chapter 16

Páramo de Pisba

Plunging into the ice-cold river jolted Nate like a bolt of lightning. The water slammed his chest like the hand of an angry giant, pinning him against a submerged boulder and flooding his nose. He choked as the powerful current tore at his clothes, and he struggled frantically to reach the surface.

The intense cold numbed his limbs and clouded his mind. Uncontrolled spasms seized his muscles. His feet found a ridge in the boulder. Starved for air, his chest ready to burst, he gathered his remaining strength and made a last desperate shove. Miraculously, he broke free. A colorful blanket whipped by him in the thunderous torrent. He seized its edge and kept a firm grip in the hope it was still attached to his attacker, even as the flow carried him rapidly away.

He surfaced in the calmer water behind the roots of a tree, dozens of feet below the crossing. The current tugged at the blanket still in his hand. Grasping tightly, he pulled on it with all his strength.

It seemed an eternity before he knew he was winning the struggle. Gathering in the garment, he saw the arm and leg of the unconscious attacker.

Turning the body over in the frigid water, he found himself staring at the face he had glimpsed before his plunge into the torrent. He’d been right. His attacker was a young woman. With her loose cloak and the wide-brimmed hat of the mountaineers, he had at first mistaken the slight Casanare for a young man. Quickly untangling the cloak, he lifted her out of the water and climbed the bank.

Reaching a clear, flat area surrounded by thick undergrowth, he laid her on the ground. Water trickled from her mouth, and her dark skin had taken on a cold bluish hue. He shook her angrily by the shoulders. “Why?” he said. “Why did you want to kill me?” Her head lolled, spittle collecting at the side of her mouth. She wasn’t breathing.

Nate turned her on her side and struck her between the shoulder blades with his hand. Her entire body jerked spasmodically, and she coughed up brown vomit. She gasped and coughed again, expelling less water each time, until she could breathe regularly.

Nate scrutinized his would-be killer.

With her light cotton underclothes plastered to her skin, it appeared that a couple of red welts were the worst damage she had sustained. He looked at her face closely, trying to see if he could possibly remember where he might have met her before.

She shivered. Nate covered her with his cape. Even wet wool would help keep her warm. Her skin was cool and clammy to the touch; to restore her circulation, he vigorously rubbed her arms and legs.

She began to regain consciousness. When she came to and saw Nate, she weakly sought a knife that was no longer there.

Santiago and the others could be heard working their way through the tangled brush to reach them. Nate gripped her arm and said quietly, “You’re going to tell me why you tried to kill me before they reach us, or I’m going to throw you back in. Do you understand?”

She stopped struggling.

“Hey, you two decided to stop for a swim? Don’t you know we don’t have time for this pissing about?” Coming through the brush, Fernando, one of the oldest of the mountaineers, smiled at them through broken yellow teeth. The would-be assassin jerked away from Nate’s grip.

He wouldn’t confront her in front of the mountaineers. Some of them had to know who she was and that she had tried to kill him. They might even help her if he decided to press the issue. He would wait until he could speak with Santiago. Nate felt he could trust him.

The others added to Fernando’s greeting, expressing their relief that the two were safe and their small group was still whole. Two of the men retrieved the remaining dry wood they had carried with them, and a fire soon warmed the small copse.

“Julia, you didn’t know you had an angel looking over you, did you? And a Yankee angel at that,” said Santiago, arriving with their packs.

She looked confused as she drew closer to the fire, steam rising from the wet wool blanket, which she hugged tightly. “What are you talking about?” she said. “No one needed to save anyone,” she insisted irritably.

“He saved you—the American,” Fernando explained, and he pointed toward Nate, who also moved closer to the blaze. “When you slipped and fell in, he jumped after you.”

Another mountaineer added, “We only knew there was trouble when the sling went limp. We thought you were both gone.”

A pot of water heating on the coals began to whistle. One of the Casanares threw a fistful of leaves into the pot to soak. Nate and the girl were handed the first tins of strong coca tea. Portions of the bitter leaves floated on top; they were meant to be chewed and spat out as one drank.

Nate lifted the cup to his mouth. Uncontrollable spasms caused him to spill some of his drink. He forced himself to take several slow deep breaths. The realization of how easily he could have been trapped under the current made him reconsider the leap as one of the more questionable choices of his life so far. The violent trembling subsided.

Revived by the tea and the fire, Nate and Julia changed into the dry clothes they had brought for the páramo. Nate noted how the mountaineers averted their eyes when the woman dressed under her ruana.

The Casanares did not mention the incident again. They spoke to the girl only once, deferentially, when they asked if she thought her uncle and cousins would be surprised to see her descending from the páramo this time of the year. She nodded distractedly but didn’t say anything.

They resumed their journey. The woman avoided looking at Nate and took the lead. He wondered who she could be—the daughter of someone important? Why would she be sent to kill him? He needed to talk to Santiago; if he could trust anyone, then he was the best bet. Nate slowed until he was just ahead of the Casanare. He stayed at that position, waiting for a chance that never came.

On the afternoon of the next day, they rose above the tree line to discover a frozen waste. Their arrival was greeted by a staggering blast of icy wind. Unprepared for the assault, Nate was nearly knocked off his feet. He lifted his head to see a barren snow-white moorland.

The small group had reached the dreaded Páramo de Pisba pass. This was the area of high plains that lay between the active volcanos of the Andes. It was a zone of frozen salt beds, caustic lakes, and broad empty heath.

Nate hesitated; as Santiago passed him, he grabbed his arm. Nate spoke over the gale. “Am I in danger?”

Santiago shook his head. “No,” he gasped, “at least not from any of us. Ask O’Leary.”

Nate nodded, exhausted from the effort. Why would the Irishman betray me?

Dizzy from exhaustion and a lack of nourishment, each breath became a labor; Nate sensed from the others’ concentrated quietness that they were experiencing the same lethargy. He trudged on, senselessly following the Casanare directly in front of him. As the dark wings of night settled over them, his mind wandered . . .

At first Nate didn’t know how or why he was being shaken. His mind resisted returning to the frozen wasteland. Santiago shouted in his face, “Look, look!”

With a superhuman effort, Nate roused himself and raised his eyes to follow Santiago’s pointing finger.

A brilliant orange-ribbon sunrise lit the clear frosty morning. They stood on the uppermost verge of a narrow valley that sloped down toward a hint of green in the distance. They had marched all night and crossed the Pisba pass.

“We’ve made it!” Fernando exclaimed. The older man’s quick breath whistled through the gaps in his teeth.

The sight instantly revived Nathanial, even as he thought of the extraordinary task of securing provisions for whatever remained of the army when they arrived.

“Thank God it’s downhill,” he said, and staggered on.

Three days after Nate and the mountaineers entered Socha, the army proper began to arrive. The survivors came in groups of two and three, staggering on swollen feet. Frostbitten and emaciated, their clothes blasted into rags by the bitter alpine wind, they resembled an army of scarecrows. Assisted by the mountaineers and villagers, they struggled down the mountainside, the bloodstained path they left behind grim evidence of their determination.

O’Leary was one of the first from the main army to arrive. The eyes of the weary, limping Irish officer were locked on the broken ground in front of him. He stumbled, and Nate caught his arm. O’Leary stared at Nate wide-eyed, as if seeing a ghost.

“You must have smelled the coffee, sir,” Nate said with a cheeriness he didn’t feel. “I certainly hope there’s more than your ragged lot left, or we’re in trouble.”

The Irishman collected himself and managed a wan smile. “That coffee does sound promising.”

Nate led the exhausted officer to a campfire burning outside a small hut near the edge of the village and poured him a large mug of steaming black coffee, generously fortified with the local aguardiente. He needed the Irishman alert for a while longer.

Looking around to ensure that no one was within earshot, Nate held O’Leary’s arm in a vise grip. “What the hell is going on? Why is a young woman trying to kill me?” he said, his grip tightening even further.

Daniel O’Leary was no fool, he knew that in his present state he could easily be killed by the American, and no one would assign his death to murder, not when the pass behind them was littered with the corpses of so many exhausted men and animals.

O’Leary drew a deep breath. “Her name is Julia Magdalena Teresa Portillo—a Casanare. I’ve been told her father was at Valencia when the slave army took the city. She was with him, and only eleven or twelve at the time.”

This drew Nate’s attention. The slaughter at Valencia was well known.

“She’s fiercely anti-Royalist and has no trouble killing the Spanish. Because of her beauty, the general occasionally uses her as a spy, if the danger isn’t too great.”

“And why is she trying to kill me?”

After taking another deep drink, O’Leary murmured, “There are some in the command who wish for you to disappear. There are rumors you’re an agent sent by the Americans to offer a deal to Bolívar to abandon the revolution.”

“That’s ridiculous. You’re telling me Bolívar believes this nonsense?”

“It doesn’t matter. The reports alone have caused the caudillos to withhold their support for the general.”

“Am I still in danger? Would I be better off deserting?”

The Irishman gave Nate a hard look. “That’s one thing you don’t want to do. It would only confirm the rumors; then there would be no shelter for you here, on this side of the world.” He added, “But you did save Bolívar’s favorite spy—and found the poteen, thanks be to God. I don’t believe you’re in any immediate danger. And you’ll have plenty of chances soon enough to prove to Bolívar you’re a patriot.”

Nate was not exactly reassured. There had to be an easier way to get some land.

Weary survivors trickled into the village, shepherded by the locals. Horses pulled makeshift stretchers carrying men with feet blackened from frostbite.

When O’Leary’s knees buckled, Nate caught him under his arms.

“It’s time you had something to eat,” said Nate, “I’ll see to the others.”

O’Leary couldn’t have protested if he wanted to. Nate left to ask one of the villagers to bring some food to the officer. When he returned, the Irishman was sound asleep on the ground.

This army wouldn’t survive a battle with a well-fed and well-rested Spanish force. Nate would bide his time until that first engagement and, in the chaos, slip away to find his South American fortune elsewhere, far from suicidal crusaders or would-be assassins.