Kino collected a tarp, some rope and one empty gallon jug. He left everything else to ensure they could move as quickly as possible. He wanted to carry Lea, but she insisted on walking. He let her try, but it was impossible. As her face turned chalky he put his foot down.
“You’re going to faint again,” he said. “Then I’ll have to carry you anyway.”
“You should go get help and bring them back.”
“We don’t separate.”
“I know.” She lowered her head. “I know. My mother and my aunt knew, too.”
“They didn’t have a choice. I do. I can get us both out of here, Lea. I can.”
She took his hand. “My aunt sent her sister away out of love and I’m sure my mom left for the same reason. Love for the child she carried.”
“But I’m not leaving.”
“We could both die out here,” she said.
“I can find water.”
“There isn’t any.”
“Yes, there is. I’ve spent time with the O’odham. This is their land. They survive here without streams, lakes, rivers or water stations.”
Lea’s expression showed hope. “Really?”
Kino nodded and lifted her into his arms. She flinched but then set her expression in grim determination. Kino had a decision to make. He could follow the road the truck had taken or he could retrace their route out. He did not know how long the road leading here might be, so he took the known route, through the uneven ground taken by the ATV. Following the path was simple enough, but his pace was slow and he knew they both were losing water as they went.
Within an hour he found a downed, dried-out saguaro. The hull was just what he needed. He set Lea on the sand and harvested four of the ribs from the once mighty cactus. He used them to make a travois and wrapped the carrying platform with the camouflage tarp Barrow had used to disguise the stash truck. When he finished, he thought the Plains Apache might even be proud of his efforts.
Lea seemed much more comfortable stretched out in the cradle of the tarp than curled in his arms. He propped one end up on a rock to ease her breathing as he set to work. He used two of the remaining ribs, cutting one short and tying it to the top second-longer pole to form a vee.
“What is that?” she asked.
“Harvesting pole. The saguaro fruit is ripe now ten to fifteen feet up. I just need to find one and we find water.”
But he needed to find one fast. He knew exactly how much fluid they needed.
He placed the harvesting pole beside Lea and lifted the end of the travois, setting them in motion. As he walked the winds began to pick up. He removed his T-shirt and used it to cover his face and then placed the tarp over Lea to keep the swirling, stinging sand from attacking her.
She used one arm to lift the end and stare up at him.
“How can you see?” she asked, raising her voice to be heard and then grimacing as she paid for her lapse in judgment.
“I know the direction. We’ll be all right.”
She wrapped an arm around her ribs and lowered the tarp. She gripped the end to keep it in place.
He raised the travois, slowed again by the terrain and the stinging wind.
The storm blew and blew, making the sun a hazy orb and making his progress painfully slow. Finally he was forced to take shelter and wait with her under the tarp.
“I’m getting you out of here,” he whispered.
She huddled next to him, clutching his arm but saying nothing. Finally the shrieking wind died and the sand fell back to the desert floor. When he raised the tarp it was to see the haze remaining in the sky. They watched the storm sweep away like a thunderstorm of earth.
Kino reconstructed the travois and recovered his cactus pole. Then he set them off again, searching all the while for a saguaro topped with the ripening red fruit enclosed in green pods or bursting from the pods. When he found what he was after, he set Lea’s travois down. Using the pole, he knocked several of the pods to the ground. The pink, ripening tip showed the fruit was ripe.
With his knife he slit open the pods, and he and Lea ate the sweet red pulp and black seeds. The moisture was a welcome relief. Once they were no longer thirsty, Kino knocked down a dozen more pods, taking some and leaving some where they had fallen. Then he handed off the pole and lifted the end of the travois.
“Are you just going to leave them?” she asked.
He resumed their journey, speaking as he moved slowly along, refreshed now by the moisture and sweet sticky fruit, but worried by the sun’s descent.
“That’s how it’s done. You need to leave some for the birds and animals. It’s rude to take it all. The O’odham believe that these giant cactus are relatives and for centuries this fruit was vital to survival.”
As he walked he told her the story as he recalled it, of the boy struggling across the desert who was helped by the animals and birds. In time he took root and lifted his arms and became the cactus to shelter and protect the creatures who had safeguarded him.
“Well, I’ve seen the woodpeckers nest in them,” Lea said.
He smiled, glad to take her mind from her pain and their peril. With the cactus in bloom they would not die from thirst. Still, her injured ribs and the trauma of their capture worried him greatly.
“Owls, too,” he said. “Have you had the syrup made from saguaro fruit? It’s great.”
The sun was low on the horizon when he stopped a second time. He figured they had made half the distance to the SUV.
He sat beside Lea and split open more of the saguaro fruit.
Lea sat stiffly on the ground beside him, accepting what he offered.
“Will we make it out?” she asked.
Kino nodded and glanced at the sky. “Few more hours, maybe.” If not...well, they’d be in even more trouble.
He offered her another fruit.
“You eat it,” she said, pushing it back toward him.
He did, and when he had finished the sticky red pulp, he found Lea staring at him.
“It’s finished, isn’t it? He won’t be after me anymore.”
He nodded.
Lea’s ribs hurt her so much she could barely breathe past the pain, but she had to say something before they reached help and their lives returned to normal.
“I’m proud of you,” she said.
“Yes? Why?”
“Because you didn’t kill him.”
“I think the snakes did that. He just hasn’t accepted it yet.”
“But you could have finished him. What I want to know is...did you leave him out of mercy or vengeance?”
Kino glanced away, his stare as distant as the horizon. “I forgave him, Lea.” His gaze returned to her. “I think you are right. My hate for him was a kind of blackness inside me. I thought I had a duty to my father. But this hunt was bad, because it kept me from doing my duty to my family, my clan and to my tribe.”
At the word clan, her hope fell. She was only half Apache, a fact that few of her peers let her forget. And for Kino, his tribe and clan were everything. What would happen if they reached safety? His promise to her had been fulfilled. She’d no longer need his protection from the Viper. But still, she yearned for him in the very depth of her soul.
“Kino, I know how important your family and tribe are to you. I know you deserve a strong Apache woman and that I...well, that I don’t even have a clan.”
He cocked his head and she felt insecure, embarrassed and unworthy all at once.
“Lea, what are you talking about?”
“My mother is Mexican. I have no clan and my children will have no clan.”
He frowned. “Children?”
She was going about this all wrong. Her timing; her words. She lowered her head, unable to meet his dark, searching gaze.
He took her hand and gave it a light squeeze. “Lea?”
She met his eyes and let the words pour from her. “Oh, Kino, I’m in love with you.”
He could not have looked more shocked if she had struck him in the face.
“Well, say something.”
“Your timing is bad,” he said at last.
Lea’s face went hot and her skin prickled as embarrassment momentarily overcame her pain.
“I’m sorry. I just wanted you to know in case...”
He scowled. “I’ll get you back safe.”
She nodded as if she believed him. But already her thirst was becoming more intolerable than her painful ribs.
Even if they made it, he would leave her and return to Black Mountain. She wanted him to know what he meant to her before that. What for her had been an experience that filled her with the hope and promise of a future with this wonderful man, for him was an obligation to be fulfilled and then put behind him. She accepted her loss with as much grace as she could manage.
“And then you’ll join your brothers and find Jovanna.”
He nodded. “Yes.”
Lea swallowed her pain and disappointment. “I understand.”
“No. You don’t. Lea, I—” Kino stopped in midsentence as he cocked his head.
Lea listened, fearing another rattlesnake. Kino’s attention shifted to the sky and then she heard it, the faint womp, womp, womp of a helicopter.