Frank worked feverishly in the dark, lifting the larger chunks of rock from the ore car. He was careful not to let any debris fall into the shaft. The idea of the rocks hitting Hickey’s body sickened him. If he was going to have a chance to get away, the ore car might give him an advantage, but first he needed to be able to move it. He shined the light into the interior of the car. It was mostly empty now, just some dirt and gravel. He went to the front of the car and tugged. It didn’t budge. He couldn’t go to the rear of the car and push without the danger of falling into the shaft. Why wouldn’t it move? The tunnel angled down and out. There was a gentle downgrade leading to the opening so that the filled ore cars would be easier to push. He shined his light on the front wheels. They were rusty, but they didn’t look like they were rusted solid. The dry air and the shelter of the tunnel had slowed the process of erosion. The wheels were more dirty than frozen. He looked at the back wheels—same thing. Then he noticed a small piece of wood protruding from between the track and the wheel. They were chocked. Of course, they were chocked against the grade for loading.
He shined the light around, looking for something to block the front wheels after he freed the ones in the rear. He selected a wedge-shaped piece of ore and placed it on the track, where he could push it under the wheel with the back of his foot. Then he placed his back against the ore car and shoved. It went back surprisingly easy. Too easy. He was in danger of shoving it into the shaft. He stood up and grabbed the rock in the dark, pushing it forward until it hit the wheel, catching the car before it could roll forward. He shined the light on the rear wheels and then on the track, where a compressed sliver of wood no more than half an inch thick lay where it had been placed by a hand of someone now long dead. He reached forward and brushed it aside, making sure the track was clear except for the rock he had placed in front.
Time to take a look outside.
As he came to the bend in the tunnel, the waning light etched the rectangular entrance against the dark. He switched off the light and let his eyes adjust. He could see out, but they couldn’t seen in, not as long as he kept the flashlight off. He wondered if they knew they could be seen from within. He moved with care, placing his feet in the powdery dust, avoiding rocks and rubble, silent in his approach. Jason sat with his back to the tunnel, where he could look down into the canyon. He rocked gently back and forth, humming a wordless lullaby in a rhythmic monotone. The bush of red hair was wreathed in a golden halo as the last of the sunlight touched the canyon walls. Frank was momentarily moved to go to him, to assure him that everything was okay. Then he remembered the empty bits of bright blue that glittered from the bearded face. Damaged and broken beyond repair.
There was no sign of Roy Miller. Frank approached the opening, scanning the surroundings. Jason held the .458 Winchester across his lap. Apparently, he was alone. Hickey’s pack lay where he had tossed it, but the canteens were missing. He searched as much of the terrain as he could see. Where was Roy Miller? He must have gone to refill the canteens at the spring. It would take him at least half an hour. How long had he been gone? If he tried to sneak by, sooner or later Jason would see him and begin shooting. He would be an open target, completely exposed on the rocks and unable to run without fear of falling down the slope. The rocky ground meant slow going. Even a poor shot would eventually hit him. He thought about what Hickey had said and the look of fear on Jason’s face. Perhaps he could scare him. Get him to drop the rifle. It was his best chance. Either that or hide in the mine until they came for him, a live man waiting to join a dead one.
He hurried back into the tunnel, nearly falling, cursing under his breath. He found the ore car, kicked loose the rock he’d jammed under the front wheel, and tugged. At first, the car didn’t want to move. Then it gave, inching forward, a yard, ten feet, moving slowly down the track. He stepped to the back of the car and shoved. It picked up speed, gathering momentum. By the time he reached the bend, he had it going at a trot. Then he began to bellow.
The last thing Frank remembered seeing was the figure of Jason raising the rifle, eyes bright, the small mouth pursed in a circle of fear. Then he dove for the floor of the tunnel, letting go of the ore car. The smashing thunderclap from the .458 and his headlong dive into the ground interrupted his sense of time. The throbbing pain from his left elbow wrenched him back into reality. Apparently, he had banged his arm on one of the steel rails as he hit the ground. He drew himself to his knees and peered out of the tunnel mouth. The ore car had stopped about six or seven feet outside the entrance, where the rails disappeared into dirt and debris. Jason was gone, but where? He rose to his feet and came out into the open, keeping the ore car in front of him. It had a round hole about half an inch in diameter punched into the forward wall; the back wall had a ragged gash torn in the metal, an area nearly as big as the palm of his hand. It was definitely a dead monster. Jason must have just pointed and pulled the trigger. The scope would have been useless, in the way. He was very, very glad he hadn’t done something foolish and tried to rush Jason, counting on his inability to find a target in the scope at close quarters. Holes like that would have been in what was left of his body.
The stillness was complete, as if the rifle shot and his yelling had never occurred. The hoarse cry of a raven pierced the silence. A pair of them were at eye level, swooping toward the rock face on the far side of the canyon. Headed for home. He breathed deeply and forced himself to think about what to do. Stepping from behind the ore car, he approached the edge of the level ground where he had last seen the redheaded Jason and looked down the steep face of the tailings. Jason lay near the base of the tailings, his body at an odd angle, like a broken Raggedy Andy. There was still a faint haze of dust in the air where he had tumbled down the rock-strewn slope. Frank realized he must have been propelled backward by the tremendous recoil of the .458.
Roy Miller stood next to the broken body, his white face looking like an erasure mark against the landscape. Frank stared in fascination as the tiny figure began to emit a moan. It started deep and low, filling the canyon with anguish and rage. The rifle lay halfway down the slope, maybe in working order, maybe not, certainly not the scope. The Glock lay in the mine shaft with Hickey. Frank was sure he hadn’t seen Miller with a gun, but now didn’t seem like the time to pat him down.
As he watched, Miller began scrambling up the slope toward the rifle. There was no way Frank could reach it before he did. Miller probably figured he had him trapped, and it was true, if Frank used the trail that skirted up and over the tumbled boulders at the far edge of the canyon. It was the long way. Frank knew another way. He set out across the talus slope, angling downward and across the uneven ground to intersect with the canyon near the ancient rock blind. He would have to beat Miller down the canyon and get to his truck before Miller got to him.
26
Dr. Michael Sorensen wasn’t used to being bested, and the fact that he had been outwitted by an unwashed semiderelict did little to alleviate his rising sense of frustration and rage. But all was not lost. With any luck at all, he should overtake the slick little shit well before he reached the highway, settle up—so to speak—retrieve his check and money, and be on his way. There would be absolutely nothing to connect him to the Indian, nothing to connect him to decapitated bighorn sheep, and no one to take pleasure in his having been humiliated by a third-rate criminal with bad breath. Blunting the firing pin did indeed signal some forethought on the Indian’s part, perhaps genetic craftiness, but then again, it was stupid to assume that he would get away before Sorensen figured out what had happened. He would make this absolutely clear.
He wheeled the Range Rover easily down the dirt road, going at least twenty miles an hour faster than the so-called Redhawk’s pathetic junker. Eddie Laguna, the man to whom he had made out the check, couldn’t be very far ahead of him. He strained for a glimpse of the battered truck in the twilight and almost drove over the embankment. He stamped on the brake pedal just in time to keep from dropping int
o the sand wash. This was the way Laguna had come all right. This is where the Indian’s thick skull had appeared in the crosshairs. He studied the wash in the dim light, looking at where the track followed the sandy bottom and disappeared. It looked like slow going. On his left, he could just make out a faint dirt track that skirted the wash, following the top of the embankment. It appeared to be on solid ground and therefore faster. He eased the Range Rover onto the track near some sort of wooden sign on which was a cartoon figure of a smirking crow smoking a pipe. Primitive bullshit.
He punched the gas. The Range Rover’s all-wheel-drive feature kept the vehicle in a straight path, chewing its way through the crust to the softer earth below. Another sign: MEET YOUR FATE. Wonderful! No doubt hapless hippies caught up in crystals and extraterrestrial crap had posted their pathetic ruminations to be read by little green men. He squinted ahead. He must be gaining on the Indian and his rust bucket. Voilà! There it was. A single red taillight winked in the deep gray of evening. A dim cone of yellow bobbed along ahead of the silhouette that was Eddie Laguna’s truck. Not so slick after all, Redhawk. Pull up alongside, wave him to a friendly stop. Bang, bang—another good Indian.
The Range Rover began pulling sharply to the right, toward the wash. He wrestled the wheel away from the edge just in time. He realized he must have hit a patch of sand. The heavy vehicle plowed ahead, laboring as if it were down in the sandy bottom, although it wasn’t. Up on the embankment, the ground was reasonably firm. He gave it more gas, but the response was sluggish at best. He was no longer gaining on Laguna’s truck; it was still at least four or five hundred yards ahead. Despite his best efforts to keep the Rover on the track, it wallowed from side to side like a crippled beast. Finally, it could do no more than creep. He had the wheel turned away from the wash, but the Rover could only lunge ahead in labored increments, chewing away at the soft soil. He cursed under his breath, let up on the gas, and the Rover settled to a heavy stop. He got out and walked around the blocky body, which gleamed in the faint light. Shit. He had a flat. The right front tire was punctured. Damn his luck, damn the Indian. The right rear was flat, as well. He felt the blood pounding at his temples, his heart thumping in his chest. He watched in rising frustration as the Indian’s taillight disappeared in the distance.
Sorensen closed his eyes and breathed deeply. The situation had changed. He always made it a point to deal with the realities confronting him. Keeping his eye on hard facts had been the key to his success. Now he needed to see if he could get out of here. That was first. The rest would follow. He could catch up with the Indian later, definitely before the man tried to cash the check. At the very least, he could stop payment Monday morning. There was no way he was going to let himself be cheated out of fifteen thousand dollars by an ignorant little shit.
If he could get the spare on the front wheel, he was sure that the Rover would have enough traction to move out with one flat tire. He switched on the interior light and began reading the manual to discover just where they had hidden the jack. He thumbed through the manual until he discovered a drawing of the jack’s location. The handle was located under the backseat. The fucking spare was located under the vehicle. What’s more, he didn’t have a flashlight. He hadn’t planned on driving around the damned desert at night.
Fumbling around in the dark, it took close to half an hour to take out the jack and handle and get it lined up under the vehicle. At first, it exerted pressure on the vehicle, taking up weight from the right side of the Rover, but then it stopped lifting and began burying itself in the ground. He released the pressure and the Rover settled its weight back on the flattened tires. He began frantically searching for something to put under the jack. Next to an outcropping, he found a flat rock that seemed perfect. It was at least eight or nine inches wide and a couple of feet long. It had broken away from the larger rock upthrust and lay on the ground in a darkened oval. A large scorpion skittered toward him as he lifted up the edge of the rock. He stomped on it repeatedly, his heart pounding with repugnance, fear, and pent-up anger.
From the exertion spent killing the scorpion, carrying the rock back to the vehicle, and then clearing away enough dirt to get rock and jack under the Range Rover, he had worked up a sweat despite the coolness of the night air. His soft cotton shirt felt clammy and cold.
He began turning the jack handle. At last, the front tire was clear. Placing the lug wrench over one of the bolts holding the wheel, he pushed down as hard as he could, leaning his weight into it. The handle remained rigid, the bolt secure. He needed more leverage. He stood up and put his foot on the wrench handle and bounced up and down, trying to loosen the bolt. Cursing with frustration, he placed his hands on the hood for balance and jumped with his full weight against the jack handle. The Land Rover shuddered and slipped toward him, crashing back onto the desert floor and throwing him backward into a clump of creosote bush. He lay there, conscious only of feeling helpless. The silence was unnerving. He strained to listen, hoping for the sound of an engine. Nothing, nothing but an occasional skittering in the brush. According to the map, it was about twenty-six miles to highway 395. And it was getting cold. He decided it was too far and too dark to take a chance on getting lost. Being near the vehicle felt safe. After all, somebody might come along and give him a ride, although that wasn’t likely at night. He should stick with the vehicle. He shivered against the cold. How could it be so damn hot during the day and so cold at night? He’d try to get some sleep, wait until morning, and then head for the highway. Somebody was bound to come along.
He slept half-sitting up in the front seat, dozing off and on. He tried stretching out in back, but somehow it felt too vulnerable lying where he couldn’t see out.
He woke again for the umpteenth time and looked into the night. A dark silhouette of skyline rimmed the paler sky, signaling the dawn. He pushed open the door, stood and stretched, and thought about coffee and orange juice. Orange juice would be good. Then he realized he was thirsty. He had drunk a couple of diet Cokes yesterday afternoon. The empties lay where he had tossed them on the floor. But there were no full ones and only two water bottles. He’d been limited to a tiny ice chest, but at the time it had seemed okay; besides, he hated drinking warm soft drinks, warm beer, or warm water, for that matter, warm anything but coffee. He kept his liquor of choice, Absolut vodka, in the freezer, and when he poured it into an iced crystal tumbler, it flowed like syrup, smooth and soft. Enough of that. He’d just have to get going. Twenty-six miles should take him no more than seven or eight hours, at the worst. He was sure to see somebody long before that. The dirt road had been recently graded, the soil pushed up into berms on either side. So that meant there had to be some traffic.
He started off down the upper track along the embankment at a leisurely pace, waiting to warm up before kicking into gear. The warm breeze returned, pushing into his face. The exercise and the balmy breeze felt invigorating. He picked up the pace. He knew he could walk close to four miles an hour for an extended time. He spent five or six hours a week on the treadmill, doing 4.3 miles an hour. This was simply another obstacle to overcome, a task to be performed, something with which he was completely comfortable.
In three hours of strenuous walking, he had failed to cover enough ground. He realized the situation needed reassessment, although he didn’t think of it in quite that way. For one thing, the uneven surface prevented him from maintaining a pace of four miles an hour. The ground was either too rocky and hard, which hurt his feet, or it was soft and sandy, which made for slow going. His pace was more like three miles an hour, and it was work. His initial optimism had evaporated. It would have been okay if he hadn’t had to make time. But he had to make time, because it was getting very warm. The morning breeze had turned into a hot blast of air blowing steadily from the south, directly in his face. It occurred to him that he probably should have tried to walk out at night while it was cool, rather than fight the heat, but that was looking back, and he never looked back. Regrets s
imply dragged people down.
He took refuge next to a large creosote bush, seeking some shelter from the heat and the relentless wind. The thin, pliable branches tipped with their tiny dark leaves tossed wildly about, tracing nervous shadow patterns on the desert floor. Sorensen felt a wave of panic. What if no one used the road? It had become clear that the highway was much too far away to reach on foot in this everlasting wind. He needed help, needed someone to come along and give him a ride and a drink of water. He was terribly thirsty.
By the time Sorensen reached the section of the road that climbed up to the ridgeline that overlooked Jawbone Canyon, he found himself staggering with increasing frequency. His legs felt weak and heavy. Every time he stopped, it became more difficult to get moving again. He was having difficulty concentrating. The only thing that he seemed to be able to think about was water—well, not water so much as drinking something liquid, alleviating his thirst. Anything wet. He was dimly aware that soon it would be impossible to keep going, but somehow that didn’t seem as important as finding something to drink.
His eyes fell on a barrel cactus, and he felt a rush of relief. All he had to do was cut off the top and there would be water. He knelt and tried to cut away the top with his pocketknife, but he was too unsteady, and the cactus spines kept hooking into his skin. He sat down heavily in front of the cactus. That was better. He had more leverage. He began to saw the blade through the tough skin. His hands bled from the wounds, but soon there would be liquid, something with which to quench his all-consuming thirst. He made a circular cut like taking the top off a pumpkin, but there was no stem for a handle. He plunged the blade in at an angle and lifted. The flesh of the cactus refused to let go. The blade popped out from the pressure he was exerting, his hand flying up and the knife nearly stabbing him in the face.
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