Latitude 38

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Latitude 38 Page 33

by Ron Hutchison


  Uno took another cautious step forward. Her light swayed to her left and then back to the right, falling a few yards short of the candles. She was now within a step or two of Diego’s reach and the water-soaked bat he clutched. He raised the heavy branch higher as a chorus of familiar voices detonated inside his head.

  Do it, you cowardly bastard! the first voice screamed.

  Don’t! Why risk your safety? yelled the second.

  Diego tightened his fingers around the limb and took a half-step forward. He raised the limb higher—it shook in his hands.

  Do it!

  Don’t!

  In Diego’s mind he saw the limb crashing down on Uno’s head. He saw her falling unconscious into the water. If she wasn’t dead, she soon would be. He would make sure of that. Beaten senseless and then drowned like a sewer rat. If Mr. Mustache had been there too, Diego probably wouldn’t risk a confrontation. But it was only the woman. He held the advantage of surprise. And he had the anger. Subduing her was doable.

  His heart banging like a jackhammer, Diego listened to the voices screaming inside his head, one voice brave and vengeful, the other afraid and forgiving.

  Diego lowered the limb.

  Uno paused another second or two, and then continued on through the chamber and down a tunnel leading away.

  Diego thought he might puke. He dropped the limb to his side and slumped to the cave floor. He sat there for all of ten minutes, not moving, barely breathing. He was angry with himself for not killing Uno. Or at least trying to kill her. He could have done the dirty deed and then gone about the business of finding Adriana. But he hadn’t, and now he still had Uno and Big Bertha to worry about.

  You are one weak son of a bitch, Diego. You had a chance to—

  A distant BOOM! drenched the circus-tent cavern with deadly echoes. Diego recognized the horrific sound as that of Uno’s shotgun and he was gripped by a sudden tremor of fear. The echoes seemed to go on forever. Two. Three. Four echoes. It was impossible to tell the real from the ricochet. Uno must have come upon one of Diego’s companions. She had probably killed the person. Probably? his mind screamed. There’s no probably about it!

  Diego prayed it wasn’t Adriana.

  Cowardly bastard! his mind shrieked.

  If it wasn’t Adriana who was torn to shreds, and his mind fought that cruel thought, then it must have been Cutbirth, Yong, or Sissy. Surely to God, Uno wouldn’t shoot a ten-year-old girl, would she?

  28

  Diego pushed through the water, putting as much distance as he could between himself and Uno. She had exited the circus-tent cavern in one direction. He had exited in the other, attempting to retrace the route he had taken during his watery ride. Somewhere ahead in the network of tunnels and caverns, he hoped to find Adriana. There was, of course, the possibility that the flood might have taken her down the same tunnel Uno was now searching, and that the shotgun blast Diego had heard had been intended for Adriana. He tried erasing the dreadful thought from his mind, but couldn’t.

  The water was only knee-deep now and he was making good time. He thrashed through the flooded tunnel for five minutes before coming to his first Y. He had no idea which branch to take. He had no memory of the Y during his perilous journey. As Diego studied the intersection he was blinded by a sudden flash of light. It had blinked on from his right. His impulse was to turn and run, but he didn’t. He stood frozen with fear.

  “Who’s there?” Diego asked in a quavering voice.

  “The boogieman.” It was Cutbirth. He had flipped on his headlamp.

  Diego exhaled a terrified breath and raised his own flashlight beam until it framed Arnold Cutbirth. Seated on a narrow ledge a few yards away, Cutbirth’s backpack was on the ledge beside him. A motionless body was lying in the knee-deep water at Cutbirth’s feet.

  Dear God, not Adriana!

  Diego approached. He could make out a small, shriveled tattoo of a hummingbird. Sissy’s torso was floating face down, arms outstretched, fingertips gnawed, fingers splayed like those of a concert pianist. Her legs hung beneath her and her brick-red hair formed a perfect halo around her head. It looked almost artistic. Salvador Dalí came to mind.

  “I just found her body,” Cutbirth said, his voice sounding tired.

  Diego felt a strange sadness. He barely knew Sissy, but in the span of only a few days she had carved out a place in his heart. His grief was deepened by the knowledge that Emily had lost her mother.

  Cutbirth’s face was scrunched up in a grimace, and the stark beam from Diego’s flashlight made his ugly face even uglier. The Neanderthal had rolled up the sleeves of his wool shirt and long johns on his right arm. Rolled them up to the elbow. Then Diego saw why Cutbirth’s face pulsed with agony. A ghastly, discolored bump was stretching Cutbirth’s skin just above his right wrist. Something was trying to poke through the skin—a bone. The black and blue protrusion was the size of an apple.

  “Jesus, Cutbirth, doesn’t that hurt?”

  “A compound fracture. What do you think?” He was holding the arm gingerly. Diego could see the pain in Cutbirth’s eyes.

  “Have you seen Adriana?”

  “Thanks for all the sympathy, Ad Man.”

  “My wife. Have you seen her?” Diego could hear the desperation in his own voice.

  “No, just Sissy here,” Cutbirth said in a quiet voice. “I heard the shotgun blast. What was that all about?”

  “Uno passed me earlier. I hid beneath an overhang. I heard the blast about ten minutes later. I have no idea….”

  “I want you to set my wrist.” Cutbirth exhaled a long and labored breath.

  “Bullshit. I don’t know a thing about setting a broken bone. I need to find my wife.” Diego pointed his flashlight beam down the tunnel ahead.

  “It’s simple. It’s like popping a couple of Lego blocks together,” Cutbirth said. “Set my broken wrist and we’ll head out. I know where we are.”

  “Can’t I just fix a splint or something?”

  “Out of what?”

  Diego looked around for any debris that might be floating by. “Should we do something with Sissy’s body? We can’t just leave her like this.”

  “Set my wrist first. I’ll walk you through it,” Cutbirth said quietly.

  “You haven’t seen anyone? Not Yong? Not Emily?”

  “No.”

  “Poor Emily,” Diego said.

  “Yeah, I know,” Cutbirth said. “Now wrap your fingers around either side of the swelling. I’ll keep it lit with my headlamp.”

  “I watched you kill Rosie.” The admission had sprung from Diego’s mouth with no forewarning.

  Cutbirth looked up. “Your timing is impeccable, Ad Man.”

  “I saw you cut her throat. I saw the blood. I heard her screams.”

  “I know you did,” Cutbirth said. “I had no other choice. I had to kill her. Now set my wrist, goddamnit.”

  Diego felt better for having made the disclosure—it was as if a waterlogged one-ton weight had been removed from his shoulders—and he stowed his flashlight in his backpack, then set the pack on the ledge. Wrapping his hands around either side of the bruised swelling, Diego tightened his grip and twisted a little.

  “God Almighty!” Cutbirth gave an anguished shout of pain. He tried to pull his arm away, but Diego’s grip was firm.

  “That hurt?”

  “Yes!” Cutbirth cried.

  “Bet that didn’t hurt nearly as much as Rosie’s throat. The throat that you cut. I’ll bet her pain was far worse.”

  Diego gave another twist. He expected to see Cutbirth’s clenched fist headed toward his face—Diego was prepared to fend off such a blow—but the caveman’s left hand remained in the shadows at his side.

  “I had to do it,” Cutbirth groaned.

  “Bullshit.” Diego tightened his grip until his knuckles were white.

  “Jesus, Ad Man! Stop!” Cutbirth tried to pull away a second time, but his strength was gone.

  “And you taun
ted her, you bastard! She knew she was about to die and you taunted her!”

  Grasping Cutbirth’s arm, Diego twisted the protrusion like he was wringing out a wet washcloth.

  “Stop!” Cutbirth howled. “Please!” He drew several tortured breaths.

  “That was for Rosie.”

  “What would you have done?” Cutbirth gasped.

  “I wouldn’t have killed her, you fucking douche bag,” He twisted the arm again.

  “Okay, I get it!” Cutbirth wailed, the pain bringing tears to his eyes. “You wouldn’t have killed her! Now stop!”

  Diego removed his hands from around Cutbirth’s swollen wrist. “And I’m not going to set your broken wrist. This isn’t a field hospital and I’m not a medic. I’d probably just make it worse.”

  Cutbirth blinked the tears from his eyes and dropped his head to his chest. In a voice barely above a whisper he said, “Okay, just wrap it.”

  “Adhesive tape?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m about out.”

  Cutbirth exhaled a frazzled breath. “I have a whole roll.”

  Diego rummaged through Cutbirth’s backpack until he found the first-aid kit. He removed the roll of tape.

  “Tear off two strips,” Cutbirth said in little more than a whisper. “Then wrap them tightly on either side of the swelling, but not over the swelling itself. It needs to breathe.”

  Diego tore off a strip and wrapped the tape around one side of the bruised swelling, then tore off a second piece and wrapped the other side.

  “Again,” Cutbirth said. “Use all the tape except for about six inches.” He blew out a tired breath. “Man, I’ve never been so cold in my life.”

  “You’ll need to have this set by a doctor.”

  “We’ll be out of this cave in an hour.”

  “What?”

  “I know where we’re at.”

  After Diego had finished wrapping the broken wrist, Cutbirth said, “One other little minor problem to attend to.” He raised his left hand. The index finger looked like a dog’s hind leg.

  “What happened?” Diego stared at the mangled finger.

  “Smashed into some rocks. The rocks won. Grab the finger and pull. Then wrap it with that last strip of tape.”

  Diego took hold of the finger.

  “Do it.”

  Diego grasped Cutbirth’s wrist with one hand and pulled the finger with the other. It made a terrible popping sound. Fighting the shriek of pain, Cutbirth brought his forearm up to his mouth and bit into it. In a few seconds he lowered his arm and gasped. The bite mark trickled blood.

  “That definitely hurt,” Cutbirth groaned.

  Diego began wrapping the broken index finger with the last strip of tape.

  “Easy,” Cutbirth said.

  “Where’s your gym bag?”

  “Gone.”

  “Cutbirth, this isn’t your day.” He finished wrapping the broken finger.

  “I’m alive.” Cutbirth told Diego to fish out his bottle of aspirin. Cutbirth swallowed a handful with some water.

  “Now,” Cutbirth said, “let’s take Sissy down this tunnel.” He pointed his headlamp at the tunnel on the right. “You’ll have to do it yourself. I’m beat to shit.” His voice sounded old.

  Diego took one of Sissy’s cold, lifeless hands and towed her through the water as gently as possible. He followed Cutbirth down the tunnel for about 50 yards to a place Diego recognized from the map: Balanced Rock.

  The unusual formation resembled a huge teeter-totter, one that had been created after a large, thin slab of ceiling rock had pulled away from the roof and was now balanced precariously on a raised, irregular shelf beneath it. The Balanced Rock lay precisely beneath the ceiling scar left by its fall. The rock rested on an island of sorts—it was high and dry.

  Diego took Sissy’s other hand and pulled her body out of the water and onto the rock island. He laid her on her back. Cutbirth instructed Diego to remove Sissy’s wool shirt and make him a sling. It was a grisly task, but Diego’s cold fingers moved quickly and efficiently, and he stripped off Sissy Frost’s water-logged shirt. He tore it a couple of times and made a sling for Cutbirth. Diego tied it around Cutbirth’s neck. The sling wasn’t pretty, but it was functional.

  “The Cathedral and the way out of this cave is down that passageway,” Cutbirth said, lighting one of the two tunnels leading away from the Balanced Rock. “I’m working from memory, but I know it’s the tunnel to the left.”

  “Memory?”

  “Lost the map.”

  Diego sighed. “Do you have any other bad news you’d like to share?”

  “No.”

  “How far to the Cathedral?” Diego said.

  “Less than half a mile.”

  “I have to find my wife. And Emily.”

  “I know,” Cutbirth said. “One last piece of business….”

  “What now?”

  “Reach inside my shirt and remove my Glock from its shoulder holster,” Cutbirth said. “That’s one thing I didn’t lose.”

  “Why do you want me to—”

  “Because I can’t shoot, you can. Something tells me we haven’t seen the last of Uno.”

  This time Diego agreed with Cutbirth’s assessment. Uno had tracked them all the way from San Francisco, and she wasn’t about to pick up her toys and go home. Diego removed the raven-black Glock pistol from Cutbirth’s shoulder holster.

  “Stick it in your pants pocket. The safety’s off, so be gentle. When you want to shoot, just pull the trigger. It will continue to fire as long as you squeeze the trigger.” Cutbirth paused to draw an exhausted breath. “It has a 12-round magazine. I fired two into that tube yesterday. You have ten shots left.”

  Diego stuffed the pistol into his pants pocket. “I hope I don’t have to—”

  The dim and distant shrill of a whistle echoed faintly through the Balanced Rock chamber, and Diego thought his mind was playing tricks. Perhaps he was dreaming. Perhaps he was hearing things. He held his breath and listened. Yes, it was definitely the shriek of a whistle.

  “You hear that, Cutbirth?”

  Cutbirth’s eyes brightened. “Damn right.”

  Please let it be Adriana!

  29

  The shrill of the whistle giving him hope, Diego waded through the water as fast as his legs would propel him, twisting and turning through the elaborate network of intersecting tunnels. Cradling his arm in the ratty, homemade sling, Cutbirth fell behind. Diego encouraged him to keep up.

  Diego threaded his way toward the sound of the whistle like some homing pigeon. He wondered if Uno could hear the shrills. Stupid question. Sound traveled for miles in the cave. Several times Diego made a wrong turn or came to a dead-end—the distant shrill immediately became fainter—and he and Cutbirth hurriedly retraced their steps.

 

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