The Codex (32 page)

“She could have been talking about any blue mountains.”

“Curandera, she was talking about those mountains, which are as blue as the great ocean itself.”

Sally blinked away a tear. “Don Alfonso, quit talking nonsense.”

At this, Don Alfonso smiled. “It is a wonderful thing when an old man has a beautiful girl weeping at his deathbed.”

“This isn’t your deathbed, and I’m not crying.”

“Do not worry, Curandera. This is no surprise to me. I came on this journey knowing it would be my last. I was a useless old man back in Pito Solo. I did not want to die in my hut a weak, foolish old person. I, Don Alfonso Boswas, I wanted to die as a man.” He paused, drew a breath, shuddered. “Only I did not think I would die under a rotten log in the stinking mud, leaving you alone.”

“Then don’t die. We love you, Don Alfonso. The hell with that bruja.”

Don Alfonso took her hand and smiled. “Curandera, there is one thing the bruja got wrong. She said I was going to die among strangers. This is not true. I die among friends.”

He closed his eyes and murmured something, and then he died.

45

Sally wept. Tom stood up and looked away, feeling his unreasonable anger grow. He walked a little way into the forest. There, in a quiet glade, he sat on a log, clenching and unclenching his fists. The old man had no right to leave them. He had abandoned himself to his superstitions. He had talked himself into dying—just because he had glimpsed some blue mountains.

Tom thought back to the first time he saw Don Alfonso, sitting on the little stool in his hut, waving his machete and joking. It seemed a lifetime ago.

They dug a grave in the mucky ground. It was a slow, exhausting process, and they were so weak they could barely lift the shovel. Tom couldn’t help thinking, When will I be doing this for Philip? Tomorrow? They finished the grave around noon, wrapped Don Alfonso’s body in his hammock, rolled him into the waterlogged hole, and threw some damp flowers on top. Then they filled in the hole with mud. Tom fashioned a rough cross lashed with vines and planted it at the head of the grave. They stood around awkwardly afterward.

“I’d like to say a few words,” said Vernon.

He stood, swaying a little. His clothes hung on his body, and his beard and hair were wild. He looked like a mendicant.

“Don Alfonso ...” his voice trailed off. He coughed. “If you’re still around somewhere, before heading up to the Pearly Gates, stick around a bit and help us out, will you, old man? We’re in a bad way.”

“Amen,” Sally said.

Dark clouds began to roll in, ending their short, sunny respite. There was a roll of thunder and a scattered sound of drops in the canopy above.

Sally came to Tom. “I’m going hunting again.”

Tom nodded. He took the fishing line and decided to try his luck in the river they had crossed about a mile back. Vernon stayed to take care of Philip.

They returned in the early afternoon. Sally had caught nothing, Tom returned with a single fish that weighed no more than six ounces. While they were gone Philip had developed a high fever and delirium. His eyes were open and glittered with heat, and he moved his head back and forth in a ceaseless pattern, mumbling disconnected phrases. Tom felt sure his brother was now dying. When they tried to get him to drink the tea Sally made, he began shouting incoherently and knocked the cup away. They boiled the fish in a pot with some manioc root and spoon-fed the stew to Philip, who finally accepted it after more shouting and thrashing. They divided the rest among themselves. After eating, they remained under the log as the rain poured down, waiting for darkness to come.

Tom was the first to wake, just before dawn. Philip’s fever had worsened over the night. He tossed and mumbled, his fingers plucking uselessly at his collar, his face looking collapsed and emaciated. Tom felt desperate. They had no medicine and no diagnostic tools, not even a medical kit. Sally’s herbal medicines were ineffectual in the face of this raging fever.

Vernon built a fire, and they sat around it in a devastated silence. The dark ferns loomed about them like a menacing crowd, nodding their heads under the impact of the rain, casting a green dimness over their refuge.

Tom finally spoke. “We’re going to have to stay here until Philip recovers.”

Sally and Vernon nodded, although they all knew Philip was not going to recover.

“We’ll make an all-out effort to hunt, fish, and gather edible plants. We’ll use this time to build up our strength and get ready for the long trip home.

Again everyone agreed.

“All right,” said Tom, rising. “Let’s get to work. Sally will go hunting. I’m going to take the fishing line and hooks. Vernon, you stay here and take care of Philip.” He looked around. “No giving up.”

They all stood up shakily, and Tom was glad to see a rousing of energy among them. He collected the line and hooks and pushed off into the jungle. He went in a straight line away from the Sierra Azul, tearing notches in the sides of ferns as he passed to mark his trail and keeping an eye out for any edible plants. The rain was still falling steadily. Two hours later he arrived, exhausted, at a muddy cascade of water, having caught a small lizard to use as bait. He hooked the struggling reptile on the hook and tossed it into the boiling torrent.

Five hours later, with just enough light to get back to camp, he quit. He had lost three of six hooks and a good portion of fishing line and had caught nothing. He returned to camp before dark to find Vernon tending the fire. Sally was still out.

“How is Philip?”

“Not good.”

Tom looked in on Philip and found him tossing in a restless sleep, drifting in and out of a dreamlike state, muttering snatches of conversation. The slackness in his face and lips scared Tom: it reminded him of Don Alfonso’s last moments. Philip seemed to be having a one-sided conversation with their father, a broken series of grievances and accusations. His own name came into it, and Vernon’s, and Philip’s mother, whom he had not seen in twenty years. And then Philip seemed to be at a birthday party, a child’s party. It was his fifth birthday, it seemed, and he was opening presents and exclaiming with joy.

Tom went away pained and saddened. He sat down next to Vernon at the fire. Vernon put his arm around him. “He’s been like that all day.” He handed him a mug of tea.

Tom took the mug and drank. His own hand looked like the hand of an old man, veiny and splotched. His stomach felt hollow, but he was not hungry.

“Sally hasn’t come back?”

“No, but I heard a couple of shots.”

As if on cue, they heard the rustle of vegetation and Sally appeared. She said nothing, just slung her rifle down and sat by the fire.

“No luck?” Tom asked.

“Bagged a couple of stumps.”

Tom smiled and took her hand. “None of the stumps in the forest will be safe as long as the great hunter Sally stalks her prey.”

Sally wiped the mud off her face. “I’m sorry.”

“Tomorrow,” said Tom, “if I leave early I might be able to hike back to the river where we found Philip. I’ll be gone overnight, but that was a big river, and I’m sure I’ll catch a mess of fish.”

“Great idea, Tom,” said Vernon, his voice strained.

“We’re not going to give up.”

“No,” said Sally.

Vernon shook his head. “I wonder what Father would think if he saw us now.”

Tom shook his head. He was past thinking of Maxwell Broadbent. If he knew what he’d done, sent his three sons to their deaths ... It didn’t bear thinking about. They’d failed him while he was alive, and now they’d failed him after his death.

Tom stared at the fire for a while and then asked, “Are you angry at Father?”

Vernon hesitated. “Yes.”

Tom made a helpless gesture with his hand. “Do you think we’ll be able to forgive him?”

“Does it matter?”

Tom woke up before dawn with a strange feeling of pressure at the base of his skull. It was still dark, and it was raining. The sound of the rain seemed to be crawling inside his head. He turned, turned again on the damp ground, and the pressure became a headache. He swung his feet around and sat up, only to find, with huge surprise, that he could barely keep himself upright. He sank back, his head reeling, staring up into the darkness, which seemed to fill with confused swirls of red and brown and the whispering of voices. He heard the soft, worried chatter of Bugger’s voice near him. He looked around and finally, in the darkness, located the little monkey sitting on the ground near him, making anxious sucking noises. He knew something was wrong.

It was more than just the effects of hunger. Tom realized he was sick. Oh God, he thought, not now. He turned his head and tried to seek out Sally or Vernon in the swirling darkness, but he could see nothing. His nose seemed to be filled with the cloying smell of rotting vegetation, rain, and loam. The sound of the rain drumming on the forest leaves all around him was drilling into his skull. He felt himself drift off to sleep, and then he opened his eyes and there was Sally, peering at him with a flashlight in the dark.

“I’m going fishing today,” Tom said.

“You’re not going anywhere,” she answered. She reached down and felt his forehead, and she was not able to hide from him the look of fright on her face. “I’ll bring you some tea.”

She came back with a steaming mug and helped Tom drink it down. “You sleep,” she said.

Tom slept.

When he woke, it was brighter but still raining. Sally was crouching over him. When she saw his eyes open, she tried to smile.

Despite the suffocating heat under the log, he shivered. “Philip?” he managed to ask.

“The same.”

“Vernon?”

“He’s sick, too.”

“Damn.” He looked at Sally and felt alarmed. “And you? How are you?” Her face looked flushed. “You’re not getting sick, too?”

Sally laid a hand on his cheek. “Yes, I’m getting sick, too.”

“I’ll get better,” Tom said. “And then I’ll take care of you. We’ll get out of this mess.”

She shook her head. “No, Tom, we won’t.”

The simple assertion of fact seemed to clear his throbbing head. He closed his eyes. That was it, then. They were going to die in the rain under that rotten log, and the wild animals would tear them apart. And no one would ever know what had happened to them. He tried to say this was the fever talking to him, that actually things weren’t that bad, but deep down he knew it was true. His head swirled. They were going to die. He opened his eyes.

She was still there, her hand on his cheek. She looked at him for a long time. Her face was dirty, scratched, bitten; her hair tangled and dull, her eyes hollow. If there was any resemblance to the girl who had galloped after him bareback in Utah, it was gone—except the intense turquoise color of her eyes and the way her lower lip still stuck out a little.

Finally she spoke. “We don’t have much time.” She paused, looking at him steadily. “I need to tell you something, Tom.”

“What?”

“It seems I’ve fallen in love with you.”

Reality returned with sudden clarity. Tom couldn’t quite speak.

She went on briskly. “Anyway, there—now it’s said.”

“But what about—?”

“Julian? He’s the perfect dream guy, handsome, brilliant, with all the right opinions. He’s the guy your parents want you to marry. He’s my Sarah. Who wants that? The feeling I had for him isn’t at all like what I feel for you, with all your ...” She hesitated and smiled. “Imperfections?”

With those words all complications had been swept away, and now everything was clear and simple. He tried to speak, finally managed to croak out the words. “I love you, too.”

She smiled, and a little glimmer of her former radiance came through. “I know that and I’m glad. I’m sorry I was cranky with you. I was in denial.”

They were silent for a moment.

“I guess I loved you from the moment you stole my horse and came riding after me back there in Utah,” said Tom. “But I really knew it when you wouldn’t shoot that jaguar. I’ll always love you for that.”

“When you brought me outside to look at that glowing forest,” Sally said, “that’s when” I realized that I was falling in love with you.”

“You never said anything.”

“It took me a while to work it out. As you may have noticed, I’m stubborn. I didn’t want to admit I was wrong.”

He swallowed. His head was beginning to spin. “But I’m just a normal guy. I didn’t go to Stanford at sixteen—”

“Normal? A man who fights in hand-to-hand combat with jaguars and anacondas? Who leads an expedition into the heart of darkness with courage and good humor?”

“I only did those things because I was forced to.”

“That’s another one of your good points: You’re modest. Being with you, I began to see what kind of a person Julian is. He didn’t want to come with me because he figured it would be inconvenient. It would interrupt his work. And I think, underneath it all, he was afraid. Julian, I realized, is the kind of person who doesn’t attempt anything unless he’s absolutely sure he’s going to succeed. You, on the other hand, would attempt the impossible.”