The Intruder, Part Two, Into Darkness

A serious attempt had been made to get the truck back on solid ground. It had obviously been futile. I moved slowly forward, scouting the area carefully. Thinking back on the damaged gates behind me and the charred remains before me, I felt certain the vehicle had been stolen. The confusing array of footprints seemed to have no real pattern. There were several different men who had moved around making them. Spent 30 caliber rifle casings littered the area. Why the shooting? A search in an approximate 100-yard radius revealed little more. A couple of sets of tracks seemed to be moving generally south.

Where had these men gone? Had they backtracked to Vicente's house, taking the old rancher and his sister hostage, or worse? Had they circled back to the west to the hilltop headquarters of the neighboring Poenisch Ranch? What had brought this man Dan from Virginia to this lonely, remote ranch in the middle of nowhere? Who had come with him, and why?

The tailgate lying some 30 yards behind the truck had not been consumed in the flames and was a light blue in color. I picked it up and laid it in the bed of my pickup with the other personal effects. It was time to head to Tilden and the sheriff's office.

Driving back through the gates and leaving our family ranch behind, I passed Vicente's ancient family cemetery, then his weathered old ranch house and working pens. I barely touched the brakes as his house slipped by. If he and his sister had been taken, I would not help the situation by stopping at this point. Better to secure help.

Reaching the blacktop, I floored the accelerator on the old truck for the entire 26 miles into Tilden. At the courthouse, a cloud of caliche dust roiled over the truck as I came to a stop. Stepping out and slamming the door, I jogged up the steps and into the lobby. I crossed the hardwood floor and approached a young woman at a desk. It was just a short wait until a deputy sheriff arrived after being summoned by the dispatcher. He was tall and double jointed, and his runover cowboy boots settled into a cadence as he strode toward me.

"Problem?" he asked, offering his hand.

"Yep," I responded, taking it. "There's a burned out truck stranded on our ranch in the south end of the county."

A puzzled look turned quickly into a smile. "Out just past the old Hasette place?. . . We got him," he asserted, still smiling.

"Are Vicente and his sister all right?" I asked, liking him.

"Sure, the old man's fine. They're both fine," was the response.

I slid the duffel bag across the floor to him and indicated it might contain the personal effects of the man we were discussing. His eyebrows arched in surprise as he prodded it with a boot, then he lifted it onto a desk top and began to inspect the contents.

"It's him," he confirmed. "I'll need to call this in to the Secret Service. Where'd you find it?" he questioned.

"To the west, up the hill behind the truck," I said, puzzled as he picked up a phone and began to dial. "The Secret Service?" I pondered to myself.

"I thought we searched the area thoroughly," he muttered with a shake of his head. He finished his inventory report and wrote down some instructions before dropping the receiver back into its cradle.

"When did all this happen?" I asked.

"Sometime back in May," he responded.

"No way," I said. "These receipts in his bag place him only as far south as Louisiana on June 11th. That means he couldn't have made it down here before June 13th or 14th at the earliest!"

He let a lopsided grin escape and shoved his hat back on his head. "Could have been off a week or so on the date," he conceded. "Been a while back now, in any case."

"Tell me who he was and what happened," I urged. "Why weren't we called?"

He began to relate a strange tale of a man who had been originally from Portland, Oregon. Dan had joined the Navy and came to be stationed in Portsmith, Virginia, where he underwent training as a Navy SEAL. He became one of their best, specializing in covert high risk operations.

Over time, he began to ingest a variety of drugs. Becoming progressively more unstable mentally, he started to hear and respond to voices that existed only in his mind. The voices told him to head south to Mexico. There was no explanation of his purpose in doing this.

Winding his way across the southern states, he dropped down into Texas. Dan apparently became fearful of being apprehended. As he drove south through the night on highway 16 into a steady rain, he came upon the obscure road leading into our ranch.

He pulled over to the side of the pavement and stared into the darkness punctuated by rainfall, occasional lightning and the steady, slapping rhythm of his windshield wipers. He judged that he was now close enough to the Mexican border to reach it by cutting directly west and driving cross-country on ranch roads. It was a serious error in judgment--one that would cost him dearly.

Thus began his frenzied effort; crashing through locked gates and working his way ever deeper, westward into the desolate, sodden terrain. The collisions left bits and pieces of his vehicle along the way. A few miles into his push through the night, he passed the glow of kerosene lanterns in the windows of an old ranch house. He barely glanced toward the light, so intent was he on maintaining progress through water filled ruts and keeping his truck centered on the slick ruts defining the road. Mud sprayed into the air behind his spinning rear tires.

Vicente sat on the front porch in an ancient chair, canted back against the wall. He loved the sounds and smell of the rain. It was a rare blessing in this arid land. It brought life and sustenance to his parched pastures and cattle. It renewed hope. His sister and niece were in the house, so he called them to step out and see the crazy man driving deeper into the night over rain soaked roads. Who would be so unwise? With muttered expressions of surprise, they watched as the swaying red tail lights of the truck gradually fishtailed away into the darkness and rain. The sound of the racing engine blended and merged into the steady splatter of raindrops on the roof. Shaking his head and muttering in Spanish, concerned about damage to the roads, Vicente and the women re-entered the house. They turned off the lanterns as they prepared for, and slipped into their beds. Each drifted toward sleep, lungs caressed by the sweet coolness in the air and the fresh scent of rain.

When he finally moved out onto and across our ranch, Dan became engaged in a desperate search for a route that would allow him to continue his push west to the Rio Grande and refuge in Mexico. Frustration built within him as he worked his way around the pasture and came to the realization that the road west stopped here, on this ranch. There was no gate leading beyond our land.

Dan tried to double back toward the entrance behind him. He found himself sliding down a rocky hill toward a flowing creek that suddenly emerged from the darkness and rain. The truck slid into the water and promptly sank up to the frame in the silt. The fractured beams of his headlights tilted down at an angle into the mud and slowly moving water.

In spite of his efforts, the truck remained hopelessly stuck. A sense of rage grew. The voices harried him. The air was cool and damp. The rain eased as a knee-high blanket of thin mist settled in, clinging to the earth. Dan was forced to wait, seething helplessly, for the coming dawn. He sat, alone in the darkness. . .

watch for the conclusion in

The Intruder, Part Three, Requiem