Catacombs by John Farris

Author:John Farris [Farris, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Suspense & Thrillers
Publisher: Crossroad Press

Chapter 19

WARSHIELD RANCH

Silverpeak, Colorado

May 17

The instructors brought in to teach Raun Hardie and Lem Meztizo the Third the rudiments of parachute jumping had set up a practice area in the largest of the two barns on Jade's ranch, and for two days, when she wasn't hiking and doing calisthenics and wind sprints to build her endurance, Raun learned how to survive leaping out of an airplane from a mile or so in the air.

She was determined that she was not going to make an actual jump. No power on earth– But at the same time it was imperative to give the impression that she was cooperating, and the techniques which the experts taught were not difficult to learn. Rolling backward and forward on a tumbling mat, keeping feet and knees together and her chin tucked in. Launching herself from a small trampoline and rolling forward over one shoulder. Jumping from a six, then a ten-foot-high platform. Learning, after coming up with a chipped tooth and a bloody lip the first time because she was too loose and casual, how the shock of impact is taken up by the strength of the legs and then distributed along one side of the body by rolling through thigh and hip to the shoulder.

Raun was fitted for a red-and-yellow jump suit, boots, and helmet. She learned the theory of canopy control by hanging from an actual harness and pulling on the lift webs. She practiced jumping from the platform with a second chute, which, they solemnly told her, was useful in case the first one opened improperly. Admittedly a rare occurrence, but . . . A Roman candle, it was called. From any distance above a thousand feet the body would meet the earth at a speed of one hundred sixty miles an hour.

Uh-huh, Raun said. Her mind was far away. It was a meaningless consequence for thumbing your nose at Fate. She'd already reached her absolute limit, ten feet above the tanbark in the barn. Wild horses wouldn't drag– They taught her how to get rid of that first tangled chute in case she needed to open the second. At the end of fifteen hours of instruction and practice she felt quite competent. But it was all for nothing. She was just biding her time.

On the evening of the sixteenth she went for a hike and jog before dinner and was surprised to find that she had been looking forward to this time; Lem Meztizo, claiming that he was feeling the results of months of physical neglect, went with her.

Their course took them down by the Picket Wire, where the three trout fishermen were wading upstream and about thirty yards apart, serenely looking for that last catch of the day. One of them, the portly Bill Sawyer, turned and noticed them and waved. He and Raun had never spoken, but in a sense they were friends: It was one curious effect which the beauty and isolation of the ranch had on people. Raun waved back.

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