Cradling the fountain pen to his chest like a treasure, Lauro embraced Celina and peppered her face with kisses. His heart hammered with joy. Without a doubt, the fountain pen had belonged to Nino.
“This is the proof we need,” Celina exclaimed, her tawny eyes glowing like tiger’s eye quartz in the golden lantern light of the cave. “We’re on the right path.”
Continuing on, they searched the cave, eager to find other evidence.
Lauro was desperate to believe they were drawing close to Nino. But when had his brother dropped this pen? On the trip here with their father, or years later, when he returned here on his own? Or more recently?
After searching for a while but finding no other clues, doubt edged into his mind. Had Nino been here at all? His brother often gave gifts to people. Could another guide or cacao farmer have dropped it?
Celina stopped and stood motionless, her hands over her heart. “Maybe it was the shaman’s blessing. Right now I feel we are very close. I know Nino was here.”
“Maybe,” he allowed, not wanting to dash Celina’s hopes or jinx his. Would they find Nino alive? Or would they find his remains? At the least, his parents needed closure to the loss of their oldest son. The worst of all would be to find nothing—no trace of Nino’s subsequent journey here, or clues that would lead them elsewhere.
Nino was the brother he’d looked up to all his life. When he was young, he couldn’t have imagined that he would go through the remainder of his life without the brother he so admired. For that reason, their final, grief-fueled argument haunted Lauro. He alone shouldered the guilt of banishing his brother. At times, the void in his heart was almost more than he could bear. And Nino—his brother hadn’t argued with him. Instead, he had simply vanished into the night.
Now, the closer they became, the more vulnerable he felt as the old wounds of loss were reopened. If they found Nino, would he forgive him?
After leaving the cave, Ernesto and his men prepared supper over a fire for them. They had potatoes roasted over hot stones, along with fowl and grains, and ended with succulent mangos picked from nearby trees. Ernesto brewed mate de coca, insisting that it would help them handle the thin air of the high altitude.
After eating, the Quechua men folded their legs to sit and play the zampoña, a panflute whose music Lauro found hauntingly beautiful and elegant in its purity. Another played a string instrument with a light, quick touch.
He glanced at Celina, who also seemed enchanted with the ethereal music. The temperature was cooler at this altitude, so Celina had fastened a colorful lliklla over her shoulders that a village woman had given her in trade. With her fair hair spilling over the vivid colors of the hand-loomed fabric, Celina was spellbinding in the light of the flickering flames. He ached for her, and couldn’t imagine returning to Italy without her. On this trip, despite their occasional quarrels and frustration, he realized how much he wanted her in his life, whether his father approved of her or not.
Ernesto brought out a similar woven cloth and draped it around Lauro’s shoulders. Still, Lauro shivered in the night air, though his face was damp with perspiration. He stretched out his aching leg. At turns, he became blazing hot or teeth-chattering cold.
As they relaxed, Celina watched him, her brow puckered with worry. “Are you feeling worse?”
“My leg might be a little swollen.” Lauro shrugged off the pain. “But your beauty is the salve to my aching soul.”
“Forever my poet.” She chuckled softly. “May I see it?”
He nodded, and she rolled up his torn pants leg. From the look on her face, he could tell she was concerned. She moved the lantern closer to inspect his injury. The gash had swollen and become inflamed.
Celina frowned. “It needs to be cleaned again.” Using fresh water from a nearby mountain lake that Ernesto’s men had brought, she flushed the wound. Looking worried, she brought Ernesto over to look at it.
“It will be fine by tomorrow.” Lauro laughed at their concern. “It’s not like I’m dying.” But now, as he inspected his wound, which ran down his shin, he could see why Celina was anxious.
“Ernesto has some other medicinal plants he wants to use on your leg.” Celina rinsed a cloth with cool water and applied it to his forehead.
When Ernesto returned, he brought with him an array of leaves and began to soak and swab the area with them. Another plant looked like some sort of cactus, while another oozed a dark red sap. He explained the uses to Celina, and she translated. “These are their traditional herbs. Cordoncillo for pain, and Sangre de Grado for healing. At first light, he is sending one of his men to fetch a healer for you.”
“I don’t need a shaman. We were blessed enough already, weren’t we?”
“Ernesto says this man is more than a shaman. He’s called the doctor de milagros.”
“Miracoli.” Lauro grinned. “We can always use more miracles.”
Celina wrapped a fresh cloth around the wound and helped him into the shelter of the cave. “We’re going to sleep here tonight,” she said. Ernesto and his men had spread woven bedding over the stone floor.
As night fell and the sky lit with millions of heavenly bodies, the moon cast a gossamer glow over the mountains and highlands. Lauro wrapped his arms around Celina and drew her close to him for comfort. He turned his face toward the intermittent breeze wafting through the mouth of the cave.
Celina snuggled next him, spreading her fingers across his chest. “You’re burning up with fever.” She feathered kisses along his brow, cheeks, and lips.
Despite his agony, his body responded to her touch. That will have to wait, he told himself.
“Do you think you can sleep?”
“I don’t know.” Though he doubted it, with the fierce throbbing in his leg. In just a few hours, the intensity had ratcheted up tenfold.
She drew a few leaves from a small leather pouch Ernesto had given her. “Chew these, they’ll take the edge off the pain and help you sleep.”
He chewed the bitter leaves, and soon found himself drifting into a hazy dream state where he had trouble discerning what was real. Celina was there, bathing his face and limbs in cold water, and then they were in Amalfi, swimming in an aquamarine ocean surrounded by silvery dolphins.
Celina was singing to him in the most beautiful, angelic voice he’d ever heard…or was it sirens beckoning him to a rocky shore? A moment later, he was soaring over snowcaps that kissed the heavens and resonated with a sublime, crystalline sonata. As the sky lightened, the music morphed into a mournful dirge. Lauro re-entered his pain-filled world and screamed in agony.
Beside him, Celina pushed his damp hair from his forehead. “Ernesto should be back soon. Unless you start to get better, I’m taking you down the mountain. You need a doctor and probably penicillin.” Her face was drawn into the gravest look he’d ever seen.
“No,” Lauro croaked. “We’re so close to Nino. You felt it.”
“We can come back…” Her voice drifted off.
But Lauro knew that there would be no coming back here. He clutched her hand. “We won’t. In my dream, I soared over the mountains. The Andes have triumphed.”
“Don’t say that,” she snapped, blinking and rubbing her eyes with the heel of her palm.
He dozed a while—he couldn’t say how long—and night shrouded them again. He heard Celina outside the cave, arguing with someone, though he couldn’t imagine who.
Above it all, the symphony of nature thrilled him. Winds rustled the trees, the song of cicadas rose to a crescendo, and the distant river that never slept roared in his ears. The earth unleashed its fresh green perfume on the breeze to cover the stench of his wound.
That night, he brought Celina into his arms. In his mind, he extolled his love for her to the heavens. We’re soon free, amore mio. Fully aroused, he devoured her lips, her beauty, her essence, and together they became as one, sailing through an endless night of brilliant constellations. He caressed the exquisite length of her body, savoring every hollow and curve to remember for eternity. With every brush of her fingers, the scent of her skin intoxicated him, and he lost himself in her silky hair.
“Lauro, Lauro,” she murmured, calling him back. “Stay with me, my darling. I love you, ti amo. Please don’t leave me.”
Lauro smiled in peace. Her lips were soft as rose petals on his blazing forehead, and her tears splashed on his cheeks like a soft spring rain.
And then a dark, bearded man knelt over him—a shaman of last rites.
It was time.