Jose, tall, lean and in his mid-twenties, nodded deferentially to her as she slipped into the main room. He wore a backpack on top of the lightweight dark green jacket over his upper body. Handing Cam a threadbare blue knapsack that sat on the wooden table, he said, “There is food and water in there for you, Señorita. Are you ready?” And he smiled.
Liking the young man’s quiet manner, Cam nodded. She quickly slid her arms into the knapsack straps and adjusted it against her back.
“I’m ready, Jose. Let’s roll. I want to get to San Anselmo before dark.” She saw his dark eyes sparkle as he opened the curtain at the front for her.
“I hope you are in good shape for a lot of trotting and little walking then,” he teased in a low tone.
Outdoors, the morning was crisp, clean and cold. Cam could still see the stars above them. Everything was quiet. It was a peaceful quiet that fed one’s spirit. Turning to Jose, who stepped out from the blanketed doorway behind her, she grinned at him.
“Let’s start our trotting then, shall we?” Cam wanted to get to San Anselmo as fast as they could, even if it meant pushing herself to her maximum. She hoped that her daily three-mile runs and regular workouts at the gym at the base would hold her in good stead.
“Sí, Señorita,” Jose said. He put an old, floppy cotton hat with a wide brim on his head. Handing her another one, he said, “The sun is going to be merciless today. Wear this to protect your head and eyes.”
Cam nodded and put the cap on. “Thanks, Jose. Now I look like one of your people.”
Laughing softly, Jose said, “Sí, you do. Shall we?” And he took off at a trot across the hard-packed earth of the plaza, heading due south.
A growl of warning vibrated the air around Gus. He jerked physically, sending pain radiating from his left arm into his shoulder and neck. The sensation pulled him out of a deep, deep sleep. Where the hell was a growl coming from? His eyelids felt like weights, Gus discovered. He felt so weak he couldn’t seem to force them open. He was warm and it felt good to just lie still.
Another growl. This time it felt like the animal, a big cat of some kind, was sitting right next to him and making the sound, which vibrated through his entire body. That forced Gus to drag open his eyes. Feeling fear, he slowly rolled onto his back, his right hand stabilizing his left elbow to minimize the pain. The room was a murky gray. Was he dreaming again? When the fever went high, he’d have hallucinatory dreams—nice ones, the only good thing about it. His fever was down now, he realized. It always seemed to be lower in the morning, and then, toward noon, would start to climb and he’d become delusional for the rest of the day and late into the night.
Right now, as he lay there, the blankets twisted about him, Gus tried to shove the sleep from his barely functioning mind. The first thing he realized was there was no big cat next to him. The room was empty. Cam was gone, too. Vaguely, he recalled that she was going to get up at dawn, meet Jose and hike to San Anselmo today.
A wave of relief moved through him. She was going to get them help. That was good. Gus was quite worried about his broken arm, and the fact that he couldn’t feel any sensations in his left hand at all now. Was there nerve damage? If so, that meant he might never be able to fly again, and that scared him.
Cam… He lay there, eyes closed, feeling such a fierce love for her. She had kissed him so tenderly last night that it had brought tears to his eyes. With the unrelenting fever, Gus found himself highly vulnerable to the emotions he normally kept closeted within. Not now. Cam’s gentleness with him brought out every emotion he’d ever known. And when she’d come to lie at his back, curving her long, firm body against his, he remembered feeling loved and protected by her. It was then that he’d drifted into a healing sleep, with her palm pressed against his chest, over his beating heart. Yes, Cam owned his heart. And his spirit. She was such an incredible woman.
Another sound, far off, caught his scattered attention—helicopter blades turning. Frowning, Gus felt sweat beading his forehead once more. Blades. Helo blades. What time was it? Lifting his right wrist, he held his watch close to his face so he could read the glowing dials. The fever made his vision blurred and slightly out of focus.
It was 0800. Gus dropped his arm across his belly and lay still. Was he hearing a helicopter because he was hallucinating once again? Did he want to be rescued so badly that his fevered mind was making up the sound, as it did that big cat’s growl? Or that female jaguar he’d seen off and on at the entrance to the room? Blowing a frustrated sigh from between his lips, Gus decided it was probably that. But his fever was lower, and although his mind was sluggish, he didn’t seem to be hallucinating. Maybe the cat’s growl in his ear had just been a bad dream.
Hearing excited Yaqui voices outside in the plaza, Gus frowned. The helicopter sounds were growing stronger. It was flying closer and closer to the village. Was he hallucinating? Gus opened his eyes. With a huge effort, he slowly and carefully moved to a sitting position, his right hand cupping his left elbow. Giving his head a slight shake, he keyed his hearing.
No, those were helicopter blades! Suddenly, Gus gasped. Could it be a rescue helo? One from Tijuana? Maybe Luis or Antonio had found them? His heart beat hard in anticipation. Lifting his chin, Gus looked toward the blanketed entrance. Outside, he heard more and more excited voices. Yes! That had to be a rescue team!
Hoping that Senora Marquez was in the house, Gus called for her, though his voice was rough and weak. Again, he called for her in Yaqui.
No one came.
The helicopter was almost upon them. Gus could hear the strong whapping of the blades, and it made his heart quicken with joy. The aircraft was landing just outside the village, so close that the vibration was palpable. They were going to be rescued!
As he heard the helicopter power down, the shrieking of the engine die away, Gus took a deep breath. How badly he wanted to get up, but he was still so weak. Cam had set a bottle of water and his pistol nearby, he noted. Anxious to meet whoever had come for them, Gus focused on trying to get up.
It was then he heard a scream—the scream of a little girl. And then he heard the shouts of panicked adults. Frowning, Gus tried to hear what they were saying. It was impossible.
He heard a warning growl—again. This time it seemed to be over his head and shoulders, the sound vibrating down through him.
What the hell was going on? His mind churned, confused, as he sat there.
More shouts. Screams. Someone was begging for something.
Something was wrong. Desperately wrong. Gus cursed.
It couldn’t be a rescue team, then. So what was going down? Feeling shaky and unsteady Gus forced himself to his knees. Throwing out his right hand, knees spread, he assumed a tripod position to halt the dizziness that threatened to pitch him headfirst onto the earthen floor.
Another scream. Very close this time.
Suddenly, the curtain was ripped aside.
Gus jerked his head up.
“Señor! The bandito is here! Quickly! You must hide!” Senora Marquez whispered.
Gus saw the fear in the older woman’s eyes. He saw blood dribbling from the corner of her mouth. Someone had struck her.
“What the hell is happening?” he demanded in Yaqui.
Senora Marquez quickly stepped into the room, wringing her hands. “Señor, the drug man is here—Robert Clark! He holds little Maria hostage, a gun at her head. He demands peyote buttons, but we have none! It is the wrong time of year. They do not grow now. But he wants some!” She gave a sob. “He is threatening to kill Maria if we don’t bring him any.”
Gus grabbed the pistol, which was inches from his hand. He forced himself to his feet. Staggering badly, he leaned against the earthen wall. Breathing hard, the pain clearing his mind, he looked at Senora Marquez.
“Where is he?”
Pointing, Senora Marquez said, “Near his bird. He is holding Maria there and demanding we bring the sack of peyote buttons to him.”
Rubbing
his sweaty face with his right arm, Gus rasped, “Tell him to come in here, Señora. Lie to him and tell him the sack is in here. Tell him he has to come and get it.”
Her eyes grew huge. Eyeing the pistol in his hand, and then his face, she whispered, “You mean…?”
Grimly, Gus rested his back against the wall. He could barely stand. His knees felt shaky and unsure. “Get him in here,” he told her harshly. “I’ll do the rest. Just make sure the little girl isn’t with him, all right?”
Eyes widening, Senora Marquez made a fervent sign of the cross. “Aiiee, yes, yes, I hear you, Senor Morales.”
“Just get the girl out of the way. And keep everyone else away from here. I don’t want one of our bullets to hit anyone. Understand?” His heart was beating hard. Gus knew this plan could backfire. He could die.
“Yes, yes, I understand.”
“Vamoose!” he ordered her.
Turning, Senora Marquez turned and fled from the room. He heard her crying for Senor Clark, her voice strident and high.
Cursing softly, Gus saw his Kevlar vest lying in the corner of the room. Well, the bulletproof garment wouldn’t do him any good now. He didn’t have time to try and don it, and couldn’t do so with his broken arm, anyway. Cam had removed it so she could tend to his broken arm.
Situating himself in the corner opposite the blanketed door, Gus waited. He felt incredibly weak, and fought to save his waning strength so he could lift the pistol at the right time and drill Clark before he shot him first.
Would the plan work? Gus’s mind spun with questions. There were few options. He didn’t have the strength to walk out of the room and confront Clark. Besides, if Clark was holding the girl hostage, Gus didn’t have the accuracy to hit him and not the child. No, this was his only choice.
Dammit. Nervously, Gus wiped his beaded brow once more with the back of his good arm. Pain was stalking him in earnest now, throbbing unrelentingly through his arm, shoulder and neck. It shredded his concentration.
He heard voices—raised, angry voices. A child was crying pitifully. More screams. More begging.
Breathing hard, Gus wondered if his plan would backfire. Maybe Clark would shoot Maria anyway. Maybe he would refuse to come into the room. Chest rising and falling with each breath, Gus waited, half standing, half leaning against the wall. His legs were trembling badly and his knees felt like jelly. Closing his eyes, he sent a prayer to his mother and asked for help. He recalled her telling him a long time ago, as a child on her knee, that his jaguar spirit guide was there to give him help. All he had to do was ask for it.
Well, he was asking now, because if he didn’t get physical strength from somewhere, he was about to slide down the wall into a heap. Breathing chaotically, Gus struggled to stay standing. Opening his eyes, he felt an incredible surge of heat spiraling up from his feet, running up both his legs toward his head. A moment later he felt an incredible surge of strength. What the hell was going on?
Gus wasn’t sure. What he did know was that he felt incredibly stable and suddenly very strong—much stronger than he thought possible, given his broken arm and feverish state. Unable to sort it all out, Gus heard the raised, angry voice of Clark outside the adobe structure.
“You’d better not be lying to me, Marquez. If you are, I’m shootin’ your husband in the head. You hear me, bitch?”
Holding his breath, Gus waited.
He heard Clark come through the first blanketed door, cursing darkly as he did so.
“Which room?” he snarled.
“Th-there…in there, Senor Clark…”
Gus heard Senora Marquez’s trembling voice. Lifting the pistol, he prayed he could hold it in position. Any second, Clark would come through that blanketed entrance.
As Gus stood there, back to the wall, time seemed to stretch out endlessly so that every second passed in slow motion. His heart was beating hard in his chest. Perspiration was streaking down the sides of his face. And then Cam’s face appeared before him.
How much he loved her! Wanted to spend his life with her! But he could die, right now…. No! No, I want to live. Let me survive this. Please…I want to love her…to share my life with….
Nostrils flaring, the point of his pistol wavering slightly as he aimed it at the blanket, he waited. There was no sound. Everything quieted. Gus suddenly felt as if he were out of time and space. It was such a surreal feeling, that he wondered for a moment if all of this was simply a nightmare he was experiencing during his delusional fevered state.
The blanket was ripped aside.
Robert Clark was a tall, lean man with frosty blue eyes, black hair and a black mustache. He was wearing civilian clothes, a suede tan jacket over a white shirt and black chinos. The gun he held was raised in caution.
When he saw Gus, he halted for a second. His eyes widened tremendously as he stared at the U.S. Army pilot in the shadowed corner. Was he seeing things?
“Drop the gun, Clark,” Morales ordered, his voice deep and threatening. When the drug runner ignored the order and raised his weapon, Gus fired. The crack of the gunshot caroomed around him, hurting his ears. The pistol bucked in his hand. Gus saw Clark knocked off his feet, landing hard on his back in the room beyond. The pistol flew from his nerveless fingers.
There were shrieks and screams, panicked sounds surrounding Gus as he forced himself out of the corner. Drunkenly, his legs rubbery once more, he moved as fast as he could toward Clark, who lay unmoving on the floor of the next room. Breathing hard, Gus kept the pistol aimed at the druggie. Seeing a red stain in the center of the man’s chest, rapidly eating into the white of his shirt, he staggered to a stop. Breath tearing in gasps from his mouth, he saw Senora Marquez at the door, her hands pressed to her mouth, her gaze on Clark.
“Get someone to check his pulse,” Gus rasped. Leaning against the doorjamb, he felt the strength begin to drain out of him, like an ocean tide leaving the beach and retreating back out to sea. Sweat stung his eyes. He blinked several times.
The whole village seemed to be crowding around the doorway. Senor Marquez came forward, moving cautiously around Clark.
“Get the gun,” Gus ordered weakly. “Get it away from him.”
Leaning down, Senor Marquez picked it up as if it were a snake that might bite him. He started to hand it to Gus.
“Lay it at my feet,” he said. “Then check his pulse. On the side of his neck. See if you feel anything?” Gus thought the man was dead. He hoped so. Every second, he felt weakness stalking him once more.
Gus saw the eyes of the villagers crowded in the doorway, looking at him and then at Clark. There was such terror on their faces. A sense of satisfaction moved through Gus. He didn’t like killing anyone, but he had no problem doing so to defend these people.
“There is nothing!” Senor Marquez said, holding his brown, work-worn fingers against the man’s throat.
“Good,” Gus rasped. He closed his eyes. “Get him out of here. Go bury him…” And that was the last thing he remembered.
“Gus? Darling? Wake up. It’s Cam. Gus?”
Cam’s low, urgent tone filled his darkness. Gus felt heavy. He also felt the constant, gnawing pain in his arm and shoulder. But something else—a warm hand caressing his bearded cheek—caught and held his attention. Then he felt her lips upon his mouth. Soft. Tender. The kiss drew him out of his sleeping state.
Forcing his eyes open, Gus felt Cam’s lips ease from his. Focusing on her face, he saw that her green eyes were glittering with tears. But she was smiling.
“Uhh…what happened? Are you okay?” The gunfight started resurrecting from his clouded memory.
Laughing softly, Cam whispered, “Yes, darling. I’m fine. Everyone is okay.”
Forcing himself awake, Gus saw that the room was filled with daylight. Cam was kneeling over him, smiling. Her hair was tousled and in need of combing, but even in its wild state it was like a chestnut halo around her head.
“W-what time…?” he asked, his voice thick an
d rasping.
“Eight hundred hours.”
“You’re back?”
Cam sat down next to him, her hand on his right shoulder. Gus was feverish. She understood his mind was shorting out. “Yes. We saw the helicopter coming in. Jose recognized it as the drug dealer, Clark. We were roughly six miles away when we saw it heading for the village.” Cam quirked her mouth. “When Jose told me that, we headed back here at a dead run. Of course, six miles is a long way, Gus. I couldn’t run that far. By the time we got here, you’d taken Clark out.” Her voice quavered and her smile disappeared. “You could have been killed, darling.”
Giving her a ragged smile through his pain, he rasped, “I didn’t have many options left open to me. The bastard had a little girl hostage….”
“I know,” Cam murmured soothingly, running her hand across his damp hair. “You were wonderful. It was a smart call, Gus. The Marquezes told us everything.”
He saw her eyes lighten and become mischievous. Joy radiated around her and her cheeks flushed a rosy hue. Just feeling the caress of her hand on his head made him feel peaceful. Hopeful.
“What’s up?”
“A lot. Clark’s helicopter is available to us to use. Do you realize that?”
Blinking, Gus muttered, “No…I didn’t think…”
“You’re injured and feverish, that’s why,” Cam soothed. “I just put in a call to our base in TJ. I got ahold of Luis. I told him everything. Then—” Cam smiled broadly “—I contacted the Naval Medical Center in San Diego. I told them we were coming in shortly, and that you were wounded. I gave them all the information on your broken arm, Gus. They’re waiting for us, darling. Are you ready to leave here and head out?”
Tears jammed into Gus’s eyes as he stared up at her. He saw tears rolling down her face, too. He heard the quaver, the relief and joy, in her hushed tone.
An Honorable Woman Page 20