"Give me a minute or so to put some distance behind us," Matt said. "But only if you can. If you feel yourself slipping away . . . go ahead and hit that sucker as hard as you can."
"I will," Jerry promised. He summoned up a faint smile. "Blood Mesa. Good name . . . for the place."
Matt was in awe of the strength that filled the mild-looking young man. The strength not only to fight off the effect of the altar but also to cling to life for this long when he was so badly hurt.
"So long, Jerry."
"So . . . long. Tell Dr. Dupre . . . I expect . . . a good grade."
"Top marks, Jerry."
Matt went up the ladder, taking the ax with him, and sprinted toward the place where he had left the others with the truck.
He had run several hundred yards when he slowed, stopped, and turned to look back. Nothing had happened. He drew in a deep breath. It seemed like he might have to go back and set off the dynamite himself after all. Maybe Jerry had died before he could strike the blow, or maybe Mr. Dark had finally taken complete control of him . . .
The blast was so powerful it jolted Matt off his feet and threw a ball of fire into the air above the pit. Matt rolled onto his belly and covered his head with his arms to protect it as chunks of rock began to rain from the night sky. Several of them thudded into him. They would leave bruises but no permanent injury.
Finally the last of the gravel that had been flung into the air by the blast stopped pattering down around him. He climbed to his feet. The explosion had destroyed the generator and the portable lights, too, so again only starlight washed down over the mesa.
Then the truck's headlights clicked on. Matt turned and walked toward them, gripped by a huge weariness that made him stumble and almost fall.
Then Ronnie was beside him, running to meet him and put an arm around him and help him. "You did it, Matt!" she said. "You did it! It's over."
"This time," Matt said, so quietly he didn't know if she heard him or not. He didn't say it again.
# # # # # #
Sheer terror was utterly exhausting. The other four survivors slept the rest of the night while Matt stood guard. When dawn had grayed the sky enough for him to see, he took the ax and went back to the excavation.
The blast had caused the pit to collapse on itself, burying not only the altar but also the bodies of Jerry, Hammond, Scott, April, and Stephanie. The toll was high, but it would have been higher if he hadn't been here, and if Jerry hadn't destroyed the altar. Maybe as high as the whole world.
He walked back to the trail that led down from the mesa. As he expected, he found that the broken remains of the Indian's Head blocked the path. It would take heavy equipment to clear the trail.
But a person could slide through some of the narrow gaps and climb over the other obstacles. The interstate was only three miles away. Ronnie and the other three survivors could walk it, especially if they got an early start before the day got too hot. They would be footsore when they got there, but they would be alive.
He went back to the truck and got his duffel bag. The others were still asleep. He changed out of his blood-drenched clothes, put the ax in the bag, and closed it, slung it over his shoulder. It would be better for all concerned if he was well away from here before they woke up.
His luck ran out as he was about to walk away. Ronnie pushed herself up on an elbow and whispered, "Matt?"
He motioned for her to be quiet. She got to her feet, and they walked out of earshot of the others before she said, "What do you think you're doing? You're going to abandon us here, after everything we've been through? You can't just walk away."
"I have to. The sort of thing we've just been through . . . that's my life now, and it's better if I face it alone."
"What are we supposed to do?"
"Walk back to the interstate and call for help. If I was you, though, I wouldn't tell the authorities exactly what happened up here. Just tell them it was, I don't know, a drunken brawl that got out of hand."
"With eleven people dead, do you really think anybody will believe that?"
"They're more likely to believe that than the truth," Matt said.
Ronnie wasn't able to argue with that. She just stared at him for a long moment and then said, "Damn it, Matt, it's not fair. You save our lives, you stop God knows what sort of even worse thing from happening, and then you just walk away and don't tell anybody?"
"That's the way it needs to be. The way it has to be."
"It's just not fair," Ronnie said again.
Matt thought about everything that had happened to him in the past year and said, "Not much in life is."
# # # # # #
An hour later, an elderly rancher in a pickup stopped to give him a lift as he trudged along the two-lane blacktop.
"Where you headed, son?" the old-timer asked.
Matt nodded toward the windshield. "Thataway."
THE END
If you liked James Reasoner's THE BLOOD MESA, you might also enjoy his acclaimed novel UNDER OUTLAW FLAGS, now available as an ebook. Here's the prologue and first two chapters…
PROLOGUE
1965
It was a mom-and-pop grocery store, too small to be air-conditioned, but the shade was still a welcome relief from the blazing heat of the Texas summer afternoon outside. The man stopped just inside the screen doors, pushed back his hat, and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket to mop away the sweat from his forehead. His tie hung loose around his throat, his coat was slung over one arm, and the sleeves of his white shirt were rolled up. He looked around. A square formed by waist-high wooden counters filled the center of the big room. The cash register, an old-fashioned model with a pull handle on the side, stood behind the counter facing the doors. In front of that same counter was a red metal box shaped like a coffin, with COCA-COLA written on it in white letters. A metal spinner rack stood at the right end of the soda pop box, and a sign on top of it read HEY KIDS! COMICS! Two little boys were turning the rack slowly, studying intently the array of colorful comic books displayed on it. The fat one wore glasses that constantly slipped down on his nose and had to be pushed back up.
Shelves full of canned goods, bread, bags of flour and sugar, cans of motor oil and dog food, and bags of potato chips ran to the right and left, forming precise aisles. Shovels and fishing poles hung on hooks on the right half of the store's rear wall. To the left, with room to walk behind it, sat a refrigerated, glass-fronted butcher case full of hamburger meat, steaks, ribs, and chickens. The door that led to storage rooms was in the center of the rear wall. Somewhere back there, a swamp cooler banged and rattled.
"Howdy," said the man who sat on a stool behind the cash register. "Come on in out of the heat, mister. What can I do for you?"
The stranger moved deeper into the almost cavern like interior of the store. He was slender, dark, intense, a vivid contrast to the burly, genial man behind the counter. The storekeeper's hair had been brown once, but nearly all of that hue had faded away with the years, leaving the thinning strands silver. The stranger figured the storekeeper was at least seventy.
"Mighty hot outside," the stranger said.
"Got popsicles in the box back here," the storekeeper said, turning on the stool to gesture at another metal box next to the rear counter. "They'll cool you right off. Got Cokes in the front box if you'd rather have that."
"Thanks." The stranger hung his coat on the back of a wicker chair at the left end of the Coke box and dropped his hat on the seat. He lifted the lid of the box, reached in, pulled a six-ounce bottle from the bed of crushed ice. An opener was attached to the front of the box. He used it to pry the cap off, then lifted the bottle quickly to his mouth as the drink inside began to well out of the neck. The stranger sucked greedily on it, then sighed in appreciation as he lowered the bottle a moment later. "Half-frozen. Can't beat that."