Chapter 7
Seek
Aweek had passed and somehow, I was still alive. It’d seemed like that cold was going to be the end of me. But I’d managed to claw my way back into good health. I was still a bit horrified and embarrassed that Hush saw me in such a gross state. That was going to take a bit longer to recover from.
Stepping out of my truck, I took a big inhale of air. I could smell the monsoons getting ready to dump rain down on the desert. I went over to Tommy and shook his hand.
“What’ve you got for me?”
He sighed. “Missing hiker. He was last seen in these parts by some other people hiking the trails.”
“How long has he been missing?”
“Ten hours. We found his tracks, but once we lost them, we weren’t able to pick him back up again. I’ve got the coordinates to where we last had him.” Tommy replied, handing me a piece of paper with the coordinates written down.
Nodding, I stamped down the irritation. Ten hours meant there’d be countless animal and insect prints all over the hiker’s footprints and the scent would be diminished.
Still, we’d do our best. “Can you show me where you lost him?” Having the coordinates was one thing, but having him bring me there would allow me to ask more questions before taking off after this hiker.
“You bet.” He followed me back to my truck as I readied Jecht to go out and search.
The truck was on and I locked it as I left so Auron would have the AC.
He’d be much more comfortable than we would be.
The upcoming rain was making it muggy and sweat dripped down my forehead.
Using the forearm of my long sleeved shirt, I wiped it away.
“Thanks for coming out, Seek,” Tommy said as we started up the trail.
I could hear the frustration in his tone.
He didn’t like that he had to wait so long to bring me in on a missing persons case either.
If it were up to him, I’d be his first call.
This wasn’t Tommy’s jurisdiction, it was the South Tucson Police’s area, but he always offered to help.
The mix of officers out searching today meant more of a likelihood that we’d find the missing man.
I wished they could call me out immediately, too, but he had a protocol he had to follow. It wasn’t his fault. “I’ll always come when you call, Tommy.”
We smiled at each other. I’d always feel grateful to him.
He’d never admit to it, but I knew he was one of my biggest supporters when I first started.
He’d seen my potential and gone to bat for me.
I’d always consider him a close friend. He and his wife, Marcy, invited me over about once a month to either barbecues or family dinners.
I sort of got the feeling they thought of me as their third daughter.
You’d never catch me complaining. I loved their whole family to pieces.
“Let’s get this done before that monsoon hits,” he suggested.
“Agreed, I don’t want to get stuck out here.”
We were out near the south side of Tucson, at the foothills of the Santa Rita Mountains. There were a lot of trails out here for hikers, though it wasn’t as busy of a spot as the Catalinas, which were north of the city.
Tommy and I hurried down the trail on which they’d last found the hiker’s tracks, following after Jecht.
It took us about an hour to get up to where Tommy and his deputies had lost the sign, and the trail was turning treacherous as it narrowed in places and one side slid down into a sharp drop off.
If the hiker had fallen off the trail here, we’d only find a body.
“Did you look down there?” I asked
“We had the helicopter take a look, but they couldn’t spot anything. You know how that goes, though.” His brown eyes were troubled.
I knew. The helicopters could dip down pretty close to the ground in open areas and search through brush, but when they were up in the mountains they had to be careful to give plenty of clearance to their blades.
That meant they stayed higher and tried to look from there.
It was easy to miss a person lying still amongst the rocks and underbrush from too high up.
We kept going and I was relieved when Jecht gave the indicator that he’d found the scent.
It took about another twenty minutes of following the trail before I heard Jecht’s bark float back on the wind.
The storm was getting closer. Remembering the way Hush had freaked out when I’d run down into a wash while we searched the desert for Dex, guilt rose to the surface.
He’d be pissed if he knew I was out here doing this with a monsoon on the way.
That idea made me pause. Why did I care what Hush thought? Sure, he was sexy, but he had no bearing on the things I did. Shaking the thoughts off, I ran up the trail and paused at the ravine. Jecht’s barks were coming from the bottom.
“Good boy!” I called out and started picking my way down the side. Tommy was hot on my heels.
“H-hello?” The voice was strained, weak from fear and exhaustion.
We paused and glanced at each other. The relief on Tommy’s face was palpable. My muscles relaxed for a brief moment and I dipped my head in gratitude. We’d found him. He was alive.
I looked down the cliff into the wash. I could see his legs sticking out from under a small bush. He pushed the branches aside, and I gave an exaggerated wave so that he could see me. “We’re coming down to you,” I called out. “Stay where you are.”
“Okay!” The relief in his voice carried all the way up the canyon.
I glanced up and saw the building clouds.
That was the crazy thing about monsoons.
You would go from clear skies to a scattering of clouds in a matter of minutes.
Then those tiny clouds would clump together and before you knew it there was a black sky unloading on you.
We were in the scattered tiny cloud phase. We had maybe thirty minutes before the rain came. When that happened, this guy was going to be washed away in a flood.
Time slowed as we picked our way down the side of the ravine, careful not to take a wrong step and end up at the bottom the way the hiker had. By the time we’d gotten down there, Jecht’s barks had died down. He knew we were on our way.
“Hi,” I said, voice friendly as I walked up and found the man resting with his back against the steep wall.
“Hey,” he said, his voice trembling. The fear on his face melted away.
That was one of the best rewards I could ever receive, seeing a person, scared for their life, realize that help was there. “What’s your name?” I asked as I crouched down near him.
“Devin.”
“I’m Jamie, nice to meet you.”
“You, too. Thanks for finding me.”
I never knew how to respond to people’s gratitude, so I just smiled and ran my eyes over his body. I could already see his leg was broken. His tibia was sticking out of his leg a few inches down from his knee. His face was ghost white while his eyes were glassy. He was in shock.
Tommy was already on his radio with his deputies and the South Tucson PD.
I listened as he gave them coordinates to plug into their GPSs so they could find us easily.
I wrapped a splint I’d pulled from my bag around his leg to stabilize it and bandaged where the bone popped out to stop the bleeding.
Some of those essentials I hauled around with me were first aid items. I almost always needed them when I found the person I was looking for alive.
“Don’t you worry, Devin,” I told him, voice upbeat.
“We’re going to get you out of here in no time.
” I glanced up and saw that the little clouds had formed into one big one.
The sky was darkening by the minute. If you watched hard enough you could see it fading from white to gray. We didn’t have much time.
Normally, with a bone coming through the leg and the amount of pain he was in, I would wait for EMS and maybe even a helicopter to air lift him out.
We didn’t have that kind of time. Instead, Tommy and I each wrapped one of his arms around our shoulders and, despite his pain, made our way up the embankment.
EMS was just arriving, having been led by one of the deputies, by the time we got up there. They began loading Devin up once we were back on the trail.
“Wait!” he called out. “Jamie!”
I walked over to him and he grabbed my hand. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
“Hey,” I responded with a smile, patting his hand with my other. “That’s okay. We’re just glad we found you. No more hiking out here alone, got it?” I warned with a pointed look.
“Promise,” he chuckled. It was obvious he was in pain, but he didn’t make a peep as the deputies helped carry him down the trail on a stretcher.
“Great job, Seek,” Tommy said with a grin. “Killed it as usual.”
We both looked up at the sound of thunder. Water was starting to sprinkle down onto us. I looked down the cliff and saw a slow trickle of water filling up the wash. The flood was only a few minutes away. I looked back to Tommy and he blew out a breath of relief.
“Thanks, Tommy,” I replied. We began walking back down the trail, following the stretcher. “Hey, I have something I’d like to talk to you about-”
His radio crackled, then dispatch came on asking for him.
Sighing with frustration, I waited while he answered the call.
I’d been trying to find the right time to talk to him for about a month now.
This had seemed like a decent time since he wasn’t in charge of the show out here.
The South Tucson Police would take care of all the paperwork on Devin, leaving Tommy and I free to go about our business.
I had plenty of time to submit my report to them.
“Sheriff, we have reports of a missing hiker.”
Tommy groaned, then keyed the mike. “Where?”
“Out near The Silverbells.”
My breath lodged in my chest when I heard the location. That was exactly what I wanted to speak to Tommy about. I listened as the dispatcher gave the pertinent information, heart beating faster.