“Nice,” Chase said. “But this isn’t a circus prop. It’s a stop sign. The truck will have to slow down as it’s coming around the curve. Tomás will stop when he sees the crates, or he’ll run into them. Either way, he won’t fall through the crack.”
Pepe stared at him.
“I can’t believe I’m explaining this to a poodle.”
He picked Pepe up and started toward the crack in the earth.
“I’m sorry about your friends,” Mark said.
“Thanks,” Doug said. “I guess this is the end of the Rossi Brothers’ Circus. No cat act. No elephant act.” He looked off into the distance. “Maybe no owner. We all knew it was coming, but we had no idea it was going to end this way.”
Doug was smiling, but it was clear from his voice and the expression beneath the greasepaint that he was anything but happy. When he’d heard about the elephants and cats and his friends, he had nearly collapsed. John and Mark had to help him into the tent where he could sit down.
John was out trying to make a phone call, Nicole was in the opposite corner of the tent talking quietly to the other circus people, leaving Mark to look after the bereaved clown. He didn’t mind. He liked clowns.
“What’s the deal with the camera?” Doug asked.
Mark explained the last forty-eight hours as best as he could.
“The Rossis lost their house!” Doug said. “We didn’t even hear about the hurricane. Does Mrs. Rossi know?”
“I don’t think so. We haven’t been able to get in touch with anyone down here to let them know.”
“You’re making a documentary about this John dude?”
“I’m just the camera guy. My producer, Cindy, is making the documentary. But it’s a safe bet you’ll be in it.”
“Clown on a volcano,” Doug said.
Mark smiled. “Something like that.”
“Might be my last performance.”
John came into the tent, looking worried. Nicole saw him enter and ran over to join Mark and Doug as he walked up to them.
“I spoke to Cindy, but the conversation was garbled. The ash is playing havoc with the satellite signal. She said she completely lost the signal for a while. From what I understood, a couple of men jacked Chase’s quad and he’s missing. Tomás found the thieves. They had totaled the quad, and one of them is dead. The other guy has a broken leg. To top it off, Tomás had a blowout, which caused some other damage to the truck besides the flat. Cindy’s walking ahead trying to find Chase while Tomás tries to fix the truck. It sounds like the ash is a lot worse up there than it is down here.”
“What do we do?” Nicole asked.
“We do nothing,” John said. “You and Mark are going to stay here. I’m going back up to find Chase.”
“I’m going with you,” Nicole said.
John shook his head. “You’ll be safer here. I’m not going back the same way we came. That would take too long. I’ve figured out a way of going over the top. Or close to the top. I’ll get the truck up as far as I can, then head out on foot or on the quad to Lago. There’s only one road going in. If I get there before Tomás and Cindy, I’ll backtrack along the road.”
“I’m still going with you,” Nicole said.
“Sorry,” John said.
“My mother and sister are in Lago. It’s the reason I came all the way down here.”
“It’s why Cindy and I came down here too,” Mark said. “Who’s to say it’s any safer here than it is up at the village? Stranded is stranded.”
“Are you saying that you want to go too?” John asked.
“Not particularly, but Cindy would probably kill me if I didn’t.” Mark smiled. “Besides, you’re lucky. Bad things happen all around you, but you always come through without a scratch. You’re the Teflon man. Nothing seems to stick to you, so I’m sticking with you.”
“You’re forgetting that if we have to use the quad, there’s only room for two people,” John said.
“If it comes to that, I’ll flip you for it,” Mark said.
“What about my luck?”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“What about us?” Doug asked.
“I spoke to the authorities in Mexico City. They know you’re stranded here. There’s a road crew on the way to repair the bridge and clear the slide.”
“How long is that going to take?” Doug asked.
“Too long,” John admitted. “But I think I have that covered as well. A friend of mine in the States is trying to get permission to bring a rescue team in with choppers. As soon as they get the okay, they’ll mobilize quickly. It won’t take them more than a few hours to get here.”
“How’d you arrange that?”
“My friend is in charge of the outfit.”
“A military outfit?” Nicole asked.
“Definitely military.” John looked at Doug. “The best thing you can do while you’re waiting is to set up a landing zone. You’ll have to move some of these trucks. They’ll fly in and ferry you to the other side of the bridge, where you’ll be driven to Mexico City.”
“What about the animals?” Doug asked.
“That’s up to Delgado.”
“Delgado?” Mark asked.
“Commander Raul Delgado of the U.S. Navy SEALs.” John smiled. “He reminds me of you, actually. Constantly whining and complaining, but he’s the best operative I know. His priority is going to be getting the people out of here, not the animals, but you never know with Raul. He’s done some crazy things in his life. He might like the idea of evacuating lions and tigers and bears.” John looked at Nicole and Mark. “Time to go.”
It was time for Chase to go. He put the dusty poodle down his shirt and started across the junkyard bridge. The short crossing turned out to be a lot harder than he was expecting. The wrecks were hot with steam and slick with ash. And Pepe’s sharp nails scratching his stomach and chest as the little dog tried to get out wasn’t helping matters.
“Knock it off! Unless you want to fall off into the bottomless pit.”
Chase knew it wasn’t bottomless, but it was deep. He couldn’t see the bottom. He got down on his hands and knees, afraid he would slip off if he stayed on his feet. As he crawled onto the camper roof, the pile suddenly shifted with a loud screech. He froze and held his breath.
This is it.
The screeching stopped. The twisted metal held. Chase breathed.
Forward or backward?
He looked behind him. The distance was just about equal.
Dead center.
He didn’t like the sound of that.
In the middle. Halfway. Better.
Pepe had stopped struggling. It was as if he sensed the danger. Whatever the reason, Chase was grateful. It would make his next move easier.
Whatever that move is going to be.
There wasn’t enough room to turn around safely. He’d have to crawl backward to get to where he’d come from. The other problem was that when the camper shifted, the top had settled at a steep angle. He was hanging on to the edge to keep himself from slipping into the crack.
“Just go!” he shouted.
He crawled forward, feeling the pile tremble every time he put a hand or a knee down. The far side seemed like it was a football field away.
If there’s another earthquake … If the crack widens … If I slip …
Chase knew better than to think this way. Fear brings disaster from the inside out. His father had told him this a thousand times. Focus on the moment. Concentrate on survival. Think about what’s right, not what’s wrong. Take advantage of it.
Chase wished his father was there to explain what was “right” about this. After what seemed like an eternity, he finally reached the other side of the junkyard bridge, but he was far from safe. The edge of the road was several feet above him. He would have to stand on the tilted truck hood, reach above his head, and pull himself up. He got to his feet very slowly, looking for something solid to grab on to if the pile started to go. The
camper rocked back and forth. Pepe began struggling again.
“Can’t have that.”
He reached into his shirt and pulled him out.
“Sorry.”
He tossed the poodle up over the ledge. Pepe landed with a soft thud and a whimper. A second later, his head appeared over the edge and he started barking indignantly.
“No need to thank me,” Chase said.
He reached up and grabbed the overhang of broken road. Pepe licked his fingers.
“That’s not helpful.”
He pulled himself up, relieved to have his feet off the unstable camper, and even happier to have climbed onto the road. He lay on his back, catching his breath, with Pepe perched on his chest.
Tomás pulled the truck over and Cindy got in. She told him about her broken conversation with John Masters. Tomás told her about the conversation he’d had with the broken-legged thief in back while changing the tire and repairing the undercarriage.
The man had said that he and his friend were working in Lago when the earthquake hit in the middle of the night. There had been a great deal of damage to the houses, and people had been killed, but he didn’t know how many or who.
Cindy looked at Tomás’s children smiling in the photos taped to the dash. Tomás wasn’t showing it, but she was certain he was sick with worry.
Tomás explained that the village priest had returned to Lago just after the earthquake with a van full of orphans, three circus clowns, a dozen performing dogs, and two very small women.
“Mrs. Rossi and Nicole’s sister, Leah,” Cindy said.
Tomás nodded.
Mrs. Rossi, Leah, and two of the clowns had been badly injured. A few miles from Lago the road had opened up, swallowing the Rossis’ camper and the other vehicle. The priest and orphans had been right in front of them and had missed falling into the enormous crack by inches. Because that road was the only way in or out, Lago was completely cut off. The two men had decided to head out on foot. They were both from Puebla and wanted to find out how their families were. They were surprised to see Chase drive up on the quad. The man with the broken leg claimed he had no idea that his friend was going to hit Chase in the head and take the quad.
“Do you believe him?” Cindy asked.
Tomás shrugged.
Neither of the men had ever driven a quad. When they reached the landslide, his friend took the quad off-road and it flipped. The man in back crawled up the bank because he didn’t know what else to do. He had been expecting to die there.
“He may yet die,” Tomás concluded in English, “if Chase is unwell.”
Cindy took her phone out, hoping to reach Nicole with the news about her mother and sister. The signal was gone again.
John drove the truck up the mountainside at an impossible angle.
Mark was holding on to his precious camera with white knuckles. “You know,” he said, “these tires don’t have suction cups.”
“But we do have a roll bar,” John said. “If we flip, we should be okay.”
“Comforting,” Mark said.
“Do we have a signal yet?” John asked.
Nicole tore her eyes away from the tops of the trees and glanced at the satellite phone she was carrying. “No.”
“Maybe it will get better when we get above the tree line.”
“If we get to the tree line,” Mark said. “Where did you learn to drive?”
“In the Navy.”
“Figures.”
“Lago de la Montaña,” Chase said. Pepe looked up at him. “I’m not sure how you say it in poodle, but in English it means ‘Lake of the Mountain.’”
The last half mile of road had been steep. The small lake was above the tree line and fed by glaciers, which had now turned from white to gray. The village was on the opposite side of the lake. Looming behind it like a petrified tooth was the summit of Popocatepetl. A thick plume of gray ash and steam billowed from the peak into the darkening sky as far as Chase could see.
Pepe scampered to the edge of the water and started drinking. Chase joined him. The surface was covered with fine ash and what looked like white floating rocks. He picked one up. It was porous and as light as a feather.
“Pumice stone,” he said.
Pepe picked one up in his teeth and tossed it into the air.
“Knock yourself out. It’s not poisonous.”
Chase kneeled, cleared an area of ash and pumice, and scooped water into his mouth. He wasn’t aware of just how thirsty he was until the icy liquid hit the back of his throat. He put his head under water and came up gasping from the glacial chill.
“Whoa!”
Having his face clean made every other part of his body itch. He looked across the lake at the village. It had taken him so long to get this far, five minutes more couldn’t hurt. He quickly stripped off his clothes, tossed them into the water to soak, then dove in. He thought his heart would turn to ice. He lifted his head above the water. His teeth chattered. Pumice stones bobbed around him like an armada of toy ships. Pepe ran back and forth along the shore, barking.
“Come on in! The water’s fine!”
Pepe would have none of it. Chase stayed in as long as he could, which was less than three minutes. He waded back to shore, shivering. Facing the lake, he rinsed and wrung out his clothes as the air dried his skin. The wind had died down to almost nothing, which meant the ash was not blowing around as much, for which he was grateful. It meant he might be reasonably clean when he got to Lago. As he pulled on his underwear, he heard something behind him. He turned, expecting to see Pepe tossing more pumice around. Pepe was there, but he wasn’t tossing volcanic rock, and he wasn’t alone. He was sitting next to an old man and five children. Next to the old man was a wheelbarrow filled with sticks. The five children were carrying bundles of sticks in their arms and giggling. He didn’t blame them. A second earlier, they had been staring at his shivering butt. He would have laughed too.
He quickly pulled on the rest of his clothes.
When he was dressed, the old man said something to him, which Chase didn’t understand.
“No hablo español. ¿Hablas inglés?”
The old man shook his head.
Chase pointed at the village. “Lago de la Montaña?”
The old man nodded.
That was just about the extent of Chase’s Spanish. He thought about mentioning Tomás’s name, but realized he didn’t know Tomás’s last name.
I’ve known Tomás my entire life. How could I not know his last name? He looked at the five children. He did know what Tomás’s children looked like, though, and none of them were here with the old man.
Why are children out gathering wood?
He would have to see why when he got to Lago because he didn’t know how to ask.
Tomás eased around the curve, then stepped on the gas. He didn’t see the dog crates until they were bouncing off the windshield. He slammed on the brakes.
“What was that?” Cindy shouted.
Tomás shook his head.
They got out. The man in the truck bed moaned. Tomás checked on him before coming around to the front of the truck, where Cindy was pulling something out from under the bumper.
“Dog crates. Obviously from the circus, but why did they leave them in the middle of the road? And where are the dogs?”
Tomás squatted down and looked at the ground in front of the truck.
“What do you see?”
“Footprints.”
They followed them to the crack.
“Chase put the crates there to warn us,” Cindy said.
Tomás got down on his knees and pushed on the trailer to test its stability. It moved. He took the flashlight from his go bag and leaned over the edge with it. Cindy had seen him and John do the same thing on the levee road during the worst of Hurricane Emily.
After a couple of minutes, Tomás popped back up and said, “I will go first.”
This implied that Cindy was going second. She wasn’t su
re she wanted to go at all. “What about our friend in the truck?”
“He will have to stay here.”
“Maybe I should stay with him.”
Tomás shrugged and jogged back to the truck. He drove forward and parked it as far to the right side of the road as he could. He came back with a coil of rope and Chase’s go bag slung over his shoulder. He tied one end of the rope to the bumper.
“What are you doing?” Cindy asked.
Instead of answering, he handed her a webbed harness with a carabiner attached to it.
“What am I supposed to do with this?”
Without a moment’s hesitation, Tomás danced nimbly across the wreckage to the other side of the crack. The trailer and camper were still wobbling and screeching as he pulled himself up to the road.
“Are you with the circus?” Cindy shouted across the fissure. “I can’t do that!”
Tomás wrapped the rope around a tree, took up the slack, and tied it off. He motioned for her to put the harness around her waist and clip the carabiner to the rope.
“You are crazy!”
Tomás pointed at his watch.
“I know you’re in a hurry, but still … I can’t do this. I’ll stay here and take care of the man in the truck.”
Tomás gave her another shrug and turned to leave.
“Wait!”
Tomás turned back.
Cindy snapped the carabiner to the rope. “Just go before you regain your sanity,” she muttered to herself. She stepped onto the twisted metal and immediately dropped to her hands and knees. There was no way she’d be able to cross it like Tomás had. She began to crawl. Three quarters of the way across, she heard a loud rumbling coming up from the fissure. The wreckage started to sway. She looked up. The sides of the fissure were grinding back and forth like jaws. The metal dropped away as if the earth were swallowing it.
Cindy screamed.
The old man was kneeling, with his arms wrapped around three of the children. Chase was crouched down, his arms around the other two and the poodle. Pepe was whimpering. The children were crying. As the ground rumbled and rolled beneath them, Chase looked up at the volcano. The plume had turned darker and thicker, as if someone were stoking the fire beneath. A church bell rang from the village. He wondered if someone was pulling the rope or if the quake was causing it to toll.