“I have a problem with that ‘every woman eagerly fulfills her role’ crap. Who decides what her role will be?”
“Men, of course,” Nate said. “As it should be.”
She had to know he was teasing but she gave him a dirty look, anyway. He smiled and continued reading. “God is no respecter of persons. Why wait? Know God. Know Paradise.” On the very bottom they found a list of meetings, one of which was being held the following night.
“I think we have our wish,” Rachel breathed.
Nate nodded but his mind had already moved on to other concerns. They’d likely have to go in without weapons. And even if phones were permitted, there wouldn’t be any cell service. Once they went in, they’d be on their own. Cut off from the rest of the world.
“What do you see?”
Nate was squinting at Paradise through a Sigma 50-500mm supertelephoto lens on a handheld Nikon D1. He had two shorter lenses in a pouch slung across his body. The gear would’ve cost the company a fortune if they’d had to purchase it. Fortunately, he had a buddy, a talented sports photographer, who owned several cameras.
“Nate?” Crouched beside him wearing sunglasses, a tank top, cutoffs and tennis shoes, Rachel also had a backpack, but hers was filled with water and snacks. It sat nearby, where she’d dropped it when they’d established their position on a plateau overlooking the compound. “Did you hear me?” she prompted when he didn’t answer.
“I don’t see a lot.” He adjusted the bill of his cap for more shade. “The saloons are gone. I can tell you that much.”
“Saloons?”
“On the Web, it said there used to be thirteen saloons.”
“You mean, from when it was a mining town.”
“Yep.”
“I’m not surprised there were so many. People would have to be drunk 24/7 to want to live out here in the middle of nowhere,” she muttered, reaching for the camera. “Especially before modern transportation, which would make it easier to get out.”
Nudging her hand away, he brought the Nikon back up to his own eye. “No, you don’t, sweetheart. Not yet. I don’t even have it in focus yet.” But a second later he had a perfect view. There was a ten-foot fence with razor wire on top enclosing the whole town. Not many of the early twentieth-century buildings remained. There was just one that still had a roof—the old post office. According to the Web site, that post office had been built around 1900 and was discontinued forty years later. Considering the mine had closed in 1907, Paradise had died a slow death.
“There we go…” he murmured.
“There we go, what?”
He handed her the camera. She put her sunglasses on top of her head, and he helped her hold the Nikon steady while she gazed through the lens. “Wow. Looks more like a prison than Paradise.”
“Question is—are they trying to keep people in or out?”
“In. They don’t have the saloons anymore, remember?”
She had a point. But it sounded as if they had weed, meth or other drugs. “According to Martha, they’re not teetotalers,” he said, and took back the camera to shoot a few pictures he hoped to enlarge later.
“They must live in those large white tents.”
“There wouldn’t be enough housing otherwise.” He spotted a brown building behind a patch of trees. “They have some permanent construction. And it appears they’re building more…” He got a picture of that, too.
“Can’t be easy to drag lumber all the way up here.”
“Or cheap.”
“Hence the big tents.” She squatted closer to him. “Can you see any of the people? I couldn’t find a single soul.”
Neither could Nate. There was no movement in Paradise. “Feels sort of deserted.”
“It’s late afternoon. Maybe they’re inside, having a siesta.”
Waves of heat bounced off the rocks all around. “Or some sort of prayer meeting in an air-conditioned building.” Lowering the camera again, he pointed to the Chiricahuas, which rose from the desert directly across from them. “Maybe we should hike over to those hills, try to get some shots of the town from a different angle.” Even if the second vantage point afforded them no new details about Paradise itself, it couldn’t hurt to familiarize themselves with the land. Depending on how relations with the Covenanters went, that information could come in handy if they ever had to sneak out at night or slip away unnoticed—although how they’d get out of the compound except through the gate remained a mystery. That razor wire looked daunting.
Rachel stood and grabbed her backpack. “Sure, why not hike for the rest of the afternoon? It’s only a hundred degrees out here.”
Nate raised his eyebrows at her sarcasm. “We can go swimming later.”
“In the nice swimming pool behind our trailer? Or at the resort?”
“What a smart-ass. I was thinking of the creek.”
“Not Cave Creek.”
“Why not?” He shrugged. “It runs year-round.”
“It’s July, which makes ‘year-round’ a matter of interpretation. The water barely covers the boulders.”
He’d seen that for himself. They’d driven along the creek on their way out of Portal earlier. But he was so hot he would’ve been happy with a trickle. “It’s water, isn’t it? Are you done griping yet?”
“No,” she snapped, but she didn’t complain again.
“Wait up and give me a drink,” he called. She’d gotten ahead of him while he’d been packing the camera equipment.
She came back but didn’t bother handing him her Camelbak. She passed him the mouthpiece at the end of the long rubber tube.
He drank, then watched her drink from the same mouthpiece. Her skin, naturally golden to begin with, had tanned quite a bit since the beginning of summer. She spent a lot of time on the beach when she wasn’t working. He doubted she had to worry about burning two months into summer. But this wasn’t another hour on the beach in L.A. Anyone could fry out here. “Time to put on some more sunblock,” he told her.
“I’ll get it out for you if you want, but I’m fine.”
“You haven’t put any on since before we left the trailer.”
“So?”
“You’re not in California anymore.” He slid the strap of her shirt off her shoulder. “You’re burning.”