left heat, which could kill him just as surely. And suffocation. The light from the fire below grew, flickering at first and then steady. Leaphorn worked his way further behind the slab, away from the light. His boot sole suddenly splashed into water. The slab had formed a catch basin which had trapped the days rain water as it poured down the cliff face. Behind him now the flames were making a steady roar as brush higher up the crevasse heated and exploded into fire. He pulled himself into the water. It was cool. He soaked his shirt, his pants, his boots. Through the slot behind him now he could see only fire. A gust of heat struck him, a searing torch on his cheek. He ducked his face into the water, held it there until his lungs cried for air. When he raised his face, he drew in a breath slowly and cautiously. The air was hot now, and his ears were filled with the roar of the fire. As he looked through slitted eyes, weeds in the lip of the slot wilted suddenly, then exploded into bright yellow flame. His denims were steaming. He splashed more water on them. The heat was intense, but his lungs told him it would be suffocation that would kill him unless he could find some source of oxygen. He climbed frantically between the cliff face and the inner surface of slab, working his way away from the fire. The first breath he took seared his lungs. But there was a draft now, sucking past his face. It came not from the flames but from somewhere, below, pulled through the slot by the heat-caused vacuum.
Leaphorn forced himself into the increasingly narrow gap-away from the furnace and toward this source of blessed air. Finally he could go no farther. His head was jammed in a vise of stone. The heat varied, now unbearably intense, now merely scalding. He could feel steam from his soaked pants legs hot on his inner thighs. The fire was making its own wind, sucking air extremely hot air past his face. If the draft changed, it would pull fire up this slot and char him like a moth. Or when his clothing dried and. ignited, this draft of oxygen would turn him into a torch. Leaphorn shut this thought out of his mind and concentrated on another thought. If he stayed alive, he would get his rifle, and he would kill the dog and the man with the lopsided face and, most of all, he would kill Goldrims. He would kill Goldrims. He would kill Goldrims. And thus Joe Leaphorn endured.
The time came when the roar of fire diminished, and the draft of air around his face faded, and the heat rose to a furnace intensity. Leaphorn thought, then, that he would not survive. Consciousness slipped away. When it returned, the noise of burning was nothing more than a crackling, and he could hear voices. Sometimes they sounded faint and far away, and sometimes Leaphorn could understand the words. And finally the voices stopped, and time passed, and it was dark again. Leaphorn decided he would try to move, and found that he could, and inched his head out of the crevasse. His nostrils were filled with the smell of heat and ashes. But there was little fire. Most of the light here came from a log which had tumbled into the crack from above. It burned fitfully a hundred yards overhead. Leaphorn eased himself downward, toward the pool of water. It was warm now, almost hot, and much of it had evaporated. Leaphorn put his face into what remained and drank greedily. It tasted of charcoal. Hot as the fire had been it had not been enough to substantially raise the temperature of the massive living stone of the cliff which was still cool and made the temperature here bearable. In the flickering light, Leaphorn sat and inspected himself. He would have blisters, especially on one ankle where the skin had been exposed, and perhaps on his wrists and neck and face. His chest felt uncomfortable but there was no real pain. He had survived. The problem now was just as it had been how to escape this trap.
He eased his way to the edge of the slab and peered around it. Below, logs and brush were still burning at a dozen places, and hot coals glowed at a hundred others. He could see neither dog nor man. Perhaps they were gone for good. Perhaps they were merely waiting for the fire to cool enough to climb the crevasse and make sure he was dead.
Leaphorn thought about it. It must have seemed impossible, seen from below, for any living thing to survive in that flame-filled crevasse. Yet he couldn’t quite convince himself that the two men would take the risk. He would try to climb out.
He burned himself a half-dozen times before he learned to detect and avoid the hot spots left by the fire. But by the time he was 150 feet above the canyon floor heat was no longer the problem. Now the cleft had narrowed but the climb was almost vertical. Climbing involved inching upward a few feet and then an extended pause to rest muscles aching with fatigue. The climb used up the night. He finally pulled himself onto the cap rock in the gray light of dawn and lay, utterly spent, with his face against the cold stone. He allowed himself a few minutes to rest and then moved into the cover of a cliff-side juniper.
There he extracted his walkie-talkie from its case on his belt, switched on the receiver and sat, getting his bearings. His transmission range was perhaps ten miles hopelessly short for reaching any Navajo Police receiver. But Leaphorn tried it anyway. He broadcast his location and a call for help. There was no response. The Arizona State Police band was transmitting a description of a truck. The New Mexico State Police transmitter at Farmington was silent. He could hear the Utah Highway Patrol dispatcher at Moab, but not well enough to understand anything. The Federal Law Enforcement channel was sending what seemed to be a list of identifications. The Navajo State Police dispatcher at Tuba City, like the ASP radio, was giving someone a truck description a camper truck, a big one apparently, with tandem rear wheels.
Leaphorn had himself placed now. The mesa that overlooked the Tso hogan was on the southwestern horizon, perhaps three miles away. Beyond that was his carryall, with his rifle and a radio transmitter strong enough to reach Tuba City. But at least two canyons cut the plateau between him and the hogan. Getting there would take hours. The sooner he started the better.
If there was any life on this segment of the plateau it wasn’t visible in the early morning light. Except for whitish outcrops of limestone, the cap rock was a dark red igneous rock which supported in its cracks and crevasses a sparse growth of dry-country vegetation. A few hundred yards west, a low mesa blocked off the horizon. Leaphorn examined it, wondering if he’d have to cross it to reach his vehicle.
From the radio the pleasant feminine voice of the Tuba City dispatcher came faintly. It completed the description of the camper truck, lapsed into silence, and began another message. Leaphorns mind was concentrating on what his eyes were seeing seeking a way up the mesa wall. But it registered the word hostages. Suddenly Leaphorn was listening.
The radio was silent again. He willed it to speak. The rim of the horizon over New Mexico was bright now with streaks of yellow. A morning breeze moved against his face. The radio spoke faintly, with the meaning lost in the moving air. Leaphorn squatted behind the juniper and held the speaker against his ear.
All units, the voice said. We have more information. All units copy. Confirming three men involved. Confirming all three were armed. Witnesses saw one rifle and two pistols. In addition to the Boy Scouts, the hostages are two adult males. They are identified as Discontinue this. Discontinue this. All units. All police units are ordered to evacuate the area of the Navajo Reservation north of U.S. Highway 160 and east of U.S. Highway 89, south of the northern border of the reservation, and west of the New Mexico border. We have instructions from the kidnappers that if police are seen in that area the hostages will be killed. Repeating. All police units are ordered . . .
Leaphorn was only half conscious of the voice repeating itself. Could this explain what Goldrims was doing? Had he been setting up a Buffalo Society kidnapping? Preparing its base a hiding place for hostages? Why else would police be ordered out of this section of the reservation?
The radio completed its repetition of the warning and finished its interrupted description of the male adult hostages, both leaders of a troop of Scouts from Santa Fe. It launched into a description of the hostage boys.
Juvenile subject one is identified as Norbert Juan Gomez, age twelve, four feet, eleven inches tall, weight about eighty pounds, black hair, black eyes. All juvenile subjects wearing Boy Scout uniforms.
