The Maze

by Will Hobbs

  Lon listened soberly to his account. When Rick was finished, he said, “Thank goodness you had the presence of mind to hide the spotting scope. It sounds like you’re right—he has no suspicions that you saw what you saw. Even so, he was willing to let nature have its way with you so he’d never have to wonder. I underestimated the evil in these men by a long shot. I was so sure they were pothunters!”

  “No wonder Nuke was worried about your radios! No wonder he was so afraid of going to jail!”

  “With the bombs they’ve made and the illegal weapons they’ve accumulated…throw in the possibility of the ranger station fire being pinned on them…they’d spend the rest of their lives in prison.”

  “Shouldn’t you drive out right now and call the FBI or something?”

  Lon was shaking his head. “And make him suspicious? As soon as he gets back to Hanksville he’s going to be watching the road or having Gunderson watch it. If we do anything unexpected, he’ll know we’re on to him. When we go out six days from now, on schedule, we’ll make a few phone calls, and not from Hanksville. Nothing’s going to happen between now and then.”

  “Can I still fly tomorrow?”

  “I think you should. It’ll show we aren’t worried. If we look worried, he’s gonna feel real threatened.”

  20

  Lon clipped his portable two-way to his belt as Rick prepared to fly the next day. “Too bad about the antenna,” Lon said, “but we’ve got a radio and a mike. I think we can establish radio communication while you’re flying. At close range, with no obstructions and you above me, we might be okay. I’d like to be able to coach you during, instead of just before and after.”

  Time after time Rick glided over the gentle slopes of the lower dune field and onto the landing zone. He was getting the feel of the control bar, learning quickly how responsive the wing was, flying more smoothly all the time without overcorrecting.

  The two-way helped immensely. Lon was able to stand below and coach him from takeoff to landing. “You look like a natural to me,” said the crackling voice in Rick’s helmet as the wind held him up for a flight that lasted, according to the variometer, thirty-seven seconds. “Great sled run.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A flight that only loses altitude, never gains any.”

  Rick wanted much more than sled runs, but he didn’t say so.

  “Your second day was a triumph,” Lon concluded around noon. “Let’s head for home.”

  As they passed the Chimney Rock camp, Carlile and Gunderson were striking their tent. Rick held his breath as they passed by. With a glance he saw only the usual stares. He wondered if they were surprised to see him.

  An hour later, from camp, Rick and Lon watched the Humvee drive out up the dugway. “Let that be the last of them,” Lon said quietly, almost like a prayer. “That’s all I ask.”

  On the morning of his third day trying to fly—Day Three, as he was calling it—Rick shouldered the furled glider up to the crest of the highest dune. When he looked over the edge, it felt more like he was on the top of a mountain. He was aware that fear was distorting his perceptions.

  “You’re looking at a hundred and fifty feet of vertical spread out over three hundred yards,” Lon advised.

  You wanted to do this, Rick told himself. “I’m ready for it,” he said nervously. He breathed deep, hefted the glider off the ground, stared down his runway. He knew beyond a doubt that he wanted this. He wanted it badly. “Clear!” he hollered when the wind was right.

  As he felt the lift and his churning legs left the ground, he knew he was off to his best effort yet. Once he was in the air, the fear was gone. The sensation of flight felt indescribably clean, beyond beautiful, and this flight was lasting far longer than any before. “You’re looking good,” crackled Lon’s commentary through heavy static. “Push back just a little…”

  “I’m feeling good,” he replied. He flew the entire length of the dunes, all the way down to the beginning of the landing zone. Little matter that he landed like a wounded duck.

  “You’re ready to start working on turns,” Lon announced.

  On Rick’s next flight he banked the glider for the first time. When the horizon rocked on its axis he was sure he would plummet straight to the earth.

  “Trust the glider,” came Lon’s voice. “It’s a remarkable machine.”

  With the shift of his hands, the horizon returned to horizontal.

  After every landing he only wanted to go again. Now he was truly flying, controlling the glider, not merely floating. He relished making the adjustments as he used the strength of his upper body to pull on the control bar, shifting his body weight to the left or the right.

  On his last flight of the day he executed a 360-degree spiral en route to landing at the very end of the LZ. He’d flown nearly a mile, and his flight was no sled run. He’d pushed his body weight back from the bar, not so far as to stall the glider, just far enough to slow down and climb. He heard the sweet chirping sound of the variometer that indicated he was gaining altitude, and he could see with his own eyes the ground falling away below. The variometer recorded that he had gained 287 feet over his altitude at launch.

  “Was it a thermal?” he shouted as soon as he saw Lon. He was still flushed with adrenaline.

  “It was warm air rising—the dunes really cook toward the middle of the day. But I wouldn’t call it a full-fledged thermal. Hey, you climbed 287 feet—that’s terrific! You’re doing great! Let’s call it a day. It’s time for me to check in on the birds.”

  In camp Lon loaded the last calf into the pickup. Rick jumped in the truck. He’d avoided the birds since Maverick died, but now he was ready.

  The condors were doing well. All five had full crops; they were all up and flying. They were flying noticeably higher than before, yet remaining along the red cliffs where they could take advantage of the continuous up-drafts. Lon was pleased with their social interaction as they gathered into a flock before flying to their roosts. They were nibbling one another playfully. One of them, M3, was making a game of poking her bill repeatedly under the others’ wings.

  On Day Four the air wasn’t cooperating; it was all sled runs. But Rick was able to work on landings—over and over and over, at great expense to his chest, belly, and knees. Late morning they were alarmed by the sound of a vehicle coming down the road to the Doll House. It turned out to be some day hikers in a Jeep, and they drove out several hours later.

  In the evening Rick wanted to go up the dugway again with Lon to observe the condors. Afterward, from the edge of the cliffs, they watched the sunset turn the high cirrus clouds iridescent with all the colors in an abalone shell. Rick was picturing running off the cliff and taking flight. He thought he could do it. He let his mind go. In a few minutes he was almost as high as the abalone clouds. He could feel the control bar just as certainly as if it were in his hands. He was feeling the sensation of lift, and he was visualizing all his moves.

  He needed to work on carrying more speed into his landings. He’d been de-proning—untucking his feet from the bag and hanging with his legs down—a few seconds before he should have. When he did that he slowed down too quickly and fell like a ton of bricks. Or else he’d de-prone at the right time but fail to flare the nose of the glider correctly. When that happened he ended up running and crashing nose first, dragging his chest and knees. He needed to flare the glider at the right moment to produce a stall and a gentle touchdown.

  Back in camp Lon brought out a small AM-FM. “Works great after dark. I want to find a weather report. High cirrus clouds can signal a front a few days off.”

  Lon dialed past stations playing music, a talk show in Los Angeles, a news broadcast from Oklahoma. A station from Phoenix identified itself during a break. “Let’s stick with this one,” Lon said. “This time of year their weather becomes ours pretty often. Arizona’s on the path for moisture out of Mexico.”

  Within minutes they heard a brief weather report, which ended wit
h news that had Lon leaning forward to catch every word: “A Pacific hurricane is punishing the coast of Baja California. Pandora’s storm track, once she moves inland, is yet to be determined.”

  “Aha,” Lon said. “The cirrus clouds we saw today were spin-offs from Pandora. Let’s hope the storm steers east toward Texas instead of north toward Utah, so you can fly. October is infamous for floods. The worst floods on record in the Southwest were in the first half of October.”

  There were puffy cumulus clouds building in the distance as they drove to the dunes for Day Five. Rick was afraid Lon would say the weather was too unstable.

  “Still good,” Lon announced. “Still okay. Hey, remind me to fill up the tank when we get back to camp. I didn’t realize I was this low on gas.”

  The wind was strong but not too strong. Rick made another breakthrough. He flew a series of spiraling revolutions up the warm air rising above the dune field. With his gloved left thumb, he hit the talk button. “Is this a thermal?” he called.

  He could see Lon way down there standing beside the pickup. “Weak one,” came the voice from below. For some reason Lon didn’t seem nearly as excited as he should have been. Why was that?

  On his last flight of the morning Rick knew he was gaining the most altitude yet. He spiraled up, up, while continuously glancing below. He wondered if Lon was going to let him keep climbing.

  Simultaneously he heard Lon’s voice in the helmet and saw him beckoning. “Come down, Icarus.”

  Rick thumbed the mike. “Hey, don’t call me Icarus.”

  “Come down and I won’t have to.”

  For a moment he thought about continuing his climb. He had the strength to fight the turbulence he was beginning to feel.

  The man’s voice crackled again, this time with more anxiety: “Back to earth, Maverick.”

  “Name’s Rick,” he replied. “Not Mav-rick. Ten-four, Daedalus, I’m coming back to earth.”

  The most important thing now was to get down safely. He was up so high the landing was going to be more difficult than any he’d made before. The streamers down on the landing zone indicated that the wind had shifted direction and was blowing from the west. Lon had predicted it would. He knew what he would have to do—fly east with the wind, almost the length of the landing zone, nosing the glider gradually down all the while. Then he’d make his turn, a hundred or so feet above the ground, and land directly into the wind, to the west.

  With his heart in his throat, he pulled it off. He landed without even going down on his knee pads.

  “Born to fly!” he hollered as he reached around to unhook. He knelt down and punched in the altitude check on the variometer. His high point had been 368 feet above his takeoff altitude.

  “Incredible!” Lon declared, grabbing Rick and throwing his arm around him. “You’re a natural! Must be all those years of practicing in your sleep.”

  “Did you see the way I nailed the landing?” He was still sky-high.

  “I saw, I saw. It’s almost scary how fast you’re picking this up, Rick. I was a hang gliding instructor years ago. I only saw one guy pick it up this fast. It should have taken you more like eight or ten days to get to this point instead of five.”

  “So when do I get to jump off the cliff?” Rick asked, adding quickly, “Just kidding.”

  “Well,” Lon said, “let’s see…you still have a few more days. Josh is coming in the day after tomorrow.”

  “The evening of Day Seven.”

  “If the weather allows you to fly tomorrow morning, and it goes well, then I’d say you’d be ready for a sled run off the cliffs on your last day. Strictly a sled run while dropping eight hundred feet. No climbing.”

  “Are you serious? The cliffs?”

  “I never joke about hang gliding.”

  “You don’t have to worry about it. No way I’m going to jump off those cliffs!”

  As soon as he’d said it, he knew it was exactly what he wanted, if he could only overcome the fear.

  The day ended badly. An hour before sunset they saw the Humvee returning down the dugway. Before it got dark, Rick scrambled to the top of a boulder with the binoculars. “They’ve set up their camp again,” he reported. “They’re definitely back.”

  Lon was shaking his head. “Like malaria,” he said ominously. “I thought we’d seen the last of them. These guys are starting to get a little tiresome.”

  “Can we still fly tomorrow?”

  “Weather permitting.”

  They tuned in the AM-FM. It was raining hard in Phoenix. “It’s a slow-moving system,” the forecaster was saying. “Still tracking to the north.”

  The morning sky was ribbed with orange cirrus. “Still a go,” Lon advised.

  At the dunes Lon was getting worried about the wind. “Starting to kick up in advance of the storm,” he said slowly. “It’s right on the cusp of being too windy, but still okay.”

  Rick was eager to use the wind to his advantage. He had the feeling this was going to be his last day in the air, as well as one of his last days of freedom. He made four flights and gained altitude on every one. On his last he recorded a personal best, gaining 412 feet.

  Midafternoon, back in camp, they were sharing a box of cookies and watching the condors soar the rim above camp. Suddenly one of the birds broke away from the cliffs, as Maverick had.

  Rick saw the condor look down at them, saw the bird flap its broad wings once, twice, and he heard the condor music from its long, extended primaries as it passed directly above.

  Lon lunged for his radio and identified the bird with the first frequency he tried. “M1,” he muttered.

  “Keep your eye on that bird,” Lon ordered as he snatched up his binoculars and sprinted toward the truck. “Where is she?” he called as he clambered atop the cab with his binoculars.

  “Standing Rocks. Right now she’s above the Wall.”

  In a minute the condor was a tiny speck to Rick, and then he lost it. He said nothing to distract Lon, who was still locked on to the bird.

  “Landed on top of Chimney Rock,” Lon announced finally.

  “Carlile!” Rick cried.

  “Bad luck. Quick, grab the two-way radio, stuff it in my daypack, where Carlile won’t see it. At close range it could still help me locate that bird. My daypack’s hanging up in my tent. Stuff my fleece jacket in there while you’re at it. I’ll get the net. Let’s see, a pack of hot dogs, some water, bird kennel…”

  Rick sprinted for Lon’s tent. The daypack wasn’t that big to begin with, and it already contained Lon’s red rain suit, a first-aid kit, and a flashlight.

  “Hurry!” Lon yelled.

  21

  Rick had been moving so fast, he realized he’d packed the two-way down in the bottom of the daypack with the mike and its cord still jacked in. Lon wasn’t going to be talking with the condor, just tracking it.

  Lon came running into the tent. He rummaged through the top drawer of his dresser, and his hand came out with the sheath knife. He paused only long enough to feed it onto his belt.

  “What’s that for?”

  “The dog, if need be. Let’s go!”

  Halfway to Chimney Rock they heard the crack of a high-powered rifle, then its echoing report.

  The man who loved the condors pounded the steering wheel with his fist. “Now he’s done it…now he’s done it!”

  Lon drove fast into the campsite and braked hard, stepped out in a cloud of red dust. The pit bull was growling, while Carlile was commanding it to stay at his side.

  Rick couldn’t see the body of the bird anywhere. It could have fallen on the other side of Chimney Rock, he realized. His eyes returned to Carlile and his partner. From the taunting, aggressive look on Gunderson’s face, Rick guessed that he was the one who had done the shooting.

  “Where’s the bird?” Lon demanded.

  Carlile cleared his throat. “Ain’t seen a bird.”

  “Rick,” Lon instructed, “run over there and look around the other s
ide of the formation.”

  Rick took off running. Five minutes later he was back shaking his head.

  “The gunshot,” Lon demanded. “Explain the gunshot.”

  “Shoulda asked in the first place,” Carlile huffed. “Is target shooting illegal all of a sudden?”

  “In a national park it is.”

  Nuke spit on the ground. “I’m not surprised.”

  Gunderson was about to say something. Nuke cut him off with an abrupt gesture. Carlile’s eyes were on the big sheath knife at the biologist’s hip. “We haven’t seen one of your precious vultures. Now, why don’t you leave us be?”

  Abruptly Lon strode back to the truck. He snatched his daypack from the seat, slung it on his back, lifted the fiberglass kennel cage and then the big net from the back of the camper shell. “Rick,” he called, motioning with a wave of his head.

  Lon put the truck keys in Rick’s hand.

  “Lon,” Rick protested, but the man was shaking his head.

  “I’m not going down in any canyons, I promise you,” Lon said, loud enough to be overheard. “The bird will be up on the rims or ridges. She’d be afraid of flying down into those narrow canyons.”

  “Lon,” Rick whispered urgently, facing the truck. “Let’s stick together. I have a bad feeling.”

  Lon turned his back on the two men as well. “I need you to watch camp. I don’t know what to expect from these guys.”

  “Exactly. Forget M1, Lon.”

  “I can’t,” the biologist insisted. “I’d be down to four. Every condor is too essential, you know that. I’ve got a fair chance of netting her if I can locate her. She’ll stay up high, Rick, like I was saying; odds are she’s not that far away. I need to recapture them all and pen them until it’s resolved with these guys. I promise I’ll be back before dark.”

  “And if you’re not?”

  “An hour after dark, get in the truck and drive. Drive to a pay phone. Get Josh at Cliff Dweller’s Lodge, Vermilion Cliffs, Arizona—number’s in the glove box. He’s due here tomorrow night—he’ll still be there until tomorrow morning. Tell him everything you know. Tell him I need help. He’ll know what to do.”