1
WYFORD FORD PAUSED looking down the great cleft in the earth named TyrannosaurCanyon. Ten miles back he had passed the black basaltic dike that gave the canyon its name, and now he was deep within it, farther than he had ever been before. It was a godforsaken place. The canyon walls rose higher the deeper he went, until they pressed in on him claustrophobically from both sides. Boulders the size of houses had spalled off the cliffs and lay tumbled about on the canyon floor amid patches of poisonous alkali flats, the dust lifted by the wind into white veils. Nothing, it seemed to Ford, lived in the canyon beyond a few saltbushes-and, naturally, a plethora of rattlers.
He halted as he saw a slow movement ahead of him and watched a diamond-back with a body as thick as his forearm slither across the sand in front of him, flicking its tongue and making a slow scraping noise. This was the time of evening for snakes, Ford thought, as they came out of their holes as the heat abated to get a head start on their nocturnal hunt.
Ford hiked on, getting back into the rhythm of it, his long legs eating up the ground. It was like a maze, with many side canyons peeling off into nowhere. The miles passed quickly. Toward sunset, as the canyon made yet another turn, he could see the great crowd of rocks up ahead, the ones he had seen from Navajo Rim, which he had whimsically named The Bald Ones. The lower part of the canyon was already in shadow, bathed in a warm orange glow of reflected light from high up on the eastern rim.
Ford felt grateful that the day was over. He had been rationing water since the morning and the cooling of the air brought a welcome lessening of his thirst. When night arrived in the desert, it came fast. He would not have much time to pick out a good campsite. With a jaunty step he continued down the canyon, looking left and right, and soon located what he was looking for: a sheltered spot between a pair of fallen boulders with a soft, level bed of sand. He unshouldered his rucksack and took a swig of water, rolling it about in his mouth to enjoy it as much as possible before swallowing. He still had fifteen, maybe twenty minutes of light left. Why waste it on cooking and unrolling his bedroll? Leaving his gear, he hiked up the canyon to the beginning of the Bald Ones. From the closer vantage point they looked more like gigantic squashed toadstools than skulls; each was about thirty feet in width and maybe twenty feet high, carved from a layer of deep orange sandstone shot through with thinner lenses of wine-colored shale and conglomerate. Some of the large rocks had been undercut and had fallen like Humpty Dumpty, lying in broken pieces.
He walked into the forest of sandstone pillars holding up the round domes of rock. The pillars were formed from a pale pink sandstone and were all about ten feet in height. Ford scrambled between them, intent on seeing how far the formation extended. From his viewpoint none of the rocks looked like the one he was after, but the family resemblance was strong. Once again he had a shiver of excitement, sure that he was getting closer to the dinosaur. He squeezed his way among the rocks, sometimes forced to crawl, uncomfortably aware of the press of stone rising above him. As he reached the far side, he discovered to his surprise that the Bald Ones hid the entrance to another canyon-or what was actually a hidden continuation of TyrannosaurCanyon. He started up it, hiking briskly along the bottom. The canyon was narrow and showed evidence of violent flash floods, the sides strewn with bashed tree trunks and branches that had been swept down from the mountains beyond. The canyon's lower walls had been polished and hollowed by the action of water.
The canyon made turn after turn, each elbow disclosing alcoves and undercuts. Some of the higher alcoves contained small Anasazi cliff dwellings. A quarter mile on, Ford came to a 'pour-over,' a high shelf of sandstone across the canyon, which must have formed a waterfall in wetter times, with a cracked bed of silt below attesting to a former pool. He climbed up, using the projecting stone layers as hand-and footholds, and hiked on.
The canyon took a twist and suddenly opened into a stupendous valley where three tributary canyons came together like a train wreck of rock, creating a spectacle of erosional ferocity. Ford halted, awestruck by the frozen violence of it. With a smile, he decided to name it the Devil's Graveyard. As he stood, the last
of the sun winked out on the canyon rim and the evening crept across the strange valley cloaking it in purple shadow. It was truly a land lost in time.
Ford turned back. It was too late to explore farther; he had to get back to camp before dark. The stones had waited millions of years, the monk thought. They could wait one more day.
2
TOM DROVE NORTHWARD on Highway 84, making a great effort to keep his
mind focused. The plane had been late, it was eight-thirty, and he was still an hour from the stretch of highway the kidnapper had indicated. On the passenger seat sat a Ziploc bag full of yellow trash with the notebook tucked inside. His cell phone was sitting on the seat, charged up and waiting for the call.
He felt furiously helpless, at the mercy of events-an intolerable sensation. He had to find a way to take charge, to act and not just react. But he couldn't just act: he needed to work out a plan, and for that he had to push his emotions aside and think as coldly and clearly as possible.
The dark expanse of desert rushed by on either side of the road, the stars clear and stationary in the night sky above. The plane ride from Tucson to Santa Fe had been the most difficult hour Tom had ever passed. It had taken a superhuman effort to control his speculations and focus on the problem at hand. That problem was simple: to get Sally back. Nothing else mattered. Once he had Sally back, he would deal with the kidnapper.
Once again he wondered if he shouldn't have gone to the police, or bypass Wilier entirely and go straight to the FBI. But in his heart he knew the kidnapper was right: if he did that, he would lose control. They would take over. No matter what, Wilier would get involved. He believed the kidnapper when he said he would kill Sally if the police became involved. It was too big a risk; he had to do this on his own.
He knew the stretch of Highway 84 the kidnapper wanted him to drive back and forth on. It was one of the loneliest stretches of two-lane highway in the state, with a single gas station and convenience store.
Tom tried to think what he would have done if he were the kidnapper, how he would have set things up, how he would pick up the notebook and avoid being followed. That was what Tom had to figure out-the mans plan.
3
WILLER GLANCED UP at the clock from a stack of paperwork. Nine-fifteen. He looked over at Hernandez, who looked almost green in the sickly fluorescent glare of the office.
'He blew us off,' said Hernandez. 'Just like that.'
'Just like that. . .' Wilier rapped his pen on the stack of papers. It didn't make sense, a guy with so much to lose. Guys like that had a million legal ways of avoiding an interview with the police.
'You think he's jumped the rez?'
'His vehicle-that classic Chevy he drives-was parked at the airport. His plane landed at eight and now it's gone.'
Hernandez shrugged. 'Engine trouble?'
'He's playing some kind of game with us.'
'What's he up to?'
'Hell if I know.'
The room became heavy with silence. Wilier finally coughed, lit up, felt he needed to do something to reestablish his authority; it surprised and galled him that Broadbent would simply blow him off. 'Here's what we know for a fact: there's fresh blood on his living-room rug and a fresh round in his wall. He missed an interview with the police. Maybe he's in trouble or dead. Maybe he's running scared. Maybe he argued with his wife, things got out
