Calli pushed herself up above the root, supporting herself on the broad beam like a gymnast. She worked her way over the sharp slope down to the trunk of the tree itself. It wasn’t as straightforward as walking across a log, yet the multiple stems created ruts and runnels that gave her footing, until she reached the first of the major branches. She got down on her stomach and studied the way ahead.
She lay well out over open air now. The ground dropped thirty-five vertical feet. Duardo hung only two feet away, yet six feet below her. She would have to climb down into the branches to reach him.
“How you doing, Minnie?” she called.
“Just shut up and get him!” Minnie yelled back.
“Working on it. Is there a branch right below me?”
“Yes.”
“Big?”
“As big as your butt.”
“That’ll do,” Calli murmured. She would have to slide over the side of the trunk and find the branch and grab it before gravity took her the rest of the way down.
Fear shuddered through her.
“Duardo! Can you hear me?” she called out.
No movement. No sound.
“Just don’t let go, Duardo. I’m coming to get you.” She couldn’t think of any Spanish. She took a deep breath. “Here I go.” She slid over the sharp ridge of the trunk, her knee and hand trailing to give her purchase. She reached underneath for the branch Minnie told her was there. It was further than she’d thought. For one breathless, faint moment of panic, she hung in mid-air, unsupported anywhere. She curled her left arm around the big branch and slithered onto it, her legs clutching hard.
Her heart hammered. She forced herself to keep moving. She wriggled up the branch, closer and closer. Duardo’s hands gripped a handful of vines and whip-thin branches right beneath her. Calli stretched out her fingers. She couldn’t reach his head. Instead she patted his arm. “Duardo!” she called. “Duardo!”
The glossy black hair, covered in wood chips and twigs, moved. He stirred and looked up at her. Calli caught her breath at his unfocused gaze. Even as she watched, his eyes rolled up.
“No!” she yelled. She shot out her hand as his fingers loosened and the vines slid through his grip. She had no idea what she intended to do beyond holding him. She grasped his wrist and brought her other hand around the branch to grip beneath her fingers.
Minnie screamed.
Duardo’s full weight pulled on Calli’s arms. The branch she laid upon drove into her chest. She gasped, pain ripping through her shoulders, as Duardo dangled from her hands, a complete deadweight. He had passed out.
She drew a few slow breaths. The branch mashed against her chest hampered her breathing. Yet she could breathe—shallow as it was—and that was enough for now. She turned her head toward the hill where she could see Minnie hugging the earth, the broken tiles a few feet above her head. Calli lay lower than the tiles and couldn’t see the remains of the house or anyone on the courtyard. There was a lot of shouting, strident voices and the crackle of flames. The fire still climbed and she could see the tips of the flames licking the trees.
Duardo’s feet still dangled thirty-five feet above the ground.
She drew another slow breath, filling her lungs, then shouted as clearly as she could. “Nick! Nicolás! Over here!”
She kept up the shouting. It would take time for her to be heard because she competed against the drama playing out above. She conserved her strength, breathed deeply and kept shouting, while her shoulders burned and her fingers cramped.
“Nicolás!”
“I’m here.” His voice was behind her. Steady and quiet. Movement on the tree made it creak and shudder beneath her.
“Be careful!” she warned. “Only, hurry. I don’t know how long I can hold on.”
“You can hold on for as long as you need to.” He sounded confident and much closer. The tree bounced and stirred.
“My fingers are going numb.”
“It doesn’t matter. Your muscles are far stronger than you think. It’s your mind that makes them weak. It’s your mind that decides to let go. You should know this. Karate, right?”
“Yeah. A century ago, seems like.”
Tremors through the branch against her chest. He chuckled. “You know I’m right.” His voice sounded close, now. “As long as you decide you will hang on, you can outride any pain, any desire to let go. You release the pain and you hold on.”
She tried to nod. Her cheek scraped on the branch. “Okay.”
“Minnie, we’ll get you in a minute. You must hold on, too.”
“I ain’t goin’ nowhere,” Minnie muttered.
Small movements. A pause. “I’m going to shout,” Nick warned. He did shout, a stream of Spanish.
Voices lifted in response. Steps sounded on the tiles. “Señor?”
The crunching on the tiles reminded her of her perilous crossing. “Tell them to be careful, there’s no support for the tiles.”
“I have,” Nick assured her. He spoke more and from the cadence, the clipped sentences, she guessed he was giving orders. Scurrying, murmured conversations. More movement on the tree.
“It won’t support many more.”
“It will last long enough,” Nick said from right behind and above her. A touch on her back. “That’s me,” he told her. “I’m right above. I have to—”
From the corner of her eye, she saw his boot land on a smaller branch to her left, behind and lower than her body. Weight and warmth settled on either side of her hips. He straddled her.
“Okay?” he asked.
A giggle rose. She tried to squash it. “You only had to ask. You didn’t have to arrange all this to get me in this position.”
“And chance you turning me down?” He tapped her belt. “Is this leather?”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to take it off. Can you lift one hip so I can get at the buckle? I’ll keep you balanced.”
She lifted her hip. His hand slid beneath. “Higher,” he said. She pushed with her knee and lifted higher. The end of the belt slipped out of the buckle, the buckle loosened and the belt slid around her hips and pulled away. With deep relief, she lowered herself back to the branch, her hip flexors and thigh trembling with the effort to maintain balance in that awkward position.
Nick moved above her, the tree shaking with his actions.
“What happened up there?” she asked.
“Explosion. From the kitchen. We’ll find out later.”
“Is everyone all right?”
“Later, Calli.”
Everyone was not all right.
He leaned out and reached for a branch below her. It was thinner than the branch she lay on, yet still sturdy. He lowered himself in a slow, controlled roll. The athletic move spoke of muscle power beyond her own. Hanging by both hands meant his legs brushed against the unconscious Duardo. Nick rolled himself up and hooked his legs over the branch he hung from, reminding her of a similar movement made by trapeze artists at the circus. He had to pull himself up with his arms to bring his legs high enough to do it. He let go of the branch and rolled back down again. Now he hung upside down, right next to Duardo.
The movements on the tree grew closer. Quiet murmurs. Hands on her calves, holding her steady.
Nick reached into the ragged remains of his shirt and pulled out two belts, one of them Calli’s. Putting the other between his teeth, he looped Calli’s belt around Duardo’s abused wrist, below her fingers. He slid the buckle tight like an emergency tourniquet. He laid the other end of her belt against the free end of his own, then threaded both through the buckle of his belt. The tongue of the buckle slid through the holes of both belts. It created a secure loop in his belt. Nick pushed the loop over his arm, high over the elbow, and took a grip on the leather down by Duardo’s wrist and tested it.
He looked up at Calli. “Do you know what I’m doing?”
“You’re going to take his weight.”
“Yes. Then I need you to climb
down his body and hang onto his legs, because we will swing you.”
“What?”
“Yes, like a pendulum. That will bring you over to the high ground there, right in front of Minnie.”
“Wait!” she called and frowned, thinking it through. “I get to the ground, hang on to Duardo, then what?”
“You’ll see. Take care of that for now. Climb down, hang on.”
“Okay...” She took another breath.
He lifted his free hand to touch her shoulder. “As soon as the weight goes, your arms will feel numb and useless. You still must use them to climb down. It has to be you, you’re lighter.”
“If you’re trying to scare me, Nick, it’s too late.”
He smiled. “You’ll be fine. I will take the weight, now, okay? Let go when you’re ready.”
She looked at her hands around Duardo’s wrists. “My fingers won’t let go.”
“Think of what it would be like to put them into nice warm, soapy water. The way the warmth seeps through to the bones.”
She thought of her kitchen in Montana, the morning sun shining in the window over the sink, water in the sink. She would plunge her hands into the water and spread her fingers, enjoying the sensation...
Her fingers uncurled as if she had flexed them as she had in in her mind.
Duardo dropped another few inches, while Nick’s grip on the leather stayed firm. He checked the strain on the leather then looked up at her.
Her shoulders were white ice, cold and locked solid. She gave a little choked groan and rested her head against the branch, fighting back tears. It was as bad as Nick had forecast. She was glad of the hands holding her steady on the branch because she could not have held on for herself.
“Calli.” Nick’s voice. He had curled up a little to watch her. “Ready?”
“Okay.” She’d lied. She wouldn’t be able to do what he wanted.
He pointed to his eyes. “Watch me. Okay?”
She nodded.
“Reach out for my hand.” He held out his left hand, across his body, for his right arm stretched below, holding up Duardo.
She reached and her arm obeyed. It was lifeless, light and insubstantial. There was no strength. She forced her fingers to curl around his hand.
“Now lower yourself down.”
It took all her courage to lower herself off the branch and let go. For a moment she hung purely by Nick’s grip. It brought her swinging into Duardo’s body.
“Sorry,” she said.
“I don’t think he noticed. Can you grip the leather?”
She knew what to do now. She squeezed the leather above the buckle around Duardo’s wrist. Imitating Nick’s controlled movements, she transferred her weight from her left hand in Nick’s to the leather belt. Nick released her hand. She let herself down, hooked her arm over Duardo’s shoulder, then let go of the leather. With mental apologies to Duardo, she hooked her right hand into the band of his jeans and let herself down. She wrapped her left arm around one thigh and let herself slither down until she had her arms about Duardo’s calf.
She looked up. Nick’s face was marred by fierce concentration. On the branch where she had been clinging like a burr, Pietro sat straddled. Another man...Jose, she thought, sat right behind him. A third sat on the main branch and a fourth behind him.
“Okay!” she called. “Quickly!”
Nick had both hands around the leather now. Straining, he pushed with his arms. The tiny movement traveled down to her and translated into a miniscule sideways motion. Nick kept up the effort, pushing and releasing, pushing and releasing, until the arc of her swing grew wider and wider. Gravity added its effect.
“Watch the ground,” Nick said.
She twisted her head around. With each inward swing of the arc she moved closer and closer to the ground. A few more inches and she would be able to put her foot on the ground.
“Find something you can grab!” Nick called.
She looked and saw one of the emerging tree roots had formed a big loop. There was nothing else but raw earth and rocks. “I see it!” she called back.
“When you’re ready, grab it and keep hold of Duardo!”
She swung outward, swooping across the valley. She didn’t look down. Instead, she watched the loop of tree root come rushing toward her. She imagined grabbing it.
Now. She reached out, snagged the root with her hands. It was cool and grubby. It held.
She thrust out her foot and dug for a foothold as the pendulum motion tried to take her backward. The strain transferred to her shoulder, although it was minimal compared to the pull from holding Duardo’s full weight. She still hugged Duardo’s leg to her, only now she stood anchored to the ground, a bare six feet from the top of the cliff. Those six feet were vertical, unstable earth.
Distantly she heard the men on the trunk clapping and cheering. She hooked her leg through the root.
Nick hung patiently, his arms outstretched. “Ready?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“As Duardo is lowered, take a better hold of him, so he doesn’t roll down the valley.”
“Okay.”
Nick rolled his head up. “Listo?” he asked Pietro.
“Sí!”
“Ahora!” Nick shouted. He let go of the leather with his left hand and flexed, rolling up. He thrust his hand toward Pietro, who clamped both hands around Nick’s wrist.
The tug on Duardo’s leg came. Calli, forewarned, hung on.
“Obtuvolo!” Pietro declared triumphantly.
Got you, Calli guessed.
Nick and Pietro adjusted their grip, so that each had their fingers gripped around the other’s wrist. Pietro reached over to grip the man next to him in the same way. In turn, the man reached to the one next to him and so on along the tree.
Nick looked down at her. “I’m going to drop and Duardo will too.” He unhooked one leg and pushed with his boot against the branch to release the other. Only he didn’t drop like a stone. He rolled. Duardo’s body sank toward the ground. Calli hauled on him, bringing him to the ground close by her, again gripping the band of his jeans and hanging on grimly.
Pietro did the same as Nick, letting himself fall off the branch in a controlled motion and now the two of them hung in the air, a human chain. The third man, Jose, slipped off the tree and Nick dangled closer to her. Duardo had reached the ground. She pulled him up and thrust her leg in front of him so he would not roll. That left her hands free. She reached up and caught Nick’s leg and hauled him sideways, toward the high ground. A fourth man slipped off the tree. Nick stepped beside her.
He gave a shout. The chain of men on the trunk moved back to the base of the tree, toward the cliff and the broken tiles. As they moved, Nick reeled Pietro in so he could stand. Then Jose.
Finally, a chain of men stood along the cliff, up onto the tree base. The men on the tree climbed off and lay down on their stomachs on the edges. They reached down with their hands.
Nick hooked his own leg around the same root Calli used as an anchor. He bent down and with another flex of muscles, picked Duardo up in a fireman’s lift. He looked up above him. “Listo?”
“Sí.”
With both hands beneath his torso, Nick lifted Duardo straight up into the air. Many hands reached for him, lifted him up and over the edge. A little cheer sounded above them.
Nick looked behind Calli. “Minnie, your turn. Calli, you must lift her over here.”
Calli looked at Minnie’s tear-streaked face. “No problem,” she said cheerfully. “She’s always been a squirt.”
Minnie gave a big sniff.
“Minnie, you don’t have room to do anything but push off with your hands and fall into Calli’s arms. She’ll catch you.”
Minnie looked at Calli. “Drop me and I’ll never talk to you again.”
“Deal.”
Minnie took a deep breath and launched, arms outspread, straight at Calli. Her weight slammed into Calli. Calli toppled backward. Nick’s arm was
there, against her back, holding her up.
Minnie gave a shudder and a hysterical little laugh. Nick patted her cheek. “Not yet, Miss Minerva. Hold on for a few more minutes.”
Minnie took another deep breath and nodded.
Nick threaded his fingers together, to form a step. “Kick your shoes off. Step on my hands, then my shoulder. The men will lift you up. Okay?”
She nodded and sniffed again, wiping her forearm across her cheek, which only smeared the dirt and tears more. Calli propped her up while she pulled off her shoes. She stepped onto Nick’s hands. He boosted her so she could use his shoulder. She stepped up. The men lifted her over the edge as if she weighed nothing. Another small cheer sounded.
“Your turn,” Nick said in Calli’s ear.
“What about you?”
“I’ll be right behind you.”
She kicked off her shoes, casting them aside with regret. She had enjoyed the few minutes she had been wearing them before the explosion. It was unlikely she’d experience anything like that again.
She stepped onto Nick’s hands. He boosted her as if she weighed the same miniscule amount as Minnie. She barely put any weight on his shoulder. Many hands caught at her arms and drew her up. The motion shot pain through her shoulders. It was over before she could protest. She lay once more on the debris and sand scattered across the tiles.
She wanted to stay there, to rest and recover. The same many hands hauled her up, made her sit and move out of the way. They raised her to her feet and led her to a battered yet still whole chair where she sat, grateful to be still for a moment.
She watched as Nick was hauled up. Pietro, Jose and the last of the human chain clambered up. Pietro’s AC/DC tee-shirt hung torn and dirty now. His face was smeared with ash, yet he smiled brightly.
Many more people moved about the remains of the courtyard, including men in uniform. She remembered the valley was a popular residence for army officers. The explosion would have brought them running.
A senior-looking officer, a man with gray hair and a buffet table’s worth of medals across his chest, walked up to Nick. As Nick brushed himself off, the officer saluted.
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