His voice broke toward the end, and he needed time to compose himself before speaking again.
“Well, you seem to know the rest. I fled Grantham the very next morning, threw whatever I could grab quickly into my car and just ran. And on that long drive away from Grantham, I was forced to confront my cowardice. I knew I wanted to die, but of course, I couldn’t kill myself. Then I thought, what’s the most dangerous place in the world for a priest? Let alone, a priest who has lost his faith and wants to die. How about a country that has no qualms about murdering an archbishop in the middle of the day? That has no problem raping nuns in the dead of night? And so I kept on driving until I ended up here.
“A peculiar thing happened, though. I didn’t die, or at least, I haven’t yet. And while in service to these poor people in this most Catholic of countries, well, I won’t say that I reclaimed my faith, for I fear that has been lost for all time. But I did find my purpose, if that makes any sense. And ironically, while ministering to the sickest of children, you might be happy to learn that it seems I did find a way to kill myself.”
8
The priest leaned forward then, presenting himself through the thin screen separating the two. Dugan saw his drawn and hollow-eyed face was covered with brown-black lesions, and he understood instantly what it was. He flashed back to the very first time he had read about it, in Time Magazine back in 1981. It said the disease often began “as a fever of unknown origin” and always ended in death. Then called GRID, it had since been renamed AIDS, and this priest had contracted it from working with and ministering to the poor and infected people of this country.
9
“And so,” the priest said through the screen, “if you have come here to kill me, I invite you to do so now. I may even welcome it. We both know that I deserve it.”
Closing his eyes, the priest leaned back and waited. He was spent, drained, and though he supposed he had said it out of blustery defiance, he was surprised to discern in that moment he was indeed ready. Having eschewed his own confession since his crisis of faith began, it was the first time he had ever told the tale, though he knew there was nothing special about it. Having listened to the most egregious of sins confessed to him in this very booth, he knew that his own sorry transgressions were rather boring in comparison. But they were his sins, and it felt good to get them off his chest.
He smiled at that thought, having shared the old bromide thousands of times in his day. But then, he supposed even old bromides sometimes contained a grain of truth: Confession is indeed good for the soul.
A minute or more went by. He heard no sound at all come from the other booth. He listened carefully for rustling or breathing, anything to let him know he wasn’t alone, when suddenly he felt a draft of frigid cold blow through the lattice as if someone had opened a freezer door. The smell of rotting fruit and spoiled meat grew stronger once again and then dissipated, and he knew he was alone. From somewhere nearby, or maybe it was very far away, he heard the voice of a young teenage boy.
“I forgive you,” he said.
Not long after, though this time, only in his mind, he heard the voice again. “And you’re no coward,” it said. “In fact, you’re very, very brave.”
The priest sat there a long while before suddenly, inexplicably, breaking down in tears. I’m a sorry old fool, he thought. Still, he kept right on crying, because they were the good kind of tears. The cleansing kind. And what the hell, he thought. He hadn’t allowed himself a good cry in a long, long time.
Chapter Ten
1
Perched halfway up a mountainside, at first glance, the hamlet of Santa Rosa appeared yet another in the long string of all but abandoned villages Dugan had passed through. At the entrance of town, he walked beneath a sagging gateway arch that at one time might have welcomed visitors. However, not far beyond, he saw the by now familiar collapsed buildings, broken adobe walls, and damaged streets that evidenced this town too had seen military action, though whether of recent vintage, Dugan couldn’t say.
The houses were mostly the same tin-roofed mud shanties and earthen floor abodes he had seen in most every village in the countryside, though at this altitude, the derelict homes clung precariously to steep hillsides. The rainwater now cascading from those high perches made Dugan wonder how often homes were lost to landslide. He suspected it was not uncommon.
Farther into town, he saw that as in those other places, this village had a palm-lined central square dominated by a church, though this one’s steeple was damaged from what might have been an artillery blast or a rocket attack. The palm trees surrounding the plaza were all dead. Glancing around the haunted space as the rain continued to fall, Dugan stopped a moment to collect his thoughts.
On his sojourn here, while hiking up winding mountain trails, crossing rickety one-way wooden slat bridges fifty feet above gushing, rain-fueled rivers, and passing by large tracts of acreage long gone to seed, Dugan did occasionally sense the presence of the guerrillas. He could smell them every now and then in the dense forest beside the road, lying in ambush, waiting to pounce on unsuspecting government vehicles. Seeing no good reason to announce his own uninvited presence, he gave them all wide berth and invisibly passed them by.
Closer to town, he was struck by the veritable junkyard of military hardware discarded by the side of the road. There were jeeps and transports and armored vehicles, some suffering catastrophic damage by explosive, others unscarred but apparently left where they were, as if their owners dropped the keys and walked away. He supposed that was another reason why he was surprised he was able to just stroll into town the way he had.
Only seconds after thinking those thoughts, he glanced from side to side to take in the rain soaked central square and realized suddenly he was not alone. From a narrow side street to his right, two eyes not trying very hard to remain hidden peeked out at him from behind the corner of a building. He stood staring in that direction and waited. Moments later, a small boy stepped from the shadows. Wearing a green and white ballcap and a red checkered plaid shirt, Dugan pegged him for about eight-years-old. He looked harmless enough. He and Dugan stared each other down until the boy raised his arm in a beckoning motion and turned to disappear down the dark street. Dugan followed.
About halfway along the tunnel-like block, whose walls were painted with vivid portraits of revolutionary martyrs and heavily graffitied with Marxist slogans, the boy stopped walking. Dugan took a few more paces before he stopped as well. The boy turned. The two again made eye contact. The boy smiled. The rest happened in a blur.
Dugan sensed a sudden chill from beside him just before he felt something sharp press into his throat. At that same moment, two shadowy figures emerged from side alleys to his left and right. His fangs instinctively strained to lunge from his mouth, however, the sharp pressure on his artery remained, and he bade them stand down. Not that whatever it was would kill him. But he had other instincts, among them being preservation of the source of his vitality. The pressure on his neck was such that he dared not move a muscle for fear of losing his precious and hard won lifeblood.
He realized then he was experiencing an emotion he had long thought he had moved beyond: shock. The entire incident happened so quickly, more suddenly than anything he had experienced since making his transition. His wide open eyes no doubt attested to his genuine surprise that he should be ambushed in such a fashion. As he stood frozen, the two shadows walked up to either side of the boy, who smiled broadly. Sending a wave Dugan’s way, he turned and started running down the street.
At about the same instant that Dugan fathomed the presence beside him was the same presence he had sensed in Club Infierno the other evening, she spoke directly into his ear.
“What a ruckus you make, hijo. We could hear you coming for miles. How on earth have you lived so long?”
2
The voice was soft and lyrical, though young. Dugan felt the pressure to his neck recede just a bit while the girl removed the knapsack f
rom his shoulder. Having time now to take in what had just occurred and was even now occurring, he understood that the two shadows who had stepped from the darkness of the side streets were, like the girl and himself, creatures of the night. Darting his eyes in their direction, he saw that one was an old man with a grizzled face and unblinking eyes. The other was younger and bearded, vaguely European, only a few years older than Dugan himself.
When the acute sharpness finally abated from his neck, he chanced a look at the girl. She was crouched beside him, opening his bag and looking through his things. He couldn’t see her face, but saw long black hair hanging down, framing an ocher brown neck.
He watched as she pulled from his befouled and stinking bag the extra shirts and socks and underwear and set them off to the side. She took out his journal and flipped through a few pages, stopping at an embarrassing effort he’d made at sketching the female nude. After she let out a snicker, next came Larry’s dorky eyeglasses and a purple plastic comb that had once belonged to his mother. She examined each item carefully, taking her time. Once satisfied with those, she lifted the knapsack and took a deep sniff.
“You have been on a boat, hijo,” she said.
Dugan let the comment pass as she returned his things to his bag as carefully as she had removed them.
While she had been inspecting his possessions, people started emerging from the darkness. Old and young, men, women, and children of the village all came out to have a look at their uninvited visitor. They clumped up behind the two vampires who stood sentry in front of him, and lined up along the walls to his right and left. Dugan counted around forty of them. Another half dozen or so were armed, either guerrillas or the local civil defense force. Men and women, they were dressed in makeshift uniforms and carried long rifles under their arms, and in at least one case, a submachine gun.
Dugan again looked down at the girl, who was now scrutinizing the leather briefcase. She examined the latches on either side, seeming to note that codes opened each one. She didn’t bother trying. Instead, she raised her head for the first time and Dugan got a look at her.
She was about nineteen in human years, with high, angled cheek bones, a broad nose, and dark skin reflecting her native heritage, gracing her with a far ruddier and healthy looking complexion than he. Coupled with wide lips, a sloping forehead, long, blue-black hair, and slightly slanted dark brown eyes, she was about as natural an Aztec beauty as it was still possible to find.
“What is your name?” she asked, staring deeply into his eyes.
“Dugan,” he answered, meeting her stare. “Scott Dugan.”
She seemed to take that in, rolling it around in her mind before asking, “Are you an assassin?”
Dugan couldn’t help but smile, and not just at the barest hint of mockery in her tone. To his ears, she may as well have said, If you are an assassin, then you are a dismal failure. Still, he strove to answer as forthrightly as possible.
“I don’t know,” he replied.
“What is in the suitcase?” she asked next.
“Ransom,” he declared.
Furrowing her brow, she asked, “For who?”
He thought about how idiotic he must sound, but answered the question truthfully. “I don’t know,” he said again.
She smiled and said, “I do,” before surprising him further. “Do you wish to meet him?”
It was Dugan’s turn to smile.
“Yes,” he answered. “I would. I’d like that very much.”
It was, in fact, the very reason he had come.
3
Torres drove the winding road through the foothills outside town, coincidentally, not far from the ranch where the Dugan boy made his home. He had just dropped the girl off with Rocio and was oddly happy to see the back of her. Things had not gone the way he envisioned. Not in the slightest.
Still in that catatonia, doubtless made worse by witnessing the execution style deaths of the cook and her husband, she had willingly come out to his car. While driving away, he glanced in his rear view mirror to see her eyes remained far away, and he actually became worried about her. But he was more worried about himself. With every turn of the wheel, his fractured ribs drove a sharp spike into his insides. The simple act of climbing into and out of the car had almost made him pass out. Forget about taking a deep breath. That might take weeks, he knew.
Arriving home, he brought her around back and down to his cellar before going upstairs to tend his broken body. In the bathroom, with every breath a hollow rattle, taking off his shirt was the most painful thing he’d ever done. His discovered then that his left arm was useless. Forget about taking off the T-shirt. For that, he reached into his satchel and removed a knife, then cut it off. Next he grabbed the duct tape, and with every movement a stabbing agony, he wrapped it tightly around his chest as many times as felt right to put everything back in place.
Feeling somewhat better, he was able to slip on his pajama top, but by then knew he would not be having any fun with the girl that evening. It simply wasn’t going to happen. Dispirited at his lost opportunity, he withdrew a bottle of aspirin from the medicine cabinet and downed a mouthful before climbing into bed with his snoring wife.
The next morning was not much better. Going downstairs to finally have his way, he found her still in that same trancelike state. A succession of slaps had done nothing to bring her out of it or to stimulate him, but each one did bring back the sharp pains to his chest. Seeing the impressions his fingers made on her face made him worry about her physical condition, and the possibility that Rocio would renege on their deal. After all, Torres had promised a precious flower. With a heavy sigh, he posed her and took some photos to memorialize the event before leaving her in chains. He would have to live with his pictures and with what might have been. Ah, well. There were plenty of others out there.
However, there was that small matter of the dead bodies in the empty house. Their little town had not seen a homicide in years, and this, a triple murder involving two local citizens. It was sure to be big news. While driving away from Rocio’s, he firmed up his already evolving plan to deal with that. He would let a day or two slip by before stopping in for one of his well-established visits. He would discover the door wide open, and stumble upon a scene of horror. The large man strangled on the floor. The housekeeper and gardener murdered, their hands bound behind them, shot in the back of the head. The girl was missing.
Of course, it would be an open and shut case. It would be obvious to all who had done it. The man who lived there, that gringo who had left in such a hurry. No doubt the boy was his accomplice, that nephew with the sun allergy, for they would find his ranch in the hills abandoned as well.
Despite his many tribulations of these past few days, Torres smiled, for everything would soon work out for the best. For him, it always did.
4
The village seemed to come alive once Dugan passed whatever test they had just put him through. The curious villagers who had moments before crowded the street and lined the walls to view the newcomer with suspicion went back to tending their own business. Lamps were lit in the cliffside homes. Noise started coming from nearby buildings, the laughter and boisterousness of one leading Dugan to think it was the local tavern. Even the boy in the ballcap came running back up the street to grace him with another smile. The girl smiled too while picking up his bag and handing it back.
“What is this place,” Dugan asked, taking it. “Who are you people?”
“Welcome to Santa Rosa,” she said proudly. “I am Teresa Aguilar. And these are my friends.” Turning, she glanced toward her comrades. “This is Guillermo,” she said, motioning to the wizened older man on the left. “And this is Manolo,” she said, gesturing to the bearded younger man on the right.
Dugan nodded to each, noting the older man wore what Dugan now thought of as the campesino uniform: straw hat, flannel shirt, jeans, and well worn boots. The younger man was dressed more nattily, in a dark suit with an open collared shirt
. Dugan couldn’t read the older man at all. He just stared blankly in his general direction. However, the younger man was an open book. In his yellowish eyes, Dugan saw burning hostility. Though the man nodded politely at their introduction, Dugan knew he wasn’t happy to meet him, and wasn’t shy about letting him know.
“Come,” the girl said, taking his arm. “Let me show you around.”
With the rains slackened for the moment, Teresa began her tour of the village, taking him past livestock pens and paddocks holding chickens, pigs, horses, and oxen. Somewhere in town, a man picked up a guitar and began to sing in a more than passable tenor. The soprano laughter of happy children trilled from the open windows of the houses.
Stopping outside one building, Teresa opened the door and the two popped their heads in. “This is our school,” she whispered.
Dugan saw inside were about a dozen people sitting at desks facing a blackboard. Young and old, they were being taught by a man about mid-twenties, whose Spanish was colored with what sounded like a British accent. A half full bookshelf ran along a far wall. Posters of the alphabet ran down one side of the room. Childish paintings were given pride of place along the other.
“The children come during the day,” Teresa explained, “and classes are offered to the adults at night.”
Applewood (Book 3): The Space of Life Between Page 19