weak now, pained. How many sticks did you say?
Two sticks, Leaphorn said.
How many dynamite caps?
Just one, Leaphorn said. I think just one. With a wire connected. The purring of the outboard stopped.
Ill bet Hoski set the timers himself, Leaphorn said. Ill bet he told you that bomb with you there will go off about six o’clock. You’re going to make the four o’clock broadcast and then cut out and run for it. But he set the timer a couple of hours early.
Hey, Jimmy, Tull yelled. He’s over here.
Whats he have? Hoski yelled. Just Jackie’s shotgun? Is that all? Hoskis voice came from the waters edge, still a long way off.
God damn it, Tull, Leaphorn shouted.
Don’t be stupid. He’s screwing you again, I tell you. He’s got you listed among the dead on that tape, so you gotta be dead when they get here.
He just has the shotgun, Tull shouted. Move around behind him.
He set the timer up on that bomb you have, Leaphorn shouted. Cant you understand he has to kill you, too?
No, Tull said. Jimmy’s my friend. It was almost a scream.
He left you at Santa Fe. He didn’t tell you about that tape. He’s got you listed with the dead. He set the timer . . .
Shut up, Tull said. Shut up. You’re wrong, damn you, and I can prove it. Tull’s voice rose to a scream. God damn you, I can prove you’re wrong.
The tone, the hysteria, told Leaphorn more than the words. He knew, with a sick horror, exactly what Tull meant when he said he could prove it.
He’s talking crap, Goldrims was shouting, his voice much closer now. He’s lying to you, Tull. What the hell are you doing?
Leaphorn was scrambling to his feet.
Tull’s voice was saying: I can just move this little hour hand up to . . .
Don’t, Goldrims screamed, and Tull’s voice was cut off by the sound of a pistol shot.
Leaphorn was running as fast as heart and legs and lungs would let him run, thinking that each yard of distance from the center of the blast increased his chances for survival. From behind him came the sound of Goldrims screaming Tull’s name, and another shot.
And then the blast. It was bright, as if a thousand flash bulbs lit the gray-white interior of the cavern. Then the shock wave hit Leaphorn and sent him tumbling and sliding over the calcite floor, slamming finally into something.
Leaphorn became aware that he could hear nothing and see nothing. Perhaps he had lost consciousness long enough for the echoes to die away. He noticed his nose was bleeding and felt below his face. There were only a few drops of wetness on the stony floor. Little time had passed.
He sat up gingerly. When the flash blindness subsided enough so that he could read his watch, it was 2:57. Leaphorn hurried. First he found his flashlight behind the rocks where he had left it, with the shotgun nearby. Next he found two boats a small three-man affair with an outboard engine, and a flat-bottomed fiberglass model with a muffled inboard. In its bottom was a green nylon backpack and a heavy canvas bag. Leaphorn zipped the bag open. Inside were dozens of small plastic packages. Leaphorn fished one out, opened it and shone his flashlight onto tight bundles of twenty-dollar bills. He returned the pouch and carried the backpack and bag into the cave. Near the blackened area where James Tso and John Tull had died, he stopped, swung the heavy bag and sent the ransom money sliding down the cave floor into the darkness.
By the time he had everyone in the boats it was after 3 A.M.
At ten minutes after three, both boats purred out of the cave mouth and into open water.
The night seemed incredibly bright. It was windless. A half moon hung halfway down the western sky. Leaphorn quickly got his directions. It was probably eighty miles down the lake to the dam and the nearest telephone at least four or five hours. Leaphorns hip throbbed. To hell with that, he thought. There would surely be aerial surveillance. Let someone else do some work. He picked up the spare gasoline can, screwed off the cap, floated it on the lake surface, and as it drifted away blasted it with his shotgun. It erupted into flame and burned, a bright blue-white beacon reflecting from the water, lighting the cliff walls around them, lighting the dirty, exhausted faces of eleven Boy Scouts. Normally it wouldn’t be noticed in this lonely country. But tonight it would be. Tonight anything would be noticed.
At three-forty-two he heard the plane. High at first, but circling. Leaphorn pointed his flashlight up. Blinked it off and on. The plane came low, buzzed the boat with landing lights on. It looked like an army reconnaissance craft.
Now Leaphorn was keeping his eye on the dark shape where cliff and water met and the darkness that hid the cave mouth. The second hand of his watch swept past 4 A.M.
Nothing happened. The hand swept down, and up, and down again. At 4:02 the blackness at the cliff base became a blinding flash of white light. Seconds passed. A tremendous
muffled thump echoed across the water, followed by a rumbling. Slabs of rocks falling inside the cave. Too many rocks for the white men to remove to clear the path to Standing Medicines sand paintings, Leaphorn thought. But not too many rocks to remove to salvage a canvas bag heavy with cash. A foot-high shock wave from the blast spread rapidly toward them across the mirror like surface of the lake. The reflected stars rippled. It reached the boat, rocked it abruptly, and moved down the lake.
They sat, waiting.
Leaphorn stared over the side, into the clear, dark water. Somewhere down below would be the hiding place of
