The Slab (19 page)

Thinking about irrigation made him realize how thirsty he was. He stopped in the shade from the canyon wall’s overhang to catch his breath and take a swig from his canteen. Standing there, feeling the warm water splash down his dry throat, he noticed that the wall actually led off the main canyon, up a smaller side canyon.

“Guys!” he called. “Got a branch canyon over here.”

Kelly stopped in his tracks, looking back at Cam. “The footprints are here,” he said. “So it’s unlikely the Dove even saw that branch. But check it out for a few minutes, Cam, see if she’s trying to pull a fast one. If you don’t see her in ten minutes, come back down and join us in this one.”

Cam resisted the urge to salute. “Ten minutes,” he repeated. He capped his canteen and started up the side canyon. The floor was rockier and more uneven than the main canyon’s, so he immediately regretted having even said anything when he’d found it. The last thing he needed, though, was for her to be sitting up some side canyon while they continued to cover ground in the wrong direction. Already, he was starting to wonder if they’d make it back to the cabin before dark. He just hoped the Dove would be able to walk when they found her, and not make them carry her. Seemed unlikely any of them would be up to that, especially if she struggled like he had every expectation she would. He supposed they could just knock her out and drag her, though.

As he made his way up the canyon, he wondered if maybe he ought to think about dropping out after this year. Kelly had presented it as a foolproof plan, and so far he’d been right. But every year presented new possibilities for mistakes. Cam had a wife and two kids in college and a successful, respected business. If word ever got out about how he spent his annual vacation, all that would be ruined. He would deserve whatever happened, he knew. But he knew that in life you don’t always get what you deserve, and he was hoping this was one of those occasions.

Christ, it was hot. He knew he’d just hit the canteen a few minutes ago, but he needed another drink. His canteen hung on a strap across his chest, so he stopped, set his gun down, and pulled the canteen off. Then he picked the gun up again and continued up the uneven canyon floor, tilting his head back for a drink. Another couple of minutes here and he’d turn around to rejoin the others.

She wasn’t up here. He screwed the cap back onto the canteen, ready to give up. He barely saw the flash of light off metal, the motion of an arm arcing toward him, before the pain swallowed him alive.

The pain drove him to his knees, pain that was unimaginable, indescribable. He clapped both hands to his left eye. His glasses were already gone, the lens shattered, the frames knocked off his head by the blow. He held his hands there, over his eye, but it was like throwing up a makeshift dam before a rushing river. When he moved them away for a moment—anything to quash the pain, and maybe God maybe air would do it since cupping his hands didn’t—the river, released, splashed wetly down his shirt. Blood, and he was afraid to think what else.

There was screaming, and Cam knew it was him screaming but he couldn’t bring himself to stop it. Where the hell were the other guys, that’s what he wanted to know. He couldn’t see, couldn’t hear anything over his own wordless wail. She could be anywhere, even now, sneaking up to finish him off.

He forced himself to his feet and ran, down-canyon, keeping his right hand outstretched to feel the rough canyon wall as he went. The left hand stayed over his eye. After four steps he fell, then dragged himself to his feet, three more steps, fell again. The skin on his knees was shredding, knees and palms bleeding now, he was sure, but that awareness was secondary, somewhere deep in his brain, and he paid it no mind. His attention was focused on the pain and the girl who was surely out there somewhere, stalking him.

As he hauled himself once again to his feet, finally hearing the shouts of his friends as they came from the main canyon toward this side one, he realized what she must have used, with what weapon the bitch had attacked him.

The fork. Kelly had let her keep her fucking fork, from breakfast.

And that fork had gone into his eye.

***

Penny went up the hill to get away from Mick.

Officially, the reason was to gather some reconnaissance. From the hilltop she thought she could see where the troops were, and if they were making any progress finding the tracks that she believed she and Mick had done a good job of covering up. Lying on her stomach she could look back across their path, and if the marines were following the tracks, she’d know and have enough warning to move out.

But as important as that was, it was just as vital that she get away from Mick before she completely lost her patience with him. He meant well, she kept telling herself. His heart was in the right place. But he was just freaking annoying. She had a high tolerance—a girl didn’t have two younger brothers without developing tolerance for the annoying. Or committing fratricide, which she had considered but never resorted to.

It was harder for her, probably, because she agreed with most of what he said. The nation was drifting to war—no, strapping on rocket engines and rocketing toward it, more likely. She believed that with absolute certainty, and that’s what Mick thought, too, only he couldn’t stop talking about it. He was right—the thought depressed her, almost brought tears to her eyes as she bellied into the sand and watched the hillsides through binoculars—but there was only so much listening to it one person could stand. She was here to work for peace, she believed that peace was, in almost all circumstances, better than war, and she believed that a peaceful approach in this particular case—or at least, a law enforcement approach, taking the case to a world court and convicting bin Laden there, if he was indeed responsible, was the best way to make sure that more attacks didn’t shake America’s foundations. But if she had to listen to one more of Mick’s lectures about it she thought she’d rip his tongue out and force it down his throat.

She figured the entire nation had been depressed since September eleventh. It needed a good long session on the couch of some omnipotent psychiatrist—not a Freudian, who’d get all hung up on the imagery of the airplanes penetrating the two buildings, like the upraised legs of some Whore of Commerce. Someone who could make sense of things, who could ask questions other than “How do you feel about six thousand deaths?” Questions that would lead to dialogue, to healing, or at least to some kind of coming to terms with the horror.

Hell, she realized, she’d been depressed since the previous December, when it had become plain that while a minority of voters had felt that Dubya was presidential material, it was a large enough minority to put him within Supreme Court distance of the White House. She hadn’t been terribly excited about Gore, and considered Nader little more than a glory-seeking opportunist, despite the fact that most of her friends were voting for him. But both seemed like better choices than Bush, who had never accomplished anything positive in his life that she could see.

Something had torn for her the day the Supreme Court’s decision came down, though. A lifetime’s faith in the political process she loved had been shattered. The terror attacks were just one more sign that the world had changed, that the things she had taken for granted—every vote counts, the branches of government are distinct and separate, Americans are safe in their own country—were not the sure things she had believed.

Maybe she was really depressed, she thought. Clinically depressed. That could explain the lack of patience with Mick, who had been a friend and who wanted to be more. She had spent extended periods of time with him before, traveling around the country to meetings or actions, and never felt this urge to physical assault, though she’d always made clear that his advances were unwanted. She had left him with specific instructions to remain under the netting, knowing that her nerves were frayed enough that if he followed her up the hill she’d tear into him.

And they might be out here together for days. It seemed to be what Mick wanted; she hoped he survived the experience.

***

Virginia’s thoughts blared in Hal Shipp’s mind like one of those cars that pulls up next to you at a light, stereo screaming so loud your ears start to bleed in spite of rolled-up windows. This was new; not something he’d ever experienced on any other magic day, but at the same time not entirely surprising. This day had seemed different from earlier ones, and since he had touched Lieutenant Butler it had taken on new undertones and overtones, a familiar song with a different arrangement.

The Virginia thing had started while he napped. It had infected his dreams, turned them dark and savage and bloody, and finally he’d awakened, still sitting on the sofa. He’d tried to shake off the sense of dread he felt, but then he caught a glimpse of Virginia and it was rolling off her in waves, almost tangible. He didn’t think she really meant it—it was very unlike her to wish anyone ill, especially him—but who ever knew what was in another person’s heart?

Nevertheless, he couldn’t remain in their mobile home—it felt like trying to stay inside a bath that had begun to boil because it had felt so nice before the heat was turned up. He stood, suddenly. Virginia saw him.

“Oh, you’re up.”

“Yes,” he said. “I’m going to take a walk.”

“Just a minute,” she said, drying a plate with an old white towel. “I’ll come with you.”

“No, that’s okay,” Hal said. “I’d like to go alone.”

Virginia frowned. “I’d rather you didn’t.”

“I’m fine, Virginia,” he said. “Really. I feel better than I have in years; my memory is perfect. If anything changes I’ll come right back.”

“But, Harold—”

“Gin, I really need to do this alone,” he said, his tone more insistent. He didn’t know what he’d do if she couldn’t be persuaded. Point out what she’d been thinking about, he supposed. Describe the way she’d envisioned wrapping one edge of a shard of glass with heavy duct tape and driving the other, the pointed side, into his throat. That would at least get her off his back for a few minutes, he figured.

But she didn’t protest, and he left the trailer, stepping out onto the hot Slab.

As he walked around its perimeter, he realized that it wasn’t limited to Virginia. He could “hear” the people in just about every home, and the thoughts were remarkably similar—violent and twisted and full of inappropriate rage. Heather Justice plotted to smother her husband Royal with a pillow—not long enough to kill him, but long enough to cause him to lose consciousness so she could shave his back for once. After twenty-eight years of making love to him, feeling the thick tufts under her hands, she just couldn’t take it any more. Royal, for his part, was giving serious thought to taking the two grand that Carter Haynes offered and leaving Heather behind, to drive up to Reno and look for a cocktail waitress he’d had a brief flirtation with while on vacation six years before. Heather had fended for herself before they were married—Royal had always suspected that she’d had a sugar daddy of some kind, before her looks had faded—and could do so again.

Dickie Rawlingson had something more concrete in mind for his sister Bettina, with whom he’d lived since childhood. Devout Catholics, neither had ever married, and though they’d held minimum wage jobs from time to time, most of their income had gone to the Church. Now they lived on the Slab and Bettina worked part-time cleaning houses in Indio and Palm Desert. Dickie hadn’t had a job since he’d been injured in a car accident. Now he walked with a cane and a pronounced limp, and his left arm hung uselessly at his side. Despite his handicap, however, he thought he’d come up with a way to tie Bettina into her bed, following which he’d empty a five gallon can of gasoline onto and around her, and set a fuse that would give him just time enough to get into the old LeSabre she drove to her jobs and race away. Bettina wasn’t home, presently, but her comment from earlier in the day, when she’d accused Dickie of being a leech who had killed their mother with his neediness, hung on the air like a mildew stain on wallpaper.

Hal felt like he was eavesdropping on all these people, but he was powerless to do anything about it. The voices of his friends and neighbors screamed at him, shouts of murder and torment and the willful infliction of pain without mercy. He shuddered, but plugging his ears did no good; the voices were inside his head, not outside. Underneath it all he thought he heard another voice, low and compelling, urging them all on, inciting their base impulses. He wasn’t sure about that one, though. He could have been imagining it, because he could only “hear” it when the others were quiet, and the din of all the voices on the Slab threatened to overwhelm him.

Finally he decided the only answer was to strike away from the Slab and off into the desert, where things might be quieter.

Chapter Thirteen

He had told Cam to take ten minutes, then to rejoin them. When he heard the screams, Kelly glanced at his Tag Heuer. Eight minutes, and the farmer had already run into trouble.

“Let’s go,” he told the others. “Double time.”

They all turned, without questioning the order or his right to give it, and started down the canyon at a trot. Cam’s cries continued.

“Fuck, man,” Rock said. “He sounds bad.”

He’d better be, Kelly thought, but he didn’t say it. Cam was turning into a liability on these hunts—getting too soft, too rich, too successful. Cam knew it, too. Kelly thought this would be Cam’s last year with them. If the panic in his screams was warranted, it was entirely possible that this would be his last day with them.

“Bitch pulled something,” he said. “Cam’s not the kind of man to cry like a baby.”

“But he might be the kind of man who’d let a chick get the drop on him,” Ray observed. “Maybe he was wiping his glasses or something—goddamn guy’s always cleaning his glasses. I hate that. Breathes on them and wipes them on his shirt tails.”

“Let up on him,” Vic said, panting with the effort. “He’s in trouble, you can hear that.”