Because if he was dead it was her fault.
Emil Draga sat rigidly upright, his shoulders wedged in the corner between seat and window, and Anders wrestled drunkenly with the wheel, driving poorly, failing to anticipate rocks and potholes in the trail; Carole clung one-handed to the armrest.
They rolled onto a flat shelf of rock and Anders pointed vaguely to the right. “That trail’s a phony. We wasted two hours on it yesterday.” He swung left into the bed of a stream and the four-wheel-drive whined high. He was hunched forward, using the wheel for support; he was past the end of his endurance and she steeled herself against pity.
“How much farther?”
“Maybe an hour, hour and a half.”
“Describe the camp again for me.”
“What can you possibly accomplish except to get our stupid heads blown off?”
“Tell me about the camp. Do it now.”
The trail grew steeper and narrower. They had to use the winch. Somewhere in the run of the next hour the rain stopped but she didn’t notice, partly because her mind was elsewhere and partly because the trees kept dripping long after it quit raining. When the sun shot a ray through a hole overhead she said, “Where are we now?”
“Not too—” Then the truck ran into something and came to a dead stop, pitching her against the dash. The revolver clattered to the floor and she felt around for it while Anders stared at her stupidly. The engine had gone dead and he was twisting the key but nothing happened: The starter didn’t grind, nothing happened at all.
She found the revolver. “What is it?”
“How do I know? It’s gone dead.”
“Well get out and look under the hood!”
“I’m no mechanic, lady.” But he got out anyway and lifted the hood. He looked in from one side and then went around to the other side and looked there.
She got out of the car. “What is it?”
“Maybe a wire got knocked loose somewhere.”
“Find it. Fix it.”
“I’m looking, damn it.” He reached in tentatively, touched something and jerked back with a little cry.
“Did you find it?”
“No. It’s hot, that’s all.”
“Oh for God’s sake.” She peered in under the hood, as if that would do any good, and after a moment closed her eyes and forced herself to fend off this added frustration and get a grip on her composure. All right, the son of a bitch truck had broken down, it wasn’t that important, they weren’t far from their destination anyway—she went back to the door and reached in and wrenched the blindfold off Emil Draga’s head.
Draga winced and squinted in the unfamiliar light, cowering as if he expected a bullet.
Anders said, “What the hell are you doing now?”
Ignoring him she stood back and waggled the revolver at Draga. “Come on. Out.”
Draga backed out slowly, reaching for the earth with one tentative foot, presenting his big rump to the gun.
Anders said, “Put the blindfold back on him. He’s a dangerous son of a bitch.”
“He’ll break his neck up there if he can’t see where he’s going.”
“I figure to break his neck anyway,” Anders said with emotionless gravity. He seemed too drained to hold onto the trappings of hate; only the core remained.
“Maybe you’ll get a crack at him later. Right now I need him.”
“For what?”
“To get Harry out.”
“You’re out of your mind. They won’t go for that.”
“You know who this is? You know who his grandfather is? They need this big shit alive.” She had no energy for argument; she looked up into the dank jungle. “How do I get there? Follow these ruts?”
“There aren’t any more phony trails that I remember. Yeah, we just follow the ruts. A couple-three miles, I guess.”
“It’s not ‘we’—I want you to stay with the truck and get it fixed and wait for us.”
A residue of pride straightened Anders and he began to protest but she cut him off. “You’re in no condition to go anywhere, Glenn. You’d be of no help to me and you’d probably give us away too early.”
“You can’t go up there by yourself for Christ’s sake.”
“Well I’ve got El Creepo for company, haven’t I?”
“What is it, lady—some romantic urge to die with your lover? Is that what you want?”
Frogs chirruped and there was a racket of birds; water gurgled somewhere. She watched Anders lean forward, propped against both stiff arms, his palms on the fender of the Bronco, legs splayed, too weak to stand without support, tremors in his knees, head sagging, squeezing his eyes shut, shaking his head to clear it of dizziness. She wondered if the swollen eye was infected. She turned away from him and peered into the dense towering tangle. “If we’re not back by morning you may as well call in the police.”
He gave no sign he’d heard her. She said, “Glenn?”
“What?”
“Don’t pass out. We’ll need this thing running—we can’t get away without it.”
“I told you, I’m no mechanic. I’ll try. I can’t promise anything.”
She checked her pockets: penknife, half a box of cartridges for the revolver, handkerchief, the disposable butane cigarette lighter Harry had told her to carry. The coarse denim of the jeans scraped her thighs when she turned toward Emil Draga. His lofty eyes were narrowed to slits against the light and there was no fathoming his expression.
Anders said, “What’s the point of getting yourself killed? It won’t help Harry. He’s dead anyway. He’s seen their faces—there’s no way they can afford to turn him loose.”
“Is that how you’d have felt if it was Rosalia up there?”
“Rosalia.” His lips formed themselves clumsily around the word. He pushed himself upright and turned his head balefully toward Emil Draga.
“Glenn, I’m counting on you to have this running when we get back.” She wigwagged Emil Draga toward the trail and he began to trudge uphill. She didn’t miss the glint of cunning in his eyes as he went past her. She turned back once more. “Get this truck fixed—that’s all you need to think about.”
Anders’ bleak eye blinked at her; the other eye was swollen shut now. Too wilted to resist the force of her will, he only said, “Look out for tripwires and things. And they’ll have guards posted when you get up toward those high ridges. Stay out of the road when you get up there.”
She was already walking away.
The humid forest dragged at her feet, slowing her pace. It was all uphill and her legs wobbled from the strain. Emil Draga walked ahead of her in stony silence.
After half an hour she called a halt and sat down with her knees drawn up and the revolver propped on him. Emil slid down on his haunches, ever watchful.
“I expect your grandfather has some kind of affection for you,” Carole said. “I loved my son a great deal, you know, even though most of the time I had a strange way of showing it.”
“If it pleases you to talk,” Draga said, “talk.”
“Listen to me now. I want to save the life that still matters to me. You’re the only weapon I have.”
Draga watched her; he didn’t speak.
“Maybe I’m just tired,” she said, “but it’s come to me that it’s no good sacrificing the living to avenge the dead.”
He did not stir.
“I want you to know,” she said, “that I’m not going to shoot you with this unless you force me to do it. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
“You’re a fool.” He showed his contempt by tipping his head back against the tree and shutting his eyes.
“I got Harry Crobey into this,” she said doggedly, “and now I want to get him out of it. That’s what I want—it’s all I want. I don’t give a shit about you and your misbegotten counterrevolution. Do you understand me?”
No reply. Carole lifted herself on watery knees. “Get up.”
There was a tripwire and she told him to walk around through the forest to avoid it. She walked directly behind him with the gun near Draga’s spine because she didn’t want anyone taking her by surprise from the shadows. The sodden ground sucked at her boots. A gust of wind came along like a breath from an oven. She felt the overpowering burden of her guilt and forced herself to disregard it; she imposed calm upon herself and narrowed her thinking down to a slit through which only the most immediate practical concerns could pass.