Wild Meat (35 page)

The first hundred yards of the road toward the sanctuary were recently paved
. At the end of the pavement, construction vehicles sat empty at the shoulder, and after that the surface was broken and pitted. They went around a long horseshoe to another plateau, and minutes later entered a series of tight, steeply climbing S-curves. On each side of the S-curves was a steep granite embankment topped by boulders that seemed to teeter there. It was like driving through a short, wiggly ravine, and they had to slow to a crawl.

Once p
ast the S-curves, Amy parked on the shoulder. From here the road became a long straightaway that climbed very gradually toward the horizon. Looking back the other way, they could see across the horseshoe to the zigzags that had brought them up the mountainside earlier. A lone vehicle had bypassed most of the turnoffs and was heading for the road to the sanctuary.

“Hand me the binoculars, please,” Amy said.

Stephen opened the glove compartment and pulled a set of field glasses from amid the clutter that Amy had transferred from car to car three times in the past week.

“How long do you think it took us to get here from where the road turned rough?” she said.

“About fifteen minutes. Why?”

“That car over there isn’t a car. It’s an open-top Land Rover. That’s what Sanderson drives when he makes these appearances. And I don’t see anyone coming along behind him.” She gestured behind her to the wiggly ravine. “That’s a perfect trap we just came through. You understand what I mean?”

Stephen paused a moment, then exhaled heavily. “Yeah, I understand.”

“Have you been thinking about what to do if this opportunity came up?”

“I’ve tried not to,” he said, “but yeah, I’ve been thinking about it.”

“Rita found out what time Sanderson was
expected to be here,” Amy said, “and I’ve sort of been trying to time our arrival to make this happen.”

“
And I’ve sort of been wondering if that’s what you had in mind.”

“You can take the car and head down the hill if you want. I’m not going to push you into this.”

Stephen took another long breath and shook his head. “My family’s been put in danger because of my actions. I’m even more obliged to fix this situation than you are.”

She steered back down through the S-turns and parked. Standing at the top of the embankment, she had a clear view of a lower section of the same road they were on.

“It’s perfect,” she said. “There’s that scenic overlook we passed, and the parking for it is behind those manzanita bushes. I’ll hide the car there now and come back up. When we’re done, we can just go right down the hillside and get the car.”

***

Stephen waited and watched the lower road while Amy drove back down to the overlook. In a few minutes the Camry came into view, then immediately pulled off and disappeared behind the bushes. Seconds later, Amy came racing across the road on foot and easily ascended the embankment to where Stephen waited.

“The bushes grow high on both sides of the parking spot,” she said. “So you can’t see the car from below or from up here.” Handing him Blondie’s 9mm, she said,  “Come on
,” and led the way up the rocky hillside to where they could look down into the wiggly ravine.

They stopped at a cleft between the rocks.

“Look,” she said. “You can sit on this rock and aim right through the cleft between these two big ones.”

Stephen sat where she’d indicated, test aimed through the cleft, and found that he had a good line of sight and plenty of room to move his arms.

“Windy up here,” Stephen said.

“I’ll wait at another spot up higher,” she said. “Otherwise, if we’re both down here, and we both miss, he’ll floor it around the next curve and be gone. But if I’m up there, and you miss, I’ll have a chance to get him while he’s coming in my direction. If I miss, I’ll still have an unobstructed line of fire for a few more seconds, because it’s a long straightaway up there after the S-turns end.”

“Okay,” he said. “But listen, if anyone’s in the car with him, we don’t shoot, okay?”

“Unless it’s Vendetti or Blondie or Gray-beard,” Amy said.

“Or Elf-beard,” Stephen said, looking at the cast on his hand. “If it’s any of those guys, we shoot them, too. But if it’s anyone we don’t know, or if another car catches up and follows him closely, then no shooting.”

“Okay,” she said. “And if we can’t do this thing here, then we go ahead with the original plan. Find where they keep the v-chimps and see what we can screw up.” She crouched close to Stephen and asked, “Still managing to be more angry than afraid?”

“It’s about an even split.” He set down his gun and squeezed the hand she’d laid on his shoulder.

“If you get him, come and tell me right away, because otherwise I’ll be waiting for him to come up the road. That’ll waste getaway time.”

***

A minute later they saw Sanderson’s Land Rover down on the lower road. There was no one riding with him, and no other vehicle followed his. He would come around and enter the wiggly ravine within a couple of minutes.

Amy clambered around the rocks and up the hillside. She squatted in position, gripping the latte burner, hoping to hear a shot, and hoping not to. In spite of the day’s dose of Vicodin, she was shaking, scared shitless, and figured Stephen was, too, in spite of how cool he’d seemed when she left him.

The wind shrieked against the rocks, past her head and sunglasses, and between her fingers when she tried cupping her ears. Its pitch fell and rose with the fierceness of the gusts. Amy wondered if she would be able to hear the Land Rover’s engine above it.

She stood and looked up the long, straight road that led higher, toward the chimp sanctuary. No cars. She turned and stared for a couple of seconds down into the wiggly ravine, where Sanderson would be coming if Stephen didn’t stop him.

The wind was getting louder, shrieking, its pitch varying in what sounded like a slow rhythm. It distracted her when she should have been concentrating.

That shriek got louder, and it was coming from higher up.

She stood and looked again at the long straightaway that lead further uphill. A
n angry whirl of dust was getting whipped up at the side of the road, then being blown by the wind into a long, high column, blasted at its top into feathery waft. Someone was driving this way on the shoulder, and coming fast.

The rising and falling shriek, too graceless for the wind, was a siren. The law was coming this way, using the soft shoulder to pass other vehicles. Coming straight to where she and Stephen were waiting with loaded firearms that they had no right to be carrying.

Amy raced back around the hillside and down toward Stephen. She had an urge to just toss her gun down on the rocks, but there was no time to thoroughly wipe it clear of prints. She put it in her pocket.

From the top of a boulder, she saw Sanderson’s Land Rover coming around the bend that would take it into Stephen’s line of fire. It was fifteen, maybe twenty yards from his hiding place. Looking down from the top of a granite wall opposite Stephen, Amy could just see his head and shoulders in the cleft between boulders across the road.

She shouted, but realized there was no way he could hear her over the wind. He didn’t seem to notice the siren yet. The sound was far less distinct down here.

There was no time for her to get around in back of him. Instead, she slid on her ass down into the road seven feet below. She rolled once, then ran
into the road, right in front of the Land Rover, and into Stephen’s line of sight, waving her arms over her head like a football referee.

Amy saw him lower the gun half a second before she heard Sanderson sliding sideways as he slammed on his brakes. She spared one quick look to her left and saw Sanderson pull his sunglasses off and stare at her. He was wearing one of the loose, off-white shirts that had become his Green Angel trademark look – the kind with the cuffs that flared out just enough to suggest some kind of robe.
His expression was exactly as it had been when he’d driven past her in the mountain pass on the logging road in Equatuer. Then, she’d been covered with mud, and now she was now coated in desert dust from her slide down the hill, but in her split-second glance at Sanderson, she felt she saw recognition in his face.

The siren was now audible down here in the wiggly ravine, even over the wind. Amy saw Stephen turn his head toward the harsh sound.

She climbed up the craggy wall to him, kicking and grasping at the rock faces, bloodying her fingers, knees, and shins.

“Come on,” she said, and dragged Stephen away from the road, into the cover of rocks and brush. “Don’t drop the gun. Fingerprints.”

The siren was nearly on top of them. A megaphone joined it,
letting out the electronic beeps and barks that help nudge unobservant drivers out of the way.

The megaphone howled briefly with feedback, then announced, “This area is under quarantine. Turn your vehicle around and leave the area at once. A Federally mandated quarantine is in effect for this area. Drive in reverse to the nearest wide area and turn around. You must leave immediately. Proceed all the way to the state highway. Do not stop
on the way.”

They could no longer see the road, but with no more angry announcements from the bullhorn, Amy guessed that Sanderson wasn’t arguing with whatever law enforcement personnel had
just unwittingly saved his life. Then they heard the Land Rover gun its engine and squeal. Sanderson was heading down the curve fast, probably rattled by the twin shocks of seeing Amy and then being ordered to leave.

“Let’s wait until they go by before we head for the car,” Amy said. “
Whatever’s happening, we don’t want the cops to see us going down this hill on foot. They might decide to stop and talk to us.”

They lay flat on the ground under a cluster of bushes and watched the lower road. Less than a minute later, Sanderson’s Land Rover went by. In a moment there came a slower-moving line of vehicles led by a sheriff’s car
: an unmarked SUV, a news van, several private cars, a small bus that might have held a tour group, then a yellow school bus, maybe kids on a field trip to witness a Hugh-Sanderson moment. Last came a park Ranger and the California Highway Patrol.

“Did all those people come to hear Sanderson’s line of bullshit?” Amy said.

The line of vehicles rounded one more bend and passed out of sight.

“We should leave the guns here,” Stephen said, “in case there’s a checkpoint or something.”

“The ammo, too.” Amy said.

They took all the spare ammo from the car
, wiped down the boxes, and buried them under mounds of rocks. They took apart the guns, wiped down all the surfaces they could reach, including each individual round in each magazine, before covering the weapons with more rocks. Then they slid down the embankment and ran to the Camry. Driving down the road, they heard a helicopter coming closer, louder, but it never moved into their line of sight.

Stephen said, “So, what do you think about some kind of disease breaking out here?”

“I think it’s no more an outbreak than what’s happening to the pets around my neighborhood,” Amy said. “I think Sanderson’s v-chimps got out of their pens almost as soon as they were moved here, and now people in the little hamlets just outside the national forest are suddenly acting crazy and getting skin rashes and everything else. Just like they did in the logging camp. People getting scratched and bitten by wild animals.”

“Sounds about right,” Stephen said. “And depending on how much the animals have been able to feed lately, some of them might have gone into starvation mode. They may have drained and killed a few people.”

They heard a loudspeaker barking away somewhere, too distant and muffled for them to make out the words.

“Do you think they’re still telling people to get out?” Stephen asked, “or are they already telling people they can’t leave?”

“Damn. I hadn’t thought of that.” She sped up. “We probably blew too much time stashing the guns.”

Fifteen minutes later
, she stopped the car, got out and crouched down.

She said, “I think we can see the turnoff to the state highway from the drop-off at the side of the road. But keep low. Get down and crawl. I mean literally crawl – on your elbows and toes.”

Lying on their stomachs at the cliff’s edge, looking across a small valley, they could see that their road ended about a mile further on. The entrance to the country highway was now guarded by police in white protective clothing. There were sheriffs, state police, and some big, ungainly vehicle with a logo they could not make out.

The sheriff’s SUV was pulled across the end of the road, so that no one would try and rush through the barrier.

“I think we are in for the duration,” Stephen said. “I don’t suppose we want to go down there and have to answer a bunch of questions, do we?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“Sanderson did look in my direction when you were climbing up toward me,” Stephen said. “I’m thinking there’s a slight but real chance that he saw the gun in my hand, in which case he’s probably telling someone about it right now.”