The House of the Scorpion (28 page)

A door slid back before them, and a long, dark tunnel was revealed.

“If we had time to waste, I'd faint,” María sighed, shining the flashlight into the new opening.

•   •   •

The tunnel smelled even older than the passageway, and it was clear it hadn't been used for a very long time. The floor was packed dirt with a forlorn little heap of soil here and there where some burrowing animal had got in. But there was nothing alive in the tunnel now, not a mouse or a spider or even a toadstool. It gave Matt the creeps.

Their footsteps were muffled. The sound of their breathing seemed to die in the cold, lifeless air. It struck Matt that there might not be much oxygen in the tunnel, and he hurried María along.

After a while they came to another wall blocking the way. María put the red plastic over the flashlight again and revealed another shimmering scorpion. This time Matt didn't hesitate. He pressed his hand against the wall and felt the same sensation of crawling ants. A second door slid open.

This entrance was concealed by thick bushes. Matt carefully pushed them aside for María, and they found themselves on the edge of the hovercraft landing field.

“That's our ship,” whispered María, pointing out a small craft with its landing lights on. She walked ahead and Matt followed, pulling the broad-brimmed sombrero down to hide his face. They didn't hurry. They looked, Matt hoped, like they had all the time in the world. If bodyguards were watching this part of the house, all they'd see was an honored guest attended
by an eejit. Eejits didn't rate any more attention than dogs.

Matt was sweating with nerves. It was harder acting brainless than he'd imagined. He wanted to look around, but eejits didn't do such things. He tripped on a rock and caught himself before he actually fell.
Mistake
, he thought. A real eejit would land flat on his face. Would he yell if he got hurt? Matt didn't know.

“Stay,” said María. Matt halted. She climbed into the hovercraft and then ordered him to come inside. He heard her talking to the pilot.

“Sit,” said María, pointing at a chair. She buckled him in and continued chatting to the pilot, telling him about the convent and how glad she'd be to get back.

“I'm sorry to bother you, Miss Mendoza,” the pilot said with great respect, “but do you have a permit for this eejit? They're not exactly welcome in Aztlán.”

“The mother superior will have one,” María said airily.

“I hope so,” said the man. “Otherwise, he'll have to be put to sleep. I know a sensitive girl like you wouldn't like that.”

María turned pale, and Matt realized she hadn't known about this law.

“We'll take off as soon as your sister leaves.”

“My sister?”
María almost shrieked.

Stay calm, stay calm
, Matt thought desperately.

“You didn't think I'd let you go without saying good-bye,” said Emilia, coming out of the cockpit. Steven was with her and so were a pair of bodyguards. Matt sat perfectly still, his head bowed, as the bodyguards took up positions in front of the door. He couldn't think of another thing to do.

“Emilia. How nice,” said María without any enthusiasm.

“I really don't think the mother superior wants an eejit at the convent,” Emilia said.

“Stay out of this.”

“Why should I help you indulge in another do-good project? Honestly, you're the laughingstock of the convent—like when you wanted to care for lepers. The nuns laughed themselves silly over that. There
aren't
any lepers in Aztlán. They'd have to import them. And now you want to rescue a clone—”

“Eejit,” María said quickly.

“Clone,” said Steven, coming forward and pulling off Matt's hat. He dropped it as though he'd touched something foul.

Matt looked up. There was no point pretending now. “I forced María to do it,” he said.

“You've gotten her into trouble for years,” said Emilia. “From that first day she brought you food, you've exploited her.”

“He has not!” cried María.

“You're too soft,” Emilia said. “You're always getting gooey about sick animals or homeless people. If you're not careful, you'll turn out like Mother.”

“Mother,” gasped María. “I haven't told you—I didn't have time—she's
alive!
”

“So?” Emilia said. “I've known that for years.”

María stared at her sister as though she'd just seen a tarantula. “You . . .
knew?
”

“Of course. I'm older than you, remember? I saw her go, and Dada shouted that she was dead to us now. It seemed the easiest way to explain things to you.”

“You let me think she was lost in the desert.”

Emilia shrugged. “What difference does it make? She didn't care about us. She thought taking care of losers was more important.”

“The important thing is to get this clone to the hospital, where it can do some good,” said Steven.

“Steven,” whispered Matt. In all this time he'd thought Steven and Emilia were—if not his friends—not his enemies, either. He admired Steven. In many ways they were alike.

“Take him.” Steven signaled the bodyguards.

“Wait!” shrieked María. “You can't do this! Matt's not an animal!”

“He's livestock,” Steven said with a cold smile. “The law is very clear. All clones are classified as livestock because they're grown inside cows. Cows can't give birth to humans.”

“I won't let you do this! I won't let you!” María threw herself at the guards, and they rather sheepishly ducked their heads to avoid her blows. The pilot grabbed her from behind and pulled her away.

“I'll call Willum,” Steven said, heading for the cockpit. “I can see we'll need sedatives before we can send her back to the convent.”

“Emilia! Help me! Help
him!
” screamed María, but no one paid her the slightest attention.

Matt walked between the bodyguards. He hadn't a hope of fighting them off, and he didn't want María's last image of him to be of a terrified farm animal being dragged off to slaughter. He turned to look at her, but she was too busy struggling with the pilot to notice.

The bodyguards held Matt's arms, but they didn't insist on carrying him. He smelled the night air, the scent of jasmine and gardenias that had been planted everywhere for the wedding. He smelled the distant odor of the desert, perhaps even of the mesquite surrounding the oasis. Things traveled so much farther at night.

He saw the fantastic gardens of the Big House, the statues of babies with wings, the orange trees festooned with lights. This
was his last night on earth, and he wanted to remember everything.

Most of all, he wanted to remember Celia and Tam Lin. And María. Would he ever see them again? Or, if he was denied heaven, would he wander through the night like La Llorona, searching for something that was forever lost?

M
att was strapped to a bed in a room full of alarming machinery. Two guards sat outside the door, and another two waited by the window, which was covered by iron bars.

He was utterly terrified. This was where they had kept MacGregor's clone. This was where the bad things happened.

If only I'd escaped when I had the chance
, he thought.
Everything was ready for me. Tam Lin gave me maps and food and showed me how to climb mountains. I didn't understand. I didn't
want
to understand.

He was sick with dread. Every noise in the hall made him try to free himself. At one point Willum and two strange doctors appeared and proceeded to poke Matt's stomach and take his blood. They untied him so he could pee into a bottle, and Matt took the opportunity to run. He got only about six feet before being tackled by one of the guards.

Fool, fool, fool
, Matt told himself.
Why didn't I escape when I had the chance?

After a while Willum and the other doctors returned to discuss Matt's health. “It has mild anemia,” said one of the doctors. “Its liver functions are a little off.”

“Is it cleared for transplant?” inquired Willum.

“I see nothing against it,” said the strange doctor, peering at a chart.

They left Matt alone with his fear and his imagination.

What was María doing now? They would have drugged her, as Fani had been drugged before she was forced to marry Benito. Perhaps Felicia had been given laudanum in the beginning, to keep her obedient. One day there would be another grand wedding for María and Tom. María would have to be propped up as she walked toward the altar.

I can't save her
, thought Matt. But perhaps he'd done the one thing that could rescue her. María knew about her mother now. She could call for help. And Esperanza, if Matt knew anything about the woman who wrote
A History of Opium
, would descend on the convent like a fire-breathing dragon.

The door opened, and a pair of bodyguards entered and proceeded to untie Matt.
Now what?
he thought. It couldn't be a good sign. Nothing was good anymore, not for him.

The bodyguards, keeping a tight hold on Matt's arms, led him down the hall to a room unlike any he'd seen in the hospital. It was decorated with fine paintings, elegant furniture, and carpets. At the far end, next to a tall window, was a small table with a teapot, cups, and a silver plate of cookies.

And next to it lay El Patrón in a hospital bed. He looked extremely frail, but life still sparkled in his jet-black eyes. In spite of himself, Matt felt a wave of affection.

“Come closer, Mi Vida,” said the whispery old voice.

Matt approached. He saw more guards standing in the shadows and Celia in a beam of light from a gap in the curtains. Matt braced himself for a stormy scene, but she was dry-eyed and grim.

“Sit down, Mi Vida,” said El Patrón, indicating a chair by the table. “As I remember, you like cookies.”

I did when I was six years old
, thought Matt. What was going on here?

“Cat got your tongue?” the old man said. “It's like the first time we met, when Celia rescued you from the chicken litter.” He smiled. Matt didn't. He had nothing to be happy about. “Ah, well,” sighed El Patrón. “It always comes to this in the end. My clones forget about the wonderful years I give them, the presents, the entertainment, the good food. I don't have to do it, you know.”

Matt stared ahead. He wanted to speak, but his throat had closed up.

“If I were like MacGregor—a good Farmer, but a
foul
human being—I would have had your brain destroyed at birth. Instead, it pleased me to give you the childhood I never had. I had to grovel at the feet of the ranchero who owned my parents' land for every damn sack of cornmeal.”

Celia said nothing. She might have been carved out of stone.

“But once a year that changed,” said El Patrón. “During Cinco de Mayo the ranchero had a celebration. I and my five brothers went to watch. Mamá brought my little sisters. She carried one, and the other held on to her skirt and followed behind.”

Matt knew this story so well, he wanted to scream. El Patrón slipped into it effortlessly, like a donkey walking along
a well-worn trail. Once he got going, nothing could stop him until he reached the end.

The old man spoke of the dusty cornfields and purple mountains of Durango. His bright black eyes saw beyond the hospital room to the streams that roared with water two months of the year and were dry as a bone the rest of the time.

“The mayor of our village—dressed in a fine black-and-silver suit—rode on a white horse and threw money to the crowd. How we scrambled for the coins! How we rolled in the dirt like pigs! But we needed the money. We were so poor, we didn't have two pesos to rub together. On this day the ranchero gave a great feast. We could eat all we wanted, and it was a wonderful opportunity for people who had stomachs so shrunken that chili beans had to wait in line to get inside.