He didn’t know why he awoke; he just did. And when he did and looked up, he saw a face—a child’s face.
For a moment he lay there frozen, just staring at her.
Then little Anna grinned and said, “Fox, chicken, cat—farmer!”
“Very good,” he told her.
“Very good!” she agreed, and ran off to tell her parents that she was awake.
He could smell something good coming from the kitchen; it was very early, he thought, but this was a farm. And children had to go to school.
He rose quickly. He was still sore, but nothing like he’d been before. He tested his ankle and it seemed much better as well. His sketchpad was still at the side of his backpack and he reached over to put it back in.
His service revolver fell out as he did so. He moved to slide it back in as well, but noted then that he wasn’t alone in the room.
Guillermo was there. He had come to call him to breakfast.
He saw the gun.
And now he looked at River with suspicion in his eyes.
River thrust the gun into the backpack. He met Guillermo’s eyes. “I would never hurt your family—I would never hurt anyone on purpose who wasn’t … hurting someone else.”
He didn’t know if the man understood him or his tone—or if he remained horrified.
Vera came out to the living room. She looked oddly at them both.
The children came scampering out.
“What’s going on?” Juan demanded. “Breakfast is ready. Come, River, we’ll have breakfast.”
River slowly shook his head. “I have to go,” he said.
He didn’t understand Guillermo’s sentences, but he knew that the man agreed with him. Yes, this man has to go.
Anna cried out with a little, “Nao!”
“Breakfast! You must have breakfast first,” Juan said.
His father said something and Juan’s shoulders slumped in dejection. “He says that you will miss your ride.”
“It’s true,” River said. “And I—I have to find my love, you know?”
The children ran to him. Guillermo looked as if he would reach out to stop them but he didn’t. He waited; he watched.
The children hugged him; River hugged them in return. He looked at Guillermo and Vera. “I can never say thank you enough. Obrigado, obrigado.”
The two nodded. Vera stood very close to her husband. She couldn’t understand yet what had changed.
She just knew that it had.
River reached for his pack. He was afraid to dig into it—Guillermo might think that he was going for his gun.
But he had a few bills stuck in a side pocket. He managed to slip them out and turned to the big leather sofa. Pretending to plump the pillow, he slipped the bills beneath it.
Vera, he hoped, would find the money.
She was a mother. She wouldn’t cast it away as an offense or ill-gotten gains.
She would use it for her children.
“Thank you,” River said one last time.
Guillermo pointed to the southwest. River nodded; he would go that way to hitch a ride back into the city.
He left the house. He heard them speaking for a few minutes as he walked away. The children were going to miss him. Vera was still confused. But someone said something that lightened the mood.
He left, listening to the haunting sound of a child’s laughter on the air.
CHAPTER 19
Though Guillermo had been afraid of him when he left—or, at the very least, wary of him—River didn’t believe that the farmer intended to call the police on him. And if the men in the blue suits came stumbling upon the lone farmhouse there, Guillermo would most probably be too cautious to say that he’d seen anyone.
River believed that the men were heading north still—in the direction he’d been heading until his turnaround.
As he walked to the road, grateful for his time at the farmhouse, since he felt so much better and could move again, he started pondering Natal’s whereabouts again. His heart beat too quickly when he allowed himself to wonder if she’d been picked up by the men in blue suits. He didn’t think so—she had made her escape before he had seen them. He could imagine that she had gotten up—taking her bag with her precious computer with her—and headed to the car ahead of theirs that had a little café. She had seen the men then; she had been too smart to come back.
No, she had eluded them.
And she would have known that he had to elude them as well.
His plan was the right one. Head back to the statue. The outstretched arms of the Christ the Redeemer statue seemed to be perfect for the city. Despite Tio Amato, River loved Rio—and he knew that Natal did too. The Christ the Redeemer statue encompassed all that was good and joyous and loving about Rio de Janeiro. People wanted to like their neighbors—they even wanted to like strangers. They were giving, and they opened their arms to the world.
Yes, the statue. They both loved it so.
His ankle was barely tender—Vera had wrought wonders. Or maybe it had been the hours in which he had stayed off it. He didn’t know. All he knew was that he could walk. He didn’t, however, want to walk forever.
He wondered too if he should look for the farmer Guillermo had suggested. To play it safe, he decided that he’d be careful about which ride he’d accept. Not that he believed a man like Guillermo would ever willingly cause harm to another. But because he might be questioned, and if the men in blue suits did turn out to be criminal henchmen at the beck and call of Tio Amato, Guillermo might have to tell him that River had been there—and what he had advised River to do.
He was hovering between the tree line and the embankment along the narrow two-lane road that ran among the scattered farms in the area when he saw that a van was coming. There were several young people in it.
It was old and beat-up. From the antenna, he could see that the van sported a Brazilian flag—and the American flag.
He hurried up the embankment and stepped out onto the road and lifted a hand.
The van pulled to the side of the road. A young man was driving. He had light hair and bright blue eyes.
“Where are you going?” the man asked, and then quickly asked the same question in very bad Portuguese.
But a blond girl leaned over to the driver’s seat. “American?” she asked River.
“Yes, I am,” he said. “I’m heading to Rio.”
“We’re not going that far,” the girl said. “But we can take you partway.”
“That would be great.”
“Open the sliding door and pop on in. Marty and Alicia are in the back; I’m Susan and this is Blake.”
He said hello to all of them. The couple in the back were young too. They appeared to be in their early twenties. Alicia had raven-dark hair and an accent when she spoke.
“Brazilian?” he asked her.
“Mutt,” she said dryly. “We’re on a special study program from NYU. My parents are in the U.S. but my mother was born in Brasília. My father is half Cuban and half American, and I spent most of my time growing up in New Jersey.”
“Nice,” he told her. He turned to Marty.
Marty laughed and lifted his hands. “Nothing exotic about me. Jewish boy from the Bronx.” River shook his hand.
“Atlanta,” Susan said, lifting a hand and waving from the front.