The Mountain Shadow

‘Or,’ I suggested, ‘we could escape, regroup, and wait it out. There are plenty of places to hide, and they can’t stay on this mountain forever.’

‘I say we fight,’ the student with the stick said.

‘I say we decide to run or to fight, when we have to decide,’ I said.

‘I agree that we should have a good place of cover,’ Silvano mused. ‘The cave nearest to the path is the best place to see them coming.’

‘No exit strategy,’ I said. ‘I always like a way out.’

‘There is a way out,’ Silvano said. ‘Let me show you.’

There was a curtain at the far end of the cave. I’d seen it, but had always thought that it hung there to cover the bare cave wall.

Silvano pushed it aside, and led us by torchlight along a narrow channel that had formed or been carved between the first cave and the last.

We emerged from the passageway into Idriss’s cave, close to the ragged edge of the jungle: only a few steps from cover.

‘I like it,’ Karla said. ‘I’d buy it, and live here, if I could.’

‘Me, too,’ I agreed. ‘Let’s get set up in the first cave. We don’t have long.’

‘I don’t know about you,’ Silvano said, rubbing his belly, ‘but I’m hungry.’

We brought cold food, water, blankets and torches to the cave. I ate the plate of food Karla passed to me before I knew what it was. But when hunger was satisfied, fear started nagging.

Karla, sitting beside me, and killers on the way: my instincts were shouting to get the hell out of hell. But she was calm, and resolute. She’d finished her food, and was cleaning her gun. She was humming. And I guess, when I look back at it, she always had enough guts for both of us.

‘Where are the boxes of Idriss’s writings?’ I asked, looking away to Silvano.

‘In the main cave,’ Silvano replied, finishing his food.

‘Then let’s keep any action away from there. A stray bullet could start a fire.’

‘Agreed.’

Vijay took Karla’s plate and stacked it with the others, outside the cave.

‘I know this forest,’ Silvano said, standing and stretching. ‘I will make a search of the area, with Vijay. And I need to visit the bathroom.’

He walked out to join Vijay quickly, and they passed from sight, moving to the right. The point where the path led onto the mesa was to our left.

So many feet had moved across the ridge that only wild grasses grew here and there. There was no moon yet, but it was a clear night, and we had a good view of the flattened space, fifty metres away.

My heart was beating fast. I slowed it down, willing it calm, but thoughts of Karla hurt or captured pulled the heartbeat back again. She looked at me, and she knew how afraid I was for her.

‘Make a big noise, and run and hide?’ she said, her mouth a beautiful sneer. ‘That’s your strategy?’

‘Karla –’

‘Chee, chee! Can you keep that one to yourself at the next meeting?’

‘I say we fight, the guy with the bamboo stick says,’ I laughed. ‘That’s a better strategy? I just don’t think it’s worth fighting for.’

‘A writer who doesn’t think written wisdom is worth fighting for?’

‘No. I’ve escaped through windows, because the cops were chasing me, and I had to leave everything behind. It’s all gone, that work, but I’m still here, and I’m still writing. No life is worth the written word.’

‘How so?’

Karla didn’t ask How so unless it was a challenge.

‘It’s not because the texts are sacred that life is important. It’s because life is sacred that the texts are important.’

She grinned happy queens at me.

‘That’s my guy. Let’s get ready.’

We piled boxes and sacks in the entrance to the cave, and stretched out with a view of the open ridge. She held my hand.

‘I wouldn’t be anywhere else on this planet, right now,’ she said.

I couldn’t reply, because we heard the first shot.

The further you are from a gunshot, the feebler the fear. The blast that deafens you, close to your ear, is a click of the fingers from far away. We heard the first shots, sounding like handclaps, and then it became volleys of applause.

Silvano and Vijay scampered back to the cave, squatting down beside us.

‘There’s an army down there,’ Silvano said, listening to the spatters of gunfire.

‘Two armies,’ I said. ‘And let’s hope they stay there.’

The fusillades finally subsided. There was silence, and then single shots snapped, one after another, a few steps apart. There were quite a lot of them.

We waited in the dark, listening hard to every broken twig or shuffle of wind. Minutes passed in threatening silence, and then we heard noises, grunting and moaning, coming from the steep path.

Silvano and Vijay were up and running before I could caution them. Karla made to leave as well, but I held her down beside me.

A man appeared at the summit of the path, crawling on hands and knees. Silvano was a shadow, standing to his right, aiming the rifle at his head. The man staggered to his feet. He had a pistol in his hand.

Vijay swung his stick, disarming the man, but the pistol fired, and a bullet hit the wall of the cave not far from where we hunkered down.