They had returned to the bridge. Doyle was long gone, but Eric’s backpack was still there, the only one left. They had been forced to enter houses in Port Jervis. They needed food and Eric needed new hiking boots. His had come off when he hit the water. He found a pair, but they were slightly too large and very heavy. The only food they found was a bag of rice in the back of a cupboard, half eaten by mice. They had just finished that meal.
In the quiet, Sergio spoke first. “What now?”
“We hunt him down, shoot his legs out from under him, and we force him to tell us what he did with Birdie. Then we kill him.”
They were quiet then, listening to the crackling of the fire.
It wasn’t hard following Doyle. He left carnage behind him. Burning vehicles, smoldering houses, and ripped open corpses marked his trail. Eric spent his day with his finger on the trigger of the .22 that he had dropped on the bridge. It was now their only weapon.
But it would do. Even a .22 bullet, humble as it was, would cut into a man, lodge in bone, tear through lung, punch through muscle, and tunnel into the tender heart.
This time he would give Doyle all the mercy he had shown Lucia, Sergio, and poor Birdie.
Doyle deserved to die, Eric told himself. He had it coming.
As they left Port Jervis, they came across a small library. Eric went inside, saying there might be food, but he was looking for a book. He found it.
How to Clean a .22 pistoclass="underline"
1) Make sure the gun is unloaded. Place the gun on a towel.
2) Spray solvent on your bore brush. Insert your bore brush into the breach side of the barrel. (This is not the side of the barrel where the bullet emerges.) Pass the bore brush through the barrel until the barrel is free of residue.
3) Pass a cleaning cloth through the barrel with the rod until it comes clean from the barrel.
4) Clean any dirt or rust from the gun’s action with a small wire brush. Be gentle, these are delicate parts of your weapon. Make sure all these parts are thoroughly cleaned with solvent.
5) Wipe all areas clean with a dry cloth. Then wipe all areas with lubricating oil.
Remember, the book said, a clean weapon is a reliable weapon.
Meanwhile they waited for signs of the Vaca B. It was impossible to know how much water they had swallowed when they hit the river. They searched each other for red eyes, flushed, feverish faces, muttering, and irritability. No one mentioned what they were doing. They all searched each other secretly.
But they all knew they were being watched.
They searched for antibiotics, but they couldn’t find any. John Martin had been carrying all their medicine when Carl Doyle shot him down.
It was worse in the morning when it seemed they had nothing to say to each other. They studied each other like lab rats.
As they hiked quickly to overtake Doyle, Lucia appeared beside Eric. He didn’t slow down, so Lucia took him by the arm.
“Eric,” she said. “You haven’t said hardly anything since the bridge. Are you okay?”
Eric couldn’t look at her, but his heart thumped painfully. “I failed her again,” he said to her finally, with effort. Lucia looked at him with soft eyes, filled with pity for him. It filled him with anger that he fought to control. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said.
“Eric, you didn’t fail Birdie,” Lucia said gently. “This is not your fault.”
Eric couldn’t bear it any longer. “Yes it is!” he exclaimed. He jerked his arm away and glared at her. “She was right there, in that goddamn Land Rover. She was right there! And I chose you! I jumped off that bridge to save you and I left Birdie behind!”
Lucia blinked at him with surprise. “But you saved Sergio,” she said quietly.
“He might’ve lived,” Eric said, still seething with anger. “You might’ve saved him. Then we’d all be together now. Instead I dove into those poisonous waters and left Birdie behind!”
“Eric…”
But Eric had enough. “No,” he said. “It is my fault. It is. She needed me. She’s just a little girl, Lucia.” Eric clenched his jaw and trembled. “Just a little girl,” he hissed between his teeth.
Not far from the Catskills, as the land began to fold once more into hills, the three hiked to the top of a rise only to drop to the ground immediately at the sound of gun fire.
Down below them, they saw the Land Rover sitting in the middle of a field. Doyle was running toward it. Emerging from the forests came several people, running toward him. Two trucks roared into the field from the south, cutting off Doyle’s path to the Land Rover. When the men caught up with him, Doyle roared and attacked them. But they seemed used to such attacks, and they only backed away. Soon coils of rope fell down around Doyle’s body, and he was tugged off his feet and trussed up. It took four men to lift him and throw him in the back of a truck as Doyle struggled and screamed. Then they sped away, leaving the Land Rover in the field.
After several minutes of tense waiting, they sprinted down to the Rover.
Eric threw open the doors. He covered his mouth at the stench. Flies escaped in dark clouds. Eric held his breath and climbed inside.
“Birdie?” he called, holding his hand to his mouth. “Birdie?”
Lucia and Sergio opened the back, letting out another cloud of flies. Lucia retched for a moment before going back to search.
Birdie was not there. There was no sign of her.
Eric staggered away from the smell finally. He collapsed on the ground, tears welling up in his eyes. “She’s gone,” he said. “And we’ll never find her without Doyle.”
Lucia and Sergio sat next to him. Sergio put his head down. Lucia put her arm around his waist and her head upon his shoulder. The sobs came finally as despair clutched him. Birdie was gone, and there was nothing he could do about it anymore.
“I’m so sorry, Birdie,” Eric sobbed. “I’m so sorry.”
When they finally reached Catskill Park, Eric sat silently as Lucia and Sergio started the fire.
Eric took out his map and the calendar.
They had finally left Pennsylvania. When they had climbed out of the river at Port Jervis, nearly drowned, they had reached New York. It had been long enough now. None of them had the Vaca B from the river. They gradually stopped studying each other’s every move.
It was July 30, 1990.
13
The sign said South Lake Campground. Looking up at it, Eric felt the sign was a reminder of a day when hot water poured from faucets and showerheads, when, clean and glowing with heat, people had tucked themselves into dry, warm beds. It was a time when the world of rain and damp earth and sleepless nights and blistered feet were fiction, and reality was soda pop, pizza, and late night television’s ghostly flash on the vacuumed carpet. It was a time, just a year ago, though it seemed a lifetime in the past, when nature was an aesthetic experience. Once he had lived that life. Once he had lived in a world of campgrounds. That was not the world anymore.
They didn’t stay in Catskills for long. Eric needed to move. He hadn’t said a word since he had cried back at the Rover. Lucia kept glancing at him with concern. He hated that. If she had to feel sorry for someone, she should feel sorry for Birdie.