escape is hopeless. It is easier to just detach herself from what is happening, to watch as if from a great distance, as if she is just a temporary passenger in this body.
There is a trailhead at the edge of the cliff, a narrow and treacherous path that zigzags and switchbacks down the steep and rocky slope to the muddy gorge below. Veronica is thrust onto the trail so hard that without her arms to right herself she very nearly overbalances and falls to her death. Instead she falls and scrapes her right leg bloody. She gets up and immediately begins to descend the trail, she needs no encouragement, all she wants is to get away from the horror she just witnessed.
The valley floor below has been reduced to a swamp of red mud gouged into hills, mounds, fissures and craters. At least a hundred men are labouring here, digging from the riverbed, dumping muck into what looks like giant wooden bathtubs, pouring water into those tubs with buckets, sifting through what remains. Others hold whips and pangas and move among the workers, watching hawklike. Veronica sees a small group of armed men at each end of the gorge, where violent rapids begin. The base of the other side has been so hollowed out that the massive cliff above now forms a slight overhang. A ragged wooden shelter has been built in its shadow.
Veronica's feet squelch into wet mud. She has finally reached the bottom of the gorge. She looks up and back. The other captives are a minute behind her, still roped together, forced to move at the pace of their slowest member, probably Diane. The three men in dishdashes follow them, as does the small man in glasses. The videocamera swings on a strap from his shoulder as he navigates the steep trail.
The gorge is maybe a hundred feet across. Work near her has slowed or stopped as both labourers and overseers turn to watch their pale-skinned visitors. Veronica takes two deep breaths. Then she starts to run. She doesn't think she has much of a chance, but she has to try, they're going to kill her.
The mud sucks at her feet, it's more a stumbling jog than a run. She angles towards the river, avoiding the nearby workers. Nobody seems to react for what feels like a long time; people stare but do nothing, as if she is a crazy person on the street, best avoided. Then she finally hears shouts from up above, and some of the overseers, the men carrying whips, move to intercept her. But they are too late, she has reached the main flow of the river. She dives into it with all the strength that remains in her legs. It is shallower than she hoped, only waist-deep, with a bottom of mixed mud and gravel, but it flows fast enough to carry her past the first two overseers before they reach her.
She tries to kick and paddle, to accelerate downstream. It's hard to keep her head above water with her arms tied behind her back. Nobody seems to have jumped after her. She distantly remembers reading somewhere that most Africans can't swim. Then she remembers why, it's because their lakes and rivers are infested with crocodiles, but never mind that, she'll worry about four-legged predators once she gets away from these two-legged ones. She twists her body and lifts her head and catches a glimpse of the four gunmen at the end of the gorge, stationed just before the river plunges over a rocky cliff. The spray from the rapids beyond rises above their heads. She remembers seeing the valley from above, how it was bracketed on both sides by fierce whitewater. If the rapids don't get her then the crocodiles and the Congo jungle probably will, but at least this way she has a chance, however small. She knows she won't be followed, it's like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, no one who didn't absolutely have to would go into these rapids.
The roar of the water quickly becomes thunderous, the river sweeps her downstream faster than she expected, the current is accelerating. She has to writhe for every breath, she can't hold a steady position. One of the gunmen steps into the river and reaches out to catch her. Veronica curls into a ball. He grabs at her - and her foot pistons out into his crotch. He lets her go immediately and sits down comically, clutching himself, and then