Southwest forecasters were taken by surprise, not for the first time. The storm had been expected to pass to the north, with only intermittent light showers for southern Arizona, and that not till later in the morning.
Sometimes weather seems to have a mind of its own.
By the time the Caddy and the pickup reached Eloy, fifty miles south of Phoenix, clouds totally covered the sky. The two vehicles were passing the stone fang of Picacho Peak when the rain began. It built quickly in intensity, and in an hour was coming down hard as far south as the Sierra de la Madera and as far east as Silver City, pouring hardest in the mountains, falling with opaque density on the forty inches of snow in the high Chiricahuas around Rustler Park.
Riding the grid in his Texas home, Kurt Hardman watched his quarry tool eastward through Tucson, their tires splashing water. If they thought this was rain, he told himself, they hadn't seen anything yet.
Usually bone dry, Cienaga Wash surged with angry brown water where it passed beneath the Interstate.
"I thought this was supposed to be desert," said Frank Diacono.
"It can rain really hard on the desert, especially in summer thunderstorms," Vic replied. "Summer and early fall. But I never saw it rain this hard here in the winter."
The wipers beat furiously across the streaming windshield.
"Do you think it'll last long?"
"I sure don't know. You hardly ever see it rain hard down here for more than a few minutes, except sometimes in September or October. But I suppose this could be one of those once-in-a-century exceptions."
Vic looked at Frank. "Any time you want a break," he added, "I'll be glad to drive."
"I'm doing fine. I like to drive and I like storms. Maybe after our sandwich break in Benson." Frank pulled out to pass an eighteen wheeler, the wash from its tires momentarily inundating his windshield as he moved up. "How far is Benson?" Frank asked. "About ten or twelve miles?"
"Something like that."
"I wonder where Ole is? When I travel with another car, I like to stay in sight of it. But he drives like Mario Andretti."
"Right. But we won't lose him. He'll be pulled off at some eating place up there."
Yeah, thought Frank, I don't suppose you guys could lose each other.
Shortly afterward, as they approached the 302 exit, they saw the tall signs of gas stations and a restaurant. "That's where they are," Vic said, "at that Benny's. Turn off here."
Frank didn't question; he slowed and took the exit. The rain fell relentlessly. When they turned into the restaurant lot, they saw the white Caddy parked almost at the building's entrance. There was a parking space next to it, and Frank took it. Jumping out, they slammed the doors behind them and dashed into the restaurant.
Ole, Carol, and Jerry were in a large corner booth, drinking coffee. Ole waved a greeting, and the other two turned to look, then slid around to make room for the newcomers.
"Kind of vet out there," Ole greeted them.
"Just a little bit," Frank answered. He eyed Ole meaningfully. "If it wasn't for Vic here, I don't know if I would have found you."
"Ya, but you did. It's kind of handy sometimes to have somevun around that knows like he knows."
And that, Frank thought to himself, takes care of that subject.
It was between breakfast and lunch, and the place was mostly empty. The waitress came over and filled their cups, then waited while they looked at menus and ordered. When she had left, Ole looked at Vic.
"Yerry vas saying he feels like his arm is healing fast. He'd like to get an x-ray, and find out v'en he can get the cast off. How vould it be if ve stopped at a doctor here in Benson and got it x-rayed?"
"Sounds fine to me," Vic looked at the others. "How does it sound to the rest of you?"
"Wait a minute," Carol said. "Less than a week ago he broke his..." She looked to Jerry, then at Ole. "It's the ulna, right? I thought that took about six weeks to heal. He told me you took the pain away, but do you mean it could be healed already, too?"
"I've seen things like that heal in two or three veeks vith Noetie techniques," Ole answered. "I don't know v'at might come out of Vic's stuff. It vould be interesting to check it out."
Frank got up from the table and went to the phone booth by the entryway. He was back in a couple of minutes. "There's a hospital in Benson," he said, and showed a pocket notepad. "I got the address. It should be easy to find in a town as small as this."
It took longer than they'd expected. There was only one doctor on duty, and he wasn't certified to take x-rays. The doctor who was certified had just left for an early lunch and would be back in about an hour. After a brief conference they decided to wait; an hour and a half later he returned.
Jerry, lying, told him the accident had been fifteen or twenty days earlier. The doctor looked at the x-ray and congratulated him on the remarkable progress; in about a week the cast could be removed.
Jerry paid and they left. Outside they clustered for a minute on the covered porch, watching the downpour, for the first time hearing thunder, dull in the distance. "Do they get floods around here?" Carol asked. "If they do, this could be one of the times."
"I've never heard of any flood problems on I-10," Vic answered. "But I never heard of it raining this hard around here for four hours at a time, either."
"You still want to drive?" Frank asked him.
"Yeah, if that's all right, I'd like to drive for a while."
Frank took a ring of keys from a belt clip, handing them to Vic. Lowering their heads then, all five dashed for the vehicles, jumping in and slamming the doors behind them. Together they drove to the east ramp, Vic leading now, and pulled under the canopy of a Chevron station to fill up with gas. An attendant came out and began to service them. Ole and his riders, and Frank, dug into luggage for rain gear. A massive Indian, as big as Frank but seeming older, stood under a corner of the canopy wearing a camouflage poncho. Vic was standing by the cab, and the Indian started toward him.
"I'm looking for a ride," he said.
"I figured you were," Vic said, then gestured at Frank, who had just backed out of the camper. "It's fine with me, but you better ask him. It's his truck." The Indian turned to Frank, and Vic nodded affirmatively to Diacono as the Indian repeated his question.
"Okay," Frank said, looking the man over, then turned to Vic. "I'm going to try to get a little shut-eye in the back. Any time you want to switch off driving again, just stop. Or if you need me for anything," he added meaningfully.
"Sure thing," said Vic.
When the tank was filled, they got back in and hit the interstate. The Indian said nothing, looking straight ahead.
"You been waiting there long?" Vic asked.
"About two hours."
"I guess maybe you were supposed to ride with us." Vic turned on the heater without the fan. "You heading for Oklahoma?"
This time the Indian turned to look at him. "Yeah. How did you know?"
"You didn't look like one of the Arizona tribes. You looked more like Oklahoma, or maybe the Dakotas."
"Huh! Not many white men would know the difference. You from Oklahoma?"
"No. I started out in Texas, lived back east for a while, and then came out here. What have you been doing in Arizona?"
"Passing through." He paused as if evaluating whether he could talk to this white man. "I was at a native religions conference up in Oregon," he added, then turned his eyes to the rainswept desert.
They'd left the station ahead of Ole, who seemed content to follow for now. Vic could see the Caddy in the outside mirror, obscured by the water drops on the glass. About a dozen miles northeastward down the freeway, a police cruiser was stopping cars at the Dragoon exit. Vic pulled up and stopped. A patrolman in a slicker walked over, and Vic rolled down his window. Frank came around from the camper wearing a poncho.
"Willcox Playa has flooded the highway up ahead," the patrolman said. His face was wet and red from the cold rain. "The only way east from here is the unsurfaced road through Dragoon to Route 666, then south to Douglas. From there you'd have to take US 80 back northeast to the interstate. All told, that adds about ninety miles of distance. Or you can go back twelve miles to Benson and wait for the water to go down."
Thunder muttered distantly.
"If we go back," Frank said, "how long do you think it'll be before the interstate is open?"
"Hard to say. Ordinarily the water goes down pretty quick after the rain stops. But apparently it's raining up in the Cherry Cow Mountains, instead of snowing, and the rain is melting the snowpack up there. That's one reason the water's so high. So it may take a while after the rain quits, depending on whether it turns cold or not."
Frank nodded. "Thanks, officer. I'll talk to my friends and see what they think." He gestured toward Ole's car close behind. "The Caddy's with us."
The officer peered intently at Diacono, as if trying to place him. "Do I look familiar?" Frank asked. "I'm Frank Diacono—used to play for the Denver Broncos. I've been on a few TV commercials."
The wet face grinned at that. "That's it, sure enough. Have a good trip, Mr. Diacono." Another car was slowing to stop, and he turned away to meet it.
"What do you want to do, Vic?" Frank asked.
Vic replied without hesitation. "Go south on 666 and then back north from Douglas."
"Right." Frank walked back and talked briefly with Ole, then returned to the pickup, opening the offside door of the cab. He pulled off the wet poncho and shoved it behind the seat before jumping in and slamming the door behind him. "I might as well ride up here," he said. "I'm not sleepy anymore, and I can see better." He presented his hand to the Indian. "I'm Frank, Frank Diacono."
The big Indian received the hand and shook it. "My name is Paul," the Indian said. "Paul David."
Vic shifted gears and turned onto the exit ramp, east off the highway. It seemed to him that the rain was a little lighter than it had been, but it was still a steady downpour.
Kurt Hardman had tried to contact Vincent Gracco psychically as soon as he saw the Caddy and pickup turn southeast from Phoenix on I-10 instead of taking Route 60 east toward Globe. But Gracco hadn't picked up the psychic reach then; he was the least sensitive of the Four, now Three.
Hardman had finally gotten his attention in a washroom after the luncheon conference with Olson and his lieutenants. Gracco had immediately phoned the capo in Tucson, Joey Adrano. Adrano, however, was out of town, and it had taken a while to find someone there who'd consider making a verbal contract with someone they didn't know personally. Then Adrano's son, Johnny, had phoned Big Eddy Bocatto in St. Louis for a reference. It had taken a while to reach Bocatto, too.
A car with three gunmen finally left the Adrano mansion near Tucson about the time the doctor was returning from lunch, forty miles east in Benson.
After some twelve miles of gravel road, the Caddy and the big pickup reached the narrow blacktop of Route 666. Just north of the junction, the playa had drowned 666 as well, its waters spreading northeastward as far as they could see. To the east of them too it had almost reached the pavement. Willcox Playa that afternoon was by far the widest body of water in the state; that morning it had been only a broad flat saline plain. Vic turned south, and after a few miles left the playa behind.
Before long they met a still narrower blacktop from the east. Vic turned off on it and stopped. The rain had intensified again, and the thunder was louder, nearer.
"What is it?" Frank asked.
"It feels like we ought to take this road. D'you have a road map?"
Frank opened the glove compartment and took one out, unfolding it between them on Paul's lap. "Okay," Frank said when he'd found their location, "I know this area; I've hiked the mountains up ahead, the Chiricahuas, but I've only been in from this direction once. This road will take us up a canyon into the mountains—Pinery Canyon, I think it's called—then over a steep pass, and out a canyon on the other side. But I don't know if the canyons are passable now; the streams have got to be way out of their banks. And Onion Pass may be blocked with snow."
All three men peered eastward, where dimly they could see the rain-curtained bulk of the Chiricahuas—what the patrolman had called the Cherry Cows. Frank turned his eyes to Vic's profile, where there seemed a moment of emptiness, of absence, before Vic looked at him and spoke.
"It feels to me like this is the way to go. I don't have a lot of certainty on it, which probably means there's no guarantee, and I wasn't able to see the pass, but it feels like the best bet. I'm just not picking things up very well now."
Frank nodded. They heard a car door slam, and Ole came striding over, wearing a slicker. Vic rolled down his window. "V'at's going on?" asked Ole.
"Vic has the feeling we ought to go this way," said Frank.
"Good. Then let's go this vay." Ole raised his head to look eastward toward the mountains, almost as if he were sniffing the air. They rumbled at him. Then he turned his face northwestward for a few seconds. "East is the vay to go all right. Somevun is coming after us back there somev'ere. Vith guns."
"With guns! How far back?" Frank asked.
"Hell, I don't know. Not a hell of a long vay; they're on narrow blacktop."
Frank's jaw tightened, and he put his hand on the door handle. "East it is, then; maybe that will lose them. Trade places, Vic. I know this vehicle and I know the roads."
Frank and Vic each got out, scuttling around to the opposite doors. After restarting the engine, Frank looked at Paul David, who had remained sitting in the middle without noticeable change of expression.
"I hate to say this," Frank told him, "but you might be better off to get out here, rain or no rain. There are some guys after us. If you get soaked, you can always dry out. But if you stay with us, you could end up shot."
The Indian face looked stolidly at him. "I'll stay with you."
Frank shrugged, and saying nothing more, shifted gears, starting east down the new road. Why not? he thought. Tory talked about scripts. Maybe the Indian's got a role in this play, too.
Minutes later, the black Chrysler Fifth Avenue stopped at the same junction, of Route 666 and the lesser blacktop with the Arizona 181 sign. The driver looked at the man on his right. "Which way now, Johnny?" he asked. "Keep going south?"
Johnny Adrano took the mobile phone receiver from its recessed cradle atop the dashboard. The thing still worked back where they'd left I-10, he thought; maybe it would work from here, too.
He dialed the confidential number he'd been given, then waited. It took a few seconds to get a ring. On the fourth ring, the phone was picked up at the other end.
"Vincent Gracco," a voice said.
"Gracco, this is Johnny Adrano. We're out here in the middle of nowhere, and a fish just swam past the windshield. We come to a fucking fork in the road, and I don't know whether to go straight or turn left."
"Got it. I'll check with the satellite and see which way they went. Then I'll call you back."
"Johnny," murmured the man in the Chrysler's back seat, "that is bullshit. How the fuck is some satellite out in space going to see one fucking little car and pickup down here? Especially through all these clouds."
"I ain't no fucking spaceman; I don't know those things. How do they do any of that stuff? The money is right, that's what counts."
"We ain't seen none of that money. All we seen is rain."
"The Bocatto family is one of the best. And Eddy Bocatto is an honorable man; I've heard my old man say it himself. And Bocatto says this Gracco is a man of his word. We'll see the money."
"I still think it's..."
"Shut up! I'll tell you when to think."
In the cabin of his jet en route from Kansas City to Oklahoma City, Vincent Gracco drummed his fingers on the desktop next to his keyboard. The large, high-resolution screen displayed a map of the Middle East. Gracco wasn't involved with Shark's Arab project; it was a role-playing game he'd been passing time with when Adrano had called. Gracco had immediately sent a psychic call to the gridman; Hardman had sent him a pulse of acknowledgement but hadn't withdrawn from whatever he was doing.
Finally, after twenty or thirty seconds, Hardman was with him, and Gracco told him the situation. "I told him you were a satellite in orbit that could see the whole scene," he added, grinning.
Hardman's reply was impatient, unamused. "Tell them to go east. East about ten miles they come to a gravel road that goes up..." The gridman paused, as if checking place names. "A gravel road that goes up Turkey Canyon. But your hit team doesn't. They stay out of Turkey Canyon. The blacktop turns north there, and they just keep following the blacktop for a ways. After another ten miles or so they'll have to check in again. There's another fork there, but Merlin hasn't come to it yet. I'll let you know which one Merlin takes as soon as he gets there."
"Got it." Gracco didn't trouble to repeat the directions; he could copy things mentally that were much more complicated than that. "I'll keep a feeler out for you," he added, "and I'll tell them to stay on the phone."
He felt Hardman disconnect. He wished the gridman could guide the hit team directly, to save the time and inconvenience of passing things on. But if Hardman could get through to them, they'd only freak out. Gracco, finger stabbing, dialed the black Chrysler.
Frank continued east eleven miles to the Turkey Canyon Road, then north, then east once more to the mouth of Pinery Canyon. There the blacktop turned north again, to cross Cave Creek on a bridge, but Frank continued east, on gravel now.
The rain had intensified again, and through its pervasive drumming and occasional thunders, they could hear the mountain torrent that yesterday had been little more than a brook. Through the trees of the lower canyon's woodland they could see brown waters raging well out of their banks.
Frank recognized anxious stomach: He couldn't remember whether there were any fords to cross or not. If they tried to ford anything like that, they'd be carried away like an empty can. Yet turning back seemed out of the question, with gunmen following them. And staying on the blacktop would only have taken them to a dead end at the Chiricahua National Monument, almost surely abandoned at this season; they'd committed themselves irreversibly when they'd left 666.
Of course, their pursuers might have missed the turn and continued on 666 south toward Douglas. When that possibility occurred to him, Diacono felt a little better.
The Chrysler didn't pause when it came to the Pinery Canyon Road, it simply slowed somewhat for the rough gravel surface. Johnny Adrano had become increasingly wound up by the chase, and at his insistence, the driver had been pushing at up to eighty miles an hour on the irregular, rain-slicked blacktop.
Only three or four minutes before they came to the Pinery Canyon Road, they'd been told that their targets had just gotten there and gone east on the gravel. They were closing fast.
Frank Diacono rounded a curve and found a Chihuahua pine, uprooted from the soggy soil, lying across the road. He stopped, set the hand brake, released the winch, and jumped out, not pausing now to put on his poncho.
But Victor Merlin was out even more quickly. Grabbing the hook on the winch cable, he ran to the prostrate pine and hooked the cable around its upper trunk. When Diacono saw what Vic was doing, he climbed back into the cab. Vic stepped over the trunk to the other side, out of the way, and signalled; Frank threw the winch into gear and began to pull. The tree, about a foot thick at the base, began to move.
"Lucky it's not one of those big Apache pines or Douglas-firs we'll come to farther up the canyon," he muttered to Paul. When he'd pulled it for enough to drive through, Diacono opened his door and waved Ole through ahead of him.
Ole pulled even with him and stopped while his front window rolled down. "How come you vant me through first?"
"I'm going to pull the tree back across the road after I go through. Stop on the other side and I'll take the lead again."
Ole grinned, bobbed his head in approval, and drove through. Vic backed through behind him and winched the tree back across the road. Then Vic unhooked the cable and they drove on.
The Chrysler was going too fast for the road conditions. When it rounded the curve and he saw the fallen tree, the driver jammed down on the brake pedal and the heavy car skidded, taking the shallow, water-filled ditch with the front end. Adrano cursed angrily; they'd had enough room to stop without locking the brakes. Then they sat there silently for a few seconds, the driver's face flushed from Adrano's curses.
Adrano would have been even angrier if he'd known that the target vehicles had driven away less than a minute earlier.
"What the hell do we do now?" asked the man in the back seat.
Adrano glared at the driver. "First the moron behind the wheel is going to see if he can back us out," he said.
The car had stalled; now the driver started it again and shifted into reverse. The rear tires spun in place. Johnny Adrano looked out the window, scanning the woods.
"Next," he said, "you guys are going out there and find some pieces of wood you can pry with. I ain't going to sit out here in this fucking canyon for maybe two or three days without nothing to eat."
Ole Sigurdsson thought he'd never seen it rain that hard before; in fact, he was sure of it. The farther they went into the mountains, the harder it seemed to pour. Thunder rolled through the clouds almost incessantly here. The road had left the canyon and was climbing Onion Pass on a series of switchbacks. It had been semidark most of the day; now it was getting darker as evening moved in, and Ole turned the Caddy's headlights on.
They reached an elevation where the ground beneath the denser evergreens was still covered with snow: gray, wet, and shrinking fast. Another gravel road branched off to the right, its Forest Service sign announcing, Rustler Park 5 miles. A little farther on, the pickup stopped ahead of him, and Ole pulled up behind it.
Another tree lay across the road, this one much larger than the first. Frank, Vic, and Paul got out of the truck, and after a moment of staring reluctantly through the streaming windshield, Ole got out, too, with his passengers. Frank came around to the rear of the pickup and climbed into the camper shell. There was a long tool chest inside, used for a bench and to house things like a shovel and crowbar. From it he dug a double-bitted ax. Climbing back out, he took off the sheath and felt the cutting edges thoughtfully.
"I was going to sharpen it a few weeks ago and forgot," he said. "But it's not too bad."
Paul reached out his hand for it. Diacono looked at him. "Bus fare," the Indian said.
Diacono nodded. "Let me know when you need a break; there's plenty of tree there for both of us. Douglas fir is harder than pine, and we need to cut through her twice. We need to cut out a section about ten or twelve feet wide that I can pull with the winch."
While the others clustered beside the pickup cab, Paul set to work limbing the part of the trunk that lay in the road. They stood watching in the rain, not concerned now about keeping dry. Vic and Frank wore ponchos, and Carol and Jerry hooded rain jackets, but Ole was bare-headed, the downpour plastering his lank hair wetly to his skull. Rain streaming off their rain gear had already soaked their pants from knees to cuffs; it would work its way higher by capillarity.
Thunder boomed and banged at them.
"Did you ever see it rain this hard before?" Jerry asked no one in particular.
"Maybe, for a few minutes at a time," Carol answered. "In Chicago."
"We'll be lucky if a bridge or culvert hasn't washed out up ahead somewhere," Frank said. "We might have to try driving up to Rustler Park and breaking into one of the Forest Service buildings there for shelter—assuming that road's open." He paused then and added, "You don't suppose the world's going to end with a rerun of the biblical flood, do you?"
"Are you serious?" Jerry asked.
Frank had to look at that. After all, the world was due to end soon. "Not really," he said. "If that much water got pulled out of the oceans to make rain, then the sea level would drop, and that's the base level to flood from. There's only so much water on the planet, and it either occupies the lowest places—the oceans—or it's on its way there." He turned to Vic. "Right?"
Vic nodded absently, as if his attention was elsewhere. Behind him the ax began to thunk into the trunk of the Douglas fir.
Johnny Adrano sat in the car with the telephone in his hand. He was soaking wet from shoes to thighs; all three of them were. When it had come down to it, he'd gotten out to help in the effort to get the heavy car unstuck. The only result was muddy pants, broken pry sticks, and anger. His two henchmen stood by the open door, listening to Adrano's half of the phone conversation. Rain drummed on the thin metal roof, a counterpoint to the thunder.
Adrano held the phone away from him for a moment, staring angrily at it, then put it to his ear again. "I don't give a gnat's ass if they are struck a few miles up the road. I've had it with this goddamn job. What do you mean, agreement? Don't give me that bullshit about agreement! There ain't no binding agreement until one or the other of us delivers, and I ain't seen any money yet...
"I don't give a fuck about the goddamn fifty thou! I ain't walking no two or three miles in this fucking storm... No, not even for an extra fifty thou... An extra what? A quarter million total if we get them tonight?"
He looked out at the other two; they were as impressed as he was.
Paul hated to stop short of a complete cut through the tree, but after several minutes of nonstop chopping, his cold wet hands were too fatigued to grip the ax any longer. He'd attacked the task too strenuously, not pacing himself; the result was a rough vee-shaped cut in the trunk, about a foot and a half wide and nearly as deep. Another ten inches would see the first cut through.
He put down the ax, leaning it against a branch, flexed his beefy fists, and looked at Diacono. Diacono nodded acknowledgement, then turned back to the others. "We can have this out of the way in another fifteen minutes or so, and we're at least an hour's hike from back where we left the road blocked behind us. I don't think we have anything to worry about unless we run into something ahead that stops us completely, like a bridge or culvert washed out."
He turned then and walked over to pick up the ax. Hefting it, he addressed the incomplete cut and began to swing, a little more slowly than the Indian had. Again the chips began to fly.
Squinting, Paul looked upward, the tireless rain beating on his dark face. "I think the rain god is mad at us."
Vic looked startled.
"You said it," said Jerry. "I think he's mad at the whole state of Arizona, at least."
"No," Paul said thoughtfully, "I think he's mad at us."
With the Indian's rejoinder, Ole picked up Vic's mental response. "V'at is it?" he asked.
"He's right," Vic said. "I should have spotted it earlier. There's more behind this storm than atmospheric physics. There's an intention—an awareness and an intention. There's a being up there somewhere dumping all this water on us. Call him a rain god."
An angry rain god? Despite all that had happened over the past week, Jerry and Carol found this statement hard to accept.
"If there is a rain god, why would he do that?" Jerry asked.
Vic shrugged. "I sure don't know. Maybe someone told him lies about us."
"I hope he doesn't decide to snow on us," Carol said, half joking. "If this was snow instead of rain, we'd really be in trouble."
"Maybe he's working within some kind of limitations," Vic said, "like what weather elements were handy on short notice. Or maybe he just feels like raining. I never looked into how elementals operate."
"Elementals?" Carol asked. "What's an elemental?"
"A rain god is one kind of elemental." He looked around at the others, while a few yards off, Frank continued his steady chopping. "Now look," Vic went on, "here's something I want each of us to do. Put your attention on the rain god and tell him hello." He looked at Jerry. "Even if you're not sure he really exists. You don't have to say it out loud, but just send him a hello, and then tell him okay. When you've told him hello, then think an okay at him, with a lot of admiration in it for making the greatest rainstorm ever. Don't worry if this doesn't make sense to you, and close your eyes to do it if it makes it any easier."
This, thought Jerry, is nuts. He closed his eyes. "Hello!" he called mentally. "Hellooh rain god!"
The now-familiar rush of chills flowed over him, having nothing to do with cold rain, and suddenly he found himself grinning, his eyes open. "Hellooh! Okay!" he sent out silently. "Hellooh! Okay! Fantastic up there; you've been making the wettest damn rainstorm I ever imagined! You're the greatest rain god there's ever been on this planet! You're incredible!"
He looked around at the others. They all wore grins; Ole's threatened to split his face. Carol's eyes were shining as she turned them to Vic.
"He heard us!" she said. "He really really heard us!"
"He sure did," said Vic. "I figured the hellos and okays would do something, but I hadn't expected that sort of a backflow. When do you suppose was the last time he got that much admiration communicated to him? I wouldn't be surprised if the rain eased up a whole lot now, and pretty quick, too."
Paul David's eyes still were closed, but he nodded. "He's still there," he said, "and he's getting ready to do something. I don't know what it is, but he's concentrating on something." He opened his eyes. "I never knew any whites like you before. I sensed you were different when I first saw you, but you still surprised me." He turned to Vic. "And I never heard that prayer before. You're some kind of medicine chief!"
Nearby, Frank smote one last ax stroke, the last small bridge of wood broke at the bottom of the cut, and the big fir slumped. He stepped back from it. "That's one," he said, and walked over to them, the ax in his right hand. "One more to go." He looked around. "Hey! You know, I think the storm is letting up a little. It's not raining as hard."
Suddenly he tensed, half crouching. They all felt it, a growing tension in the air, and as one person they hit the wet and gravelly road. There was an indescribable Blam!—an overwhelming crash of sound accompanied by an intense flash. Pieces of wood struck the pickup and thudded and plopped on the ground around them. Stunned, no one moved for several seconds. It was Vic who raised his head first.
"Take a look at your tree, Frank," he said.
Diacono raised his head. "Holy Jesus!" he muttered. Lightning had struck the fallen fir—had somehow darted down between the standing trees around them and hit it at the other shoulder of the road, tearing it in two there. One by one they got up, staring at the severed trunk.
"You can put the ax away, Frank," said Carol slowly. "The rain god did it for you."
It took two minutes to hook up the section of the tree which lay in the road and winch it out of the way. Then they got into their vehicles and started on again.
Thirty minutes later they emerged from the mountains on the other side, at what purported to be a town but consisted of a store, a pair of visible houses, and a Forest Service guard station. There were lights in one of the houses, but no other sign of life there, and they rolled on through.
It was only a couple of miles now to a paved road, Frank knew. Then it should be a clear run to the Interstate, with the mountains between them and Willcox Playa. They could stop for supper in Lordsburg and either stay overnight there or continue to Deming or even Las Cruces.
When they trudged at last to the fallen Douglas fir and found no Caddy, no pickup, Adrano and his men were too tired and sodden to be more than disgusted. In pique, they emptied the magazines of their submachine guns randomly into the surroundings and started back down to their car. At least the rain had stopped, or nearly so. Little more than the drip from the trees fell on them in their trek back.
It was after midnight when a tow truck arrived from Douglas, Arizona, sent by Gracco, and the hit team returned, famished and sneezing, to Tucson. Gracco ended up wiring Adrano twenty thou, to salvage as much good will and silence as he could from the fiasco. The Four could easily afford it.