Tropical Heat

CHAPTER 25

Carver was instantly aware of the pressure on his chest. The man choking him bore down with the weight of a building.

Terror struck cold in Carver as he tried to draw breath and got only pain. His ribs seemed about to cave in; he thought he could hear the cartilage in his neck cracking under those probing thumbs that felt as if they were touching together inside his throat, pinching off his air. The man’s rancid breath was hot on his face in the darkness as the attacker muttered a throaty stream of Spanish. Carver caught only one word: “hermano.” Brother. He knew he was meeting Jorge Lujan, and that this was violent vengeance for that day on the road outside Solarville.

Carver squirmed convulsively and managed to get his own arms inside Lujan’s thick, locked arms. He clasped his hands tightly for leverage, bent his elbows as much as possible, and pried his arms out sideways against Lujan’s.

The pressure on his throat gave some, but not much. He kicked with his good leg, twisted, struggling to get leverage, focusing every measure of strength he had on separating Lujan’s muscular arms, parting those digging thumbs the precious thousandth of an inch that meant life.

Lujan was straining hard now, cursing more violently with a desperation of his own. This wasn’t turning out to be as easy as he’d thought. Warm spittle sprayed on Carver’s face with each barking, hissing oath.

Lujan’s grip gradually loosened, then suddenly broke free.

He tried to regain his hold on Carver’s throat, but Carver parried his thrusting hands, knocked his arms away.

“Bastardo!” Lujan hissed.

Carver punched upward with his right fist, felt a jolt of pain as his hand bounced off a hard cheekbone or forehead. Then he had his palms pressed flat against Lujan’s chest and was sucking in air and holding it like a weightlifter for added strength, breathing in, pushing, pushing.

Lujan grunted and his body rose. He was surprised by the awesome strength in Carver’s arms and torso. The physical compensation and unnatural upper-body strength of the lame.

Carver forced the much larger man sideways and managed to slide free on the mattress. His right hand found the cane leaning against the wall near the bed and he gripped it and slashed out with it. It connected hard with flesh and bone; he heard an enraged shout, so abrupt and loud that it startled him.

His eyes had adjusted and he could see well enough now in the moonlight bouncing off the ocean and filtering in through the wide window. He caught the glint of a knife blade, struck at it with the cane. Connected again.

The knife skittered across the floor to the far side of the room. He heard it clatter against the far wall. Lujan spat a fresh, wet series of curses. He was breathing hard, his chest heaving. When he began to move forward, Carver lifted the cane, ready to strike again, and he stopped.

Lujan smiled. There was an easier way, the smile said. A better way. His breath still rasping from the exertion of the struggle, he stooped almost in an incongruous bow to acknowledge Carver’s gameness, then moved to the other side of the room to recover the knife, withdrawing into shadow.

Carver’s own breath was hissing, whistling in his throat. He watched Lujan back away to search for the knife. It might take him a while to find it in the dark. Carver had two choices: Go after Lujan now with the cane and hope he hadn’t found the knife. Or get out of the cottage and try to escape.

He knew he’d been lucky with Silverio Lujan. And Jorge was much larger, more deadly, dedicated through vengeance. Living only to see Carver die.

Carver realized he was nude; he always slept that way and had forgotten he had nothing on. The sudden realization of his nakedness made him feel even more vulnerable, doomed.

He clutched the cane, fell hard, and half rolled, half scurried to the door, pulling himself along with his arms and hands. He shoved the door open and scrambled outside, then remained calm long enough to regain his feet.

With a rattle of his cane on the planks, he was off the porch. He knew Lujan would follow him as soon as he found the knife.

Carver began limping toward the churning, glistening white surf, toward the sea. There was nowhere else to go.

The tip of the cane kept sinking into the sand. He stumbled but managed to stay upright as he limped onto the deserted beach. The soft sand, with its array of minuscule shells, stabbed between his bare toes. Then it smoothed out and became cool and packed when he got near the surf; the work of the sea.

When he looked back he saw the bulky form of Jorge Lujan, shoulders hunched and head thrust forward stiffly in determination, swaggering slowly toward him. He was hefting the long-bladed knife in his right hand, knowing Carver was his. There was only the stalker, the stalked, and the wide, black Atlantic.

Carver broke for the ocean. Not out of strategy but out of fear. He was stumbling now, dragging his bad leg like a penance. The roar of the oncoming waves seemed to mock him, and the sharp scent of the sea was a whiff of death.

He fell, losing his cane, and heard Lujan laugh. For an instant panic took him. He worked his good leg beneath his body, supported himself with his hands, planted his bare foot. He screamed with an eruption of energy, felt his body respond remotely while his mind reeled: all like a dark and explosive dream.

Then, miraculously, he was on his. feet. He’d gotten there with his arms and good leg. He looked around for the cane. It was nowhere in sight among the shadows. The moonlight played tricks on the wrinkled sand, keeping it hidden.

Somehow he lurched forward step after step without it. He got the impression that he was moving quite fast.

But when he glanced back at Lujan, Carver was surprised by how much nearer he was.

Lujan clamped the knife in his teeth, then bent low and picked up something. Carver squinted and strained to identify it.

His cane. Lujan had found his cane.

Grinning, still holding the knife in his mouth, Lujan lifted the cane high so Carver could see it clearly. Then he disdainfully snapped it in half over his knee. He tossed the broken pieces in opposite directions, then smiled a creepy smile and began advancing again. He was enjoying this more now, knowing Carver was hobbled by his handicap, was trapped.

Carver felt the cold surf lick at his ankles as he stood watching Lujan walk toward him, still grinning like a pirate around the knife blade.

A coldness moved into Carver’s mind, a calm stillness and a fierce will. He wasn’t ready to die. Someday he’d die, maybe even tonight, but Lujan wasn’t going to choose the minute, the second. Lujan wasn’t going to play Destiny.

He backed into the surf, watching Lujan.

Lujan seemed to sense some change in his quarry. He held the knife in his hand now and was moving more slowly, still with a swagger, but also with a hint of caution.

When the big man was less than fifty feet away, prepared to move into killing range, Carver dropped down and did his contorted backward squirm into the rolling surf.

Lujan was surprised by the maneuver, by its awkward speed. He hesitated, then sprinted forward. He’d had enough of this Mickey Mousing around; it was time for blood.

He was almost on top of Carver when a large wave roared in. Timing it perfectly, Carver waited, then hurled his body backward into the rush of water, felt it embrace him and carry him away in its backwash.

Carver was floating. Lujan was ten feet from him now, still standing in shallow water, a faintly amused expression on his broad, peasant’s face. So, this was getting complicated, he seemed to be thinking. But the night was middle-aged if not young. Tiempo. There was time. This was a new game, but one he could play. And win.

As Carver began swimming away from him, out to sea, Lujan methodically removed his shirt, then took off his shoes. He ran splashing into the waves like a kid on vacation, waving the knife in his right hand. Then he began swimming after Carver with a strong crawl stroke, the blade winking in the moonlight with each powerful arc of his thick right arm.

They were on even terms now, Carver knew. His bad leg was little hindrance in the water; he could maneuver with his enemy.

He kept swimming straight out from the beach, letting the bigger man tire out. There was no sound now, only the roar of the incoming waves, lifting and lowering both swimmers with the sea’s ponderous eternal rhythm.

Carver began swimming more slowly, holding back slightly, hoarding his strength. He looked back and could see Lujan about a hundred feet away, still swimming strongly, closing on him. Carver thought he could see the son of a bitch grinning again.

Letting the rage, the indignation at this man actually trying to take his life well up powerfully in him, infusing him with energy, Carver took the initiative. He surface-dived, flattened out underwater, bobbed up just ahead of Lujan, and saw the startled expression on Lujan’s face.

Carver stroked to the left, to confuse his pursuer, fixed Lujan’s exact position in his mind, then went under again and swam toward that point.

Still beneath the surface, he waved his arms about, groping. He felt nothing. He surfaced just behind Lujan.

Lujan was whirling around in the water as Carver drew a deep breath and submerged again.

This time he found Lujan’s legs easily, avoided a kick, clutched a knee, and worked his way down a bulging calf. He tried to grab Lujan’s ankle, then decided a pants leg would provide a better grip.

Bunching a thick cuff in his fist, he began to stroke in upward motions with his left arm and good leg, forcing himself and the struggling Lujan deeper.

In the darkness of the depths he felt Lujan writhing above him, trying to kick free, trying to bend his body enough to strike at Carver’s hand with the knife. But as long as Carver maintained their downward momentum it was impossible for Lujan to reach him with the blade. And as long as he held his grip on the pants cuff, it was impossible for Lujan to break free.

Carver’s lungs were burning and he was tiring rapidly as he took them deeper and deeper, into blacker, cooler water. Something brushed his leg. A fish? A strand of drifting seaweed? Whatever it was, it floated away like a brief premonition.

Lujan began struggling more violently above him, panicking. His free bare foot was beating with increased fury at Carver’s fist clenching the pants leg, but the resistance of the water robbed him of any power.

Carver forced them still deeper, feeling his ears pop from the pressure. Inanely, the words to an old seafaring song ran through his mind: “Many brave hearts are asleep in the deep…”

Then Lujan seemed to stop struggling. The leg in Carver’s grasp moved limply, lifelessly.

Carver could go no deeper. He was afraid he might not have enough air in his lungs now to reach the surface. He released his grip on Lujan’s pants leg and pushed himself away, flexed his aching fingers, and let himself rise, hastening his ascent by paddling with his hands and his tired good leg.

At least a minute passed, he was sure. Certainly it felt that long.

Then he broke the surface and saw a star-scattered dark sky that had never looked so vast. He sucked in a long, rasping breath, rolling onto his back. He rotated his head, looked around him.

He was alone on the moon-splashed, undulating surface of the sea.

Breathing deeply and regularly, getting his strength back as the burning sensation in his lungs lessened, he floated loosely.

He was farther from shore than he’d thought. The light of the channel marker seemed almost near enough to touch, the lights along the beach so distant, impersonal pinpoints like low stars.

It was oddly restful out there alone-relaxing. He rose and dropped with the sea rhythmically, softly, and it seemed from time to time that he actually fell asleep. He was strangely at home in the water, as if he belonged there and not on land: evolution in reverse to a point no one had anticipated-not Carver, not his therapist. His hours in the ocean had altered his being, saved his life.

The sea seemed to swell and ebb within him as he drifted in solitary peace.

Then, with a chilling jolt of fear, he imagined that Lujan might still be alive. It was possible. The man might be beneath him now, shooting up underwater with torpedo speed, the knife extended to slash into Carver’s vulnerable submerged softness.

He told himself that was absurd, that Lujan was dead.

But there was no way to be positive. The high and lonely yellow moon glowed down at him in benevolent warning. The sea rose and fell and sighed and urged caution, and return to life on land. “That’s where you belong,” it whispered. “Where you belong…”

Carver shook himself, rolled onto his stomach, and stroked toward shore.