The Second Bat Guano War Part 46

She lifted her eyes. "Horse."

"Here, babe." I squeezed her hand. Memories of the day she gave birth, her hand in mine. She hadn't cried then either. Now her tears came in rivers, a lifetime's supply demanding to be shed.

She said, "They killed me, Horace."

"No," I said, and stroked her hair. "You killed yourself."

She looked up at me, her eyes so green, flickering as they studied mine. She touched my face, and I realized that my cheeks were dry. She smiled. Her lips fluttered. She laughed, went rigid with the pain.

"Don't," I said.

She looked at the sky. "Will we see each other again, do you think? Will we see," and she coughed up blood, "will we see Lili?"

I clasped her hand to my chest. "Lili is gone," I said, "and we have burned in h.e.l.l for long enough." I kissed her bare knuckles. "Go and find your peace."

Her fingertips were icy rose petals on my cheek. Her hand quivered with the effort. "Peace," she said. "I-"

But I will never know what she wanted to tell me. Her hand fell back and her body convulsed and the life went out of her, a rasping breath from deep inside her lungs, and she was still, a smile on her face, perhaps the first real smile she'd had in years.

And for the first time since our daughter died, I wept.

A man is not supposed to cry. A man should be hard, should endure, should be a rock, a stoic who soldiers on no matter what the cost.

But I was none of those things. I had never been. I never would be. I was a failure of a man.

As I looked down at her automatic rifle and wondered if my toe would reach, I felt a hand on my shoulder, lips on my cheek. Kate's ghost brushed past me, a final peck on my wet cheek before beginning her eternal, unhappy wanderings. I jumped to my feet, slammed my shoulder into a headful of blonde hair.

Aurora stood there, her hand to her nose, blood trickling down her upper lip.

"G.o.ddammit," I said. "I can't f.u.c.king do anything right, can I."

She put her arms around me and held me tight. She pressed her face to my neck. Her blood dripped into my shirt. My arms stuck out straight like some f.u.c.king robot. I bent my elbows at right angles, and felt her spine under my fingertips. Her blonde hair tickled my face.

"Hush now," she said. She rocked me from side to side. "Shh."

Time took pity on us, and galaxies gave birth and died in the time we stood there. At last, in a distant, faraway land I heard footsteps approaching. They stopped. A gun clacked against the rocks. Knees creaked. Coins jingled. I took a long shuddering breath, and pulled away.

The captain squatted over Kate's body. Checked her pulse. Took out two Bolivian coins and laid them over her eyes, crossed her arms over her chest. He kept his eyes on the ground. "I'm sorry," he mumbled.

I think he actually meant it.

I turned to Aurora. She'd unbraided her hair. Curled it, even. Put on fresh makeup.

"How-" I said, but my mouth refused to work. "How did you-"

She smiled, wiped tears and blood from my neck. "How did I get here?"

She jerked her thumb sideways. Ambo stood there, leaning against a rock, studying the snowcapped crater in the distance. Another SUV was parked below.

"One more ch.o.r.e before we're done," he said, not to us, but to the clouds that encircled the mountaintop.

"Then we can rest," Aurora said.

Ambo lowered his head. "One way or another."

TWENTY-SIX.

The shale slipped underfoot. I looked up at the crater. It didn't seem to be getting any closer.

Somewhere up there Pitt was waiting for me. Pacing back and forth. Wondering when I'd get there. If I'd get there. Wondering, perhaps, even, if he shouldn't just push the b.u.t.ton and be done with it.

I struggled for breath. I looked back. Far below, Ambo and Aurora and a group of soldiers huddled, awaiting the fate of the world. No doubt they were watching me this very minute. Satellites from above. Binoculars from below. Pizza-eating Langley a.n.a.lysts in polyester trousers ogling me on a scrambled satlink. Or were they using drones? I had a worldwide audience. I unfurled my middle finger and saluted the men below, the sky above.

"Mount Testimony," Ambo had declared with a broad sweep of his hand. "Five thousand, four hundred and sixty meters."

"How high are we here?" I'd asked.

"Four thousand and a bit," the captain had answered.

The cold wind slashed through all my layers. I had long since lost sensation in my ears. Pins and needles jabbed my toes. When they went away, I knew, I would be at risk of frostbite. I laughed at the thought. Toeless Boy Wonder, English Teacher Extraordinaire. My laugh grew into a cough and I spat on the rocks.

I hefted the backpack Aurora had given me. It was time for a rest. No good breaking a sweat. It'd just freeze to the skin. I sat on a nearby rock.

"Snacks!" she said, held the bag aloft.

"What for?" I asked stupidly.

She unzipped the pack and rummaged around. "Long climb up the mountain. You need energy. Got you a couple of tuna-fish sandwiches, fruit, plenty of water. Some cookies. Homemade, too." She held them out: oatmeal raisin, they looked like.

I looked at the bag, then at her. The blood streamed down her nose, formed a red goatee around her lips. "You'd make a h.e.l.luva mother, you know that?"

She laughed. "What, you think I did this?" Her laughter echoed on the rocks, a foreign sound in this place of death, Kate still warm at my feet. Aurora's green eyes danced, bittersweet emeralds tempting me, defying me.

Reminding me of Lynn.

Reminding me of Kate.

Of all the women I had ever loved and lost, and would never see again.

"No, of course not." Brain not functioning. Query: why not? Alt.i.tude? Or those eyes? d.a.m.n it. Wipe drool.

"Ambo and his crew fed us when they picked us up. This one's for you." She zipped the backpack shut and held it out. Lowered her voice. "Except this one has a gun in it, just in case."

I took the bag. I could think of nothing to say.

"You coming back?" she asked casually. More words bubbled out of her before I could answer: "You coming back to me?"

My hand stroked her hair, her ear cold under my fingers. Some primal impulse took hold of me, short-circuited my usual fail att.i.tude, and I pulled her lips down to mine.

When we broke away, her face was covered in blood. So was mine. I wiped my lips with my sleeve.

"Better get that looked at," I said.

Her smile quivered. "I will."

I shuffled my feet, preparing to go.

"Yes." The word erupted out of her, aimed at my back.

"What's that?"

"I would make a h.e.l.luva mother." She waved at me, an awkward twitch of her hand, then knotted her fingers together.

I headed for the trail. I didn't look back.

Ambo shouted after me. "Horse!"

I kept walking.

"Horse!"

The bullhorn squawked, amplified Ambo's voice. "What's more important?" He paused, as though waiting for an answer. "Pitt? Or the world?"

I didn't stop. I didn't turn.

"My son is dead, Horse! You understand that? He is nothing to me!"

I walked quickly toward the trail.

The voice faded in the distance. "He is nothing to you!"

I flipped up the hood of my borrowed anorak. It muted the howl of the wind. And Ambo's voice.

Hak Po's plastic baggie rested in my palm. How did that get there? I fumbled with it, couldn't get it open. I took my gloves off, set them down next to me. A gust of wind seized them, dashed them into the air, two black specks fluttering far in the distance. I unzipped the baggie, took a pinch in my fingers.

Last time, I thought. Really the last time.

Last burst of energy. Get to the top. That's all that matters. What happens after isn't life. Life as you know it is over.

I jammed my frozen fingers up my nose and snorted as hard as I could. Numb. Numbness. Come on. Do your job. Another snort, and another, and another, until the bag was half gone. I was as high as I had ever been, but it was not enough. It would never be enough. I could never mourn her as she deserved. I could never make right that wrong. I would go to the grave with that sin on my conscience.

A photo fluttered in my hand. Liliana. My baby. Frozen in time. Wrapped all in pink. Mouth open in surprise. When she was born she weighed six pounds, seven ounces. Now she felt like a ton.

The breeze whipped at the picture. I held it out, tight between my thumb and forefinger. All I had to do was let go. That was all. So simple.

And so impossible.

The backpack sat open at my feet. I reached under my sweater, put the photo back in my shirt pocket, over my heart. I fished around for a bottle of water. Cracked the seal, drank a mouthful, then poured the rest onto the ground. I didn't need it. Just more baggage to weigh me down. Where I was going, water would be the least of my worries.

I unwrapped the sandwiches and threw them out across the rocks. I crushed the cookies, shook the crumbs on the ground. The apple and banana I hurled into the air, as high and as far as I could. I watched as they came down, smashed against the rocks. At the bottom of the backpack I found the gun. Heavy pistol. Automatic. I threw it sideways, like a boomerang. It clattered hundreds of meters below me, disappeared into a deep crevice.

The cocaine was still in my hand. I hesitated. I turned the open baggie upside down. The cocaine never hit the ground. The wind blew it back in my face, stinging my cheeks with frozen granules. When the storm had pa.s.sed I opened my eyes. The baggie was empty.

I left it there on the mountainside.

The afternoon clouds rolled in, surrounded me in mist. I could see the trail in front of me but that was it. I was free of the watchers, but at what cost? A misstep, one wrong turning, and I would be lost for good. The world would be lost for good. They must be holding their breath down there, I realized, waiting for me to come back down the mountain.

d.a.m.n them, I thought. I didn't ask for this. I am not ready. Who am I to do this thing? It should be Ambo. It should be Pitt's wife. Wherever she'd gone. It should be a professional negotiator. Anyone, really. Anyone but me.

I took long, slow, deep breaths, filling my lungs with the thin air. The cocaine helped, but not much. Each step was a labor: lift foot, move foot forward, put foot down, press upward. Repeat.

Step by step I crunched my way up the trail, studying the ground before me, following in the footsteps of centuries of murderous Incan priests and their human offerings. Usually children.

Kate had explained it to me once.

"The Incas didn't torture or disembowel their sacrificial victims. Nothing so primitive. They simply left them on top of the volcano. Tied them up. They'd die of exposure. That's why there are so many mummies there. The bodies freeze solid and stay that way." Of course, the mummies had long since been put in museums or sold to necrophiliac pimps in Lima.

The trail got steeper. I stopped, unable to go on. I peeled off my anorak, threw it aside. The wind seized it, flung it into the void. A bitter mountain wind slashed through my sweater, froze my sweaty T-shirt to my chest. The pain woke me. I was alive. I had things to do before I died. I knew that now. Even if I wasn't sure what that thing was.

Footsteps had worn a path across a steep pile of rocks. I climbed across them, my gloveless fingers giving me a shock of pain at each touch of the icy stone. My broken pinkie had swollen three times its normal size. I ripped off the tape that bound it to my ring finger. Pity I didn't have a knife. It would be easier to just cut it off and be done with it.

A sheer rock wall loomed before me. I craned my neck, trying to see the top.

The final a.s.sault, bucko, Ambo had said. Better hope that rope's still there.

I bent my frozen fingers, felt in the cliff face for a handhold. There were none. No chalk, no rope. Nothing. A red dot of light danced across my hands.

"There you are," called out a voice from above. "I've been waiting for you."

It was Pitt.

TWENTY-SEVEN.