by Trevanian
"Desk," answered a thin, bored voice near him on the floor, somewhere in the rubble of broken glass. He pawed about blindly, trying to find the receiver. "Desk." He felt a volley of pains in the small of his back, and he knew the little bitch was kicking him with the relentless rhythm of frightened fury. "Desk." The voice was impatient. He could not ward off the kicks; all he could do was curl up around the receiver and take it. The pains became duller and duller until they were only pressures. "Desk." Jonathan's tongue was thick and alien. With his disobedient lips pressing against the mouthpiece, he struggled to form a word.
"Ben!" he blurted with a treble whimper, and the word chased him down into warm black water.
ARIZONA: June 29
A light fluttered on the black water, and Jonathan, disembodied, rushed through miles of space toward it. He gained on the spark, and it grew larger, until it developed into a window with stripes of daylight glaring through a Venetian blind. He was in his room. A great flesh-colored glob hung over him.
"How's it going, ol' buddy?"
He tried to sit up, but a thud of pain nailed him to the pillow.
"Relax. Doctor said you're going to be just fine. He says it may hurt for a few days when you piss. George sure gave your kidneys a going over."
"Give me something to drink."
"Beer?"
"Anything." Jonathan inched his way to a sitting position, moving up through strata of thickening headache.
Ben made a clumsy attempt to feed him the beer, but Jonathan relieved him of his heavy solicitude by snatching the can away after a third of it had spilled on his chest. "Where is she?" he asked once his thirst was slaked.
"I got her locked up, and a couple of my staff are watching her. Want me to call into town for the sheriff?"
"No, not yet. Tell me, Ben..."
"No, he hasn't. I figured you'd be wondering if this Mellough had checked out The desk will call me if he tries."
"So it was Miles?"
"That's what George says."
"All right. He's had it. Let's get me into the shower."
"But the doctor said—"
Jonathan's suggestion as to what the doctor could do with his advice was beyond the routine of physiotherapy and, moreover, beyond ballistic probability.
Ben half carried him into the shower where Jonathan turned on the cold water and let it beat on him, clearing the moss from his mind. "Why, Ben? I'm really not that bad."
"The oldest reason in the world, ol' buddy," he shouted over the noise of the shower.
"Love?"
"Money."
The water was doing its work, but with the return of feeling came a pounding headache and pains in his kidneys. "Toss me in a bottle of aspirin. What did she shoot into me?"
"Here." Ben's big paw thrust the bottle through the shower curtain. "Doctor says it was some relative of morphine. He had a name for it. But it wasn't a lethal dose."
"So it would appear." The aspirin disintegrated in his hand with the splatter of water, so he tipped the bottle up to his mouth then washed the tablets down by gulping under the shower head. He gagged as bits of aspirin caught in his throat "Morphine figures. Miles is in the drug business."
"Is that right? But how come he went that far and didn't put you away for good? George said he had promised her nothing serious would happen to you. Just wanted to scare you off."
"Her concern is touching."
"Maybe she just didn't want to die for murder."
"That sounds more like it." Jonathan turned off the water and began to towel himself down, but not too vigorously, because every sharp motion slopped pain around in his head. "My guess is that Miles intended to come in after George put me under and shoot me full of junk. The death would be attributed to an overdose. It's typical Mellough. Safe and oblique."
"He's a bad ass all right. What are you going to do about him?"
"Something massive."
After Jonathan dressed, they went down the hall to the room in which George was being kept. He felt a twinge of regret when he saw her swollen eye and the split lip he had given her, but this quickly faded when the bruises along his spine reminded him of how she had tried to help the morphine put him away.
She looked more Indian than ever, clutching a blanket around her shoulders, under which she was as naked as she had been when Ben broke in to save him.
"How much did he pay you, George?" he asked.
She almost spat back her response. "Goddam your eyes, you shit!"
These were the only words he ever heard her speak.
Ben could not help chuckling as they returned to Jonathan's room. "I guess she's been around me too much."
"It's not that, Ben. They always talk about my eyes afterwards. Look, I'm going to get a couple hours' sleep. Will you have your people at the desk make up my bill?"
"You leaving right away?"
"Soon. Is the Land-Rover ready?"
"Yeah."
"And the shotgun?"
"It'll be on the floorboards. I imagine you don't want Mellough to know you're checking out."
"On the contrary. But don't do anything special about it. He'll find out. Miles is a specialist in information."
He awoke refreshed three hours later. The effects of the morphine had worn off and his headache was gone, but his kidneys still felt a little soggy. He dressed with special care in one of his better suits, packed his suitcases, and telephoned to the desk to have them put in the Land-Rover.
As he entered the lounge he saw the blond wrestler sitting at the bar, a broad strip of tape over his swollen nose.
"Good afternoon, Dewayne." Ignoring the bodyguard's glare of hate, he passed through the lounge, along a walkway, and over a bridge to the table at which Miles sat, poised and impeccable in a suit of metallic gold.
"Join me, Jonathan?"
"I owe you a drink."
"So you do. And we all know what a stickler you are for old debts. You're looking very nice. Your tailor is accurate, if uninspired."
"I'm not feeling too well. I had a bad night."
"Oh? I'm sorry to hear that."
The young Indian waiter who had served them the first day approached the table, his glances at Miles filled with tender remembrance. Jonathan ordered, and the two of them watched the bathers around the pool until the drinks arrived and the waiter departed.
"Cheers, Jonathan?"
Jonathan drank off the Laphroaig and put the glass on the table. "I've decided to forget about you for now, Miles."
"Have you? Just like that?"
"I'm going to be staying here in training for a couple more weeks, and I won't be able to concentrate on it with you on my mind. I have a big climb in front of me." Jonathan was sure that Miles knew he had checked out. The obvious lie was calculated to make Miles think he had him on the run, and Miles was the kind to press such an advantage.
"I sympathize with your problem, Jonathan. Truly I do. But unless this means you are crossing me off your list for good..." He lifted his shoulders in helpless regret.
"I might do just that. Let's have dinner together tonight and talk about it."
"A delightful idea."
Jonathan had to admire Miles's silky control.
Jonathan rose. "See you this evening."
"I'm looking forward to it." Miles raised his glass in salute.
The Land-Rover was parked in the loading zone in front of the lodge. As Jonathan climbed in, he noticed on the floorboards next to the shotgun a thoughtful gift from Ben: a six-pack of cold beer. He opened a can and sipped at it while he glanced over the area map on his lap. He had earlier located a long dirt road running in thin broken lines deep into the desert. Ben had told him it was a little-used rut track that only government rangers drove on. For more than a hundred fifty miles, the road pierced into the core of the western desert, then it stopped abruptly.
Tracing back with his finger, he found the place where the dirt track began, branching west from a north-south gravel access road. Th
is gravel road joined the main highway about a mile west of the turnoff to Ben's place. Considering the difference in speed between the Rover and the rental car at Miles's disposal, that mile of good highway promised to be the most dangerous stretch.
Fixing the map in his mind, Jonathan folded it away and drove off, slowly winding up from the basin. On one of the cutbacks he glanced down to find that Miles's car was already in pursuit. He pressed down on the gas.
Seated beside Dewayne, Faggot in his arms, Miles saw Jonathan's sudden increase in speed. "He knows we're following him. Go get him, Dewayne. Here's your chance to reinstate yourself in my good graces." And he fondly scratched behind Faggot's ears as the car sprayed dust in a skidding turn.
The Rover's superior traction and suspension made up for its disadvantage in speed, and the distance between the two did not much alter throughout the race until the last flat hundred yards before the highway, during which Miles gained perceptibly on the Rover. Dewayne pulled an automatic from his shoulder holster.
"Don't," Miles ordered. "We'll pull along side on the highway where we can be sure of it." Miles knew the Rover had no chance of outdistancing him along the five miles of good road to town.
Jonathan approached the highway at full speed and quickly turned west, away from town.
For an instant Miles was troubled by the unexpected move. Then he decided that Jonathan realized the hopelessness of an open race and was seeking some back road on which the qualities of the Rover would give him a chance.
"I think this would be a good time to get him,
Dewayne."
The car torqued low on its springs as it bounced onto the highway and screamed around the corner in pursuit.
Jonathan held the accelerator to the floor, but at seventy the Rover was flat out, and the automobile gained on him steadily. The gravel cutoff was only half a mile away, but the car behind was so close that he could distinguish Miles through the rearview mirror. In a moment they would swing out and pull up beside him. He saw Miles roll down his window and lean back to give Dewayne a clear field of fire.
When they were almost on his bumper, Jonathan reached down and switched on his lights.
Seeing the tail lights flash, and imagining Jonathan had hit his brakes, Dewayne jammed down on his own, and the wheels squealed and smoked, while the Rover roared on at its best speed.
By the time Dewayne had fumbled his foot back onto the gas, Jonathan had gained sufficient distance to reach the gravel road with fifty yards lead. Miles swore to himself. It had been Henri who had told them about the headlight ploy.
Several times on the gravel road, when his lead was threatened, Jonathan wagged the wheel and caused the Rover to zigzag slightly, raising clouds of blinding dust which forced the car to fall back. In this way he held his advantage until he came to the ranger trail that led out into the desert. Once he was on this meandering track of potholes, and unbanked turns, and ruts so deep the automobile repeatedly bottomed, he had no difficulty maintaining his lead. He was even able to open another can of beer, although it splashed over him when he bounced into an unexpected hole.
"Just keep him in sight, Dewayne." At the turnoff onto the dirt road Miles had seen a weathered sign warning drivers that there was no outlet. Sooner or later, Jonathan would have to turn back. The road, often winding between giant outcroppings of sandstone, was not wide enough for two cars to pass. He had Jonathan in a box.
For nearly an hour the vehicles sped over the flat, gray-tan country where nothing grew in the powdery, baked earth. Dewayne had returned his gun to its holster where its pressure made him sweat freely. Faggot whimpered and pranced with sharp claws in Miles's lap. Sliding from side to side with each abrupt turn, Miles braced himself with pressure between feet and back. His lips were tight with chagrin at being unable to sit with poise. Even Faggot's frantic and moist gestures of affection irritated him.
The vehicles raced and jolted over the desert, lofting two high plumes of fine dust behind them.
Despite the stream of air gushing in through the open side of the Rover, Jonathan's back adhered with perspiration to the plastic seat. As he bounced over a rut, the jerry cans behind him clanged together, reminding him that it would not do for those chasing him to run out of fuel. He began to search for a site appropriate to his needs.
Dewayne hunched over the wheel and squinted into the dust rising before him. His jaw muscles flexed in anticipation of revenge.
About two miles farther on, Jonathan caught sight of an outcropping of rock, a single ragged sandstone boulder around which the track made an S-turn. It was ideal. He slowly eased off on the gas, allowing those behind to close to within a hundred yards. The instant he made the first turn, he hit his brakes, skidding to a stop and raising dense clouds of choking dust. He snatched the shotgun off the seat, leaped out of the Rover, and dashed for the boulder, knowing he had only seconds in which to scramble around the rock and come out from behind.
As Dewayne steered into the first turn, he was blinded by the swirl of dust. The Land-Rover loomed in front of him, and he jammed down on the brakes. Before the car had slid to a stop, Miles had his door open and had rolled out onto the ground. Dewayne twisted the window handle, grappling desperately at his automatic. Hemlock! The barrels of the shotgun jabbed painfully into his left side. He never heard the shot.
Jonathan snapped back the hammers of the shotgun as he raced desperately around the boulder. He heard the squeal of brakes, and plunged through the dust at a full run. Dewayne's face emerged out of the billowing white fog. He was trying to get his window down. Jonathan rammed the gun in through the half opened window and snapped on both triggers. The blast was deafening.
Dewayne snorted like a hammered steer as the force of the impact slid him across the seat and halfway out the open door, where he dangled and twitched until his nerves discovered they were dead.
Jonathan stepped around in front of the car and reached in under the hanging arm to extract the automatic. He wiped his sticky fingers off on a fragment of Dewayne's jacket he found several feet away from the car.
Miles stood in the settling dust, straightening his cuffs and slapping dirt from his gold suit. The Pomeranian danced epileptically about his legs.
"Really, Jonathan! This suit cost me three hundred dollars and, what's more, five fittings."
"Get into my car."
Miles picked up the squirming dog and walked in front of Jonathan to the Rover, his casual dancer's stride betraying no effect of recent events.
They drove on westward, deeper into the desert. Their lips began to crack with the salt that prevented the most meager vegetation from growing. Jonathan held the automatic high in his left hand so he could fend off any attempt Miles might make for it.
For an hour and a half they pressed on through the shimmering heat of the desert. Jonathan knew that Miles was ready to make his try for the gun. Slight contractions of his hand on his lap, and minute tensings of his shoulders predicted Miles's move. Just as he threw himself after the gun, Jonathan hit the brakes, and Miles went face first into the steering wheel. Jonathan snapped back the emergency brake and jumped out, dragging Miles after him by the collar. He dumped him onto the crackled ground and sprang back into the Rover. By the time Miles had staggered to his feet, a rivulet of blood caked with dirt running from his nose, Jonathan had backed the Rover in a sharp arc. Miles stood in the road, blocking the path with his body.
"You're not going to leave me out here!" The recognition of Jonathan's plan for him grew and filled him with horror as no bullet in the head could have.
Jonathan tried to steer around him, but before he could get up any speed Miles jumped onto the hood. He lay over it, his face pressed against the glass.
"For Christ's sake, Jonathan," he screamed. "Shoot me!"
Jonathan raced forward, then hit the brakes, dumping Miles off the hood. He roared in reverse away from the crumpled body, then sped on, making a wide curve to avoid him.
By the time J
onathan could see his dancing image in the rearview mirror, Miles had reclaimed his characteristic composure and was standing, the dog in his arms, looking after the diminishing Land-Rover.
Jonathan never forgot his last image of Miles, the gold suit glinting in the sunlight. Miles had set the dog down and had taken a comb from his pocket. He ran it through his hair and patted the sides into place.
KLEINE SCHEIDEGG: July 5
Jonathan sat at a round metal table on the terrace of the Kleine Scheidegg Hotel, sipping a glass of grassy Vaudois, enjoying the slight snap of its latent effervescence. He looked across the up-tilted meadow to the gloomy north face of the Eiger. The unstable warmth of the weightless mountain sunlight was puffed away time and again by wisps of crisp highland air.
Touched only once a day and briefly by the sun, the dark concave face hovered malignantly above him, looking as though it had been scooped out of the body of the mountain by some olympian shovel, its brittle gray-black crescent rim cutting into the glittering blue of the sky.
A breeze stirred, and he shivered involuntarily. He remembered his two previous attempts at the face, both beaten back by those brutal storms that roll in from the north and are collected and amplified in the natural amphitheatre of the Eigerwand. So common are those rages of wind and snow that the dour Bernese Oberland guides speak of them as "Eiger Weather." After the last nine-hour dicey retreat from the high ice field called the White Spider—that salient epitome of the mountain's treachery—he had promised himself never to try again.
And yet... It would be a fine mountain to take.
He adjusted his sunglasses and gazed with reluctant fascination at the awful sublimity of the Eiger. The view was uncommon; normally, heavy shrouds of mist hang from the crest, obscuring the storms that lash it, and muffling the crack and roar of avalanches that constitute the mountain's most potent defensive weapon. His eyes snagged on each of those features associated with the defeat and death of some mountaineer.