Page 60 of Race With The Devil

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Unity

“Wolf! Are you OK?”

“Why’d you bring Beetle?”

Tanner and I looked at each other, surprised by the other’s question. I thought it was more important that Wolf had a giant Ace bandage wrapped around his midsection. Tanner apparently thought it was strange he’d brought his dog.

We were in the turnout at Grandview Point. Could’ve fooled me, but it sure felt like today would be the first day of snow. The sky was a sheet of steel, blandly lighting up the layers of rock Sax had told me were Paleozoic sedimentary. Today they all looked shades of olive or rust, and at such an early hour, we were the only vehicles there. A sign told us that Grandview Trail had been built in 1893 as a mining route. I believed them. When I dared peek over the edge, I saw an exposed, rocky, frightening trail with tall steps and severe drop-offs. Also, today the trail was icy. Within two kilometers the trail dropped 2500 feet to the next destination at Page Spring.

A perfect place to toss someone.

“This? Ah, this is nothing,” said Wolf, pointing to his midsection. “Just a bandage to keep me standing upright, you know? As for Beetle, who knows if he can’t help? You said your dog Paddington couldn’t make it.”

“Right,” Tanner said skeptically. “But Beetle isn’t trained to track humans like Paddington is.”

“Can’t dogs smell a billion times better than people?”

“Three hundred million olfactory receptors compared to our six.”

“Right. And wouldn’t he be likely to head toward a putrid, stanky—“

“Okay, okay.” Tanner held out a palm. “We get the picture. No need for unnecessary description, Wolf. Remember it’s Unity’s friend.”

“Oh. Uh. Sorry, Unity.”

“It’s okay,” I said, squatting to rub my face against Beetle’s. “I’ve reconciled myself to the idea she’s down there somewhere, mangled and rotten.”

“But you don’t need to see it!” Tanner reminded me. I shrugged. “Wolf, let’s take a gander at your drone.”

Wolf said excitedly, “It’s actually a quadcopter.” He took an Enterprise-looking thing from his saddlebags. “Do you have a map of this canyon?”

“Sure do,” I said, standing upright and handing Wolf the standard-issue Grand Canyon map.

“Well,” he said dubiously. “This’ll have to do.”

We walked to the edge of the overlook and the men argued about which way to set the drone off.

I said, “Why don’t we walk down the path to the first steep cliff?”

Wolf pointed upward with an idealistic forefinger. “Excellent idea!”

Tanner frowned and said, “Unity, I don’t want you—“

“I’m just going down with you to our home base,” I sang out, already on my way down the trail. The men had no choice but to follow, and soon Beetle took the lead. Before long he was out of sight, because we had to walk slowly among the ice patches.

“Beetle!” called Wolf. “Go get it!”

Beetle darted off down the path, and Wolf beamed with pride.

“I’m training him to ‘go get’ things,” he explained to Tanner.

Tanner asked, “But how does he know what to go get?”

Wolf shrugged. “Just ‘go get’ something in general. Sometimes he comes back with dead rats and birds.”

“Did he kill the rats and birds?”