They rode for several hours. The morning was beautiful. Earlier, the
breeze had been nice but was it was gone now.
Their shirts were just beginning
to stick to their skins. They had taken
off their denim jackets, rolled them up and tied them to the saddles with the
latico straps at the base of the cantle.
Doc knew he would soon be thankful for the straw cowboy hats and
bandanas they wore.
With a silent apology to Roy
Rogers, Gabby Hayes and Lash LaRue, Doc applied another handful of the SPF-40
sunscreen. He pitched it to Gonzo who
also screened up before throwing it back.
They didn’t talk much today, Part
of the reason being that they had been together for three days now. They had pretty well covered all of the
subjects they had stored up since the last visit which was about nine months
ago.
The bigger reason for the silence
was that they were in awe of this country and its stark beauty.
But for some reason, they were
both feeling a bit uneasy. For the last
two hours or so, Doc could have sworn he “felt eyes” on him, but as far as he
knew, they were the only people on this plateau. Gonzo didn’t say anything, but Doc could
tell he felt it too. With a nod of agreement,
they moved further apart. They had
fallen back on an old military patrol technique, called spacing. Slowly, with about 10 yards between them,
they continued to move across the plateau.
Under the guise of picture
taking, Doc scanned the area with the telephoto lens, faking a shot every now
and then. Gonzo appeared to follow an
eagle with his binoculars but it was not the bird he was looking for. The only sounds were those of the hoofs of
the horses and burros clip clopping along on the hard ground. The hair on the back of Doc’s neck was
standing straight up. This always
happened when he felt uncomfortable in a place.
To make things worse, his butt was really starting to hurt.
Gonzo guided his horse next to a
stand of mesquite and dismounted. Doc
moved next to him, dismounted and did an exaggerated stretch that he hoped
identified him as an out of shape gringo with a sore butt and no idea he was
being watched. Doc moved closer to
Gonzo.
Gonzo picked up his horse’s right
front hoof and was appeared to be digging out a rock. There was no rock. When Doc was close enough Gonzo said, “Do
you see them yet?”
“Not yet. Why do you think there is more than
one?” Doc asked.
“I can feel them on at least two
sides,” Gonzo said. “They are good
enough not to be spotted but they forgot something. A hunter never looks directly at his target;
there is something extrasensory that happens when he does.”
“The target can feel you
watching.” Gonzo explained. “Remember
when you were in school or in a crowd and you felt someone looking at you? Eight times out of ten you found the person
staring at you. The rest of the time you
were simply too slow – they had already looked off.” He kept fiddling with the
horse’s hoof while he scanned the area in front of him. Doc had positioned himself to face the area
behind Gonzo and appeared to be taking an incredibly long drink from his
canteen. He kept the mouthpiece covered
by his hand so no one could see that the screw cap was still in place.
“Nothing to see on this side
either,” Doc advised.
“Well, I guess we’ll find out who
it is when they are ready to show themselves.”
Gonzo grunted. “Sure wish I had Maggie.”
Maggie was his nickel-plated Colt .357 magnum.
“Yeah, I’d feel a lot better with
the Widow Maker, myself.” Doc commented,
longing for his custom 45-auto loader.
“Oh, what the hell, if you’re going to wish, wish big. Give me a Mini –14 and three 30 round
magazines.” He laughed as they mounted
back up and moved out.
Gonzo kept peeking around but
neither of them saw anything or anybody.
An hour or so before dark they topped a rise of a large hill and saw
IT. More than a house or a building, IT
rose out of the ground like a small walled castle.
“Whoa,” Doc said, “where the hell
did THAT come from?”