Not a lot of tree cover for a large animal to hide there in Northern NM. Gallup, NM = Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner territory.
It was in the Jemez. A guy called the “Cookie Bandit” for breaking into homes and stealing food, managed to go unseen for 6 years there before two local sheriff’s deputies staked out a cabin. He killed one of them before being shot and killed. The gun he had taken from a hiker that had vanished years before, and he was later connected to two murders in California in the 70’s. You can get lost there, and stay lost.