by SUZAN STILL
As with so many other plans in life, this one was destined for failure. The basket was dumped out without ceremony and as I lay gasping beneath the steaming load, some part of my body, my foot or elbow, must have lain exposed. Of a sudden there was an outcry and I felt the laundry being pulled from above me with alarming rapidity and force!
I gathered myself to spring into action and when the last sheet was pulled away, I saw two stout old women, who grabbed at me. I leapt to my feet, dodged to the side, and began to run, I knew not where. But the sure knowledge that an attempted escape from the harem was punishable by death and that to stay in the harem was a living death acted like twin spurs to my ambition.
I found myself in a walled yard of sun-baked bricks. Everywhere were bedclothes and towels hanging on lines, stacks of baskets filled with produce, and carcasses of meat swinging from hooks. I darted into this confusion.
For all my speed, however, my quest was hopeless. The old women had raised such a hue and cry that every servant was soon alerted and as I rushed past, would grab at me and then take up the pursuit.
Soon, I found myself running down the center of the yard with a full army of servants at my heels and ahead of me, only the firmly closed gates in the high walls. My situation was hopeless. Only one obstacle remained between the walls and me, and that was the well, which rose before me with its heavy wooden bucket swinging from an iron wellhead.
Preferring death by drowning to being rent into pieces by the mob that pelted after me, I gathered my strength, placed my hands on the stone lip of the well, and vaulted into its yawning black maw!
4
Rancho Cielo
Oh dear!” Calypso stifled a big yawn and stretched her arms over her head. “That’s got to be it for tonight. My voice is going.”
Hill, slumped down in his chair and staring into the embers of the dying fire, shot upright. “What? Right when she jumps down the well? You can’t quit now!”
“I have to, Walter. Look at the clock. It’s after one in the morning.”
“If this was Scheherazade’s tactic, I’m surprised the king didn’t kill her from sheer frustration.”
“Now, Walter. Try to curb your narcissism and remember that this isn’t just about you. I’m telling you, I won’t be able to talk in the morning if I don’t quit now.” Calypso shuffled the pages into a more orderly lump and dropped them into the manuscript box. “To bed with you now!”
Hill’s lower lip curled down petulantly, but he rose and then pulled Calypso to her feet. “You’re one hell of a storyteller, you know that?” He bent and kissed her lightly on the lips. “Until tomorrow. You promise, right? That you’ll read more tomorrow?”
Calypso smiled and nodded. “I promise.”
§
Morning light was just seeping into the kitchen as Calypso lit the stove, put on the kettle and ground coffee beans. Lonely for Javier, she smiled to hear a male voice in the house.
“Walter?” she called. “Can that possibly be you?”
Hill shambled in, tousled and disheveled. “I was so tired last night I forgot to undress.” He slumped into his chair by the fireplace, where embers still winked among the ashes.
“That’s because ‘last night’ was really this morning. We didn’t get to bed until after one.” She threw him a compassionate glance. “And it will be a few minutes before the coffee’s ready.”
Hill groaned and ruffled his hair with his fingers. “That damn story will be the death of me,” he said, and then bent to throw kindling on the coals. “It’s good, you know. I mean, you’ve got all the details right, but you’ve improved on Berto’s telling. My advice is…” Bent double using bellows to fan flames from the sleeping embers, he was interrupted by the shrilling of a siren of ear-splitting intensity. He jerked upright. “What the hell?” he shouted.
Calypso stood in the middle of the kitchen floor as if paralyzed, her face gone suddenly ashen. “Oh, God!” she mouthed over the din.
“What is it?” Hill shouted again.
She turned to him then, like a woman sleepwalking, and shook her head as if denying to herself what she knew to be true. “The siren,” she said.
“Well obviously!” Hill jumped from his chair and moved toward her, alarmed. “What the hell is going on, Calypso?” He took her by the wrist, unsure what to do. She looked at him but appeared unable to speak. Hill began to guide her toward the couch but she resisted.
“No!” she cried, pulling back and turning as if to go outside.
Just then, the door burst open and Pedro raced into the kitchen. “Boss Lady!” he shouted, dashing to her. “You’ve got to get out of here. They’re coming!”
“Will someone please tell me what’s going on?” Hill bellowed over the incessant wailing of the siren.
Pedro turned to him, still clutching Calypso’s arm. “We’re about to have visitors. The lookout’s started the siren. Everyone from the village’ll be coming to take shelter.”
Hill grinned, unable to help himself or to register their alarm. “Well, I realize how isolated you are but surely there’s a better way to welcome visitors.”
Calypso rounded on him. “Not funny, Walter! He means them, the cartel. We’re under attack!”
Hill was instantly sober. “Oh.” He looked to Pedro. “What can I do?”
“You can take Boss Lady outta here.”
“No!” she shrieked, outraged.
Pedro turned on her, impatient. “We talked with the Boss about this. You know what you gotta do. I can’t fight, worrying about you. You’re my responsibility ’til he gets back. You have to leave!”
“What does leaving mean?” Hill shouted. The rising and falling shriek of the siren was making him a little crazy.
“Boss Lady knows. She’ll show you. She’s in your hands.”
Calypso was hanging on Pedro’s arm with steely fingers. He pried her hands loose, his face grim. “You have to do this for the Boss.”
There was pounding on the door and he thrust Calypso from him. “I have to go. This is it, Boss Lady. Do your part.” He strode to the door and opened it to find Juan, his next in command, on the doorstep.
“They coming! About a mile away now. Coming fast.”
“Is everyone in from the village?”
“They’re coming, too. Almost all in.”
“Good. You go organize the men. You know your job, Juan. Don’t fail me. I’ll be there in just a few minutes.”
“You got it. Good luck!” Juan turned and raced away, and Pedro closed the door. He turned to look at Calypso. “So” he said, “this is it. You gonna do what we planned?” He held Calypso in a firm and questioning stare.
Hill watched her hanging there, mid-kitchen, as if suspended on a string, wavering indecisively. Pedro stepped toward her and she held up a commanding hand to stop him. Slowly, her face galvanized into a mask of resolve. She took a deep, ragged breath and squared her shoulders.
“All right,” she whispered, her voice inaudible above the siren’s continued wail. “Here we go”—then, turning toward Hill with regal poise she said—“come, Walter. It’s time to leave.”
§
Calypso ran to a closet, threw the door open, and reaching inside, withdrew an empty backpack that she threw at Hill. “Go to your room and put only necessities in this. A coat, socks, your passport, money, credit cards, whatever. Think survival. You have two minutes.”
Hill stood rooted in indecision. “But—”
“Go!”
Hill went, taking the stairs two at a time. Calypso turned again into the closet and brought out her own pack.
“Is it loaded?” Pedro asked.
“Always.” Without turning and with her shoulders braced she asked, “How bad is it?”
“Bad. Ten SUVs. Comin’ like bats outta hell.”
Calypso slung her pack over her shoulder as she went to the foot of the stairs. “Hill!” she shouted. “Time’s up. Let’s go!”
Hill came clattering down th
e stairs, the pack swinging from his elbow. “Now what?”
“Now for a little adventure.” She jerked her chin at Pedro. “We’re ready. Let’s go.”
Pedro opened the courtyard door and ran out with Calypso on his heels. Hill followed her, then on impulse, turned back into the house.
“What are you doing?” Calypso shouted, glancing back at him as she ran.
“Forgot something,” Hill called, opening his pack as he darted into the kitchen.
“For God’s sake, Walter! Come!”
Hill reemerged at a gallop. “I’m here,” he shouted. “Lead on!”
The three raced across the courtyard. Behind them, all along the sides of the house, shouts of men and women and the wailing of children arose as the inhabitants of the workers’ village pressed inside the sheltering walls. Ahead lay only the abyss of the canyon with its four-thousand-foot-drop to the river. They ran down the stone path until they were brought to a halt by the low stone wall that protected the very lip of the cliff.
Hill looked wildly at Calypso. “Now what? Do we grow wings and fly?”
Calypso, her face closed and taut, only jutted her chin indicating Pedro on the other side of the wall, who already was working a gray nylon climbing rope through an iron ring set into the bedrock of the cliff.
“No,” she said, “we’re going to rappel.” She scooted over the top of the wall as she spoke.
Hill felt his face go white. “To what?” he gasped.
“Rappelling uses a rope for controlled descent down a rock face. It’s a technique climbers use when a cliff is too steep and dangerous to descend any other way. Put on your backpack, Walter. Good and tight.”
As she spoke, Calypso was donning her backpack and then a climbing harness of nylon webbing with attached D-rings and steel adjusting buckles that fit around her thighs and waist. Pedro tossed the anchored rope over the cliff.
“Watch how I do this because you’ll be next.”
Hill felt his chest tighten. “You’ve got to be kidding!”
Just as Calypso opened her mouth to answer, a volley of shots echoed from the front of the house. “Shit! Listen, Walter, I’m not kidding. Watch me when I go over. I’ll send the harness back up, then Pedro will set you up.”
She stood, leaning over the cliff edge on the attached rope with her back to the drop. “You’ll make sure the women and children are secured in the house?” she asked Pedro.
“Of course. I know what to do,” he snapped. “Now, check yourself. Your harness doubled back?” Calypso checked the harness buckles and nodded. “Carabiner screw gates closed?” Again, Calypso checked the metal figure eight around which the rope was looped and that attached the rope to her harness through a locking carabiner. She nodded. “Okay then, Boss Lady. Over you go!” And with that, Calypso pushed off the edge of the cliff and disappeared.
“Holy shit!” Hill threw himself over the wall and, taking a wide-legged stance, bent to peer over the edge. There, only about ten feet below him, was Calypso, hanging by the gray thread over thousands of feet of pure space, her feet braced against the cliff.
She looked up at him and grinned. “It’s not rocket science, Walter, but it works,” she called up to him. “Watch this.” She pushed off from the rock face and descended another five feet. “Just hold the rope like this. Keep your right hand down by your hip like I have it, and don’t let your left get close to the figure eight. Keep it above there as you descend. It’ll do the rest. I’ll be down there to catch you when you arrive.”
She gave another shove with her legs and bounded into the air, landing ten feet lower on the rock face. Craning her neck and squinting against the sun, she called up to him, “There’s a bulge here. You won’t see me once I’ve gone over it. There’s a ledge just below it. See you there!” Then she pushed off the rock and sailed out of sight.
Hill backed away from the edge, his breath coming in short gasps. “No way am I going down there,” he said to Pedro, then ducked as another volley of shots sent lead ricocheting across the courtyard. “Shit!”
Pedro was busy hauling up the climbing harness. “She’s down,” he said. “Your turn.”
“I told you, I’m not going.” Gunfire almost drowned out his voice.
“Look, asshole, I made the Boss a promise to get Calypso to safety and that’s what I’m gonna do,” Pedro snarled. “But the Boss isn’t here, so I’m in command, you dig? That means it’s up to you to take care of Calypso.”
“I am not going over this cliff.”
Pedro gave him a disgusted look. “We can do this two ways,” he said. “Either you go over conscious or unconscious. Your choice.” His face was hard and uncompromising.
“I said no.”
Quick as a ferret, Pedro was in Hill’s face. “If you’re gonna waste more of my time, I’m just gonna do it my way.” The fist he doubled looked hard as a sledgehammer. The two men stood glaring at one another.
“Show me how to get into the harness,” Hill sighed finally. He was convinced that death awaited him either way: Pedro would punch him unconscious and toss him over the cliff, or the rope would break while he was fully conscious and he would have almost a mile of free fall during which to consider his sins and make amends. “It’s as good a day as any to die.”
§
“Just walk backwards.” Pedro was clearly trying to sound reassuring but Hill wasn’t buying it. “You won’t fall. The figure eight’ll slow the descent. It acts as a friction multiplier.”
“I was always bad at multiplication.” Hill’s toes hung on the last margin of the cliff.
“Just sit back. Get your butt down lower. Good. Now, just step off.”
Hill stepped backward, his hands gripping the rope with insane strength. What madness, to suspend his life over an abyss by this slender thread! Sweat trickled down the bridge of his nose but he was too paralyzed to wipe it off.
“Kick off the cliff!” Pedro’s dark, vulpine face appeared over the edge of the cliff a few feet above him. “Kick off and let the rope carry you down.” Hill remained frozen. “Or maybe you’d like me to just cut the rope and get it over with. I haven’t got all day.” Behind him, sounds of all-out war had erupted. Pedro drew a .357 from his belt and aimed it at Hill. “Get the fuck down this cliff or I’ll give you a shortcut.”
Hill kicked off the cliff, flew into space, and slammed his feet back into the rock again. Pedro and his .357 were now a good ten feet above him. He kicked again and the rope sizzled through his fingers as he descended again. He tried not to think of his rear end sitting on nothing but air, almost a mile above the Urique River. He concentrated instead on kicking the cliff as he swung against it and on learning to control the tension on the rope with his right hand.
His feet found momentary purchase on the bulge of rock over which Calypso had disappeared. Then momentum and desperation took over, and he bounded off the curved face and found himself swinging through air. Red canyon walls flashed through his peripheral vision. A glimpse of the aqua thread of the Urique below him made his stomach turn. Then, powered by weight and gravity, he swung with tremendous speed toward the cliff again, careened off it with his left shoulder, and catapulted again into space.
He was turning a pirouette in midair when he heard a familiar voice calling, “All right, Walter. Enough of the Peter Pan act!” He spun on his tether just in time to see Calypso standing on a narrow ledge, a sheer drop below her, and then he slammed into her full force.
Calypso’s arms came around him like steel pincers as she dragged him to the cliff and held him against backward momentum. Hill’s knees gave out and he slithered down her body until he lay collapsed on the cool stone—panting, while Calypso’s fingers dug at him, unbuckling the harness. Vertigo reduced him to complete submission as she removed it.
“How did you do that?” Hill finally was able to gasp. “I could have pulled you off the ledge.”
“I’m roped in. See?” Calypso showed him a short tether that passed thro
ugh an iron ring set in the rock face and then to another harness buckled over her torso.
“Where did that come from?”
“We keep it here for just this kind of thing. It’s our escape route, Walter. We’ve had it in place ever since I was kidnapped by El Penacho’s henchmen.” She began reeling in the rappel rope. “That’s it,” she said, as the end of the rope came sailing down. She coiled it under the iron ring. “No going back, now—but no one can follow us either.”
“Great,” Hill said, with feigned enthusiasm. “Is there, perchance, also a way forward?” He leaned on his elbow and glanced outward briefly at the yawning red canyon and its airy interior and then reeled back, overcome with vertigo.
“There is.” Calypso took Hill by the elbow. “Just turn toward the cliff and crawl, Walter. Don’t look at the canyon or the vertigo will get you.” Hill turned onto his side and scrambled to his knees, while Calypso extricated herself from the harness and snapped it to its metal ring with a spare carabiner.
“It’s like I’m iron and the canyon is a magnet pulling at me,” he rasped.
“I know. I’ve experienced it myself. Just crawl.”
Hill crept along the ledge, with Calypso walking beside him to guard the drop-off. About twenty feet ahead of them where the ledge widened was a leaning flake of stone, big as a garage door. As Hill crawled under its shelter, the powerful pull of vertigo lessened. Then his mouth gaped in amazement. Hidden behind the stone was the opening to a cave.
§
Hill pulled himself into sitting position, his back to the cliff, and his view of the canyon shuttered by the leaning slab. He found he was panting and over the steam engine puff of his own breath, heard volley after volley of gunfire echoing through the canyon from above. He realized it had been a constant backdrop to his efforts ever since stepping off the edge of the cliff. Somehow, he had interpreted it, in his rattled state, as the hammering and exploding of his own nervous system.