Chapter 28
Curtis hears or smells or senses tarantulas springing out of sand tunnels, swarming away from his feet, and he hears or smells or senses rattlesnakes wriggling out of his path or coiling to shake a warning at him in maraca code, frightened rodents scampering away from him and from the feeding snakes, prairie dogs bolting into their burrows, startled birds erupting into flight from nests in the hollow arms of half-dead cactuses, lizards slithering liquid-quick across sand and stone from which still radiates the stored heat of the fierce sun long set, hawks circling high above, and coyotes ranging singly and in packs far to the left and to the right of him. These things might be figments of his imagination rather than real presences perceived through a mystical sharing of the dog’s keen senses, but the night seems to bustle with life.
Old Yeller leads him, as never Lassie led Timmy, up slopes and down, into ravines and out, fast and faster. Cactus groves are mazes of needles at night. Layers of small round stones and smaller gravel, quarried out of the original rock strata and piled into ridges by the massive moving glaciers of an ancient ice age, provide treacherous passage to more welcoming terrain.
They have put additional distance between themselves and the pair of SUVs, which continue to prowl in their wake, now more than one hill away. Once, a search flare had gone up, casting an unearthly bluish brilliance across a wide swath of the landscape, but it had been safely behind Curtis and the dog.
Initially to the rear of the SUVs but soon parallel with them, the helicopter has tacked west to east, east to west, back and forth across the field of search, proceeding steadily north by indirection. The chopper is most likely equipped with a powerful searchlight that would make the gear on the two SUVs seem like mere votive candles by comparison. Yet the craft conducts its maneuvers without this aid, from which Curtis infers that they have sophisticated electronic tracking packages aboard.
Not good.
Infrared tracking might be of only limited use to them right now, because the land itself is shedding so much stored heat from the day that the body heat of living creatures on the move will not be clearly readable against the background glare. If their computer technology is sufficiently advanced, however, good analytic software could screen out background thermals — thus revealing coyotes, dogs, and running boys.
More worrisome: If they possess open-terrain motion-detection equipment, conditions are ideal for its use, because the night is not merely windless but again dead calm. Furthermore, mule deer move in small herds, coyotes hunt in packs or on occasion singly, while a boy and his dog are by definition a twosome, presenting a unique and at once identifiable signature on the search scope.
Regardless of the resources that the FBI and the military may bring to bear, other enemies roam the desert, more dangerous than those legitimate authorities. The killers from Colorado are urgently monitoring other search scopes for the unique energy signal of the boy who would be Curtis Hammond. Their return to the game, a short time ago, was accompanied by the ominous pressure that thickens the air in advance of a thunderstorm, and by a subtle disturbance of the ether similar to the flux in electromagnetic fields that makes many animals anxious and alert in the moments before a major earthquake.
Spurred on by the boy’s analysis or by her own instincts, Old Yeller picks up speed, thereby demanding more of him. Running, he has sucked in and blown out enough scorching breaths to inflate one of those giant hot-air balloons. His lips are cracked, his mouth is as dry as the arid ground under his flying feet, and his throat feels
charred. Agonizing pain burns in his calves, in his thighs, but now with some effort, he begins to mask most of this discomfort, Curtis Hammond isn’t the most efficient machine of bone and muscle in the world, but he isn’t entirely at the mercy of his physiology, either. Pain is just electrical impulses traveling along a transmission grid of nerves, and for a while, his willpower can prevail over it.
The dog chases freedom, and Curtis chases the dog, and in time they top another hill and discover below them what appear to be salt flats. The land slopes gracefully down to form a broad valley, the length and width of which are not easily determined in the moonless murk; however, the level floor of the valley, eerily phosphorescent, offers a measure of relief from the previously oppressive darkness.
Hundreds of thousands of years ago, this was one finger of an inland sea. As the water evaporated over centuries, the dead ocean left behind this faintly luminous ghost spread shore to shore.
The self-lit land lies smooth and barren, for the salt-rich soil is inhospitable even to hardy desert scrub. Crossing it, they will be easily spotted, whether or not their many pursuers employ electronic surveillance gear.
This valley lies on a southwest-northeast axis; and but for one detail, boy and dog would follow the ridge line northeast, avoiding the risk of exposure on the open flats. The detail is a town. A town or a cluster of buildings.
Approximately forty structures of various sizes, most one or two stories high, are divided into roughly equal groups that flank a single street on the gentle slope near the base of the valley wall. They stand this side of the salt deposits, where more-accommodating soil and an underground water source support a few big shade trees.
On a blistering summer day, when shimmering snakes of heat swarm the air, writhing like flute-teased cobras, this settlement, whatever its nature, must from a distance appear to be an illusion. Even now, crisply silhouetted against the fluorescent flats beyond, these buildings rise like the unconvincing architecture in a mirage.
Darkness paves the lonely street, and not a single light gleams in any window.
On the brink of the valley, gazing down, dog and boy stand at full alert. They hold their breath. Her nose quivers. His doesn’t. She pricks her ears. He can’t. Simultaneously, they cock their heads, both to the right. They listen.
No crump, snap, thud, clunk, crack, bang, or whisper rises to them. The scene is at first as silent as the surface of a moon that lacks an atmosphere.
Then comes a sound, not from below, but out of the south, that might at first be mistaken for the thundering iron-shod hooves of a large posse displaced in time.
Dog and boy look to the black lowering clouds. Dog puzzled. Boy searching for ghost riders in the sky.
Of course, when the sound swiftly grows louder, it resolves into the stutter of the dreaded helicopter. The chopper is still tacking east and west across the field of search, not headed directly toward them, but it will arrive sooner than Curtis would prefer.
Side by side, neither of them any longer in the lead, boy and dog quickly descend from the valley crest toward the dark settlement. Stealth matters now as much as speed, and they no longer plunge into the night with wild abandon.
An excellent argument could be made for avoiding this place and for continuing northeast along the valley wall. In the case of both federal agents and the military, standard procedure probably requires that upon discovery these buildings must be scouted, searched, and cleared. They offer only brief concealment.
If people reside here, however, they’ll distract the searchers and provide screening that will make electronic detection of Curtis a little more difficult. As always, for a fugitive, there’s value in commotion.
More important, he needs to find water. With willpower, he could deny his thirst and eliminate his desire for a drink, but he wouldn’t be able to prevent dehydration strictly by an act of will. Besides, Old Yeller, too thickly furred for long-distance running in this climate, is at risk of heatstroke.
On closer inspection, these houses — or whatever they are — prove to be crudely constructed. Roughly planed planks form the walls, and although they have been slopped with paint, they’re splintery under Curtis’s hands. No ornamentation. Even in better light, they wouldn’t likely reveal the finessed details of high-quality carpentry.
Except for the six or eight immense old trees rising among and high above the structures, no landscaping is evident, no softening grass or flowers, or shrubs. These dreary shelters hulk and huddle without grace on hard bare earth.
By now slowed to a cautious pace, Curtis and Old Yeller follow a narrow passageway between two buildings. A faint scent of wood rot. The musky odor of mice nesting among chinks in the rough foundations.
The wall on their left is blank. On the right, two windows offer Curtis views into a blackness deep enough to be eternal.
