Slickrock Paradox

by Stephen Legault

  “He’s gone.”

  “I got my Jeep a hundred yards back.”

  Silas sat up. “Go get it!”

  Hayduke rushed off into the night as Silas struggled with his bound hands. He heard the Jeep roar to life and a moment later it crested the road that cut through the ridge. Hayduke jumped out, a bowie knife in hand, and deftly cut the twine off Silas’s wrists. Silas could smell the sweat and fear from Hayduke and see the wildness in the man’s eyes.

  “Let’s go!” he yelled as he cut the twine on Silas’s feet. They raced to the Jeep. Hayduke spun his tires and they sped off in pursuit.

  “Sure you’re okay?” asked Hayduke as Silas buckled his seatbelt.

  “My head aches like a bitch, but otherwise okay. You got a cell phone? Mine’s in my car.”

  “Yeah, here.” Hayduke pulled his phone from his pocket as he held the Jeep in a steep downward turn to Comb Wash. He gave Silas the phone, then shifted into fourth and red-lined the engine. They could see the lights of the Outback a mile ahead, already cross Arch Canyon Wash.

  Silas dialed the familiar number. It beeped, and then Katie Rain’s voice came on.

  “Who is this?” she asked.

  “It’s Silas.”

  “Hold on.” The line went silent, and then Rain came on again. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m alright.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m descending the west side of Comb Ridge. I’m chasing Charles Nephi. He’s in my Outback.”

  “I just lost your cell signal. I’ve had your phone line open since you left Blanding.”

  “I thought you might. I wasn’t sure if my call had connected. You heard everything?”

  “Yeah, and so did Agent Taylor. We’re on our way now. We’re maybe five or ten miles behind you and coming in fast. We’ve called the ranger station at Natural Bridges and we have state troopers and local police coming up from Mexican Hat. We’re dropping the net on this guy.”

  “I’m just a mile behind him.”

  “Who’s driving?”

  Silas looked at Hayduke. He was concentrating on the road, revving the Jeep up to over a hundred miles an hour, the black desert passing in a whir. “You’ll never believe it, but just some guy out camping. He came up Comb Ridge just in time, and Nephi spooked. He saved my bacon, and now we’re following Nephi.”

  “Do not engage,” ordered Rain. “Just observe. If you see him turn, tell me and we can radio it in. We’ve got roadblocks being set up above the Mokee Dugway on 261 and outside Natural Bridges on 275. There’s nowhere for Nephi to go.”

  “You want me to keep the line open?”

  “It’s okay. You can hang up. Just dial back if there is any change.”

  Silas hung up. He checked the line to make sure it was disconnected. Hayduke was smiling at him. “Thanks. Fuck, I really don’t want to get mixed up with the feds, you know?”

  “You saved my life.”

  “Guess I did, hey?” Silas could see Hayduke grinning by the dashboard lights.

  “The FBI says they’ve got roadblocks going up on 261 and 275.”

  “There’s a hundred places he could go between here and there. Fuck, the Hidden Splendor Mine is just over there.” Hayduke waved his hands toward Dry Mesa.

  “The Hidden Splendor Mine is fictional.”

  “Fuck no, I’ve been there. It’s real.”

  “Look, we’re coming up on the junction of 261. He goes straight, the park rangers get him. He turns left, the state troopers.” They were a mile behind, racing across the desert. Silas clung to the roll bar as they banked around a corner.

  “He’s taking 95, toward the park.” Silas dialed Rain back. “He’s heading toward Natural Bridges.”

  “We can see you ahead of us. We’ll catch you in a few minutes. I’ll call it in to the Park Service.”

  “Okay.” Silas hung up.

  They watched the tail lights in the distance for another few minutes, and then the brake lights went on and the Outback veered violently to the south.

  “Where the fuck is he going?” asked Hayduke.

  They came to the road the Outback had turned down. “Grand Gulch,” said Silas.

  “He goes into the fucking Gulch, he could disappear.”

  “Let’s see if we can cut him off!”

  “Fuck yeah.” Hayduke shifted into second on the gravel road and gunned the engine. The Jeep leapt forward and jumped over rocks and loose gravel.

  “The road splits up ahead,” observed Silas.

  “You been here?”

  “Of course.”

  They came to the fork and could see no sign of their prey. “Which way?” yelled Hayduke.

  “Stop a minute.” Silas jumped out of the Jeep as it skidded to a halt. He climbed up on the hood and looked across the midnight landscape. In the distance, leading to the head of the main stem in Grand Gulch, he could see tail lights blinking as his Outback jostled over the rough road.

  He jumped down and directed Hayduke to the correct path. He dialed Rain.

  “Where are you?” she asked.

  “Grand Gulch.” He heard her speak to Taylor and then heard Agent Nielsen’s voice in the background.

  “Silas, Agent Nielsen says that’s a dead-end. We’ve got him trapped. Break off pursuit. We’ll be there in five minutes.”

  “Okay,” said Silas to Rain. Then to Hayduke: “Feds want us to stop.”

  “Fuck that, we almost got this motherfucker.” Hayduke geared down to run through loose sand. The road had been recently driven over and the sand was soft but the Jeep performed well.

  “Josh, let’s stop. The feds will be here any minute.”

  “That fucker was going to sell out Hatch Wash, man. He was going to sell out Flat Iron Mesa and Back of the Rocks. You want him to get away?”

  “He’s not going to get away. There’s nowhere to go.”

  “Grand Gulch is massive, man. You could hide there for a year.”

  “He’s in jeans and dress shoes and has no water, no food.”

  “He could live for two weeks if he finds Collins Spring.”

  The Jeep bounced over an outcrop of slickrock and then the Outback loomed in front of them, sideways to the dirt track.

  “Fucker!” Hayduke yelled and veered off into the brush on the side of the track. A spray of sand like a wave enveloped the Jeep, the tires bogging down in the dirt.

  Silas saw a figure move in front of the Outback and had no time to yell a warning. He saw a flash and heard the pop of a pistol and the windshield of the Jeep exploded, showering glass across the two men. Hayduke was out of the vehicle in a second, hitting the soft sand and crawling on his knees to the front of the vehicle. Thinking it better to follow Hayduke to the safe side of the vehicle, Silas crawled across the broken glass and dropped to the sand. He heard two more pops and the metallic plunk of the rounds striking the Jeep.

  “That cunt is going to kill my machine.” Hayduke pulled his revolver from his belt and took aim at the Outback.

  “Wait, I hear engines.” Silas looked back over his shoulder and saw two sets of lights coming down the trail, red and blue signals blinking in the darkness. “It’s the feds.”

  “I want this cocksucker.” Hayduke took aim into the darkness.

  “Don’t—”

  “It’s a matter of honor,” Hayduke hissed. Nephi rose from behind the Outback as the two FBI Yukons pulled to a stop near the slickrock outcrop. Nephi began to run down the dirt road toward the drop off into Grand Gulch.

  Hayduke squeezed one eye shut and steadied his massive revolver with one hand under the other.

  “This one’s for Hatch Wash.” Hayduke started to squeeze the trigger as Silas pushed his arm up. The roar of the pistol and the flash of the muzzle pierced the night but the shot went off harmlessly into the darkness. Nephi’s shadow disappeared toward the rim.

  “FBI!” came a voice behind them. Eugene Nielsen and another agent appeared behind Silas and Hayduke.r />
  “It’s me—Pearson.”

  “Drop the weapon,” ordered Nielsen.

  Hayduke looked at Silas out of the corner of his eye. The dark, malevolent moment passed and he put the revolver down in the sand. Both men stood up, hands in the air.

  “Nephi is heading toward the canyon.”

  “We’ll get him,” Nielsen held his pistol toward the sand as he approached. Katie Rain ran up behind him, her Sig Sauer in her hand. She smiled when she saw Silas.

  “You alright?” she asked.

  “Fine. Nephi is getting away. That way,” he nodded toward the Outback.

  “Taylor is chasing him down. We’ve got two teams on their way in now, plus the park rangers and state troopers. We’ll get him.” She holstered her pistol. Nielsen picked up Hayduke’s weapon and put in on the hood of the truck.

  “I got a permit for that,” Hayduke said.

  “Good thing,” said Nielsen.

  “Who’s your friend?” asked Rain, looking hard at Silas.

  Silas watched her eyes as she shifted her gaze from him to Hayduke and back. Silas looked at Hayduke and asked, “What is your name?”

  Hayduke looked back at him. “Josh. Josh Charleston.”

  Silas looked at the two agents. “This is Josh Charleston. Good Samaritan.”

  SILAS HADN’T BEEN ABLE TO sleep. He lay on the cot inside the small wall-tent provided by the Park Service for a few hours. Around 4:00 AM he walked out onto the mesa, pulling on a heavy fleece for warmth, and sat on a rise of sandstone close to where the Subaru Outback had come to a halt. He looked out over the draw that led into the main stem of the Gulch, toward the vast plateau that ringed it. It was dark and cold when he sat down, but it was by no means still.

  The manhunt had begun around midnight, and by 2:00 AM there were fifty law enforcement officers from half a dozen jurisdictions in the Gulch area. Now, with first light, more were inbound by helicopter so that every ten minutes or so the morning air was cracked by the rattle of more team members arriving.

  Nephi had vanished into the catacombs of the canyon, and if he had any sense at all, would bolt straight to Canyon Springs for water. The Park Service and the BLM and the FBI knew that, and were converging on that position. All Silas could do was sit and watch, and wait.

  Hayduke had stayed for two hours, and then, temporarily cleared by the FBI, had nonchalantly bid farewell to Silas and accepted a ride back to Blanding. His vehicle would be towed there later in the morning, where he could retrieve it after the Evidence Recovery agents from the FBI concluded their crime scene investigation. For now, yellow tape surrounded the Jeep and the Outback. The Outback’s front two tires were flat; Nephi had driven over the slickrock ledge and blown them out. The vehicle had ground to a halt a moment later in the sand accumulated across the road.

  Silas felt a tap on his shoulder. He had drifted off to sleep. He opened his eyes with a start and saw Katie Rain with two cups of coffee in her hands.

  “Sorry to wake you.” She handed him a cup.

  “If I was asleep, it was only for a minute.”

  “You’re going to be stiff as hell if you fall asleep on that rock.”

  “I’ve used it as a pillow more than once.” He remembered a line from Desert Solitaire: “Rocks softer than sand . . .” He accepted the coffee. Katie sat down next to him. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail and she wore a heavy sweater and an FBI windbreaker over her bullet-proof vest. Her sidearm protruded over both garments. She sipped from her coffee cupped between her hands, looking in the same direction as Silas: the vast Grand Gulch Mesa and the canyons of the San Juan River beyond.

  “You’re not on the manhunt?”

  “Only interests me if it involves bones.” She took another sip of her coffee.

  “Hopefully they’ll find this guy before it comes to that.”

  “We will. There’s really nowhere for him to go. He’s on foot, no food or water or protection from the elements. As soon as the sun hits the canyon floor he’ll come crawling back to us, begging for water.”

  “You think he’ll confess?”

  “We can be very persuasive. We’ve got him on kidnapping, at the very least,” she said. “We can charge him and hold him and go to work on him over the next little while . . . But there’s something else. I didn’t get a chance to talk with you about it last night, in all the excitement.”

  “What is it?”

  “Peter Anton and his wife, they’ve disappeared.”

  “How? I thought you were watching him?”

  “We had two units watching the house. Front and back. When this went down with Nephi last night, one of the units went in to check on him. He wasn’t there.”

  “He gave your guys the slip?”

  “That, or—”

  “Or someone got to him.”

  “It’s a question we’ll be asking our canyon-exploring friend when we find him.”

  Silas shook his head. He felt a terrible sadness welling inside of him. So many lives erased by this foolishness. So much waste.

  Katie looked at him. “You okay?”

  He nodded but didn’t say anything.

  “Sometimes when I’m doing my thing, you know, with the bones, I let my guard down and imagine what these people’s lives were like when they were flesh and blood and oxygen. I imagine what the people they love might be thinking when I’m reassembling a crime scene, or searching for cause of death. It keeps me from building too many walls between me and the vic.”

  Silas sipped his coffee. “I didn’t ask for any of this. I just want to find my wife. I didn’t ask to find these people. I don’t know any of them, but now I can’t get them out of my head. I just want to find Penelope and maybe, I don’t know, find some peace.”

  “I think you’ll find her,” Katie finally said, after they watched in silence a moment. “I think you’ll find peace, and finding these others will help bring some peace to their families too.”

  They heard a radio crackle. Katie turned to the park ranger who came up on the slickrock behind them.

  “Agent Rain, Agent Taylor was just on the radio. They’ve got him.”

  SILAS SAT IN THE RED Rock Canyon bookstore. It was the Saturday of a mid-September weekend and he had sold three books that day already. Sales were brisk, on pace to set a record. He drank a cup of coffee and scanned the headlines.

  It had been five days since Charles Nephi had been captured in the Grand Gulch. He had been hiding in a set of ancient Pueblo ruins, out of bullets and out of places to run.

  The chime at the door sounded and Silas looked up. It was Josh Charleston.

  “You got your Jeep back?” Silas asked by way of greeting.

  “Fuck, man, what a mess. Never let the FBI do your repairs for you. Jesus, it took them three days to get the windshield replaced. But yeah, fuck, I got it back. I told them to leave the bullet holes, adds character.”

  “Were they hard on you?”

  “Me? Fuck, man, they raked me over the fucking coals.”

  “Really? I’m really sorry—”

  “I’m just busting your balls. No, they were okay. They accepted that I was just driving by and stopped to aid a fellow citizen . . . or whatever the hell you are.”

  “You saved my life.”

  “Yeah, fuck, I guess I did. Guess you owe me now, don’t you.”

  “How did you know?”

  “I was driving through Blanding, on my way back from Flag. Remember? We talked that morning.”

  “The documents.”

  “Yeah, well, fuck, at first I couldn’t find you and then I remembered what you were up to. I wasn’t going to let you have all the fun, but I didn’t want to blow it for you either, so I waited. I saw your little car. I drove around and when I came back, around ten, I saw you drive off with that other motherfucker in the back with you, so I followed.”

  “We didn’t see you.”

  “I know. Pretty fucking smart, right? Lights out. Just like Hayduke in the fi
nal chase scene in The Monkey Wrench Gang. Like I said, you owe me now.”

  “I guess so. What did happen with the documents you had?”

  “I had to dump them. I didn’t want the feds to know you and I were in cahoots, you know? So I trashed them. There was nothing there we can’t dig up again if we need to.”

  Silas was clearly disappointed. Darcy McFarland’s death was the loose end in this whole terrible debacle. The FBI had left it open and unsolved for the time being.

  He shook off the discontent. “I got you something.”

  “Really? What is it?”

  “It’s a gift. Open it.” Silas reached under the counter and brought out a small, book-shaped package. He handed it to Hayduke, who tore the paper off with excitement.

  “Holy fuck, man, where did you get this?”

  “It was Penelope’s.”

  “Fuck, would you look at that.” The cover of the book was purple and tan, with a strange rendition of a Puebloan rock art mountain lion and clear, white lettering: Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness.

  “It’s a first edition. Open it.”

  Hayduke did. “Holy sweet motherfucker. It’s signed.”

  Silas smiled. They sat in the air-conditioned comfort of the store. It was only 11:00 AM, but Hayduke was drinking a Molson Canadian and Silas had a Dr Pepper.

  “I don’t think they know we’re working together,” said Hayduke.

  “You’re worried about that?”

  “I just want to save the fucking wilderness. I don’t need to get tangled up with your fed friends.”

  “I just want to find Penelope. I could do without the rest of this.”

  “Has that fucker confessed to anything? Has he said anything about Pen?”

  “Nothing. Nothing yet.”

  “What about that guy over in Cortez? The one who was doing the Hopi girl.”

  Silas winced. “Peter Anton? Nothing on him yet either. The working theory right now is that Nephi got to Anton and his wife before he came for me, but until Nephi talks, or the feds turn up a body, or some other evidence . . .”

  “We’re shit out of luck. What next?”

  “Sell some books. Keep looking for Penny.”