Savage Bride

Chapter Ten

The native doctor, a swarthy, oily-skinned man with close-cropped black hair, wore a crash linen suit and an apricot silk shirt, the latter darker in some places than in others from too close adherence to his body. In the background Jones strode feverishly back and forth while the stethoscope shifted here, there, the next place, like a little bug hopping about on her.

The chair scraped back, the doctor rose. He went over to Jones, satchel in hand. They turned and went out the door together and stood in the dim hall beyond.

The doctor put down his satchel first of all. He shrugged in complete frustration. “She has nothing, señor. Why did you send for me? What was it?”

Jones motioned. “She went out. Out into the street alone. About an hour ago, in the middle of the night.”

The doctor swept his hand put. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

“But you don’t understand—”

He broke off short, staring across the doctor’s shoulder into the room they had just left. She’d quitted the bed, put on a thin wrapper, and gone out onto the balcony. It was growing lighter every minute. The sky was turning blue along the eastern horizon, where the mountain was, as though flickering gas flames had just been lit all along its contours.

He gripped the doctor’s arm. “Look, that’s it now. Always like that.”

“The air is fresher out on the balcony.”

“No. La Montaña. Always la montaña. Every night, see what I mean?”

The doctor smiled. “The mountain attracts her?”

“It pulls her. She wants to go to it all the time. Can’t you help me? Can’t you tell me what it is?”

“But this is nothing. This is no illness. Many young women are dreamy like this. They have the too strong imagination. It is no more than a form of poesy.”

“She wants to go to it. She wants me to take her to it.” He poked his finger repeatedly in that direction, to make him understand. “Before you came, she asked me to. She got down on her knees and pleaded with me. I have never seen her like that before.”

The doctor pondered, pursed his lips. “The climate down here on the seacoast is hard to bear. The change may do her good.”

“But what’s back there? I don’t know anyone. I don’t know where to go. It’s no place to take a woman, is it?”

The doctor motioned into the distance. “All the way back, no. On the other side of it is a tierra desconocida, an unknown land. No one goes there, not women nor men either. The government, even, does not know what lies there. But on this side, just a little way out, to where begins the rise, is all right. Would be cooler.”

He took out a card and began to write on the back of it.

“I have a friend has a coffee plantation out that way. One of your countrymen; American, like you. He comes down to coast sometimes on business. You go to him. He be glad to see you. He put you up.”

He handed Jones the card. It had a name on it, Mallory, and underneath, “Finca La Escondida.”

The doctor tapped his pocket. “You pay him a little something for your visit. He be glad to have you.” He picked up his bag and turned to go.

Then he halted once more, a scant step away, to repeat, “Not all the way out. Not beyond there. Just that far and then back again.” Cautioning with his finger, he pointed to the card. “You understand?”

Jones nodded. “Not past there. Only out to there and back.” He looked down at the card, tapping it thoughtfully against his other hand. Then he raised his head and called after the doctor, “Why only that far? Why no farther?”

The doctor was gone. He had already turned the corner of the passage.

Jones stood there staring after him, down its empty length.

Not beyond there. Just out that far, but no farther. As though there were an invisible line drawn across the face of the earth as in some old tale of dark enchantment.

He went in again and back to her on the balcony. She was seated now, but still looking toward the mountain. He let his hand trail to her shoulder. “You still want to go out that way?”

Her hand flew to his, atop her shoulder, as though to keep it from escaping.

“He knows some people out that way. I’ll get in touch with them, see if I can make arrangements. We’ll go, if you’re that set on it, Mitty.”

The worst thing about it, to him, was the avid way she tried to rear upright in her chair. He had to put both hands to her shoulders to hold her down.

His face was bitter as he stared out across the early-morning sky to where it reared, resplendent in new-minted hues. “You win, damn you,” he said in a surly undertone. “Whatever you are.”