“I was hired to follow you. That’s it. I’m here to make money. Lame, but true.” Tom cocked an eyebrow at them, evidently his own version of “the smolder.”
It didn’t work.
“Who hired you?” Maria was not messing around. If she couldn’t get a straight answer from this guy, she’d shoot him and figure out a self-defense story later. “And don’t say you don’t know, because I won’t believe you, and it may make me mad enough that I have to kick your sorry—”
“Maria,” Beth interrupted her mid-rant. “Why don’t we let him answer before you give us all the gory details of what you’re going to do to him?”
“Thank you, Maria’s level-headed friend whose name I believe is Beth.” Tom said. “If I did my homework right, you’re married, correct?”
“Yes.” Beth answered icily. “And happily.”
“Excellent.” Tom winked at her.
Maria’s trigger finger itched. “Tom, who hired you?” The anger in her voice was as obvious as the sun’s unrelenting heat they all felt. This was his last chance to give a straight answer.
Tom bent down to tighten his shoelace, setting his water bottle on the dirt. “Melissa hired me. And, if you must know, I’m a professional private detective, well-respected in this area for getting results fast and on-time, all with affordable rates. But I charge Melissa more than my other clients; she can afford it.”
“That’s quite the elevator pitch you’ve got going,” said Maria, eyeing Tom carefully. “Why would Melissa want me followed? I’m the outsider here.”
“Aren’t we all?” Tom picked his water bottle back up and stood. “Melissa thinks everything’s been a bit too coincidental since you showed up. She has her theories. Anyhow, keeping tabs on people is what she does. And I help her. So, do you want to tell me what you two are doing in the middle of—oops.” He accidentally dropped his water bottle. He bent down to get it when an arrow flew through the air close to where he’d been standing.
“What was that?” Beth shrieked.
Still crouched in the dirt, Tom swore.
“Behind the rock,” Maria ordered Beth. “Now!” She shoved her friend to their former hiding place and flipped her gun’s safety off.
“T-that was a f-freaking arrow.” Tom was frozen in place. “S-someone tried to shoot me with an … an a-arrow. W-what kind of place is this?”
“Move!” Maria hissed.
Tom seemed to wake up from his shock. He dropped the rest of the way to the ground and began to crawl. Maria strained to see exactly what had almost impaled him. Even though it was too far away to tell the specifics, it was a modern arrow, probably made from carbon fiber or aluminum.
The aim had been off, and Maria didn’t know if that had been intentional or lack of skill. White-faced, Tom continued to crawl forward. His arms shook.
“You okay?” Maria leaned toward him, grabbed the back of his collar, and pulled him to the rocks where Beth was hidden. “Take deep breaths and stay put.”
Within seconds, Maria had a pair of binoculars out of her backpack. She dropped to the ground and army-crawled forward, spitting out a small bug that flew into her mouth. Scooting sideways, she found cover by several close-knit cacti.
“Do you see—” Tom began.
Maria shot him back a look that said “talk one more time I’m going to shoot you instead.” Peering through the binoculars, Maria strained to see movement, particularly of the human kind. Everything looked as inhospitable and dead as it had moments before the arrow. What was going on?
She leaned a little more into the view of the attacker and a second arrow flew through the air, missing her by a foot. Whoever it was had taken her bait. She’d seen arm movement. She fired her gun at the spot. The noise of the discharge hung in the air like a bolt of thunder, echoing and bouncing off canyon walls.
Another movement. Maria fired another shot. Another arrow.
This was getting nowhere. It was like shooting at a ghost.
The two exchanged a few more arrows and bullets, and then nothing. Silence.
Maria waited. Was this a trap?
Even so, she couldn’t do this all afternoon. She would eventually run out of bullets. They needed to get out of there—in the opposite direction of the arrows. And they needed to do it fast, before the wanna-be Robin Hood did some serious damage.
Maria crawled back to Tom and Beth. The pokey vegetation itched her arms and bits of dust flew up her nose, giving her the sensation that she was in a dust storm in the Middle East. When she reached Tom and Beth, she mouth-whispered, “We need to go that way.” Pointing in the opposite direction from the source of the arrows she continued, “We’ll keep to areas where the person shooting at us can’t get ahead. For this first part we’d better go fast.”
Maria popped up first, trying to draw the first arrow. None came. She waved at Tom and Beth and they followed her lead. The terrain was horrible for running. Maria was forced to look down, instead of ahead, in an effort to dodge loose rocks. They last thing she needed was a twisted ankle.
Shrubbery clawed at her legs, itching and burning her skin. It was drawing close to noon, and the sun’s heat was relentless. Sweat poured down her face. A drink sounded awfully good about now. She could hear her water bottle sloshing back and forth. But she kept running for another twenty minutes, making sure they’d put some distance between them and shooter.
Stopping at last, her breath coming in short, strained gasps, she reached for her cell phone in the side pocket of her pack. Even though there was reception in some parts of the mountains that were closer to civilization, here they were in a dead zone. She hadn’t thought there’d be reception, but it never hurt to check. The next thing was to see how far off the path they were. Maria wasn’t even sure which direction they’d gone. None of the mountains looked familiar. She’d only been here once before, and the GPS had taken her into completely different territory trying to avoid the film crew.
As Tom and Beth caught up, Maria reached into her backpack’s side pocket once more to retrieve the GPS. It would let her know what direction they were headed. Her hands were sweaty from running in the extreme heat. As she removed the device from her pack, it slipped from her grasp, falling directly onto the ragged side of a lava rock.
Light headed, Maria leaned down to pick it up and saw the screen had cracked from the fall. She took the phone in her hand and pressed the button that should wake it up. Nothing lit.
“What’s wrong with this thing?” She slapped it a few times.
Nothing. The screen stayed blank.
“Guys …” said Maria slowly to Tom and Beth. “This isn’t so good. I think I broke my GPS.”
Beth grimaced. “And I left my backpack at the place where the archer was having target practice. I took it off to hide and then when everything happened I forgot to pick it back up.”
“Where’s your water?” asked Maria, already knowing the answer.
“Inside the pack.” Beth hung her head.
“I’ve still got mine and Tom’s got his. We’ll be fine.”
“Uh,” began Tom, sheepishly. “I’m out. I only brought one water bottle that I dropped. Once the arrows started flying I never picked it back up. I wasn’t exactly prepared to go hiking today. I didn’t know when I started following you where you were headed.”
“So my water is all we’ve got?”
Beth and Tom nodded.
“Great.” Maria slid her backpack off and set it on the ground. “Well, let’s see how much we have.”
Everyone took a big swig of water after having run for what seemed like forever. Maria determined they had about three cups left for each of them. She could drink her three cups in a second—the run had taken a lot out of her. But rationing was going to be the only way to stay alive out here.
“The heat is brutal right now.” Beth said.
“I know,” agreed Maria. “Should we take a break or keep moving?”
“Do we know where we’re moving to
?” Tom asked.
“No, but we can figure that out. I need to know how you two are feeling?”
“Let’s keep going,” said Beth. “We should get back and report what happened to the authorities as soon as we can.”
The original goal of examining the crime scene was gone. Now the point of this trip was simply to get out of the Sonora Desert without shriveling up like a raisin. “Okay. Let’s see which direction we need to head. The ranger station is west.”
After poking a stick in the ground and watching its shadow move for about fifteen minutes, Maria knew the general direction they needed to go to get back. They’d been out for at least five hours, and one of that was spent running. At this rate, they wouldn’t get back until evening—and that was only if they didn’t have to cross or climb difficult terrain, not to mention bumping into someone else trying to impale their hearts with a sharp flying stick.
To top it off, they could only drink about a half cup of water per hour. It was going to be a long day.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
After the Civil War, when the sensation caused by the Peralta Massacre had almost been forgotten … the search for gold in Superstition was started up all over again at a much more feverish pace by the appearance of Jacob von Walzer (later shortened by him to Jacob Walz). This interest has never slackened, but, if anything is today even more intense.
—“The Story of Superstition Mountain and the Lost Dutchman Gold Mine” by Robert Joseph Allen, Pocket Books (Simon and Schuster Inc.), 1971, page 53-54.
“WHAT I DON’T GET,” said Beth, “is who is shooting arrows at us? It would have to be Amy or the ranger—they’re the only ones who know we’re here.”
The afternoon sun beat relentlessly on Maria’s shoulders. Her insides felt like they were about to boil. In the last two hours, they’d had to turn around twice and retrace their steps because they’d been unable to find a drop into the canyon below that wasn’t too treacherous and steep.
“I asked myself the same question,” Maria answered. “But then I realized we never told Amy not to tell anyone where we were headed. She could have told Brian and he could have told someone else in the group.”
The threesome trudged on, headed west. “Tom, did you tell anyone we were in the Superstitions?” Maria tried not to talk too much as each time she opened her mouth she got a little more thirsty.
Tom licked his dry lips with his tongue. “Yeah. Melissa knows. I called her. She was in a meeting with Rep. Lankin, so he knows too.”
“How ironic,” said Maria. “The only one who doesn’t know we’re here is Derrick—the one who insisted we get permission to come.”
“Actually he does.” Tom coughed. “He texted me while I was still at the ranger station and had reception. I happen to ask him if he knew why you two would be in the Superstitions, and he kind of freaked out. He’s pretty weird about this place.”
“Yes he is.” Maria fumed. Well, that settled that question. Their secret mission to revisit the crime scene was pretty much public knowledge. She chided herself for not having clued in to Tom’s presence earlier. It had seemed so unlikely someone was following them in this forsaken place—where the dirt was parched, the vegetation brittle, and the air like sandpaper. It seemed every molecule in the entire desert was devoid of water.
An image of Rod and Dakota, hiking gear on their back, walking through this same harsh landscape entered Maria’s mind. Dakota had been apprehensive. Unsure. Scared to be with her volatile husband.
Had Rod’s mind been full of plans of how to kill her? At what point had the outdoor excursion turn deadly? Did the murder happen before he beheaded her? Maria hoped so. Perhaps he strangled her first. Or, maybe it had been long and drawn out. He could have tied her up and refused to give her water. But there had been no sign of rope fibers at the scene. And why had he cut her head off? Had he thought it would make identifying her impossible? But why go to all that bother and then leave her wallet and wedding ring? Not to mention to hide her backpack in such an obvious spot. And the journal? Why would anyone have left that journal? Simply idiotic. Then again, passion, anger—any strong emotion really—made people do dumb things.
Maria felt sick. The last two days she’d refused to let her mind wander to theorizing. But the heat, the stress, and the horrible guilt she was feeling for having gotten Beth into such a precarious situation weighed on her. Her mind was rebelling—going to the dark places she wanted to avoid.
But was that naive of her? Here she was, ex-CIA turned chief of police, and her boyfriend was in jail for alleged murder. Perhaps she should be going through even more scenarios in her mind. Maybe to do otherwise was sticking her head in the sand.
“What’s that?”
Beth’s voice jarred Maria back to issue at hand—her need to survive the desert with no clear path, no guide, and hardly any water.
“What’s what?” Maria looked around to see what Beth might be referring to but saw nothing unusual.
“I hear it too,” said Tom, thoughtfully “Almost like a whimpering animal.”
Oh, a sound.
Beth stopped walking and Maria followed her lead, cocking one ear to the hot air. There was a noise, but it wasn’t an animal. It sounded more human, like a child crying.
“Come on,” Beth said. “I think it’s coming from over here.” Beth walked slightly to the northwest.
Tom hesitated. “We don’t want to get off course. We don’t have that much water. We should probably stay on task.”
“Not me,” said Beth. “If something is in pain, I’ve got to find it. It’s who I am. Tell me I’m an idiot, and I won’t care.”
Maria knew Beth was right. They couldn’t leave something suffering in the middle of the desert. They each had just over a cup of water left. They weren’t destitute … yet.
“Lead the way,” said Maria.
The closer they got to the sound, the more obvious it was that it wasn’t a child. Or even human for that fact. The noise, albeit soft, was widespread. It grew louder, but not enough for any of them to make out clearly what was making the desperate sound.
Beth led them through a three-foot wide crevice in a split lava boulder. She gasped when she reached the end. “Guys, you’re not going to believe this.” She moved to the side of the exit so Tom and Maria could also see what was ahead.
In front of them were thousands, possibly millions, of insects. A swarm the size of three football fields. Crawling all over the ground and flying a foot above it. A red furry patch on the back of the inch-long bugs gave the impression that the desert floor was covered with blood, rolling back and forth in waves.
“What are they?” asked Tom.
“Velvet ants,” answered Beth. “They must be mating.”
“They’re squeaking,” said Maria. “The noise is coming from them.”
“Yep, it’s the females on the ground who make that noise. They also pack a pretty bad sting. It’s only the males that fly, and they don’t bite.”
“Typical,” sniffed Tom.
“How do you know so much?” Maria asked her friend. “Do you have a secret degree in zoology?”
“Nope.” Beth bent down to get a closer look at the ants. “I happen to have a fondness for national geographic shows on PBS.”
“Hey guys,” said Tom, pointing past the crawling mass of insects, “the canyon drop-in is over there. Check it out.”
It was true. Five hundred yards in front of them was a sloping but passable stretch of mountain that could get them through the elusive canyon that had been stopping their progress. But unfortunately there was no way to skirt around the swarming insects. Steep mountain cliffs blocked the insects on the left and right.
“The drop-in looks perfect,” said Maria, “except to get to it requires us to split the Red Sea.” She pointed to the bugs.
“But,” responded Tom, “it would save us time not having to retrace our steps again. I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to get really thirsty.”
“If national geographic is right, only half of them bite. And they’re not necessarily aggressive. I’m game,” said Beth.
“I think it’s suicide,” said Maria. “Let’s take a minute to rest and then head back. The only way I’m going through there is if we have arrows coming at us again.” Unfortunately, the minute she said it her neck began to tingle.
As if the Superstitions Mountains had ears, an arrow sailed by the three of them. Tom swore. Beth yelped. Maria jumped.
“So … are we going through the ants?” Beth hissed.
“Yes,” Maria and Tom answered together.
The three ran straight into the blanket of fuzzy red-winged squeaking ants. The harmless males flew into Maria’s legs, hitting into her shins, calves, and thighs. She resisted the urge to swipe them away, but instead focused on pumping her arms and running straight ahead. She pressed her mouth closed in case one of the males decided to gain altitude.
The first bite she felt was near her ankle. And it stung. No, it burned, like someone was putting a soldering iron on her flesh and letting it sit there. The desire to reach down and get the nasty female off of her leg was strong, but she knew if she did it would slow her down.
To her side, Beth yelped in pain. So did Tom. What Beth hadn’t mentioned was whether or not the female ants could bite multiple times.
Turns out they could.
Even with the hundreds of other bugs flying into her, Maria felt the same biting female inch its way up her leg. It was at mid-calf, then right below the knee.
Another bite. She felt the searing dose of ant venom enter her bloodstream, and she wanted to scream. The first sting hadn’t calmed down at all. In fact, it had only gotten more intense. Hot and scorching.
How many more bites could Maria stand? But there was nothing to do but keep running. She was halfway through the mass. At this point there was no reason to turn back, unless she wanted to get bitten to death and impaled by an arrow.
The desire to open her mouth and shriek was overwhelming. She knew it wouldn’t physically help, but mentally it might. But she had faced similar decisions during her torture in Tehran. And like then, she kept her mouth closed.
Skeletons Among Us: Legends of Treasure Book 2 Page 10