Robert Stone - A Flag for Sunrise

“They’re not wrong. I was involved in the fight here. Was. Formerly. I knew they were casing me. I pulled out. I’ve told the people concerned.”

He shook his head. “It’s too late,” he said. “We have to get you out of here.” He looked down at the road. “If you leave with me we might make it.”

“Oh, Frank,” she said, “I can’t, you know.” She shrugged her shoulders with a wan exasperated smile. “I’m responsible for Father Egan. I’m responsible for everything here.”

“You have to, May. They’ll hurt you.”

She looked at him sharply. She was frightened and angry because of it.

“Why do you keep saying it’s me?”

“It’s you.”

“No,” she said uncertainly, “I’m nothing in this.”

“You could come with me up to Miami. After that … I don’t know.”

Nor did he. He could not imagine a time beyond the moment. He felt her eyes on him.

“That would be something, wouldn’t it?” she said.

“Let’s try it, May.”

“It would be something. But it’s not possible. I can’t leave a sick old man alone. I can’t walk out on people who trust me.” She shook her head slowly. “No, Frank. Not now. I have to tell my friends what you’ve told me. And then I’ll think of something clever, I guess.” She was staring at him wide-eyed, the way she had the night before. “How do you know all this? About these people and who they are? These cowboys?”

“I know one when I see one. I was in Vietnam once.”

“Is that where you got that little scar?”

He touched his earlobe.

“That’s right. In the mountains there. It’s a piki scar.”

“You said … somewhere else.”

“I lied.”

“It must have been bad there,” she said. “Was it bad?”

You’d have liked it, he thought.

“It was all right.”

“I don’t know who you are,” she said.

“May, for Christ’s sake! Let’s get it together and get out!”

“Do you think I’m too dumb to be frightened?” she asked. “I’m plenty frightened. Yes, I’d like to run. I’m scared and I’d like to run. Don’t you see that it isn’t possible?” She shivered and raised her upturned palms. “It’s not possible. I can’t do it.”

She started toward him, he moved to her and held her. She stood in his arms with her shoulder to him, very stiff and frightened, facing the open window. Then he heard her say: “My God, they’re here.”

He released her and stepped back.

“Who?”

Going carefully to the window, he saw a young woman in braids and native dress — a Carib, he thought — walking along the road.

“Who?” he asked. “This Indian kid?”

“She isn’t Indian. She’s from town. She’s my contact.” Justin swallowed and squared her shoulders. “I sent them a note last night that I was pulling out. They wouldn’t send her out here in broad daylight unless something was up.”

“Can you keep her outside?”

“I don’t think so.” She looked at him ashamed. “You’ll have to hide. Sneak out.”

Like a man in a bedroom farce, Holliwell left through a window in the washroom, sliding down a hardwood buttress that anchored the dispensary wing to the overgrown hillside. He made his way through the brush to the trail that ran along the creekside and started inland. He followed the trail for about five minutes and then stopped, sat down under a cocobolo tree on the bank and watched the water insects skim the brown surface of the creek.

He understood that she would not go. He had neither the force nor the moral authority to persuade her. He was in danger himself now; he had gone along too far. What it came to, what he had to face, was that he had somehow supposed that he could run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. Informally of course. In the name of communication. He had imagined a place for himself in the business and then assumed that the place existed.

There would be regrets now and they would be deep and bitter. He knew vaguely that his life would be changed somehow. Whatever happened, he thought, he would not be wiser. He did not suppose that his judgment would improve.

The forest enfolded him, shutting out the mission and the sea. Drawn into its silent airless ambiance, he moved through the shady perfumed spaces like a dreamer. The trail and the river kept him from losing his way.

When he had wandered on for about a quarter of a mile, he was brought up by the prospect of an open space ahead; there were hills beyond it and then a precipitous wall of mountains. In the space were three stelae in a staggered row, quite exposed, as clear of earth and vegetation as though they were on exhibition. The one nearest him was discolored from frequent rubbings. If it was not protected, he thought, it would soon be lost altogether.

He advanced and studied the clearing. One of the hills behind it, Holliwell saw from the contour, was a pyramid covered in jungle. There might be more. It was an impressive site; the manner in which it lay half excavated and unprotected was a measure of the government’s barbarity. Whoever had made the rubbings might just as easily have unearthed the entire stela and trucked it away. He was surprised that Oscar Ocampo had not got round to it; there was a fortune to be made here.

The clearing itself was curiously infertile and the meagerness of soil had helped to keep the stones exposed. The ground was sandy and covered with shells — there would be salt or brackish water only a few feet down and the limestone crust was sterile. Perhaps there was some priestly curse over it.

As Holliwell started from the cover of the forest, he saw a young man asleep on the far side of the clearing. He stayed where he was and then began to back toward the tree line.

In the shadow of the mission building, Holliwell found himself a hiding place beside the creek from which he could see the beach road. Above him, he could hear Sister Justin in conversation with her visitor; the discussion sounded businesslike and cordial.

At length he heard a light sandaled step on the porch stairs and the girl in braids went past him on the road toward town. He waited until she had gone some distance and then went around to the front of the building and up to the dispensary wing. On his way up the steps, he saw Father Egan — in pajamas — standing at the kitchen window, blinking in the hard sunlight. Egan saluted him with a soft disjointed wave.

He found Justin standing where he had left her, beside the window. She watched him come in with a sad smile.

“There are people back at your ruins,” Holliwell told her. “They don’t look very reasonable.”

“We have everyone back there,” she said. “It doesn’t matter now.”

Something about the way she said it frightened him.

“What went on?”

She took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly.

“I’m … back in it, I guess.”

“What do you mean, May?”

“It’s happening tonight.” Her eyes widened. “Do you know what that means? What we’ve all been waiting for. The rising, Frank. They’re going out tonight.”

“Good Christ,” he said.

“They need me,” she said. She met his fearful look. “I asked them and they said they did. They expect me at the company clinic at eight o’clock. They have the guns and the people and they’re going to take the coast.”

“May, can’t you see how crazy this is? For you?”

“Don’t, Frank,” she said. “I’m so happy, see. I’m happier than I’ve ever been.”

He turned from her and began to walk the length of the dispensary. The bed where they had been was stripped.

“It must be that your friends don’t understand the heat that you’ve attracted.”

“The spooks are out of luck,” Justin said. “There won’t be any secrets tomorrow.”