Don't Look Back (41 page)

She shouldered to the railing, staring at the screen, one fist squeezing her hair in the back so tight it strained at the roots. A flash of movement caught her attention down below, just to the side of where she held the phone.

With dread she shifted her gaze off the platform in time to see al-Gilani melt from the jungle’s edge.

Chapter 55

Treed.

She was treed, stuck and helpless. He circled the base of the trunk, staring up. His cotton shirt was raked open on one side, his flesh covered with lumps and welts. Angry maroon dots—termite bites?—spotted his face, neck, and arms. His gait was slightly crooked, that left leg seemingly more sore, and yet he still moved with a briskness that spoke to unspent reserves of strength. That gave him an advantage. Not to mention the fact that he was down there.

And she was up here.

She set down the phone and stood, wanting to face him on her feet. As he wound around the tree, she shadowed him above.

“I reached an operator,” she called down. “They’re sending help. Right away. They know your name. You should get out of here.”

With the machete sheathed neatly across his back, he came around to the ladder and set his hand on various rungs, as if playing a musical instrument. He found a combination and pulled himself up. The ladder strained.

She ran a tight circle around the platform, looking for a branch within reach that could hold her weight. But there was nothing, the cedar commanding the clearing’s full space, the other trees holding a respectful distance.

She returned to the open hatch and looked down. He was halfway up. She braced herself, waiting, her foot pulled back to drive down into his face. He paused and peered up.

A standoff.

He climbed back down, hopping to skip the rotted rungs at the bottom. Moving a brief distance from the trunk, he sat, keeping her in view. From his pocket he removed a guava. He took a lusty bite. Chewing, he watched her.

For the first time, the full force of defeat shuddered through her. She sagged to the platform, hands snared on the railing. She would die up here. The best she could hope for would be to perish on her own terms without letting him get her. That would be acceptable. Eve Hardaway, a skeleton in a cage floating in the Oaxacan canopy. How diminished her hopes had become.

His legs were crossed and his stare constant, pinning her. An impulse seized her—to jump and lead the fall with her head. She peered down, gauging the distance, actually considering this.

The phone rang.

The sound was positively futuristic here among the whispering leaves and birdsong. Below, al-Gilani’s head tilted in puzzlement.

The operator. Calling back.

Eve lunged and scooped up the phone. “Hello? Hello, can you hear me?”

“Mom?”

Her mouth hung ajar. Had she
conjured
his voice? The chain to the impossible slowly lifted into visibility. She’d given Lanie the number of Jay’s phone back when—

“Mom?
Mom?
”

“Yes, Little. It’s me.”

“Where’ve you been? You haven’t called in, like, for
ever.
”

She eased over and put her back to the railing, needing all the support she could get. “Hang on, honey, I—”

“Can I sleep at Zach’s tonight? I redid the book report and even finished my last summer project, and it’s really, really good. Lanie said so. It’s called ‘Where I’m From,’ and all the kids hafta say all the stuff—”

“Listen, Little, I need to—”

“—read it to you? Please, Mom? Please? Hang on. Lemme get it.”

“Nicolas,
wait,
I—”

A click as the phone was set down.

Her throat threatened to close, all the emotion collecting there in her windpipe. She shifted to keep al-Gilani in sight.

Nicolas was back. Paper rustled, and then: “‘Where I’m From,’ by Nicolas Hardaway.”

“Honey, put Lanie on. I need to—”

His voice cut out, and she looked at the screen, the bar holding firm, though clearly the transmission from her end was unsteady. The tiny outlined battery blinked in red, the last of the charge.

Nicolas wasn’t hearing her, at least not clearly. She fought an urge to scream at him to shut up, to put Lanie on the phone. But then it settled over her, the realization that whatever help could come would come too late. That there was no time left. That if she were lucky, she might have one last thing she’d get to tell her son. Would it be the name of the man who was going to kill her? Or that she loved him?

Nicolas’s raspy voice continued as he read, “‘I’m from the sound of my dive hitting the water. I’m from “Pick up your toys” and “Get your fingers outta your mouth” and barbecue in the backyard. I’m from finding out I can wiggle my ears.’” The connection skipped out again but came back quickly. “‘—from
Go, Dog. Go!,
sweat, chocolate, the smell of lemonade, and sour juicy apples.’”

Her fist was pressed to her lips, mashing her teeth, tears fording the knuckles.

“‘I am from nurses and lawyers. I’m from short hair, ’cuz my mom hates to comb it when it gets too long. I’m from “Try it once” and “You’ll do better next time.” I’m from French toast and Batman comics. I am from a dad who loves me from far away and a mom who loves me up close.’”

I
can
promise you.

“Mom?”

I’ll be here until you’re all grown up and old enough to take care of yourself.

“Mom? Did you like it?”

“Yeah, Little. I liked it a lot.”

“Can I sleep over at Zach’s? I’ll be super careful about food, I promise. Can I please?”

She couldn’t unlock her throat, so she nodded, dumbly, and swiped at her cheeks. She put the receiver to her shoulder, took a deep breath, swung it back to her mouth. “Okay, baby.”

“What? Really?
Really?
”

“Just don’t be … don’t be scared if I’m not there.”

“I won’t be. Don’t worry, Big. I’ll be okay.”

She sensed the connection go, sensed the dead air at her mouth and in her ear. The phone trembled as she pulled it away. The screen dark, the battery gone.

She curled the phone to her chest and clutched it there. She sat and breathed and watched the quality of light in the sky change from yellow to gold. Soon enough it would go to orange, and then it would turn dark. Woodcreepers walked down the tree trunks, pecking up bugs. A swirl of glasswing butterflies floated upward as if being raptured, their transparent wings shimmering turquoise. They moved past her face, through a gap in the canopy, and bled into the sky.

She did not want to die thirsty, so she dug in her bag for the last water bottle and drank it halfway down. She wanted to finish it—why not?—but couldn’t bring herself to face the finality that that would represent.

Light leached from the air. Below, al-Gilani positioned himself and began his evening prayers. The Arabic words drawn out like a song. She remembered this prayer from one of her patients. What was it called, the one right after sunset?
Maghrib.
A beautiful name. And such beautiful words, on the lips of a hideous man. A curious blasphemy.

She nodded off, snapping awake to find al-Gilani crouched on the ground, ready to sprint for the ladder. He had learned and was not about to lose himself in prayer again.

He returned to praying.

Her blinks grew longer.

Until finally her eyes stayed shut.

Chapter 56

Prayer trickled from Bashir’s lips. His forehead kissed the ground. His torso lifted, and he halted.

Her form now slumped on its side. Her hand dangling out past the platform’s ledge.

He kept on with the low chants, not wanting a break in cadence to awaken her. But he remained erect, watching.

Her head lolled, her grip loosening on the phone. It slipped from her hand, tumbled through the air, and landed on a mat of leaves before him.

He rose. He faded out his prayer gradually, soothingly, as if turning down the knob on a radio. The rungs rose crookedly up. He had chosen his holds already.

He moved quickly. The wood too moist to creak.

From above, not a sound.

He reached the hatch. Hesitated. Hunched his shoulders against the bottom of the platform. Then stuck his head through.

She was sleeping. Her leg right there within reach.

He pulled his arms up. Set his palms silently down on the wood.

She whipped over onto her back, drew back one leg, and drove her heel into his face. His cheek gave way. Fissured somewhere beneath the skin.

The blow rotated him nearly a hundred eighty degrees. One foot slipped off the rung. His hands scrabbled for purchase across the mossy wood. He almost went down. Plummeted to his death. But his elbows stuck.

Blinded with pain, he hauled himself through. Her foot pistoned at him again, glancing off his shoulder. He rolled around the narrow circular platform. Behind the vast trunk. Away from her.

She flashed through the hatch. Too quickly. He lunged back. Grabbed for her. His arm down the hole, his fingers grasping her shirt. His fist clenched. She jerked back on the ladder, and he thought he had her well enough to haul her up or fling her to death or ruin. But when she spun around on the rungs, she led with an elbow that clipped his cheek. He heard his own wet grunt as if from afar. His head thundered between the temples. The fabric fled out of reach.

He peered down the hatch. Blood rushed to his face, jumbling his vision. She dropped in a freefall for several feet. Then somehow caught again. She scrambled down. A rung broke near the bottom, and she fell onto her back. But she got up quickly. She found a stone and began hammering at the lower rungs. Breaking them. Leaping and swinging.

He forced himself to roll over and start down.

The smashing sounds continued. Static hazed his sight. A burning claimed his right eyeball. He pushed away the pain and lowered himself.

He heard the banging noise stop. He heard the stone strike the soft earth. And then her footsteps, running away. Taking the west fork. Upslope.

He paused, clinging to the side of the tree, fifteen feet up. Surveyed the condition of the rungs beneath him. Two more solid bars, but beyond that it did not look promising.

He lowered himself. And again.

His weight bowed the rung.

It snapped.

He tried to turn in midair, but the ground struck him before he could, wrenching his leg. His knee twisted painfully, and his sore groin muscle simply tore, pain lancing up through his lower belly.

He lay on his back. Staring up at the leaves and stars. Bellowing.

His cries more rage than pain.

He let it come on. Fury. Washing away the agony.

More rage than pain.

More rage than pain.

He rose and started after her.

Chapter 57

When Eve staggered into the dark cemetery, the rooster flared up and cawed at her. Unintimidated, she made for it, and it believed her and fluttered to safety. The footing was uneven, all chunks of marble and ivy bulges, headstones tilting this way and that. A mile or so ahead was the
alcalde
’s house, her final chance at a satellite phone or a shotgun or another soul to help. It would be, at last, the end of the road one way or another.

She moved among the plots. Most of the little
cariñitos
left at the graves had been washed away, but a white candle stub remained in the mud, a heart carved in its side.

It moved her.

She plucked it up and set it down on the nearest tomb. The name was worn off, only a few grooves remaining from the letters. It was Everyman’s tomb and Anyman’s tomb and maybe even her own.

She knelt and pulled her old wedding band from her right hand. This was not something she had planned or even considered; it was something she was watching herself do. Pushing the ring into the wet earth, she thought of Rick and Anika, and she wished them well. She was not the praying type, but the sight of the forlorn heart-marked candle there, a tiny stroke of white in the darkness, found resonance in her own heart, and she felt something beyond words and beyond even her own love for her son. For the first time, she understood that it would be okay no matter what happened when the sun rose over the Oaxacan foothills and Los Angeles, and she covered the ring with dirt, rose again, and strode hard on her failing ankle until she breached the forest edge, emerging onto the dark, vast plain of elephant grass.

A light glowed from Don Silverio’s house.

She moved toward it, toward the man, toward the shotgun on the rack above the shrine, toward the antique brick of a satellite phone inside the hand-stitched leather pouch inside the pottery jug. The mud wallow stretched to her right, El Puro slumbering at the far edge, lost in crocodile dreams.

The shed came up quickly, a burro nose poking over the Dutch door, bringing with it a blast of optimism. Don Silverio had returned. He had reached the
presidente municipal
in San Bellarmino who would have contacted the
federales
in Oaxaca City who by now would have—

She pushed through the screen door into the kitchen. “Don Silverio!”

The name froze in her throat.

The farm table pushed askew. One chair lay on its side by the stove. Propped against the counter was a backpack, stuffed to the hilt, still packed. The corner shrine had been stomped, the votive candles and picture frames shattered. The gun rack above it, empty. The pottery jug lay shattered on the chipped tile floor, the leather pouch off to one side like a discarded sock. The satphone was spread in pieces, taken apart, the motherboard ground into shards. At her feet a few smudges of brown marked the tile, swirled where the blood had been toweled up.

Without knowing it, she had drifted forward into the room. She stood centered, regarding the wreckage of her last, best hope. Her reflection in the broad kitchen window looked depleted, beaten.

—stay alive to check his temperature when he’s fevering and for Space Mountain at Disneyland and—

The burro, then. Maybe the burro.