Chapter 8

Dawn was still three hours away, the desert air crisp, the sky scattered with stars. At a time when the desert quiet is usually broken only by the sounds of Great Horned Owls and other night predators, Patrick was awakened by a sudden noise unlike anything he had ever heard. A sound beyond imagination, it was as loud as a hundred lightning bolts let loose at the same time, causing a clap of thunder to roll and roll and roll. It sounded as if the earth itself was being ripped apart. Then, with no further warning, the horizontal crevice he had wedged himself into on the canyon ridge the night before began to move. At first, Patrick felt the ground beneath him begin to tremble. His mind tried to reason away panic. Whatever its source, it was the noise itself causing him to feel the rock cliff move. His eyes tried to pierce the deep darkness of the night, to discover the source of so great an uproar. But the trembling steadily grew stronger, until the earth shook so severely that he could no longer doubt what his mind was telling him. The whole world was moving.

Grasping the shotgun that lay beside him, Patrick flipped over onto his stomach, drug the gun in snug against his body, and crossed his his arms over his head. He pulled himself as tightly into his cranny as he possibly could. The earth continued to pitch and roll. The very ground beneath him moved in nauseating rises and drops. Using his toes and knees, Patrick kept pushing himself into the wedge shaped solid rock sides of his crevice, struggling to find safety.

At one moment he lay snuggly burrowed into the fissure he'd taken refuge in. Seconds later the wall of rock to the west of him jumped away a foot or more in one swift movement. And mere seconds after that, the rock came smashing back toward him, so hard and fast that it bruised the flesh of his arm. Even as he felt the slam of rock against his terror held body, the wall on the other side of him stretched away, only to come crashing back as suddenly as it was snatched away. Screaming above the crashing, cracking, rumbling thunder, Patrick's nerves snapped. "Mother, of God! Make it stop! Please, make it stop!"

A new rumbling from above gave him scant warning of yet another gut wrenching turn of events. The rocks of the canyon rim, shaken free of their moorings, finally lost their precarious balance and began their fall to the canyon floor. Well protected from the largest rocks by the crevasse he'd wedged himself into, Patrick's body still jerked in response to each boulder's jarring descent. Then, yet another great wave of movement hit the area. This time the sharp crack of splitting rock echoed against the canyon walls. Once again Patrick clung to his gun and used toes and knees to scramble himself into his niche, at any moment expecting the entire wall to fall away. He clenched his eyes shut, his jaws aching, the muscles of his body involuntarily releasing his bladder and bowels. He didn't care. The very world was wrenching apart around him. Fist sized rocks, pebbles and shale bounced against his back while the larger rocks broken free from the canyon ridge passed over him. Patrick trembled in his crevasse, trying to shut out the terrifying noise of rending rock crashing against itself.

All of a sudden a rock too small to roll past, yet still large enough to smash Patrick into unconsciousness, bounced against his head and his fears were forgotten. Twice more before daylight the earth shook, but Patrick lay unaware.

When Patrick came to, he found himself partially buried in loose stone, shale, and rock powder settled from the air of the night's holocaust. His left cheek lay pressed against cool rock. A fierce ache pounded inside his skull. Without moving his head, he looked around himself as best he could. A boulder that would have crushed him flat had it actually come to rest upon him, lay suspended by the edges of the crevice, a mere foot above his midsection.

Slowly, cautiously, Patrick moved each of his limbs. He ached from a multitude of bruises, but nothing felt broken. Using all the strength he possessed he pushed one arm free of the rubble of rocks. One at a time he began tossing rocks from around his body off the cliff face. Arms sore and head pounding, mid morning came and went before he was finally able to twist his lower legs around and sit up on his buttocks.

Patrick emerged from his sanctuary dragging his shotgun with him and wondering how he had managed to escape death. Destruction lay everywhere. The canyon floor was a jumble of newly fallen rock. In places the canyon wall had lost huge, impossibly large, slabs of stone and Patrick gawked at the sight. A quiet hung over it all, an eerie silence broken only by the occaisional rattle of small slips of rock. He was bruised and battered, but his body seemed to be working right. Now, before anything further prevented him, he needed to get off this canyon wall as soon as he could manage it.

Before Patrick even began his climb to the ridge, another trembler struck. He was immediately thrown from his feet. Scuttling to a nearby rocky upthrust that had remained standing through the previous shakes, he wrapped his arms around it and held on for dear life. Most of the rock loose enough to fall had done so during the first furious shakings of the earth. Still, Patrick heard the crack of rock cutting loose somewhere down the ridge line. From the sound, he guessed a huge section of canyon wall had fallen to the bottom of the canyon floor. When he felt the outcrop of solid stone to which he had attached himself raise into the air almost a foot, he gasped uncontrollably. What in the world was happening?

When the earth settled back into quiet stillness once more, Patrick scrambled to his feet, hurrying to climb the spine of rock where he'd taken refuge before another quake could shake the ground beneath him and keep him from the canyon rim and safety. Heedless of where he put his hands and feet, all he could think of was getting off the face of the cliff. He clung to his shotgun. That was instinctive. A man took care of his gun. Gun and safety, that was all that filled his mind.

Midway in his frantic climb Patrick came to a nearly vertical face of rock. The need to stop, to force his mind to find a way up or around this block of rock, also gave him time to settle into more regular breathing. This was a familiar problem. On occasion, when he had to get one of his goats off a ledge or out of some other difficulty, he had done this before and working out an answer calmed him considerably. After a moment's study, he wedged his brogan into a narrow crack running up through the rock. Placing it as high in the breach as he could, he braced his weight and shoved his body upward. Now he was able to jam his left hand into the crack. Shoving his arm as far back as he could, he secured himself for his next move. By holding himself on his foot and bracing his position with his arm, Patrick was able to toss the shotgun in an arc up and over his head and onto the top of the rock. Having gotten his shotgun onto the shelf above, Patrick tugged his arm free of the crack. As if on cue, he let out the breath he had held through the whole maneuver. Had the earth chosen to start jumping again, he'd likely have lost an arm or leg, or both.

It only took a few moments longer for Patrick to work his way up the remaining few feet to the ledge. He'd reached the top. Now that he'd made it up and over the cliff face he could put solid ground between himself and the canyon. Before he could leave the canyon behind, he had to satisfy the urge to look. He only took a moment to survey the canyon from his new vantage point and immediately sucked in his breath. Nothing remained of the familiar twistings and side canyons. The canyon had been reshaped, its walls given new form, its floor now covered in a mass of debris. Of its own accord, his body moved a step backward. Then he turned and hastened away.

He walked as quickly as he could, working at the remaining stiffness in his limbs. His mind repeatedly flashed the sight of the reformed canyon, the masses of rock rubble, the alien land, before his eyes. After only five or six steps he found himself in a dead run. His breath came ragged. He wanted nothing more than away from the canyon's open aired depths. Nothing else mattered.

He must have run for a quarter of a mile. His breath whistled from his mouth by the time he slowed and ended his blind charge away from the steep canyon rim. Stopping, he looked around himself. His brows crossed. His still aching head tried unsuccessfully to find a familiar landmark. There were none. He had never been here before.

Alright, he breathed slowly. As long as the sun is in the sky, I can't get lost. I know I left the shack heading north. His breathing took on a more regular, natural pace. It might take a while, but he'd find his way back. With his usual swaggering confidence returned, he put the sun to his shoulder and headed south.

The earth selected that very moment to begin another round of shudders. Even though he knew the quakes were not yet ended, the unexpected revival again threw Patrick to the ground. The fingers that held his shotgun were rammed against the dirt as he put his hands out to catch himself. Bones cracked. This time when the tremor stopped, Patrick rolled to the seat of his pants and stuck his wounded fingers in his mouth. He simply sat there on the solid earth that wasn't solid any longer and wept.

Yesterday, or was it the day before, Lou'd struggled his way down off the ridge line and took to the lower elevations. His water had run out three days ago. In the days following the ill fated interruption of his meal at the restaurant, he'd eaten one miserable lizard he'd managed to bag by dropping a rock on the creature's head. With a sharp edged rock, he'd split the hide on its belly enough to rip away the skin, but even with matches in his pocket, he'd been too hungry to fiddle with a fire. He'd eaten the thing raw. His need for food hadn't been helped much as there wasn't enough meat on the critter for more than a handful of swallows. He would have to do better soon. Mostly though, his problem was water. He was slowly dying, wasting away from thirst.

He was walking along the bottom of a fairly wide canyon when it happened. The walls, raising their hundred foot height into the air on either side of him, saved his life. Taking advantage of all the moonlight he could, he was traveling the canyon wash, keeping well away from the night time shadows of the canyon walls. He moved slowly, his steps labored, his strength almost gone. He never heard any warning beyond the crash of rocks as they began tumbling off the eastern side of the canyon somewhere down its length.

Suddenly the earth beneath his feet shook so soundly that his tired body fought for balance. Rather than be thrown to the ground, Lou dropped to his haunches. He'd spent his life aboard the hurricane deck of any kind of cowpony that happened to be his at the moment, but this was the first time he'd seen the earth itself act like she wanted to throw him from her back. That was, however, exactly what he felt happening. The ground bucked and heaved and rolled beneath his crouched body.

"Good God almighty!" Lou exclaimed in awe struck wonder as huge sections of canyon wall broke loose and tumbled into the canyon floor. He hunkered down spell bound as seconds stretched out in slow motion and nature as he knew it did things that were unthinkable. As if totally removed from the events around him, he watched in wonder as a long since water starved tree standing a handful of feet away at the edge of the wash fell to its side. Lou couldn't even hear the noise of its falling over the rumble of rocks crashing to the bottom of the canyon. As the ground beneath him continued it's bucking, he batted at the dust cloud rising out of the destruction and threatening to completely close off his already parched throat. Then as suddenly as it had started, an unnatural stillness fell over the land and the dust settled.

The night creatures and the entire canyon seemed shocked into silence. Nothing moved. Then a solitary rock lost its precarious, temporary balance and clattered its way through the strained hush until finding another, more solid resting place. In the aftermath of the quake's raucous noise, the rock's fall stabbed at the stillness.