Anna Pigeon - Blind Descent Part 13

Still, there was nothing but to do it, and she tensed up, gauging the distance with the concentration of an Olympic gymnast: eighteen inches, a jerk, a push, a scramble. Readying her muscles, she shifted her weight and flexed her fingers, mimicking the tiny nervous movements of a cat preparing to pounce. On three, she told herself.

Before she'd begun her countdown, a glittering ruby detached from the sky and fell to a narrow shelf of white limestone. The red was unreal, luminous. Blood, Brent's blood, dripping through the bars with mesmerizing slowness.

A second drop, perfect and beautiful in the harsh light of the winter sun, formed on the underside of the iron, quivered, sending thousands of microscopic reflections across its scarlet surface. Caught up in this minuscule drama, she watched as it grew too great to support its own weight, then fell three feet to explode in sudden and sparkling splendor. In this brief life and death of a droplet Anna's mind had time to paint a grisly future: her grabbing for the bars on either side of the trap, ramming her boots into the sides of her rock prison, and shoving her head and shoulders up through the grate. A bullet ripping through her spine, bits of bone, white and sharp as shrapnel splattering the rock beside her. Her bowels letting loose and her legs going numb as the nerves were severed. Fingers uncurling and the weight of her dead legs dragging her down. Light receding to a pinpoint as she fell to the bottom of Big Manhole.

The vision sucked the breath from her. She shook free of it and began to scream like a berserker warrior reminding himself of his own bravery. Intellect was over. Time for instinct.

She lunged upward toward the light.

13.

Tacky with Brent's fast-drying blood, Anna's hands caught the metal and held as if mated with Velcro. No small blessing under the circ.u.mstances. Without a glance at Roxbury's corpse, she kicked up from the limestone, pulling with all her strength. Adrenaline made her virtually shoot upward; half her body cleared the grid in a heartbeat. In another she had one knee on the iron bars and was scrambling on all fours over the ledge of stone that backed the entrance to Big Manhole.

Moving too fast for balance, she was unable to straighten up, and loped along on hands and feet. Wind tried to push her back, but fear made her unstoppable. She was a stampede of one. Rock and lechuguilla raced past a mere foot or two from her eyes as if she swooped over the desert in a low-flying plane. "Serpentine! Serpentine!" A line from an old Peter Falk movie blossomed in her mind. Had she had breath, she would have laughed. Had she time, she would have complied and zigzagged to avoid the sniper's bullets.

A moment more and she found her balance, pulled herself up, claiming her ancestry as a h.o.m.o sapiens, and began to sprint up the hill. This tiny evolution had transpired in seconds. That was as long as the honeymoon was to last. The time had been purchased by the element of surprise. Evidently her attacker didn't think she'd have the courage-or the cowardice, depending on how one looked at it-to make a run for it across the open country.

A shot cracked behind her. Energy in the form of liquid panic spurted into her gut, but her body was already performing at its peak. There was no more speed to be gotten from her legs. The next noise brought her down. Whether the crack was from bullet or bone, she couldn't tell. Both feet flew to one side, and she smashed down on hip and shoulder. With the breath knocked half out of her and her brain skidding in her skull, she considered for a moment lying where she fell. An instant's betrayal of life and those who loved her, and it would all be over.

Oblivion's temptation flickered out in a gust of anger. She clawed at the rock, determined to drag herself as far as she could. The gunman could d.a.m.n well work for this kill. Though hurting-a fact she vaguely sensed through the insulating layers of nature's own anesthetic-everything seemed in decent working order. Again she scrambled animal fashion over the ground, wondering with an odd detachment where she'd been hit and waiting with the same carelessness for the bullet that would end her life. The spill she had taken had been of long enough duration the shooter could take careful aim for the follow-up shot.

None came. A clue. What kind of rifle carried only that many bullets? How many? Worthless. Anna couldn't remember if the gun had fired twice or a dozen times, and she didn't know for a fact that Brent had been killed with a single shot. Didn't matter. The shooter was reloading. She had time. Hope did what fear could not, and she squeezed more speed from her muscles.

The top of the knoll had been graded flat to provide parking s.p.a.ce. A low berm of dirt around the crown of the hill resulted. Anna hurled herself over it and rolled. When her belly came under her once again, she pushed to elbows and knees and wriggled toward the Blazer. Another shot rang out, but she didn't hear or feel it hit. If her guess was right, and the rifleman had come to the cave's mouth to kill her, he'd put himself on the downhill slope. As long as she stayed low she'd be out of range till he climbed to the top of the hill.

By then she'd be gone.

Unless Brent had taken the keys with him.

a.n.a.l retentive, Anna thought as she dragged open the Chevy's door and crawled lizardlike onto the seat. "I'll bet the son of a b.i.t.c.h-" Keys dangled from the ignition. "All is forgiven," she said aloud. Swinging into position, she cranked the key over while muttering a mantra of "pleasepleaseplease" left over from a childhood in which begging occasionally produced favorable results.

The engine fired up without complaint, and she promised herself she'd write General Motors a thank-you note if she made it back to a post office alive. Haste precluded finesse. Dropping the Blazer in reverse, she floored the gas pedal and jerked the Chevy in a tight arc, its tailpipe pointed about where her stalker would be coming over the hill if he'd continued on her trail. Before the truck came to a full stop, she jammed the gear lever into first and poured on the gas. Gravel flew from beneath all four tires as they scratched down through the dirt to find purchase. Then the Blazer leapt forward, its power fishtailing the body over the ruts of the road and down the far side of the hill.

The jolting knocked Anna from one side of the cab nearly to the other. Without seatbelt and shoulder strap it was a battle to keep her feet on the pedals and the car on the road. If there were any more gunshots the racket of the engine drowned them out. She didn't so much drive as ride the bucking, skidding beast of metal until she'd put a lump of hillock between her and the knoll she'd left behind.

Unable to control the raging jitters, she mashed on the brakes rather than easing to a civilized stop. The Blazer skidded, shuddered, and died. Gasping for breath, Anna clung to the steering wheel and studied the rearview mirror for any sign of pursuit. Reaching up, she wrenched the little mirror this way and that, widening the scope of her search. Vanity stopped her from simply turning around and looking out the Blazer's rear window. Should she take a bullet, she'd just as soon it wasn't in the face. That was too personal. Brent wasn't merely dead; he had been ruined. Though it probably mattered not at all to the dead, it bothered the living, and, at least for the moment, that was the side she was on.

No lumpish hostile appeared. Anna would have been surprised if one had. She had escaped, but so had the shooter. He still had his anonymity. He'd be a fool to risk it just to shoot someone who might or might not be a threat to him.

Or her.

Anna tried that out. No sense being close-minded about things. Cowboy movies had trained her to think of rifles as boys' toys. Usually true, but women in law enforcement were out-shooting their male counterparts on the rifle and pistol range. They seemed to have a natural apt.i.tude for it. Lining up a bead on a target was not unlike threading a needle, plucking a splinter from a toddler's finger, dotting the "i" in icing on a birthday cake: hand to eye, steady nerves. They were born to it.

With a last long look into the mirror to guarantee the coast was indeed clear, she finally shoved open the Blazer's door and stepped out. Her foot buckled under her, and pain, kept at bay by necessity, crippled her. Screaming at the suddenness of it, she fell to her knees beside the truck. When the shock cleared she dragged herself around till she was sitting, back against the front tire, to a.s.sess the damage. A bullet had struck her left foot. It was that which had downed her with such vicious abruptness on the hillside. Lead had torn away the heavy lug heel of her hiking boot and pulled the leather away from the sole. Near as she could tell without taking the boot off, it hadn't drawn blood, but the force had twisted her ankle sufficiently to break or sprain it.

"Dagnabbit," Anna said, then ground her teeth lightly. Cowboy cursing reminded her of low-fat ice cream: mildly ridiculous and totally unsatisfying.

Having unlaced the offending boot, she considered it for a moment. Her first instinct was to remove it, run her fingers over her foot to rea.s.sure herself it was all there. Intellectually she knew it was; there was no blood, and, though it hurt, she could wiggle everything that was supposed to wiggle. The ankle would undoubtedly swell. Once she got the boot off she might not be able to get it on again. With a lame foot she'd be useless, and there was something more she needed to do. Lacing the boot back up, she cinched it tight, splinting the ankle. Given good support, she could push herself a little further.

The ankle hurt, but she could put her weight on it. Not broken, she told herself, and limped away from the Blazer. She had taken the keys from the ignition and snapped them in the outside pocket of her jacket. Donating her vehicle to her attacker and spending the night under a juniper would not be a happy ending.

Anna was banking on the fact that her would-be murderer didn't think she'd stop once she got clear of his sights; that he'd turned and run the minute she'd disappeared over that second hill and would be hightailing it back to the park to cover his tracks. All Anna wanted was a glimpse of him. Or her.

That's all she got.

Having circled three-quarters of the way around the hill she saw, half a mile or more away, a tiny figure. Blurred and indistinct in khaki clothes or desert camouflage, it trotted over a ridge and down out of her line of sight. The shooter could have been six feet tall or six inches, black or white, male or female. All the hard-won sighting told her was that he was probably headed back toward Carlsbad's headquarters, and she'd already guessed that much.

Adrenaline, vengeance, hope all abandoned her at once, and suddenly she was so tired it was an effort to draw breath. Her ankle throbbed, drumming its dissatisfaction at the recent abuse. Cold poked icy fingers into her ears, irritating the eardrums. Brent's blood caked and itched on the skin of her face and neck. Eschewing cowboy delicacy, she called down vile imprecations on all things living and dead, on the wind and the cold, the uneven dirt and the knife-edged plants. By the time she'd reached the truck she'd used up the vocabularies of several generations of sailors and, had there been any truth to the conceit, would have left a blue streak as wide as the Danube in her wake.

Brent didn't carry a radio in his vehicle. As he wasn't BLM or NPS, it made sense. Anna cursed him anyway, because she was in that sort of mood. Every jolt and rut pained her. Her ankle complained so bitterly that pushing in the clutch pedal was torture. She cursed Roxbury for having a manual transmission. Cursing him was easier than remembering him, than feeling his blood on her flesh and knowing somebody was going to have to break the news to his wife.

When she reached the highway she goaded the Blazer along at sixty five miles per hour in third gear rather than trash her ankle further. Finally she could stand the whine of the engine no longer and used her right foot to shove in the clutch. The Blazer careened into the oncoming lane. "Never a cop around when you need one," she growled as she righted the vehicle; then she smiled. Anything taken to absurd extremes ran the risk of becoming ludicrous. Even ambient crankiness.

The Bureau of Land Management offices were on the east side of town, off the main drag. On impulse, Anna drove into their lot. It was just before five and almost dark, but there were still cars parked in front of the building and lights in the windows. She was taking the chance that Holden had gone to work today. Holden would have all the numbers: the sheriff, the coroner, BLM law enforcement. She yearned to dump the whole thing in his lap, run back to Zeddie's, crawl in the hot tub, and drink the forbidden juice of the grape.

Cunning and baffling, her mentor in AA had quoted the accepted wisdom on alcohol to an alcoholic. So be it, Anna thought unrepentantly. She'd been cunningly baffled by events for coming on a week now, and none of them were remotely as rewarding as a gla.s.s of good wine.

The BLM offices were as lackl.u.s.ter as could be expected of new government buildings. Efficient and featureless in neutral tones and cubicaled s.p.a.ces. The receptionist, a young Navajo man with shoulder-length black hair tied neatly in a ponytail, squeaked like a rabbit when Anna appeared in front of his desk. She'd spent all her time with the rearview mirror looking for the sniper. Had she bothered to take a look at herself, she might have cleaned up a bit before returning to civilization. The receptionist reached for the phone, and Anna laid a hand on his wrist. "Don't worry," she said. "It's not my blood."

He was not rea.s.sured. Hand halfway to the receiver he froze, staring at her blood-black fingernails on his arm. In vain, she tried to find the words that would ease his mind. Finally, she said, "Is Holden Tillman here? He'll know what to do with me."

Magic words, "Holden Tillman." Anna made a mental note to give him a bad time about their open-sesame effect someday when they both recovered their senses of humor.

The receptionist returned, Holden swinging on crutches at his heels.

"Sorry, Holden," Anna said stupidly. "Are you in the middle of anything?"

He took in her bloodstained person, the dusty clothes, her crippled stance. "A local's been complaining about traffic noise on the northwest boundary, but I expect it can wait." He smiled his slow smile, and Anna's heart lifted a little.

"I've just come from there," she said. "And the only traffic was me, but I did stir up a bit of dust."

Holden did everything right, wearing all hats at once: EMT, bureaucrat, husband, father, friend. Hot coffee was fetched. Anna's b.l.o.o.d.y jacket was peeled off. A kindly woman in the gray-brown BLM shirt with the American flag sewn on the shoulder took her to the ladies' room so she could wash the last traces of Roxbury from her face and hands. Calls were made to the right agencies. The sheriff was alerted. Her boot was cut off and her foot elevated. Ice was found for the ankle.

Holden underwent a marvelous metamorphosis. As he tended her, she watched him change from the uncertain palsied man who'd killed his patient through negligence to the confident man of understated command he'd been when she'd first met him. Roxbury's death was not good news to Holden; there was nothing of relief or relish in his new att.i.tude. It was that he saw the shooting as Anna did, linked somehow with the death of Frieda Dierkz. This second murder proved the first. Holden was a born-again believer in the sacred b.u.t.t-print. He hadn't killed Frieda. It made a new man of him.

Only after she'd been cared for and was firmly on the road to being human again, did Holden begin to dig for details. The sheriff had come. Holden had timed it so she'd only have to tell her story once.

Anna told her tale, notes were taken, questions asked. When she finished, Holden arranged everything as she would have herself: the NPS car would be picked up and delivered back to the park by a sheriff's deputy. Rhonda and Holden would give her a ride back to Zeddie's that night. Rhonda arrived in the midst of these plans and took on her new duties with good-natured grumbles. Since Holden's ankle was broken she'd been playing chauffeur. Now she had two gimps to squire around. Their son, Andrew, had come with her. It was the first time Anna had seen him conscious. He didn't look like either his mother or his father but was one of those children who appear to have been fashioned by the fairies. There was an irrepressible impishness about him that delighted Anna even as she was glad she wouldn't have to raise the boy.

That impish spark in the child's eyes was the only physical resemblance he had to his dad. Anna laughed to see the twin gleams when Holden pulled his son onto his lap. Rhonda looked both surprised and pleased. That twinkle had been gone from her husband for a while.

Rhonda drove, Anna rode shotgun, and Holden and Andrew were tucked in the cramped seats in the back of the truck's "king" cab. From the sc.r.a.ps of conversation and high-pitched squeals, Anna guessed they played at some game involving toy bats and tickling.

Anna found herself telling her adventure again, not because she had to but because she needed to. It was a story of such magnitude, at least to her, that she would need to tell it several more times to dissipate its power, to get some kind of hold on it. Rhonda asked all the right questions, questions the sheriff would never think of: Were you scared? Did it hurt? Did you think you were going to die? Under this gentle probing, emotions quashed by pride or necessity welled up with such force they threatened to choke Anna. No wonder men were often frightened of women. They had a way of getting to the heart of things, a dangerous place sometimes.

Lest she betray her weaknesses, Anna stopped talking. Giving her time to recover, Rhonda told how she had spent this cold and windy day. She'd not been chased, shot at, or dipped in blood, but she'd ferreted out a whole lot more information than Anna had.

"I spent the day on the phone," Rhonda said. "No mean feat with Andrew around. I'll send you my phone bill when we get it. All calls during prime time. Yikes. Most of the stuff was just gossip, but I did come up with a few interesting items."

They'd turned off the National Parks Highway and onto the park lands. In the headlights a jagged line of road flanked by low stone walls was sliced from the night. Play in the backseat became one-sided. Anna could tell Holden was listening. Rhonda sensed it too and went on talking with no change in tone, as if she was afraid of frightening away some shy wild thing. Anna could have told her, her husband was back for good, but she figured Rhonda would know that soon enough.

"Whether these bits and pieces will help, you'll have to tell me," Rhonda continued. "Brent's last job was in West Virginia. He worked as a geologist for a coal company there for a couple of years. Holden and I met the president of their local grotto at a cavers' convention in Albuquerque. I called him because he'd seemed down on Brent the one time his name came up. I figured he'd be a good candidate for dirt. According to him, Brent had a dishonorable discharge from the army in 1972. That's what this guy had against him. He's a Vietnam vet and proud of it. His guess was Brent was discharged for desertion or maybe cowardice, so he's never liked him. Does that help?"

She sounded so hopeful that Anna didn't like to discourage her. "You never know what's going to help," she said.

"Hah!" Rhonda snorted. "Too bad. That was some of my best stuff. Want to hear the rest?"

Anna did.

"This is more sad than pertinent, but it's what I got."

"Shoot," Anna said.

"Careful what you wish for," Holden said from the backseat.

"Careful what you wish for," Andrew echoed in a sweet piping voice.

"Who's telling this story?" Rhonda asked with mock severity.

"You are, baby," said Holden.

"You are, Momma," said Andrew.

"More sad than pertinent," Anna said to get things rolling.

"Yes. Thank you. This is from the Minnesota connection. I called the secretary of the grotto up there. She's in love with Holden."

"Unrequited!" came from the backseat.

"A healthy choice," Rhonda told her husband. "The secretary, Sarah or Susie or somebody-"

"Sally," Holden interjected. A tactical error. "Or maybe it was Silly . . ."

"Nice save," Rhonda said, and laughed. "Sally told me Zeddie had an older sister who was killed in a climbing accident when Zeddie was in high school. Her sister was a lot older, close to thirty at the time."

"Sondra's age," Anna said idly.

"You think it means anything?" Rhonda asked.

"I wouldn't know what," Anna admitted. "It would have to have happened more than ten years ago. Did this Sally know any details? Who was there, what happened, that sort of thing?"

"No. I thought of that. Like maybe Frieda was there and screwed up, got Zeddie's sister killed or something?"

"Frieda would have been twenty-five or so. She was already working for the Park Service. I suppose she could have gone home. Her mom said she was friends with Zeddie's sister. And the accident didn't have to take place in Minnesota. I don't know if there's anyplace to climb in Minnesota that's high enough you could kill yourself falling off of it."

"I'll find out," Rhonda promised.

Holden made squirmy uncomfortable noises from the rear seat. "Daddy, you're squishing my bat," came a complaining note.

"Sorry, son. Rhonda, I don't know if that's such a good idea," Holden began. "What with guns going off and avalanches and whatnot. I don't want you and Andrew-"

"What?" Rhonda cut him off. "Talking long distance on the phone? This from Mr. Crawl-Down-Holes-and-Break-an-Ankle? Mr. Spit-in the-Face-of-Danger?"

"Aww, that's not how it is," Holden said, but Rhonda had won her point.

"Is that all?" Anna asked. Her words sounded n.i.g.g.ardly and ungrateful even in her own ears, but she was so tired. Reaching into her reserves she dredged up a few more. "Not that it's not a lot," she managed.

"Gee, thanks a heap," Rhonda said, and, "Ringtail!" She put on the brakes, her high beams spotlighting a graceful little brandy-colored cat with a black-and-white tail as long as its body crouched atop the stone wall beside the road.

Enraptured, the four of them watched as the cat studied them, gauged the personal danger, opted for the better part of valor, and disappeared over the far side of the stones.

"Pretty neat, eh, Andrew?" Holden asked.

"Pretty neat," the little boy agreed. "Can I have one?"

"They're wild animals, sweetie," Rhonda told him. "They only like to be seen once in a while like this. They wouldn't be happy in a cage."

"I wouldn't keep him in a cage," Andrew said stubbornly. "I'd keep him in my room."

The adults laughed. Offended, Andrew returned to his stuffed bat, carrying on a whispered conversation they clearly were not meant to be privy to.

Rhonda started the truck moving again. "And, since you asked," she said picking up the thread of conversation, "no, that is not all. I saved the best for last. I mean the best if any of this is of any use. Sally was a veritable fount of information. Dr. McCarty may not be Marcus Welby material after all. Twelve years ago he was brought up on charges. She seemed to think pretty serious ones-lose-your-medical-license serious. But he settled out of court, and the charges were dropped. And no," she said before Anna could speak, "she didn't know what he'd been charged with."

There was a party going on at Zeddie's house. Anna almost whimpered at the blaze of lights and babble of voices that blasted her when she opened the door. Rhonda and Holden had slunk away under cover of darkness as soon as they'd seen the symptoms of revelry. Tonight Anna wished she could have gone home with them, hidden out in their cozy little house. The Tillmans were a family. Childhood with mother and father, dinners around the table, ch.o.r.es and games, was decades past. If Anna'd ever really known what family meant, she'd long since forgotten. In her world it was merely a mechanism of exclusion, shutting out those who weren't connected. Anna had her sister, whom she dearly loved. Once she'd had a husband. There was closeness, trust, companionship-all the stuff of Hallmark cards. But did two const.i.tute a family? Somehow it didn't, not quite. For family, more than one generation needed to be represented.

You have your NPS family, a saccharine voice in her head chanted as she hung her scabrous leather coat on a peg by the door. Looking as sour as she felt, she limped into the front room. The festivities weren't as vile as her tired mind had painted them. Oscar was there, Peter and Zeddie, Curt, and a young couple Anna didn't recognize: a handsome lithe man in his mid twenties with a beard close-cropped in the fashion of Curt's, his olive-skinned wife and their toddler, a child so apple-cheeked and curly-topped she would have been a shoo-in for a Gerber's ad from the fifties.

Zeddie was on the sofa with a guitar. Calcite curled up in a ball at her hip, apparently a devotee of stringed instruments. The young woman's hair was loose and clean. Anna realized it was the first time she'd seen Zeddie without a bandana tied buccaneer-style around her head. This night she looked impossibly young and strong, a willow, wide and rooted deep, able to withstand any of life's storms. In her rich contralto she was belting out an intricate ballad, the refrain of which was "and I want a shot of whiskey!" From the laughter, Anna surmised Zeddie made up the lyrics as she went along, poking fun at the business of rangering and the politics of caving.

Peter McCarty leaned on the mantel of a fireplace that hadn't been used in so long it had been converted to a storage place for magazines. On his handsome face was a look of proprietorship and reflected glory that he had in no way earned. Not by matrimony, at any rate, or by any basic honesty that Anna had noted. Tonight she found the hypocrisy irritating.

Oscar was giving full attention either to the performance or the performer and spared Anna the barest of nods. The two strangers smiled politely, then glanced away. Curt Schatz held the apple-cheeked baby girl on his lap, looking almost as happy as if she'd been a cat. Perhaps all nonverbal animals share the same charm. Schatz dangled his keys in front of chubby grasping fingers in lieu of paws, percolating giggles taking the place of purring.

Anna caught his eye and he stood immediately, shifting the child to his hip in a practiced movement. A smile illuminated the shadows of his beard, and behind horn-rimmed spectacles, his eyes were welcoming.

Warmth brought Anna unpleasantly close to tears. If you want somebody who's glad to see you so d.a.m.ned bad, why don't you get a dog? she mocked herself. The self-inflicted cruelty stemmed the waterworks for only a moment. Then she remembered she had a dog, Frieda's dog, Taco, a trusting, s...o...b..ring, jowly, loving, jumping golden retriever.

"And I want a shot of whiskey!" Zeddie wailed, the depth of her voice filling the small room and pouring like hot wax into one's bones.

Anna's eyes filled.