Page 88 of Badlands

“Well, it’s not good.”

54

CORRIE LED THEgroup northward, up the canyon. It was a moon-less night, and they didn’t dare use a flashlight, but she had night-vision goggles and could lead them with whispered directions.

For the first half mile it was fairly easy going, and they moved quickly through groves of cottonwood trees alongside the Gallina River. The wind had been steadily rising, and the sound of it thrashing the treetops, combined with the rush of the river, masked any noise they made as they jogged along.

Remarkably, Corrie thought, their hastily assembled plan had worked: they’d gotten away clean from the cult. The firing of the Glock had not only interrupted their ritual—it had been so unexpected, coming when it did, that it had scared the crap out of them… especially when Nora shredded the grotesquely desiccated figure of who, she figured in retrospect, could only be Oskarbi. The cultists had scattered, their sudden panic no doubt exacerbated by their drugged state. During the attack, the only one who’d kept his shit together was the presumptive leader—but he’d been forced to deal with the chaotic aftermath of the shooting, giving the three of them precious minutes to add someextra distance. Their stratagem of going eastward in a feint, as if heading back to their vehicles, and then cutting northward had also worked; the pursuing mob that the white figure had finally assembled seemed to have gone eastward, even as they turned north.

The wind gusted harder, and Corrie could smell dust in the air. As they fled, she tried to put out of her mind the sight of Nash’s hanging, burning, grease-dripping corpse surrounded by a painted and chanting mob. Nothing in her training had prepared her for such crazy, unbridled savagery. Was it the drugs, or a love of power, or inner, angry emptiness—or something deeper and even more disturbing—that could make intelligent people behave that way?

She felt the reassuring weight of her Glock tucked into her pocket. Nora had returned it, minus the four rounds she’d fired during the rescue: that left eleven. Still, she wished to hell she’d brought the extra magazine from her car. The cultists had a weapon, too—a big, loud, monstrous thing that reminded her of certain handguns she’d helped seize in an arms-smuggling raid.

“I think they’ve got a Taurus Judge,” she panted. “Fires both .45 cartridges and shotgun shells. But that guy in white didn’t seem familiar with it.”

“Judge,” the zonked-out Skip repeated, as if by word association. “Raging Judge.”

So perhaps it had belonged to Edison Nash, Corrie thought, the gun he waved around at those roughnecks. That made sense.

The canyon became narrower and steeper and—constrained by rock walls—the river flowed faster here as it tumbled over boulders. It didn’t take an expert to figure out that the easy part of their flight was over. Not even Nora knew what lay ahead. This part of the Chama Wilderness was little, if ever, visited.

“Ow, shit,” Skip muttered, tripping and falling. Corrie paused while Nora helped her brother up, warning him to keep quiet.

They continued on at a more gingerly pace, relying on Corrie’s whispered directions for the location of rocks and fallen logs. In a few minutes they reached a landslide—fairly recent, at least to Corrie’s untrained eyes—which had strewn boulders the size of cars into the rushing river. They were forced to wade through the icy current, holding hands and bracing themselves as best they could.

Beyond the landslide the cottonwood trees vanished, replaced by Douglas firs that crowded the embankment and hung over the river. They had to climb over dead timber and cross the river several times, negotiating slippery, algae-covered boulders in the process. While Nora was keeping up despite an injured knee, it was Skip who was having an increasingly hard time—falling, grunting, and muttering curses under his breath.

Suddenly he halted. “What’s that!” he cried.

Corrie stared into the darkness through the goggles. “There’s nothing there,” she whispered.

“Keep your voice down,” Nora told her brother.

“No, no! I can see it! A man with an owl’s head!” Skip scrambled backward in terror, and Nora grabbed him before he fell.

“Shut up! You’re seeing things!”

“No, I’mnot!”

Nora held him as he struggled. “Hey,” she said in a more calming voice, “it’s just the drugs. Okay? If we want to get away, you’ll have to cool it.”

Skip struggled a bit more, then went limp. “I don’t feel good,” he moaned.

“I know,” Nora said. “But we need to all keep going.”

Skip rose unsteadily to his feet, Nora supporting him. Hebegan muttering again, shaking his head as if trying to rid himself of hallucinations.

Corrie took a few steps. “Log here.”

Skip managed with Nora’s help.

They went on, Corrie doing her best to describe the hazards of the terrain ahead. It seemed Skip was getting better at keeping the demons at bay, even though he still fell on occasion, sometimes taking down Nora with him. The walls closed in even tighter, the canyon growing as dark as a cave.

“Maybe we can chance a light,” said Nora. “They can’t see us in this hole.”

Corrie considered this. It would make traveling a lot safer, given that one of Skip’s falls might result in a serious injury. “Okay,” she said.

The night-vision goggles had a mounted light that could be turned on when the goggles weren’t in active use. She aimed them downward and switched it on.

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