Dangerous Refuge (23 page)

Thirty-nine

B
aby, I gotta pee,” Kimberli said. “The bumps are really shaking things up.”

“We’ll be stopping just above the tree line. If you’re feeling modest, you can use a tree for cover. Otherwise, go beside the car.”

“You’re kidding,” she said.

“You see any toilets out here?” he asked. “Think about something else. You’re not the only one with a dime bladder on a bumpy dollar ride.”

Kimberli gave him a look, but didn’t say anything. She kept on driving, but more slowly now, trying to avoid bumps.

Shaye looked beyond the Bronco. Far beyond. The desolation was complete. Way off in the Sierra Nevadas to the north and west, a fire was burning, making its own dirty cloud. The rest of the sky was clean except for contrails like fingernail scratches over the twilight, still too bright for a moon or stars. The fair-weather clouds were gone except to the south, where a wild storm cell was sweeping over the land.

But not here. Here there was a dry wind sucking moisture from everything, despite the almost-evening coolness outside. The land itself seemed unfinished, as if whoever created it had sketched only the outlines of what would come before giving up and abandoning the project. The remaining mountains were the bones of creation shoving through the land’s thin, brittle skin.

In the high summer, being out here without water meant a day or two of survival if you found shade. In the sun, you could measure your life expectancy in hours. Even after the introduction of automobiles, the Emigrant Trail had claimed more than its share of travelers. The first person Shaye had ever gone on a SAR mission for had been out in the same kind of country she was seeing now.

Prospectors, mustangs, and wiry range cattle had left a spiderweb of scars on the thin-skinned land. Unlike the Sierra Nevadas, there were few springs in the rumpled, low mountains along the eastern edge of the valley and almost no running water during the summer. The only signs of humanity were the rutted dirt road ahead and a scant handful of windmills drawing water for range cattle lower down in the valley. More of the windmills were abandoned than still functioning. This was hardscrabble land, inhabited by little but jackrabbits, sagebrush, rattlesnakes, and wind.

It was also a dangerous land, with risks deeper than the obvious dryness and lack of cover. Old-time and modern prospectors alike had walked away from useless mines without covering the holes or fencing around them, leaving behind death traps for the unlucky or unwary.

Shaye understood the risks because she had been on three SAR missions in areas like this. At the bottom of an unmarked mine shaft, she had seen her first body. She knew others went undiscovered, unknown, lost.

She was terrified she would be one of them.

We’ll be stopping just above the tree line.

Behind and below them, there was no dust lifted off the dirt road by speeding tires, no sign of a moving vehicle, nothing but the slowly, slowly fading light and the increasing coolness of a desert headed toward the cover of darkness.

Is the beacon transmitting?
Shaye asked silently.
Is anybody listening?

Does Tanner know I’m gone?

They were coming up across the steep range of hills that would be called mountains if they were east of the Rockies. They had passed several dirt tracks leading to water or forgotten mines or even abandoned homesteads. They might have crossed into tribal holdings. Without a GPS reading it was impossible to tell. Out this far, few people bothered to fence the great dry lands of Nevada.

Even if Shaye managed to get away and hide, there was nowhere to go. Without the Bronco and its SAR beacon, she was as good as dead.

I wish I could talk to you, Tanner. Hold you. Feel the tightness of your skin over your chest. Smell the heat of you. Hear your heart against mine in passion and in peace.

The tree line was less than half an hour away, unless the road got worse. Then it would take as long as it took.

“Go north the next chance you get,” Ace said.

“North?”

“Left,” he said. “Don’t you know where the sun sets?”

“Of course. It goes behind the big mountains beyond Refuge. What does that have to do with anything?”

“God,” he muttered, “it’s a wonder you don’t get lost in the Conservancy’s tiny parking lot.”

Silently Shaye agreed.

The pout on Kimberli’s face took on a wary, almost pinched look, but she smoothed it out and smiled at him. “We both know you’re the smart one and I’m the one people like being around. No need to be mean about it.”

Ace didn’t answer.

Kimberli concentrated on driving so as to avoid the bumps that made her full bladder whine.

No one talked as they crept up toward the dark line where there was enough water for trees to survive the dry summer.

“Go left,” Ace finally said.

“There isn’t a—” Kimberli began.

“Just do it. There are old ruts. Follow them.”

She turned on the high beams, ignoring his muttered protest.

Shaye didn’t point out that it was easier to spot the track in the twilight without using the high beams. She was happy for Kimberli’s inexperience in backcountry. Anything that slowed them down was fine with Shaye.

The Bronco was barely doing five miles per hour. Unless the driver shifted to low range, the engine would stall out soon.

Or they could run out of gas short of Ace’s destination.

Shaye didn’t mention that, either. If nobody had noticed that the gas gauge hadn’t changed, she wouldn’t point it out.

“Faster,” Ace said. “It’s not nearly as bad as you think.”

Her face tight and her hands clenched on the wheel, Kimberli goosed the accelerator—and nearly high-centered the Bronco on a roadside rock.

“Not that fast! Jesus, don’t you know how to drive?”

Saying nothing, hands clenched in grim determination, Kimberli returned to creeping along at barely a walking pace. This time Ace didn’t object, even when she stalled out and had to start the engine again.

Too bad the ground isn’t soft,
Shaye thought grimly.
She would get us stuck in a second. Then we’d have to walk wherever Ace wants to go.

She looked ahead and wondered where her grave would be.

On either side of the Bronco, the boulders increased in size, crouching like beasts. The light hung on with the stubbornness of life itself while shadows pooled in ravines that grew steeper the higher they went. Slowly the forest was increasing around them, dark trees sucking the radiance out of the sky.

Carefully, Shaye’s hand crept toward the door handle. A little bit darker and she just might have a chance of getting to cover before Ace could stop her.

Something flashed at the corner of her vision. Metal.

A gun.

“This is my in-town gun,” Ace said casually. “Just a .22, but it gets the job done. So relax and stop thinking about opening the door and making a run for it. Nothing out there anyway but a hard way to die. I’ll make it easy for you, though. No fuss, no muss, no pain.”

“Is that what you wanted, Kimberli?” Shaye asked. “Accessory to murder one?”

“You’re being ridiculous,” the other woman snapped. “What do you want everyone to do—crawl off and survive on welfare? No thanks twice. I was raised like that and I’d rather be dead than do it again.”

“You’ll get your wish.”

“What are you talking about?” Kimberli said, looking at Shaye.

“Watch the road!” Ace ordered.

At the last instant, she jerked the wheel and just missed a boulder that had been lurking in the shadow of the headlights. The track pitched down into a forested ravine. Boulders gleamed everywhere like giant bones.

“Do you really think Ace is going to let—” Shaye began. Pain flashed behind her eyes, followed by a few moments of light-headedness.

“I told you not to snipe at Kimberli while she’s driving,” he said, his voice as emotionless as the gun that had rapped her head. “No more talking or you’ll die now, here, the hard way. I’ll smash your kneecaps and your elbows and leave you for the vultures.”

Kimberli sighed and shook her head. Her attitude was that of an engineer at a séance—no real belief in the topic at all. Or else she was too terrified to believe, because that meant things were real and she really didn’t want to know about it.

Shaye stopped talking. Unlike the other woman, she believed that Ace meant every ugly word of his threat.

Silently Kimberli concentrated on driving down the unraveling track, while Ace watched them both like the killer he was.

Forty

T
anner swerved around a moldy yellow Volkswagen covered with peeling stick-on daisies. He slowed only when he approached the faded sign indicating a crossroad. The road he turned onto was still paved, but it was as worn and patched as the motel’s parking lot had been.

His phone rang. He hit the speaker button. “What?”

“Beacon is heading straight east now.”

Tanner listened while August gave him more instructions.

“I checked with state patrol,” the deputy added. “They’re covering beats for cops in areas closer to the fire. Everyone from Reno to the state line is on standby for evacuation duty if the wind shifts and pushes the fire over. I can’t leave.”

“Got it.” Tanner didn’t like it, but he understood where August was. “Keep me in the loop as long as you can.”

“Even on evac duty, I’ll bridge for you with the SAR monitor. But the beacon will be out of the county soon. The next county’s back-road vehicles were up north on a medical emergency at a ranch. One of them is rolling now toward the south to look for the Bronco.”

“Hope he enjoys the ride. By the time he gets here, it will all be over one way or another.”

“The good news,” August said roughly, “is that Ace is going to run out of anything that even a four-wheel with low range can handle. Then they’re on foot. How good are you at sign cutting in the dark?”

“Not since I was a boy. What am I heading into?”

“Contour map shows national forest and rangeland—scrub and granite at the lower elevations, pines and granite higher up. Rough country. No springs close to any road. Mines both abandoned and working. Rocks and dirt and a lot of thirst. Not a good place for hiking.”

But a great place for stashing bodies.

Both men thought it.

Neither man said it aloud.

“You have GPS capability?” August asked.

“An app on my phone. That good enough?”

“Hell of a lot better than it used to be. When you get off the marked roads, call me. Don’t want you to overshoot any turnoffs.”

“Will do.”

Tanner concentrated on the fading light and the county road that was crumbling at the edges and potholed in unlikely places. He went as fast as he dared, much faster than was safe or even sane.

So much country.

So damn little time.

He looked out at the empty tall hills folding up into small mountains. Rocky alluvial fans spilled out of ravines that were dry until it rained hard and often. Then they held flash floods that made boulders dance. The deputy’s words echoed in Tanner’s mind like a bell tolling.

Rough country.

Damned rough.

Tanner shoved away the fury and despair that were his own personal devils, but the truth was impossible to ignore. This place was uninhabited for a reason. Dust and stone and scrub rumpling up to sparse forest at higher elevation.

Rough country.

Damned rough.

No matter how hard he pushed the truck, Tanner felt like he was nailed to an endless present, motionless against the huge landscape. He would have killed or died to be a falcon, able to fly straight and high, predator’s eyes zeroing in on any motion below. He would see Shaye, fall into a stoop, and tear out Ace’s eyes for daring to threaten her.

A blind man wouldn’t know how to hide.

But Tanner sure knew how to hunt.

Usually he enjoyed the wild desolation of Nevada’s empty spaces. But not now. Now he dreaded the certainty that he was driving straight into a land that didn’t care about human life or death. The country had been here for eons, it would be here for eons more. It ate the bones of the living with the same indifference that it absorbed heat or rain.

At least the Bronco is still moving.

No recent signs of off-roading along here.

No black signature of vultures gathering for a fast snack before the light disappears.

The only hope he had was the certainty that Ace was a canny man, not a greenhorn who would make mistakes out of fear or impatience. Ace was the kind who would make a woman dig her own grave to save him the trouble.

Don’t think about graves.

Tanner drove into the deepening twilight, searching for lights ahead. He thought he saw several flashes near or in the tree line above. Enough to give him hope.

Enough to make him drive as long and as far as possible without lights. If the lights really belonged to Shaye’s Bronco, Tanner didn’t want to give himself away.

Or push Ace into rushing the job.

The phone announced an incoming call. Tanner hit the speaker button and said, “Where are they?”

“Up just past the tree line. Contour map places them in or near a deep ravine just north of the county road you’d be on if you were driving a race car. But in Lorne’s old truck, you’ll still be on the main highway. Can you give me your GPS coordinates?”

“Stand by.” Tanner grabbed the phone and activated the GPS feature long enough to read off his coordinates.

“That far? Holy crap,” August said. “Are you crazy?”

“It’s a good old truck,” Tanner said, eyeing the gauges warily. Engine was hot, but not dangerously so. Yet. “Tires are good. Mileage and suspension suck at speed but it goes like hell if you have the stones to push it.”

“Jesus, man. You won’t do Shaye any good if you roll over. Get ready to slow down. You’ll be on gravel soon. Go for about three miles. Take the first ruts going north. It unravels into the countryside at an old mine just beyond the tree line. It’s hard going. The locater is barely moving anymore.”

“Coordinates,” Tanner snapped.

As August gave the numbers, Tanner fed them into the GPS app on his phone. The display showed no roads worth mentioning, only dirt tracks that dead-ended for no reason in particular. “Where are the old mines?”

“Everywhere. You’re not all that far from one of the biggest silver strikes ever made. Place is riddled by weekend prospectors. Or was. Metal fever comes and goes. How’s the charge on your phone?”

“Good for at least an hour more. Two if I don’t talk a lot.”

“I’ve got a lock on your phone. I’m coming as fast as I can.”

“What about evac duty?”

“Called off. Wind died down when the sun went behind the mountains.”

“Small blessings,” Tanner said.

“Amen. I’ll catch up as soon as possible.”

Neither man mentioned that August had a 99 percent chance of arriving too late for much more than identifying bodies.