The Maze (4 page)

“I've got work to do. You saw where the food is. Help yourself if you're hungry.”

With that, the man with the scar went back to his routines as if Rick weren't there. He set up a large tripod-mounted spotting scope near his kitchen, got a big pair of binoculars from his tent, sat down, and started watching something up on the cliffs high above.

Rick walked over toward the commissary tent, then stopped and squinted toward the rugged surfaces of the cliffs high above. What could the man be looking at? Rick saw pinnacles, spires, coves, boulders perched on slanting ledges, but he couldn't tell what the man had his scope trained on. What did this guy do out here in the middle of nowhere? What were the dead calves all about?

Rick pulled a lawn chair aside, where he'd be out of
the way, and ate a bowl of cereal, then a second and a third. He watched the bearded man disappear into his tent and return a minute later with a small black electronic instrument clipped to his belt—a two-way radio identical to the one in the truck. As he walked across the pavementlike stone surface in front of the tents, he jacked an attachment into the radio. Once its cross members were unfolded, it proved to be a small handheld antenna.

Lon Peregrino flicked the power on and aimed the antenna at the cliffs. He pointed it slowly back and forth, picking up a pattern of beeps. Just then Rick's eye caught the movement of a very large dark bird flying across the rim. It landed on a pinnacle jutting out from the cliffs. An eagle?

Suddenly Lon packed up his radio and his scope, jumped in his truck, and drove out of camp without a word.

Strange guy, Rick thought, and moody as the wind.

A few minutes later Rick spotted the truck crawling up the switchbacks toward the top of the cliffs. He decided to have a look around camp while he was alone and had the chance.

Three trails led out of camp across patches of red dirt and wound their way among the scrubby trees and the boulders that had fallen from the cliffs. One trail led to a plastic shower bag suspended from a juniper limb. He felt the bag. The water was warm, almost hot.

The second trail led to a portable toilet behind a boulder as big as a small house.

The third led to a spring at the base of the rubble-strewn slope that flared from the towering cliffs. A metal pipe had been jammed between the rock layers where the seepage was strongest. A strong flow of water ran out of the pipe onto the ground and made a miniature oasis wherever it touched. The view from the spring opened onto endless stony distances and sky that was hard and turquoise blue, solid as a gemstone. It was eerie how empty it all was.

Walking back toward camp, Rick was following what looked like a game trail among the junipers and pinyon pines. It led toward a small clearing. He brushed a limb aside and pushed on through. No more than two arm's lengths away and to the side, some large living thing suddenly hissed at him. He recoiled, instinctively shielding his face with his forearms.

It was an eagle, an immense white-headed, white-tailed bald eagle! He backed out the way he'd come, his heart thundering. Through the branches of a stubby tree he could see the huge bird, still in the same place, fidgeting along a smooth pole that had apparently been lashed between trees across a corner of the clearing. Why had it let him get so close? Why hadn't it flown?

Creeping a little closer, he found the answer. Leather thongs restrained the bird's feet.

What was Lon Peregrino doing with a captive eagle?

A minute later Rick came across a yellow mountain bike behind the tents. It was a Diamondback, the same brand he'd admired in the ads in the bike magazines in Mr. B.'s library. There were also two long plastic tubes around twenty feet long, with screw-in lids. He wondered what was inside but didn't attempt to open them.

On a bicycle, Rick thought, he could make it back to Hanksville easily. Lon hadn't told him about the bike. Should he take it right now?

Maybe he should wait a few days until the search for him had died down. Then go.

Go where?

The coast of California. Fort Bragg.

And do what? Hide out in a sea cave? His grandmother was gone.

Dead ends every direction he turned.

He was still hungry. He went back to look for something more to eat, found a banana. He sat on a lawn chair in the sun. Time had slowed almost to a standstill.

If he was thinking about staying here any longer, he needed to know more about Lon Peregrino and what this encampment was all about. He found himself standing in front of Lon's tent. The door flaps were untied. He took a step up onto the wood floor of the tent.

The first things he noticed were two helmets on the floor under the man's cot, stowed neatly in front of a large duffel bag. Motorcycle helmets, apparently. He
could picture the man with the scar as a Harley rider….

Across from the cot were a footlocker and a small dresser with a manual typewriter on top of it and the fold-up radio antenna. Next to the head of his cot was a crate for a nightstand. In addition to candles it had a half dozen fossil shells on it and a book called
Walden
.

Holding his breath, Rick opened the top drawer of Lon's dresser. He was looking at Lon's radio, the one he'd had clipped to his belt, a couple of baseball caps, a red bandanna, a couple pairs of sunglasses, a long bone-handled sheath knife, and a thin wallet.

With a quick glance over his shoulder, Rick opened the wallet. A hundred-dollar bill, a twenty, a few ones. No credit cards, no photos, no receipts, no odds and ends. Lon Peregrino's driver's license was from Arizona. His address was listed as Cliff Dweller's Lodge, Vermilion Cliffs, Arizona.

Rick put the wallet back and reached for an item he'd overlooked—one of those open-up photo holders, the kind for displaying one large photo inside. Did the man have a family somewhere?

Inside was a yellowed clipping from a newspaper in McCall, Idaho. It was a photograph of a boy about Rick's age with a bald eagle on his arm. The boy was Lon Peregrino, Rick realized. There was the scar, only darker, fresher. The eyes were the same, the mouth was the same. Rick sat down on the cot and began to read
the caption under the photo. He'd gotten no further than “Kenny McDermott proudly displays eagle” when he heard the sound of an approaching vehicle.

He's lying about his name, Rick realized, as he hastily closed the folder and returned it as best he could to its former position. He's using an alias. Why would he do that?

With a peek out the door, he dashed across the clearing, expecting to see Lon's truck. To his surprise it wasn't Lon. Rick panicked as he realized that he recognized this vehicle. It was the Humvee from the gas station in Hanksville, parking several hundred feet away where the spur into the camp left the road. Rick's view was blocked by junipers and boulders, but he heard two doors slam, then that buzz saw voice he'd heard before. “Wind your window up. Leave it open enough so he's got plenty of ventilation.”

The pit bull. Thank goodness they're leaving it in the Humvee.

The men were walking right toward camp. Friends of Lon's? Soundlessly, Rick backed out through the kitchen and took cover behind a cluster of boulders. He would have run farther, but there wasn't enough cover. They were too close.

Now Rick could see them, two men in jeans, western shirts, and cowboy hats. The gray-haired older man under the brown felt Stetson, with chin sharp as a shovel, was the pit bull owner from the gas station in
Hanksville. He was weathered and hard as an old fencepost, and he carried himself erect and alert like a soldier.

The second one, under a straw cowboy hat, was a bigger man and somewhat younger, maybe in his forties. A barrel of a man on thin legs, he wore cowboy boots and had a large silver buckle that was mostly obscured by his belly. There was attitude—possibly a sneer—on his fleshy face as he looked around the camp. He was wearing a pair of binoculars around his neck, and he was jiggling an empty five-gallon water jug with one finger. As they halted opposite the first tent, he set the jug down and lifted the binoculars to his eyes. For a long time he scanned the cliffs above. “Neither hide nor hair,” he finally reported.

“Good,” rasped the pit bull's owner. “He's still behind the blind watching his birds. He'd have to come practically to the edge of the cliff to see down here. If he does, he'll be real obvious.”

The one with the binoculars trained on the cliffs said contemptuously, “Can you imagine getting paid to watch vultures?” His voice had none of the gravel or authority of the older man's. It sounded peevish and small.

“Complete idiocy, but what can you expect from the government? Keep watching the rim, Gunderson. I'm gonna take a couple of minutes to look around before we go for water.”

“We don't really need water, Nuke.”

“I know that,” came the testy reply. “But if we don't at least look like we're getting water, we don't have any reason for being in his camp.”

Rick's skin was crawling. These men were definitely not friends of Lon's. What were they doing here?

“Okay, okay,” Gunderson said. “We'll act like we're here to get water. What I'd really like to do is blow this guy's camp to kingdom come. What a pain. I still say we should just shoot those birds—or poison 'em. No way they'd put another batch in here once these were all killed. They'd pull the camp and do it somewhere else.”

“Real smart, Gunderson. That would be in every newspaper in the country. This is a big deal to the government, these endangered birds. This whole area would be swarming with law enforcement—mostly federal.”

“So
we
have to pull
our
stuff out of here?”

“You don't seem to get the picture. This is a much bigger problem than we originally thought. We've never had this situation before—somebody right down here at the Maze, twenty-four hours a day, right in our old camp. I talked to this guy last week. He or somebody like him could be here for the next twenty years! This project just goes on and on. Typical government work.”

“Can't we just wait, Nuke? Are you sure we have to pull all our stuff out? Can't we just see how it goes with this guy?”

“You'll have plenty of time to wait if we get caught—wait for your jail sentence to run out. Keep watching the rim with those field glasses. I'm going to have a look in those tents.”

“How come?”

“It's called intelligence. Find out what he's got and what he doesn't got.”

“He doesn't got a brain, that's what I think. You'd have to be a total fool to baby-sit vultures…to live like this.”

Vultures? Rick wondered. Endangered vultures?

When Nuke returned from Lon's tent, Gunderson asked, “What's he got?”

“Secondhand junk. Books, clothes, another radio. No camera, unless he's got one in the truck.”

“That's good. At least he doesn't have a camera. He got any weapons? Ammunition? Bet he don't.”

“Sheath knife was all I could see. He could have a gun in his truck, but I doubt it. You know the type, probably hates guns. Let's go over to the spring, just in case he's watching, and then get out of here. We have some work to do.”

Rick kept hidden until the two men returned from the spring and cleared out. The Humvee drove down the road to the east, in the direction of the buttes. What was it they had to take out of here? What were they up to that could land them in prison?

The camp was in shadow and Lon still hadn't returned. Rick couldn't get the image of those two “visitors” out of his head. They reminded him of the guards back at Blue Canyon. He wished Lon would come back.

Who was this bird expert really? Rick wished he knew if the man could be trusted. Why had he changed his name? Had he committed a crime? Abandoned a family?

Rick realized he should be hiding some food, at least enough to keep him from starving if he had to run for it. He went into the commissary tent. A couple of cans of tuna, a couple of chunk chicken, and one of the small canned hams wouldn't be missed. But where could he stash them? The Maze was supposed to be nearby. The Maze sounded like a perfect place to hide out if it came to that.

He threw his supplies in a sack and walked out onto the rolling sea of smooth white rock that undulated from the edge of the camp. Ten minutes later he found himself reeling back from the very edge of a stupendous drop into thin air.

Rick caught his breath and calmed his heart. This had to be the Maze. Cautiously he crept close to the edge of the cliff. He was looking down two or more hundred feet into a very narrow canyon banded spectacularly with horizontal layers of rock. The cliff walls looked like a cross section of a ten-layer cake. Underneath the thick white frosting at the top came alternating layers of pink, buff, and raspberry. The thick swath of red halfway down was the most eye-catching of all.

Rick could barely believe this place was real, even though he was staring right at it.

He looked to see if he could spot a route down into the canyon but couldn't see one. Within a couple hundred yards the canyon deepened to four hundred feet or more. As it disappeared around the bend, the canyon was still so narrow that its depth exceeded its width.

Lifting his eyes to the rim, Rick saw the rims of more and more canyons beyond this one, all glowing with the flat golden light of evening. He was at the edge of a vast natural puzzle of intricate canyons cut deep in a petrified sea. The Maze.

Rick picked a spot to hide the canned goods under the roots of a stunted juniper, then sat down and tried
to figure out what to do next. He thought about how ironic it was that he'd landed in this place. A maze was nothing new to him. He'd been trapped in one for a long, long time.

A reflected flash of light from high above on the red cliffs caught his eye: a mirror on the bird expert's truck. The Ford was inching its way down the switchbacks. Rick had no real sense of where he stood with the mysterious “Lon Peregrino,” but he knew he needed cover. His safest option had to be staying right here, in the middle of nowhere, at least for a while.

But was it too late? Had the man already reported him? From up above, on the plateau? Rick had to know.

Lon got out of the truck and started getting himself some supper. He looked preoccupied and acted like Rick wasn't even there. Rick felt he'd been tuned out, as if someone had hit the mute button on the TV, as if he'd been switched off for Lon's convenience.

Cuisine for tonight, at least for Peregrino, was cold hot dogs. No buns, no mustard or relish, just hot dogs. And a green salad. Lon arranged the hot dogs and the salad on a plastic plate, then sat down on a folding chair in front of his kitchen tarp. Rick cautiously pulled up a chair next to the bearded enigma.

“So, what were you looking at up there? Birds?”

Lon seemed genuinely startled to see him. “Oh, jeez,” he said. “I'll bet you're hungry. Want a hot dog?”

“Thanks. Mind if I try cooking it? Heat it up in some water?”

“Suit yourself. Like I said, help yourself to whatever you want. I'm not much of a cook.”

Rick heated up some hot dogs, wrapped them in slices of bread, found some mustard and relish. He took his plate back over by Lon and sat down on the lawn chair, ready for another try at conversation. He didn't want to start right out telling him about the men. He had to plan this, do it right.

“What kind of birds are you studying? That is what you're doing out here, isn't it—studying birds?” Rick thought that sounded like a safe beginning.

“Actually,” Lon answered, “I'm doing more than studying them. This is a release project. We're reintroducing six birds to the wild. They're
condors
, North American condors. Largest bird on the continent—nine-and-a-half-foot wingspan—also the most endangered. Ever heard of 'em?”

Rick tried to remember if he ever had. He shook his head.

“Ice Age survivor, nature's most magnificent flying machine.”

There was a tone in the man's voice of deep respect, almost of awe. Keep him talking, Rick told himself. This is going well. “‘Ice Age survivor'?” he asked. “I don't understand what you mean.”

“I mean just that. They're survivors from the time
of the Ice Ages. The last Ice Age ended about ten thousand years ago.”

“To tell you the truth, I never understood what that was all about.”

The man studied him closely to see if he was putting him on.

Rick wasn't faking it, or at least not very much. He was intrigued by the idea of rare vultures.

“This spot where we're sitting wasn't covered by glaciers,” the man who called himself Lon continued, “but a lot of North America was. The Southwest was cooler and wetter back then. More grass, more flowers, big trees where they can't grow now—the climate supported a lot of big-time animals.”

“Like woolly mammoths,” Rick guessed. “And saber-toothed tigers.” He was remembering the visit he'd made with the Clarks to the famous tar pits in L.A.

“Bull's-eye,” the biologist said approvingly. His deep baritone voice sounded friendly. Was the man willing to be friendly? Should he tell him now about the two men?

Lon disappeared into the commissary tent and returned with a box of cake donuts. He took one and handed the box over to Rick. “Picture giant animals moving right through here, the hunted and the hunters. Giant bison, giant ground sloths, camels, mastodons, a bear bigger than the grizzly, the dire wolf. Lots of kills,
lots of carrion to get cleaned up afterward by scavengers.”

Rick was making connections. “Must have been some
mega
vultures back then, like mega everything else.”

“That's right. There
was
a megavulture, as you call it. Not all the meat eaters depended on tooth and claw. The great virtue of this one was patience. This bird was capable of soaring for a hundred, two hundred miles with hardly a beat of its wings while scanning the ground for a dinner table that was already set. All those other giant animals I mentioned are extinct. The condor was the most adaptable. It has at least a million years behind it, and it's still around, but barely.”

Suddenly one of the condors flew above the rim, and Rick pointed. He was thrilled that he'd spotted it. The biologist hadn't noticed.

Lon reached for his binoculars hanging from the spotting scope. “He's up a good three hundred feet. Best flight yet! Must be M4!”

After a few seconds Lon passed the binoculars. Rick located the bird. With huge wide wings held flat and a large, ruddering tail, the “megavulture” was holding its position against the wind. At the tips of its wings, individual feathers curving slightly upward extended a long way, like fingers.

“That's a condor you're looking at,” the man said reverently. “They're still around. Very few, but you're
looking at one. Their chances for survival are considered extremely remote.”

“If it's a vulture, how come the skin isn't red?”

“Because they're only six months old. At five years or so, at maturity, all that gray skin on its neck and head will turn orange or yellow or a combination of the two. The adults also develop large, spectacular white patterns on the underside of their wings.”

Rick watched the huge bird come in for a landing up on the rim, on a pinnacle in front of the cliffs. “Six months old? Did I hear you right?”

“They're just learning to fly. They were hatched in zoos out in California.”

“How come you didn't release their parents with them, to teach 'em stuff?”

“We need the older birds for breeding, to get the population up. There aren't any more mature condors left in the wild, none. They were down to
nine
individuals when the scientists decided to capture them and try to save the species by captive breeding. The adults we have now would just fly off and starve to death. They were hatched in zoos too—don't know the first thing about locating food and a hundred other things about being a condor. These fledglings will figure it out gradually as they're learning to fly, and they won't fly too far away at first.”

“M4—the one we were looking at—is he something special?”

“Oh, yeah, he's special. The day we released them—just ten days ago—he flew all the way out to that pinnacle he's on right now. That was quite a feat for a condor fledgling. I mean, flying off the edge of a cliff with nothing but eight hundred feet of air under your wings, when you've only flown short bursts in a pen…that takes guts even for a juvenile, who's naturally long on stupidity.”

Was there a trace of mockery in the man's voice? If so, it was a good joke. And Lon was smiling.

Rick decided to seize the moment, take a chance. “You have radio contact with the outside world?” he ventured.

“Sure,” Lon replied, without sounding cagey. He pointed to a high distant plateau with a prow like a ship. “There's a repeater over there on the Island in the Sky.”

Spill it, Rick told himself. Just ask him. But he hesitated, not wanting to make a mistake.

The biologist eyed him critically. “What is it you're getting at?”

“Okay…did you radio me in? Like to the sheriff or something? Is somebody coming in here tomorrow to pick me up?”

This time it was the man who hesitated, studying him as he squirmed. “Not unless you want somebody to.”

Rick was confused. “I don't, believe me.”

Silence settled in again. Rick couldn't read this man at all. “How come you didn't turn me in?”

The bird biologist stroked his beard thoughtfully where it was graying, over his chin. “A guy named Ernie,” he said whimsically.

“Who's he?”

Lon waved dismissively. “Doesn't matter…a man I used to know. Let's say it was on a hunch, for personal reasons.”

Once again, silence ebbed into the gulf between them.

“You're obviously between a rock and a hard place,” the man continued finally.

“You can say that again,” Rick admitted.

“Let me just ask this. Have you hurt anybody? Is that what you're running from?”

“It's not that,” Rick answered quietly. “No, I didn't hurt anybody.”

“Somebody hurt
you?
Put that cut on your face? Father, stepfather?”

Rick shook his head. “I don't have one. Used to have a foster father—more than one. One of 'em taught me to drive….” With a grimace he added, “As much as I know, that is.”

The man turned his intense blue eyes on him. Rick thought he might be seeing a willingness to understand, but how could he know for sure that this man with the double identity would be fair?

“If I tell you where I came from, you'll have to report me.”

The man with the scar thought about it. He thought about it a long time. “Can't answer that. Keep your secret if you need to.”

“I want to stay here. I
need
to.”

Lon was about to say something, but Rick cut him off. “There were two guys in your camp this afternoon. I think you might be in danger.”

“What do you mean?” Lon asked quickly.

“There were two men in your camp while you were up on the cliff. They were driving an old beat-up Humvee.”

“I heard a vehicle from up above but didn't get a look. Must have been Nuke Carlile, from the gas station in Hanksville. He comes to get water from the spring.”

“He got water, but he didn't need water.”

At that, one of Lon's eyebrows rose. “What do you mean?”

“I heard them talking. They didn't know I was here. I heard a lot of things.”

Lon was interested, definitely interested. “What kind of things?”

“About you and your birds. Your visitors weren't big fans.”

Peregrino's eyes blazed. “If you have something to tell me, kid, spit it out. What did you hear?”

Rick told it all, slowly, carefully. The man listened
intently, worrying his beard all the while. Afterward Lon grilled him on the particulars, especially about the possibility of the birds being shot or poisoned.

“The guy named Gunderson was just a hothead. Liked to talk big.”

“Like blowing my camp to kingdom come? Not a pretty picture.”

Rick nodded. “But Carlile was the guy in charge, no question. He said they weren't going to mess with the birds, because it would bring law enforcement, like I told you. They were afraid of going to jail and all. He said they were going to pull out their stuff, whatever that meant, because you were too close and were going to stay a long time.”

The biologist looked away to the stony distances, his forehead furrowed and his blue eyes hard. “They must be pothunters,” he said finally.

“Pothunters? What's that?”

“Looters. They pillage ancient Native American sites on public land. In this area they're mostly after seed jars and water jars and so on—thousand-year-old pottery. Unfortunately there's a strong black market, and that stuff's really valuable. This whole area is rich with Fremont and Anasazi sites. Nobody knows the Maze area better than Carlile, according to the man himself—he told me so.”

“You've met him, I take it?”

“Just a week ago, down here, shortly after we re
leased the birds. He informed me I'd taken ‘his' campsite. Said he'd developed the spring behind camp a long time ago. I told him about my permit, told him anyone and everyone was welcome to come for water at any time—it's all public land. He took exception to that term. He said, ‘You mean,
government
land.'”