"How come," said Lionel, "that Cowboy talk like he does? He don' sound like no brothuh."
Jamaal looked him over before answering. Not many blacks talked like Lionel anymore. It was out of style, though he tended to slip into it himself a bit when talking with Lionel. "Cowboy's from Wyoming," Jamaal said. "He's a cowboy. He didn't grow up around brothers, except his family. Everyone else was white around there."
Lionel already knew Cowboy's origins. Simply, his considerations of race didn't allow for such anomalies—for any anomalies. He couldn't handle them; forgot them, or failing that, ignored them. Now he dismissed Cowboy from his mind. "We should have killed 'em last night. Found out what room they in, snuck up there and killed 'em then."
"We're supposed to kill them where no one will know," Jamaal said patiently. "If we can. That's why Terence hired Cowboy. Seppanen's a shark, you know that. Works for Prudential, and Terence doesn't need Prudential on our ass. That's why, when I heard Seppanen and that ranger, I decided we'd do it down there." He gestured toward the canyon. "Down there, if Cowboy does his job right, nobody'll find the bodies. And the rangers won't know they never came out. Likely Prudential won't even know they were here, unless Seppanen called and told them. And why would he do that? He's on vacation."
Jamaal was as much reviewing things for himself as talking to Lionel. Terence would like the way he was handling it, he told himself. There'd likely be a bonus for him when they got back.
Meanwhile Lionel sulked. "That's roach shit, bein' scared of Prudential."
"When you tell Terence he's roach shit," Jamaal said dryly, "do it when I'm not there. You'll be lucky if the worse he does is whup your ass. He's not bein' roach shit; he's bein' smart. He's avoidin' hassles with no profit in them."
Lionel subsided, scowling, then looked toward Harley, who was smoking a cigarette in the driver's seat. "Hey, gook eyes," Lionel said, "what you thinkin' about?"
Harley didn't even turn around. "You don't want to know."
Lionel bridled at that. "What you mean, I don't want to know? I asked you, didn't I?
"Lionel!" Jamaal snapped, "shut your mouth." Jamaal wished he'd argued when Terence had assigned the man to him. Lionel had tried repeatedly to pick a fight with Harley. Without his own repeated intervention, they'd have fought by now, and one of them might be dead.
Cowboy was worth ten Lionels. Jamaal had no doubt that Cowboy would kill the Seppanens that day, and leave them where they'd never be found.
* * *
With the ravens gone, Tuuli and Martti set out again. The trail dropped down off the crest along a tilted unconformity, a ledge widened by Barney's pick and shovel till it reached a slope less precipitous. Then it wound down into a broad cove that fanned into a set of descending draws divided by low broken ridges. Martti and Tuuli were far below the rim now, and the morning was no longer chill. In places the ground was clothed with brush, and there were piles of boulders. Once they startled a small bevy of mule deer, and once a family of desert bighorns that clattered noisily away across a scree slope. Lizards scooted out of their way. Twice they found their path dead-ending: They'd gone astray onto a game trail—deer or bighorn or wild burro—and had to backtrack.
Finally they came to a sandy canyon bottom, nearly level among towering rocks, and as narrow as an alley. After a little, it opened onto a low dune, with the Colorado River surging past, wide and powerful, a violent, booming rapids not far upstream. They stood on the dune, watching, holding hands again. After a minute, Martti looked at Tuuli.
"Shall we eat lunch?"
She nodded, smiling. Lunch might not have been the best word for it—her watch said 10:14—but they'd started at daybreak. When they'd eaten, they lay down to rest before beginning the steep hike back. Then she grinned, run her fingers along his thigh and kissed him, and instead of napping, they made love on a poncho, the sun warm on their limbs and bodies.
Afterward they lay there for a bit, Martti looking at her covertly. Her eyes were closed, her lips parted and smiling. She'd definitely changed. When she'd first come back from Long Valley, he'd thought it wouldn't last, but it had. She didn't get mad as easily; he wasn't sure she got mad at all anymore. And he—somehow he didn't put his foot in his mouth as much as he used to. It was as if her new patience, her new tolerance, had rubbed off on him.
Except it wasn't patience or tolerance; not with her. It was more basic than that, he told himself. It was as if—as if she had a new viewpoint. That almost whatever he did was fine with her. Like his flareup at the ranger, the day before. She laughed more these days, too, a lot more. She was more demonstrative, and more admiring in a comfortable way. Certainly she was more affectionate. A year earlier she'd never have initiated sex on a sand dune.
Sex was better too, their foreplay more relaxed, more loving. He felt less urgent, and . . . It was as if she could read his sensations as well as her own, building him, holding him, even slacking him a bit till she was ready, then—crescendo and climax! It seemed to him now that that, in fact, was exactly what she did—read his sensations.
After a few minutes they dressed again, then shouldered their packs and started back. Soon they were climbing. It was hot, 5,000 feet below the rim, perhaps 90 or 95 degrees, and they sweated. But it wasn't a problem. Mostly they were shaded by the rim high above, the humidity was low, and he kept to a pace that it seemed to him they could hold all the way, given occasional breaks.
At one point, hiking along a winding stretch through thick patchy brush, they rounded a turn to find five wild burros staring intently at them, not a hundred feet distant. For several seconds both sides stood unmoving, then the jack snorted and wheeled, and all five galloped off, disappearing into the brush.
It was on the easier stretches, topographically speaking, that Martti had the most difficulty. These tended to be brushy and have numerous game trails, making it harder to distinguish the trail proper. Often he wasn't sure, and on several occasions they'd cliffed out or otherwise dead-ended, having to backtrack.
They were perhaps halfway up, and he was beginning to feel he was off the trail for sure, when he topped a rise and saw the proper trail well off to his left. With a seated rifleman watching it, some hundred yards from where he stood! Martti hissed for silence, holding his hand back to warn Tuuli as he knelt, then slowly lowered himself onto his belly. The man, a black, was downslope of them and a dozen yards to their side of the trail, sitting against a tan rock, inconspicuous in a khaki shirt and faded jeans. He was watching downtrail, his rifle across his knees. From where he sat, he must have seen them half a mile back, hiking along a ledge there, and was waiting for their reappearance at much closer range. Even here they were within his peripheral field of vision. If his attention hadn't been so strongly on the trail, he might well have spotted Martti.
Lucky I lost it, Martti thought. He examined the terrain above the man, for the possibility of bypassing him. There wasn't any. Whether deliberately or by chance, the man was well situated to prevent it. Behind him the east wall of the canyon became too steep to walk on, except for the trail itself.
Besides, Martti told himself, he's not here alone. Not if he's mafia. There'll be more of them above, probably two or three more, probably watching our van.
The van! He'd left his gun in it! He was so used to carrying his Walther, it was natural to react as if armed. He tapped Tuuli's shoulder and they backed away on their bellies till they could stand unseen. The rifleman must expect them any minute, would soon get restless, perhaps start looking around.
Martti removed his pack, took out his binoculars, and looked the man over, then put them back.
"We need to go back to the river," he murmured, "and see if we can get out of here by working our way along the shore. We're not going to bypass this guy. The tricky part will be that ledge section we crossed back there. He'll see us for sure, and we'll be going the wrong direction for him. And his rifle's got a scope and silencer." In answer, Tuuli took off her pack and, reaching inside it, brought out her Lady Colt. Martti stared, not at it but at her. She'd never liked carrying it, yet here, where it was against the law . . .