“I can see that.”
“Most of all, Dono didn’t talk about crimes he’d done before I knew him. On the rare occasions that I would ask, he’d sidestep. Or tell me to shut it, depending on the day. But we both know what sorts of jobs he was suspected of. Sometimes convicted of.”
Armed robbery. Weapons charges. Assault with intent. Everything short of the big M-One.
All crimes I’d committed myself in the past two days alone.
“Of course, this was back when police were more inclined to grab the collar of the sorry fellow nearest them, or find the same man they’d pinched last week, instead of running down clues and worrying about lawsuits,” Hollis said. “So I take rumors with a grain of salt.”
“You’re stalling, Hollis,” I said.
“I know I am. It’s a hard thing to say.”
The engine had gone silent.
“Yes,” he said. “I believe Dono killed someone. More than one. Between his temper and his . . .”
“Savagery.”
“Instincts was what I was grasping at, but yes. That. Compare those unfortunate traits with the decision he made later in life to avoid guns, and yes. I think your man killed people, maybe innocent people, and it weighed heavy on him. Perhaps more than he ever thought it would. He rejected the Church early on, so he didn’t fear any eternal damnation. His suffering was more earthly than that.”
“Dreams,” I said. “That’s where it has teeth.”
“I understand.”
“Thanks, Hollis.”
“You’re all right, then? Is there anything I can do?”
“You just did it.”
I hung up.
My grandfather and I had last spoken when I was barely eighteen. Still a kid in most ways, even if life had shoved a few lessons down my throat early on. Dono and I had never talked as adults. I wondered if he would have ever shared what made him turn that corner in his life. What he might have said about my dreams, and I about his. Comparing the weight of our souls.
A mosquito buzzed around me. I caught it before it found my neck. After listening again for the sound of any pursuit, I got into the car and made it howl on the road into the rocky hills.
Fifty-One
Under the stars, the barren buildings of Pronghorn stood like pieces of sculpture, as if their serrated boards and gaping holes had been deliberately shaped instead of succumbing to time’s pitiless gnawing. The Rally had kept its promise to leave the ghost town’s fields unscathed. Except for the occasional hard crunch of a brass shell under my foot, there was no indication that any man had walked here in years.
The warning signs at the mouth of the mining road had been stamped on simple steel rectangles. It took me about ten minutes to cake the signs with mud scooped from a nearby ditch. When I’d finished, the signs were unreadable, and virtually camouflaged against the rock wall of the massive cliff behind them.
Driving up the mining road in the dark was, in its way, less nerve-wracking than in daytime. It was easy to see the path, and harder to be distracted by the yawning chasm that awaited any mistake. I made the Barracuda hug the cliff wall, climbing the road up and around the gigantic column of rock at no more than a walking pace.
When I reached the opposite side of the butte, I stopped the car. The driver’s door opened less than a foot before it tapped rock. I picked up the hatchet I’d taken from Macomber’s house off the passenger’s seat, squeezed myself out through the gap, and went for a walk.
The walls of the colossal rock—orange-red in sunlight, chalk-and-charcoal now—had been pockmarked by eons of erosion. I examined the crags in the cliffside above, stopping my walk every few feet to check again. Staring up the rock wall made my head swim. I could feel the waiting drop a few short steps behind me.
When I had gone far enough up the curving road to be out of sight of the car, I spotted an overhang on the cliff wall above. A ledge, no more than a yard wide. Perhaps a hundred feet above where I stood, and less than half that distance below the very top of the butte.
The mining road was especially narrow here on the northern half of the rock. Eleven or twelve feet, no more. Looking west, I could see a clear mile of the dirt road far below, leading up from the valley and the river beyond and winding its way into Pronghorn.
This felt right. Not perfect, but there wasn’t time for perfect.
I walked back to the car to get the night-vision goggles and a couple of other things. I gave the cliff face and the ledge above another careful assessment using the NOD, examining its surface in shades of green and making sure it would work. I marked the position, so I could easily find it again from the top of the butte.
Then I used the hatchet to hollow dirt from a pitted hole in the wall, at about eye level. Not a large hole, only about a foot square, but large enough to hold what I placed there.
Five minutes later I was back in the Barracuda and continuing my slow drive to the top.
There were no trees on the broad flat surface of the butte, only the occasional clump of brush hanging on for dear life in the eternal wind. I parked the car close to the mine shaft, or what remained of it. The shaft’s entrance was no more than a shallow pit so barred and boarded up that a rat couldn’t have found its way deeper inside. Fifty paces past the sealed mine was the cliff’s edge. I stepped up to it—carefully—and looked down until I found the ledge. Close enough to see it clearly in the starlight, and far enough that climbing down to it seemed like madness itself.
Like the man said: Let’s go crazy. Let’s get nuts.
I’d transferred my tools and other possessions from my ailing pickup to the trunk of the Barracuda. From a flat storage bin, I removed a fifty-meter coil of thick nylon rope I kept for towing or for strapping things to the truck’s roof, and a pair of leather work gloves. In the toolbox I found a large D-shaped carabiner.
I got back in and drove the car to the right spot, parallel to the cliff’s edge, a scant ten feet from the drop. I made very sure to set the parking brake.
The rope went around the Barracuda’s bumper. I cut off a length to fashion a sling around my waist and thighs. Not as comfortable as a harness, but it would serve. The carabiner snapped to a small loop I’d made in front.
I threaded the end of the long rope around the bumper through the carabiner and looped it back again, so that the rope circled the metal ring. It took a few moments to pull the full length through the carabiner. I leaned back, testing the tension. The rope stretched taut between the car’s bumper and the metal carabiner. It held. If I pulled the rope out to the side with my right hand, I could feed myself slack and move backward in a controlled fall, a few inches at a time.
It was as safe as I could make it. I slung Daryll’s rifle in its case over my back and tightened the strap, and then did the same with a small rucksack over the rifle case before putting on the leather gloves.
I left the shotgun lying on the ground, under the front bumper of the car. It wouldn’t do me any good down on the ledge. If the situation became so desperate that I needed a shotgun, the Barracuda would offer the only cover up here on the barren roof of the world.
I began to walk backward toward the edge, slowly, keeping heavy tension on the rope.
The cliff’s edge wasn’t sharp, but a brief slope that swiftly grew steeper until it was vertical. I shuffled backward, bending at the waist. I didn’t spare much thought for the void below me. Falling from this height, I would probably miss the mining road entirely and plummet all the way down into the ravine.
I concentrated on moving in a steady rhythm. Grip the rope in front of me with my left hand, step back with my right foot, feed myself a few inches of rope with my right hand, step with my left foot, move the left hand again. My chest pinged with pain, angry at the sudden exercise. I ignored it. Soon the soles of my hiking boots were touching the upright cliff face, and the rope was touching rock as it curved up and over the edge to the anchoring car.
Hand, foot, hand, foot. The sling dug into my
kidneys. My chest throbbed every time my muscles contracted over the bruise. Hard enough that I had to force myself to breathe deeply, against the pain. Hand, foot, hand, foot.
I allowed myself a look. The ledge was another twenty feet down, and slightly to my right. I edged over until I was directly above it, and let my hands relax. The rope hissed through the carabiner as I slid down to safety.
The ledge was bliss. A full yard at its widest and three times that in length. I sat down and knotted the rope around my waist and let my breathing return to normal. It took much longer than usual.
I blinked spots from my eyes to check my watch. The luminescent hands read two-fifteen. Would Jaeger show before daylight? Was Fain still alive? No way to know. No need to worry. I’d done all I could.
I took off the ruck and the rifle case and set them on the ledge. The ruck held two bottles of water and the NOD scope and field glasses and my Browning, along with the box of .30-06 ammo from Erle’s shop. I’d considered test-firing the rifle but had discarded the idea. The sound of the shots would carry out here. A warning that might be heard for miles. I drank half a bottle, the water feeling perfect on my throat.
If Rigo had driven through the night with Macomber, they could be out of the state by now. The general’s son and daughter-in-law would be safe soon. I hoped Macomber would follow through and make the Rally legit. They did good work.
So had I, with the money I’d stolen last summer. Or acquired, given that I’d taken it from people who’d stolen it themselves, most of them dead by the time the money came into my hands. That was the difference. I wouldn’t risk anyone’s life but my own. Generals sent their soldiers.
The stars began to fade in the east. I drank more water, and kept a watch on the dirt road, where it slithered across the plain far below. A family of deer picked their delicate way out of the trees alongside the road, almost a single drifting entity at this distance. Something caught the herd’s attention and they vanished like mist.
Somewhere far beyond the Blue Mountains the world was warming. It gave encouragement to the wind, which pushed at the strap on the rifle case, as if eager to get started. Each gust of wind wailed faintly as it felt its way around the mountainous rock.
As the first touch of sunlight crested the hills I caught an answering bright dot, a mile to the west. I raised the field glasses. The dot split into headlights, and the lights became bookends to a large flat grille. The new dawn was far enough along to show the pale vehicle’s stripe as red instead of merely dark.
They were here.
As I watched through the glasses, the Tahoe wound its way over the plain. Driving fast enough to kick up dust on each turn.
If Fain had lived long enough, he would have told Jaeger that I’d just left. But if he had died before the skinheads reached Macomber’s house, Jaeger wouldn’t know how much of a head start I’d gotten on the money. Maybe they feared I was already gone. The Tahoe sped out of sight behind the butte, hurtling toward what remained of Pronghorn.
Good.
I unzipped the rifle case and drew out the bolt-action Remington. For covered wagons, Fain had said. Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. I filled its magazine with four rounds and drew back the bolt to load a final round in the chamber. I looped the rifle’s strap around my arm and lay down flat on the ledge.
The rock warmed quickly under my body. I inched sideways until the right side of my torso hung half off of the ledge. I wasn’t worried about slipping off. The rope knotted around my waist wasn’t taut, but it wouldn’t let me fall far.
I didn’t want to lose the gun, though. That would be bad.
Daryll had equipped his deer rifle with a simple tang sight, a tiny circle on a short column that flipped up on a hinge. I sighted it to zero elevation and windage. Neither should be a concern. I would be shooting straight down at no more than a hundred feet. As easy as anything. But I’d only have time for one shot, firing a weapon I’d never held before.
I lay very still and breathed easily. The rock ledge pressed on my bruised chest, but the slight pain didn’t disturb me. In another minute I heard the Tahoe’s engine, revving high as it climbed the mining road. A moment later the sounds of its tires chewing dirt joined in.
I didn’t turn my head in the direction of the Tahoe. It would come. I didn’t need to check if Jaeger was inside it. He would be. I stared down, both eyes open, right eye focused through the sights of the Winchester.
A red and white blur appeared in the corner of my vision, and quickly expanded. Moving fast, despite the treacherous road. Would they glance up? See me? Stop?
The Tahoe’s hood came sharply into focus. Almost below me now.
I exhaled.
Squeezed the trigger.
The canister of explosive powder erupted like a second sun from the cliff. White light lanced my eyes and the sonic boom nearly tumbled me from the ledge. The flash receded nearly as fast as it had come, leaving vibrant red spots in my eyes. In my ears, the combined screams of grinding metal, of engine pistons, of human voices. Those clearest of all.
Through the haze in my vision, I watched the Tahoe roll and tumble down the ravine to smash against a giant black tooth of volcanic rock with a sound like a tin can crushed underfoot, its horrible swift momentum spinning the truck up and over the rock and down again, out of sight into the waiting maw.
One more distant muffled drumbeat of metal and glass followed, much farther away. Then silence.
Not quite silence. A steady insect whine persisted in my eardrums, the residue of the blast. I sat up carefully, unsure of my balance. My forehead and arm stung. I brushed away pebbles and dirt embedded in my skin. By the time my hands, operating mostly on their own, had repacked the rucksack and rifle case, and unknotted the rope from around my waist, I felt reattached to the earth.
Climbing back to the top of the cliff was almost easy. A tsunami rush of adrenaline lent me strength and a little too much urgency. My chest burned and I told it to fuck off. I had to force myself not to clamber recklessly up the rope, to stop every few feet and secure the lines around my belt as a safety measure. When I reached the cliff edge I hauled myself over the top in one pull and rolled to stand, already unclipping the metal carabiner.
Throwing the rifle and ruck and rope into the backseat, I started the Barracuda’s engine and reversed it into a wide turn, to aim the car back down the mining road.
The explosion of the flash-bang canister had tinted the road and cliff face with waved stripes of yellow powder. If any part of the can had been spared obliteration, I couldn’t see it. The next real rain would wash away most of the visible evidence.
I stopped the car at the spot where the Tahoe’s fall had torn away a slim chunk of the road’s edge, making it that much narrower. Stepping out onto the three feet of remaining earth between the car and the drop, I hung on to the Barracuda’s door and looked down into the ravine.
I could make out one fender and a torn flap of roof on the Tahoe, far below. Most of what remained of the devastated vehicle was hidden behind a wall of serrated boulders. Two hundred and fifty feet down from where I stood, but not straight down. Its shattering drop had thrown the truck and the men within it a few degrees to the left.
Pieces—a taillight, a ragged chunk of door, hundreds of glittering bits of glass along with half of the rear window—had been wrenched from the Tahoe when it struck the black tooth of rock on the way down.
And a leg. A human leg, just barely in sight on the steep incline behind the black rock, the sole of its shoe pointed up toward me.
It moved.
I reached into the car for the rope and tied it around the steering column. Before casting the rope down into the chasm, I clipped the Browning to my belt.
The side of the ravine wasn’t sheer like the butte above. I could step backward down its slope, digging my feet into the gravel for purchase. The rope reached most of the way to the black volcanic rock. Nearer, I could see where the crashing Tahoe had crumbled the rock’s knife e
dges and slashed its face with white and red paint. I held on to the black pillar as I climbed step by careful step around it.
The leg belonged to Jaeger. He must have been thrown clear. Spared—if that was the right word—the plummet into the bottom of the abyss with his men.
He lay on his back, in a position of repose, as though he were sunning himself in the new morning. His bare skull glowed whiter than usual, framed by his black shirt and black jean jacket, loose gray stones surrounding his head. Being halfway to upside down on the slope hadn’t made his face any ruddier. I stepped closer. The other side of Jaeger’s head was crimson with blood. His ear was gone, torn away like the bits and pieces off the truck.
My foot crunched on the stones. He turned his bloodied head to look at me.
“Can you hear me?” I said.
“I hear you fine,” he said in that loud whisper. “See you, too.”
His left hand drifted toward the pocket of his jacket. I dashed forward, nearly plummeting down the slope in my haste, to fall against him. My hand trapped his inside the pocket, and I reached with my right to pluck a snub-nosed revolver out of his yielding grip.
Close. Too close. The snake still had fangs. I stood up—as close to straight as the ravine allowed—and backed away.
“You got the money?” Jaeger rasped.
“There is no money,” I said.
“You lie. You came here for it. It’s up there.”
“I came here for you.”
Realization dawned on Jaeger’s pallid face.
“I told you that you wouldn’t like what you found,” I said.
He grunted. His glittery green eyes moved to the gun in my hand.
“Finish it,” he said.
I wiped my prints off the revolver and tossed it aside. Against the side of the black rock was a smaller, smoother stone of the same volcanic source. I sat down.
After a moment, Jaeger started to laugh. Sandpaper on soft wood.
“Yeah,” he said, still laughing his harsh whispery mirth. “It won’t look like no accident if you shoot me.”
Mercy River Page 33
