Falling again into single file and moving steadily on, they found Doc and Bonnie in their robes, waiting at the appointed spot where the Lone Ranger had left them only a brief time earlier.
Jubilant and frightened, wired up and exhausted, Doc and Bonnie began jabbering away, eager to hear the whole and complete story of GOLIATH’s fall. They’d seen the lights go on, to be sure, heard the scream of power, the bellowing voice of Hayduke in authority, saw the searchlight beams stroke across the sky when the monster tipped over the brink, heard the snatch of song, the long ensuing silence, the deep-down echoes of destruction, but — what really happened? Tell us all about it, Seldom.
Hayduke swelled with pride. “Well,” he began, “of course I didn’t do exactly everything myself —”
The Lone Ranger interrupted. “Choppers,” he announced, pointing southeast into the stars. “Choppers a-comin’.”
They heard it then, the thumping throb of approaching helicopters, and looking where the old man pointed saw the blinking red signals, the blue shaft of high-intensity light aimed earthward, probing the area of the Neck. Coming their way. With a second behind it.
“Let’s go,” said Smith. He led, they trotted off, along the rimrock to a trailsign visible, in the dark, only to Smith and the Lone Ranger. Smith stopped, dismounted, began to uncinch his saddle girth. “Everybody down,” he said quietly. “We’ll unsaddle here, turn the horses loose, go down the trail afoot.” He watched the helicopters as he worked.
Three obeyed, adrenalized again by fear. “Saddle first, bridle last,” the Lone Ranger reminded Doc, who was fumbling at his horse’s head.
“Yes sir.”
Four horses stripped except for halters, Smith whacked his bay mare on the rump. She bolted off into the darkness, followed by the others. Headed north through the trees, bound for Susan’s place, the home corral, the water trough and the mangers of alfalfa, they’d all be home by dawn, waiting.
One man remained mounted, a black silhouette against the stars. “So long, gang,” he said. “You all done good. I’m mighty proud I knowed you folks.”
“Jack,” Bonnie said, “you’re not coming with us?”
“Can’t walk,” he explained, lying. “Can’t get a horse down Seldom’s route. I’ll see you all some other time, someday. Better get a move on.”
Doc shook the Ranger’s hand. “An honor to meet you, sir.”
“Likewise, Doctor Sarvis.”
Bonnie reached up, stretching, and grasped the masked man’s gauntleted hand. “You’re my hero, Jack.”
“Thank you, ma’am. You’re a princess.”
Hayduke’s turn. “Thanks for the help, dad.”
“You’re welcome, son.” The Lone Ranger glanced at the sky, saw the helicopters still two miles off, and returned his steady one-eyed gaze to George Hayduke. “And here’s some free advice for you, young fella: clear out of this country. Make yourself scarce for a while. Head for Old Mexico; you’ll fit in good down there.”
Hayduke grinned. “See you in Hell, Jack Burns.”
“Let’s go, let’s go,” cried Smith, hauling two saddles, blankets, bridles down the head of the footpath. Doc followed with the other two, making himself useful.
A final salute: the Ranger spurred his horse, at the same time yanking back on the reins. The old stud reared up on his hind legs and the old man doffed his floppy gigantic absurd white hat — one legendary gesture performed for one last time, always good for a laugh. The horse came down, hard, legs quivering slightly, probably the last time he’d let the Ranger play that trick. They turned together, man and horse, one animal, one centaur, one creation out of myth by history, and trotted away into the night. Taking their own route, no one else’s, as always. Where might they be at sunrise, who could say?
Below the rim, Smith stacked the four saddles on their pommels deep beneath an overhanging ledge. Doc tried to help, handing him the bridles and saddle blankets one by one. “Goldang rats’ll probly eat the belly bands afore I get back here. They love that salt. But can’t be helped, we got to do it.” He covered the saddles with the blankets, the blankets with a camouflage poncho, the poncho with an armful of sagebrush.
Bonnie and George came down. The four huddled tight together under the ledge as the first of the helicopters came overhead. They watched the searchlight’s blue beam swing across the canyon walls, dancing forward, gliding back, going on, hunting for the trembling prey.
“They’ll find Jack for sure,” Bonnie moaned.
Smith squeezed her hand. “No they won’t, honey. Not him. Can’t figure out how he does it but that man and his old horse they can hide on a sand dune. In a stockpond. They can hide where there’s nothing ever at all to hide in. You step on that ol’ scarecrow before you see him. And then it’s too late.”
“You didn’t even get to say goodbye.”
Smith smiled. “He’ll be around.”
The second helicopter passed. The shuddering rotors dwindled off and faded out. The tumult of distant engines died away. A nightwind shivered through the juniper and piny on pine. The stars reigned alone in the sky, constellations of radiant silence.
With slow and cautious steps old Seldom Seen led his friends down the falling, rocky path, into the secret hidden inner world of canyon and desert.
29
Loose Ends
“So where’d he go, Oral?”
Young Oral Hatch looked bad. His simple cleancut All-American Mormon face was a mass of purple bruises. One eye was swollen completely shut, leaking a dribble of yellowish matter at inner and outer corners. Head sunk between hunched shoulders, as if protecting himself from further blows, he seemed defenseless, beaten, without spirit. He held his feet together, pigeon-toed, like a little boy enduring a humiliating scold. He clasped his blueblack hands in humble contrition before his stomach, one hand inside the other, guarding his withdrawn belly. His hands exchanged position with each other frequently. Sweat glistened on his forehead, nose, upper lip. His bare head sagged forward, exposing to the powerful light his half-shaven skull, the pale gray skin, the inflamed wound with its rank of stitches. He wore no shirt. His shoes lacked shoestrings. The belt had been taken from his trousers. He sat on a hard steel desk chair, feet on a floor of cold gray concrete.
“How about it, Oral,” said the second interrogator, “which way’d he go?” The second man, like the first, had a harsh and abrasive voice, larnyx chapped by too much Canadian Club, accent warped by the slums of Boston, outlook perverted and insight distorted by a life of crime. A life not in crime but as he would have proudly asserted, a life spent combatting crime. We tend to resemble what we most doggedly oppose. His name rhymed with the first man’s name.
“Speak up, Oral,” said Boyle. “You’re not doing yourself any fuckin’ good at all trying to act like a fuckin’ hero.”
“Yeah,” Holye said. “You got no right to remain silent. You work for us. You’re on the Company payroll. You’re not a common criminal — you’re one of us.”
Staring at him from the darkness behind the hooded light, both men laughed. They never had liked him; had never pretended to like him; did not intend to like him. From their point of view, young J. Oral was a foreigner. An alien. Mormon, Utahn, small-town lad, product of an agrarian culture and a later generation that he was, they felt no more in common with him than they did for a punk pimp black from South Boston, a Puerto Rican welfare mother from San Juan living in Brooklyn, or an Ivy League fly fisherman casting his Wily Wizard upon the glittering stream of East Clear Creek, north fork, Arizona.
“You don’t seem to understand the situation, Oral. You’re in deep shit not only with us but with the law. Taking part in illegal demonstration, trespassing on government property, obstructing traffic on private right-of-way, conspiring to commit felonious destruction of property …” A sheet of paper crackled in Boyle’s hand: the list. “… and worst of all, assault on police officer in line of duty. A S.W.A.T. team sergeant! Resisting arrest … Jesu
s Christ, Oral, these redneck boondock cops are gonna put you away for ten years at least. And I hear that state pen down in — where is it, Hoyle? Florence? Florence, Arizona? — I hear it ain’t no comfy place, Oral. Attica’s a clean decent civilized joint compared to Florence, that’s what I hear.”
Silence. A third man coughed in a distant corner of the cell, observing but taking no part in this routine interrogation. The Colonel, of course. In faltering health. Losing weight. Troubled by a dull ache in his lungs that would not subside. A fainting sensation when he rose too quickly from a sitting or lying position. Blood in his stool. He knew by inference what the problem was but only a blood test would confirm it, finally. The Colonel preferred to postpone that day of understanding.
“Where’s Hayduke, Oral?”
Silence.
“We know you know. Where’d he go? And where’s that Bundy, the security guard? What happened to him, Oral? Hayduke kidnap him? Kill him? Enlist him in the gang?”
No response.
“Where was Smith that night? His wife says he was in Green River but she could be lying. Wives do that. How about it, Oral?”
No answer.
“You like to see Erika again, Oral?”
A stir of interest. Young Hatch unclasped his cold hands, shifted his feet, looked up into the blazing lamp. “Where is she?”
“You want to see her?”
“Where is she?”
Chuckles of amusement. “Well now, our boy has come alive. Now he’s talking.”
“Answer our questions, Oral, and we’ll answer yours.”
The young man sighed, closed his eyes, lowered his head into his hands. “Can’t,” he mumbled. “Can’t. Been telling you for three days, I don’t know.”
“Why, Oral, we’ve only been here about six hours. Three days, Oral? You’re exaggerating things, Oral.”
“Exaggerating? He’s lying again. Where’s Hayduke, Oral?”
“I don’t know,” he groaned, “I don’t know, I don’t know. I never saw him. I never heard anything about him. I don’t even know if he’s alive. They all said he was dead.”
“Who did?”
“All of them: Doc, Bonnie, Smith, those Earth First! people. I never found anybody who knew a thing about him we don’t already know. They all seem to think he’s dead. And what’s more …”
“What’s more?”
Silence.
“What’s more, Oral? What’s that mean?”
“He’s playing hero again, Boyle. He means what’s more even if he did know he wouldn’t tell mean nasty crude old naughty old things like us. Right, Oral?”
No response.
“Is that right, Oral? My feelings are hurt, Oral. Surely you don’t mean that?”
No answer.
“All right, Oral, you had your chance. You blew it. Me and Hoyle and the Colonel we’re off to Mexico now. We’re not coming back to Arizona for a long time. Maybe never. So we’ll let you rot in maximum security for the next ten years. How’s that grab you, punko?”
“Where’s Erika?”
“Boy, you’ll never see her again either. In fact the men from INS are packing her onto a BOAC jet right this very day; it’s back to Norway for that little no-goodnik.”
“Oh no!” cried young Hatch. “You can’t do that. She has a passport and a visa. She’s legal.”
“She’s a criminal anarchist, Oral. But she didn’t admit it on her visa application. Anarchists aren’t allowed to enter the U.S. And she has a whole list of criminal charges against her, just like you do. So out she goes. She’s lucky we don’t lock her up for ten years too.”
Hatch curled up in his seat again, bruised face buried in his battered hands. His shoulders quivered. He sniffled. Half choking, he tried to suppress a spasm of sobs, then yielded to his grief, like a man, and let it come.
“Aw, gee,” mocked Boyle, “the poor boy’s crying.”
“Poor little Oral. Mean old naughty mens make him cry.”
Sniggering, they watched the young man weep. Mormon screwball, what more could you expect from a hick like him? From anybody named Oral?
The man in the corner stood up from his chair, slowly, painfully. “Get the jailer,” he said quietly.
“What?”
“You heard me. You two have had your fun. Now we’re taking him out of here.”
“Then what?”
“Then we’re releasing him. Without prejudice.”
“But sir—”
“You heard me. Boyle: call the jailer.”
“Yes sir.”
Boyle departed the cell, vanished down a corridor of steel and concrete under uric-yellow lights. The banging and the clatter, the gabble and the rock, swelled up in volume as the other prisoners watched Boyle stride past.
Hoyle and the Colonel gazed on young Hatch. After a moment, heart softening a shade under the Colonel’s stern eye, Hoyle said, “You hear that, Oral? You’re still a special agent for about half an hour more. The Company’s taking you out of here and turning you loose. How do you like that idea, Oral?”
Still sobbing, Hatch said nothing.
“A few more minutes and you’re a free man, Oral. On your own. Free as a bird. Whatcha gonna do then? See your mother? Go to church? Follow Hayduke?”
At last young Oral raised his face from his hands. Cheeks moist and eyes red, he looked straight at the dim form of Hoyle seated behind the lamp, what he could see of it, and he said, “None of your goddamned business, Mister Hoyle.”
Hoyle smirked. “Going to Norway, aren’t you, Oral?”
“That’s right.”
“Like a young dog after a hot bitch, right Oral?”
J. Oral Hatch stood up. He turned the blazing floorlamp aside and looked down at the tough red smirking face of Agent Hoyle.
“Mister Hoyle?” Oral raised and closed his hands.
“Yeah?”
“Please stand up, Mister Hoyle.”
Hoyle’s grin widened, exposing his golden molars. “Stand up, huh? So you can knock me down, huh? Old man like me? That the idea, you Moroni-kissing chicken-eating geek?”
“Yes sir.”
Hoyle stirred slightly, as if to rise, then lashed out with his right foot, shod in a copper’s heavy steel-toed shoe. The sudden blow caught young Oral square in the knee. Gasping, he went down.
Hoyle stood up. “You still have a lot to learn, Oral. Too much to learn. You never would’ve made a real agent. You’re not real smart, know what I mean, punko?”
The Colonel pulled on his topcoat and gloves. Flagstaff nights were cold, even in the summer. And no matter what the weather, anywhere, he never felt quite warm enough these days. He looked at Oral crouched on the floor, moaning, clutching at his knee, and at the bulky man standing over him, rubbing his hands and gazing down with satisfaction at his victim.
“You’re not too smart yourself, Hoyle,” the Colonel said. “Now you and Boyle are going to have to help him out of here.”
“Yes sir. It’s worth it.”
Bishop Love and Mrs. Love the Second were married on the Neck, in the light of the rekindled bonfire, by J. Marvin Pratt, Justice of the Peace. The groom kissed the bride while those present (about a dozen, mostly women) smiled, cried, cheered, applauded. From the distance, at variant points of the compass, came the self-conscious barking of handguns, the harmless chatter of small-arms fire, the shouts of scattered anxious men lost in the dark. Helicopters disturbed the peace overhead but soon drifted eastward, circling and blinking like fireflies, idle and nonchalant, insouciant and small. Mrs. Pratt and Mrs. Love the First signed the marriage license as official witnesses. Someone popped a cork; toasts proposed and acclaimed, bubbly carbonated apple juice overflowed the clear plastic champagne glasses. Mrs. Love I took Mrs. Love II aside into the dark for consultation:
“Don’t let him get you pregnant right away, Ginny darling. You stand up for your rights. You tell him no baby for at least six months.”
Ranger Dick smiled, her arm
draped around the other woman’s neck. “Mabel, my dear, we’ll keep that fat old fart under firm restraint from here on out.”
“You said it. That’s the way to talk.”
They planned a two-week honeymoon in Honolulu. The Bishop and his Mrs. and his Mrs. And the eleven children? Couldn’t hardly leave them behind. Them kids never did see a alligator or a monkey on a palm tree or a Beach Boy yet, Mrs. Love the First explained.
The Monkey Wrench Gang gathered for the last time — very tired but very excited — at the base of the canyon wall below Hayduke’s Cave. While Doc, Bonnie and Seldom said their goodbyes, George scrambled up the rocky route in the dark to pick up a few things he’d need for his trip. Also, he explained, had to free his rattlesnake.
“I sure hope you two got an ironclad alibi for tonight,” Smith said.
“We do,” the doctor said, “if George gets us back in time.”
“We’re checked into the Bridal Suite at the Strater Hotel in Durango,” Bonnie said. “We’re celebrating our wedding anniversary.”
“Southwest pediatrics conference,” Doc explained. “Also.”
“Durango? Durango, Colorado? You’ll never get there tonight, Bonnie honey. It’s too far.”
“If we can sneak back into the room by morning we’re okay. These robes will help. Got the DON’T DISTURB sign on the doorknob.”
“That’s still too far.”
“Not by air. George is flying us.”
“George? Our George?” Smith looked up into the darkness toward the cave. “Him? Where’d he get a pilot’s license? Where’s the airplane?”
Doc smiled wearily, sitting on a shelf of stone. Bonnie explained. No, George had no license. But he could fly anyway, sort of. Was learning fast. Liked to call himself the Green Barón. Beret? No, Barón. And the plane was some kind of old two-seater with extra-long wings and huge fat tires. Could land and take off anywhere.
“There’s three of you.”
We sit on laps, she explained. I mean I do. I help him with the gas throttle, the fuel mix, compass readings and so on. We made it here, we’ll make it back. I think. I hope.