Freefall (10 page)
“Cross my heart. There’s a few spiders whose bites can hurt, but nothing out here will kill you.”
She applied a fresh coat of repellent, the caustic scent stinging her nostrils. “Maybe I’ll just hang over that boulder again.” She waved toward the stone near the bank where she’d huddled the first night unawares.
He shrugged. “Whatever suits you.”
With a sigh, she turned back to the flames. “I won’t sleep.”
“Then you won’t be much good tomorrow.”
And she had to be.
He ducked under the tarp. “The light’s on the ground there if you need it. Don’t go far to relieve yourself.”
She wished he hadn’t brought it up, but better now than later. “Where’s that big knife?”
He reached into his pack and held out the machete. “Just don’t think I’m a wild boar if I start snoring.”
It surprised her he could make her laugh. After everything. “Cameron?”
“Yeah.”
“We’re going to find him.”
“That’s why we’re here.”
It was why she’d sleep, in spite of centipedes, and push on tomorrow to whatever lay ahead. When she came back and lay down on the mat under the tarp, Cameron murmured,
“Ma ka malu o kona ‘ēheu.”
She wished she could see his face as she settled her head into the crook of her arm. “What did you say?”
“Within the shelter of his wings.”
Sweeping the drapes to the side to
reveal the lights of Waikiki, Curtis Blanchard ignored Allegra’s pout. Though unbecoming in a woman of her maturity, it was forgivable, definitely forgivable. In fact, it was encouraging. He’d take a pout over arguments, questions, and demands. His bird was no squawking crow; his was a nightingale. And the trick was to lure her from the bush into the cage, to capture her so completely, she thought of nothing else, no one else.
Without a hint of annoyance, he reached over and drew her to the window. “With all this, babe, who needs television?”
Allegra planted a hand on her slender hip. “I just wanted to see what’s happening in the world.”
“Happening? What could be happening?” He circled her waist and pulled her close, hoping she wouldn’t sense his agitation. If she saw Gentry’s story on the news, it would ruin everything, and he’d worked too hard for this time with her.
Seeing the report had shaken him worse than he’d expected. Allegra would insist on responding, or so he guessed, though this particular
femme
was complicated, a greater challenge and pleasure than he’d expected, but also hard to figure. Like a chameleon, she shifted, but what was going on inside? That was the question.
“Allegra, darling, we’ve escaped the world.” He traced her lips with his fingertip, smoothing the pout and noting the fine lines gathered at the edges. Not even Botox was perfect. He didn’t expect perfection, only attention, undivided. “I want to pretend it’s permanent.”
With a playful cast to her eyes, she took his gold chain in her teeth and tugged. “Presumptuous.”
For a woman nearing fifty, she still had that
je ne sais quoi
that explained why her long-estranged husband would not let her go. “Perhaps. But I have great expectations.” He kissed her mouth in anticipation of meeting each one.
After what he’d just seen on the TV he’d have to keep her distracted. But he could do that, especially when he considered how much she meant to him. How very much.
As darkness descended once again in the cave, despair closed in. None of the challenges he faced, lying there broken, exposed, and hungry, had the power that hopelessness wielded when each successive night fell. It was almost palpable, as though it oozed from the walls and ceiling and rose up like the mist from the pool.
He fought the thoughts that infiltrated his mind. Had he placed his hope in a straw God? Were his prayers no more than wishful pleading into thin, unhearing air? Faith a ruse?
He battled back with snatches from the Psalms. “ ‘Answer me when I call to you, O my righteous God. Give me relief from my distress; be merciful to me and hear my prayer.’ ”
But his body couldn’t take much more. It wasn’t simply the injuries—there was something internal, systemic. How long he could hold on, he didn’t know. What he did know was that even painful death would be preferable to this agonizing demise of his trust, his faith. He groaned. “Lord, forgive me.”
And in the din and darkness he grabbed once again onto a lifeline of peace that invaded the pain, the doubt. Tears streamed from his eyes, and he raised his voice in praise that drove away the lying spirits and restored him more surely than the purest water, the richest food, the safest haven.
If this was to be his tomb, he would wait with the faith of Lazarus to be called forth either to his current life or to the next.
People with hard faces pressed in on every side, pushing, grasping, shouting like carnival barkers. “Look here; over here; right this way.” A macabre anticipation tainted the air. Vultures; they were vultures, there to pick her flesh. Cold metal banged her lip.
“Can you refute the allegation?”
“Are you going to fight it?”
“Is it true?”
True? How could they believe it? How could they not know? What kind of people were they?
“No. It’s a lie.” Her chest heaved; her heart raced. “It’s a lie. It’s a lie.”
The cacophony grew. Loud raucous voices, drowning her out, drowning her. She couldn’t breathe. A force strong and heavy pressed her down and swept her away. She thrashed and kicked, straining for air.
“Jade.” Cameron’s grip on her shoulder dragged her out. “Jade.”
She gasped and opened her eyes. His face was grim in the morning light. Birds clambered. She was damp with sweat, or maybe it was mist and dew.
“What’s the lie?”
“Lie?” She pressed up to her elbow on the mat.
He gave her shoulder another shake. “The lie, Jade. You said, ‘It’s a lie.’ ”
His forceful questioning mimicked something, but all she could remember was fighting for breath. “I think I was drowning. In my dream.”
He hunkered back on his heels, scowling. Whatever she’d said had set him off again, but was she responsible for what happened in her sleep? She shook her head. “Drowning dreams are supposed to be symbolic, but I don’t know what it meant.”
“Why do you think it was symbolic?”
A wave of dizziness washed over her. He was right. It could be real. It could be memory. She looked over at the faithful stream that had led her out, then up to the white threads of water streaming over the black rock. Mist clung there like confusion. No sweeping torrent. But what lay beyond?
Her vision blurred, her thoughts stilled. The birdsong faded in her ears; the damp air clung to her skin until she melted in. A shout without words echoed in her head, and with it came a sensation of falling, so strong she swayed.
Cameron gripped her shoulder again. “What is it?”
Her lungs ached. Her head pounded. “It’s right there, but I can’t—” Frustration swept in. She wanted to scream. “You think I don’t want to remember, but that isn’t true.” She scrambled to her feet. The sensations were too strong to be imagination, but until she broke through the wall, she was only groping.
Before he’d shaken her awake, he had struck camp and had the packs waiting, everything ready but the mat she’d been lying on. Even the tarp over her head had been stowed again. Good. The less time wasted the better.
She snatched her pack, slipped her arms through the straps, and started for the falls. A night’s sleep had done nothing but frustrate her. Cameron’s questions only bullied her mind. Halfway up the slippery rock face, she heard him beneath her. Maybe she’d be glad for his help when they found her companion, but right now his doubt and suspicions were an emotional drain she didn’t need.
Reach and pull, cling, find a foothold. Her muscles strained, but it was a good strain. She clawed with her fingers, clinging like … like … Her head spun. Laughter … and a voice saying,
“Maybe the Hawaiians are right. I can see you coming back as a gecko.”
Her hand slipped.
Cameron caught her waist and braced her against the rock. “Now is not the time to lose it.”
She grabbed hold and dragged herself up. Mist from the falls chilled her hot cheeks. Her knee banged something and pain emerged. Ignoring it, she heaved herself into a damp hollow to catch her breath. Since Cameron clung beneath her, she didn’t wait long before pulling up to the next level.
Her legs shook. Two knuckles bled. Sweat ran down between her shoulder blades as she dug in and pulled up again. Water sprayed her in the face. She couldn’t find a grip.
“To your left,” Cameron called.
She reached and found the hold, dug in with her shoe and thrust herself over the top. She scrambled back from the edge to give him room and realized he was trailing a rope again. If she had let him go first, she’d have had it to hold on to. But she’d made it without. Gasping, she tipped her head back and found a piece of blue sky torn out of the clouds. She stared hard at it.
Cameron pulled up beside her. “Are you always this reckless?”
She shrugged.
“I bet you’ve got a guess.”
Did she? Lying back on her elbows, drawing in the scent of mist and jungle and exertion, a certain exultation rose up from the danger and difficulty. Reckless? She didn’t know. But the challenge had rejuvenated her. She caught the end of her water hose between her teeth and sipped the cold water.
Cameron balanced on one elbow. “So what did you remember, climbing up?”
“Someone saying I could come back as a gecko.”
She thought it would surprise him, but he said, “Only the
kanaka maoli
come back as geckos.”
“Kanaka …”
“Indigenous Hawaiians, or those descended from Pele, the volcano goddess, and all her numerous lovers.”
“I see.” She looked at him stretched out beside her on the rock, his hair wet with mist, the line of his beard fuzzy with new growth, a shadow of whiskers creeping down his neck. It made him look less arrogant than confident, less annoying than interesting. Or maybe it was that his anger had passed like the showers blowing down the valleys.
Removing his full-sized pack, he took out Ziploc bags of fresh shaved coconut, nuts, and dried papaya slices that he’d assembled. No chocolate. But she thanked him anyway.
Cameron dug into his baggie. “Who taught you to climb?”
She searched, but no answer came. “Part of the blank, I guess. Or maybe I taught myself.”
“Which would you guess?”
“That someone took me along, pointed out the moss on the north side of trees, and told me which berries not to eat.”
“And hauled you down from cliffs and asked you not to howl at the wolves?” He pulled a smile. “Bet you were one
lapa keiki
.”
“I beg your pardon?”
He laughed. “Ho sistah. I ony call you one wild kid.”
“And what kind of talk is that?”
“Da kine Hawaiian Creole. You want for talk story like a local, you learn da kine pidgin.”
He was likable when he laughed, and his benediction the night before had kept all but the bad dreams away. She nibbled a soft, white coconut flake. “So teach me.”
He chewed, then nodded. “Okay. Like the islands, pidgin’s got roots in lots of languages and peoples. Most locals switch between it and standard English, depending on the situation.”
“I see.”
“In pidgin you change verb tense by using other words.
Wen
before the verb means past tense,
going
makes it future. No
is
or
was
. We say, ‘da water cold.’ Or, ‘cold, da water.’ ”
Interesting.
“Don’t make nouns plural.”
“Even when there’s more than one?”
“Nope. It’s understood.”
“What else?”
He thought a minute. “
Nevah
means not, except when it means never.”
“Aha.”
“We say
one
in place of
a
—dat buggah caught one beeg wave—and
for
in place of
to
—easy for say, hard for do.”
She shook her head, puzzling that one.
He folded his baggie. “A few terms are indispensable—like
mo bettah
and
da kine
.”
