Black Sun Descending (28 page)

Silas heard Hayduke yell something much more audibly. “Already climbing!” Hayduke sounded like he was halfway up already. Silas took up the slack on the line and listened for any sign of Hayduke's progress below him. It took five minutes for the young man to close the distance, and in that time Silas had constructed his own theory of the crime. It seemed clear that Jane Vaughn had stumbled on Aldershot and Zahn's scheme to bilk the
US
federal government, and the Arizona Trust for Wildlands, out of millions of dollars by fabricating proof that Patriot One was an operating mine. They hadn't been hauling waste rock
to
the Atlas Mill—at least not exclusively—they had been hauling uranium-laced material
back
to Arizona to give the impression that the mine was in production. Jane had found out and maybe had—like Hayduke and Silas—come to the site to investigate for herself. Had Terry or Balin or Slim Jim found out and killed her here, in the middle of the Kanab Creek hinterlands? Then they dumped her body with a load of overburden or waste rock in Ted's truck and instructed him to transport the load to the Atlas Mill site. Nobody should have found her.

But Silas had.

And what about Darcy McFarland? And Kiel Pearce? Had they both known about this and paid the ultimate price for their knowledge as well? There seemed to be no connection. Darcy had been killed before Jane had gone missing. Kiel's death was only two weeks ago now. Unless he had somehow come into this knowledge just recently and confronted the trio of would-be thieves, then his death too seemed unrelated. Maybe the
FBI
was right: maybe there were two separate killers.

Silas could hear Hayduke right below him. “How you doing?” Silas asked.

“Fine. Just fine. Shit man, I was halfway up before you put me on belay.” The shaggy head appeared. His face was covered in red dust. He used a free hand to push the grit from around his eyes.

“Next time wait for my okay.”

“You really think there's going to be a next time?”

“I think we got one more pitch of climbing.”

Silas opened a bottle of water from his pack and both men drank and ate some beef jerky before climbing the next pitch. “I don't see any light up there,” said Hayduke.

“I was trying not to notice that,” Silas said, starting up the shaft again. “I thought I saw some light when I was down by the chock stone.”

The climbing got harder. The shaft grew narrower and Silas had to wedge himself in places, the darkness pressing on his mind as the sandstone seemed to enclose around him. He climbed forty feet and came to a place where the tunnel was partly sealed by a heavy rock. Silas turned sideways, drawing a deep breath to shimmy around the stone. He tore his shirt and felt the heat of blood on his stomach. For a moment he felt like he was stuck but managed to reach above him and find a secure hold. With all his might, he pulled and got over the obstacle. He had no idea how Hayduke would do the same. Silas decided to set another belay at this point, found a place where he could stand on two slabs of stone, and called down again.

Hayduke climbed up, grunting, and when his face appeared in Silas's halo of light below, his face was red and streaked with sweat. “Sucks being the second on shit like this. You realize how much dust you kick down?”

“You want to lead?”

“I'm not complaining. Just pointing it out, that's all.”

“Can you get around that?”

“Do I have a choice?” Hayduke tried to push the rock to one side, his muscled arms straining, his face pinched in effort. “Fucker is wedged pretty good.” Hayduke twisted sideways and drew a deep breath. He reached one hairy arm up and with the other pushed from below and somehow got himself twisted through the narrow constriction. He sat down, sweating and breathing hard on the conquered rock.

“Everything alright?”

“Well, I think so. I'm not sure.” Hayduke rolled up his jeans, now soaked in blood.

“You're bleeding like a tap.”

“Yeah, the gauze came off and I think I tore the wound a little. And there's one other thing.”

“What?”

“Something stung me down there. Pretty hard. I think it was a scorpion. I think it was a bark scorpion.”

“That's bad, right?”

“Well, I should start frothing at the mouth and twitching pretty shortly.”

“ARIZONA BARK SCORPIONS AREN'T FATAL,”
said Silas.

“You're right. Maybe you'd like me to find one and it can sting you. How's that sound?”

Silas was already preparing to climb again. “Point taken.” It was going to be difficult to ascend the rest of the shaft if Hayduke lost motor function and went into respiratory distress. “It can't be that much farther,” Silas reassured him. Hayduke said nothing. Silas continued and shortly came to a complete constriction in the tunnel. He pressed his back against the jagged limestone wall and wedged himself with his feet on the opposite side. The flickering light from his headlamp illuminated a set of tightly wedged boards across the gap in the shaft. This was it, the opening—but it had been boarded over. Silas reached up and tried to pry at one of the wooden planks. It had a little give to it, which was reassuring. As he pulled harder on the board, his fingers pinched between the slats. A shower of sand started to pour down.

“Hey!” Silas heard Hayduke yell below him.

“Climb up,” Silas said, taking up the slack in the rope.

In a few minutes Hayduke was next to him. The man was pale and his eyes seemed to be darting around more than usual.

“How you doing?”

“I've been shot, blown up, and bitten by a scorpion. How the fuck do you think I'm doing?”

“This is the exit, but it's boarded over and covered in dirt.”

“How much?”

“I don't know. It could be a few inches, or a few feet.” Silas looked around. There was a heavy wooden frame around the opening that the boards were nailed into. He pulled up the rope and found a place in the wood frame that he could feed the rope through. He created two large hoops, one of which he secured to Hayduke's harness and the other to his own. He tied them off with clove hitches. “You're pretty good at this,” said Hayduke.

Silas looked at him. “I have some experience. The last four and a half years I've been in some tight pinches. Usually alone. Usually far from help.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Silas finished the knots and tested them. He looked at Hayduke. “It's going to be okay. We'll get out of here, get you to Fredonia or Kanab, and get you to a hospital.”

“I know. I'm fine.” For a moment Hayduke had dropped his persona and was Josh Charleston.

“You know, I like Josh more than I like Hayduke.”

“Yeah, well, don't get used to it.”

“Ready?”

Hayduke just nodded. Silas reached up and Hayduke did the same. They each got a grip on one of the boards, digging their fingers into the fine red sand that weighed down on the wood, and pulled. Both boards snapped at the same time and a rush of sand and rock poured down on them. Almost immediately the weight of the coursing sand dislodged them from their footholds and both men jolted downwards in the cascade of debris. Silas felt something heavy hit his head. He had his eyes pressed closed, his mouth pursed shut. The two men were caught by the ropes and Silas hoped the entire wooden frame didn't let go and drop them all the way back down the shaft.

After a few seconds the sand abated. Silas was dangling on the rope, Hayduke pressed against him. He opened his eyes and saw a thin light filtering down on them. They were hanging seven or eight feet below the opening.

“I need a fucking beer,” said Hayduke.

“Maybe Slim Jim left a couple for us in case we got out.”

THEY CLIMBED OUT OF THE
shaft and flopped like fish out of water. Silas hauled his pack up with great difficulty against the debris and dirt that had poured down on them. When he got it to the surface he dug a water bottle from the shredded fabric and offered it to Hayduke. Then he took one of his own and drank the entire contents.

The two men lay in the dim sunlight for five minutes, neither moving. Silas sat up and looked around. He could see smoke billowing from nearby. That would be the mine shaft building. He scanned the horizon of red earth and piñon pines for any signs of movement. “It's going to be dark soon. We need to get a move on.”

“I'm just going to lie here awhile.”

“I need to get your Jeep and take you to a hospital.”

Hayduke sat up. “Shit. My Jeep.”

They walked overland toward the billowing smoke and found the mine site deserted.

“Did you see what they drove here in?”

“There were two vehicles,” said Hayduke. He pointed to the crumbling, smoldering wreck of the mine building. There was the box of an older model Ford, its tires burned and its hood sprung from the heat. “They had the fertilizer and gasoline in the back of that one. I think they had one of those Toyota
FJ
Cruisers too.”

“They've beat town,” said Silas. “We should too. We need to get to Fredonia, call the cops, and get you to help.”

Hayduke was sitting on the ground now. “See if my pack is in that building.” He pointed to the maintenance shed where they had found the maps. Silas went to look. He came back empty-handed. “No pistol either.”

Hayduke just shook his head.

“I'm going to check on the vehicles.”

“Don't bother. They would have found them.”

“I'm going anyway. Wait here.” It was futile. He ran back to where they had partially hidden the Jeep and the Outback. Both were gone. When he told Hayduke the young man flopped down on his back and closed his eyes. Silas looked around the yard. “Don't give up yet,” he said. He looked at the half-dozen pickups in the yard. Most looked inoperable, missing either tires or their engines. He found an old Chevy that appeared to be in running condition. He tried the door and it was open. He flipped the sun visor down like he'd seen done in the movies, hoping to catch a set of keys, but there were none. He sat down in the cab and looked around it. He was about to give up when Hayduke appeared beside him. He reached across Silas and turned the key in the ignition. Silas stepped on the clutch and the engine sputtered and then started. Hayduke limped around the far side of the cab, got in, slumped against the door, and closed his eyes.

SILAS DROVE THE
Chevy along the rutted dirt road toward Fredonia, checking every few minutes for cell phone reception. He talked to Hayduke the whole time, mostly about books. It was what he knew, and he needed to keep the young man awake. At one point Hayduke seemed to be slipping into shock so Silas said, “Edward Abbey was a terrible writer. He was shallow and a misogynist who hated immigrants and Indians. He was a waste of paper.”

Hayduke opened his eyes and smiled. “Ain't nobody perfect,” he said and closed his eyes again. “You know, Penelope loved Abbey but she loved you more.”

Silas was stone silent. He was gripping the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles felt like they might pop out of their skin. Finally he said, “She told you that?”

“No man, but it was obvious. We'd be out causing trouble or poking around the desert, and she'd be all, ‘I wish my Silas was here.' Made me sick but then I met you. You seem alright.”

“You're alright too, Hayduke. Hold on, we're almost to Fredonia.”

Silas got cell reception just outside of the town and dialed 9-1-1. “I need an ambulance. I've got a friend who's been bitten by an Arizona bark scorpion. He's in shock.”

They met the ambulance just outside of town and, as they had agreed, Hayduke would wait until he was in the back to tell them about the gunshot wound. “I need to report this to the feds first. I don't want to have to deal with Mohave County right now.”

As Hayduke was being loaded onto the stretcher, he said, “I guess I owe you one now.”