The Edge f-4

by Catherine Coulter

  That's hard wood, good for burning in a fire."

  Sherlock crawled over to Laura. "I've got another strip of shirt. Let me braid your hair, it's kind of all over the place."

  I watched Sherlock try to make a French braid of Laura's long, very matted hair. She smoothed out most of the tangles and picked away half a dozen insects. The best I could say about the result was that her hair was away from her face.

  "How is it?" Laura asked.

  "You're gorgeous. Sherlock's got a real talent with hair, particularly really long hair like yours." I dabbed a piece of wet shirt over Laura's mouth to get rid of the sticky mango juice. I could just imagine how all the flying critters would love that stuff.

  She smiled and closed her eyes.

  I got to my feet and stretched. I packed everything up, then lifted Laura into my arms. I was used to her weight now. It felt good. I looked all around me, carefully. Nothing lethal in sight, man or beast.

  Sherlock, thank God, was walking on her own. She kept up with Savich, right on his heels, carrying the first-aid kit and an AK-47. "Sleep, Laura," I said. "I won't tell any bad jokes to keep you up."

  "That's good, Mac," she said against my shoulder. Her voice was weaker.

  We kept moving. Laura seemed lighter than she had just an hour before. It was as if she were fading away, slowly, and there didn't seem to be anything I could do to stop it. Except find help.

  Savich kept up a steady stride, chopping away the undergrowth ahead of us. We saw very little but we heard scurrying sounds all around us.

  Suddenly we heard screaming and barking sounds, high above us. A family of spider monkeys, about ten of them, were jumping up and down, rattling branches. Savich got hit in the middle of his back with a shriveled piece of brown fruit we couldn't identify. They hurled other vegetation and small branches down at us, but nothing that hurt us. I hurried and got a thick, sharp-edged leaf in my face for my trouble. They weren't afraid of us, just pissed that we were in their territory. Once we had moved sufficiently on, they ignored us.

  When the rain came in the middle of the afternoon, hot, thick sheets of rain, I would have given two of my candy bars for a big umbrella. Then we discovered that parts of the canopy overhead were so thick, we were able to stay relatively dry if we stayed in the right spots. I covered Laura as best I could. Steam rose off the ground when the deluge finally stopped. The humidity didn't lessen, it just wasn't liquid anymore. Steam rose from our clothes again.

  We all smelled very ripe.

  I eased Laura onto her feet, holding her upright against me.

  "Can you imagine what a cold shower would feel like, Mac?" she asked.

  "Right now," I said, and closed my eyes briefly, "it would be on my top-ten list. Maybe top three. I want you in that cold shower with me, Laura, laughing and fit again."

  She didn't say anything and that scared me. We kept going.

  Now, to add to the impenetrable undergrowth in front of us, the ground was mud. The nicely packed clay was slippery and wet through to a depth of a good six inches. Mud covered us to our knees. It made walking as hard as sucking one of our limes through a straw. I nearly fell once. It was Sherlock who steadied me.

  Sweat poured off us. Savich was grunting with each swing of the machete. Monkeys and birds shrieked and howled above us. We couldn't see even one of them. The racket was nearly deafening at times.

  Just when I wanted to stop, go down on my knees, and never move again, I saw butterflies sporting the most amazing colors-reds, yellows, greens. I just pointed at them. One followed us a good distance, gliding beside my face, wide-winged, the brightest blue imaginable, its wings rimmed with solid black.

  When the butterflies disappeared, taking their beauty with them, I realized we'd moved at least another twenty feet west. The rain forest was deadly, horrific, and those butterflies were the most beautiful things I'd ever seen.

  Sherlock spotted two coral snakes. She came to a stop and just stared two feet to her left into some undergrowth. There was no way a coral snake could go unnoticed. The vivid orange-and-white stripes slithered away from us and into deeper cover.

  I checked to see that everyone's boots were tightly laced up, the ends of their pants firmly tucked inside the boots. It was hard to tell with all the mud covering everything. At least we didn't have any mud on our skin. Talk about itching. But no insects could get inside, and no snakes. I noticed bites on the backs of my hands. No hope for it.

  Survival, I thought. We just had to survive. We didn't hear any helicopters for the rest of the afternoon, or the noise of any other humans. It was just the four of us, alone in this living oven.

  "Hot damn," Savich shouted. "Look what I found. Ripe bananas, to go with our mangoes. Now the Baby Ruths can be our dessert."

  We also found some pipas, a green coconut you can crack open and drink out of. Since Sherlock had taken one of those huge leaves and fashioned it into a funnel to catch rainwater during the downpour, both the empty water bottles were full again. We picked half a dozen pipas just in case.

  I was doing the hacking now, Savich carrying Laura. I said over my shoulder, after I'd had to whack a welter of green intertwined leaves three times to get them apart, "I wonder if they found Molinas, the bastard. Maybe they didn't. Maybe a coral snake got him. Or maybe he's still lying there with insects crawling all over him."

  "Or maybe," Savich said, "this Del Cabrizo character was so angry that we escaped, he killed him."

  I didn't want to think about what could happen to Molinas's daughter.

  We stopped to make camp when we came to another small clearing. When we stepped into the sunlight, we saw a flock of wild turkeys running through the deep grass to the other side. They disappeared into the forest. It was late in the afternoon, time to stop anyway.

  Laura was getting weaker. It required too much energy for her to talk. I gave her more antibiotics, more aspirin, and two more pain pills. There were only four left. She didn't have a fever, and the bandages looked clean, but she was getting weaker.

  Sherlock swept our small campsite clean with the thick net. The ground here was nearly dry because of the direct, hot sunlight. She managed to get it completely bare. "It's important that we leave room so lots of oxygen can circulate. Once we build a fire, it will stay brighter and hotter." I collected tinder: low, dead hanging branches, rotted pieces of tree that were dry. We managed to find some birch that Laura said was good for fires. Sherlock began digging a moat around our campsite. She said it would keep the critters out.

  Savich used the scissors from the first-aid kit to make several fire sticks. He shaved the sticks with shallow cuts to "feather" them. "My granddaddy taught me how to do this," he said. "It'll make the wood catch fire more quickly."

  We mixed birch bark and dried grass. I stood back and watched Sherlock build a teepee of kindling over a pile of tinder. I handed Savich the matches from the first-aid kit and watched him light one of his fire sticks, let it burn brightly, and touch it to the tinder. I couldn't believe it actually worked. It bloomed up bright and hot. It must have been ninety degrees, and there we were, sucking up toil.

  "A hot dog might be nice," Sherlock said. "Potato chips, some dill pickles."

  "Tortilla chips and hot salsa," Savich said, rubbing his hands together, and grinned. Behind him, a branch shimmied. A brown-spotted gecko poked its head around a tree, looked at us, then pressed itself flat against the bark. I swear it disappeared.

  "Maybe some pickle relish on the hot dog," Sherlock said. "Forget the dills." As she spoke, she was looking over at Laura, who lay quietly.

  We were trapped in a Hieronymus Bosch painting and we'd managed, for a moment, to superimpose normalcy.

  As evening settled in, the beetles began to move around. You could hear them scuttling to and fro. So many of them, all hungry. I smiled over at Laura. "We're geniuses. Just look at that fire."

  But Laura wasn't looking at either me or the fire. She was staring to her right, just beyond the
perimeter of the campsite, just beyond Sherlock's moat. Her face was whiter than boiled rice. I heard her say my name, her voice just above a croak.

  I pulled the Bren Ten out of my waistband and slowly turned.

  Chapter Thirty

  There, reared up on its hind feet, its claws extended, 1 claws so ragged and huge that one swipe could have taken off my face, was a golden brown armadillo. Not one of those small guys you see as road kill on the west Texas highways, but a giant armadillo. I'd never even seen one in a zoo. I'd only seen pictures of them. It had a long snout and small eyes that never left us. The hoary flesh seemed to retract farther, showing more of its claws.

  "It doesn't eat people," Laura whispered. "It eats worms."

  "That's a happy thought," I said as I lowered the Bren Ten. Who knew if men were out there to hear the noise? Savich tossed me a rock. I threw it, kicking up leaves and dirt not six inches from where the armadillo stood. It made a strange hissing noise and disappeared back into the undergrowth.

  I heard a collective sigh of relief.

  It was time to eat. Savich peeled mangoes with the first-aid scissors. A great find, those scissors. Savich assigned me the task of peeling bananas.

  I eyed my slice for just an instant before eating it. I didn't think we could get food poisoning or diarrhea from something we had just peeled. We each ate only two mangoes, followed by one banana, and polished it off with one of the precious Baby Ruths.

  "It's only eight o'clock," Sherlock said. "Does anyone know what day it is?"

  "If it's Friday," Savich said, "you and I would be putting Scan to bed and curling up downstairs with some of my French roast coffee."

  Sherlock grinned at the thought, then she scooted over to Laura. She lightly laid her palm on Laura's cheek, then her forehead. "Mac, when did you give her aspirin?"

  "Two hours ago."

  "She's getting a fever. We've got to dump water down her throat and keep at it. That's what the doctor told me to do with Scan when he had a high fever."

  I'd endured long nights before, but this was the longest. At least three dozen different beetles kept up an endless dissonant concert throughout the night. We heard things slithering all around us. I'd swear I heard at least a dozen winged things fluttering over my head. But the noise of those beetles, there was nothing like it.

  Savich kept the fire burning bright. No more giant armadillos came to visit. No snakes slithered in to get warm. Just the four of us and the fever that was burning Laura up inside.

  I was sleeping lightly when I felt her trembling beside me. The shakes, I thought, from a breaking fever. I got all the water I could down her throat, then eased her tight against me, and perhaps it worked because she stopped moaning and eased into fitful sleep for several hours.

  We had to find civilization.

  With our luck, we'd probably go loping into another drug dealer's compound.

  The next morning, we drank a bottle of our precious water, ate two more mangoes, three more bananas, and savored the last of our Baby Ruths.

  When we were ready to head out, Savich looked at me and held out his arms. I shook my head and pulled Laura closer to my chest.

  "Give her to me. You're driving yourself into the ground, Mac. It hasn't been that long since Tunisia. You do the chopping for a while. I'll carry her until noon, then you can take over again."

  It was clear ahead, no need for the machete. It was an unlooked-for blessing.

  Laura's fever had fallen close to morning and hadn't come back, as far as any of us could tell. But she was weak. The wound was red and swollen, but there wasn't any pus. I rubbed in the last of the antibiotic cream. Her flesh felt hot beneath my fingers. I didn't know how serious it was, but I knew we had to get out of this damned hellhole. I had very little of anything left. I prayed that a real live doctor would suddenly appear in the path just ahead of us, waving a black bag and speaking English.

  When Savich was holding her, I took the edge of one of the shirts she was wearing and wet it. I dabbed it all over her face. Her mouth automatically opened. I gave her as much water as she wanted.

  "I figure we pulled a little south before we stopped yesterday," I said, once I'd gotten my bearings. "Let's go due west and hold to it."

  "Look, we've got to be somewhere," Sherlock said, swiping an insect off her knee. "It's a small planet, right?"

  "You're right," Savich said. "Sherlock, lead the way. Mac, you take the rear. Everyone, eyes sharp. I've got a hankering for a banana, so keep a lookout for some ripe ones."

  When it rained late that morning, Sherlock managed to capture a good half bottle of fresh rainwater, again using one of those big leaves as a funnel. She stood holding that half-filled water bottle, hair streaming down her face, covered with bite marks, puffed up proud as a peacock, grinning like a fool.

  We were wet, but there was nothing we could do about it. Savich managed to keep Laura's wound dry.

  The ground turned to mud again and the undergrowth suddenly thickened. I pulled out the machete and began hacking. My arms felt like they were burning in their sockets. When we found a small area that enjoyed, for some reason unknown to me, a patch of clear sunlight, Savich laid Laura on her back on a blanket and wrapped another blanket around a water bottle to put under her head.

  We got a small fire going within ten minutes this time. With that sun overhead, we found dry tinder quickly. With the fire burning brightly, the insects backed off.

  Savich began peeling mangoes with the first-aid scissors. "I always liked these things," he said. He gave a slice to Sherlock.

  He cut off another thick slice and handed it to me. I waved it over Laura's mouth. She opened up. She was still eating. The food seemed to rouse her. She sat up and said suddenly, "Sherlock, have you felt any sort of withdrawal signs? Like you wanted more of that drug?"

  "God, no." She shuddered. "Why do you ask? Oh, I see. If a drug's not addictive, it wouldn't be worth the drug dealer's time to sell it. No repeat customers."

  "Right. Mac, how about you?"

  "I haven't felt anything either."

  "Maybe you guys haven't had enough of it," Laura said. "Maybe it takes more than three doses to get hooked."

  "Do you think Jilly was hooked, Mac?"

  I hated to say it, but I did. "Yes."

  "I wonder who else in Edgerton has tried the stuff and what they're doing now," Sherlock said.

  "I'll bet you Charlie Duck tried it. The coroner told me there was something odd in Charlie's blood. He was going to run more tests. Maybe he even tried it on purpose to find out what was going on. He was a retired cop, remember."

  "Maybe that's why someone killed him," Laura said.

  "That works," Savich said, nodding as he ate a bite of banana.

  "Mac," Sherlock said suddenly, "you had that hookup with Jilly when she went off the cliff and you were actually in bed in Bethesda. You just didn't understand it. Well, maybe it happened again. Maybe Jilly was just in your mind, warning you."

  "There's really no other explanation," Savich said, folding up the banana peel. "Unless you just dreamed it up because you were drugged out of your mind."

  "I was drugged for sure. Whatever it means, I hope it also means that Jilly is alive. Jesus, Laura, this is tough to take," I said, leaning over to feel her forehead. "How do you feel?"

  "There's something crawling up my leg-on the outside, at least."

  I swiped off the salamander, who flicked its skinny tail, then flitted off into the undergrowth.

  Savich was carving another feather stick with the scissors. The damned thing looked like a piece of art.

  Laura moaned. She was lying on her back, her eyes closed. Her face was paper white, her lips were nearly blue. I shoveled more aspirin down her throat.

  There wasn't much of anything left in the first-aid kit. My eyes met Savich's across her body. He was frowning. He was also holding Sherlock's hand, tight.

  We slogged through the mud at least another couple of miles before we
stopped for the night.

  Laura was about the same the following morning, weak, shaky, and feverish. The wound was redder, more swollen. There was no kidding anybody now. It was bad. We had to get her to a hospital. We were up and walking, Savich carrying Laura, by sunrise.

  "Due west," I said again, and began hacking.

  We found a stalk of ripe bananas at nine o'clock. Savich tore them off the stalk to the accompaniment of screaming monkeys, whose breakfast we were stealing. I was relieved they didn't dive-bomb us.

  It was nearly noon when I smelled something. I stopped dead in my tracks, lifted my head, and smelled.

  It was salt, so strong I could taste it.

  I started to let out a yell when I heard men's voices, loud, not twenty feet away from us.

  "Oh, no," Sherlock said, and backed up, dropping everything except her AK-47. "How could they have found us? Dammit, it's not fair."

  Savich held Laura, who was either asleep or unconscious. He didn't put her down, just drew back so I could come up alongside Sherlock.

  "They don't care that we can hear them," I whispered. "Are there that many of them? Have they fanned out?"

  "I can smell the salt now, Mac. We've got to be near the ocean."

  The voice moved away. Then, to my shock, I heard women's voices. Then laughter. Lots of laughter, yelling, more laughter. I heard screaming, but not in terror, screaming and shouting in fun, and all of it was in English.

  Something was very strange here.

  The thick foliage melted away, everything suddenly thinning out. I took the lead, my Bren Ten in my hand, Sherlock in the rear, Savich carrying Laura between us. We moved as quietly as we could. I saw a troop of green parrots flying from one banana tree to the next, a phalanx of green with flashes of red and yellow. The salt smell grew stronger, and the sun slashed down through the trees above us as the thick canopy above disappeared.

  I felt a breeze on my face. I broke through a final curtain of green leaves and stepped onto white sand.

  Savich inched out behind me. I heard Sherlock suck in her breath. We just stood there, staring.