The Maze (8 page)

“Is it morning?” Rick asked.

“Close enough. Let's go.”

Maverick had flown, but in the wrong direction. They located him perched on top of one of the giants in the Doll House. “We can't afford to spook him,” Lon said. “If he flies any farther east, over the river, I doubt very much we'll ever see him again. He's definitely not ready for a major flight over a bottomless drop like that.”

“When would he be?”

“Couple of months, maybe. There's a lot to learn. Six or eight months from now, a hundred and fifty miles in a day would be no problem. Up to fifteen thousand feet in altitude, no problem.”

“Don't let him hear you. How long could he sit there?”

“Maybe he'll take some short hops. It's possible he
won't make a move until he's hungry again. I don't know what he's going to do.”

They returned to camp. Lon had fallen silent. Rick could tell that he was less and less optimistic about Maverick.

Lon turned to observing the others. By late morning the five were flying up and down the line of cliffs. Two landed by the new Double Juniper carcass. An aggressive golden eagle, possibly the one they'd seen close up from the blind, wouldn't let them feed.

Lon scribbled notes furiously, then started pecking out an official-looking report on his manual typewriter. He explained that each day he provided a summary of the birds' behavior and activities. “I'm typing up yesterday's report right now. It's my longest one yet, on account of Maverick.”

“Who reads 'em?”

“Anyone who's interested. People really like these field notes. They go out all over the country on the Internet.”

“The Condor Project has a home page?”

“Sure, like everybody else these days. Josh takes out my notes and updates the Maze site. After his next visit he'll enter all this stuff. A couple of weeks from now, kids in schools all around the country will be reading about Maverick's epic flight and misadventure.”

“Do they see pictures of the condors?”

“Sure. Andrea took lots of pictures the day we released 'em.”

“Is there a picture of you?”

Lon snorted. He thought that was funny. Something on the cliffs caught his eye; he reached for the binoculars. An eagle was dive-bombing a condor that was flying a hundred feet or so above the rim. The young condor maneuvered well enough to avoid being struck, then found a safe perch in the cliffs. A short while later it happened again.

“I'm getting pretty bent out of shape about the eagles,” Rick said.

“Don't,” Lon told him. “It's all a part of a condor's education.”

They drove back to the Doll House. Maverick had flown onto the flats among the formations. The flats were sprinkled with sagebrush, cactus, huge boulders, and numbers of pinyons and junipers—lots of hiding places for coyotes, according to Lon. “I can't risk him spending another night out in the open. I'm not going to lose that bird.”

“You're going to try to net him?”

Stroking his beard thoughtfully, Lon nodded.

For more than thirty minutes Rick watched Lon inching on his elbows and belly toward the condor. The net was nearly three feet in diameter, like a huge fishing net. Thirty feet remained between the man and the bird, with only open ground between them. Just when it
seemed this would go on forever. Rick detected a quick motion of the condor's head in Lon's direction. The bird was on to him. Suddenly Lon rose and started sprinting.

Maverick was hopping and then running as fast as he could, beating his great wings. Rick was amazed by his size, by his speed as well. Lon was running full out and was very close to being close enough to net the bird. With a horizontal leap, Lon lunged and came up with only air. Rick watched as Maverick, wings beating furiously, gradually gained altitude and flew off.

“That was quite a chase,” Rick said afterward. “You've got serious roadburn on your arms there.”

“Where'd he go?”

“North.”

“Maverick's really spooked now. I must've been an awful scary sight. We're going to have to try a different approach.”

“Disguise yourself as a dead cow?”

“Sort of,” Lon said, but he didn't explain. “Let's see if we can get another visual on him.”

On foot now, they followed the signal from Lon's electronic bloodhound north toward the confluence of the two rivers. The standing formations surrounding them were fantastic beyond imagining. It was a broken country of slickrock domes and terraces, cactus flats, and stone arches. Monumental sandstone fins stood in perfectly parallel rows with slots of flat, shady ground in between.

The signal was strong but twilight was fading. Finally Lon located the condor on top of one of the narrow fins.

Rick set up the spotting scope. Maverick had already tucked his head away in the ruff on his shoulders. “I'm going to catch you, Maverick,” Lon muttered.

The man's eyes were ablaze with determination. “We have a lot of work to do, Rick. Hang the field glasses from the scope; we'll leave them here. We'll have to find this place in the dark. When we find the equipment, we'll know we're back at the right place. We'll have plenty to carry as it is: a shovel and a bow saw, some plastic buckets, a propane lantern, bird feed…. Let's get going!”

They took their positions half an hour before dawn. The rest was waiting.

Starting with first light, Rick had the binoculars on the condor. He saw the bird bring its head out from behind its shoulders and start looking around. From the cover of a slab of rock and through the gap in the branches of a juniper, Rick observed every slight movement, hoping Maverick was about to fly.

He let his mind drift, imagining what that might be like. To fly, to be actually flying. To be soaring above these endless canyons and seeing it all from the air. To fly like Maverick, or like Lon under his hang glider. Lon had mentioned taking people up tandem. Rick could almost imagine what that would be like, the two of them under that big wing.

If Lon ever offered, he wasn't going to say no. Even
if he was afraid. If he could take that leap off the cliff, he'd be living his dream.

The first pair of ravens flew to the carcass in midmorning. Maverick looked on as the ravens started with the calf's eyes, then opened the belly. By noon they'd been joined by a dozen others. One o'clock, one-thirty, and still the condor hadn't flown. It took the patience of a vulture to wait out a vulture.

He wondered if it was hot in the pit. He wondered if Lon was all cramped up. He wondered if the man was trying to remain in a kneeling position all this time, the way he'd been when Rick had left him before dawn.

He was proud of that pit and the camouflage job they had done. There wasn't a bit of raw earth showing around it. They'd hauled off every bucketful and scattered it. If the ravens hadn't been suspicious, then Maverick shouldn't be either.

Maybe Maverick just wasn't hungry?

It was just after 2:00
P.M.
when Rick saw the sudden bend in the bird's knees, saw him unfold his great wings and launch himself off the edge of the fin. Maverick was coming down to feed! Rick saw him put his tail flaps down, flare his wings, and make a less than graceful landing fifteen feet from the carcass.

The ravens were agitated by the condor's arrival, but they didn't fly. Maverick acted like a spectator for a full ten minutes before he made his move. Slouching close to the pit, he thrust his head forward, hissing. The
ravens stayed by the calf until Maverick bluffed with several rapid flaps of his huge wings, which scattered them.

Looking around carefully, the condor stepped onto the calf. He continued looking around a full minute longer before he began to feed. At this exact moment Lon was looking up from underneath Maverick and the calf, through the slot they'd so carefully camouflaged with weeds and bits of grass. At this moment Lon was looking right at the condor's face as the bird bobbed for meat.

The wait continued. It was killing Rick that the biologist hadn't made his move. If Lon waited much longer, Maverick might step off the carcass. Maverick might fill his crop and be gone.

The ravens were moving back in, working at the calf around the edges. The condor lunged at one; it jumped away. Maverick shifted his position, and started looking around warily instead of feeding.

That's when Lon struck. Through the binoculars Rick saw it clearly. He saw Lon's hands seize the base of the condor's legs. Suddenly the condor was wearing leg shackles made of human hands.

Rick expected that the condor would slash instantly at the man's hands with his powerful beak, but Maverick hesitated, as if his feet were stuck in place of their own accord. He beat his great wings once, twice, trying to
rise, then flapped for balance as Lon began to pull him slowly downward.

As the condor was descending, it folded its wings tight against its body as if cooperating. Rick watched as Maverick's shoulders and head slowly disappeared inside the pit.

And then Rick ran. He ran as fast as he could.

“What can I do?” he asked, all out of breath.

“Lay the calf aside,” came the voice from inside the pit. “Clear off the branches and stuff, but not too fast. Easy does it.”

Within a few minutes Rick cleared most of the roof from the pit. Lon was kneeling with the body of the condor under his left arm, his right hand holding Maverick's head and jaw from underneath so the bird couldn't attack him. Lon rose slowly until he was standing upright. “Man, am I sore.”

“Good job!” Rick cried. He'd never felt so happy in his life. It was amazing to see the condor up close. Incredible. So prehistoric-looking, so strange. Maverick's feet were enormous.

“I need a step,” Lon said calmly. “Slide down into the pit, Rick, real slow. I'll use your back.”

It worked. Lon stepped out of the pit without stumbling or jostling the bird. “Wait a minute,” Rick said. “We forgot the bird kennel. We've got nothing to carry him in.”

“Get me that red jacket of yours. If he's wrapped up
he won't be as nervous. I thought about the bird kennel and decided against it. We're close enough we don't need it. Too much risk of Maverick injuring himself banging around in there loose, after being so stressed out.”

Rick ran for his jacket, helped maneuver it around the bird as Lon readjusted the grip of his left arm.

“Okay,” Lon announced. “Let's march. Bring the binoculars; we'll come back for the spotting scope and the rest of the stuff later.”

Rick didn't say another word until they got back to the truck. Lon was all concentration, walking with the bird, and there was a painful grimace on his face. “My arm's all cramped up,” he said finally. “We're going to have to transfer him to you.”

“I'm not sure I can do it.”

Lon shook his head. “Set that stuff aside, open up the passenger door, and get into the seat. I'm going to give him to you. I want you to swivel toward me as I come to you. Take hold of the bird exactly as I'm holding him right now. Left arm first; I'll pull mine away when yours is in place. Then we'll make the switch with our right hands. Hold him firm against yourself so he's got no room to maneuver, but not so tight you hurt him. Stay focused. And don't be afraid of holding his head firm. If his head gets loose, he could put your eye out.”

“Got it.” Rick's heart was racing.

The transfer went as smoothly as Lon had planned it. Rick couldn't believe that he was holding this huge bird. The condor's head was right next to his.

Lon slid into the driver's seat. “Maverick looks a little silly in that jacket of yours.”

“He's not fighting it.”

“He's terrified, but he knows he's caught. This is when that legendary condor patience kicks in.”

Then they were under way. This was the strangest experience of Rick's life. The condor's leathery head was in Rick's right hand, and the bird kept looking at him with his red eye. The bird would blink, but not with an eyelid like a human eyelid. It was more like the shutter of a camera set at the fastest possible speed.

Rick's left hand was planted on the condor's breastbone. He could feel the condor's heart beating, so fast it was alarming. “His heart's going berserk,” Rick warned. “I can feel it.”

With a smile the biologist said, “That's part of why they can fly. Maverick's heart rate is a lot faster than yours and mine. Think about a hummingbird's.”

Lon didn't stop at camp. He drove up the switchbacks. He drove as gently as possible, but there was no alternative to lurching through the potholes and up and over the steplike ledges. Rick braced with his feet spread wide while pushing hard against the seat back.

At last they topped out and turned off the road. A few minutes later, his responsibility was almost over.
Lon shut the truck down, came around, and opened the passenger door. He led Rick around the junipers and across the slickrock to the back of the release pen where the birds had spent their first six weeks at the Maze site.

Lon opened the door of the pen; Rick stepped inside. Lon closed the door behind him. “Step into the daylight, a little farther into the pen,” Lon said. “Then kneel down slowly on one knee. We want him to see where he is for half a minute so he doesn't go crashing into the fence when you let him go.”

Rick knelt. “How do I let him go?”

“Both hands at once. Just kind of give him a little toss, jacket and all.”

Rick did exactly as he'd been instructed. The condor burst out of the jacket, ran with beating wings to the far end of the pen. “Back in the slammer for this juvenile delinquent,” Rick said. “You're busted, Maverick.”

“Hey, this is supposed to be home. It's just until he cools his jets and gets his bearings again.”

“I wasn't really thinking about him, I guess,” Rick admitted. He looked Lon in the eyes. “That's what's going to happen to me.”

Rick saw it in the man's reaction, the kindness underneath the scar.

“It's time for us to talk,” Lon said.

Rick put two fingers gently to the wound over his own cheekbone. It wasn't pounding so much anymore. A hard scab had formed.

He took a breath. “I escaped from Blue Canyon Youth Detention Center outside Las Vegas, Nevada.”

“That's a mouthful.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“You do have a problem. Okay, let's hear it all. What were you in there for?”

Rick knew he couldn't hesitate. If he did it would sound like he was lying. “Throwing rocks at a stop sign,” he answered.

Lon pulled on his beard. “That's it?”

“Well, it was lots of rocks, I guess. I didn't know when to quit.”

“How long was your sentence?”

“Six months—that's the minimum there.”

The biologist shook his head in disbelief. “Did you have priors? This wasn't your first offense?”

“Second. I stole a couple of CDs.”

“Oh, now we're getting somewhere,” Lon said sarcastically. With a snort he added, “Big-time bad guy you are.”

“Really, I'm not lying.”

Lon looked at him sharply, raised his voice. “You think I don't know these things happen?”

Rick was surprised by the man's reaction, by the anger in his voice. “Can I stay here until Josh comes back?”

“Of course you can. I don't know if I'm going to be
able to do more for you than buy you a little time…. I have to start thinking about it.”

Rick was shaking his head. “I'm not asking you to.”

“I know you're not. What happens to you matters to me, Rick. That's the way it is. Let's head down to camp. We can talk more there. And thanks for your help with the bird—you were terrific. I couldn't have done it without you.”