Biker (13 page)

The walls closed in to no more than four feet, smooth sandstone worn away by eons of wind and rain. The canyon floor was solid granite where it wasn't buried in rocks and gravel. The tracks disappeared but there was no place the biker could have gone save onward. There was no place to turn around. It was late afternoon and shadows crept forward from the west-facing walls, casting bizarre patterns on the opposite rock. A wind-ravaged juniper became grasping claws. A stack of boulders became a grizzly. Pratt looked up at the stack. It was a man-made cairn, a pile of rocks on rocks to indicate that this was the right path.

Pratt clung to the shadows gratefully. He was down to two bottles.

A hundred feet ahead the slot bowed to the left. Pratt inched along the convex surface until the sun had turned the opposite wall blazing yellow. He heard loud flapping, some predator, the clucking of crows. Crouching, Pratt stuck his head around the corner. The rat Harley was down, rider splayed against the rock wall like a discarded action figure. A six-point stag lay on its side panting, bloodied eye staring at the sun. A couple of crows danced around the biker's brains, eyeing Pratt with suspicion and cawing at him. The turkey buzzard removed its beak from the deer's side long enough to give Pratt the once-over before returning to its feast.

Pratt saw the instant replay. Bonnet came around the corner too fast and T-boned the buck, which somehow managed to gore the Bonnet before slamming him into the wall. Pratt rose silently and padded forward until he came to the stag. The turkey buzzard flapped its wide wings, slowly at first, then faster and faster as it jerked itself into the air. The buck's eye clouded over, muzzle open, tongue protruding. Pratt checked the Bonnet. The crows hopped in the air cawing madly, then withdrew to the wind-blasted limbs of a scrub oak shrieking bird obscenities.

The biker's head lay at an awkward angle in one of the dry rivulets that debouched into the gulley, sightless eyes staring at the sun. His skull was staved in. Pratt saw slick gray brains. Flies settled on the dead biker's eyes and brains. Pratt waved them away. They whirled, hovered and settled right back. They gathered in the dead biker's nostrils and mouth. The land was as dead as the moon until something died and then
bam
! Out of the stones themselves the insects appeared, to be followed by the birds, then the coyote and larger predators.

Pratt thought about returning to the highway, to try and get a signal or failing that, riding back to Buffalo and telling the cops. He thought about it for two seconds. He knew cops. He might as well voluntarily check himself into jail. Pratt searched the fallen biker. A Nevada license plate said Saul Grundy. A caveman's name. Grundy had a .357 Magnum in one of his ratty tank bags.

Thank you, Jesus
.

He had a quart bottle of Gatorade in the other. Pratt stuck the Magnum in the back of his belt, put the Gatorade in his backpack. Grundy's cell phone appeared to be intact but of course there was no signal. Pratt took it. He checked the last number Grundy had called. He didn't recognize the area code. It could be anywhere. He checked the address book. There it was. The name Moon next to the last number dialed.

For a long second Pratt squeezed the Gatorade. He had put together a premise as Chaplain Dorgan had taught him; that Moon was a War Bonnet, that the War Bonnets would be at Sturgis, that he could track a War Bonnet back to his source and find Moon.

All good.

Being proved right was like his first snort of good coke. It filled him with exhilaration and a sense of triumph.

Yes!

He'd done it. He was good for something other than raising hell and serving process.

So far so good.

Pratt considered covering Grundy's body with rocks, but it would take time and energy and would prove fruitless against high-desert predators. The best he could do was shut Grundy's eyelids and offer a few words.

He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. Lord take this sinner. Amen.”

Spying the tiny broken-off mirror by the shattered bike, Pratt picked it up and stuck it in his cargo pants.

A half mile on a deadfall of kindle-dry timber blocked his path. Pratt used a tree limb and leverage to clear the path. A cycle could have made it thus far. The trail might have been an abandoned fire path dating from a time when the arid hills held more ponderosa. Grundy wouldn't have come this way if it didn't lead somewhere.

Somewhere he'd find Moon, and Moon would help him find Eric.

It was dusk by the time he hauled himself atop a rock promontory and looked west across a range of low dun-colored hills, the blue-black shadow of the Bighorns beyond. He was atop a mini-bluff in a natural bowl. As he settled in with his legs stretched behind him he saw a cigarette butt a foot from his chin. A Marlboro filter bleached white by the sun. It may have been there for years. Ahead lay shadow and a hint of coolness, some trick of the light suggesting a possible oasis in the searing desert.

Further up the trail he came to big cat spoor. Pratt tried to remember what he knew about pumas from his prison reading.
TheWorst Case Scenario Survival Handbook
had been much in demand. Get big. Stand on tiptoes and hold your arms up. Wave your jacket.

The mountains held rattlers. And bear for all he knew. He chuckled. He was scaring himself. He was more likely to die from a heart attack or thirst than wild critter.

For the nth time he wondered if he'd brought enough water. The Bonnet carried only the one quart of Gatorade, but the Bonnet had expected to ride right through. It couldn't be much further. The going was too slow and the day was mostly gone.

Pratt caught a glimpse of green through the rocks.

At eight-fifteen, as the sun was sinking below the Bighorns, Pratt crawled out on a jutting granite shard and gazed down into a hidden oasis. A Quonset hut crouched amid a copse of cottonwood centered around an old well with a two-foot stone lip. A tepee tucked under the trees, walls of white canvas painted with pictographs, buffalo, Indians on horseback, an entrance flap facing east. Some buffalo grass retained its tint in the trees' shadow. The well must have tapped an underground spring that was the source of this green bounty. Several feet away was an old-fashioned hand pump jutting from a concrete base, painted green.

A pyramid of gallon tins and chemical jars twenty yards from the hut. The wind shifted from the west and a sliver of chemical glass stabbed at Pratt's membranes, something that made the Buffalo Chip privies seem fragrant in comparison. His eyes watered and he fought the urge to sneeze, pressing his index finger tight against his septum. A dirt road wound northwest out of the oasis and curved out of sight behind a series of massive outcroppings that jutted out of the earth. Pratt could see no vehicle. He lay atop the rock and carefully scanned the valley for fifteen minutes. The only movement came from the occasional breeze ruffling the trees on the cottonwood. It was now dusk, the valley a deep blue-black. No light came on in the hut.

At dusk the temperature was still in the high eighties. Pratt's shirt was soaked. Having finished his bottled water, he had drunk two-thirds of the Gatorade. Thirst and hunger tugged at him like willful children. That well looked good. An old wooden crank held a corrugated iron bucket on the end of its rope. Turning that crank would shatter the stillness like an air-raid siren at vespers. He saw himself drawing a bucket of cool water. He saw himself finding something to eat in the hut—cold cuts and a cold beer. Maybe a frozen pizza.

He reached for the Gatorade.

Night rose. Emerging from behind a curtain of cumulus the full moon shone a spotlight on the hidden valley. Stars spattered the sky. There was no animal life. No deer, mountain goats, squirrels or pikas. No birds sang in the trees. As the only source of water for miles around it should have been a gathering place. Unless the well was empty, but if that was the case, what sustained the trees and the patch of green?

Who could live in such a terrible place?

The hut remained dark. Pratt eased himself down off the rock, set the empty bottle of Gatorade on the ground and crept toward the hut.

CHAPTER 23

Perhaps it was the taint of chemicals—of man himself—that kept the creatures at bay. Perhaps the well was tainted. Pratt hoped not. He'd drunk four twelve-ounce bottles of water plus the Gatorade and he was still thirsty. He was punchy from being up for 36 hours but the lure of the cabin drew him to it with the force of a power winch.

It could have been me.

Pratt didn't think Duane was evil, not in a malicious sense. He was evil in the sense that he refused his responsibilities as a father and a man. The pettiness of withdrawing Pratt from his mother, whom he'd never met. Pratt had been around casual cruelty his whole life and he was sick of it.

If I find this boy, he thought, maybe I can find my mother.

Then what?

He crouched at the edge of the clearing between alder and ageless juniper that split a granite slab. He watched. He listened. He smelled. The acrid chemical odor was stronger here, overpowering the scent of the juniper berries.

Where was the cook?

It seemed inconceivable that the War Bonnets would leave their lab unattended, especially with the boys needing to re-up. Grundy had intended to meet someone. Where was he?

Pratt used shadow as he sidled up to the edge of the hut, the curved, corrugated aluminum siding overgrown with a brittle vine that cracked and rustled to the touch. Pratt saw a square window at the end of the hut, and one set into the curving side with a little box gable jutting forth to keep the glass vertical. A window box held dust and long-dead vegetable matter.

Trying to look in the windows would announce his presence like a flare gun, so bright was the moon. Pratt had been watching the hut for hours in the baking heat and he was convinced that it was empty. Not even meth-addled bikers would choose to stay inside a baking oven on a day like this.

It was possible the hut was booby-trapped. Pratt had had an excellent education in booby traps while he was in the penitentiary. But there were risks here as well. You never knew when innocent bystanders might come along, even in this wilderness. There were liability issues. Did meth-addled bikers care? You didn't run a successful franchise like the Buffalo Chip for fifteen years without some semblance of professionalism.

Pratt drew the Magnum and pussy-footed toward the front door. He used the broken side mirror from Grundy's bike to peer around the corner, using the stiff gorse that grew like armpit hair for cover. The door stood open a foot, hinged inward, revealing a black vertical slot. An airstream of chemical reek rolled out, causing Pratt's eyes to water. Beyond the chemicals was the taint of fleshly corruption as in a cancer ward.

There were two large dog crates stacked next to the door. The bottom one held a long-dead dog, withered muzzle pressed against the gate. It made Pratt want to vomit and kill someone at the same time. He set the mirror on the top crate.

Pratt leaned back with his back against the wall, gun in hand, panting, trying to see, feel and hear around the corner. The interior remained as still and mysterious as an unopened tomb. With a silent fuck it he rolled in front of the door at a 45-degree angle, supporting the gun on his elbows. He stared into the cool reeking interior and waited for his eyes to adjust. They streamed like a broken water main. He wiped tears away on his arm and looked.

Cool moonlight penetrated through four windows and a skylight revealing a long, dark, messy lodge. A deep corrugated steel tub sat beneath one of the side windows next to a wood workbench, on which rested a two-coil hot plate, jars, tubing and several gallon metal tins. Acetate and paint thinner. A garden hose snaked in through the partially opened side window. A jumble of cardboard boxes obscured Pratt's view to the rear of the hut, about thirty feet.

Pratt got a knee under him and slowly stood holding the pistol in a two-handed grip and sweeping the interior. A twine dangle brushed his cheek. It was attached to a bare bulb fitting in the ceiling. They had to have electricity to cook the meth. Pratt spotted another fixture halfway down the ceiling. He refrained from turning on the light.

There was always a possibility somebody else was watching. The hair stood on the back of his neck. He could feel someone's gaze as a paper-thin weight.

Stop it, Pratt, you're freaking yourself out.

He shuffled past the sink.

An animal grunt issued from the jumble of trash at the rear of the hut.

Goosebumps rose on his arms and ice glided down his spine. It was the sound of some primordial beast, an atavistic warning that cut straight to the lizard brain. Fetid breath carried with it a hint of the grave. A light breeze caused the trees outside the window to dance and cast their limbs on the filthy interior. The foul reek of animal waste emanated from the back of the hut.

“Shit.” Pratt swallowed, aiming the gun toward the rear, praying that whatever it was would just permit him to walk backward out of the hut. A fucking wolf or God forbid a puma. Something nocturnal lying up out of the sun all day.

Pratt stepped backward. His heel landed on something rubbery that squeaked and Pratt overreacted, nearly falling on his ass.

“Squeaky toy,” the creature croaked in an unearthly animal growl.

“What?” Pratt gasped. He thought he saw something beneath the rear window—a flash of red like a wolf watching from the forest.

“M … squeaky toy.” The voice was hoarse, unused to speech.

A cloak of ice-cold dread settled over Pratt. The speaker did not sound human—the words were barely understandable, accompanied by harsh breathing and a liquid gurgle.

“Who are you?” Pratt whispered.

Something rose from the jumble of old blankets and carpet segments. It rose past the window, blotting out the moonlight. Its silhouette was fuzzy and indistinct.