by Kevin Craig
Chapter 13 — Diego Nelson
When I come down to breakfast, Troy’s here first. I’m glad when he smiles at me instead of giving me an unh-uh, keep walking expression. I guess he really did accept my second apology. The one I practised with Shania.
“Good morning, sunshine,” Troy says as I sit down across from him. “Ready to greet the day?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be. What’s for breakfast? I could eat a house.”
“I think you mean horse.” He laughs and passes me a bite-sized muffin. “Here. Nosh on this for now. The line is too long.”
I turn to look, and the hallway leading into the albergue’s kitchen is filled with peregrinos. Looks like everyone got up before me. Except Greg and Manny. When I left the room, Greg was snoring, and Manny was lost somewhere inside his own hair.
I turn back, thank him for the muffin, peel the paper off, and pop it in my mouth. As I begin to eat—and realize it’s carrot, my favorite—he looks at me and says, “So.”
“So, what?” He’s smirking like he has something big to dish.
“I hung out with Claire last night.”
“You what, now? How?” Last I saw Troy last night, he was in bed trying not to look like he was checking out my man Manny.
“I couldn’t sleep. We saw this crazy stuff last night, Diego. A thing of nightmares. On a full moon night, too.”
“More importantly, Claire. Is she nice? Or is she the thing of nightmares of which you speak?”
“No, she’s okay. She’s pretty awesome. I thought maybe I would walk with her today. You know, maybe give you more space to walk with, you know…”
“No. What? Who?”
“Come on, Diego.” He takes a large swig of his coffee. “It’s glaringly obvious. You have a thing for Shania. You gave me a look yesterday, back in that little town with all the dogs, like you were going to kill me if I didn’t disappear. Remember, when I lost my footing walking that little garden wall and stepped in that huge puddle and got stuck with a wet sock for the rest of the afternoon?”
“Okay. Maybe you have a point. But do you think she knows?”
“Diego, I think Mother Teresa knows. And she’s been dead for decades.”
“I don’t know, Troy. I mean, at first she terrified me. She was so nasty. You wouldn’t believe it.”
“We’re delinquents.” Troy leans closer. “We’re here against our will—some of us, anyway—maybe she was just having a bad day. To me, this whole Camino de Santiago thing is a goddamned Mardi Gras. What crime do I have to commit next year in order to do it again? Let me know; sign me up. But maybe it sucks bags for our friend Miss Twain.”
“I hear you.” He’s totally right, too. “I’m gonna hit up the breakfast line now. Kinda died down some. Yo, maybe I will walk with her today. Thanks, man.”
Troy picks up his Camino passport and glances through it. I make my way to the line. The faint smell of eggs and syrup grows stronger as I near the kitchen. My stomach growls.
I can’t believe who I see coming down the stairs—Claire. She’s not going to make us wait today. Maybe she just needed to break the ice with someone in order to get on track. My man Troy, he’s a good head.
* * *
“Oh my God, Gil wasn’t kidding. This is killing me.” Shania is just ahead of me and she’s been moaning for a good five minutes. Trust me, I’m moaning just as loudly.
“When is this going to end? I need a break. Ay,” I say between heavy breaths. “I did not sign up for this.”
There’s a light drizzle, but after two hours every single drop feels like a punch. We’ve walked uphill almost since we left the albergue. Though Shania started to moan and complain first, I’m not very far behind her. This is unreal.
“There was a sign about a mile back that promised café con leche up ahead,” she says, turning back to offer me a slight smile. “Maybe Troy was right about that crap, and it’ll give us some magical powers to keep us going. We still have over ten miles to go before tonight’s albergue.”
“Buen Camino,” an elderly couple says in tandem as they come up alongside me, pass me, and repeat their greeting to Shania before they pass her too. I return the greeting, but then I stop for a breather at a slippery rock with enough surface for me to place both feet on it.
“Yo, Shan,” I say. She stops climbing. “Hold up. I just need to stop for a second.” She comes back down beside me. “For real, did those grandparent-y people just breeze on by us? Or did I imagine them?”
“No. They were real, and seconds away from skipping. You didn’t imagine it, my friend. They looked happy about this rain too. I hate people.”
“Nah, they’re okay. We’re just not ready for this kind of intense workout. We were too busy committing crimes while those old folks were training for the Camino. They have a jump on us.”
“Ha. Yeah.” She looks up at where we have to go. It’s all uphill. “Well, shall we go? Must be something coming up soon. The signs can’t lie, right?”
“Keep telling yourself that,” I say. “Let’s go.”
So we start to climb again. I gotta say, I feel like I’m cheating by walking behind Shania. I get to watch her. I’m falling for this girl, for real.
She starts to hum a song, and I put one foot in front of the other and watch her while I attempt to figure out what song she’s humming. Just as the lyrics come to me and I start to sing them out loud, my foot slips on a slick rock and I go down hard. I’m so lost in my head, I don’t have time to put my hands out to break my fall.
I fall face-first into mud, and my forehead hits a rock. I see stars, but then I slide downhill and thunk against trees and rocks. Somewhere along the way, I manage to scream, and the desperation in my voice annoys me.
“Diego!” Shania screeches as I finally come to a halt against something hard and unmoving. A tree?
I watch Shania run down as carefully as she can without landing on her own ass. As I try to stand, I grab for the tree trunk that stopped me. That’s when I realize it’s a leg.
“Oh,” I say, as I look up into the friendliest face I ever saw, except for Moms and my abuelita. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were a person.”
“Haha. It’s okay, my friend. Bastien Mercier, at your service.” He leans a walking stick against a nearby tree and offers me his hand. Shania arrives at my side. Bastien is an old man with a gray beard and white hair. He looks grizzled but capable. More capable than me, anyway. “Are you okay, my friend? Your head, it bleeds.”
“Huh?” I say, as he helps me to my feet. I put a hand to my forehead and bring it away. Yep. My fingers are smeared red. “Oh. Yeah. I guess. It doesn’t really hurt all that much.”
“Shit, Diego. You’re gonna need stitches.”
“It’s okay, my friend. In two miles or so, the hôpital. Just on top the hill and in the town ahead.”
“We need to get you there, Diego,” Shania says. The look on her face is almost comical. She’s terrified, as though I’m gonna drop dead any minute from this small cut that doesn’t even hurt all that much.
“Nah, nah. I’m fine, Shan, really.” But as I start to walk, I lose my footing and fall back into the stranger who helped me up. Like my feet aren’t my own. “Oh, man. Dude, I’m sorry.”
“It is not a problem, my friend.” He holds me upright while Shania examines the cut. “Like I say, I am Bastien. Bastien Mercier. Let us help you up this hill.”
“I’m fine,” I say, but I wobble when I try to break free of him. It’s not happening. I actually do need his help. And maybe Shania’s too.
“It’s okay to need help,” Bastien says. He puts his arm around me and looks up the hill. With his other hand, he retrieves his walking stick. “Let’s go, my friend.”
Shania gets on my other side. She won’t stop looking at me like I’m dying. It makes me nervous.
“Thank God,” Shania says. She smiles, but it fades and turns into a frown when she glances at me. “Jesus, Diego. You’re a total mess.”
I look down at myself and I’m mud and crap from head to toe. Every inch of me is caked with it. Even my leg hair is matted with thick clumps of mud. And under the mud, I see blood in a few spots. Obviously my legs got cut on the rocks and shifting gravel.
As if seeing the blood triggers something inside me, I begin to feel the burn of the scrapes up and down my legs.
“We’re almost there. The top is soon. This is my third Camino. The town above is lovely. They will help you. Maybe even a shower, no?” He laughs, entertained by the mess, as he takes in the state of me.
“Thanks. I’m glad I made your day.”
“No, no, Diego. I laugh because I have been here. Days ago—a week and a half maybe—back in Burgos. Another lifetime, it seems. I tripped my way up the cathedral stairs. Blood, it was everywhere. I did not need to shower the mud away, but blood. Mais oui, I was a wreck. It happens on the Camino. Someone helped me that day. Many someones. Now, I help you. I’m sorry I laugh. It just reminds me of the Camino’s way. Expect, how you say, the unexpected.”
Only now do I notice the scab across the bridge of his nose and a scrape along the side of his face. War wounds from his own tumble.
We walk in silence as we attempt to focus on the slick rocks and ground cover at our feet. The trees all around us drip with rain water, even though it has stopped raining. Everything is so incredibly green. I look up into the sky, but mostly just see the thick canopy above us.
“We’re almost there, Diego.” Shania breaks the silence. “We’ll have that café con leche after we get you fixed up. I’ll sacrifice myself for your gushing head wound. See what kind of friend I am?”
“Sweet,” I say, my voice filled with sarcasm. But, for real, I’m so glad she’s leaving her home crap behind. I never would have guessed this was the same person I met at the airport. “I’m touched.”
“Yeah, you are,” Shania says. “In the head.”
“Ha ha.”
We make our way to the top of the hill, gingerly stepping from one stone to another and one flat foothold to another. At the top, the town opens up to us. The road goes in two directions as we come into a clearing. The house across the street has a great big arrow made of scallop shells that are painted yellow—one of the ever-present yellow arrows that show us the way to Compostela—and cemented directly into the wall. It points left.
“We go right,” Bastien says. He offers me a small smile and points the way opposite the arrow. It seems wrong to ignore the arrow.
“What about Gilbert?” I say to Shania, reluctant to go off the beaten path. “He’s just ahead of us.” I turn to Bastien. “He’s our leader. Our counselor. We’re supposed to stay close to him and Meagan.”
“Stay close and lose your life’s blood, Diego,” he says. “You’re bleeding. In town, they will help you. Then, on your way, no? You can catch up to your Gilbert after. Your health, it matters.”
He has a point, even though his English is broken and I have to concentrate to put it all together. I sigh, defeated. I just worry because I don’t want to do anything on this walk to disappoint Moms.
“Okay,” I say.
“Dude,” Shania says. She places a hand on my shoulder. “It’ll be fine. He’d want you to do this, jackass. You need medical help. You’re bleeding like a stuck pig.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Sometimes I think trouble has a way of finding me. “I should have been more careful on those rocks.” I’m pissed, but only at myself.
“Save the self-loathing drama for later,” she says. We reach a cobbled sidewalk and walk on, turning our backs on the scallop shells. “Let’s get you fixed before it’s too late.”
“Too late?”
“You bleed out and leave me holding the corpse.”
“Very funny,” I say.
“Come,” Bastien says. His walking stick begins to make a steady click-click-click sound along the cobbles. “I will show you the way.”
They stay close on either side of me, and just as I’m about to say I’m okay—that I don’t need them to crowd me—I change my mind. The fog in my head has me feeling more than a little loopy. I think about what Moms is going to say when she sees I picked up a new scar along the Camino. The way she’ll shake her head—and maybe even her fist—and say, “Mijo, oh, my baby.” The way that’ll make me feel both like she’s babying me and like it’s the best thing ever. And she’ll hug me and say it makes me more handsome or some shit like that.
Chapter 14 — Shania Reynolds
Wednesday, July 3rd – Day 5 – So Much Blood
It feels so weird to sit here in some stranger’s kitchen. Somewhere in rural ass-kiss Spain. But that’s what I’m doing. It took only ten minutes for Diego to get in to see a doctor and get his head stitched up. Back home, it would have taken hours. Next thing we knew, we walked with this lady from the clinic to her house.
Bastien is in the living room speaking to the lady. They’re speaking flawless Spanish, so I have no idea what they’re saying. I mean, he’s obviously French. He told us he’s from this place called Toulouse. But he speaks perfect Spanish. Freaky. Seems everyone over here can speak so many languages.
Diego’s upstairs—in this stranger’s house—having a shower. And his clothes are in the washing machine. This lady from the doctor’s office just totally opened up her home to us. Back on the path, when Bastien said he’d be able to have a shower, I did not picture it being in a random house. Crazy. I’m starting to love this place. I mean, I know it’s bad that Diego split his noggin open, but look at this. I’m in Spain, sitting in this nice lady’s home, having a café con leche, chilling. Stuff happens out here.
As I finish up today’s impromptu journal entry, I hear Diego’s heavy feet on the stairs. He comes into the kitchen rubbing a towel gingerly through his hair. A second towel is wrapped around his waist. I try not to look at his belly and chest, even though it’s almost impossible not to stare at them. Because they’re perfect, just like I imagined.
“Really, Diego,” I say. “Walking down a flight of stairs with your eyes covered by a towel after suffering a massive head wound? What is wrong with you?”
“What can I say? I’m a daredevil.”
“Or a jackass,” I say, hoping I’m not blushing as much as it feels like I am. He looks at me and suddenly becomes more embarrassed himself. He takes the towel from his head and wraps it around his shoulders.
I shy-smile, like I wasn’t just staring at his body. “You didn’t get that wet, did you?”
“No, Mom. It’s good. See. Dry.” He taps the bandage.
“Diego,” Bastien says. He must have heard Diego’s elephant feet on the stairs. “You’re all fresh. Must feel good.”
“Seriously, a thousand percent better.”
“Luciana just went to put the clothes of yours in the dryer,” he says. “Soon, we go.”
“You don’t have to wait for us, Bastien,” Diego says. “That’s cool. You’ve helped so much already.”
“It’s what we do on the Camino, my friend. We are peregrinos together. We help each other. We go, we meet with your leader.”
“Thank you,” I interject on Diego’s behalf when his expression warns me he is going to continue arguing against being helped. “We appreciate it, Bastien. We might not be able to find our own way back to the arrows. We’re glad to have you with us. Aren’t we, Diego?”
I give him my agree-with-me-right-now-or-else stare. And he switches gears to comply. Maybe he’s still a little afraid of me.
“Um, oh. Yeah. Sure. Thank you. I really do appreciate ever
ything you’ve done. Thank you.”
“It is nothing, my friend.”
Bastien goes to the sink and sets down his mug. Diego sits opposite me, and Bastien joins us at the table. Diego’s looking a little shy, being the only one in towels, and I’m kinda tripping on his obvious embarrassment. I can tell he’s praying to the gods that the dryer doesn’t take much longer. He wants his clothes back big time. And I want the dryer to take forever.
Chapter 15 — Troy Sinclair
We’ve been lost for over an hour. The way Claire is so chill about it, I’m beginning to think she doesn’t much care. She might have had something to do with us taking the wrong turns in the first place.
We were only a city block or so ahead of Meagan. Every once in a while, I would slow our pace so she was always able to catch glimpses of us. And Manny and Greg walked just slightly ahead of us. They sped up, and, as soon as we lost sight of them, bam. Everything fell apart.
The rain didn’t help. We’re soaked through. At least it’s stopped. Hopefully it stays this way. I need to either dry off or find my way back to the path before I go mad. I can’t be wet and lost. But here we are, drenched, on this quiet street with no peregrinos anywhere in sight. We have lost our way. And I kept letting Claire lead me in the wrong direction, because I assumed she was trying to find her way back to the yellow arrows.
Clearly, not a good idea. Not an arrow in sight. I should have just kept walking with Manny and Greg. Even Gil disappeared at the albergue after he realized Claire finally had a new walking partner.
Last night may have been a one-off, though. She seemed nice enough at the time, but I think today’s Claire may have gone rogue. I’m almost positive. Maybe she’s possessed by Cacabelos Jesus.
“I give up.” I stop in front of a small grocery. “I’m asking for directions.”
“No, don’t. It’s more fun this way. Can’t we just wander around and figure things out for ourselves? Where’s your sense of adventure?”
