They moved well and covered another hundred yards when Sam stepped on a loose rock and fell hard. Miguel and Hunter kneeled by him as the rancher held his ankle. “How is it,” Hunter asked.
“Sprained. Not broke, but bad enough.” Hunter reached to help him to his feet and he shrugged her off, “Don’t wait for me. You two go after that murdering piece of trash. I can stand, and I can limp out of here. I’ll wait for you at the truck.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure.” He hobbled to his feet and handed the .22 to Miguel. “Go on, or he’s gonna get away.” Sam didn’t wait for them to answer and started limping the way he came, out of the canyon. Hunter and Miguel trotted after Asadullah.
As they went deeper into the canyon, the soil under their feet became wetter, squishing with every step. In a deep bend, Hunter saw where Asadullah stopped and looked along his backtrail, then proceeded up the canyon again.
The canyon was shaped like a snake track and bent left and right. After the second bend, Hunter and Miguel entered a deeper part of it. The walls were fifty feet high and higher, with most of it sheer rock. The bottom narrowed to twenty feet, and the air felt moist, with a slight breeze coming down the canyon and into their faces.
“I am so nervous I am shaking,” Miguel said.
Hunter said, “Keep going, there’s no place to climb out here.” They kept up the pace, still following the terrorist’s tracks.
***
Asadullah peered over the canyon edge and watched the two pursuers below him as they started forward. Wiping the rain from his face, he moved along the rim toward the place deeper in the canyon where he wanted them to be.
Hunter felt it when they came around the next bend into a straight section of canyon. A push of cool air hit her face, and a faint sound of something like a hissing roar came from the canyon ahead. She said, “Hurry!
There was no going back and outrunning what was coming. She sprinted forward, looking at both sides of the canyon for a way to the rim.
Miguel pointed ahead, “It is here!” A wall of brown, turbulent water came toward them at thirty miles an hour. Trees and brush turned and tossed within it, and the sound was a constant roar.
Hunter looked to the left and saw where Asadullah’s tracks went to the wall where a narrow fissure reached from the floor to the rim. “There!” She said.
She raced to the fissure and climbed, using small hand and footholds like a ladder. She glanced down at Miguel and saw he had shoved the rifle under his belt at his back and was climbing fast. Water sloshed at his feet and when he looked up at her, his eyes were big.
Hunter climbed faster, her heart beating like a frightened rabbit’s. Miguel struggled as the water reached his knees, but he continued to climb.
Hunter’s foot slipped and she hung by her hands, but Miguel grasped her right foot and pushed it to another toehold. She kept climbing.
The water reached Miguel’s waist, but he held to the rock face. He looked at the flood, seeing a mesquite tree, maybe fifteen feet tall, scraping its branches along the wall and coming straight at them. “Hold on!” Miguel yelled.
The thorn-filled branches raked their backs and legs like needle-clawed monsters. Hunter felt two long thorns go deep into her shoulder, and with the weight of the tree passing, it almost pulled her from the rock, but they broke off, and the tree continued downstream.
Miguel had blood trickling from thorn wounds in his hands and cheek. The water continued to rise quickly and reached his armpits. Miguel could barely hang on against the force of the flood.
They were close to the rim, and Hunter reached it on the next try, grasping the rough edge to pull up the last few feet to safety.
She hooked one knee on top and inched up until her chest and stomach were over the edge, then brought the other up. She was exhausted, but worked her way to all fours, panting as she turned to help Miguel.
Asadullah left his hiding place behind a long boulder and ran at Hunter. She couldn’t hear him because of the roar of rushing water, and her face was turned to help Miguel.
He kicked her in the ribs with such force it lifted Hunter from the ground. She felt something give in her side, then she hit on her back, huffing as the breath went out of her and a deep pain erupted, like hot coals under her ribs.
He moved fast and kicked her hard in the face twice, following her across the ground after every blow moved her limp body.
The Lion of Allah gave her another kick in the side before taking her pistol and her handie talkie. He tossed the radio into the water, and kicked Hunter’s face once more. “You are nothing,” he said. Then Asadullah casually turned as Miguel scrambled over the rim, and shot the Mexican in the body.
Miguel fell backward and slid beneath the muddy, fast moving water without a sound.
Asadullah looked at Hunter as she pushed herself to her knees. Her nose bled in twin red streams and one eye was swelling fast. She held her ribs and attempted to stand.
He said, “You wish to stand for your final moments? Very well, stand.” He watched Hunter struggle to her feet. “You do not stop fighting, do you? I like that. This time, you are beaten. You cannot defeat me. But I will give you a quick death. You deserve that.”
As Asadullah raised the pistol, Hunter saw movement. Twenty feet downstream, Miguel grasped a fist-sized knob at the lip of the rim. He pulled his head above the ledge as his other arm swung the dripping .22 rifle over the lip and fired at the terrorist as fast as he could pull the trigger.