Chapter Eight
Incursions

The smell woke me up, carrion–rotten, retch inducing. I followed it back through the cave toward the battery rack, a faint breeze in my face. Something odd about that, since the airflow was usually the other direction–through the rubble that closed my little branch and up. It's two things–the water brings a bit of air in but also a network of cracks near the spring. The other thing is that the sun heats the rock around the upper end of the shaft, sucking up air from below.

But today, something else was happening and it really stank.

It had been so long since I'd been at the mouth of the mine that I couldn't remember it well enough to jump there. I finally had to jump to the pit toilet at the picnic area where I dumped my bucket toilet. It was overcast and surprisingly cold, unusual for here. That explained the airflow issue. The cold air was flowing down into the shaft. I jumped back for a jacket before I started the three–mile hike from the picnic area to the mineshaft.

When I got there I found the gate in the grate was wide open, the lock missing, the hasp mangled and streaked with copper. I looked at one of the depressions and realized someone had shot the lock off–the metallic streaks were from copper–jacketed bullets.

But the stench was up here, too.

I thought they were dogs, but realized after a moment that they were coyotes. Someone had shot them, shot the lock off the grate, and dumped them down.

It was illegal to hunt in the park, I was pretty sure. Even if a ranger had killed a coyote for some reason–rabies control, maybe–he wouldn't have shot the lock off and dumped them in the shaft.

Bastards.

I still had some rubber gloves from doing the concrete work in the Hole, but I jumped to San Diego and visited Home Depot for a paint–and–pesticide respirator mask and some heavy–duty plastic bags. The three coyotes were rotten with maggots and fell apart as I shoved them into the bags. They'd probably been there for days, but the change in the weather brought the smell in. Don't know how I could of stood it without the mask.

I left a note under the door at the rangers station telling them about the lock. It was after seven by then and the park had officially closed. It was better, as far as I was concerned, that the note be anonymous. If I started talking to the rangers, they might start wondering where I lived. The park had a residential ranger, but his quarters were way over by the park entrance, a good ten miles away.

I dumped the bags in their Dumpster.

There was a water spigot outside the station and I'd rinsed the gloves and was wiping them on a bit of turf near the station, preparatory to jumping back to the Hole, when I heard a gunshot.

It wasn't near–I didn't jump away or anything–but it did come from up the ridge, back toward the mine.

I jumped back up to the shaft, where I felt cold and exposed. The sun was going down and the wind was picking up. I walked back to one of the old surface buildings, a roofless rock–and–mortar shell, one wall tumbled down into a pile of its component rocks, and sheltered from the wind.

After a while, I heard another shot, loud, but still not so loud that it made me nervous. A motor started up in the distance, and then another.

Sounded like motorbikes. I started to leave the old building, trying for a vantage point where I might see them, when I realized the sound was getting louder.

They weren't motorbikes–they were four–wheeled ATVs, camouflage painted, two of them. They roared up the canyon scattering rock and dirt and what little grass there was and I wondered why I hadn't seen their tracks before. They each had another coyote on the back rack and telescopic rifles on a rack in front.

The gloves in my hand were still wet from washing, pretty clean, but the smell or the memory of the smell was still in my nose.

They pulled right up to the grate, flipped open the gate, and tossed them down. Just like that, not even looking around.

"Miller time!" one said to the other.

"Miller time," the other agreed.

I thought about tossing them down the shaft, but they hopped back on the ATVs and roared back down the canyon. Off–road vehicles were also illegal in the park.

I jumped back to the Hole and took the binoculars from the dinghy gear. I jumped to the ridgetop above the canyon, using the binoculars to pick my destination. They were easy to spot–they were in the long shadows of the FishCreekMountains and they'd turned their headlights on. I had to move once, as they moved behind a ridge, farther down the hills, but I tracked them all the way to the park's edge, to a light that showed through the gathering dusk.

I jumped back to the Dumpster by the rangers station and retrieved the plastic bags full of rotting coyote and left them, for the time being, in the old stone building I'd sheltered in, near the mineshaft.

I said yes to Henry about the trip to France. That is, I said it was all right with my parents.

"Do they need to talk to Harold? Or my mum?"

I shook my head. "They're cool. Tell you the truth, I suspect they can't be arsed."

He got this look on his face, like maybe he should be sympathetic, but then said, "Be a relief, that. Every permission thing I have to do involves faxes and international phone calls and crossing my ?'s and dotting all the /'s. Your passport all in order?"

I nodded. "Oh, yeah. Old picture–hate it–but it doesn't expire for another three years."

"Right. I'll arrange the tickets."

"How much do you need?"

"Oh, no, Dad's treat. Thinks it's good I've got a friend outside of St. Brutus's. But I also think he wants cousin Harold to vet you since they can't themselves, not until summer."

"Oh, they coming home?"

"July after summer term. Three weeks. You going anywhere?"

"Too far in the future, mate. Anyway, I don't really pay much attention to term holidays, what with the homeschooling. Better to travel when everyone isn't." Or so I heard.

In daylight, I used the binoculars and jumped, ridge to ridge, out to the edge of the park. There was a barbwire fence–not the park's–stretching along the boundary.

There were coyote carcasses, some old, some fresh, hung every thirty feet along the wire. Some of them were tatters of skin caught on the barbs and bones below.

On the other side of the fence, the ground was stripped bare, no vegetation, nothing, but there were sheep. Lots of sheep.

I moved down the fence, to the north, the direction the ATVs had seemed to go the night before. The fence turned a corner and there was a stretch of land that looked just like the park–it hadn't been grazed to nothing, but there were tire tracks–the kind with deep pockets from the tire lugs, designed to grip in mud and sand. I turned and followed them.

They went as far as a county road, dirt but graded smooth, then headed south, back along another fence. The coyote carcasses continued all around the property. The house was set back from the road, the only spot of vegetation on the entire ranch.

A mailbox at the road had "Keyhoe" painted crudely across it. The ATVs were parked near an outbuilding and there were four dogs lying on the porch that came for me, tearing across the ground toward the fence, growling and barking.

These were not friendly dogs.

I stepped off the road on the other side, put a mesquite bush between the house and me, and jumped away.

I took a cab into La Crucecita from St. Augustin. I was wearing tourist clothes and a big droopy sun hat. I gave directions in English and when the driver overcharged me, I didn't correct him. I went into Significado Claro like any other client. Alejandra was on the phone and I didn't look at her as she talked–I looked at the posters on the wall.

She glanced at my clothes and said, in English, "I'll be with you in a moment." I waved my hand, acknowledging this.

She was arranging the details for one of her immersion courses out at the Sheraton resort and I listened, not really paying attention to what she said, but just hungry for her voice.

Finally, details arranged, she hung up the phone and said, "How may I help you?"

I took off the hat and held my finger to my lips. They might be bugging the office.

Her eyes widened and without saying anything, she came around the desk and enfolded me in her arms,

I began crying.

"Shhhhh." Her arms tightened and I cried harder; after a while, I calmed down and she let go. I picked up a pad of paper and wrote on it, iDonde podemos hablar?

She took the pad and wrote where and when.

A half hour later we met on the wooded hillside behind the church, screened by the trees and with a good view of the approaches.

"No one was with me when I went into the church. I said ten Ave Marias," she told me and held up a bag, "and I brought chapulines."

She was kidding about the grasshoppers.

"I don't know what came over me," I said, over the chicken enmoladas. I'm okay, really."

"I missed you, too," Alejandra said.

I had to busy myself with eating for a moment, though I nearly choked. She covered by telling the news, new babies, two marriages, what was happening at the agency. I'd gotten some of this from Consuelo but I didn't tell her that. I just listened and watched. After a bit, when I'd finished eating, she said, "You look so muscular! Exercising?"

"Yeah, karate."

"And your schoolwork?"

"Yes, Mum. Every day."

She tilted her head. "Your English has changed–the accent, it's less American."

"Yeah, I've been mucking about in London."

"Don't tell me where," she cautioned.

"It's a big town, London–twelve million souls. But I don't live there."

"Et votre frangais ? "

We switched to French.

"I still do written class work. I'm going to Normandy next month. Work on my accent."

"I'm jealous! I've been to Quebec and their French is . . . different. But Martinique in the French West Indies was good. But never to France."

"After next week, I can take you instantly."

She looked sorely tempted. "No. Maybe someday, when our friend from the Villa Blanca is gone, when they've stopped looking for you. Last time I went out of town, to Mexico City, they were there, watching to see who I met."

I could feel my face change, set.

"Don't feel bad. I do everything I would do otherwise, except see you. I just ignore them."

"Consuelo said they searched the house."

I saw anger flicker across her face but then she smiled. "But they didn't take anything. See? Not like a thief."

"They steal your privacy."

She shrugged and touched her forehead. "This is still private." She gestured between us. "This is still private."

She rolled up the paper trash from the lunch, twisting it tighter and tighter, then put it in my hand. "You can dispose of this. I will go back into the church and pray. How do you leave?"

I sighed. "I'lltake the bus to Oaxaca, but I won't arrive. Twenty kilometers should be safe." I pulled the hat back over my eyes. "See? Invisible."

"We can meet here sometimes. Have Consuelo call the day before–exactly twenty–four hours before–and she can say el goto saliseo. I will meet you the next day."

"Well, if the cat got out, the coyotes would eat it. Very well, if it is safe," I added a little stridently.

She pulled me to her again. "If it is safe."

The dogs were nowhere to be seen when I appeared behind the bush on the other side of the county road from the ranch house. It was dark but the moon was three–quarters full and my eyes were acclimated. I jumped up to the porch, ripped the bags open, and dumped the rotting coyote corpses in front of the door.

The dogs began barking up a storm but I was back behind the bush before the first light came on.

"Oh, shit! Tasha, Linus, Jack, Lucy, get out of that!" I heard a thud and a dog's yelp. "Trey, get your rifle! Someone's messing with us!" I recognized the voice from when they'd dumped the last coyote.

I left before they started shooting randomly into the night. I hoped all of the dogs rolled in it.

"Why am I doing this?"

Henry reached out and adjusted my bow tie. It was a rented white–jacket dinner suit from a formal hire shop in Lewisham. They made me leave a bloody great deposit since I didn't have a credit card.

"Meet girls, have fun. Meet Tricia."

He'd only asked me two days in advance. I guess if your school is in a Georgian mansion and they have an honest–to–God ballroom, you occasionally have an honest–to–God ball. The St. Bartholomew's Midwinter Ball, to be specific.

"I went once before, when I first started at St. Brutus's, but spent the whole time against the wall. But Tricia's got leave to attend with her roommate and the girls from St. Margaret's come. It'll be fun."

We were waiting for Tricia at Paddington Station by the bronze statue of Isambard KingdomBrunei. My hair was sticking up in back. I could feel it. I kept trying to push it down but Henry said, "Leave it alone. People will think you have nits."

"Git."

"Twit."

The 5:29 rolled in and Henry turned to watch. If he'd been my height, he would've been craning his neck and standing on tiptoe, but he didn't have to.

I'd realized early on that I was there for moral support. What the hell–why not?

Tricia really was stunning–tall, blond, green–eyed, and if she had any of Henry's problem with pimples, makeup was hiding it entirely. Her roommate was shorter, thank God, probably my height without heels, but slightly taller with. She had dark glossy hair half over her face, brown eyes, a turned–up nose.

"Griffin O'Conner, Martha Petersham."

"Delighted," she said.

"Charmed," I said, sounding rehearsed and phony and stupid.

We took the Tube back to

Russell Square

but a cab from the station, fog and drizzle not mixing well with rented clothing.

Tricia and Martha checked in with the headmaster as required and he placed the reassuring call back to St. Margaret's. They were to call again when they reached Martha's aunt's flat in KensingtonGardens after the ball.

Henry and I escorted them into the ballroom.

I don't know what I was expecting–probably something like a Merchant–Ivory production with a butler announcing the arrivals. It was kids in good clothes dancing to a nice punk band from the East End. Every six songs or so, the band would break and they'd play slow recorded music and a few students but mostly the chaperones would get out and fox–trot.

"I don't know how to dance," I told Martha early on, "but I'll take instruction."

This, apparently, was the right thing to say. I just thought about it like kata, or two–step kumite, and took instruction. She relaxed a great deal and bossed me around unmercifully. There was lots of laughter and some teasing because Henry and Tricia did all the slow dances.

Henry and I were returning from the refreshments table with drinks when we saw Watters, Henry's in–school nemesis, trying to pull Tricia onto the dance floor. I took one look at Henry's face and said loudly, "Why's the headmaster coming over here?"

Watters released her arm like he'd been scalded and turned.

Henry looked like murder so I stepped forward, between him and Watters, my drinks held out before me. "Watch out, drinks coming through!" I weaved a bit wildly and Watters stepped back, eyeing the drinks and still looking around for the headmaster.

Tricia, also eyeing Henry's expression, moved suddenly, taking Henry by the hand and saying, "I love this song." She pulled him onto the dance floor and kept moving until she was on the other side, near where two of the chaperones sat, nibbling cake.

I turned, more cautiously, and handed Martha her fizzy water. "Here you go, m'dear." I turned back to Watters and offered him the other. "Thirsty, mate?"

His reply was inarticulate. He turned on his heel and left. I didn't turn my back until he was well away so I was surprised when Martha kissed me on the cheek. I felt my ears go hot.

"What's that for?"

"Being clever," she said. "Being brilliant when it was needed." She was blushing a little, too. "Come on, dance."

We took a taxi after and Henry and I saw them all the way to the aunt's flat in KensingtonGardens.

Henry and Tricia snogged the whole way, and on the steps, before Martha punched the buzzer, I got kissed, too. And not on the cheek.

They scanned our passports, and along with fifteen hundred other souls, we trooped aboard the MV Bretagne. The brochure said it could handle over two thousand, but it was off–season. The cars had been loading for over an hour.

"Dad actually sprung for a cabin. Usually I just do the trip in one of the reclining chairs, which is a lot cheaper, but I guess there's a certain economy with two. He's not paying for two cabins, after all."

I nodded. I vaguely remember taking the ferry to Calais from Dover as a child and my mother insisting we not speak a word of English until we were back in the UK. I think they were both in graduate school then and we had three weeks off.

She was pretty serious about it and I learned the words for my favorite foods pretty quickly. Pommesfrites, Maman, s'il te plait?

They had a cinema aboard, bars, shops, several restaurants. We could've eaten in the fancier table service, Les Abers, but we hit the self–service place, La Baule, instead.

"Not fish and chips again?"

"Eat what you want."

I had the baguette with Brie and tomato and basil, and pie a la mode for pudding.

As we got out into the channel, the ship began pitching around and I began to regret the pie. We'd been thinking about hitting the cinema but it was something we'd both seen, so we returned to our tiny in–board cabin and lay down. Henry dropped off promptly but I couldn't get to sleep–it was still early afternoon by my clock. I started to get up again, but the ship was still dancing and my stomach lurched. I lay back down and dozed, more or less, through the night.

The ship was far calmer when we awoke, sheltered from the north winds by the CotentinPeninsula. We got our stuff together, then hit the La Gerbe de Locronan cafe for tea and a roll. The Isle of Jersey was bathed in wisps of fog to the south. We docked at Saint–Malo at eight but it took a bit to get off.

Cousin Harold was waiting on the other side of passport control. "No trouble?"

"Not this time," said Henry. "Mr. Harold Langsford, young Master Griffin O'Conner."

We shook hands and I asked, "Is there trouble sometimes?"

Harold smiled. "Sometimes they get concerned about youngsters traveling alone. I've had to step up more than once to show he's being met. But," he looked up at Henry's face, "since Henry's shot up, I expect they're not paying that much attention." He glanced at the people streaming around us. "Let's give the car park a shot, why don't we? I'd like to clear out before they start unloading the cars."

It took less than forty–five minutes to make it to Pontsor–son. We went on the coast road but it turned inland before we could see Mont–Saint–Michel. "Later," said Cousin Harold. "Don't want to go today, anyhow. There's less tourists during the week."

We had four days.

Cousin Harold's gray stone "cottage" had four bedrooms, a walled garden, and a vast slate roof. Everything in the garden was brown and wilted but tidy, beds well covered with mulch. It had been foggy in Portsmouth but by the time we parked his Citroen, the sun had burned off the light mist and the sky was blue as Mum's eyes.

Well, like they were.

His home wasn't quite in the village; it was fifteen minutes to walk in. "Thought we'd have lunch at the cafe." On the way he said, "You've just crossed into Normandy."

"It's not at the river?" The bridge was still ahead.

"No, in ancient times it was but now it's west of the river. There's a saying: 'The madness of the Couesnon put Mont–Saint–Michel in Normandy. But modern France doesn't depend on the vagaries of rivers."

He fed us fish soup and potatoes and salad and poured us half glasses of white Muscadet. "Right then, you bugger off–I'm going to take my nap. Tea at five?"

We walked around the village and Henry pointed out a large three–storied house with dormer windows sticking out of the slate roof and shielded by a wrought iron and stone wall. "That's haunted, you know."

"Tell me another."

"Well, doesn't it look like it's haunted?"

"Oh, aye. Movie–set haunted. Like the haunted house in Disneyland. They have that at Euro Disney?"

"They call it the Phantom Manor, I think."

 

We walked down around the Hotel Montgomery and then down by the river, the Couesnon, and the walkway that ran all the way to Mont–Saint–Michel.

The sun made everything lovely–still, warm air–and I took off my jacket and tied it around my waist. Back by the train station there were lots of little models of the Mont and I asked the clerk, a bored young woman, which she thought I should buy, to try my French. She looked at me like I was crazy but entered into a conversation readily enough. I began saying things like, "Well, if I wanted to hit someone, which would be the best? And which do you recommend for throwing? For feeding to disliked relatives? For clogging a toilet?"

This killed thirty minutes and I could feel my ear for the accent improving. She asked where we were from and, fortunately, didn't want to try her English when she found out. Then a large busload of tourists returned from the Mont and filled the shop, killing time before their train. I bought a medium brass Mont and a postcard and we fled from the crowd.

"Well, your accent is still atrocious," said Henry.

"She didn't seem to have any trouble understanding me."

"Triumph of content over style. Your vocabulary is still bigger. Couldn't follow all of it."

"Thought you studied it in school?"

"Used to. This year it's Arabic."

"Oh."

"Because it looks like my parents are making a speciality of the Middle East. And, er ..."

"And?"

"Tricia, too. She's fluent."

I laughed and laughed, until he turned red and punched my arm.

"Nous devrions parler seulementfrangais tandis que nous sommes ici."

He had me say it more slowly and finally got it.

So we did–only French for the rest of the trip. Cousin Harold was fine with it. He'd been fluent for years. Henry didn't talk near as much as he usually did but we worked hard to drag him into conversations.

The next day, Henry and I walked all the ten kilometers to the Mont and spent the day wandering from Gautier's Leap to Gabriel's Tower, then spent some time toddling around the mud banks, though we stayed away from the areas marked

SABLES MOUVANTS!

I discussed it with Henry, in French of course. He picked up a rock and heaved it onto the wet sand and bloop, it sank right down. Very quick sand indeed.

I sketched a great deal, annoying Henry, who was snapping pics with his camera, but got a good sketch of the lace staircase and the statue of Saint Michael slaying the dragon. He kept wanting me to hurry up but I'd just send him off to get us drinks or snacks.

Having decided we'd walked quite enough, we took the train station shuttle back to Pontorson.

We relaxed the next day, helped Cousin Haroldclear leaves out of his roof gutters. I sketched, and we watched a Manchester United match on the telly. We were keeping the deal though, not speaking anything but French.

By the time the MV Bretagne had pulled into Portsmouth (Cousin Harold came back with us, to hand us through passport control and do some shopping) my accent was much better and we'd managed to increase Henry's vocabulary by about fifty words.

"You visit me this summer and we'll make a real breakthrough–get you speaking like Griff here," said Cousin Harold, finally reverting to English while we waited in the British–citizen line at immigration.

They were scanning the bar code on the passports and glancing at the pictures, and saying, "Welcome back, welcome back, welcome ba–" The terminal beeped when they scanned my passport and two bored–looking guards leaning against the wall were suddenly blocking the route out to the car park and the taxis and the buses.

"Mr. O'Conner, I'm afraid I'll need you to go with these officers."

Shit! "What's wrong?" I asked. "Did my passport expire?"

He shook his head. "No."

Cousin Harold and Henry had gone through before me and gotten yards on the way, but Henry tugged on Harold's elbow and they came back. "What seems to be the problem, Officer?"

"Are you traveling with this lad, sir?"

"Indeed I am. In loco parentis, so to speak. Were you worried he was an unaccompanied minor?"

"No, sir. There's an alert out. He's wanted for questioning."

"Questioning? For what? I should really call his parents, then."

"I'd be surprised if you could, sir. According to this alert, they were murdered six years ago. This lad's been missing ever since."

Henry was frowning but when he heard this his eyes went wide. "Nonsense. Griff's dad teaches computers and his mother teaches French lit."

The immigration control officer narrowed his eyes and looked interestedly at Henry. "Tell you that, did he?"

"Stop it," I said to Henry. "That's what they did, all right. Before–" My voice broke and I clamped my mouth shut.

Cousin Harold frowned at me. "Surely, Officer, you don't expect this boy to have anything to do with this crime?"

The officer shrugged. "It just says 'detain for questioning.' Until four days ago he was presumed dead." His phone rang and he picked it up. "Yes, sir. We've got him. Your office? Yes, sir." He hung up and spoke to the two guards. "The chief wants him." He handed my passport to one of them.

It was Henry's eyes that hurt. "They came for us in California," I said. "I got away but Mum and Dad–" I took another breath. "Anyway, that's the only thing I wasn't honest about, if you were wondering."

"Here, boy, let me take that for you," one of the guards said, taking hold of my bag. The one with my passport took hold of my upper arm, firmly. Pretty much like the other guard had taken my suitcase.

"If you'd care to come this way, sir," he said to Cousin Harold.

Henry said, "Someone killed your parents? Who did that?"

I shook my head. "It's complicated."

They took us through a door with a punch–button combination lock, then down a hallway toward a bank of lifts. Ahead on the right was a double set of doors with the universal pictograms.

I pointed. "Need to use the loo. Urgently."

They looked at each other and the one holding me shrugged. "Right, then." He pushed the door open and said, "Take off your coat and turn out your pockets." Cousin Harold and Henry stayed in the hall with the other immigration officer.

"What?"

"Come on–you want to use the lav, do what I say."

I took the coat off–it was my favorite jacket, a leather one–and handed it to him. I put my wallet on the counter and a handful of French coins. "That's it. Why?"

"Routine. Don't want you doing yourself an injury. Show me your ankles."

I pulled up my pant legs. "No knives. No guns," I said. I gestured at my thin wallet and the coins. "All right?"

He nodded and pointed at a stall. "Help yourself."

The minute I locked the stall door behind me, I jumped.

It was a sloppy jump, unfocused, and pieces of porcelain and water splashed across my shoes and the limestone floor of my Hole. I hated to think what the stall looked like. Bet he heard it. I pictured his steps pounding–no, splashing–■ across the floor and his opening the door to see the shattered toilet, maybe toilet paper strewn everywhere.

And no me.