Jumper: Griffin's Story (14 page)

"Noted," I said. "If needed."

I should've said no.

The smell woke me up, carrion–rotten, retch inducing. I followed it back through the cave toward the battery rack, a faint breeze in my face. Something odd about that, since the airflow was usually the other direction–through the rubble that closed my little branch and up. It's two things–the water brings a bit of air in but also a network of cracks near the spring. The other thing is that the sun heats the rock around the upper end of the shaft, sucking up air from below.

But today, something else was happening and it really stank.

It had been so long since I'd been at the mouth of the mine that I couldn't remember it well enough to jump there. I finally had to jump to the pit toilet at the picnic area where I dumped my bucket toilet. It was overcast and surprisingly cold, unusual for here. That explained the airflow issue. The cold air was flowing down into the shaft. I jumped back for a jacket before I started the three–mile hike from the picnic area to the mineshaft.

When I got there I found the gate in the grate was wide open, the lock missing, the hasp mangled and streaked with copper. I looked at one of the depressions and realized someone had shot the lock off–the metallic streaks were from copper–jacketed bullets.

But the stench was up here, too.

I thought they were dogs, but realized after a moment that they were coyotes. Someone had shot them, shot the lock off the grate, and dumped them down.

It was illegal to hunt in the park, I was pretty sure. Even if a ranger had killed a coyote for some reason–rabies control, maybe–he wouldn't have shot the lock off and dumped them in the shaft.

Bastards.

I still had some rubber gloves from doing the concrete work in the Hole, but I jumped to
San Diego
and visited Home Depot for a paint–and–pesticide respirator mask and some heavy–duty plastic bags. The three coyotes were rotten with maggots and fell apart as I shoved them into the bags. They'd probably been there for days, but the change in the weather brought the smell in. Don't know how I could of stood it without the mask.

I left a note under the door at the rangers station telling them about the lock. It was after seven by then and the park had officially closed. It was better, as far as I was concerned, that the note be anonymous. If I started talking to the rangers, they might start wondering where I lived. The park had a residential ranger, but his quarters were way over by the park entrance, a good ten miles away.

I dumped the bags in their Dumpster.

There was a water spigot outside the station and I'd rinsed the gloves and was wiping them on a bit of turf near the station, preparatory to jumping back to the Hole, when I heard a gunshot.

It wasn't near–I didn't jump away or anything–but it did come from up the ridge, back toward the mine.

I jumped back up to the shaft, where I felt cold and exposed. The sun was going down and the wind was picking up. I walked back to one of the old surface buildings, a roofless rock–and–mortar shell, one wall tumbled down into a pile of its component rocks, and sheltered from the wind.

After a while, I heard another shot, loud, but still not so loud that it made me nervous. A motor started up in the distance, and then another.

Sounded like motorbikes. I started to leave the old building, trying for a vantage point where I might see them, when I realized the sound was getting louder.

They weren't motorbikes–they were four–wheeled ATVs, camouflage painted, two of them. They roared up the canyon scattering rock and dirt and what little grass there was and I wondered why I hadn't seen their tracks before. They each had another coyote on the back rack and telescopic rifles on a rack in front.

The gloves in my hand were still wet from washing, pretty clean, but the smell or the memory of the smell was still in my nose.

They pulled right up to the grate, flipped open the gate, and tossed them down. Just like that, not even looking around.

"Miller time!" one said to the other.

"Miller time," the other agreed.

I thought about tossing them down the shaft, but they hopped back on the ATVs and roared back down the canyon. Off–road vehicles were also illegal in the park.

I jumped back to the Hole and took the binoculars from the dinghy gear. I jumped to the ridgetop above the canyon, using the binoculars to pick my destination. They were easy to spot–they were in the long shadows of the
Fish
Creek
Mountains
and they'd turned their headlights on. I had to move once, as they moved behind a ridge, farther down the hills, but I tracked them all the way to the park's edge, to a light that showed through the gathering dusk.

I jumped back to the Dumpster by the rangers station and retrieved the plastic bags full of rotting coyote and left them, for the time being, in the old stone building I'd sheltered in, near the mineshaft.

I said yes to Henry about the trip to
France
. That is, I said it was all right with my parents.

"Do they need to talk to Harold? Or my mum?"

I shook my head. "They're cool. Tell you the truth, I suspect they can't be arsed."

He got this look on his face, like maybe he should be sympathetic, but then said, "Be a relief, that. Every permission thing I have to do involves faxes and international phone calls and crossing my ?'s and dotting all the /'s. Your passport all in order?"

I nodded. "Oh, yeah. Old picture–hate it–but it doesn't expire for another three years."

"Right. I'll arrange the tickets."

"How much do you need?"

"Oh, no, Dad's treat. Thinks it's good I've got a friend outside of St. Brutus's. But I also think he wants cousin Harold to vet you since they can't themselves, not until summer."

"Oh, they coming home?"

"July after summer term. Three weeks. You going anywhere?"

"Too far in the future, mate. Anyway, I don't really pay much attention to term holidays, what with the homeschooling. Better to travel when everyone isn't." Or so I heard.

In daylight, I used the binoculars and jumped, ridge to ridge, out to the edge of the park. There was a barbwire fence–not the park's–stretching along the boundary.

There were coyote carcasses, some old, some fresh, hung every thirty feet along the wire. Some of them were tatters of skin caught on the barbs and bones below.

On the other side of the fence, the ground was stripped bare, no vegetation, nothing, but there were sheep. Lots of sheep.

I moved down the fence, to the north, the direction the ATVs had seemed to go the night before. The fence turned a corner and there was a stretch of land that looked just like the park–it hadn't been grazed to nothing, but there were tire tracks–the kind with deep pockets from the tire lugs, designed to grip in mud and sand. I turned and followed them.

They went as far as a county road, dirt but graded smooth, then headed south, back along another fence. The coyote carcasses continued all around the property. The house was set back from the road, the only spot of vegetation on the entire ranch.

A mailbox at the road had "Keyhoe" painted crudely across it. The ATVs were parked near an outbuilding and there were four dogs lying on the porch that came for me, tearing across the ground toward the fence, growling and barking.

These were not friendly dogs.

I stepped off the road on the other side, put a mesquite bush between the house and me, and jumped away.

I took a cab into La Crucecita from St. Augustin. I was wearing tourist clothes and a big droopy sun hat. I gave directions in English and when the driver overcharged me, I didn't correct him. I went into Significado Claro like any other client. Alejandra was on the phone and I didn't look at her as she talked–I looked at the posters on the wall.

She glanced at my clothes and said, in English, "I'll be with you in a moment." I waved my hand, acknowledging this.

She was arranging the details for one of her immersion courses out at the Sheraton resort and I listened, not really paying attention to what she said, but just hungry for her voice.

Finally, details arranged, she hung up the phone and said, "How may I help you?"

I took off the hat and held my finger to my lips. They might be bugging the office.

Her eyes widened and without saying anything, she came around the desk and enfolded me in her arms,

I began crying.

"Shhhhh." Her arms tightened and I cried harder; after a while, I calmed down and she let go. I picked up a pad of paper and wrote on it,
iDonde podemos hablar?

She took the pad and wrote where and when.

A half hour later we met on the wooded hillside behind the church, screened by the trees and with a good view of the approaches.

"No one was with me when I went into the church. I said ten Ave Marias," she told me and held up a bag, "and I brought
chapulines."

She was kidding about the grasshoppers.

"I don't know what came over me," I said, over the chicken
enmoladas.
I'm okay, really."

"I missed you, too," Alejandra said.

I had to busy myself with eating for a moment, though I nearly choked. She covered by telling the news, new babies, two marriages, what was happening at the agency. I'd gotten some of this from Consuelo but I didn't tell her that. I just listened and watched. After a bit, when I'd finished eating, she said, "You look so muscular! Exercising?"

"Yeah, karate."

"And your schoolwork?"

"Yes, Mum. Every day."

She tilted her head. "Your English has changed–
the
accent, it's less American."

"Yeah, I've been mucking about in
London
."

"Don't tell me where," she cautioned.

"It's a big town, London–twelve million souls. But I don't live there."

"Et votre frangais ? "

We switched to French.

"I still do written class work. I'm going to
Normandy
next month. Work on my accent."

"I'm jealous! I've been to
Quebec
and their French is . . . different. But Martinique in the
French West Indies
was good. But never to
France
."

"After next week, I can take you instantly."

She looked sorely tempted. "No. Maybe someday, when our friend from the Villa Blanca is gone, when they've stopped looking for you. Last time I went out of town, to
Mexico City
, they were there, watching to see who I met."

I could feel my face change, set.

"Don't feel bad. I do everything I would do otherwise, except see you. I just ignore them."

"Consuelo said they searched the house."

I saw anger flicker across her face but then she smiled. "But they didn't
take
anything. See? Not like a thief."

"They steal your privacy."

She shrugged and touched her forehead.
"This
is still private." She gestured between us.
"This
is still private."

She rolled up the paper trash from the lunch, twisting it tighter and tighter, then put it in my hand.
"You
can dispose of this. I will go back into the church and pray. How do you leave?"

I sighed.
"I'll
take the bus to
Oaxaca
, but I won't arrive. Twenty kilometers should be safe." I pulled the hat back over my eyes. "See?
Invisible."

"We can meet here sometimes. Have Consuelo call the day before–exactly twenty–four hours before–and she can say
el goto saliseo.
I will meet you the next day."

"Well, if the cat got out, the coyotes would eat it. Very well, if it is
safe,"
I added a little stridently.

She pulled me to her again. "If it is safe."

The dogs were nowhere to be seen when I appeared behind the bush on the other side of the county road from the ranch house. It was dark but the moon was three–quarters full and my eyes were acclimated. I jumped up to the porch, ripped the bags open, and dumped the rotting coyote corpses in front of the door.

The dogs began barking up a storm but I was back behind the bush before the first light came on.

"Oh, shit! Tasha, Linus, Jack, Lucy, get
out
of that!" I heard a thud and a dog's yelp. "Trey, get your rifle! Someone's messing with us!" I recognized the voice from when they'd dumped the last coyote.

I left before they started shooting randomly into the night. I hoped
all
of the dogs rolled in it.

"Why am I doing this?"

Henry reached out and adjusted my bow tie. It was a rented white–jacket dinner suit from a formal hire shop in Lewisham. They made me leave a bloody great deposit since I didn't have a credit card.

"Meet girls, have fun. Meet Tricia."

He'd only asked me two days in advance. I guess if your school is in a Georgian mansion and they have an honest–to–God ballroom, you occasionally have an honest–to–God ball. The St. Bartholomew's Midwinter Ball, to be specific.

"I went once before, when I first started at St. Brutus's, but spent the whole time against the wall. But Tricia's got leave to attend with her roommate and the girls from St. Margaret's come. It'll be fun."

We were waiting for Tricia at Paddington Station by the bronze statue of
Isambard Kingdom
Brunei
. My hair was sticking up in back. I could feel it. I kept trying to push it down but Henry said, "Leave it alone. People will think you have nits."