‘Momm-eeeee!’ she kept on screaming. ‘Momm-eeeee!’
Martin caught up with them. The coyote stared up at him balefully and bared its lips but it still kept her teeth firmly embedded in Mina’s shoulder. Mina’s eyes were rolling with shock and she was panting for breath. Martin slowly and cautiously stretched out his left hand, keeping eye contact with the coyote all the time. If he could seize the scruff of its neck he could hopefully hold the animal still for long enough to force the muzzle of his sub-machine gun into its ribcage and blow its insides out.
Just as he was about to grab a handful of fur and skin, however, the other coyote gave a harsh bark and came running at full pelt toward him. It stopped two or three feet short of him, but it kept barking and snarling and leaping up at him.
He swung the Colt Commando around and squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened, only a complicated click. He tried to eject the round in the chamber but it was jammed tight. There was no time to work out what had gone wrong with it. Faulty ammunition, broken extractor spring, it could have been anything. All he could do was grab the Commando’s barrel and try to club the coyote with it. It was futile. The coyote kept dancing and dodging around him, still snarling, but making sure that it stayed well out of his reach.
Mina screamed again, because she was being dragged even further toward the bushes. Martin tried two or three times more to hit the other coyote, but each time it sprang back, and he missed it. In the end he hurled the gun at it as hard as he could. The coyote bounded to one side, and the gun clattered uselessly on to the ground.
‘Mommeeeeee!’ screamed Mina.
Martin had once been told by an Army dog handler how to tackle a pit bull when it goes berserk. He had never tried it, and he had no idea if it really worked or not, but he didn’t know now what else he could do. Turning away from the second coyote, he ran back over to the one who was pulling Mina away. He came around behind it, and even though it tried to twist itself away from him, he managed to throw one leg over it and straddle its back. He sat down on its spine with all of his weight, clenching its body tightly between his knees. It struggled and thrashed with all of its strength, and it was stronger than any man he had ever wrestled with. What amazed him was that it still wouldn’t open its jaws and release its grip on Mina’s shoulder. It was going to keep hold of its prey at any price.
He bent forward, catching hold of both of its upper front legs and then gripping them as tightly as he could, even though it was furiously scrabbling to break free. But just as he was about to deliver his coup de grâce, the second coyote came running up again and launched itself on top of him, snarling and biting and scratching and tearing at his shirt. He heard a crunch as it bit into his right biceps, and instantly he felt a searing red-hot pain, as if somebody had branded him.
‘Yaaaah!’ he shouted, as the coyote went for him again. ‘Get off me, you monster! Yaaaah!’
The coyote tried to tear at his face, and its front teeth collided with his right cheekbone, as hard as a punch with a knuckleduster. He ducked his head down and lifted up his shoulder in a bid to protect himself, but then he felt it tearing into his ear. He thought at that moment that he would have to release his hold on the first coyote’s legs, just to stop the second coyote from ripping half his face off.
Suddenly, though, he heard a dull, heavy thud. The second coyote yelped and leapt away from him, keening in pain. As it circled away from him, he saw that Tyler was standing only a few feet away from it, holding a large granite rock in his hand. Tyler pivoted his foot in the classic pitcher’s move that Martin had taught him when he was only five years old, and threw a knuckleball, hitting the second coyote in the flank.
Martin didn’t hesitate. With all of his strength, he wrenched the first coyote’s front legs sideways and upward, as far as they would go. He heard muscles and tendons and connective tissue ripping apart, and the coyote dropped flat to the ground underneath him, as promptly as if he had hit it on the head with a baseball bat. Pull the dog’s front legs wide apart and you’ll have a good chance of stopping its heart, the Army dog handler had told him, and he thanked God that it had worked on this coyote.
Tyler pitched another rock at the second coyote, and it barked and whined and ran off into the bushes.
Martin carefully pried open the dead coyote’s jaws and lifted out Mina’s shoulder. Mina was still conscious but she was deeply shocked and whimpering and her lips were blue. He gently picked her up and carried her over to Susan, who had her arms outstretched already. Her cheeks were glistening with tears, and all she could do was say, ‘Thank you. Thank you. Both of you. Thank you.’
‘Let’s just get her inside and wrap her up and give her something to drink,’ said Martin.
As they all started to make their way back into the cavern, Saskia came up to him and gently touched his bloodstained shirtsleeve with her fingertips. ‘You’re hurt, Martin. We should clean that up for you.’
‘Nah, it’s nothing. Just a coyote bite. I’ve had worse bites than that, believe me.’
Saskia lowered her eyelashes and then gave him a long, suggestive smile. ‘Really?’ she said. ‘What could bite you worse than that?’
Martin turned to Tyler, and laid his left arm around his shoulders. ‘Think you earned your stripes there, soldier. That was real quick thinking. Not to mention some very impressive pitching. Knuckleball’s the hardest there is, especially with a rock. You probably saved little Mina’s life there, and my life, too.’
Tyler nodded and said, ‘I did, didn’t I?’
Martin scruffed his hair and slapped him on the back. He knew for himself that there are few feelings in life more uplifting them redemption.
Back inside the cavern, in the gloom, Susan washed little Mina’s bites and dressed her in a clean pink dress. She gave her a drink of lake water and wrapped her up tightly in her blankets, so that she could sleep to get over the shock of her attack.
Peta said, ‘I should clean your bites, too, Martin. You don’t know what you can catch from coyotes.’
Santos, who was standing close by, said, ‘Coyote is the demon of bad luck. He is the demon of everything going wrong. If you kill his running-dogs, then you risk all kinds of misfortune.’
‘Oh, thanks, Santos,’ said Martin. ‘But there you go. Shit happens.’
NINE
They ate a scrappy breakfast of cold hot dogs, dry Cap’n Crunch cereal and half-melted Ding Dongs. Then they lifted the tents out of Peta’s Hilux and began to set up a camp on the flat ground outside the cavern. By ten, the morning was roastingly hot, with another cloudless sky, and although the high walls of the canyon gave them plenty of shade, there was no breeze at all. The greatest relief as they worked was to go back inside the crevice and kneel by the lake to take a drink of water and splash themselves.
Peta had brought their three Wenzel lightweight tents, two four-man and one two-man. They pitched them at angles to each other and when they had pitched them they covered them thickly in heaps of bursage and creosote bushes so that they would be camouflaged from any passing helicopter.
Mina was already looking much better. She was sitting on a rock in her bright pink dress, playing with two of her Barbie dolls and singing to herself.
‘My God,’ said Saskia. ‘I wish I was that resilient.’
Nathan and George had caught a collared lizard. They had put it into a cardboard box with two plastic GIs and were pretending it was a dinosaur. George was talking in a low growl which was what he obviously thought dinosaurs sounded like, when they spoke.
Martin and Tyler dragged the body of the dead coyote deep into the bushes and built a cairn over it, because the ground was far too hard to dig a shallow grave and bury it.
‘I’ve seen stories about that on the news, coyotes making off with children,’ said Tyler, as they stacked on the last few rocks. ‘Never thought I’d ever see it in real life.’
‘Coyotes, they’ll eat anything,’ Martin told him. ‘They like cats, especially.
Friend of mine, when we were training, a coyote came into his tent and ate his tennis shoe.’
‘Jesus,’ said Tyler.
‘I’ll have to find out why that gun jammed,’ said Martin. ‘We have a spare, and there’s no question that you’re a world-class pitcher, but next time there could be a whole pack of them.’
They made their way through the cactus and the chaparral back to the camp. Tyler went across to help Ella, who was trying to hammer in a tent peg, while Martin edged his way back through the crevice to find his Colt Commando.
As he entered the main cavern, he suddenly felt chilled, and he gave a violent, involuntary shudder. He stopped, and blinked. He felt freezing cold, but at the same time he was sweating profusely. He could feel his shirt clinging wetly to his back and when he blinked the perspiration stung his eyes.
Santos was standing on the opposite side of the ledge, with his unlit stogie in his mouth, folding up blankets. He looked across at Martin and said, ‘Martin? Are you OK?’
Martin took two steps forward, and then stopped again. Santos’ voice had echoed as if he were calling to him down a long empty sewer pipe, and the ledge beneath his feet felt as if it were tilting sideways. The interior of the cavern began to grow darker and darker, and even colder.
‘I’m – I feel kind of—’
He sank slowly to his knees, reaching out with one hand to steady himself, because the ground was rising and falling underneath him and he didn’t want to lose his balance and fall over sideways.
Santos came across and bent over him, frowning. ‘You look sick, Martin. Wait – let me get my flashlight. Open your eyes wide, let me look at your pupils.’
Martin was shaking now, and he felt an agonizing pain all the way up his spine. Santos shone his flashlight into his eyes, left and then right. ‘Very dilated. You are sick. Stick out your tongue.’
‘What?’
‘Stick out your tongue. Yes – see, furry. Well, you can’t see it, but it is furry.’
‘I feel so cold, Santos. What the hell’s wrong with me?’
Santos went over to the blankets that he had been folding and brought four of them back. ‘You need to keep warm, Wasicu. Look, I will spread these out for you.’
Martin lay down on the blankets and Santos covered him up, right up to the neck. He was juddering uncontrollably, so that he could barely speak. He had been beaten and tortured by the Taliban, but even then he had never felt as bad as this. That had simply been pain. Now he felt as if some icy cold demon had seized him by the shoulders and was trying to shake the skeleton out of his body.
Santos lifted the blankets at one side and took a look at his upper arm, where the coyote had bitten him. He chewed at his stogie thoughtfully and then he said, ‘Yes, you see, it’s already infected. Let us hope that it isn’t rabies.’
‘Rabies?’ croaked Martin. ‘That’s lethal.’
‘Yes, it can be. About twenty years ago one of my uncles was bitten by a raccoon and he died of rabies. But, I think you’re lucky. Rabies doesn’t usually show itself for days, sometimes weeks, even months. This is nothing more than blood poisoning.’
Martin closed his eyes. He didn’t actually care at that moment why he felt so bad, he knew only that he did.
Santos stood up. ‘Another reason you are lucky,’ he said. ‘Outside there is so much chaparral, so much creosote bush. The creosote bush has great medicinal properties. If you lie still here, and keep yourself warm, I will pick some leaves from the creosote bush and make you some tea, which will cure you.’
Martin nodded, without even opening his eyes.
‘Well – it should cure you,’ Santos added. ‘Unlike the bacon stealers, I do not like to make false promises.’
Martin could do nothing but huddle himself in his blankets and shiver. He wished that he could keep still, but the icy cold demon wouldn’t stop shaking him and shaking him, until he felt that even the thoughts in his brain had been shaken apart.
After a few minutes, though, he felt a soft hand touching his cheek and a voice said, ‘Martin?’
He opened his eyes. Peta was kneeling next to him, frowning at him with concern.
‘Santos told me you were sick. He said your arm was infected, where that coyote bit you.’
Martin nodded. ‘Not rabies, anyhow. That’s what he said.’
‘How are you feeling?’
‘Cold. So cold. I just can’t get warm.’
‘Would you like some more blankets?’
He nodded again. Peta went over and brought him two more blankets, which she folded over double and spread on top of him.
‘How’s that? Any better?’
‘Still cold. I can’t stop shaking.’
Peta hesitated for a moment, and then she tugged off her candy-striped sneakers, lifted the blankets and lay down next to him, putting her arms around him and holding him close. He still couldn’t stop himself from shivering, but now he could feel the warmth of her body up against his, and feel her hair against his cheek, and he began to relax, and his mind began to reassemble itself.
‘Santos is making you some medicine,’ she breathed, close to his ear. ‘He said it will take him a little while, because he has to pick some leaves and grind them up. Maybe you should try to get some sleep.’
‘I’m not tired,’ he said. ‘Just cold.’
She held him even closer so that her breasts pressed against his chest. It had been so long since they had lain together like this, but now it seemed as if no time had passed at all. Peta’s skin was just as soft, and she smelled the same as always, even though she was wearing no perfume. He had always thought that she smelled faintly of clover.
Martin gradually stopped shivering. He felt drained, and battered, but the icy demon had given up trying to shake out his skeleton, and the pain in his back had eased off into a dull, tolerable ache.
He opened his eyes and looked at Peta, and she looked back at him, not blinking. He had never met another blonde with such dark blue irises. He lay there, not saying anything, wondering what she was thinking, but her expression gave him no clue at all. He realized that he was familiar with every single freckle across the bridge of her nose. He could have drawn a pencil-sketch of them from memory.
‘Better?’ she said, at last.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Much better.’
They continued to lie there together without speaking. Martin felt that they didn’t really need to. What more did they need to say to each other? He closed his eyes again and after a few minutes he found himself falling down the same dark well that he had fallen into last night, when he had dropped off to sleep out of total exhaustion. He kept on falling, but he wasn’t afraid. He wondered if this was what it felt like, when you died.
Peta closed her eyes, too, although she didn’t fall asleep. With her eyes closed, however, she didn’t see Saskia coming into the cavern.
Saskia walked toward the heap of blankets, but when she saw Peta’s tousled blonde hair lying next to Martin’s, she stopped. She stared at the two of them for a while, with her eyes narrowed, and a muscle in her left cheek flinching repetitively as if she were grinding her teeth. Then she turned around and walked out into the sunshine.
By the time it grew dark, Martin was already able to sit up and eat a few spoonfuls of rigatoni. He was still feeling weak, but his temperature was almost back to normal. Santos had brewed up a strong infusion of creosote leaves for him, and he had been sipping it regularly throughout the day. It tasted exactly like diluted fence preservative, but that is how it had come by its name.
‘The creosote bush has a strong toxic in its leaves which keeps other plants from growing too close to it and stealing its water,’ Santos explained, as he stirred up another mugful. ‘That is why it kills bacteria, and makes you well.’
‘You should have your own TV show,’ said Martin. ‘Santos Murillo, M.D.’
‘When the land is yours, you know what it can do for you,’ Santos retorted, and spat out his stogie.
Peta saw him staring outside and leaned her head against his shoulder so that she could see what he was looking at.
‘What is it with Saskia?’ she asked. ‘She seems to like you and despise you, both at the same time.’
‘I don’t know. I think she has issues. Something in her past that she still needs to deal with.’
‘She’s very attractive, in a scary kind of a way.’
‘Yes. Maybe “scary” is the word for it.’
The heat was so intense that they spent most of the day resting. When it grew dark, they went into the cavern and lit a fire. They made hamburgers with canned beef patties which they toasted on sticks, and bread that was already becoming dry and stale, so they toasted that, too, and melted cheese slices on top of it.
Afterward, as the fire gradually died down, they sang songs, and Santos told them a Serrano Indian story about Wiyot, the first god of humanity. Wiyot’s power over all creatures went to his head, and he became cruel and careless, so Frog mixed up a potion and poisoned him.
Santos was still telling the story when he was interrupted by the sound of an engine starting up, right outside the cavern. Martin immediately reached for his Colt Commando and stood up.
‘Dad – they haven’t found us, have they?’ said Tyler.
‘No – that sounded like one of our vehicles. Maybe somebody’s trying to steal it.’
He hurried across to the crevice and elbowed his way out into the darkness. He was just in time to see the red tail lights of Peta’s Hilux disappearing into the bushes.
Santos came out with his flashlight, followed by Tyler, and then Peta.
Drought Page 27