Strategy #3
He sent the drone on long loops, recording the desert vista from as many angles as possible.
But he couldn’t stare at the aerial view of the hill all day.
The drone could only fly for so long, and he had work to do.
With a final distant circle, he turned the drone’s focus on finding the safest, easiest path to get uphill.
There was the place he’d crossed before—his footprints were gone, but he recognized the terrain.
He sent the drone along the path he’d taken, almost feeling the steps echo through his thighs again.
That was the first plant he’d sampled, and the second…
and there was the dip in the sand where the woman had slept.
Except there was no sign that a body had lain there, no hint that the earth had ever been disturbed.
He’d torn up huge gouts of sand after she’d disappeared, dug as deep as his bare hands could manage.
Abraded his skin, ground dirt beneath his close-trimmed fingernails, some of which was still there despite his motel-room showers.
His heart had pounded with desperation, horror, shock.
Just remembering it made his stomach clench.
Even if he’d hallucinated the woman, he knew he hadn’t hallucinated his own actions, reactions.
He’d tried to rip the soil apart to get to her, adrenaline giving him strength.
But now, it was like it had never happened.
He shook himself. “Back to business,” he grumbled, sending the drone back toward the barrier, high enough he could assess the terrain. There had been no sign of the woman—or any person whatsoever—on his display screen yet, and she wasn’t what he was looking for, anyway. “You have a job to do.”
There. If he crossed just a few yards north of his earlier attempt, he’d have a relatively clear path to proceed.
Not one cholla, secure rock footing, a few tight spots but nothing his armor couldn’t handle.
And at the barrier itself, there seemed to be stable earth on both sides of his crossing to support his jury-rigged siege tower. Perfect.
He recalled the drone, tucked it back in its case, and loaded up for another trudge, circling the hill until he found his desired crossing point.
When he’d gone to the home improvement store, he’d had a dozen different medieval siege engines whirling around in his head.
This wasn’t a situation for trebuchets or catapults, of course.
Battering rams didn’t fit his strategy of passing but not damaging the cacti.
And there were no vertical walls to simply scale.
No, he needed to go both up and over, like crossing an inverted moat.
He needed a bridge.
And so he made one.
First came the up part of the construction.
He unfolded the tall stepstool and settled it on the most level part of the ground, wedging the legs into the soil until they were secure.
It still leaned downhill a bit, but it was climbable, and the fifth step was well above the cactus barrier.
He slung sandbags over the bottom rung of the support for extra stability.
Next came the over. He’d had the store associate cut sheets of plywood lengthwise into long planks, and in the motel parking lot he’d screwed two-by-fours beneath each long edge as support.
He’d drilled holes in the support beams at each end to accommodate industrial-strength ties.
The planks were just slightly narrower than the stepstool supports.
Grimacing with effort, he slid this plank over the top step of the stool, extending it past the cacti until the far end landed on clear earth again.
He tied the plank to the footstool securely and tested the stability of the structure.
Solid as…not a rock, because it had a little give, but solid enough to bear his weight. He hoped.
He gathered his bags, climbed the stepladder, and walked across the plank.
Definitely not solid as a rock. It shifted precariously a time or two as he crossed—which was not surprising. He knew how much he weighed. But the stepstool remained in place, and the plank held, and then his feet were on the ground again.
He wanted to whoop with success, but he was too fucking tired; instead he let out a weary gasping chuckle and started on the route he’d plotted.
“At least you don’t have to carry that shit anymore,” he reassured himself as he walked. The hill was steep enough that he had to watch his footing, and as tired as he was, he still had a long way to go.
He made it five steps before the sand beneath his feet rumbled, hissed, slid, and then—
“Why are you here?”
The indignant voice set Ethan’s heart racing. He jerked his head up.
There she was, standing in his path, hands fisted by her sides, her shoulders quivering. Her uranium-glass eyes glaring like an atomic bomb. She was the same as he remembered, except not, but he couldn’t puzzle over what was different, not when those eyes were right there.
His mouth opened to answer her, his mind racing with explanations and questions and even a few pick-up lines, but what came out was just the barest breath of a word, one that said none of what he was thinking, but somehow everything all at once.
“Hello.”