“I don’t like this little car. I can’t do what I want us to do in it.”
He laughed at her. “You just don’t know this car. It’s a sports car. That means it was made for sports. Why do you think this seat lets down?”
“Let’s try it and find out.”
“My God. What you are is a pig.”
“I just never had anything so wonderful before.”
“You want to convince me, don’t you?”
“Stop being cruel. You don’t know what it’s like to live with a counterfeit, a phony, for three years—and then learn how badly you’ve been cheated all your life.”
He kissed her cheek, brushing his lips along it. “It’s just pretty hard to believe I could be that different, that much better.”
“If you believe that, then you don’t know very much, either.”
“I’m pretty stupid, all right.”
“You’re wonderful.”
He stood up. “Will you wait here for me? Will you be good and stay right here?”
She sat forward. “I’m afraid. What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know if your husband and the cops are going to come in here or not. I’ve got to find out. It’s not too long until dark. If I’m going to find out anything, I’ve got to look around.”
“Suppose they see you?”
“That’s just the gamble we’ve got to take. We may be bottled up in here. I’ve got to know that, too. You know, that might be the reason they pulled off the ‘copter and left us in here. They know a lot more about this country than I do.”
“Can’t I go with you?”
“One of us can hide better than two. You’re fixed right here.”
“Will you love me when you come back?”
He smiled at her, as if exasperated. “If you insist.”
“Then hurry.”
She waited until he was at the rim of the shadowed shelf. She called after him. “You promise?”
He grinned at her across his shoulder. “Yes. I promise. As soon as I come back. You lie there and think about me.”
“Oh, no. You want me to go nuts?”
He walked down the incline to the floor of the canyon. He moved along it, sensing the way the sheer walls closed in. Above him the shoulders of the canyon loomed gray against the sky. It was along these walls they had watched the skittering shadow of the ‘copter earlier in the day.
He reached one of the many twists in the canyon and glanced back. Eve was watching him from the shelf. He waved to her and walked around the turn. The walls veered higher and the canyon floor narrowed. In places ahead the lower rocks were in shadow, but not cool. The deeper he walked the more breathless and hot it became.
He searched for some sign of water, but found none. He wished he could find water and carry some back to Eve. She would really think he was wonderful then. Funny, wasn’t it, that was really all every man wanted—a woman who thought he was wonderful. It was such a simple lesson. It was odd more of them didn’t learn it.
Ahead, he saw a narrow trail that made its tortuous way up the side of the canyon wall. Sunlight glanced off the rocks up there, glittering with fool’s gold and quartz. A man would have to be part mountain goat to make it up there. Yet, from the top of this wall, he could see for twenty miles in every direction. It was worth it.
He moved up the wall, walking as long as he could. He placed his back against the rocks and slid upward along them. In places the ledge was so small that the toes of his shoes were hanging over the rim. Rocks dislodged, rattled all the way to the canyon floor. The sound echoed and reverberated. It seemed to him it would never cease.
He caught at the wind-flattened rocks for a grasp, found none. His knees wavered and the canyon seemed to pull at him, down, down. He did not look down again. It was better to watch the brink of the wall above him.
He climbed slowly, not daring to take a full breath, as though filling his lungs might push him off the ledge. He heard a loosened rock clatter down the wall.
He snagged at the broken places on top of the ridge, hung there a moment with his legs dangling from the ledge. He caught his footing and shoved himself upward. His hands clawed at the flat rocks, missed. He felt himself being borne outward. His hands caught and he clung there a moment and then slid upward on his belly until he sprawled on the flat wall top.
A buzzard circled high against the whitened sky. Ric lifted his head and peered around. West of him reared mountains, reaching upward into chilled snow flurries.
Stunted mesquite grew along this flat tableland. Out below him there was no movement and no sound.
He pulled his head around and then he saw the sun glint on glass.
Pulling up to his knees, he shaded his eyes and stared downward. The glass was a windshield. Then he saw the two cars, and was certain one was Kimball’s Cadillac. They were waiting for him down there. They knew this land: they had all the advantage.
He turned suddenly, searching the canyon. It narrowed, twisted into the rising wall of hills and then it disappeared. In this land without water, he and Eve could not last much longer. They had to come back from this canyon, and when they did, those men would be waiting.
Keeping low, in case one of them was searching with field glasses, Ric moved along, keeping close to the canyon rim. He found a boulder, slightly larger than a car. He leaned against it in the shadows, staring down at the four men.
He cursed aloud. That was the only satisfaction he would permit himself. He wanted to stand there and scream at them. They had set up some kind of umbrellas and were sprawled in the shade. He saw they were drinking from cans, something cool, perhaps beer, maybe even by some miracle, iced water.
He dragged his tongue across his parched lips. He wanted to yell out the building rage he felt. Sit down there, damn you, so sure of yourselves—laugh and talk and wait.
He walked, in a kind of insane and fruitless searching, around the tableland seeking any sign of water. He found none. He moved slowly, behind the juniper that fringed the canyon top, going downhill.
He came into the canyon the way he had driven in. He spent some time walking across the slate outcroppings, getting his bearings.
Eve came off the shelf and ran to meet him.
“They’re out there, on the edge of the plain, waiting,” he said. “They’re out there drinking beer, sitting in the shade. The bastards.”
“I’d rather be here,” she said, “with you.”
He put his arm around her, walked with her toward the
Porsche, trying to think about her, trying to check some of the senseless rage against those men in the shade out there.
“They think they’re going to stop us, the sons of bitches. They think they’re going to stop us.”
She looked up at him, eyes troubled. “Ric. Are you all right?”
His voice was savage. “Hell no, I’m not all right. I’m thirsty. So damned thirsty I couldn’t drink if I had water. And those sons of bitches out there think we can’t get out of here.”
“Come back to the car, Ric. You’ll be all right.”
“I’ll never be all right. Not as long as they sit out there laughing at me because I can’t get out of here.”
The canyon was almost fully dark, but Ric could see that the sky was lighted, streaked with orange and beige and purple. Eve lay on a blanket near the car. She was asleep. He was more exhausted than she was, but he had not slept. He had spent the whole afternoon, staring at the mouth of the canyon, thinking.
He waited until the purple welts across the face of the sky faded to blue, then he bent over Eve, shook her.
“Wake up. We’ve got to get out of here.”
She opened her eyes slowly. Her lips were colorless and parched. She drew the back of her hand across her forehead. She tried to smile. There was more fever in her eyes than pleasure.
They tossed the blanket in the back of the Porsche, then got in. Ric started the car, not even daring to rev the motor. He let it idle, warming f
or a long time. He glanced at the fuel indicator, refused to admit what he saw there.
He put the car in reverse, felt it slip in the loose sand. He rolled out onto the canyon floor. There was just room enough to turn the car and head east.
He drove slowly, came out of the canyon, crossed the slate outcroppings. By now the sun was gone and darkness was moving in. A wind blew downward from the mesa-lands across from them.
He got out of the car.
“Move over and drive,” he told Eve. “All you’ve got to do is watch me. I’m going to walk right in front of the car. You won’t have any lights—and in the name of God, don’t touch that brake pedal. No matter what happens, don’t touch it. That red flare would light up everything between here and El Paso.”
“All right, Ric.”
“Give it just enough gas to keep it moving.”
“I will. I want you to know how smart I can be for you.”
“I’ll pick the trail. All right, let’s go.”
He walked as swiftly as he dared, seeking a lane through the foothills, through the growth of pinon and the boulders.
They moved steadily downward. Suddenly he slowed, and kept slowing until Eve had to remove her foot from the accelerator. The car coughed, idled, slowed to a stop.
He walked back, knelt and looked in the window. He pointed across the flat sage country to a point of light.
“The bastards,” he said with a wry laugh. “That’s them. They’ve made a fire. They’re settling down to wait us out. If I can find the roadway from here, we got it made.”
“I told you, you’re wonderful.”
“You’re not back in Daddy’s arms yet.”
“That’s not where I want to be, either.”
He kept walking east with the car boiling and coughing behind him. After a while it was not a matter of walking at all, he was simply putting one leg ahead of the other. The wind rose and the sand cut at him, but the wind was not cooling.
He stumbled, and then leaped around with a yelp.
“The road. Eve, it’s the road!”
She was so startled, she stepped down on the brake. The taillights flashed so the sky was lighted with it.
She cried out and jerked her foot off the brake. The car lunged forward and stalled.
Ric ran back to her.
“Oh, Ric, I’m no good. I’m no damned good.”
She moved over and he slid into the car. He started the engine, glancing through the rear window.
“It doesn’t matter. Maybe they didn’t see it. They should be watching the hills.”
“They saw it.”
He did not answer. There was nothing to say. Headlights had leaped into being out across the plain and were circling, turning toward them.
“We got the road, and once we cross the creek, it’s pretty smooth all the way to the highway. I can outrun them.” He did not add he could outrun them if the gas held out. He refused to allow himself to look again at the gas gauge.
He did not drive on the road now. He turned on the headlights, kept to the shoulders, plumes of dust arose behind them. The headlights bounced, danced, moving across the flat land.
At the river he got out again, found the tracks of the police car, led Eve across the creek bed and up the other embankment.
He was doing ninety when Highway 58 loomed suddenly ahead.
He whipped the car back toward Los Solanos, watching the spinning beacon on the airport tower.
For a moment it was as though he could not pull his gaze from the light spinning over the airport. It was as though he were drawn toward it. It was the center, the heart of everything. It had been the first thing he looked for when he hit Los Solanos.
Approaching the airport entrance, he stared at it, hating it because it reproached him with his own failure. “We’ll meet you there, Ric,” the senator had said last. One of the last things the senator had said. “Anne and I will meet you.” Anne was going to be at this airport. He would see her again for the first time. God how long had it been? At that moment he had begun to dream the way it would be. He would stride in, bringing Anne’s baby back to her, doing for her what nobody else could do.
His eyes ached. In his mind he could hear the senator planning, hoping without any hope. “Anne and I will meet you at the Los Solanos airport Friday, Ric. We’ll give you the two days they asked for. Then we’ll come. We’ll wait for you at the airport.” He had swallowed hard. “I pray to God you’ll have good news for us, Ric. Somehow, I can’t believe the baby is—still alive—but God help us, I hope we never have to tell Anne that it is dead.”
Ric turned the Porsche into the filling station across the road from the airport entrance. Eve ran to the water cooler and let the water splash against her face and eyes before she drank. Ric paced the station apron watching the highway while the attendant filled the gas tank and checked under the hood. Even when Ric went to drink, he knelt over the water spout half-turned so that he could watch the road behind them.
It was ten-thirty when they entered the city limits of Los Solanos. Ric parked the Porsche on a side street beside a white stone hotel. He held Eve’s arm and they walked in. He felt wary, watchful. He signed for a room. They followed the night clerk up the stairs to the second floor, waited while he opened windows, turned on lights. Ric tipped him and he went away.
“Call your father,” he told her.
“I will, Ric.” She was looking about the room. It was as though the dust had blown through these windows for twenty years and burned itself in so nothing could ever brush it out.
He moved toward the door. She caught his arm. “Ric.”
“Yes.”
“How will I get in touch with you?”
“You’ll be all right now. Eve. Martin Kimball won’t know where you are. Get your father here. Fast.
“Ric, I can’t stand to lose you like this. And that’s not all. I need you. I’m afraid without you.”
“What would you do with a guy like me?”
“I’m too bashful to say it right out loud.”
Suddenly she was in his arms again. He felt her hands digging into his shoulders. It was very pleasant, having her like this. He had forgotten how pleasant it could be when somebody truly cared.
“Take care,” he whispered into her hair.
“Oh, Ric. I hope he’s all right. I hope I haven’t spoiled everything.”
“If he was alive from the first day, they’ll wait until they get in touch with me. Forget about it, Eve. You’ve got your own woes. You get on that phone.”
“You’ve got to come back to me, Ric.” Her voice was low, but it was frantic.
He pushed her away, held her at arms’ length. His voice was a tense whisper. “Don’t count on it. Eve. You hear me? Just don’t count on it.”
He turned, crossed the room, closed the door behind him. He paused for a moment in the hallway, the sense of desolation going all through him. He had thought he’d been lonely before.
Hell, he hadn’t even known what loneliness was.
Chapter Twenty
Ric came down the stairs and paused looking around the hotel lobby. Except for the night clerk, the place was deserted. He walked to the desk and the clerk looked up, smiling sleepily.
“You have a private phone?”
The clerk nodded toward a booth near the front entrance. Ric went into it, closed the door. He found the number of La Pueblo. He dialed, listening to it ring. He hoped perversely that he was waking Peggy up. But when she answered, her voice did not sound sleepy.
“Mrs. Davis, this is Ric Durazo.”
He heard her sharp laughter. “I got the word for you, Mr. Durazo. You better get out of the world.”
“Any calls for me?”
She laughed again. “Any calls? Mr. Durazo, everybody is either calling for you, or looking for you.”
“Sorry to cause you trouble, but I’d like to know if there were any messages?”
“Oh, there are messages. Even one from the police
. I’m to let them know the moment you or that woman shows up around here.”
“I don’t mean the police—”
“I’m supposed to let them know if you call.”
His voice hardened. “All right. You tell them I called.”
“I will. I have to. We have to run a nice place. I’ll have to tell them.”
“Did I get any messages?”
“I just hope it was worth it, that’s all. Looks like you got yourself in a lot of trouble over one woman. I’m sorry that you acted that way.”
“Are you stalling so this call can be traced?”
She caught her breath.
“Why no. I was trying to be friendly. Even if I do have to report to the police, I hate to see you get in any more trouble.”
“All right. Then you just tell me one thing—did I get any messages—any personal messages?”
“Yes. A Mr. Perriquey has called you three times.”
Ric felt his nerves tighten, as though a fist had clenched his solar plexus. The name Perriquey meant nothing to him, but the three calls did. His hand gripped the receiver more tightly.
“What did he say!”
“Well, he was pretty upset. He sounded mad at you. Isn’t it funny—everybody is mad at you, Mr. Durazo.”
“The hell with that. What did he say?”
“Well, the last time he called, he said he was at the X-Bar Dude Ranch, and that he would wait for you until midnight—”
She went on talking, but Ric was not listening. He turned in the booth, glanced at the clock over the night clerk’s head. He caught his breath, muttered, “Thanks,” into the phone and slapped it back on its hook.
He returned to the desk. The clerk looked up again, yawning.
“Where could I rent a car?”
“At the bus station, down at the end of this block.”
Ric drove to the all-night garage, parked the Porsche, locked it. He paid the attendant for a day and then strode out into the night. His footsteps sounded loud along the silent street.
The woman at the Rent-a-Car desk wanted a fifty-dollar deposit before she would rent Ric a car, seemed surprised when he paid it immediately. He decided he must resemble a desert prospector by now.
A Ticket to Hell Page 10