The Steel Ring

by R. A. Jones

  Just as quickly and sharply, his descent halted. Hanging upside down, he saw rocks of various sizes and shapes continuing to fall toward the ground hundreds of feet below.

  His body swaying slightly, the guide managed to crane his neck around to look upward. What he saw was the smiling face of John Aman.

  Aman had managed to grab Paco by one ankle, and was now effortlessly holding him up with a single hand. With just as little strain, he now pulled his companion up, depositing him once more on solid ground.

  Paco lay there breathing heavily, attempting to swallow his heart back down to where it belonged. Even if his legs had regained the strength to sustain him, he would have chosen to remain supine, for the earth was still bellowing in guttural pain, still shaking and churning. It seemed to continue to do so for hours, though his mind knew it was probably at most minutes.

  Then, as abruptly as it began, the quaking subsided. The roar faded away, pebbles stopped dancing on the ground, and the dust began to settle. Smiling weakly, Paco at last dared to lift his head and raise his eyes to thank his rescuer. As he did so, another sight brought the terror crashing back down on him.

  “John – look out!”

  Responding instantly to the warning, Aman spun around. A massive boulder, dislodged by the quake, was now tumbling down the slope above him, heading straight toward him at breakneck speed.

  With no time to grab Paco and carry them both to safety, Aman could do nothing but brace himself for impact.

  He threw both hands up and out before him, feeling a shock race through his arms as the boulder struck. Try as he might to find purchase on the rocky soil, his booted feet began to slip backward at the impact.

  Aman’s face contorted in a grimace, teeth gritted with pain as he struggled to stop the boulder’s tremendous momentum. The muscles in his back spasmed and screamed and he continued to lose ground.

  Paco was still on the ground behind him, with neither room nor strength to crawl away. As Aman was pushed ever backwards, his legs came up against Paco and began to shove him once more near the precipice. The Chilean forgot his English and began to pray fervently aloud in Spanish, imploring the aid of Jesus, Mary, Joseph and any saint whose name came to mind.

  Despite the coolness of the mountain air, Aman felt beads of sweat burst out on his forehead. The beads grew to rivulets and poured down into his eyes with stinging intensity. A growl low in his chest expanded into a roar as he called on his every reserve of strength. Still the boulder pushed forward.

  Paco felt himself beginning to roll over the edge of the cliff and he desperately circled his arms around Aman’s left leg. His own legs swung out into the abyss and he was literally holding on for dear life. He buried his face in the crook of his arms so as not to see the fate that awaited him. A few more inches and Aman’s feet would likewise drop away into nothingness.

  Little more than his toes remained in contact with the ledge when the boulder at last came to a halt. Aman seemed almost to collapse against its rocky face, pressing the side of his own face against it as his tortured muscles relaxed and his respiration returned to normal. He had been pushed to the edge in more ways than one.

  “Uh, John?”

  Aman looked down and smiled. Paco was still dangling from his leg, still hanging out over the cliff.

  Reaching down with one hand, Aman grabbed the guide by the collar of his woolen coat and pulled him back up again. Both men then gingerly tip-toed along the edge of the boulder until they could comfortably stand once more on the path that would take them back down the mountain.

  Faintly, screams rose up toward them from the valley below. Many of the small huts of the village, built mainly of stone, had crumbled like houses of cards. Survivors of the quake were already desperately clawing through the rubble, searching for family and friends who were not accounted for.

  “Let’s get down there and see if we can help,” Aman said.

  “Si,” Paco replied, then held up a halting hand. “Wait.”

  “What is it, Paco?”

  “Look!”

  The guide was now pointing upstream, and Aman’s gaze followed his extended fingers. It took but a second for his eyes to discern the danger Paco had already seen.

  The earthen dam that held back most of the waters of the nearby lake was beginning to crack.

  Like a spider’s web being woven before their eyes, the two men saw a latticework of fractures begin to stream out from the center of the dam’s face. Already, water was beginning to spurt out through those fissures, spilling into the river, whose waters were already churning from the aftermath of the earthquake.

  Aman was sure it would be only a matter of minutes at most before the entire structure gave way under the pressure building behind it.

  “Get down to the village, Paco,” he ordered. “Tell everyone to get to higher ground.”

  Without hesitation, Paco moved to obey. Then, a short distance down the trail, he stopped and looked back up.

  “What are you going to do, John?”

  “Whatever I can,” Aman replied grimly.

  To Paco’s amazement, the young traveler jumped over the side of the cliff.

  “John!” Paco screamed.

  The guide ran to the spot from which Aman had leaped, expecting to see the young man’s body lying twisted and broken on some rocky ledge below.

  Instead, he saw Aman crouching on a rock outcropping a good forty feet below and to the right of where he had taken his deliberate plunge. Obviously unharmed, he turned to look back up at Paco, motioning to him with his left arm.

  “Go!”

  Jolted into action, the guide turned and sprinted down the mountain path toward the village. Aman paused for only a moment, rapidly gauging the best way that would quickly carry him down to the valley floor.

  His powerful legs bent beneath him, then recoiled, launching him outward and down another thirty feet. Like a human mountain goat, he rapidly descended.

  Aman’s final leap brought him down in the roiling river itself. He staggered momentarily as the rapidly accelerating current tried to knock his feet out from under him.

  After stabilizing himself, he next had to try to move forward. The water was not yet much deeper than his waist, but it pushed against him with the force of a tornadic gale. Unbidden, the image of an old silent motion picture he had watched while visiting a missionary outpost in Africa sprang into his mind: the image of the deadpan comic Buster Keaton bent over nearly double as he strove to walk into the face of a storm.

  There was nothing comic about his own situation, however, and he forced himself to instead visualize an image of the poor village behind him being swept away by a raging flood tide. Thus steeled, he began to place one foot in front of the other until he at last came to stand flush against the face of the straining dam wall.

  This close, and from this angle, he could see the wall was not only cracking, it was beginning to bow outward, like a balloon expanding as water was pumped into it. And like that balloon, the dam would eventually burst. At this point, there was no way to stop it.

  But Aman was determined to delay it, for as long as it took for Paco to warn the villagers and for them to flee to the heights. He dared not take the time to look back and see if the evacuation had begun; he needed to focus all his attention, all his prodigious strength on holding this dam together.

  Bracing his feet as firmly into the pebbled bottom of the river as possible, he placed both hands against the wall of the dam and began to push.

  The muscles of his arms and back bunched into painful knots, but nothing else seemed to matter. Drawing in a deep breath, he threw all his might forward against the dam.

  Slowly, almost imperceptibly, he began to feel the wall move before his might. He pushed the bowing surface back into the pounding force of the lake it contained.

  Shuffling his feet forward, he heaved even harder, bracing his left shoulder against the wall of the dam, determined to hold it in place as long as possible.
>
  His muscles began to cramp and tremble. Pain cut deeper into his flesh than had the claws of the tiger that long ago day in the monastery. Water that had been seeping from the multitude of cracks in the surface of the dam now began to gush, drenching him.

  With the sound a mythical dragon might have made, the dam seemed to groan as it was caught between the opposing power of Aman and the water.

  Eventually, the water won.

  With a deafening roar, the dam burst outward. As if struck by the tail of that dragon, Aman felt himself pounded nearly senseless by a wall of onrushing water.

  As if he was no more than a straw in a hurricane, he was swept away by the raging river. The swirling water, grown wild after bursting its bonds of captivity, dragged him down and he felt his ribs nearly crack as he banged off a large, submerged rock.

  The blow pushed the air from his lungs in one long rush and he struggled to reach the surface. Doing so, he had only an instant to suck in fresh air before the trunk of a tree that had been torn out by its roots slammed against the back of his head.

  His vision blurred, but he was able to hold his breath as the current again sucked him down to the floor of the river.

  This time, though, he did not fight its pull. Rather, once he was drawn to the bottom he dug into the bed with his powerful fingers. At this depth the waters were actually calmer than they were at the surface.

  He flattened himself as completely as possible against the riverbed, conserving the air in his lungs. A full fifteen minutes later he was still there, though he felt the muscles of his chest now beginning to ache, his lungs to softly plead for fresh oxygen.

  With the flow of water above him clearly slowing, he rolled over and opened his eyes. The amount of debris caroming along in the current had diminished to practically nothing.

  Satisfied that the way was now clear enough, Aman released his hold on the river floor and allowed himself to float back to the surface. As he broke above the water line, he eagerly drew in a large breath.

  Treading water, he surveyed the scene around him. The initial surge of raging water pouring through the breached dam had carried him downstream nearly to the site of the natives’ village.

  So rapidly was the water still racing that a lesser man would likely have once again been swept away. But such was Aman’s strength that he was able to swim against the tide, toward shore.

  Even so, he was weakening visibly by the time his hands landed on solid rock that he could use to pull himself ashore. That strength threatened to give out as he heaved himself upward; his arms bent and fell, and he dropped back into the water.

  He stayed there for a moment, again drawing air into his lungs. He thrust his body upward again, and this time a pair of hands grabbed him. He looked up to see the smiling face of his guide Paco, crouching on the shore above him.

  Together, the two of them pulled Aman completely out of the water. Both lay on the ground for a minute, catching their collective breath.

  Aman rolled over and raised himself up on one elbow. He could now clearly see the wreckage of the village. Not a single hut was left standing. Those that had not collapsed from the force of the quake itself had been battered down by the wall of water released from the dam.

  “Awful,” Aman muttered as he slowly rose to his feet and starting walking toward the ruins.

  “It could have been worse, John,” Paco said, pointing to their right.

  Aman turned his gaze toward the ground sloping upward away from the village. People were sprinkled all about, cold and shivering from the water and the fear.

  “Thanks to you,” Paco continued, “most of them were saved.”

  “Most?” Aman replied, a tightness clamping down on his throat and his heart. “Not all?”

  “We did the best we could,” Paco said softly, hanging his head. “There was so little time.”

  Aman turned away, stumbling toward the ruins of the village. He grimaced and shook his head. Bodies of both people and farm animals could now be seen drifting lifelessly away on the still swift current of the river. Still others lay where they had been washed ashore.

  “No,” he moaned, throwing a hand over his eyes an instant too late to blind him to the sight of a small body that appeared to be draped in a shroud of distinctive red and white checkered cloth.

  Days later, when he would travel to the capital city of Santiago, Aman would learn that some 30,000 people had perished in this natural disaster of epic proportions.

  Being all too human in spite of his prodigious abilities, he would be haunted only by the one.

  “Come on, John,” Paco said, grabbing him by the arm. “Let’s get you dry and warm.”

  Without thought, Aman jerked his arm away so roughly that Paco was lifted up and flung to the ground. By the time he regained his breath and his footing, Aman had already rushed to the spot where lay the cold, tiny body of Estrellita.

  As the guide quietly approached from behind, he saw that Aman had dropped to his knees and scooped up the limp girl. Bowed over, clutching her and her treasured checked cloth to his bosom, he rocked back and forth.

  Paco could see the young man’s back heaving as he sobbed unashamedly. He also thought he heard Aman trying to speak to the dead child. He cautiously placed a comforting hand on Aman’s shoulder.

  “What did you say, John?”

  Aman turned his head to look back at the guide. His lips trembled as tears ran uncontrollably down both cheeks.

  “I said … I said, I’m not so amazing now.”

  CHAPTER VII

  January 28, 1939

  The great poet felt as if he was dying.

  He had awakened with a start, crying out softly. A dream – or a vision – had come to him in his sleep, but it was fading now and impossible for him to regain.

  Had he been visited by someone from the afterworld, he wondered. He had long believed that communication from the grave was possible, even though he had never witnessed clear proof of it.

  He mopped at his brow and his hand came away wet. So bathed was he in sweat that his nightclothes clung to his body. He could tell his heart was racing, feel it pounding like a drum inside the cavity of his chest.

  Fighting to still the sound of his erratic breathing, he listened but heard nothing. All seemed quiet, within his room and without.

  He wished he was back home in his beloved Thoor Ballyle. The bed in which he lay here in the Hotel Ideal Sejour in Menton, France, was warm and comfortable, but it was not his bed and this was not his home.

  As had become frequent in this, his 74th year of life, his mind and thoughts carried him back to the past. Perhaps he merely traveled there so often now simply because there was so much more to his past than there could be in his future.

  It had been forty years gone since the poet had been introduced to the first and still greatest love of his life, Maud Gonne.

  Oh, how that lovely lass had had the Irish in her. She was an actress, but more than that she was a true and unrepentant revolutionary.

  Like any good Irishman, he loved to talk a little treason himself, and his discourses with Maud had fired his imagination and gladdened his heart.

  Had it really been 35 years since he lost her to another? Surely not. Old memories couldn’t possibly still be this strong and vivid, could they?

  Some memories brought him shame, such as those that reminded him of his brief flirtation with the fascist “Blueshirts” in Dublin. Having occurred only five years ago, he couldn’t even blame blind youth for that indiscretion, that mistake. But a journey as long as that of his life was bound to have a few missteps along the way.

  His vision began to swim, and for a moment he thought he might pass out. He choked on the very air he was attempting to draw into his fragile lungs.

  And then he did hear a sound.

  It was faint, no louder than that made by a lace curtain fluttering slightly in a light wind.

  Someone else was in the room with him.

  A shadow
disengaged itself from the deeper darkness within the room and slowly approached him. As the silhouette drew closer, it began to meld into a familiar figure. The poet smiled as the image reformed itself into sharper focus.

  “Maud,” he whispered weakly.

  The impossibility of it was lost on him. Reason be damned; it was truly the love of his life who now loomed over him, smiling gently and reaching down to softly stroke his hair once again. Unlike him, she hadn’t aged a single day in all these decades. She was as young and beautiful as the day they first met.

  But it wasn’t her full and familiar lips that now pressed against his. This was larger, coarser, covering not only his mouth but also his nose and eyes.

  He may never have realized it was actually a pillow that was being firmly pressed against his head. He struggled only at the end, attempting in vain to claw at the arms of his assailant.

  His legs twitched a time or two as his lungs gave out and his heart stopped beating. Even when he ceased moving, the assassin continued to press down on the pillow for another full minute, as much because he was enjoying the kill as from any desire to make sure the job was indeed done.

  The killer’s own eyes were nearly as dead and lifeless as were those that stared up at him when he pulled back the pillow and callously tossed it aside.

  He reached out to the base of the poet’s throat, grabbed a silver chain and yanked roughly, tearing it away from its owner. Dangling from the end of the chain was a small amulet, a green gem in its center twinkling even in the faint light that managed to enter the room from without.

  Dropping the amulet into a pocket of his black tunic, the assassin turned and practically leapt out the window through which he had made his quiet entry.

  His master would be pleased with him.

  Mere moments later, the darkness of the room began to diminish as an oval of light appeared in its center, hovering several feet above the floor. The glow quickly coalesced into the form of an enormous eye.