Skorpio (21 page)

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

"Navajo Casinos"

Beadles was silent, worrying about the old woman. But what could they do? Force her into the vehicle?

"Don't worry," Summer said. "She'll survive."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because I grew up around people like her. I have it too. Survivability."

"Good," Beadles said. "Maybe some of it will rub off on me."

Summer put her hand on the back of his neck. "It already has."

"So what are you gonna do if this pans out?"

Summer gave him a look and withdrew a little. "When I was a little girl I wanted to be a doctor. Crazy, huh? I never liked school. The only classes I liked were gym and English lit. Wouldn't get me into college never mind medical school."

"You're young," Beadles said. "You have plenty of time to do whatever."

Summer looked out the window. "Yeah right." The land morphed from pancake flat to rumpled sheets. Strange rock formations appeared in the distance distorted by heat rising from the desert floor. Like the ground was a stage with trapdoors.

"Seriously. You're a bright woman. I know a couple of scholarships you could snag, with your background."

"What?" Summer said. "You mean that I'm an Indian?"

Beadles grinned. "Don't knock it. It worked for me."

"For awhile."

"What did the old woman tell you? I couldn't hear."

"She said," Summer said slowly, "that I was one of them. The Azuma."

Beadles' knuckles tightened on the steering wheel as energy zinged through his nerves. He'd never been spiritual but he couldn't help but think that he was fated to do this. Summer was confirmation. Never before had he encountered anyone who claimed Azuma blood. Most Indians had never heard of them.

What was so terrible that Cerveros had killed himself?

"She was Azuma?" he said.

"Yes."

"Do you know about the Azuma?"

"I know they were feared by all other tribes. That their leader was a great medicine man and a giant, and that the Spanish wiped them out."

"Yes, hard to believe, but at that time during the 16th century, there were literally dozens if not hundreds of tribes competing for scarce resources on the Colorado plateau. The Four Corners area. Used to be you could just go down there and put a limb in each state and snap a picture. That was before the Navajo realized they could charge admission. Now the whole thing's surrounded by a chain link fence and you enter through a turnstile."

"Can't blame the red man for cashing in," Summer said. "I would if I could figure how."

"Isn't there a tribal council doling out goodies from gambling revenue?"

Summer shook her head. "Ain't seen a dime. Lo the noble Red Man is just as crooked as a Chicago ward-heeler once he gets in the high clover, y'know?"

"Are there many Navajo casinos?"

Summer shrugged. "Twin Rivers. Fire Rock. I went to Twin Rivers. They offered me a job. They said I could be a cocktail waitress or they would train me to deal blackjack."

"What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing, I suppose. I've considered it, but I can't go there right now. I went there with Vince and it's one of the places he'd look for me."

Beadles realized that unless Vince had outstanding warrants, he was likely to walk on the Gregorio shooting. Self-defense. Beadles knew the type. Big, sure of themselves, think they're smarter than they really are, and forever condemned to fuck up bad. Beadles saw the disgust on the sheriff's face. Vince looked like someone begging to be busted. That greaser look might fly in Vegas but out here it was an invitation for scrutiny. With any luck he'd have outstanding warrants. Guys like him left a trail.

"Dig around in that cardboard box behind the seat, wouldja?" Beadles said, "and grab me another one of those peanut butter cracker deals." He'd laid down the two rear seats and the entire back of the jeep was crammed with equipment and water containers, including a small two-man tent, sleeping bag, air mattress, and a tool box filled with picks, trowels, brushes and bottles for delicate work.

Summer turned around. That butt again. He couldn't help but stare. He wanted to reach out and touch it. She shifted things around, grunting.

"You really pack tight!"

"You betcha!" he said, slapping her butt.

She found the crackers, removed them from their plastic wrapper and handed them to Beadles. He was famished. He crammed the entire cracker into his mouth and masticated. The food zigged when it should have zagged. Beadles started coughing and couldn't stop. He was coughing so hard he couldn't keep his eyes open to see where he was going so he brought the Jeep to a halt, put it into neutral and sat there leaning over the wheel coughing his lungs up.

Summer pounded him on the back with the flat of her hand. Beadles wondered if it ever did any good or was just an old wive's tale. With a massive hiccup he got himself under control, both hands draped on the wheel breathing heavy.

Suddenly Summer was in his face holding on to his ears. "Were you really choking or just playing?"

"I was choking! Thanks for helping."

"Listen," she said, staring into his eyes with intensity, "Don't start coughing on me. I had an uncle died of emphysema. I care what happens to you."

She kissed him hard. Right on his cracker barrel mouth. He reacted as any man would. He thought about maggots and rat pie to make the boner go away. It worked. "Grab me a bottled water, wouldja?" he said.

Summer let go and turned. She wiggled around and freed the ice chest lid. Her butt went still. They drove for ten seconds like this.

"What?" Beadles said.

"Someone's following us."

***

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

"Over the Edge"

With a hollow feeling in his gut Beadles looked in the rearview. It took him a minute to find the minute smudge marring the endless blue horizon.

"Maybe it's a dust devil," he said.

Summer crawled back into the front seat, opened the bottled water, handed it to Beadles, and looked over the back of her seat on her knees. "You got binoculars?"

"In the khaki duffel," Beadles said stopping the car. He opened the door and got out. He put on a gimme cap from the inside door pocket, pulled the brim low over his eyes. The smudge moved around but did not appear to grow. Distances were deceiving out here with heat distortion from the ground. The clear air enabled you to see much further than you could in most cities.

Summer found the binocs, got out and climbed up on the old Jeep's hood, from there to the roof. She stood on the roof, feet braced against the package siderails, and trained the binocs to the west. She looked in silence.

"Shit!" she said, leaping from the roof to the ground. She handed the binocs to Beadles. "It's Vince!"

Beadles put the binocs to his eyes. "No way. He was in custody. They're not gonna cut someone loose on a manslaughter charge that quickly!" He adjusted the knobs to bring the image into focus. A cloud of beige dust formed a nimbus around a broad black grill. It was the Humvee.

Beadles got behind the wheel and slammed the door. "Get in!"

Summer joined him. Beadles put the vehicle into gear, accelerating rapidly, eyes roaming the horizon for shelter, shade, some redoubt, some place they could hide. The fact that Vince was now on their trail could only mean he'd escaped custody. And if he'd escaped custody it was because there was more at stake than the manslaughter charge. It meant Conway was most likely dead.

Beadles' heart whirred like a hamster on a wheel. Why had he so stupidly neglected to bring a gun? Was it because most of his colleagues and friends were anti-gun? Did he, in his hubris, think this was going to be a stroll to the bank? The sheriff had been the only law within a hundred miles.

Beadles glanced at Summer. She gripped the passenger bar on the 'A' pillar with both hands, white-knuckled. She looked at him.

"You got a gun?" she said.

Beadles gritted his teeth. "No."

"I do," she said reaching into her pocket and pulling out a small black automatic.

Beadles almost laughed. It looked like a toy. You could fire the whole clip into Vince and it wouldn't stop him. That's what his gun-savvy friends said, speaking of stopping power and the importance of a large grain bullet.

He realized he was letting fear get the best of him. The automatic may not be a howitzer, but it was still a lethal weapon. Hit him in the eye or the nuts to slow him down, put it to his ear and pump in the rest.

Beadles barked mirthlessly at his Dirty Harry reverie.

"What?" Summer said.

"We're going to have a showdown!" Beadles said with a hint of hysteria. "Shootout at the Double V Corral!"

Summer punched him on the arm. Hard. "Keep your eyes on the road!"

"What road?"

"Look," she said pointing right. "Over there--see those rocks?"

Beadles turned the car southeast. All he saw was a dark knobby ridge hovering over a beige furze. He looked in the rearview. The black rectangle was bigger. Beadles stepped on the gas. The old Jeep shook like a wet dog as it flew at seventy across the rough surface of the desert. The black shapes ahead firmed into a series of overlapping buttes. They approached some sort of canyonland.

Summer jacked a shell into the chamber.

"What are you doing?" Beadles said.

"I'm going to try and shoot out his tires if he gets close enough."

Like TV or a video game. Beadles could hardly believe it. A month previously he'd been a respected tenured professor on the verge of his greatest career triumph--cataloging the Azuma Collection. And here he was fleeing across the desert.

After two days in the desert sun my skin began to turn red.

"What?" Summer said.

The Jeep hit a gully-whumper. Beadles' body lurched up and down in a split second, shoulder strap cutting into his body.

"What?" Beadles said.

"What were you singing?"

Beadles giggled. "'Horse With No Name.' I can't get it out of my head."

"You can't sing," Summer said.

The big Humvee ineluctably closed the distance until it was within a quarter mile. The only thing that prevented it from overtaking the less powerful Jeep was that the big Hummer jounced and rocked on its suspension wildly, often affecting its direction.

Beadles gripped the wheel in both hands frantically searching for a place to hide. He saw the yawning gap opening before them and yanked the wheel so hard the Jeep nearly tipped over. He succeeded in altering their course and avoided flying into a vast chasm that had snuck up on them.

Vince adjusted course away from the gap. They raced east adjacent to a canyon whose bottom Beadles couldn't see from the driver's seat. Even five feet would be enough to stop them but he had a feeling it was deeper than that.

"What is it?" he said.

Summer looked out the window. "I don't know! I've never seen it before."

Sand raced across the desert at ankle level. The wind picked up and howled eerily through the open windows. Through the pitted windshield Beadles saw a great haze rising and pushing forward.

The sand storm would not reach them quickly enough. Vince would be on them within minutes. There had to be something. A road down into the canyon. Beadles desperately searched ahead for salvation. There was no sign of civilization--no tire tracks, no wires. The wind brought sand to windshield level. They closed the windows and turned on the AC.

Summer twisted in her seat. "Here he comes," she said tensely. She lowered the window and leaned out with the pistol in her left hand. Beadles noticed she was left-handed for the first time.

The tiny pops disappeared immediately in the wind like little firecrackers. Vince surged forward until he was almost at their rear bumper. Summer fired some shots. Vince pulled out to the left and accelerated. Beadles steered right so that he was now racing along ten feet from the edge of the chasm.

With a metallic bang Vince steered his vehicle savagely into Beadles' front fender. The old Jeep bucked and Beadles lose control of the wheel. He pulled his foot off the accelerator and jammed the brake but it was too late.

The Jeep rolled over the edge of the chasm.

***

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

"The Canyon"

The world became a series of blurs and bone-jarring jolts. Beadles and Summer spun like kittens in a dryer, only their seatbelts preventing them from hurtling out the doors like depth charges. They tumbled forever accompanied by sickening impacts and the sound of breaking glass. The view through the windshield was of sand and sky all mixed together. Beadles feared he might throw up before they came to a stop. Astonishingly the Jeep landed on its wheels but the fenders were stove in and a dense gray cloud issued from beneath the wrinkled hood. The engine died.

Beadles was sick to his stomach. A gash on his forehead leaked blood into his eyes. He wiped the blood away with his hands, then with a napkin from the center console as the wind whipped through the broken side windows peppering them with sand. He inhaled deeply and let it out slowly through his nostrils trying to damp down his rising gorge. In out. In out. He had it under control. He wasn't going to puke. He looked over at Summer. She slumped in her seat with her head against the glass frame.

Time stopped as he reached for her.
God let her live
he thought, stunned by the very idea of prayer. How long had it been? He touched her shoulder. She opened her eyes and looked at him.

"Are you all right?" he said.

Summer put her hand to her head. She had a nasty goose egg over her right ear. "I think so," she said, testing herself. She released the seatbelt.

Thank God.

Beadles released his own seatbelt and tried to open the door. It was crimped shut. "Try your door," he said.

Summer opened the passenger door and stepped hesitantly out, hanging onto the door frame. Beadles eased himself across the console and out the door. He ached all over. Even his hair ached. They hugged one another hardly believing they were alive. Beadles looked up.

The top of the chasm was hidden by the blowing sands like a model's tawny hair whipped by a fan. Hair that went on and on and on. He couldn't see the rim and Vince could not see them. He put a hand up to shade his eyes. Where were his sunglasses? He found them wedged against the gas pedal and put them on. It was better but the flying sand still peppered his exposed skin and got in his mouth. The wind was picking up.

"We'd better get back in until this blows over," he said, leading the way. The passenger window behind Summer had been shattered. Glass lay all over the back of the car, water bottles, ice chests, boxes, tool kits mixed in a jumble. Water leaked from the upended ice chest. Beadles struggled with the boxes and blankets trying to return the ice chest to an upright position, feeling bruised up and down his arms and legs.

At least there was no way Vince could get to them without risking his neck. If there were a road down into the canyon they hadn't seen it. It wasn't marked on any map. Beadles estimated it was at least a hundred feet to the rim. Their fall seemed to go on forever but that was just his subjective reaction to being tossed around like a doll.

The wind howled. Sand flew.

"We have to seal these windows," Beadles said, reaching for a blanket.

Summer sprang into action. She opened the tool box and found Gorilla tape. She used a pocket knife to cut the blanket to size, Gorilla tape to fix it to the rim. It was a poor fit but at least it kept most of the sand out. With the windows up it was hot as a stove. Beadles found he still had electricity and ran the blower. It offered some relief.

They bent the seatbacks back as far as they could go and tried to make sense out of the mess. There was that ass again. Beadles reached out and cupped Summer's unshod breast. She looked at him. She kissed him and pulled him over to the passenger side.

Then she was on top tearing at his belt.

The sandstorm went away for several minutes.

They put their pants back on and the sandstorm was back, blowing grit in through tiny openings around the blanket. Beadles could barely see farther than the hood, which was covered with sand. He worried that they might actually be buried. But that wasn't possible, was it? It had to be much worse up top where Vince waited.

Maybe the sandstorm would cause Vince to turn around.

Probably not. Vince didn't get his rap sheet by playing it smart. Like most thugs payback was more important than living well.

Beadles checked the GPS. There was no signal. He'd brought extra batteries just in case.

"Let's eat," Beadles said delving into the heap in the back seat. It was dim inside the Jeep due to the storm even though the sun shined straight down. Beadles found beef jerky, individually wrapped string cheese, apples and bottled water. They ate in companionable silence. They napped.

When they woke the storm was over. Dim sun shined in the cabin through the layer of sand covering the windshield.

"See if you can open your door," Beadles said.

Summer had to use her legs to push the door open with a hair-raising shriek against a pile of sand. They eased out. The landscape had changed. Whereas before it had been rock, the ground was now covered with sand to a one foot depth. It wasn't as hot as it had been before the storm but it was hot. Beadles opened the rear hatch and unloaded backpacks and supplies.

Beadles took out the GPS and four military-style canteens filled with water. He retrieved the ancient map from its folder and opened it on the hood. The map showed the canyons and to the east, the strange rock. Beadles checked his Boy Scout compass. The canyon ran east/west.

Beadles handed two of the canteens to Summer. "We're going to have to hoof it. I don't think it's more than twelve miles to this butte but we won't know until we're out of these canyons or find a way to the rim."

He put on his ball cap, handed an extra to Summer. They put on their sunglasses. "How much can you carry?"

Summer puffed up. "Me strong squaw! Carry wood all day!"

They spent several minutes sorting through supplies. He found a tube of sun lotion and smeared it over his face and arms. He handed the tube to Summer. Beadles left the tent and the sleeping bag. He was already toting fifty pounds and Summer thirty. Water was heavy but they had to carry as much as they could for the chances of discovering any were slim. By now the sun had edged over so that the north wall of the canyon lay in shadow. They stood close to the wall staying in the shade, heads gyrating like bobbleheads, stunned by the sere beauty of the canyons. The rock rose in multicolored striations. Beadles took pictures with his phone.

Beadles returned to the cargo area for his Bowie knife. He saw the pommel sticking out from under a towel and pulled out the towel. Something brown and chitinous scurried up over his hand and leaped to the sand. Beadles recoiled and fell on his ass, his face white.

Summer looked at him with alarm. "What is it?"

"Scorpion," he croaked. Jesus Fuck. Why couldn't they leave him alone? He used a stick to retrieve his knife.

They walked in silence for an hour pausing from time to time to sip water. In addition to two canteens Beadles had put six water bottles in his ruck. He felt the weight in his shoulders and legs and was grateful he liked to run. The next time they paused Summer took the lead. The canyon walls closed in as the canyon zig-zagged, following the path of some antedeluvian river. The sand receded exposing the rocky canyon floor. Summer was spry as a springbok. Beadles followed her rump like a donkey after a carrot. She rounded a corner.

"Vaughan!" she said.

Beadles stepped around the corner and stopped dead behind Summer. The canyon had opened up into a broad wadi. A hundred yards ahead hulked a massive toadstool-shaped butte. Beneath the overhang, sand over the rocker panels, lay an ancient VW bus.

***