The Second Bat Guano War Part 23

Red Cap stood and unlocked the door with his free hand. He sat back, the gun hand still in his pocket.

A greasy Asian face, bubbling with pimples, poked its broad slash of a smile through the doorway. A wooden tray hung from his shoulders. Gla.s.s bottles of yellow Inca Kola, bags of potato chips and cigarettes protruded outward from his belly.

"What can I get ya?" His accent was crude Lima slang. Another escaped inmate from the city's million-strong Chinatown.

Red Cap held up two fingers. "Water."

"f.u.c.k you," I said. By now I had to p.i.s.s, and bad.

"Don't want some crunchy, tasty platano? I got it frito?" The slitted eyes narrowed, the smile pushing the boundaries of good taste.

"Just the water."

"Long train voyage, sir." He lifted himself up on his toes. "Nothing else I get ya?"

Red Cap craned his neck to look at the man. He blinked. "That's all, thanks."

"Pack of Hamiltons," I added.

"And the smokes."

The man took two bottles of water from his tray, held them out to Red Cap. He tossed the pack of cigarettes to me. Red Cap caught them in midair.

"Keep the change."

Mister Pimples took the rumpled piece of play money. "Very kind, sir. Oh so kind." He put the money in his pocket. "Let me help you with that window, sir. So very cold in here, no?"

He folded the wooden tray up against his chest. Straps held his wares in place. He sidestepped through the narrow doorway. A small side table protruded from the outside wall. He leaned over the table, reached for the window. His jacket rode up on my side, revealing a snub-nosed revolver tucked into his pants. My eyes widened. I jumped up, made for the door. An enormous firecracker went off next to my ear.

The Chinaman made a sound, a sort of chuckle-groan, and tipped sideways. In one hand he held the revolver. He fell against the table. The impact tore it from the wall. One side of the man's head was missing. Potato chips, bottles of Inca Kola scattered across the floor. Mister Pimples had burst.

Red Cap turned his gun to me. "Now we move."

Screams came from adjacent compartments. Doors opened, voices raised in argument. Red Cap flipped the dead man's gun out the window, then prodded me into the hallway. He locked the door from the inside, slid it shut. He pointed the gun at my back.

"This man just killed the Chinese vendor," he shouted in Spanish, then in English at the faces peering out of their doors. "He is under arrest. Please stay in your rooms until the investigation is complete."

"It's a lie," I shouted. "He's the-"

The side of my head burst in a flower of pain. Red Cap shoved me in the back. I stumbled ahead, eyes closed, one hand on my scalp, the other held out in front of me.

We came to the back of the car, crossed over into the next. I looked down between the cars. We were going at least eighty clicks an hour. Could I jump? Would I survive? A sharp poke in the kidney jolted me into action. I swung open the door into the third-cla.s.s carriage. The gun disappeared into his jacket pocket.

Rows of seats faced each other across tables piled high with guidebooks, maps and snacks. We went from carriage to carriage, past platoons of flirting backpackers in travel gear, digital cameras recording every mundane detail of their trip.

As we moved through the train, the descent became more p.r.o.nounced. Outside the windows, llamas grazed. Brown-faced women grimaced at the train as it pa.s.sed.

At the end of the final pa.s.senger carriage, we came to the locomotive. We could go no farther. Backpackers murmured, pointed at us. Outside, new shantytowns appeared, collections of rusty lean-tos, children playing in the desert dust. The train slowed.

"That's them!" someone shouted.

The conductor strode down the aisle toward us. It was the same p.r.i.c.k who'd shown me my seat. Two train guards followed him. They drew their guns. A campesino in a green poncho trailed behind. The man from the bus.

Whoa. So the campesino was the spy? Then who the h.e.l.l was this dude in the baseball cap?

"Between the cars," he ordered.

"But I-"

"Do it, Gaia d.a.m.n it!"

I tugged open the door between the carriage and the locomotive. I stepped across the gap, clung to the chains that led to the locked engineer's compartment. Red Cap stepped after me. The small town grew in size as we neared the center. Juliaca. Not three meters from me, street vendors lined the dusty roadside. Hanging from every beam, orange-brown leathery things that looked like roadkill. Llama fetuses. I remembered the time Kate and I had eaten one together. Revolting. An aphrodisiac, or so claimed the local witch doctors.

"When I say jump, you jump!"

I swallowed. The train slowed further. We were going maybe twenty clicks an hour now.

"Aye aye, cap'n!" I shouted, and touched my forelock.

The train guards stood on the other side of the gla.s.s door. One of them aimed his gun upward at an angle, fired. The gla.s.s shattered. A warning shot. The next one wouldn't miss.

Red Cap shouted, "Now!"

I leaped as far from the train as I could. Landed in something soft and wet. Red Cap landed a few feet to one side. I found myself wrist-deep in llama dung. I shook the s.h.i.t off my hands. The train squealed, slowed to a stop. I turned to Red Cap, pulled back my fist, but swarms of hands grabbed me from behind. Red Cap lifted his chin and smiled.

"Just as we planned," a male voice said.

Hands held me tight. They hustled me through a gap in the fence that divided the train tracks from the town. The men behind me broke into a jog, forcing me along in front of them. A white van stood next to a nearby stall; llama fetuses hung from wooden beams. The back doors of the van popped open. One hand forced my head down, the others shoved me inside, through a tumble of wild-eyed llama abortions.

"I gotta take a p.i.s.s," I said, but they ignored me.

It was dark in the van. My eyes adjusted. Six Buddhist monks surrounded me. They sat in lotus position, ankles on knees. Their shaved heads glowed dimly in the darkness. Two wore gla.s.ses. All wore the orange-and-scarlet gown of Tibet. Around the back of the van hung more llama fetuses, like Christmas decorations. Black fabric taped to the windows let in a thin sheen of light.

The van rocked as someone yanked open the driver-side door. Red Cap got in behind the wheel. The van roared and shot forward, throwing me back on my hands. There was gunfire in the distance, a great hubbub, shouting. The van picked up speed. All I could hear was the high-pitched whine of the underpowered motor.

Gla.s.s shattered onto the floor. A limp hand fell across my face. I looked up into an eyeless socket. The monk next to me was toast. I pushed the body off me. It tottered and fell into the lap of an adjacent monk. Blood poured from the dead man's ear. Something p.r.i.c.ked my palm. I picked a blade of gla.s.s from my hand. Sunlight poked in through a small hole in the cloth that covered the rear window.

An older monk, darker than the others, said something in a language I didn't understand or recognize. The monk at his side produced a large black handgun from the inner folds of his robe. He swung the barrel of the gun against the gla.s.s. The window shattered. The gla.s.s caved out and fell into the road. He peeled away the black cloth, sc.r.a.ped the gun barrel along the edge of the window. Small shards fell into the vehicle.

He peered out the window, searching for pursuers, but found none. He sat back, resumed his lotus position, closed his eyes. I considered grabbing for the weapon, going berserk, but there were five of them left, and one of me. I rested my shoulder against the side of the van and tried to relax. Tried to ignore the rapidly cooling body next to me.

Potholes made this impossible. The van bucked and pitched along the cratered road for hours, nudging my new dead friend against me every time we hit a b.u.mp in the road. Blood soaked into my underwear. Chunks of brain quivered like jelly against my boots. My bladder felt like it was going to explode. I thought about letting go a stream right there. Outside, seagulls cawed. Seagulls? The ocean? No. The lake.

The van ended its violent pounding against my skull. Red Cap got out and opened the rear doors. Two monks helped me to my feet.

We stood on the sh.o.r.es of Lake t.i.ticaca. The view was the same as the photo in Volcanic Volunteers' brochure. The same photo as Kate's postcard. The sun peered over the tops of the western mountains. Isla del Sol hulked in the middle of the lake. I fought to catch my breath. I had been too long in the smoggy wasteland below. At four thousand meters the air is for saints, not sinners like me.

The monk in the pa.s.senger seat shifted over behind the wheel. Red Cap leaned back in through the window.

"Ditch the van," he said. "No one finds it. Not a trace. Not now. We're too close."

He slapped the side of the vehicle and the driver spun the wheels in reverse, did a three-point turn, and was gone.

We walked down to the water. A monk in a boat held an empty palm to the sky. The others returned the gesture, waded in to their knees and climbed into the boat.

"The water's cold," I said. "Can't you get it any closer?"

In answer, the monks manhandled me into the lake, and marched me through frigid water up to our thighs. I seized the opportunity and emptied my bladder into my pants. The long stream of hot p.i.s.s kept the bra.s.s monkeys at bay.

Four wooden benches had been laid across the width of the boat. Two outboard motors pointed their blades in the air. A monk on sh.o.r.e untied the rope that held the craft to a small jetty, then ran into the water, robes flying, and clambered in to join us.

Oars appeared. Two monks pulled us into deeper water. The outboard motors splashed astern. A pull of the chains, and they growled and hissed, darted forward, nearly knocking us off our seats. I held on to the wooden plank with both hands. We headed toward Isla del Sol. After a few minutes, though, we veered to the left, back to the Peruvian sh.o.r.e.

"Where are we going?" I shouted. The cold lake water sprayed up on both sides. No one answered me.

The sun began to set. Shadow advanced toward us across the lake. In the east, still wrapped in sunlight, a tour group disembarked from the reed islands, near the Bolivian sh.o.r.e. Our boat hopped and skipped across the light waves. We sped west into shadow, into the darkness, back toward Peru.

Several dozen wooden houses lined the strand. Lights shone in every window. Children ran and shouted. Small boats lay beached on the sand. On the rocks higher up, green fishing nets dried in the cool air. To either side the beach petered out into a solid rock wall. A mountain loomed snowy above us. Our boat slowed. The pilot cut the motor. A monk vaulted over the side, trailing the rope. His robes floated in the freezing water. The others jumped after him, and together they heaved the boat onto the beach. Red Cap strode ahead and alone into the village. He disappeared around a corner.

I got out of the boat. The others ignored me. There was nowhere to run. Plus, I was soaked from the waist down. My t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es were tight b.a.l.l.s of bra.s.s. I had no more p.i.s.s left to warm them with. My feet squelched freezing water in my boots. A sliver of sun remained above the mountaintops. If I tried to escape I'd freeze to death in the night.

The path Red Cap took was a mixture of sand and gravel. I followed it. On either side, new wooden houses. Solar panels glinted on their roofs. A trickle of smoke emerged from each house's chimney. One building was marked Escuela. The schoolhouse. Another, painted with a red cross, Hospital.

Children swarmed the gravel path, chasing each other, shouting in Quechua. One boy crashed into my thigh. He dug his fingers into my leg. I knelt. He looked like he was about to cry. I smiled, brushed the sand out of his black hair. He observed me with enormous brown eyes.

"Pitt?" I said in Spanish. "Do you know Pitt?"

"Pitt!" the boy said, and giggled, his torso twisting. "Pitt Pitt Pitt!"

He tore free and ran off, gyrating in circles before disappearing into a house farther along the row. I followed. I peered in through the gla.s.s windows of the houses as I pa.s.sed. Well-dressed locals sat around tables spread with food. White teeth gleamed under electric lights. Dentures, most likely.

I came to the house the child had entered. He sat at a table, fidgeting. He caught me looking in at him, and waved. The family turned to see who it was. The squat Indian woman in her fake braids ducked her head. Her husband lifted his chin, a curt masculine gesture that said: welcome, and beware. Six more children sat at the table. Their plates were full. No sign of a six-foot-tall blond gringo. I waved back and continued my sightseeing.

Next to the house was a small mud-brick hut. A toothless old man sat in the doorway, darning an ancient fishing net. He looked at me and laughed. He cackled, a bitter sound, then hacked and finally gargled up a blob of red, which he spat in the dust at my feet.

His was the only hut of its kind in the village, the lone holdout, it seemed, against modernity. I walked quickly now, as the sun set, past another half a dozen houses.

The path ended in the mouth of a cave. Two monks sat cross-legged on either side, their hands in their laps. I ignored them, walked toward the entrance of the cave. The monks simultaneously lifted pump-action shotguns, chambered a sh.e.l.l each and pointed their weapons at my abdomen. I stopped, held out my empty palms.

"The welcome wagon plum forgot to teach you manners," I said.

"h.e.l.lo, Horse."

A woman stood inside the cave. The early evening shadow obscured her face, but I would recognize that voice anywhere.

"I didn't come here to see you," I said.

"I know."

"I'm looking for Pitt. Friend of mine. Is he here?"

The woman stepped from the shadow, and the face of Katherine, my Kate, my once-wife, my ex-wife, my never-wife, emerged into the brightening moonlight.

"He is, and you shall see him."

FOURTEEN.

She said, "Mother Earth's in danger."

"Why?" I asked. "Has Papa Earth been a bad boy?"

We walked in growing shadow. I took off my wet boots and socks, felt the frigid sand between my toes. The sun had set behind the mountains, but there was still daylight on the lake. A cold evening breeze numbed my ears. We strolled along the sh.o.r.e, past a row of half-completed wooden houses. A dozen men and women labored on the empty sh.e.l.ls, hammers banging, saws grinding.

"Yes," she said. "He has."

Kate put her arm through mine. Unlike the other monks, who wore orange and scarlet, her robes were black. The feel of her wrist in the inner softness of my elbow, even through four layers of clothing, broke open the dam of my memories. It also broke open half a dozen fresh burns. She looked up at me. How many times had she done that, wanting to be kissed? But those days were dust and ashes.

"Now we must atone," she said.

"For what?"

"For hurting her."

I swallowed. "Hurting who?"

"Gaia."

"Oh."

She led me along the beach. I studied the workers, looking for Pitt. They wore jeans and Incan beanies with woolen ear flaps. They were gringos, all of them, and ranged from late twenties to early eighties, including a pair of grandparents who later tried to put me to sleep with photos of their offspring. None of them was Pitt.

"Don't tell me you've gone New Age."

Kate grinned and closed her eyes. She nodded her head. "Gaia is the world, Horse. She is the mother spirit who inhabits every living thing." She stopped walking. "And yes, she is in danger."

"You tried calling 9-1-1?"

She laughed, her face tilted up at the moon. "Never lose your cynicism, Horse," she said, and lay a cold knuckle against my cheek. "Gaia is everywhere, even in you."

Her touch hit me like a downed power line. All the memories, the longing and the loss, crackled between her skin and mine.