again.
The Enye ships remained his only companions. No longer hawks. Carrion crows and vultures, they hung in the sky, watching him. Waiting for him to die.
When he heard unfamiliar voices gabbling - high-pitched and excited as monkeys - he thought at first that this was some new phase of his deterioration. It wasn't enough that he imagined voices he knew; now the whole S?o Paulo colony would escort him down to Hell, babbling in tongues. The fishing boat cutting through the water, moving slow to keep its wake from swamping his raft, was a new dream. The rustproof paint, white and gray but decorated with a rough image of the Virgin, was a nice touch. He wouldn't have thought his mind capable of such lovely detail. He was trying to make the Virgin wink at him when the raft tilted beneath him. A man knelt at his side, his skin as black as tar, his eyes wide with concern.
A Yaqui was too much to hope for, Ramon thought, but I always thought Jesus would at least look like a Mexican.
"He's alive!" the man shouted; Spanish had not been his first language, and whoever taught it to him had had a distinct Jamaican accent. "Call Esteban! Hurry! And get me a line!"
Ramon blinked, tried to sit up, and failed. There was a hand on his shoulder, gently pushing him down.
"It's okay, muchacho," the black man said. "It's okay. We've got you. Esteban's the best doctor on the river. We'll get you taken care of. Just don't try to move."
The raft thudded again, shifting on the breast of the water. Something else happened, time skipping like he'd dropped acid, and he was on a stretcher with his robe lying over him like a blanket, rising up the side of the boat. The painted Virgin at his right winked as he went past.
The deck stank of fish guts and hot copper. Ramon craned his head, trying to make out something, anything, that could tell him for certain that this was real and not another artifact of a dying brain. He wet his lips with a sluggish tongue. A woman - fiftyish, gray-haired, with an expression that said nothing could surprise her - sat on the deck beside him. She took him by the wrist and he tried to grasp her. She turned his wooden fingers aside, holding him firmly still as she took his pulse. Overhead, the Enye ships blinked in and out of existence. The woman made a disapproving sound and leaned forward.
It occurred to him for the first time that he'd reached Fiddler's Jump. His first reaction was relief so profound it approached religious awe. His second was an unfocused, suspicious anger that they might steal his raft.
"Hey!" the woman said again. He didn't know how often she'd said it, only that this wasn't the first. "Do you know where you are?"
He opened his mouth, frowning. He had known. Just a moment ago. But it was gone.
"Do you know who you are?"
That, at least, was worth a chuckle. She seemed pleased by his reaction.
"I am Ramon Espejo," he said. "And, hand to God, that's all I can tell you."
Chapter Twenty-Five
Ramon Espejo awoke floating in a sea of darkness.
The tiny lights - green and orange, red and gold - that blinked or flickered around him illuminated nothing. Ramon tried to sit up, but his body rebelled. Slowly, he became aware of the machines around him, the pain in his flesh. For a muzzy, half-sleeping moment, he was certain that he was back in the strange caverns beneath the mountain, back in the vat where he'd been born, swimming again in that measureless midnight ocean. He must have cried out, because he heard the soft, fast sound of human footsteps, and a cheap white LED light blinked on. He tried to lift his arm against the sudden brightness, but he found himself tangled in the thin tubes that were penetrating his flesh like a half-dozen sahaels. And then there were hands on his wrists - human hands - guiding him back down to the bed.
"It's okay, Se?or Espejo. It's all right."
The man had to be near fifty, short gray hair in tight curls and a smile that looked like the aftermath of sorrow. He wore a nurse's smock. Ramon squinted, trying to see him better. Trying to see the room better.
"You know where you are, sir?"
"Fiddler's Jump," Ramon said, surprised by the gravel in his voice.
"Good guess," the nurse said. "They brought