Lynn Michaels

by The Dreaming Pool

  Closing her eyes, she listened to the horses drink noisily from a gutter in the stone floor, and wished to God her head would stop pounding. She ached all the way to her bone marrow, felt as old and wet and cold as the stone she sagged against. Oh, Gage, she cried silently, where are you—

  A sudden, stabbing pain sliced between Eslin’s eyes. She gasped, staggered, and fell to her knees clutching her temples. Colors exploded inside her head, vibrant, lurid colors that burned hot and white in the middle. Eslin tried to focus on the center, to see the shape that was forming there, but a second killing pain lanced through her head and she fainted.

  She came awake with a jolt as something cold and wet splashed across her forehead. Blinking up at Ramón’s pale face, Eslin saw that she lay on the chilly stone floor of the grotto, the back of her neck propped against the boy’s thin arm.

  “Are you all right?” he asked shakily. “I came back with the grass and found you out cold.”

  “I’m fine now.” Eslin sighed, closing her eyes. “Just give me a minute.”

  It took her about that long to meditate and memorize the message Gage had sent her telepathically. Along with a picture of and the exact location of the white stucco house where he and Ethan were tied to two rickety old chairs, he’d told her to get herself and Ramón out of here, to find Doc and the FBI man Faber, and that he loved her. She savored the last part of the message, and except for the whereabouts of the house, ignored the rest.

  As psychically untrained and clumsy as Gage was, Eslin couldn’t fathom how he’d mastered such a detailed and lengthy message. She guessed by sheer force of will, and again, briefly, the power of his gift awed her. She sat up then with tears of joy and relief in her eyes, thinking it was no small wonder her head had felt like it was going to explode. But the pain was gone now that Gage had finally gotten her attention.

  “I know where Gage and Ethan are,” she told Ramón, as he helped her to her feet. “It isn’t far, we’ll leave the horses here.”

  When they reached the mushy, trammeled end of the track, a faint whinny lilted on a breath of cold, saturated wind. It sent gooseflesh flooding up the back of Eslin’s neck and widened Ramón’s eyes as he looked at her, then broke into a run behind her as she followed the tire treads across the grassy slope and over a break in the hillside that was scattered with tumbled boulders. Remnants of some long-ago rockslide, Eslin thought, pausing to catch her breath and glancing up at the jagged cliff face rearing behind them. The tire tracks veered past them to the left, then gouged right across a clear patch of ground and disappeared over another crest in the slope.

  Careful, warned a voice inside her head. It wasn’t her little voice, but Gage’s, and Eslin motioned Ramón to follow her as she ducked behind a chest-high, wedge-shaped outcropping of stone.

  Scrambling over the rocks and slipping in the mud, they picked their way down the hillside. The slabs of granite were slick though the rain had stopped, and they were both winded by the time they reached the second break. It was a much steeper plunge here where the tire tracks ran along the rim until the slope dipped gently into a small, triangular canyon.

  A small, white stucco house with muddy walls backed against the stone rise of the canyon about forty yards from where Eslin and Ramón crouched safely out of sight. Another twenty or so yards across a soupy stretch of muddy yard stood a poled corral, and in the middle of it, lazing nose to tail with the chestnut gelding, stood Ganymede.

  Beside Eslin, Ramón sprang up with his hands on the rock shelf screening them from view of the house. Grabbing him roughly by the sodden sleeve of his sweater, Eslin hauled him down again. His right foot slid out from under him, kicked and dislodged a loose slab of shale that sprang loose and clattered away.

  The chestnut gelding, still wearing his saddle and bridle, didn’t so much as flick an ear, but Ganymede raised his head and flared his nostrils. Clutching Ramón’s arm, Eslin ducked behind the rock, counted ten, then glared at the boy as she pressed the side of her right index finger firmly to her lips. He nodded, and side by side they rose cautiously on their knees, the mud seeping wetly through their jeans, to peer over the pitted granite.

  The stallion’s mane and tail were snarled, his coat no longer red and shiny but shaggy and dull; still, no amount of dirt could blur the fine lines of Ganymede’s head, his deep chest, and beautifully molded quarters. Tears of relief swelled in the corners of Eslin’s eyes, then froze there as she heard the rasping sputter of the Jeep engine.

  Tugging at her sleeve, Ramón drew her behind him as he retreated ten yards or so up the slope behind a larger chunk of rock that provided better cover. They crouched behind it, cowering as the Jeep came closer and they heard its tires spinning through the mud. When the engine died, Eslin leaned her trembling hands on the pitted granite beside Ramón and rose on her knees in time to see the cousin in the sheepskin jacket slide out from behind the wheel and let himself into the white stucco house.

  It was almost six o’clock, less than seven hours till midnight, and there was no time to lose.

  “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” Eslin whispered, rolling on her shoulder toward Ramón and catching his wrists tightly in her hands. “It’ll be dark soon, and I don’t think we can count on Doc and Faber and the FBI charging in to rescue Gage and Ethan. I think they would’ve been here by now. We’re going to have to do it ourselves.”

  “How?” Ramón asked.

  “Once it’s good and dark, you’re going to create a diversion while I get Gage and Ethan out of the house.”

  “No.” Ramón shook his head stubbornly. “You could get hurt. You create the diversion, I’ll spring ‘em.”

  “I can’t, Ramón, you’re a better rider than I am.” Eslin tightened her grip on the boy’s wrists. “Ganymede will have to be the diversion, and you’re the only one who’s got a prayer of riding him out of this canyon in one piece.”

  Chapter 34

  Gage held the image as long as he could, until his mind could no longer override the agony in his knotted, cramping muscles. He opened his eyes then, and clenched his teeth to keep from screaming at the pain in his right shoulder and his ribs. Beside him Ethan had slumped in his chair again, his chin bent down on his chest.

  Across the room Marco Byrne was still sitting in the recliner writing. When he finally raised his head and sighed deeply, all but the corner of the house by the fireplace, where the embers glowed a deep, angry red, was dark and heavily hung with shadows.

  Gage heard nearby muffled footsteps, then the creak of the recliner and a rough, scraping sound. He smelled sulfur, then blinked in a flare of light from an oil lamp sitting on a small battered table below one of the wood-shuttered windows. Marco’s right hand trembled as he held a kitchen match to the wick and replaced the lantern’s glass globe. He walked to the door, flung it open, and Eduardo stepped inside.

  Thanks to years of being cursed by Josefina, Gage could usually understand Spanish, but Marco and his cousin snapped back and forth at each other so rapidly that all he caught was “No sé”—”I don’t know”—muttered over and over by Eduardo as Byrne hissed questions at him in a furious whisper. Their exchange lasted a minute or two, then Marco dismissed him and kicked the door shut behind him.

  Ethan woke up then, yawning and blinking. Byrne ignored him, walked to the fire, and jabbed at the glowing ash with a small log picked up from a stack on the floor. Marco just stood there, feeding the fire long enough for the warmth to penetrate Gage’s body, and for his mind to realize that Eslin must’ve heard his psychic message.

  She must have, otherwise Harpo or Eduardo and Zeppo would have found them long ago. He’d done it, goddamn, he’d done it. A slow, triumphant smile spread across Gage’s face.

  “Too bad,” he said smugly. “Ten years of planning out the window. It must really rankle you to be beaten by a woman and a boy.”

  Byrne pivoted and glanced at him over his shoulder. Ethan shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

&n
bsp; “Which one of you wishes to die for your father’s crime?” Marco asked.

  Ethan stiffened and started shivering again.

  “Why not both of us?” Gage asked.

  “That was the original plan. A life for a life, one for my father, one for my mother.” Byrne opened his briefcase and took out several fresh sheets of paper and a silver automatic pistol. “However, since Miss Hillary and Ramón are not here to witness the executions, one of you must live to take back the signed confession.”

  “Take it where?” Ethan demanded. “To whom?”

  “I’ve written instructions.” Byrne laid the paper on the table, raised the pistol, removed the safety, and pulled back the clip. It clicked coldly into place. “Which one of you?”

  “Me,” Gage said, just as Ethan blurted, “I will.”

  Marco laughed.

  “I’ll choose,” he said, and leveled the automatic at Ethan. “You.” He smiled and swung the pistol toward Gage. “You will put a bullet through Ganymede’s brain. Then I will retie you to your chair next to your brother’s body, and when I reach Buenos Aires sometime tomorrow I will telephone the police here and tell them where to find you.”

  “You’ve forgotten Eslin and Ramón,” Gage told him. “They could be in the police station in Oaxaca right now.”

  “They have no proof.” Marco’s smile widened as he withdrew his pen from his sweater. “And who would believe such a fantastic story?”

  “Somebody might,” Ethan put in shakily. “And if the police do believe them, then what?”

  “It will be too late.” He tossed the pen down on the table, walked to the window, and picked up the paring knife used to trim the wick on the oil lamp. “You will be dead, so will Ganymede, and Eduardo and I will be on a plane for Argentina.”

  “What about Alberto and Zeppo and Harpo?” Gage asked.

  “They will have your six million dollars.” Marco smiled, moved to the door, and called his cousin.

  It was night, cold and raining again. Shaking the rain off his shoulders, Eduardo stepped inside with the rifle and shut the door. Byrne muttered something in Spanish and handed the paring knife to his cousin, who put his rifle down against the wall. Nodding, Eduardo walked around Ethan’s chair, cut him loose, and yanked him to his feet.

  Every muscle in Gage’s body leapt as Ethan’s knees buckled and he all but crumpled on the floor. Eduardo hauled him over to the table and pushed him down in a chair. Gage could scarcely hear over the roar of the blood pounding in his ears, could scarcely breathe for the band of dread and fear tightening around his chest as Byrne forced the pen into Ethan’s numb fingers and shoved a sheet of paper in front of him.

  “Write what I say,” he told him, pressing the barrel of the automatic to his temple. “I, Ethan Roundtree, sign of my own free will this confession, and sacrifice my life to atone for the murder of John Mark Byrne on December twelfth …”

  Gage stopped listening then as he watched his brother write, his arm and hand shaking as he hunched over the table. Ethan’s eyes blinked furiously behind his glasses and the corners of his mouth trembled.

  Regrets and recriminations flooded through Gage’s mind as he squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to cry. If only he’d listened to Eslin, if only he’d let her teach him, maybe he could’ve gotten his message through to her sooner, and then Ethan wouldn’t have to die. Oh, God, he wished he’d let her teach him. If he had it to do over again he would’ve listened to Eslin and the voice inside his head. And he would’ve told Ethan that he loved him.

  “I herewith acknowledge that my father, Edward Roundtree, did maliciously malign and conspire to convict John Mark Byrne…”

  Over the drone of Marco’s voice Gage heard a shrill, piercing sound from outside. It was Ganymede’s whinny, he knew it, and so did Marco, he realized, as he opened his eyes and saw him whirl toward the door with the automatic. The stallion bugled again and the chestnut gelding whinnied excitedly.

  Shouting in Spanish, Marco bolted away from the table. Eduardo snatched up the oil lamp, his rifle, and charged behind his cousin as he threw open the door. The rain had stopped, but the wind caught the flame and sucked it past the globe as Gage shoved his numb feet against the dirt floor and pushed himself up in time to see Ganymede leap over the corral fence. The lamp flickered; his knees gave out on him and he staggered, but saw a faint glimmer of green sweater burrowed into the stallion’s withers.

  “Eslin, no!” he shouted, then fell across the table and felt a searing pain across his taped-up ribs.

  “Shoot them!” Marco screamed in English, and then in Spanish, the whites of his eyes gleaming in the last lick of light from the oil lamp as it went out.

  Marco’s body was a slightly blacker shape against the darkness as he shoved Eduardo back into the house. Gasping for breath, Gage felt Ethan throw himself out of the chair, heard the heavy stamp of Eduardo’s boots on the floor, then the sputtering roar of the Jeep’s engine. The headlights blazed on just outside the door, illuminating the shaggy sheepskin at Eduardo’s throat, the flashlight he fumbled to switch on in his left hand, and the rifle cradled against his body in his right arm. As the headlights whooshed around in an arc beyond the door and Byrne shot away in the Jeep in pursuit of Ganymede, Gage figured that they had no more than twenty seconds before Eduardo would point the rifle at them.

  He felt his ribs crack as he tried, but didn’t quite manage, to fling himself backward off the table. When Eduardo flicked on the flashlight, Ethan launched himself out of a runner-like squat beside Gage, and Eduardo swung the beam of the flashlight and the barrel of the rifle toward him. Sprawled across the table, all Gage could do was watch Ethan lunge at Marco’s cousin.

  In the backwash of the flashlight he saw something move, something small and green. Then he heard a sickening crunch and a body hit the floor with a solid thud.

  “Eslin!” Ethan breathed raggedly, and Gage squinted as the beam swooped up and he saw her muddy face and her wind-snarled hair behind it.

  “Hurry.” She panted breathlessly, thrusting the flashlight at Ethan and snatching up the paring knife that still lay on the table where Eduardo had put it. “Ramón’s on Ganymede, but Marco’s right behind him, and I think there’s another cousin up on the trail!”

  Oh, Christ—Zeppo, Gage thought, as she stumbled around the table, cut him free of the chair, and it clattered to the floor. Straightening up was agony, and he probably would’ve fallen if she hadn’t slid her arm around him and helped him walk to the door. Eduardo lay unconscious on the floor beside a large rock.

  “Can you ride?” Eslin asked, staggering a little under Gage’s weight, as they followed Ethan out the door.

  “I’ll manage,” he said painfully, taking his arm from around her shoulder.

  “There’s your horse,” she said, shoving him toward the corral where the chestnut stood tugging at his reins tied to the top pole near the trough. “Ethan, come with me.” She caught his brother’s arm and pulled him around the side of the house.

  Clutching his ribs, Gage ran slipping and falling across the mucky yard. The chestnut stopped fighting the rein as he lowered the pole and untied him, stood patiently while he mounted, and then bolted out of the pen as Eslin heighed the mare up the hill and Ethan, hanging awkwardly over the pommel of his saddle, followed on the bay colt.

  Over the thud of the horses’ hooves. Gage could just hear the whine of the Jeep. Leaning over the chestnut’s withers, he could tell, from the wildly bouncing glow of the headlights gleaming off the cliff face at the top of the hill, that they weren’t any more than a minute or two behind Marco, yet the odds weren’t good.

  Marco still had a gun. As the gelding strained up the hill beneath him, Gage wished to God that one of them had thought to pick up Eduardo’s rifle.

  The only advantage they had, once they’d made the first crest of the hill, was the better, grassy footing off the track. Restricted to the trail where there weren’t as many tire-puncturing rocks, the Je
ep spun and sluiced up the muddy slope. Gage guessed, as the horses made the second break and veered onto the trail that wound along the cliff and the engine sounded closer, that they’d gained a good twenty yards on Marco. He could hear gears grind and the transmission squeal, and caught an occasional flicker of reflected headlights as the old Indian’s horses chased the Jeep along the curving, muddy track.

  The wind tearing past Gage’s face was cold and wet, the night very dark until the clouds broke overhead and the granite flank on his left gleamed silver in the pale glow of a nearly full moon. In the lead, the sorrel mare nimbly negotiated the gap between the boulders where Eduardo and Zeppo had jumped Gage, but Ethan nearly lost his seat as the colt lurched through the gap and around the curve on the other side. The game little chestnut stumbled behind them, but recovered his footing as the track evened out. Gage saw Eslin’s dark hair streaming over her shoulders as the gelding rounded the curve and the back of the Jeep came fully into view. About twenty yards ahead of it ran Ganymede with Ramón burrowed into his neck. The stallion’s shaggy coat gleamed blood-red in the wash of the headlights.

  They’d drawn close enough now for Gage to see the mud spewing in Ganymede’s wake and splattering the windshield of the Jeep behind him. He’d always like the mud; still, Gage’s heart began to pound as Marco flashed on the brights and the headlights leapt ahead to illuminate the funnel leading into the canyon with the eerily quiet waterfall. Gage could see, too, that the stallion’s flanks were beginning to heave with effort.

  Ganymede was thirteen years old, seven seasons away from the track, with a boy who’d never ridden a race in his life clinging bareback to his withers. Don’t let him run himself to death, Gage wanted to shout at Ramón. Even though he knew he couldn’t hear him, he opened his mouth to yell at the boy, but the cry starting up his throat died there when he saw Zeppo, the cousin in the camouflage fatigues, unsling his rifle from his shoulder and jump out of the rocky funnel into the wash of the Jeep’s lights. Ganymede thundered toward him without so much as a break in his stride.