Five miles down that road was a long-abandoned gold mine, filled with thirty or more dangerous vertical shafts that disappeared straight down into the belly of the world.
River used to come here as a kid.
He and Butch Bannister would dare each other to jump over the shafts. Some were narrow and easy. Others were a whole different world.
River pulled next to one of the wider shafts and stepped out of the car.
The thin mountain air was ten degrees cooler than Denver, maybe fifteen.
With the clouds and the wind, it was almost cold.
He opened the trunk and pulled the body out, tipping it over the lip and letting it drop to the ground with a thud. He grabbed the feet and dragged it towards the hole, stopping two yards short.
He looked at January.
“I’ll bet she’s not the first to be dropped down here,” he said. “I’ll bet she lands on ten more just like her.”
“Be careful. Don’t get too close.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I used to play here as a kid.”
He got behind the body and pushed it with his foot, closer and closer to the opening, then in.
The body banged against the sides on the way down.
It was a familiar sound.
River had dropped five hundred rocks down the shafts.
The sound was always the same.
In spite of the chill, his brow was moist. He wiped it with the back of his hand and looked around.
The world was silent.
Not a sound came from anywhere.
“She’s in China,” he said. “There’s one thing we don’t have to worry about, and that’s anyone ever finding her.”
January wrapped her arms around him.
“I’m sorry we had to do this.”
River shrugged.
“It was her fault,” he said. “She was the one who got all fancy with the binoculars. She’s the one who fought back when she shouldn’t have. Screw her. She got what she deserved.”
January picked up a rock and threw it in the shaft.
“What’d you do here as a kid?”
“What do you mean?”
“You said you used to come and play here as a kid. What did you do?”
“We jumped over the shafts.”
January smiled.
“No way.”
“Yeah, I’m serious,” River said.
“Show me.”
“Show you?”
“Yes.”
He tilted his head.
“And what’s my reward, if I do?”
“Whatever you want.”
“Be careful because there won’t be any take-backs.”
“Stop stalling and show me.”
River looked around. There were a good dozen shafts in sight, all smaller than the one in front of him, which was somewhere in the neighborhood of three good-sized steps, ten or eleven feet.
“This one will do,” he said.
“Go for it.”
He walked back, judged the distance until it burned into his brain, then sprinted for it with everything he had. At the very last inch of ground, he planted a foot and then catapulted his body high and twisting, not in a way to land on his feet, only in a way to clear the mark.
He landed on the other side with a thud and rolled.
He got up, brushed the dirt off his pants and walked towards January with a grin.
“I never did that one before,” he said. “It always scared me too much as a kid.”
“Looks like you’re growing up.”
“
“That’s right.”
“Get in the back seat of that car.”
“Yes sir.”
124
The clouds thickened and dropped lower. Ordinarily they had the same effect on Wilde as sunshine did, except in the opposite direction. Right now he could care less about them. Things were good between him and Emmanuelle. They were on solid ground again. They had a future.
London was waiting for him in Blondie.
“You look like you just got laid,” she said.
Wilde lit a cigarette.
“No one can tell that just by looking at another person’s face.”
“I wasn’t looking at your face.”
She cast her eyes down.
He followed them.
His fly was open.
He zipped up, cranked over the engine and squeezed into traffic. They went to the office to see if Alabama had taken a taxi over from her post at River’s.
She hadn’t.
The place was empty.
Nor had she been there, everything was the same.
Wilde scratched his head.
“Okay, here’s the deal. You stay here. Keep the door locked. There’s a gun in the top drawer of the desk. If anyone forces their way in, shoot first and ask questions later.”
He headed for the door.
“Where are you going?”
“To see Alabama first,” he said. “If the guy showed up at River’s, we’ll try to track him. If he hasn’t shown up, I’ll have to decide whether to go to River and give him the message that the map’s a fake.”
“We still don’t have the real one.”
“We’ll get it by tonight.”
“How?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “One thing at a time.”
“Crockett has it.”
