by A. W. Hill
No sooner had she slipped in than there were boots hammering the floor above. Two sets of boots, as far as Raszer could tell: one heavier, one lighter. Shams urged him into the tunnel, but Raszer signaled a moment’s pause. Just ten inches from his nose there was an eighth-of-an-inch gap between two of Shams’ floorboards, a place the rugs didn’t quite cover. Through it, he could see that the fire had now burned halfway down the cylindrical walls of the yurt. The arsonists did not speak, but Raszer could see dark forms moving about in the dull glow above. He caught a bit of a torso, and the stock of an automatic weapon, then a tantalizing glimpse of a stocking-covered face.
One of them squatted down and ran his fingers over the floorboards, obscuring Raszer’s view.
They hadn’t yet discovered the trap door. Only a matter of seconds. He felt Shams tug at his sleeve. Just give me one look, Raszer thought. The shape of a chin, the outline of a nose: anything I can log into memory. Acrid smoke entered his lungs and he suppressed a cough. The fingers retreated, leaving his view unobstructed for just long enough to see the veiled eye of the assassin coming down to the crack, and for a few moments, they were eyeball to eyeball and equally blind. Then he received communion, from the intruder’s mouth to his.
Wintergreen.
The scent of the aromatic oil overpowered most—but not all—others. The mouth held a tongue and the tongue held its own bouquet, and the bouquet recalled flavors he’d had in his own mouth only days before. At that instant, scent congealed into certainty. The Syrian girl had become his pursuer. He hadn’t wanted to believe it, had hoped that she could be turned and might lead him to the center of the maze. He put his hand to the crack, pivoted, and followed Shams into the tunnel.
On top of the rock, thirty feet above, they hunkered down and watched the arsonists creep away from the smoldering yurt and disappear over a ridge. Raszer kept the rifle’s sight trained on their backs. When they were gone, Shams turned to Raszer and said, “You sure you want to run The Gauntlet, man?”
Raszer nodded. “Forgone conclusion, I’m afraid,” he said.
“I’ll make arrangements, then. You just follow them. Allah be praised.”
TWENTY-ONE
“He took that pretty well,” said Raszer, then let the scalding coffee poach his lips for a second. “I wouldn’t be so cool if somebody’d just burned down my house.”
“Maybe that’s why he lives in yurts,” Ruthie offered. “Shams doesn’t like to get attached. He’ll hole up in town for a couple days and then build another one.”
It was two in the morning, and cold. They were parked in a gravel lot outside an all-night Internet café called Nocturno, out on the north edge of town, beyond the Pueblo. Its proprietor was a lanky Tiwa half-breed called Lon who seemed to know Shams pretty well, and its denizens were a motley collection of local insomniacs. Shams had asked to be taken there so that he could “put out some code” and “call in the 82nd Airborne,” both of which Raszer took as cryptic references to whatever it was that would pave his own way into The Gauntlet as a player on the Urfa route.
When Raszer had queried him on it, Shams had replied, “Don’t ask, don’t tell. That much, the Army did teach me.”
Today was Good Friday, the beginning of the Easter vigil. One way or another, Raszer intended to be on a plane by Saturday morning. The fact that he didn’t yet have tickets purchased or a specific route mapped out was peculiar to his way of doing things: He could move only as quickly as his knowledge allowed, and knowledge had a way of trickling in like a slowly thawing creek.
He knew now that he was bound for southeastern Turkey, possibly by way of Istanbul, possibly via Athens. Monica had various contingency plans in place, reservations held, outfitters and guide services contacted, but all of it might have to go by the boards, depending on what Shams came back with.
“Well,” said Raszer, “I expect he’ll be here for a while. I should make a report. Although I’d hate to see the cops go rushing out after these guys with guns blazing.”
“Wouldn’t you like to see them dead?” Ruthie asked.
“Not yet,” said Raszer. “Sometimes the man on your tail ends up being your guide. If you eliminate him, you’ve got no scent.”
“Do you think they wanted to kill us . . . or just scare you off?”
“I think,” Raszer said, “they wanted to terrorize us. The word does mean something. They won’t want to kill me until they figure out what I know, and who I might’ve told. What do you want to do, Ruthie? You look like you need sleep.”
“Want to and have to are two diff’rent things,” she replied. “I want to go to the Alley Cantina and do about six tequila shooters. I have to go home and help Angel prepare for his big day as Jesus. I promised my mother. They come for him before sunrise. You know the story: Judas and the kiss and all that. We have to witness, my mother ’n me. We have to pray with him. It sucks, but it’s the least I can do for her. We’re the two Marys, the mother and the whore. Shit. I’m really not down for this.”
“Okay,” said Raszer, turning on the ignition. “I’ll take you home, and then I’ll swing back here to see if Shams needs a lift. Where will he sleep?”
“Prob’ly at the Pueblo. At Lon’s place. Shams is one of those people who finds a bed wherever he is. That’s how he made it for three years over there.”
Raszer aimed a finger at the dusty front window of the Internet café. “Is this where you picked up your emails from Henry?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Does the FBI know that?”
“Yeah, but like I said, it didn’t get them anywhere.”
“Hmm,” said Raszer. “That was then, this is now. Anyway, why don’t you run in there and tell Shams I’m taking you home? And tell him he can crash in my room at the inn if he needs a place.”
Ruthie hopped out of the Jeep and strode into the café. Raszer blinked, because he saw an afterimage of her movement trailing through the night air. The effect of Shams’ brew was still with him. Oh, yes, time can be slowed. He watched as she made small talk with Lon, poured herself a cup of black coffee, and flirted with the local boys. She seemed in no hurry, but neither was Raszer. Finally, she approached Shams and jingled the bell on the tassel of his cap. He put an arm around her waist and with his free hand scribbled out a note. He handed it to her and said something that made her frown. She stepped back and shook her head, then leaned in to hug him.
A minute later, she was back in the Jeep, handing Raszer the note.
“Bad news?” Raszer asked.
Ruthie stared stiffly out through the windshield.
“He said there’s no way I can come with you,” she said in monotone.
“He’s right,” said Raszer. “Nobody’s paying you to risk losing your tongue.”
“It’s my little sister they took. And my man they murdered.”
“And all that would just get in the way,” Raszer said softly.
She lit one of his cigarettes and shook out the match. “Whether you knew it or not, mister, when you came through Taos, you came to pick me up. Now take me home, would you?”
“Sure,” said Raszer, dropping the gearshift into reverse. Before backing out, he paused to open the note from Shams.
Be on the bridge over the Rio Grande gorge at sunrise on Easter Sunday. Don’t ask. Just trust the Game. Remember—Harran. The Fedeli d’Amore. El Mirai. Tell them Shams sent you.
Raszer gazed through the dust-flocked window of Nocturno at the elfin survivor seated at a lamplit terminal in the rear, typing in his “code” with two stubby fingers. When Shams looked up, Raszer nodded, and Shams returned the nod. The look in his eyes said, Vaya con Dios; it gave Raszer a pang. After that, Shams continued hammering away at the keyboard, sending out signals to the 82nd Airborne.
“All right, Ruthie,” said Raszer, pulling to a stop in front of the trailer park’s gate. The sun was still moribund. She had only a few hours to sleep, and so did he. “You’ve been delivered. Be a comfort to Ang
el. It can’t be easy going on the cross. And thanks for everything you’ve given me. I will bring your sister home.”
“You haven’t seen the last of me,” she said.
Raszer held her stare for a moment, and then said: “No. I don’t expect I have.”
“My old man was wrong about most things, but he was right about one of ’em: If I’d let Katy be—if I’d never shown her my side of the street—she’d still be safe in Azusa. She’d still be in the Little Flock. Bound for heaven.”
“Don’t damn yourself too quickly.”
“Oh, I’m damned, all right,” Ruthie replied. “That’s already settled. But I plan on makin’ the most of it.”
“Why do you think Emmett Parrish called Katy ‘the last pure thing’?”
“For one thing ‘cause he was nuts about her. For another, ‘cause she was. Even when she was bad she was good. Hell, she might be the only thing worth rescuing.”
Raszer reached across her lap and opened the door for her. “You’d better get in there,” he said. “It’ll be sunrise before you know it.” He paused. “I’m going to do some climbing in those foothills in a few hours. What are the chances I could get within observing distance of the ceremony?”
“You could,” she said, “if you know where it’s at. They keep it a secret until they leave the morada. That’s the little adobe chapel at the end of Pima Road. The procession goes there. We—the women, that is—stay outside while they beat themselves bloody. Then the hermano mayor—the top dog—he whispers something to one of the old women. We walk alongside the men for a while; then we break off ’n hike for, like, ten fuckin’ miles into the mountains till we get to a place—usually a cliff or bluff or something—that overlooks the hill, Calvary, where it all goes down.”
“You know, Ruthie,” Raszer said. “I’ve got a feeling about you.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“I’ve got a feeling that you know in your soul that whatever it is that makes people believe that much—enough to beat themselves, enough to lose a piece of themselves for you—it’s not just mumbo-jumbo. It’s passion. You just forgot how to believe, because believing meant swallowing your father’s creed or your mother’s passivity, and you didn’t like the taste of either one.”
“Well, I dunno,” she said, and hopped down from the front seat. She closed the door softly, then leaned back in for just a moment. “But I’m starting to believe you.”
“Good,” Raszer said. “Now go inside the trailer and fetch me Henry’s rock.”
When Raszer stopped by Nocturno on his way back to the inn, Shams was gone, and Lon, the owner, claimed not to know where.
“He does that,” Lon said. “Just goes. Sometimes I think he’s fucking with my head. Shams is only half flesh and bone, you know. The rest of it, he left over there in the desert. Tonight he said he was going out to smoke a bowl. Never came back.”
“Ruthie said he might be crashing at your place tonight,” said Raszer. “Any chance he’ll show up there?”
“You never know with Shams,” said Lon. “But my door’s always open.”
“Well, anyhow,” said Raszer, scribbling down the name of the inn. “If he comes back, would you give him this and tell him he can reach me there?”
Lon, who had the immovable, stone-set face typical of his people, glanced at the note.
“You’re the PI, right? The tracker. Looking for Ruthie’s sister.”
“That’s me,” said Raszer.
“My father was a tracker,” said the Indian. “Piece of advice?”
Raszer nodded. “Always.”
“Out in the world, the scent of prey is everywhere. It smells like fear. But the scent of a predator, that’s different. The scent of a predator is no scent at all, unless it’s somethin’ to cover up the blood in his mouth.”
“Thanks for the tip,” said Raszer. He indicated the computers. “And for these.”
Lon chuckled. “I hope you have better luck than that FBI guy.”
After three hours of sleep at the inn, Raszer was in the front range of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, free-climbing the face of a thirty-foot boulder. The sun was still low in the eastern sky, resting lollipop orange on the hills above Chimayo, and the air was cool and electric. He’d brought a pack with his rock shoes and the essential climbing gear—harness, rope, carabiners, cams, and stoppers—but the sight of the boulder with its fissures etched by the morning sun made him abandon everything but the shoes and go with feet and fingers.
Now, at twenty feet, he’d run out of cracks.
Stupid, he thought, looking down at where the skin of the rock curved away and left empty space. All I need to do is turn my ankle again and screw things up right.
Raszer had begun two of his last three jobs limping. People like Hildegarde, his analyst, kidded him that it was to remind him of his mortality, to keep him from leaping thoughtlessly into the flames. He’d dragged his bad ankle across the Australian outback and into the deserts of Morocco, and it had, arguably, slowed him down just enough to keep him alive. Still, he had no desire to take it into Turkey, and the prospect instilled enough caution to make him reconsider the rock face four inches from his nose.
He turned his cheek into the stone, breathed, and allowed the climber’s panic to run its course. The rock came into sharp focus, he found a divet with his left toe, and he powered up the remaining ten feet to the top.
For the next four hours, he did more of the same, ascending roughly a hundred feet into the front range with each climb. He found, without much surprise, his flesh willing but his spirit weak. This disparity, he supposed, would color the whole assignment. He was doing it partly on his own dime, for a dead client and a furtive group of elders whose reasons for wanting their stray back were dubious at best. He knew less about his destination than he had on any prior job.
The risks to life and limb seemed substantial, and he had a bad feeling about the project. The overriding factors were pride and desire, desire that had now been fanned by Shams’ description of a place where—as he’d put it—the world turned inside out. Desire to reveal a bit more of the holy iceberg.
Raszer worked himself gradually west throughout the morning, toward the cow path that eventually became Pima Road, location of the morada, the starting point of the Good Friday rites of the hermanos penitentes. On some stark ridge north of there, there would be a crucifixion, and Raszer wanted to see it. He’d brought his binoculars and enough water to stave off the effects of the midday sun, and hoped to find a perch overlooking Calvary. He didn’t truly expect darkness at noon. But such ceremonies surely sent a kind of semaphore to God, and Raszer’s vocational curiosity demanded that whenever such a signal was sent, he be there to see if God answered.
At eleven fourteen, he came over a ridge and saw the procession leaving the morada, with the women at a safe distance. Their numbers were smaller than Ruthie had suggested. Sign of the times. Some were stripped down to shorts made of a rough fabric, and flogged themselves as they marched while singing a hymn that was as raw and spiky as the chaparral they traversed. The words were unintelligible, but the tune had the keen edges and plaintive leaps of a Moorish dirge.
Above it all was the screech of the tin flute, playing an accompaniment that was less complement than commentary. The flute, Raszer supposed, stood in for the sounds of women mourning the death of a god. Other men, younger, wore blue jeans and T-shirts: the more recent initiates who hadn’t yet earned the privilege of pain. Four of them carried the upright post of the cross, and Angel—as Jesus—bore the crosspiece on his shoulders. When he stumbled—as he did twice on his way up the steep path—his knees came crashing to the rocks, and he was beaten by the men portraying centurions until he staggered to his feet. It was theater, but it was theater that sought the purest catharsis. If it had a color, the color was purple.
Raszer picked out Ruthie with his binoculars, but it was yet another version of her, this one with long black hair to match that of the y
oung Latinas in her company. How many wigs she had, and how she paid for them, were questions for which Raszer conceded he might never get answers. Why she had them was becoming easier to guess. Ruthie was trying to find a me she liked better than the one she’d been born with.
There were nineteen women, all walking a rough trail through yucca and creosote. Ruthie walked with her spine straight in spite of the steep incline, and had an arm wrapped around her mother’s waist. She looked as proud and pious as the other women. Almost exemplary. The loose, gauzy skirt she wore draped her lower half in a way that was both devotional and provocative. She was the Magdalene, complete with earthenware jar of balm. Raszer found this Ruthie the most intriguing one yet.