But then the chupacabra writhed and twisted, its legs flailing. A claw pierced Maneck's wounded eye, and unbearable pain radiated down the sahael into Ramón's flesh. He and the alien cried out as one. The chupacabra bounded back and landed on all fours, already bunched to spring again. Ramón felt Maneck's distress echoing his own. The chupacabra leaped, and Maneck fired another blast of energy. The bolt went wide, and the impact of the chupacabra's hurtling body knocked Maneck back. Now it was the chupacabra with its arms locked around Maneck, its thick hind legs digging at the alien's legs and belly with long, saber-sharp claws. Ramón screamed in agony, pulling at the flesh of the sahael, as if he could rip the leash free.
And, to his astonishment, Ramón felt movement in his throat-a loosening, like tendrils of metal withdrawing from his bones and nerves. His experience of Maneck's pain lessened, his doubled consciousness faded. With a disturbing slithering sound, the sahael pulled away from him and turned, snakelike, to whip at the chupacabra. The flickering exposed wires at the sahael's end arced with energy as it struck at the chupacabra, and the beast screamed in pain, but Maneck seemed to be weakening, and nothing that had happened so far had significantly slowed the chupacabra's relentless attack. Ramón, standing thigh-deep in the icy river water, bent to find some stones to throw at the beast-then came to his senses.
He was free, and once the chupacabra had killed Maneck, he would be next. This was no time to fight. This was the time to flee.
He took a great breath and dove, kicking as hard as he ever had, moving with the current. The sounds of battle vanished as his ears filled with water. Beneath the river's glittering surface, bright green fish swam, unconcerned with the violence on the shore. Fine golden filaments rose from the muck at the bottom and were bent by the water as if they pointed the way to the sea. Ramón was careful to swim well above the golden threads; they could sting as bad as jellyfish. When he came up for air, he had already covered at least a hundred meters, and the howls of the chupacabra were fading behind him. He took a fresh lungful and dove again.
His first impulse was to set out for the opposite bank, but seconds after he'd had the thought, he abandoned it. The water was hardly warmer than the ice that had spawned it, and adrenaline would do little to stave off hypothermia. Crossing the river would be suicide. Ramón angled back for the near shore and realized as his arms flailed and clawed at the current that he was in trouble. The fast river flow had pulled him around the bend, but it had also taken him farther from the bank than his own efforts could have. He rose again, treading water and borne along like a cork. He could hear no sound of the struggle. Either the fight had ended or he was far enough away that the sound of it was drowned out by his splashing. He turned his head, blinking hard to clear his eyes, and found the shore. His heart sank.
Come on, Ramón, he told himself. You're a tough pendejo. You can do this thing.
He turned himself toward the riverbank and started swimming as hard as he could perpendicular to the flow. The river plants and streamers of moss below him were his guides as he pushed himself toward the uncertain safety of land. His feet and hands stung and soon went numb. His earlobes ached. His face and chest grew thickfleshed and rubbery, but he pushed on. He couldn't die out here. He had to reach the shore. It was his goddamn tatecreude.
He focused on moving his body-legs kicking, arms and hands scooping at the water. Time lost its meaning. He might have been swimming for three minutes or an hour or his whole life. The chill was deadly, and he could feel it knifing into him. He faltered once, seduced into thinking he needed a moment's rest.
He was dead. The only reason to keep trying was stubbornness, and Ramón Espejo was a very stubborn man. Even when he was hardly doing more than floating, he pushed his mouth free of the water and gulped one more breath. And then one more. And then one more. His mind began to fade, and he recalled his dream of being one with the river, of becoming the flow itself. Perhaps that would not be so bad after all. Just one more breath so he could think about it. Then one more.
It was a sandbar that saved him. The river widened, its eastern half becoming shallow as it broadened. Driftwood rose from the sand like the antlers of some nightmare beast. Ramón found an ancient log standing at an angle from the water. He crawled up its black, slimy side and held it like it was a lover. He was too cold to shiver. That wasn't good. He had to get out of the water. The river still lapped at his knees, and his feet were numb. Ramón bit down on his lip until he tasted blood, the pain focusing his mind.
He had to reach the shore. Then get dry, and then hope that the sun would warm his flesh. There was enough debris on the sandbar that he could move from one support to another; it seemed as if anything that went into the water upstream ended up caught here. The danger was that he might slip, fall into the water, and lack the will to rise again. He had to be careful.
With a deep breath, Ramón pushed his blackwood lover away and stumbled to a small dam of branches that had been laced together with ivy and strips of bark. Then from that to a low stone. Then another slime-slick log. And then the water was no higher than his ankles. Ramón trudged slowly to dry land. He collapsed on the ground, laughed weakly, and vomited up what seemed like several liters of river water. His alien garments were sodden and heavy, the shoes kicked off somewhere in the river. Fingers clumsy as sausages, he pulled the clothing from his skin and lay back naked, trying with the last of his conscious will to angle himself toward the sun.
It wasn't sleep that took him, but neither was it death, because sometime later his mind reformed and he struggled to sit up. The sun had moved the width of three hands together, lowering toward the western sky. His teeth were chattering like a badly tuned lift tube. His hands and feet were blue, but not black. The alien robe he had cast aside was dry and sun-warmed. He pulled it on awkwardly and sat, arms around his knees, laughing and weeping. His neck, where the sahael had entered him, felt unnaturally hot. The skin there was smooth as river stone and numb as a witch's mark. Ramón rubbed his fingertips over the insertion point and let the reality of his situation sink into him. He had made it. He was free. He looked out over the water with a sense of glee and disbelief. He'd done it!
It didn't occur to him that the mesh of branches tied together on the sandbar was odd until he heard the sharp intake of breath behind him and turned to see a surreal and familiar sight. The other Ramón stood at the tree line. His chest was bare, his pants ripped into rough shorts. Dark hair rose crazily from his head. His right hand was wrapped in a bandage black with dried blood and his left gripped the old field knife, Ramón's field pack slung over one sunburned shoulder. Of course. He'd made a raft; the branches out there hadn't wrapped themselves with bark. And now the flow of the river and the cruel irony of the gods had brought both Ramóns to the same place at the same time, caught up on the same sandbar.
He rose slowly, unsteadily, trying not to startle his twin. He raised a hand in greeting, fear closing his throat. His twin took a step back, eyeing him balefully.
"Who the fuck are you?" the man said.
Chapter 16
Ramón's mind was slow to react. He had to answer, but none of the things that came to his lips was the right thing. I'm Ramón Espejo and I'm you and Why should I tell you who I am, pendejo? He felt his mouth open and close, and saw the shock in his twin's eyes shift to something else, something more dangerous. The other man's grip on his knife tensed.
"Aliens!" Ramón spat out. "There's fucking aliens out there! They took me prisoner. You've got to help me!"
It was the key. The other man's tension eased a little. His head turned and he looked at Ramón, measuring him, his eyes still radiating mistrust but no longer on the edge of violence. Ramón leaned forward, moving slowly and being careful to do nothing that might startle the other man.
Ramón looked at him closely for the first time, feeling an odd fascination. After all, in spite of his memories to the contrary, this was the first human being he'd ever actually met! His twin was filthy and unkempt-the light stubble that often darkened his chin was already a moth-eaten beard. Distrust shone in his black eyes. His right hand was wrapped in bloody cloth, and Ramón realized, with a profound sense of vertigo, that in that mess of soiled bandages, a finger was missing. A finger from which he had been born.
But the other Ramón also looked wrong somehow. He had expected it to be like looking into a mirror, but it was not. The face he was accustomed to seeing reflected back was different than this. It was more like seeing a video recording of himself. Perhaps, he thought, his features were not so symmetrical as he'd liked to believe. Also, the voice was higher than he believed his own to be and slightly whiny. The voice he heard and hated when he heard himself recorded. The other Ramón's bearded chin jutted aggressively.