“Are you sure?” said Juan. “That’s not an easy trip. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve seen you both working when I was ready to drop. I’m proud to know you.”
“We all are,” said George.
“It’s been a pleasure for us too,” said Sam. “But we’d like to try to help the people on the mountain. Right now, we’ll go below and pack our things so you can get started for home.”
Dr. Martinez said, “I think I’d better go back with the boat, if I may. I’ve been away from the hospital as long as I can be.”
Sam turned to the others. “Dr. Garza?”
Dr. Garza said, “Dr. Talamantes and I are staying for a few more days too. And by the way, please call me Maria. We’ve been through so much together, I feel as though I’ve known you for years.”
“And call me Christina,” said Dr. Talamantes.
In a short time, the group was reassembled on the aft deck with their backpacks. George and Miguel helped them into the lifeboat and took them back to the beach. When the boat was empty again, Sam and Remi pushed it off into deeper water.
“We’ll miss you,” said Miguel.
“Good,” said Remi. “Friends should miss one another. But we’ll all have stories of adventures we can tell when we meet again.”
As the lifeboat putted out to the yacht, Sam picked up their backpacks, and he and Remi walked off the beach and up the street toward the schoolhouse that was being used for temporary shelter. He said, “You know we’re stranded now, don’t you?”
“Stranded in a tropical beach town with the man I love?” Remi said. “Big deal.”
“A very romantic thing to say for a woman who’s been shoveling gravel and asphalt into cracks in a runway. I just hope those adventures you were talking about are as much fun as you implied to Miguel.”
She went up on tiptoes and kissed him. “This will be fine, and we’ll do some small bit of good. If we weren’t here, we’d be at home, bugging the electricians and carpenters, so our house would never get finished.”
“You’re right,” he said. “Let’s go see if there’s room for us to sleep in the school. We’ll call Selma so she doesn’t get worried, and tomorrow we can ask around to see how to form a relief party to the mountain.”
Chapter 4
By noon the next day, Sam and Remi were among a dozen volunteers sitting under the hot sun in the back of a flatbed truck, bouncing along the bad road toward Volcán Tacaná. Beside them were their former shipmates Dr. Christina Talamantes and Dr. Maria Garza, and, on the other side, were others they had come to know during the past week. There were two brothers in their twenties named Raul and Paul Mendoza, who had been brought up out in the countryside near the volcano, and a tall, quiet man named José, who’d had a law office in Tapachula that had been damaged by the earthquake. José Sánchez had a thick mustache that veiled his mouth, so one seldom knew whether he was smiling or frowning.
As they rode away from the city past miles of cultivated fields on their way into the interior, Remi stared into the distance at the blue triangle of Tacaná. Christina Talamantes noticed. “There doesn’t seem to be any more smoke. Maybe it’ll settle down again for another hundred years or so.”
“And maybe it’s saving its strength to spit fire and ash on our heads and bury us in lava,” José said. “The word ‘Tacaná’ is Mayan for ‘House of Fire.’”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t live up to its name, for now,” Sam said.
They rode for another hour before they reached the small town of Unión Juárez. There were two small brick buildings along the main street that had partially collapsed and two others that had lost some roof tiles. In the central square, the driver and the Spanish-speaking volunteers got out to talk with the people loitering there. Sam and Remi stuck close to Christina, who obliged them by translating. After talking briefly with an Indian-looking couple, Christina told the Fargos, “The road ends in about seven kilometers.”
“Then what?” asked Sam.
“Then we walk,” she said. “The lady says it’s a foot trail, and there are lots of smaller trails branching off of it that lead to the mountain villages.”
Remi said, “Did she say anything about conditions up there?”
“She warned me that it will be cold. It’s over thirteen thousand feet at the top.”
“We’re ready for that,” Remi said. “In fact, I have some things I can share with you. I brought some shells and fleece linings on the yacht because sometimes the Pacific can be cold at night, especially when the wind blows.”
“Thank you,” said Christina. “I brought some warm clothes too, and so did Maria, because we thought we’d be sleeping outdoors. But we may take you up on your offer in a day or two.”
“Did the lady say anything else?”
“They’ve had some avalanches from the shaking, and some of the villages’ water supplies may be contaminated. There are a few injuries that Maria and I can treat, and possibly some that we can’t. Those people will have to be evacuated.”
Sam said, “We’ll look for places near each of the villages where a helicopter can land.”
“Thank you,” said Christina. “Right now, I’m going to the church to join Maria and see if we can interview people who have come down from the mountain to find shelter. Want to come?”
When they entered the church, Maria and Christina met with five families from mountain villages. As they talked with the parents, the children came to Remi and sat on her lap. They were fascinated by her long auburn hair and loved to hear her sing little songs in her exotic native language, English. She gave them protein bars with nuts and chocolate as treats.
After a while, the truck driver appeared in front of the church, and everyone climbed into the flatbed truck for the last leg of their ride. Where the road ended, there was a stone to mark the beginning of the foot trail. Each of the volunteers climbed down from the truck and shouldered a heavy pack full of supplies. They all helped one another adjust load straps, and then set off.
The walk up the steep mountain trail was hard and slow. The forests had been cut and cleared for most of their journey but had never been cleared on the mountain, so foliage overhung their path. They made camp on a level clearing surrounded by trees with fruit that looked like small avocados the Mendozas called criollo, and slept until dawn, when the sun woke them. As they reached higher altitudes, the lowland trees were replaced by pines called pinabete.
They followed the same pattern for three days, breaking camp each morning, walking until they reached the next village, and meeting with its inhabitants to find out what kind of help they needed. At each one, Christina and Maria examined patients and treated injuries and illnesses. Remi assisted them, keeping the inventory of medicines and supplies, bathing and bandaging and administering prescribed doses while the doctors moved on to the next patient. Sam worked with a crew of volunteers and local farmers to rebuild and strengthen houses, replace broken pipes and wiring, and fix generators to restore electrical power.
At the end of the fifth day on the mountain, as they lay in a tent at the edge of a village near the twenty-five-hundred-meter level, Sam said, “I have to admit I’m glad we decided to do this.”
“Me too,” Remi said. “It’s one of the most satisfying times of my life.”
“You have wonderful taste.”
“You have wonderful self-esteem,” she said. “And I’m going to sleep.”
The following morning, Sam and Remi led the way to the last village. They took the smaller side trail that the mayor had told them led to their final stop and soon they were getting too far ahead of the others. They waited until the others could see them and then went on. But, before long, they were much farther ahead again.