And a damn tasty devil drink at that, as I discovered had melted enough to risk afew swigs. Even with the medicinal after-bite from the pills, the iskiate went down like fruit punchwith a nice limey tang. Maybe the excitement of the hunt had something to do with it, but withinminutes, I felt fantastic. Even the low-throbbing headache I’d had all morning from sleeping on afrosty dirt floor the night before had vanished.
Salvador kept pushing us hard, racing daylight to the canyon rim. We almost made it, too. Butwhen we had a good two hours’ worth of climbing still ahead, the sun vanished, plunging thecanyon into darkness so deep that all I could make out were varying shades of black. We debatedrolling out our sleeping bags and camping right there for the night, but we’d run out of food andwater over an hour earlier and the temperature was dropping below freezing. If we could just feelour way up another mile, we might catch enough light above the rim to make it out. We decided togo for it; I hated the idea of shivering all night on a sliver of trail on the edge of a cliff.
It was so dark, I could only follow Salvador by the crunch of his boots. How he was finding theturns on those steep switchbacks without straying over the edge, I didn’t really want to know. Buthe’d proven me wrong with his psychic navigation when he was driving us through the woods, so Iowed it to him to shut up, pay careful attention to his every move, and … and …Wait. What happened to the crunching?
“Salvador?”
Nothing. Shit.
“Salvador!”
“.No pases por aquí!” he called from somewhere ahead of me. Don’t go this way!
“What’s the prob—”
“Calla.” Shut up.
I callaed and stood in the dark, wondering what the hell was wrong. Minutes passed. Not a soundfrom Salvador. “He’ll be back,” I told myself. “He would have screamed if he had fallen. You’dhave heard something. A crash. Something. But damn, he’s taking a long—”
“Bueno.” A shout came from somewhere above me and off to the right. “Good here. But go slow!”
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Salvador kept pushing us hard, racing daylight to the canyon rim. We almost made it, too. Butwhen we had a good two hours’ worth of climbing still ahead, the sun vanished, plunging thecanyon into darkness so deep that all I could make out were varying shades of black. We debatedrolling out our sleeping bags and camping right there for the night, but we’d run out of food andwater over an hour earlier and the temperature was dropping below freezing. If we could just feelour way up another mile, we might catch enough light above the rim to make it out. We decided togo for it; I hated the idea of shivering all night on a sliver of trail on the edge of a cliff.
It was so dark, I could only follow Salvador by the crunch of his boots. How he was finding theturns on those steep switchbacks without straying over the edge, I didn’t really want to know. Buthe’d proven me wrong with his psychic navigation when he was driving us through the woods, so Iowed it to him to shut up, pay careful attention to his every move, and … and …Wait. What happened to the crunching?
“Salvador?”
Nothing. Shit.
“Salvador!”
“.No pases por aquí!” he called from somewhere ahead of me. Don’t go this way!
“What’s the prob—”
“Calla.” Shut up.
I callaed and stood in the dark, wondering what the hell was wrong. Minutes passed. Not a soundfrom Salvador. “He’ll be back,” I told myself. “He would have screamed if he had fallen. You’dhave heard something. A crash. Something. But damn, he’s taking a long—”
“Bueno.” A shout came from somewhere above me and off to the right. “Good here. But go slow!”
单击此处进行编辑.