«If we go left, that takes us right into town," Max noted skeptically.
«I doubt he'd go there on an ATV," Liz agreed with his unspoken thought.
There was another property directly across the street from them, and Max crossed out that direction as a possibility. To the right they saw there were only a few more ranches to pass before the road opened up into the desert. «He must have gone that way.»
«Max, look at this.» Liz called his attention to the side of the road. Together they coasted their bikes over.
«Tracks," he said, confirming what she had been pointing out to him.
The set of bike tracks had come off the Lyleses' property and continued down the dirt path along the side of the road. «Now that we know for sure that he left the grounds," Liz said, «maybe we should call the police.»
«I don't know.» Max's mind was working on another idea as he stared at the tracks. They were fairly deep in the soft ground and seemed like they would be rather easy to follow, at least for a while. «Something's obviously wrong
with Jason. If we involve the police, he may never trust us enough to tell us the truth.»
Max tried to remember back to a time when he had considered the police to be the first people he could turn to in an emergency. When he was a child, Officer Friendly would often visit his school to give lectures on safety and what to do when strangers approach. He had always felt better knowing that the officer with the calming voice was keeping the town safe. Back then, the police were the good guys and, as such, he had always felt protected under their watchful eyes even when he'd realized that Officer Friendly's real name was Valenti and had actually been the father of one of his classmates.
He still did feel reasonably safe around the police for the most part, but things were more complicated now. Lately, the police were the last people he could go to for help. Max knew he couldn't trust anyone currently in law enforcement-not because they were out to get him, but because it was their responsibility to report anything out of the ordinary. And the situations that Max usually found himself in were certainly out of the ordinary. At least I know I can trust Officer Friendly again.
But here, they were dealing with an ordinary case of a missing child. He worried that his lack of trust in the police could easily put Jason's life in jeopardy. However, he had a nagging feeling that if he and Liz followed the trail and found him on their own, it could ultimately help out with whatever his real problem turned out to be.
«I don't know," Liz said, sharing his concerns on both sides. «I'm really worried about Jason.»
«Me too," Max replied, still eyeing the set of tracks left
in the sand by the tires of Jason's ATV «How about we call the police if we don't find him in an hour.»
Liz was hesitant to agree.
«I think he wants to be found," Max added.
«Why do you say that?»
«He would have used the road otherwise," Max replied. «He left the tracks in the dirt for us to follow.»
«Aren't you just the detective this morning?» She was impressed by the way his mind was working. «But if he wanted us to follow him, why did he take the keys to the bikes?»
Max thought back to the night before, when he had been forced to use his powers to pick the lock to Jason's room. «Because he's a smart kid.»
Revving their engines, they started down the side of the road, careful to keep an eye on the tracks as well as on the traffic as they headed out of Artesia. The road wasn't very well traveled, and the wind was light, so they didn't have any problem following the trail that had stayed fairly intact for them. Max graciously allowed Liz to lead the way since she appeared to be more confident on the ATV It really has been years since I rode one of these things, he thought.
Once they passed the last ranch, the tracks veered off into the desert as Max had suspected they would. Again, the lack of wind over the open land worked in their favor as the tracks remained easy to follow.
Liz slowed her bike to a stop and surveyed the land in front of them. It was totally flat for quite a while before little hills popped up off in the distance. «I don't see anything.»
«Me neither," Max agreed, pulling up beside her. «But
he did have a bit of a head start on us. We'll ride out for a while, then turn back.»
«Okay," she said, rolling the bike forward. «But we'll have to take it slowly. I'm just a novice at this thing.»
«You're already doing better than me," he said.
«I noticed.» She gave him a wicked grin and picked up the speed on her bike.
As they continued, the trail stayed relatively fresh for them, with only a few spots where it was obscured by underbrush or the light wind had simply blown sections of it away. Jason had been riding in pretty much a straight line, which was further proof to Max that the boy wanted to be found. Both Max and Liz continued at a safe pace to make sure they didn't lose the trail or hurt themselves.
After about fifteen minutes of riding, they had reached the area dotted with small hills that were somewhat similar to sand dunes. The change in their path forced them to be even more careful of where they were riding. Max had moved into the lead position, but the amount of care he was taking as he rode didn't prepare him when he reached the crest of a hill and lost the trail as well as the ground beneath him.
The bike jumped into the air as Max looked down to see a gaping hole directly under his rear tires. He threw his hand back and a familiar green force field spread beneath him as he and the bike came crashing down upon it. Tumbling from the bike, he managed to keep his concentration focused on the force field so it did not drop him down the dark hole.
«Max!» Liz yelled seconds later as she, too, was airborne.
Sliding his body to the side, he watched as Liz crashed down onto the shield where he had just been lying. He was impressed by how she managed the seemingly impossible task of staying on her bike, although she looked more than a little rattled by the jarring experience.
«Are you okay?» His voice was trembling with concern for her.
She nodded her head deliberately.
The force field continued to hold, protecting them from the dark cavern that lay directly beneath them.
«Hurry up," he said, pushing Liz and her bike off the shield. «I don't know how long this will hold.» He knew firsthand that his force fields were good for repelling bullets and evil alien beams, but he wasn't sure how long it could support the combined weight of Liz, him, and the pair of ATVs.
As soon as Liz and her bike were on solid ground, he used his free hand to pull his bike and himself off the green force field. Breathing a sigh of relief, he allowed the power of the force field to return to his body. Now, only a big hole with some ratty looking wooden beams lying across it sat in front of them.
«What is that doing here?» Max asked, still catching his breath.
«Must be an old mine," Liz replied, looking at the big hole. «They're all over the desert.»
«You'd think there'd be a sign or something," he said, looking for some type of warning but finding nothing.
«You'd think," she agreed.
They were standing on what looked very much like a
crater, with dirt rising around it on all sides. However, instead of finding a sloping depression in the ground, a dark crevice opened up beneath them. The chasm was about twenty feet in diameter and had several rows of rather loose-looking beams stretched across the top with several gaps of varying widths between them.
At roughly the same point where Max and Liz had come crashing down on their ATVs, several of the beams were broken through, revealing nothing but darkness below.
To Max, calling it a mine seemed wrong somehow. A mine evoked pictures of a large opening cut into the side of a mountain with wooden beams forming an arch that marked the entryway with maybe a set of tracks leading inside. He had seen that type of mine often in old movies and cartoons. But what he was looking at now was not the type of place that Wile E. Coyote would have dreamed up or Indiana Jones would have explored. This was, quite literally, a hole in the ground.