Tyrannosaur Canyon Read Free

cedar. Above, the light in the hoodoo rock formations had turned from electrum to gold as the sun sank toward the horizon.
    He continued into the warren of canyons, approaching where
Hanging
Canyon
merged with
Mexican
Canyon
-the first of many such branches. Not even a map would help you in the Maze. And the great depth of the canyons made GPS and satellite phones useless.
    The first round struck Weathers in the shoulder from behind, and it felt more like a hard punch than a bullet. He landed on his hands and knees, his mind blank with astonishment. It was only when the report cracked and echoed through the canyons that he realized he'd been shot. There was no pain yet, just a buzzing numbness, but he saw that shattered bone protruded from a torn shirt, and pumping blood was splattering on the sand.
    Jesus God.
    He staggered back to his feet as the second shot kicked up the sand next to him. The shots were coming from the rim above him and to his right. He had to return to the canyon two hundred yards away-to the lee of the rock pillar. It was the only cover. He ran for all he was worth.
    The third shot kicked up sand in front of him. Weathers ran, seeing that he still had a chance. The attacker had ambushed him from the rim above and it would take the man several hours to descend. If Weathers could reach that stone pillar, he might escape. He might actually live. He zigzagged, his lungs screaming with pain. Fifty yards, forty, thirty-
    He heard the shot only after he felt the bullet slam into his lower back and saw his own entrails empty onto the sand in front of him, the inertia pitching him facedown. He tried to rise, sobbing and clawing, furious that someone would steal his find. He writhed, howling, clutching his pocket notebook, hoping to throw it, lose it, destroy it, to keep it from his killer-but there was no place to conceal it, and then, as if in a dream, he could not think, could not move ...
     
     
    2
     
    TOM   BROADBENT REINED in his horse. Four shots had rolled down Joaquin
    Wash from the great walled canyons east of the river. He wondered what it meant. It wasn't hunting season and nobody in his right mind would be out in those canyons target shooting.
    He checked his watch.
Eight o'clock
. The sun had just sunk below the horizon. The echoes seemed to have come from the cluster of hoodoo rocks at the mouth of the Maze. It would be a fifteen-minute ride, no more. He had time to make a quick detour. The full moon would rise before long and his wife, Sally, wasn't expecting him before
midnight
anyway.
    He turned his horse Knock up the wash and toward the canyon mouth, following the fresh tracks of a man and burro. Rounding a turn, a dark shape sprawled in front of him: a man lying facedown.
    He rode over, swung off, and knelt, his heart hammering. The man, shot in the back and shoulder, still oozed blood into the sand. He felt the carotid artery: nothing. He turned him over, the rest of the man's entrails emptying onto the sand.
    Working swiftly, he wiped the sand out of the man's mouth and gave him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Leaning over the man, he administered heart massage, pressing on his rib cage, almost cracking the ribs, once, twice, then another breath. Air bubbled out of the wound. Tom continued with CPR, then checked the pulse.
    Incredibly, the heart had restarted.
    Suddenly the man's eyes opened, revealing a pair of bright blue eyes that stared at Tom from a dusty, sunburnt face. He drew in a shallow breath, the air rattling in his throat. His lips parted.
    "No . . . You bastard . . ." The eyes opened wide, the lips flecked with blood.
    "Wait," said Tom. "I'm not the man who shot you."
    The eyes peered at him closely, the terror subsiding-replaced by something else. Hope. The man's eyes glanced down at his hand, as if indicating something.
    Tom followed the man's gaze and saw he was clutching a small, leather-bound notebook.
    "Take ..." the man rasped.
    "Don't try to talk."
    "Take it..."
    Tom