Ravine

A Nowhere Man Episode:

By Christopher Clagg and Marjorie Brashier

Six months out of D.C. I hit rock bottom. I wandered without plan or direction after the fiasco of the safehouse and the negatives that weren't what I had thought they were. It was easy to lose myself in the pain of hopes that I no longer believed in.

I spent two months on the streets of L.A. in a ghetto with vagrants and winos that I couldn't distinguish from myself. And got caught in a sweep of the lower downtown slums and wound up in de-tox for six weeks to dry out. When I hit the streets again, I went north.

Slowly I found myself in Salinas Valley, California, picking corn or cotton or grapes with a hundred impoverished Mexican-American immigrants that were simply trying to stay alive. If I couldn't trust what I thought, then I began to trust what I felt. Losing myself in hard work and the sweat of days that peeled off my back as easily as my sunburnt skin did. For a long time I didn't think at all. I was simply El Gringo to the mahogany brown pickers that I shared the hot fields with. The white man that didn't have a name that worked the rows with them and then shared a beer in the back-end of a pickup on the dirt roads at sunset with them. I slowly began to put the pieces of myself back together . . .

* * *

"El gringo." Raul pushed at me tentatively, I could feel his finger pressing into my side and I opened my eyes slowly and looked up. He grinned then and nodded over towards Angelina, his wife who was cooking thick corn tortillas' and bits of tomato in a deep black pan over a stove that sat outside the trailer in the dust and the grass-weed. It smelled good. Three children ran and yelled across the open stretch of scrub that served as a yard. Two girls and a boy. Fifteen, thirteen and eleven.

I managed a grin back, "Thanks."

"Da nada." He said and stood. Boots and jeans and red and black checkered shirt in the rising morning that was already getting hot.

It could have been fifty years ago. Could have been. I could've come out of the factories in Philadelphia somewhere. Or the too fast streets that even then passed for commerce in America in downtown Manhattan. Caught some dream or tail-end of some tiredness that pulled me out of those places out into someplace hot enough to re-mold a person into something else.

Hot enough to forget what I was running from. Or chasing after, that I couldn't quite get my hands on. Hot enough and hard enough to forget that I was trying to forget.

We ate hot corn tortillas' and tomatoes and coffee for breakfast. The feel of it hot and the taste of it semi-bitter settling down warm inside of me, quietly, easily and naturally.

"Gracias." I said and stood. Angelina smiled and Raul kissed her quick on the cheek and she turned away blushing. "No aqui..." she whispered at him, 'not here' and nodded in my direction. I turned toward the truck and tried not to smile.

Raul caught up with me and slid into the cab as I sat in the passenger seat. He started up the truck which gave a small choking gasp and then a roar as he pressed down the accelerator. Then dropped it into gear and we lurched off toward the road still a quarter of a mile away. The fields were two miles further down the road. We picked up the others on the way in. There were fifteen of us. It was six a.m. when we got to the fields and the day was just starting.

The rows were slick cornsilk that cut the hands and wore a soft powdery smoothness into the palms and fingers that stung. After a month of solid pulling, my hands had settled into the work. It still hurt, though not as bad. And at night I'd almost forget the cuts I was so tired. I pulled at the rough husks and felt the touch of a breeze that came down the columns and made me feel, at least for a moment a little less tired. The soil was a pungent aroma of sod and chemical fertilizer spread in meticulously measured increments. I bent and pulled at the corn ears and then tossed them over my shoulder into the bag that hung over my left arm. The bag that hung over my right shoulder was for the husks. I bent and stood and bent and worked the rows in mindless routine that tied the beginning of the day to noon. And tied the noon to the evening. We worked hard. Worked and waited for the sun to set...

* * *

Ravine: part two

Sweat trickled between my shoulder blades as I shifted position in the blazing sun, cursing for the third time in forty minutes the man who had sent me here. Nowhere in sight was any shade or shelter, just endless green ribbons of corn stretching away to the horizon. No breeze rippled the limply hanging leaves.

The scorching, dusty air burned my throat and the little bit of tepid water remaining in the small bottle I had brought with me did little to relieve my thirst. I sat several rows back from the edge of the field, hoping that the leafy stalks wilting in the sun would provide enough protection to guard me from view as I waited to catch sight of the man the other workers called El Gringo.

I longed for the comforts of my air-conditioned office. By rights I should have been leaning back in my padded leather chair at this hour contemplating an after-work drink at O'Malley's before heading home to Elise, my wife of four months. I was never supposed to be a field operative. Sure, I'd had the standard training given to all recruits of the Organization, but I was an office man, an attorney, not some agent sent out to some godforsaken corner of the world on a fool's mission like this one. What especially rankled was the reason for my selection. Because I had a name like Estevez instead of Smith, I was sitting in a damned corn field, bracing myself to deal with a man who had eluded a score of other operatives over the past months.

But you didn't argue with the people I worked for. Even tentatively suggesting that I was dissatisfied with either my assignment or my boss' reasoning would mark me as insubordinate or at the very least, lacking in dedication to the Organization. I knew the history of the man I had been sent after from dealing with his files and questioned how I of all people was expected to corner him after every attempt to break him had failed, but I dared not say so.

The call had come in the early morning a few days before. I stirred reluctantly from a deep sleep and snatched the receiver from its cradle before the ringing woke Elise. Surprise cleared the fog from my mind as I recognized the plummy tones of my superior. I had never been called at home before, so I knew the call had to be of some moment.

"Frank, we need to send you out to the Salinas Valley," Martin said, "There's a man we need you to bring back."

"What man? What do you mean by bring back?"

"You're aware of the Gemini project," Martin replied, "Gemini stumbled onto a few things before we were ready for him. We can't afford to have him running free with what he thinks he knows. We need you to detain him so we can bring him back for debriefing."

"If we've traced him to Salinas, don't we have operatives there that can pick him up?" I asked cautiously.

"We do, but we think you're a better man for the job. We've learned that he's working the fields as a migrant worker. Most of the people he's working with are Mexican and we thought someone of your, er, background might be better able to blend in and ask questions to learn his exact whereabouts."

I flushed angrily, thankful that the phone line was the only connection between us. Face to face, he would have had to see my rage. Never mind that I wasn't even Mexican, that my grandparents had come from Colombia. In his eyes, all Hispanics were the same. Did he really think that all I had to do was change into rough clothing and I would be accepted as one of them, with my smooth hands and a face that had never faced sun and wind for days on end?

Elise stirred from her sleep and reached for the receiver still resting in my lap, reaching over to return it to its cradle before sitting up and eyeing me questioningly.

"What is it, Frank? You look upset."

"It's nothing," I managed a small smile. "I have to go on a business trip. That was Martin."

"What kind of business trip is so important that they call you at 3:00 in the morning?", she exclaimed.

"It came up very suddenly. I have to catch a 6:00 a.m. flight."

"So soon?" she protested in dismay. "How can they expect you to be at the airport in less than three hours?"

I reached over and smoothed back a strand of long, black hair that had fallen forward over her forehead. "It's just for a few days, Elise. I'll be back by the end of the week."

She jumped up and dashed to the closet, pulling down a small suitcase from the overhead shelf. I stopped her as she started to grab several of the suits hanging neatly pressed on their hangers. "I'll only need one of those."

She watched perplexed as I pulled the two pair of worn jeans I owned from the bottom dresser drawer and tossed them on the bed. I avoided her face as I rummaged in the closet for the plainest cotton shirts I could find, reaching to the end of the rod behind the immaculate dress shirts I normally wore beneath my three-piece suits to the office. I grabbed socks and underwear from the top drawer and dropped them carelessly into the open valise. Elise pushed them to the side and began neatly packing the case. I hoped this would distract her as I reached back into the drawer for my handgun. I wrapped the strap from the shoulder harness around the weapon, trying to shield it from view as I slipped it into the pocket of the suitcase, but Elise grasped the holster with both hands and folded back the leather strap, studying the handgun with wide-eyed fear.

"What's going on, Frank?" she demanded tremulously. "When did you ever take a gun on a business trip? First the early morning call and now this! I'm frightened, Frank! What have you gotten yourself involved in?"

"There's nothing for you to worry about," I tried to reassure her. "The gun is just a formality, kind of procedure when we're sent on legal business for the firm. I'm being sent to help take a man into custody."

"I don't understand!" she cried. "You're not the police. You don't even work for the prosecutor's office. Why should they want you to help take someone into custody?"

"It's a little hard to explain," I replied softly, "and there are some parts of my work that you know I can't talk about. But I promise you, I'm not doing anything dangerous or anything that you would be ashamed of."

She rubbed at the tears pooling in the corners of her eyes and managed a tremulous smile. I kissed her goodby, berating myself for the lies I left her with. It would have broken her heart if she knew the reason I was going to the Salinas Valley. I still shone brightly in her newlywed eyes-- she would have never understood my involvement in such a sordid mission and the combination of duty and culpability that entrapped me in the Organization.

It had taken me two days to find Veil. Once off the plane, I transferred my belongings into a battered rucksack and thumbed a ride to the ranch where he was last reported working. The ranchero's holdings were vast-- there were any number of fields and crops he could be working in if he were still here. I didn't intend to work the fields myself. That would have limited my range of action and wasted valuable time. The key would be to keep circulating so no one would realize that I wasn't working at the ranchero as I kept an eye out for Veil.

By the evening of the second day, I was growing weary of the heat and dust and discouraged by the thought that once more Veil might have slipped away. The man seemed to have the most uncanny instinct to disappear just at the right time. A stout woman too crippled by rheumatism to work in the fields had set up a small stand where she sold plates of beans and tortillas for a dollar. She ladled the beans out of a simmering pot as her serious, dark-haired daughter tended to the counter. I handed over a crumpled bill and asked for a plate. I kept my palm turned downward, but I could see the girl's surprise at the smoothness of my skin as our hands touched briefly in the exchange. She silently handed me the food and watched as I took a seat beneath the tattered canopy that gave some feeble shelter from the sun.

Another man was there already, a few years younger than myself, his dark hair falling foreword as he leaned over his plate, nearly hiding the thin scar running along one cheek. He was dressed for the fields, yet still managed to look the dandy with tight jeans stretched over his lean, compact frame and silver toecaps on his boots. We eyed each other furtively as we ate, each pretending we were unaware of the other.

The girl walked over from the counter and offered me a glass of water in a cheap crockery cup. I took it gratefully and thanked her. She smiled shyly and started to walk away, but this was the chance I had been waiting for. "I'm looking for a friend who worked with me last year at the ranchero. He's a gringo-- tall, with light brown hair and blue eyes. See, I have a picture of him."

I showed her a photo of Veil with the cheerful, balding man he had known as Larry Levy. I saw the recognition in her eyes as she glanced briefly at it, but she shook her head, saying "I'm sorry, señor, but I haven't seen anyone like that."

"Are you sure?" I persisted, "Someone told me he was here. It's very important that I find him. I have something that belongs to him and I promised to return it."

"I'm sorry, señor," she murmured, "but I can't help you."

I grasped her wrist to keep her from walking away, raising my voice in desperation. "I know you've seen him! I don't mean him any harm. We really are friends."

The señora crossed the space from the makeshift kitchen, wielding the spoon menacingly above her crossed arms. "Señor, my daughter said she doesn't know this man. Now please let go of her!"

I muttered an apology and walked away from the stand, shaking my head at my own stupidity. If Veil was still here, how long would it be before he learned that someone had been asking about him? I should have been more careful and bided my time, but my eagerness to put this torrid hellhole behind me and finish this mission had made me careless.

Lost in my thoughts, it was several moments before I became aware of the footsteps thudding softly behind me in the soft dirt. Resisting the temptation to turn my head to see who was following me, I quickly looked to each side searching for something to hide behind so I could get a look at my pursuer, but there was nothing but open fields of beans to each side. I slowed my step, letting the footsteps grow nearer, then suddenly whirled, catching my companion from the food stand by surprise. He swore softly as he nearly collided with me.

"What do you want?" I snarled, "Why are you following me?"

He threw up his arms and flashed a slick grin. "I only want to help you, señor. I know this man you are looking for. He's been here for a little while. No one seems to know his name-- they just call him El Gringo. He's very well-liked, señor. I don't think anyone else will help you find him."

"And you will?" I demanded, "Just why do you want to help me?"

"Maybe I don't like him as much as the others do," he smirked, "and then maybe you'll pay me for my help."

"How much did you have in mind?", I asked.

"Well, you said it was important that you find him. I think that must be worth about five thousand dollars."

"I can give you two," I said shortly, "Take it or leave it. For that, I expect you to not only tell me where he is, but to bring him to me."

He shook his head. "If I do this and anyone finds out, I will have to leave here. Surely that's worth another five hundred dollars."

"All right," I agreed, "but I want this over quickly. When can you do it?"

"Tomorrow they will be working the south field. After the noon break, I'll go and tell him that the boss needs to speak to him back at the main house. Do you know where the ravine cuts across the ranchero? He'll have to take the path that runs between it and the corn field. You wait there at the edge of the field and he'll come to you."

"The man I know may run if he gets a message like that," I objected, "He's a very cautious man, almost paranoid."

"With the mountains behind and the ravine to the west, he'll still have to start off that way. It's a perfect place to surprise him and at that time of the day, everyone else will be working in the fields, so there will be no witnesses." Pleased with himself, he waited for my approval, clearly disappointed by my brief nod of assent.

"There's just one thing more, señor," he went on, "I want my money now."

"You'll get half now and the other half after I meet this El Gringo," I stated firmly, leaving no room for argument. I pulled out a money clip and handed over 1,250 dollars. His disappointment at not getting the full amount faded quickly in the bright flash of his eyes at the sight of the cash. He stuffed the bills in his pocket and promised, "Tomorrow afternoon, then, señor. I will bring him to you. You bring me the rest of the money at Juanita's stand tomorrow night."

* * *

Taking no chance of missing Veil, I arrived soon after noon the following day, searching out a site that offered a clear view of the path, yet that would shield me from view. The heat quickly became unbearable and I longed for even the tiniest breeze to stir the leaves of the cornstalks I sat amongst. But the air was oppressive and still-- even the birds seemed to be taking a midday siesta. I yawned, struggling to stay awake as I awaited my quarry. I thought about the man I was pursuing and the paths that had brought us both here to this dusty cornfield. How unlikely it would have seemed to both of us two years before that we would end up here.

I heard footsteps sounding dully on the soft earth before I could see him. Then through a screen of corn stalks, I began to see flashes of light brown hair above a tall, lanky frame. I rose cautiously, rising to my feet and started foreword.

* * *

Ravine: part three

It was late afternoon when I came out of the fields, hot and tired, though we were still four or five hours away from quitting for the day.

Standing at the end of the row next to two of the others I drank a long drought from a jug of tepid water. It was warm, but it helped. Enrique smiled, showing black teeth.

"The Man wants you up at the house, something about your pay."

And then he grinned again. Black teeth in a dark face that has seen probably more than I ever can even imagine. He was slick. What I would have called a hustler in my more innocent days. But anymore though, I think I understand what he feels.

Maybe; or then, maybe not.

I think I understood him because I was like him in many ways now. On the run. Fighting for something that I could never really tell myself I had a chance at getting. A life.

But wasn't that exactly what he would want? Just a life? A life of his own?

"Sure." I finished the warm water and let it run down the front of my shirt. Feeling the moisture cool against my skin. I moved off toward the edge of the field in the direction of the house, and the ravine which stood between us.

* * *

Halfway across I broke out of the fields altogether. Coming out of the stalks onto a small path that had been worn into the dirt by how many feet? And for how many years?

How many hopes had been ground into the dirt and lost in the light breeze? How many babies born? How many marriages, divorces, lives lived or squandered? How many young innocent and ignorant kisses in the dark between sweethearts before life became complex and something else? Something maybe none of us really thought it ever would?

But I don't know.

It always comes back to the same thing, doesn't it? Something happens to us, we're either 12 or 42 or 102 and something happens. We get kissed, or we don't. We have someone close to us die, or leave, or maybe simply ignore us. And we grow up if we're 12. Or go on if we are 42. Or grow older if we are 102. But we are never the same. Never, afterwards. We are never the same afterwards. The world changes, goes on. Seasons pass. But we are never the same afterwards.

It is always something, isn't it?

For me it is the negatives. It is always the negatives.

I came out of the fields and something moved. The wind maybe, or a fieldmouse chasing across the dirt for a burrow two feet ahead of something larger, something with teeth that was chasing it. And I know how that mouse felt. Already I could feel the muscles in my chest and arms begin to tense. I have lived too long on the run. It makes paranoids of us all.

I used to be a rational man.

But I ran anyway.

Straight across the open grass toward the line of trees at the edge of the ravine. I ran, my breath hurting in my chest. I didn't look back. In my mind I could hear the thud of footsteps in the dirt behind me, long before they were ever real.

The image of a smiling Enrique came to mind as I ran for the trees. How much I wondered? How much did they offer him?

The answer that came back is one I could understand now, maybe not eighteen months ago, but certainly now.

Enough.

They offered him enough.

I scrambled into the stand of trees and turned. I Moved north, parallel to the gash in the earth and stone that gave down onto a thin puddle of water in a trickle in the bottom of the ravine.

We ran. My unseen but not unknown companion and I. We ran. I led and he followed. Though he is faster, I am more scared than he is. And what has that done to me, that fear? Living it, moment by moment in the small confines of cheap little dirty motel rooms from town to town? Laying on my back on thin worn mattresses staring at ceilings that crack or simply stare back dingy and worn? With my eyes open, trying to fall asleep?

Listening for sounds.

The ones I never really hear.

I am not the same.

It has changed me.

How, was too deep a question to answer as I ran. But the man that chased me was chasing someone else.

Who?

Who was he chasing?

I doubled back twice over two hours and lengthened the distance between us. It was getting dark. I could feel it long before I could ever see it. It came in the temperature dropping.

Farmers know it. You could feel the sun give way, long before your mind ever reached up to tap you on the shoulder and tell you it is getting dark.

I ran.

Until it is too dark to run.

Until the branches and the trees and the dark and the imaginings in the back of my mind all conspired to make something of nothing.

Still I moved on. The sound of snapping branches and twigs echoing on the air. In the dark.

It was appropriate, the dark.

It was something that didn't know itself. Shadows. Flitting edges of shapes that seemed for a moment to be something, but then were not. I went on until I stopped. I leaned against a tree and breathed hard. Then there was a click in my ear and a gun.

And a voice that was tired but smooth.

"Far enough, don't you think?"

I listened to the words. They were cultured. Refined. They sounded like the polite remark of someone at a cocktail party on East Avenue.

But I hit him anyway. Hit him high and hard and ran. The gun went down in the dark and he cursed.

It made me smile. So it wasn't easy for them either was it? I plunged through the dark and the branches tore at me. He found his gun, somewhere in the dark behind me. He gave a grunt that sounded pleased with itself. And then he began to run again. Following me. Tearing through the dark as fast as I was. Faster.

I ran.

He came up hard and low on my left side. I had no idea he was there until he hit me. The air went out of me and I fell, his weight driving the both of us down into the grass and leaves and dirt.

I tried to twist away, but that is when he hit me again. We both went down.

And that is when the ground gave away, and the ravine rushed up in the dark to meet us.

There was white, for a moment there was a blinding flash that painted itself on the inside of my eyelids. Pain.

There was another snap and the cultured voice was no longer cultured. It was guttural and angry and it screamed. The drop was short. Only thirty feet from the top to bottom. It only took two seconds to fall.

My mind didn't have even a chance to turn. The world rushed by in the white and then there was the ground slamming into my chest and I had a moment to form a question mark in my mind.

But I have no idea of what the question was. Because it was gone. And the white and the black and the world with it.

The world rushed up and slammed into us, and the man with the cultured voice screamed again. I wanted to smile, but I was already gone.

* * *

Ravine: part four

The return to consciousness brought pain, a searing pain tearing at my right leg. I yearned to slip back into the comforting darkness, but the chill of the ground pressed hard against my face cut through the dizzying fog inside my head. When I pushed myself to a sitting position, I saw Gemini's motionless form a few feet away. I wondered for a moment if the fall had killed him, but I could see his chest rising and falling in steady rhythm. I started to move towards him, but my leg buckled beneath me, the agonizing pain tearing my breath away. Stretching the leg out in front of me, I couldn't stop the low sobs of pain as I pulled back the edges of torn denim and examined the shredded flesh above my knee. Splintered fragments of bone shone white in the pale moonlight, the blood seeping over my fingers black in the shadows cast by the steep ravine wall.

I jumped at the sound of Gemini's voice, biting back a scream as I jolted my injured leg. "Who are you?" he asked in dazed tones.

My laugh sounded brittle even to myself. "Come now, who do you think would be chasing you? Did you think you could escape us forever, Gemini?"

His body stiffened and in a brief instant before he managed to make his face a blank mask, I caught the play of emotions, perhaps despair, frustration, anger. He sat up in the darkness, his slow movement bespeaking the pain he refused to show.

I jeered at his silence, "What, no denials? No 'Who's Gemini?' I expected more eloquence from a man who's so often eluded us and fouled up our plans."

"All right, I'll bite," he said with a touch of sarcasm. "Who is Gemini? You must know more about that than I do."

"Sorry, it's not my job to brief you. I'm just here to bring you back. The people I work for want to talk to you very badly."

A slight tightening around the eyes was the only indication of alarm as his eyes steadily met mine. I wondered what was passing through the agile mind behind those steely blue eyes. My gaze broke off first, returning my attention to my injured leg.

"Let me take a look at that." He had risen to his feet and started to walk towards me, his gait slightly unsteady.

I wrenched the handgun from the back waistband of my trousers and pointed it at him, shouting "Stay back!"

He threw his hands up in an exaggerated gesture, saying, "Hey, man, I only wanted to help."

"I bet you do," I sneered. "Did you think I'd let you close enough to jump me? You must think I'm stupid! Just another stupid Chicano, like those cattle working the fields up there."

"No, I don't think you're stupid," he said reasonably. "But that leg is obviously broken and you're losing a lot of blood. If you don't get help, you could bleed to death."

I hated him for his calm and superior manner. Was this how Gemini had escaped so many traps? I knew from his file that he could be broken, but I had nothing that could break through his self-restraint. Or did I? If it came down to it, I might have one card to play.

"Don't worry about that," I told him. "Help will be here. My bosses will send someone here to collect you."

"And you?" he asked. "Will they be as concerned about you?"

I glared back silently, trying to face him down, but his eyes met mine with an unblinking intensity. I couldn't help wondering what would await me when the men from Western Ops arrived. If the homing beacon on my belt still functioned after the fall, they should be on their way after I failed to report at midnight.

By dawn, they should find us in the ravine. If Gemini should escape during the long night that lay ahead, I had no hope of compassion or understanding. There was no room for failure in this organization.

The only objects dappling the scrabbly floor of the ravine were rocks and dry, course scrub. Waving the gun at the largest of the bushes, I ordered Gemini to break it off and strip the thickest stick he could find. He complied without argument and tossed it to me as I ordered, so that it landed lightly just in front of me.

"Now your belt," I commanded. "Throw it over here. Then back up. Sit on that rock right behind you and keep your hands where I can see them."

The rock was an uneven chunk of boulder near the back of the slender ravine, about five feet away from where I sat. Behind it, the jagged walls cut sharply upward, the world above so close, yet completely cut off from the two of us below.

I carefully eased myself backwards to where I could lean against a slab of rock. I had to lay the gun down, but I made sure that Gemini could see that it was just inches away from my fingers. I fashioned a tourniquet with the belt and stick to stem the flow of blood. My leg throbbed with pain, but I straightened and faced him with what I hoped was a stoic smile, the gun resting on my good leg.

"That will help for a little while," he said, "but you need a doctor. Let me climb out and get you one. You'd never make it yourself with that leg, but I could have help here in no time."

"Yeah, sure," I laughed.

"You've got to trust me, man. You could die before anyone else gets here."

"I'm touched by your concern, but we'll wait here. My people should be here by morning. I'm sure you'd rather not meet them, but they're most eager to speak with you again. Now just shut up and don't try anything."

As the night crept on, it was difficult to know how much time had passed. I had lost my watch in the fall into the ravine. But the sky turned to inky blackness, brightening the radiance of the new moon. I began to see more clearly the face of my quarry. At times he seemed to doze, but then I would catch him studying me, his own face impossible to read. I wondered what he saw when he looked at me, if he saw past the workmen's clothes to see the man underneath. I wondered, too, why I cared what he thought of me. My assignment was to bring him in. It wasn't my job to try to understand him or to worry about what he was thinking. But there was one thing I wanted to know, something that had eaten away at me when I read his file.

"Why do you do it?" I asked. "It would have been so much easier for you if you had just done what they told you in the first place."

He thought for a moment before replying. "I couldn't. I had to know the truth. If I gave that up, it would have been giving up part of myself."

"Truth," I scoffed. "Do you even know the truth? The truth means one thing today, another thing tomorrow, and there's always someone there to redefine it. My truth is different from your truth, senor, and it always will be, because in the eyes of the people at the top, I will always be just another Latino. But they gave you everything. You could have had a good life if you had just cooperated and not gone chasing after meaningless ideals like truth."

"Isn't there anything in your own life that means so much, that's so important to you, that you would fight to hold onto it no matter what the cost?"

Elise's gentle face flashed before my eyes, but I shook it off, not wanting to let this man's words manipulate me. "You're crazy, mister. You probably deserve whatever's going to happen to you."

His world-weary, knowing look infuriated me. Loosening the tourniquet again, my movements were clumsy as I once more reached for the gun and it fell to the earth beside my leg. I scrambled wildly for it, falling to my side, the new trauma to my shattered leg sending waves of nausea through me. Gemini, who had jumped to his feet, froze when he saw the weapon wavering in my trembling hand.

"Get back!" I shouted shrilly. "Don't even think of trying anything! I'll shoot if I have to!"

He seemed to be gauging the distance between us, still a good five feet. Then he shrugged and backed away, sitting again on the boulder.

"You're going into shock," he said. "That's why you can't stop shaking. If your friends don't get here soon, it's going to be too late. You need a doctor now. Think about it: is turning me over worth dying for?"

"It would be worth my life if I let you get away But don't worry. Neither of us has to die here.

I will still be here in the morning, I assure you, and they don't want to kill you. They just want to ask you some questions and help you understand a few things."

"Why don't you help me understand?" he challenged me. "You seem to know a lot about me. Just tell me one thing: Was I ever really Thomas Veil?"

"That's not for me to say," I replied. "They decide what you should know and when you should know it. That's where you upset things. You jumped ahead instead of waiting and following the rules. There are a few things that need to be ironed out. You've really made this much more difficult than it had to be."

"Sorry for the inconvenience." His voice was heavy with irony. "So what happens now? Just how are they going to iron things out?"

"You'll find out in a few hours. Now just shut up for a while and leave me alone."

I wrapped my arms about myself, still gripping the gun, trying to find some warmth to counter the numbing cold that coursed through my body. I couldn't stop the uncontrolled shaking, but I struggled to conceal it the best I could from my adversary. His face began to swim before me and I jerked my chin up several times as my head began to nod with dizziness. I began to wonder fearfully how long we had to wait until morning. The sky seemed no lighter.

Dawn had to be several hours away yet.

Gemini broke the silence again. "Why do you do it? Why work for them?"

I shrugged. "It's my job."

"But why them?" he persisted. "Did you know what they were when you joined them? How many people have you hunted down and turned over to them before me?"

"I never--" I started to exclaim, but broke off, unsure of whether to continue.

"You never what?" he demanded sharply.

There was no way I was going to tell him that I was just an attorney, not a field operative. He'd probably try to jump me in no time flat and then either way I'd lose. If I had to kill him to keep him from escaping, my death would be no less certain than if he killed me himself. Yet something compelled me to respond in some way instead of keeping silent.

"Much of what we do is completely legal and ethical. I don't like everything they do, but they deserve my loyalty. And believe me, they demand it."

"But don't you care about who it hurts? Can you just close your eyes to the evil that they do?"

"Look!" I snapped. "I don't have to defend myself to you! We're both here now because of the choices we made in the past and we can't change that now. I don't feel responsible for what becomes of you. I'm just doing my job!"

"But you are responsible," he stated quietly, "and you do have a choice. If you know my story, you have to know the evil that these people are capable of. Walk away from them now. It may be your only chance. You're getting too weak to hold out much longer."

"There's no walking away," I said. "You more than anyone else should know that there's no escape from these people. If they want to find you, they will."

"What the hell are you doing?" I demanded as he rose to his feet.

"We've been sitting here for a couple hours now. My legs are asleep. I just need to walk around a little."

I didn't like this at all. My grip tightened on the gun and I opened my mouth to order him to sit down, but he broke in, "Come on, man. Give me a break. I won't try anything."

Reluctantly, I said, "OK, but stay where I can see you and don't come too close."

I watched as he paced back-and-forth several yards in each direction, sure that he was watching me just as closely, though he gave the appearance of being absorbed only with the night and what little he could see of the world above the ravine walls.

Finally, he turned to me and asked, "What's your name?"

Surprised, I asked, "Why do you want to know? What difference does it make?"

He answered, "It's a long time until morning. We might as well talk about something."

"Francisco," I replied, surprising myself. It was Frank who had gone to Dartmouth and finished at the top of his law school at Yale. It was Frank who taken a position at what he thought was a prestigious firm. I had left Francisco behind long ago, in the neighborhood of my youth where the name was a weight to hold me back. All my accomplishments and the hard work that had brought me success were forever measured against my identity as a Hispanic.

I never went back there once I escaped, remembering my parents with an occasional letter and phone calls on major holidays and birthdays. I buried myself in my work, believing that a change of name would level the playing field. A self-deception, I knew now. It was only too clear what Martin had seen when he looked at me.

Yet, as hard as I tried to escape my past, I had fallen in love with a Mexican woman who wasn't even a citizen yet. I tried not to, chasing after Nordic blondes and redheads. But Elise's shy smile always drew me back. The love she stirred in my heart was the one happiness I had in my life. By the time of our marriage, I no longer worried about her dragging me down. The thought of life without her was unbearably bleak. I prayed that she would never learn about what the organization actually did. Her love might keep her with me, but I couldn't bear to see her heart broken.

"Well, Francisco," Gemini broke into my reverie. "The clothes fit well enough, but you hardly look like a laborer. Why'd they pick you to come after me?"

"Why do you think?" I asked with annoyance. "They think one Chicano's the same as another. I was supposed to blend right in. Who care's that my family's not even Mexican?"

"Didn't work out too well?" he asked.

"The only one who would tell me anything is that pig who sold you out. Enrique."

"What was I worth?"

"2500 dollars." I shrugged. "Nothing, really, but of course he wanted more. He'll be collecting the second half tomorrow."

The pacing figure blurred before me. I shook my head, trying to focus as his form seemed to divide into two. Suddenly the ground seemed to be racing towards me as I pitched over, sinking into a dark void.

* * *
Ravine: Part 5

It would have been easy to walk away. Easy just to turn my back on him and forget that he was a person, forget that he was like me, that he struggled against things that were only in his mind.

Did he sell his soul?

Did I sell mine?

Once upon a time, a long time ago...?

A time I could no longer even remember?

He was unconscious.

He lay in the dirt with his leg twisted back and blood flowing out from underneath the tourniquet.

I turned away from him. Turned and looked at the top of the ravine and the branches of the trees that were silhouetted shadows in the murky light. I didn't want to turn back and help him. I didn't want to be responsible for him. He was one of them, there was no reason why I should ...

But there was, wasn't there.

There was a reason.

Because he was someone, anyone... and because 'They' would walk away, wouldn't they? Oh, yes they would.

I turned back because I wasn't one of them.

Something crossed my mind for an instant... and then was gone.

It was a feeling...

something... And then it was gone.

I crossed the small space between us and turned him over slowly. But no matter how slowly, still it twisted his leg and the red stain of blood poured out of the bandage and out onto the dark ground.

He didn't make a sound.

He was completely out of it.

I righted him as best I could, trying to lay him flat on the sloped earth and worked at the belt, and the torn cloth of the piece of his shirt that he had used to stop the bleeding.

It wasn't working.

I shrugged out of my jacket and felt the cold hit me.

My ribs hurt bad and for a moment my head was swimming, but then it cleared. The moon was halfway down the horizon and was still perhaps three hours from dawn. A man could die in three hours. The world could end in three hours. Or maybe it could be saved.

Maybe, just maybe.

I tore my shirt into shreds and made a make-shift wrap of it. Then used it to replace the soaked and now useless strip that he had tied on before. I wrapped his leg several times and then re-tightened the belt around it. I looked into his face and wondered why he was... who he was.

But it didn't answer any questions to ask that.

I left him where I had bandaged him. It was a risk to move him any more, and it would only tear at his leg more than I could handle. If I moved him any more he would bleed to death.

Covering him with leaves and my jacket I turned back to the wall of the ravine and stared up at the ledge some thirty feet above my head. Too high.

But it was too high, 'here'.

I smiled and turned and gazed down the ravine that stretched out into the dark.

'Here', but maybe not further on.

I turned one last time to look at him and make sure he was as well as I could make him with what we had. I left his gun in the dirt five feet from where he lay and started down the ravine, out toward someplace that maybe I had a chance of climbing out.

It was cold. I could feel the chill on my bare skin, but there was no hope for that. I left my jacket so the man behind me wouldn't freeze. If I kept moving, I stood a decent chance of staying warm. The darkness swallowed me and the silence welled over me like something that had life in it.

Something moved across my mind... Almost... Clear...

I stopped and stared at my hands in the half-light.

He had called me Gemini.

"The Project Gemini..."

I moved on in the dark, finding at last a section of the ravine where the lip had caved in. The slope was much less steep and the tree that had stood rooted to the edge where the slide had broken down, lay half into the bottom of the gully and half at the top.

It was a way out.

Dawn should still be more than two hours away.

If I was lucky it would be enough time.

* * *

The Ravine, part six

From a tormented sleep in which ravenous birds of prey tore at my leg, I awoke with a cry, flailing out with my arms trying to beat them away. Instead of sharp, razored claws, my hands met soft folds of material that fell away to one side. Bewildered, I couldn't remember for a moment where I was, how I had come to be lying on the cold, damp ground when seconds ago I had been fighting for my life in a sun-baked field. I groped in the darkness for the fallen cloth and pulled it towards me.

Even before my eyes adjusted to the dim light cast by the moon, I knew with sick certainty that it had to be Gemini's coat, the familiar brown corduroy jacket I'd seen in so many surveillance photos. I jerked myself to a sitting position, panic rising in my chest as I looked towards the rock he had been sitting on, then wildly in either direction along the ravine.

He was gone.

How long? I wondered. How long had I lain here, cocooned beneath the fleece lining of his jacket and a pile of leaves fallen from the trees lining the rim above?

But then what did it matter? Gemini was gone and with him, any chance of a life for Elise and myself.

A jolt of searing pain reminded me of my injured leg and I cleared the leaves away to see if the bleeding had slowed, my mouth twisting in a sardonic grimace. Facing the probability of death for my failure, I was still worrying about my leg. Better to bleed to death before they arrived or fade away into unconscious oblivion. But something wouldn't let me stop fighting to live.

I braced myself to look at what I knew would be a grisly sight; the jagged square I'd torn from my shirt and folded into a compress had quickly soaked through and pasted itself to the wound. Stunned, I saw that the leg was now neatly bandaged, uneven patches of red just beginning to stain the blue-checked strips of cloth. I recognized the pattern: Gemini's shirt. Disbelief mingled with unreasoning anger. Why had he taken the time to bandage my leg and then cover me with his coat? It didn't make sense. In his place, I would have ran and not worried about the man who had held a gun on me.

I didn't want this, to be in the debt of the man I'd been ready to turn over to them. I hadn't asked for his help. What right did he have to treat me with kindness instead of the revenge he could have taken? It wasn't as if he was the angel of mercy. After all, he'd shot Barton in the leg to get him to talk. Why play the Boy Scout with me? It was all for naught, anyway. He might think that he'd saved my life, but that life was likely to end quickly when our operatives came to get Gemini and learned that he had escaped.

So what was I to do now? I had no hope of climbing out of the ravine with one leg not only useless but throbbing with blinding pain at the slightest movement. But to sit here helplessly awaiting my fate was too humiliating to contemplate. Perhaps I could at least drag myself further down the ravine away from the homing beacon and hide from them until the workers headed for the fields and I could call for help. It was a slim chance, but at least I would be doing something.

Keeping my leg stretched out in front of me, I rose slightly on my hands and good leg and tried pulling myself a few inches along the ground. I nearly passed out from the pain and paused, gasping, bracing myself to try again. Then I saw it. He'd left my gun on the ground only a body's length from where I sat. With it, I'd have a chance or if there was no escape, I could at least shoot myself and die at my own hand instead of theirs.

Only five feet away and yet so far. I laboriously inched my way toward it, finally stretching out on my stomach and reaching as far as my arm would stretch. The gun was still inches beyond my fingertips. I nearly wept with frustration. Mustering all my strength I gave another heave forward. The gun was almost in my grasp.

An expensively-shod foot moved past me and a hand reached down to seize the weapon before my fingers could fold around it. Martin slid the clip from the handgun and held it out in front of me.

"What were you going to do with an empty gun, Frank?" he taunted. "What happened to your bullets?"

He nodded to the two henchmen behind me. "Get him up!"

I was wrenched roughly to my feet, hanging slackly in their grip until I managed to get my good leg beneath me. I don't know yet how I managed to choke off the scream at the agonizing torture, but white-hot anger and pride helped me clear my face of expression as I faced my boss.

In his left hand was the jacket. "Isn't this cozy?" he sneered. "Here's Veil's jacket, but he's nowhere in sight. All I see is you with an empty weapon. Just what happened here? Where's Veil?"

My throat was so dry I could barely speak. "I broke my leg when we fell in the ravine. I kept him here as long as I could, but I passed out and he escaped."

"How long ago?" Martin demanded.

I tried to look more confident than I felt; I really didn't know the answer. "About an hour," I said.

He looked at me sharply. "What did you tell him about Gemini?"

"Nothing," I said. "He still thinks Veil is the false memory. I didn't tell him anything!"

"For your sake, I hope you're telling the truth. If you've blown this whole experiment, I promise you you'll wish that fall had killed you."

"I'm telling you the truth," I insisted.

"We'll be back and then we'll talk more about your night in the ravine. And Frank, you'd better pray that we find Veil. If you've let him get away again, the conversation could be most unpleasant. Understand?"

He nodded to the two goons, who abruptly let go of my arms and shoved me back on the ground. One of them asked, "We just going to leave him here?"

With a contemptuous glance in my direction, Martin replied, "He's not going anywhere. Didn't you see him crawling in the dust? There's no way he'll make it out of this ravine by himself."

He stepped over to me and placed his foot just above the bandage, pushing down with a light but steady pressure. Sweat broke from my forehead as I clenched my teeth together, determined not to scream. The scene began to blur and I reached gratefully for release, but just short of fainting, the foot was lifted and the ravine slowly stopped spinning. I was repulsed by the bright look of pleasure in Martin's eyes.

"Just something for you to think about, Frank," he said. "If you have some bright idea about shouting for help, think about that pretty wife of yours. If you're not here when we get back, we can get to her faster than you can."

"I'll be here," I said dully. "Leave Elise out of this. She's no threat to you. I've never told her anything about the Organization."

"We'll discuss that later. Can't let Veil get too far ahead. You will wait for us to come back like a good boy, won't you, Frank."

I watched helplessly as the goons followed Martin up the ravine, looking for footprints in the gray light of breaking dawn. It took just minutes before they were out of sight and I was alone once more. I had never felt so alone. So empty, bleak and hopeless. I thought of Elise and saw her before me, the tears in her eyes the morning I left her. What would they tell her? That I had died in some kind of accident? She was the only person I had truly loved and the thought of never seeing her again, of never again holding her close to me, was unendurable. I wanted to live for her, but if I couldn't convince Martin that she knew nothing about them, Elise would die, too, and that I couldn't let happen.

I had no options left. I would have to stay here and await my fate.

Martin had tossed down Veil's jacket as he left. I pulled it over to me. Having read so much about the man, I wondered what he would have in his pockets. There wasn't much there-- an old matchbook from Scotty's Pub, a pencil stub, a few coins--he hadn't taken anything personal with him. Well, what did I expect, I asked myself. Some obvious clue like a map or a bus ticket? Why not his diary, while we're at it? Or the negatives, to really hit the jackpot. I laughed out loud at the thought, a laugh that turned to a sob of pain.

I felt tired, so weary that my bones seemed to be pummeled into the ground. Time was slipping away, but all I wanted to do was sleep, to forget for a brief while where I was and what awaited me. I turned on my side and pulled the coat over me. The soft fleece lining was warm and comforting. Despite the unceasing pain, I began to drift off until finally my mind found the darkness.

The restful darkness. All too soon, I was wrenched away, abruptly awakened by I knew not what. My heart pounding, I tried to recall what had alarmed me. Then I heard it, sliding rock and gravel as someone made their way into the ravine. The early morning light had chased away the last, lingering shadows while I slept, but an outcropping of rock blocked my view in that direction. Soon the soft clink of falling rock ceased and the footsteps moved steadily along level ground. I listened as they grew nearer and tried to prepare for the ordeal that lay ahead.

* * *

Ravine: Part Seven

The heat shimmered off the ground, even though it was only six in the morning. The gravel slid out from under my shoes as I slipped down the edge of the ravine and back towards the man I had left only a few hours ago.

Was he still alive?

When I came around the turn in the creek bed of the ravine I could see

see his face relax and even a small smile begin. At least until the footsteps behind me came from behind the rock as well, and Francisco and the men that followed me with guns at my back get a look at each other. The thought crossed my mind that they *must* know each other. But that was hardly realistic given the nature of what I know about the organization that these men were a part of . It was only a gut level reaction to the gun in my back, but I found myself hoping that the one with the gun would make a stupid mistake and that I could jump him. Francisco will help...

I caught myself then, at that thought, and smile to myself.

The human organism is a social creature. Take us and put us in an alien place, a hostile place among hostile people, and it is always the ones that we have been with a little longer that we see as the familiar's.

Even as friends.

All based on as little as a few hours of talk and each others company.

Maybe Max had been right all along, after all. Maybe all of us are predictable. Because we are put together that way. It is our nature as humans.

We have emotions, and we don't want to go down into the unknown alone.

Francisco frowned as the man behind me suddenly put the barrel of the gun into my back and pushed me forward with a quick hard motion. I stumbled for a moment and then lost my balance. I fell onto my palms, my face pushing into the dirt.

Behind me the man laughed.

I gritted my teeth and pushed myself slowly up to my knees.

It never changes does it?

If anything, it is always the same. Doesn't matter how far we run. Or from who, even, really, it doesn't matter does it? Someone will always put their hand on your life, speak their words, in your ears and tell you that you are wrong.

They do it every day.

I am old enough to know that. I had known that for a very long long time.

But still they do it.

I hated that. I really HATEd ThaT. I REALLY HATED .....

But they knew 'that' too, didn't they. They had PLANNEd for just that. "I see you seeing me... seeing you... seeing..."

I spat the dirt out of my mouth and raised myself up slowly and sat back with a small ungraceful thump back onto the seat of my pants. I could almost smile, appreciating the mazes within mazes that comes out of this violent art that has been raised to a science: the pushing of emotional buttons. The Pavlov trigger and response.

They are very, very good at that, I reminded myself.

Very, very good indeed.

* * *

"Well Frank, we're doing your job here," the gunman said. "We're bringing in the Man, you gonna cut us in on the bonuses for this?" The man behind me laughs shrilly and begins to cough. "Or like, are you the anti-social type and want to keep it all to yourself?"

And then he had a coughing fit again.

* * *

That is when I hit him, hard. Standing up, I threw a handful of dirt in his eyes and hit him hard in the face with the back of my elbow and he went down. The man behind the coughing man that is now choking and screaming at the top of his lungs was turning, and I could see the barrel of the gun turning, turning toward me and I wondered if Francisco was going to do anything?

Was he going to pull a gun and shoot me?

Or help me?

Or run?

Did he feel anything at all? Any sense of shared humanity or duty? What did he care about?

Did Elise mean anything? Or was it only the money? What was it that had meaning for him?

Francisco stooped down in the dirt and scooped up the gun, gritty, covered with dust and raised it, pointed it toward me as he hollered at the man with the gun.

"Hey!"

And then he threw the gun towards me and I jumped and grabbed it; it settled into my palms and the cool metal felt familiar and for a split second I wondered if I really was Thomas Veil , or was I someone else chasing a fantasy ? I hit the ground and rolled and came up onto my knees.

I fired two shots into the air and screamed at the man with the gun!

"PUT DOWN THE GUN !!!!!" But he didn't, and just as I was sure that I will have to kill him a shot came out over the top of the rise and the man dropped. And a quiet voice came down from the trees and scrub brush.

"You can put the gun down now Mister."

And I thought I shouldn't, that maybe I could shoot my way out of this, that I could get away, that I can... The panic was unrealistic and I forced it down and out of me slow and I put the gun down. My hands started to shake then. I put them under my arms to quiet them and not to see them.

The Sheriff came down the slope with two other policemen at his elbow. They moved over the ground with an easy familiarity of the terrain. The coughing man had now cleared his eyes of the dirt and simply stood facing the Sheriff who was climbing down into the ravine.

"Officer!! This man is a wanted....----" he began, but was cut off by a cutting motion of the Sheriff's arm.

"That's quite enough I think." And he turned to Francisco, "This the one?" He asked me and turned to me.

"Yeah, " I said, "that's him." And Francisco gave me a hard stare, as if he coudn't believe this.

"I never would have taken you for a liar, Veil, Maybe a lot of things, but I never thought you would lie to me."

I simply looked at him and said nothing. The Sheriff motioned toward the coughing man and the other black coated man who was lying in the gravel, up the slope and nodded at the deputy beside him.

The deputies turned and moved with the organization men toward the top, hands resting on the handle of their guns.

Ambulance attendants came into view bearing a stretcher between them, over the rise as the deputies and the organization men climbed over the lip. For a moment the two groups were frozen, one representing fear and suspicion. The other, perhaps hope.

But then they passed and the organization men disappeared into the sound of closing car doors and motors starting and then pulling away into the distance until there was no more sound at all.

The attendants clambered down the ravine wall, dirt sliding in small streams under their shoes until they reach the bottom and the firmer gravel. Francisco was kneeling-laying in the dirt as they lowered the stretcher to the ground.

The Sheriff looked over at me and then nods toward Francisco who was now silent, lying in the middle of the ravine saying nothing at all.

"You can watch this one Mister?"

I nodded back.

The Sheriff nodded in return, and then walked back up the side of the steep pathway and clambered into the brush with a snapping sound of breaking branches.

* * *
Ravine: Part Eight

Veil's shoulders slumped wearily and he sank to the ground watching as the ambulance attendants surveyed the bloody wreck that was once my leg. The younger one's eyes betrayed his shock at the gristled bone visible through the shredded flesh. The carroty freckles stuck out garishly on his pasty face. I feebly fought them off as the other began to cut away my pants leg.

"No," I protested weakly. "Give me a minute, first. I want to talk to this man."

They looked at each other uncertainly, no doubt questioning my understanding of the seriousness of my injuries. These were men used to dealing with life-and-death emergencies with urgency; they didn't step aside until the victim decided he needed them. What they couldn't understand is that whatever they did for me would be futile; I was a dead man, whether they saved my leg or not.

"Can we talk alone for a minute?" Veil asked. "It's OK. I won't hold you up long."

The older attendant shrugged and moved several yards down the ravine and busied himself with his kit. His companion shuffled in his wake, looking curiously back at us. Now that I had Veil alone, I didn't know how to begin. He waited patiently for me to speak. Once more I wondered about the man, amazed at how little any of us seemed to understand him despite the supposed predictability of his actions.

"Congratulations." I tried not to sound bitter, but could hear the sourness of my tone. "You win again. One more operative down."

"I never win," he said. "I just survive, until the next time your organization starts screwing with my life. If I just knew what the rules are, what my life was, maybe I'd have a better chance of getting it back."

"Maybe you're better off not knowing," I said dully. "You keep winning these little skirmishes, but you can't beat them in the end. They took your life; they'll destroy you before they let you take it back."

"But why?" he asked. "Tell me what they want, why they came after me."

"There's a lot I don't know," I say evasively. "I'm just an attorney, fairly low-level in the organization."

"But you obviously know something about my" his voice faltered as he looked for the right word "case."

"I've seen your file," I admitted.

"Well, come on, man! You must know how this started, what they did to me."

"What they did, but now why. Look, I'd like to help you. I know you didn't have to come back, that you could have just kept walking and left me here to die. I don't understand why you did, but I owe you. But I can't" My voice trailed off.

Veil glanced at the attendants gathering up their gear.

"Just tell me what you do know. Anything might help. But it has to be now. I can't stick around."

Neither can I. I almost laughed at the response in my mind. Where would they kill me? On the way to the hospital? In the prison hospital ward? They wouldn't dare leave me alive too long. I knew too much.

The attendants started back.

"Please," Veil said urgently.

I couldn't meet his eyes. "I can't do anything for you."

"Do you owe so much to these people? Don't you see that they would have left you to die or killed you themselves? Walk away. Tell the sheriff what you know so the law can start shutting them down."

"I can't!" I cried anguishedly. "You don't understand! You can't understand."

"Not if you won't tell me."

"Just leave me alone and let them take me off to jail," I pleaded. "It will all be over soon."

"No one's arresting you," Veil said. "I told the sheriff you fell in the ravine and I heard you shouting. He looked a little dubious about my story, but he doesn't know you were sent after me. And I doubt your friends will contradict me; you people don't tend to be too talkative with the law."

"So it's your choice. You can either help me or walk away." He ruefully considered his words. "That is, figuratively speaking. Your leg will have to do some healing first. But no strings attached."

"OK, we have to get busy," the older attendant said as he knelt by my side. "Let us do our job." He felt for my pulse, timing it by the wristwatch on his other arm.

"Veil, if I would, I could. But there's someone else to consider."

"Your wife?" he said. "She should be at the hospital to meet you."

"You lie! How could she be? You don't even know who I am."

He fished something out of his pocket and tossed it in the dust next to me. I reached for it with my free hand.

My wallet. He must have taken it after I'd passed out.

"You know, when most people go into the field, undercover, they don't bring their own driver's license with them." He smiled mirthlessly. "But you're pretty green as a field agent. Since it says "Francisco Estevez" I figured it must be yours."

I gave a cry as they start to straighten my leg. I would have given anything for stoic silence, but the agony was unbearable.

"So?" I asked. "What difference what name they bury me under?"

I could hear the scissors slicing through the denim.

"You're not going to die," Veil said.

"Do you think they'll let me live? Come on, Veil! You've been around long enough to know that they don't leave any loose ends around. I failed! I'm finished. But if I don't talk, maybe they'll leave Elise alone."

Another cry wrenched out as they began gently probing the wound. One of the attendants sighed as I jerked my leg away and reached into his kit for a vial and syringe.

"Here's what's going to happen," Veil said urgently. "They're getting Elise now before the Organization has time to act. You tell the law everything you know about them, and then the two of you disappear and start a new life, wherever you choose, with new identities."

"They'll find us," I said doubtfully. "They always do."

"But at least it's a chance!" he exclaimed explosively. "Do you want to just let them kill you or try to fight for yourselves? Don't just give in to them!"

The attendant pushed up my sleeve and started swabbing the skin with alcohol.

"What's that?" I ask.

"Just something to help with the pain. We need to look at that leg."

"I'll tell them." I looked at Tom as the man injected me. "But will anyone believe me?"

"Probably not all of it," he admitted. "OK, probably not a lot of it. But if they believe any of it, it's a start. We can put at least one office out of business."

His face began to blur and a cloud seemed to pass over the sun. I had to hurry if I was going to tell him.

Tell him.

Tell him what? I shivered as a sick giddiness pulsed through my veins and the voices of the attendants were swallowed up by the swirling ocean wave tugging me away.

Once more, darkness. Where had the sun gone, I wondered? I felt movement and heard footsteps crunching in dry soil. As first one side would tilt down and then the other, it sunk in that I was being carried over uneven terrain.

Veil. I had to tell him before it was too late.

"Gemini's not real," I croaked.

"What's that, buddy?"

I forced my eyes open to look up at the younger attendant. "Where is he?" I asked.

"Your friend?"

I nodded.

"He took off when we loaded you on the stretcher. Said he'd catch up with you later."

I nodded and let my eyes fall shut again. I knew I would never see him again. I owed him my life and Elise's. Yet I'd failed at giving him the only thing I had to repay him, the knowledge that Veil was real instead of Gemini. If I'd only trusted sooner. I would bear the guilt of that unpaid debt wherever I went, but first I would keep the rest of the deal. I would tell everything I knew and remembered, and then Elise and I would begin again far away from deceit, manipulation and ruthless ambition.

I wondered where Veil would go now, how long it would be before someone was sent after him again. How many more "games" could he survive? I cared very much about the answer to that question. For while I hadn't deserved it, the man had become my friend. I hadn't prayed for a long time, but the words came unbidden to my mind, "Vaya con dios, Thomas Veil." Stay one step ahead of the bastards and maybe one day you'll find your way back.

Exhausted, I slipped back into darkness, but calmly this time.

* * *

Ravine: part 9

The ambulance drove away into the haze of the mid morning as I watched from the edge of the fields where the gate led down to the dirt packed lot and the dusty trucks of the field hands. The sun climbed toward zenith as Raul stood by the pickup, arms crossed against his chest and a small serious smile across his lips.

"It is good to still see you alive El Gringo, " and he threw me a paper wrapped packet, that I caught and looked at curiously.

"It is a gift from the children and Angelina, she says you need protecting." He laughed then, "She says all men need protecting from something." Then he waved his hands as if dispelling the assumption with a grin. "The women know us too well mi amigo." He said and laughed again and I laughed with him.

Even managing a smile through my fatigue "Too true my friend. They see through our bravado to who we really are. And yet they still love us."

"Do you need a drive back?"

"Yes, I need to get my things, I need to go soon"

"It is your own business, but I thought when the men came that you would go away."

I gave a small nod, not knowing how much I could, or even should say to him.

"It is hard to explain, except to say that there are people that will come here, and I need to move on before that happens."

Raul nodded "But it is not the Law you are running from no? The Lawmen know you are here, and yet they let you leave."

"Yes. That is true." But I didn't know what else to say. "You have a wonderful family Raul, I want to thank you and Angelina and the children for the hospitality."

He grinned at that, smiling through a wind and sun worn face, that still could smile even through the hardship of an immigrant life.

"It was good to have you stay with us. Angelina and I and the children were glad to have

your company."

He fell silent then, and we got into the truck and drove over the bumpy ground out to the main road and the highway in silence. Eventually to the trailer that stood against the light and the open expanse of sky. Like the indians must have stood against the tide of the white men that came into their lands. Where Angelina stood in the early morning sun hanging wet clothes on the line from a wash tub, with the breeze hot and dry at her back tugging her cotton dress.

The air was full of the smell of the corn fields. I climbed out of the cab and stood for a moment watching the sky and the distance and thinking of Francisco and his wife Elise.

What would he find out there on the run?

The same thing I had?

No it would be different. He would be running, and fighting. But Francisco had his own answers.

And I still had to find mine.

Somewhere, out in the distance and somewhere in a time I couldn't even see yet, I would find out whether I was real or not. Whether I had lost a life or an illusion of a life.

But they are both the same thing, aren't they?

The sense of who were are.

I had re-found that here, with Raul and Angelina's help. With Francisco's help. Re-found what I was. That sense of what was important in the world. Of what was important to me. Those things that I felt in my guts even if I couldn't find the words for them.

Even if I didn't know my own name, I knew what I believed.

That was more than I had had, for a very long time.

I gathered up my things, the remains of a life that fit in one small black bag that I wore over my shoulder and stood in the yard and watched the sky slide towards noon.

Angelina hugged me quickly and then went and stood next to her husband and embarrassedly looked away. They children crowded around and stood, tall and slender with dark eyes and serious faces peering at me. "You have to go Senor Tom?" Carlos said slowly. Theresa and

Maria stood next to him in their white dresses with their fingers curled into their hands.

"Yes, I have to leave, but I will remember you." I smiled and the children brightened.

"We will also remember you Senor Tom" Theresa the oldest girl said.

I hugged them and then stood, the day was moving slowly. As it always did here in this place. Nightfall was still a thousand years away. Still lost in the chill of night, when it would come with the sounds of crickets and the songs of working men drinking beer in the back of pickup trucks parked along the side of the road with the tall stand of corn against the sky. And the air full of dust and long memories.

And kisses of children.

And the arms of a woman about a man's shoulders.

I have to get back." Raul said.

I nodded. And walked with him to the truck. "Can I drop you somewhere?"

"The main road is fine." I replied.

The truck came to life with a stuttered cough and then settled into a semblance of a rhythm. Raul pushed the pedal down and we lurched forward in bounces over the rough ground. At the road he stopped the truck and left it idling as I swung my boots out onto the roadway.

"Via con Dios mi amigo!" He called and then raised his hand into the air. He waited for a few moments as I raised my own hand in return, and then finally he pulled away. Turning out and away and down into the distance.

"Via con Dios mi amigo, God go with you, my friend." I said to the still air.

In my shirt pocket the paper wrapped packet rested. I took it out and looked at it. Let it rest in my palms and then finally, carefully unwrapped the edges until the brown paper fell open and revealed a small polished stone crucifix on a slender leather strap.

It made me smile. It was what all of us need, when we lose our way in the world. What all of us need to protect us. Kindness. And hope.

I slid the strap over my head and felt the stone settle against my skin. I turned away then from the kindnesses of the people here and the harshness of the night in the ravine, and turned back toward the doubt and uncertainty of the unknown.

But not without strength.

And the memory of friends.

The sky seemed to frieze over as I stepped out onto the asphalt of the roadside and gazed into the heat shimmered distance of rolling hills and white-yellowed sunlight; painted like some Indian pony, against the pale California sky.

* * *

//copyright (c)

Christopher Clagg and Marjorie Brashier