Crowned Heads (26 page)

She stood on the patio, supporting herself by hanging on to a post. It was charred, and the soot came off on her hands and her shorts. Through her dark glasses she looked out to the bay, where people were water-skiing. There was no sign of a boat from Mirabella.

Then she saw Emiliano.

He came along the beach, carrying his equipment. He did not look at her, but went out on the rocks, where he sat putting on his fins and goggles. He slipped into the water and disappeared. The god returned to the deeps.
Muy bonitos, los pies,
she thought, very pretty feet—but of clay. She watched the path of the snorkel projecting along the surface, and the bobbing cork that kept water from getting in the tube. She could see Emiliano’s dark form under the water, his powerful legs scissoring, then idling as he swam down there. She went along the walkway until she got to the sand. She took off her mules and placed them side by side, then went out on the first rock. She looked over to the beach, which was filled with sunbathers and swimmers. When she had crossed several more rocks she was out of sight. She went rock by rock until she was where Emiliano swam. His head came to the surface and he looked up at her. She had sat down and she smiled at him.
Buenos días,
she said. He nodded. My watch stopped, she told him,
qué hora es
? She pointed to the marine watch on his brown wrist. He told her the time, then submerged again.
Gracias,
she said aloud, and set her watch. Very nice of him to give her the time of day. His spear gun was lying on the rocks. She bent over it, looking at the thick black rubber band that stretched over the spring mechanism. She could see Emiliano’s brown body under the blue water, and his white trunks. Her hand trembled as she picked up the gun and pointed it. She couldn’t control the tremors, but she saw how to lift the safety catch and pull the trigger. The shining steel spear hit him through the back of the thigh, exactly where she had aimed. The blood that rose around him was dark, and he thrashed, the blue fins breaking the surface of the water, and the foam was red. She dropped the gun and clambered to the highest rock where she could see the beach, and started screaming. Hurry, she cried, there’s been an accident.

When she turned back, Emiliano was holding on to a rock, his leg stretched immobile behind him. There was a lot of blood, brighter now. He bit his lip in pain. I’m sorry, she told him with a little shrug; it just went off.

They carried him to the sand and laid him down. Someone got a horse and rode to Pat O’Connor’s house. Lorna stood at the back of the crowd, trying to explain how the accident had happened: it was the safety catch; it hadn’t been set. Emiliano’s eyes were closed and he was suffering. She couldn’t bear to look at him or at Rosalia either. Rosalia was crying. When Pat came, he needed a hacksaw to cut the metal spear in order to slide it out of the flesh, then they brought a speedboat from the yacht club and when the wound was dressed they took Emiliano to Mirabella.

Lorna picked up her shoes and went to her cabaña. She drank
ricea
and sat on the edge of the bed, holding her stomach. The sight of blood had made her sick. Pat O’Connor came in and said it was a rotten thing, what she had done. The spear had severed the knee tendon, hamstringing Emiliano like a horse; he would never be able to dance again, would probably spend his life on crutches. She said she was very sorry, honestly, but it had been an accident.

When Pat had gone she sat waiting for something to happen, someone to come. Nothing, no one, did. She ventured out of doors, coming along the walkway, and when she passed the office she heard Steve Alvarez talking with Pat O’Connor; Steve was saying he’d sent for the police. She would be taken to Mirabella and held. She did not go past the office, but went behind it. She passed through the mango grove, across the fallen, rotting yellow fruit, to the horse
palapa.
No one was there, and she untied a horse and led it away. She tightened the girth and got into the saddle in her sharkskin shorts and high-heel shoes. Her raffia bag hanging on her free arm, she urged the horse around the lagoon, toward the village. She looked behind her; no one seemed to have seen her leave.

She went first to the cantina, where she bought a pint bottle of
ricea.
She bought Mexican cigarettes and asked for matches; these were American, and on the cover they read “
ENJOY!
” and below that “
HAVE A GOOD DAY!
” She went to the store and bought a box of emery boards. She had tied the horse in some shade, and when she came out of the store she went into the church and sat on a bench. It was hot in there, but somehow she was shivering. Two women with black handkerchiefs tied over their heads came in and prayed. One noticed her and nudged the other.
La Loca.
They spoke with their flat, brown faces close together, then went out. A little Mexican child stood in the doorway. She was the most beautiful thing; she ought to be in the movies. Lorna held her arms out to her; the child looked, then ran away. Lorna sat filing her nails with one of the emery boards, and tried to pray. She thought of herself as some tragic heroine who had taken sanctuary in a church; she had seen such situations in the movies. Maureen O’Hara in
The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Sanctuary! Sanctuary! Then Charles Laughton had poured caldrons of hot liquid down on her tormentors. Lucky Maureen. Scratch scratch scratch with the emery board.

She stayed in the church until she heard the whistle, then went to the window and saw the excursion boat coming into the bay. The plink plonk of the marimba floated melodiously over the water, and she tried to decide which of the figures at the rail had come for her. She could imagine what Mexican jails were like. She reached into her bag and took out the package of matches.
ENJOY
. She lit one, and stared at the flame in her shaking hand.
HAVE A HAPPY DAY
…

Later she stood looking down at the beach from Pat O’Connor’s terrace, watching the burning thatch of the church. There was a lot of activity. People were streaming across the beach from the hotel, boats were maneuvering in the bay. Horns and whistles blew. The Tashkents were out on their terrace watching, too, as the small figures tried to save the church, and the smoke rose upward in a straight black pillar as if it were holding up the blue sky. Tashkent, Tashkent, Lorna thought, filing her nails and watching the flames; no, she couldn’t honestly recall Tashkent’s Select Kosher Deli in Santa Monica. Scratch scratch scratch….

She shivered again, and used the little tin cup at the faucet for water, into which she poured some
ricea.
She screwed the cap back on the bottle, returned it to her raffia bag, put the cup on its hook, and mounted the horse, heading it for the trail. Neither of the Tashkents noticed her. On the adobe wall a little spotted lizard moved, darted, sunlight into shade. She started up.

Like most of the beach horses, this one was only hoofbeats away from the glue factory. Even with the saddle and pad she felt its raw boniness, the thews, the flanks tight and dry as beef jerky. It panted and heaved loose-jointed over rocks and stones, its head circled with a nimbus of flies, nodding rhythmically at the end of the taut, sinewy neck, the dusty mane coarse and bristly, the short ears flat against the skull. She could feel the saddle slipping and she yanked on the reins. The horse came to a grateful halt and she got off. She tightened the cinch, got back on, and kicked the ribbed belly until the pathetic creature moved again, bearing her up the hillside.

Jungles she did not find amusing. Nor glamorous, mysterious, or exotic. This one was merely a green forest, green above, around, below, and though there was nothing in it she particularly dreaded, no unseen animal she thought of as waiting to pounce on her, it was the jungle itself she feared. But she feared more being put aboard the boat by the police before the
MorryEll
arrived, and so she lived with her fear and went up. Hot, dank, stifling, a moist steam bath, condensed vapor and humidity that clogged the nostrils and made her breath rattle as the motion of the horse joggled it out of her.

Her back ached, bent from keeping her head ducked against low-hanging foliage. Even with the moisture her eyes felt dry, scratchy; even with the heat she felt a chill, and her forehead where she touched it was cold, and her neck and breast. Her sweat felt cold and she undid her scarf and used it to blot herself. The path grew narrower as the horse, obeying the constant urging of her nervous swinging feet in the stirrups, plodded upward.

For a time she followed the reverse course of the river, and near the water the air seemed fresher, easier to breathe. From time to time she lost sight of the stream as the trail veered away, but she could still hear its sound. She let the reins hang loose, but the horse paid no attention to the absence of command; it went on at its own dogged pace, making its own way.

The water flow grew louder, and she recognized the sound of rapids. No, not rapids, a waterfall, spilling between some mound-shaped rocks into a clear pool where brown fish hugged a sandy bottom. Was this where the greedy Spaniards with their looted gold had drowned? She got off the horse and pulled it under a tree, weighting the reins with a rock. The horse yanked free and ambled loose-hocked to the water and drank noisily. It threw up its head and nickered once, twice. There was a pause, then something, another beast entirely, answered from the green depths beyond. The horse’s ears pricked up and she snatched the reins, led the horse to a berry bush, and tethered it. She pulled up a tuft of grass and held it out. Horsie, horsie, she said mildly; horsie didn’t want any. It ate at the bush instead.

She went toward the pool, undoing her halter. She kicked off her shoes, pulled off her shorts, then undid her wrist watch and unfastened her earrings. She folded her clothes and placed them on a rock, and keeping on her bra and panties, she stepped out into the icy pool. She could not suppress a shivery cry, then she was in all over and it felt actually good, revivifying. She didn’t swim, but floated, arms and legs making an X outward from her body. She looked up at the sky, past the lacy green edges of the forest canopy, and it occurred to her that no one, not a single person in the world, knew where she was at that moment.

She thought it was the horse, and at first she paid no attention. Then she realized it wasn’t and she lifted her head out of the water to see what was making the sound. A donkey. A pair of them, with cages hung on their backs. The sun was behind the two men leading them, so she saw them only in silhouette, their faces darkly obscure, staring placidly down at her in the clear water, idly curious, one with a hand angled on a hip, the other chewing on a piece of grass, just watching her. Looking up at them, she felt not only embarrassment, but unaccountable fear. She made her way awkwardly under the rocky overhang where she could touch bottom, then submerged to her chin, arms crossed over her breasts. One of the men laughed and said something in Spanish to the other one. That one laughed and replied. They both stood looking down and not saying anything.

Go away, she said, gesticulating and swirling the water about her.
Vaya, vaya.
She tried to sound angry, but her voice trembled.

Okay, lady, the first man said placatingly. He tugged at his donkey and moved on. The second remained for a last look, then started off behind the first. As he turned into the light she recognized him. It was the man called Ávila.

She waited, crouched under the rocky outcropping, and when her ears told her they had gone she came out. She wrung out her hair and combed it back with her fingers, then tied the folded scarf around it. Her nylon panties were still damp as she slipped into the shorts, and the halter clung to her wet bra. She put on her high heels, untied the horse, and led it to the trail; it made an
Oof
sound as she slung into the saddle, dangling feet groping their way into the stirrups. They moved forward and up, through the steaming jungle. Why up? she asked herself. Because she could not go down, she answered.

She wondered how far it was to the top. She had no idea, and looked to the river to see if its course had narrowed at all, since she had been told it was fed by a spring somewhere high upon the peak they called the Sleeping Maiden.

There was a grove of large-trunked trees with peeling bark, with half-broken branches that had gone dead, and beyond them, past the rough trunks, she saw something move. A flash only, but she remembered the men with the donkeys. She had thought they were going down the mountain, but now it occurred to her that perhaps they were going up instead. They were there ahead, waiting for her. Under her, the horse heaved dreadfully, its belly expanding and contracting like a leathery bellows, head dog-hung from the neck, patiently waiting with her. She listened, indecisive, fearful; heard nothing; went on.

She became increasingly afraid, not only of the men, but of the horse. It seemed to her it might give out at any moment, and she got off and led it; the reins drooping back over her shoulder. She could feel its hot jolting breath on her back, could smell it. Turning, she saw a greenish foam forming around the steel bit. She remembered there were little berries on the bush it had been chewing. She turned to feel the horse’s forehead. A silly thing to do; there was no flesh there, only a layer of hide with matted hair. She remained undecided for some moments, hearing the rattle of breath in her chest, then tugged the horse after her, walking this way until, fatigued, she had to get back on. She felt the rough, chafed spots where the stirrups rubbed her ankles. She looked for a place where the jungle cleared, with a view to the sea, but there was none, only the ceiling and the floor and the walls, all green; it was like being in a great green room. It grew less stifling as they went up. A breeze riffled the green leaves, not a warm, but a cold one, and she felt herself shivering again. The horse as well. It was wet under the edges of the saddle and where the bridle went around the head, and its movements grew more and more pronounced, more jerkily annoying. From ahead she heard a noise of rocks or stones being dislodged, a trickle of pebbles, then silence. She made a low, quavering sound in her throat, and undid the Hermès scarf and tied it around her neck. The trail had left the river some time ago, but now rejoined it. Finding a shallow place, she let the horse wade out and drink. It dropped its head against the slack reins and sucked greedily, then, head still down, it shook all over. Each of its limbs trembled with shock, until she felt the shuddering beast collapse under her. She cried out as it fell heavily into the water, and she pitched sideways and out of the saddle, one leg pinned under the horse’s back. She sat in horrified surprise, pushing at the withers, trying to get the animal to move, but it remained lodged against her.