They were as he'd left them, hunkered down on their shot-out tires. He approached with the.45 cocked in his hand. Dead quiet. Could be because of the moon. His own shadow was more company than he would have liked. Ugly feeling out here. A trespasser. Among the dead. Dont get weird on me, he said. You aint one of em. Not yet.
The door of the Bronco was open. When he saw that he dropped to one knee. He set the waterjug on the ground. You dumb-ass, he said. Here you are. Too dumb to live.
He turned slowly, skylighting the country. The only thing he could hear was his heart. He made his way to the truck and crouched by the open door. The man had fallen sideways over the console. Still trussed in the shoulderbelt. Fresh blood everywhere. Moss took the flashlight from his pocket and shrouded the lens in his fist and turned it on. He'd been shot through the head. No lobos. No leones. He shone the hooded light into the cargo space behind the seats. Everything gone. He switched off the light and stood. He walked out slowly to where the other bodies lay. The shotgun was gone. The moon was already a quarter ways up. All but day bright. He felt like something in a jar.
He was half way back up the caldera to his truck when something made him stop. He crouched, holding the cocked pistol across his knee. He could see the truck in the moonlight at the top of the rise. He looked off to one side of it to see it the better. There was someone standing beside it. Then they were gone. There is no description of a fool, he said, that you fail to satisfy. Now you're goin to die.
He shoved the.45 into the back of his belt and set off at a trot for the lava ridge. In the distance he heard a truck start. Lights came on at the top of the rise. He began to run.
By the time he got to the rocks the truck was halfway down the caldera, the lights bobbing over the bad ground. He looked for something to hide behind. No time. He lay face down with his head between his forearms in the grass and waited. Either they'd seen him or they hadnt. He waited. The truck went by. When it was gone he rose and began to clamber up the slope.
Halfway up he stopped and stood sucking air and trying to listen. The lights were somewhere below him. He couldnt see them. He climbed on. After a while he could see the dark shapes of the vehicles down there. Then the truck came back up the caldera with the lights off.
He lay flattened against the rocks. A spotlight went skittering over the lava and back again. The truck slowed. He could hear the engine idling. The slow lope of the cam. Big block engine. The spotlight swept over the rocks again. It's all right, he said. You need to be put out of your misery. Be the best thing for everbody.
The engine revved slightly and idled down again. Deep guttural tone to the exhaust. Cam and headers and God knows what else. After a while it moved on in the dark.
When he got to the crest of the ridge he crouched and took the.45 out of his belt and uncocked it and put it back again and looked out to the north and to the east. No sign of the truck.
How would you like to be out there in your old pickup tryin to outrun that thing? he said. Then he realized that he would never see his truck again. Well, he said. There's lots of things you aint goin to see again.
The spotlight came on again at the head of the caldera and moved across the ridge. Moss lay on his stomach watching. It came back again.
If you knew there was somebody out here afoot that had two million dollars of your money, at what point would you quit lookin for em?
That's right. There aint no such a point.
He lay listening. He couldnt hear the truck. After a while he rose and made his way down the far side of the ridge. Studying the country. The floodplain out there broad and quiet in the moonlight. No way to cross it and nowhere else to go. Well Bubba, what are your plans now?
It's four oclock in the mornin. Do you know where your darlin boy is at?
I'll tell you what. Why dont you just get in your truck and go on out there and take the son of a bitch a drink of water?
The moon was high and small. He kept his eye on the plain below as he climbed along the slope. How motivated are you? he said.
Pretty damn motivated.
You better be.
He could hear the truck. It came around the foreland head of the ridge with the lights off and started down the edge of the floodplain in the moonlight. He flattened himself in the rocks. In addition to the other bad news his thoughts ran to scorpions and rattlesnakes. The spotlight kept rowing back and forth across the face of the ridge. Methodically. Bright shuttle, dark loom. He didnt move.
The truck crossed to the other side and came back. Tooling along in second gear, stopping, the motor loping. He pushed himself forward to where he could see it better. Blood kept running into his eye from a cut in his forehead. He didnt even know where he'd gotten it. He wiped his eye with the heel of his hand and wiped his hand on his jeans. He took out his kerchief and pressed it to his head.
You could head south to the river.
Yeah. You could.
Less open ground.
Less aint none.
He turned, still holding the handkerchief to his forehead. No cloud cover in sight.
You need to be somewhere come daylight.
Home in bed would be good.
He studied the blue floodplain out there in the silence. A vast and breathless amphitheatre. Waiting. He'd had this feeling before. In another country. He never thought he'd have it again.
He waited a long time. The truck didnt come back. He made his way south along the ridge. He stood and listened. Not a coyote, nothing.
By the time he'd descended onto the river plain the sky to the east carried the first faint wash of light. It was the darkest this night was going to get. The plain ran to the breaks of the river and he listened one last time and then set out at a trot.
It was a long trek and he was still some two hundred yards from the river when he heard the truck. A raw gray light was breaking over the hills. When he looked back he could see the dust against the new skyline. Still the better part of a mile away. In the dawn quiet the sound of it no more sinister than a boat on a lake. Then he heard it downshift. He pulled the.45 from his belt so that he wouldnt lose it and set out at a dead run.
When he looked back again it had closed a good part of the distance. He was still a hundred yards from the river and he didnt know what he'd find when he got there. A sheer rock gorge. The first long panes of light were standing through a gap in the mountains to the east and fanning over the country before him. The truck was ablaze with lights, roof rack and bumper spots. The engine kept racing away into a howl where the wheels left the ground.
They wont shoot you, he said. They cant afford to do that.
The long crack of a rifle went caroming out over the pan. What he'd heard whisper overhead he realized was the round passing and vanishing toward the river. He looked back and there was a man standing up out of the sunroof, one hand on top of the cab, the other cradling a rifle upright.
Where he reached the river it made a broad sweep out of a canyon and carried down past great stands of carrizo cane. Downriver it washed up against a rock bluff and then bore away to the south. Darkness deep in the canyon. The water dark. He dropped into the cut and fell and rolled and rose and began to make his way down a long sandy ridge toward the river. He hadnt gone twenty feet before he realized that he had no time to do that. He glanced back once at the rim and then squatted and shoved himself off down the side of the slope, holding the.45 before him in both hands.
He rolled and slid a good ways, his eyes almost shut against the dust and sand he was plowing up, the pistol clutched to his chest. Then all that stopped and he was simply falling. He opened his eyes. The fresh world of morning above him, turning slowly.
He slammed into a gravel bank and gave out a groan. Then he was rolling through some sort of rough grass. He came to a stop and lay there on his stomach gasping for air.