had been a deputy or sheriff of Presidio County. Or longer. His dad swore no one could remember hiring either of them. They’d just shown up one day.

When his dad officially retired, the new sheriff could request replacements for them, but he’d like to see anyone tell Peach she was too old to handle things at night around the office. A shot of regret lodged like a clump of desert dirt in his throat. He’d have to withdraw his name from the election so someone else would step forward. Galen Rooney had only been on the force for a couple of years and just didn’t have the experience needed to run things.

No matter who the county elected, they’d most likely keep him on as a deputy. If not... Unfortunately, he hadn’t thought past quitting the race. The idea of withdrawing gnawed at his gut like a bad case of food poisoning. He’d never quit anything. His dad—he couldn’t ever think of the man who’d raised him as anything else—wouldn’t be happy.

“Crap. What the hell was that?”

He successfully dodged a long object in the middle of the road. He swiftly U-turned the squad car, flipped his lights on and drove a couple of seconds. Parking across the road, he turned the floodlight until it shone on a black bumper resting on the yellow line.

Joe Morrison had raised him riding shotgun in a squad car. The mental checklist of what he did exiting his vehicle was as natural as walking. Even if Peach wasn’t a stickler for the rules, he still needed to let her know exactly what he was doing.

“Dispatch, I swung back west to pick up some road debris. Guess a bumper dropped from a car and the driver didn’t stop to take care of it. Almost sent me off the road.”

“Wow, Sheriff Pete. It’s a good thing we got that call to take you out that way tonight, then,” Peach replied through the speaker. “What if an eighteen-wheeler had hit that thing? Oh, gosh, and what if it had been transporting fuel or hazardous waste? It might have spilled and leached into the water supply. We could have had deformed livestock or mutant wolves running around for years without anyone knowing.”

“You reading another end-of-the-world novel, Peach?”

“How did you know?” she asked.

“Lucky guess.” He laughed into the microphone. Peach and Honey’s theories of espionage and Armageddon changed daily with each book they read.

“Well, I’m at a good spot in the story, so I’ll let you clear the garbage. Shout out when you’re heading back,” she said.

“You got it. And, Peach, will you stop with the sheriff title? You know I’m the acting sheriff until the election.”

“I feel the same way about my dispatch title.”

“Point taken.”

Picking up the plastic bumper from a small car, he noticed some skid marks on the asphalt. He flipped his flashlight on and followed their path to the gravel and farther into the flattened knee-high grass. A vehicle had obviously gone off the road. He tossed the bumper to the side and started walking.

About twenty yards away, the fence wasn’t only down, but a section had been demolished and disappeared. There was nothing in range of the flashlight beam, so he shut off the light and let his eyes adjust to the well-lit night.

He finally spotted the car, the underbelly reflecting the starlight about four hundred yards into the field. He ran the short distance to the vehicle. The driver might need a hospital. A serious injury, he’d need to transport himself.

“Dispatch.” Back in his car, he pointed the spotlight directly in front of the hood and followed the path through the fence. “Peach?” He raised his voice to get her attention.

“I’m here, just finishing the chapter. You heading back?”

“Looks like a vehicle went off the road about half a mile east of the Viewing Area. I spotted it. Driving there now. Check if there are any cattle around that could get loose, and notify the owner.”

“Time to wake the sheriff.”

“Don’t wake Dad. He’s officially retired.”

“You know that’s not going to stop him. Neither could a heart attack.”

“Give me five minutes to check out the vehicle, Peach.” And do something on his own without his dad shouting instructions in his ear. “I need to find the driver and see if we need assistance.”

“He’s gonna be mad,” she sang into the radio. “You know how he hates to be the last told.”

“My call.”

“But you know how he is,” she whined.

“Remember that he’s retired. Five minutes.”

“Yes, sirree-dee, Acting Sheriff Morrison.”

Yeah, but for how long?
He watched the land closest to him, searching for ditches or large rocks. Closer to the vehicle, it was apparent it had hit the foundation of an old building. Whoever had been driving the car had been traveling at a high speed, hit the broken concrete and flipped the vehicle.

He approached with caution, flashlight in hand, gun at his fingertips. “County Sheriff. Anyone need help?”

No answer. Nothing but the cool wind.

He switched the flashlight, looked inside the car. One body. Nonresponsive.

“Sir?” He felt the man’s neck for a pulse. “Damn.”

Dead.

The body was mangled pretty badly. “You should have buckled up, stranger. How’d you end up in the backseat?” He’d seen weirder things happen in car accidents than the driver being thrown around.

Back at his car, he pulled his radio through the open window. “Peach, send for an ambulance. We have a fatality.”

“Poor soul.”

“Yeah.” He tossed the microphone onto the seat.

“Unit says they’re about an hour out, Pete,” he heard through the speaker. “There was an accident in Alpine and since it’s only a pickup they aren’t in a hurry.”

“Not a problem.”

No shut-eye anytime soon. He was stuck waiting here an hour unless Peach called him for a Marfa emergency. Fat chance. He’d get the pics they’d need for their records and maybe catch a nap after. He grabbed the camera from the Tahoe.