Page 12 of What is Found

“No, I’ll stick with the Glock,” John said. “Be better if anyone gets close.”

“Let’s hope that doesn’t happen,” Davila said.

“This good, this very good.” Jacking out his Glock’s magazine, Parviz opened a box of ammunition. “End of day, you wait, you see,” he said, thumbing in bullets. “You be glad.”

“If it’s all the same to you,” John said, “at the end of day, I think we’d better hope this will all be for nothing.”

CHAPTER 3

Parviz hadthe idea of using a tarp on which to pile rocks then drag to the side.Make go faster,the driver said, and he was right. There reallywerea lot of rocks strewn across the narrow road. Most were the size of fat, extra-large cantaloupes and were in two very large heaps. Looked at from a certain angle, the pattern was almost like a miniature mountain range: both heaps topping out at mid-thigh with a lower saddle in the middle.

Which, John thought, was a little odd. Couldn’t quite put his finger on why, and then he was so busy moving stone, he had no time to think.

There was no chatter, no banter back and forth. They spoke only when necessary, and in a whisper. For a bandit, a stalled or stopped vehicle was easy prey. Once they got going, there’d be a racket, of course, and they’d already created one just venturing down this detour.

After a half hour, he traded places with Davila and kept watch, rifle in hand. Stamping his feet, John paced to keep warm as his sweat wicked away. This high up, there was no bird song, no insects, no far-off clatter of an engine straining over a pass. The only noise was thechikof rock against rock, the men’s breathing, the sough of the wind, and the pop and squeal of grit under John’s boots as he turned right and left. He kept his head on continuous swivel, though his gaze always came to rest on those rocks for perhaps two or three seconds longer.

Something wrong with this picture. But what?

Puffing, Parviz stood, pressed a hand to his back, arched, then said, “Mr. Child, what you look?”

“Just looking.” At that moment, a memory flashed: craning a look up at the mountain towering above the Going to the Sun Road.

And then another memory, not of the overhang but...

A crater.

His back went rigid. Right,right! He remembered now. The rocks that had smashed into the Going to the Sun Road were both very large and had fallen quite a distance. High school physics: force equals mass times acceleration. In the case of something like a rock, gravity provided acceleration. The more distance the rock had to fall, the faster it would go.

The crater beneath all those rocks onthatroad had been immense: large enough for a person to lie down and still have room to spare.

Here, though?—

“Hey!” He turned to find Davila supporting a gasping Parviz. “I think he needs a break here.”

“I okay,” Parviz wheezed. Sweat trickled down his temples to seep into his collar, and he was puffing like a blown horse. “I…keep go.”

“Yeah, right,” Davila said. “Go drink some water. You throw your back out, we’re toast.”

“He’s right,” John said, as evenly as he could. He had to talk to Davila, read him in, tell him what he suspected. “Take a break. We got this.”

“Okay. I okay.” Arming sweat from his face, Parviz took the rifle then shuffled toward the van. “I be okay.”

John and Davila worked in silence for a few moments. Now that he was closer, John saw how disparate all the rocks were and again felt a tickle of unease. Did a quick eye-check of their driver, who was a good distance away and guzzling from a water bottle.

“Davila.” He kept his voice to a murmur. “These rocks bother you?”

“No. Should they?” Davila swabbed his face with a forearm. “They’re rocks.”

“Yes, but they’re different.”

“So?” Dragging off his watch cap, Davila gave his head a scratch as thin, wispy fiddleheads of steam unfurled and then dissipated in the chill. Streaks of sweat dribbled from his temples on down his cheeks to pearl in drops along his jaw. The rocks hereweren’t heavier; there were simply more of them, and Davila had worked up a sweat working as fast as he could. Peeling off his parka, Davila said, “Probably picked up crap on the way down. By definition, that’s kind of what a rockslide does.”

“No, there’s more to it than that. Keep working but listen. Remember, Parviz claimed there were bandits in these parts. Ustinov warned us, too.”

“You saying you don’t believe them?”

“No, I do. Thing is, remember the other slides we’ve cleared? The one thing they had in common?”