She sat up, shaking back her hair. ‘I heard something.’
‘Probably the wind.’
She came to her knees, smoothing her skirt, brushing off dew. She pointed toward the opposite slope, where mist was accumulating in thick bands. ‘We won’t be able to see soon.’
‘Nothing to see, anyway.’
‘I’ve been thinking,’ she said after a moment. ‘About how I’ve changed. We haven’t been together that long, but if you measure the time in changes, it seems like years.’
‘How’ve you changed?’
‘I’m not as sure of things as I used to be. When I first thought about going to Panama, I just wanted to find out what was happening. And after we started learning what was happening, then I wanted to be part of it… even if it wasn’t my revolution, it was the revolution there was, and I knew there had to be one. I still believe that. But now sometimes I wonder if it’s worth the effort. I keep imagining us running away. Hiding, letting everybody else figure out the problems of the world.’
He laughed. ‘It’s the opposite with me.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah… I used to want to get away from everything. But the closer we come to Panama, the more I realize I can’t escape being involved. And the more angry I get at Izaguirre.’ He laughed again. ‘Maybe this is what they call growing together.’
‘Maybe,’ she said despondently. ‘At least you’re changing in the right direction.’
‘What do I know? I’ve taken the same dope as the fuck-ups who’re supposed to be making the movie.’
‘You still believe they’re fuck-ups?’
‘There’s no doubt about it. The way they’re handling us, all the games. If peace is their plan, they’ll probably fuck that up. Think about it. Here’s these two families who’ve been doing the drug for centuries. All that power, and they’re just now trying to pull it together. Doesn’t augur well for the peace process.’
‘I guess not.’
He studied her face, its exoticism as pronounced as the rose in Corazon’s eye. Just the sort of little treasure that would appeal to Ruy, to the man with everything… especially if it was beyond his reach, if his power couldn’t touch them. And Mingolla was certain they had grown that strong. They would have to be careful not to reveal too much to Ruy, because Izaguirre would be in contact with him, and he might panic if he thought they were too strong. Try to eliminate them. It might be time to confront Ruy. Mingolla had been hoping Ruy would give something away, some bit of information, but maybe the best tactic would be to bully him.
‘You act like you’re miles away, David.’
‘I’m back… just thinking.’
‘Well…’ She settled against him. ‘If they are fuck-ups, maybe we can do something.’
‘Given that they’re into playing God, the worst we can do is to inject some realism into the situation.’ He stared down the road, trying to identify a black object that had appeared in the notch. ‘Something’s coming.’ He helped her up, and they retreated farther into the fringe.
‘It’s stopped,’ she said.
‘Naw, look. It’s coming again.’
After a couple of minutes they realized that the object was in fact two objects, one light, one dark, and that they were advancing at a leisurely clip, moving forward fifty or sixty feet, stopping, then moving forward again; and after a couple more minutes they saw that the objects were a horse and a wagon. The wagon was a little house on wheels with a peaked roof, the walls painted dark blue and illuminated with five-pointed gold stars and a crescent moon; the horse was white, dappled with gray. No one was driving. The reins were lashed to a peg on the driver’s seat, and the window and door were black with shadow. There was something horrible about the wagon’s approach, the way it lurched emptily like a body without bones, and this, allied with its archaic appearance, lent it an omenical potency.
The wagon drew abreast of them and stopped. The horse shifted in its traces, eyes rolling, ablaze with moonlight; it was an old horse, its breath wheezy. When Mingolla stepped out onto the road, the horse tossed its head but stayed put: it was as if it wanted to run, but was obeying a set pattern of stopping and starting, and Mingolla had caught it just right. He grabbed the bridle, held its head. The horse’s eye swiveled, regarding him with fear, and Mingolla—taken by its sculptural beauty, its madness—knew the horse had been trifled with by someone like him, some drugged genius of the new order, and had been coerced to move haltingly along this desolate road for no reason other than that of the most pitiful folly. He was more affected than he had been by the terrible human results of similar folly. Human beings were liable to such, but horses, as beautiful and stupid as they were, should not have to put up with that kind of crap.
Debora came up beside him, and he handed her the bridle. ‘See if you can gentle him,’ he said. Then he hauled himself onto the driver’s seat and ducked inside the wagon.
Before he determined the wagon’s contents, he knew by intuition that it held nothing good, that it held nothing much at all, and that whatever he found would be testimony to a knowledge not worth having. An instant later he felt dread. But that was just fancy. He realized that his first intuition had embodied the true essence of terror, the comprehension that everything we dread is simply a reminder of insignificance, one we assign a supernatural valence in order to boost our morale. An angle of moonlight cut across a pallet on the floor. There was a faint cloying smell as of something once alive and unhealthy. Mingolla hesitated, not sure he wanted to poke around more. He spotted a gleam in a rear corner and reached for it. His fingers touched a slick paper surface, and he picked up a sheaf of glossy photographs, each showing a black woman intimately involved with a fat white man. His toe struck something that rattled against the wall. He groped and came up with a handful of bones. Human bones, neither fractured nor exhibiting any other sign of injury. Finger bones and sections of spinal joint. They took the light and made it seem a decaying tissue stretched between floor and window. And that was all. Except for dust and the idea of dissolution. Whether the wagon and its contents were a contrivance, a message sent from one playful maniac to another, whether one recognized it as such, Mingolla was certain that its effect upon anyone would be to make him aware of his triviality, his unlovely organic essence. He climbed back onto the driver’s seat, feeling mild giddiness and nausea. The light was so vivid in contrast to the wagon’s darkness, he thought he might breathe it in and exhale shadow.
‘What’d you find?’ Debora asked.
‘It’s empty.’ He jumped down.
‘He’s better now,’ said Debora, stroking the horse’s nose.
‘I’m gonna unhitch him,’ Mingolla said. ‘Let him graze.’