The Fifth Sacred Thing (14 page)

As they began the walk, Bird knew that he was going to have to act.
“Madre Tierra
, Earth Mother,
La Llorona
who weeps for your children, help me now if you don’t want to weep for me again,” he prayed. “If you’re out there anywhere, give me a hand.” He felt the earth currents through his feet, steadied his breath, and let his mind sink back to the level he remembered from his training. “Think of it like descending into a house built underground,” the teacher had said. He couldn’t remember her name but he could clearly see her red jumpsuit, outlining every curve of her body. He’d had to close his eyes and look away and steady his breath to go into the trance. “One of the levels you come to will be the right one for influencing electronic fields. Imagine it like a floor of a house, with a door you can enter. Notice what pattern is on the door and remember it, so you can bring yourself back here.”

His pattern, he remembered, was nothing visual; it was a riff of music, four bars of an Irish reel he’d been picking out on the guitar that morning. Funny he could remember that, but not the teacher’s name. He hummed the tune to himself, and, yes, he was there, at the level where he could
see
the lines of energy running through the metal on his wrist.

Careful. Twist them wrong, and they would alert the guards. How to undo them without setting off the alarms? Breathe, he told himself. Ground. He sent his mind a little deeper, until the energy lines took on colors, red and yellow and blue. He could see a red line like a thread that extended through the line of men. So that was how it worked: when that connection was broken by somebody stepping out of line, the alarm sounded and the pain stimulation was set off. He looked more closely at the blue lines. Surely there was something here, some power source he could switch off. He took a deep breath and called back the memory of the pain he’d felt from the device that first day, watching the energy lines. Yes, there was one that glowed brighter. He noted it carefully, tracing it back to its source in a glowing sphere of power that pulsed rhythmically. Breathing deep, he pulled up a piece of earth fire from somewhere deep below and struck. Incredible, unbelievable pain shot through him, and then it was gone. The red line stretched unbroken from wrist to wrist, but he was no longer linked to it. He was free.

Sweating, he turned to Littlejohn and took his wrist. “This’ll hurt,” he whispered, “but only for a moment.” Bird found the power source, more quickly this time, and killed it. He felt Littlejohn jerk, saw him break into a sweat, but he kept quiet.

In another moment Bird had freed Hijohn. A soft moan escaped his lips, but no one seemed to notice.

They were starting around the curve Bird had picked for their escape. He watched until the guard ahead of them was out of sight and stole a quick glance backward. The tail of the line and the second guard were hidden around the bend.

“Now!” he whispered to the others. They scrambled up the side of the hill, heading for the cover of the underbrush in the dry creek bed over the slope. Bird’s heart was pounding, and the other two sounded noisy as hell behind him. They didn’t have his old facility for running silently through the bush—and even Bird found himself crashing along on his bad leg, his body awkward and clumsy.

Maybe the other prisoners would shout after them, maybe they’d protect them, maybe they were all too drugged to notice. Maybe the guards had seen them go, maybe not. Maybe they’d die in the next minute, bullets sliding through their brains or laser beams blasting holes through their hearts. Or maybe they had an hour or more of freedom, until they were missed back at the barracks, at count.

Now they were in the ravine, sheltered by brush and a clump of live oaks. Bird hit the ground, motioning to the others to follow him. Forcing himself to breathe quietly, he listened. Nothing. Only their panting and his own pounding heart.

“So far so good,” he said. “Let’s go.”

Bird kept them to the cover of the creek bed as long as he could. The sun was falling rapidly, and he debated the wisdom of remaining hidden until dark. They had open ground to cross if they were to make their way north, his direction home, if home still existed, if the home he remembered had ever existed anywhere outside his mind. The creeks ran down to the ocean, mostly east to west. To go north, they’d have to climb over the ridges, where the oaks grew more sparsely and only dry grass covered the crests. It would be safer after dark. But the need to make good use of the time before their absence was noticed outweighed in his mind the dangers of being spotted. They pressed on.

They crossed open ground as fast as they could, running in a low crouch from tree to tree, always looking for cover that could shelter them. Bird’s whole body ached, and he desperately wanted to rest, but he didn’t dare. He had thought nobody could catch him once he got into the hills, but now he wasn’t so sure. Maybe the guards would use electronic surveillance. Maybe they’d go after them with dogs. Maybe they’d come in the night with helicopters and infrared searchlights. Maybe.

“Copter!” Hijohn called out. Bird could hear it, thrumming in the sky behind them. “Down. Keep your head down. Cover your bracelet with your body.”

Bird dove into a patch of brush, lay on his right arm, and stared at the dirt, trying to surround them with invisibility. The helicopter passed over them, turned, and swept by again.

Hijohn was crouched at the base of a manzanita bush, not three feet away from Bird. He spoke in a rough whisper.

“They’re trying to pinpoint our location. Don’t talk—they can hear the vibrations. Just whisper.”

“They can’t see us, can they?”

“They don’t need to. Probably they can track the bracelets. Something in them they can fix on.”

“Shit.” Bird closed his eyes and brought himself back down into trance, fighting the adrenaline racing through his blood. He couldn’t
see
anything emanating from the bracelets, but perhaps they worked in a different way. The guards might have a scanner keyed to some alloy in them. Queen of Heaven,
La Reina del Cielo
, why don’t you send down one of your famous freak winds, right now? But the sky remained clear.

They had to get the bracelets off, but how? They had no knives, so cutting off their hands wasn’t even an option. The bracelets had no visible locks that could be picked. Only two hairline cracks on opposite sides showed that they were not a single fused strand of metal.

He could hear Littlejohn rustling behind him.

“Don’t move,” Hijohn whispered.

The helicopter returned, lower this time, stirring the air around them and scattering leaves with the wind from its blades. Bird’s heart was pounding so hard he thought his whole body must be bouncing on the ground. You’ve got to do something. Think!

Breathing deep, he forced his mind into the calm necessary for trance. Down to the door, sing in your head the pattern, the key, open it and enter, look at the bracelets from that level. Yes, there was something, a ring, a loop of light. Break that and yes,
snap!
something opened.

“I can get the bracelets off,” he hissed to Hijohn.

“Great. But we gotta get out of here, somehow.”

The noise of the helicopter was so loud above them that Bird could hardly think. They were high on a ridge, too exposed. Behind them was the gentle slope they’d climbed; in front of them, another ravine dropped steeply. There were trees above them with leaves and branches that offered some cover. They would be hard to see. If only they could get down into the ravine below. Maybe, when the copter made one more pass.…

But it hovered above them, churning the air. Bird heard a small sound, just a whisper of something speeding through the air, and then a bullet slammed into Hijohn’s tree. It was followed by others, a barrage that came so close to Bird it scattered dust in his eyes.

“Keep down,” Hijohn whispered again. “If you get up and run, you’re dead.”

They seemed likely to be dead soon, anyway. The helicopter banked and turned, and in the split second while it faced away, Bird slipped his bracelet
off and, still keeping low, tossed it back down the slope they’d come up. Luck was with him; it skidded down at least fifty feet before it stopped, and a line of bullets followed it. Bird rolled quickly and threw himself on top of Hijohn, reaching below him to touch the metal of his bracelet and release the electronic catch.

“Down the ravine,” Bird whispered. “Fast as you can, when I say go. Leave the bracelet. Now!”

The helicopter was still pointed away from them. Bird grabbed Hijohn’s bracelet while he scrambled for the edge of the ridge.

“Give me your hand,” Bird yelled to Littlejohn, clutching at the younger man’s wrist and
reaching
for the lock of his bracelet. Nothing happened. Shit. He was out of trance, too scared to concentrate, and now he could hear the copter coming back; they were both exposed, without even the mass of their bodies to provide some shielding for the bracelets. Bullets whined and thudded up the slope, coming closer. Frantically, Bird hurled Hijohn’s bracelet away.

“Santa Madre, Madre Tierra
, let them follow it, please, please!” Without waiting to see if his prayer was answered, he steadied his breathing, tried again. Nothing.

One more time. The copter was turning, now it was coming back again, bullets raking the hillside in a fan-shaped pattern, slowly, methodically. Good, that gave them one minute more, one last chance.
See
the energy,
feel
for it, calm, now, and—yes, there it went.
¡Gracias a la Diosa!

“Over the edge,” he whispered to Littlejohn. “On your belly till you get there.”

He left the third bracelet there, in their hiding place, and dragged himself over the ground, squirming like a worm across the few yards to the crest. Bullets were coming closer and closer. He rolled over the edge and slid down a nearly vertical drop, his hands scrabbling at loose dirt in vain attempts to break his fall.

He landed hard at the bottom and lay there, struggling for breath, the wind knocked out of him. Littlejohn sprawled nearby; Hijohn grabbed him and dragged him under the cover of an alder thicket. Bird forced himself to crawl, gasping, to lie beside them. He was scraped and bruised, every bone in his body ached, but they were alive.

“You okay?” he asked. Hijohn grunted. Littlejohn was bleeding from a cut on his forehead where he had scraped it coming down the hill. Bird ripped the tail off his shirt and bound it around the wound. It wasn’t too clean, but it would stanch the blood.

“Tenemos suerte,” Bird said
.

“What?” Hijohn asked.

“Our luck is strong today. They damn near killed us all.”

“Coulda been worse,” Hijohn admitted. “If they’d used lasers, the whole damn woods would be on fire.”

They could still hear shots ringing above them.

“How long before they figure out we’re not up there?” Bird asked.

“Not long enough. We should get out of here,” Hijohn said.

“You okay, Littlejohn? Ready to travel?”

“I’ll be okay. Let’s go.”

The sun was already low in the sky. Hijohn took the lead, guiding them down the ravine, keeping them under cover. There was a little water in the streambed and they drank, filtering out the mud with their teeth. Maybe it’s bad water, Bird thought, but we have to have it. They crawled through thickets of brush, toyon and chamise and beds of ruddy-leafed poison oak, keeping on until they rounded a bend of the stream and could make their way north up a side canyon, over another ridge. No more shots sounded behind them.

The sun slid between a crack in the hills and disappeared. Twilight deepened to darkness, giving them a sense of safety more psychological than real. They kept moving. A cold wind off the ocean was breathing down their necks, and walking kept them warm. Bird hoped they could walk all night and put some real distance between themselves and any pursuit. He was tired, and adrenaline had sharpened his hunger again. Tomorrow they’d find food, if they still lived. Now, they must simply endure and push on.

They kept on all night and through much of the next day. Bird’s legs felt like stones, if stones could generate pain, and after a while he was no longer thinking or worrying or doing anything but concentrating on the labor of placing one foot in front of the other, of keeping breath wheezing in and out of exhausted lungs.

Finally, in the heat of the afternoon, he let them rest. Hijohn was gray with pain and exhaustion, and Littlejohn’s forehead was bleeding again. They had found very little water, but at last they came to a deep creek that still flowed strong, even in the height of the dry season. They knelt and drank. Hijohn collapsed in the center of a clump of chamise. The feathery gray-green foliage offered concealment, and Bird was tempted to join him. But he decided to scout a little, first. Where there was year-round water there might well be settlements, still peopled or maybe abandoned, promising both food and danger. He’d go now, because once he gave in to his weariness he might not rise again.

“I’m going to look for food,” he said to Littlejohn. “You want to come or stay here with Hijohn?”