Race Across The Sky Part 27

"Jon Benatti. From Helixia."

The name struck Shane as somewhat important.

"I'm Deputy Director of Science. You're in a lot of trouble, boss."

"You want to let go of me now."

Benatti considered him and then took his hand away, and pointed at the building behind him. "You've got stolen property up there."

"What are you talking about?"

Benatti's voice rose. "You took a protein from our gene library. One of our centrifuges. G.o.d knows what else. Whatever's in that box belongs to Helixia."

Shane stared at him in disbelief. "It's medicine for a baby."

"Give it to me."

There was no choice at all. He shouldered Benatti hard, knocking him backward, and started for the pa.s.senger door. He balanced the cooler on his left knee, found his keys in his pocket, and pressed his keypad. He slipped the fingers of his right hand out from underneath the cooler to lift the trunk.

He felt the contact just after he registered the rush of wind, and the peculiar energy of a human being in full motion. The ugly feel of Benatti's bony body against him. The horror of the cooler slipping out of his hand, falling onto the parking lot blacktop, the styrofoam top flying off.

The sickening sound of the vials spilling onto the ground, the cracking of gla.s.s, and the sudden spilling of liquid.

9.

The trail wove through the forest like fine brown thread.

Caleb scanned the ground for rocks, loose roots, the occasional yellow lizard, anything that might trip him. Small bright birds darted out of the foliage, and red-tailed hawks floated above as if covering the race for ABC.

His stride was metronomic. His feet hit the earth lightly on their b.a.l.l.s, regardless of whether he was leaping over a rock, or hit an unexpected dip in the ground. His breathing was perfect, his spine straight as pipe. A great confidence enveloped him; he had reached the point in his run where the cells of the body bind with those of the trees.

The first aid station came at Tuolumne Grove. A gray-haired official yawned in a chair behind a fold-up table. Plastic bowls of M&M's, energy gels, and bananas sat on the table; a cooler lay underneath. Hank was waiting for him beside the table. Hank was a huge live-music guy, always grabbing people for a run up to Catacombs, one of the happier and most helpful of the house. Caleb always blew by the first aid station, he knew, so he had prepared himself to start running as soon as he saw him cantering close. But surprisingly, Caleb stopped at the tent, grabbed a bottle of Powerade, and sat in a folding chair.

Other runners ran by for a bottle of water and back to the course; some didn't stop at all.

Hank took a tentative step toward him, his hand held out, as if about to touch a wound, when suddenly Caleb snapped his brown and earthy eyes open. He took the time to pour a salt packet into his sports drink. Then he stood and nodded, and they ran back onto the trail.

Hank ran out in front. He knew his role was to slow Caleb down, keep him from burning out. But Caleb never challenged him. In fact, turning around at one point, Hank had seen Caleb almost fifty yards behind him.

The course corkscrewed into a series of stunning ascents along narrow mining trails that had been closed for half a century. A yard to Caleb's left, the cliff dropped straight down to a canyon. On his right rose a solid wall of large pink-sheened granite rippling with blue veins. Rae had been right, of course; injury here would be fatal.

Eventually, they wound down into a canyon. With utter amazement, Hank watched Caleb run this stretch with his eyes fluttering closed.

Then he screamed.

Caleb whipped his head around. Hank was leaning against an oak, clutching his ankle, looking at the bottom of his sneaker.

"What?"

"f.u.c.king acorn," he said in a calmer voice, sweat pouring from his crew-cut head. "Let's just go."

Later, Hank told Mack that he had been surprised by his ability to keep up with Caleb. They hit Jacob's Furnace just before noon, a shelf of exposed dark rock seven thousand feet in the air, under the burning midday sun. Caleb drained the last bottle of water in his pack and walked across the shelf trail. A wide stream circled below, taunting him with cool water to dive into. After a brutal hour he discovered himself at the top of a breathtaking gorge. Happily he watched hawks flying underneath him.

"Beautiful, right?" Hank smiled. "What a course."

Alice was waiting to replace Hank at the next aid station. She handed Caleb a banana, and took off with him into the afternoon. The course flags marked a path down to a fast-moving stream. White caps gurgled where its water met the rocks. No rope line had been fixed; this was either a major oversight by Barry and Mack, or their first hint of just how dangerous this race would become.

Alice looked around. "No good," she muttered.

Caleb waded into the water; immediately its force shoved him downstream. This was the answer. Rather than expend energy fighting the current, he let it push him like commuters exiting a subway as he walked, and crossed on a sharp diagonal, reaching the opposite bank two hundred yards downstream.

Alice followed him, but by the time she made it across, he was already disappearing into the distance, his long legs loping over the slippery gray rocks. Alice tried to pace him, but she was small, with stout legs, and when Caleb leapt like a palomino over a fallen stump, it was difficult for her to match him. Five miles in, she fell forever behind.

The light in the park turned a G.o.dly green. Prisms shone through the pine. Night, Caleb saw, was coming. At the Antibes aid station there was no one from Happy Trails waiting to meet him. Caleb found his drop bag, retaped his feet, put on a GoLite sh.e.l.l, fresh sneakers, and clipped a black rubber flashlight to his waist. He drank two cups of chicken broth, filled his water bottle, and left by himself.

Somewhere near Tamarack Flat, Caleb understood he had left the course. His eyes tried to adjust, but it was such a perfect blackness that he could not see the roots, rocks, or the steepness of the inclines. He stopped, enraptured by the woods around him. Above he saw a crescent moon among an initial gathering of stars. The world ahead felt like black water; Caleb imagined he could push his arms through it and swim upward, break the surface, and arrive somewhere entirely new.

In his peripheral vision he could make out pale purple silhouettes of sequoias, like pillars holding up Heaven. He stuck out a hand and stroked one; a tree that had stood here since Plato. In each of these trees, millions of insects were birthed, lived, mated, died, none aware that he was off of his trail, off his course. He felt he had it made it somewhere he had always guessed existed. He might wander in any direction, encounter any magic.

Caleb swept his flashlight around him, trying to find the small blue glow sticks that marked the course. He caught only the bizarre depths of nature, no less mysterious than s.p.a.ce. In the distance-he hoped it was the distance-he heard the howl of something doglike.

And then, at last, his flashlight revealed a cl.u.s.ter of five blue glow sticks, removed from the trail and grouped together with definite intent. He closed his eyes thankfully.

When he opened them again, June was standing in front of him.

The moonlight bathed her face in alabaster. Caleb kissed her, stroked the back of her head.

"Okay," he whispered, and they turned into the backcountry.

PART FOUR.

Ultrathon.

1.

Caleb and June wove through an impossible density of forest.

Between the redwoods, oaks, and underbrush, no moonlight availed itself to them. He found June's fingers in the dark and squeezed them. It was necessary to take her hand here, to protect her, and himself. It had been so long since he had touched her. A well of emotion rose through him and nearly burst. But he did not have time to nurture it.

Pine needles scratched their eyes, thorns sc.r.a.ped their thighs. As dangerous as it was to run blindly through the night, Caleb knew they had to hold off on using his flashlight until they were farther away from the aid tent and the hundred runners making their agonized way through the darkness. No one could see any beam of light bounding away from the course.

They were headed toward a parallel trail that Caleb had seen on one of Mack's blown-up maps. It was a popular hiking trail tourists strode with digital cameras and bottles of purified water. This wide, smooth trail would take them along easier ground and merge with a wider path back to Big Oak Flat. Search and Rescue would never think to look for them here, and any tourists who might remember them would be sleeping now. They had until the park opened in the morning to get out. Which, Caleb estimated, gave them around eight hours. This was significantly less time than it had taken him to reach this point, but the trail would be significantly faster than the insane demands of the course.

But now, in the backcountry, they were in acute danger, intruders upon the natural order. There were cliffs. There was water. There were animals.

During the drive from Boulder, when Mack had stayed behind in Elko, Caleb had run beside her.

"June," he had started. "Can you listen to me?"

When she had turned to him, tears were forming in her eyes.

She had told him what had happened inside of Mack's room. Caleb had suspected this for years.

"He said he wants Lily to start early. If he wants her to start running marathons when she's six, what will he want her to do when she's thirteen? Do what all these other women do? I don't like how he's seeing her."

"We can get to Shane," he'd whispered, "from Yosemite."

At the weigh-in, while Mack worked the crowd and the press, he had seen her standing near John. On the way back to the lodge, he had been able to whisper a plan.

As Mack had instructed, June would run the first leg. Feigning injury, she would volunteer to work the isolated Antibes aid station, where Caleb guessed he would be when darkness fell. He planned to arrive there alone, rested. While she waited, she would gather blue course markers and cl.u.s.ter them at the first small clearing off the trail she could find. Walk half a mile into the woods. And then she would listen for his footsteps in the forest.

Somewhere after midnight, the trail dipped drastically, and he knew they could not dare to run blind any longer. He switched on the flashlight clipped to his waist, let go of her hand, and they began moving faster.

By this time, Caleb knew, he would have failed to check into the next aid station. Word would be out that he was lost or hurt at night. With communications so poor, Mack might not hear of it for an hour. Then Mack and Barry Strong would begin frantically plotting to keep this from ABC's reporters.Or, he considered, seeing drama for the cameras, perhaps plot to involve them. Either way, Yosemite Search and Rescue would not begin operations until first light of dawn. And then, they would be searching for one man, hurt, confused. They would have heard the story of him falling off of Engineer Mountain, of training too long and hard, and look for him to be in a similar situation. They would have no idea to look for a couple running confidently the other way, along the easy trail out of the park.

But when Mack learned that June and Lily were also missing, he would understand it all, and his fury would be boundless.

He heard a noise, something heavy and deep. A bear, was his first thought. June froze mid run and looked to him. He unclipped the flashlight and waved it in circles above his head and shouted a roar of his own. They heard another sound, clearly alive, but moving away from them. After some time they started jogging again through the trees.

Finally, they broke through the dense woods and met a dirt road. This was the trail he had found on the map. At least he hoped it was. Otherwise they might go off in the wrong direction, daylight would come, the park staff would be alerted to find them, and it would all end badly.

In the thin light of the stars Caleb could see a hand-painted, arrow-shaped sign pointing toward famous vistas. June fished through her pocket for some energy gels, which they swallowed as the widening trail made a grand turn, revealing a waterfall. He was lost in its churning aural symphony when they heard the engine.

He pulled June off the path into the dark forest. Headlights appeared fifty yards in front of him. The park rangers had the authority to hold them; he supposed they could be forceful.

Squatting in the wood he could feel his body slowing down dangerously, and he knew June's must be too. A green Jeep approached slowly. As with a bear, it seemed wise not to look it in the eye. When it finally pa.s.sed, he retched. He had finished his water hours ago, his kidneys could fail any time. It was one thing to run an ultra, where every aid station held the promise of pacers and sustenance. It was another to run like this unaided.

They moved wordlessly along the dark trail under the clouds and the moon. Only the sounds of their breaths, deep and steady. Only the sounds of their soles against the dirt. Only the sounds of nearby animals and insects. Only the sounds of the real world, far from man. For hours Caleb moved through this sweet path, in a light sweat, June in perfect rhythm beside him.

Some hours later the trail hardened to pavement. The sky ahead threatened to lighten. June touched his arm and pointed to a sign. In the sliver of moonlight, he saw they were at the lodge.

"Stay here," she whispered.

Caleb found a grove of laurels on the far side of the road and slid to the ground; his palms grazed fallen acorns. He had a vivid dream about an old client. Then he snapped his eyes open in fear; how long had he been out? He was about to go inside when he saw June emerge from the old lodge with Lily perched atop her shoulders in their purple hiking backpack. When they met on the wide paved road June handed him a bottle of water, and he chugged it dry.

"What did you tell the woman watching her?" he whispered, wiping his chin.

"That I wanted my baby. She was half asleep anyway."

"We better hurry." He reached for the purple pack's thick black padded straps. "I'll take her."

June knelt, and Caleb slid the backpack onto his shoulders. He snapped the plastic harness around his waist, tugged it good and tight. Lily's arms and legs dangled freely above and behind him. He could feel them moving. He shifted his stance, adjusting to its weight. He guessed the pack, with the baby, was around twenty-eight pounds. He had run with heavier packs, but there was no antic.i.p.ating this living weight, which moved and shifted and pulled playfully at the tops of his ears.

June had also brought a small yellow nylon backpack filled with minimal clothing, things for Lily, and cash that Mack had given her to buy baby food during the drive from Boulder. She slipped it over her shoulders, and they turned onto Big Oak Flat Road.

It was a race now, he thought. Either the sun would come and reveal them like prisoners in a searchlight, or they would get to town, where no one would distinguish them from any other backpacking family. From there they would call Shane to come get them. They pa.s.sed RVs and campers, heard the first stirrings of morning, and slowed to a fast walk, lest they attract any attention. A mile farther, Caleb spotted the entrance to the park. A booth stood beside the road. A ranger sat inside, ready to begin collecting fees and handing out maps. And the sky turned pink.

Already cars waited in a short line to get inside, engines idling, spewing exhaust into the trees. Caleb swallowed. It had been six or eight hours since they had disappeared from the race. He supposed word could be out among every park employee.

They waited awkwardly while Caleb tried to think. An SUV drove up, its window began to lower, and the ranger stuck his hand out for money.

Caleb took June's wrist and led her around the other side of the booth. n.o.body called after them.

They walked onto the blacktop of what a sign told them was Evergreen Road. They picked up their pace, surrounded by the mountains and the sky. Caleb reached up and behind him, and squeezed one of Lily's ankles. She tapped the top of his head. The day broke open.

Evergreen Road curved like an undecided thought.

They jogged along its shoulder, staying clear of a sudden and endless drop on their right. Caleb guessed it was sixty degrees out here, perfect weather for a run. Lily was strapped comfortably into her padded Kelty, wearing a warm fleece hoodie, her beautiful blond-red head supported by a built-in neck rest. She seemed as comfortable as could be, even more, he thought, than in the car seat in the van.

Cars, RVs, buses, motorcycles, SUVs, all sped past across the road from them toward Yosemite. They stopped after a while to take Lily from her pack, stretch her legs, change her. Some hands waved from pa.s.sing cars, and Caleb and June waved back, friendly, smiling, nothing wrong here.

They pa.s.sed an ancient gas station, and a mile farther, the first shops of a town. Evergreen turned into a main street. It must, he thought, be called Groveland, for Caleb saw its name everywhere: Groveland Sweet Shoppe, Groveland Souvenirs, the same Ansel Adams posters in every window. On their left, small triangular ranch buildings stood like good neighbors, home to car-insurance and realtor offices. One of them held the Groveland Mini-Mart.

June helped him slide off the Kelty pack. She lifted Lily out and hugged her madly. The baby seemed in good spirits.

"I'll get food," June offered.

Down the street Caleb spotted a pale yellow building with white painted balconies, like something out of New Orleans. An old-world sign hung in front: THE GROVELAND HOTEL.

Caleb gestured, panting. "I'll tell Shane we're here."

He was feeling better, he considered, than he had any right to. Though his neck felt stiff, his shoulders and knees had handled the backpack nicely. He could wait here for hours, no problem. Certainly Mack would not expect to discover them in the lobby of a hotel.

Inside an elderly man stood behind a long front desk.