Mount Dragon (52 page)

That was the voice: supersaturated with the Cockney drawl that, Nye knew firsthand, years of English public school in Surrey or Kent could never fully exorcise. Hearing it from the mouth of this small figure, Nye was instantly transported from the fiery emptiness of the Southwestern desert to the narrow gray-brick streets of Ealing, pavements slick with rain and the smell of coal hanging heavy in the air.

With an effort, he willed himself back to the present. He glanced in the direction the boy had pointed. There was the snake, still coiled in striking position, perhaps ten feet away.

“Why didn't you tell me?” Nye said.

The boy laughed. “Didn't see it, old man. Didn't hear it, neither.”

The snake was silent. Its tail, sticking up at the end of its coil, was blurry with vibration, yet it was making no noise. Sometimes rattlers did break off all their rattles, but it was very rare. Nye could feel a prickle of secondary fear course through him. He had to be more careful.

Nye stood up, fighting to control the wave of nausea that washed over him as he rose. He went over to his horse and slid the rifle out of its scabbard.

“Hang on a minute,” the boy said, still grinning. “I wouldn't do that if I were you.”

Nye slid the rifle back. It was true. Carson might hear the shot. That would give him information he didn't need to know.

On a hunch, Nye scanned the ground in a wide arc around the snake. There it was: a green mesquite stick, recently whittled, forked at one end. And, lying beside it, a similar stick.

The boy stood up and stretched, smoothing down his unruly hair. “Looks like you were set up, bang to rights. Nasty bit of work. Almost did you, that one.”

Nye swore under his breath. He'd underestimated Carson at every turn. The snake had been agitated, and had struck too early. If it hadn't…He felt a momentary dizziness.

He looked again at the boy. The last time he had seen him, Nye had been younger, not older, than the grubby little fellow that now stood before him. “What really happened, that day down in Littlehampton?” he asked. “Mum wouldn't tell me.”

The boy's lower lip stuck out in an exaggerated pout. “That dirty great wave got me, didn't it? Pulled me right under.”

“So how did you swim back out?”

The pout deepened. “I didn't.”

“Then what are you doing here?” Nye asked.

The boy picked up a pebble and threw it. “The same might be asked of yourself.”

Nye nodded. True enough. He supposed all this should seem strange to him. Yet each time he thought about it, it seemed more normal. Soon, he knew, he would stop thinking about it at all.

He collected the reins of the horse and gave the snake a wide berth, searching again for sign about thirty yards to the north.

“Hotter than a bleedin' pan of bubble and squeak out here,” the boy said.

Nye ignored him. He had found a scrape on a stone. Carson must have made a sharp turn just beyond the snake. God, his head was throbbing.

“Here, I've got an idea,” the boy said. “Let's head him off at the pass.”

Through a fog of pain, Nye remembered his maps. He wasn't as familiar with the northern end of the Jornada desert as he was with the southern. It seemed unlikely, but he supposed it was possible there might be a way to head Carson off somewhere.

Certainly he still had the advantage. Eight gallons of water left, and his horse was going strong. It was time he stopped merely reacting to Carson's stratagems, and began calling the shots himself.

Locating a flat area in the lava, Nye unrolled his maps, weighing down the corners with stones. Perhaps Carson had headed north for reasons other than simply throwing everyone off the scent. The personnel file stated that Carson had worked ranches in New Mexico. Maybe he was heading toward country he knew.

The maps showed large, complicated lava flows in the northern section of the Jornada. Since the topographical engineers hadn't bothered to actually survey the flows, large sections of the maps were stippled indiscriminately with dots indicating lava. There was no section or range data. The maps were no doubt highly inaccurate, the data having been gathered from aerial photographs with no field checking.

At the northern end of the Jornada, Nye noticed a series of cinder cones marked “Chain of Craters” that ran in an irregular line across the desert. A lava mesa, the Mesa del Contadero, backed up against one side of the flow, and the tail end of the Fra Cristóbals blocked the flows at the other. It wasn't a pass, exactly, but there was definitely a narrow gap in the Malpaís near the northern end of the Fra Cristóbals. From the map, it looked as if this gap was the only way to get out of the Jornada without crossing endless stretches of Malpaís.

The boy was leaning over Nye's shoulder. “Cor! What'd I tell you, then, guv? Head him off at the pass.”

Twenty miles beyond the gap was the symbol for a windmill—a triangle topped with an X—and a black dot indicating a cattle tank. Next to them was a tiny black square, with the words “Lava Camp.” Nye could tell this was a line camp for a ranch headquartered another twenty miles north, marked “Diamond Bar” on the map.

That's where Carson was going. The son of a bitch had probably worked on the ranch as a kid. Still, it was over a hundred miles from Mount Dragon to Lava Camp, and eighty miles to the narrow gap alone. That meant Carson still had almost sixty miles to go before hitting the windmill and water. No horse could go that distance without watering at least once. They were still doomed.

Nevertheless, the longer he looked at the map, the more certain Nye felt that Carson would be heading for that gap. He would stay on the lava only long enough to shake Nye, and then make a beeline for the gap, and for Lava Camp that lay beyond—where there would be water, food, and probably people, if not a cellular phone.

Nye returned the maps to their canisters and looked around. The lava seemed to stretch endlessly from horizon to horizon, but he knew now the western edge of the lava was only three-quarters of a mile away.

The plan that took shape in his mind was very simple. He would get off the lava immediately and ride ahead to that gap in the Malpaís. Once there, he'd wait. Carson couldn't know that he had these maps. Sneak that he was, he probably knew Nye was unfamiliar with the northern Jornada. He would not expect to be cut off. And, in any case, he'd be too damn thirsty to worry about anything but finding water. Nye would have to ride in a long arc to ensure that Carson wouldn't pick up his track, but with plenty of water and a strong horse he knew he could reach the gap long before Carson.

And that gap was where Carson and the bitch would meet their end in the crosshairs of his Holland & Holland Express.

The vultures were perhaps a mile away now, still spiraling slowly in the rising thermal. Carson and de Vaca walked in silence, leading their horses across the lava. It was two o'clock in the afternoon. The lava seemed to glitter with endless lakes of blue water, covered with whitecaps. It was impossible for Carson to keep his eyes open and not see water.

Carson examined his thirst. It was excruciating. He had never imagined, much less felt, such a desperate sensation. His tongue was a thick lump of chalk in his mouth, without feeling. His lips had cracked and were starting to ooze fluid. The thirst was also gnawing away at his mind: As he walked, it seemed the desert had become one vast fire, lifting him like flyaway ash into the dazzling, implacable sky.

The horses were becoming severely dehydrated. The alteration that a few hours in the noonday sun had worked on them was almost incredible. He had wanted to wait until sunset to give them water, but it was now clear that sunset would be too late.

He stopped abruptly. Susana shuffled on a few steps, then halted wordlessly.

“Let's water the horses,” he said. The sudden speech in his dry throat was exquisitely painful.

She said nothing.

“Susana? You okay?”

De Vaca didn't answer. She sat down in the shade of her horse and bowed her head.

Carson dismounted and moved toward de Vaca's horse. He unstrapped Nye's saddlebag and pushed the horseshoes aside. Removing a canteen, he took off his hat and filled it up to the brim. The sight of the water flowing from the mouth of the canteen sent his throat into spasm. Roscoe, who had been standing beside him half-dead, suddenly jerked his head up and crowded forward. He sucked down the water in a moment, then grabbed the hat with his teeth. Carson rapped him irritably on the muzzle, yanking the hat away. The horse pranced and blew.

Carson filled his hat a second time, carrying it to de Vaca's horse. The horse drank it down greedily.

Replacing the now-empty canteen with the full one, he gave each horse half a second hatful, then returned the canteen to the saddle. The horses had suddenly become agitated, as he knew they would, and were blowing and turning, eyes wide.

As he returned the second, half-full canteen to the saddlebag, he heard a rustling sound. Reaching in, he found a loose seam along the lining of the outer flap. A piece of aged yellow paper was peeping out: the paper that Nye had been examining in the barn, the evening after the dust storm. Carson pulled it out and looked at it curiously. It was tattered and not paper at all, but something that looked like a soiled piece of ancient leather. On it were crudely detailed sketches of a mountain range, a strangely shaped black mass, numerous markings, and Spanish script. And across the top, the perplexing words in a large, old-fashioned hand:
Al despertar la hora el áquila del sol se levanta en una aguja del fuego
, “At dawn the eagle of the sun stands on a needle of fire.” And at the bottom, amid other Spanish script, a name: Diego de Mondragón.

It all became suddenly clear. Were it not for his painfully cracked lips, Carson would have laughed aloud.

“Susana!” he exclaimed. “Nye has been searching for the Mount Dragon treasure. The gold of Mondragón! I found a map hidden here in his saddlebags. The crazy bastard knew paper was illegal at Mount Dragon, so he kept it where nobody would find it!”

De Vaca glanced at the proffered map disinterestedly from beneath the shade of her horse. Carson shook his head. It was ridiculous, so out of character. Whatever else he was, Nye was no fool. Yet he had no doubt bought this map in the back room of some musty junk shop in Santa Fe, probably paying a fortune. Carson had seen many such maps being offered for sale; faking and selling treasure maps for tourists was big business in New Mexico. No wonder Nye had acted so suspicious of Carson's tracking: He thought Carson was out to steal his imaginary treasure.

Abruptly, Carson's amusement disappeared. Apparently, Nye had been searching for this treasure for some time. Perhaps it had begun simply as curiosity on his part. But now, under the influence of PurBlood, what had started as a mild obsession would have become much more than that. And Nye, being aware that Carson had taken the saddlebag, would have even more reason to hunt them down without mercy.

He looked more closely at the map. It showed mountains, and the black stuff might be a lava flow. It could be anywhere in the desert. But Nye obviously knew that Mondragón's doublet had supposedly been found at the base of Mount Dragon; he must have been orchestrating his search from that point.

Even this remarkable solution to Nye's weekend disappearances grew quickly dull under the burning thirst that would not leave his throat. Wearily, Carson returned the piece of vellum to the saddlebag and looked at the horseshoes. There was no time to put them on. They'd have to chance it in the sand.

He tied up the saddlebag, then turned. “Susana, we've got to keep going.”

Wordlessly, de Vaca stood up and began walking northward. Carson followed her, his thoughts dissolving in a dark dream of fire.

Suddenly they were at the edge of the lava flow. Ahead of them, the sandy desert stretched to the limitless horizon. Carson bent down in a salt pan that had formed along the edge of the lava and picked up a few pieces of alkali salt. It never hurt to be prepared.

“We can ride now,” he said, shoving the salt into his pocket. He watched as de Vaca mechanically put one foot in the stirrup. She hoisted herself into the saddle on the second attempt.

Watching her silent struggles, Carson was suddenly unable to stand it any longer. He stopped, reached over for the saddlebag, withdrew the canteen.

“Susana. Drink with me.”

She sat on her horse for a moment, silently. At last, without looking up, she said, “Don't be a fool. We've got sixty miles to go. Save it for the horses.”

“Just a little sip, Susana. A sip.”

A sob escaped from her throat. “None for me. But if you want to, go ahead.”

Carson screwed the cap down without drinking and replaced the canteen. As he prepared to mount, he felt something run down his chin. When he dabbed at his lips, his fingers came away red with blood. This hadn't happened in Coal Canyon. This was much worse. And they still had sixty miles to go. He realized, with a kind of dull finality, that there was no way they were going to make it.