Night was turning to day—the first of the morning’s sun was just starting to appear on the horizon.
River could see the track—and the forests that seemed to surround it now on either side. The train had left the last stop far behind and was chugging on toward the next. But …
This was country. To each side of the track was an embankment—not roads, not cars, not hard pavement.
It was ground … soft ground, rich with grass.
The train had picked up speed; it was moving fast.
River looked back. He could see the men.
The men in blue suits.
The first—the one with the hat—was in the lead.
But the others were close behind him.
Natal was in his life now. Life meant everything. Life meant … Natal.
And he had to find her again—as he always would.
As long as he wasn’t caught by the men in the blue suits.
There was no choice.
River stepped over the last car’s guardrail and held on for a moment, trying to judge the impact of his leap.
Then he catapulted himself from the train, aiming for the grassy embankment to the side of the rails.
He hit the earth hard, the wind knocked out of him. He didn’t know if he had broken anything or not; for one second, his entire body hurt. The next second, he could feel nothing.
He didn’t move a muscle at first; he didn’t have to. Gravity took care of that for him. He was rolling … rolling and rolling until a tree stopped him, and the pain began in earnest.
CHAPTER 18
River didn’t know how long he lay in the ravine off the railroad tracks. It might have been minutes; it might have been hours.
He thought he might have blacked out—he remembered searing pain that seemed to shoot through his entire body.
But then he opened his eyes and when he did, the sky was blue, the sun was shining overhead, and he could hear birds chirping.
Something about the sound of the birds seemed absurd.
For a moment he lay perfectly still; he didn’t forget for a minute that he had jumped from the train because the men in blue were just about to reach him.
And he remembered that Natal had been gone.
You will find me again, she had told him once. You will always find me.
Everything then seemed to be a dull ache—everything in his body, and his mind.
She hadn’t left him—not really left him. He refused to believe it for a minute, no matter what doubts he might put in his head. She was gone because she knew that she was in no danger and that he could run much faster on his own.
He could blink, he could roll his head. He stretched one arm out in front of him and then the other. He was sure he had massive bruises on his shoulders but it didn’t seem that he had broken any bones.
He was more afraid of trying to get up—but he knew that he had to do so.
He rolled first, slowly. He groaned with the effort—everything hurt. But his body obeyed his commands. He grasped a low-hanging branch to help himself to his feet, afraid that he would find that a leg was broken or that he’d torn a major muscle.
He could stand. He breathed a sigh of relief. There was a hard-hitting pain in his left shoulder, but he figured he’d hit his left side first coming off the train—he was lucky his collarbone wasn’t broken in a zillion places and that bones weren’t sticking out of his body.
He hurt, he was bruised—he was filthy. But he was in one piece and he was able to walk.
Then, he panicked. His backpack wasn’t on his back.
He looked around hurriedly and couldn’t find it. He had to have the pack—his gun was in it, a seond knife, and all his cash. It would be far too ironic to have saved the money by stabbing a man who had attacked him for it and then to have lost it to the men coming after him for justice or revenge.
A slow, agonizing walk back up the little stretch from the ravine to the tracks proved rewarding; he found his pack. He clutched it and sat down for a minute and closed his eyes—just to be thankful. Then he opened them again.
All he could see was the railroad tracks—and trees and brush forever. The going would be painful, he knew, but he had to get somewhere. His mouth was parched; he was covered with scratches and bruises, and he didn’t even want to take off his shirt and jacket or pants to find out just how badly. His clothing, he realized, was ripped to shreds.
He needed to find a lake or a river. He needed water.
He probably needed medical attention too, but that was too risky. If he could just get to a pharmacy, he’d be okay.
And then, he could find his way back to Natal.
It was easy enough to judge his position once he had his map out. If he headed southeast, he’d come to something like a town or a village because he’d be heading toward the water, a harbor, and probably in there somewhere, a beach. With any luck, there would be a river, a lake, or some kind of fresh water along the way. Or, he could follow the train tracks.
But that seemed too obvious. If someone came looking for him, they’d assume he’d follow the tracks. And they’d assume he’d be heading north again—the direction the train had been going.
He wouldn’t be going north. He’d be heading back to Rio—and the one place he was certain he’d find Natal, the Christ the Redeemer statue. He didn’t know which one of them would make it back to Rio first—he just knew that they would both go there.
Leaning against a tree, he studied the terrain again. There seemed to be something of a foot trail that appeared to lead south almost parallel with the tracks and yet obscured by the trees. He started that way.
He only made it about twenty minutes before he had to rest. He hadn’t broken any bones but he had messed up an ankle.
River found a tree trunk to rest against. Listening to the birds chirping and the leaves rustling in the breeze. And there was something else.
Water. The trickle of water.
He had to be somewhere close to a stream.
He listened intently then made it back to his feet, crying out softly when he first put weight on his left foot. The ankle seemed to scream in protest.
He found a heavy branch to use as he hobbled in the direction the sound of the water came from.
He reached the stream and looked up to the sky, thanking God for small favors. It rushed over rocks that appeared to be smooth as glass—fresh water. The grassy bank by it was slippery; he fell as he tried to ease himself down to shimmy toward the water. Before he knew it, he’d slid all the way down.
But he hadn’t hurt himself again.
Once there, he removed his boots and socks.
His left ankle was painfully swollen. Badly twisted, he judged.
He needed to stay off it.
There was no way to do so.
He tested the water and it was good and sweet and seemed incredibly pure. The stream was beautiful, rolling over the rocks, surrounded by trees … pristine.
Natal would love it here, he thought.
“And we will come back here—together,” he said out loud.