pass over him. The air grew suddenly pregnant with the rich scent of wet earth and lacerated vegetation. Despite his distance, he instinctively backed up his horse as the walls of the benchland began caving in before him.
From still higher ground, he stared down at the humped and gnarled backside of the tidal wave as it thundered down the valley toward the dark slot canyon in the far rock face. As the flood struck the opening of the slot, he felt the brutal crash ripple beneath his feet. An enormous shockwave shuddered backward through the torrent, momentarily stopping the forward motion of the flood, atomizing the water. A vast curtain of brown spume erupted along the rock face, rising several hundred feet up the cliffs with terrifying speed before gradually falling back.
Now the torrent settled into a new pattern. The floodwaters continued to pile up against the slot canyon, forcing their way in, creating an instant lake: a huge, angry maelstrom of water boiling at the canyon’s mouth. Man-sized splinters of wood were thrown from the water as the swirling trees were torn apart by the violent pressure.
Another huge piece of benchland caved in before him. Shaking, Beiyoodzin turned his horse from the appalling scene and headed in the direction of the old Priest’s Trail: the back door into the valley of Quivira. It had been too late to save the horses. And now he wondered if anyone—including himself—would get out of Chilbah Valley alive.
49
WITH THE HELP OF ARAGON AND SMITHBACK, Nora tied off the ripped covering around Holroyd’s body bag and lashed it to the pole. Then she stood back, wiping her brow with the back of her hand. Although she knew it had to be done, she was reluctant to begin the awkward, arduous, depressing task of lugging Holroyd’s body, along with several drysacks full of gear, out to where the packhorses waited.
She looked up, scanning the canyon ahead. On the far side of the pool and well above her head was the massive cottonwood trunk. Beyond was a steep climb to the next pool; it was going to be hell, she knew, to get across it. The rising wind blew a strand of hair across her face, which she unconsciously tucked back behind her ear. She took a deep breath, knelt, and grasped one end of the pole.
Then she froze. There was another breath of wind on her cheek, stronger this time. Along with it came the sudden, strangely pleasant scent of crushed vegetation.
Fear sent blood surging in her ears. The wind was accelerating with an almost machinelike precision, very different from a natural, intermittent breeze. Even as she paused it became stronger.
“Flash flood,” she said.
“Yeah?” The sky overhead was calm and blue; Smithback’s tone was curious, not worried. “How can you tell?”
But Nora didn’t hear him. Her mind was calculating furiously. They were at least a quarter mile into the slot canyon. There was no way to get out in time. Their only chance was to climb, to get above the level of the flood.
Quickly, she pointed up toward the cavity in the rock where Holroyd’s corpse had been stored. “Drop the body,” she said urgently, “drop everything. Let’s go!”
Smithback began to protest. “We can’t just—”
“Move!” Aragon said urgently, releasing the other end of the pole. The body slid into the pool, turning lazily. Nora began thrashing through the water downstream, toward the spot where the ledge angled upward to the small cave.
“Where are you going?” Smithback called, disbelief strong in his voice. “Shouldn’t we be heading the other way?”
“No time!” she cried. “Come on, hurry!
Beneath the driving wind, Nora could now hear a faint noise: a low-frequency sound, deep and menacing. The calm pools of water in the stream broke into a dancing chop. The hastily abandoned drysacks began to bob and roll wildly.
She floundered across the pool, breath coming in sobs. The wind grew, and grew, and then there was a painful pop in her ears: a drastic change in air pressure. She looked back at Smithback and Aragon, wet and bedraggled, and tried to scream at them to hurry. Her voice was drowned by a vast, distorted roar that washed through the slot canyon, popping her ears a second time.
In its wake came an intense silence. The wind had suddenly dropped.
She hesitated, confused, her ears straining to catch every nuance of sound. From what seemed to be a vast distance, she could make out clatterings and crunchings, strangely distinct despite their remoteness. She whirled toward the ledge again, realizing she was hearing the sound of boulders and logs jamming into the stone slot, ricocheting off the narrow canyon walls on their way toward them. As she ran, a fresh wind rose to a screaming pitch, tearing shreds of water from the surface of the stream. The flood, she knew, would first turn the slot canyon into a wind tunnel.
She thrashed forward. The sound in the canyon grew to a terrible howl, and the ever-rising hurricane of wind tore at their backs.
Suddenly a boulder came down the canyon from behind them, bounding between the rock walls with thunderous booms, roaring over their heads with horrifying speed. Another, even larger, followed in its wake, propelled ahead of the water by a stochastic amplification of momentum. It hit the jammed cottonwood trunk with a shattering force and continued downcanyon, leaving behind the smell of smoke and crushed stone.
Gasping and coughing, Nora reached the ledge and grasped it with both hands, pulling herself out of the water. She scrambled up the rock, trying to maintain her purchase on the slippery ledge. The air had grown full of pulverized water, which lashed at them mercilessly. She hugged the rockface in an effort to keep the wind from plucking her off.
An advance guard of water blasted through the canyon just below them, and the light above dimmed. Events were happening so quickly—the day had grown so suddenly, completely violent—for a moment it seemed to Nora that she was locked in some terrible dream. She could barely make out Aragon’s form below her, struggling up the ledge.
A second tongue of twisting water came racing past below them, almost sucking Aragon from the canyon wall. Pausing in his climb, Smithback reached back, grabbed Aragon’s shirt, and hauled him upward. As Nora watched from above, powerless to help, another surge grabbed at Aragon’s leg. Over the cry of the flood, she thought she heard the man scream: a strange, hollow, despairing sound.
Smithback lunged for a better hold as Aragon was dragged from the ledge, dangling into space. A passing rock smacked into Aragon, spinning him around; there was a soundless parting of fabric and Smithback fell back against the cliff, a tattered remnant of Aragon’s collar in his hand. A furious gust of wind buoyed Aragon above the dancing rocks, whirling him downstream. Caught by another packet of water, his body was slammed into the canyon wall and dragged across it like cheese across a grater. In his wake, gobbets of red lay scraped across dark rock, vanishing quickly, like Aragon himself, into the boiling spume.
Choking back a sob, Nora turned and grabbed the next handhold, hoisted herself up, then reached for the next.
And then, at last, the main body of the flood came: a huge shadow, looming far above them, a wedge of darkness shutting out the last of the light; a foaming spasm of air, water, mud, rock, and brutalized wood, pushing before it a wind of tornadolike intensity. Nora felt Smithback lose his grip briefly, then regain it. As he jammed her into the cavity, forcing himself in after her, there was a sudden fusillade of sound as countless small rocks scoured the walls of the canyon. She felt Smithback go rigid, heard the wet hollow thumps as the rocks glanced off his
