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chapter 33
It was early afternoon. Should we move on or stay here? There was no driftwood for a fire.
"What do you say we continue on and see where the road takes us," I said.
MacClayne nodded, and we left.
The paved road continued from the junction, and before long a pickup stopped for us. It was full of supplies; we wedged ourselves in between the bags and boxes.
Our ride was short and soon ended at a creek gully where a bridge was under construction. Something smelled good; two or three women there were cooking food in an open kitchen, covered only by a palm-thatched roof. The tables were also sheltered with roofs of palm leaves, like those on the beach at Faro and other places we'd passed. The supplies in the pickup seemed to be for this eating place.
A yellow oil truck was parked over by the road. I took note of it mainly because it was the only other vehicle around. It seemed strange to see this construction going on with so few vehicles.
MacClayne looked at the kitchen. "I wonder if we can eat at this place," he said.
"I think it's just for the construction workers," I said.
"Ask anyway," he said.
So I did, and was told that we could. It was twenty pesos a meal, the same price we'd been paying elsewhere, but it wouldn't be ready for a couple hours. We weren't that hungry, having snacked on tamales back at Faro. But they did have coffee.
So we drank coffee and chatted with the cooks. I happened to tell them we'd spent the night in a coconut palm grove.
"That's dangerous," one woman said. "The groves are full of scorpions. They live in the wood, in dead leaves and branches. You could have been stung."
"It's a bad sting," said another, looking up from a large pot she was stirring. "My cousin died from one."
"It's safest to camp on the beach," said a third. "For your fire use driftwood. Scorpions don't like the salt."
Each of them added a comment, and I felt I was being scolded like a child--though perhaps I deserved it. I wished I'd said nothing about camping in the coconut grove. Nevertheless, it hadn't occurred to me that we could avoid the scorpions by camping on the beach and using driftwood. That was good to know, but I still resented the way they got on our case.
MacClayne asked me what they were saying. "Local gossip," I told him. Cuauhtémoc looked up at me, almost knowingly, it seemed, from the look in his eyes. He was perched on the bench beside me, drinking water from a glass I'd set there for him.
I asked the name of this place. I wanted to know, but, more importantly, I wanted to change the subject.
"Río Motín," one of the ladies replied.
For a moment the name didn't register, then I said, "Was Motín de Oro near here?"
She told me of a place up stream that was said to be the abandoned site of the settlement.
"What's there now?" I said.
"Woods."
"Thorn bushes?"
She nodded.
Doña Matilda, our landlady in Aquila, had told me about Río Motín de Oro, a famous mining settlement around 1600. I wondered how the Spaniards had managed to even get to a remote place like this back in those days, let alone discover it. They must've really had a nose for gold.
"A lost Spanish mine?" MacClayne said when I told him.
"Apparently so. What do you say we go take a look?"
"You don't believe that story, do you?"
"Why shouldn't I?"
"There are many stories of lost mines. I don't believe any of them."
"Some are true."
"So what would you expect to find?"
"Please! Give me some credit! I do have a background in this stuff, you know."
"I only asked you why you wanted to go there," he said with a great show of indignation. "You're attacking me as though I were the great ogre."
I suspected that MacClayne had intended to corner me and was now covering his retreat. But rather than try to nail him down on it--which I knew would be extremely difficult, and pointless even if successful, I just said, "Okay, I apologize."
"The location is what you want to see?" he said, now in a more respectful tone.
"Exactly. I'm a bit of a history buff, you know," I said. "The gold itself was probably taken out within a few years, just as in the gold fields of California. That's why the place was abandoned. On the other hand, if I were a novelist, I might hope to find a wealth of stories about it, even if I had to invent them."
MacClayne chuckled. "Is it just a short walk?" he said.
I asked the women how far it was, but when they told us we could get there by nightfall, MacClayne's interest diminished.
Two fellows had just sat down at the same table to have a soft drink. We got to talking with them, and it turned out they were the crew of the yellow oil truck which had been parked nearby. The driver offered us a ride, which we accepted. Had it been up to me and my tastes, I would have passed this ride up. However, I could see from the look on MacClayne's face that either we take this, or he'd start thinking about going back. That was the trade-off.
We climbed aboard and stood behind the cab, just in front of a huge fuel tank. There was a seat there, but it was greasy. I hung on and hoped I wouldn't get oil on my clothes or back pack. Above me was a perching place for Cuauhtémoc which I wiped clean, then put him up there and said, "You just be very, very careful, or I'm going to give you a tremendous scrubbing with laundry soap."
The freshly paved road continued as before, without bridges. We came to more arroyos like the one we'd crossed on foot. At each, our truck descended the embankment, crossed a small stream in a gravely creek bed, then mounted the other embankment and continued on over more of the newly paved asphalt. The activity of these streams must've been furious during the storm of a few days before.
Suddenly, we were bouncing and swaying from side to side. The asphalt had ended and we were on dirt. But only for a few hundred meters, and soon the blacktop resumed. Before too long, there was another short stretch of dirt. We hit more of these, but they were infrequent; the road builders seemed to have overlooked them. Other than us, there was no traffic.
The good thing about this vehicle was that from our high position on the back we could see around us quite well whenever there was a break in the brush. The coastal range descended right down to the seashore, and the new parts of this road were in some places even chiseled right into the cliff face.
Around one particular bend we entered a tiny river valley with a flood plain only a couple hundred meters wide. Down by the ocean was a lagoon, its calm, blue water protected from the white-crested waves crashing on the beach beyond. I desperately wanted to get off this greasy, yellow thing and go exploring.
"Shall we get off?" I said, almost pleading.
MacClayne looked at me sourly, and said, "We have a ride. I don't know why you want to give it up!"
"Just look at that lagoon," I said.
"We just came from a beach like that," he said.
No! It's different! I wanted to shout, but I knew it would be useless to argue. Being a frugal Scot, he would no more throw away a ride than he would leave a penny lying on the street.
"We're making good time," he said a moment later.
I nodded. Indeed we were, and that was exactly what bothered me. I had been secretly hoping to spend a while on this leg of the journey, but at the rate we were going, we'd be in Lázaro the next day.
There were more lagoons; each one looked just perfect, and every time we drove on, I felt another bit of paradise slipping away from me. But there was nothing I could do other than hang on with both hands and at the same time keep a grip on my mounting frustration.
We continued to hit stretches of unpaved surface, which became increasingly frequent. They were now as much as a kilometer long, and they continued to grow in length. The black-top parts got progressively shorter, and eventually there were hardly any at all. Apparently this was how the road builders were constructing it--paving it in segments, a piece here and a piece there, now and then.
When the last bit of asphalt seemed well behind us, the quality of the unpaved surface continued to deteriorate. We bounced violently and swayed from side to side; it took all my energy to hang on and not make contact with the grease and oil which were on every surface around me. I worried about it getting on Cuauhtémoc's plumage, but there didn't seem to be any around him where he was perched above me. He hung on with his talons and flapped his wings to keep his balance.
After we'd been riding for what seemed like an awfully long time, I glimpsed a huge, towering rock through the trees up ahead, the size of a small mountain. A few simple dwellings appeared along the road, and, as we finally emerged from the brush, a village by the sea came into view.
Our road took us across an arroyo, then along the outer edge of the village, on a rise slightly above it. As in other settlements we'd seen these last few days, most houses were mud-wattle and a few were brick or concrete; in front of some grew leafy banana palms, and down towards the beach there were tall, spindly coconut trees. The megalith, which I'd seen minutes before, rose up out of the water to a height of perhaps fifty meters. Beyond it were several others nearly as large, and, together, these rocks formed a cove where two schooners and a sloop were riding at anchor.
I was already falling in love with this place when we came to a landing strip with a twin-engined airplane. It had a split tail and broad radial engines, the kind that are rarely to be seen any more. Could it be a Lockheed Electra from the 1930's? I'd never seen one except in photos, and I could hardly believe that any would still be in flying condition.
This was where I wanted to get off! I wanted to look at the airplane, see the boats, swim in the bay, investigate the huge rocks and stroll through the streets of this rustic village for a day or perhaps even a week. Maybe this was where I'd bring Chayo and we could live here forever.
I was madly hoping that this was the driver's destination. It had to be. Just in case it wasn't, I said to MacClayne, "If the truck doesn't stop here, let's get off anyway."
He shook his head. "I don't want to get stranded in some isolated place."
Isolated place? I groaned in silent despair as we drove on. All afternoon I had been watching enticing lagoons passing me by. This secluded village was even more interesting; it looked like a place in a story book, too dazzling even to be real--one of those faraway places I'd read and dreamed of. I wanted to shout at the top of my lungs that this was our bonnie glen, truly our bonnie glen! But I knew it would be useless to say anything.
Weariness swept over me as the village, the antique airplane, the cove and the sailboats disappeared behind us.
The road, which had been terrible, got worse, and I clung even more tightly with tired, whitened knuckles to keep from rubbing up against the grease. I hated this goddamn truck and even the driver who hadn't chosen that village as his destination. I felt guilty about being so angry with him, but I couldn't help it. As for MacClayne--he was becoming a real monster in my imagination when suddenly our truck stopped.
A pickup was coming from the other direction and we'd pulled over, apparently to let it by. But the other vehicle also stopped; both drivers got out and talked for a while. As they were some distance away, I couldn't hear what was being said.
Finally, the pickup drove off, and our driver told us he was returning to the village, instructions from his supervisor. We could get off here, or we could stay on and go back if we wished.
The sun was getting low in the sky and there didn't appear to be any place for us to camp near here. I translated for MacClayne and added, "If we go back to the village we can perhaps find a place to eat."
This was all I could have wished for, and I felt a renewed surge of energy as we rode back. It was one of those moments when heaven itself seemed to intervene on my behalf, and it whimsically occurred to me that perhaps Urð herself had carved it in runic letters on one of those slips of wood that determined the lives that men led and where their journeys took them. Then I thought of MacClayne who might not share my feelings of good fortune. On the surface, he appeared to be taking it in stride, but I sensed that he was straining hard to hide any irritation or misgivings about being stranded.
I wanted to reassure him, to say, Cheer up, I'll get us out of here. Trust me! And now since we're here, let's enjoy the place! But I considered it wiser to say nothing.
We got off near the landing strip, and just up the road was a small roadside restaurant. Being in a place where vehicles were likely to stop, the proprietress would probably know about road conditions. That's where we could eat and find out about local transportation.
But we didn't have much daylight left. Before it got dark, we had to find our way to the beach and stake out our campsite. We set out across the airstrip and strode past the Electra without slowing down; MacClayne scarcely turned his head. I hoped that my surreptitious glance at the airplane wouldn't be perceived by him.
At the end of the runway we came to a long slough of stagnant water and thick brush which appeared to parallel the entire length of the airstrip. It didn't look easy to cross. Perhaps we had come the wrong way. Fortunately, we soon found a dry sandy trail leading to the beach.
There was plenty of driftwood for our campfire, obviously well-salted and therefore scorpion-free. Getting back to this place would be easy, even in the dark, now that we knew where it was. Having selected our campsite, we went back to the restaurant.
The establishment consisted of a palm-leaf roof over two tables. The roof was held up by posts; there were no walls. We sat on benches which lacked backrests; this was a bit inconvenient for Cuauhtémoc. The place obviously wasn't designed for people with roosters.
"Find out if they have fish," said MacClayne, "I would assume this is a fishing village."
I asked, but no, it was too late in the day for fish, the woman told us. She had the usual beef or pork with beans and tortillas. I ordered us each a plate and I asked the name of the village.
"Maruata."
I spread out my map. There was just barely enough twilight to read it, and, to my pleasant surprise, Maruata was on this chart. "Look at this. We're already a third of the way to Lázaro."
"Ask if there are any buses."
When the woman came with our food, I asked about roads and buses. She called to someone, and a small girl appeared.
"A bus leaves from here at six in the morning," the child told us. "It goes to Tecomán in Colima."
MacClayne let out an almost visible sigh of relief, and I also felt better. With that I had no more need to feel that I'd gotten us stranded. If MacClayne chose to go back, he could do so easily.
"Y ¿para Lázaro?" I asked the girl.
She shook her finger. This was as far as the buses came, the end of the line.
"¿Hay camino? I asked.
The road did continue, but she wasn't sure how far. The recent storm might have washed some of it out.
The twilight was fading fast. We intended to sit there in the electric light and read our books and drink coffee for a couple of hours. "Otherwise, it's going to be a long night," MacClayne said.
Darkness came, but no electric light went on. Only then did we look around and notice that there didn't seem to be any electric light bulbs or wires anywhere.
I asked the woman for a lamp or a candle; she brought out an oil lamp that had no chimney. It flickered in the gentle breeze, threatening to blow out at any moment. It gave very little light, but a lot of smoke.
"A damn smudge pot!" groused MacClayne.
I went to look for the woman to ask for something better. She was in the kitchen which had walls made of woven branches covered with mud. Here she was working in the dark, lit only by light from cracks in the stove. I wondered how she could even see to work. She'd given us the only lamp she had, and I felt bad about depriving her of it.
She asked me what I wanted.
"Café," I said, and went back to our table.
"You didn't have to ask for coffee," MacClayne said when I told him the situation and that I'd ordered us each a cup.
"It was our plan to sit here and drink coffee for a while."
"In the dark?"
"Then what do you want to do?" I asked.
"We're sitting here in the dark. We may as well go back to camp and sit in the dark," he said.
"That's fine with me. But first I would like to have a cup. I'll cancel the coffee I ordered for you," I said, and I got up to go to the kitchen again.
"No. Now that you ordered it I'll drink it. It's just that you do things without telling me. I don't know what's going on."
I felt like telling him he could do his own translating if he didn't like the way I was doing it. But I sensed that it would be better to just let it go.
A couple of guys were eating at the other end of the table. They didn't seem to mind the darkness; for them it must have been the normal situation. I asked them about electricity in this village, and they told me there wasn't any.
We drank our coffees without saying much, and then walked back to our camp site where we built a fire. By the light of it Cuauhtémoc scratched in the sand, and I wrote in my journal the day's events and all the things I planned to do in the morning.
Out on the water I saw lights, apparently on the schooners I'd seen anchored there. There was a gentle breeze, and overhead the stars sparkled. The breakers crashed violently. Despite the presence of the huge rocks and the skerries, the beach wasn't as well protected as I'd thought.
MacClayne sat staring into the fire, from time to time adding a stick or two. Then I noticed a tiny crab walk past me and up to the fire; then it turned and went back the way it had come.
There was another, and then another. The largest was smaller than my thumb, and each one wore the abandoned shell of a sea snail, carrying it around like body armor. It made them look awkward, but in reality they were amazingly agile. I watched and admired as they climbed over rocks and other obstacles. I guessed they were hermit crabs; this was the first time I'd seen any, and I hadn't realized they'd be so tiny.
There were many of them and they all came to inspect our fire. 'What are these nutty humans up to this time?' they seemed to be wondering. One after another, a procession of them marched up to the fire. Some got so close I thought they were going to step right into the flames, but at the last moment they would always turn back, curiosity apparently satisfied.
Unlike spiders and insects that give me a creepy feeling, these hermit crabs were such cute little things that I enjoyed their presence. Cuauhtémoc also seemed to find them interesting, and from time to time he gave one a nudge with his beak. The overturned crab would quickly right itself and scurry off.
MacClayne appeared to be lost in thoughts of his own; at last I broke the silence.
"Tomorrow I want to roast a fish," I said.
"A fish? Where are you going to get a fish?" MacClayne asked.
"Maybe I can buy one from the fishermen."
"You think they'd sell you one?"
"Any reason they wouldn't?"
"They have their own markets."
"Things can't be that complicated."
"No? Then how are you going to cook it?"
"Over the fire," I said.
"How?"
"I'll put a stick through it and roast it like a hotdog."
"Have you ever cooked anything that way before?"
"Marshmallows."
"Nothing more than that?"
"I've roasted hotdogs."
"That's meat!" MacClayne scowled. "Fish is different."
"So how did you cook fish in the Canary Islands?"
"I told you. We had utensils. And we also wrapped it in tinfoil and buried it in the ashes. Do you have tinfoil?"
"I'm sorry I brought this up."
"Well, you keep talking about things you don't know anything about."
"I'm sorry to be so ignorant," I said.
"You seem to think you can go out and do anything you want. No plans. No preparation. No equipment."
I didn't reply. MacClayne always wanted the last word, and he could have it. I was angry, not only at MacClayne, but also at myself for permitting him to drag me into another of his question-and-answer sessions, a Socratic dialogue.
I guessed that he was getting back at me for bringing him into an isolated village where he might feel trapped. Maybe he was just irritated with me for liking it and wanting to be here. Well, if he didn't like it here, he could get up in the morning and take the damn bus back to Colima. Right now I didn't care what he did.
I arose, and, with Cuauhtémoc, strolled down the beach. The huge rock that formed the cove was silhouetted darkly against the moonlit sky. Off to my left I could see the anchor lights of the schooners out on the water.
When I returned, MacClayne had turned in. Cuauhtémoc and I did likewise.
The night was a bit cooler than the one before, probably because we were on the beach and exposed to the sea breeze. I could really have used a blanket. Our fire was warm, but it kept dying down. I held Cuauhtémoc close to me like a teddy bear to share the warmth and looked up at the stars in the cold clear sky.
I was tired, but sleep was getting to be a fatiguing experience because nearly every night I'd find myself with those British Marines in that drippy dungeon. I hoped that wouldn't happen this night, and it occurred to me that I might try to avoid it by concentrating on some other thought as I went to sleep. I thought of those schooners, pictured myself on the deck of one, and I guess that's about where I dozed off.
I was on the deck of a schooner. It was night and there was a gentle creaking as the masts overhead swayed slightly in the breeze. The ship was riding at anchor. Wendy was there and took me by the hand, leading me to the cabin, and we went below deck. There were no lights, and I heard snoring in the dark; there were rows and rows of bunks, several tiers high. Somehow I knew that the sleeping men were Royal Marines.
"Olaf! Stay here with me!" It was Wendy's voice; it sent chills through me, and I knew something awful was about to happen. I had to get out of there immediately.
Next I knew, I was up on the deck, where I grabbed a life preserver and jumped overboard. The water was freezing, but I was safe. Then I realized I hadn't bothered to awaken the crew and warn them. I'd left them to their fate.
It seemed that the schooner was about to blow up and sink, but I was the only one who knew that and could've sounded the alarm. But it was too late to do anything now, the current had taken hold of me and I was drifting away, towards the safety of the shore.
Then I awoke shivering with cold, and looked up at the night sky. There was the sound of the waves, but I wasn't in the water. I was dry, lying beside the dying embers of a camp fire. MacClayne lay on the other side of it, still asleep.
The moon shone brightly over the water, but there was no schooner, no boat or ship of any kind. Had it sunk? No, I soon realized it'd been a dream. But the experience felt real, and I was sickened with horror and guilt.
continued in Chapter 34
"What do you say we continue on and see where the road takes us," I said.
MacClayne nodded, and we left.
The paved road continued from the junction, and before long a pickup stopped for us. It was full of supplies; we wedged ourselves in between the bags and boxes.
Our ride was short and soon ended at a creek gully where a bridge was under construction. Something smelled good; two or three women there were cooking food in an open kitchen, covered only by a palm-thatched roof. The tables were also sheltered with roofs of palm leaves, like those on the beach at Faro and other places we'd passed. The supplies in the pickup seemed to be for this eating place.
A yellow oil truck was parked over by the road. I took note of it mainly because it was the only other vehicle around. It seemed strange to see this construction going on with so few vehicles.
MacClayne looked at the kitchen. "I wonder if we can eat at this place," he said.
"I think it's just for the construction workers," I said.
"Ask anyway," he said.
So I did, and was told that we could. It was twenty pesos a meal, the same price we'd been paying elsewhere, but it wouldn't be ready for a couple hours. We weren't that hungry, having snacked on tamales back at Faro. But they did have coffee.
So we drank coffee and chatted with the cooks. I happened to tell them we'd spent the night in a coconut palm grove.
"That's dangerous," one woman said. "The groves are full of scorpions. They live in the wood, in dead leaves and branches. You could have been stung."
"It's a bad sting," said another, looking up from a large pot she was stirring. "My cousin died from one."
"It's safest to camp on the beach," said a third. "For your fire use driftwood. Scorpions don't like the salt."
Each of them added a comment, and I felt I was being scolded like a child--though perhaps I deserved it. I wished I'd said nothing about camping in the coconut grove. Nevertheless, it hadn't occurred to me that we could avoid the scorpions by camping on the beach and using driftwood. That was good to know, but I still resented the way they got on our case.
MacClayne asked me what they were saying. "Local gossip," I told him. Cuauhtémoc looked up at me, almost knowingly, it seemed, from the look in his eyes. He was perched on the bench beside me, drinking water from a glass I'd set there for him.
I asked the name of this place. I wanted to know, but, more importantly, I wanted to change the subject.
"Río Motín," one of the ladies replied.
For a moment the name didn't register, then I said, "Was Motín de Oro near here?"
She told me of a place up stream that was said to be the abandoned site of the settlement.
"What's there now?" I said.
"Woods."
"Thorn bushes?"
She nodded.
Doña Matilda, our landlady in Aquila, had told me about Río Motín de Oro, a famous mining settlement around 1600. I wondered how the Spaniards had managed to even get to a remote place like this back in those days, let alone discover it. They must've really had a nose for gold.
"A lost Spanish mine?" MacClayne said when I told him.
"Apparently so. What do you say we go take a look?"
"You don't believe that story, do you?"
"Why shouldn't I?"
"There are many stories of lost mines. I don't believe any of them."
"Some are true."
"So what would you expect to find?"
"Please! Give me some credit! I do have a background in this stuff, you know."
"I only asked you why you wanted to go there," he said with a great show of indignation. "You're attacking me as though I were the great ogre."
I suspected that MacClayne had intended to corner me and was now covering his retreat. But rather than try to nail him down on it--which I knew would be extremely difficult, and pointless even if successful, I just said, "Okay, I apologize."
"The location is what you want to see?" he said, now in a more respectful tone.
"Exactly. I'm a bit of a history buff, you know," I said. "The gold itself was probably taken out within a few years, just as in the gold fields of California. That's why the place was abandoned. On the other hand, if I were a novelist, I might hope to find a wealth of stories about it, even if I had to invent them."
MacClayne chuckled. "Is it just a short walk?" he said.
I asked the women how far it was, but when they told us we could get there by nightfall, MacClayne's interest diminished.
Two fellows had just sat down at the same table to have a soft drink. We got to talking with them, and it turned out they were the crew of the yellow oil truck which had been parked nearby. The driver offered us a ride, which we accepted. Had it been up to me and my tastes, I would have passed this ride up. However, I could see from the look on MacClayne's face that either we take this, or he'd start thinking about going back. That was the trade-off.
We climbed aboard and stood behind the cab, just in front of a huge fuel tank. There was a seat there, but it was greasy. I hung on and hoped I wouldn't get oil on my clothes or back pack. Above me was a perching place for Cuauhtémoc which I wiped clean, then put him up there and said, "You just be very, very careful, or I'm going to give you a tremendous scrubbing with laundry soap."
The freshly paved road continued as before, without bridges. We came to more arroyos like the one we'd crossed on foot. At each, our truck descended the embankment, crossed a small stream in a gravely creek bed, then mounted the other embankment and continued on over more of the newly paved asphalt. The activity of these streams must've been furious during the storm of a few days before.
Suddenly, we were bouncing and swaying from side to side. The asphalt had ended and we were on dirt. But only for a few hundred meters, and soon the blacktop resumed. Before too long, there was another short stretch of dirt. We hit more of these, but they were infrequent; the road builders seemed to have overlooked them. Other than us, there was no traffic.
The good thing about this vehicle was that from our high position on the back we could see around us quite well whenever there was a break in the brush. The coastal range descended right down to the seashore, and the new parts of this road were in some places even chiseled right into the cliff face.
Around one particular bend we entered a tiny river valley with a flood plain only a couple hundred meters wide. Down by the ocean was a lagoon, its calm, blue water protected from the white-crested waves crashing on the beach beyond. I desperately wanted to get off this greasy, yellow thing and go exploring.
"Shall we get off?" I said, almost pleading.
MacClayne looked at me sourly, and said, "We have a ride. I don't know why you want to give it up!"
"Just look at that lagoon," I said.
"We just came from a beach like that," he said.
No! It's different! I wanted to shout, but I knew it would be useless to argue. Being a frugal Scot, he would no more throw away a ride than he would leave a penny lying on the street.
"We're making good time," he said a moment later.
I nodded. Indeed we were, and that was exactly what bothered me. I had been secretly hoping to spend a while on this leg of the journey, but at the rate we were going, we'd be in Lázaro the next day.
There were more lagoons; each one looked just perfect, and every time we drove on, I felt another bit of paradise slipping away from me. But there was nothing I could do other than hang on with both hands and at the same time keep a grip on my mounting frustration.
We continued to hit stretches of unpaved surface, which became increasingly frequent. They were now as much as a kilometer long, and they continued to grow in length. The black-top parts got progressively shorter, and eventually there were hardly any at all. Apparently this was how the road builders were constructing it--paving it in segments, a piece here and a piece there, now and then.
When the last bit of asphalt seemed well behind us, the quality of the unpaved surface continued to deteriorate. We bounced violently and swayed from side to side; it took all my energy to hang on and not make contact with the grease and oil which were on every surface around me. I worried about it getting on Cuauhtémoc's plumage, but there didn't seem to be any around him where he was perched above me. He hung on with his talons and flapped his wings to keep his balance.
After we'd been riding for what seemed like an awfully long time, I glimpsed a huge, towering rock through the trees up ahead, the size of a small mountain. A few simple dwellings appeared along the road, and, as we finally emerged from the brush, a village by the sea came into view.
Our road took us across an arroyo, then along the outer edge of the village, on a rise slightly above it. As in other settlements we'd seen these last few days, most houses were mud-wattle and a few were brick or concrete; in front of some grew leafy banana palms, and down towards the beach there were tall, spindly coconut trees. The megalith, which I'd seen minutes before, rose up out of the water to a height of perhaps fifty meters. Beyond it were several others nearly as large, and, together, these rocks formed a cove where two schooners and a sloop were riding at anchor.
I was already falling in love with this place when we came to a landing strip with a twin-engined airplane. It had a split tail and broad radial engines, the kind that are rarely to be seen any more. Could it be a Lockheed Electra from the 1930's? I'd never seen one except in photos, and I could hardly believe that any would still be in flying condition.
This was where I wanted to get off! I wanted to look at the airplane, see the boats, swim in the bay, investigate the huge rocks and stroll through the streets of this rustic village for a day or perhaps even a week. Maybe this was where I'd bring Chayo and we could live here forever.
I was madly hoping that this was the driver's destination. It had to be. Just in case it wasn't, I said to MacClayne, "If the truck doesn't stop here, let's get off anyway."
He shook his head. "I don't want to get stranded in some isolated place."
Isolated place? I groaned in silent despair as we drove on. All afternoon I had been watching enticing lagoons passing me by. This secluded village was even more interesting; it looked like a place in a story book, too dazzling even to be real--one of those faraway places I'd read and dreamed of. I wanted to shout at the top of my lungs that this was our bonnie glen, truly our bonnie glen! But I knew it would be useless to say anything.
Weariness swept over me as the village, the antique airplane, the cove and the sailboats disappeared behind us.
The road, which had been terrible, got worse, and I clung even more tightly with tired, whitened knuckles to keep from rubbing up against the grease. I hated this goddamn truck and even the driver who hadn't chosen that village as his destination. I felt guilty about being so angry with him, but I couldn't help it. As for MacClayne--he was becoming a real monster in my imagination when suddenly our truck stopped.
A pickup was coming from the other direction and we'd pulled over, apparently to let it by. But the other vehicle also stopped; both drivers got out and talked for a while. As they were some distance away, I couldn't hear what was being said.
Finally, the pickup drove off, and our driver told us he was returning to the village, instructions from his supervisor. We could get off here, or we could stay on and go back if we wished.
The sun was getting low in the sky and there didn't appear to be any place for us to camp near here. I translated for MacClayne and added, "If we go back to the village we can perhaps find a place to eat."
This was all I could have wished for, and I felt a renewed surge of energy as we rode back. It was one of those moments when heaven itself seemed to intervene on my behalf, and it whimsically occurred to me that perhaps Urð herself had carved it in runic letters on one of those slips of wood that determined the lives that men led and where their journeys took them. Then I thought of MacClayne who might not share my feelings of good fortune. On the surface, he appeared to be taking it in stride, but I sensed that he was straining hard to hide any irritation or misgivings about being stranded.
I wanted to reassure him, to say, Cheer up, I'll get us out of here. Trust me! And now since we're here, let's enjoy the place! But I considered it wiser to say nothing.
We got off near the landing strip, and just up the road was a small roadside restaurant. Being in a place where vehicles were likely to stop, the proprietress would probably know about road conditions. That's where we could eat and find out about local transportation.
But we didn't have much daylight left. Before it got dark, we had to find our way to the beach and stake out our campsite. We set out across the airstrip and strode past the Electra without slowing down; MacClayne scarcely turned his head. I hoped that my surreptitious glance at the airplane wouldn't be perceived by him.
At the end of the runway we came to a long slough of stagnant water and thick brush which appeared to parallel the entire length of the airstrip. It didn't look easy to cross. Perhaps we had come the wrong way. Fortunately, we soon found a dry sandy trail leading to the beach.
There was plenty of driftwood for our campfire, obviously well-salted and therefore scorpion-free. Getting back to this place would be easy, even in the dark, now that we knew where it was. Having selected our campsite, we went back to the restaurant.
The establishment consisted of a palm-leaf roof over two tables. The roof was held up by posts; there were no walls. We sat on benches which lacked backrests; this was a bit inconvenient for Cuauhtémoc. The place obviously wasn't designed for people with roosters.
"Find out if they have fish," said MacClayne, "I would assume this is a fishing village."
I asked, but no, it was too late in the day for fish, the woman told us. She had the usual beef or pork with beans and tortillas. I ordered us each a plate and I asked the name of the village.
"Maruata."
I spread out my map. There was just barely enough twilight to read it, and, to my pleasant surprise, Maruata was on this chart. "Look at this. We're already a third of the way to Lázaro."
"Ask if there are any buses."
When the woman came with our food, I asked about roads and buses. She called to someone, and a small girl appeared.
"A bus leaves from here at six in the morning," the child told us. "It goes to Tecomán in Colima."
MacClayne let out an almost visible sigh of relief, and I also felt better. With that I had no more need to feel that I'd gotten us stranded. If MacClayne chose to go back, he could do so easily.
"Y ¿para Lázaro?" I asked the girl.
She shook her finger. This was as far as the buses came, the end of the line.
"¿Hay camino? I asked.
The road did continue, but she wasn't sure how far. The recent storm might have washed some of it out.
The twilight was fading fast. We intended to sit there in the electric light and read our books and drink coffee for a couple of hours. "Otherwise, it's going to be a long night," MacClayne said.
Darkness came, but no electric light went on. Only then did we look around and notice that there didn't seem to be any electric light bulbs or wires anywhere.
I asked the woman for a lamp or a candle; she brought out an oil lamp that had no chimney. It flickered in the gentle breeze, threatening to blow out at any moment. It gave very little light, but a lot of smoke.
"A damn smudge pot!" groused MacClayne.
I went to look for the woman to ask for something better. She was in the kitchen which had walls made of woven branches covered with mud. Here she was working in the dark, lit only by light from cracks in the stove. I wondered how she could even see to work. She'd given us the only lamp she had, and I felt bad about depriving her of it.
She asked me what I wanted.
"Café," I said, and went back to our table.
"You didn't have to ask for coffee," MacClayne said when I told him the situation and that I'd ordered us each a cup.
"It was our plan to sit here and drink coffee for a while."
"In the dark?"
"Then what do you want to do?" I asked.
"We're sitting here in the dark. We may as well go back to camp and sit in the dark," he said.
"That's fine with me. But first I would like to have a cup. I'll cancel the coffee I ordered for you," I said, and I got up to go to the kitchen again.
"No. Now that you ordered it I'll drink it. It's just that you do things without telling me. I don't know what's going on."
I felt like telling him he could do his own translating if he didn't like the way I was doing it. But I sensed that it would be better to just let it go.
A couple of guys were eating at the other end of the table. They didn't seem to mind the darkness; for them it must have been the normal situation. I asked them about electricity in this village, and they told me there wasn't any.
We drank our coffees without saying much, and then walked back to our camp site where we built a fire. By the light of it Cuauhtémoc scratched in the sand, and I wrote in my journal the day's events and all the things I planned to do in the morning.
Out on the water I saw lights, apparently on the schooners I'd seen anchored there. There was a gentle breeze, and overhead the stars sparkled. The breakers crashed violently. Despite the presence of the huge rocks and the skerries, the beach wasn't as well protected as I'd thought.
MacClayne sat staring into the fire, from time to time adding a stick or two. Then I noticed a tiny crab walk past me and up to the fire; then it turned and went back the way it had come.
There was another, and then another. The largest was smaller than my thumb, and each one wore the abandoned shell of a sea snail, carrying it around like body armor. It made them look awkward, but in reality they were amazingly agile. I watched and admired as they climbed over rocks and other obstacles. I guessed they were hermit crabs; this was the first time I'd seen any, and I hadn't realized they'd be so tiny.
There were many of them and they all came to inspect our fire. 'What are these nutty humans up to this time?' they seemed to be wondering. One after another, a procession of them marched up to the fire. Some got so close I thought they were going to step right into the flames, but at the last moment they would always turn back, curiosity apparently satisfied.
Unlike spiders and insects that give me a creepy feeling, these hermit crabs were such cute little things that I enjoyed their presence. Cuauhtémoc also seemed to find them interesting, and from time to time he gave one a nudge with his beak. The overturned crab would quickly right itself and scurry off.
MacClayne appeared to be lost in thoughts of his own; at last I broke the silence.
"Tomorrow I want to roast a fish," I said.
"A fish? Where are you going to get a fish?" MacClayne asked.
"Maybe I can buy one from the fishermen."
"You think they'd sell you one?"
"Any reason they wouldn't?"
"They have their own markets."
"Things can't be that complicated."
"No? Then how are you going to cook it?"
"Over the fire," I said.
"How?"
"I'll put a stick through it and roast it like a hotdog."
"Have you ever cooked anything that way before?"
"Marshmallows."
"Nothing more than that?"
"I've roasted hotdogs."
"That's meat!" MacClayne scowled. "Fish is different."
"So how did you cook fish in the Canary Islands?"
"I told you. We had utensils. And we also wrapped it in tinfoil and buried it in the ashes. Do you have tinfoil?"
"I'm sorry I brought this up."
"Well, you keep talking about things you don't know anything about."
"I'm sorry to be so ignorant," I said.
"You seem to think you can go out and do anything you want. No plans. No preparation. No equipment."
I didn't reply. MacClayne always wanted the last word, and he could have it. I was angry, not only at MacClayne, but also at myself for permitting him to drag me into another of his question-and-answer sessions, a Socratic dialogue.
I guessed that he was getting back at me for bringing him into an isolated village where he might feel trapped. Maybe he was just irritated with me for liking it and wanting to be here. Well, if he didn't like it here, he could get up in the morning and take the damn bus back to Colima. Right now I didn't care what he did.
I arose, and, with Cuauhtémoc, strolled down the beach. The huge rock that formed the cove was silhouetted darkly against the moonlit sky. Off to my left I could see the anchor lights of the schooners out on the water.
When I returned, MacClayne had turned in. Cuauhtémoc and I did likewise.
The night was a bit cooler than the one before, probably because we were on the beach and exposed to the sea breeze. I could really have used a blanket. Our fire was warm, but it kept dying down. I held Cuauhtémoc close to me like a teddy bear to share the warmth and looked up at the stars in the cold clear sky.
I was tired, but sleep was getting to be a fatiguing experience because nearly every night I'd find myself with those British Marines in that drippy dungeon. I hoped that wouldn't happen this night, and it occurred to me that I might try to avoid it by concentrating on some other thought as I went to sleep. I thought of those schooners, pictured myself on the deck of one, and I guess that's about where I dozed off.
I was on the deck of a schooner. It was night and there was a gentle creaking as the masts overhead swayed slightly in the breeze. The ship was riding at anchor. Wendy was there and took me by the hand, leading me to the cabin, and we went below deck. There were no lights, and I heard snoring in the dark; there were rows and rows of bunks, several tiers high. Somehow I knew that the sleeping men were Royal Marines.
"Olaf! Stay here with me!" It was Wendy's voice; it sent chills through me, and I knew something awful was about to happen. I had to get out of there immediately.
Next I knew, I was up on the deck, where I grabbed a life preserver and jumped overboard. The water was freezing, but I was safe. Then I realized I hadn't bothered to awaken the crew and warn them. I'd left them to their fate.
It seemed that the schooner was about to blow up and sink, but I was the only one who knew that and could've sounded the alarm. But it was too late to do anything now, the current had taken hold of me and I was drifting away, towards the safety of the shore.
Then I awoke shivering with cold, and looked up at the night sky. There was the sound of the waves, but I wasn't in the water. I was dry, lying beside the dying embers of a camp fire. MacClayne lay on the other side of it, still asleep.
The moon shone brightly over the water, but there was no schooner, no boat or ship of any kind. Had it sunk? No, I soon realized it'd been a dream. But the experience felt real, and I was sickened with horror and guilt.
continued in Chapter 34
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