The Maze (16 page)

The rope helped. Lon short-roped him up the steepest pitch, and at last they scuttled into a shallow cave tucked under the rimrock.

They slumped against the wall and heaved for breath. Lightning struck again and again. Through a curtain of water an arm's length away, they watched the deluge coursing below. Where they'd been just minutes before had become unthinkably impassable.

“Big-time flood,” Lon said. “Big time. Not a moment too soon, Rick. I've never seen such a sight in my life, you up there flying that kite.”

“I think your hang glider's history, Lon.”

“But you aren't, thank God. Where did you start from?”

“Condor Cliffs, above camp.”

“That was no sled run. How did you know you could do that?”

“Thought I could. Needed to do it. I knew it was dicey, but I couldn't get out to call Josh. On account of Carlile.”

Suddenly he was in agony with his left arm. It must have showed on his face.

“Josh is due tonight,” Lon said, “unless the storm delays him. I've got some serious pain medicine here in my pack, in my first aid. We'll find something to splint your arm with as soon as the rain slows down a
little. What about Carlile? Are we going to run into them?”

“They went out.”

“They've got a second cache.”

“I know. Did you see it?”

“Only glassed it for a few seconds, but yeah, I saw some metal boxes. They started shooting at me. I had no choice but to run where I did. You see my bird by any chance?”

“Sure did. I think you'll find her back home with the others.”

It was nearly dark when they struggled into camp. It was still raining. Lon counted five condors up on the rim. The rain was exciting them into a joyous frenzy. They were leaping around the rim, chasing one another, spreading their wings.

“Goofballs,” Lon said fondly. “There'll come a day when they start pairing up. It'll be a few years yet, but it'll happen. I can really see it—that first egg.”

“A condor lays only one egg?”

“That's right. On the floor of a high cave.”

Rick closed his eyes. “Won't that be something. Back in the wild and on their own.”

 

It was nearly midnight when Josh's headlights appeared on the dugway. Rick wanted to cry for joy, but he couldn't. There was no escaping what would come next.

The truck pulled into camp at last. The rain had quit, but lightning was still attacking the mountains to the east. A young man and a young woman got out and stepped into the light cast by the propane lantern under the tarp.

“Who's your friend?” Josh asked.

“Rick,” Lon replied. “His name's Rick Walker—and he can fly like a bird.”

“All rise,” the bailiff instructed.

Holding his breath, Rick came to his feet. As before, the judge swept into the courtroom from the door on the right. His ominous black robe billowed with his passage.

“Take your seats, please,” the judge said impatiently. “Let's make this expeditious.”

Rick exhaled, sat down. He glanced quickly to Lon, seated to his right. Lon looked different with his hair cut and his beard trimmed, new clothes and all, but the scar was the same.

“Just do your best,” the deep baritone voice whispered. “Just be yourself.”

Rick nodded, then looked over his left shoulder past Janice Baker, the social worker, to Mr. B., who smiled nervously.

The judge was opening the file folder in his hands while frowning at the clock. The clock read 5:35
P.M.

Rick returned his eyes to the judge. The Honorable Samuel L. Bendix, with fingers to forehead, began to read. As yet he hadn't looked at anyone with more than a passing glance. He hadn't looked at Rick at all.

Nothing was going to be different. The judge was just as out of sorts as before. Bad luck, Rick thought, that Samuel L. Bendix hadn't died in the last six months. He was old enough.

Quit thinking like that, he told himself. He'd promised Lon he was going to stay positive.

Suddenly the judge looked up and stared over his reading glasses, directly at him. The judge didn't seem to recognize him. Rick forced a weak half smile as the judge's eyes moved past him and acknowledged the adults. Rick remembered all too well the judge's “enormous discretionary power.”

“Would you identify yourselves as I call your names?” the judge said. “Mr. Lon Peregrino.”

Lon raised his hand.

“And Mr. Timothy Bramwell. Thank you, gentlemen. Now I can attach faces to these documents.”

“Your Honor,” spoke up Janice Baker, “we would like to thank you for granting this hearing. We recognize its unusual nature.”

“Unusual, indeed, this plea for no further incarcera
tion. Escape from a detention facility is considered a major offense, Ms. Baker.”

“Yes, it is, Your Honor.”

The social worker said nothing further. The judge's eyes dropped to the folder in front of him, and he resumed reading. He turned a page.

Rick's hopes sank. The judge hadn't read Lon's letter beforehand, or Mr. B.'s. If the letter from the judge in Arizona had arrived that morning by overnight mail, as Janice Baker assured Lon it had, the judge obviously hadn't read that either. The judge had been hearing other cases all day, and right now he wasn't reading carefully. He only wanted to go home.

How had the judge in Arizona responded to everything Lon had proposed? Was Lon right when he thought that the judge had really listened to him?

There was supposed to be a letter from the group home in Arizona in the file too. It was supposed to have come this afternoon. What were the chances it was there?

Quit thinking like that, Rick told himself.

He told himself to think well of the judge. There must be a way.

Now he could see it. It was in the way the man's head, thin and bald and red, rose from the voluminous black robe. The judge reminded him of a condor.

“Unusual,” the judge said at last. “I believe that's where we left off. The request, as I understand it, is to
suspend the six weeks remaining of this young man's sentence and not to add any additional time.”

His social worker stood. “Yes, Your Honor.”

“You may sit down, Ms. Baker. I would like to address young Mr. Walker here.”

This is it
, Rick thought. He doesn't even remember me, so many people come through here.

The judge's eyes went to Rick's cast. “You've broken your arm,” Samuel L. Bendix began almost conversationally.

“Yes, sir.”

“How did you break it? The short version, please. Very short.”

The short version? Rick wondered. This was just like before—everything this judge said just threw him off-balance. “In…sort of a fall,” he answered. Lon had told him to leave out about the flying unless he couldn't avoid it.

Rick knew he sounded nervous. He wanted to glance to Lon, for instructions or at least reassurance, but he knew the judge would hold that against him. With a grimace he realized that he'd just made a mistake. From what he'd said, the judge was assuming he'd broken his arm going over the fence at Blue Canyon.

“Who is Rick Walker?” the judge asked suddenly. Rick was off-balance again. The judge didn't remember having asked him this the first time, or did he?

It felt like there was a huge weight on him, forcing
him down in the hard bench seat, as if he were being crushed. He couldn't find the words sitting down. “Can I stand up?” he asked, almost desperately. At least he was buying some time.

“You may,” the judge said, seemingly amused.

As Rick stood, he was still swimming in confusion. He didn't even know what he was going to say. This was exactly how he'd felt six months before.

But that wasn't him, not anymore. If he could only stay calm, dig deep, he could explain the difference.

He
knew
the difference. Just say it, he told himself.

“Since my grandmother died,” he began, “four years ago, I've been like a rat in a maze.”

“Not a pretty image,” the judge remarked, “but descriptive.”

“Yes, sir. I was only trying to survive, and I kept running into dead ends. But I don't feel like that anymore, thanks to this man.”

Rick glanced briefly to his right, caught a glimpse of the scar, looked back to the judge.

“I'm out of that maze now, sir. I'm free to make something of myself.”

“If you were to be returned to detention, wouldn't you be back in the maze again?”

“Not in my
mind
.”

“An excellent response,” the judge said, his eyes sweeping approvingly across the courtroom. “A most excellent response. The court is aware that you were,
through no merit of your own, in the position to make a certain discovery in regards to a cache or caches of illegal weaponry, ammunition, bombs, and so on, inside Canyonlands National Park during the time you were evading pursuit.”

“Yes, Your Honor,” Rick said quietly.

“The court is curious if you believe that cooperating with the U.S. attorney's investigation in this affair should influence the judgment of this court today?”

Rick had hoped that it would, but Lon had warned him it wouldn't. “No, Your Honor,” he responded.

“You are correct in that assumption. Nevertheless, this court is grateful that you were instrumental in the apprehension of two suspects in a very serious case that could have proved extremely costly to human life.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“You may sit down, Mr. Walker.”

Janice Baker cleared her throat. “Would it please Your Honor to hear from Mr. Peregrino and Mr. Bramwell?”

“Considering the hour, that won't be necessary. The court is impressed that Mr. Walker has acquired advocates such as these. As displeased as the court must remain in regards to young Mr. Walker's solution to his dilemma at the Blue Canyon center, the court recognizes that corruption of the sort he may have witnessed there is hardly unprecedented. Charges have recently been filed against five Blue Canyon employees in an unre
lated situation. Mr. Bramwell, who has resigned his position there within the last week, has agreed to serve as one of the state's witnesses in that case.”

In complete surprise, Rick looked over his shoulder to Mr. B., who wasn't wearing his usual smile. The librarian was nodding in somber agreement with the judge.

Had Mr. B. done what he had in order to strengthen one fourteen-year-old boy's position when he went back to court? Was that possible?

“Solutions,” the judge intoned. “This court is interested in
solutions
. I find the package in front of me entirely acceptable. Rick Walker will be transferred to the jurisdiction of Judge Thomas Haskins of Page, Arizona. He will live in the group home in Page and will attend Page High School. His status will remain strictly probationary. Rick Walker will serve the remaining six weeks of his original sentence, plus an additional six weeks, in service to the Condor Project, either at its Arizona site or its Utah site. Mr. Lon Peregrino of the Condor Project will personally conduct the subject to Page, Arizona—”

The judge looked up, looked at Lon. “Tomorrow, as I understand it.”

“Tomorrow,” Lon said.

“And enroll him immediately in the group home and the high school.”

The judge looked over his glasses, scanned the faces
in front of him. “Are there any further questions? No? In that case this court is no longer in session.”

The judge rose and strode out of the room without looking back.

Rick went straight to Mr. B. “Thank you,” he said.

Mr. B.'s large, round face broke into his good-natured smile. “You're welcome,” he said. “Have a good life, Rick.”

“You were a great librarian, you know.”

The man shrugged. “I hope so. But it was time for me to leave.”

 

They were passing through the outskirts of Las Vegas on the interstate. Blue Canyon was close, Rick realized, and then he sensed they'd already passed it by. With a glance over his shoulder, he caught a glimpse of the walls across a mile of flats sprinkled with creosote bushes and cut by arroyos.

He thought of the Kid Who Eats Glass. He wondered what would become of Killian.

He wondered if even Killian's parents should be forgiven. He didn't know the answer to that.

But he realized that he'd forgiven his. Can't move on until you do, he remembered. And he
had
moved on. He could feel it deep inside.

He was looking forward to living in the group home in Page, Arizona, and going to Page High School. He
wasn't going to know anyone there, but he had a feeling he was going to find some friends.

Lon had his turn signal on. Up ahead the sign pointed out the road over the Hoover Dam across the Colorado. “What does Page look like?” Rick wondered aloud.

“It's surrounded by redrock,” Lon replied with an expansive sweep of his hand. “Sits on a bluff right above the Colorado River. From the high school you'll be looking west, smack at the Vermilion Cliffs beyond Glen Canyon Dam. To the north, across Lake Powell, you'll be looking into Utah. It's all drop-dead scenery. Keep your eyes open for condors—you'll be well within the range of the birds from Vermilion Cliffs.”

“Tell me about those nine new condors you're supposed to get in December.”

“I'll introduce you in person over Christmas break.”

“Let's talk about next summer, about working together at the Maze.”

“One thing…I can't promise you I'll have the money saved up for a new solo glider. Doubt I will—that'll run close to four thousand dollars.”

“That's just as well. I've had enough of solo for the time being. What about the tandem, though?”

“Tandem it is.”