Eric tipped the canteen, took a swig of water. "Well, at least we know the map is authentic."
Tracy leaned on her cane. "How do we know that?"
"Angel wouldn't have tried to kill us otherwise."
"Us?" Tracy said.
"You were supposed to be the first. She just didn't know how tough you were."
"Neither did I." Tracy lightly touched the cuts on her forehead and chin.
"I did," Eric said, with a trace of pride.
Blackjack looked up into the bright afternoon sun and wiped the sweat from his forehead. "The three of us are so bandaged up we look like those three Revolutionary soldiers in that painting. You know, one carries the flag, one bangs the drum, and one plays the flute or fife or some damn thing."
"That painting is 'The Spirit of 76' by Archibald M. Willard," Eric said.
Blackjack gave him a disgusted look and turned to Tracy. "How do you stand it."
"Lots of patience," she sighed.
The rest of the eight-member crew took the opportunity to sip water and complain about the hilly terrain.
"Time enough for me to take a leak?" Brad Collins asked. He was a young Australian who'd been visiting California for a surfing competition when the quakes hit.
"Sure," Blackjack waved, "take your time and do it right."
Eric pointed back across three hills they had just covered. Atop the farthest one was Hearst Castle. "Quite a sight, huh?"
Tracy shook her head. "It's a shame that all those great art treasures are being destroyed, but I hope we never see the place again."
Blackjack stretched, rolling his neck until the bones cracked into place. "One more hill and you won't be able to see it."
"One more hill and I won't be able to see anything," Tracy laughed.
Eric looked at his watch, then up at the sun. "Probably a good idea if we camp here for the rest of the day."
"What for?" Blackjack asked. "We can cover a lot more ground before the sun goes down."
"That's the point, Blackjack. We don't want to travel during the day. We dehydrate much faster. We don't know how much water there is between here and the weapons, so we have to conserve our supply." He threw his backpack on the ground. "So we sit here in the shade until dark and move out then. Besides, we have a great view of the castle."
"We don't need a great view of the goddamned castle. We need to move our asses over that hill so we can find the weapons. You want to get to Santa Barbara and find your kid, don't you?"
Eric smiled at him. "In time." Eric sat down next to his pack and leaned his crossbow on a nearby rock.
Blackjack was obviously displeased, but shrugged to the rest of the crew who quickly captured some shade for themselves.
They sat silently for more than an hour. Tracy read a book of Persian recipes that Eric had picked up as they left Liar's Cove. It was the only book he could find, but she was pleased. At least it was something to read.
Blackjack fretted, anxiously checking the sun, as if he could will it down out of the sky.
Eric closed his eyes and napped, occasionally waking up to check his watch. Finally, he kept his eyes open. He was smiling in a peculiar way.
"You aren't turning funny, are you?" Tracy asked him. "I mean, you don't hear messages from God or anything?"
"What?"
"Well, that shit-eating grin of yours. Did you just make a killing in the stockmarket, or what?"
"No, no. I was just thinking."
"About what?"
"Angel."
"Oh."
"Nothing like that. I was thinking how desperate she was to think she could get away with something so dumb."
"You mean trying to kill me? Hell, she almost made it."
"No, not that. I mean the whole map business."
Blackjack sat up. "What do you mean? You said it was real."
"Did I?" Eric said. He leaned back against his backpack, his hands webbed behind his head. "Did you get a close look at those bruises on her neck, Tracy?"
Tracy was confused. She knew Eric was getting at something, but she didn't know what. Whatever it was, she had a feeling she wasn't going to like the outcome. "Yeah, I saw them."
"C'mon, man," Blackjack said defensively. "I did what I had to do to get the map. You knew what was going on, so don't start accusing me of brutality."
"You miss the point, Blackjack. I'm surprised, too, you being a doctor and all."
"Cut the shit, Eric," Blackjack barked. "What are you getting at?"
"Notice the way the bruises were? With the thumb imprint lower than the top finger?"
Tracy closed her eyes, pictured Angel's neck as if she were about to draw it. "Yeah. That's right. So?"
"So there's only one way she could have gotten bruises like that. If she'd strangled herself."
"Jesus," Blackjack said, "the heat's too much for you white boys."
Tracy clutched her own throat, her hand upside down. "I see what you mean. But why? Scratch that question. I have a feeling I don't want to know."
Eric leveled his eyes on Blackjack. "It's simple, unfortunately. Angel knew she'd be forced to talk eventually, so she made a deal with Blackjack here. She'd tell him where the weapons were and split it with him later. In the meantime they'd perform their little act for us, fake a map, and all would be well. Only Angel had no intention of splitting with him. She came back to kill all three of us, but especially him."
"Come on, Eric," Tracy said. "You're scaring me."
"Sorry, Trace, but it's true. Blackjack is still an amateur at this kind of thing, but Angel's been dealing in deceit and double-crossing for years. She knew I'd never believe she talked unless there was some physical damage. Some cuts and bruises. I suspect she talked Blackjack into hitting her, but he couldn't keep at it as much as she wanted. So she made some bruises of her own. There's a lot more power in the grip upside down when you're choking yourself." He smiled at Blackjack. "How am I doing, Doc?"
Blackjack returned the smile, but there was a sadness in his eyes that made him look ill. He drew his.38 from the shoudler holster and pointed it at Eric. "You're the most irritating white man I've ever met." He waved at his crew behind him. "Pack it up folks. They know."
Tracy sagged. "I knew I w-ouldn't like it."
"Sorry, Tracy. But I warned you what I was at the beginning. I said I was a pirate, but you chose to interpret that to mean some kind of gentleman robber." He shook his head bitterly. "I don't have time to be a gentleman anything anymore. I'm dying. But before I go, I'm getting some of what's mine."
"What's yours? What the hell do you want?" Tracy demanded. "Guns, food, women? What?"
He gave her a hard look. "Not things. I want to live the way I want, for me. Hell, I'm not going to make some movie speech for you. I don't owe you an explanation."
"What are you going to do?"
He climbed to his feet, joined his crew. "I'm going to leave you here. We'll take your weapons and leave them a couple miles from here. I'll leave one of my armed crew to keep you covered while we get a good head start toward where the guns really are. You stay away from us and you'll live. That's all you get."
Eric looked at his watch again. "What about our ride to Santa Barbara?"
"Eric, never mind!" Tracy said.
Blackjack frowned at Eric. "Don't push it, Eric."
Eric's smile spread wider across his face. "Tracy, what do you know about the zoo in Hearst Castle?"
"I know there's got to be a point."
"Trust me."
"Somehow that doesn't make me feel better." Tracy shrugged. "The zoo. Hearst loved animals. Even when the field mice threatened to destroy his fruit trees, he hesitated to do anything about it because he didn't want them killed. That ought to clue you in on the way he felt about animals. He had two thousand fenced acres for what was once the largest private zoo in the country. He had something like thirty species of carnivores, including tigers and an elephant, and seventy species of assorted animals which he allowed to roam wherever they wanted. That enough?"
Eric shook his head.
She sighed. "He also had elaborate bear pits, lion pens, monkey houses. The whole thing was designed to provide maximum comfort for the animals. Kind of nice, when you think about it." She looked back and forth between Eric and Blackjack, who were staring at each other. "Th-th-that's all, folks."
Blackjack looked worse. His shoulders sagged under some invisible weight. His face was drawn, his eyes sallow.
"Unlike Tracy, Blackjack, I believed you when you told us you were a pirate. Which meant there was no reason I should trust you when you took Angel away last night. I followed you, figuring if you did make a deal with her, you wouldn't be satisfied unless she personally showed you where the guns were hidden. And she did."
"How could she?" Tracy asked. "Unless…"
"Unless they were hidden at Hearst Castle. Exactly. A perfect place for the government to take them. Easy to defend if they had to, hard to get to. Only that five-mile road, which is now underwater."
"The zoo!" Tracy said suddenly. "They hid them in the zoo."
"Right. The animals were all gone, but they built a special bin under the bear pit, impossible to find unless you know it's there. If only BeBop knew what he was sitting on."
"But he never will," Blackjack said, his voice tired. "We'll go back, take them to the ship, and return to Liar's Cove to auction off whatever we don't keep. We'll make a fortune in goods."
Tracy dug her cane into the ground and struggled to her feet. "Do you know the kind of scum you'll be giving guns to?"
"He knows," Eric said.
"Not giving," Blackjack smiled. "Selling."
"Not selling, either, I think," Eric said, tapping his watch crystal. "I mean, you didn't think I'd follow you to the cache and then fall for this gag of luring us away, did you?"
Blackjack looked confused, then horrified. He looked over his shoulder at Hearst Castle. "God, no!"
"God, yes," Eric said coldly.
The explosion lifted rocks and dirt and trees and concrete into a tangled plume of smoke and fire. Several smaller explosions followed, peppered with the chattering of boxes of bullets detonating like firecrackers. Bits of debris fell lazily to the ground as smoke swirled upward to join the Halo.
Blackjack spun angrily to face Eric, his jaw clenched, his lips trembling with rage. His dark skin seemed somehow even darker now. He thrust his.38 into Eric's face. "You made a terrible misjudgment thinking I wouldn't kill you for that."
Eric was calm, his features hammered in steel. "I didn't know whether you'd kill me or not, Blackjack. I'd like to think you wouldn't. But I wasn't willing to rely on faith. I've been wrong about people before."
Blackjack thumbed the hammer of his gun back with a deadly click. "Make it fast."
"After I followed you and Angel to the cache, I managed to make a fair time bomb out of all the stuff I found there. But first I moved some of it. Hid it."
Blackjack pressed the gun against Eric's forehead. "Where?"
"Well, now, that's the secret. There's not much hidden, though. Some rifles, pistols, a few boxes of ammunition. Not enough to conquer California, but enough for a few trained people on a floating farm, with a little luck, to protect themselves against any invasion. Maybe even move safely back to the land."
Blackjack stared at Eric for a full minute, maybe longer. Tracy held her breath, the rest of the crew shifted nervously.
Finally, Blackjack eased the hammer down on the gun, shoved it back into his holster. "Hell, what's a few blown up guns between good buddies like us? Hardly enough to justify me wasting a bullet on you"-he grinned- "this time."