Adobe Flats (12 page)

twenty-two

The trucks rumbled through
Absolution in the dead of night. Column of five. A big noisy military convoy plus the two army jeeps from Sixto's, one up ahead and one bringing up the rear. The town was dark and silent. Nobody turned their lights on to see what was happening. Nobody wanted to see who was passing through in the middle of the night. Absolution turned a blind eye to what it didn't want to know.

Grant was driving the third truck. Middle of the convoy. The navigator in the passenger seat was largely redundant since all Grant had to do was follow the truck in front. There was no small talk in the cab. The truck bounced over uneven ground as it left the two-lane blacktop and headed south on the same road Grant had taken in Sarah Hellstrom's little foreign car. Dust formed a cloud trail in the darkness that a blind man could have followed. In Absolution even the blind men weren't looking.

Headlights scythed through the dark, a string of lights picking out the winding road and dry creek bed on the way to Adobe Flats. Absolution fell away in the distance, and pretty soon the last few outlying dwellings disappeared too. The properties Macready had bought so that he owned everything along the route towards Big Bend National Park. All except the hacienda at Adobe Flats that he'd burned out to clear his path. Where the path led was still in question since nobody had told Grant where they were going.

The truck churned up sand as it bounced out of the creek bed and back onto the road. It followed the winding contours of the landscape up from the arroyo, then crested the ridge between two crumbling buttes. The road continued down the final stretch before the foothills that marked the beginning of Big Bend. The small group of buildings at the bottom stood out in the moonlight. The burned-out hacienda and bunkhouse that used to be Eduardo Cruz's home.

“How far we going?”

Grant focused on the taillights of the truck in front. There was no dust trail now that they were driving on rock and gravel. The convoy had driven straight past the turnaround for Cruz's Alamo and followed the deep-rutted track into the foothills. The trucks were way beyond the foothills now, following a winding trail among the rocky outcrops and ledges of alien terrain. The right-hand wheels were close to the edge of a sheer drop, but there was no room to move left. The other drivers must have followed this route before because they drove faster than Grant felt comfortable with. He used soft hands and full concentration to keep the wheels on course and away from the edge.

Grant kept his eyes on the road, using peripheral vision to see the navigator. “Just so I know how long I've got to keep us from plunging to our deaths.”

The passenger spoke for the first time since they set off.

“You're doing fine. Trust me, I'd let you know if you were gonna get us killed.”

Moonlight showed a deep valley to the right. Hard terrain of scrub and rock and a few straggly trees. A cliff wall was the only view to the left, twisting and turning along the hillside path. The convoy was still climbing, making the drop to the right even deeper.

“I wouldn't want the US Army coming after me for denting the fender.”

The passenger unwound a touch. “That what the British Army would do?”

“The British Army would come after me if I scuffed a shoe.”

“Well, don't worry about dinging this baby. So long as they get 'em back, the mechanics'll spruce 'em up. Drop it off the cliff and we might have a few questions to answer.”

“They sound more understanding than Hertz, then.”

“They're getting paid more than Hertz.”

Grant didn't want to press the point. Who was hiring the vehicles out or how high up the ranks it went. He doubted the US military had a policy of letting mercenaries use their vehicles. That meant somebody in high places was doing a deal on the side. It didn't explain where they were going, though.

“So how much further?”

The passenger turned to Grant. “How's your Spanish?”

Grant nodded that he was impressed. “They let us cross the border?”

The navigator was almost becoming friendly because he laughed. “This is a military exercise. You think we don't know where to cross?”

“A live fire exercise?”

“It's the only kind. Gotta be careful with Mexicans.”

“Remember the Alamo. Right.”

The navigator nodded.

“Wouldn't want anyone slipping away on the way back.”

Grant agreed even if he didn't know what he was agreeing to. “Hell no.”

The road began to widen up ahead. It swung to the right, around a jagged outcrop, then curled back into the mountain. As Grant negotiated the curve, he eased off the gas, just in time to avoid the truck in front of him. The driver up ahead slewed to his left and slammed the brakes on. The back wheels skidded towards the sheer drop on the right. Brake lights turned the road bright red. Grant stopped the truck inches from a collision.

Air brakes hissed. Engines idled. Doors slammed up ahead. Some slammed behind Grant's truck. He got out to see what the problem was. The navigator slid across to the driver's seat because the cliff face blocked his door. Grant moved around the stricken truck, watching his footing near the edge. His silhouette went from blood red in the truck's taillights to black in the darkness round the corner.

Three men were standing in the shadows. A fourth stepped from behind the truck's brake lights like a demon in red. The cowboy hat was still pulled down over his eyes. Grant reckoned this was as close to hard work as Scott Macready had ever come. When he snapped his fingers two more men came up behind Grant and cocked their weapons. For effect, so that Grant knew they were serious. The three men in front did the same.

Scott Macready just smiled.

The trucks shuddered as
their engines were turned off. Silence filled the void. Away from the headlights the world was dark and dangerous, picked out only slightly by a pale blue dusting of moonlight. Grant kept his body loose and his breathing even as he weighed his options. There weren't many to choose from until he knew what Macready's intentions were. So far the omens weren't good.

Scott Macready stepped in front of his men, proving that he was as much a stranger to combat as he was to hard work. He had immediately negated two of the gunmen, and the third had as much chance of shooting the two behind Grant as hitting Grant himself. First rule of catching your enemy in crossfire is to angle your aim away from your colleagues on the opposite flank. That told Grant something about the mercenaries too, but it didn't improve his situation.

The two blocked gunmen stepped to either side of Macready, opening up their angles across the killing zone and protecting the two behind Grant. So much for that idea. Macready wasn't the threat; he was the catalyst. Whatever was going to happen would happen on his command. It would be better if he wasn't calm, clear, and collected when he made that decision.

Grant decided to probe. “Does your dad know you're out this late?”

Macready's smile didn't falter. “My father knows a lot of things. But he ain't here.”

Grant took half a step to his right, careful not to get too close to the crumbling edge of the road. “I heard he wasn't too happy when you got me arrested.”

Five gun barrels followed Grant's movement.

Macready stayed in the middle. “There were some questions about that.”

“He give you a hard time, did he?”

“He gives everybody a hard time.”

“But not when you're slapping Sarah around.”

Macready's eyes blinked. A nervous tick began to twitch at one side of his mouth. He worked hard to calm the twitch down, but it still trembled at the corner of his lips. He tried for a steely glare and almost achieved it. It was the toughest he was ever going to look.

“Me and Sarah are none of your business.”

“It is if you touch her again.”

The glare disguised a hint of embarrassment. Macready didn't want his dirty laundry being aired in front of the hired help. Grant didn't want the hired help opening fire from a position of strength. He took another slow half step to his right. Dirt and gravel crumbled off the edge of the road and tumbled into the void. Grant listened to gauge how far it fell. It sounded like a long drop over uneven ground.

Macready slid a hand into his back pocket. “My father was wrong about you.”

Grant watched the hand and got ready to move. “How d'you figure that?”

Macready's forearm tensed as the hand gripped something behind him. “He wanted you treated like gelignite on a bumpy road. In case you'd been sent from up north.”

“Business partners not happy with him, are they?”

“They're happy with results.”

“But they don't trust him, huh?”

“In this business nobody trusts anybody.”

“The party organizing business?”

The hand began to move from behind Macready's back. “The business we are partaking in tonight.”

Grant only had one place to go. He relaxed, ready to go there. “Armed men and lorries across the border?”

“Lorries?”

“Sorry. Trucks.”

Macready shook his head. “Armed men protecting trucks coming back across the border. Wouldn't want any of the cargo wandering off.”

“No, you wouldn't, would you?”

Macready brought his hand round. It was holding something small and black. “The old man thought you were a hit man sent to stir things up.”

He swung it out in front of him. “He needn't have worried about his partners though, did he? 'Cause you ain't no hit man.”

He opened Grant's badge wallet.

“You're a cop.”

The badge wasn't going to save him, but the revelation did put a moment's doubt in the mercenaries' aim. Five gun barrels lowered briefly. Decision time. Stay here and die for certain or take the fall and maybe die on the way down. It was no decision. The gun barrels swung up again. Macready closed the wallet. And Grant stepped over the edge and into the abyss.

twenty-three

Pain and gunfire filled
the night. The drop was steep and uneven. It was dotted with rocks and scrub and dry, twisted trees. The trees and bushes slowed his descent. The rocks broke bones and tore skin. Despite trying to keep his body limp, the pain forced him into reflex actions to protect his head and face. Grant tumbled like a rolling stone gathering no moss. What he did gather was pain and blood.

The side of his head slammed against a boulder. One arm snapped above the wrist. His knees were skinned and his back knocked so hard he felt paralyzed from the waist down. He flipped over, landing on his side before bouncing and rolling some more. He kept his mouth closed to protect his teeth and stop himself biting his tongue, but something mashed his lips and grazed the side of his face. Miraculously his nose avoided any damage.

Dust and rubble tumbled with him. Snapped-off tree branches snagged at his clothes. Pain filled his world. Pain and gunfire. He could hear it despite the sound of breaking bones and jarring concussion. He couldn't see the muzzle flashes because his eyes were closed. Ricochets careened all around him.

And still he kept tumbling. Less than halfway down the rugged hillside. When his eyes flicked open, the moonlight seemed brighter down here, away from the headlights and the gunshots. It was a silver disc in the sky one minute, then a powder blue dusting of light on the landscape another, depending on which way was up at any given moment. Rolling and bouncing. Up was down, then down was up. His world kept turning and pain was added to pain. The slope leveled out towards the bottom, but it was a false hope. It was a dusty ski jump at the bottom of the hill, and it shot Grant out for one final drop into empty space. He flew through the air like a rag doll. The impact of hitting bottom knocked the rest of wind from his lungs and left him dead and broken.

Almost dead.

Torches cut through the night, searching the hillside for the body. The gunfire stopped. The torch beams were off target by twenty feet. To Grant's left. Or was it his right? He was barely conscious. The pain had become all-encompassing, leaving no room for any other feeling. Not heat nor cold nor the warm breath of life.

Raised voices sounded on the road above. Nobody tried to come down and find him. They were running out of time. There was a schedule to keep. A rendezvous at the border. Nobody could survive a fall like that. They were almost right. Grant lay in the shelter of the rocky outcrop that he'd sailed over and listened. The engines started up again. Doors slammed. Then the trucks set off towards their rendezvous, leaving the meddlesome cop for dead.

Grant slept. Or was
unconscious. Whichever it was, he was out for so long that the night sky had turned to predawn blue before he woke into a world of pain. He knew he should have stayed awake. Letting himself slip into the half-life in this condition was dangerous. That's how people died—when their bodies gave up and told them to rest. Just take a nap. Let your senses shut down for a while. Then, when they tried to wake up again, their systems wouldn't come back online. That's when the doctor would pronounce life extinct and you'd get your toe tagged in the county morgue.

Grant jerked awake. The mortuary out back of the Absolution Motel. That was his destination. Not as a corpse but as the first stop towards recovery. Recovery was a long way off. Surviving at all wasn't a foregone conclusion. First thing Grant had to do was take stock. Judging by the pain pulsing through his body, that stock was going to be low.

He went to sleep again. He couldn't help it. Sleep eased the pain, or at least when he was unconscious he didn't notice it. Even before assessing his injuries Grant's body began the miracle of self-healing. He'd seen it in combat. He'd seen it at road accidents. Mangled bodies that had no right to be alive, clinging onto that most precious of gifts until help arrived. Help wasn't going to arrive at the bottom of the rocky escarpment. Grant was going to have to go to the help. But first he needed rest.

The second time Grant
woke up, the pain had eased. Until he tried to move. Then it came back full force. That was good. Pain was an indication of where the damage was. According to the pain, the damage was everywhere. He started at the top down.

His head was throbbing but his eyes worked fine. A bit blurred at first until he blinked the dust out of them. That was essential. He'd need his eyes to help assess the damage. Sight and touch. To examine his head, he raised one hand to check for cuts and fractures.

Pain knifed up his arm.

Wrong hand. The one that was broken just above the wrist. He blinked tears of pain out of his eyes and examined the wrist. He was wrong. The arm wasn't broken above the wrist; the pain just felt like it was coming from there. The wrist jutted at an unnatural angle: dislocated. That was better than a break because it was something he could reset himself. It was worse than a break because it meant there was more pain to come. Imminent pain. Right now.

Grant shuffled into a sitting position. A band of pain set his chest on fire. A couple of ribs were broken, but his spine felt okay. The numbness in his legs receded to pins and needles. He ticked those things off his list, then concentrated on the wrist. Using his good hand he laid the forearm across his lap. The wrist bulged out of its socket on the top of the arm and the hand lay flat, forming a fleshy S-bend. He gritted his teeth and carefully took hold of the hand. The dull ache became hot, sharp fire. The path of the dislocation was clear. The route back into the socket was equally clear. He'd seen it done before, just never done the procedure on himself.

He took the hand in a firm grip. Sweat broke out on his face. He slowly pulled forward. The pain intensified. The joint resisted. He pulled harder. His stomach threatened to lurch up his throat. He roared a primal scream to distract himself. Then a loud pop and a stab of pain signaled success. The wrist ached but the pain eased. He wiggled his fingers. They ached too.

He let out a sigh and focused his mind.

The predawn mist had burned off and the sky was already a dazzling blue. He checked his watch, but that had been on the injured wrist. The band had gouged flesh when it was torn off during the fall. He checked the length of the shadows. They were still long across the canyon floor. It was early morning. The rocky outcrop he was lying behind was still in shade. He had no idea how long the midnight operation had taken, but he guessed it must have been completed before dawn. That meant they'd already driven back along the winding road above him. Either they didn't have time to look for his body or they'd searched and not found him.

That didn't mean they wouldn't come back in daylight.

He quickly finished his injury report.

There was dried blood and pain down one side of his head, but it didn't feel like he'd cracked his skull. His lip was cut and swollen. The wrist he'd already attended to, and his ribs were cracked. That was the upper body sorted. The rest was easier to examine visually and physically. His jeans were torn and both knees skinned but there were no broken bones and no cuts so deep they'd need stitches. His trainers had stayed on his feet. Good. He'd be doing a lot of walking.

A loud squawk made him jump. He squinted into the sky and saw a huge black silhouette circling overhead. He'd seen buzzards in the movies but usually as a matte effect or a composite shot. Back in Yorkshire they had hawks and crows. Whatever this thing was, it was bigger than a Yorkshire bird. Typical America. Even the carrion was super sized.

He checked the sun again. It was beyond the hillside he'd tumbled down. East. His eyes followed an arc across the sky towards the west. He wasn't sure how far they'd come from Absolution but he reckoned not as far south as Terlingua. That would be a long haul west across rough country.

Using the path of the sun as a guide, he turned right. North. The direction that any search party would be coming from. An injured man struggling over harsh terrain would be easy pickings. Even if he reached Adobe Flats, there was no way of getting a message to Hunter Athey. Grant would have to do some creative orienteering, and he'd better get started now.

He pushed himself up onto his feet. The world swayed around him. His vision swam, and he thought he was going to pass out. He took another deep breath. The horizon settled down. Everything ached, but the pain became more manageable. Holding the bad wrist across his chest to help protect the cracked ribs, he headed west. Just like Kirk Douglas and Robert Mitchum and their wagon train in
The Way West,
o
nly slower.