He'd have to investigate them all. One by one. He'd parked his vehicle far enough away so the noise of it would not have disturbed them if they were there.
He took a firmer grip on his gun and started down the hill, careful that his booted feet should make as little noise as possible.
Suddenly he froze.
In the distance, from the crest of the hill above, a shouted command floated down to him.
Damn! The search teams had arrived. He'd not been the only one to think.
He hesitated. Should he wait? See if they came out? He'd have a clean shot. He decided against it. He'd have no way of getting back to his vehicle and escaping. The sound of the shots would be heard for miles, and the searchers would be on him.
Cautiously, quietly, he ran back the way he'd come, squatted down — hidden from view by the brush and scrub trees…
Tom crouched on the floor of the kiln, tense and alert. He, too, had heard the distant shout. He crept to the doorway and looked out. He hurried back and shinnied up the blackened timbers under the vent. He peered out through the opening.
Cresting the hill high above, he could make out several figures searching among the shrubs as they moved down the slope, strung out in a long line.
The enemies had come back.
He jumped down. He ran to Randi. Urgently he tugged at her. She got up. They turned to flee — and stopped.
The creature standing stiff-legged, threatening, in the doorway, blocking their way out, bared long yellow fangs and hissed in rage.
Involuntarily Randi let out a little cry. Tom pushed her out of the way. He faced the snarling cougar, never taking his eyes from it. His heart beat rapidly. Watchful and taut, he knew he had to fight the large beast. His only way of escape was barred by this new enemy. And he had to get out. His pursuers were closing in.
Petrified, Randi pressed against the wall, staring at the savage confrontation, convinced Tom would be torn to shreds. He could not know the big cat's strength. He could not know the danger that faced him.
Squarely, unflinchingly, Tom braved the growling mountain lion, its fetid breath hot in his face. He crouched down, coiled in readiness, his hands on the ground.
The big cat watched him, lynx-eyed, its menacing growl rumbling deep in its throat. Muscles rippling, it crouched — ears back, tail lashing.
Tom's whole being was intent upon the beast. He saw it tense to leap at him.
Suddenly he flung a handful of sand and ashes directly into the gaping maw and slit-pupiled eyes of the snarling cat. With a howl of surprise and rage the cougar jumped straight up into the air. It turned as it came down — and streaked away.
Instantly Tom grabbed Randi and they ran through the empty doorway, fleeing into the scrub trees…
Paul made his way down the slope. To the right and to the left of him the others in his teams were searching among the shrubbery. He stopped. Below he could see the row of charcoal kilns Stark had told him about. He studied them. They would be just the place for Tom to hole up.
He did not know if his quarry had fled this way. The helicopters had not been able to spot them in the mountain rocks. He'd had little hope that they would. The shadows had been too dark; the hiding places too many.
He kept his eyes on the kilns as he made his way down the hillside. If Tom and Randi were there and were flushed, he'd spot them. He felt keyed up. His hunter's instinct told him he was close. The egg fragments had encouraged him. At least they were alive…
Hidden by the shrubs and trees, Tom and Randi climbed over the summit of the far ridge. Below them lay a large, abandoned mine area. The hills surrounding it were pitted with adits and shaft holes. Several big pyramids of crushed ore tailings dotted the tract, and old timbers from mine entrances, stopes and box sluices were scattered about. Rusty ore carts lay overturned in a heap. On the slope Tom and Randi were climbing down stood a huge wooden ore ramp so massive that even the ravages of time had made little inroad.
The hills cupping the old mine area were almost devoid of vegetation and looked barren and stripped. Tom headed for the ore ramp, and he and Randi climbed past the sturdy, hand-hewn supporting beams bearing the immense structure and resembling the powerful, age-browned skeleton legs of some prehistoric behemoth. At the top of the ramp they sank down to rest…
Paul fingered the eggshell fragments in Ward's hand. “They've been here, all right,” he said. He looked toward the row of charcoal kilns a short distance below them. “Must have slept in one of the kilns overnight.” He looked at Ward with encouraged excitement. “They can't be too damned far away.”
From the far right flank of the line of searchers Sergeant Hays called out.
“Captain!” His booming voice carried through the stillness of the morning. “Captain Jarman! Over here!’
Paul and Ward both looked up. They began to run toward the big Sergeant.
Hays was standing on a narrow, overgrown trail that snaked along the hillside. He looked up as Paul and Ward joined him. He pointed to the ground. “Look, sir,” he said.
Paul knelt down. On the ground was a small spot that glistened darkly. He touched it. He tested the substance with his fingers.
“It's oil, all right,” Hays confirmed.
Paul nodded. “Someone's been parked here,” he said. He glanced toward the kilns in the distance. “Within sight but not within earshot of the kilns down there.”
“And it had to have been during the night,” Hays added, “or early this morning. Or the sun would've dried out the spot.”
Thoughtfully Paul felt the viscous oil on his fingers. “None of our vehicles,” he said. “And this is our sector. And none of the others would've been in here or they'd have notified us.” He turned to Hays. “Sergeant, signal the vehicles to pick us up here.”
“Yes, sir.” Hays took a Very flare pistol from his belt and fired one flare straight up. It soared high above the hills…
Neither Tom nor Randi saw the flare that arched into the sky in the distance behind them. Tom was curled up in the shadow of the big ore ramp, resting. He licked the cuts on his hands, sustained while they were crossing the lacerating salt flats.
Randi watched him, desperate. The grueling ordeal was taking a heavy toll. Both she and Tom were badly dehydrated and deeply exhausted.
She tried to rally her fatigue-numbed mind. There had to be something she could do. Paul and his search teams could not be far behind them. She realized they had been seen. And they had left a trail.
A trail…
Mentally she shook herself. If only she could think. A trail…
Furtively she glanced at Tom. He would not know. She bent down. With small stones she spelled out TOM on the ground and an arrow pointing in the direction of the mine adits in the rocks.
She looked at her husband, torn by conflicting emotions. She felt guilty for betraying him, for violating his growing trust in her. Yet she knew that her betrayal was the only way to save him. To save them both. She knew with dreadful certainty that if she and Tom were not “caught” soon, they would die.
Suddenly Tom sat up in alarm. From far away the sound of laboring motors penetrated the quiet.
The relentless monsters were upon them again.
Like a big cat, Tom scampered up on the ore ramp. Warily he crouched down. He watched and waited.
Presently a line of vehicles, led by Paul's scout, rumbled into the mining compound below, rounding a huge pile of ore tailings. Scouts and Ranger vehicles drew up and came to a halt near some old, tumbledown shacks.
Quickly Tom scurried back down the ramp. He grabbed Randi and pulled her with him as he ran toward the mine excavations in the rocks nearby.
Randi threw a glance toward her pebble message. Please, God, she thought, let them see it. Let them find us…
She and Tom were loping along a narrow path winding along the steep hillside, hidden from view from below. Abruptly Tom stopped. Randi gasped in shock. Mere inches before them gaped a tremendous hole. She stared down into it. The bottom was lost in the pitch blackness far below. It was an open mine shaft, a glory-hole, blasted straight down into the mountain rock. The trail ran around it along a narrow ledge to an abandoned mine tunnel and stopped a few feet farther on.
Dragging Randi behind him, Tom inched his way past the gaping shaft to the mine entrance. Half obstructed by debris and chunks of rock, the opening was just big enough for them to squeeze inside.
The tunnel beyond was a dead end. Barely ten feet in, an old cave-in sealed it off completely. Broken, rotted timbers lay wedged among the rocks. The remaining stretch was barely five feet to the ceiling; the floor was covered with rocks, and the support beams at the entrance were cracked and sagged askew.
Tom's eyes flew over the cramped refuge. At once he began to pile more rocks and stones on the debris already lying in the entrance, sealing the opening almost completely. Tensely he crouched inside. Waiting…
The men had left the vehicles at the old shacks and had begun to search the surrounding hillsides.
Hays and a Ranger were climbing up to the big ore ramp. They reached the top and Hays squinted at the sun, still low on the horizon but already hot. He walked along the ramp. He turned back to look for his companion.
The stones scattered by his boots as he walked on had spelled out TOM.
He did not know.
“There's nothing up here,” the Ranger called to him. “I don't think they'll have come this way.”
“There's an old mine entrance up there,” Hays responded. “Let's check it out before we go back down. As long as we're here.”
The Ranger shrugged. He joined Hays, and the two men started toward the adit.
They came to the deep glory-hole. Hays stared down into the black abyss. “Jeez!” he mumbled.
“Yeah,” the Ranger said. “There're quite a few of these old shafts around here.” He nodded at the hole. “That there hole's more than eighty feet deep. Straight down.”
Hays carefully edged his way around the open shaft. The Ranger stayed behind. The ledge in front of the mine entrance was only wide enough for one.
Hays shook his head at the blocked mine entrance. “Looks pretty much caved in,” he called. He tugged at the rocks.
“Watch your step, Sergeant,” the Ranger cautioned. “One wrong move and you're gone. Permanent!”
Tom and Randi huddled against the tunnel wall behind the rock barricade. Tense and wary, Tom watched the light from outside as it stabbed through the cracks between the rocks, going from light to dark as the figure of Hays moved in front of the opening. One of the rocks tumbled away and pitched into the shaft outside. The sound of it hitting bottom did not reach him.
Randi raptly watched the figure in front of the mine entrance. Hope rose in her. The rescuers were just outside. They had been found.
It was over.
A few more rocks and they would be safe. She struggled to hold back the tears, her throat constricted. She could see the man outside trying to peer through the barrier into the gloom of the mine tunnel beyond. She was just about to call out to him when her eyes fell upon her husband.
And her cry died in her throat.
Tom was crouched on the tunnel floor facing the entrance. Tense and coiled to leap upon his hated enemy the instant he was exposed, he looked desperate and dangerous.
In bitter defeat Randi knew. She could not call out. She could in no way attract the attention of the men who would save them. The instant they were discovered Tom would throw himself at the man. And both he and his target would plunge to their death in the deep, open mine shaft just outside.
Another rock fell from the blocked opening, rolling out onto the tunnel floor.
Tom stiffened.
In another instant he would leap.
Urgently Randi touched him. He whirled on her. Quickly she clamped a hand over her own mouth. She reached out and placed her other hand over Tom's mouth. Her eyes, gazing at him over her hand, pleaded with him. Slowly she shook her head — and pulled him away from the opening.
Bewildered, Tom stared at her. He trembled with agitation and fear. His face, pale with desperation, loomed before her. She hardly dared breathe.
The voice of Sergeant Hays reached them. It sounded as if it were only inches away. Tom grew rigid under her hand.
“Must be quite a lot of holes like this one around,” the Sergeant said to the Ranger. “How the hell are we ever going to find them if they're holed up in this kind of mess?”
Tom shook loose. He pushed Randi's hand from his mouth. In despair she knew she could hold him back no longer.
Another rock tumbled away.
Suddenly a distant voice rang out.
“Sergeant Hays!” Randi recognized Paul's voice. “Down here! On the double!”
Outside, Hays straightened up. “Okay, sir!” he shouted. “Coming!” He moved away from the opening.
Tom sat immobile, listening to the men withdraw. In silence he waited.
Randi felt desolate. It had been so close. But she'd had to stop Tom. Or he would surely have been killed. She suddenly realized what the men had talked about. If trapped, Tom would act in a way that might result in his own destruction. She shivered.
Quickly, carefully, Tom began to remove the rest of the rocks that obstructed the opening. He crept out. Randi started to follow. He pushed her back inside.
He moved to the edge of the ledge and looked down at the mining compound.
Paul had gathered all his men around him. He watched as Hays and the Ranger came running from the hillside. He was standing at a Ranger pick-up which had just driven up. He leaned into it and brought out a couple of flashlights.
“I want every one of these mine tunnels searched,” he said to the men. He handed out the torches. “Use these. There are more in the pick-up. He looked at the men, his face earnest. “And remember. If you do find them, go easy. Don't rough him up, whatever happens.” He paused for greater weight. “You could kill him.”
He looked up as a jeep came driving into the area. It was Ranger Gordon. He dismounted and joined the group. He picked up a flashlight with the others and walked toward the old mine tunnels.
Hays joined him. “What happened to you?” he asked. “Coffee break?”
Gordon grinned. He nodded toward his vehicle. “Damned jeep overheated,” he said. “Had to use my canteen water to cool it down. Took some time.” He motioned toward the hills and the mine adits. “They holed up in there?”
Hays nodded. “Seems like it. We'll soon know.”
On the ledge above, Tom crawled away. In his nostrils lingered the acrid stench of the fumes drifting up from the monsters below. He had come to hate it. He made his way back to the mine entrance and pulled Randi from it.
Together they inched around the glory-hole and skirted the big ore ramp.
Climbing down the rocky slope, they retraced their steps, doubling back the way they had come…