A Ticket to Hell

by Harry Whittington

  “Better than sitting around there waiting,” he said half to himself.

  “Better than anything, Ric. We can try. We can ask along the highway, because we’ve got to.”

  Ric watched the first rifts of daylight in the sky, long jagged ribbons of cerise and blue and faded yellow. He stepped hard on the gas. The little car leaped forward. They raced past the airport, but Ric didn’t glance toward it.

  “This is the dude ranch where I talked to Perriquey,” he told her as they passed the stone gate and the entrance. Behind the cottages men were moving about in the corrals saddling horses for the morning canter. “Perriquey turned west here. Rehan stopped me. Perriquey’s had all these hours and all the country between here and the Pacific ocean.”

  “Not quite,” Eve said. “If they did intend to deliver the baby to you, they must have had it in this territory. They’ve been waiting for you. They’ve had to wait somewhere. Why would it be too far from the dude ranch?”

  For a moment, hope glowed in Ric, and some of the weariness dissipated. Then he shook his head. “Even if that were true, they’ve had time to clear out.”

  “There’s one more thing, Ric. You said the FBI agent had trailed Perriquey’s car. That might have changed everything.”

  “Yes. It would have speeded the baby’s death.”

  “Or it might have kept Perriquey pinned down wherever he was hiding.” Her voice vibrated. “All we need is one break. Just one person who has seen that car along this highway in the past week. He’s had to buy gas, groceries, something.”

  Ric nodded. He pulled into the first yard and stopped before an adobe house. Two Mexicans were working in the yard over a delapidated car. Ric carefully described the car, gave its license number. They looked at him, grinning, and shook their heads. He asked about the nearest filling station and they pointed west. “Five miles. At the crossroads.”

  Ric roared out of the yard and turned the Porsche toward the crossroads. He pulled into the station. The owner came out the screen door, let it slam.

  Ric described the Chrysler, going over it slowly and carefully as he had with the Mexicans. The man just stood there watching him and scratching himself.

  “Car like that stopped here a couple times. Gas. Groceries.”

  “They ever buy anything like—well, canned milk?”

  “Yeah. Matter of fact they did. Once the young guy bought milk and nothing else. Nothing to me, mister. Lot of cows out here. Not many men know how to milk them.”

  “Which way did they come from? Did you ever notice? Down the highway?” Ric could feel the excitement building in him.

  The man shook his head, jerked it toward the unpaved hardpacked side road.

  “What’s out there?” Ric said.

  “Few families. Some people keep sheep. Some Mexicans. Not much.”

  Ric thanked him. He walked back to the car, wanting to run. Eve was sitting tensely. “They’re down this road, Ric. They’ve got to be.”

  “We’ll play it out,” he said trying to conceal the hope inside him. “People along here must have seen that car.”

  Twenty miles later, Ric realized the grocer man had not said the houses were on the road, or even if there were houses. In the East, people built close to the roads, even poor side roads like this. Out here they looked for shade, for grass, for water—or concealment.

  The hard-packed road trailed off through stones to a sand track. In the indeterminate distance loomed the hills. The silence and the heat had settled now. The hope Ric had had was fading now. Eve was silent, staring into the flat wasteland of boulders, cactus and sage.

  “Ric. Look.” Eve sat forward, pointing to the right across the silent country.

  He slowed, staring. The top of a car gleamed out there. It was a dark car. Sunlight showed that.

  Ahead was a rutted road leading to the right. Ric pulled the Porsche, heading toward the dark car.

  He stopped behind him. Before he got out out he saw the man sprawled on the ground beside the black coupe.

  “Stay there,” he told Eve. He walked warily forward.

  The man was youthful, in a way reminding Ric of the stiff-backed young agent in Rehan’s office. He did not need to look at the man’s credentials to know he was an agent. He didn’t need to touch him to see that he was dead and had been for the past few hours. There was a bullet hole in his forehead. They had suckered him out of the car and had gunned him down.

  Ric walked ahead of the car. He saw tracks that did not match those of the black car. They led into the foothills. He returned to the Porsche. “He’s dead. There’s nothing we can do for him. They ambushed him right out here in the open. Unless they’ve cleared out on some other road, they’re up there somewhere.”

  “Let’s go, Ric.”

  She glanced back toward where the young agent was sprawled outside the open car door.

  “Don’t worry about him,” Ric said. “Rehan will never let us get too far ahead of him. He’ll find his boy. Not that it’ll do either one of them any good.”

  The car tracks led past boulders, and upward along a winding hill road that wound upward through pifion and juniper and bald rocks.

  “If they’re up here,” Ric said, “they’ll have a lookout. You see anything, hear anything—anything—you hit the bottom of this floor and you stay there.”

  Eve nodded. The road wound deeper into the hills, carrying them downslope, and then upward again. The scorched earth appeared unchanged, unchanging. Suddenly, he saw that the road appeared to end up ahead.

  He killed the eagle. He got out, leaving the door open. He went ahead of the car to what appeared to be the brink of a precipice. He paused, leaning against the face of the rock. The road turned sharply, going downward on what appeared to be an ancient Indian sand trail. A car could descend, but it would be perilous.

  He stared below. Perriquey’s car had gone down this sand shelf. It was parked in the hollow below it. Ric saw another car near the Chrysler. Then he saw the ruins of an Indian rock dwelling. He moved his gaze over the ancient openings, the entrances, the ledges, the stones discolored and broken with age.

  He turned, walked back to the Porsche.

  “Eve, I’m going down there.”

  “Ric—”

  “The cars are down there. They haven’t gotten out of here yet. Maybe they think they’re safe, maybe they think they’re trapped. I’ve got to find out. You walk to the edge of this cliff where you can see down there, and watch the trail behind us. If nothing happens, you wait an hour.”

  “Ric—”

  “An hour. No more than that, you hear? Don’t panic, just start this car and get the hell out of here. You get back to Rehan. You tell him about this place.”

  “Oh, Ric.” She writhed out of the car, caught him in her arms. “God help you, Ric. Please, God help you.”

  Chapter Twnety-Three

  Ric returned to the sandslide. Pressed against the face of the hill, he stared down into the flat stone table and the solid rock from which the Indians had painfully hacked a dwelling.

  He saw nothing move. But he figured that Perriquey, or someone with him, had killed the agent back on the desert. A lookout would be on guard. Unless they were deep inside the ruin they should have heard the engine as the Porsche climbed the narrow path.

  He walked back along the road, found a path that led upward through the boulders. He moved along it, hurrying. He rounded the hill and when he started down he was on the far side of the ruins.

  He let himself down cautiously. He did not even breathe until his feet touched the flat surface of the wind-smoothed rock.

  He was on the blind side of the stone dwelling. He ran across the rock to the wall and then moved around it. He felt the sun blazing against his head, against the back of his neck. The stone was hot against his hands.

  He stared at the cars. No one was in them. He stepped into the first arched opening. This corridor ran across the front of the dwelling. The other floors had been destro
yed or eroded so that long shafts of sunlight poured through all through the ruin.

  He pushed himself into a shadow, listening. The place was silent with the heavy silence of ancient tombs. Outside on the flat rock fine sand sifted in the breeze, but there was no whisper of it in here.

  He moved along the corridor, warily. He removed the gun from its holster, pushed off the catch. He felt better with the heavy firearm in his hand. He passed other broken arches and saw they led like ant tunnels deeper into the ruin, but most were illumined because the whole roof of this place had been torn away except in small patches.

  His foot slipped and he stopped, drawing back. Gasping, he stared down into a prospector’s shaft. He heard a stone clatter down it and for a moment he did not move.

  A shadow flickered ahead of him and he jerked his head up. From an arch thirty feet in front of him, a man leaped, snouting.

  The man’s yell sprang through the ruin, struck against the walls and trailed through the ruined corridors.

  For a second he faced Ric, both standing in shadow with an oblong of sunlight like a forbidden rug between them.

  The man brought up his gun and Ric shot him.

  He pressed the trigger, hearing the sound of his gun going away from him with the speed of the bullet, smashing itself against the stone and the walls and the empty places, and then echoing through the hills as though it would never cease.

  The man fired in the fraction of an instant after Ric pressed off his shot. The bullet from the man’s gun struck the stone flooring and ricocheted into the wall. But its sound raced after the other sound, bouncing from hill and canyon.

  Ric moved forward, watching the man. He dropped the gun as if moving in slow motion and clutched at his coat front with both hands. He sank to his knees with his head lowered and for an instant he looked as if he were praying to the ancient gods who had once inhabited this place. He sprawled forward then and was dead by the time Ric got to him.

  Ric stepped through the arch through which the guard had come. The darkened corridor led deep into the heart of the dwelling, going downward.

  Ahead, a man shouted. Ric pressed against the chilled stone, standing in the shadow and waiting. Someone answered, deeper. The sounds rode on the silence and echoed so that they were lost. Ric could not say just where they came from.

  He was moving forward when he heard the wailing cry of a baby. Something happened to him. It was as though there were an upward thrust of hope and exultation. The baby was alive.

  Suddenly Ric was running. The baby was alive. The baby was alive. He had no other thought. He forgot caution. He just whispered, praying the baby would keep crying like that. It would lead him to it like radar.

  He ran, feeling the baby’s wailing striking against him, bouncing off, pulling him forward.

  The wall curved suddenly and Ric rounded it. He was breathing through his mouth. The baby was nearer, directly ahead of him.

  He heard the sound of footsteps and they were like fists against the back of his neck. He leaped to the wall and turned around.

  He felt something like the sting of a wasp. It drove him stumbling forward. He grasped at the wall, and did not even know he had been shot until the reverberating sound of gunfire beat its way through the pounding of blood in his temples, the fire of agony in his side.

  He toppled to his knees, still clinging to the flat surface of the wall, dragging his splayed fingers along it.

  The corridor spun around him. All he could think of was what a crazy damned fool thing to happen. He had found the baby and it was alive, and it was too late.

  The footsteps grew louder and Ric turned. He felt his fingers loosen on his gun and knew if he dropped it he would never be able to pick it up again.

  He sagged forward, using all his strength to hold the gun.

  He struck on his side, watching the man run toward him.

  He saw him pause and lift the gun to fire again.

  Ric pressed the trigger. He pressed it again. He pressed it again. The man staggered backward and never fired his gun.

  Ric moved forward on his knees. He could feel the blood hot and sticky down his side. He tried to hurry but it was as though he were crawling through mud.

  He managed to get to his feet.

  For a moment the baby had stopped crying. Either somebody had his hand over its mouth or the sound of gunfire had startled it into silence.

  Ric closed his eyes so the corridor would not spin. He moved, then realized he was walking toward the man he had killed. He was going the wrong way. He turned around slowly, stumbling along the corridor.

  The baby cried once and the sound was abruptly clapped off. Somebody was holding his hand over the baby’s mouth.

  Ric ran forward, holding his bleeding side. His head would not clear. This was one of those nightmares where you ran on rubbery legs along an endless corridor.

  His shoulder bumped an arched wall. Lamplight flared from a circular room with a domed roof.

  He saw Perriquey. The tall slender man was standing across the room. Ric saw he had the baby in his arms, his hand slapped across its mouth.

  Perriquey threw the baby to the stone floor and grabbed out his gun from its shoulder holster. Perriquey was mouthing curses, and there was no suggestion of the suave guest of the dude ranch.

  He leveled the gun at the baby.

  “Perriquey.” Ric spoke his name sharply. Perriquey cursed, not even hearing him. He said it again.

  “Perriquey.”

  The tall man spun around, shooting. Ric stayed where he was, holding the deliberate aim he had fixed on Perriquey.

  He pressed the trigger. For a moment he went on standing there against the arched wall. Perriquey was hit. He stumbled back, bending like a brittle limb that is snapped. He dropped the gun and it seemed to Ric he was taking two forevers to fail.

  Painfully, Ric hefted the gun, lifting it to fire again. But he did not press the trigger. Perriquey sprawled forward on his face. For a moment the sense of release and the fire of fever flared through Ric. The domed room wheeled around as if spinning on a pin. He felt his knees give way and he almost fell.

  Then he heard the baby crying and he held on tight until the room was still enough so that he could stagger across it toward the crying baby.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Ric was panting. He had not known it was so far across this room. They had set up a table near the wall. On it were opened milk cans, cigarette packs, bread, matches, a clutter of odds and ends, an ammunition cylinder from an automatic.

  He paused, leaning heavily on the table, breathing through his mouth.

  Perriquey was sprawled on the floor near his feet, but Ric did not look at him. The baby whimpered and as though driven by some force he didn’t even understand, Ric stood straight, squinting his eyes, shaking his head, hoping it would clear.

  He saw the baby move from the floor at the wall where Perriquey had hurled it. He stepped over Perriquey’s body, a giant step and knelt.

  Through the blur that obscured his vision he saw the baby withdraw from him. “Hell, kid,” he said. “I won’t hurt you. You’re all right, kid. You’re all right now.”

  He never knew what soothed the child, the tone of his voice, some instinct inside the baby, or perhaps the gentle way he lifted him. The baby whimpered once, but did not cry out again. Ric felt the baby arms go about his neck. He felt a tightness in his throat. It had been a long time. The kid needed somebody to cling to. You picked a great one this time, kid, he thought, I don’t even know if I can make it out of here. It’s like wading knee-deep in alligators.

  “Mama,” the child said.

  Ric was moving toward the corridor.

  “Yeah, kid, that’s right,” he said. “You’re on your way. You hang on.”

  He stopped in the corridor, staring both ways along it. He could not remember the direction he should go. Shafts of sunlight illumined the tunnel, impossible distances from him. It had to be right the first shot. He di
dn’t have the fuel for any dry runs over the field.

  His gaze touched the body of the second man he’d shot. He walked toward him, biting down on his underlip, feeling the sweat work through the pores of his forehead.

  “Oh, kid,” he said. “I thought you weighed about twenty-two pounds. You’re heavy, kid. Anybody ever tell you, you’re heavy, kid? You want to carry Uncle Ric? How about that, kid, you want to carry Uncle Ric?”

  He could hardly lift his leg high enough to go through the arch into the outer corridor. He tightened his grasp on the boy and staggered across it, stepped out into the sunlight. The two cars still baked in the stone forecourt.

  He lifted his head, stared at the sandslide across the courtyard, the impossible distance.

  “Eve.”

  There was no answer. He told himself he had not expected there would be any answer. That would be too easy. To walk across a sunblasted flat rock, one lifted one leg and placed it before the other. Ric did that again and again. The sun spun behind his eyeballs, boiling the liquid inside his head.

  He started up the sandslide, feeling his shoes slip. Up the sandslide, Ric thought. The story of my life.

  “Eve.”

  He heard the engine of the Porsche roar into life. She was starting the car. She had waited for him and now his time was up. She was getting out of there.

  Laughter sobbed out of him. That was funny. Maybe the funniest thing that would ever happen to him. He was almost up the sandslide and Eve was going to drive away and leave him.

  Suddenly he saw her. She was a blur there at the top of the chute. But she was there.

  “Ric. Oh, Ric, I had to come back for one last look.”

  She ran the three steps down the incline to him, caught his arm. He felt the pressure of her fingers and he wanted to laugh again. He would never have made it if her fingers hadn’t touched him just at that moment.