"Douglas Preston - Tyrannosaur Canyon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Preston Douglas)

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PART ONE
THE MAZE
1


STEM WEATHERS SCRAMBLED to the top of the Mesa de los Viejos, tied his burro to a dead juniper, and settled
himself down on a dusty boulder. Catching his breath, he mopped the sweat off his neck with a bandanna. A steady
wind blowing across the mesa top plucked at his beard, cooling him after the hot dead air of the canyons.
He blew his nose and stuffed the bandanna back into his pocket. Studying the familiar landmarks, he silently recited
the names-Daggett Canyon, Sun-down Rocks, Navajo Rim, Orphan Mesa, Mesa del Yeso, Dead Eye Canyon, Blue
Earth, La Cuchilla, the Echo Badlands, the White Place, the Red Place, and Tyrannosaur Canyon. The closet artist in
him saw a fantastical realm painted in gold, rose, and purple; but the geologist in him saw a set of Upper Cretaceous
fault-block plateaus, tilted, split, stripped, and scoured by time, as if infinity had laid waste to the earth, leaving behind
a wreckage of garish rock.
Weathers slipped a packet of Bull Durham out of a greasy vest pocket and rolled a smoke with gnarled,
dirt-blackened hands, his fingernails cracked and yellow. Striking a wooden match on his pant leg, he fired up the
quirly and took in a long drag. For the past two weeks he had restricted his tobacco ration, but now he could splurge.
All his life had been a prologue to this thrilling week.
His life would change in a heartbeat. He'd patch things up with his daughter, Robbie, bring her here and show her
his find. She would forgive him his obses-sions, his unsettled life, his endless absences. The find would redeem him.
He had never been able to give Robbie the things that other fathers lavished on their daughters-money for college, a
car, help with the rent. Now he'd free her from waiting tables at Red Lobster and finance the art studio and gallery she
dreamed of.
Weathers squinted up at the sun. Two hours off the horizon. If he didn't get moving he wouldn't reach the
Chama River before dark. Salt, his burro, hadn't had a drink since morning and Weathers didn't want a dead animal
on his hands. He watched the animal dozing in the shade, its ears flattened back and lips twitching, dreaming some
evil dream. Weathers almost felt affection for the vi-cious old brute.
Weathers stubbed out his cigarette and slipped the dead butt into his pocket. He took a swig from his canteen,
poured a little out onto his bandanna, and mopped his face and neck with the cooling water. He slung the canteen
over his shoulder and untied the burro, leading him eastward across the barren sandstone mesa. A quarter mile
distant, the vertiginous opening of Joaquin Canyon cut a spectacular ravine in the Mesa de los Viejos, the Mesa of
the Ancients. Falling away into a complex web of canyons known as the Maze, it wound all the way to the Chama
River.
Weathers peered down. The canyon floor lay in blue shadow, almost as if it were underwater. Where the
canyon turned and ran west-with Orphan Mesa on one side and Dog Mesa on the other-he spied, five miles away,
the broad opening to the Maze. The sun was just striking the tilted spires and hoodoo rock formations marking its
entrance.
He scouted the rim until he found the faint, sloping trail leading to the bot-tom. A treacherous descent, it had
landslided out in various places, forcing the traveler to navigate thousand-foot drop-offs. The only route from the
Chama River into the high mesa country eastward, it discouraged all but the bravest souls.
For that, Weathers was grateful.
He picked his way down, careful with himself and the burro, relieved when they approached the dry wash along
the bottom. Joaquin Wash would take him past the entrance to the Maze and from there to the Chama River. At
Chama Bend there was a natural campsite where the river made a tight turn, with a sand-bar where one could swim.
A swim . . . now there was a thought. By tomorrow afternoon he would be in Abiquiu. First thing he'd phone Harry