Gideon's Corpse

33

Gideon desperately gripped the cantle of the saddle as the horse leapt off the rimrock and plunged down a steep, soft embankment, bounding down the slope in little more than a controlled fall. When the horse hit the bottom he staggered and skidded in the sand, throwing both riders forward, the three of them almost going down. But under Alida’s expert handling, the animal recovered and she brought him to a halt, covered with sweat and trembling.

“We’ve got to keep going,” Gideon said.

Ignoring him, Alida patted Sierra’s neck, leaning over murmuring soothing words into his ear. In the background, Gideon could hear approaching cars, roaring and bouncing along the prairie above and beyond the edge of the canyon, out of sight.

She straightened up. “I’m surrendering you.”

“They’re going to shoot both of us.”

“Not when they see me with a white flag.” She grabbed her shirt and with one violent motion ripped it off, the snaps popping.

“Oh my,” said Gideon.

“Fuck you.” She held up the shirt, waving it as a white flag. Gideon made a grab for it but she stood up in the stirrups, holding it beyond his reach.

Gideon looked over his shoulder. He could hear the cars approaching the edge of the canyon, the big V8s roaring. There were shouts, slamming doors, and a head appeared above the rimrock about three hundred yards from them.

“We surrender!” Alida cried, waving the shirt. “Don’t shoot!”

A shot rang out, kicking up sand in front of them.

“What the hell?” She waved the shirt frantically. “Are you blind? We give up!”

“They don’t get it,” Gideon said. “We’d better get out of here.”

The horse began prancing as bullets kicked up sand around them. Thank God, Gideon thought, they were shooting with handguns. “Go, damn it!”

“Shit,” Alida muttered, giving the horse her heels. Sierra took off. More heads began appearing along the south rim. They galloped along the dry bed of the wash, running the gauntlet as shots continued to ring out from above.

“Hang on.” She dodged and weaved the horse as they thundered along, making a more difficult target. Shots whined by and Gideon hunched his back, expecting at any moment to feel a bullet hit home.

And yet—almost miraculously—within minutes they had outrun the shooters and were still in one piece. Alida slowed the horse to a canter, put her shirt back on, and they continued up the dry bed of the wash as it narrowed into a ravine between two steep hills, which—Gideon noted—would block any advance by FBI agents in cars.

She dropped down into a trot.

“We need to keep up the pace,” Gideon said.

“I’m not killing my horse for you.”

“They’re shooting to kill, you realize.”

“Of course I realize it! What in hell did you do?”

“They seem to think I’m one of the terrorists, the ones with the nuke.”

“And are you?”

“Are you nuts? This investigation has been a balls-up from the beginning.”

“They seem pretty damn convinced.”

“You yourself said they were stupid.”

“I said you were stupid.”

“You never said I was stupid.”

“Yeah, but I was thinking it. And you keep proving it.”

The wash got steeper as it mounted the foothills of the Jemez Mountains, its bed strewn with black boulders. The horse picked his way among the rough terrain with care.

“Look, I’m no terrorist,” Gideon said.

“I’m so reassured.”

They rode in silence for half an hour as the wash climbed into the mountains, the terrain getting ever rougher, the piñon and juniper trees giving way to towering ponderosa pines. As the wash divided into tributaries, they took one after another, until they were in a maze of small ravines surrounded by slopes of heavy timber.

“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” Alida said. “You’re going to release me. I’ll head back and you go on.”

“I can’t. We’re cuffed together—remember?”

“You can break the chain. Pound it off with a rock.”

After a moment, Gideon said, “Right now I can’t let you go. I need your help.”

“You mean, you need a hostage.”

“I have to prove my innocence.”

“I can’t wait for that moment to turn you in.”

They rode on in angry silence. The sun was now almost straight overhead.

“We need to find water,” Alida said in a surly tone. “For my horse.”

Past noon, they topped out on a high forested ridge that overlooked the valley behind them.

“Hold on,” Gideon said. “I want to see what’s happening below.”

She halted the horse and Gideon turned around. Through the thick screen of trees he could see down into the grassy plains below. A huge cloud of smoke still billowed from the ruins of the movie set, with fire trucks parked all around, white jets of water arcing into the remains. His eye followed the course of Jasper Wash and there, at the beginning of the steep hills, he could make out rows of parked cars, people gathering, and what looked like a mass of searchers moving up the wash and fanning out. He could hear the faint baying of hounds. Horses were being unloaded from a large stock trailer and riders were mounting up, forming a posse of sorts.

“That’s some manhunt gearing up,” said Alida. “And listen to that—choppers.”

Sure enough, Gideon could hear a throbbing sound as three black specks resolved themselves in the distant blue sky.

“Wow, you are in some deep shit,” she said.

“Alida, I don’t know how to make you believe me, but I’m completely and totally innocent. This is a grotesque mistake.”

She stared at him, then shook her head. “Those people down there don’t think so.”

They headed down from the ridge, made their way across another ravine, and then climbed steeply through stands of Douglas fir, enormous boulders and fallen timber impeding their progress. They found themselves traversing the hillsides, back and forth, trying to get around rocks and downed timber.

“We’ve got to lose the horse,” said Gideon.

“No way.”

“He’s leaving too clear a track, and those dogs will be following the horse’s scent trail. If we turn him loose, he’ll divert them from us. And besides, the country’s getting too rough for a horse.”

“Forget it.”

“If we let Sierra go, he’ll get water sooner. There’s no water in this part of the Jemez. Especially in June.”

Alida was silent.

“He’s exhausted. He’s supporting two riders. He can’t go on like this. Look at him.”

Again she did not respond. The horse really was exhausted, soaking wet and all lathered up around his saddle skirts and breast collar.

“If they catch up to us, they just might shoot first, ask questions later. You saw what happened back there: those guys are so eager to kill me, they don’t care about a little collateral damage.”

They were working their way up a small tributary wash that ended in an enormous ridged mountainside, rising at steep angles all around them. There was no way to go but straight up.

Alida stopped the horse. “Get off,” she said curtly.

They dismounted awkwardly, shackled together. She untied the saddlebags and tossed them to Gideon. “You carry these.” She removed Sierra’s bridle and reins, tied them securely to the saddle horn, and slapped the horse on the butt.

“Go,” she said. “Get out of here. Go find yourself a drink.”

The horse, puzzled, stared at her, ears pricked.

“You heard me. Git!” She slapped the horse again and he trotted off, stopping once again to look back in puzzlement. She picked up a stick, waved it. “Hyah! Git!”

The horse turned and ambled away down the canyon.

She spat and turned to Gideon. “Now I really hate you.”