'You're insane, Andy!'
True. But then, a certain degree of insanity was part of the job description for a hammerhead. Point of fact, you had to be freaking nuts to ride a mountain bike at these speeds over a single-track hacked out of the wilderness and teetering on the edge of a steep ravine with nothing but a foam-padded plastic crash helmet standing between you and organ donor status. Nobody in his right mind would do such a thing.
But Andy loved to go fast.
He glanced back at Tres. Arthur Thorndike III-a family name, the poor bastard, so upon his arrival in Austin ten years before he had quickly acquired the nickname Tres, as in uno, dos, tres — lagged Andy by a dozen bike lengths and only that much because Andy was taking it easy on him… and because Tres never tempted fate. Tres Thorndike had (a) a trust fund, (b) a gorgeous girlfriend, and (c) a Beemer with personalized license plates that read TRES; consequently, he didn't want to die at twenty-nine. Andy had (d) none of the above, so death before thirty was of no concern.
They were biking the back trails in the Barton Creek Greenbelt, a wilderness preserve on the western outskirts of Austin. The trails tracked Barton Creek from where the crystal-clear spring water bubbled out of the Edwards Aquifer at the base of the Balcones Escarpment east for eight miles through Sculpture Falls, Twin Falls, Three Falls, Airman's Cave, and Campbell's Hole. But while the creek coursed along a gentle path deep down in the canyons, the back trails climbed precarious ledges high on the limestone face of the escarpment and cut through dense woods along treacherous paths that featured blind curves and sudden drops and dangerous obstacles and countless other opportunities to kill yourself.
'Andy, you're gonna kill yourself!'
Possibly. But at least he'd die knowing he had already made it to heaven.
Austin, Texas, was known for its natural beauty, and compared to Dallas or Houston, it was the Garden of Eden; but twenty-five years of unrestrained development had devoured almost all that was nature in the city. All but the greenbelt. The eight hundred acres offered an escape from the crowds and concrete, the noise and exhaust of a million automobiles, and the stifling August heat. Here there were grass and trees, water and waterfalls, clean air and a cool breeze. Only the sounds of the wind whistling through the trees and the water rippling over rocks below broke the silence.
In the greenbelt, the city seemed distant.
But it wasn't. The city was near, pressing in on all sides. The greenbelt now sat squeezed between residential developments and shopping malls and bounded and bisected by busy freeways. And developers wanted it, too. They wanted it all. The greenbelt was the Alamo of Austin, the final stand for nature; and the tree-huggers, hippies, hikers, bikers, swimmers, and runners would fight to the death to save it.
'In case you don't know it, Andy, suicide's against the law!'
Andy stood five-ten and weighed one-fifty-five; he hadn't been big enough for football or good enough for the skilled sports. But the first time he had saddled up on a mountain bike and careened down a hill completely out of control, he knew he had found his calling, a sport he was actually good at. Andy Prescott could stay on a bike. And he wasn't afraid to fall off.
Andy was that new breed of athlete: an extreme athlete. The kind of individual crazy enough to snowboard down a mountain poised for an avalanche or surf the big waves of a hurricane making landfall or ride a bike down a treacherous trail at breakneck speed-all for the adrenaline rush. And that was the payoff for adrenaline junkies, young men and women taking sports to the limits where there were no rules. Where there's just you and what's inside you.
Inside Andy at that moment was an intense accumulation of lactic acid in his thighs and quadriceps; his pistons were burning like butane torches. They had just come off a full-power granny-gear grunt up a two-hundred- foot vertical on the Hill of Life and were now running Mach 2 back down the hill, flying off low limestone ledges and skidding over crushed rock and swerving east onto the steepest back trail at full throttle, although Andy could hear Tres' brakes squealing like wild pigs and no doubt he was in full panic skid, digging his heels deep into the dirt as he tried to slow his descent. Tres piloted a top-of-the-line full-suspension Cannondale Prophet, but he was a bit of an Aunt Bee. Andy was anything but; he was bombing the descent on a secondhand Schwinn hardtail. No brakes. Pure gonzo.
'Yee-hah!'
His pre-ride rocket fuel-two cans of Red Bull-had given him one heck of a caffeine high. He was buzzed and in the zone, shredding the trail and carving the corners like a downhill skier in the Olympics; the knobby Kevlar tires bit into Mother Earth like a pit bull's teeth into soft human flesh. He veered around blackened trunks of burned-out oak trees then flew through a tunnel of thick brush and pruned a few low-hanging limbs, all just a blur in his peripheral vision. He hit a monster bump and caught air for ten feet; he bounced hard on reentry but maintained his position in the cockpit. One slip and he would tumble down the ravine to a certain death-the thought of which triggered the rush. Adrenaline surged through his being like a narcotic, supercharging his mind and body.
Andy Prescott had never felt more alive.
He was wearing cargo shorts, Converse sneakers, and a T-shirt he had sweated through in the heat and humidity of late August in Texas. His only accessories were a pair of cheap sunglasses, the CamelBak strapped to his back that packed his personal effects and one hundred ounces of Endurox R4-the sports drink of choice for extreme athletes-and the crash helmet. Andy Prescott was crazy but not stupid.
'Slow down, Andy!'
They always came out early on Sunday morning because they didn't have anchors holding them at home- although Tres was living on borrowed time; his girlfriend was already plotting marriage and offspring-and because weekend walkers, hikers, joggers, and your less adventuresome bikers wisely stayed on the family-friendly double- track down by the creek a hundred feet below them. Which meant they could hammer the back trails without fear of pedestrian injury.
'Andy, you're gonna biff!'
Andy Prescott… wipeout? Not a chance: he was stoked. He glanced back at Tres.
'No way, dude!'
'Andy-look out!'
He turned back, and his heart almost stopped.
Uh-oh.
Just ahead, three white-haired women stood huddled together right in the middle of the trail.
For Christ's sake, not a tea party on a back trail!
Andy was going too fast to stop in time and there wasn't enough room on the narrow trail to go around them: to his left was the sheer rock wall of the escarpment; to his right the abyss of the ravine. If he plowed into the senior citizens at that speed, he'd kill them for sure. But if he veered off the trail, he'd fly down the ravine and kill himself.
The women saw him-he tried to wave them off the trail-but they stood frozen in place, like deer caught in headlights, terrified at the bike and rider hurtling at them at high speed. One screamed. She looked like his mother.
Andy said, 'Aw, shit,' cut the handlebars hard to the right just a split second before impact, and rode straight off the trail-and the Earth. He caught big air. He was now flying through the blue sky and enjoying an incredible panoramic view from high above the greenbelt, suddenly free of all worldly constraints, and he experienced an awesome nirvanic sensation… until gravity clicked in.
He dropped fast.
He looked down and saw the Earth rushing toward him. He pushed down on the pedals and pulled up on the bars as if doing a wheelie so the bike's rear tire would hit the ground first; he had a momentary vision of actually riding the bike down the ravine. But that vision proved fleeting when the back tire caught a gnarly stump immediately upon reentry, which yanked the front tire down abruptly, which threw him forward over the handlebars, which sent him endo; he executed several flawless albeit involuntary three-sixties before crashing through tree limbs and landing on his CamelBak. But the ride wasn't over. He bounced hard, and his momentum took him tumbling like a rag doll down the ravine and through thick juniper bushes and across the lower trail. He heard Tres' voice from above-'Andy!' — just before he hit the water of Sculpture Falls.
The next thing he knew, Tres was pulling him out of the water and slapping him across the face.
'Andy! Andy, are you okay?'
