Donald Westlake - High Adventure

A fact — if it was a fact — that Innocent stowed away in his brain for later consideration. “There are other radios in this world,” he said. “Perhaps only half a mile from here, some friend of yours. Manny called him, told him to pass on the story he’d heard you tell me, about the white woman living in an Indian village, and the villagers calling her Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, and— Kirby, many people would not believe that story.”

“They’d all be wrong,” Kirby said.

“Let me ask you something,” Innocent said. “You were here the day before yesterday, they told you about Sheena living with them in their village, and you didn’t go look at her .”

“I didn’t believe it,” Kirby said.

“So why should I?”

“Because I saw a white woman after, when I flew over. I told you that, Innocent. I wasn’t sure then, but now you tell me Valerie Greene disappeared, and the degenerate you gave her to has skipped the country, and—”

“All right, Kirby, all right.” Innocent felt very tired, rather sad, oddly ineffectual. “But all at once she’s gone. She was here, but not now. Why?”

“She don’t trust you, ” the English-speaking Indian — Rosita — said, suddenly with them, pointing a sharp-boned finger at Kirby. “She told me all about how you cheated Wintrop Cartwright.”

Kirby blinked. “Who?”

“The man she was gonna marry,” Rosita said.

Innocent lifted his head at that, and looked at this sharp-featured skinny girl. “She was going to marry someone?”

“Wintrop Cartwright.” Rosita smiled at Innocent, apparently finding something pleasing there. “He’s a rich man like her papa, but old. That’s why she run away. She’s a pilot, you know.”

Innocent shook his head. “This is ridiculous,” he told Kirby. “If the woman does exist, she’s the wrong woman.”

“Wait a minute,” Kirby said, and turned to Rosita. “Listen,” he said, “you people just called her Sheena as a nickname, right?”

“It was Tommy’s idea,” she said. “He’s the reader.”

“So what was her real name?”

Rosita thought a second: “Valerie.”

Innocent looked at her, trying to see inside that narrow head.

Kirby said, “What was her last name?”

“How do I know? I just called her Sheena. She liked it.”

“But her real name,” Kirby insisted, “was Valerie.”

“And she told me all about you, ” Rosita said. “How you don’t really have no crazy wife in an asylum anywheres, you’re just taking advantage of me.”

Innocent frowned deeply at this new development. “A crazy wife? What crazy wife?”

“Never mind,” Kirby said hastily. “The point is, Innocent, her name is Valerie, and she took off either because she’s afraid of you or she’s afraid of me. Any case, she saw us coming.”

“She has no reason to be afraid of me, ” Innocent said.

Rosita said, “Maybe she thought you were here to take her back to her papa, make her marry Wintrop.”

Kirby said, “Wait a second, light is beginning to dawn. Valerie was on the run — probably from that driver of yours, Innocent — and she was afraid to tell the truth, didn’t know who she could trust, so she told these clowns the old runaway heiress plot, and they bought it.”

“That’s just what she is!” Rosita said, happy to confirm the truth. “She didn’t want to marry that Wintrop, so she got in her plane and flew away, but then she got in a storm and crashed in the Maya Mountains over there and walked and walked and walked for days and then we found her. And she made us swear we wouldn’t tell, and then she told us the truth.”

“The truth,” Kirby said. “The runaway heiress story.”

“Too many stories going around,” Innocent said.

Rosita looked off westward, toward the blue-shouldered Maya Mountains. “We’ll find her pretty soon, I think,” she said.

Innocent sat up straighten “You do? Why’s that?”

“Stand up a second,” she told him.

Innocent frowned at Kirby, who shrugged. So Innocent shrugged, and stood up, and Rosita looked at the flat stone where he’d been sitting and said, “Yeah, they’re gone.”

Innocent looked at the flat stone, at Kirby, and at Rosita. He said, “May I sit down?”

“Sure.”

“What’s gone?” Kirby said.

“Sheena’s got this throat problem or lungs or something,” Rosita explained, “so she can’t smoke, so if we turn on sometimes she can’t join in, you know?”

“And?” said Kirby, while Innocent reflected that for Kirby a crazy wife would be redundant.

Rosita said, “So I promised I’d make her some pot tortillas, but I never got around to it till today. They’re pretty strong, you know.”

“You made pot tortillas today?” Kirby asked.

“Yeah, and put them on that rock and now they’re gone. Sheena must of took them.” Rosita looked westward again, toward where the shadows lengthened on the steep faces of the mountains. “She won’t get very far,” she said.

“Vaaaallll-erie! Oh, Vaaaallll- erie!”

“Sing,” Valerie sang, under her breath, beneath her breath, down among the mushrooms of her mind. “Sing to me, and sing to me, and then I’ll run away. Oop!”

Down again. Another scratch on the same knee. Not treating this model well at all, take it into the shop they’ll say, Jeepers, lady, where you been driving this model? Mountaintops and bellyflops, a poor white convertible upside down with its whitewalls spinning, upholstery all muddy, scratches on the fenders, this is a dent, lady.

“Vaaaallll-erie! It’s Ro- zeee -ta! It’s oh- kaaaayyyy!”

“Vrrooommm,” Valerie said, giggling at the idea of having the idea of being a car, and from somewhere above and behind her left shoulder she watched herself go up the jungly slope on all fours. Mud, dirt, roots, dangling branches. Little buggies scuttling out of the way of her Donald Duck hands. Wflap! Wflap! Big webbed hands out of the sky.

Still light in the sky, dark blue light, sun gone away to the other side of the mountain, waiting over there for Valerie. Vaaaallll-erie, I’m waiting. Here I come, here I come, here I come.

Ridge. Downslope. Climb a tree trunk to verticality, vertiginous verticality, the ground darker than the sky, her feet way far down there in the pool of darkness, puddles of night all around her feet. The calling voices were fainter, but could still be heard, the beacon behind her that gave her direction. Keep the voices between her shoulder-blades, hurry the opposite way.

Splop. Splash-splop. Stream; water. Chuckles down from the right, scurries on off to the left, white rabbits down the hideyhole. Follow? No, go the other way. Where’d those rabbits come from? Hide with Mister Rabbit at home.

Splush, splush, splush. Water cold and nice on the cuts, running around her shins, ribbons in a wind tunnel. Stop a minute, kneel in the water, get her hands and arms all clean, throw water on her heated face. Sssss, steam from her heated face — just kidding. Stones on the bottom of the stream, though, that’s no joke. Up again, up up up up up. On.

Siiiiii-lence. Oh, siiiiii- lence. How long has it been? Very very dark. No stream, no light. Reach out and touch a telephone pole. Step. Reach out; step.

Are there stars out tonight? Oh, gosh, oh-oh, don’t look up, it’s awfully dizzy up there!

Hungry all the time for some reason. Must be all this exercise. Pig out. Only three tortillas left between her blouse and her flesh, beneath her breasts. Munch and munch. A little dry and tough, but tasty. Satisfying.