Elixir

by Davis Bunn

  The narrow way.

  chapter 18

  WHEN THEY RETURNED TAYLOR TO THE CABIN BY the orchard, he asked Inyakie if he could use the cell phone. The young Basque hesitated only a moment. “I don’t need to warn you.”

  “No,” Taylor agreed. “You don’t.”

  The ride had been long and tiring. But there had been none of the tension that had accompanied them on the way out. Several times Inyakie had turned in his seat, as though wanting to ask Taylor something. But the words had not come. Taylor had seen the indecision in the man’s eyes and said nothing. For the moment, it was enough not to be despised.

  When Inyakie passed over the phone, Taylor felt more explanation was required. “I promised a friend I would check in.”

  “A woman?”

  Taylor hesitated. To agree was to say far more than he wished. “A friend.”

  Inyakie showed the first glimmer of humor since their meeting. “I am very glad to hear this, just the same.”

  Taylor walked out among the trees before placing the call. Allison answered on the first ring. “I was hoping it was you!”

  “I promised I’d call.”

  “Don’t tell me you always do what you say. I’d have to lock you up.”

  A final glimmer of daylight lanced between the high peaks, turning the orchard into a cathedral of shimmering green. “It’s good to hear your voice, Allison.”

  “Do you know, this is the first time since all this started that I don’t hear the distrust in your voice.”

  “It’s true.” He knew it was also dangerous. And he didn’t care. Not just then.

  “Why the change?”

  What to say? “There’s a woman I’d like you to meet sometime. Ada Folley. When I was a kid, she tried to tell me about some things, but I was just too dumb to listen.” He could hear her now. Whispering across the miles and the years. Oh yes. Be ready.

  “Taylor?”

  “Sorry. It’s been a long day. Ada used to say you know a person’s worth by the choices he makes. Today, right now, I want to trust you. Is that a good choice?”

  “It is to me.”

  “You’ve changed too.”

  “Have I?”

  “This is the first time I’m not hearing any of that coldness you use. The first time in—”

  “Years. Too long. It’s harder to trust than I’d like to admit.”

  “I know.”

  “But it’s nice to have a reason.”

  “I’m not nearly as perfect as you’d like me to be,” he said.

  “I’m not after perfect. I’m after a reason to trust.”

  “I don’t even know how to give a woman that much.” He reached up to trace a design along the lowest leaves. “You know what makes you so special?”

  “I’m not, Taylor. But tell me anyway.”

  “You’ve been handed a raw deal from the beginning. You could write a book of excuses for living on acid and hate. But you don’t.”

  “I couldn’t and still be the mom I want to be for my little girl.”

  “See? That’s what I mean. You’re there for the ones who need you. You are the most reliable assistant I’ve ever known. You do your very best to be a great mom. You live with an open heart and gratitude.” He kicked at a piece of overripe fruit. “You humble me.”

  “Stop.”

  “I’ll just say this and nothing more. I’ve lived a life marked by too many wrong choices. I’ve been an expert at justifying my actions. And I hate myself for doing it. Worse, I hate the pain I’ve caused those stupid enough to love me. I want to change, Allison. I don’t know if I can, but I want to.”

  The sun dipped behind the cliffs. The air took on a crystalline quality. The world seemed caught in an eternal moment between lightness and dark. Even the wind stilled. Taylor observed himself, a man of muscled strength and human frailty standing in an orchard beyond time and space, an Eden made holy by defiant hope.

  He realized Allison had not responded. “Are you there?”

  The voice was scarcely more than a whisper. “Yes.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “You shouldn’t talk to me that way. Some doors hurt too much to open, unless they’re really open.” She took a shaky breath. “Where are you now?”

  “France. You?”

  “Someplace a lot less exotic. My aunt’s. I’ve never been anywhere. What is France like?”

  He looked down the long row of trees to where Inyakie sat on the cabin stoop and chatted quietly with his friend.

  “Confusing. But getting clearer all the time.”

  THE NEXT MORNING INYAKIE ARRIVED ALONE. HE SET down a fresh set of clothes along with the day’s food. “How do you feel?”

  “Better.”

  “You have taken the elixir?”

  “Not since last night.”

  “Drink just one cup this morning.”

  Taylor did as he was instructed. “You are a healer like your father?”

  “Not like my father. No one is like him.”

  Taylor found flaky croissants in the basket, still warm from the oven, and homemade preserves. “Why aren’t you up in the hills with him?”

  “Kirra wanted . . .” Inyakie halted in midstride. The Basque flipped his beret in his hands and stared out the window at the gathering day. “She has gone into the hills with him.”

  Taylor tore off another bite of the croissant. “Your English is excellent.”

  “I studied biochemistry in Bordeaux. Afterward I did three months’ research in America.”

  “Where?”

  “Boston.”

  “It’s cold up there.”

  “Yes.” He twirled the beret by the rim. “About Kirra.”

  Taylor dropped the remainder of his croissant back into the basket. “You love her.”

  The stubby fingers, brown as the earth outside the open door, flipped the beret so fast it blurred.

  “Does she love you?”

  “I have asked her to marry me.”

  The realization pushed Taylor back against the wall. “That’s why she went up into the mountains alone, isn’t it?”

  “Not alone.”

  “Without you. She went up because she needed time to think this through.”

  “And then you show up.” The sun pouring through the doorway cast his face into shadows, all but the glimmer in his dark eyes. “Bringing danger and woe.”

  “But that’s not what we’re talking about,” Taylor said, meeting the smaller man’s gaze. “Is it?”

  Inyakie flipped his hat onto his head and rose to his feet. “I think it would have been better for us all if you had never come.”

  TAYLOR DID NOT REALIZE IT WAS SUNDAY UNTIL THEY pulled into the village of Sarre and heard the ringing church bells.

  Sarre was a typical Basque mountain village, all white washed walls and red shutters and winding narrow lanes. The people bore expressions as tightly enclosed as the surrounding mountains. Taylor followed Inyakie through the church’s outer wall to discover not a courtyard, but rather a graveled cemetery. The wall opened into the town’s central square, which meant the graves lay at the heart of the village. They were tightly massed and so adorned with flowers it was impossible to read many of the headstones.

  The church’s interior was whitewashed simplicity. Timeblackened wood formed the pews and pillars and circular balcony stairs. Inyakie led him to a middle pew where his mother sat alone, her head covered by a woven black veil. She cast Taylor a single look, neither welcoming nor hostile, then slid over to make room. Inyakie turned and walked away.

  Other than the priest and a few children, Taylor was the only male in the congregation. He found this vaguely disappointing. He did not expect a chamber filled with other male seekers. But it would have been nice to feel a little less alone. The priest began the service, and Taylor followed the example of those around him. Within a few moments he realized the priest repeated everything first in French and then in Basque. Taylor found an odd com
fort in both the practiced manner of their Sabbath worship and the fact that he understood nothing. There was time here for reflection upon the unsaid.

  His time with Kirra was over. He knew that with utter certainty. Kirra had a beautiful woman’s ability to deflect male admirers. She would have allowed Inyakie’s feelings to progress to this point only if she felt deeply herself. And she could not feel for this man while still holding any real affection for Taylor.

  His circuitous thoughts were halted by the first song. The ancient church was utterly filled with voices. Male voices. He turned and stared upward. A balcony ran all the way across the back of the church and extended into two broad arms that ran over halfway down both sides. The gallery was filled with men. They stood in uniformed ranks, every one of them dressed in standard Basque garb. They did not sing the words. They shouted. They cried out in plainsong, their harmonies deepthroated and booming. There was no musical accompaniment. None was needed. The church seemed hardly large enough to contain their voices.

  Mrs. Dupin caught his astonishment and smiled slightly. She rolled her eyes, as though to say the men were showing off again. Taylor disagreed entirely. He loved this. He wanted to be up there with them. He felt the power of their worship in his chest. The final word of each verse diminished to a long droned note as though the men were reluctant to let it go, as though they found an abiding reverence in the power of song.

  When the priest began his message, Taylor returned to his internal dialogue. How did he feel about Inyakie being in love with Kirra? The answer was the same as it had been these past three days. He felt helpless. Utterly and completely helpless.

  It was the same response he had known since beginning this search. Only now there was one crucial difference. No longer was he driven by a desire to regain what he had lost. He could not explain it any better than that. When the congregation rose to its feet and the next song began, Taylor remained seated with his eyes closed. He needed to understand this. Of course he hurt still for Kirra and the mistakes he had made. But the pain no longer controlled. Of course he wanted her. But his life was not dominated by this.

  In all the time since he had wreaked havoc in both their lives, he had never before been able to accept things as they were.

  Part of him wanted to renew the struggle, to regain control. Taylor shook his head at this temptation. Two years of thrashing about had brought nothing but more pain. He had no choice but to look ahead. What lay before him he could not say. But one thing was absolutely certain. The thought was etched as clearly into the air before his closed eyes as the music that surrounded him.

  He was no longer alone.

  AFTER CHURCH HE DISTANCED HIMSELF FROM MRS. Dupin and strolled to the cemetery’s far end. The dispersing congregation drifted through the market square in the communion of generations. Families took tables at the restaurants and cafés shaded beneath vine-clad verandas. Taylor continued around the cemetery walk until he was alone with the distant green hills. If only there were some way to leave the past and the tumult behind. To feel and think as clearly out here in the light of day as he had inside.

  He heard the scrabble of footsteps on the gravel walk behind him. But he did not turn around. Whoever it was, this person would bring back the problems of the day and his unfinished business here. He sought a way to bury his internal commotion. Just lay it down, place his own tombstone over a whole world of mistakes, and walk away.

  Instead, the past walked over and spun him around.

  Kirra was dressed in a mannish outfit of brushed trousers with a tightly cinched waist, a khaki shirt, hiking boots, and a deerskin vest. She looked as lovely as he had imagined. All but her expression, which was furious.

  She hauled back and struck him square across the face.

  chapter 19

  THERE WAS ENOUGH ENGLISH IN KIRRA’S BLOW to draw tears from his eyes. Taylor wiped the back of his hand across the inflamed patch. Her eyes blazed as she reared back for a second blow. Taylor flinched, but neither resisted nor tried to defend himself.

  “No.” Inyakie moved forward and gripped the hand before it could strike. “Enough.”

  Kirra struggled to free herself. “How dare you show up here!”

  “This is not the place for blows,” Inyakie told her, gripping her more tightly. “Nor the proper day.”

  Since her hands were trapped, she spat the words at Taylor. “Haven’t you done enough damage already?”

  “Amanda said you had left a message asking for me.”

  “And you believed her?”

  “At first,” he admitted. “Initially I did.”

  “You of all people should know Amanda can never be trusted.”

  “Yes. You’re right.”

  “Then why—”

  “Because I wanted to believe her. I wanted to think you still wanted me.” He grimaced an apology as much to Inyakie as Kirra. “I was a fool.”

  Kirra shifted slightly, enough for Inyakie to accept she was under control again. “You’ve endangered this family, my work, everything.”

  “If Amanda hadn’t sent me, she would have used somebody else. But she would have found you, Kirra. What you’re doing here is too critical for her to just leave alone.”

  Her eyes tightened. It was a new expression, this gaze of glinting fury. What hurt worse than the distrust in her features was the knowledge that he had done a great deal to put it there.

  She said, “You have no idea what I’m after here.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “You can’t possibly—”

  “Kirra, I know about the product Amanda’s secretly bringing to market. I know she can’t afford to let you continue your research. I know Revell’s on a financial knife’s edge. I know they have to succeed with this new pain medicine. I know you’re a threat to everything.”

  “How do you know about Amanda’s new product?”

  “Enough,” Inyakie repeated. “Here is not the place for such secrets. Besides, my father is waiting.”

  Kirra evidently wanted to stab Taylor with her finger. “He doesn’t deserve to come within a hundred miles of Jacques Dupin.”

  “Perhaps. But my father has asked for him. So we go. Now.”

  INYAKIE DROVE THEM IN THE SAME VAN THEY HAD TAKEN to Spain the previous day. Kirra fumed in silence. They wove along a forested road, through farmland and hamlets, then turned onto an unmarked trail that took them straight toward the nearest cliffside. Taylor caught sight of something in the trees just after the turning. He swiveled about and spotted a Basque man crossing the trail behind them, rifle slung over one shoulder.

  When he turned back, he saw that Inyakie was watching him in the rearview mirror. “My father is much loved,” he said simply.

  “I don’t mean harm to any of you,” Taylor replied.

  Kirra exclaimed, “Then you should never have come!”

  “I told you. If it wasn’t me, it would have been another. At least I’m trying to be on your side.”

  Inyakie surprised them all by saying, “I believe him.”

  “That’s because you don’t know him like I do.”

  Inyakie pulled up between a pair of trees whose trunks were thicker than the van. He cut the motor and said, “Perhaps it would be a good thing to leave your anger here.”

  “Did you hear anything I’ve just said? This man is a danger to us all!”

  Inyakie rose from the van, opened the rear door, handed Taylor a backpack, gave Kirra a second, and shouldered the largest himself. “What if he is right? You yourself have said how Amanda is so . . . what is the word?”

  “Tenacious,” Taylor offered. “Immoral. Competitive. Combative. Vicious when crossed or cornered. The most dangerous opponent I have ever met.”

  Inyakie eyed him. “And still you believed her?”

  “Only because I hoped that Kirra was still in love with me.”

  Dark eyes showed fathomless depths. “And now?”

  Taylor replied to Kirra directly. “Amanda
had me kidnapped and trapped inside the Spanish fortress, knowing it would tax me to the limit to escape. She shot up her own library just to make sure the message got through, that I believed someone else was out to find and kill you. She orchestrated two teams to follow me. When she discovered where you had been headed, she arranged to have me killed. Do you really think she would have left you alone if I hadn’t agreed to help? She has to find you. She has to stop you.”

  Inyakie nodded slowly. He had heard the unspoken message. “You have a plan.”

  “I think so.”

  “Come, then. My father must hear this also.” Inyakie disappeared around a jink in the trail. “We will let him decide.”

  THE CAVE’S MOUTH WAS THIRTY FEET TALL AND HALF again as broad. Just inside the shadows, the temperature dropped twenty degrees. They passed from summer heat to constant chill in the space of three steps. Inyakie exchanged halloos with two armed men stationed on a high overhang. He then moved toward a rocky alcove where an old man and a woman with a fretting baby sat upon a ledge fashioned like a bench. A pair of lanterns glowed overhead. Another lit the interior of a half-hidden alcove. Inyakie slipped the beret from his head and stood at the alcove’s entrance, waiting.

  Kirra used their relative isolation to hiss, “I would never have come back to you. Never in a million years.”

  “I knew that the instant I met Inyakie.” Taylor swept a hand to encompass the two men on guard duty, the cave, the watchful locals. “All this didn’t just happen because I showed up. You were ready. You were expecting something. You knew Amanda was coming after you.”

  “And you let her use you.”

  “Guilty as charged.” He did his best to ignore the attention of everyone else within the cave. “I’m here. Nothing can be done about that. But maybe I can help to make things better.”

  Her laugh echoed through rocky depths far beyond the lanterns’ reach. “You’ve spent years underestimating my sister. You have no idea how demented she is over getting her own way.”