The Spanish Kidnapping Disaster (8 page)

***

Without Orlando, the cave seemed almost peaceful. Charles sat by the entrance, drinking coffee and smoking. Señora Perez tended the fire, sighing from time to time and shaking her head, and Grace sat alone, glancing at us occasionally, her forehead creased with worry.

"I think you should have your asthma attack now," I whispered to Phillip, "before Orlando comes back."

"Don't do it," Amy told her brother. "Charles will know you're not really sick, and he'll shoot you."

"Huh." Phillip glared at Amy. "I fake being sick all the time to get out of going to school, and Dad never suspects a thing. Even you believe me. Anyway," he went on before Amy could interrupt, "I'd rather take my chances with Charles than Orlando."

Without looking at his sister, Phillip started coughing, softly at first, then louder. As he began gasping for breath, Grace and Señora Perez looked at Charles.

"The boy," Grace said. "I told you he has asthma."

Carrying the gun, Charles walked toward us. "Where's his medicine?" he asked me.

His face a convincing shade of purple, Phillip fell to the floor, still coughing.

"It's not here," I told Charles. "He must have left it in the Citroen."

"Do something," Grace said to Charles. "Hold his head up so he can breathe."

Grasping Phillip's shoulders, Charles heaved him up
right, but he was hampered by the gun in his hand, and his movements were clumsy. While he bent over Phillip, I shoved him backward as hard as I could.

Taken by surprise, Charles dropped both Phillip and the gun. After kicking the weapon as far from him as I could, I ducked into the tunnel, praying Phillip and Amy were right behind me.

Without looking back, I plunged out of the cave into a gray wall of fog and rain. Unable to see where I was going, I ran blindly, stumbling over rocks and stones. For all I could see, the world ended a few inches ahead of me. Suppose I ran right off the side of the mountain and fell thousands of feet to my death? Suddenly a boulder rose up before me, and I ducked behind it. Crouching down, I felt the strength drain away from me. My arms and legs trembled, my heart thudded, it was hard to breathe. What if the others hadn't followed me? And I was all alone?

Somewhere behind me, I heard Phillip yelling, but the fog hid everything, and I had no idea where his voice was coming from. At least he was out of the cave, I thought, and alive.

Just as my heart was slowing down to its normal rate, I heard Charles shout, "Come back here, you little fools!"

Several shots rang out. I wanted to leap up and run, but I kept my head down and forced myself to stay still. If I moved, Charles would hear me. Even if he couldn't see me, he'd shoot at the noise I made.

Then I saw him less than a foot away, a vague shape blurred by the fog, moving slowly toward me. Holding my breath, I watched him walk past me. He was pointing his gun this way and that like an actor in a war movie. Only he wasn't acting. If he saw me, Charles would shoot me with a real bullet.

When I was sure he was gone, I rose slowly to my feet and peered through the fog. Where were Amy and Phillip? Seeing no one, I crept out from behind my rock and moved cautiously from boulder to boulder, freezing every time a stone rolled out from under my shoes. I wanted to call Amy and Phillip, but I was afraid to raise my voice.

As I edged around a tall slab of rock, I came face to face with Grace. Taken by surprise, I stumbled backward, but I wasn't fast enough. Before I knew what was happening she was pulling me toward her, her hand over my mouth.

"Do not scream," she whispered into my ear. "I am trying to help you."

I nodded, and Grace let me go. "Find a place to hide," she told me, "and stay there. If you run, you will fall and hurt yourself. After dark, go down the road to the village. Be careful. I will do all I can to help."

"Where are Amy and Phillip?" I asked. "Are they all right?"

Grace shook her head. "They ran from the cave like you, but I do not know where they have gone. In the fog, who can tell?"

"Will Charles kill us if he catches us?"

Grace hugged me so tightly I thought my ribs would crack. "Do not think such a thing," she said fiercely. "He could not be that wicked!"

"But Orlando?"

Grace hugged me again. "That one is the devil himself. Go now and hide, Felix, go!"

Then Grace was gone, running away from me and calling, "Children! Children!"

Cold and frightened, I inched my way down the mountainside in the opposite direction, looking for a place to hide. Several minutes later, I found Amy. She was huddled behind a boulder, sobbing. For the first time in my whole entire life I was glad to see her.

"Help me find Phillip," she whispered. "I'm scared Charles shot him."

Taking Amy's arm, I pulled her to her feet. For a second or two she clung to me, shaking. Her hands were icy cold and her teeth chattered so loudly I was afraid Charles would hear them.

"Come on," I whispered. "We'll find him."

But it was Charles we found, not Phillip. In fact, we skidded to a stop not two feet away from him.

Spotting us at the same moment we spotted him, Charles lunged toward Amy and me, but we ducked behind a boulder before he got close enough to grab us. Charles shouted and swore, but Amy and I kept going. We were soaked and cold, and the rocks were slippery, but we weren't about to surrender.

"You stop!" Charles shouted from somewhere in the fog. "Or I'll shoot!"

"
¡Estúpido pulpo!
" I shouted back, remembering Phillip's favorite insult.

At the sound of my voice, Phillip loomed up out of the fog and mist ahead of us. "Quick, this way," he whispered. "I found another cave."

Not too far away, I heard Charles panting and coughing, the result of all those long, dark cigarettes he smoked. "Come back here this moment!" he shouted.

"Charles," Grace called from somewhere. "Over here, quick, I have caught the boy!"

"In here." Phillip grabbed my shirt and pulled me down beside him. On our hands and knees, we wedged ourselves into a tiny cave, barely big enough for the three of us.

Charles passed us twice, calling our names and cursing, but he didn't find us. Once he and Grace actually stopped just a few inches from our hiding place.

"I thought you had the boy," Charles said.

"He got away and then the fog, it swallowed him whole," Grace said. "Now I think maybe he has fallen off the rocks."

"That would be too bloody lovely for words," Charles muttered. "I can't think of a better ending for all three of them. Look at my arm—the little savage bit me. He actually broke the skin. See the blood?"

"Come," Grace said. "We must go back and tell Senora Perez they are gone. Soon Orlando will return. Maybe he will have the ransom, and we can leave this place."

"Do you realize how many germs flourish in the human mouth?" Charles asked. "I'd rather be bitten by a dog than a child. Suppose an infection develops? I could die of septicemia in these mountains."

As the sound of their footsteps faded away, Phillip
turned to me. "I wish he'd get rabies," he whispered. "It would serve him right."

"Now what do we do?" Amy asked Phillip.

"We'd better stay here," I said. "We can't go anywhere in this fog."

"Who put you in charge?" Amy glared at me.

"Look, Amy," I said, trying to sound reasonable. "Somebody has to make the decisions, and it might as well be me. At least I don't sit around crying like a baby the way you do."

Giving me a nasty look, Amy folded her arms around her knees and rested her head on them. In a muffled voice, she muttered something about Miss Know It All. Then she clammed up and refused to utter another word. Phillip and I looked at each other, but we didn't have much to say either.

Silently the three of us sank down into our own thoughts and waited for the long, gray day to end. The only sounds were water dripping through the cracks in the rocks over our heads and occasional rumbles from our empty stomachs. Every now and then I glanced at Amy, but she never met my eyes. Finally, tired, cold, and hungry, I fell asleep.

Luckily for us, the fog hugged the mountains till long after dark. Then, all of a sudden, it thinned out into rags and tatters, and a cold wind blew it away. Over our heads, the stars blazed in the clear sky and the moon cast sharp black shadows across the rocky landscape. We shivered, and, when we crawled out of our hiding place, our muscles were so cramped we could hardly stand.

"Where's the cave?" Phillip whispered.

"Over there, I think." I pointed to the left.

"How about the road? Do you see it?" Without waiting for an answer, Phillip scrambled clumsily to the top of a tall boulder and scanned the rocky hillside for signs of a road, a trail, a path, anything that might lead us out of the mountains. But he saw nothing. The landscape was so desolate, we could have been on the moon.

"Maybe we should go back to the cave," Amy said. "We'll freeze to death out here. And I'm starving."

"No," I said. "Orlando will shoot us for sure. Grace told me to go down the road to the village. We can get help there."

Amy opened her mouth to argue, but Phillip interrupted her. From his perch on the boulder, he looked down at us. "I see the Volkswagen," he said.

I climbed up beside him, and he pointed to the old bus nearly hidden by an overhanging rock.

"The road must be there," I said.

"But it's so close to the cave," Amy whispered. "What if they hear us?" She glanced behind her as if she thought Orlando or Charles might appear at any moment.

"We have to risk it," I told her. "It's the only way out of here."

With Phillip and Amy behind me, I crept downhill toward the Volkswagen. The closer we got to the cave, the more scared we were. Fearfully, we slunk from shadow to shadow, trying to avoid the patches of moonlight marbling the ground. Every time one of us kicked a stone loose, we held our breath, waiting to see if the sound would give us away.

We were at the cave's entrance before we realized where we were. Screened by bushes, it was so small a person could pass by without even noticing it. From inside, I heard Charles and Orlando arguing loudly. Grace yelled something at them, and there was a sound of breaking glass. Señora Perez shrieked and Grace swore.

Terrified, we forgot to be cautious and ran the rest of the way to the Volkswagen. As we plunged into its shadow, Phillip tried to open the doors, but they were all locked.

"What are you doing?" Amy pulled Phillip away. "Even if you got inside, you can't drive."

"Sh!" I whispered. "Someone's coming."

We ducked out of sight as a stone rolled out from under a shoe, bounced toward the bus, and pinged against a hubcap. Then Señora Perez came into view, clutching one of her little net grocery bags and muttering to herself.

Thinking she'd lead us to a village, we let her get a safe distance ahead and then inched down the trail behind her. After following her for at least two miles, we saw lights. It wasn't the village we had hoped for but a farmhouse, clinging all by itself to the side of the mountain. Silently, we watched Señora Perez open a gate, quiet the dogs who greeted her by barking, and vanish into the house.

Amy sat down on a rock and started crying. Like her, I was cold, hungry, and scared. The only thing that kept me from crying too was my pride. Biting my lip hard, I forced myself to act brave.

"Come on," I whispered. "We have to keep going. Sooner or later we'll come to the village."

Cautiously, we crept past the farmhouse, trying not to alert the dogs, but it was hard to be quiet on the dark road. Our shoes slipped on the gravel, and soon the dogs, all three of them, were barking and hurling themselves at the stone wall separating them from us. The farmhouse door opened, and Señora Perez shouted something in Spanish.

We ran, plummeting down the steep road, skidding on the loose rocks, breathless with fear. Back up the mountainside we scrambled, seeking a hiding place in the boulders. Even after the sound of the dogs faded away behind us, we kept running.

I paused for breath halfway up a steep hill, and Amy clambered past with Phillip at her heels.

"Wait, Amy," he called. "Wait."

She looked back at him from the top of the hill. "Hurry," she yelled.

Hastily Phillip grabbed at a rock to pull himself up, but it came away in his hand. Before I could catch him, Phillip hurtled backward and tumbled down the hill. By the time I reached him, he was lying on the ground and moaning.

"Are you hurt?" I dropped to my knees beside him and peered at his pale face.

"My ankle," he sobbed. "It twisted when I fell. I think it's broken."

Amy skidded down the hillside and crouched beside her brother. "Are you okay, Phillip?"

He shook his head. "Why didn't you wait? You just kept running and running. I thought you were going to leave me here."

"I'm sorry." Now Amy was crying too. "I didn't think you'd fall, I just wanted you to run faster."

While Amy apologized, I looked behind me, down the mountainside we'd just climbed. Far, far away, I saw the lights of Señora Perez's farmhouse. As I watched, they went out, one by one. The night seemed darker without them. And colder.

"Help me get him on his feet, Felix," Amy said.

Between the two of us we hoisted Phillip up. He put one arm over Amy's shoulder and the other over mine, but the inequality of our heights kept us from making much progress on the rough, uneven ground.

Soon Amy and I were breathing hard, and Phillip was whimpering with pain. Every time we jostled him, he cried out. "Stop," he sobbed at last. "I can't go any farther."

We eased Phillip down on a grassy mound sheltered by a group of boulders. He leaned against a rock and looked at Amy and me.

"You're going to have to leave me here and get help," he said.

"No, Phillip." Amy shook her head hard. "I promised Daddy I'd take care of you."

"You have to." Phillip's face was ashy white, and his voice shook. "I can't walk, and you can't carry me."

"How can we leave you here all by yourself?" I looked around at the mountains, dappled with moonlight and sharp, dark shadows. It made me shiver just to think about being alone in such a desolate place.