The Maze (10 page)

“And your name? What about that?”

“Well, once I was studying birds, I got to thinking that my name should reflect more of who I was. I had
never felt much like a McDermott, and Kenny didn't seem like a great fit either. So I came up with my own name—named myself after the falcons. They were peregrine falcons.”

“Peregrine, Peregrino.” Rick grinned. “Never thought of it till you said it. Does
peregrine
mean anything—I mean, besides being the name of the bird?”

“Traveler. It means traveler. Basically it refers to the distances they fly. They migrate to Mexico and Central America for the winter. The Lon part, I just liked it.”

Lon got up, stretched, then pointed at the chest-high gnarled juniper next to him, growing out of a crack in the slickrock. “See this tree, Rick? It might be two hundred, three hundred years old. Never had much of a chance to flourish because it was born on such a rough spot. We've got it a heck of a lot easier. Just like this old juniper here, we might have been born in a rough spot, but at a certain point we realize we can help ourselves. We can pick up and move to better ground.”

“I like your way of looking at it,” Rick said.

“We'll never turn out cookie cutter normal, my friend, but we've got character. We're survivors, like those condors. Tough as condors too!”

The door of Maverick's prison was open, but the condor hadn't realized it yet. When the others started flying, around 10:00
A.M.
, Maverick moved from the rear of the pen to the front, stretched his neck excitedly, opened his beak wide, and started wagging his tongue. After running back and forth along the fence a couple times, he realized that the wire door was open.

Beating his wings, the condor hopped and ran down the slickrock ramp outside the pen and made a short flight to a boulder that was perched on the very edge of the cliff. No more than a minute passed, with Maverick eyeing the condors soaring above, before he bent at the knees, spread his wings wide, and launched himself from the cliffs.

Rick and Lon ran around the side of the release pen in order to see what the condor was going to do. Rick
was hoping that he didn't make another beeline across open country toward the Colorado River.

He didn't.

Maverick rose with the air rushing up the face of the cliffs, flapped a couple of times, then began to soar higher and higher. Instead of flying toward the others, who were a quarter mile north along the cliffs, the condor kept rising, flying up and up in great spiraling circles that reminded Rick of Lon's flight with the bald eagle.

The condor had risen so fast that it was very small in the sky and getting smaller. Lon was shading his eyes and looking straight up. “Unbelievable,” he whispered. “He's caught a thermal. Look at him go! I wasn't expecting this for another month or two.”

“That's Maverick for you,” Rick said proudly.

Lon was glassing the bird with the binoculars now. “He's a couple thousand feet up and climbing.”

“Is he ever coming back?”

“We'll find out. Let's take cover.”

Maverick not only came back, he fed with the other condors again. They were soon flushed from a carcass by a golden eagle, who was joined by a few ravens and another golden. The second golden, nearly blond around its head and shoulders, wouldn't tolerate the ravens or even the other eagle on the carcass. When the first golden tried to move back in, the second flashed its talons briefly, then both took to the air, the blond one closing the distance as they gained altitude. With all
their dodging and dive-bombing, they looked like two fighter pilots having a dogfight.

Several hundred feet above the rim and out in front of the cliffs, the eagles suddenly locked talons and fell spinning down the cliff face and out of view. Rick could scarcely believe what he'd just seen. “Are they going to crash, or what?”

“Very unlikely. They'll pull out. They have eight hundred feet to play with.”

“I'm getting sick and tired of the eagles,” Rick muttered. “I mean, they can hunt! I wish they'd just clear out and leave the carrion to the condors.”

The biologist had a good chuckle. “So, the condors are the good guys and the eagles are the bad guys! Tell that to Sky!”

With Maverick back on track, Rick and Lon drove down to camp. Lon worked on his notes, and Rick's thoughts turned to the Maze.

“I'm going into the Maze this afternoon,” he announced, remembering not to ask for Lon's blessing.

Lon's eyes looked troubled, as if he regretted his previous position, but he said nothing.

Rick packed up some snacks and a water bottle, found a way down into the closest canyon and walked for hours among its twists and turns. He passed dozens of side canyons. Each time a side canyon came in, he marked his path with a cairn of stones, as Lon had suggested. Without them it was almost impossible to
tell, when he looked back, which way he had come. Everything looked the same: the same sequences of color in the smooth layers of slickrock, identical-looking dry pour-offs, the innumerable arching caves high above that were tucked under the rimrock.

Several times, out of curiosity, he turned up a side canyon to see if he could find an exit. Each time he was stopped by tall pour-overs and sheer cliffs. There were very few ways out.

Just as he was about to turn around and head back, he did a double take. On the slick sandstone wall barely ahead there were drawings of fantastic figures, done in ancient, muted earth tones. He blinked and stared at the painted humanoid shapes, larger than life. Almost all of them had antennalike headgear. One had a cottonwood tree growing out of one of its fingers, or was it a cloud? He wondered if there was an ancient ruin close by. Was this one of the places Carlile had been looting? What a travesty that he wasn't going to get caught!

Climbing out of the Maze close to twilight exactly where he had entered, Rick was pleased with himself. This was easy compared with his personal maze, which didn't seem to have a single exit. Any path he picked was going to lead him back into Blue Canyon. It was only a matter of time.

“Wish I had some champagne,” Lon remarked as Rick walked back into camp.

“You're that happy to see me?” Rick joked.

“Maverick roosted with the others. I believe our boy's going to make it.”

In the morning Rick counted four condors preening high in the draw under the Needle carcass. Grooming themselves and arranging their flight feathers, Lon explained. One bird flew at 9:30
A.M.
over to the pinnacle. Rick guessed it would be Maverick flying first, and it was. Lon identified him with the radio.

Maverick perched on the pinnacle for ten or fifteen minutes. Then he flew. Maverick soared back and forth across the rim, catching the lift rushing up the cliff face, and then he found another thermal. The condor spiraled up and up until he was a speck, farther yet until he disappeared. “Must be off to Wyoming,” Lon declared. “Born to fly!”

They watched the others make impressive flights along the rim, but they didn't thermal. It was just after noon, when Lon was nibbling his hot dogs, that Rick saw a big bird flying in from the north. With the scope he verified that it was their prize flier returning and not an eagle.

They both heard the motor at the same time and looked toward the dugway. Carlile's rusty Humvee was descending the switchbacks. “Not now,” Lon groaned.

Both turned quickly back to Maverick and the other condors. A seventh large bird was suddenly in the air, sleeker than the rest and a little smaller. Rick watched as the golden eagle climbed and plummeted repeatedly.
After pulling out of a steep dive, it would climb swiftly. Then it would fold its wings until it stalled, dive, pull out, and climb again, repeating the sequence.

Maverick appeared to be gliding in for a landing by the Double Juniper carcass when the eagle dived on him from above, like a missile. Maverick aborted his landing and flew out over the rim. The eagle gave chase and bumped the condor in midair. Maverick peeled off, dropped altitude, and flapped away.

The eagle attacked again. “Lon!” Rick yelled. Rick was watching with the binoculars; Lon stood up to watch with his naked eyes.

Rick was aware of the Humvee pulling into camp behind them, but he didn't turn to look.

This time the eagle locked up with the condor. With their wings backstroking wildly, they were spinning down, out of control in front of the cliffs and losing altitude fast. It looked to Rick like the eagle might have a grip on Maverick with its talons.

To his immense relief, the birds separated before they hit the ground. Maverick ended up flying away from the cliffs and toward camp. He couldn't have been more than fifty feet off the ground. Rick saw Lon glance behind them, and then he did too. Nuke Carlile was out of his truck and watching the birds with the pit bull at his side. Gunderson was coming around the side of the Humvee for a better look. Both men had water jugs in hand.

“Get that dog back in your vehicle!” Lon yelled. “Now!”

Carlile did nothing. He stood stiff as a fencepost and continued to watch the birds.

“I said, get it in the truck!”

The pit bull was growling at Lon while its eyes remained fixed on the birds.

The eagle, having gained altitude again, stooped once more, straight down on the condor, and this time forced Maverick to the ground. In a frenzy of beating wings, the birds were locked together out on the open ground no more than two hundred feet away. Rick saw the flash of the eagle's talons.

Lon hollered at the top of his lungs, as if the sound of his voice might drive the birds apart. It didn't, and Lon took off sprinting. “Bring the net, Rick!” he screamed over his shoulder.

Carlile might have whispered a command. Suddenly the dog's claws were scratching for traction on the slickrock as it charged explosively in pursuit of the birds.

It took a few seconds for Rick to get to the net in the back of the truck. By the time he turned himself around and started running back toward Lon, the eagle was in the air and climbing. Maverick, beating his tired wings as hard as he could, was in flight but only a few feet off the ground, with the pit bull closing in and Lon desperately trying to catch up.

“Climb, Maverick!” Rick screamed as he ran.

The condor was within an eyelash of escaping. With a last thrust of its hind legs, the pit bull leaped and caught the bird in its jaws, dragged it down, and began to maul it. A second later Lon threw himself on the back of the dog, stood up with the pit bull locked in a bear hug. Lon was cursing at the top of his lungs.

The dog kicked its legs and writhed its spine to try to get free of the man but still wouldn't let go of the bird. Lon leaned forward and bit the dog's ear as hard as he could. Enraged, the dog finally dropped the huge bird.

The condor fell in a heap to the ground. Rick saw the dog's jaws turn on the man. Lon thrust the dog away from himself and pursued it with a kick that failed to connect. In a moment the pit bull would have had Lon's leg in its jaws. Rick raised the net high and slammed it to the ground over the dog.

The pit bull went insane with fury, snarling and gnashing at the net and trying to rise. Lon had Maverick in his arms and was carrying him toward the camp kitchen.

Rick stood on the net's handle as close as he dared, in order to keep the dog pinned down.

“Let go that dog!” he heard Carlile rasp behind him.

“You think I'm crazy?” Rick demanded.

The second man dropped his plastic jug, lumbered up, and barreled Rick off his feet. Rick fell backward looking into a face contorted with hate. The pit bull
lunged at him from the side, but he saw it coming and managed to roll. The dog caught only the hem of his jeans leg.

“Hold, Jasper, hold!” came Carlile's hoarse command. Baring its fangs, snarling, the dog wasn't going to quit. Carlile reached for its collar.

Rick regained his feet and started backing away.

“You,” the man said, his face livid with spidery red blood vessels. “I've seen you before. At my station.”

“It's a small world,” Rick said bitterly.

“You his son?”

“Nephew.”

“The bird's dead, Carlile,” Lon called.

“It was an accident,” the man snarled back. “Just came to get water.”

“Fill them and get out.”

There was a smirk on Gunderson's fleshy face. “Mess with us…” he said to Rick. “For crying out loud, it's only a vulture!”

Carlile made his dog get in the Humvee. The two men ambled with their water containers toward the spring.

Rick despised them for lingering after what they'd done. He wanted to hurt them, and hurt them bad, though he couldn't see a way. Still short of breath from his battle with the dog, he went to join Lon, who was standing under the kitchen tarp next to the body of the condor.

Maverick was splayed on top of the kitchen table.
The condor was a heap of torn flesh and broken feathers. Nature's most magnificent flying machine, Rick thought bitterly. Maverick's eyes were glazed and dry, and his tongue stuck out grotesquely.

“Too far, too fast,” Lon whispered.

Rick couldn't help himself. Tears were streaming down his face. He realized he was sobbing out loud. He'd never forget what it was like holding that ancient bird in the front seat of the truck, what its beating heart had felt like under his hand.

Lon stepped aside as Rick put his hand to the lifeless bird's breast. It was still warm.

Lon's eyes were brimming, his voice breaking. “Too close to the sun, Maverick. You flew too close to the sun.”

Like Icarus, Rick realized.

“He was quite a bird,” the man said softly. “Such a superb, beautiful bird. He was carrying some of the best flying genes in his species' extremely limited gene pool.”

Rick had nothing to say. He backed slowly away from the table and turned to shield his tears. All the hopelessness in his life seemed to be welling up and spilling over. Life really
was
unfair, rank with malice and viciousness.

Rick wiped his eyes. As they cleared, he noticed the two men over at the spring. He focused all his anger
and all his hate on them. He only wished there was a way to avenge the condor on them.

When he had himself under control he turned back to Lon. The biologist's old scar glistened wet and shiny. Lon plucked one of the long primary feathers from the dead bird's wing tip. It was easily twenty inches long. “For you,” he said.

The feather was light as air in Rick's fingers. “Do we bury him?” he asked weakly.

“We put him on ice; there'll have to be an autopsy. I'm going to radio the park in a few minutes—arrange to talk directly with Josh tonight. There's a place he can drive to about an hour out of Vermilion Cliffs where his signal's got a good shot at the repeater on the Island in the Sky.”

Rick was still so numb he barely heard what Lon was saying. An autopsy sounded so scientific and so pointless.

The pair from Hanksville was headed back from the spring. Carlile walked with his head up and shoulders back, as ever. Gunderson lumbered aggressively forward with shoulders hunched and one arm akimbo. “Don't say a word,” Lon whispered.

The two passed silently through camp. They paused long enough to glare contemptuously at the biologist and the dead bird.