by John Saul
But next time there would be no leaks.
As he started back to the communications center to begin putting together the program that would wreak havoc in the brains of nearly thirty percent of Borrego’s population, Paul Kendall wondered how the town would react to what they would find in the morning.
It was a shame, really, that he wouldn’t be able to stay here and study it. Aside from the sociological implications of the whole thing, he had come to like Borrego.
But not enough that he was unwilling to destroy it.
“We’re here,” Jed said quietly, braking the truck to a stop.
Peter Langston looked around. They were a few yards back from the edge of the canyon. The road had deteriorated into no more than a nearly invisible track winding through the scrub juniper on the top of the mesa, and Peter saw nothing unusual about the area. But Jed was already out of the truck. Peter followed him.
Jed was once more rummaging through the toolbox, finally sliding a rusty carpet knife under his belt and handing Peter a long screwdriver. “That’s not much, but if you have to, at least you can shove it in someone’s eye,” he said.
Langston winced at the boy’s words, telling himself they were nothing but adolescent bravado, but reluctantly took the screwdriver and secured it under his own belt. “Where are we?” he asked as Jed started toward the rim of the canyon.
“There’s a trail,” Jed replied.
A few minutes later the two of them stood on the edge of the precipice. The edge of the cliff dropped straight into the canyon. Peter, after glancing down, took a step backward, his groin tightening as the chasm seemed to draw him toward it, seemed to urge him to throw himself into its gaping maw. He looked away, following as Jed turned northward and trotted quickly along the brink of the cliff, apparently unaffected by the height. Twenty yards away there was a small cleft in the canyon’s wall.
Peter peered doubtfully down into the rift. It notched no more than fifteen feet into the canyon’s wall, and as it went down it seemed to get smaller, until it finally disappeared entirely. “Jesus, kid, that’s not a trail.”
Jed grinned in the moonlight. “Sure it is,” he said. “My grandfather’s been using it for years. He showed it to me when I was about ten.” He didn’t tell Peter that he’d never before attempted to use the trail, even in broad daylight.
He dropped down onto the edge of the cleft, rolled over onto his stomach, then lowered himself down until he was hanging only by his fingers. Closing his eyes and uttering a silent prayer, he let go, and dropped straight downward.
Peter froze. He couldn’t believe what he’d just seen. The kid must be crazy. Then, from the darkness, he heard Jed’s voice.
“Come on.” The words drifted eerily up from the darkness of the cleft.
Peter approached the edge and reluctantly looked down. Jed was standing on a narrow ledge, his head five feet below Peter’s feet.
Peter realized it was his turn.
He sat down gingerly, then let his legs drop over the edge. His groin tightened again, and for a moment he felt an almost uncontrollable urge to throw himself into the abyss. But the urge passed. Finally he rolled over and inched his way out until only his torso and arms were still on the mesa’s surface.
“Good,” he heard Jed encouraging him. “Now just a little more.”
He inched outward, and then his whole body was hanging over the edge, his fingers clawing at the ground as if trying to dig into the rock itself.
He felt his fingers slip.
A scream rose up in his throat, but he choked it back. The instant during which he fell seemed to expand into an eternity, but then he felt hands grasping him, and suddenly his feet struck the ledge below. As the hands steadied him he pressed against the sandstone, his heart pounding, his breath coming in short gasps. “I knew there was a reason why I never wanted to climb mountains,” he said, his voice trembling.
“It’s not so bad,” Jed said. “Just don’t look down unless you have to.” He was already sidling along the ledge, and a moment later he crouched down once more. This time, instead of lowering himself to another ledge directly below, he leaped across the gap itself, his feet coming to rest on another outcropping that was four feet farther down and as many across.
Peter stared down at the depths of the abyss, realizing that if he missed his footing, he would plunge down the wall into the canyon itself. Instantly, what was left of his nerve deserted him. “I—I’m not sure I can do it,” he said, and his words seemed to bounce off the rock walls, echoing back to taunt him.
“You don’t have a choice,” Jed told him. “My grandfather told me this is a one-way trail. Without ropes, I can’t get back to your ledge, and you can’t get back up to the top without me.”
Panic seized Peter. He pressed once more against the suddenly comforting stone behind him. But when he looked up, he realized that Jed was right. The only way out was down.
Steeling himself, he took the jump before he had enough time really to think about it.
“Yeah!” Jed exclaimed as he once more steadied Peter’s landing. “It’s not so bad, huh?”
They dropped farther into the cleft, moving as fast as they could. The lower they went, the darker it became, until Peter could barely see at all. But Jed moved quickly and steadily, using his inner senses to guide him along the invisible path.
The cleft finally dwindled away entirely, and they had to creep several yards along a narrow ledge that was more than three hundred feet above the canyon floor, until they came to another break in the wall. Peter negotiated it only by keeping his back flat against the cliff’s facade, his eyes averted, and his feet moving only a few inches at a time.
Then they were into the second fissure. This one, only three feet wide, dropped away as vertically as a chimney, but all along it there were small fractures in the stone. Many of them appeared to have been deliberately hollowed out to provide hand and footholds, and when they finally came to the bottom of the crevice, Peter asked Jed about them.
“I think my grandfather did it,” Jed replied. “But he only cut them where nobody could see them from above or below. He said sometimes it’s good to have a path no one knows about.”
Twenty minutes later they finally dropped from the lowest ledge down to the canyon floor. There was a turn in the canyon here, and the stream flowed next to the wall, so when they released their grips on the stone lip, they dropped into two feet of cold water.
Peter flinched in shock, then reached down and splashed water over his face, only now realizing that his whole body was drenched in sweat despite the chill of the night. He took a drink, then waded ashore, where Jed was waiting for him. Two hundred yards down the canyon there was a soft glow of lights from the buildings of The Cottonwoods. For the moment, though, the two of them, lost in the black shadows of the canyon, were totally invisible.
They moved quickly and quietly along the bank of the stream, then Jed seemed to melt away into the grove of cottonwoods.
Peter, suddenly finding himself alone in the darkness, froze. He strained his ears, trying to hear even the faintest sound that would tell him where Jed had gone, but there was nothing.
* * *
Jed glided through the cottonwood grove, his senses absorbing every vibration of the night. It was as if he could actually see the tiny creatures that scurried in the darkness, and smell the faint odors of animals that had long ago passed over the ground on which he trod.
He stopped. Though he couldn’t see it yet, he knew there was a cabin close by.
The cabin his father was in.
He hesitated, knowing he should move on, find the right cabin, the one in which Judith Sheffield was being held. Yet even as he hesitated he knew why that strange spirit that seemed to have been guiding him from within had brought him here.
There was something he had to do.
He slipped silently through the darkness until he reached the deep shadow of the cabin. Only a faint light showed in the cabin’s
window—the glow of the screen on the monitors attached to his father.
His father was alone.
Jed moved around the cabin, coming to the front door like a shadow.
The door was unlocked.
He slipped inside.
He knew what it was that had to be done; indeed, he suspected he’d known it since yesterday, when he’d first seen his father here. He hadn’t done it then; hadn’t been able to summon up the courage. But now there was no other choice to be made. He gazed at his father in the dim light of the cathode tubes, trying once more to see some remnant of the man he’d known all his life.
There was none. All that lay in the bed were the ruined remains of what his father had once been.
His face, coldly pale even under the soft light, held no expression whatsoever.
Surrounding him were the machines that were keeping him alive, but now, as Jed watched his lifeless body being manipulated by the machinery, he finally grasped that his father wasn’t truly alive at all.
He reached down for a moment, as if to touch his father’s cheek, but then his hand trembled and he withdrew it. At last he drew a deep breath and straightened up. It was time for him to release his father’s spirit from the body that had already died.
Steeling himself, Jed reached out and switched off the respirator that kept his father alive.
He stood perfectly still, watching in silence as his father’s chest stopped moving.
Seconds ticked by.
Jed was about to turn away when he thought he saw something in the darkness.
A pale wraith of silvery light was drifting up from the bed where his father lay. It hovered in the air for a moment, and Jed felt a strange serenity come over him, as if the aura he beheld had reached out and touched him.
Then it was gone.
Jed glanced at the monitors: all the lines were flat now.
His father’s body was truly dead, and his spirit was gone.
Turning away, Jed slipped out of the cabin as silently as he’d come, moving once more through the night until he was certain that what he’d come looking for was here.
At last he returned to the spot where Peter Langston waited.
“She’s here,” Jed said. “I can feel it.”
Three pickup trucks, each of them carrying two men, pulled up to the antenna installation. They formed a crescent around the site, so their headlights flooded the area within the fence with a bright halogen glow. Otto Kruger jumped out of the first truck and hurried to the gate, a ring of keys jangling in his right hand. He flipped through the keys quickly, found the right one, and unlocked the gate. Once inside, it took him no time at all to discover the cut in the PVC pipe. “Hernandez,” he called out. “Bring the toolbox in here and get to work. Briggs, you and Alvarez take your truck and keep on going.”
“Shit, man,” Joe Briggs complained. He had been almost ready to go home for the night when Kruger had commandeered him for this job. “They could be anywhere. If they had a four-wheel, they could’ve taken off cross-country.”
“Maybe so,” Kruger agreed. “But I’m sure not going to tell Kendall we didn’t even look, and since we didn’t see anyone coming down the road, maybe they went up. So quit bitching and move your ass.”
Briggs, with Carlos Alvarez slouched in the seat beside him, backed the truck away from the chain-link enclosure, spun the wheel and jammed the transmission into low gear. Popping the clutch, he let the wheels spin in a gratifying release of his own anger. The truck skidded out of control and spun around, but Briggs steered into the curve, caught his traction, and sped off into the night.
Otto Kruger, watching him, shook his head dolefully. “Son of a bitch is going to kill himself at that rate.”
Jesus Hernandez, carrying a large toolbox, came into the enclosure, frowned at the cut in the PVC, then pulled a hacksaw out and set to work. Within less than a minute a section of PVC a foot long came loose from the pipe. Jesus tossed it aside, then knelt down and, using a flashlight, peered into the tube itself. “God damn,” he swore softly.
“What’s wrong?” Kruger demanded.
Hernandez shrugged. “Lot of cable in there. Its own weight pulled it down. I can see the ends, but they’re about five feet back from the opening.”
“So? Fish ’em out.”
Hernandez stared at his boss contemptuously. “Yeah?” he asked. “How you going to do that, huh? First off, unless you brought some tool I don’t know about, I don’t see how we’re going to get hold of the ends of those cables. And even if we do, it don’t matter. I don’t know about you, but I can’t lift a thousand feet of that stuff. It’s too heavy.”
The muscles in Kruger’s neck knotted with anger. “Then what do we do?” he asked.
Hernandez shrugged. “Got to bust up the concrete,” he said. “Only way to fix that tonight is break up the pad, get the pipe out of the way, and put in some jumpers.”
Kruger nodded, his mind already made up. From Utley’s tone earlier, he had been certain that Paul Kendall was standing at the man’s elbow, listening to every word. And that meant it was Kendall who wanted the antenna repaired tonight.
Therefore, it would be done.
Kruger yelled at the two men who were leaning against the front fender of the third truck, smoking cigarettes. “There’s a couple of sledgehammers and a wedge in the back of my truck. Bring ’em over here. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
The two men groaned, but tossed their cigarette butts away.
Twenty minutes later, as Kruger was pacing impatiently just outside the fence, Joe Briggs and Carlos Alvarez came back. Briggs swung out of the truck. “You were right,” he said to Kruger. “We found a truck about a mile or so up.”
“Did you recognize it?”
Briggs hesitated a split second, but nodded. “Oh, yeah It’s Frank Arnold’s.”
Kruger felt his temple throb with sudden fury. The man was as good as dead, for Chrissake—he was lying in a cabin up the canyon that very moment. Then he understood.
The kid.
“All right,” he growled. “Where’d he go?”
Briggs shrugged. “How should I know? He wasn’t around the truck, and there’s no way he could have gotten down into the canyon from there, so he must be hiding up here somewhere. Hell, he could’ve hiked halfway back to town by now.”
Kruger shook his head. “If he was going back to town, he’d have driven at least part of the way But he wouldn’t have gone in the exact opposite direction. So he’s up here somewhere.” He pulled a walkie-talkie out of its belt holster and snapped it on. Stan Utley’s voice came through, scratchy but clear.
“Well, we know who did it,” Kruger said, punching the button on the side of the unit in his hand. “A couple of my guys just found Frank Arnold’s truck. I figure it had to be his kid, pissed off about what happened to his old man.”
In the communications center below, Stan Utley glanced up at Paul Kendall. Kendall’s face had gone scarlet with fury as he glared at Greg Moreland.
“That’s where they got it,” Kendall said, his voice shaking with rage. “That kid was supposed to have gotten his shot, and Watkins said he was doing just fine. Taking his orders, and keeping his mouth shut. But it was an act! The whole goddamned thing was an act!” His eyes went to the clock, then fixed on Stan Utley once more. “How much time have we got before that antenna’s up again?” he asked.
“Half an hour, at least. Maybe an hour.”
Kendall nodded tersely and began snapping orders to the technician.
Greg Moreland, filled with the same fury that had gripped Paul Kendall, turned and strode out of the room. He had half an hour, and there was something he wanted to do.
He wanted to watch Judith Sheffield suffer.
Indeed, he wanted to torture her himself.
Chapter 31
Jed froze, his whole body tensing as he heard the soft cracking of a twig. Someone was coming. He was alone again, having left Peter concealed in the deep
shadows of the cottonwood grove while he himself moved out of the trees’ shelter to get a closer look at the little cabin. He’d moved swiftly and silently, dodging between the boulders that lay scattered near the canyon’s wall, finally waiting for several long minutes, crouched in the shadows, sensing danger even though nothing was visible.
Now, as a second twig cracked, he spotted the presence he had only felt before.
At first he could see nothing but the faint glow of a cigarette tip, brightening briefly as its bearer drew in on it, then fading away, almost disappearing into the inky blackness of the canyon’s depths. But Jed’s night vision still saw it clearly, bobbing slowly toward him.
Then the figure emerged from the shadows for a moment, and Jed saw that it was a woman—heavyset and walking slowly, as if she were tired. She paused, and Jed could hear her muttering to herself, but then she ground the cigarette under her foot and began walking again, more quickly this time.
She approached the cottage, rapped on the door a couple of times, and tried the knob. When it didn’t open, she knocked again, more loudly. A moment later the door opened a couple of inches and a large figure loomed in the gap. Again there was the faint sound of voices, and then the door opened wider and the woman stepped inside.
The door closed.
Jed waited.
Time stood still.
After what seemed an eternity, but had actually been no more than a couple of minutes, the door opened again and the woman emerged. She was carrying a tray with what looked like a few dirty dishes on it. As soon as she was out the door, the man inside closed it again.
Jed heard the click of the lock being thrown. He stayed where he was, as still as one of the boulders he crouched among. When the woman started in his direction, he held his breath.
But the woman passed by him, no more than six feet away, never so much as sensing his presence. Jed began breathing again, but waited to make a move until the woman had disappeared completely into the darkness and his inner senses told him the danger was over.
At last, darting silently away from the protection of the boulders, he approached the bungalow itself. There were several windows, and he thought for a moment before deciding which one to risk peering into. Finally he chose the one in which the small table lamp was framed. Its light would turn the inner surface of the glass into a mirror. Still, he approached it warily, every nerve in his body tingling, ready to dodge away into the dark shadows at the first hint of danger.
