Page 26 of Cutter’s Lady

“How much farther is it?” Leslie asked. The sun was beginning to set. Amidst the thick, tall trees, the dark came on more quickly that she was used to.

“Another hour or so. We’ll stop and eat there.”

Leslie settled into her seat. The silence was no longer so oppressive and now, oddly, she could think of many different things to say. She was incurably curious, always interested in new things, and here in San Cristóbal everything around her was new. There were a hundred things she wanted to ask about. She wondered if her questioning would annoy Cutter. Somehow, he didn’t seem the type who would like a lot of chatter. She kept her mouth closed for a few minutes, then shrugged inwardly. If Cutter didn’t like her talking, he was more than capable of telling her to shut up. She might as well go ahead and satisfy her curiosity until he did so.

“How do people around here make a living?” she asked. “I mean, you said it was hard to farm because of the jungle. Like that guy back there who sold us the coconuts. Can he make a living standing by the road doing that?”

“By San Cristóbalian standards he’ll make a decent living, yeah. The dirt road that crosses the highway leads to a fair-size ruin a team of archaeologists is excavating. Besides the archaeologists and their crew, they employ quite a few local workers. He gets a lot of trade from them as well as from the highway. The La Luz-Chempua road is a pretty major highway.”

“It is?” Leslie glanced around in astonishment.

Cutter chuckled. “Yeah. It is.”

Leslie shrugged. “What do I know? I’m from New York—I don’t even drive.” She laughed. “Well, what do the people do, if farming’s too hard?”

“They farm anyway. They can scratch out enough to survive. They grow corn, mostly. Squash, chili peppers. There are plenty of trees around to supplement their food with fruit—breadnut, mango, papaya, guava. The majority of the population lives close to the coast or by a river or lake, and they fish. Those who live inland hunt for small animals for food.”

“Hand-to-mouth.”

“Yeah. Some have moved into La Luz for the jobs, but they aren’t better off. Wages are low, housing’s poor and they don’t have the opportunity to supplement their food with wild fruits or fishing.”

“Has San Cristóbal always been like this?”

“Just about. Revolution and poverty, that San Cristóbal’s story.” Cutter began to recount the country’s bloody, convoluted past, starting with the ancient Mayans, and the time slipped quickly away as they talked, so that before they knew it they had arrived at Chempua. Much to his surprise, Cutter found that he enjoyed talking with Leslie. She had a bright, active mind and a good sense of humor. Amazingly, he was almost looking forward to having her as a companion on this trip.

That was crazy, of course. As soon as the trip got rough, she would start complaining, and after a day or so, he was sure she would quit altogether and return to La Luz. That would be the best thing, especially with someone following them. There were too many dangers involved for a woman like Leslie, and she would end up being nothing but an aggravation for him.

When they reached the town of Chempua, Cutter left the highway and drove into the center of the town to a restaurant. As he had more than half expected, the white car followed them. Cutter parked the car and got out, glancing around casually. The white car was parking in the block behind them. “Still with us,” he remarked as they strolled away from the car.

“What are we going to do?” Leslie asked as they entered a small restaurant that was as loud and bustling as any of the most popular spots in NYC.

“I’m thinking. Do you have your cell phone on you?” He held out his hand, already knowing the answer.

“Of course,” Leslie handed it over, “What’s weird is that you don’t. And you can borrow it, by the way.” She added as he took it from her hand without a please or thank you.

“Go sit down at a table. I’m going to go back to the car so I can make a call.”

Leslie complied, following a smiling hostess to a table and sitting down to study a menu she couldn’t make heads or tails of. Moments later Cutter joined her, smiling. Leslie took her cell phone back from him and their fingertips grazed. She shoved aside the jolt she felt at it and concentrated on Cutter’s happy expression. “Your idea must have worked out.”

“It should. Have you ordered?”

“Are you kidding? I don’t even know what the menu says. But never mind that. Tell me about your plan. What are we going to do?”

“First, we’ll enjoy a nice leisurely meal, maybe a drink or two. Then we’re going to drive to the nicest hotel in Chempua, which I imagine you will find sadly lacking in the kind of amenities you’d offer at one of your establishments. It does, however, have running water and a bathroom in every room, which is more than you can say for some of the other places we’ll be staying.”

Leslie ignored his comments on the hotel and pursued her subject. “You mean we’re spending the night here? But how will that help us get away from the guys following us? I figured we’d drive on and try to lose them in the dark or something.”

“If my idea works out, we’ll confuse them a lot more than by losing them on the road. Chempua lies on the Rio Miedo, the same river that runs through La Luz. It’s one of the two major rivers running back into the interior, and you can as easily travel the river as the road. I just called the docks and asked if there were any boats scheduled to go upriver in the next ten or fifteen hours. Sure enough, there’s a cargo boat that’s leaving early tomorrow morning, about four o’clock.”

“And we’re going to take it?”

“Right. I’ll have to slip out without our friends and make sure the captain will sell us passage. If I can make a deal with him, we’ll sneak out of the hotel early tomorrow morning and be on our way. With our car sitting there in the parking lot and us supposedly in our rooms, the tail should assume we’re sleeping late and not even begin to wonder until we’re five or six hours on our way.”

“But how will we sneak away?”

He shrugged. “Depends on the location of our rooms and what our friends do. Since they’d be rather conspicuous in the lobby all night long, I suspect they’ll stay in their car outside and watch the front door. We’ll take the side or back entrance.”

“That’s what we did last time,” Leslie reminded him dryly. “And look where it got us.”