The truck flew. This stretch of the Atacama offered no obstacles, only hardpan dusted with just enough soil to leave a quivering wake behind the speeding vehicle. Vicente pushed his foot closer to the floor.
They found nothing.
Even after circling back and widening the search area, they saw no indication that Aceda had ever existed. It had long since dissolved.
“There used to be roads out here,” Vicente said. “Maybe this Aceda was one of the residential communities for the miners, or it could’ve been a way station or telegraph office. The only way we’d know for sure is to search the records. I’m sure they’re on file somewhere, maybe at the university.”
“Let’s keep going west. About ten klicks away there’s something called … no, scratch that. There’s something closer.” He lowered the flashlight beam to the map, leaning down to make out the faded letters. “Looks like … Mentiras.”
“Mentiras? Are you sure?”
“Well, with all this bouncing around I can’t be certain…”
“It means lies.”
“Pardon? Like the town is just … lying around? Or the other kind of lie?”
“The other kind.”
“Weird name for a town.”
“Not so much, really. My father was from eastern Canada. There’s a place in Newfoundland called Blow Me Down.”
“Seriously?”
“Could’ve been worse. Imagine it without the Down.”
Gabe grinned in the vanishing daylight. “Your mind works in disturbing ways, my friend.”
Vicente spent the next fifteen minutes talking about that very thing—his mind—and concluded that being the product of an interracial marriage gave him a mental advantage. He was plainly laying conversational bait, expecting Gabe to ask what type of advantage, specifically, but his monologue trailed away when the outline of buildings appeared in the gathering dark.
“Slow down.”
Vicente complied without comment, letting Cyclops roll closer to the shapes that were mostly concealed by the night. The sun bled out, leaving only a pink vein in the west.
Gabe watched the shapes take on solid form. Perhaps two dozen structures stood silently on an otherwise featureless patch of ground. The road that once led here had been erased. A single telephone pole jutted up from the earth, leaning sideways. It looked like a wooden stake that Gigante might have plunged into the ground.
The truck stopped completely. It idled there, the lightless buildings seemingly unimpressed by the noise.
“Behold,” Vicente said, “I give you Mentiras.”
Gabe swung open his door and climbed out.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“The Skyhawk has a range of over seven hundred and fifty miles,” the pilot said.
Mira didn’t know if this was an impressive figure for single-engine planes, but she affected the appropriate look and nodded as if she understood. She sat directly behind her brother, who rode beside the pilot and was nearly out of his wits with excitement.
“She can do about a hundred and twenty knots, but we probably won’t push the little lady quite that hard. Everybody got your gear stowed?”
“Roger that!” Luke exclaimed.
Mira loved seeing him like this. When Cable had offered to fly them to his brother’s research project, six hundred miles north of Santiago, Mira had assumed he was kidding. But the spark in his eye caught flame, and within ten minutes he’d convinced them to grab overnight bags from their hotel and meet him at the charter service.
Sitting beside her on the plane’s rear seat, Cable said, “Thanks for trusting me with this. I know it’s probably not your usual MO to fly away with a total stranger and spend the night in a Quonset hut in the middle of the desert.”
She smiled in a way that she hoped was convincing. It was important that he realize how significant this was to her. And not simply significant but vital. “First of all, you’re not a stranger. I’ve known you for a year and a half, at least in a manner of speaking. Second, I think I’d sleep just about anywhere if it meant getting closer to explaining Luke’s…” She almost said miracle but then opted for something less religious; she wasn’t quite ready to give the credit to God, not after all of His questionable calls as the umpire in her life. “His breakthrough,” she said. “He can read everything you write, and I want to know why.”
“Me, too.”
“You should’ve let me pay for this. I have the money.”
Cable was hearing none of it, waving it away. “Steffen here always cuts me a good deal. Eh, Stef?”
The pilot gave a thumbs-up. “We expatriates have to stick together, and there ain’t nobody more ex than I am. Except my last wife.”
Mira didn’t share Luke’s fascination with being in the air. She wasn’t so much afraid of heights as she was in love with the ground. Her career was nothing to shuck away; it paid well enough that she planned to retire by fifty-nine, if she was frugal. But she was certain that in a past life she’d been a gardener. She loved the elemental business of working the soil and partnering with it to make life in the form of flowers and fruit trees. Perhaps in her golden years she would raise corn. Of course, as she hadn’t been on a date in six months, she might just wind up raising that corn solo.
Mira Westbrook, spinster of the maize.
She smiled to herself and admired the tapestry of the Chilean countryside as the night encroached.
“You don’t need a paper bag, do you?”
She turned to Cable, whose eyebrows were raised in concern. “I think I’m fine.”
“You think?”
“May I ask you a question?”
“My dear, considering the kind of day you’ve given me so far, I am completely in your debt. You may ask without reservation.”
“Why haven’t you written another book? A sequel, maybe.”
“Sequel? Nah, a sequel means you’ve been forced to repeat yourself. But I’ve butted heads with other manuscripts, that’s true enough, and in five years I’ve got nothing to show for it but a thicker skull.”
“Writer’s block?”
“We call it white-page fever. But no, I don’t think that explains it. At least not all of it. Jonah suggested I come down and take a gander at the work the scientists are doing on the Mars issue these days, real cutting-edge simulations. You’ll see. But no matter how many times I visit him at the site, no matter how many opening lines I jot down in my Big Chief notebook, nothing really puts itself into any kind of order you could rightfully call a plot.”
“I didn’t know anyone was doing Mars experiments in Chile.”
“Only place they can do them, at least if they want a decent model for the real thing.”
“Why is that?”
“Like I said”—he winked—“you’ll see.”
They spent the next six hours building bridges between them while Luke gazed dreamily from the window, whispering impossible things.
* * *
Gabe approached the ghost town of Mentiras.
Though the sun had set, enough gray light remained that he didn’t require the flashlight, at least not yet. He let his eyes further adjust, probing the wells of shadow between the buildings. They were made of cinder blocks and wood. A few had roofs of corrugated steel. A plastic sack had snagged on a jagged metal lip and now turned slowly in a breeze too faint for Gabe to feel.
Vicente stepped up beside him. “Maybe we should have done this in daylight.”
“You’re probably right.”
“So you think this is where he came from?”
Gabe pictured the Midnight Messenger with the boy bundled on his back. Tirelessly he ran across the desert. “Whether he was running toward something or away from something, he had to start somewhere.”
“There are a lot of places like this out here.”
“But he was being tracked, remember? No one would have followed him for fifty kilometers. They would have caught up a lot sooner than that, which means he had to start somewhere c
loser. The next location on the map is too far away.”
“You sound pretty damn confident for a man too afraid to move.”
Gabe realized he hadn’t taken a step along the dusty lane that passed as Main Street. “Yeah, well, I don’t see you knocking on any doors, either.”
“Hey, I’m just the native guide.”
Gabe switched on the light.
The beam bounced between the structures, revealing the rectangular voids of their glassless windows and open doorways. Nothing held any meaning. Was that an old tire lying there? Or something else? And was that a gas pump or an ancient obelisk?
Gabe walked.
“I guess that means we’re tempting fate,” Vicente said. “I hope it’s true that fortune favors the bald.”
“You should be safe, then.”
“Receding hairlines are all the rage these days. My wife says it’s a mark of maturity, and I’ll take those wherever I can get them.”
They came to a building where the porch was made of railroad timbers. Gabe relaxed his grip on the flashlight and made it a point to inhale, exhale. Ascending the makeshift steps, he fanned the light into the gaping doorway. Inside, the darkness parted in circles to reveal a metal bed frame and other household debris trapped in a coating of Pompeii dust.
The night deepened as they repeated this procedure at the next structure, and then the next. At some point, Gabe realized that Vicente had stopped speaking. He breathed audibly and rapidly.
They crossed what might have been the town’s center point, which was little more than a widening of the track that connected the skeletal buildings. Gabe couldn’t shake the feeling that he was trapped in an old Western. There was no smell of horseflesh and mesquite out here, but it had everything else going for it. Had Lee Van Cleef stepped around the corner, six-gun in hand, it would’ve scared the shit out of him but he wouldn’t have been particularly surprised.
What’s that?
His mind registered the hunched mass before his eyes focused on it. From this angle it could’ve been anything. He pointed the flashlight at it, slowed his steps even further, and approached.
If there had been a single sound in the air, something to remind him that he hadn’t gone deaf, perhaps his nerves would have relented a bit. But the land was dead. There were no animals, no insects, no barn door lurching on its one remaining hinge. Why did Vicente have to choose right now to shut his mouth? It was like walking in a jar.
The bulk turned out to be what was left of a station wagon. The strips of rubber still clinging to the wheels were petrified to a state of stone. All four doors were missing, revealing an interior devoid of seats and dashboard. Gabe was just about to move on when the light fell on something hanging from the shattered rearview mirror.
He held the flashlight very still, watching the thing, nearly hypnotized by it.
Vicente leaned closer. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Looks like.” Gabe reached into the car and snagged the yo-yo from the mirror.
Examining it, he saw that its green paint may have been faded, but its string looked relatively new. It bore a single word: O-BOY.
“Are we calling this a clue?” Vicente asked, his voice hushed.
“Check out the string. It’s almost perfectly white.”
“So?”
“So, yeah, we’re calling this a clue.”
“A clue to what?”
Gabe turned it over in his hands, studying it, letting it lead him where it wanted him to go. “Who would have a yo-yo out here in this place?”
“Things don’t always make sense in the desert, my friend.”
“A kid. A kid would have this out here. It’s a child’s toy.”
“And?”
“A child’s toy … like the pinwheel.” He tossed it up and caught it. “That boy was here.”
“Here where?”
Gabe didn’t respond, just set out walking, his pace quickening. Vicente whispered a curse and followed him. They explored what might have once been a grocer’s and an eviscerated filling station. Gabe used the flashlight to drive back every shadow, hoping he didn’t miss the one thing that would explain the Messenger’s intentions. He spotted a community drinking well and was heading toward it when a man climbed up from its depths, holding what looked in silhouette to be a human arm.
Vicente made a startled noise and grabbed Gabe’s sleeve.
The figure stopped halfway out of the well when he saw them.
Gabe dropped the flashlight. It rolled a few feet across the sandy ground, revealing the man in pulses.
Whoever he was, he tipped back his head and screamed.
It was not a sound of fear but rather one of violated rage. Gabe staggered backward.
Vicente clawed at him. “Come on!”
The flashlight rolled away and pointed at the nothingness of the desert. The man seemed to vanish in the dark.
“Move, goddamn you!”
Had Gabe not gotten his balance, Vicente would have dragged him off his feet. He stumbled, caught himself, and tried to look over his shoulder as he picked up speed. His breath returned. Vicente ran beside him, his boots drumming the dry earth, a piccolo sound of fear issuing from him with every other stride.
Gabe glanced back again. The night was too thick.
They reached the truck and threw themselves against it, groping for the door handles. Gabe landed behind the wheel and cranked the key, willing it to start.
The engine caught. The truck came to life. Gabe hit the lights, and though only one responded, it nevertheless opened a blessed tunnel where the darkness couldn’t reach.
Vicente pounded the dash. “Come on, come on!”
Gabe released the clutch as he crushed the accelerator. The tires spun a tornado of dust, bit hard, and sent them hurtling across the desert floor. Gabe didn’t bother with directions. With few obstacles to impede them, he could send them howling east or west, north or south, it didn’t matter so long as they got away, and this became his mantra. Get away, just get as far and fast away as possible—
A bullet blew through the back window and drilled a spidery hole in the windshield.
“Shit!” Vicente bent down, burying his face against his knees.
Though Gabe flinched hard when the shot passed through the cab, he should’ve expected it. Hadn’t the Messenger died from such a wound, fired from a distance?
He didn’t bother sliding down in his seat. Instead, he pushed the little knob and killed the truck’s single light.
The bright tunnel disappeared. Gabe swung Cyclops to the right, then back to the left, hoping that an unlit, swerving target would prove a difficult one. He drove blindly, a creaking comet through space. It occurred to him that such tactics would be of little use against a skilled marksman equipped with night-vision optics, but he had no other play. He pushed the truck to its structural limit, until its engine wailed dangerously and the frame shook.
His heart would not stop pounding.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Clutching his duffel bag against his chest, Luke turned in a complete circle. “Wow, this is really, really dark.”
Though Cable had called it a desert, Mira couldn’t verify his claim. Midnight was upon them, its wings so heavy and so black that she saw nothing but the stars. The constellations were all wrong here in the southern hemisphere, giving her the impression that the Skyhawk had flown them through the looking glass. They’d landed at an airfield near a town called San Pedro de Atacama, nearly eight thousand feet above sea level. The night air was crisp and thin. Mira pulled it deep into her lungs.
“You get used to it,” Cable assured her. “The atmospheric pressure, I mean. Or lack thereof. You brought some lip balm, right?”
“Uh, yes, I think so.”
“You’ll need it. This place’ll suck the moisture right of out you. Let’s get a car and head on out.”
“Gretel, I can’t see anything. Is Mars always black like this?”
“I don’t thi
nk we’re quite there yet. Maybe we should leave some breadcrumbs to find our way back again, huh?”
“Yeah! But I don’t have any. How ’bout M&M’s?”
“Only if you want to waste them. I imagine the buzzards will snatch them right up.”
“Buzzards? Buzzards like vultures?”
“Hey, with Mars, you never can tell. You read the book. You know how it is.”
Minutes later she took a seat in the Land Rover that Cable’s brother had sent to meet them. A redheaded American named Donner drove them into the desert. Mira’s improbable journey continued. Luke spent the trip asking questions about everything from the taste of astronaut food to the chances of flying a kite on other planets. With nothing to see around them but a wilderness of darkness and stars, he cured his boredom with frequent booster shots of Martian lore. Cable, for his part, seemed more than happy to speculate or in some cases sew his answers out of whole and fictional cloth. Mira studied him in profile. His rough face was a landscape that the years had sculpted just the way the constant wind shaped the surface of Mars. But his eyes defied time. Even in the dark they retained the glimmer of youth. Mira heard the storyteller in his voice, the one who’d once written of love and loss on a mountain slope called Olympus Mons. She recalled the novel’s epigraph, borrowed from Elton John: Mars ain’t the kind of place to raise your kids.
“This isn’t a warm desert, is it?” she asked, interrupting their conversation.
“No ma’am, it isn’t. Remember that this is summertime down here, even though it’s February and freezing in some parts back home. Everything is backward below the equator. Temperatures might get up to eighty-five degrees during the day. And it may indeed be summer, but at this elevation, sometimes the nights can be a bit nippy.”
“Colder than a witch’s you-know-what,” Luke said.
“You got it, my man. And darker than the inside of a cow’s belly.”
Luke chortled. “A cow! That would be dark.”
“And drier than a popcorn fart.”
Luke roared.
Cable turned in Mira’s direction. “Pardon the French.”
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