We spotted her standing on a boulder by the side of the stream, waving her arms back and forth. She was uphill from us, about a hundred feet away. Her spear leaned against the boulder, close enough for her to crouch and grab in case of an emergency. But if she fell on it . . .
The idea made me grimace.
While we approached her, she climbed down.
Didn't fall and get skewered.
Scooted on her rump down the face of the rock, then jumped to the ground.
"Was that you guys singing?" she asked.
"Who else would it be?" Connie said.
She smiled. "I couldn't believe my ears. You're coming to my rescue belting out songs?"
"You obviously didn't require rescuing," Billie said.
"It's the thought that counts."
"We would've sung 'The Gary Owen,' I told her, "but I don't know the words."
"The Gary what?" Connie asked.
Kimberly wrinkled her nose. "Is that the Seventh Cavalry song?" she asked.
"Right." I hummed a few bars.
Billie grinned. She said, "Ah, John Wayne."
"George Armstrong Custer," I said.
"That would've been choice," Kimberly said.
"You being part Sioux, and all . . ."
"Anyway, I'm glad you came."
"We thought you might be able to use some help," Billie told her. "Even if you didn't want us getting in your way."
"Hey, I'm sorry about that. I got a little carried away down there. Anyway, as it turns out, you don't have to worry about me going nuts and torturing the hell out of Wesley. The bastard's dead."
"Whoa!" Connie said. (I think she meant it to mean, "Wow!")
"You found him?" I asked.
She nodded. "Let's go. I'll show you." She started leading us through the strange terrain to the right of the stream.
"What about Thelma?" Billie asked.
"No sign of her. But at least we don't have to worry about Wesley anymore."
We followed Kimberly on a zigzag route through a maze of boulders, bushes, trees, and rock piles that jutted up like miniature mountains. Though we walked through patches of shadows, there was more sunlight than we'd seen since the beach. A gentle breeze blew. It cooled my sweat, and kept the mosquitoes away.
"He's through here?" Connie asked. "How did you ever find him?"
"Took a while. This is upstream from the falls, like Thelma said. "
"But conveniently close to the falls and lagoon," I pointed out.
"Yep. To me, it seemed like just exactly the right sort of area. You could hide an army through here. So I scouted around for a while. I climbed that." She pointed at a tall cluster of rocks, not far ahead of us.
"You must've been here a while," Billie said.
"I hurried. I was pretty sure you guys would come after me, sooner or later, and I wanted a chance to find Wesley before you got here. Thought I'd find him alive."
"That's what we were afraid of," Connie told her. "That's how come we tried to hurry."
"What took you so long?"
"We had to go around the lagoon," I explained. "We couldn't swim across because of the ax."
"I'm glad you showed up when you did." She smiled. "Better late than never." She seemed quite cheerful. "Anyway, I was up there when I spotted something that looked like a pair of red panties on the ground. I figured they must be Thelma's. So what I did, I climbed down and went over to check them out. They were right by the edge of a chasm. I sort of peered over the edge, and there he was, down at the bottom. I could hardly believe my eyes. It was Wesley, all right."
"And he's definitely dead?" I asked.
"I'd say so. You'll see."
"So," Connie said, "now we only have to worry about Thelma." She glanced nervously at several nearby places where the gal might be lurking.
Billie said, "Don't worry. She isn't likely to jump all four of us."
"I can't figure her out," Kimberly said. "Looks like she told us the truth, after all, about killing Wesley. His head's bashed in, just like she said. So how come she went for Rupert with the razor? I mean, we figured Wesley must've sent her. That idea doesn't quite work anymore."
"She must've had some other reason," Billie suggested.
"You try putting moves on her?" Connie asked me.
I blushed and blurted, "No!"
Connie smirked. "Not your type?"
"Not even close."
"She must've had some kind of reason," Billie said, frowning slightly as if puzzled.
Kimberly smiled. "We'll just have to ask her when she shows up."
"I'm hoping she doesn't," I said. "If I never see her again in my whole life, it won't be too soon."
"She'll show up."
"What makes you so sure?" I asked.
"You've got her favorite razor." As Kimberly said that, she gave me a look and a smile that not only let me know she was kidding around, but somehow made me feel as if everything would turn out fine and dandy.
God, how I would love to see that look again, that smile.
Nevermore.
I shouldn't say that. I shouldn't give up hope. Not till I've seen her dead body with my own eyes. And even that might not make anything certain.
Plenty around here is not what it seems to be.
I've started drifting again. Procrastinating. The problem is, I just don't want to tell about what's coming. I've got to, though.
The Last Stand
We arrived at the chasm.
Maybe "chasm" isn't the best word to describe it -- this wasn't the Grand Canyon. It was actually a long, narrow space between a couple of neighboring rock formations. I would guess it was thirty feet long, and about six or eight feet from edge to edge at the place where we were approaching it. At one end, the gap narrowed down to nothing. At the other end, it stopped at the open air of a drop-off.
Striding toward the gap, Kimberly tossed her spear to the ground and rid herself of the tomahawk. She didn't halt, though, until she reached the very edge. There, she bent over as if taking a bow, and planted her hands on her knees.
The rest of us held back.
"He's down there?" Connie asked.
"Yep. Come and take a look."
"I'd just as soon not, if it's all the same."
Kimberly straightened up. Swiveling at the hips, she looked back at us. "Doesn't anyone want to see him?"
I raised my hand.
"Well, come on over here."
"I'll hold the ax for you," Billie told me, so I gave it to her.
Then I forced myself to step forward. The last thing I really wanted was to look at another dead guy. God knows, two were more than enough. But I needed to see for myself that Wesley was down there, and that he wasn't alive.
I couldn't force myself to walk all the way to the edge, as Kimberly had done. When I got close to it, I went down on all fours. I crawled the rest of the way.
The chasm wasn't nearly as deep as I'd feared.
Deep enough, though. Fifteen or twenty feet, probably, with very steep walls on both sides. The bottom looked like a flat but slightly tilted slab of rock. A few bushes sprouted here and there out of crevices in the walls and floor.
The whole time I was busy inspecting the dimensions and general appearance of the chasm, I was trying not to see the body.
It was just to the left down there.
I kept seeing it in my peripheral vision while I studied everything except the body.
I finally had to look, though.
He was sprawled face down. At first glance, he might've been a guy who'd drifted off to sleep while doing a bit of nude sunbathing. But his skin was a bad color. And he had a hole in his ass where there shouldn't be one -- in the middle of his right buttock. And the back of his head was a ruin of mashed, black mush. Also, his left leg showed a lot of bone from the knee down; some sort of animal must've been working on it -- an animal a lot larger than the ones I saw crawling on him and buzzing over him.
"You don't get much deader than that," Kimberly said. She was by my side, bent over, her hair hanging down so I couldn't see her face. It's just as well that her face was out of sight. It must've worn a look of delight. Because that's what I heard in her voice. "There's a fine example of what we call 'dead meat,'" she said.