Red Leopard (The Vistaria Affair Series)

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  Calli pushed herself up above the root, supporting herself on the broad beam like a gymnast, then worked her way over the very sharp slope down to the trunk of the tree itself. It wasn’t as straightforward as walking across a log, but 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 sloped sharply away, a good thirty-five feet down. Duardo hung just ahead perhaps two feet away, but nearly 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.

  She was scared spitless.

  “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 at all. 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 some sort of hold, then reached out under her for the branch Minnie told her was there. It was further than she’d thought. For one breathless, faint moment of panic, she actually hung in mid-air, unsupported anywhere. Then her left hand curled around the big branch and she slithered onto it, her legs clutching around it for dear life.

  Her heart hammered, but she forced herself to keep moving. Wriggling again, she moved up the branch, closer and closer. She could see Duardo’s hands, now, gripping a handful of vines and whip-thin branches. Finally she lay right over him. She reached down but 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, and shot out her hand for his wrist as his fingers loosened and the vines began to slip through his grip. She had no idea what she intended to do beyond holding him here. She felt the flesh of his wrist under her fingers and brought her other hand around the branch to grip beneath her fingers.

  Minnie screamed.

  Abruptly Duardo’s full weight pulled on her arms and 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, but she could breathe and that was enough for now. She turned her head towards 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, but she could hear 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, and shouted as clearly as she could. “Nick! Nicolás! Over here!”

  For a minute or two she kept up the shouting. She knew it could take a while for her to be heard because she competed against the drama playing out up above. So she conserved her strength, breathed deeply and kept shouting, while her shoulders burned and her fingers cramped cruelly.

  “Nicolás!”

  “I’m here.” His voice from behind her. Steady and quiet. She felt movement on the tree and heard it creak.

  “Be careful!” she warned. “But hurry. I don’t know how long I can hold on.”

  “You can hold on for as long as you need to.” He sounded totally confident and much nearer. 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, Calli. Karate, right?”

  “Yeah. A century ago, seems like.”

  She felt movements through the branch against her chest. His voice sounded close by, now. He chuckled. “But you know I’m right. As long as you decide you’re going to hang on, you can outride any pain, any desire to let go and get rid of the pain. You just make a decision and that knowledge, that certainty, will let you hold on.”

  She tried to nod, but her cheek scraped on the branch. “Okay,” she said.

  “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, and he did shout, a stream of Spanish.

  Voices lifted in response and she heard steps 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,” she said.

  “I have,” Nick assured her. He spoke some more and from the cadence, the clipped sentences, she guess he gave orders. She heard a scurry, people hurrying, murmured conversations. More movement on the tree.

  “It won’t hold up many more,” she said.

  “It will last long enough,” Nick said from right behind or above her. She felt a touch on her back. “That’s me,” he told her. “I’m right above. I’m going to have to—”

  From the corner of her eye, she saw his boot land on a smaller branch just to her left, but behind and little lower than her. At the same time, she felt weight and warmth on either side of her hips. He straddled her.

  “Okay?” he asked.

  She felt a giggle rise and tried to squash it. “You only had to ask,” she said. “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 you. Can you lift one hip so I can get at the buckle? I’ll keep you balanced.”

  She lifted her hip and felt his hand slide 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. Thankfully, she lowered herself back to the branch, her hip flexors and thigh trembling with the effort to maintain balance in that awkward position.

  She could feel Nick moving above her.

  “What happened up there?” she asked.

  “Explosion. From the kitchen. We’ll find out later.”

  “Is everyone all right?”

  “Later, Calli,” he said.

  Everyone was not all right.

  He leaned out and reached for a branch below her. It was thinner than the branch she lay on, but still sturdy. He lowered himself slowly, with perfect control. The athletic move spoke of muscle power totally beyond her own capabilities. 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. Then 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. Then 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, just below her fingers. He slid the buckle tight like an emergency tourniquet. He put the other end of her belt against the f
ree end of his own, and threaded them both through the buckle of his belt. He pushed the tongue of the buckle through the holes of both belts. This created a secure loop in his belt. Nick pushed the loop over his arm, high up 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’re going to 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. Just 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 are going to feel numb and completely useless, but you have to 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 a little. “You’ll be fine. I’m going to 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 right now, the warmth seeping through to the bones.”

  She thought of her kitchen back home 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 just like in her mind.

  Duardo dropped another few inches, but 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 really felt 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.

  She turned her head to look at him. He had curled up a little to watch her.

  “Ready?”

  “Okay.” But she lied. She wouldn’t be able to do what he wanted her to do.

  He pointed to his eyes. “Look at me. 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 her. But it felt lifeless, light and insubstantial. No strength there. She forced her finger 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. But that brought her swinging into Duardo’s body.

  “Oh, sorry,” she said, reflexively.

  “I don’t think he noticed. Can you grip the leather?”

  She knew what to do now and reached out to grip the leather above the buckle around Duardo’s wrist. Trying to imitate Nick’s controlled movements, she transferred her weight from her left hand in Nick’s to the leather belt. Nick let her hand go. 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, then 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, and saw Nick’s face, the fierce concentration, as he watched her. 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. But Nick kept the effort up, pushing and releasing, pushing and releasing, until gradually 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 let herself look down. Instead, she watched the loop of tree root come rushing towards her and imagined reaching out and grabbing it with one hand.

  Now. She reached out, snagged the root with her hands and found it cool and grubby. But it held.

  She thrust out her foot and dug for a foothold as the pendulum motion tried to take her backwards. The strain transferred to her shoulder, but it was minimal compared to the pull from holding Duardo’s full weight. She still hugged Duardo’s leg to her, but now she stood anchored to the ground, a bare six feet from the top of the cliff, but those six feet consisted of almost vertical, unstable earth.

  Distantly she realized that the men on the trunk clapped and cheered. She hooked her leg through the root and turned to look at Nick, hanging patiently, his arms outstretched.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “As Duardo is lowered, get a better grip on him, so he doesn’t roll down the valley.”

  “Okay.”

  Nick rolled his head up to look at Pietro. “Listo?”

  “Sí!”

  “Ahora!” Nick shouted. He let go of the leather with his left hand and flexed, rolling up and thrust his hand towards Pietro, who clamped both hands around Nick’s wrist.

  The tug on Duardo’s leg came but 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. But he didn’t drop like a stone. He rolled slowly and Duardo’s body sank towards 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 fully now, so 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 and suddenly Nick stood beside her.

  He gave a shout and the chain of men on the tree trunk who anchored them slowly began to move back to the base of the tree, towards the cliff and the broken tiles. As they moved, Nick reeled Pietro in so that he could stand. Then Jose.

  Finally, a chain of men stood strung 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 then lifted him up and over the edge. A little cheer sounded above them.

  Nick looked behind Calli. “Minnie, your turn. Calli, you’ll have to 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 any 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,” Calli said.

  Minnie took a deep breath and launched, arms outspread, straight at Calli. Minnie’s weight slammed into Callie and she felt herself toppling over. But Nick’s arm was there, against her back, holding her up.

  Minnie gave a shudder and a hysterical little laugh, but 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 and then the men will lift you up. Okay?”

  She nodded and sniffed again, wiping her forearm across her cheek, which simply smeared the dirt and tears even more. Calli propped her up while she pulled off her shoes. Then she stepped onto Nick’s hands and he boosted her up so that she could use his shoulder. She stepped up and the men lifted up and 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.”