“If Zelda were a really cool van,” I said, “she’d be equipped for aquatic operations.”
“Oh, like one of the Ducks from World War Two?” Temi asked.
“I hardly think that’s necessary in Arizona.” Simon shot me a dirty look. “And Zelda is really cool. You can start sleeping outside if you don’t think so.”
“My apologies. I was obviously mistaken.” I nodded toward the windshield. “Are we stuck? I don’t wish to offend Zelda, but I notice we’re not moving.”
“We stopped because they stopped.” Simon turned off the engine.
The soft calls of birds and the rustling of grasses stirred by the wind replaced the noise.
“Anything else interesting about this river?” Simon asked. “Old mine shafts or caves full of rusty treasures?”
I poked at my phone, but that didn’t make the reception any better. “I wish I’d known we were coming here; I could have looked it up before. From memory… there is some folklore about it. An old saying about how if you drink the water, you won’t be able to tell the truth again.”
“Good thing the fridge is full of Mountain Dew,” Simon said.
“I think I’d rather take my chances with the river,” I said, drawing another dirty look from Simon, though Temi was nodding behind me. I hadn’t seen her drink anything more deleterious than a tea latte. She’d probably gotten used to a strict diet as an athlete.
“They’re definitely not moving.” Simon rolled down his window and stuck his head out. “I don’t hear the engines either.”
“It must be hiking time,” I said.
We did that on occasion, so we had packs in the back with first-aid kits, flashlights, munchies, and the usual supplies. I threw a couple of bottles of water into my sedate tan pack, an old REI model I’d found at Goodwill. Simon tossed cans of Mountain Dew into his denim sack, an item he’d also found at Goodwill, though he’d taken it upon himself to decorate it. Now it was adorned with patches that endorsed everything from Metallica and Savatage to the Serenity and Stargate Command.
After packing his bag, he took his MacBook to the front of the van, set it up on the dashboard, and started fiddling. I fastened my whip onto my belt and, after a moment of consideration, grabbed the bow and arrows too.
“I’m afraid I didn’t come prepared for a hike,” Temi said. “Or a hunt.”
I dug a canteen out of a cupboard and filled it from a five-gallon jug. “That’s all you need. We’re not going to be out here long.”
“How do you know?” Simon asked. “They might be heading off on a sixty-mile pack trip.”
“Good for them. We’re not going that far.” I pointed skyward. “We’ll follow for a while, but we’re getting out of this forest before it gets anywhere near dark. I don’t want to see our genetically engineered whatchamacallit again.”
“I concur,” Temi said before Simon could sputter out a protest.
I eyed her with new speculation. “Oh, I like this. With an odd number of people, we suddenly have the ability to settle disputes with a vote, a vote that can’t end up in a stalemate.”
“Wait a minute,” Simon said. “We need to discuss this. As a new member, her vote shouldn’t count for as much as mine.”
“It only needs to count for a hundredth of yours, so long as it can be added to my full vote.” I smiled and opened the van door.
“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all…”
Still smiling, I shoved him out the door. “You should have thought of that before arguing to have her join the team.”
I stepped outside after Simon. The quiet of the forest reminded me that we weren’t alone out here, and it wouldn’t do to be overheard. We didn’t have a fire extinguisher this time, and I wasn’t about to start shooting at people with my bow. I didn’t like the idea of facing the two riders in another brawl anyway. Eleriss had been pleasant enough, if odd, when I’d talked to him the night before, but I didn’t think that politeness would last if he found us stalking him.
We dropped our chitchat for the hike to the motorcycles, each of us scanning the path ahead and the surrounding trees, watching for movement. Fresh tire prints dented the earth between the rounded rocks that dotted the riverbed. Tracking them was easy; following the men after they dismounted would be more challenging, especially since we wouldn’t want to get close enough to be seen.
After ten minutes of walking, a glint in the brush caught my eye. I pointed, and we found the black bikes hidden there. I wondered if the riders had known someone was following them, or if they’d simply taken a precaution.
“This is as far as I can track them.” Simon waved his phone-we’d caught up with the little dot that represented the device he’d glued in one of the tailpipes.
Given that my reception had disappeared a while back, I wondered if he’d been guessing a little as to their location in the end. Or maybe his app simply required less juice than a web browser. We hunted around for a moment, our faces toward the dusty earth.
“Found their prints.” I pointed to the ground and led the way. With brush clogging the riverbanks, there wasn’t much chance of the riders leaving the bed, but I kept my eyes open for the possibility anyway. Other than the footprints, the pair traveled lightly over the earth. I didn’t notice any broken branches or snapped twigs such as one expected in the wake of large animals and careless humans.
As we continued down the dry riverbed, I grew more conscious of the passing of time. I checked the clock on my phone often. My willingness to be out here was predicated on the monster’s history of nocturnal attacks. For all that I wanted to solve some of the mysteries around Eleriss and Jakatra, I wasn’t willing to die to do so.
“What’s that?” Temi whispered, pointing ahead.
Something dark lay between some rocks. I crept forward, pausing to note the fresh cup of a boot in the dust, then stopped. A bunch of weeds had been cut back, revealing a hole in a stretch of granite, its edges worn smooth. The sound of rushing water drifted up from within.
“Our underground river,” I said.
Simon peered into the hole. About two feet in diameter, it would be an unpleasant space to crawl into. I doubted the cold water waiting at the bottom would be pleasant either. The sun was still out, but it had moved behind the trees, and I didn’t fancy the idea of air-drying my clothing. Arizona or not, it was October, and we were five thousand feet above sea level.
I tried to pick up the tracks on the other side of the hole, but the earth there didn’t hold any footprints. I circled the area in case the riders had climbed out of the wash. Nothing.
“Why do I have a feeling they went down there?” Temi asked.
Simon looked to me.
“Because… I think they have.” Shaking my head, I returned to the hole. “How could they know if there’s air to breathe down there? You can’t tell from here. The water might fill the entire space.”
“A river should be low at this time of year,” Simon said.
“Maybe so, but I don’t relish the idea of plopping down there and seeing where the flow takes me.”
“It could be a trap too,” Temi said. “If they knew we were following them and wanted to… get rid of us, they could lead us to believe they’d gone down there when all they’d truly done was hidden their tracks and continued on.”
“That’s true. I’ve only tracked animals.” And not that many of them, I admitted to myself. “They don’t do things like sweeping branches across the sand to rub out their prints.”
Simon dug into his pack and pulled out a flashlight. He flopped onto his belly and peered into the hole.
“Still,” I added, “I didn’t get the impression that they wanted to do us any harm. The chatty one warned me to leave town.”
“This hole looks like it opens up before it hits the water,” Simon said. “Though I don’t know if there’s anywhere to walk on the sides.”