Dalton helped Raylene out of the Bronco and let her take his arm as they went into the BLM building. They passed through the visitor’s center with its small room full of posters and kiosks about the history of the early inhabitants, the integral processes of the four seasons, the mission of the Bureau of Land Management, the need to be aware, and instructions for visitors about how they must be prepared for self-rescue.
At the center of this open room was a large rectangular structure that held a three-dimensional relief map that looked like an old photograph taken from the window of an airplane. As they approached it, Dalton figured that if they kept to the scale, he and Raylene would be tall enough to duck buzzing satellites. As Raylene gripped the edge of the map, her head eclipsed a floodlight and cast a shadow across ten thousand acres.
“I’ve never come in here to see this,” she said. “Bruce doesn’t have much use for federal government.”
Dalton gestured to the model. “How much of it have you seen firsthand?”
“Plenty,” she said, then she pointed to the thin stripe of black that led from the square grids of town to the west, then south toward the Grand Canyon. “We’ve driven that road hundreds of times.”
“Where does Bruce like to go?”
“When he was younger, everywhere. The fewer people the better.” She pointed to a star-shaped canyon called Giant Gulch. The orange of this narrow, intricate terrain was dulled with white dust from the room. She moved her flattened hand above the open plains. “He liked White Pocket, but his favorite was a place he called Swallow Valley. Paiutes named it Wïiatsiweap because the only way in was with wings.” Raylene paused, then tapped her finger in the air. “Believe it or not, all through it there are caves. People rush to the canyons because they are obvious. Bruce always came home with things from unexpected places. He has a sense of where the water used to be, which is where you find the people.” She pointed to another spot. “We used to spend a lot of time in Antelope Flats. Just south of there, there are some lovely cliff houses.”
“Is that Las Casas Altas?” Dalton asked.
“Yes, that’s right. The high houses. There used to be ladders up to the dwellings, but they’ve been gone for a long time. When Bruce was a teenager, he and some of his friends hiked to the top and came down with ropes—they’d never let you do that today. He said the place was filled with pots, headdresses, carvings, little piles of dolls and whatnot. He said he carried a small red-and-black pot out of there in his shirt, but he slipped when he was rappelling and smashed it to pieces. It cut him so badly he needed stitches, but he kept the pieces and put it back together with model airplane glue. That was his first find. He always regretted using the glue.”
“Something like that would get him in trouble now.”
“It’s all so ridiculous, isn’t it?”
“It’s all so something, that’s for sure,” Dalton said.
“Before everyone and their dog started coming through these parts looking for an adventure, Bruce and I would go out together.” She stopped talking to find a spot on the map. “There,” she said, pointing to a place where a canyon narrowed and the map showed a smooth vertical face. “That is where Bruce proposed to me. It doesn’t have a name. He lured me out there for a picnic in the ruins.”
“Lured you, huh?”
“I was a good girl then. I didn’t just run off into the hills for any old dandy in a bow tie. He promised me fried chicken and arrowheads.”
“How was it?”
“The picnic or the proposal?”
Dalton shrugged. “Both?”
“The chicken was dry. Bruce was not.” Raylene paused and drifted off. After a time, she began to tremble so much that she had to steady herself. “Something terrible has happened, hasn’t it?” she said.
“I’m not sure I understand,” Dalton said.
“With Bruce? Something has happened to him.”
Dalton sat forward. “Do you remember anything?” he asked.
“Something horrible. In the house. What do you know about it?”
“Not very much, I’m afraid. I’m trying to work it all out,” Dalton said, wondering if he should call the Beehive House. If he did, they’d never let him talk to her like this again.
“It doesn’t make sense,” she said, looking up. “He was taking care of me. He remembered everything for the both of us. All of this. All of Bruce’s secrets about the things out here. His collection was our only child. It was always the three of us. Oh, Patrick. My mind comes and goes.” She cradled her head in one hand.
“What do you mean, Bruce’s secrets?” Dalton asked, knowing he should probably back off.
“There was a day, maybe ten years ago. Bruce saw something that he’d found and traded listed on an auction. He was told it was going to be in a museum, but it didn’t end up there. Other people started coming to him with offers to buy his things. Sometimes people would try to sell artifacts to him. More than once, they’d try to sell him a pot he found himself. They didn’t know anything about it, or him. Bruce didn’t want the money. We always had enough. He loved the history and the adventure—oh, maybe I should sit,” she said.
Raylene took a small, lace-edged handkerchief from her purse and dabbed at the edges of her face. “So, this was your plan all along, to jog my memory?”
“Raylene,” Dalton said indignantly. “I wouldn’t try to—”
“That’s a lie and you know it.”
From across the room a man named Tyler Gomez poked his head into the room and said, “Hey, Dalton. I got something to ask you.” Dalton told Raylene he’d be right back and he crossed the room.
“You work on Sundays?” Dalton asked.
“Not usually. I’m filling in. Yesterday, one of my guys came in from the Antelope Flats section, said he saw a truck with a backhoe on it. When my guys asked them about it, they said they were taking it to their mining claim. I checked the database. There aren’t any active claims in that area, but it’s mixed up with a lot of inholdings. So who knows. We’re going to look into it on our end, but I was wondering if you could keep an eye open on yours.”
Raylene cupped her hand along her mouth and offered, “Bruce was talking to someone about Antelope Flats recently, on the phone.”
“You’re remembering this now?” Dalton asked, turning. “You were just talking about—”
Raylene shrugged. “I didn’t remember the call until I heard that man say it.”
___
Sophia fell in line behind Reinhardt. Her feet were large for the pathway, and it took precision for her to move without stumbling. Once she found her rhythm, she moved more quickly across the strange trails through the basalt. She wondered what it must have been like to walk across this in yucca sandals. Reinhardt hiked awkwardly but steadily, and Paul led with a slowness that showed how severe his injuries were. The path zigzagged through knee-high boulders, and after a time, she forgot about where to put her feet; they found their own way.
The lava flow extended as far as she could see to the east and north. Beyond these badlands, behind the ripples of searing heat, lay the coarse woolen texture of the dry chaparral. They followed the smooth contours of the trail, which meant it was no random occurrence. Ahead, her companions had stopped, and she noted how the jagged rim of stone fractured the sky. She noticed her muscles relaxing. The ease in her shoulders was unexpected.
Paul gestured to them with a look of excruciating pain, and he put a finger to his lips. She was unsure why they needed to keep quiet. Two shots rang out, but there was no whiz of bullets or ricochet, only a quickly decaying echo bouncing from hill to hill. They all dropped to a crouch and became swallowed up by the stone. From this position they heard incoherent shouting and a third shot. Paul beckoned them to move ahead and led them to a round recess in the lava, the foundation of a room now open to the sky. In the space was a smooth log positioned as a bench.
“We’re sitting ducks in here,” Sophia said.
“We’ll be sa
fe,” Paul said, trying to move his injured arm. Sophia looked all around, and Paul noticed she was unconvinced. “This has been a place of refuge for hundreds of years, maybe longer.”
“Do the Indian people use it still?” Reinhardt asked.
“Who is your friend?” Paul asked.
Sophia shrugged. “Not a friend. It’s complicated. You should have seen him last night, but he’s a doctor, so maybe he can look at you.”
Reinhardt extended his hand. “I am Reinhardt Kupfer, from Germany.” When he saw that Paul couldn’t lift his arm, he lowered his. “I am on a . . .”
“A quest,” Sophia said. “He thinks he’s on a quest.”
Reinhardt lowered his head and looked away.
“Aren’t we all. Reinhardt, they don’t use these trails now. Not in the same way.”
“Who were they running from?” Reinhardt asked.
“Other tribes at first,” Sophia said.
“Then from us,” Paul said, unbuttoning his shirt with one hand. Sophia moved from the log bench to help. She noticed a bullet hole in the breast pocket of his shirt, below his name tag. They both helped him remove his shirt and body armor. “Normally, I wouldn’t have had it on, but when my weapon went missing, I had a feeling.” Even through his undershirt, she could see a massive bruise spread across his chest, a concentration of black at the center. “It’s really hard to breathe.”
From this close, she saw just how damaged he was. He was covered in bruises and abrasions. Beyond the obvious, she noticed he held himself differently. His responses were delayed, and his eyes jerked from place to place. He scanned the sky as if it might drop down on him at any moment. But he was not dead. None of them were, and that was something.
“I can help,” Reinhardt said. He examined Paul’s slumping arm, stopping once during his evaluation to stare at Sophia.
“It’s dislocated,” Paul said. Reinhardt nodded, feeling the arm and the curve of Paul’s shoulder. “I tried to get it back into place myself, but I couldn’t.”
“Your muscles have contracted. They are looking out for you, but we wish they would relax now that their job is over, right?” Reinhardt asked Sophia to hold Paul around the waist and neck. Paul winced when Reinhardt took the bad arm and lifted it. He sucked air, then modulated his breathing.
“Are you a park ranger, then?” Reinhardt asked.
“Yep,” Paul said, eyeing Reinhardt nervously.
“I am a doctor, which we have already discussed. But I am on vacation, which has become something more elaborate than I originally planned.”
“Like what Sophia said,” Paul acknowledged.
“Yes. Do you and Sophia know each other?”
“We do,” Sophia said.
“It’s better if our ranger answers.” Reinhardt lifted one eyebrow and nodded to make sure Sophia read his subtext. He inspected Paul’s arm from the shoulder down, rotating the hand so the palm faced upward. This caused Paul so much pain he closed his eyes. “It’s okay to answer my silly questions. I’m only trying to distract you from the pain that will come.”
“The guy out there has the lion’s share of my attention,” Paul said. He looked at Sophia and attempted a smile that shattered when Reinhardt took Paul’s arm at the elbow and bent it across his belly. A second later, he lifted the arm, and Paul called out. Sophia let go as the echo decayed. Paul raised his arm and moved it around. His face relaxed. He nodded to Reinhardt and said, “Thank you for coming back to get me.”
“She thought you were dead,” Reinhardt said. “She was untröstlich.”
“What does that mean?” he asked.
Reinhardt thought for a moment. “Heartbroken.”
Sophia’s eyes narrowed. “I would have picked another word.”
“But she is glad you’re not dead,” Reinhardt said as he sat back down on the log bench. “Wow. I have only done that procedure once before, and I did it incorrectly.” After a moment, he said, “Then. I mean to say that I did not do it correctly the first time. I think I did it right today.”
Two more shots rang out.
“Why is he doing that?” Paul asked.
“I’m going with, because he’s crazy,” Sophia said.
“Maybe he is trying to flush us out?” Reinhardt said.
It was difficult to settle on the location of the shots, but it seemed like the man was on the move.
“We may be safe in here, but we can’t stay,” Sophia said.
“We’ll be grilled,” Reinhardt said, looking around at the open dark lava and the distant tan hills and the red rock beyond that.
“We are safe. And there’s another way out,” Paul said.
Paul asked for help replacing his shirt, and Sophia opened up her pack to carry out the Kevlar vest. “We should leave it,” Paul said. “It’s so heavy.”
“Are you kidding?” Sophia said, moving things around in her pack. “We don’t have much. A couple bottles of rainwater, pen, a wad of duct tape, notebook, Ziploc bag with matches in it, a thing of sunscreen, now a bulletproof vest.”
“I’m glad you have sunscreen. It seems inconsequential, but it isn’t,” Reinhardt said.
“What do you have?” Sophia asked, unzipping Paul’s pack. Inside was an empty water bladder, two clips for his sidearm, a few trail maps, and the blue inventory he showed her at Swallow Valley. “Those guys had Cluff’s map with them, the one that goes with this book. It showed a bunch of sites around here, including Swallow Valley. The crazy shooter was after it—”
“I saw that map at a restaurant,” Reinhardt interrupted.
“I could really use some ibuprofen,” Paul said, looking at each one of them. “Do you have anything like that in your bag, doctor?”
Reinhardt shrugged and unzipped his pack. Inside were his bottles of water, his dead phone, a charging cable, his pemmican wrappers, and the screenwriting book.
“That must be some book,” Paul said, “if you haven’t ditched it by now.”
“It has been important to me,” Reinhardt said.
Sophia tried to redirect the conversation before it got too mythological. “The map had a number of sites that are restricted on the federal registry.”
“Like I said, Cluff’s maps have stuff on them only he knows about,” Paul said. “I’ll bet somebody found out that he’s—” Paul stopped. “It’s nothing. Who knows? It’s gone now,” he said.
“Since I didn’t recognize most of what was on the map, I took it.”
Paul’s face lit up. “What? Where is it?”
“I stashed it in your Jeep.”
Paul’s head dropped in defeat.
“You know two seconds after he gets that map, we’re dead,” she said. “I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of taking it from us. Maybe if we don’t have it, it’ll let us stall him. Plus, the inventory is more important. It has the provenance.”
“They kind of work together, especially now that Cluff is gone. I’m not sure it matters at this point.”
Sophia drank some water and started to speak but held back, thinking it all through, but the dots were too far apart. “This can’t be about money,” she said. “None of the items are worth that much. I mean, if we’re talking market value.”
“It is absolutely about money, but at a totally different scale. There’s a plan going around that will shrink the monument boundaries. Probably a dozen plans. There’s a race to divvy it all up.” Paul moved his body in search of a comfortable position. “You ever have a king cake?” Sophia shook her head.
“For Lent?” Reinhardt asked.
“Yeah. Every year at Mardi Gras, my grandma would make one. Round, sugar on top, a little baby Jesus hidden inside. Find the baby and you’ve got good luck. A whole lot of people are trying to find where that baby’s hiding.”
“And the prize isn’t pots,” Reinhardt said, nodding.
“It’s energy. Oil, gas, uranium.”
Sophia sighed. “My mother used to say if the Middle East had no oil, it wo
uld be poor but peaceful.”
Two more shots echoed off the hills.
“Maybe if he keeps doing that somebody will eventually come looking for us,” Sophia said.
“I worry about that,” Paul said. “I wish we could warn people.”
They sat together in silence on the log bench, submerged in the blocky lava with the clouds passing overhead. Here was a ruin of another kind, its history told through absence. It was one thing to consider the domestic life in a pueblo and another to think of those in flight, huddling here for safety. They all waited for another round of shots until Reinhardt asked Sophia for her duct tape, then busied himself making material for a sling to ease Paul’s injury. Once it was in place and adjusted, Reinhardt wrapped a second strip around Paul’s arm and chest to hold it in place. Paul said it felt better. Reinhardt also applied sunscreen to his own arms and face and told each of them to do the same. “We don’t want to survive this gunman only to have a melanoma kill us later.”
“I know you’re saying we need to go, but go where?” Sophia asked. “Why don’t we just get someplace where we can make a call?”
“My phone broke when I fell,” Paul said. “Radio’s in my vehicle.”
“He destroyed everything back there,” Sophia said. “And my phone is in a million pieces, which doesn’t matter because he took it.”
“My phone is dead,” Reinhardt said, patting his pack. “And I have photos of the map on it.”
“I just need time to think some things through,” Paul said.
Reinhardt looked up at the sky, squinted, then took out his book and began reading. Paul leaned over and tried to get a look at the cover.
“Mythstructures for what?” Paul asked.
“Blockbusters,” Reinhardt mumbled. “Since we are stuck here, I thought I would pass the time.”
“Blockbusters?” Paul repeated.
“As in movies,” Sophia said.
“The book was a gift,” Reinhardt said. “I know it seems foolish to carry it around after such a chase.”
“Anything that tries to help us make sense of this world is a good thing,” Paul said. “Plus, the natural world feels mythic to me.” Paul looked at Sophia, who seemed as if she might collapse.
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