The Gorgon Field Read Online Free PDF Page B

growled. “Let’s get going.”
    “Mr. Meiklejohn, there’s a little problem with one of the rotors. I’ve been trying to round up a part, but no luck. Not until morning.”
    He was a fresh-faced young man, open, ingenuous. Charlie found his hands balling, took a step toward the younger man, who backed up. “I’ll get it airborne by seven in the morning, Mr. Meiklejohn. I’m sure of it. I called the house and explained the problem. You have a room at the Hilton—”
    Charlie spun around and left him talking. He tried to buy a seat on another flight to Pueblo first, and when that failed—no more flights out that night—he strode to the Hertz rental desk.
    “I’m going to rent a plane for Pueblo,” he said, “and I’ll want a car there waiting. Is that a problem?”
    The young man behind the desk shrugged. “Problem, sir. They close up at seven down there.”
    “I’ll rent a car here and drive down,” Charlie said in a clipped, hard voice. “Is that a problem?”
    “No, sir!”
    By quarter to eight, he was leaving the airport. He felt exactly the same rage that had swamped him at times in the past, especially in his final years with the fire department, when he knew with certainty the fire had been set, the victim murdered. It was a cold fury, a savage rage made even more dangerous because it was so deep within that nothing of it showed on the surface, but an insane desire, a need, fueled it, and the need was to strike out, to lash out at the criminal, the victims, the system, anything. He knew now with the same certainty that the pilot had waited deliberately until after seven to tell him he was stranded in Denver. And he was equally certain that by now the pilot had called the valley to warn them that he was driving, that he would be there by midnight. And if they had done anything to Constance, he knew, he would blow that whole valley to hell, along with everyone in it.
    “Manuel,” Constance said when they arrived at the gorgons, “go on back to the house. You don’t have to stay out here with me.”
    “Oh, no, señora. I will stay.”
    “No, Manuel. I have to be alone so I can think. That’s why I came out here, to think. There are too many people wandering around the house, too many distractions. If I know I’m keeping you out here, waiting, that would be distracting, too. I really want to be alone for a few hours.”
    “But, señora, you could fall down, or get lost. Don Carlos would flay me if an accident happened.”
    She laughed. “Go home, Manuel. You know I can’t get lost. Lost where? And I’ve been walking around more years than you’ve been alive. Go home. Come back for me right after sunset.”
    His expression was darkly tragic. “Señora, it is possible to get lost in your own house, in your own kitchen even. And out here, it is possible even more.”
    “If you can’t find me,” she said softly, “tell Ramón. He’ll find me.”
    “ Si ,” Manuel said, and walked to the Jeep unhappily.
    She watched the Jeep until it disappeared among cottonwood trees that edged the stream at the far end of the meadow, and only when she could no longer see it did she feel truly alone. Although the mornings and nights were cold, the afternoons were warm; right now shade was welcome. She selected a spot in the shade, brushed rocks clear of sand, and settled herself to read.
    First a history of the area. These were the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, named by the Spanish, long since driven out, leaving behind bits and pieces of their language, bits of architecture. She studied a picture of petroglyphs outside Pueblo, never deciphered, not even by the first Indians the Spaniards had come across. Another people driven out? Leaving behind bits and pieces of a language? She lingered longer over several pictures of the Valley of the Gods, west of Colorado Springs. Formations like these, but more extensive, bigger, and also desecrated. She frowned at that thought, then went on to turn pages, stopping