Skorpio (26 page)

CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

"A Visitor"

Beadles trudged around the pond like a zombie. He knew he would be unable to sleep. It was better to keep moving. He came to the ruins. He boosted himself up to the second floor.

The sun slanted through the slots allowing enough light to photograph the petroglyphs and the pile of gold in the corner. Beadles sat on the hard-packed earth his back to the wall. He was ennervated. He didn't look forward to the evening's climb but it had to be done if they had any chance of getting out of there.

It might make more sense to build a fire on top of the butte. It could be seen further. But there wasn't much left in the way of fuel. They'd used most of the dead wood to cook and the gasoline was for warding off the snakes and scorpions.

The Hummer, on the other hand, still contained fuel in the tank. Even if it was only fumes it would cause the car to explode. Now that they had a water source they could last for days. And with each passing day the creature's power waned.

Or so Beadles hoped.

He dozed off. When he woke the sun was slanting into the cliff dwelling almost horizontally. He felt old as if the walls' age had rubbed off on him. Or maybe it had sucked the youth out of him. He sloshed a little water on his face, dropped from the manhole in the floor and left the cliff-dwelling. The sun hung over the purple western mountains. It was past six.

The smell of marijuana drifted through the air. Summer lounged on the sleeping bag by the pond smoking a joint and wearing nothing but panties and an abbreviated T. Beadles was so exhausted and scared he couldn't summon a grain of lust. His mind took in her lithe body, the mane of black hair, the parted lips and duly registered her desirability. The flesh was inert.

Compulsion pulled him to the western brink where he once more put binoculars to eyes and scanned the horizon. All clear. Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

He looked down. He wished he hadn't. The mound of putrescent flesh that had once been Vince roiled and throbbed with predators. A coyote growled as it worried off a hand. Six turkey buzzards hopped around the corpse, taking turns darting forward tearing off gibbets. The gray/blue skin pulsated with insects. An ant column so thick Beadles could see it without binoculars marched back and forth between butte and body.

Party time in the desert.

Beadles wanted to drop five gallons of gas on the obscenity and light it. The predators worked so fast the body would be gone in a day or two. Not fast enough. He caught a whiff of putrescence. Or was it his imagination?

He pulled the pistol, dropped the clip, checked the action. Ten in the clip. Twenty-two in his pockets, their weight like ballast in a high sea. Two to the head ought to stop that thing.

Unless it didn't.

Well there it was. The once proud scientist ceding ground to the heebie jeebies beneath the mambo sun. How low he had fallen.

All right. What if it were a ghost? And if it was a ghost, what if that was its skull sitting in the back seat? Obviously two to the head would accomplish nothing. Did the creature possess sinew and muscle, the ability to move things? Or was it insubstantial, evanescent, a mere image? Whatever it was, the things it controlled were all too real as the damanged Humvee and blackened chimney proved.

Scorpions and snakes were nocturnal. The only reason they didn't attack at night was because the thing did not exist at night. It gave him a throbbing headache.

He had to get out of the sun.

Beadles returned to the pond and sat in the shade, his bare feet in the brackish water, back against a cottonwood. He drifted. Summer's shriek cracked the air. Blinking and disoriented he watched uncomprehending as she rushed to his side and physically dragged his feet out of the pond.

"Shoot it!" she spat pointing. "Shoot it!"

Beadles scrambled to his feet and drew the pistol. He followed her finger to the undulating shape gliding through the water. Air coming in high hot gasps he jacked a shell into the chamber and fired four shots as fast as he could pull the trigger, blowing the sidewinder out of the water.

How did it get there? Were there more? A jackhammer went crazy in his head. He used his knuckles to dig into his temples.

"Do you have any ubuprofen?" he croaked.

"Yes!" Summer leaped toward her backpack. Beadles watched swirls of red describe arabesques in the brackish water. He compulsively checked all the canteens and water bottles. At least they'd laid in a supply. Enough to get them through the night. If they were unable to attract salvation within twenty-four hours at least he had the pistol.

Beadles swallowed three ibuprofen and tried to forget the images seared into his skull. He looked up. Turkey buzzards circled overhead. His headache pulsed like a quasar. He lay down in the shade drifting in and out of a shallow sleep, the kind where he knew he was asleep and struggled to wake like a surfacing whale trying to break the surface.

Several times, through sheer force of will, he woke himself, looked around, realized his circumstances and drifted off again. He thought about writing something for Lars in case he didn't make it. The more he thought about it the more certain he was it was the right thing to do. He hauled out his little spiral notepad.

What could he say? I'm sorry, Son? Sorry that your mother and I split and left you without a father? That your father was a great man who failed? That your father was a thief who gambled everything on a dream?

What if they died and no one ever learned what became of them, or what they'd discovered? Would the shifting sands hide the Humvee and their bodies turn to mummies beneath the baking sun, only to be discovered decades hence like the survivors of the
Lady be Good
?

With a yelp of despair he tossed the notebook aside. He'd need a rag to lower into the Hummer's gas tank. He would tear up one of the shirts Vince had left in the back. Matches, check. Pistol, check. Water, check. Time passed slower than a midtown train. The sun settled in the west like a geriatric lowering himself into a hot bath. It was past nine when dusk spread across the skies.

The temperature dropped. Beadles put on a Dethrone hoodie he'd salvaged from the Hummer. Summer walked with him to the top of the tube.

"Be careful," she said, hugging him. "I love you."

"I love you too," Beadles said and lowered himself into the pipe.

***

CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

"Bonfire"

As Beadles cautiously extended his foot he found a protrusion and shifted his weight. Suddenly he was in freefall, heart jammed in his throat like a potato in an exhaust pipe. It was the tumble into the canyon all over again. He yelped. In blind panic his hands flew out and found a juniper root extending from a crack in the stone and he grabbed hold as the root laid a bloody groove through his palm. He hung there for long seconds panting, fighting vertigo, savoring the pain in his hand for its focus.

"Are you all right?" Summer whispered.

"I'm good," he said, willing himself to calm down. Rivets of sweat popped on his forehead despite the chill. Down he went muscles shrieking. He used to get weekly massages at the University Club. Their memory was almost too painful to contemplate.

He hit the desert floor, crawled out between the slabs and headed for the Hummer. It was chilly. He put the hood up. Nocturnals mobbed Vince's corpse like freelancers at an open bar. Coyote, buzzard, snakes and lizards darted and flowed in an endless game of musical chairs. A coyote snarled. A squall of growling before sound returned to the snap of gristle.

Beadles walked around the back of the vehicle and beheld Vince's remains in the moonlight. A purple pile of meat. Something half-glimpsed in a slaughter yard. The eyes, lips, and ears were gone, lupine teeth exposed. Three coyotes and five buzzards took turns hopping in like some macabre game of Maypole. The coyotes looked at Beadles, bared their teeth and went back to ripping. The gas cap was on the driver's side of the vehicle. Beadles had no choice but to stand within six feet of the swarming corpse. The tailgate was still open. Beadles found a dirty T-shirt, used his knife to rip it into strips which he tied together braided into a three foot lanyard as he'd been taught in the Boy Scouts.

He glanced in the rear seat. There sat the skull. Should he remove the skull as a courtesy? If the skull burned up did the thing go away? Dr. Samuel George Morton published a book in 1839 called
Crania Americana
in which he argued that the shape of Indian skulls proved their were intellectually inferior. He amassed a huge collection in Washington which were eventually redistributed to the tribes along with letters of apology.

Beadles returned to the tailgate and found a discarded T-shirt. With the shirt wrapped around his hand he reached in through the open rear window, grabbed the skull by its eyeholds and removed it. He walked toward the butte, looked around, found a shallow depression hidden by a rock against the base and left the skull there wrapped in the shirt. He returned to the vehicle.

Holding the lanyard in one hand and the pistol in the other, Beadles approached the driver's door where lay the gas release lever. The coyotes snarled and grudgingly gave ground, eyes watching with yellow malice. He leaned over and popped the panel. He unscrewed the cap and tossed it to the ground. He lowered the lanyard all the way into the tank, waited for it to soak up fuel, pulled it all the way out and lowered it in again from the opposite direction. The fuse was now soaked with gasoline. His headache came screaming back.

Stooping, Beadles lit the end of the fuse with a match, turned and ran into the desert expecting to be slammed in the back any second. He was still running when he heard a dull whump and concussion from the explosion knocked him flat on his face. He barely got his hands out in front of him. A wave of heat rolled over him. Beadles rolled over, got up on his elbows and looked. A fireball sent a column of flame twenty feet in the air. A series of repurcussions followed like the last kernels of popcorn in the microwave--ammo left in the car.

Beadles laughed like a kid on Christmas morning. The fire surpassed his expectations. On a clear night such as this surely somebody would see it. Surely a passing plane or persons elevated above the desert floor would report this conflagration to the authorities. It was only a matter of time! Maybe even tomorrow.

They could easily send a plane out from Flagstaff or National Park HQ. He and Summer could so something to attract attention atop the butte--use rocks to spell out an SOS. Use the gold to catch the sun!

Beadles felt the heat as he circled the burning wreck twenty yards out. The flickering flames cast his shadow on the sand. He returned to the chimney and climbed, arms spasming. He paused to wedge himself against protruberances and let the pain subside. At least he was free from the burden of the gas cans. It took him twenty minutes to reach the bowl. Summer waited to pull him up.

She handed him a thermos. "Here," she said. "I made some hot cocoa for you.."

Beadles took the thermos gratefully, unscrewed the cap and drank from the bottle. He had never tasted anything so delicious in his life. He stumbled back to their camp. Summer had moved it farther from the pond because of the snake. They hadn't seen any snakes in the pond since then but you never knew.

Exhausted from tension and the climb Beadles collapsed on the sleeping bag. Summer knelt and covered him with the hooded sweatshirt. "You try to sleep, honey. I'm going to watch the fire for awhile."

Beadles crashed like the Twin Towers. Dreaming.
The New York Times
reviewed his book,
The Azuma
. "An astonishing journey of discovery that adds immeasurably to our understanding of Native Americans," said in the reverent tones of NPR. All his friends were there. Betty, Liggett, and Tommy Lee Jones. Ninja said that he had written the review, hacked the NYT website and inserted it. Everyone was in the desert. The glare made vision difficult. Gradually they slipped away one by one until only Beadles remainded.

He looked up. The sky swirled in purple and green paisleys. Acid flashback. Beadles trudged toward a distant tower. The paisleys swirled like a peacock flashing its feathers and disappeared leaving the glaring sun. Hot and bright. Sweat streamed down his face. His mouth was full of rubber. He scooped it out with two fingers. But like the Sorceror's Apprentice, the rubber filled his mouth faster than he could scoop. It had a chemical taste.

Beadles woke.Sunlight slanted in through the trees. He was hot and damp with sweat. Groaning, he rolled over and looked at his watch. Almost noon.

His heart hammered like a bent piston. He sat up breathing rapidly and shallowly. He had to pee. He was desperately thirsty. He looked around. There was the thermos from last night. He hesitated.

He didn't feel right. It wasn't just a panic attack, although he had that too.

The paisleys were back. The ground swirled.

She'd put something in the drink.

Beadles stumbled to his feet and reached for his gun.

The gun was gone.

He looked around.

"Summer!" he yelled, cursing himself in the same instant. Don't be a fool!

I'm just warning you, one man to another, don't turn your back on her.

Dread poured into his gut like a load of shot. He found a canteen by the fire and drank deeply. He slung it over his shoulder and headed for the western perimeter.

***

CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

"The Mother Of All Diamondbacks"

The binoculars lay on red rock almost too hot to handle. Beadles picked them up and looked toward the distant mountains. Heat rose from the ground in wavering curtains--an optic mist, a diaphonous curtain. Beadles could conjure anything he wanted--the U.S. Cavalry. A thousand dinosaurs. The devil himself.

Nothing.

Beadles realized he had been staring at nothing for five minutes, slowly sweeping the binocs left to right and back again. His head hurt.

Was he tripping? Did she put the acid in his drink?

Beadles saw a ballcap lying on the ground. He put it on pulling the visor low. Where were his sunglasses? He couldn't think. Go back to the camp and look for them?

He felt something slip inside, a fault line. An enormous black word balloon burst from his jaws. He roared at the empty desert, turned and sprayed it on the cliffs. He screamed until his throat was raw and bent over with his hands on his knees, chest heaving.

He straighened up, uncapped the canteen and drank it dry. He leaned over the rock parapet panting. Below lay the black, twisted remains of the Hummer in the center of a carbon stain. Vince was down to twenty pounds of sinew and bones strewn across the landscape.

Beadles raised the binocs again. A vibrating bristle appeared in the shimmering heat. A cannonball of dread dropped in Beadles' gut. For a long time the quavering didn't seem to get bigger or smaller. Just a quavering line on the horizon, so small and insubstantial he wasn't sure he saw it.

His head was a pressure cooker. He had to get some shade. He set the binocs back on the rock and stumbled back toward the trees, the sun lasering through his skull. He sat in the shade rubbing his temples furiously. He rubbed his eyes. It helped a little. He dug through the backpack, found the first aid kit and emptied a couple Ibuprofen into his palm. He reached for a water bottle.

He washed it down. Once, in college, he'd been at a pot party at an old house off-campus, maybe eight people in the room stoned to the gills. Grooving on black lights and the Dead when some hipster in a fucking black beret for chrissake slipped into the room and started slapping palms.

His name was Beako and he was a dealer. Beako opened a big plastic zip-loc filled with hundreds of little pastel pills. "Anyone want some acid?" he said.

A kid named Grover jammed his hand into the bag, grabbed a fistful and swallowed them down with a Coors.

Grover was never the same after that. Years later Beadles learned that he'd died from a drug overdose.

Beadles stared at the brackish pond. The surface roiled and flowed. He leaped to his feet. He realized it was an hallucination. Or was it? He stared at the pond panting, trying to discern the snakes. He'd dropped LSD in college. He knew how it felt. It felt like this. The air filled with sparkles, a snowglobe with firecrackers.

He sure could pick 'em.

Water. He needed water. One full canteen left. They'd need more soon. Have to use the filter. What if the pond contained alkali? Alkali had the same effect as acid. But that didn't explain Summer's absence.

He was not going to look for her. He wouldn't give her that satisfaction. Maybe she'd already left--grabbed the gold and as much water as she could carry, shinnied down the chute and headed east. She wouldn't get far. No way could she even carry all that gold plus the water down the chute without slipping and killing herself.

He lifted the binocs. The wire-hanger figure was barely identifiable as a man. Somewhat like a man. It strode at the head of a roiling delta, a tiny frigate with a huge wake. Beadles guessed they were ten miles out. Maybe three hours. They would arrive at noon.

High overhead a plane left a contrail headed toward the west coast.

Water. He needed more water to flush the toxins from his system, help him to think straight. But he couldn't think straight. He was tripping. He returned to the pond and use the NDuR filter. No time to boil. He drank straight from the canteen tasting the alkaline minerals.

Maybe it was the water. Please God let it be the water.

For all his success and good looks, Beadles felt unloved. Certainly Betty hadn't loved him. Maybe she thought she did when they first met but Beadles had known too many women like that. They were in love with being in love but never were. Minds rationalizing like cash registers, gears clicking, always on the lookout for a better deal. Looking to trade up.

Someday I will meet my soul mate and give up smoking.

Beadles wondered who the lucky guy was. Betty wouldn't jump ship without a lifeboat and despite being a self-proclaimed feminist she believed that a woman without a man was a woman without a man.

She would never quit smoking.

Beadles collapsed on his bed of straw. He laughed. He sobbed. If only he hadn't been an only child. If only he hadn't gone to Shimer. If only he'd never learned about the fucking Azuma.

Wiping his face on the discarded sweatshirt, Beadles looked around for a weapon. He seized Vince's Bowie Knife. It had a twelve-inch blade. Fat lot of good it would do him. A longer blade might delay the inevitable.

A longer blade like the Spanish sword. Yes!

He ran across the rising oven of the plateau and entered the ruins, so intent on his task that he forgot the snakes. He leaped up, grabbed the second tier and hauled himself up into the treasure room. He went to the corner and looked down. Ambient light softly illuminated the empty corner.

A buttress broke loose in his chest and crashed into his heart. He had nothing. No gun, no sword, a twelve-inch Bowie knife.

He saw himself struggling with the creature as in a lurid painting on the cover of a Robert E. Howard novel. Something by Joe Jusko. He knelt in the dirt and sifted his hands through the sand.

Whoops. She'd missed one--a tiny gold medallion similar to the one in his pocket. He left it there. What was the point.

Rapid clicking filled the chamber. Beadles turned. The Mother of all Diamondbacks had been asleep against the wall the whole time. Now she was up and shaking her maracas,body thick as a fire hose. It lay in loops like a hangman's rope, obsidian eyes fixed on Beadles' face with primordial hate.

Beadles laughed. Maybe it was Summer. Maybe she was a shape-shifter. Skinwalkers they called them.

"Go on" he sang. "Do it!"

***