Chapter Thirty-Four
Hell
In the corridor, El confronted Father Soto.
"You want me to listen to that?" he demanded.
"I see what you mean," said the priest.
"This man," El said, and he hoped Sands was listening. "Remember the day El Cucuy came to town and killed Señor Perez in cold blood? He was working for this man."
Soto shrugged. "You live in a dangerous world. Sometimes it follows you here." He nodded toward Sands's room. "And sometimes you bring it with you."
Father Soto pronounced a blessing over El and over Sands's door, and then they retreated to the kitchen.
El brought out a single diamond. The priest's words had reminded him that in order to enjoy this refuge, he needed to do whatever he could to protect the villagers, and, in simple truth, to buy their loyalty. "Padre, I need you to see if you can sell this quietly. Get it appraised first. Whatever you do, don't admit you received it recently. Say the Church has had it under lock, or something. And try to avoid buyers in Mexico City. And drug cartels."
"Thou Shalt Not Steal," Soto admonished teasingly.
"Except from the undeserving, right, Father? Believe me, he was very undeserving. And now he's dead."
"I'll have to take my fee," he said, grinning.
"Take whatever you think is fair. Share the rest with the village."
"Bless you, my son."
"Yeah, yeah."
Soto went home, and El reluctantly took his bedroll to the corridor outside Sands's room. Sands had the radio on, El was somehow glad to hear.
"Sands, I'm here," he said.
"Great. I think you broke my jaw."
El didn't think so. "Serves you right."
"El?"
"Yes?"
"El, listen." Sands's voice was very shaky. "You've got to give me something. Something to . . . at Delgado's, I could still hope for coffee. I could hope. Tell me anything. Tell me you are fencing the diamonds and getting some coke. Even . . . if it's days. Give me something. I . . . I've got nothing here."
The appeal was so genuine and agonized that it wrung El's heart, and he resented feeling so sorry for the American bastard. It made his response harsh.
"In days you will be clean. Look forward to that. The only coffee here is real coffee."
The sound from the room could only be sobbing. El felt like a complete heel, but he truly had no hope to give him.
He wondered how you weep when you have no eyes.
It was a very long night. Sands, El was sure, didn't sleep at all. El heard him moving restlessly, doggedly around the room and moaning. The smell of cigarette smoke seldom abated. Occasionally he yelled insults at El, but El managed to detach himself enough to find them entertaining. He got the impression that Sands was using them to distract himself, for he constructed highly original, florid, and anatomically unlikely insults in English and then he yelled them in Spanish. It was the most Spanish El had heard from Sands, and often he was sure Sands was translating curses from other languages. It was very educational.
Despite his exhaustion, El made himself respond now and then, so Sands would know he was there.
After one rant where Sands detailed El's descent from dung-smeared, spittle covered camels with mad-camel disease, El laughed. It was a small laugh, but El couldn't remember the last time he had laughed. He decided he owed the American something for that.
"Sands," he called. "Your Spanish is very good."
He waited for the inevitable "Fuck you," but it didn't come.
Instead there was a moment of silence, followed by a slight thud on the door. Sands, El could picture in his mind's eye, had slid down to collapse against the door.
"Shelly," he said, his voice muffled and strained.
El wasn't sure what he had heard.
"What?"
"You can . . . call me . . . Shelly . . . if it's . . . easier."
An unusual moniker, it seemed to El. He tried to imagine what it might be short for, but couldn't think of anything.
"Okay," he said. "Thank you."
It was the last civil, and almost the last coherent thing he got out of the man. By morning his moans had genuinely progressed to screams, and El couldn't bear it anymore. He had to move away and get some sleep.
"Shelly," he called, trying out the name, "I'm leaving for a few hours. I'm still here in the fort. I will come back."
He had no idea if the man had even heard him.
El did manage to snatch some sleep, and then he made himself a meal. He could hear Sands's screams even in the kitchen. He was immensely grateful when Father Soto arrived, bringing light gossip about the village, and, best of all, beer.
"Father," El said, "I have to check on him. I have no idea if he's eating or drinking. Or if he's . . . hurt."
Another distant scream.
Soto shook his head. "You won't be able to make him eat or drink, if he isn't. I think you can wait until tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?"
"By tomorrow, I predict he won't have the strength to escape if you left his door open."
So El spent as much time as he could bear at the agent's door, talking to him, telling him the gossip from the village, for lack of anything else to talk about, and the rest of his time exploring the fort when he needed a break. Sands seldom answered him, and was seldom coherent when he did. By that evening, Sands either had no strength or no voice, for the screaming subsided. The batteries must have died on the radio, for it was off.
El seated himself on his bedroll in the dim corridor, lit the oil lamp, and played and sang. Sands said nothing. El slept uneasily, waking often and listening. At first he heard sounds coming from the room, but later he woke to silence. The silence unnerved him, and he was grateful when dawn filtered light into his corridor.
As quietly as he could, he slid the bolt on the door, and pushed it open. A cloud of residual smoke rolled out and El coughed. Light from the corridor forced its way into the room, and El could make out the form of Sands, his shirt off, lying face down among some blankets. Beneath the smell of smoke was a smell of urine.
El crouched down beside him. The man had pissed himself, either from not caring or from not being able to get up. What disturbed El more was the waves of heat radiating off of him. It was like crouching by hot coals.
"Sands?"
Sure enough, touching his skin was like touching a sidewalk in the hot sun. El's daughter had run fevers this hot when she was an infant, but El had never seen such a thing in an adult. And his daughter's fevers had panicked him, too.
He stripped the remaining clothes off the unresponsive agent, and carried his slight weight into the tiny bath. The faucet on the tub had a hose attachment, and El washed off the traces of excrement with it, before plugging the drain and filling the tub with the tepid water. As the tub filled, he carefully tipped Sands's head back on the edge, so it couldn't easily fall forward, and he got his first good look at the agent's empty eye sockets.
Before, he had clearly perceived them to be red-colored. Now they were black. El tried to think; did that mean an absence of blood flow? He felt his throat. Sands had a pulse - slow and not very strong. One side of his jaw was purple where El had punched him, and the other cheekbone bore a fading bruise from Delgado.
El turned off the water, and sat back on his heels. Did the fever mean an infection was killing the agent? El saw no wounds on the man. How he wished he knew what to do. If only the man were conscious enough to tell him if something hurt.
"Sands? Shelly?"
The water, he noticed, had quickly warmed from the overheated body immersed in it. El drained the tub and filled it again. He had repeated the process three times when he heard Father Soto calling his name.
"Here!" he yelled. "Come here!"
Father Soto entered cautiously and looked into the bath.
"Madre de Dios!" he exclaimed.
"What?" asked El, alarmed.
"His eyes!"
"Oh. I told you he was blind."
"You didn't tell me his eyes were gone!"
True. That hadn't been what had mattered in the telling.
"Father, he's running a high fever and he's unconscious."
Soto nodded, recovering his composure. "You're doing the right thing," he said.
"Is this normal?"
"I've seen it before. Keep him in the water until the fever comes down."
"Should I get ice?"
"I don't think so. Not yet, anyway."
So El and the Padre took turns watching Sands in the bath, and refreshing the water. El looked around the little room. The bedclothes were soiled, so he replaced them. Some of the food had been eaten, and the boiled water was gone. Cigarette butts and ash were everywhere, so El swept them out. The room needed a good airing. He replaced the batteries in the radio.
The child's loom - to El's amazement, Sands had bothered to learn the little toy, and had used up the entire bag of colored bands. A small pile of completed potholders was stacked by the wall. El picked one up. Impossibly, the little things were tied and finished, even with a little loop for hanging. Sand's only failure in the craft was with the colors. He couldn't alternate the colored bands.
The guitar, however - Sands had smashed the guitar, literally into kindling, for it looked like he had then started to burn the wood. El fingered the charred pieces and found them damp. Sands had put the fire out, as well.
El shook his head. What a paradox of skill and destructiveness that man was.
He returned to the bath.
"Is he any better?"
"I think he may be conscious," said the priest, wide-eyed.
El saw Sand's throat working, as if the man tried to swallow. Father Soto stood and yielded his place. There really wasn't room for two of them.
"Sands?" El asked.
Sands rolled his head to face El. He tried to lick his lips.
El turned the faucet on low force, and put the hose at Sands's mouth. The agent put his mouth around the end, and drank.
El gave Father Soto a triumphant grin. It seemed like a victory. Sands drank and rested and drank again.
Father Soto stayed until the agent's fever was clearly weaker, and then apologized, saying he had other duties to tend to.
After he was gone, Sands lifted his head on his own.
"Sands?" El breathed.
Sands worked his throat. El could see he was trying to say something.
"How do you feel?" El asked the forbidden question.
"Fuck. You." Sands whispered.
A/N: Almost done! You guys have been great!