Chase had glanced at his watch the moment they had dropped to their knees in the middle of the road. When the quake finally stopped, only thirteen seconds had passed.
The shaking terrified the tiger. He unsheathed his claws and gripped the dirt so the ground would not drop out from beneath him. When it finally stopped, he continued to hold on for several seconds. He had lost track of the deer some time ago. Other scents were now pushing up the mountain. He lifted his head and listened. He heard the bang of metal in the trees below. He did not like the sound. It reminded him of the night before, when the world came apart and the other cats lay still. He moved away from the noise so it could not catch him.
John, Nicole, and Mark were sitting upside down, pushing airbags out of their faces. Thirteen seconds earlier, they had been heading up the mountain on a steep incline. The trees had begun to thin out, making it easier for John to pick and choose his route. The truck had started to slip sideways and tip to the left. John shouted for them to lean to the right, but their weight wasn’t enough to put the truck back on four wheels. The 4x4 rolled over in slow motion and landed on its roof. Then it started to slide, spinning like a windmill, banging off several trees before coming to a jarring stop against a boulder.
“Everyone okay?” John asked.
“I’m fine,” Nicole said.
“It seems to me that we were in this exact same position a couple of days ago,” Mark said.
“Not the exact same position,” John said. “That time we were on our side.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s right. On a train trestle!”
“Are you okay?” John repeated.
“Couldn’t be better,” Mark said. “Can we do that again?”
John unhooked his seat belt, righted himself, and kicked out the windshield. The three crawled out of the truck and looked it over. The quad had been smashed into several pieces.
“Guess we won’t have to flip a coin to see who rides,” Mark said.
John didn’t hear him. He was already headed up the mountain.
Cindy dangled over the steaming chasm, suspended by her waist. Eternal blackness loomed beneath her. There was no sign of the wreckage she’d been crawling on a moment before. The earth had swallowed it. She reached up and grabbed the rope, not trusting the harness alone to hold her. The rope bowed under her weight. She was ten feet below the road’s jagged edge. Was Tomás okay? Would the rope hold? Did she have the strength to pull herself up if it did?
Tomás’s respirator-covered face appeared over the edge. He shined his flashlight down on her. Cindy could see only his eyes, but he looked as relieved to see her as she was to see him.
“Rope fraying. Stay still. I pull you up.”
His face disappeared before she could ask him to explain.
Fraying is not a word you want to hear when you’re hanging from a rope, Cindy thought, tightening her grip. As a television reporter, she had been in a lot of frightening situations, including Hurricane Emily, but this was by far the most terrified she had ever been. Her heart slammed in her chest. Tears poured from her eyes. She couldn’t breathe. She tore the respirator off and dropped it into the void. She took a deep breath and started to choke. Something bad was in the air. Sulfur? What’s taking Tomás so long? The end of a rope dropped down. She looked up.
“Tie to harness,” Tomás shouted through his respirator. “Tight.”
She fumbled with the line.
“Hurry!”
Cindy was doing the best she could. The respirator had not worked well against the foul air, but she realized now that it had been better than nothing. What was I thinking? I’ve got to get out of this hole! With fumbling fingers she managed to get the line through the carabiner and tie it off.
“Secured!” she shouted.
She began to pull herself along the rope, but found that Tomás was pulling her faster than she could move her hands. Within seconds he had her over the ledge and onto the road. He dragged her away from the crack and gave her a bottle of water. Her mouth and throat were raw from breathing ash and toxic steam, but she washed her face and rinsed her eyes before taking a drink.
“The village is not too far.” Tomás helped her to her feet. He took his respirator off and handed it to her.
Cindy shook her head. “You keep it.”
“Please. I insist.”
Reluctantly, she put it on. Tomás took his shirt off, wet it down, and wrapped it around his nose and mouth.
They continued up the road toward Lago.
Brittle pumice popped beneath Chase’s feet as he walked down the center of the road toward Lago. He had taken the bundles of sticks from the three smallest children. They in turn had taken Pepe and were handing him back and forth as they walked. As they drew closer to the village, they passed piles of rubble beside the road. At first Chase thought the piles were discarded building material or village garbage. But when the old man and the children stopped at one of the piles, crossed themselves, and bowed their heads, he knew he was wrong. The piles had once been houses. People had died beneath the debris. The group stopped three more times before entering the village.
Lago de la Montaña was much bigger than Chase had expected, and the damage also was much worse. The cobbled streets had buckled. The houses and buildings on both sides had all collapsed. The village was in ruins. The initial earthquake had struck at night while people were sleeping. Chase looked in dismay at the mounds of adobe brick and wood, knowing that some of the people, if not most of them, had died in their beds.
They arrived at the village square. It looked like a refugee camp, with dozens of people cooking, cleaning, and hovering outside crudely constructed shelters. The old man pointed at the church.
“Padre,” he said. “Inside.”
One wall of the church had collapsed, but the roof was intact. Popocatepetl’s plume rose high above the steeple. The church’s front door was open, and people were sitting on the stairs with blank, exhausted expressions. No one seemed even remotely interested in Chase’s sudden appearance in the village.
Hopelessness. Defeat. He thought he had seen the look before in emergency shelters and on the faces of people standing outside what were once their homes, but this was different.
These people have given up. They are waiting for doom.
Two men came out of the church, carrying between them a body wrapped in a blanket. Everyone followed their progress across the square to the right of the church with dull eyes. The men lay the body on the ground among dozens of others.
The old man said something to the children. The one carrying Pepe handed him to Chase. Then they started distributing the sticks to the shelters for the pitiful fires.
Chase set Pepe on the ground. They had come to Lago to find Tomás’s children, but he didn’t know exactly where to start. Pepe decided for him. The little dog ran up the steps through the open doors of the church. Chase ran after him.
Dull light filtered through the cut-glass windows and the collapsed wall. Candles and oil lamps were scattered along the floor. Dark shadows flickered throughout the nave. It took a few seconds for Chase’s eyes to adjust to the dark. The pews had been rearranged and turned into hospital beds. All of them were full. A murmuring of pain filled the church. Above the pitiful sound, Chase heard a high-pitched barking up near the altar. He wasn’t sure why — Pepe wasn’t his dog — but he felt responsible. He started to weave his way through the pews toward the front. It was a sad sight. The people lying on the makeshift beds were badly broken. Those who weren’t hurt were helping those who were. Chase couldn’t say it was exactly cheerful inside the church, but the mood was certainly more hopeful than it had been out on the square.
When Chase was halfway across the church, a man stepped out in front of him. He was wearing a black cassock dusted with ash, and a white clerical collar.
“Padre,” Chase said.
“Yes. Are you with the circus?”
Chase shook his head, relieved to hear that the father spok
e English. “My name is Chase Masters.”
“I’m Father Alejandro, but you may call me Father Al, or just Al, if you like.”
“I think I’ll stick with Father Al,” Chase said.
Father Al smiled. “And you say you are not with the circus.”
“No, I just got here.”
“The road is clear?” Father Al asked excitedly.
“No … sorry.” Chase explained how he had gotten to the village and why he had come.
“I’m sorry about the men who robbed you. I know who they are, but they are not from here. They came from Puebla a few days ago to work in our bottling plant.”
“Bottling plant?”
“Agua … water. The lake is glacial. Very pure. Montaña water is sold all over Mexico. Our other industry comes from the volcano itself. Perhaps you saw some of our product as you walked here.”
“Pumice stone?”
“Yes. Plentiful.” His expression turned serious. “Of course after this, I don’t know what we will do. The village is in ruins. Many people have died. Others have left.”
“Where did they go?” Chase asked. “How did they leave?”
“On foot in the middle of the night after the big earthquake. You climbed across the wreckage?”
“Yes.”
“It is stable?”
“No. They couldn’t have gone that way, and I didn’t see anyone on the road coming up here besides those two men.”
“I hope they are safe. You say you are here to check on a family?”
“The family of my father’s partner, our friend. He’s somewhere behind me. I’m sure he’ll be here soon. His name is Tomás.”
“That is a very common name. What is his last name?”
Chase flushed. “I don’t know, but he’s married to a woman named Guadalupe and they have eight children.”
Father Al laughed. “That would be Tomás Vargas! The eight are not exactly his children, and Guadalupe is not exactly his wife. You say he’s on his way up here?”
“I expect him any time,” Chase said, hoping that nothing had happened to Tomás and Cindy.
Father Al gave him a broad smile. “That is wonderful news! Tomás has very clever hands. The generator is out. It is our only source of electricity. We tried to fix it but failed.”
Tomás does have clever hands, Chase thought. If anyone can fix the generator, Tomás can.
“What do you mean, the children aren’t exactly his children?” Chase asked.
“Yes,” Father Al said, “I should explain. The eight children are orphans. Tomás pays all of their expenses, including their education if they decide to go to the university. Guadalupe runs the orphanage for the church. She and Tomás have been friends since they were children. They were both raised in the orphanage.”
Chase had known none of this, but he wasn’t completely surprised by the revelation. Tomás was a man of few words. It was probably just simpler for him to say that they were his kids and Guadalupe was his wife. It made no difference. He obviously loved them or he wouldn’t be down here. Neither would Chase’s father.
“Are the kids okay?”
“Oh, yes. We lost no one in the orphanage. In fact, two of those children were with me at the circus in Puebla. The orphanage is behind the church. It’s the only building in Lago with virtually no damage.”
“Then all the houses have been searched?”
“Yes. We started right after the big earthquake. Most of the people here were pulled from the rubble of their homes. Many of the people in the square have been up for two days straight looking for survivors. They are exhausted. I called the search off just two hours ago so they can get some rest. We will resume the search tomorrow when it’s light, although I fear we’ve found all we are going to find.” Father Al sighed. “Alive, anyway.
“The mother and daughter who run the circus are badly injured, I’m afraid. They are in the orphanage, where we set up our first hospital. As you can see, it has overflowed here, into the church. The three clowns and the dog trainer who came with them are bruised but fine.”
“The Rossis are here?”
“So you know them. Leah and her mother.”
“That was their camper?” Chase said.
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“I’ve — we’ve been looking for them, too. The people I was traveling with before, I mean. I knew those vehicles belonged to the circus. I just didn’t know who was driving them.” Chase was shocked. He wondered if his father had heard about this, or Nicole.
“The uninjured circus people are outside the orphanage, resting. Like the villagers in the square, they have been up for two days searching for survivors.”
“The orphanage …” Chase said slowly. “I walked into the village with an older man and five children. Were they from the orphanage?”
“Gathering wood?”
Chase nodded.
Father Al smiled. “We have been giving the children small jobs like gathering firewood to keep their minds off the tragedy and the volcano.”
“What about the volcano?” Chase asked.
Father Al shrugged. “I have lived in Popocatepetl’s shadow for over thirty years. This is the worst of the eruptions and it might be the end of Lago de la Montaña, but there is nothing we can do. The injured are not strong enough to walk off this mountain, and they outnumber those who are well, so we cannot carry them. It is up to God.”
Chase understood Father Al’s reasoning, but he had been taught his entire life that there is always something you can do. “So you’re saying it’s fate,” he said.
Father Al shook his head. “Not fate. Faith. Come with me. I will take you to see the Rossis.”
John, Nicole, and Mark stepped above the tree line just after sunset. In front of them, Popocatepetl’s plume shot up into the night sky, thousands of feet above the summit.
“It looks close enough to touch,” Nicole said with awe.
“It’s farther away than you think,” John said. “It just looks close because of its size.”
Mark started videotaping.
“It would be a lot easier for you if you weren’t lugging that camera,” John said.
“Do you see all the colors in the plume?” Mark asked, totally ignoring the suggestion. “We couldn’t see them during the day, but at night it’s like the Fourth of July.”
“Lightning,” Nicole said.
“I see it,” John said.
Crackling white and gold bolts exploded through the plume like electrified spiderwebs.
“Does lightning make you nervous?” Mark asked.
John stared at the powerful column, remembering what Momma Rossi had said. That lightning is still looking for you…. It’s going to find you again…. Reflexively, his hand went up to his earring.
“It should make me nervous,” he admitted. “But for some reason, it doesn’t.” Then he pulled his sat phone out as he said abruptly to Mark and Nicole, “Get your headlamps out of your go bags. We’ll need them to see where we’re heading.”
He tried the phone. Still no signal.
Tomás and Cindy had their headlamps on. They had reached the lake and were drinking the cold water and washing the ash from their faces and hair.
“I’m worried about that plume,” Cindy said in Spanish.
“The pressure is being relieved,” Tomás replied in his native tongue. “It is good.”
“What about the lava?”
“There will be lava on the summit, but it is not a problem. It moves very slowly and hardens before it can reach Lago. Mudflows from melting snow and ice, earthquakes, and flying rocks are what we have to worry about. When I was young, a rock the size of a school bus fell on the village square. It was on a Sunday morning. Everyone was in church. No one died.”
Cindy pointed across the lake. “Are those fires?”
Tomás nodded. “Campfires in the village square. It means people no longer have houses to return to. We should go.”
Chase stood be
side two small beds in the orphanage. They were children’s beds, but the adults occupying them did not fill their length. On his left was Mrs. Rossi. On his right was Nicole’s sister, Leah. Mrs. Rossi was unconscious. Leah was asleep. The village doctor had been tending to them when Father Al showed Chase into the girls’ dormitory. The doctor finished his work, then turned to Chase and explained the extent of their injuries in English almost as good as Father Al’s.
“Both women have broken ribs and severe concussions. Mrs. Rossi has two broken wrists and there is some damage to her neck, but without an X-ray machine or CAT scanner here, I can’t say how bad the injuries are. I have stabilized the women, but they need to be hospitalized. I have sedated Mrs. Rossi, and of course they are both on pain medication.” He looked at Father Al. “How are the patients in the church?”
“We lost Mrs. Ruiz,” Father Al answered sadly.
The doctor nodded. “The medical supplies?”
“Very low. We are down to the expired medications. We are boiling cloth in the square to make dressings.”
The doctor looked at his watch. “I’d better check on the other patients.”
“And I need to see how the food supplies are holding up in the square,” Father Al said.
“I’ll stay here,” Chase volunteered.
“One of the circus people is over in that corner, sleeping,” Father Al said, nodding toward the man.
Chase looked over. He hadn’t noticed the man sprawled on the tiny bed in the dark corner, with his knees hanging over the end.
“I believe his name is Dennis,” Father Al continued. “He’s one of the circus clowns. They took turns caring for the Rossis while the others helped us search the rubble for survivors. The dog trainer even enlisted some of the poodles to help. The little dogs found three people we would have missed otherwise.”