The Furthest City Light (32 page)

“Goddamn it!” Liz yelled, then looked wildly around her, as if searching for something. She’d grabbed her first-aid kit from the truck, so that wasn’t it. “I need water,” she shouted. “Rachel, get me some water!”

Allen was throwing up on the side of the road. Veronica was trying to get to Francisco, but she kept falling down.

I ran to the truck just as it was pulling away. I jumped into the back, staggered down the aisle and gathered up as many water bottles as I could find. The truck was picking up speed and it was hard to keep my balance. Then I jumped off again, fell down, and lost my other sandal. My shins were bleeding, but I didn’t feel any pain.

Estelle and Lenny were shouting that they’d found Omar and Marta. A few seconds later, Richard and Susan yelled that they’d found Javier.

“But he might be dead,” Susan yelled.

I hurried back to Liz, gave her three of the bottles, and then ran across the road to where Richard and Susan were crouched next to Javier.

“Here’s some water,” I said, dropping a couple of bottles on the ground next to them. Their faces looked dazed, as if they’d just woken from a deep sleep. There was blood on their shirts and hands.

“He’s not breathing,” Richard was saying.

I glanced down at Javier’s body and my stomach lurched. His eyes were half open and the expression on his face looked disappointed, as if there were still so many things he’d meant to do. I gazed at his hands, which were curled into useless fists. Perhaps he isn’t dead, I thought, but then I noticed the blood behind his left ear and that the back of his skull was crushed. Which was why he wasn’t breathing. And never would.

“Where’s Lenny?” I asked.

It took Richard a couple of seconds to focus, but then he said, “Up the road with Marta. Across from where we stopped.”

“Okay,” I said. “And where’s Estelle?”

Susan pointed behind us. “Not as far as Lenny, but down a small ravine. She’s with Omar. I should go help her.” She turned to her husband. “There’s nothing we can do for Javier.”

“I know,” Richard said. “It’s just that—”

I couldn’t wait any longer. I picked up the water bottles and ran to the edge of the ravine. I could hear Omar moaning in pain.

“Estelle,” I called, “here’s some water.” And then I tossed two of the bottles down to her.

“Thank you,” she called back.

“Is he going to be all right?” I asked.

“I think so, but there’s a piece of metal sticking in his thigh. He keeps trying to pull it out. I need Liz.”

I nodded. “I’ll see if she can leave Miriam for a minute.”

“All right, thanks.”

And then I rushed over to Lenny, who was kneeling over Marta’s body, pressing the heels of his hands hard against her chest. She was unconscious and unresponsive, a Sleeping Beauty.

“Is she alive?” I asked.

Lenny made a strange exasperated sound, halfway between a sob and a shout. “How the hell should I know? I doubt it, but I don’t want to stop CPR until Liz tells me to.” He paused to wipe the sweat out of his eyes, or maybe the tears. “What do you think?”

I didn’t have a clue. “I think you’re doing the right thing, Lenny. Don’t stop. I’ll get Liz to come over as soon as possible.”

He nodded. “I’ll just keep doing this until she gets here.”

As I hurried back to Liz, I was figuring first Marta and then Miriam and then Omar and then Francisco. I knew almost nothing about first aid, but from what I’d glimpsed, it seemed like a reasonable triage.

As soon as I told Liz everything I knew, she stood up and rolled her neck. “Okay, I’ll be right back. Francisco’s in a lot of pain, but he’ll make it. I don’t know about Miriam, though. She’s lost a huge amount of blood. Right now she’s stable, but that could change. If the bleeding starts up again, you’ll need to tighten the tourniquet.”

I tried to imagine the procedure. “Just twist it?”

Liz nodded. “Yes, it’s very straightforward.”

“All right then, I can do it.”

“Are you sure?” She was staring at me.

“I’m positive. Go.”

After Liz left, I could hear Francisco crying out and wished we could straighten his legs. I looked over and saw Veronica lying on the ground next to him, weeping softly. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Allen stumbling up the road in the direction of Lenny and Marta.

I sat down next to Miriam and checked the tourniquet on her wrist. I didn’t see any fresh blood oozing from the bandages covering the stump. I felt dizzy for a second, but then it passed. Liz had fashioned the tourniquet out of the strap from her bag and used a pen to tighten it. I couldn’t help wondering where Miriam’s hand was, if it was still intact, lying in the bushes nearby. I glanced at her face, which was pale and waxy looking, then realized she was shivering. I pulled my T-shirt off and draped it over her chest.

When Liz returned, she told me that Marta was dead.

I rubbed my face and sighed. “I guessed she was, but I still hoped you could save her.”

Liz knelt down beside me. “She died before we got here. It was probably instantaneous.”

I nodded, and then looked up at the sky, which was cloudless now, a dull monotonous blue. “What do you want me to do next?”

Liz leaned over and placed two of her fingers against the side of Miriam’s neck, checking her pulse. “Go help Susan and Estelle. Make sure they keep Omar’s hands away from that piece of metal. He’s very strong and he really wants to yank it out, but he mustn’t.” She paused to wipe some tears that had leaked out of the corners of her eyes. “Richard, Lenny and Allen are sitting with Javier and Marta. Just let them be.”

“All right,” I said, then glanced toward Francisco who was still moaning. “Is there anything we can do for him?”

Liz shook her head. “No, we’d only make things worse. He needs an orthopedic surgeon.”

I stood up and nodded. “That’s what I thought. Okay then, I’m off.”

A few seconds later, I reached the ravine and slid down the short embankment on my butt. Omar was conscious, but no longer struggling. Estelle was sitting on his right arm and Susan was holding his left. The ground around them was stained dark red. Both women looked exhausted, especially Susan.

“Watch that wound on his neck,” Estelle was saying, “I don’t want it to open up again.”

I stared at the piece of metal stuck in Omar’s thigh. It was dark silver, about five inches long and almost an inch thick. It must have originally been part of the jeep, maybe the engine. It was impossible to tell how deeply imbedded it was.

I knelt down beside Susan. “Would you like me to hold his arm for a while?”

She nodded gratefully.

As I took his arm, Omar began to whimper and rock from side to side. It was hard to watch.

“Do you know where Richard is?” Susan asked, smoothing Omar’s forehead with a wet cloth.

“I think he’s still with Javier,” I said. “And Lenny and Allen are with Marta.” I searched their faces. “She’s dead. You know that, right?”

They both nodded.

Suddenly, Omar thrashed wildly and tore his right arm out from under Estelle. In one swift determined motion, he grabbed the end of the metal and pulled it straight out of his thigh. Bright red blood immediately began gushing from the wound.

Estelle ripped off her blouse, balled it up, and began pressing the material against his leg. Susan put her hands on top of Estelle’s.

“We can’t put enough pressure on this,” Estelle cried. “It’s bleeding right through.”

I scrambled to the top of the ravine and shouted, “Liz! He pulled it out! The leg is gushing like a fountain. I don’t think we can stop it.”

I waited a second, then ran toward the road and repeated what I’d just said.

“Put a tourniquet above it!” Liz yelled. “Like the one on Miriam’s wrist. Tighten it until the bleeding stops.”

The sky around me was getting darker. Damn it, why hadn’t anyone shown up yet?

“Rachel,” Liz yelled. “Are you wearing a belt?”

I looked down at my waist. “Yes.”

“Use that. I can’t leave Miriam. Can you do it?”

Fuck, of course I could. “Yes, I can do it.”

I rushed back to Omar and the two women. As I dropped to the ground, I slid my green canvas belt out of the loops of my shorts. While the women held Omar down, I wrapped the belt around his thigh a few inches above the wound and tried to pull it tight. The bleeding slowed down, but didn’t stop.

“Help me pull it tighter,” I said.

Both women tugged on the belt and between us, we got it pretty tight. Omar screamed a few times and then passed out from the pain. No matter how tight we pulled, however, there was still a small amount of blood spurting from the wound. Why wasn’t it working? I pictured the tourniquet on Miriam’s wrist and realized I needed a stick.

“Where’s that piece of metal?” I asked.

Estelle began scrounging around until she found it in the dirt and gave it to me. With their help, I managed to tie a knot in the belt and then insert the piece of metal into the middle of the knot. Then, I twisted it just until the bleeding stopped.

We sighed with relief. After a while, Estelle figured out how to secure the metal with strips of cloth and we were finally able to remove our hands from his body.

“Thank God,” Estelle breathed. Her face was bathed in sweat and her short blond hair was soaking wet. Susan nodded wordlessly, still trying to catch her breath.

I stood up. “I’ll go tell Liz what’s happening. And I’ll try to get one of the guys over here.”

My last assignment was to search for Miriam’s hand.

“I know it’s a long shot,” Liz explained. “But maybe they can re-attach it. We should at least try to find it.”

So Allen, Richard and I dutifully wandered up and down the road and then crawled through all the nearby gullies, but we never found her hand. Eventually, we gave up. In the meantime, Lenny went to help with Omar.

I walked back to Liz and dropped to the ground beside her. Together, we watched over Miriam while Richard and Veronica tried to soothe Francisco. Allen left to check on Omar but wasn’t needed. When he returned, he lay down with his head in my lap.

A few minutes later, we saw a line of trucks and jeeps clattering toward us. The noise was unexpectedly loud and jarring, like an alarm clock in the middle of the night. We jumped to our feet and waited, suddenly aware that most of us were shirtless and covered in blood. I was shivering, but I couldn’t have been cold; it was at least a hundred degrees. Allen grabbed my hand and I winced in pain. My shins were beginning to throb as well.

“It’s the good guys, right?” Allen asked.

“Right,” Liz assured him. “The bad guys don’t announce themselves beforehand.”

Allen nodded, but didn’t let go of my hand until we saw Tim waving to us from the first truck. There were four more vehicles behind him, each one carrying three or four townspeople. Before the truck had completely stopped, Tim jumped down and ran to us. We put our arms around him, told him who was alive and who wasn’t. The other cars pulled up and various people hopped out, some of them carrying rifles.

Estelle quickly stepped forward and explained the situation. In less than a minute, a decision was made to take the three soldiers who were still alive back to a hospital in Ocotal, and transport the other two to Jalapa where the army could arrange for their burial. A very pregnant woman volunteered to contact the families. A few moments later, with Estelle hurrying along beside them, the townspeople carried the soldiers to their vehicles and prepared to take off. And then, a minute or two after that, they were gone. One of the jeeps, with a few older men inside, remained behind to escort us to Jalapa. It was dark out but I had no idea what time it was. Somewhere along the way, I’d lost my watch. A small, pearl-colored moon had risen in the sky behind us and a couple of coyotes had begun to howl.

Tim told us that the Witness for Peace volunteers had been notified and were expecting us. The army, however, had changed its mind and wouldn’t allow us to spend more than a night there.

“I’m sorry,” Tim said, “but we have to leave by noon tomorrow. Only Liz can stay. They’re saying they don’t have the resources right now to protect us. I said we didn’t care, but they’re adamant. We have to go.”

“No, that’s impossible!” Susan shrieked. “We can’t just turn around and leave. Look what it took to get here. I don’t care how dangerous it is. I’m not afraid. I came to help and I’m staying.”

Richard shook his head. “I’m sorry, bunny, but we can’t.”

Susan’s face was smeared with dirt and blood. She looked half crazy in the moonlight. She shrieked again, then raised her fists and ran toward her husband who calmly stood his ground. She hit him twice in the chest, then collapsed in his arms and cried.

“It’s all right, bunny,” he crooned. “We’ll come back next winter.” He smoothed her hair with his free hand.

“But we came to help. I’m so disappointed.”

“Me too, bunny. Next winter.”

The rest of us trudged back to the truck and climbed in. A few minutes later, Richard and Susan, walking arm in arm, got in behind us. As soon as the engine started, Lenny yelled, “Wait.” Enrique looked back at us.

“I don’t know,” Lenny said, shrugging slightly. “I guess I want to pay my last respects to Marta and Javier. Say goodbye to the others as well. We’ll probably never see them again.”

“I’d like to do that too,” Veronica said.

We all nodded. Estelle motioned Enrique to turn off the engine. The jeep in front of us turned off theirs as well. We sat facing each other in the moonlight, wondering what to do next. I’d only been to one other funeral, my father’s, and I realized now I had no memory of what anyone said or did during the entire event. At the time, though, I thought I was fine, that it was my mother who was seriously in shock, not me.

Estelle smiled sadly. “All right then, I’ll start.” Just like at our first meeting when we sat in a circle on the dirt floor of the community center. Our first morning in Nicaragua, which now seemed like a thousand years ago.

“I’d like to say goodbye to Javier,” she said, “whose cockiness and machismo should have turned me off, but somehow didn’t—instead, I was charmed. Although I barely knew him, I could tell he would have been a great leader, maybe a government official someday with a loving family and a mistress on the side
. Vaya con Dios,
Javier.”