Wycza whispered, “Salsa, too?”
Parker nodded.
They moved forward, and Wycza touched Salsa’s shoulder. Salsa too came straight awake and sat up. Wycza whispered Paulus’s name, and then the three of them went outside and shut the shed door behind them.
It was cool at night here, and tonight there was a dampness in the air that hadn’t been present before. The stars were obscured, the sky heavy and black.
Parker whispered, “Where?”
“I heard him when he started the car. He took it down below.”
“Gone to get his share.”
“Yeah.”
Salsa said, “He may start up before we can get down. He’ll be tough to get hold of, in his car.”
Parker said, “Is there any other way out of there?”
Wycza shook his head. “Just this one road. Chambers and I looked that over when we first come out.”
“We can block it at the top with one car.”
“Okay, good.”
They went to the shed where they’d stashed the wagon, and pulled the corrugated sections of wall away, moving as silently as they could. The darkness was almost complete. Parker backed the wagon out, turning the parking lights on, and with that small illumination drove over to the dropoff and the beginning of the road down to the bottom. He left the wagon parked across the road at the very top, pointing out into space. He switched the lights off and climbed out, and rejoined Wycza and Salsa, a little way off, standing at the edge over the road. They stood there and waited.
“Here he comes,” said Salsa.
Wycza said, “The damn fool’s using his parking lights.”
Salsa said, “I wouldn’t try to come up that without light.”
They waited. The car crept slowly upward and was almost to the wagon before it stopped. The parking lights went out immediately. Paulus didn’t make a sound.
Whispering, Wycza asked, “What do we do with him?”
“I don’t want to have to bury him,” said Parker.
“We tie him and leave him on one of the cots,” said Salsa. “Grofield’s girl can feed him.”
“I don’t work with him again,” said Wycza. “That much I know.”
Paulus’ voice came up to them suddenly, with startling loudness: “Get that car out of the way!”
“Forget it, Paulus.”
“I’ll ram it!”
Salsa squatted down on his heels and called softly down to Paulus: “Don’t make things so difficult for yourself. Come back to the shed and we’ll tie you up a few days.”
“There’ll be law here by tomorrow! Edgars set us up to be collared, don’t you damn fools seethat?”
Salsa said, “You’re all excited, Paulus. Don’t they know we have rifles, machine guns? Don’t they know how many of us there are? If they thought we were in here, would that helicopter pilot come back two three times all by himself, and down so low?”
“Why’d he come back, then?”
“Paulus, you don’t know anything about search patterns, do you?”
“This place is naked, we stick out like boils. I want to be away from here, a thousand miles away from here.”
Parker was tired, and a little chilly. He wanted to be back asleep. He said, “Quit screwing around, Paulus, you aren’t going anywhere.”
“God damn you, Parker!”
The headlights of Paulus’ car came on all at once, on high beam, flooding the station wagon with light, light reflecting away on all sides to show Parker and Wycza standing big and heavy by the edge, Salsa hunkered down like a bandit beside them, the three looking down over the edge at the car just below them. Paulus’ car was so close, they could have stepped down onto the roof.
The car began to back, Paulus gunning the engine. Salsa called something to him, but the roaring of the engine drowned it out. The car backed downward, and then they could see Paulus at the steering wheel, facing backward, twisted around and straining to see. There was only darkness behind the car, tinged with red by the taillights.
Paulus was excited, so maybe he forgot to reverse the turning direction on the steering wheel when going backward. Or maybe he just couldn’t see well enough back there. His left rear wheel went off the edge.
Salsa hollered, “Jump!”
Parker dropped down to the road surface, landing on his hands and feet, going down to his knees and getting up again.
But Paulus was on the wrong side of the car to jump. And the engine was still roaring, so his foot was still heavily on the accelerator. The car seemed to tremble a minute, while Parker ran down toward its headlights, and
