Breaking Point

to.”
    “Why not McLanahan, then?” Joe asked. “That would make the world a better place.”
    “Hey!”
the ex-sheriff cried, hurt. “That was uncalled for.”
    But Joe noticed Butch was stifling a grin.
    “You know there was never any helicopter,” Joe said.
    “I figured as much.”
    Joe said, “Did you know when you sent the shooter away they’d try to blow him up?”
    “No,” Butch said.
    “Then why’d you give him that satellite phone?”
    “I knew it had GPS. I figured they’d track him thinking it was me and give me some time to get out of here. I had no idea they’d shoot a goddamned
missile
at him.”
    “This fire isn’t the only thing out of control,” Joe said.
    —
    J OE LOOKED AROUND where they stood. It was dry and rocky except for the junipers. He said, “I’ve read where you can start a personal grass fire and lay down in it when it goes out. That way, the fire will go around you because you’ve already used up the fuel.”
    The others looked at him optimistically. Except Butch.
    “That won’t work here, though,” Joe said. “Not enough grass and the brush is over our heads. Plus, the fire is burning too hot. People die from smoke and heat, mostly. They don’t burn up.”
    “The canyon is our only choice,” Butch said.
    “Yup.”
    While Butch, Farkus, and McLanahan waited anxiously, Joe said, “Give me a minute.”
    “We don’t have a minute,” McLanahan shouted. He was looking at actual flames advancing on them from tree to tree in the direction from which Joe had come.
    “You’re free to go on ahead,” Butch said to McLanahan, which shut him up.
    Unsaddling Toby, Joe quickly dug into his essentials bag for a canvas evidence pouch and a length of leather string. He dug out the digital recorder from his pocket, put it in the pouch and cinched it, and wrote FOR GOV RULON ONLY on the canvas with a black marker. He tied the string around Toby’s neck and said, “Be safe, buddy,” and slapped his horse on the flank.
    Toby bunched up and took off. He looked back only once.
    “Go!” Joe hollered.
    “He’s got a better chance without my weight and that saddle,” Joe said. But as he watched his horse thunder up the mountain, his eyes stung, and it wasn’t from the smoke.
    He dug the satellite phone out of the saddlebag.
    He turned to Roberson. “Butch, I’d jettison that pack if I were you.”
    Butch looked back, conflicted.
    “Remember our deal,” Joe said.
    Butch nodded and lowered the pack. “What about my rifle?”
    “I’d leave that, too.”
    “No. It goes with me.”
    Joe didn’t want to argue. The look in Butch’s eyes said it wouldn’t be productive.
    “Then let’s go,” Joe said, walking through them toward the south, still clutching the phone. He looked down and noticed there was a message on the screen. In all the commotion, he hadn’t heard it ring.
    He’d retrieve it as soon as he had a moment.
    “I hope you can find that passage again,” McLanahan shouted.
    “Yeah,” Joe said dourly. “Me, too.”

32
    JOE COULD FEEL HEAT ON HIS BACK WHEN THEY reached the southern rim of Savage Run Canyon. The wind had kicked up, blowing from the northwest, and supercharged the wall of oncoming fire behind them. Occasionally, an ember carried by the wind blew across his vision and one had landed on his shoulder, burning a hole in the fabric. He’d slapped at it as if it were a wasp.
    The air was so hot it burned his lungs to breathe it, and each breath seemed hollow, devoid of oxygen. The smoke was thick and he felt more than saw the opening of the canyon ahead of him, and stopped short. Farkus bumped into him because he was apparently walking with his eyes shut.
    “Don’t
do
that,” Joe warned.
    “Sorry.”
    An arched eyebrow of prickly juniper rimmed the canyon, the foliage biting into the rocky soil and holding on for dear life. It made it hard to tell where the real edge of the canyon began.
    Joe looked up and was surprised to find out that at eye level he couldn’t even see the opposite rim of the canyon because of the smoke. Only when he ducked and trained his eyes down could he vaguely make out the opposing wall. The sheer cliff face was as vertical and slick as he remembered it in his nightmares, and he could see no sign of the passage.
    “How far?” Butch Roberson croaked, his voice thick with mucus.
    “I don’t know,” Joe said over his shoulder.
    Because he couldn’t see farther than thirty feet, he didn’t know if he