The Maze (15 page)

Forty feet away, at the edge of the cliff, the wind was snapping the green streamer. It was early morning. At the margins of the canyonlands, the clouds were already boiling up and erasing the blue of the sky. Yet inside him there was a strange calm.

Methodically, Rick arranged the thin metal ribs along the rear of the wing, and then he knelt and slipped them one by one into their sleeves. He fastened the guy wires to the king post that stood vertically above the wing.

He was going to do this thing. He couldn't live with not trying.

There was reason to try. Lon would be wearing the bright red rain suit, for visibility. Lon would think he'd driven out and called for help—he'd be looking to the sky, hoping against hope for a search plane or a helicopter.

If he couldn't spot Lon, surely Lon would see the hang glider up above him. And Lon had the two-way. If he was up above Lon, the radio should work.

It all sounded plausible, but it depended on him getting up in the air above Jasper Canyon. This had to be more than a sled run. If he didn't gain altitude, he couldn't fly as far as Jasper Canyon. He had to catch a thermal.

Was he crazy to think he could do that?

From the tandem flight they'd made together, he could remember the turbulence inside a thermal all too vividly. He didn't know if he could control the glider in that kind of turbulence, but he should be strong enough. He thought he could. And if he thought he could, he had to try.

He was fitting the fabric cover over the nose of the glider and fastening its closures when the sound of a motor, extremely close, startled him. He looked up. It was the Humvee coming over the top of the dugway.

Nuke Carlile drove no more than a hundred feet onto the plateau, then slowed to a stop and took a long look. Rick knew better than to appeal to him. It would waste time he didn't have. Just leave me alone, he thought. Quickly he fitted one of the small plastic wheels and then the other to the ends of the control bar.

He heard the Humvee starting away toward Hanksville. He wouldn't look at it go. He walked around the wing twice. Everything looked right.

Rick took the long climbing rope that he'd found in Lon's tent and fitted it into the compartment at the back of the harness. He tucked Maverick's flight feather inside for good luck and zippered the pouch closed. Stepping with one leg and then the other into the harness, he drew on the shoulder straps.

Suddenly, in his imagination, the axis of the earth was tilting, and he was swimming in unreality. The horizon went spinning. He recalled the phrase
tuck and tumble
.

He fought the panic back by focusing on what he was doing. He fastened his cocoon from belly to neck, buckled the parachute compartment across his chest. Almost certainly he was going to have to land on stone, on the slickrock terraces above Jasper. He'd never landed on stone before. He blew out a big breath and reached for the helmet.

“Hook in,” Rick said aloud as he reached over his shoulder for the carabiner gathering his harness lines. He hooked the carabiner to the small loop suspended from the keel above, then swiveled the locking mechanism shut. He pulled on his gloves and jacked the radio wire at his shoulder into his helmet. He was set.

Poking his helmeted head underneath the peak where the downtubes met the keel, he reached around the tubes, grasped them, and lifted. He walked the glider ten feet forward, set it back down.

Thirty feet from the edge of infinity, that was where
he stood. His heart was trying to bludgeon its way out of his chest. His stomach swooned as his eyes took in the floor of the open country far below the cliffs. Don't look down, he reminded himself.

The streamer needed to be blowing directly at him. For a few moments it did, and then it blew again from the south.

A cloud blocked the sun. He shivered and shook, and not from cold. From his right came the first rumble of approaching thunder. It was all dark over there in his peripheral vision.

He couldn't look directly above him now because he was standing under the center of the wing, but to the northeast, the direction he needed to fly, there were still patches of blue among the clouds. He knew he had a window, but the window was shrinking fast.

It was hard to tell because of the muffling effect of his helmet, but he thought he heard a motor. Probably thunder, he thought, as he ducked his head and looked behind him under the wing.

It was the Humvee again, coming in his direction across the slickrock. He saw it crush a small juniper under its wheels.

Carlile had never left. At a distance, he'd been watching all this time.

The Humvee halted abruptly several hundred feet away. The two men got out. The dog got out.

What did Carlile want? He wasn't calling or waving. His features, as ever, were contorted by malice.

Rick had a sudden insight. He could feel it up and down his spine. Carlile meant to solve all his problems at once: no survivors.

Rick glanced back to the cliff edge and the streamer. The wind was blowing hard enough, but still from the side. He needed it to shift, and soon.

He looked over his shoulder again, saw the moment it happened. The command must have been spoken softly. The dog shot toward him like an arrow from a bow.

Rick's eyes found the streamer. It was blowing directly toward him. He lifted the glider and began to jog.

The cliff edge seemed to be rushing forward to meet him. He felt the tail end of his harness bag flapping at his ankles, which was normal. But he also heard the dog snarling close behind, much too close.

Suddenly he felt the powerful lift of the wing, and his pedaling feet found only air. As the glider soared out over empty space, he shifted his hands quickly to the control bar.

Something was wrong. A dead weight at the bottom of his harness bag was keeping him from assuming a prone position. With a glance below he saw the pit bull hanging on by its powerful jaws.

He couldn't do anything about that. All he could do was try to fly the glider. The variometer's buzzing
warned him that he was falling. Flying with his legs down, plus the weight of the dog, was causing him to sink.

He couldn't worry about that. All he could do was try to keep the wing stable. He couldn't afford to let either wing tip get up in the air on him.

The dog might have tried for a better grip, opened its jaws for a fatal split second. All Rick knew was that the pull at the bottom of the bag was suddenly gone. As he looked down he saw the dog hurtling toward oblivion like a missile.

Rick reached with his right leg, found the bottom of the bag. He reached with his left; they were both inside. Freeing his hand for a second, he pulled the draw cord that zipped the bag shut along his legs.

Now he was prone. Now he could try to fly. He pushed himself back from the bar a little to see if the glider would climb. Immediately the variometer chirped its climbing signal. He was rising on the warm air sweeping up the face of the cliffs.

With careful shifting of his weight, he raised the right wing tip and began negotiating a turn. The glider responded, the earth turned on its axis, and he spiraled up past the rim of the cliffs, regaining the altitude he had lost. He caught a glimpse of the Humvee heading across the plateau back to Hanksville. Good riddance, he thought.

After five rising revolutions he was satisfied that he was high enough above the cliffs to glide away from them and head for Jasper Canyon.

You're still alive, he told himself as he broke to the east and began to soar toward the Standing Rocks. A powerful wave of exhilaration washed over him. He suddenly realized he was whooping and shouting like a wild man, grinning from ear to ear. “Yes!” he was screaming. “Yes!”

On his left and below, a very large bird was flying in his direction. As it neared he saw the broad wings, the distinctive wing tips, the featherless gray head. Lon's missing condor, he realized. It was M1, returning home in advance of the storm.

A glance at the variometer told him he had risen from 6,200 feet at launch to 7,560. Concentrate, he told himself. Stay focused. Take a deep breath. This is just the beginning.

Over the Standing Rocks the glider took a powerful buffeting. He clung tight as the wing shuddered with the turbulence. The variometer kept chirping as the glider was rocked by more and more turbulence. Still, he pushed back slightly from the bar and kept rising. He needed altitude. It was taking all his strength to hang on to the control bar and fly the glider. He knew now for certain that he was inside a thermal, a very powerful thermal.

Rick saw the earth's spinning, dizzying retreat below
him, and he fought the panic that accompanied his sudden loss of equilibrium.

Keep fighting, he told himself. Keep flying it. Don't let it get away from you.

He didn't know if he was strong enough to keep the wing tips down. One or the other kept threatening to go too high on him. He kept yanking hard on the side he wanted to bring down.

Ride it! Fight it!

Up, up, up he went, on an increasingly powerful column of rising air. He checked the variometer. He was at eleven thousand feet and climbing at a rate of a thousand feet per minute.

Eleven thousand feet!

It was getting cold. His face was cold, his teeth were cold.

High enough! There was a river below, but he couldn't tell which one. It was all a sickening blur.

He had to break out, find Jasper Canyon.

Rick pulled his weight over the bar, but the variometer kept chirping. A glance told him he was rising now at a rate of eighteen hundred feet per minute.

The turbulence was getting worse, much worse.

Ride it! Fight it!

He heard the snap of lightning, and some time later, the unraveling thunder. How long was the interval—ten seconds? The storm was only ten miles away, and closing in how fast?

Twelve thousand, thirteen thousand, fourteen thousand feet. It was becoming nearly impossible to hang on to the bar and keep the wings down. He didn't know how much longer he could hang on. He had to start thinking about the parachute.

Icarus, he thought ruefully. I'm pulling an Icarus. “Wasn't ready to fly a thermal,” Lon had said.

Sixteen thousand feet. It was cold, cold, and getting harder to breathe.

From the variometer he glanced up and saw the base of a massive cumulus cloud not so far above. He could picture exactly what was going to happen, and soon. He was going to be inside that cloud and unable to tell up from down. Tucking and tumbling.

This is the way I'm going to die
.

Wildly he forced his body as far forward of the control bar as he possibly could. He spread his hands wide and held on with all his strength.

Finally, finally, the glider nosed down. He heard the buzzing that told him he was losing altitude.

He kept his body forward of the bar, kept fighting the glider down. It felt like he was dropping fast, fast.

Suddenly the nose dived much more steeply than he wanted it to, and his stomach went into free fall. He pushed his body back, but not too far back. More than anything he didn't want to stall the glider.

Abruptly he found himself in relatively stable air, and
realized what had happened. He'd just gone over the falls, and was free of the thermal.

With a look around, he knew he didn't have much time. On all sides the clouds were darkening and the altitude of cloudbase was descending fast. He could see the two great rivers joining below the Island in the Sky. He could see the Maze incised into the sea of white slickrock, and he could see red-walled Jasper Canyon making its straight run from Chimney Rock to the Green River.

Rick began his downward revolutions. He'd lost three thousand feet when the variometer began to chirp again. Another thermal, he realized, and he fought his way free of it before it could take him. He continued down, steering toward the midpoint of Jasper Canyon.

He was looking hard up and down the drainage for a tiny patch of red, desperate to spot Lon's rain suit. So many side canyons! So many places Lon could be! Rick hit the mike button on his glove with his thumb. “Lon,” he called. “Do you read me? Lon, can you hear me?
Do you read me? Over…
”

Nothing.

His eyes kept searching for a tiny patch of red, artificially bright red. No matter how hard he willed it, it just wasn't there.

He was still too high up.
Get closer
. You have to get closer before you can see anything. Before he can see you. Before the two-way can work.

Ten thousand feet. Nine thousand.

“
Lon, do you read me. This is Rick! This is Rick. Look up, look up! Do you read? Over…
”

No reply.

Suddenly there it was, directly below and slightly in motion: a tiny spot of artificial red. There, on the slick floor of an extremely narrow side finger of Jasper, on Jasper's west side. “
Condor-man!
” he cried. “
Lon, look up, look up! This is Rick, this is Mav-rick, this is Icarus! Over…
”

Suddenly the earpiece in his helmet crackled, and crackled again. “
Get down, Icarus!
” came Lon's voice through heavy interference. “
Storm's about to break! Over…
”

“
Got you spotted! Over…
”

“
Save yourself, Rick!
”

His glide had taken him quickly out of eye contact. Suddenly Rick couldn't identify the side canyon where Lon was trapped. He circled back, losing altitude all the while. The weather was about to break. Lightning exploded close by, and thunder boomed seconds later with a concussive blast.

There was Lon, waving for all he was worth.

Rick studied the shape of the terraces above the rim. Lon was a couple hundred feet below the rim, caught between two pour-overs in the northernmost of two huge side canyons that joined before draining into Jasper. At the rim of Lon's canyon there was a distinctive triangle
of three junipers growing out of the slickrock, with a knob of redrock close by that was surrounded by white.

The rain broke. He was going to have to get down in the rain.

The rain, at a slant, was driving from the south. At least it made reading the wind direction easy. He had to land into the rain, from north to south.

It was getting dark, so dark. The sky above was nothing but a mass of storm cloud. He had his eye on a broad white terrace only a few hundred yards north of the side finger where Lon was trapped. How level was that terrace? He pushed his weight over the bar and forced the glider down, down, flying to the north.

Rick made his turn into the wind, the way Lon had taught him. He remembered to pull the draw cord to open the bottom of his harness so he could free his legs when the time came to de-prone.

It was starting to rain harder, but he could still make out the flat white expanse ahead.

He might overshoot his landing zone, he realized, unless he got down fast. He forced his weight far forward over the bar, then eased back a little.

The ground was rushing up. He kicked his legs free, then slid his hands from the control bar to the tubes above. He was hanging vertically now, no more than forty feet above the ground. He slid his hands farther up the tubes, but not so high as to stall the glider just yet.

Now!
he decided, and he flared the nose up, felt the stall.

As his legs touched down, he was in perfect position, but a violent gust of wind lifted the right side of the wing as he was running and pitched the nose in an instant down to the slickrock. He heard the chinpiece of his helmet dragging as he scraped to a stop on his chest.

He couldn't breathe. He didn't think he'd broken any bones, but the breath was knocked out of him. His lungs couldn't draw air.

The wind was dragging the glider across the slickrock, and him with it. He was powerless to do anything about it. The rain was pelting him, lashing his face. He lay on his belly, gasping for air.

At last, in painful gasps, his breath was coming back. He was able to turn on his side and unhook.

He stood up, he fell down, he got up again. It was difficult to see, but he could make out the three junipers and the mound of redrock. He was where he'd wanted to be. But something
was
broken, he realized. His left arm was hanging useless by his side. He wasn't feeling pain for some strange reason, but he could see it was broken.

The side canyon drained an enormous area of slickrock. Waterfalls were pouring into it from all sides and running red. He had to hurry. Time was everything.

He fought his way out of the harness bag. Struggling
one-handed, he removed the coil of rope from the compartment in the back.

Rick heard the glider behind him being swept away over the cliffs, but he didn't turn to look. With his good arm he slung the coil of rope over his head and onto his shoulder. He started down into the side canyon. Lon was a ways down in there, hemmed in by the walls. The only route to get to him was going to be right down the bottom of the drainage.

Where possible, Rick kept away from the streaming floor of the narrowing canyon and skittered along its stony flanks. But he kept getting cliffed out, and was forced to wade from one side to another. It was difficult to keep his balance, yet he had to move fast. The water was up to his knees and rising. He marveled that his arm wasn't screaming out in pain, but still he felt nothing.

The tumult of rushing water was intensifying behind him and above and in front. “Lon!” he hollered. “
Lon! Lon!
”

No answer. He looked up through the slashing rain; he could still see the rims. Lon would have gone farther down this canyon to find cover if they were shooting at him from above.

Up ahead the current raced through a boulder jam and down onto a steepening raceway of slickrock. Then it bent away and out of sight.

Rick wedged his way down through the boulders, then lost his footing immediately below, fell backward. He'd
fallen on the broken arm. Sudden, piercing pain shot through the arm as the current swept him straight down the chute and into a roiling pool.

He was spun around and around, and then he was washed out onto the shallows. He struggled to his feet.

Lightning seared the sky immediately above him, and the thunder struck like a bomb going off. It was starting to hail. “
Lon!
” he screamed as he waded forward toward a boulder jam at the edge of the next drop.

“
Riiiiiick…
” came the voice in reply.

He clambered onto the boulders and looked down. Ten feet below, right there on a lip of rock to the side of the pool below the waterfall, stood the man with the beard, dressed in bright red. “A rope!” Lon shouted, with a grin spreading across his face. “You even brought a rope! Can you tie to those big rocks up there?”

“Ten-Four,” Rick yelled back through the rain. He waded upstream, looking for the right boulder. The water was thigh-deep and swift; he had to keep fighting for balance.

Here was the boulder he needed. Using one hand and his teeth, he struggled to brace himself and secure the rope. It was taking much too long, and all the while he heard nothing from below, only the roar of the floodwater. Was Lon still okay? Finally his knot was tied, and he was able to toss the free end down.

Rick saw the hands appear first, then the arms, then
the fierce blue eyes, the hard white scar, and the tangle of beard. Rick jammed a foot against a rock for balance and offered his good arm. Lon took it, then came on over the top, and they both followed the rope to where it was tied.

“Do we need the rope?” Rick yelled. The fingers of his right hand were picking at the knot, but he was getting nowhere with it.

Lon's eyes went to Rick's useless left arm. “We might!” he hollered back, and quickly undid the knot. Lon coiled the rope as fast as he could and slung the coil over his head. “Let's go!”

It was still raining hard. Everything ran together, the rising water and the pain and the rock walls. At one point Rick was swept from his feet. Lon leaped after him and scooped him up. Half a minute later Rick slipped again; it felt like all the strength had drained out of him. He felt Lon's grasp. “Right arm around my shoulder,” he heard his friend say.

Rick felt Lon's arm clutch his side like a band of steel. He felt new strength in his legs and new determination. “Gotta go for it—let's march!” Lon shouted, and they started out side by side.

It was all a blur. At last, stumbling, they climbed out of the flooding canyon bottom onto the slickrock. In the pouring rain it was as slick as its name. Rick looked up; it was going to be a steep climb, a hundred feet or so, to the rim. Lon stopped, freed one end of the rope,
and tied it around Rick's waist. “Just in case,” Lon said.