A Cut Above (18 page)

Laura smiles. “I’d love a drink.”

Max squares his shoulders; a major feat, since he’s still holding the girl. “Well, let’s get you one.”

We approach the nearest house. To get there, we have to skirt a pigpen, where a half-dozen oinkers greet us with grunts and squeals. And guess what? They’re dirty and stinky. The term
pigpen
? It’s well coined.

Across the path from the pigs, a bunch of clucking chickens are scratching the dirt in front of a small coop. Off to our right, I spot a small herd of cattle in one of the fields.

Still holding on to my positive vibe, I say, “I’m sure we can get help here. These people have to have a way to get their animals to market. I’m not picky. Whatever works to get us where we have to go.”

Max grins. “You’re right. We’re here, and that’s a road— not our idea of a freeway or a turnpike, but their version of interstate travel. A truck . . . a cart . . . a bike . . . who cares? All we need now is to figure out a way to get all the way over there—to Bogotá.” He glances down at Laura. “Are you ready to earn your ride?”

Her brown eyes twinkle. “More than ready.”

We approach the door to the farmhouse, and I knock. A tiny, white-haired lady opens up, suspicion on her wrinkled face. A barrage of rapid-fire Spanish hits us the minute she spots us.

Laura responds, then points to her swollen purpled leg. I wince, well aware how much it must be hurting. The woman’s eyes widen, compassion softens her expression, she steps back, and finally gestures us inside. Before I step into the dark room, I pray for God’s protection. Who knows what’s lurking in the shadows of the tiny house.

Once my eyes adjust to the dim light indoors, I scan my surroundings. The interior is as stark and poor as the exterior. The only furnishings consist of an old sofa, probably the same vintage as our hostess, a sturdy table, four chairs around it, and two stools across from the sofa.

In the corner to the left of the sitting area, I notice a three-foot-tall basket piled high with blankets—this area probably doubles as guest room when the need arises. Behind the table, three shelves sag under the weight of bowls, plates, cups, and crockery of various sizes. Directly underneath, I see a well-used broom. Two doors lead off at each end of the back wall.

While everything is well used and old, it all is sparkling clean. I see no dirt anywhere; what I do see is an abundance of pride of ownership. This family might not have much, but they take care of what they have.

As my gaze takes another trip around the room, I notice the colorful picture of Jesus on the rear wall between the two doors. Our hostess is also proud of her faith.

It seems way clear we have nothing to fear from Anita, as Laura introduces the lady. She guides Max to the sofa, where she helps him make Laura as comfortable as possible. Within seconds, our hostess, chattering all along, trots out the right-hand door, then returns, holding out a flimsy wooden crate to prop up the girl’s injured leg.

Laura thanks her, but Anita responds with an embarrassed smile and a shrug. She hurries back out the right doorway, and before we can wonder why she’s disappeared, she returns, a glistening aluminum pitcher and three glasses in hand.

I guzzle down my portion and ask for more. So does Max, and Laura too. Anita returns to the kitchen for a refill. This time, when she comes back, she holds the pitcher in one hand, a plate of steaming
arepas
in the other.

Okay. I’ll confess. I make a pig of myself. I had no idea how hungry I was until I smelled those delicious corn cakes. And it seems Anita has no end to her supply of
arepa
.

Once we’re done, our hostess insists we all lie down to take
siestas
.

“She doesn’t have to tell me twice,” Max says, then yawns.

Which sets me off.

And then Laura.

But I have to admit, the nap in one of two small rooms off the left-hand side of the living area does me a world of good. By the time I wake up, there’s no light coming in through the small window high on the wall—we’d arrived early in the afternoon, with the sun only a hair over the middle of the sky. And while I can’t sleep anymore, at least not right now, I notice Laura still dozing on the other single bed in the room.

I step out into the hall and head toward the front of the house, following the murmur of voices, those of a man and a woman. The woman is Anita, but the male voice is one I don’t recognize. The little hairs on the back of my neck rise to attention. Could this be one of Doña Rosario’s henchmen? Henchmen? Oooh! Love that word. Never thought I’d have reason to use it, but—well, you never know what life will bring. That’s why I call on God to guide me.

In the living area, a young Colombian sits at the table, an empty plate before him. When I walk in, he glances over, smiles, but then returns to his meal. I breathe again. He’s okay. He looks so much like our hostess I’m pretty sure he must be her son.

“Hi,” I say. “Thank you.
Buena siesta. Gracias.

”

My pathetic stab at Spanish goes a long way. Before long, I too am sitting at the table, a plate full of food in front of me. I dig in, and discover what true Latin food tastes like. Forget chain restaurants with cute little Chihuahua mascots.

If you want the real deal, you’ll have to cross south of the border, many borders, to Anita’s kitchen way out here in the middle of nowhere.

When I’m—as we say in the South—full as a tick, I scoot my chair back and just breathe. Um-yum.
“Muy bueno.”

“So your Spanish has made a comeback,” Max says as he rises from a nest of blankets on the sofa, his voice rough with sleep. “But I agree with you. Anita’s food is good enough to make me speak a language I don’t know.”

“Foul! You’re telling me you got away without having to take a foreign language in college?”

“Don’t you dare give me grief about my football years. I’ll remind you, I went to school on an
academic
scholarship, not an athletic one.”

Just to tease him, I sniff. “So you say. But who knows? Maybe you thought it was an academic scholarship, while all the while it was your muscles they wanted.”

He shakes his head. “Give it up, Andi-ana Jones. I didn’t imagine my 4.0 in high school or my 4.0 in college.”

My eyes goggle. “You got a clean-sweep 4.0?” When he nods, I realize something else. “Then that means . . . oh no. I don’t think I can stand this. Your summa cum laude trumps my magna cum laude.
Aaaarrrgh!

”

He blows on his nails and buffs them against his filthy shirt.

“Well, that”—I point at his hand—“just shows how little you really do know. You swiped your nails on the dirtiest piece of clothing I’ve ever seen. They’re probably black with dirt now. From our jail’s floor, if you’ll remember.”

“Which brings us right back to why we’re here.” He sighs. “I’m not sure how we’re going to communicate with Anita and Enrique over there, but we have to get them to understand how urgent it is for us to get to the capital, and soon.”

“We’ll just have to go back to bed, rest up for the trip, and wait until Laura wakes up. She’s really going to earn that piggyback ride you gave her.”

“She’s sweet. I can’t imagine the pain she’s in, and she’s never once said a word about it.”

“She’s a great kid. I wish we could get word to her father. He must be frantic.”

Max winces. “She must have been kidnapped right after we left the mine site. Rodolfo must be going out of his mind with worry.” He runs a hand through his blond hair, leaving some of it standing on end, some tumbled over his forehead. “I know I’d be tearing up the country end to end if she was my daughter and she’d just gone missing.”

“What makes you think he isn’t?”

“True. We have no way to know what he’s been doing since we left the mine.”

As we both fall silent remembering the emerald vendor, I realize how intently Anita and Enrique have been following our conversation. I know they can’t understand a word we’ve said, but their eyes have ping-ponged back and forth between Max and me the whole time. Then, as the silence lengthens, Anita skitters to the ancient stove out back and heaps more food on another plate.

A stream of chatter ripples from her when she returns. She points to Max, the table, and finally the food.

He grins. “My turn—again.”

“No need to boast,” I counter. “I’ll get my fair share of her good cooking. Not that we’re going to stay long, but I suspect you’ll sleep more than I will. You’re the one who carried Laura all that way.”

“And you figure you’ll sneak a snack while I’m sawing logs.”

“You snooze, you lose.”

“We’ll see.”

From the back bedroom, I hear Laura call my name. Before I can make it to her side, Max has sped past and left me in his dust—not literally, you understand. As poor as Anita and Enrique are, that’s just how clean they keep their home.

Moments later, Max carries Laura into the kitchen. “She’s hungry.”

“Lucky you,” I tell the girl, holding out a chair for her. “Anita’s food is a treat. I’m just too full from the heaps she fed me while you were sleeping. Otherwise, I’d probably keep on pigging out.”

Laura wrinkles her nose. “Pigging out?”

I laugh. “You speak such great English it’s hard to remember sometimes that you’re not American. ‘Pigging out’ means I’d make a pig of myself eating too much.”

“Ah . . . I see.” She takes a mouthful of her dinner. “But it works another way too. Anita’s pork is delicious. It’s their own pigs, the ones they raise to sell. She is a very good cook, you know. This roast is wonderful.”

At the mention of Anita and Enrique’s livestock, Max and I swap looks.

“We have to ask how they get their animals to market,” he says to Laura. “Can you do that?”

While Max and I watch—I guess it’s our turn to ping-pong our gazes between the three of them—a whole lot of chatter, smiles, and hand waving happens. Then Laura turns back to us, uncertainty on her face.

Uh-oh. Doesn’t look good. Even though I’d tried to catch a random word here or there, I’d failed. My returning Spanish isn’t returning that much. Then again, I suspect more was said than I would have wished. “So what’s the scoop?”

She looks lost. “Scoop?”

I shake my head and give her a crooked grin. “Me and my slang. What I mean is, what did they tell you?”

A tiny line etches in between her eyebrows. “I don’t know if it will help us. They say they take their products to a tiny little town, San José de Belén, on their cart. Enrique pulls it along behind his bicycle.”

I hold back a groan and turn to Max. “You never told me you had prophetic tendencies. Maybe you shouldn’t have mentioned carts or bicycles when we got here.”

Max arches a brow. “So now it’s my fault, just because I was looking for a silver lining in our thunderstorm.”

I chuckle. “If the hat fits, then use it as sunscreen, surfer boy.”

Just as I say those words, I realize what I’ve done. Never in the year-plus since we met have I let Max know how I think of him. Until now. Chalk it up to stress, the foreignness of it all, the possible necessity of riding a cart out of our mess. Who knows why my flap-trap let it out? The deal is, it did.

Max’s jaw drops. Total “Huh?” blares from his eyes. He blinks. Sticks a finger in an ear and shakes it. “Say what?”

I hoot—not ready to go where he wants me to go. “Have we been rubbing off on you or what? That ‘say what’ means you’ve become an honorary southerner, Max, my man.”

He gives me another befuddled look. “Last time I checked, Missouri’s considered south. I lived and worked there for five years before Miss Mona hired me. ‘Say what’s’ pretty common in Missouri, as far as I can tell. What’s weird is that whole surfer boy thing. What are you talking about?”

My cheeks burn hotter than a jalapeño in your taco filling, but I try to bluff my way out of my blunder. “Oh, nothing. Just something that popped out.”

He crosses his arms. “Uh-huh. And I’m one of those infamous flying pigs.”

Try
habañero
peppers—I hear say they’re hotter’n jala-peños any day. After all, I’ve invoked the flying oinkers a time or two when thinking about Max. Which leads me to say, “Oink-oink.”

“Not so funny.” He stares—hard. “Trust me. You and I are going to have that long, long talk I’ve been wanting sooner rather than later. And you won’t be able to run, like your smart mouth does.”

I know, I know, I know.
It takes all my strength to keep from wincing. Even if in my heart I’m wimping out, as I always do. “Let’s get to business, then. What do you want to do?”

He shrugs. “I don’t see that there’s much to do. We load Laura into the cart, hitch it up to the bike, and I pedal her out of here.”

“He—llooooh!” I wave. “Did you just forget me? I’m here too. How’m I going to get to . . . to that San Somebody or Other?”

The corners of his mouth twitch. “You might want to walk.” His eyes twinkle.

My temper soars. “Why don’t
I
bike
her
out while
you
walk?”

“Fine by me. But when you can’t get the cart to move two inches, don’t ask me why it’s not working. It’s called muscle mass, Andie. And I’ve got it. You don’t.”

I sag. “You’ve got a point. But you’re not going to ride off into the sunset and leave me eating your dust, are you?”

He grows surprisingly serious. “I told you before, and I meant it. We’re partners. Don’t you ever—get it?
Ever
— forget it.”

My heart does a flip. But then my gut does a flop. He’s saying something without saying something. Know what I mean?

I take a deep breath. I nod.

Then I head to the bedroom. I drop to my knees by my bed and pray. “Lord Jesus . . . I need your courage. Why’d I turn out to be such a wimp? What’s there to be afraid of?

He’s just a man like a million others. And he’s never done anything deliberately deceitful, nor has he taken advantage of Miss Mona’s kindness or generosity. Why do I let my past color how I see him? Help me follow your leading. Help me trust.”