by Roger Weston
Marcel swore to himself that if he could just live, he would change. He would go back to West Virginia or someplace else, but he would change.
The canyon was hot to begin with, but now the heat became intense.
Crawl, Marcel, Crawl.
CHAPTER 68
Slowly cruising down river, the jet boat approached a smoky section of the canyon.
Meg was confused by what she saw. The spotlight illuminated a shaft of smoke, and it wasn’t coming from their boat.
“Oh, my God,” Meg said. “There’s a forest fire up ahead. The smoke is stacking up in the canyon.”
“A fire,” Lomax said. “You gotta be kidding.”
Wagner eased off the accelerator. “We’re turning around. If it gets thick down there, we could all die of smoke inhalation.”
“What are we gonna do?” Meg said.
Wagner swung the boat around and drove upriver. He’d gone less than fifty yards when a light appeared up ahead. It was another boat idling around the bend.
Distant gun barrels spit out fire like Roman candles, and Meg ducked down.
“Beautiful,” Wagner said, circling the boat around again and racing downstream into the smoke. “Fantastic. Absolutely wonderful.”
In the smoky canyon, they were able to ditch their timid pursuers temporarily, but Meg feared there was good reason why the other boat wouldn’t pursue them further.
Lomax sat down next to Meg and said, “Are you alright?”
Meg sighed. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Let’s turn around, Meg. You can still go underground. We can blast right by that boat and make a run for it.”
Meg looked at him as though he was mad. “After all this?” She shook her head.
“Oh, come on, Meg. Let’s just turn around.”
“No.” Meg thought about what Dillinger had said. He had proof that would implicate the president in Carl’s scheme. Meg knew that if she gave up now, then she would be on the run for the rest of her life, which would probably only be a few days at best.
The boat rocked.
Meg turned around and saw Russell heave a dead assassin overboard. Russell was streaked in blood, both his own and that of the most recent castaway. He sat down and loaded his shotgun.
Meg sagged against the railing.
“If this doesn’t clear up soon,” Wagner said, “we’re turning around.”
Meg lifted her pistol and cocked it. “Think again.”
“We could get cooked up there.” Wagner leaned forward resting his body against the wheel. “You know what, lady? You and your gun are starting to piss me off.”
“We keep going.”
CHAPTER 69
Smoke blocked out the sunlight from the rising sun. The mountains, which rose steeply from the river, boxed Meg in along with the smoke. Those mountainsides hemmed her in, giving her no escape route. If she turned back, assassins waited. Plus, she would always have to live life on the run, even if they could get past the hunters in the boat. If they kept going, nature’s fury would bring about their pitiful end.
Despite all she had been through, evading the world’s best assassins, she realized she was nothing against nature. Her bullets would do no good against smoke.
Thick brown air was piling up, trapped by canyon walls close to a mile deep. Smoke rolled between the steep slopes, following the river’s curved path. The acrid smell streamed past. The smoke thickened. They coughed more and more. Meg’s eyes watered. Her throat burned.
“We’ll have to turn around,” Wagner said, coughing.
“We keep going,” Meg said.
“No.” He shook his head. “You don’t mess around with fire. We won’t be able to breathe much longer.”
Meg scanned the slightly-obscured vistas ahead. “We push through. Keep moving.”
Wagner sat slumped over in his chair as he slowed the engines. “Sorry, we try again tomorrow.”
“I said no turning back.”
“Lady, I’m captain of this boat.” He pointed a trembling finger at her. “And there’s no way I’m going on.”
Meg shot her pistol in the air once. She then pointed it at Wagner. “Next one is for you.”
Wagner grimaced and pushed the accelerator lever ahead. He covered his mouth and nose with a t-shirt and breathed through the material. Meg and Lomax did the same.
As they came around a bend in the river, Meg had to turn her cheek from the heat. The mountainside on the left bank was burning. The smoke was so thick that she could not see it clearly, but the flames illuminated it, turning it pink and orange.
Breathing became agony.
Wagner went into a coughing fit. He pulled back the accelerator lever and left the boat to drift while he curled up on the floor and coughed.
Holding her shirt over her mouth while her chest rocked, Meg slid into the captain’s seat and shoved the throttle ahead. The front end lifted up and the boat raced through the searing gloom. She held the tiller bar in her right hand and found it quite responsive, allowing for instant steering.
Gagging on every breath, Meg only opened her eyes every few seconds to make sure they were on track. Nobody complained anymore because nobody expected to make it out alive.
They were directly below the flames. Meg thought of Napoleon at the burning of Moscow. She thought of Nero playing his lyre. The power of nature had no equal in man or woman. The steep canyon walls burned. Meg could not whisper a prayer because she could not control her heaving lungs. She screamed inside the madness of her tormented brain. She barely even had power over herself anymore—although she managed to scream in agony during a break in her coughing fit.
The boat soared over the smooth waters of this calm reach, and Meg held on as long as she could. Maybe she covered another mile, but the smoke got thicker and blacker.
The fire roared now and crackled as it devoured acres of grass along the steep walls.
Meg heard desperate muffled shouts from the others, but could not get beyond her own struggle. Turning back was not an option. Ahead lay doom. She knew she didn’t have much time, but her fate lay beyond her reach.
Even the lifting darkness was obscured. Thick acrid smoke buried her. She jerked the lever all the way back. She could no longer see. Only the power of the river could carry the boat through the gloom.
Meg clawed at the smoke as if she could part it and seize something to breathe. She screamed. Her lungs felt as if they would burst. She lay down on the deck and shook with the waves heaving through her chest. Pain like a necklace of hot coals around her neck…desperation. Her life flashed before her eyes like a speeding car at a race that ended in a wreck.
She could see the headline: “Fugitive Found Dead on Drifting Boat in Hells Canyon”. That was her. F.B.I’s most wanted—because of lies.
They would do anything to silence the truth, but nature was doing it for them.
Scrambled thoughts raced through her mind—mostly related to air and breathing, all irrational. She rolled on the deck, trying to crush the handle of her gun in her desperate grip. She dropped the weapon and gripped her own throat.
Roaring, crackling sounds of wind and flames taunted her, dared her a proud thought.
Breathe.
She pulled off her sock and dipped it into the river. She breathed through the wet material.
She choked and gagged anyway.
Trapped in the canyon. No way out.
She heard the others choking, dying.
Her mind was fading now. Because she saw things more clearly.
Wisdom. How simple life was. Just breathing. Pure thoughts and clean air.
She wasn’t afraid. Surrendering was blissful, easy. Just like in the container in Alaska.
Unable to hold her breath any longer, Meg gulped a lungful of hot smoke. She lay down and looked up at the clouds. So beautiful.
Clouds?
The smoke was thinning.
The coughing continued and shook through her chest beyond control. Her lungs
flamed hot, but the smoke was thinning out. She began laughing.
She didn’t know why. In between coughing fits, she laughed. She hung over the rail and filled her hands with water. She drank the cold water and gagged on it. Streams rained out of her nose.
She laughed and drank. She gained control of her body.
She couldn’t even see flames any more.
As the boat rounded the next bend, the topography changed and the winds eased off enough for Wagner to straighten out the boat. It was a good thing, too, because the new reach also brought serious rapids that pounded past a smoking helicopter. Why wasn’t Wagner straightening out the boat? That was when Meg realized that Wagner was still on the floor—and bleeding.
“Wagner’s down,” Meg said.
Lomax grabbed the wheel and touched the throttle. “When?” He kneeled. “How?”
Meg huddled at the bottom of the boat and tried to revive Wagner, but there was no pulse and the rapids were sucking the boat into a dangerous stretch.
“He’s been shot. He’s gone.” Meg couldn’t breathe again. Another person dead. Another good person. This time at her hands. She was as bad as the rest of them. Because she got Wagner involved in her mess, he was now dead. First the widow and now Wagner, innocent people caught in her crossfire. Crossfire created by Eric. How would she ever live with herself now. She would rather be dead with Eric. At least then she wouldn’t have to live with the guilt of killing an innocent person.
Thunder racked across the sky, and the rain showered down as abruptly as if someone had flicked a switch. Since the canvas had been melted and burned, the rain cooled Meg’s skin. Lightening lit up clouds stacked on the canyon rim thousands of feet above them.
As the boat swung around a bend of the river, a lightning bolt slammed into the river ahead of the boat, causing a hissing sound like a massive electric eel. The thunder reverberated through the canyon like artillery. The rain blew down in thick sheets, and the canyon transformed into a wind tunnel.
The boat drifted sideways in the current with its nose facing the airy onslaught. The powerful winds pushed the boat towards the lee bank. Lomax bounded into the captain’s seat and shoved the throttle forward. Meg felt her legs shake from the engine vibration in the deck. Just before the boat was pushed into a rocky outcrop, it muscled forward.
Lomax didn’t try to turn the nose downstream, and Meg understood why. To do so would put their aluminum hull broadside to the wind. Instinct told her that the ferocious gusts would capsize them instantly. Meg held on just to avoid being blown overboard. As the wind raced down the steep canyon walls, it crashed upon the canyon floor with a thunderous roar.
Meg looked at Wagner huddled on the floor. He looked like a little boy. She would miss Wagner.
Wind dug up sheets of water and blew them across the boat like a fan from hell that sounded like a freight train.
Meg yelled at Lomax: “Don’t let the nose drift off center,” she said. “If the wind gets a grip on her side, there’ll be no righting her.”
“You take over.”
Meg crawled to the helm.
Sheets of spray soaked and them continually.
In the dim light of early morning, Meg saw Lomax clinging to a stern post for his life. As the insane wind raged across the canyon floor, it had caught Lomax at the wrong moment and blew him out of the rear of the boat. Meg saw only his fingers clinging to the rail.
Meg set the autopilot and ran to him. She grabbed hold of Lomax’s arm, but his fingers lost their grip. Meg could hold on, but could not pull him in. Signing to Russell she motioned for help. Russell flew to her side. He leaned over the rail and let out an agonized scream—the first sound Meg had heard from him—maybe the first sound he’d ever made. At the moment when his yell gained its highest pitch, his massive hands seized Lomax’s arms. He pulled Lomax back on board as easily as if he was weightless.
Russell shouted again, craning his head away from the turbulent waters.
The river pulled the boat around a corner. Due to the topography here, the winds were less fierce. Meg drove and breathed fresh morning air and was happy to be alive—even if it wasn’t for long.
After what felt like miles of white water, the river smoothed out. Behind them was a wall of fire that ensured they wouldn’t be followed, at least by boat.
CHAPTER 70
With Lomax driving at a slow crawl, the boat scraped its way into a narrow gorge that intersected the canyon. Fifty yards in, the water played out, and Russell tied the bow line to a tree along the edge.
“Keep your eyes on the sky,” Meg said.
Lomax shut down the engine and wrapped a t-shirt around his head like a turban. “Let’s get going. They won’t be able to see the boat from the sky. It’s hidden pretty well under the trees.”
Meg stepped ashore.
Russell found a shovel under the seat and dug furiously into the soft dirt of the mountainside, and it took him less than half an hour to dig a shallow grave for Wagner.
Sweating from the heat, Meg sat on the steep hillside in the brown grass. Russell carried Wagner over his shoulder and laid him softly into the ground, covering the boat-man with dirt.
They all stood around silent for a few minutes, each dealing with the tragedy in their own way.
Meg wiped away the tears from her eyes. “He was right. I didn’t know what I was getting into.”
When she felt Russell step up beside her, she turned and put her arms around him, hugging him tightly.
Russell motioned for them to follow him up a faint game trail. They’d hiked for five minutes when he stopped. Not forty yards away, a group of car-size boulders jutted out of the hill.
“Here?” Meg said.
Lomax slung his M-16 rifle over his shoulder. “This should be interesting.”
“Well, let’s get evidence and get out of here.”
Russell led them through the sage brush. When he came to the rocks, he walked between two mammoth boulders. Meg followed close behind.
“There’s nothing here,” she said, turning to Lomax. “Just a pile of tumble weed.”
Russell got down on his hands and knees and dug his fingers into the dirt. He tugged at something, and the ground gave way as he pulled a large piece of camouflaged plywood off the mountainside, revealing a small cave entrance, no more than five feet high and three wide.
The air inside the cave was moist and cool. It smelled like rock and dirt after a fresh rain. Russell picked up a small antique lantern that was tucked in a cranny. He lit it and handed it to Meg. The walls of the cave were mostly rock and dirt and streaked with blood-red mineralized quartz. The entrance chamber was eight-feet across and had a nine-foot high ceiling. A group of shovels and tools leaned against the wall.
Meg felt air blow through her hair. She sighed deeply. She was drained from the constant adrenaline pumping through her veins. She felt like a bobcat, which when tracked by trophy hunters, takes refuge in her earthen den, but knows they are out there somewhere, closing in with hounds, determined to take their prize.
With a shovel and a pick draped over his shoulder, Russell led the way. He led them through two cave-ins, both of which had been recently shored up with fresh lumber. The soft breeze got stronger the deeper they went.
For a moment, an eerie howling sound filled the cavern. At first Meg felt her hair bristle with fear. Then she realized that the wind meant there was another entrance, which meant fresh air.
Russell led them deep into the mountain. Meg didn’t want to keep going. She’d had enough of being hunted. Hiking into the crust of the earth was the last place she wanted to be. She’d much rather have been shopping at the mall costume shop, just like in the old days, with no concern over who saw her or recognized her. She used to look forward to being recognized by old students. Look at her now. Would she spend the rest of her life trying to find the symbolic equivalent of a cave to hide in, afraid of the light of day because she could be recognized and neutralized? She would never
act again. She wanted to be around normal people like herself, people with nothing to hide and who were more or less what they appeared to be. She wanted to be long forgotten by those who pretended to be one thing while they were something else entirely.
The distant roar got louder and closer. Meg walked next to Lomax, taking comfort in occasionally brushing up against him.
Meg estimated that by now they were at least hundreds of meters below the bottom of the Snake River of Hells Canyon, so when they squeezed through a narrow crack and entered a large gallery, the underground waterfall was not unexpected. Water crashed down into a foaming pool. Russell stood at the edge of the sand and the lantern lit up the water. Meg saw an abundance of albino fish.
Meg looked at her own reflection in the rippling water. The light was distorted by the waves, but she got momentary and even contorted glimpses of herself. She looked like a scarecrow of a woman, her hair messy and tangled, a lost look in her eyes. If a prehistoric caveman showed up, she would be his natural helpmate, dirty and disheveled, dangerous, capable of outwitting predators. She turned away from the image.
The cavern here was over a hundred feet wide and half as high. The river filled the middle section, but left ten- to twenty-feet along the edges, mostly smooth hard rock that was easy to walk on. At one time, the flow must have run at a higher level because every inch of rock had been polished by moving liquid. Meg ran her fingers over a smooth vein of white and red quartz. They walked along the underground waterway for close to a mile before the cave narrowed.