When the blood flow turned to a slight trickle, he dumped the body in the truck bed and covered it with hay bales he'd brought along. Using a shovel, he dug around the sticky, deep-red blood pool, turning the soil until dry earth covered the ground.
Uncle Roque had told him to finish grading the road to the line camp, and get the dozer back to the Box Z. Prom today on, anybody who used that road would be driving over Orlando's bones.
Some of Orlando's blood had squirted on his hand.
Bernardo sniffed it as he drove away. It smelled good.
At the start of his shift, Russell Thorpe checked to see if the APB on Aland's truck was still active. Aland hadn't been spotted, so Thorpe got on the road to Santa Rosa. If he could pick up Aland, it would be a significant collar.
He found Sergeant Melendez at the reception counter in the Santa Rosa substation reviewing daily shift reports. Thorpe introduced himself and told Melendez what he was looking for and why.
Melendez rolled his eyes, said there were countless places to hide a tractor trailer rig where it would never be found, and finally suggested that Thorpe do a close patrol of Puerto de Luna, a settlement ten miles southeast of Santa Rosa.
The road to Puerto de Luna hugged the edge of a low butte at the far side of the river valley until it reached a sweep of pasture and farms that bordered both sides of the river. Thorpe crossed the bridge into the village and did a quick patrol. There wasn't much to the settlement: an old church with an adjacent cemetery, a fenced-off, abandoned one-room schoolhouse, a flat-roofed modern building with a brick facade that served as a community and senior citizen center, and several occupied houses made up the heart of the community.
He stopped at a road sign that told of the village's former status as the county seat, and its most notorious visitor, Billy the Kid, before cruising south to the end of the pavement. The road turned to gravel where two converging mesas pinched the valley close to the river, the streambed hidden behind thick bosque. He spotted several old semitrailers near barns and outbuildings, but it was dear they'd been stationary for years.
He worked a series of dirt roads, visually checking each ranch and farm that came into view, until he was a good ten miles south of the village.
Melendez had warned him not to get his hopes up, and Thorpe now understood why. As he crisscrossed and skirted buttes, mesas, arroyos, and canyon lands on rutted tracks that seemed to go nowhere, he realized that he could spend days in the boonies, find nothing, and still have hundreds of places left to search.
Back in Puerto de Luna, he stopped at the community center and talked to a cook and her elderly male assistant, who were in the kitchen preparing a midday meal for senior dozens.
"Do either of you know Lenny Alarid?" Thorpe asked as he watched the stout, middle-aged woman ladle food into a white Styrofoam container and hand it to the old man.
"I don't think so," the woman said.
The old man put the container into a portable warming cart and waited to receive the next meal.
"Do you know him?" Thorpe asked him.
The old man shook his head.
"He's a truck driver," Thorpe added.
"Lots of people around here drive trucks," the cook replied, holding out another meal.
The old man closed the lid and slid it into the can.
The thick veins in his liver-spotted hands were blood red under a thin layer of translucent skin.
"A semi truck Thorpe said. He described Aland's tractor trailer rig.
"Never saw it," the woman said "I have," the old man said.
"Where?" the cook asked before Thorpe could get the question out.
"At Perfecta Velarde's barn. The truck was there yesterday when I delivered her meal to her."
"Did she have any visitors?" Thorpe asked.
"Yes. Her daughter and son-in-law. The daughter's name is Gloria. I didn't meet the man."
"Do you know Gloria's married name?"
The old man shook his head.
"But she lives in Anton Chico."
"Where is Perfecta's place?"
"On the highway to Santa Rosa. The truck is parked next to the barn."
"I didn't see it on the way in."
"You can't. A hill blocks it from view. You have to be driving back to Santa Rosa to see her place from the highway."
"How far?" Thorpe asked.
"Two miles. It's just before the road curves around the mesa. You'll see it."
"Thanks."
Russell keyed the radio as he left the community center and made contact with Art Garda.
"You were supposed to be back a half hour ago," Garda said after acknowledging Thorpe's call.
"I may have located Aland's truck."
"When will you know for sure?" Garda asked sarcastically.
Thorpe took the first turn after the bridge at sixty miles an hour.
"About one minute."
"Standing by," Garda said.
Thorpe floored his unit along a straightaway, braked through a gradual curve, saw Perfecta's barn and Aland's rig, and slowed down.
"Truck in sight."
"Can you positively ID the rig?"
"Give me a minute." Russell rolled to a stop, reached for his binoculars, and focused on the lettering on the driver's door.
"It's Aland's. He's got the trailer unhitched from his cab. Looks like he's planning to leave it here."