Chapter Twenty-Six
T he filling station featured a mini-mart, and Becca used the extra money Rio had given her to buy packages of beef jerky, granola bars, packets of nuts, and four bottles of water. At the counter was a bowl of oranges, and she picked up six. She also grabbed a container of ibuprofen.
As she drove through the night, she cast Rio fearful glances. He said almost nothing, and despite the four ibuprofen tablets she’d gotten down him, she knew he was in terrible pain. After an hour she nearly turned around. That roused him and he growled at her to keep going.
“Just get me to Mexico,” he commanded. “Just do it.”
The border crossing was simple and went without mishap. Rio managed to sit up and appear normal. She handed over their driver’s licenses and after inspection, was waved through. When days ago she’d left to visit Maria in Matamoros, she’d taken only her passport, and left her driver’s license behind in her bag. Fortunately, now she had it with her.
“Thank goodness they don’t currently require birth certificates to cross,” she said to Rio. “Or we’d be doing the backstroke in the Rio Grande again.”
Her small joke got no traction; he didn’t reply. Anxious, she noticed splotchy patches of color in his cheeks. He began to slump. Was he running a fever? Oh, God. Infection. When his eyes drifted closed, Becca was afraid he’d lose consciousness. She touched his arm. “Don’t pass out. I need directions to your friend’s house.”
He roused enough to point the way, but she could tell he was nearing his limit.
At last, she pulled her car into the dirt drive of the couple who’d been so kind to them before. Switching off the engine, she ran to the door and rapped sharply on the wood.
“Por favor,” she called out, low and urgent. “ Por favor, abre la puerta. Mi amigo esta herido! ” Please open the door, my friend is hurt!
After that, everything went by in a blur.
The couple came out and helped Rio into the house. They put him in the same room where they’d stayed only days ago and sent for a doctor. A man arrived carrying a black bag, examined him, gave him a shot of something, cleaned and stitched his side. Before he left, he pressed two bottles of antibiotics and pain meds into Becca’s hands with instructions for Rio to take them over the next ten days. In the deep of night, the doctor hurried away.
For a brief moment, she left the room to find their host. She touched his arm. “Please,” she said in Spanish, “can you contact the pilot who flew us here? Julio? I want to go back, back to where he picked us up, to the Chihuahua Mountains. Also, we need coats. And food. I’ll pay.”
The man nodded.
Unable to safely return home, unsure of who their enemy actually was, Becca made the best decision she could, a desperate one, but at the mountain cabin at least they’d be safe.
Before falling into bed beside Rio, she plugged both their phones into wall chargers so they’d have full batteries.
They slept and spent the morning resting.
Late the following evening, the wife pressed heavy coats and a full bag of food into her hands. The husband gave her short driving directions to the dirt runway. It was dark when she found it. The pilot and his modified Cessna waited. Julio asked them only a single question. Where did they want to go?
They flew south, and on landing, Becca touched the pilot’s arm. “Come back in ten days,” she said. “We’ll be ready to fly home then.”
His answer was a wordless wave.
In moments, she found the scooter exactly where Rio had stashed it in the brush. The plane and its laconic pilot took off.
As dawn broke, she bullied a half-conscious Rio into swinging his leg over the seat. He was exhausted and wounded, but she exhorted him to hang onto her as she wended her way up back roads and through trees. Fortunately, she remembered how to find the cabin.
All the snow had melted, and even most of the mud had dried. The weather had eased and rather than the bone-chilling cold it had been before, the air was merely cool and mild.
Later, she didn’t know how she managed to get the food, clothing, medicine, and Rio through the close-growing trees and into the cabin, but she did it.
Barring the door, she turned on the lantern and helped Rio to the bed. For the first time in hours, she was able to take a deep breath.
At least for now, they were safe.
****
“W ater,” Rio croaked , hours later. “Need water.”
Beside him and under the quilts, Becca woke with a start. It was early afternoon. She put her hand on his forehead. No fever, thank goodness. He tried to sit up, grimaced in pain, and sank onto the pillow again to close his eyes.
Pushing back her mussed hair, she scrambled off the bed and went to the cooler. The night before, she’d carefully placed their food and water bottles inside. In the bag of food the woman had generously given her, she was surprised to find a new pistol magazine, and guessed it was for Rio’s Glock. She set it aside, next to his gun. In the bag was also, happily, a pound of ground coffee, a trial-sized shampoo, and toothbrush and toothpaste. Bless that woman.
At the bottom of the cooler, she found blue ice freezer packs that were still cool and packed them around the food. Inside, she found peanut butter, crackers, and more tinned peaches. Even a couple of cans of soup. Good. Not all of their food would be perishable.
She brought Rio water and held the bottle to his mouth. Weakly, he sipped.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
“Great,” he said. His voice sounded gravelly. “Ready for some tackle football.”
She smiled. “Sure thing, tough guy. I guess you won’t need the painkillers the doctor gave me for you.”
He opened one eye. “You have drugs? Gimme.”
“First, we have to get some food down you so you won’t throw them back up.” Back at the cooler, she dug through the various packages. “How about some carnitas in a soft tortilla? I don’t have any way to heat them, though.”
“I don’t care.”
She eyed the cold fireplace. On the mantle was a screwdriver and a box of matches. “Do you think it’d be safe for us to use the fireplace now?”
On the pillow, he moved his head. “Nobody knows we’re in this country, right? Even if they find out, they won’t know where we are. And the cartel isn’t looking for you anymore. We’d just be another cabin in the woods burning wood.”
That made her happy. “I’ll go out and gather up a big bunch of dry tinder a little later. Now, let’s eat and I’ll give you a pill.”
She got him up in bed and propped against the wall. Like a companionable old couple, they ate together. After he drank more water, she gave him a powerful painkiller and a dose of antibiotics. He lay back, thoroughly exhausted.
“You rest,” she told him. “I’m going to scout around, get some firewood.” Already he was falling asleep.
Because the air was still nippy, she put on her borrowed coat and ventured outside. The sun shone brightly and the sky was blue and clear. Exploring around the cabin, she moved carefully but saw no mountain lion tracks. Hopefully, the big cat had moved on. As she checked the area, she had new appreciation for how hidden they were. Walking through the trees below the ledge, which had been ice-covered only days before, she came to the choke point and peered at the mountainside.
Several hundred feet up in altitude, she could see snow and ice. That was good.
Not far from the shack, she found abundant dry wood. From her childhood days at sleepover camp, she remembered that wood burned fast. They’d need a lot of it. For an hour she worked, gathering sticks and short logs she thought were small enough to fit inside the tiny hearth. She built up quite a pile beside the door. To get the fire going, she also collected armloads of dried pine needles.
Carrying in enough to last through the coming night, and making a pile on the floor, she saw that Rio was sound asleep. Quietly, she set a new bottle of water beside him and took one for herself. Into her coat pocket, she stuffed two plastic bags and the blue frozen packs. On the mantle beside the matches she found the screwdriver, and slipped it into her jacket.
She planned to climb the mountain and get some of that ice. Their cooler wasn’t cold enough to preserve their food and she was determined to stay for as long as it took, nursing Rio until he was recovered. With ice, their cache of food would last days. At the last minute, she stashed one of the small nut packets in her pocket. It would be a long climb.
Rio slept on.
Quietly, she let herself outside and began the trek. She climbed, step after step.
Halfway to her goal, she nearly quit. The countryside was rough, the mountain steep, and the snow and ice seemed just as far away as it had when she’d started an hour before. At times she had to use her hands to claw her way upward.
Only the thought of all their food decaying and of Rio unable to care for himself pushed her on. Glad of her nuts, she stopped to rest for a few minutes, ate them hungrily and drank half her water bottle. As she pushed on, at last the air cooled and she saw that the tree line had changed. Tall coniferous pines and fir trees now grew and snow collected on their upper branches.
She wasn’t there yet. Still Becca climbed. It became cold, as cold as it had been when she was at the cabin before. Even in her coat, she shivered.
Finally, she got high enough to crunch on snow underfoot. She didn’t want snow, however, she wanted ice.
Taking the screwdriver and plastic bags from her pocket, she found a rock crevice frozen over and hacked at a hunk of the frozen stuff until she had large chunks for her bags. Within ten minutes she had enough to satisfy her, and slung the heavy bags over her shoulder. The blue ice packs she buried in the snow, and left them. Later, when she needed to replenish their reserves, she’d return for them. If they would freeze again, they’d be far more valuable than the ice, which would melt too quickly to last.
Descending the mountain was easier than climbing it, but with her added burden, she slipped and slid on loose soil. The bags of hard ice banged into her back and she cursed. Thinking of the ibuprofen down in the cabin, she decided her muscles would be sore. She would need a few.
In less than half the time it took to go up, she reached the shack. Wanting to be prepared for anything, she took a few moments to use Rio’s gas cans in the brush to refuel the scooter and then hide it beneath the tarp. The skies were darkening into dusk.
As she was gratefully building their first small fire in the hearth, Rio awoke. She turned to him and smiled.
“Buttercup,” he said. “Come here. Please.”
Moving to his side, she crouched beside the bed.
He raised a hand to smooth her hair. “Thank you. For everything. For getting me here—it was a good decision. You didn’t have to do that. I’m nothing to you.”
She opened her mouth to protest, then decided to change her answer. “You saved my life a few times. I’m just repaying the favor.” And he was something to her. She just wasn’t sure yet what that something was.
“Yeah, well, I was getting paid for that.”
“You can pay me.” She laid her index finger beside her mouth. “The price is ... one million dollars.”
He cracked a small smile. His eyes moved to the fireplace. “The heat feels good.” After a minute he closed his eyes. “I’m so tired. And I gotta pee.”
“Can you make it outside the door? I’ll help you.”
“Yeah.” With effort he sat up, groaned, and rested a moment.
Becca helped by swinging his legs over the side of the bed until his feet were flat on the floor. She slipped his tennis shoes on his feet and helped him up.
He swayed, shuffled to the door, and she unlatched it.
Outside, she wedged herself under his arm and waited while he did his business. Back inside, he fell onto the bed and didn’t move.
“You can’t go to sleep yet,” she told him. “First, more food, and then another pill.”
Sorting through the now ice-filled cooler, she pulled out an orange, two enchiladas, and more water. While she peeled the orange, she set the two foil-wrapped enchiladas close to the fire.
Within an hour they’d eaten, he’d taken his pill, and had fallen into a deep, peaceful slumber. Becca was glad, because she knew his fit, healthy body was healing itself.
Turning off the lantern, Becca unearthed the package of ground coffee and poured a healthy measure into a battered percolator coffee pot she found beside the hearth. She filled it with water and set it into the coals. When it was ready, she raised a chipped cup to her mouth and sighed in pleasure. Rich aroma wafted to her nostrils and she inhaled deeply. How she loved coffee!
Nursing the hot drink, she watched the firelight play over Rio’s face. He was truly handsome, with his sun-god good looks and strong body. Her heart squeezed.
Over these past days of danger and uncertainty, she didn’t know what she would have done without him. Probably she’d have been killed. Whether he was being paid or not, she owed him her life. There was no doubt in her mind that he’d gone over and above any professional obligation.
All at once she realized that she didn’t want her time with him to end. She didn’t want him to move onto his next post. In some capacity, she wanted him in her life. She wanted him.
Their explosive attraction would never be lasting. She knew that. Like a winter bonfire, flaming brightly and then dying with the cooling advent of spring, it would expire. She knew their relationship, such as it was, had been born of a woman in need and of a man doing a job, nothing more.
Two people had been thrown together into harrowing circumstances and turned to one another for comfort. Their coupling was transitory, temporary, fleeting.
Still, watching the play of light on his features, she drew in deep breaths. Whatever time they might have together, she would make the most of it. She wanted to help him get better, to enjoy his company, to make love again.
On that thought, Becca felt a familiar warmth creep into her lower extremities ... and she felt a soft smile steal over her face. Oh, she wanted him better again. Soon.