chapter 37

The mountain came right down to the seashore, and the road was carved into the slope. We rounded a bend from where we could see for some distance. Up ahead was a bridge under construction. From past experience we knew there'd be a restaurant. And if there were a substantial creek under the bridge, there might even be a pleasant lagoon at the mouth of it.

"Okay?" I said to MacClayne, and he nodded.

I tapped on the cab and shouted that this was our destination. Till now we hadn't paid for any of our rides except for on public buses, but something about this vehicle and the people in it gave me the feeling this ride wasn't for free. As we got off I thanked the driver and asked what we owed him for the ride.

"Nada," he said, with a wave of his hand. "Que les vaya bien."

But he'd no sooner said that then, a voice barked from behind me, "¡Huero!" barked a voice from behind me. Blondie!

I turned and saw it was one of the passengers who'd gotten out of the cab. He was a mean-looking fellow--the same guy I'd seen before with the driver back in La Placita, and, he was looking at my bird.

"Véndeme el gallo," he said. Sell me the rooster.

"¿Qué?" I gasped in surprise.

"El gallo." He stepped towards me. "Véndemelo."

"¡No!" I said, trying to hide my fear. "¡No es para vender!"

"¿No? ¿No sabes quien soy?" No? You don't know who I am?

The tape recorder was playing loudly through the open truck-door. It was the same ballad as before.

Lo sacaron a la orilla
They pulled the victim aside

"Fly off!" I ordered the bird, and reached down to grab a piece of wood that looked like a good club. It wouldn't come loose; it was part of a tree root. I reached for my jackknife. Cuauhtémoc was still prancing in front of me. Instead of flying off, he'd stayed to fight. Damn bird! Couldn't he ever be a sensible coward?

The driver also dismounted, and for an instant I thought he was coming for me. Instead, he grabbed my adversary.

"¡Vámonos buey!" the driver ordered, and shoved the guy towards the vehicle. Seeing an opening, Cuauhtémoc dove in and jabbed the guy in the leg. The guy kicked back, missed, and with the driver still pulling him, he lost his balance and landed on his rear. The other passenger stood there laughing.

"¡Qué buey!" I heard him remark. "That chicken's a better man than you."

The driver hauled the unfortunate fellow to his feet and berated him for his stupidity. "You dumb ox! You're not riding in the cab with us anymore! Get in the back!" he ordered.

As he was about to get in the cab, the driver glanced back at me and said, "Adiós amigo. Que le vaya bien."

"Que le vaya bien," I muttered to myself with a sigh of relief as they drove off. In my hand was my jackknife. Hackles still raised, the bird pranced in the road and watched the vehicle as it descended into the arroyo, heading towards the other bank.

"He was after Cuauhtémoc?" said MacClayne. He was standing beside me, and in his hand was a club-sized hunk of wood. I hadn't realized till now that he'd been here with me all the while.

"Yes." I nodded and inhaled deeply. "The scum bag!"

"To use him for a fighting cock, I suppose," said MacClayne.

"Right," I said. "There've been guys who offered me large sums for my bird, but of course he's not for sale. I don't want him to ever go to the cockpits again."

Cuauhtémoc was still watching the vehicle as it climbed up the far bank and disappeared from sight. Then he hopped up into my arms, and I hugged him tightly to my chest. "Mi pajarito," I said, and he put his head under my arm. I also wanted to hug MacClayne, but that didn't seem proper.

We stood there in silence. There was just the breeze in the branches above and the sound of hammering from where the bridge was being constructed.

"Shall we find a place to eat?" MacClayne said.

"To eat?" It surprised me that MacClayne could still be hungry after this. I'd lost my appetite. "I think I could use another swig of that tequila."

"Here, have all you want," said MacClayne and dug the bottle out of his bag. It was still about half full.

"No, I think I've had enough for this day," I said. "I was joking." I wished I hadn't said it, realizing it was one of my attempts at humor that hadn't worked.

"Okay, but it's here if you want any," he said.

It occurred to me that maybe I should've accepted the bottle and put it in my pack, just for safe keeping from MacClayne. But he'd already put the bottle away.

Not far from the road was an outdoor restaurant with a palm-leaf roof over a table or two. We began walking towards it.

"I'm not hungry," I said. "But maybe I'll have coffee."

"The driver looked familiar," said MacClayne. "I think we saw him in that South Sea Island restaurant. What town was that?"

"La Placita," I said. "Yes, it was him. And the guy who tried to get my bird was there too.

"He was? I don't recall seeing him."

"That guy stepped into the restaurant for only a couple minutes, and I remember he had his eye on my bird then too," I said. "But you know, I'm sure I saw him even before that."

"You have? Where was that?"

"Did I tell you about the time I was in a café with Chayo and a fellow in there dropped a Colt semiautomatic on the floor?"

"You mentioned it in a letter. It was him?"

"No," I said. "But they hang out together. One of them is a Cuban. They're pistoleros."

"Pistoleros?" MacClayne looked at me dubiously.

"Yes."

"Like in a cowboy movie?"

I looked at MacClayne suspiciously. Was he making fun of me? "Yeah," I said. "Like in a cowboy movie."

"They seem to have quite a cast of characters around here," he said. "What about the driver?"

"Except for that once in La Placita, I don't think I've ever seen him before. But I'm guessing that all three of them are from around Uruapan. Did you notice the style of hats they wore, with the tassel in back?" I explained to MacClayne how one could often tell where a person was from by the style of his hat.

We came to the restaurant, and I asked the woman what she had. "Venado," she said.

"Venison," I translated for MacClayne. He nodded and I ordered a plate for him.

"Nothing for you?" the woman asked me.

"I'll have a plate too," I said, deciding that I should eat something even though I wasn't particularly hungry.

Having taken our orders, the woman returned to her kitchen. It was a small shed made of woven branches. We sat at a crudely made wooden table, under a shelter of palm fronds supported by posts. There was probably a village nearby, though I couldn't see it from here. I wondered where this place was and if it was even on our map. I'd ask the woman when she brought our food.

I took out my journal, but for the moment just sat there, pen in hand, not writing anything, just idly listening to the humming and chirping of insects, the distant hammering from the bridge, and the barely discernible crashing of ocean breakers.

"¡Borracho!"

It was a feminine voice and it came from the kitchen. Through the latticework of woven branches that formed the walls of the structure, I could make out two figures. More shouting followed, loud and hysterical.

"I work like a dog! And you? Drunk! Drunk again! Always drunk! Forever drunk!" The voice ended in sobbing.

A fellow of about forty emerged from the kitchen and moved with uncertain steps towards our table where he halted and steadied himself with both hands. He seemed unaware of our presence. Moments later, the woman, who'd apparently paused to collect her thoughts and gather up a few of her things, strode briskly out and off down the trail.

"¡Adios!" she called back over her shoulder. "¡Que te vaya bonito!" Good-bye and may everything go just beautifully for you!

The fellow stood at the table a moment longer, then staggered back to the kitchen.

MacClayne looked at me and said, "I don't think we're going to get our venison."

"Nor coffee either, it appears," I said.

For a brief instant the whole scene struck me as amusing, but only for a moment. It occurred to me that once upon a time, maybe a decade or two earlier, that woman and her drunken husband might've been lovers with dreams of a happy life together. Why did life have to turn out like this so often? Surely Chayo and I could do better. But why was this bit of tragic drama bothering me so much right now? Perhaps the accumulated stress of all the events of the day was getting to be a bit too much for me. Cuauhtémoc hopped onto my lap, and I gave him a hug. I sat there for some minutes, till finally MacClayne said, "Maybe we should look for another place to eat."

We got up and set off down a dusty foot path towards the construction site where we hoped to find another restaurant.

"When it's not three inches of mud, we're in three inches of dust," MacClayne remarked. His low Oxfords, which he'd probably gotten in some thrift store for a dollar or two, looked terribly impractical as his feet sank in up to the ankles. But it would've pained his frugal Scots soul to part with the money for a decent pair of hiking boots. My sandals were perfect for an extended journey like this, and that's what most people in these parts wore.

At a turn in the trail there was another restaurant much like the one we'd just left. Here a large tree covered the sky with its leafy branches, and tied to its trunk was a fat sow, with baby piglets playing around her. There were also a few chickens pecking and scratching in the dirt.

But nobody seemed to be around, and we were about to leave when a blond-haired girl came out of the kitchen. She could have been nine or ten years old. I asked where the proprietress was.

"Down at the river washing clothes," she said, but added that she could serve us a meal.

"Bueno," I said. My appetite hadn't exactly returned, but hungry or not, I felt I should eat something. "¿Qué hay?"

"Caldo de pollo."

I glanced at MacClayne.

"Chicken soup?" he said. "Ask what else she has."

I did and found that was all she had, other than the beans and tortillas which normally came with the soup. "So how about if we have the beans and tortillas?" I suggested.

"I was hoping to eat a meal," he replied.

"You have to do what you feel is right for you," I said. "But I'm having beans and tortillas. How about you?"

The sun was falling behind the trees. Not much of the day left, I thought to myself as I waited for MacClayne's reply. This was the second time today we'd found nothing but chicken to eat. Twice in a row, in fact. This thing about not eating chicken was part of my relationship with Cuauhtémoc, and perhaps it shouldn't apply to MacClayne. Was it right of me to make such a request? On the other hand, I felt I'd be letting Cuauhtémoc down if I didn't.

"Okay," he said.

I hesitated a moment, not certain what his 'okay' meant. "Beans and tortillas?" I asked.

"I said 'okay'," he snapped. "Yes! Beans and tortillas. I don't know what more I have to do to make myself clear to you."

Although I felt a certain gratitude for his willingness to go along with me on this, he'd expressed it so grudgingly that I couldn't quite bring myself to say thank you. Then it occurred to me that I still hadn't expressed my thanks to him for standing by me and the bird during the recent crisis. Maybe this evening or even the next day I could find some better time to say it.

I placed our order with the little girl, and then asked her the name of this place.

"Huahua," she said, and went to get our food.

I spread our map out on the table and found Huahua. "Look at this," I said. "We're halfway down the coast."

"Halfway?" MacClayne looked annoyed. "That's what you told me several hours ago, back at the river."

"Well, that was halfway. Almost," I said, and looked at the map more closely. "Maybe not quite."

"So we really weren't halfway?"

"I made a mistake. I'm sorry."

"So where are we now?

"Here, look at it yourself," I said, and pointed it out. "This is Huahua, and that's where the girl said we are."

He hardly glanced at the map. "Just tell me," he said.

"Tell you what?"

"Where we are. Isn't that what we're talking about?"

"We're halfway to Lázaro."

"That's all I wanted to know," he said. "I don't see why you have to make things so damn complicated all the time."

Our beans and tortillas arrived and we began our meal in silence.

"Buenas tardes."

I glanced up and returned the greeting. "Buenas tardes."

The fellow was large and husky, and maybe thirty-five or so. He ordered a soft drink and introduced himself. "Me llamo Felipe Díaz," he said as he sat down across the table from me.

I told him our names, adding that we were from California, and asked, "You work on the bridge?"

"I'm the crew chief," he said. He had an easy-going manner of authority that seemed to come natural to him. The girl brought him his soda; he opened it and asked, "You were up the coast a ways?"

"Yes, we came all the way down from Colima, through La Placita and Maruata."

"Quite a trip," he said and lifted the can up to his lips. "So you were able to cross Río Cachán. How high was the water?"

"Above our hubcaps," I said.

Two or three more fellows, apparently also construction workers, sat down at our table, and the girl also served them soft drinks. The new arrivals seemed pleasant enough and I guessed they were curious to hear where we were from. Foreigners were unusual in these parts.

"So a pickup can make it across now?" said the crew chief.

"Probably. But I couldn't really say," I said. "We crossed in a jeep."

"A jeep?" The crew chief repeated. "But you came here in a pickup."

"Yes," I said a bit tensely. So they'd seen us arrive, but why was he asking me these questions? I added a bit of explanation, "We've been riding buses where the buses go, and where they don't, we hitchhike. We got several rides. We started out from Maruata in an oil truck."

"So you didn't know the people in that pickup?"

No, I didn't. They just came by and stopped for us."

The construction workers exchanged glances.

I said, "Apparently you know them?"

"Son traficantes," said one of the others. He hadn't spoken till now.

"¿Traficantes?" I repeated. "You mean drug runners?"

"Mariguana," said the crew chief. "It's grown in these parts."

I glanced at MacClayne, who was probably wondering what we were talking about. I'd translate for him later, I didn't want to interrupt the conversation. "Perhaps you people thought we were their American connection?" I said to the workers.

"Not that it really concerns us, but yes, we were wondering."

"One of them tried to take my bird," I said.

"We noticed that you were having some kind of confrontation with them. We didn't know what it was about."

I related the incident and how the driver had intervened on our behalf.

"He's a honcho among the traffickers," said the crew chief..

"¿De veras?" I said. "He didn't seem like a bad guy. He was good enough to give us a ride, and he came to our aid when the other guy hassled us."

"No, he's not at all a bad fellow. He's something of a local hero, and he's given the economy in this area a boost by marketing the cash crop that's grown by the farmers."

Everyone nodded and grinned wryly. I wasn't sure if they approved of the situation or were merely amused by it. From what I'd learned most construction workers on this coast were not local people, and I guessed that these weren't either. I turned and gave MacClayne a brief translation, but he returned a sour look.

"So we were riding with drug smugglers," said MacClayne. "What would have happened to us if the police had caught us together with them?"

"How could I have known?" I said, a bit defensively.

"I depend on you to know what's going on," he said dryly.

I wanted to remind him that he was the one who'd flagged them down, but I knew better than to say that. I shook my head and was trying to think of an appropriate response when a spate of gawd-awful squawking suddenly erupted, and all heads turned in that direction.

"¡Que gallo!" someone exclaimed.

"¡Cuauhtémoc!" I gasped. I jumped to my feet and ran to the center of the commotion, where I grabbed my plumed culprit and hauled him squawking and complaining back to the table while several outraged lady chickens unruffled their feathers.

"¡Sinvergüenza!" I scolded him. "And after being such a good bird these last few days!"

Everyone was laughing. There were five or six people at the table now, mostly drinking soft drinks or beers. The crew chief stood up to leave.

People were coming and going; all of them seemed to be construction workers. The crew chief had just left when a couple of teen-agers came by. These two looked like students home from school on vacation. They had a bottle of tequila which they passed back and forth between them. One took a drink by adroitly lifting the bottle high, tilting it back and pouring a stream of liquor into his mouth without touching his lips to the opening.

"This is how Mexicans drink," he said with the air of an old-timer.

I grinned, amused and also slightly impressed. The truth is, this was the first time I'd seen anybody drink like that--except in movies.

"Ask them where they got the tequila," MacClayne said.

"Probably in a store," I said. "I don't think there's any law against selling liquor to teen-agers in this country."

"I'm not asking about laws," MacClayne said impatiently. "I want to know where the store is."

I groaned, and for a moment considered reminding him of his promise not to drink on this journey. No. It wouldn't do any good, I knew MacClayne better than that. I asked the pair where the nearest store was, and they said there was one in the village just across the arroyo.

Without another word, MacClayne headed off in the direction indicated. His bag was still with me, so I assumed he'd return, hopefully before nightfall. The sun was already close to setting. I glanced at my watch nervously and wondered if maybe I should wait for a maximum of ten or fifteen minutes, and if he didn't show up within that time, I'd head off to the beach alone and find a campsite and get a fire going.

While I waited, I chatted with the two teen-agers. It turned out they weren't students at all, but construction workers, part of the bridge crew. They introduced themselves as Pedro and Javier. Both had just turned seventeen.

Seventeen; that's how old MacClayne had been when he left home and joined the Royal Marines, back in 1941. Now his thick hair was gray, and his health didn't permit him to drink. He was a survivor of two sunken ships and too many pubs. Too many bottles. I groaned at the thought of him getting yet another and wondered how far this binge would go. But there didn't seem to be anything I could do.

"¿Su mascota?" asked Pedro, the one who'd demonstrated the method of drinking from a bottle. He was looking at the bird.

"Sí, es mi compañerito," I replied with a grin. "Pobrecito."

Poor Cuauhtémoc was lying across my lap and I was firmly holding his legs so he couldn't do any more mischief. He let out a long, moaning squawk of complaint. Then, apparently sniffing the tequila, he raised his head.

"No!" I told the bird. "You've had your share for the day."

"Does the rooster drink tequila?" Javier said.

"He certainly does," I said with a sigh.

"An alcoholic chicken?" Pedro's eyes lit up.

"Wow!" exclaimed Javier.

Both of them appeared tremendously impressed.

"Can we give him some?"

"No," I said. "It's bad for his liver."

"That's true," said Pedro to his friend. "Birds shouldn't drink."

"Women shouldn't drink either," said Javier.

"They do though," said Pedro. "I had an aunt who used to down a liter of tequila every day. That woman . . ."

I listened to their conversation with some amusement and thought of what MacClayne might have been like at their age. I recalled a story he'd written about an early experience with hard cider when he was in the Home Guard. That was at the beginning of the war. He and some others were supposed to be out on patrol; instead, they found their way into a cider barn. Fledgling alcoholics. I smiled as I recalled it; yes, it was a funny story. Nevertheless, with the Nazis out there across the Channel and poised to invade Britain, MacClayne could have taken his military duties more seriously.

Javier was talking now, something about who could drink the most tequila. I hadn't been following the details of their conversation. I kept glancing at my watch. Ten minutes had passed, and the sun had sunk below the brush. How much longer should I wait before heading off to the beach by myself? Then I looked up and there he was, strolling back with something in his hand; I knew what it was, but pretended not to see it. When he got to our table, he picked up his shoulder bag and slipped it in.

I said good-bye to Pedro and Javier, and shouldered my pack.

MacClayne and I found a trail which led along the bank above a creek bed. The loose sand made walking difficult and slowed me down, but MacClayne strode swiftly along and for a while I had the uncomfortable feeling of being dragged along behind, like a tin can on a string tied to an auto bumper. Normally, I was the fast one, but soon I was falling behind.

On our right was a dense thicket of thorn bushes, and beside us on the left was the creek. Across the creek was another impenetrable thicket.

Now he was four or five paces ahead, and the gap kept widening. The path narrowed and the creek branched. We seemed to be on a delta with several distributaries carrying water to the ocean. I tried to catch up with MacClayne, but somehow the loose sand didn't seem to hinder him the way it did me; perhaps it was my sandals.

What had gotten into him this time? Maybe it was the meals he'd missed because of my objection to eating chicken. Or perhaps he was in a hurry to get to the beach and start in on the bottle. Probably both. Well, if he wanted to shoot on ahead, let him. I relaxed my pace.

The pounding of the surf became clearly audible and kept getting louder till at last we rounded a bend and the brush ahead opened up like the end of a tunnel. Presumably the beach lay just beyond.

MacClayne got there a good ten meters ahead of me. But, on reaching it, he took only one quick look, then did an about-face and came back towards me. Eyes fixed straight ahead and without slowing his pace, he stomped right past me, as though Cuauhtémoc and I were invisible phantoms.

Strange, I thought. But without saying anything I continued on till I reached the place where he'd turned back. Through the opening in the brush, I could see the red and lavender sky with the ocean below it. The beach lay just in front of me, only a few meters away, but between me and that beach was a slough of greenish water. And separating me from the slough was a barbed wire cattle fence. There I stopped and took my time to look it over carefully.

The stagnant water was only a couple meters across, but it was hard to guess its depth, or what might be lying just below the slimy surface. And on the other side of this slough there was a growth of thorn bushes. Nor did there seem to be a way around it. On both sides of me were fences intertwined with impassable thorn bushes.

Waves crashed on the beach and white foam washed up towards the barrier in front of where I stood, beckoning to me. The day was fading around me while I gazed at the inviting scene. If only it weren't for the slough. It was like the watery home of some fiendish monster, like Grendel. Maybe even the deer avoided this spot.

Cuauhtémoc let out a squawk, and I nearly jumped.

"Okay, we'll find another way," I said to the bird, and turned back into the dark thicket. For a moment I could hardly see. After looking at the relatively well-lit sky and water, my eyes needed to readjust. But where was MacClayne? I'd brought him to this remote region, and I felt responsible for him. Without waiting for my eyes to get used to the dim light, I rushed back up the trail in search of him, slogging as quickly as I could through the soft sand.

He was probably just around the bend. But when I reached it, I found that several paths branched out from there. I looked for footprints in the sand, but it was hard to see, and all I could make out was that there'd been some traffic, probably cattle.

Damn MacClayne! Well, I had to find him. I quickly chose a path, and hoped to see him around the next turn, instead, the trail divided again. I took the way that appeared most used. Eventually it opened up into a fairly broad lane and there at last I thought I saw MacClayne up ahead.

"Wait up!" I called out, and stumbled ahead as fast as I could go, but I slipped in the sand and Cuauhtémoc fell off my arm. I paused to let him hop back on. When I got closer, what I'd thought was MacClayne turned out to be an old rag hanging on a tree.

He might have found his way to the beach. Or he could have gone back to the village to look for a ride to Caleta where we'd been told there was a hotel. Well, not likely, because that's where we figured Wendy and Jeff would be. Or would that even matter to him right now? Wherever he'd gone, I wasn't going to find him in this gloom.

I had to find a campsite for myself and the bird. I glanced at my watch, but it was too dark to make out the hands on the dial. Anyway, I guessed I might have another ten minutes till I found myself in total darkness.

The roar of the ocean told me where the beach was, and even gave some idea of the distance. It couldn't be far. The problem was how to how to find my way through this labyrinth of dead-end trails, cattle fences, barrier sloughs and impenetrable thorn thickets.

At the end of the lane I came to a grove of coconut palms like the one we'd camped in some nights before. There was an opening in the fence where I could climb through, but it didn't seem to offer a way to the beach. And it was certain to be full of scorpions. No, this was not a good place to spend the night.

I took another path and eventually came to one of the distributary creeks. I waded across. The water was only ankle deep. I was glad to be wearing sandals.

A spot of white among the dark bushes up ahead caught my eye. As I got closer I saw it was a white bird, just lying there. I set Cuauhtémoc down, reached out and lifted the white bird up. It struggled weakly to get away, then made a feeble effort to raise its head and peck at my hand. A moment later it lay still in my hands, heart pounding. The bird was terribly thin, only bones and feathers.

"Poor thing," I said, but there was nothing I could do to help. With darkness rapidly closing in I had to be on my way and find a campsite. I let the bird go. It stumbled for a step or two and fell helpless.

I wanted to say something to the bird, a word of comfort, something that would make him feel better. But what can you say when you leave a bird in distress?

I followed the creek bed, crossed the stream again, and came upon a sandbar where a pile of wood had been deposited to form a miniature logjam. It would be enough to keep a fire going all night. The ground was clean, just dry sand and rocks.

This could be a place to spend the night, but I still had hopes of getting to the beach. The sound of the ocean wasn't far away. I continued downstream and came to where the creek entered a lagoon. All around was dark green foliage and above it rose towering coconut palms. The scene was beautiful, mysterious and inviting in the dim light, but there was no camping place here and I would have to wade or perhaps even swim to get across. That was not something to do in the dark.

So I returned to the sandbar and used the last minutes of dim light to look around for anything that might be useful--logs I could use for firewood or camp furniture. Nearby I found a good-sized one and dragged it back to be included in my campfire.

While I built the fire, Cuauhtémoc scratched carefully through the woodpile, perhaps hunting for scorpions. He didn't seem to be finding any, and I was glad; it was kind of sad to think of scorpions having to be killed just for being scorpions.

I had barely sat down and begun to peel an orange when my feet started itching. I was being bitten by mosquitoes. They weren't the gigantic northern mosquitoes, just tiny things. I slapped them, but the itching continued and more of their companions kept arriving. Mosquitoes seemed like a much lower form of life than scorpions, somewhere on the level of house flies, and I swatted as many as I could, but that could go on all night. Taking two flat stones, I crushed pieces of garlic from my backpack which I rubbed on my feet and face. It burned slightly but soothed the itching and also drove the mosquitoes away.

Cuauhtémoc had perched on a low branch next to me. I shared bits of an orange with him and sat there enjoying the fire and listening to the sounds of the night. Except for the pleasantly muffled roar of the ocean, it didn't seem much different from the northern woods back in Minnesota, where I used to camp when I was a kid. In the dark, all woods look pretty much alike--though they differ in their arachnid populations. It worried me to think of MacClayne lost out there, perhaps sitting under some tree, surrounded by scorpions. How deadly were they anyway? Doña Josefina had survived a scorpion sting; so had don Pablo. Well, maybe alcohol was an antidote to the poison, and I could be sure that MacClayne was doing some self-medicating. He wouldn't feel any pain.

Damn him anyway! Who'd given him permission to drink on this trip? He'd promised to stay sober. Why did he have to go stomping off like that? On one occasion when he was in the Royal Marines he'd gotten tired of military life and left for a while. When he came back they stuck him in the brig. Gazing into the campfire I remembered MacClayne telling me a story of when he'd gone AWOL from the Royal Marines:

"Eventually I became so impatient with the life in the Royal Marines that I deserted, though not in the face of the enemy. It was entirely due to boredom and rebellion against an exuberance quickly becoming throttled. I was probably a good soldier.

"Even in desertion I pursued an opposite path. Another marine and myself took off across the English Channel, hitchhiked through Northern France and managed to enter Paris days after the city was liberated. We enjoyed marvelous times and were treated as liberating heroes. After three weeks we decided to give ourselves up before we were gone too long, but no one was interested in us. Eventually we went back and turned ourselves in to the authorities. We were sentenced to serve time as I already had on a number of other occasions.

"You spend the first few days on bread and water and must pick a pound of oakum before getting your hard tack. Oakum is tarry rope that you pull apart strand by strand and your thumbs and forefingers get sore and it piles up and up. Finally when you are done you call a guard who examines it and, if he is not satisfied, if you left two strands together, you are forced to go through it again."

I pictured myself being the guard, watching over MacClayne as he picked that oakum. I would not have been easily satisfied.

Then I added more dry sticks to the fire. I wanted it good and bright for MacClayne to see in case he was stumbling around out there looking for me. That was as much as I could do. Finally I took out my journal and began paging through it. Firelight, lamplight and candlelight were all people had to read, work and write by for thousands of years, until this very century in fact. I scanned my entries and found the light rather dim, but adequate.

I still hadn't recorded the events of our flight to Aguililla in Enrique's Electra. How many days ago had that been? No, not days ago--it was today. This morning. But it already seemed like a week ago. Just recalling all the things that had happened that day made me feel tired and sleepy.

Using my thin jacket as a ground cloth and my pack for a pillow, I lay down on the sand.

But I had hardly dozed off when I suddenly found myself in a dream, running along the trail searching for the white bird which I'd abandoned. I ran back and forth looking everywhere without finding him. Then I tripped and fell, and awoke with a start.

I tried to get back to sleep, but couldn't. As I lay there wide awake, a small rock began to poke up from underneath, and it seemed to get bigger and bigger. Finally I sat up and dug it out. But when I lay back down, there was another one to poke at me. I also got up and took that one out, but there were more. In fact, there seemed to be an endless supply of rocks under me. The sand had been difficult to walk on, and now I was finding it hard to sleep on.

Unable to sleep, I thought of the white bird which had appeared out of the mist to land in the pool back in Uruapan. The Well of Urð. And there was that matter of the golden thread, which we seemed to have broken that morning. Or maybe we'd broken it many times in the course of this journey. Well, so what? MacClayne and I had agreed that breaking golden threads was also part of getting to a fabled city. Damn MacClayne! Well, wherever he might be, he was no doubt well pickled by now.

Suddenly a loud noise startled me. I sat up and peered out into the darkness, and then added more wood to the fire.

Probably a hoot-owl. Did owls attack chickens? Cuauhtémoc was still roosting on the branch beside me. Surely he could defend himself against an owl. Or could he? If taken by surprise in the dark, he just might fall prey to a hungry predator. This was a bird-eat-bird world that we were in tonight. A jungle.

"Cuauhtémoc," I spoke softly, but he was already awake. I lifted him off his perch. "Why don't you just snuggle in beside me."

The night wasn't cold, and with the campfire I was okay; from time to time I woke up and added wood to the fire and pulled another rock or two out from under me. I'd fall into a shallow sleep, and then wake up yet again. Though exhausted, I was still wired from the events of the day.

Eventually I began to feel comfortable, and I went to sleep at last. Then another dream:

In the lagoon was a long, slender ship with single mast and a dragon prow. I was the navigator and had found the way across the North Sea to Greenland, then Vinland and finally down the coast to this lagoon with the aid of a white bird who was my guide.

But the bird had fallen ill, and if it died I would never be able to navigate the ship back to Norway. The entire crew, including the ship's cat, was gathered about in great concern. But it was understood by everyone that if the white bird died, I would have to stay forever and the ship would sail on without me.

Fortunately, there was a woman who lived across the distant mountains. She'd be able to heal my white bird, and now my task was to find her. While the crew waited with the ship, I set out with the stricken bird in my arms. Cuauhtémoc rode on my shoulder.

It was known to be a long journey ahead, one that would take me across raging rivers, over snow-covered mountains, and through desert valleys. I'd have to walk for 9 days and 9 nights. But I'd hardly gotten beyond the edge of our camp when I found myself facing a woman, presumably the one I was looking for.

She reached out her arms for the white bird, but Cuauhtémoc squawked in protest. The woman wasn't Chayo, but she smiled sweetly; she was the most charming person I could imagine. Despite Cuauhtémoc's objection, I passed the white bird to her.

"Now give me your sword," she said.

"My sword? Why?"

"Because I asked you." She smiled even more sweetly.

Again Cuauhtémoc squawked his protest, but I handed her my sword.

The woman laid the white bird on a block of wood, raised the sword, and chopped its head off.

"What are you doing?" I gasped in horror.

She smiled triumphantly. "I'm keeping you here with me."

It was Wendy!


It was still dark as I woke up shivering, and tried to brush the snow off my clothes. There wasn't any snow, but the fire was nearly dead; only embers glowed, and a low, sleepy sound came from something at my side.

"Cuauhtémoc!" I clasped the bird to my chest and sat like that for some time, even though I was shivering. Then at last I rekindled the fire and got it going nicely.



continued in Chapter 38