by Will Hobbs
At last the wind was blowing and Rick was harnessed. He was helmeted and poised for his first attempt, wearing a long shirt of Lon’s, a pair of jeans, and Lon’s hard plastic knee pads. Sticking his head under the joint where the downtubes met the keel, he wrapped his arms around the tubes and lifted. The streamer he’d been watching suddenly went limp. He had to set the glider back down on its wheels.
Half a dozen times he lifted the glider in anticipation, only to have to set it down. Finally the wind held, and Lon gave the nod. “Clear!” Rick yelled. He began to walk, then to jog, then to run. Whatever happened, he wouldn’t have very far to fall.
At the edge of the sand bench he felt the sensation of lift. He was about to be lifted from the ground, but something went wrong. His momentum took him over the edge, and the slope seemed to rush up to meet him. The glider crashed on its nose, and he was dragged on his face and chest through the sand.
“What happened?” he sputtered as Lon ran to help him up.
“Partly not enough airspeed, partly it was your angle of attack. We’ll talk it over and try again.”
He tried all morning. He spilled the glider on its nose and onto both sides, and he stalled it backward. The wind was good, and he’d been lifted time and again free of the ground, but he hadn’t really flown. It was difficult knowing exactly when to move his hands down to the control bar. After he accomplished that, it was difficult to know what to do with his hands on the bar and when it needed to be done.
It was easy enough in theory. “When you push your body back relative to the bar, the glider climbs and decelerates,” Lon had said. “When you push your body forward over the bar, the glider dives down and accelerates.”
Theory and practice were two different things. It didn’t seem to come naturally, knowing whether to pull himself over the bar or to push himself back from it. “Shift your grip—and consequently your body weight—to the right, you’ll steer to the right. Shift your body weight to the left, you’ll steer to the left.”
He knew Lon wanted to get back to his birds. “One more try,” Rick almost pleaded.
“You have quite an appetite for sand.”
And then he flew! Miraculously, it seemed, he felt the lift as he approached the dune face, and he responded with the right moves at the right time. The sensation was unmistakable, a thrill beyond anything he’d expected. He was flying on his own, by himself! He flew two hundred yards straight down over the landing zone, ten, twenty feet above the ground.
True, he blew the landing. It wasn’t that he didn’t land into the wind; the wind remained blowing against him as it should. He forgot to reach up for the downtubes early enough, to stall the glider as he’d been taught, in order to land on his feet like a parachutist touching down.
He ended up flopping on his belly and his knees. It didn’t matter, he’d been doing that all morning. He was okay, and he had flown, actually flown. He let out a victory whoop as Lon came running across the field.
“What an inaugural flight! Took me two or three days to pull that off when I was learning.”
“It felt good. Unbelievably good. I want more!”
“Tomorrow.”
19
On their way back to the condors, the road forced them once again to pass by the edge of Carlile’s camp at the base of Chimney Rock. The tent and the tarp were still in place, but the Humvee was gone and there was no sign of life. Without a word being spoken, Rick knew the biologist too was seeing the death of his magnificent Maverick over and over in his head. “What about your radio and the antennas?” Rick suggested. “Should we search their camp?”
“I think not,” Lon replied measuredly. “Let’s not play games with these guys.”
Back in his own camp Lon wolfed his customary hot dogs, reached for his binoculars, and began to scan the rim high above. It was apparent he intended to block all thoughts of Carlile and Gunderson, what they must be doing at this moment, since he was powerless to do anything about it. “Heading out in a minute to take some more bird feed up top,” Lon said with forced cheerfulness. “I’m looking forward to spending the afternoon observing the five.”
Rick’s feelings must have shown. He wasn’t ready to look at the rest of the birds, not yet.
“You can just hang out,” Lon suggested. “Take a nap.”
Rick nodded his agreement.
“Put the spotting scope away if it rains.”
It might never have happened if Lon hadn’t mentioned the spotting scope. As soon as Lon drove out, the high-powered telescope mounted on the tripod became a temptation that grew more irresistible by the moment. How easy it would be to throw it in a daypack and take off on the bike. From the top of Lizard Rock, with that scope, he would be able see a long, long way. Maybe he could see something, at no risk to himself, that would eventually turn the tables on the pothunters.
At the base of Lizard Rock he hid the mountain bike behind a juniper and began climbing. Once he reached the nearly level top of the immense mound of stone, more than a hundred feet above the ground, he kept on his belly and inched forward until the view opened to the east and north.
He could see Carlile’s camp, still empty, and he could see the canyons of the Maze writhing like snakes north toward the Green River. All but one twisted and turned upon themselves; one ran north in virtually a straight line. He spread out the map he’d taken from the bookcase in his tent, located Lizard Rock, oriented the map by using the Island in the Sky. The straight-running canyon was Jasper, the one Nuke had named his dog after. The one the park had closed.
A canyon that was off limits, he realized, would be the safest possible place for pothunters to hide their plunder.
Jasper Canyon’s southernmost fingers reached within half a mile of Carlile’s camp at Chimney Rock. Nuke must have camped there for a reason.
It all fit together. Carlile’s cache of artifacts was located somewhere in Jasper Canyon’s ten-mile run to the Green River.
Rick scanned Jasper’s rims with the spotting scope. As far as he could see, the slickrock rims above Jasper Canyon looked like they might be accessible to a Humvee. But he couldn’t spot the Humvee.
He had to get closer, and he had an idea how to do it—through the Maze. On his map he could see a trail leading out of a side canyon west of Jasper. It led onto a ridge overlooking Jasper Canyon.
Stealthily he worked his way down the flanks of Lizard Rock, then slipped into the Maze down a side finger of the canyon he’d identified from the map and from observation.
Every few hundred yards another canyon would come in from one side or the other, sometimes both sides at once. He concentrated hard, trying to commit them to memory. As he continued cautiously down the dry creekbed, the hair stood up on the back of his neck. Thunder was rumbling far away, and it made him even more uncomfortable. He knew he’d come a couple of miles. He’d seen the effect of water rushing in these canyons. It was time to find the trail that was on the map or backtrack for home. He decided to give it five more minutes.
He found the trail. Halfway up it he came upon a stairway of crude stone blocks that had been built to cross a pitch of steep slickrock. One of Carlile’s cattle stairways, he realized, from decades before.
As the trail cleared the cleft it had followed through the rimrock, he duckwalked and then bellied onto the crest of the ridge. Suddenly he was looking down into the depths of Jasper Canyon.
Jasper was a sheer-walled jewel. He took the spotting scope out of his daypack and scanned the rims in both directions, as far as he could see. Nothing.
The sky was darkening and the wind was beginning to blow. It was time to give this up.
He was about to put the scope away when movement caught his eye. Something was moving in one of three arching caves across the canyon, several hundred yards to the south. The movement was behind a line of bushes that grew along the front edge of the cave, where the water dripping from the rim had allowed them to take root.
Through a slight gap in
the bushes he detected a man. A man on one knee was making some sort of repetitive motion with his arms. Rick held the scope as still as he could, brought the man into focus. It was the big man. It was Gunderson. He was filling a military-green metal box with objects he was transferring from a larger box.
What were those things? Rick adjusted the focus delicately. They were cylindrical, metallic-looking, about eight inches long and three or so inches in diameter, with caps on both ends. Gunderson was very carefully placing them, one after the other, into the box.
Whatever they were, they weren’t ancient pottery.
From Rick’s vantage point, at this time of day, the west-facing cave was lit extremely well, and he was glad for it. He nudged the scope off Gunderson, paused at another gap in the brush. His breath caught short. Against the rear wall of the cave, five military-style rifles with large ammunition clips were propped next to a weapon with a wide tube for a barrel. A rocket launcher? A grenade launcher? What were the rifles—assault rifles?
He swiveled the scope back to Gunderson’s cylinders.
Pipe bombs? Was that possible?
Gunderson snapped down the lid of the metal box he’d been loading, then lifted it and walked to the corner of the cave. How had he gotten into that cave? It looked impossible. Sheer cliff adjoined the cave walls on both sides.
Then Rick caught sight of the answer. A thick board had been placed across the gap between the cave and a nearby ledge. Without the plank the cave was accessible only to birds.
He’d seen too much, he realized—enough to cost him his life. These men were much more dangerous than he or Lon had ever guessed. Anyone who would manufacture a bomb…
The weather was threatening, but he knew better than to try to get back to camp along the rim. He’d be totally exposed. Keeping low, he turned around and slipped back down into the Maze the same way he had come.
He was more concerned about the weather now, and he was moving as fast as he could. The lightning and thunder were getting closer all the time, and the wind was beginning to blow hard.
Suddenly all the canyons looked the same. Earlier he hadn’t taken the time to pile up rock cairns to mark the way back. He’d hadn’t figured to return this way. Frantically he searched for footprints, found none. It was all slickrock.
Rick stopped at the confluence of two identical-looking canyons. He had to choose. He chose the one at his left.
Ten minutes later he knew he hadn’t come this way before. Yet it looked like a way out, and with the storm about to break he had to take it.
At last he was looking at the final climb. He thought there was a route he could piece together up among the ledges that would lead him to a diagonal seam in the topmost layer, the rimrock.
And it worked. Hand over hand, he pulled himself onto the rim. Heaving for breath, he discovered he’d emerged much closer to Chimney Rock than Lizard Rock. He was nowhere near his bike. He was too close to the head of Jasper Canyon, too close to the route Carlile and Gunderson would use between their cache and camp.
He took off jogging, but he didn’t have the breath. After a minute he had to stop. Bent over double, he gasped for breath.
Rick heard a bark and then an insane-sounding burst of alarms from the throat of the dog. Over his shoulder he saw the Humvee heading for the camp at Chimney Rock, trying to beat the rain. The dog had been running alongside, but now it was running toward him.
He ran west toward Lon’s camp, but camp was several miles away. He was running as fast as he possibly could, but he was running directly into the wind. With a glance over his shoulder he saw the dog coming hard; it had closed the gap by half and now was only a hundred yards behind. The Humvee had veered in his direction too, but it was rumbling laboriously over terrain that looked like it should be impassable.
There just wasn’t any choice. He could outrun the Humvee but not the dog. He ran down a slickrock incline into a canyon finger shaped like a racing speedway banked on both sides. The rust-colored dog, barking maniacally, was close behind.
Before long the walls were a hundred feet high and narrowing. It felt like he was running down an alley between high buildings. He had to hope for a pour-over, a jump that he could make but that the dog wouldn’t. He just had to hope that it wasn’t too much of a jump.
Another half minute and here it was, an eight-foot jump down to the next level. He took it, tumbling to reduce the impact on his knees.
He looked back up. There was the dog, panting, whining, barking, but stopped. Stopped.
Rick took off running. The narrow side canyon turned a bend fifty yards later. Very shortly he found himself decelerating, by degrees at first and then rapidly pulling up to a complete stop.
A few feet in front of him the canyon fell away into air, nothing but air. How could this have happened to him? Of all the bad luck! A few cautious steps forward, and he found himself standing at the lip of a sheer dropoff that left him fifty or sixty feet above the bottom of the canyon.
Lightning snapped suddenly and was followed only seconds later by thunder like a sonic boom. The sky had turned dark, extremely dark, and the wind was blowing a gale.
He ran back the way he had come, already doubtful that it was possible to climb the pour-over where he’d jumped. The dog was still up there, looking over its shoulder for the two men. When the pit bull saw him below, it resumed its insane alarms. Rick looked desperately for fingerholds, footholds. He could picture all too well the waterfall that was going to come pouring through here perhaps in a matter of minutes. There was no choice but to holler for help. “Carlile!” he yelled. “Nuke!”
As soon as he yelled the man’s name he realized that Carlile was going to want to know where he’d been. He had to get rid of the spotting scope, just in case.
Rick ran around the bend in the box canyon, whipped the daypack off his back, removed the spotting scope, and set it down on the slickrock.
He put the daypack back on and raced around the corner. When he got back, Carlile and Gunderson were standing above the drop. The dog erupted again, but Carlile, with a command, shut it up.
“I need a hand up,” Rick panted. “I’d sure appreciate it.”
Gunderson was gloating. Carlile was much more focused. His thin lips were drawn tight, his gray eyes suspicious. “Where you been this afternoon?”
“Down in the Maze,” Rick said truthfully. “Exploring the Maze.”
“You’re an idiot, then, with the weather coming on.”
“That may be,” Rick admitted. “It’s all new to me. I didn’t know any better.”
“What’s in your pack—that shape?”
“Water bottle.”
“Toss the pack up.”
Rick did, and Carlile removed the plastic water bottle, which was all but empty. He put it back inside, tossed the pack down. “Self-reliance is a virtue,” Carlile said acidly. His partner was smirking as he studied the slick surface to the side of the cavity under the pour-over. It didn’t look climbable.
Lightning cracked again, thunder exploded, and the first spatters of rain began to pelt the slickrock. “Helping someone is a virtue too,” Rick said. “Hey, I’m really in a jam here.”
“More like a pickle sandwich,” Gunderson said with a self-impressed chuckle. “Let’s get going, Nuke, ’fore we get hit by lightning.”
It was Carlile, obviously, who was going to make the decision. But the malevolence in his face was unalloyed with any hint of compassion. Without a word Carlile turned on his heel, and the other followed smugly. In a moment they’d disappeared.
Rick was stunned. He hadn’t imagined they’d just leave him there. They knew his life was in danger. He tried desperately to climb the slick pitch—once, twice, three times. Each time he peeled off. The holds just weren’t there. “Hey,” he yelled, sure the men must be standing by, enjoying his predicament. “Hey! Quit fooling around!”
Not a sound came back, none at all. Rick heard nothing but the booming and rumbling of thunder. Su
ddenly he knew better than to think they were fooling around. This was pure malice, inexplicable but no less real.
Rocks, he had to have rocks. If he could stand on a platform even twenty inches high, he could pull himself up and out.
No rocks in sight, not a single one.
It was starting to rain hard. He ran around the corner, retrieved the spotting scope. There, very close to the edge of the cliff, were the rocks he needed. If this canyon had flash-flooded just a little stronger when it had last run, they would have been swept over the edge.
No time to lose. The rain slashed harder and harder, and the canyon floor was already starting to run a stream where none had existed moments before. He knew exactly what would happen to him if the water came roaring through here. He’d be a mouse trying to climb the walls of a hundred-foot bathtub. The water would come surging through here and flush him over the giant pour-over.
Five rocks and he had his platform. He built it to the side of the slick, funnellike chute that was spouting a waterfall where not a drop of water had run minutes before. From his platform, with a jump, he was able to plant his fingertips on a tiny shelf of rock above. With all his strength he was able to pull himself up high enough to get a toehold on the rock, and with the toehold he was able to move one hand and then the next. He pulled himself all the way up.
The canyon was running a foot deep in water. He ran along the sides where it was shallowest and raced back out. The men, the dog, and the Humvee were nowhere in sight.
The rain was easing as the storm cell moved north toward the Green River. Rick realized he was trembling, and he sat down on the slickrock. He watched the thunder cell pummel the Island in the Sky across the river. A double rainbow appeared.
All he wanted was to get back to camp, tell Lon what had happened, tell him what he knew. He got up and took off running. At Lizard Rock he retrieved the mountain bike and pedaled hard for home.