High Desert Barbecue (11 page)

“
You sure you know how to use this?”

R
ena glared at the crewcut park ranger, then abruptly grabbed at the rifle. Ray dug in his heels and pulled back. A silent tug-of-war ensued, punctuated by soft grunts. His boots leaving visible tracks in the dirt, the ranger lost ground inch by inch.

“
Hey man,” Bob said, stepping between the antagonists. “Leave her alone.” The wispy beard dangling from his chin wagged as he spoke.

R
ay glared at the floral supremacist—a wasted gesture with his eyes hidden behind his shades.

“
No, really. I think she can take you. And she’s good with that rifle.”

R
ay let go of the rifle, sending Rena sprawling in the dirt. He flexed his fingers to pump blood back into the strained digits.

“
Good with a rifle? Where in hell did she learn to operate an M-16?”

“
Everybody at the Center gets weapons training. It’s part of why we were assigned to the team.”

“
No shit?”

R
ena rose from the ground with the gun in hand. She brushed dust from her breasts and shorts with her free hand.

“
I practice all the time,” she said, spitting the words along with a few pine needles.

“
On what?”

“
Cattle mostly. Sometimes SUV dealerships or-“

R
ay tugged his sunglasses down his nose and peered at the squat environmentalist with unobstructed eyes.

“
You shoot
cows
?”

R
ena sniffed and turned away.

“
Hey man,” Bob whispered. “They eat those beautiful desert plants.”

“
We usually use AK-47s, though,” Rena added. “They’re a lot tougher than these plastic toys.”

R
ay gaped.

“
Oh, that’d be easy to explain,” Terry commented. “Federal forest rangers armed with Russian surplus weapons.”

“
Well … maybe,” Rena said. “But the AKs are a lot easier to maintain. I can field-strip one in the dark.”

F
ar ahead and entirely oblivious to the tumult at the rear of his column, Jason stopped in his tracks along the trail and held up his hand.

“
What’s wrong,” Samantha asked. She reached her hand out and brushed Jason’s bare shoulder.

“
Um … uh …” the team leader stuttered, momentarily distracted. He stared into the woman’s eyes. Bambi, he thought. Just like Bambi.

“
Is something wrong?” Samantha repeated.

J
ason shook his head.

“
No, but I heard something. It sounded like somebody yelling ‘Champ’. Who in Hell is a champ?”

Chapter 24

W
ith the red nylon pouches of his doggie backpack flapping against his furry flanks, the black-and-white beast launched himself at a large boulder along the rock-strewn floor of the canyon. His paws splayed in four directions, the animal tightly gripped the steep rock surface. The tips of his claws extended into any cracks or crevice that could provide support. With a sudden heave, he hopped forward, set his grip again, and then pulled himself to the top. Eyes wide, panting and grinning, the dog stood atop the boulder, gazing down the canyon. He turned to gaze at his companions, his tail wagging wildly in celebration.

“
Goddamnit, Champ,” Lani yelled. “Get down from there!”

“
Is that his full name?”

L
ani glanced at Rollo, then continued walking down-canyon, away from Geronimo Spring and the trail from the rim.

“
What?”

“
Is Goddamnit Champ the dog’s formal name? I mean you always say those words together when you’re pissed at the dog. I figure it’s like some moms who address their kids informally—like calling a boy ‘Johnny’—then get all formal when the kids step out of line.” He cupped his hand to his bearded mouth and called out, “Oh, J-o-o-o-n-a-th-a-a-a-n!”

L
ani stared.

“
I can’t tell whether you’re serious or not.”

S
cott sighed.

“
He’s just needling you, hon.”

R
ollo chuckled.

“
Well, you do treat that dog like a baby.”

L
ani shot a look at her boyfriend. She smiled.

“
Well, Scott does call Champ our baby substitute.”

“
Oh
really
?”

“
Oh crap.”

“
That’s adorable.”

“
Leave it alone, Rollo.”

S
erenaded by chorus of chuckles shared all around, the three stepped slowly and carefully along the floor of the canyon. They stepped over rocks when possible, and hopped from one to another when it wasn’t.

T
he spatter of raindrops picked up in frequency, now landing faster than the wet freckles they left could evaporate from rock and dirt. Scott glanced up just as the canyon lit up with a bright flash. Moments later, a dull boom echoed through the rocky corridor.

W
ithout a word, he dropped his pack to the ground, and fished out a small, tightly stuffed nylon bag. From this he quickly extracted a rain jacket. As he cinched the zipper under his chin, he looked up to see Lani shrugging into her own jacket. Rollo patiently stood in place, already hidden under a voluminous poncho that fit over his head, body and pack like a dirt-encrusted mumu.

T
he older man snorted.

“
You’re gonna sweat like a pig in that thing,” he warned, pointing at the jacket. “You’d stay dryer in the rain than you will in that sauna suit.”

S
cott flamboyantly reached under each of his arms to unzip vents and let the air circulate.

“
Oooh. Fancy.”

L
ani glanced back the way they’d come.

“
We should probably get going. I don’t know if we’re being followed, but I don’t want them catching up with us.”

“
We’re being followed,” Rollo said. “There’s no way they can let us get away with that video that Scott took.”

S
cott fired off a sharp look.

“
I hope you’re not trying to lay this on my shoulders. You were pretty enthusiastic about playing junior detective, if I remember right.”

“
Nope. Just stating a fact. They’re after us.”

T
he three walked in silence for several minutes, while the fourth member of the group scouted ahead for hostile rabbits.

“
So,” Lani broke in. “What are we going to do with that video? Is it worth all this trouble?”

“
Damned if I know if it’s worth it,” Scott answered. “But since we’re going to take heat for having the thing, we might as well do something with it.”

“
We gonna get those bastards?” Rollo asked.

“
Maybe.”

S
cott suddenly stumbled and stubbed his toe against a boulder, the pain penetrating the rubber bumper on the light-hiking shoe. He unleashed a steady stream of profanity as he hopped on his undamaged foot, clutching at the offended limb.

L
ani bent to examine the injured toe. She clutched helpfully at the foot, cradling it in order to administer any necessary medical attention. In imminent danger of losing his balance on the wet rocks, Scott finally waved her off.

“
Are you OK?”

S
cott cursed once more, and then set his foot back down on the ground.

“
I will be.”

R
ollo looked on, smirking.

“
Oh you kids and your crazy dances.”

S
cott unleashed another round of profanity.

“
Was that French? I’m pretty sure that was something filthy in French.”

“
Italian,” Scott snapped. “I can offend in four languages.”

T
he trio continued down the canyon, Lani giving Scott’s foot an occasional look of concern. Scott responded by deliberately compensating for the ache in his toe, so that his limp became a strut.

“
Are you sure you’re OK?”

“
I’m fine.”

R
ollo cleared his throat.

“
So, you said ‘maybe’?”

“
What?”

“
You said ‘maybe’ we could get these bastards.”

“
Oh yeah. Well, one of the things I did for my late, unlamented employer was maintain a distribution list for press releases. When I wanted to try to scare up a press mention about a conference or an article, I’d cook up a press release with our PR flacks and fire it off to the list. It’d automatically get sent to a couple of hundred tech reporters.”

L
ani shot him a glance.

“
Could we send the video-?”

“
Nope. It’s only set up for text messages. But if we can get in range of a cell tower, I can upload the video to YouTube. Then we can send out an e-mail press release pointing a few hundred journalists to the thing.”

R
ollo paused, and then squinted at Scott through the rain. Water rolled off the brim of his hat and streamed from his poncho.

“
I thought you got fired. Isn’t that gonna crimp your plans to use the company press list?”

“
Maybe.”

“
Maybe again!”

“
Maybe, I said. But I doubt it. I worked there for a long time, and I gave myself a few extra passwords while I had the opportunity. And they’ve always been slow about deleting accounts and enforcing basic security. They don’t do any of the things our articles advised our readers to do.”

R
ollo turned his face back down the canyon.

“
So … maybe we’ll be able to show that video clip to a bunch of geeks who might not know what to make of it anyway.”

“
Maybe so.”

“
You have any other ideas?”

S
cott looked at the sky. A flash of lightning lit his face, and the roar of thunder crashed from the canyon walls.

“
Yep. I’m thinking that we’re walking in a dry streambed in a rainstorm. Maybe that’s not a good idea. Let’s find a place to hole up.”

Chapter 25

T
im fumed, building a head of steam with every step he took away from Jason and the rest of the crew. He stalked toward his rendezvous with a Forest Service truck somewhere along Woody Mountain Road—where, exactly, depended on how fast he walked and how hard the driver stood on the gas pedal. He stepped along briskly, with the fire behind him, though he felt little cause for concern. The wind had died down and the rain put a literal damper on the fiery festivities.

T
he weather pissed him off. They’d planned on high winds and dry air to do most of their work for them, but nature had something else up its sleeve. The fire should have been roaring out of control by now, consuming dry duff and beetle-damaged ponderosa pines in wholesale lots. Instead, it sputtered along. The blaze was less of a raging inferno, than a cozy weenie roast.

S
peaking of weenies … Jason pissed him off. That little weirdo couldn’t organize a Girl Scout outing. How do you forget drip torches? How do you abandon your protective gear? How do you get yourself photographed by some random wanderer at the ass-end of a sealed-off road?