FORTY-ONE

Too many minutes later found her flat on her stomach, her chin resting on the edge of the cliff, her hands clutching the rock. Bub danced back and forth along the precipice, surefooted on his three legs, tail wagging in anticipation of action. Lola told him his delight was premature.

“Because that’s just not going to happen,” she said. Even though she knew it had to.

That being the barely perceptible trail zigzagging down the side of the cliff, the one the guide had pointed out the day of their tour. “Just imagine,” he’d said. “They went up and down that every day. Whole families, little kids, moms with babies on their backs and pots on their head. Carrying big bundles of firewood, heavy jars of water, seeds for planting, and crops they’d harvested.” At the time, her sweaty hands slipping along the ladder, Lola had thought its rungs none too reassuring. Now, as she studied the ladder’s wreckage, it loomed in her memory like a grand sweeping staircase, the sort of thing she’d have descended without a second thought.

She glared at the pieces of ladder that mocked her from the desert floor. But the ladder’s bottom half remained intact, held in place by other bolts. Lola’s eyes narrowed. “All we have to do is make it that far,” she said. Then half-laughed, half-sobbed at the notion. The ladder, with its solid rungs and firm side-rails, had nearly defeated her before. The trail—now she could see where it met the ledge, the slightest of indentations in the rock—mocked her.

“No,” she said.

She closed her eyes and thought of Margaret, of Charlie. Imagined her child’s velvety cheek against her own, Charlie’s arms around both of them. What if they, too, got caught up in whatever Thomas was planning? She thought of all the times she’d spoken to Charlie about her suspicions involving his brother. She needed to get down, if for no other reason than to apologize. Her jaw tensed.

“Yes,” she said.

She’d thought to crawl—something reassuring about being low to the ground, less likelihood of teetering over the edge. But the trail was simply too narrow, the pedestrian’s version of what cyclists called a single-track, demanding one foot planted firmly in front of the other, not even room for both side-by-side. The first steps were the worst, her body swaying high above the cliff edge. She crouched, trying to hold onto the lip, but then her butt stuck out into thin air. “I can’t do this,” she said. She conjured her daughter’s face. “Margaret,” she said, and took a step.

“I can’t,” she said.

Then, “Charlie,” and another step.

It was easier, just, after the first few steps, when the rock was waist high, then over her head. She pressed her chest and stomach against it, savoring its rough physicality, so reassuring as opposed to the terrifying expanse of air surrounding her. She’d started off staring fixedly at her feet, but it had proven too easy for her eyes to stray farther downward still, her gaze slipping over the edge just inches from her toes, plummeting to the desert floor. Her mind tugged at her to follow, to just lean out and let go. Now she trained her gaze on the cliff face, hands hard against it, and let her feet feel for the trail, an inch forward at a time. She sought a rhythm. Breathe. Slide. Breathe. Slide. She achieved maybe a foot before she stopped again.

Bub, bless him, seemed to be doing fine but wisely stayed far behind, although the occasional heaving sigh warned her that he’d have been happier scampering ahead. But there was no room to pass. Just as well, she thought. So much as the brush of fur against her calf might have sent her over the edge. The sun jumped above the horizon and shone full force, turning the cliff into a vast, vertical griddle. Sweat slicked her hairline and dampened her singlet against her back. Her own sigh echoed Bub’s. Even if she made it down, there was no guarantee she’d be able to get to the police in time to stop Thomas.

Again, her mind sounded its siren call: Better, maybe, just to lean back, fall onto the air as though it were a cushion. That way, if her worst fears came true, she’d already be dead, no agony over the fate of her family. Her family.

“Margaret,” she said through gritted teeth. Step.

“Charlie.” Step.

Lola stared at the rock an inch in front of her face and thought of the water bowl in the kiva. How much had it held? Not even an inch, or a half-inch. Just enough to moisten the bottom of the bowl. Slicks of dog saliva atop it. Her throat convulsed. If someone had handed her the bowl at that moment, she’d have loosed a hand from its death grip on the rock, snatched the bowl away, and bent her face to it, slurping up the few drops that remained, dog spit and all. Even though she knew, as the mirage faded, that she’d have been obligated to share the bowl’s paltry contents with Bub, panting a few feet behind her. Her head swam. Her stomach felt knotted down to the size of a walnut. A few hours earlier, she’d been hungry. Now hunger had vanished in the face of a monstrous thirst. She tried to remember the last time she’d had something to drink. At the house, certainly. Probably some of Naomi’s high-test lemonade. At this moment, she’d have been grateful for straight vodka. Rotgut, even. Motor oil. Anything liquid.

Lola touched her tongue to cracked lips. Once, in Afghanistan, she’d gotten so dehydrated—refusing water during a long day of covering demonstrations so as not to have to pee in a place that offered no obvious opportunities—that when she’d finally returned to the safety of her hotel room, her urine was a scary dark orange and her head spun so that she’d clutched the sink to avoid falling off the toilet. She felt that way again now. She shook her head to clear it. It was one thing to fight the urge to leap into the abyss. It would be another to fall into it by accident or through her own carelessness.

“Help me,” she murmured, to no deity in particular. A lizard appeared. Lola blinked. It blinked back. It sat on a protrusion of rock, perfect for a handhold. Its fingernail sliver of a tongue flicked out, then back. Its blue-striped tail switched. There was no way it was the same one she’d seen on her tour. Still. “Hey, buddy,” said Lola.

It was, she reminded herself, a reptile, with a brain about the size of a dust mote. Still, its calm unperturbed presence seemed a blessing of sorts. It turned bright black eyes upon her. They reminded her of Betty Begay’s before she’d gotten sick, serene and steady. I’m just fine here, it seemed to say. You are, too.

Lola replied as though it had spoken. “No, I’m not. Not at all. For starters, I could really use that little rock to hold on to. Do you mind?” She slid her hand along the rock toward it. The lizard obligingly skittered from its perch, spread its toes wide, and clung to a vertical section of wall. Lola grabbed at the rock with her right hand. It was the most secure handhold she’d had so far on her descent. She lifted her left hand, raised a finger, and tentatively stroked the lizard’s back. It stretched out its neck and closed its eyes. “Thank you,” said Lola.

The encounter somehow steadied her. Her next breaths shuddered a little less, her next steps slid a little farther. Then her toe encountered an obstacle. She nudged it. It didn’t move. She inched her foot to one side. Air. She tried the other side. Vertical rock. She looked back toward the lizard, thinking to beseech its help again. It was gone. She kicked a little at the obstruction. Nothing.

She ground her forehead against the rock and cursed. To have gotten this far, however far it was, only to be blocked. She tried to imagine inching her way back up. Repeating that silly business of waving her shirt over her head in a hopeless attempt to attract attention. Surviving another night, then looking for the telltale roiling smoke that would signal the deaths of so many. The temptation to jump tugged at her yet again.

“Goddammit.” She turned her head, millimeter by millimeter, to one side and chanced a glance down to see the obstruction.

It was the splintered end of the intact section of ladder, bolted firmly into place, leading downward to safety, shining as bright and precious in the sunlight as the goddamned yellow brick road.