Surely it must be something wonderful. The secret villages. One day, she went out horseback riding and never came back.
Romero stopped reading. The shock of his injuries had drained him. He had trouble holding his throbbing head up. At the same time, his empty stomach cramped again. I have to keep up my strength, he thought. Forcing himself to stand, he went over to the basket of food, chewed on a carrot, and took a bite out of a freshly baked, thickly crusted chunk of bread. He swallowed more water and went back to the cot.
The break hadn't done any good. As exhausted as ever, he reopened the book.
The woman rode into the mountains. She had brought enough food for several days, and as she rode higher, she let her horse choose whatever trails it wanted. Higher and higher. Past pines and aspens and cottonwoods until, as the vegetation thinned and the altitude made her light-headed, Indians greeted her on the trail and asked where she was going. To the secret villages, she told them. To see their houses and to learn about their gods. The Indians escorted her into a lush valley that had trees, a river, and groups of low flat gleaming houses. There, the villagers welcomed her and promised to teach her.
Romero saw double again. Frightened, he struggled to control his vision. The concussion's getting worse, he thought. Fear made him weaker. He wanted to lie down, but he knew that, if he fell asleep, he might never wake up. Shout for help, he thought in a panic.
To whom? Nobody can hear me. Not even the brothers.
Rousing himself, he went over to the table, bit off another chunk of bread, ate a piece of apple, and sat down to finish the story. It was supposed to tell him something, he was sure, but so far he hadn't discovered what it was.
The woman had the sense of being in a dream. The villagers treated her well, bringing her flowers and clothes, food and drinks made of honey. She spent her days in a pleasant languor. She had never slept so long and deeply. Each evening, the pounding of drums was hypnotic. The seasons turned. Fall became winter. Snow fell. The sun was angry, the villagers said on the shortest day of the year. The moon must be given to the sun. They carried the woman to an altar, took off her clothes, and plunged a knife into her chest.
The shocking last page made Romero jerk his head up. The woman's death was all the more unnerving because she knew it was coming and she surrendered to it, didn't try to fight it, almost welcomed it. She seemed apart from herself, in a daze.
Romero shivered. As his eyelids drooped again, he thought about the honey drinks that the villagers had kept bringing her.
They must have been drugged.
Oh, shit, he thought. It took all of his will power to raise his sagging head and peer toward the basket and the jug on the table.
The food and water are drugged.
A tingle of fear swept through him, the only sensation he could still feel. His head was so numb that it had stopped aching. His hands and feet didn't seem to be a part of him. I'm going to pass out, he thought sickly.
He started to lie back.
No.
Can't.
Don't.
Get your lazy ass off this cot. If you fall asleep, you'll die.
Mind spinning, he wavered to his feet. Stumbled toward the table. Banged against it. Almost knocked it over. Straightened. Lurched toward the toilet seat. Bent over it. Stuck his finger down his throat. Vomited the food and water he'd consumed.
He wavered into the corridor, staggered to the ladder, gripped it, turned, staggered back, reached the door to the root cellar, turned, and stumbled back to the ladder.
He did it again.
You have to keep walking.
And again.
You've got to stay on your feet.
His knees buckled. He forced them to straighten.
His vision turned gray. He stumbled onward, using his arms to guide him.
It was the hardest thing he had ever done. It took more discipline and determination than he knew he possessed. I won't give up, he kept saying. It became a mantra. I won't give up.
Time became a blur, delirium a constant. Somewhere in his long ordeal, his vision cleared, his legs became stronger. When his headache returned, he allowed himself to hope the drug was wearing off. Instead of wavering, he walked.
And kept walking, pumping himself up. I have to be ready, he thought. As his mind became more alert, it was seized by confusion. Why had John wanted him to read the story? Wasn't it the same as a warning not to eat the food and drink the water?
Or maybe it was an explanation of what was happening. A choice that was offered. Spare yourself the agony of panic. Eat from the bounty of the earth and surrender as the woman had done.
Like hell.
Romero dumped most of the water into the latrine. It helped to dissipate his vomit down there, concealing what he had done. He left a small piece of bread and a few carrot sticks. He bit into the apples and spit out the pieces, leaving cores. He took everything else into the root cellar and hid it in the darkest corner behind baskets of potatoes.
He checked his watch. It had been eleven in the morning when they'd forced him down here. It was now almost midnight. Hearing the faint scrape of the barrel being moved, he lay down on the cot, closed his eyes, dangled an arm onto the floor, and tried to control his frantic breathing enough to look unconscious.
"Be careful. He might be bluffing."
"Most of the food's gone."
"Stay out of my line of fire."
Hands grabbed him, lifting. A dead weight, he felt himself being carried along the corridor. He murmured as if he didn't want to be wakened. After securing a harness around him, one brother went up the ladder and pulled on a rope while the other brothers lifted him. In the barn, as they took off the harness, he moved his head and murmured again.
"Let's see if he can stand," John said.
Romero allowed his eyelids to flicker.
"He's coming around," Mark said.
"Then he can help us."
They carried him into the open. He moved his head from side to side, as if aroused by the cold night air. They put him in the back of the pickup truck. Two brothers stayed with him while the other drove. The night was so cold that he allowed himself to shiver.
"Yeah, definitely coming around," John said.
The truck stopped. He was lifted out and carried into a field. Allowing his eyelids to open a little farther, Romero was amazed at how bright the moon was. He saw that the field was the same one that he had seen the brothers tilling and removing stones from the day before.
They set him on his feet.
He pretended to waver.
Heart pounding, he knew that he had to do something soon. Until now, he had felt helpless against the three of them. The barn had been too constricting a place in which to try to fight. He needed somewhere in the open, somewhere that allowed him to run. This field was going to have to be it. Because he knew without a doubt that this was where they intended to kill him.
"Put him on his knees," John said.
"It's still not too late to stop this," Mark said.
"Have you lost your faith?"
"I…"
"Answer me. Have you lost your faith?"
"…No."
"Then put him on his knees."
Romero allowed himself to be lowered. His heart was beating so frantically that he feared it would burst against his ribs. A sharp stone hurt his knees. He couldn't allow himself to react.
They leaned him forward on his hands. Like an animal. His neck was exposed.
"Prove your faith, Mark."
Something scraped, a knife being pulled from a scabbard.
It glinted in the moonlight.
"Take it," John said.
"But-"
"Prove your faith."
A long tense pause.
"Yes," John said. "Lord, accept this sacrifice in thanks for the glory of your earth and the bounty that comes from it. The blood of-"
Feeling another sharp rock, this one beneath his palm, Romero gripped it, spun, and hurled it as strongly as he could at the head of the figure nearest him. The rock made a crunching noise, the figure groaning and dropping, as Romero charged to his feet and yanked the knife from Mark's hands. He drove it into Mark's stomach and stormed toward the remaining brother, whom he recognized as John because of the pistol in his hand. But before Romero could strike him with the knife, John stumbled back, aiming, and Romero had no choice except to hurl the knife. It hit John, but whether it injured him, Romero couldn't tell. At least, it made John stumble back farther, his aim wide, the shot ploughing into the earth, and by then Romero was racing past the pickup truck, into the lane, toward the house. John fired again. The bullet struck the pickup truck.