Canyon Sacrifice (28 page)
Authors: Scott Graham
Chuck peered through the fence into the amphitheater. In the murky gray of pre-dawn, he spotted no movement on the stage or in the seating area. No light came from the windows set in the concrete-block walls of the twin storage buildings at the rear of the amphitheater. The site's gravel parking lot was empty. The only sound was that of the strengthening morning breeze coursing through the branches of the piñons and junipers outside the perimeter fence.
Three outward-leaning strands of barbed wire atop the fence made clambering up and over the chain-link barrier impossible. The site's entrance gate, also eight feet high and topped by barbed wire, was closed by a length of looped and locked chain where the entry drive reached the gravel lot.
Chuck's goal was to be hidden and waiting somewhere inside the festival site before the kidnapper or kidnappers showed up. He followed the perimeter fence to the edge of the cliff at the east end of the festival site, hoping to swing around the far side of the fence and into the site where the fence met the lip of the canyon. Rather than come to an end at the top of the cliff, however, the perimeter fence made a 180-degree turn out and over the precipice, topped by three tilted strands of barbed wire, to end bolted into the rock face eight feet below the top of the cliff.
The cliff itself extended without a break from the east perimeter fence past the rear of the open performance stage to the west perimeter fence, which also was bolted out and over the edge of the cliff fifty yards away. The waist-high railing at the back of the stage followed the top of the cliff both directions until it connected up with the two ends of the perimeter fence. A sandy shelf, dotted with boulders and brush, extended from the base of the uppermost, hundred-foot cliff horizontally for thirty feet before a second cliff plunged deeper into the shadow-filled canyon.
Chuck could attempt to enter the site by climbing down one side of the inverted fence and up the other, using the cliff face for traction to overcome the tilted strands of barbed wire, but doing so would require him to negotiate the strands of wire while hanging a hundred feet off the ground. Before he could decide if he was capable of such a maneuver, he heard a car approaching along Desert View Drive from the direction of the village. The vehicle slowed, turned onto the gravel road leading to the festival site, and headed his way.
His decision made for him, he clambered down the links of the overhanging fence as fast as he dared. He dropped his feet below the base of the inverted fence and lowered himself until he dangled from its bottom, his hands positioned between barbs on the lowest strand of wire. He pivoted his body and reached blindly upward with his left hand to begin his climb
up the inside of the fence, scrabbling with his feet on the cliff wall. His hand closed over a barb on one of the strands of wire, reopening the wound on his palm. Stifling a cry of pain, he repositioned his left hand and hauled himself upward, grabbing the chain-link fence above the strands of barbed wire with his right hand. He pulled himself hand over hand up the inside of the fence, his injured palm throbbing, until his feet regained their purchase on the bottom of the inverted section of fence.
He clung to the fence, struggling for breath, and edged his head above the top of the cliff in time to catch sight of the oncoming car as it raced up the entrance road toward the festival site. The vehicle, visible in the growing daylight behind the beams of its headlights, was Robert Begay's hulking white Suburban.
5:30 a.m.
The headlights of Robert's car swept across the parking lot. Chuck ducked his head below the top of the cliff, holding on to the inverted fence, his heart pounding. He waited for the Suburban to come to a stop at the entrance to the site and for Robert to climb out and unlock the gate. Instead, however, the already speeding vehicle accelerated further. Gravel spewed and a solid crunch echoed across the festival site as the Suburban smashed through the chained entrance.
Chuck poked his head up in time to see the Suburban tear across the gravel lot with the gate, ripped free of its moorings, draped across the car's hood. The instant Robert's car disappeared behind the storage buildings at the rear of the amphitheater, Chuck scrambled up and over the top of the cliff. He ducked between the bars of the waist-high railing at the edge of the precipice and sprinted around the amphitheater, his daypack slapping his back. The Suburban skidded to a stop out of sight on the far side of the buildings, sending the gate clanging to the ground. Chuck flattened himself face-first against the wall of the nearest of the two concrete-block buildings and listened, trembling, as a pair of car doors opened, then slammed shut.
He tilted his head to peek through a window in the side of the building as snippets of conversation reached him over the sound of the car's still-idling engine. He leaned his head farther, aligning his view through the window with another window set in the rear wall of the storage building to allow a distorted view of the parking lot. Peering through the two windows, he saw a man standing in front of the Suburban, his back to Chuck.
Chuck caught most of the words as the man said with a Latino accent, “I won't do nothing of the sort,
cabron
. . . do as
you're told . . . give her back . . . you and me both know . . .”
A second man, facing Chuck, spoke: “You, you, you . . . you're the one who . . .”
Chuck gasped. The man was Marvin, not Robert, Begay.
Stunned, Chuck gripped the lower frame of the window for support. He watched as the young tribal official raised a pistol and aimed it at the Latino man. Even in the half-light of dawn, Chuck saw that Marvin's eyes displayed callous indifference.
The Latino man spoke with more force: “You're out of your mind . . . never let you . . . can't even . . .”
“You don't get it,” Marvin replied. His voice was flat, in-flectionless. “There's no way you can understand, understand, understand.”
The Latino man held out his hand and stepped toward Marvin. “You have no idea what you're doing.” His voice was stern and controlled, yet vibrating with rage. “Give it to me, to me, right now. Do I have toâ”
Marvin's hand twitched and a gunshot sounded, the same sharp, small-caliber crack as at the railroad wye. A puff of smoke rose from the barrel of Marvin's pistol. He fired a second shot, then a third.
The Latino man grunted. He stumbled backward and fell, out of Chuck's sight, to the gravel surface of the parking lot.
Chuck ducked away from the aligned windows before Marvin looked up from the downed man. Swinging his pack to the ground, Chuck clawed inside it until he came up with Donald's .45. A door to the Suburban creaked open, the car's engine died, and the door closed. A second door opened. Quaking with fear, Chuck looked back through the two windows in time to see Marvin wrench Carmelita from the back seat of the Suburban.
“Come on, you,” Marvin commanded. Carmelita leaned against him, her eyes closed. Marvin shook her by the arm, causing her to open her eyes.
“You're hurting me!” she cried.
“Shut it,” Marvin said. He hauled Carmelita by the elbow toward the amphitheater, his pistol in his free hand. The two disappeared from Chuck's view. Their footsteps crunched on gravel as they crossed the parking lot to the walkway that led between the storage buildings and into the amphitheater.
Chuck scrambled along the opposite side of the building and emerged at the back of the amphitheater seating area, Donald's gun in hand. He readied himself for the instant Marvin and Carmelita would come into view at the rear of the amphitheater. Then he remembered: he'd never reloaded Donald's gun after emptying it at the railroad wye.
Before Marvin and Carmelita exited the passageway, Chuck fled back around the building, his pack in one hand and the .45 in the other. Behind the building, he came upon the Latino man sprawled on his back in the gravel parking lot. Chuck did not recognize the man, whose arms and legs were askew, his head cocked to one side. The man was in his early thirties. He wore bright white sneakers, low-slung jeans, and a loose dress shirt opened to expose a pair of gold chains around his neck. Three crimson spots blossomed through the silky fabric of his shirt, forming a bloody triangle in the center of his chest.
Chuck hurried to the man's side. A glance at the passageway between the buildings told him the angle was such that he could not see all the way down the passage to the amphitheater, and was likewise shielded from Marvin's view. Chuck dropped his pack and Donald's gun, knelt over the downed man, and put his fingers to the man's neck, searching for a pulse but finding none.
The man's eyes were open and unblinking, adding to the look of surprise on his brown, clean-shaven face. Blood, dark red in the early-morning light, spread slowly through the gravel from beneath his body. Chuck dug his fingers deeper into the man's neck but still failed to pick up a pulse. The only sounds
were the low moan of the morning wind and the ticking of the Suburban's engine as it cooled.
Chuck tugged the neck of the man's dress shirt to one side. There, running along the man's collarbone, was a string of Chinese letters in the fashion of bold brush strokes. Chuck pulled the neck of the shirt the other direction, uncovering a second string of matching Chinese letters tattooed on the man's collarbone. Chuck returned his fingers to Miguel's neck. Nothing. The girls' father was dead.
Chuck rose. Should he attempt to ease open one of the Suburban's doors and call for help on the radio? Would the arrival of the park's ranger corps at the festival site convince Marvin to give up? Or would the rangers' arrival make matters worse?
A terrified wail rose from the amphitheater. Chuck spun away from the Suburban at Carmelita's cry. He retrieved his pack and Donald's gun and sprinted back along the far side of the storage building, coming to a halt just shy of the amphitheater. He set the pack on the ground and reached inside it, shoving aside the towel-wrapped sack containing the necklaces and rooting around until he came up with Donald's extra magazine.
He stood with his back to the wall of the building, holding his breath, the gun in his right hand and the magazine, streaked with melted yogurt, in his left. The sound of two pairs of footsteps came from the direction of the performance stage, Marvin's steps sure and steady, Carmelita's half-dragging. The footsteps halted. Carmelita whimpered pitifully.
“I told you to shut it!” Marvin bellowed.
Chuck squeezed the magazine release button and sprung the empty magazine from the handle of Donald's gun, sending the magazine clattering to the concrete apron that surrounded the storage building. He wiped the fresh magazine on his shirt and slid it into the gun with a well-oiled click, then slung his pack back over his shoulder and stepped around the corner of
the building to the head of a side aisle leading through the seating area to the festival stage.
Marvin stood in the center of the stage with Carmelita clutched at his side. He was broad and solid. Carmelita was tiny beside him. Marvin stood with his back to the amphitheater's seating area, looking out over the canyon through the open rear of the stage.
Chuck took a few tentative steps down the side aisle toward the foot of the stage, Donald's .45 outstretched before him. Marvin did not move. Afraid of what Marvin might do to Carmelita if surprised, Chuck spoke.
“Let her go, Marvin,” he demanded.
Marvin pivoted to face Chuck, turning Carmelita with him. He gripped Carmelita's elbow at his side with one hand while pressing the barrel of his slender pistol to her head with his other. The brown skin of Marvin's wide face was tight across his cheekbones. His eyes gleamed. “Chuck,” he said, a dark smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “You came.”
“I swear to God,” Chuck said, aiming Donald's heavy gun at Marvin's face, “I'll blow your brains out.”
“Now, now, Chuck. No need, need, need for anger. Besides,” Marvin gave Carmelita a shake, drawing another muted cry from her, “you won't do any such, such, such thing.” He kept the muzzle of his pistol pressed against her temple.
Marvin had worn pressed slacks and dress shirts to every one of his meetings with Chuck throughout the two years of the transmission-line contract. This morning, however, Marvin wore moccasins, fringed leather leggings, and a long, light-colored, smock-like shirt gathered with a thick leather belt at his waist, just as he had as a youthful protester at the Marburys' burial-shroud press conference ten years ago. A headband of red cloth pressed his close-cropped black hair to the sides of his head. He licked his lips, making an odd smacking noise.
The odor of gunpowder from his just-fired gun mixed with the pungent desert smell of the morning breeze sweeping across the amphitheater.
“Chuck?” Carmelita asked. She wore her new hiking boots and favorite blue sweats. She slumped at Marvin's side, the top of her head rising just above the tribal official's waist. Her nearly shuttered eyelids, slack jaw, and trembling legs indicated she was drugged. Chuck hoped she had been unconscious when the Suburban had arrived at the festival site and therefore hadn't witnessed her father's murder.
“Shut up,” Marvin snapped at her. He yanked her roughly by the arm.
“I'm here, Carm,” Chuck told her, seeking to convey confidence he didn't feel, given the fact that Marvin had his gun pressed to Carmelita's head, a gun he'd used minutes ago to kill Miguel. “Everything's gonna be okay,” Chuck continued. He took a step forward, Donald's .45 still leveled at Marvin in the growing morning light.