“Okay.”
Matteo replaced their supplies in the pack, and Helen climbed on the bike behind him once he was seated. His shirt was damp and clung to him, outlining his taut muscles, and when she slipped her arms around his waist she had a flash of his bare skin pressed to hers, slick and musk scented, in that oven of a bedroom at the taberna. She felt a falling sensation in the pit of her stomach, and she took a deep breath, steeling herself for the ordeal of the journey ahead.
“Ready?” he said, turning his head.
“Ready,” she replied, and he kicked the bike into life, sending up a spray of gravel and roaring off through the trees.
They traveled at a slower pace now, picking their way through increasingly dense undergrowth, until Matteo was forced to abandon the bike and they walked. Helen followed in his wake as he cleared a path for them, breaking off low-hanging branches and occasionally pulling his knife from his belt and cutting away the leaves and vines so they could pass. Helen was finding it increasingly difficult to breathe; her lungs could not adjust to the changing oxygen content of the air` and every step was labored. As night was falling Matteo stopped and turned to look at her. Then he slipped the straps of his pack from his arms.
“That’s it,” he said. “You’re done in. We’ll have to stay the night here and reach camp in the morning.”
“How far is it?” she asked, slapping away the bugs that were feasting on her hide like pork fanatics at a luau.
“A mile or so,” he said, “but you can’t make it.”
“I can make it,” she gasped.
“I’ll carry you.”
Helen drew herself up to her full height, not very impressive next to his six feet plus, but the best she could do. “You will not carry me. I won’t make my entrance like a dead Spartan borne home on his shield.”
He grinned, his teeth flashing white in the gathering darkness.
“Your entrance? Helen, we’re not going to a debutante ball.”
“I know that,” she snapped. “Matt, I’m burned a lovely shade of coral, my bites and scrapes and cuts look like a Bactine advertisement and my hair has become the home of every insect in Central America. At least allow me the dignity of arriving on my own two feet.”
“All right,” he conceded. “I never argue with a woman whose skin is the color of a Hawaiian sunset.”
“Do I look that bad?” she asked worriedly, feeling the vestiges of her vanity resurfacing at the prospect of being seen by other people.
“You look gorgeous,” he said firmly, leaning forward to kiss the tip of her pink nose. “You look like a gorgeous blonde with a few scratches and a medium-to-well-done sunburn.”
“Liar,” she said. “In this light you can’t even see me.”
“I can see well enough. Your skin has its own glow, sort of like a radioactive isotope.”
It was not the moment to tease her. Her lower lip began to tremble, and he detected the glimmer of tears in her eyes.
“Oh, no, baby, no,” Matteo said, realizing that she had been pushed near her limit. He pulled her close, smoothing her tangled hair back from her forehead. “Don’t cry now, it’s almost over. Soon we’ll arrive, and you’ll have food, and a hot bath, and sleep. Doesn’t that sound good?”
Helen nodded, sniffling like a five year old promised a lollipop after the penicillin shot.
He pressed his lips to the shell of her ear, closing his eyes. “That’s my brave girl,” he whispered. “Now look. Look up at that moon. Isn’t it beautiful?”
“Yes,” she agreed. It was enhanced by a halo, surrounded by stars just emerging from the blue void of dusk.
“By the time it’s in full view we’ll be there,” he said. “All right?”
“Okay.”
Matteo set off again, and Helen followed him, bolstered by his touch, his words. Let’s face it, she thought dryly, squashing a mosquito with the flat of her hand, the man can get me to do anything.
They ascended for a length of time Helen was no longer able to measure, and then Matteo stopped, taking her hand and pointing to a large clearing directly ahead of them.
Helen could see a mass of tents and cooking fires—a sprawling encampment where people walked to and fro, appearing miniaturized by the distance.
“There it is,” he said.
His step became brisker with his eagerness to get there, and Helen kept up with him, anxious for the rest he had promised. As they got closer she could pick out features she had missed before: a modern looking motor home parked at the edge of the trees, prefab buildings that could be assembled hastily and dismantled the same way, stacked boxes of canned goods and other supplies.
She glanced at Matteo. His face was alight; he was happy to be coming home, once more joining those who shared his purpose.
They were within shouting distance now, and a guard posted nearest the path they were traveling turned at a footstep, rifle at the ready. When he saw who it was he shouldered the weapon, setting up a cry that brought the others running from tents and huts all over the camp, dropping whatever they were doing to greet their leader.
“Matteo!” he shouted, and his cry was echoed by other voices until the whole clearing seemed to ring with the sound of the name. Matteo had to halt as they crowded around him, slapping his back, embracing him joyously, some even ruffling his hair. Helen stood behind him, not wanting to intrude on his reunion, and she noticed that there were two who stayed apart from the others, lingering on the fringes of the crowd. They were a man about Matteo’s age and height, but huskier, with curling sandy hair and an expressionless face, and young woman with long straight black hair and a voluptuous figure encased in a set of pea green fatigues. This couple merely watched the scene, saying nothing to their comrades or to each other, but after the excitement died down Matteo’s eyes sought the man’s and he said quietly, “Vicente. ¿Que tal?”
That’s Olmos, Helen thought with a jolt. But who was the woman?
Matteo seemed to remember Helen’s presence, and he turned to take her hand, leading her forward into the light from the closest fire.
“And this,” he said in Spanish, looking around at the assembled faces, “is Helen.”
Chapter 6
The group, which had been setting up such a ruckus, fell silent, all staring at Helen. They couldn’t imagine who she was or what she was doing with Matteo, and she felt the eyes of the dark haired woman rake over her, taking in her dishabille.
Matteo launched into a little speech, which Helen of course did not understand. She caught one phrase, “mi amiga especial,” and gathered that he was telling them she was a friend and was to be treated accordingly. Helen could sense immediately that this was easier said than done; the sexy brunette looked like she wanted to roast the newcomer on a spit.
When Matteo finished talking, his followers exchanged glances, and Helen could see them all reaching the same conclusion: if that’s what Matteo wants, we’ll do it. They dispersed to their various activities, some of them casting parting looks, intent with curiosity, at Helen. Matteo put his arm around her shoulder and they walked the length of the camp together. Helen was fascinated by what she saw: men and women washing clothes, cleaning weapons, preparing meals, all by the light of electric bulbs strung on wires and hooked up to portable generators. Matteo paused outside the door of the motor home and said to Helen, “You go inside and rest. I’ll send someone with food and clothes, and there’s a working shower if you’re up to taking one right now. I’ve been away for a while and I have to talk to some of my men, but I’ll be back later, okay?”
“Okay,” Helen said uncertainly, not wanting to be left alone but aware that he had responsibilities to fulfill.
“Go on,” he urged, when he saw her expression. “I’ll be back before you know it, I promise.” He kissed her swiftly on the forehead, and as Helen turned to go into the camper she saw the dark woman standing in the shadows, silent witness to the scene.
Helen climbed the steps and pulled open
the door, wondering uncomfortably if she was to be the main attraction for the duration of her stay. The interior of the camper was furnished with ragtag items of furniture and an assortment of surprisingly modern appliances, including a coffee maker with a timer and a microwave oven. Helen didn’t know if this was Matteo’s place or a convenient focal point for the whole camp, but she was sure the people she’d seen living in tents would not appreciate the star treatment she was getting. She was too tired to worry about it much, however, and she was investigating the workings of the hand held shower in the bathroom when she heard a knock.
“Come in,” she said, and then changed that to “Entrada.”
Helen emerged into the tiny hallway running between the kitchen and the living room as the door opened and a woman in her thirties entered. She was carrying a covered tray and a neat pile of clothing. She set both on the table and gestured that they were for Helen’s use, then departed without further ceremony.
Well, Helen thought. It would be tough making friends here. These people were obviously going to follow Matteo’s orders to the letter, but that was the extent of it. Their natural distrust of outsiders would not allow anything more. They had to accept her presence among them but they didn’t have to like it.
Helen sighed heavily. She had never been a big winner of popularity contests, and this was just one more situation in which she would be the odd man out. Her life had prepared her perfectly to deal with any experience of emotional isolation, and so she approached this one with her customary resignation.
Helen glanced at the clothes, thinking that she hadn’t put on anything that actually belonged to her since she left Florida. She tried to imagine Sophia under such circumstances and had to smile. Her mother, who got a migraine if her hem was half an inch off, would never survive the rigors of life with a Puerta Lindan revolutionary.
She returned to the bathroom to shower and made the mistake of glancing in the fly spotted mirror above the sink. She groaned aloud. Between the sunburn and the insect bites, she looked like some horrific parody of herself, a distorted figure from a beachcomber’s nightmare. She looked away quickly, turned on the water and stripped off her ruined clothes.
The shower was tepid but serviceable, and after sponging off and washing her lank hair she felt much better. She dressed in the borrowed outfit, jeans and a men’s army T-shirt, and sat at the table, investigating the contents of the tray.
There was a bowl of stew with beans and some kind of meat, a hunk of dark bread and a glass of milk. She polished off everything, carrying the empty dishes to the sink and rinsing them. She left them to dry in the drainer and then eyed the daybed with longing. Matteo had said he would be back, but he might be gone for hours, and certainly no one could object if she took a little nap.
Helen stretched out on the sofa and was asleep within seconds, enjoying the dreamless slumber of complete exhaustion.
* * *
Matteo dismissed his men from the tent where he had set up temporary headquarters, but Olmos remained waiting until the others had departed to say, “¿Ella esta Americana?”
Matteo met his challenging gaze squarely. To the question, “She is American?” he replied, “Si.” He didn’t have to ask who “she” was.
Olmos smiled slightly, his eyes narrowing. Matteo continued to stare at him until he raised the flap of the tent and departed, slowly enough to suggest that he was not intimidated.
Matteo sat back and rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. Olmos would try to use that information to disturb the balance of power between them, but Matteo wasn’t going to concede his point in advance by lying to him.
He glanced around the tent, wondering how Helen was doing. The camper where he’d left her was ordinarily used for meetings like the one he’d just held, but he felt that she needed comfortable surroundings on this first night. Soon the motor home would be left behind anyway, since they couldn’t transport it across the mountain, but he would have to be more careful in the future. Helen’s nationality would make her enough of a target; he didn’t want to add fuel to the fire.
The flap of the tent was flung upward suddenly, and Alma Rivera stood before him, hands on hips, dark eyes flashing.
“So,” she sneered, “you bring your American mistress here to flaunt her in our faces.”
Matteo folded his hands behind his head and regarded her calmly. “She’s not my mistress,” he replied, “though it would be none of your business if she were.” His tone was mild, but the tense posture of his neck and shoulders conveyed a different message.
“Hah! Matteo Montega let a pretty blonde like that escape his bed? I don’t believe it.”
Alma spoke the Spanish dialect of the border regions, and tonight it fell more harshly than usual on Matteo’s ear. “I don’t care what you believe,” he answered, standing to indicate that the interview was over.
But Alma had come to have her say and she was not going to be put off so easily.
“That skinny gringa won’t last a day here,” she tossed at him. “She looks like her blood is made of water.”
“She’s not as fragile as she appears,” Matteo replied, and the note of pride in his voice stung her. “She went through a lot to get here, and more before that. Don’t underestimate her.”
Alma stared back at him furiously; his answer only inflamed her more. Matteo had never brought a woman to the camp. When he needed company he took one of their own, and she had been the favorite not too long ago. But now he arrived with this stranger, bringing her with him to his place, their place. This woman must be important to him and that realization drove Alma to her next statement.
“She will be a problem; I can promise it!”
He fixed her with an icy stare. “Are you threatening me?”
“I don’t have to threaten. I can sense the mood of the people. They aren’t happy she’s here. You should not keep her with you.”
“Don’t presume on our past relationship to instruct me,” Matteo said dismissively. “I can handle my own people.”
“Can you handle Olmos? Already he’s stirring up the men about her.”
“Olmos is always stirring up something. If I worried about him every time he got going, I wouldn’t have a minute to do anything else.” He paused, adopting a more placating tone. “Alma, this woman has been a great friend to me. I want you to help her, try to teach her...”
Alma spat on the dirt floor of the tent. She wasn’t buying it. As far as she was concerned there was only one kind of relationship a young, pretty woman could have with a man like Matteo Montega, and she fired back nastily, “Why, certainly. Of course! Nothing’s too good for my leader’s yellow haired yanqui whore.”
Matteo crossed the room in two strides, grabbing Alma’s upper arms with such strength that she would later find the imprint of his fingers stamped on her bruised flesh. But she did not flinch. Her mettle was legendary; not once had he seen her cry.
“I have never hit a woman in my life,” he said in a low, dangerous voice, “but unless you want to be the first I suggest you guard your tongue. That ‘gringa’ saved my life. You have no idea what she’s gone through for me, and if you ever speak that way about her again you will regret it.”
Alma stared back at him defiantly, channeling her true feelings into a cleansing, burning rebellion. She was deeply infatuated with him, and more than that, her former claim to his bed had given her a status that had been humiliating to lose. But Matteo could see only the malice, which disgusted him, not the helpless, painful jealousy that inspired it.
“Now get out of my sight,” he concluded, “and if I hear that you are giving her any trouble of any kind, you will answer to me. Do you understand?”
No response.
He shook her, not gently. “Do you understand?”
“Yes,” she replied sullenly, wrenching away from him.
He let her go, turning his back on her, and didn’t look around until he was sure she was gone.
&
nbsp; Matteo exhaled sharply, combing his damp hair with his fingers. It had been a long, trying day, and the scene with Alma was just what he needed to complete it.
Why had he ever slept with that woman? he wondered irritably. He had always known better, but she’d caught him at a weak moment with her seductive body. Then he had let it continue too long, because it was easy and because he had wanted to delay dealing with the turmoil of ending it. He detested final scenes, filled with recriminations, and as anticipated, Alma had provided a beauty. She had attached an importance to the relationship that he never felt, and now she would make sure Helen found out about their past involvement.
He realized that the idea of it bothered him. Alma was clever, and once she gathered, as she eventually would, that he had told her the truth, she would find some way to make Helen feel inferior because he had slept with Alma and not with her.
Neither woman could know that the exact opposite was the truth; he had slept with Alma because he regarded her as a convenience and refused Helen because he regarded her as a treasure.
Matteo kicked a clod of dirt, fragmenting it into a dozen pieces. Why was Alma still around? He had sent her home to visit her mother and thought she would be there. Now he could add her viciousness to his list of problems. And he knew from experience that Alma was not to be discounted.
She had a crude, streetwise intelligence, and since Matteo’s dissolution of their affair had been forming an uneasy alliance with the equally crafty Olmos. Through his own carelessness, Matteo had made an enemy of Alma, sending her into the waiting arms of the man who coveted his position. Like two rogue wolves on the edge of the pack, they circled the leader, waiting for the right moment to lunge at his throat for the kill, each with different reasons for wanting to bring him down.
Matteo shook his head. How would he ever be able to concentrate on liberating his country with all of this peripheral intrigue going on?
He stepped outside the tent and looked up at the night sky, seeing by the descending arc of the moon that it was very late. He hoped Helen had gone to sleep. It was odd how often he found himself thinking of her; she had become such an integral part of his life that he no longer considered himself alone, and that frightened him. He didn’t want her looking to him, depending on him, but somehow it had happened. And what was worse, he dreaded cutting her loose; he understood with a sinking feeling of resignation that didn’t want to let her go.
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