“I know what it was,” Eric said, his voice low and serious.
“What was?” Sergio asked.
“I know what killed Sarah,” he said. Sergio and Lucia looked at the flames but didn’t say anything. “I’ve been thinking about it. How did she get the worm? She drank the same water, ate the same food. And then I remembered. She told me once that a good cook tastes the food while they cook it. She was always tasting what she was cooking. That’s how she got the Vaca B, tasting the food before it boiled enough to kill the worm. She got the worm cooking for us.”
The discussion ended. Lucia and Sergio crawled into their tent to sleep. Eric stayed up, looking into the fire. He stayed that way a long time.
Leaving the forest, Sergio took point. He scouted ahead. Binoculars slung around his neck, he would stride ahead to a look out point, crouch in the bushes and scan around them. Sometimes he would climb a tree, and from far above, he would study the landscape. It seemed to Eric that they spent most of their time waiting, watching.
When they came to a road (Route 287, Sergio informed them), he swung up into a towering pine tree. He stayed up there a long time, the rest of them waiting. Then he came down, landed in the pine needles at his feet and clapped his hands together. “All clear,” he said.
So they continued.
With the absence of Sarah, they cooked together. The food was tasteless. At night, they slept away from the fire. It was too hot now to sleep near it. Summer was high among them. Taking out his battered calendar, Eric saw it was July 10th. The trees were full and green, and the hot weather dried the paths they walked to dust and crackling leaves. Without human noise to distract them, no trucks or cars or jet planes in the air, no sirens or car horns, they listened to bird song, to crickets, to the whir of beetle wing in the summer air. It was surprising how loud it became.
Eric couldn’t sleep. The buzz of insects filled the air. He crawled out of his tent and sat by the smoldering fire. Slowly he became aware of a squeaking, clicking sound, and shadows flitting through the darkness. The bats were out and they were feeding. He’d always been afraid of bats. Their tiny mouths filled with gnawing, sharp teeth.
Not anymore. The sound was gentle now, even playful, as they swooped in and out of the horde of insects. He sat in the darkness and watched the shadows of bats streak across the night.
They had just climbed to the top of a ridge when Sergio came to them, waving his hands in a downward motion, like a large bird trying to take flight. Eric was puzzled, until he felt a tug by Lucia at his side. Eric ducked down and then, following Lucia’s lead, got down on his stomach. Lucia was to his right and Birdie buried her head in his left side. Lucia’s hair had swept into his face, and Eric, blushing, brushed it away. If Lucia noticed, she said nothing.
Sergio dove beside them. Wordlessly he pointed at a road running south of them. His face was pale as he handed Eric the binoculars.
At first, he saw nothing. Then there was a flash, and it came into focus quickly.
It was the Land Rover. Eric could see the dark figure of Carl Doyle inside.
“What is it?” hissed Lucia. Eric handed her the binoculars. Lucia made a coughing sound when she saw him. Distantly they heard the Land Rover pass. For a few moments, they said nothing. Vaguely leaf-shaped patches of sunlight, piercing through the canopy of leaves overhead, swooped over their bodies like golden birds.
“Why don’t you grow up and be a man!” cried Sergio angrily. “We have to kill him!” They sat at the campfire. Eric didn’t respond, but continued to pick at his food. Sergio was red with anger. “It’ll be easy,” he said, obviously trying to remain calm. He slid closer to Eric. “All we have to do is set some trap for his Land Rover. You see how he drives. He’ll hit it fast and bam!” Sergio slapped his hands together. “If he’s still alive, we’ll just shoot him.” When Eric said nothing, Sergio put his hand on his shoulder. “I’ll shoot him, Eric, you don’t have to.”
Eric shrugged Sergio’s hand off his shoulder. “No,” he said.
Sergio frowned and then shot up and angrily kicked some leaves toward the forest.
“Sergio, tranquilo,” Lucia said.
“What?” Sergio asked. “Why? This guy is following us. He’s already killed John Martin. Who’s next? Why’re we letting this crazy bastard live?” Sergio finished this with an appeal to his sister in rapid Spanish. Lucia shook her head.
“No, Sergio,” she said. “We’re a group now. We have to do things together. If Eric agrees, I’ll help.”
Sergio turned to Eric with a pleading look, but Eric wouldn’t look up from his dinner. Sergio kicked some leaves toward him in fury and frustration. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked. “What kind of man are you?” He stalked off into the forest.
“I’m sorry,” Lucia said to him in a small voice. She stood up to follow her brother into the darkness.
When the two were gone, Birdie came and sat next to him. She put her small hand in his. Eric looked at the tangle of her hair. It was full of twigs and broken leaves like a bird’s nest. “Come here,” he said to her. He began picking her hair clean. While he worked, Birdie hummed a tune that Eric did not recognize.
Above them the stars were vanishing as the storm moved in.
Everything they owned was wet. The rain persisted, sometimes in great, thundering gasps of water that blurred the landscape around them, sometimes as a faint mist. Eric had never been so thoroughly wet in his life. Water permeated him and seemed to swell his skin. His clothes were heavy and clung to him, and for the first time, he realized how difficult it was to move in the voluminous clothes he wore. He must have lost a lot of weight, the way the clothes hung from him. His heavy jeans had to be held up with one hand as he walked. His belt was as tight as he could make it.
They had been lucky with the weather to this point. Now the rain came as if furious at having been denied an outlet all these days. Steadily, slogging through the wet forest, across swollen brooks, they made their miserable way east. All day, they trudged through it, and when night came, they found no respite. They couldn’t start a fire and their tents were wet inside and out, as were their sleeping blankets. It was like sleeping inside a sponge.
The next day was no better. Worse perhaps because they were thirsty. They ate cold beans from the can and finished off what little water they had boiled the last time they had a campfire. They had not planned ahead more than a day with their water supply and that was a mistake. They held their mouths open to the rain, figuring rainwater was safe from the Vaca B, but once it reached the ground, they no longer trusted it. They didn’t even trust the pans they had to be free of the Vaca B, so they couldn’t catch the water. For all the water cascading down the hillsides in gushes, they were parched.
The only good part of the rain was that in the midst of their suffering, Sergio dropped the subject of Carl Doyle though he often shot an angry look toward Eric, and walked ahead, even shunning his sister’s company at times.
At the end of the third day, the sun finally broke free. The temperature soared. The skies were crystalline clear and blue. Everything was still too wet to build a fire, but they spread out their belongings in the grass to dry. They stripped down to their underwear and stood waiting for their clothes to dry.
Eric stood bashful, trying to keep from looking at Lucia’s long, sleek body, her tiny red panties and her red spotted bra. He couldn’t stand tall like Sergio. He stood with his arms in front of him. Birdie stood next to him, watching her clothes on the ground with disturbed fascination. “It’s like I’ve disappeared,” she said, pointing at her clothes.