[Magazine 1967-­12] - The Pillars of Salt Affair - Пронзини Билл - Страница 10

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He smelled food. That was strange, a part of his mind said. You shouldn't be able to smell food if you were dead. He tried to identify the smell. Chili peppers.

Chili peppers?

He became aware that the blackness was not as deep as it had appeared at first. There seemed to be a light there, far away, almost a feeling of light, like you had when you were sleeping and someone turned on a dim lamp somewhere in the room.

Illya realized his eyes were closed. He tried to open them. The lids seemed stuck together. He concentrated on opening his eyes, and finally one parted into a slit. He was looking at a ceiling. It was rough-hewn, made of what seemed to be wood-braced adobe. He got the eye open all the way then.

He was in a single room, he saw, the walls of dark adobe like the ceiling. The light he had seen came from a small oil lantern on a wooden table at the far end There was a door there, closed. The smell of chili peppers seemed to come from the other side of the door.

He was lying on a straw mattress supported by a rough-wood frame. There was a thin blanket covering him to the waist. He saw that his chest was bare, and that he seemed to be wrapped in some kind of white cloth strips across his stomach and chest.

He tried to sit up then, and a sharp, biting pain stabbed through his right side, ripping a gasp from his throat, and he sank back down again. But the shock of the sudden pain cleared his mind completely, and he was instantly alert.

Illya Kuryakin began to remember, then.

He remembered the hurtling, downward flight of the sedan as it left the mountain road with its blown tire. He remembered his futile efforts to slow it, and the pressure on his arms as he tried t manipulate the wheel. He remembered the jarring impact as the sedan crashed into the rocks on the slope, and then the floating, helpless feeling as they became airborne. He remembered the right door being wrenched open, and Solo being thrown out, and then his own frantic tearing at the door, his body leaving the sedan, spinning into the air.

He remembered rolling himself into a tight ball in midair, and automatic reaction, and then solid collision with the ground, and rolling, over and over, downward, and his desperate clawing at the rocky earth to stop his momentum, and then simultaneous knives of pain in his side and the back of his head. After that there was only blackness.

Illya felt himself sweating. Where was he? How had he gotten here? And what had happened to Napoleon Solo? Maybe?

He heard the door at the far side of the room open. An old man came inside. Illya could see his face, wrinkled, leathery, in the flickering light from the lantern. He looked to be Indian.

The man came across the room cautiously, peering down at Illya. Seeing he was awake, the old man's lined face broke into a toothless grin. He said something in what Illya supposed was Zapotec dialect.

Illya shook his head slowly, indicating that he did not understand. The man nodded and left the room. But he returned seconds later with a young girl in her late teens. The girl went to stand above Illya. She smiled shyly.

"Can you speak English?" Illya asked her. His voice was thick.

"Yes, a little," the girl said, pronouncing each word carefully. "I have been to school to learn."

"Good," Illya said. "Now tell me, where are we?"

"The house of my father, Juan Corrazon," the girl said.

"Yes, but where? Teclaxican?"

The girl explained. Teclaxican was many miles to the west.

Illya said, "Are we near the lake?"

"Yes."

"How did I get here?"

"My father found you near the wreckage of an automobile," the girl said. "He was gathering firewood in the valley. He brought you here on the burro."

"When?"

"Tonight, after supper."

Illya could see through the single window in the room that it was dark outside. There was no sign of a moon. "What time is it?" he asked the girl.

"It is near midnight," she said. "We have been waiting for you to awaken."

Midnight. He had been unconscious for more than eight hours. He thought, What about Solo? He said to the girl, "Ask your father if he saw anyone else near the wreckage. Another man."

The girl spoke rapidly to her father. The old man shook his head emphatically. Illya wet his lips. Solo had been thrown clear he knew that. Suppose he was still up there on the slope, hurt, dying, or... He had to get to Teclaxican.

He tried to raise up again, and the biting pain in his side forced him down. His breath came in short gasps.

The girl stepped forward and put her hand gently on his shoulder. "You must lie still," she said. "You have broken ribs. I could feel them when I bandaged you."

"I've got to get to Teclaxican," Illya said through clenched teeth.

"In the morning I will go for the doctor," the girl said. "Tonight you must rest."

"You don't understand," Illya said. "I have a friend who was in that car with me when it went off the road. He's still on that slope somewhere. I've got to get help."

Again, Kuryakin tried to rise. The pain brought tears to his eyes. Groaning. he sank back.

The girl spoke to her father again. He shook his head. She seemed to be arguing with him. Finally, the old man gave a reluctant grunt and left the room.

The girl said, "I will take the burro to Teclaxican. I will bring the doctor back here."

"You'll go now?"

"Yes."

"All right," Illya said. "And bring the policia back with you."

"Policia?" the girl said. "subjefe Hernandez?"

"If that's his name," Illya said. He thought of something. "Where's my jacket?"

"On the chair," the girl said.

"Bring it here, will you?"

The girl brought him the jacket. Grimly he searched the pockets. His U.N.C.L.E. communicator was gone, undoubtedly lost on the slope. He threw the jacket down in frustration.

"I will go now," the girl said.

"Hurry," Illya Kuryakin said. "As fast as you can."

TWO

Subjefe Hernandez was one of the fattest men Illya Kuryakin had ever seen. He weighed in excess of three hundred pounds, and wore a soiled khaki uniform and a black-visored cap that was too small for his huge head. He was obviously not pleased at having been gotten out of bed in the middle of the night. He scowled down at Illya as the small, hawk-faced doctor probed with gentle fingers at his side. The girl had brought them from Teclaxican, arriving just a few moments before in a vintage station wagon belonging to the subjefe. She had been gone two hours.

"You will tell me again what happened," the subjefe said.

For the third time, Illya explained about the accident, about how they had been driven off the road by the jeep. The subjefe did not appear to believe him.

"Senor," he said, "I have had a very difficult day. This afternoon, my wife tells me she is to have another child. Tonight, something strange happens to the water in Teclaxican. And now, you have gotten me out of bed to..."

"What happened to the water?" Illya interrupted. But he already knew the answer.

"It begins to taste of salt," the subjefe said. "Our fresh mountain water. And then there is no more water. I turn on the faucet...nothing. I do not understand it."

Illya debated telling about the THRUSH tests, and decided against it. He could trust no one; somebody in Teclaxican had seen he and Solo leave that afternoon, and had sent the jeep after them. But he had to get to the hotel, to the spare communicator in one of the suitcases there. He said once again that his friend was lying somewhere on the slope, a victim of the accident.

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