Okay, came the response. Here it comes.
Levine checked his watch. It was ten minutes to three.
Carson and de Vaca rode through the velvety blackness of the Jornada del Muerto, a vast river of stars flowing above their heads. The ground sloped downward from the compound and they soon found themselves in the bottom of a dry wash, the horses sinking to their fetlocks in the soft sand. The light of the stars was just enough to illuminate the ground beneath their feet. Any moon, Carson knew, and they would have been dead.
They rode down the wash while he thought.
“They’ll expect us to head south, toward Radium Springs and Las Cruces,” he said at last. “Those are the closest towns besides Engle, which belongs to GeneDyne anyway. Eighty miles, more or less. It takes time to track someone in this desert, especially across lava. So if I were Nye, I’d follow the track until I was sure it was heading south. Then I’d fan out the Hummers until the quarry was intercepted.”
“Makes sense,” came the voice of de Vaca in the gloom.
“So we’ll oblige him. We’ll head south, like we’re going to Radium Springs. When we hit the Malpaís, we’ll ride up onto the lava where tracking is difficult. Then we’ll make a ninety-degree turn east, ride a few miles, and reverse direction. We’ll head north instead.”
“But there’s no town to the north for at least a hundred and forty miles.”
“That’s exactly why it’s the only way we can go. They’d never look for us in that direction. But we won’t have to ride as far as a town. Remember the Diamond Bar ranch I told you about? I know the new ranch manager. There’s a line camp at the southern edge of the ranch we can head for. It’s called Lava Camp. I’d say it’s about a hundred and ten miles from here, twenty or thirty miles north of Lava Gate.”
“Can’t the Hummers follow us onto the lava?”
“The lava’s sharp, it would tear any ordinary tires to ribbons,” Carson said. “But the Hummers have something called a central tire inflation system that can raise or lower tire pressure. The tubes are specially made to allow miles of continued travel after a puncture. Even so, I doubt if they could stay on the lava for long. Once they’re sure of our direction, they’ll get off the lava, move ahead to the far side and try to cut us off.”
There was a silence. “It’s worth a try,” de Vaca said at last.
Carson turned his horse southward and de Vaca followed. As they came over the rise on the far side of the wash, they could still see, in the distance to the north, the flickering yellow glow of the burning complex. Midway across the dark sands, the circles of light had grown measurably closer.
“I think we’d better make tracks,” Carson said. “Once we’ve thrown them we can rest the horses.”
They urged their horses into a hand gallop. In five minutes, the jagged outline of the lava flow loomed up before them. They dismounted and led their horses up into the flow.
“If I remember correctly, the lava veers around to the east,” Carson said. “We’d better follow it for a couple of miles before turning north.”
They walked their horses through the lava, moving slowly, allowing the animals time to pick a trail through the sharp rubble. It’s damn lucky, Carson thought, that horses have much better night vision than humans. He couldn’t even make out the shape of the lava beneath Roscoe’s hooves; it was as black as the night itself. Only scattered yucca plants, patches of lichen and windblown sand, and clumps of grass growing from cracks gave him an idea of the surface. Difficult as it was, movement was easier here near the edge of the flow. Farther in, Carson could see great blocks of lava, sticking up into the night sky like basaltic sentries, blotting out the stars.
Glancing back again, Carson could see the lights of the Hummers rapidly approaching. Periodically the lights would pause—presumably when Nye got out to check the tracks. The lava would slow them, but it wouldn’t stop them.
“What about water?” de Vaca spoke suddenly out of the immense darkness. “Is this going to be enough?”
“No,” Carson said. “We’ll have to find some.”
“But where?”
Carson was silent.
Nye stood in the empty motor pool, alone, looking out into the darkness, his fiery shadow playing across the desert sands. The ruined hulk of Mount Dragon burned out of control behind him, but he ignored it.
A security officer came running up, gasping and out of breath, his face smeared with soot. “Sir, the water pressure in the hoses will be exhausted within five minutes. Should we switch to the emergency reserves?”
“Why not?” Nye replied absently, not bothering to look at the man.
He had failed massively; he knew that. Carson had slipped from between his fingers, but not before he’d destroyed the very facility Nye had been charged with protecting. Briefly, he thought of what he could say to Brent Scopes. Then he pushed the thought from his mind. This was a failure like none other in his career, even worse than that other, the one that he no longer allowed himself to think about. There was no possibility of redemption.
But there was the possibility of revenge. Carson was responsible, and Carson would pay. And the Spanish bitch, as well. They would not be allowed to escape.
He watched the lights of the Hummers recede into the desert, and his lip curled with contempt. Singer was a fool. It was impossible to track anything from inside a Hummer. One had to keep stopping, getting out, and scouting the trail; it would be even slower than going on foot. Besides, Carson knew the desert. He knew horses. He probably knew a few simple tracking tricks. There were lava flows in the Jornada so mazelike that it would take years to explore every island, every “hole in the wall.” There were sandy flats where a horse’s track would be all but erased by the wind in just a few hours.
Nye knew all these things. He also knew that it was virtually impossible to completely erase a trail in this desert. There was always a trace left, even on rock or in sand. His ten years working an Arabian security detail in the Rub’ al-Khali, the Empty Quarter, had taught him all any man could know about the desert.
Nye tossed his now-useless radio communicator into the sand and turned toward the stables. As he walked, he paid no heed to the desperate cries, the rushing sound of flame, the shriek of collapsing metal. Something new had occurred to him. If Carson had escaped, perhaps the man was more clever than he’d suspected. Perhaps he had been smart enough to steal or even disable his horse, Muerto, on the way out. The security director quickened his pace.
As he walked through the shattered barn door, he glanced automatically toward the locked tack box where he kept his rifle. It was still there, untouched.
Suddenly Nye froze. The nails that normally held his old McClellan saddlebags were empty. Yet the saddlebags had hung there yesterday. A red mist crept in front of his eyes. Carson had taken the bags and their two gallon canteens; a pitiful amount of water against the Jornada del Muerto, the Journey of Death. Carson was doomed by that fact alone.
It was not the loss of the canteens that bothered him. Something else was missing; something far more important. He had always believed that the saddlebags had provided an unobtrusive hiding spot for his secret. But now Carson had stolen them. Carson had destroyed his career, and now he was going to take from him the last thing he had left. For a moment, the white heat of Nye’s anger rooted him, motionless, to the spot.
Then he heard the familiar whinny. And, despite his rage, Nye’s lip curled in a half smile. Because he knew now that revenge was not only a possibility, but a certainty.
As they moved eastward, Carson noticed the lights of the Hummers drifting farther to their left. The vehicles were approaching the Malpaís. At that point, with any luck, they would lose the trail. It would take an expert tracker, moving on foot, to follow them through the lava. Nye was good, but he wouldn’t be good enough to follow a horse trail through lava. When he lost the trail, Nye would assume they had taken a shortcut across the lava and were still heading south. Besides, with the tainted PurBlood workin
g its way through his veins, Nye was probably becoming less and less of a threat to anyone but himself. In any case, Carson thought, he and de Vaca would be free. Free to get back to civilization and warn the world about the planned release of PurBlood.
Or free to die of thirst.
He felt the heavy cold canteen on his saddle horn. It contained four quarts of water—very little for a person crossing the Jornada del Muerto. But he realized this was only a secondary problem.
Carson halted. The Hummers had stopped at the edge of the lava flow, perhaps a mile away.
“Let’s find a low spot and hide these horses,” Carson said. “I want to make sure those Hummers keep going south.”
They led the horses down a rubble-strewn crevasse in the lava. De Vaca held the reins while Carson climbed to a high point and watched.
He wondered why his pursuers hadn’t turned off their lights. As it was, they stuck out like a cruise ship on a moonless ocean, visible for ten miles or more. Odd that Nye hadn’t thought of that.
The lights were stationary for a minute or two. Then they began moving up on to the lava flow, where they paused again. For a moment Carson worried they might somehow pick up his trail and come toward him, but instead they continued southward, at a faster clip now, the lights bouncing and sweeping over the lava.
He climbed back down.
“They’re going south,” he said.
“Thank God for that.”
Carson hesitated. “I’ve done some thinking,” he said at last. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to save this water for the horses.”
“What about us?”
“Horses require twelve gallons of water a day in desert conditions. Seven, if they ride only at night. If these horses collapse, we’re finished. It won’t matter how much water we’ve got, we wouldn’t get five miles in lava or deep sand. But if we save this for the horses, even a little bit does some good. They’ll be able to go an extra ten or twenty miles. That will give us a better chance to find water.”
In the darkness, de Vaca was silent.
“It’s going to be extremely hard to avoid drinking when we get thirsty,” Carson said. “But we must save it for the horses. If you want, I’ll take your canteen when the time comes.”
“So you can drink it yourself?” came the sarcastic remark.
“It will take great discipline when it starts to get bad. And, believe me, it’s going to get bad. So before we continue, there’s another rule about thirst you should know. Never, ever mention it. No matter how bad it gets, don’t talk about water. Don’t think about water.”
“Does this mean we’re going to have to drink our pee?” de Vaca asked. In the darkness, Carson couldn’t tell if she was serious or merely baiting him again.
“That only happens in books. What you do is this: When you feel like urinating, hold it in. As soon as your body realizes it’s getting thirsty, it will automatically reabsorb the water. And your desire to urinate will vanish. Eventually you’ll have to, of course, but by that time there will be so much salt in the urine it’ll be useless to drink, anyway.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I grew up in this kind of desert.”
“Yeah,” said de Vaca, “and I bet being part Ute helps, too.”
Carson opened his mouth to retort, then decided against it. He’d save the arguments for later.
They continued eastward through the lava for another mile, moving slowly, leading the horses by the reins and letting them pick their own way. Occasionally a horse would stumble in the lava, its shoes sending out small flashes of sparks. From time to time, Carson stopped to climb a lava formation and look south. Each time, the Hummers had receded farther into the distance. At last, the lights disappeared completely.
As he climbed down for the last time, Carson wondered if he should have told de Vaca the worst news of all. Even with the two gallons all to themselves, the horses could barely make half the distance they needed to go. They were going to have to find water at least once along the way.
Nye tightened the cinch on Muerto and checked the horse’s saddle rigging. Everything was in order. The rifle was snug in its boot, slung under his right leg where he could extract it with one smooth motion. The metal tube carrying his USGS 1:24,000 topographical maps was secure.
He tied the extra saddlebags behind the cantle and began packing ammunition into them. Then he filled two five-gallon flaxen desert water bags, tied them together, and slung them over the cantle, one on each side. It was an extra forty pounds of weight, but it was essential. Chances are it wouldn’t be necessary for him to bother tracking Carson. Carson’s having a mere two gallons of water would do the job for him. But Nye had to be sure. He wanted to see their dead, desiccated bodies, to reassure himself that the secret was once again his and his alone.
To the saddle horn, he tied a small sack containing a loaf of bread and a four-pound wax-covered wheel of cheddar cheese. He tested his halogen flashlight, then placed it in the saddlebags, along with a handful of extra batteries.
Nye worked methodically. There was no hurry. Muerto was trained as an endurance horse, and was in far better shape than the two specimens Carson had taken. Carson had probably pushed his horses in the beginning, galloping or loping to escape the Hummers. That would start them off badly. Only fools and Hollywood actors galloped their horses. If Carson and the woman expected to get across the desert, they would have to take it slow. Even so, as their horses began to suffer from the lack of water, they would start lagging. Nye figured that without water, traveling only at night, they could go perhaps forty-five miles before collapsing. If they attempted daytime travel, they’d make perhaps half that. Any animal lying motionless on the desert sands—or even one that was moving slowly or erratically—immediately attracted a spiraling column of vultures. He could find them by that alone.
But he wouldn’t need vultures to tell him where they were.
Tracking was both an art and a science, like music or nuclear physics. It required a large volume of technical knowledge and an intuitive brilliance. He had learned a great deal about it during his time in the Empty Quarter. And years of searching the Jornada del Muerto desert had honed that knowledge.
He gave his outfit a final check. Perfect. He lofted himself into the saddle and rode out of the barn, following Carson and de Vaca’s hoofprints in the glow of the fire. As he moved into the desert and away from the burning complex, the glow lessened. From time to time he switched on his flashlight, as he traced their route southward, just as he thought: they had been running their horses. Excellent. Every minute of galloping here would be a mile lost at the far end. They had left a trail that any moron could follow. A moron is following it, Nye thought with amusement, as he saw the myriad tire tracks crisscrossing in confusion as they pursued the hoofprints southward.
He paused for a moment in the darkness. A voice had suddenly murmured his name. He swiveled in his saddle, scanning the infinite desert around him for its source. Then once again he urged his horse into a slow trot.
Time, water, and the desert were all on his side.
Carson paused at the far edge of the lava flow and looked northward. The great arm of the Milky Way stretched across the sky, burying itself at last below the far horizon. They were adrift in a sea of blackness. The faintest reddish glow to the north marked Mount Dragon. The blinking lights atop the microwave tower had long since disappeared, winking out when the generators failed.
He inhaled the fragrance that surrounded them: dry grasses and chamisa, mixed with the coolness of the desert night.
“We’ll need to erase our tracks coming off the lava,” he said.
De Vaca took the reins of both horses and, walking ahead, led them down off the lava and into the darkness. Carson followed her to the edge of the flow; then, turning around and removing his shirt, he got down on his hands and knees and began crawling backward on the sand. With each step he swept the sand before him clean with his shirt, obliterating bot
h the hoofprints and his own marks. He worked slowly and carefully. He knew that nothing could completely erase marks in the sand. But this was pretty damn good. A Hummer would drive right past without seeing a thing.
He continued for over a hundred yards, just to make sure. Then he stood up, shook out his shirt, and buttoned it on. The job had taken ten minutes.
“So far so good,” he said, catching up with de Vaca and climbing into his saddle. “We’ll head due north from here. That’ll give us a three-mile berth around Mount Dragon.”
He looked into the sky, locating the North Star. He urged his horse into a slow, easy trot—the most efficient of gaits. Beside him, de Vaca did the same. They moved in silence through the velvety night. Carson glanced at his watch. It was one o’clock in the morning. They had four hours to dawn; that meant twenty-four miles, if they could keep up the pace. That would put them twenty-odd miles north of Mount Dragon, with close to another hundred still ahead of them. He smelled the air again, more carefully this time. There was a sharpness that indicated the possibility of a dew before dawn.
Traveling during the heat of the day was out of the question. That meant finding a low place to hide the horses, where they could move around and do a little grazing.
“You said your ancestors came through here in 1598,” Carson spoke into the darkness.
“That’s right. Twenty-two years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.”
Carson ignored that. “Didn’t you mention something about a spring?” he asked.
“The Ojo del Águila. They started across the Jornada and ran out of water. An Apache showed them this hidden spring.”
“Where was it?”
“I don’t know. The location was later lost. In a cave, I think, at the base of the Fra Cristóbal Mountains.”
“Jesus, the Fra Cristóbals are sixty miles long.”
“I wasn’t planning to make a land survey at the time I heard the story, all right? It was in a cave, I remember my abuelito saying, and the water flowed back into the cave and disappeared.”
Mount Dragon Page 31