Upon reaching the waterline, he paused to look up at the mighty reversing wave. “I don’t know, Miriam. Are you sure about this? Maybe it would be better to go back and pick them up somewhere else.”
“Are you crazy?” She’d already started across. “If we lose them here and they switch vehicles, we might never catch up to them again. Or the army might nab them first. I’m going.” Her voice was cold as ice. “All I need is one clean shot.”
Reluctantly, he followed her out onto the damp sand, warily eyeing the massive wall of dark water off to their left. There were times when he felt that despite the boredom and the comparative poverty they should have stuck to the dry-cleaning business.
But that would have meant spending their entire lives in Indiana. The thought gave him strength.
Making use of the residual light from Jed’s suit, Ross Ed and Caroline picked and scrambled their way across the river bottom. Once, Caroline tripped and nearly fell over an enormous stranded catfish, but managed to recover to stumble on.
“I wonder if Moses had a dead alien to help him.” Ross kept glancing to his left, at the boiling, dancing wall of water. What would happen if he stuck his hand into the aqueous anomaly? He decided this was no time to find out. They needed to keep moving. Powered by Jed’s suit, the incredible hydrological diversion certainly couldn’t hold forever. Besides, the water was ice-cold.
Looking back over a shoulder, he thought he heard another shot. With the entire pent-up force of the Colorado hollering in his ear, it was impossible to tell for sure. In any event, nothing nasty whizzed past him.
They were near enough now to the south shore to see the outlines of the rocky bank. “You think they’re following us?”
Caroline looked back. “I don’t know. I can’t see anything behind us. They’d have to be pretty stupid. Or avaricious.”
“What?”
“Greedy.”
He nodded to himself. “Then they’re following us. I wouldn’t put anything past those two. And I don’t think they’ll be so polite if they catch up to us again. What’s that?”
A thunderous, reverberating boom was rolling up behind them.
“The wave!” she yelled. “It’s collapsing behind us!”
“Come on, move it!” A glance revealed that the glow from the dead alien’s suit was beginning to fade. The force that had been holding back the water was starting to fail. Frankly, Ross Ed was surprised it had held this long. The suit had shown itself capable of many minor miracles, but even advanced alien technology had to have its limits.
Running hard and looking back, he could both see and hear the water crashing down behind them as the river reclaimed its course. Had anyone else witnessed the incredible phenomenon? He doubted it. People didn’t hike the river at night and the occurrence had taken place well downstream from the nearest campsite and the two pedestrian bridges which spanned the gorge. As for the noise, well, the rapids-rich Colorado was always noisy.
With the angry, surging water lapping at their feet, they reached the far bank and began to climb. Caroline got her feet wet, but otherwise they were safe and dry above the waterline. They’d made it.
On the opposite bank, a soaked and shivering Gennady and Miriam Lurkspur sprawled out on the flattest boulder they could find. They were in danger of being swept downstream when Gennady, clinging to his sputtering mate, had managed to reach out and grab a piece of driftwood projecting from the bank. Their weapons were now so much scrap tumbling and banging along
The loss didn’t concern them. In Arizona you could buy a .44 magnum in a drugstore. But the uncontrollable shivering was another matter.
Arms wrapped around her chest and shaking violently, Miriam Larkspur rose to her feet and chattered at her husband. “Come on, Gennady. We’ve got to get some coffee or hot lemonade in us or we’re going to catch our death out here.”
“I kn-kn-know.” He was trembling with the cold as he squinted at the restored river. It was hard to focus and he could see no sign of their quarry. “It was the alien, of course. How do you suppose it did that little trick?”
“I don’t know.” His wife wrung river water from her long hair. “But the more I learn about it, the more I want it. We could retire, Gennady. We could name our own price. No more spying for the French, no more industrial espionage in the dairy business.”
“I know.”
“We’ll find them again.” She sneezed explosively. “You’ll see.” She started up the rocks toward the viewpoint and the trail. “Let’s gid bag to their cabin and pile the blangids on before we catch pneumonia.”
Of course, they already had, but it would take a day for the symptoms to fully manifest themselves. It would put an end to their hunt in a manner neither they not their quarry could have imagined, and without any further intervention on the part of dead aliens.
FIFTEEN
On the far side of the river, Ross Ed and Caroline were becoming chilled. Though they had escaped the water, nighttime temperatures at the bottom of the canyon were still cool this time of year.
Ross Ed pointed upstream. “Let’s head for the bridges. Once we find the trail we can follow it up to the South Rim. I don’t think those two will be in any mood to follow us, even if they’re in any kind of shape to do so.”
But the intervening rocks and boulders proved difficult to surmount, not was Jed’s suit inclined to shed more light on the matter.
“This is crazy. If we don’t wait until morning someone’s going to break a leg stumbling around in the dark.” Caroline began a search of the surrounding slope. “Find a soft rock and we’ll try and get some sleep until it’s light.”
“I don’t know if we should hang around here, Caroline.” Her companion was trying to see across the river. “After a night’s rest, those two might decide it’s worth trying to find us again.”
“I’m sorry, Ross, but I’m not going floundering through these rocks in the dark. Don’t worry. We’ll lose them tomorrow.”
They found a piece of high, sandy beach sheltered from the occasional breeze by surrounding boulders. The ground still held some of the heat it had soaked up during the day. Leaning Jed and his backpack up against a suitable rock, they stretched out side by side on the sand.
Tentatively, he took her hand. Together they regarded the stars.
“I wonder which one he’s from?”
She slid closer. “Pick one, Ross Ed. Pick one and wish on it.”
“I’m not real good at that sort of thing, Caroline. You do it.”
“I have to think.” Beneath the starlight, she smiled. “Don’t want to waste my wish. You know, lying here, in this place, by using a little imagination it’s possible to believe that we’re the only two people left in the world.” Turning on her side, she looked deeply into his eyes. It was one of those perfect moments that can never be planned, cannot be predicted. Even Jed looked on favorably, or at least offered no disapproving comment. Their mouths eased inexorably toward one another.
“Hey, look there!”
Parting almost as violently as they’d hoped to come together, they rolled in opposite directions. Sand and desire went flying.
