Sentimental Journey Page 18

  “Give me your shoes.”

  She did, then heard a cracking snap. “What are you doing?”

  “Here. Try this on.”

  She ran her hand over the shoe. The heel was gone.

  “Better?”

  “I think so. Here’s the other one.”

  She heard the same cracking sounds before he started talking again. “I don’t want to stop until we get across this plain and into the cover of those trees.”

  “Thanks.” She slid on the shoe. “I’m fine. Let’s go.”

  “I’ll take a drink from that canteen.” He slipped it off her shoulder. After a moment he said, “All set.”

  “What about the canteen?”

  “I’ll carry it. You ready?”

  “Sure, it’s a walk in the park.”

  He laughed and they moved on.

  The night air changed from a cool threat to cold and icy reality. For what felt like a few hours, they trudged across a giant plain of dirt that was hard or soft in turns, whenever you were just getting used to one or the other. The land was covered with brush that crackled like tumbleweeds and stones bigger than her feet.

  Finally, she could feel the softness of grass underfoot instead of hard ground. Soon after, she inhaled the scent of pistachio trees. A blister on the side of her toe popped a few minutes later; she could feel the wetness and the sharp, burning pain of raw skin against shoe leather.

  Please let him stop soon.

  After about ten minutes more she was dragging that foot.

  He stopped. “You’re limping.”

  “I’m okay. Wait! Put me down.”

  “No.”

  “I’m blind, not lame.”

  “Don’t argue.”

  “You can’t carry me. Please, I want to walk.”

  “It’s faster this way. And if you keep arguing with me about it, I’ll just throw you over a shoulder.”

  “I would prefer to walk.”

  Silence. Long silence. So she locked her arms around his neck and let her tootsies enjoy the ride.

  He carried her for a good half hour, and he wasn’t even winded. She didn’t know if that impressed her or annoyed her. He stopped. “This is far enough.” He faced her. “Go ahead and sit down here. You’re on soft grass. I need to check out something.”

  She heard him walking away, but then he stopped suddenly. “There’s a tree at three o’clock. About six feet away.”

  “Thank you.” She moved closer to the tree and sat down in the grass. She was freezing and took off her shoes and rubbed her cold feet, then chafed her arms.

  He came back. “This looks like a good spot.”

  She could feel him looking at her.

  “Cold?”

  “Freezing.” She shivered and stood up. “The ground is even colder than the air.” She paced in front of the tree, because moving kept her warm.

  “Give me a few minutes to get something to burn, and I’ll make a fire. We’re between dimples in the hills, so I’m not so worried about it being seen.”

  She stopped. “Don’t we want to be seen? I thought you took the interior roads to lose Von Heidelmann.”

  “I’m not taking any chances. He might have enough men to send in all directions. The sooner we’re out of here, the better. Now I’ve just got to figure out how the hell we’re going to do that.”

  “Why?”

  “What do you mean ‘why’?”

  “Surely the plane will come back.”

  He laughed at her. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No.”

  He laughed harder.

  “I take it from your reaction the plane won’t be coming back at the same time tomorrow.”

  “No.”

  “I don’t understand. If we weren’t there waiting for them as planned, then they have to know we’re still here. Logic says we’d be waiting.”

  “Or dead.”

  She flinched.

  “There aren’t regular daily flights scheduled for planes used in covert operations.” His tone was snide and officious.

  She drew herself up and faced him. “Don’t treat me like I’m stupid. I asked an honest question. I’m not an idiot. I just don’t understand how these things work, okay?”

  He was quiet and she knew he was looking at her. “You ask a lot of questions, Kincaid.”

  “Yes, I do. I had to learn to ask questions a long time ago. The things you take for granted, Cassidy, things like the trees and the grass and sky, I can’t see.” She could feel her voice rising, and she didn’t like it. She sounded shrewish, so she stopped and took a deep breath. “Look, if I don’t ask questions, I can’t make adjustments.”

  “Okay. Okay. I get it. Truce. I don’t know what it’s like to be blind. You don’t know anything about the Army.”

  “If the plane isn’t coming back, what do we do?”

  “We stay here tonight and then we keep walking.”

  “Keep walking where?”

  “As far away from where you were as we can.”

  The man was a fount of information. She had six brothers who used that same tone of voice. Asking more questions would only get her more smart answers and no information other than the concrete knowledge that men could be horses’ asses. She gave up and leaned against a tree. The trunk was warmer than the air and the ground.

  “I wish the hell I could clearly remember the layout on those maps. Damn.”

  She reached into her pocket and pulled out the maps. “Here.” She tossed them toward his voice.

  He didn’t say a word, but she heard his step and the crinkle of the maps when he picked them up and unfolded them.

  “These shoes are killing me.” She braced her palm against the tree trunk and reached down, then pulled off her left shoe. Half bent over, she touched the broken blisters with her finger and winced.

  “These are my maps.” He was looking at her. “How’d you get them?”

  “I knocked them out of the truck when I slid across the seat to get out.” She straightened and pulled out the bent compass. “This too.” She held it out. “I stepped on it, but it doesn’t feel broken.”

  He took the compass.

  “I was going to give them back to you earlier, but you were busy in the back of the truck with the gas and were concerned about missing the plane. From the way you barked at me I decided it was more prudent to wait. Until you just mentioned them, I forgot I even had them.”

  “Sweetheart . . . ” A second later he swept her into his arms and spun her around. “You might just have saved our necks. What a peach!”

  “Put me down, you idiot.” She had to laugh a little. “And for godsakes, don’t mention food. I’m so hungry I could eat my hand.”

  He set her on her feet.

  “Cassidy?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Are any nuts on those pistachio trees?”

  He took a few steps. “Nope. Not a single one. But here.” He moved closer, then took her hand and slapped something flat and rectangular into it. “It’s a chocolate bar.”

  “Chocolate? Oh, God . . . ” She lifted it to her nose and smelled it. “Thank you. And thank you, Mr. Hershey!” She tore off the wrappers, laughing. “In any normal situation I adore chocolate, but now, oh . . . this is heavenly.” She stopped chewing and broke off another piece. “Here. Taste it.”

  “No, thanks.”

  She stopped cramming another piece into her mouth. “Wait a second. We are sharing.”

  “Nope.”

  “Oh, no, you don’t.”

  “What?”

  “You’re not going to go and get all noble and give the whole thing to me. You’ve got to be as hungry as I am. Take this.”

  “I don’t want any.”

  “I insist.”

  “No.”

  “I won’t eat it if you don’t.”

  “Look, I don’t like chocolate.”

  “Sure.” She snorted. “How can anyone in their right mind not like chocolate? Take it.�
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  “I’m allergic to it.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “I get these blisters on my tongue and my throat. My stomach burns, and soon it’s hard for me to breathe. Not exactly a nice thing to go through, Kincaid. You eat it. I don’t want it.”

  He was describing an allergic reaction to a T. Poor man, couldn’t eat chocolate. She didn’t want to laugh. She should sympathize. Really. She should. She swallowed. Lord above, it tasted good, so smooth and sweet. She hesitated before eating it all. Perhaps she should save the rest of it for later.

  “Eat the damn thing. If I get hungry, I’ll roast a squirrel.”

  “A squirrel?”

  “I spotted a couple in those trees. Squirrel tastes pretty good. Like wild duck or pheasant . . . well, they taste that way when they’re cooked. Raw they’re a little tough to chew and the blood has this . . . metallic taste, but you get used to it after a few mouthfuls.” He paused. “You want one? I’ll set a snare.”

  “No . . . no. I’m fine with the chocolate.”

  “Good. I’m going to get some wood and start that fire.”

  She sat there holding the rest of the candy. Her stomach was somewhere near her throat. Her only image of squirrels had been furry little things that lived in the magnolia trees in Long Beach. She pulled her legs up and wrapped her skirt over them, then tucked under the hem. She tried to find that same mental image of them again.

  He was cracking off tree branches. She finished off the candy, listening to the rustle of the leaves and the dull thud when he tossed branches on the ground. His footsteps moved away until they disappeared altogether.

  She was alone. Completely alone. She locked her hands around her knees. She was cold, but extremely lucky she wasn’t colder.

  As in dead cold—a thought that was pretty grounding. One mere step could change your life; one misstep could end it.

  “Hey, Kincaid!” Cassidy came walking back over the rise.

  She looked up.

  “We’re all set.” He dropped the wood on the ground in front of her. “These branches are green, but there’s enough dry brush a few hundred yards out there. Give me a minute, and you’ll have your fire.”

  “Good.” She heard a click and snap. A lighter. She could smell the butane and then the cloud of smoke from green leaves and branches. The brush crackled. “It’s really cold.”

  “It won’t be for long.” His voice came from a lower angle. He was squatting on the other side of the fire.

  She heard the crackle of the brush and the sharp snapping of green wood as the fire caught. The air turned warmer.

  After a few minutes he came over and sat next to her. “Better?”

  “Much. Thank you.”

  He put his arm around her and pulled against his side. “You’ll be warmer this way.”

  They sat there, alone in the quiet. It had been a long, long time since a man had put his arm around her. Her brothers did it all the time—something she had just taken for granted, until she was in a foreign country where you were crushed together like ants in the marketplaces, but no one ever touched you with affection. The fire snapped and popped and flared.

  “There’s not much of a moon tonight,” he said.

  “I know.”

  She could feel him looking at her.

  “How do you know?”

  “Gee, Captain, that question just brought you up a notch in my respect.”

  “Why? Because I was so low on the scale before? Nowhere to go but up?”

  She laughed with him. “No. You find a different truth in human nature when you aren’t like everyone else. People don’t want to know about something that frightens them. They avoid it—and you, if you’re blind. They don’t know how to deal with you. They don’t know what to say, so they say nothing. Some refer to you in the third person. Some shout at you, as if your loss of sight means you can’t hear either.”

  “Like the American in Paris who can’t speak French. They just yell their English louder.”

  “Exactly. The worst ones are those who treat you as if you’ve lost your brain instead of the ability to see clearly.”

  “You’re a smart cookie. That was what I first noticed about you back at the Kasbah. You didn’t panic. You didn’t get hysterical. You used your head.”

  “Well, I suppose you have to factor in that I couldn’t see the drop below, so hanging on that rope was probably easier for me than for a woman with full vision.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short, sweetheart.”

  She smiled. “Thanks.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “About what I can see?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Not just a solid wall of black like people think. Me, for instance. I have macular problems. They aren’t sure why. There are diseases that affect vision, like diabetes and Stargardt’s. But they’ve ruled those out. My father believes it has something to do with the fact that I was born prematurely, a month early, but really, no one knows what happened, only that it happened.

  “I see colors, shades and shadows, a smeared landscape; it’s as if someone put Vaseline on my eyes. I can look into the sky and see the light and vague shapes. I’m lucky, really. I know what the moon looks like, because I could see until I was thirteen.”

  “Thirteen? You were just a kid. That must have been tough.”

  “It made me tough.”

  “I suppose it would.”

  She looked up at him. “Right now, when it’s dark and the only light is from the fire, I can’t see your face, only a fuzzy silhouette. I know it’s there. In the daylight, I can see more. For example, I already know a lot about your physical traits. Just from the last twenty-four hours.”

  “Okay, go ahead. Spill the details.”

  “You’re over six feet tall. Probably one ninety-five, give or take five pounds. Thirty-four inseam. Thirty-two waist. Size eleven shoe. Shirt size . . . sixteen and a half, thirty-four.”

  She could feel his reaction. “Surprised you, didn’t I? What I can’t see with my eyes, I see with my hands, with my ears, nose, and mouth, paying attention to things in ways sighted people don’t need to.”

  “You’re damned close there, sweetheart. Six-two. Thirty-three inseam and thirty-four waist. Two hundred and four, but I’ve probably lost five pounds in the last twenty-four hours.”

  She was laughing. “Life is so unfair. I couldn’t lose five pounds if I stopped eating for a week.”

  “You’re not supposed to. Women should be round and soft.”

  “Keep it up, Cassidy. You’re moving up the scale.”

  “Men like something to hang on to.”

  “Oops, you dropped a half a notch.”

  “I was paying you a compliment.”

  “You were thinking about sex.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with sex. Hell, that’s why we’re here. At least that’s why I’m here.”

  She laughed. “I bet it is, and that all the women fall all over you in your dress uniform.”

  “I do okay.” He shifted, drawing his legs up, then stood. She felt the cool air almost instantly, like when you first open the icebox door.

  “I’ve got to put more wood on the fire. For light, so I can take a good look at those maps.” He took a few steps, then hesitated. “You okay?”

  She nodded. “Sure.”

  “Get some sleep. We’ll start out before sunrise tomorrow.”

  She scooted closer to the fire and lay down on her side, curled into a tight ball; then she adjusted her skirt. She slid her arm under her head.

  A moment later she heard him open the maps.

  Right then, she wanted to go home in the worst way. Home felt so very far away. She rested her head on her bent arm and stared at the fire. The foggy light from the flames undulated across a field of night darkness.

  She closed her eyes and she was thirteen again, the time when her sight had deteriorated so quickly. She was standing at the top of the stairc
ase, staring out at a smudged world of colors with no edges or outlines to define what she was seeing. She took that first step and misjudged it, then moments later lay at the bottom of the stairs on the hardwood floor, bones ringing, stunned, then ashamed and angry. She hadn’t known her head was bleeding all over the floorboards and would need stitches.

  There was no air in her lungs. She couldn’t even yell or cry. Her throat and chest were a vacuum. Her brothers stood above her, shouting at each other and her all at once, their voices panicked and louder than normal—which was somewhere in the decibel range of a train wreck.

  But the worst part hadn’t been her cracked head or her sore body. It hadn’t been the humiliation or the fear in her brothers’ arguing voices. The worst part was that she couldn’t see their faces. There was nothing before her but a misty, flesh-toned blur with small spots of shadows she supposed were eyes and noses, the moving shadows mouths. Her blindness was suddenly real. It was the first time she had felt truly helpless.

  “SUNRISE SERENADE”

  Last night, if anyone had told Kitty she would be grateful for the cold, she’d have told them they were nuts. Now, however, she would have loved to be cold again. Cassidy got her up before dawn, when the air was still chilly. But they were quickly on the move, so she wasn’t uncomfortable then at all.

  They’d left the shelter of the treed foothills and moved across some low, rolling hills covered in thorny bushes and scattered rocks. At least two hours into the other side, Cassidy found some ripened dates on a palm near a small well, where they rested and drank water that tasted so metallic it almost came back up on the first swallow.

  She thought they should stay there, and said as much, but Cassidy told her he had other plans. She didn’t argue after she’d thought about it. A well in this lone area of the pre-Sahara didn’t necessarily ensure that someone would find them. Or if they did, that that same someone wouldn’t be big trouble for them. Yes, if they stayed at the well, they would have food and water, but no papers if the Vichy were to find them. And how would Cassidy explain his being there at all?