Richfield & Rivers Mystery Series 3 - Venus Besieged (15 page)

"By
a duck?" But Callie wasn't listening and I would apparently have to wait
until she could focus on us again so, meanwhile, I focused on my faithful
hound.

"Elmo,
as a lover, I must be doing something wrong. Could be I'm moving too slow. I
notice when you have success, you kind of sneak up on 'em from behind and jump
'em. I'm thinking that's a good tactic."

Elmo
let out a large belch and stretched.

"I
agree, far more satisfying." Slipping on a pair of cords, some thick socks
under my hiking boots, a black turtleneck, and a short jacket, I took Elmo out
for a quick walk. He stretched and yawned and farted in the brisk morning air.
I thought about what Callie said last night in regard to Ramona and Barrett
being a good match and hoped they too were having a delicious Thanksgiving
morning. Feeling good about life in general, I decided maybe I should try to be
less judgmental and more helpful—certainly more helpful to Callie, who was
always supportive of me.

"Elmo,
I'm going to drive Callie over to Oak Creek Canyon and take a look at the spot
where Nizhoni went over the cliff. I have a feeling I'll learn something. And
Callie needs me on this case. Frankly, I haven't been focused on it. It's the
energy thing.. .too hard to get my hands on."

Elmo's
teeth chattered and he looked nervous. A little shiver ran across my own spine,
some kind of electricity in the air, like electric eyes sparking around me at a
fun house, a sensation that someone was watching me.
What, a squirrel?
I
mocked myself and was happy when we entered the cabin, going from crisp cold to
the warmth of the snug log-sided room.

I
mentioned my idea to Callie, and she seemed genuinely pleased I was finally
taking a real interest in Nizhoni's death.

Assuring
Elmo we would chow down on turkey when we returned, I gave him a Milk-Bone to
tide him over. "Stay in the cabin and don't molest the squirrels."

Elmo
rolled his eyes at me.

"Hey,
fair comment. Last night you gave stuffed toy a whole new meaning."

Fifteen
minutes later, we parked a hundred yards from the edge of the most breathtaking
gorge in Sedona, allowing us full view of a vista so deep and broad that eagles
soared overhead and dove down hundreds of feet into its basin without coming
near any edge, their shrieks echoing across the vastness as they swooped in and
out of one of heaven's more massive bowls of air. I imagined how enchanted
visitors parked and stared in wonder at this masterpiece of nature twelve miles
long and roughly half a mile deep, the bravest of them walking to the edge of
the cliffs to envision what it might be like to take flight from this ledge;
but this morning, it was beautifully silent and free of other tourists.

We
got out of the car marveling at the beauty all around us and headed for what
appeared to be the primo view, when suddenly Callie stopped.

"Teague,
this is the area where news reports say Nizhoni was attacked by the wolf."

"Where
exactly do you think she went over?"

Callie
paused for a moment, swinging her body slowly as one would swing a shotgun,
moving smoothly from left to center to right and then back again. "Over
there."

She
pointed decisively and I walked in the direction she indicated. At the edge of
the canyon, I crouched like a catcher and ran my hands over the red rock, then
swiveled on the balls of my feet, my back to the canyon's edge, and examined a
piece of rock directly to my right bearing chalk markings, no doubt the police
markings of the accident scene.

"Teague,
move away from there!"

I
heard Callie's sharp voice as the small red rocks under the ball of my left
foot began to give way, sliding like gravel, and my foot slipped out from under
me. I managed to get my balance and rise halfway to a standing position when I
saw the wolf, fangs bared, charging directly at me, snarling, snapping, the
eyes no longer kind, but ferocious, heading for my face. Reflexively I recoiled
and went over onto my back, reaching out behind me to catch myself, but found
nothing but air. I catapulted in a certain-death backflip off the edge of the
cliff, the only sound Callie's prolonged scream.

Airborne,
uncoiling, grasping, terrified, weightless, rocks zoom, plants tear, birds
scatter, Callie’s face, prepare impact!

"Callliiieee!"

Snagged,
ripped, slammed, stopped! Alive? Alive I Breathing... panting...breathing...
panting.

My
trembling body dangled somehow in midair as my mind continued to tumble around
in my head, unable to find its bearings.

Near
the ground? Will it hold me up, can I hold on? How do I get out of here?

More
panicked than I could ever remember being in my life, I felt the pain of
something slicing into my armpit. Slowly, I turned my head to see what was
holding me.

A
rope, so close I could see the fibers in each strand, dirty white, rolled in
graceful spirals around one another forming something akin to a seining net. My
arm had miraculously hooked through it, and the rest of my weight pulling
against it was cutting off my circulation. I turned slightly in the breeze,
refusing to look down, and grabbed more of the netting with my unsteady left
hand, allowing me to take some pressure off my right arm, but not much, because
my left hand was shaking uncontrollably.

Struggling,
I tried to hook my feet into the vertical netting that somehow dangled off the
side of the cliff, but couldn't snag the bottom portion with my toe. The
lightweight net flapped away from me in the wind, and the spaces in the net
weren't much larger than the width of my shoe. After resting a minute, I slowly
pulled my knees up to my waist, wincing at the rope tearing into my arm. I was
grateful I'd kept up my body crunches, because I had the strength to get my
feet up closer to a part of the net I could hold steady and slip one shoe in
without the net drifting away.

Contorted
into a ball, I had both hands and both feet locked in the net where I steadied
myself and tried to regulate my breathing. Over time, I could now slowly work
my feet and hands up one square of netting at a time and walk myself up...but
to where? I couldn't think about that now. Steeling myself, I peered through
the netting. The canyon, five or six hundred feet of it, stretched beneath me,
as vast as my desperation.

Can
you hear me? Callie, I'm alive. Find me!
I cried out for her again and again—at first in words and then
silently, and finally, I just cried.

It
took me awhile to pull myself together. I'd experienced plenty of bad things on
the force—been chased by every sonofabitch known to man with a gun or a knife
and the intent to kill me, been damned near beaten to death and set on fire
that night in Oklahoma when I was investigating a murder case, not to mention the
number of crazies we'd encountered in Vegas; but I always pitted my wits and my
strength against theirs. This was different.

Settle
down,
I told my terrified self,
and
look at the rock wall next to you.
But that advice didn't work because the
netting that held me captive swung toward and away from the rock, reminding me
I was no better off than a snared bird dangling over the potential place of my
death.

A
piece of netting hanging vertically along the rock wall would require someone
with great skill to hang it here, a purpose for hanging it
—
and if it has a purpose then someone has to check
the net!
The last thought gave me a nanosecond of hope. Whether you're
catching minnows, animals, or people, you set the trap, and then you check it
later.
So someone will come. An Indian,
I thought, in this land of
tribal people. An Indian would be nimble enough to find a way down the abyss,
although the idea seemed heart-stopping.
Let's hope he checks it daily and
not weekly.

I
was starting to shake from the cold air, the fear, and the light wind that
whipped through the canyon.
Even if he comes to check the net, how in the
world would he ever be able to get me out of here? It would take a rescue
helicopter.

I
strained and stretched gently, not knowing if the netting was even meant to
hold something as heavy as me, and tried to catch a glimpse overhead to
understand what I was tethered to. A sturdy but supple rope seemed to be wound
around a large wooden ring, then ascended to a place I could no longer see, too
far away for me to bend my head and neck back and look without losing my grip.

God,
please get me out of here and teach me something later. And whichever way it
goes, please always take care of Callie Rivers and don't let anything bad ever
happen to her and please take care of Elmo. Amen.

I
don't know how long it had been, or what time it was, but my heart roared into
action when I heard the whir of the helicopter blades.
Callie’s gotten help,
I thought joyously. And ten minutes later when they whizzed through the
center of the canyon, their blades at eye level, I was certain that after one
more pass they would see me. They made seven more trips before I realized
someone had placed the net precisely in a spot that shielded rescuers from view
and, despondent, I wondered if that was intentional.

The
sound of the helicopter receding made me tear up and feel sorry for myself. I
closed my eyes and tried to meditate, but my hands and arms hurt from holding
onto the rope.

Suddenly,
my body moved horizontally, jarring me into the realization that I was being
towed along like clothes on a wash line headed who knew where, but no matter;
it had to be better than here. At some point the towing stopped and I was being
hauled up vertically. The sporadic and shaky pulling was nerve-racking, but
made me hopeful nonetheless. I thought about calling out, but I didn't want to
do anything to stop my being lifted up. It could be a rescue, but if it was,
someone would be calling out to me. I had a strange gut feeling this wasn't a
rescue, but merely a retrieval of prey. And then as I could see the rocky
ledge, the reeling-in stopped.

I
hung in stillness, waiting for whoever it was to pull me in, but they didn't.
Can
they see who I am? Did they expect a human and not an animal? Do they intend to
leave me to die?
My shoulder and arm were half numb, and I tried to
readjust without suddenly coming loose from the only thing keeping me alive.
Craning my neck to see any sign of life at the top of the cliff, I looked
directly overhead and spotted a ledge jutting out maybe twenty feet above me. I
had fallen too far down for any rope to rescue me. Someone overhead knew a
special path that led to this ledge, and they'd tied the netting to something
on that precipice. Maybe that's why the net had jutted out enough for me to
fall into.

For
a control freak, this is fucking purgatory,
I thought.
I can't get out unless someone wants me out. I can't get
word to anyone. I can't even pee...unless it's in my own pants.
That
thought made me so angry that tears gathered in my eyes again, and I shut them
tightly and steeled my jaw, determined not to let my emotions get the best of
me.

"If
somebody did this to me, I'll kill him as soon as he pulls me up," I said
softly, and then I must have dozed off for a few seconds from sheer exhaustion,
the wind rocking me in the netting as you would a shivering child.

My
eyes slammed open, my heart pounded my chest as if attacking me, and I heard
her voice as clearly as if she were beside me.

"Teague."

I
looked around quickly, trying to spot her.

"Teague,"
Callie said, "I will find you."

Certain
Callie was with me right now, I started to speak and then realized, of course,
there was no way she could be.

Find
me.
Did she mean find me now or find
me in our next lifetime? I hoped it was both. Her voice speaking my name tore
my heart out. "I love you, Callie," I whispered, and as if my very
words had activated a mechanism to save me, the pulley system began moving me
again, only vertically this time.

In
another three or four minutes, my feet slammed into the rock and hands grappled
with my ankles. Then like a giant marlin hauled in flopping, body banging into
the rocks, I was hoisted higher to firm ground.

Face
down, I felt the earth—flat and solid beneath the stretched-out length of my body,
a mother's warm hug—indescribably comforting and solid and reassuring.
Breathing in with undisguised relief, I chose to ignore the fact that a
stranger had rolled me like a Cuban cigar and instead focused on my
surroundings so I could make my escape: a tree to my left, a smooth canyon
wall. Then I realized I was at a lower altitude than the canyon overlook from
which I'd fallen.

Must
be a ledge or area below where I fell, with a trail leading down to it.

He
leaned his dark face with its smiling white teeth into mine and said, "You
don't fly too good."

"No,
Jesus God, I thought I was dead! How did you find me?"

"Shaman,"
the man whispered almost inaudibly as he pulled the netting away from my body
and packed it like a parachute. "Go back to your cabin," the man
said, almost murmuring, and somewhere in the labyrinth of my mind I wondered
how this strange man knew to find me, knew I was in a cabin.