Hunters Run Page 0,93

the river and was yelling something, his face flushed almost purple and his mouth gaping wide. Ramon couldn't tell if the asshole was yelling at him or at Maneck or at God. Maneck seemed to have given up the shooting match, so Ramon didn't dive again. He broke into a crawl, kicking at the waves, lifted by them. Tossed. Slowly, the raft drew near, and then the river drove them apart and brought them near again. The other man was on his knees now, the oar extended out into the water. He was still shouting. Ramon couldn't yet make out words, but the man's expression was more nearly one of encouragement now.

Too little, too late, cabron, he thought, but reached for the oar all the same. His fingers grazed it, the coarse grain of the wood feeling improbably solid after struggling in the water. He pushed again, surging forward, catching it in both hands and pulling it close to his body. He felt the tug as the man pulled him in toward the raft, but Ramon let himself hang limp, his arms and legs tingling with exhaustion. Let the little coward sonofabitch do some of the work.

It was less than a minute before the man's hand touched Ramon's shoulder. The raft was right before him. Ramon raised his arm, throwing it onto the laced branches. He pulled, and the other man helped, dragging him up. Ramon lay on the raft's leafy deck, his sodden robe heavy as lead, his lungs working like bellows.

"Fuck!" the other man said. "I thought you weren't going to make it there, ese ."

Thanks, Ramon thought but didn't spend the energy to say.

"Bastard sonofabitch tracked us," the man said, returning to the oar and the river. "I thought you said the chupacabra killed him."

"I thought it did," Ramon said, sitting up. He belched. It tasted of silt. "Maneck used the sahael on the poor fucker. He enslaved it. Never thought I'd feel sorry for a chupacabra. Did we get any firewood at all before - "

He looked up at the man, his twin, and saw horror on the familiar face. Ramon blinked, looking back over his shoulder. He expected anything: Maneck walking on the water like some alien Christ, another wall of cataract mist, even the European back from Hell with the Devil at his side. There was nothing. Gray river, stormy sky. Waves with tiny touches of white. He looked back at the man. The oar was forgotten in his hand; his face a mask of fear.

"What?" Ramon said, then looked down. His robe had fallen open. His belly was in the light, the thick, ropy scar livid against the brown of his skin. "Oh. That."

"Jesus Christ," the other whispered. "You're me!" He was staring at him in frozen horror.

"Calm down," Ramon said. "I can explain - "

"What are you?" the man shouted. "What the fuck are you?"

The man had drawn the knife. Lightning lit the world, flashing from the naked blade. A crackling detonation of thunder. Ramon rose to his feet, unsteady on the tilting raft.

"What the fuck are you?" There was hysteria in the man's voice now. He'd dropped the oar. It was floating away, a prisoner of the river.

"Listen to me! Would you stop being such a little pissant and fucking listen to me?" Ramon said. Then, looking at the man's eyes - eyes he'd seen in the mirror his whole life - he sighed. "Fuck it. Never mind."

There was no point. This wasn't a talking fight anymore.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Two and a half meters by two and a half meters, the space complicated by the fire pit, the lean-to. This was the kind of fight that didn't last long. Ramon pulled off the sodden robe and wound it around one arm, scuttling to get the lean-to between them. Going into a knife fight naked didn't make him happy, but with the full robe wrapped around his forearm, he had something he could block with. And his twin had to hold the blade in his left hand, where Ramon could use his right. They weren't evenly matched. Not close. Ramon was going to lose.

The other man went into a low crouch, the knife at the ready. There was nothing. If there had been some firewood, he might have been able to grab a branch and use it as a club. If the oar hadn't floated off into the darkening gray, he might have used it like a staff.

"You led them here!" the other