They reached the interstate and turned and drove back to Galisteo, a small village south of Santa Fe. Once an old mining and ranching village, it was now an artists’ colony. Along the road they passed national guard vehicles and state police cars, but they weren’t stopped again.
On this stretch of road the foothills of the Sandias were low mesas and arroyos that sloped down into the Estancia Valley. Small bridges spanned the arroyos. All of the gullies were already carrying runoff water from the mountain.
“The bridges are perfect cover,” Rita mused. Time was running out; she felt the tension building.
“But which one?” Sonny asked.
“Too many,” Escobar said. “Too many places he can hide. A man could move for days in these arroyos and mesas, in and out of the juniper and piñon. Cops don’t have a helicopter up. You can’t use dogs in this rain.”
“Yeah, even the weather’s on his side,” Sonny said. He needed something concrete, and nothing was turning up on the road. Raven could be hiding behind juniper trees or a boulder along the road, down in a gully or under a bridge, laughing at them as they passed by.
They turned and drove back toward the interstate, sipped coffee, listened to the Los Alamos news on the radio, and looked intently into the rain. They grew tired of driving back and forth, and as the hours slipped away each grew more tense.
Begin at the beginning, Manuel Lopez always said. “Let’s check his place,” Sonny spoke, tired from the tension and the driving.
Escobar shrugged and turned up the mountain to Raven’s compound. The dirt road was muddy and full of ruts, and it was slow going, but they had no other lead to follow. An hour later they pulled into Raven’s compound. It was deserted, an eerie silence clung to the wet pine trees. They got out of the truck and hurried past the stone-marked cemetery and into the adobe building.
Both men carried their rifles, and Escobar packed his flashlight. Inside, an empty, hollow silence filled the large round room. Four doors led into the four smaller rooms that completed the dwelling. Inside, the adobe was exposed; it had not been plastered or painted. Rita shivered.
“Dirty,” she said.
“Just like a raven’s nest.” Escobar shrugged. “A raven steals everything he can get hold of.”
Mixed in the wet smell of earth and the dusty clutter on the floors, Sonny thought he smelled the fragrance of lilacs. He remembered the day he came to Raven’s place. Yes, the aroma of the lilac perfume had been in the air even then. Veronica’s.
Escobar shivered. “There’s a bad feeling here.”
Sonny stepped carefully through each room, taking a stick on the floor to poke through the trash: old newspapers, plastic flowers, the bits of brass the wives had used to make earrings and bracelets, feathers, beads, colored glass, and crude paintings apparently done by the children. The elemental signs of Raven’s world were everywhere: fire, the Zia sign, a green earth, Down With WIPP signs.
He paused and held his breath when he found the Forest Service maps.
“Estos?” he asked as he picked them up and dusted them.
“Forest Service maps,” Escobar explained. “Go to any forest station and pick these up.”
But Raven knew the mountain and the foothills, so why the maps? “Let’s have a look,” Sonny said and spread the maps on the earth floor.
Escobar shone the beam of his flashlight on the maps. “East side of the mountains.” Escobar shrugged. “But nothing on them. No marks.”
“Where are we?” Sonny asked.
Escobar found the La Cueva Land Grant map and pointed. “Here’s the village, here’s my ranch, right here would be Raven’s place.”
Sonny marked an X. “And Los Alamos?”
“Not on this map. You need more sections. These maps are for the east face of the Sandias.”
“Where’s the highway?”
“Over here.” Escobar pointed.
“These are roads leading down to the highway.”
“Mostly old logging roads.”
“And these?”
“Arroyos.”
“He could follow an arroyo to the highway and never be seen,” Sonny said. “He would go east toward the rising sun on the day of the summer solstice. The sun would stand still.”
“On the day of the summer solstice, the sun stands still, then begins its journey south,” Rita intoned.
“The explosion will make fire, the sun standing still,” Sonny kept repeating, the mantra increasing the tension he felt.
“It’s here,” he whispered and looked closely at the names of the arroyos on the map. “Arroyo del Oso, Calabazas Arroyo, Arroyo de las Gallinas, Arroyo del Sol—”
He stopped and felt his heart skip a beat. “That’s it!” he shouted and looked up at Rita and Escobar. “Arroyo del Sol!”
“Yes!” Rita cried.
“Can you find it?”
Escobar looked at the map and nodded. “Sure. I know it.”
“How much time?”
“We have go back down to Sandia View Road to catch the highway then to I-40 … maybe an hour and a half. Cops are out, so we have to go slow.”
Sonny looked at his watch. “We don’t have that much time!”
“There’s an old road along the arroyo. So from here to the highway is half an hour, but even in my four-wheeler, we could get stuck.”
“Let’s take it!” Sonny shouted, grabbing Rita’s hand, and they rushed out into the fading afternoon. Sonny guessed that the WIPP truck from Los Alamos had already passed Santa Fe and was nearing Galisteo, and Raven was waiting for it under the Arroyo del Sol bridge. The summer solstice bridge. It was just a guess, but it was all they had to go on.
“No radio,” Sonny said as they piled into Escobar’s truck. They were using the four-wheeler to get through the mud, but that meant they couldn’t call the state cops. It was up to them to get to the bridge across the Arroyo del Sol before the WIPP truck.
30
The afternoon darkened as the cloud-shrouded sun dropped westward and disappeared behind Sandia Crest. Escobar gunned the truck for all it was worth, sliding and slashing down the mountain, then cutting across an old logging road to the Arroyo del Sol. He stopped the truck at the side of the arroyo and turned on the headlights. The wide, sandy arroyo was running with red, churning water.
He turned the truck and followed the old lumber road along the side of the arroyo, weaving around the junipers and boulders that dotted the arroyo’s edge. If Sonny was right about Raven’s use of sun symbology, they would find him at the bridge where the road crossed the arroyo.
“He’s going to be armed, hasta los dientes,” Escobar said as he tightened his grip on the steering wheel and fought for control, grinding in low gear down the muddy treacherous road. A false move here and even the four-wheeler stood a chance of slipping into a rut and getting hung up.
Sonny checked his .30—30. It was ready.
“There’s a pistol in the glove,” Escobar said to Rita. If it came to a gun battle with Raven, she, too, needed protection and a pistol was easier to handle. “It’s loaded.”
Sonny opened the glove compartment and dug through old papers, found a bottle of whiskey, a hunting knife, then the small-caliber pistol. He took it, checked it, and handed it to Rita.
“Use it if you have to use it,” Sonny said. Rita nodded. He checked his own pistol, Bisabuelo’s old pearl-handled .45.
Just then the road ended. A huge log lay across the ruts they had been following. Escobar stopped the truck.
“Holy tacos,” he cursed. “The Forest Service screwed up again!”
“No way around,” Sonny said, rolling down the window to get a good look. The headlights of the truck illuminated the large ponderosa pine lying across the road. The three of them couldn’t move the huge log, and the four-by-four couldn’t go up the steep hillside full of piñon and juniper trees.
“How far are we from the bridge?” Sonny asked, ducking his head back inside the truck, wiping the rain
from his face.
“About a mile,” Escobar answered.
“I’ll go on foot,” Sonny said, grabbing one of the ponchos.
“Wait!” Escobar shouted.
He was looking at the arroyo and the foot of water it carried. From here down to the bridge, it would stay mostly flat and sandy. He knew the truck could handle it, but he also knew the way the arroyos could rise quickly when the rain off the mountain hit with full force.
“The truck can make it!” he shouted. Raven would have helpers, and he couldn’t let Sonny face them alone. “Vamos!”
He threw the truck into low gear and turned it down the sloping side of the arroyo. The truck skidded sideways on the wet sand, straightened out, and went flying into the gully. It landed with a teeth-jarring thud in the muddy waters. Rita groaned.
“Sorry,” Escobar said. He kept the truck in low and aimed it down the arroyo. He had driven mountain roads and arroyos all his life, so what difference did a little rain make?
The truck shot forward, slipping and sliding in the current created by the rain. The clouds above them had grown thick and dark, and the water funneling down the arroyo was increasing in volume.
“It’s going to get worse,” Escobar said and fought to keep the bouncing truck as steady as he could.
Sonny nodded. The way the rain had suddenly cut loose meant the arroyo could become a raging flood at any moment. If they didn’t get blown to pieces or toasted by radiation, they might drown. Drowning actually seemed preferable.
They fishtailed and rattled down the arroyo in silence, knowing that if they had miscalculated, Raven would have a clear shot at the WIPP truck. Each prayed silently.
“Highway up ahead,” Escobar whispered and turned off the lights. He didn’t want to came up suddenly on Raven and get blown out of the saddle.
Through the falling rain they saw the flashing red lights of the state police escort on the highway. The escort moved slowly as it approached the old wooden bridge.
“That’s it!” Sonny exclaimed. Just behind the state police car rose the huge bulk of the barrel-laden truck.
“My rifle,” Escobar said and rolled down the window.
Sonny passed the .30–06 across to Escobar, who pointed it out the window and released the safety.
“There’s the bridge,” Rita whispered.
“Raven’s here,” Sonny said. He could sense him.
“Sí,” Escobar answered. He had hunted long enough to know when the prey was near. “How many with him?”
“One, maybe two,” Sonny guessed, remembering Scarface and his partner from the Estancia bar. Or maybe he was alone, because when it came to actually blowing up a WIPP truck, most likely not many of Raven’s followers would volunteer.
The water rushing down the arroyo propelled the truck forward. They were sliding from side to side now, as if on a boat.
“Ready?” Sonny said to Rita. She squeezed Sonny’s arm.
“Ready.” She slipped the safety off the pistol.
Just behind the state cop, flashing yellow lights glittering in the rain, the WIPP truck appeared, a huge shadow in the mist, the huge barrel it carried rising like the hump of a prehistoric monster in the dark. Plutoniosaurus. Inside the belly of the beast lay the hot, high-level radioactive waste, now only minutes from the bridge. The lead state-cop car slowed down. Had they seen Escobar’s lights before he flipped them off? Had Raven?
Just ahead of them, crouched behind a giant boulder about four hundred feet from the bridge, Sonny spotted two shadows.
“Raven!” he pointed.
Raven and Scarface were dressed in bulky outfits, lab suits to protect them from the radiation, and the boulder would protect them from the blast. The sonofabitch isn’t taking any chances, Sonny thought. Raven was going to blow the truck, then dash back up the mountain. It wasn’t a suicide mission.
Escobar floored the gas pedal.
“You take the guy on the left!” Sonny shouted and cocked his pistol.
Raven and his helper heard the truck and turned. They had been so intent on watching the approaching WIPP truck that they were caught by surprise. One pointed and the other man jumped for the rifles leaning against the boulder, but he was slowed by his bulky suit.
Escobar flipped on the lights and stepped on the brakes. The truck fishtailed in the mud and water and went crashing toward the two figures, illuminating them in the drenching rain. Sonny saw one man reaching for a rifle and the other, probably Raven, holding aloft a small black box: a small radio transmitter that was no doubt wired to the dynamite.
Scarface had time to reach his automatic rifle and get off one shot. Sonny shouted a warning and pushed Rita down in the seat as the truck windshield burst into a million pieces of glass.
“Cabrón!” Escobar cursed as the truck slid to a stop. He opened fire and Scarface tumbled into the muddy water. “I’ll get him!” he shouted.
“I’ll take Raven!” Sonny cried, jumping out of the truck. “It’s over!” he shouted, aiming the pistol and moving toward Raven. “Drop it or I’ll shoot!” He grabbed at the man and ripped away the protective covering from Raven’s head.
“You’re too late!” Raven shouted, looking over his shoulder at the bridge.
“Drop it!” Sonny shouted again, and Raven cursed and struck at Sonny with the transmitter. With one blow he sent Sonny’s pistol flying into the water.
“I’ll kill you!” Raven cursed, striking another blow, which sent Sonny reeling.
On the bridge the lead state police car had skidded to a stop. The state cop had seen Escobar’s truck lights in the arroyo and heard the burst of gunfire. He stepped on his brakes and jumped out of his car, pistol in hand. The big semi carrying the huge barrel full of nuclear waste skidded and slammed into the police car as the driver hit the brakes. It choked to a stop, a sitting duck in the middle of the bridge.
Sonny made a leap for Raven. Both went tumbling into the rushing water of the arroyo, and the transmitter flew with them. They rolled, then rose, slugging at each other, fighting for the transmitter, which eluded both.
“Damn you!” Raven shouted. Another well-placed blow made Sonny stagger. Again Raven scrambled for the transmitter. If he could push the switch, he could still detonate the explosives at the bridge.
But the transmitter disappeared in the darkness, swept away by the current. On the bridge armed policemen were already calling orders. With the transmitter lost and police swarming around the bridge, Raven’s plan was spoiled. He turned and ran toward the boulder and the automatic rifle.
Sonny found his pistol in the mud, picked it up and aimed.
“Stop!” he shouted, and Raven turned momentarily.
They faced each other, panting for breath.
“You don’t have the guts, Baca!” Raven shouted, inching toward his rifle.
“Shoot!” Sonny heard someone say, and thought it was the voice of his Bisabuelo, Elfego Baca, telling him to protect himself.
Sonny pulled the trigger, but his pistol, full of mud, misfired.
Raven laughed. Illuminated by the searchlights from the bridge, he had nothing to lose. He grabbed his automatic and aimed, and a small explosion sounded. Not the thundering staccato of an automatic, but the whimper of a .22.
Sonny saw Raven grab his arm and wince as he dropped the rifle. Out of the corner of his eyes, Sonny saw Rita standing firm, holding the small pistol in her hands.
The wounded Raven cursed and ran up the arroyo’s incline. Sonny followed, tackling him as they reached the top. They rolled in the mud, both groaning and gasping for breath.
The rest of the state police cars had come to a stop behind the truck, and a state police SWAT team and FBI agents were swarming toward them, the searchlights from their trucks and cars illuminating the scene.
“Put your arms up!” a loudspeaker blared. “Drop your weapons and put your arms up!”
Another radio crackled: “Move the truck! Move the truck off the bridge!”
&nb
sp; The truck driver rolled down his window and peered out. “Move the car!” he shouted at the cop he had rammed. “I can’t move! Get the fucking car out of the way!”
“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” Escobar shouted as armed police came running toward them.
He held up his hands, hearing at the same time a sound he knew well. He turned and saw, illuminated in the car lights, a six-foot wall of water come crashing down the arroyo, picking up his truck rolling it down the arroyo like a toy.
At the same time two FBI men tackled him and sent him sprawling. Rita ran toward Sonny.
Other policemen shouted for her to stop.
“You blew it, Baca,” Raven cursed above the roar of the water, his face contorted with rage. He scooped up a piñon club and struck at Sonny. Sonny ducked once, twice, then stood facing the wounded Raven.
“It’s over!” Sonny shouted. “Give it up!”
“Go to hell!” Raven cried and struck again at Sonny.
Sonny ducked and Raven’s momentum carried him past Sonny and over the edge of the arroyo. Sonny reached out to grab him, but the only thing he caught was Raven’s medallion. The chain broke and Raven plunged into the water. The wall of water that had picked up Escobar’s truck and sent it bobbing down the arroyo now swallowed Raven.
Rita reached Sonny just as Raven fell. Together they saw him rise once, crying out in defiance; then he disappeared into the swirling darkness.
The cop car in front of the truck had moved off the bridge. Now the truck followed, moving forward across the bridge. Just then the ground shook as the thunderous explosion lit up the night. The transmitter had bounced against a rock somewhere down the arroyo.
Rita and Sonny hit the ground, holding on to each other as the fireball rose over the bridge and rained debris on them. They were far enough away from the bridge so the worst they got was the mud splattering around them.
When the air cleared, Sonny helped Rita to her feet. “You okay?”
“Okay,” she answered. “My ears are ringing.”
The air was thick with a cloud of acrid smoke. The wooden bridge that once spanned the Arroyo del Sol was no more. But the WIPP truck had cleared in time and was safely rolling down the highway. Around them figures of state cops rose groaning, dusting themselves from the dirt and mud that covered them.