Above the Law Read Online Free PDF Page A

I saw a form.
    “We’re coming,” I yelled, my voice whipping back on me.
    The wind was howling. Fine grains of needle-sharp sand were stinging my face like wasps. It was almost impossible to remain erect; the father and I held onto each other for dear life. I had a hand over my eyes for protection, squinting out between my fingers.
    Two apparitions, so phantom-like in the turbid darkness they almost seemed to be holograms, not actual flesh and blood, were swaying in front of us. We rushed toward them, the force of the wind so strong it was like running through tar. As we reached the ghost-like figures, both of whom were men, they slowly collapsed to their hands and knees—they had managed, by force of will, to survive long enough to find help and now had nothing left in reserve.
    The father called back toward the doorway. “We need help out here!”
    His cry galvanized some of the others, who came running out. Pulling the bedraggled survivors to their feet, we dragged them into the restaurant, and safety.
    Their names were Joe and Bill. They looked to be in their late twenties; clean-shaven, decent-looking fellows. They were dressed in jeans and sweatshirts, which were completely trashed.
    More than anything else, they were badly dehydrated. The kitchen staff provided wet towels and pitcherfuls of water, while the girls immediately and efficiently took over the nursing chores, wiping them down, propping their heads up while they drank, cleaning the dozens of tiny pitted wounds on their faces, necks, and hands caused by the exposure to the storm. The rest of us hovered like a swarm of ants, until we were sure they were in no serious danger.
    After large doses of tender loving care from the girls, the two men recuperated sufficiently to tell us what had happened to them.
    They had been hiking for ten days in Death Valley, moving from location to location—Zabriskie Point, Telescope Peak, Funeral Peak, breathtakingly beautiful places, desolate and forlorn, where you can go for days without seeing anyone and you have to carry everything in, including your water. They were seasoned hikers, they went out on long, remote trips frequently.
    As hard-core hikers will do, they had brought precisely as much in the way of supplies as they’d figured they’d need, based on past experience (when you start out with sixty or seventy pounds on your back, you don’t want to carry any extra weight), so that on their last day, a long, strenuous hike back to their car, they had run out of supplies. No food, no water. That didn’t matter, in fact it proved they’d calculated their needs almost exactly, a point of pride. Within an hour they would be back in civilization and could stock up on what they needed—snacks, bottles of water, and gasoline—to get them home to San Diego.
    Two things went wrong. First, while trying to make better time by driving on an off-road shortcut to the main highway, they had run over some particularly rocky terrain and had punctured the gas tank on their old Wrangler, but they didn’t know it, until all of a sudden the needle on the fuel gauge had plunged to empty, and they were stopped dead in their tracks.
    That was a bitch, particularly since they hadn’t eaten or had anything to drink for almost a day. But they had a phone in the car, they could call for help.
    Except that out of nowhere, with virtually no warning, the sandstorm descended upon them with all of its immediate and terrible fury, as it had done to the rest of us.
    They were in an impossible situation, and they knew it. They had two options, both dismal: they could hunker down in their vehicle and hope to wait it out, or they could leave it and try to walk to safety. In reality, the first option was no choice at all. If they stayed in their old Jeep, especially without water, they would die, that was as absolute as if it were carved in stone tablets. Help wouldn’t get to them in time. The car would be covered, they’d be entombed.