A Blind Spot for Boys (15 page)

M
achu Picchu gleamed before us, a pale jewel pillowed on a lush green peak. Even shrouded in clouds, the ruins were more glorious than I could have imagined. No amount of careful study of photographs, no amount of compulsive reading—nothing had prepared me for the full impact of the sanctuary. I gasped, and Mom placed her arm around my shoulders. My feelings may have been smarting from Quattro’s hot-and-cold relationship schizophrenia, but this—
this
—was rearranging.

Mom said, “We made it, baby.”

Our appreciation of the ancient site was cut short when Ruben rushed back to the remains of our group, waving his cell phone.

“We have to hurry,” he blurted, and held up his phone as if it were about to blare out wartime instructions. “I just heard that
the officials are only running two more buses up here. They’ve closed Machu Picchu entirely.”

“Wait,” said Christopher, looking heartbroken, “so we won’t be able to walk through Machu Picchu? At all?”

“I’m afraid not,” Ruben answered regretfully. “We should head down to the parking lot as fast as possible to get on one of the buses.”

“What about tomorrow?” Quattro asked, stepping closer to Ruben.

“We’ll have to see,” said our guide with another apologetic shrug.

There’s nothing like a group of rapidly moving, purpose-driven people to set off primal survival instincts. So when a fleet of highly fit Japanese tourists trotted past us while we lingered, I felt an electric shock of unease, especially when one of the trekkers shook her head at us as if we were making a fatal mistake by remaining in place.

“What do they know that we don’t?” I heard Grace ask from behind me.

That’s what I wondered. Ruben caught up with their guide, both men wearing the solemn expressions that my parents had perfected these last few weeks. As the other tourists barreled down the trail, Ruben returned to us.

Mom asked, “What did he say?”

“We need to catch the bus now,” Ruben said. “The road to Machu Picchu Pueblo is starting to flood.”

The meaning wasn’t lost on any of us: We could be stranded.

Grace’s face was taut with stress from walking faster than I had seen her move during this entire trip. Miraculously, we caught up with Eduardo, one of our porters, whose forehead was damp with sweat from the strain of carrying Stesha. Hank and Dad followed closely behind them.

“Let’s take a two-minute break,” Ruben said, gazing at Grace worriedly. She was bent over, huffing hard.

“Put me down,” Stesha commanded, but once she was on her feet, she listed off balance. Dad immediately lifted her. When Mom started to protest, Dad said, “I can at least hold her while we’re standing.”

Mom nodded, which made two of us grateful that Dad wasn’t under the illusion he could manage the trail with Stesha in his arms.

“I can walk on my own!” Stesha protested, but her feeble attempts to free herself from Dad must have exhausted her. She sighed, closed her eyes, and rested her head against his shoulder.

From behind me, I caught a fragment of an argument brewing between Quattro and his dad.

“We might never get this chance again,” said Quattro as he began to unzip his backpack.

“No,” said Christopher with a tone of finality I hadn’t thought he was capable of producing. He placed his hand atop Quattro’s to stop him. “Son, this isn’t the right time.”

So I wouldn’t be tempted to eavesdrop, I took the camera out of my pocket and trained my lens not on Machu Picchu but
on our group standing before it: banged up, heartbroken, and going blind. They were drinking in the ruins so thirstily, it was like they were desperate to find any bit of beauty in the rubble of this trip and our lives.

As hard as I tried to ignore Quattro, I shifted the lens to him. He was gazing at the ruins intently, as though it were his ancestral birthright to rule this place. But then, without a word to anyone, Quattro stomped down the trail with Christopher staring after him. Sighing, Christopher held his arms out to my dad, saying, “Here, I’ll take Stesha for a bit.”

Mom and I exchanged another look. Was Christopher even strong enough to carry Stesha? Maybe it was a trick of the light, but Quattro’s dad looked like he had solidified. For the first time on the trip, his cheeks were ruddy instead of faded pale, and a new steeliness energized his gaze.

“I’m stronger than I look,” Christopher said. He may have shrugged wryly, but even his shoulders looked wider. He was occupying space.

“I’d trust you,” Helen said, tucking her hair behind her ear. Her vote of confidence reminded me that it was Christopher, after all, who had rescued Helen from drowning in mud. Ducking his head, Hank took off down the trail without a word.

Despite a bashed-up chin and what was probably a nasty concussion, Stesha swung back into tour guide mode and asked us triumphantly, “See? Didn’t walking every single step here make this view so much more meaningful?”

No one answered. In the uncomfortable silence, Ruben reminded us that not a single person alive today knew for sure
what Machu Picchu’s true purpose had been: religious sanctuary or military citadel? As we continued down the trail, I kept my eyes lifted to the ruins. Maybe the what and the why of Machu Picchu didn’t matter. Maybe all that mattered was that it was still standing.

Just as we reached the turnstiles guarding the entrance to the sanctuary, one lone bus pulled into the parking circle. The doors remained shut. I didn’t blame the driver. The long line of dirty, tired, and impatient backpackers at the curb surged forward as though prepared to storm the bus.

As soon as we reached Hank and Quattro near the back of the line, the few tourists behind them grumbled in different languages, none that I spoke, but I’m pretty sure I interpreted correctly: No way in hell were all of us cutting in line. As it was, only a magician could have squeezed in every person angling to board the bus.

“We should have come down earlier to secure our spot in line,” Hank said to no one in particular.

Dad said, “We can walk. I think I read that it’s only about an hour on foot to town.”

“Helicopters are coming today to fly people back to Cusco. That’s what everyone’s been saying,” Hank said, shaking his head emphatically. “We’ve got to get down fast.”

“I can walk,” Grace agreed.

“I can walk, too,” said Helen. Overhead, the sun broke free
from the clouds. She brushed her thick hair off her face, tilting her cheek up to the sunlight. The massive stone on her engagement ring no longer glittered; it was covered in mud, like all of us.

“People are saying that the train isn’t running. The track’s been flooded,” Ruben informed us after checking in with another guide. His brow furrowed with concern. The helicopters are our only chance of getting out.”

Stesha cleared her throat, but her voice was still strained. “First things first; the porters need to get home. There is no way the helicopters are going to fly them back to Cusco. The government is only going to evacuate tourists. We all know that.” With trembling fingers, she handed a wad of cash to the porters, asking Ruben to translate. “Tell them thank you and that I’m giving them a huge bonus when I get back to Cusco.” Her voice faded. “Let’s give them as much food as we can.”

The porters refused to leave, backing away from the money until Stesha threatened to do all the cooking on the next trip.

From the corner of my eye, I watched Quattro move away from our group like he was going to make a run for it with the porters. Christopher blinked then as though waking from a hundred-year sleep. First, he asked Quattro, “Can you scout out the trail?” Then to Ruben: “You need to get on that bus and get Stesha to a doctor and on the helicopter.” When Ruben protested, Christopher explained, “You’re the only one who can speak the language. The rest of us will be fine.”

Both Christopher and I watched as Quattro scowled but readjusted his backpack before walking across the parking lot to the trail head. Only then did Christopher glance over first at
Grace, then at Hank. “You and Grace need to go ahead and make sure we have rooms.”

“Grace?” Hank protested. “I can handle the hotel by myself.”

“Yeah, Grace,” Christopher answered, casting a quick glance at Helen, who nodded her approval. “She needs to get off her feet.” As Hank began grumbling again, Christopher added, “And no one’s going to complain about you getting on the bus if you’re accompanying her.”

That shut Hank up, but not Grace, who planted her hands on her hips. She demanded, “Don’t I get a say in this?”

Mom rushed to answer: “Grace, you’ve walked the entire Inca Trail.”

Even though I felt like a traitor, I nodded when Grace glanced at me, because Mom had a point: There was no reason for Grace to prove anything more, and we needed to hustle if we had any chance of snagging a spot on the rescue helicopters.

While we watched, Ruben pounded on the bus door until the driver cracked it open. Catching the gist of the conversation wasn’t tough: Ruben kept waving over at Stesha, who was sitting on the curb with a bloodied bandage hanging off her chin. After a few minutes of negotiations, Ruben waved us over in triumph. People behind us began complaining loudly again as the reality of scarce seating sank in.

“I can walk with you,” Grace protested once again.

“Grace, Stesha needs you.” I pointed to Stesha, who was now seated on the bus, her head leaning against a window, her eyes scrunched shut like she was in pain.

“And Hank’s going to need you to sweet-talk the hotel into giving us rooms,” Mom added.

Grace nodded reluctantly before promising, “We’ll see you there.”

I felt like chasing after the bus as it departed the parking lot, not because it was transportation but because it was our link to half our team. As the bus disappeared around the corner, the porters reluctantly accepted the rest of our food supplies. I teared up at the sight of them leaving, too. No, this wasn’t how our trek was supposed to end.

“We should go,” Christopher told all of us now. I wondered if his urging was really meant for Quattro, who had returned with his report: “The trail looks fine.” He was staring at the gates barricading the ruins like he wanted to vault over the turnstiles, scale the chain-link fence, and break into Machu Picchu.

Mom sighed, lifting her eyes to Dad, and murmured apologetically, “I’m sorry about this trip. You were right. We should have stayed home.”

As we cut across the parking lot to the trailhead, a woman in a high ponytail and pink stilettos better suited for a beach resort picked her way between potholes and rocks back to the hotel, the only one sited next to the ruins. Her loud complaints to her husband echoed over to us: “There were nothing but rocks. For this, we’re spending five hundred bucks a night at an overrated Holiday Inn?”

Dad scrutinized that woman and her dissatisfaction the way he would an especially nasty pest. For the first time since the
mudslide, he reached for Mom’s hand and told her, “At least we got to see Machu Picchu in person.”

“You really think so?” Mom’s smile was so brilliant, it made up for the sun’s disappearing act.

“Yeah,” Dad said, reminding me of who my father really was—not the bitter man who had grumbled through the past few weeks but the one who appreciated even the second-best things in life.