If I understood the design correctly, the propane served to create both heat and pressure on the power pistons in the piston shafts. The force of the air driven into the intake valves by the horse’s momentum would drive the displacer pistons. The cooler air would then meet with the heated air, creating a miniature pressure front. Working in tandem, the two pistons would compress the pressurized air and displaced it laterally to turn the drive shafts on either side of the horse’s flanks. The shafts themselves had been fitted with a series of chrome exhaust pipes that looked like they could have been ripped right off of a muscle car. Each pipe had been retrofitted with an array of miniature fans, which, when turned by the drive shaft, amplified the force with which the pressurized air was expelled from the pipes and channeled it across the ground behind the horse. It was essentially what I had theorized. A leaf blower. Only one that ran without electricity or the stink of petrol fumes and didn’t emit a black cloud of exhaust. And it operated so quietly that I was almost shocked to see that the engines were still running. Without the force of the motion-induced airflow, it was only operating at a fraction of its potential, but that was more than enough to blow the sand a good ten feet across the wash.
I assumed the straps tethered to the back of the saddle were to tie down cargo, or, more specifically, the bodies of his victims.
The fact that he had dispatched the horse and left his means of covering his tracks behind was a giant neon sign that told me he had no intention of trying to escape. Either he killed me and waited for the police or the FBI or the Border Patrol to find my abandoned Crown Vic and ultimately arrest him and create a media circus, or I killed him.
I didn’t like having my options dictated to me, but I couldn’t waste any energy thinking about that now. I needed to remain focused on my surroundings if I was going to get out of this alive. And, believe me, I had every intention of doing just that.
I left the horse behind and continued eastward until I found another marker situated in the egress of the arroyo, where it began its steep journey down the red rock steppes toward the desert once more. I bumped the skull with my shoulder as I passed, causing it to swing in a circle.
The wind swatted me from the side the second I cleared cover, nearly knocking me from my feet. I turned into it and shielded my eyes with my free hand. Either I’d already forgotten how bad the storm was or it had gotten worse. I tried to get a clear view of the slope to my right, but the sand blasted me in the face. If I remembered correctly, and if I was where I thought I was, one of the caves should be roughly on my level and about half a mile straight ahead; the other would be close to the same distance diagonally up the mountain toward where the top hat rock occasionally materialized from the storm.
I had to use my free hand to maintain my balance on the slick boulders and scree to keep from toppling into the cacti lining what appeared to be an old animal trail. I looked for tracks, but had there been any, the wind would have obliterated them a long time ago. At least my instincts were telling me I was heading in the right direction. My heart beat faster with each step and it was getting harder to keep up with my body’s oxygen demands with the increasing altitude and the wind blowing directly into my face. The adrenaline was starting to fire from my fuel injector, as well. My mouth was dry. I took a drink of water and used the momentary respite to calm my nerves. One way or another, this would all be over soon.
I peered uphill during a rare pause between gusts and saw what I had hoped to see.
There was another marker up there, at the top of an escarpment and nearly concealed by an enormous nopales. The pike and the skull leaned forward, away from the wind and toward me. When another gust rose, the skull lifted its chin and started to nod. I could barely see the upper crescent of what looked like a dark orifice behind it.
I turned my back to the wind and racked the slide of my pistol to make sure no sand had gummed up the mechanism. I couldn’t afford for it to jam at a crucial moment.
I pressed onward, never once taking my eyes off of the shadows behind the cactus. Somewhere back there was the man I had come to find. The Coyote. My brother Ban. He was waiting for me somewhere down there in the darkness. I was walking right into a trap and I knew it.
I hauled myself up onto a ledge maybe four feet deep. The mountain grew even steeper from there as it headed up toward the peak. The cactus battled against the yellow grasses for a small patch of soil, into which a hole had been dug. The lid of the hatch that had formerly sealed it rested against the cactus. One side was bare wood; the other molded to imitate the contour of the slope and covered with sand and rocks that had been affixed to it with clear epoxy. This had once been a coyote den, no doubt. I had seen enough of them by now to know. It seemed almost poetic from a certain point of view.
The wind screamed past me. It made a hollow whistling sound from the mouth of the tunnel.
I shined my light down into a darkness so deep it swallowed the beam.
The coyote skull squeaked and nodded on the pike, almost as though it was laughing at me from beyond the grave.
Coyote is the master of deception.
I drew a deep breath, blew it out slowly, and crawled into the hole.
THIRTY-SEVEN
The smell hit me the moment I was out of the wind. It was a hundred, no…a thousand times worse than anything I had ever smelled in my entire life. This one would haunt me for the rest of my life. I retched several times before finally seizing control of my stomach. I had found where he had taken the bodies of his victims. No doubt about that. The stench of decomposition was so thick I felt like I was swimming through it as I wriggled deeper into the mountain. I couldn’t afford to let it distract me. Nor could I spare a thought to figure out how to cover my mouth and nose. Anything that divided my attention was liable to get me killed.
I had squirmed maybe ten feet when the light from the outside world faded behind me. I stopped where I was and waited until my eyes adapted as well as they were going to. The bluish glow of my light reached out ahead of me to the point where the tunnel opened into a larger space. I gripped my pistol with both hands to steady my aim and used just my knees and feet to scoot forward on my belly. Progress was slow and laborious, but it allowed me to keep my finger tight on the trigger and my eye even with the sightline. I cleared the earthen tunnel and recognized immediately what the Coyote had done. Walls had been erected to either side of me from the dirt floor clear up to the rocky roof, maybe six feet tall. It wasn’t quite high enough for me to stand fully erect, but I’d had enough of crawling to last me a lifetime. I rose to a shooter’s stance and entered Elder Brother’s maze.
The passage was perhaps five feet wide, not quite wide enough to allow me to raise my arms to either side. The circle of my flashlight grew smaller and smaller against the wall ahead of me. The only opening was to my right. I leaned against the adjacent wall, glanced around the corner, and ducked back.
Nothing there.
I went around the corner in a crouch, just in case, and walked straight toward another wall. This time, my only option was to turn left. I flattened to the wall, slid down lower, and peeked quickly around the corner. My beam flashed across an arm and a leg and threw a man’s shadow across the ground. I squeezed the trigger three times in rapid succession. The report was deafening. It echoed back at me in the confines like pencils slammed straight through my eardrums.