“We don’t need prepubescent boys who want to gawk at dead people coming to our site. They’re not our demographic.”
“You never know. Besides, any links that we can get to the site from big bloggers and newspapers will help us out. The search engines will love us and send more traffic overall. Relevant traffic.”
I waved, trying to silence him before he started explaining search engine optimization to me. Again. It’d made my eyes glaze over the first time. Nor should we be discussing marketing strategies when some guy was dead back there.
A moan whispered through the tunnel.
I swallowed. “What was that?”
“The wind?”
“Underground wind?”
“It could be blowing over a hole leading to the outside somewhere,” Simon said.
“It sounded like it came from behind us.”
I wanted him to tell me I was wrong, to convince me of this wind theory of his, but he didn’t say anything else. His fingers brushed my boot though. He was crawling along the rubble more quickly now. I picked up my pace too.
We scrambled down from the rubble pile and into the chamber where we’d found the old shovel haft. A clunk, clunk, thud sounded somewhere behind us. A rock falling. One we’d shaken free in our passing? Or had something else shaken it free?
“Go,” Simon urged, giving me a push.
“Good idea.”
He passed me and surged up the next rubble pile.
I charged after him. “Oh, sure, now you’re willing to take the lead.”
He didn’t answer. We were too busy scrambling across the rocks, our breaths loud enough to hear. Another rock fell behind us, maybe twenty meters back. One rock might have been chance, a delayed shifting after our passing, but two?
I whispered a few curses at the noises and at the scrapes my elbows and knees were taking. I skidded down another slope, glancing back before dropping below the top of the rubble. The glance was too wild—too quick—causing the headlamp’s beam to blur about. There might have been a dark shadow back there, something moving, but I couldn’t be sure. I wasn’t about to stop for a longer look.
When we hit the ground, hard rock lined with ore cart tracks, our crawls turned into sprints. How far was the exit? A quarter mile? On the way in, we’d been going slowly and exploring, so I wasn’t sure. I urged my legs to greater speed, though, hoping to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I also hoped man-slaying tunnel monsters didn’t like light. Surely the harsh Arizona sun would melt such a creature or turn it to stone or—
Another moan, this more of a growl, emanated from the darkness behind us.
I cursed again. Not only was that not the wind, but it was closer this time.
“There,” Simon panted, flinging his arm out. He was a few feet ahead of me and had seen the light first.
As soon as the tunnel entrance came into view for me, I summoned all of my remaining strength for a last sprint. My thighs burned and the air rasping into my lungs didn’t seem to do any good, but I kept running nonetheless. My eyes focused on the mottled sunlight slanting through the grass and leaves and onto the dusty rocks by the entrance. I raced toward it... then through it, ignoring the branches clawing at my face and my hair.
The mine shaft opened onto a slope, and my momentum carried me down the mountainside with huge lunging steps. It was only luck that I didn’t trip and roll headfirst down the hill. I spotted a towering pine at the base of the slope, the nearest branch more than fifteen feet up. Without slowing, I tugged my bullwhip free. With an arm lift and wrist snap that I’d practiced countless times on bottles in the yard as a kid, the popper wrapped around the branch. I’d practiced using the whip as a rope far fewer times, but with adrenaline surging through my limbs, I scampered up it like a squirrel racing up a tree. I didn’t pause to look around until I stood on the branch with my arm clamped to the tree trunk.
The mountainside lay quiet, bathed in late afternoon sunlight. No birds chirped, no cicadas buzzed, and no bears, monsters, or other nefarious predators tore down the slope toward my tree. I didn’t know if the forest critters were being quiet because they’d sensed danger or if our rapid charge out of the mine shaft had startled them to silence.
Simon was leaning against a bolder, looking at my tree. When our eyes met, he arched his brows.
“Nice move with the whip,” he said. “If you give up antiquing as a job, maybe you could get a stunt double gig in Hollywood.”
“Har har, don’t tell me you weren’t scared. I was the one trying to keep up with you.”
“My canteen was low, so it seemed like a good time to leave and replenish my supplies.” Simon smiled ruefully. “At top speed.”
“Uh huh.” I shifted my weight so I could sit on the branch. It wasn’t a comfortable perch, but I wasn’t ready to leave it yet. I might have imagined that something was following us—though I had heard those noises back there, I was sure of it—but either way, something ghastly had happened to that climber. I unwound my whip so I could coil it on my belt again.
“We should get off this mountain before dark,” Simon said. “Zelda barely made it up here in daylight.”
“Good idea,” I said, though I waited a couple more minutes before climbing down. By then, a few birds had started chattering again. Despite our jokes, we navigated through the dry brush at a quicker pace than usual. Neither of us would feel safe until we were back on a paved road close to civilization.
Our pace picked up even more when Zelda, our battered blue Volkswagen Vanagon came into view, our business name, “Rust & Relics” painted on the side in white with my cell phone number and our web address. I was relieved to see the van, but that relief disappeared when we rounded the back and found the side door wide open.
“Uh,” Simon said.
“Did you leave that open?” I asked.
“No. You?”
“Would I be asking you if I’d done it?”
“I thought it might be a trick question,” Simon said, considering the ponderosa pine trees around us.
Needles littered the dry forest floor, but there wasn’t much undergrowth where someone might be hiding. I peeked inside the camper to make sure nobody lurked in there either. The table was set up, as we’d left it, with Simon’s half-eaten carrot still sitting by the sink. I didn’t see anyone up front or under the seats, nor did anything significant appear to be missing. Outside, numerous footprints marked the dusty earth around the door. I knelt and probed one of the more complete prints. It’d been made by a boot. I was wearing beat-up trail-running shoes while Simon sported his typical socks with Birkenstock knock-offs. How he ran in sandals, I couldn’t guess. At that moment, all that mattered was that neither of us was wearing boots.
I pointed wordlessly at the prints. Was it possible a human being had killed that man? It was hard to imagine, but perhaps with a tool, one could rip off a head. An awful, awful tool...
“Two sets,” Simon whispered. Eyes toward the dirt, he started following them.
“Are you sure you want to do that?” I asked.
“Find the asshats who were poking into our van? Yeah.”
“What if they’re the same asshats that did that?” I jerked my chin toward the mine and the body within.
Simon halted, one foot in the air. “Oh. I was imagining teenagers.” He set his foot down and considered the earth again. “The prints aren’t any bigger than mine. I wear a nine. Do you really think someone my size...?”
Simon was only a couple of inches taller than I am, maybe 5’8”, and with his slender build, weighed less than I did, a fact I didn’t advertise, though it’s hardly my fault that girls have extra curves that account for these discrepancies. The point was that Simon would be lucky to bench press his own weight—tearing heads off was out of the question. With his bare hands anyway.
“They might be just like you,” I said, “the sort of kids who got stuffed into their lockers repeatedly in school, thus giving them both the lust for revenge and the quiet time
spent in confined solitude required to come up with megalomaniacal plots to take over the world with computers.”
Simon propped a hand on his hip.
“Before you try to tell me that you weren’t like that in school,” I said, “I’d like to remind you that you’re wearing an Apple T-shirt from the 80s.”
“I was just going to say that there’s nothing you could do with computers that would tear off someone’s head.” He lowered his hand. “Robotics maybe.”
“Right, let’s get out of here.”
Simon started to turn away from the slope where the prints were headed, but halted midway. “Wait, there’s something shiny up there.”
“Sure, and good things always happen when people wander off after shiny objects,” I muttered, but I followed him up the hill anyway. I had the keys to the van, but he had the detailed terrain maps on his phone, so I had better keep him out of trouble. I wasn’t positive I could find my way back through the maze of forest service roads we’d traveled on my own.
We didn’t need to go far before the shiny object came into view. Two shiny objects actually, though they were almost as dusty as the van, so it was surprising he’d spotted them. The black Harleys rested in the shade of a pine. The only sign of the owners were two black helmets hanging from the handlebars. The bikes had Montana license plates. Not the expected birthplace of megalomaniacal robotics geeks, but one never knew. I took out my smartphone and snapped a picture of the plates.
“Maybe we should do something to delay them,” Simon said. “Keep them from following us, you know? We could siphon the gas out of their tanks or do another... thing that would require them to make repairs.” His scrunched brow suggested he didn’t know what that thing might be.
“I’ll let you figure out how to do that if you don’t mind hiking back to town.” I wouldn’t leave him, and he knew I wouldn’t leave him, but I said, “I’m getting out of here.” Anything to hurry him along. I wanted to get off this mountain before... I shook my head and rubbed at the gooseflesh that had arisen—or perhaps never completely left—on my arms. It was a warm autumn day, but I wasn’t feeling it.
I jogged back to the van, threw the sliding door shut, and jammed the key into the ignition. Fortunately, Zelda was in a good mood and started on the first try. I performed something that should have been a three-point turn in about ten points, thanks to the copious boulders, logs, and stumps surrounding our parking spot, then leaned over and pushed the passenger door open for Simon.
He trotted out of the trees and hopped in. “How’d you know I’d be right down?”
As soon as he shut the door, I started down the hill. “Because when we got stranded in Allie’s new car before graduation, you asked if putting up the hood would void the warranty. I imagine we’d have to be in some crazy alternate reality for you to know how to effectively sabotage a motorcycle, car, truck, or skateboard.”
“Shows what you know.” Simon pulled out a Swiss Army Knife. “I jabbed a hole in the tires.”
I gaped at him. “Did you really?”
“I’m hoping they’ll still be stuck up here when the sheriffs and rangers arrive.”
“Then I’m hoping they weren’t bright enough to get our license plate number. Or our business name that’s printed on the side of the van. Or my cell number. Damn it, Simon, if any creepy mouth breathers call me, I’m making you talk to them.”
He had the grace to look sheepish at the possible ramifications to his impetuousness, but only said, “Fine. I’m going to see if anything’s missing.”
As he poked around in the back of the van, I began plotting escape routes out of Prescott. For a touristy mountain town, it was a decent size, but not so big that I thought we’d be safe from anyone cruising along the roads, looking for a blue Vanagon.
“Bastards,” Simon grumbled, his voice muffled. He had his head stuck into the storage area under the long seat that pulled out into a bed.
“What’d they take?”
“The Dirt Viper.”
I groaned. “The we-have-to-spend-thousands-of-dollars-that-we-can’t-really-spare-to-get-a-quality-metal-detector Dirt Viper?”
“Yeah.”
I almost complained that we were having the worst luck ever, but the memory of the dead man flashed into my mind, the image more sobering than a gunshot wound. Someone had experienced much, much worse luck that day.
CHAPTER 3
We drove toward our parking slot at the White Spar, an inexpensive campground outside of town that lacked electricity, water hookups, and anything one might classify as a scenic view. Behind a stand of trees, less than twenty meters from our spot, the highway traffic buzzed past. Not exactly posh, but the accommodations were perfect for penny-pinching entrepreneurs saving up for high-priced luxury items, such as gas and groceries. Simon’s tent was still set up next to the picnic table along with two lime-green folding lawn chairs a college friend had donated to our enterprise. They’d once been called easy chairs and had held prime real estate in front of the television in his dorm room.
Only one thing had changed since we left the campground that morning: a sleek silver Jaguar convertible with the top down sat in our spot. There was room for me to park in front of it, but I came to a stop without turning in. If not for our stuff set up to the side, I would have assumed I’d forgotten our lot number, but there was no way someone else in the campground had those chairs. Nor was there any way someone with a Jaguar would be caught dead with chairs like that.
“Simon?” I asked over my shoulder. “What do you think about this?”
After we’d spent two hours at the sheriff’s station—and given our phone numbers, lodging details, and sworn on our childhood pets’ graves that we wouldn’t leave town before they’d given us the okay—he’d set up at the table with his MacBook so he could “run calculations and see how much of our inventory we’ll have to sell to afford a new Dirt Viper.” As far as I could tell, this involved little more than sitting and sulking, but I wasn’t in a much better mood, so I didn’t argue. I had been vaguely amused that during our interrogation session—the deputies had called it “asking a few questions”—he’d spent more time pleading with them to hunt for his lost tool than relaying information about the dead man in the hills.
Simon plopped into the passenger seat beside me. “I think someone’s lost.”
“There’s a camp host.” I waved toward the big trailer and truck set up at the park entrance. “That’d be the place to go for directions.”
“Maybe they saw our chairs, were impressed with our taste, and figured we’d naturally be the ones to ask for advice.”
“Right.”
“New Mexico plates,” Simon observed. “Someone you know?”
“The people I know drive clunker trucks capable of hauling dozens of tires at a time.”
Simon snorted. He’d been to the off-grid community where my family lived, acres of scrubby high desert sporting a complex of quasi-subterranean homes based on Michael Reynolds’s Earthships. From a distance, one might think the walls were made from stucco or cob, but the homeowner-builders would happily inform a visitor that the insides were made from recycled tires, bottles, and cans. As far as I knew, I’d been born into the only community of Greek eco-hippies in the world, though I wasn’t sure if I, born and raised in America, truly counted as all that Greek. Thanks to Yaiyai and my college studies, I could read and speak the language, and I knew how to make some wicked good Loukoumades, but that was about it.
I climbed out so I could check the license plate for myself. With a car like that, I’d expect a vanity message, but it was simply the usual string of numbers and letters. I was on my way to inspect the interior when a door clanked. Someone had walked out of the little restroom building. I stared. It was someone I did know.
The tall black woman heading toward our campsite wore loose flowing golds and blacks in a vaguely African style, though she’d grown up in the mountains of New Mexico, three houses up from mine. He
r tight black curls were cropped close to her head, but there was nothing boyish about her; she had attractive features with high cheekbones and a perfectly symmetrical face. Though I knew she was my age, her exotic clothing, or maybe the tilt of her chin, made her seem like someone who had traveled the world. She walked with a limp that favored her right leg.
“Who is that?” Simon whispered. He straightened his shirt, scraped his fingers through his hair, and stood as tall as he could—which still left him four or five inches shorter than our visitor.
I almost snorted and told him he didn’t have a chance, but I hadn’t seen the girl—woman, now—in nearly ten years, not in person anyway, and I had no idea what kinds of guys she dated. Maybe she liked geeks.
“Hey, Artemis,” I said when she drew even with the picnic table. “You’re about the last person I expected to see today.” She’d been “Temi” when we were kids, but, again, I had no idea what her preferences were now.
She smiled, though it seemed to hold more sadness than joy. “I imagine that’s true.”
“Your car?” I pointed to the Jag.
“Yes.”
“It’s a bit conspicuous here. I’m not sure Prescott has a five-star anything, but you could try the Hassayampa Inn. It’s historically significant, if nothing else. Oh, and they have a ghost, too, I hear. Though really the Vendome is more the place for that, I understand. You can ask for Abby’s room.”
Simon elbowed me, either because I wasn’t introducing him or because I was trying to send Artemis away. Or both.
“Ah,” she said. “I’m actually looking to stretch my finances until... I find suitable employment.”
“You can’t, uhm...” I glanced at her right leg—her clothing hid it, but from her gait and what I’d heard on the news, I thought she might wear a brace now. “Teach tennis?”
She grimaced. “That’s not really my world now.”
“Oh.”
This earned me another elbowing. A more confident fellow would have stepped forward and introduced himself, but that adjective didn’t describe Simon, at least not around pretty women. I tried not to read too much into the fact that he’d never stuttered or been at a loss for words in my presence.