21.
Vin returned with a coil of frayed, greasy brown Perlon. Molly walked to the tree and everyone followed. She turned it into a high-wire act, something to lift them from the morning of threats.
Lodged in the middle branches, the ACAV looked like a strange, small fish caught in talons of coral. She circled the tree, running her palms over the tan and white bark. “This will do.”
She shook the coil loose and, without looking, tied a bowline around her waist. She shifted the knot around to the small of her back so the rope would trail behind, not between her legs. She wouldn’t need it for anything until she got to the vehicle. The brothers squatted down to watch through a cloud of fresh smoke.
She shucked her shoes and socks and placed them neatly by the tree. The bare feet were for extra grip, but also a bit of theater. Patting the dewlap folds of wood, she hopped up onto a massive root. “Feed me the rope,” she said. “Make sure there aren’t any knots.” Duncan stepped forward. She started off.
The climbing went quickly. The men grew smaller, their heads tipped back, mouths open. Partway up, double-checking her grip, she faked a slip. That got an audible grunt from the audience. “No problem.” She pretended to grapple her way past a perilous crux.
It was easy. The tree offered itself to her in phases, its knots and boles and branches forming a natural ladder. A whole metropolis appeared in the canopy, with limbs and looping vine bridges inter-locking the great towers of trees.
It felt good to open her wings, good to get away from the men. Things seemed much saner up here. It occurred to her that she could keep on climbing. She could vanish into the upper branches and outwait the gunslingers.
The thought grew into a temptation. Untie from the rope and she could enter the canopy and they’d never get her back. The place abounded with food and niches for shelter. Nuts and mangos and other exotic fruits nestled like Christmas ornaments.
“Molly.” Her name, so faint. Like leaves rustling.
The forest was so beautiful, and when she glanced down, her holds had withdrawn into the tree. Pathways led off along the great branches. She felt drugged.
The forest was her answer, she comprehended. But it went beyond that. The message built like a heat. All she had to do was take to the trees. Forget the men, they were deceivers. Forget the rains, they would pass. Forget the past. The forest would provide.
The ACAV broke her fantasy of dancing off into the heights.
More quickly than she’d expected, its squared metal corners and sprockets and pipes and bulldozer tread emerged around the corner. Her temptation snapped. This brute thing—not escape—was what she’d come for.
The metal ramp at the back invited her like a sturdy porch. One step and she would be inside.
“Moll-lee.” The rope tugged at her waist. It was Duncan, invisible beneath the foliage. He called again, more insistent this time.
She took a breath. It was like pulling herself from a dream. “I’m good,” she shouted down.
She peered at the inside of the thing. An open hatch on top helped illuminate the recesses. Stenciled warnings read DANGER—MONOXIDE GAS. She sniffed the air, and there was only the slight odor of fuel and oil and fertilizer. Dung, she realized. Animal dung. The green dragon had become a nest for forest creatures.
“I’m going in,” she called down.
“What?”
She pulled up some slack and made the small leap, landing lightly, barefoot, on the cool metal. The wedged vehicle didn’t shift an inch.
The rope tugged again, Duncan fretting.
“I’m off,” she shouted, and realized that the climbing lingo might confuse him. “I’m in. I’m up.” She untied from the rope and knotted it to an eyebolt on the back of the ACAV. “Come on up. The rope’s anchored.”
Branches had infiltrated through the open cupola, and white orchids with red pistils grew here. Butterflies spiraled above the war machine, their wings bright blue and the size of her hand. Death and life. She wanted her camera.
She peeked on top, and the head was jammed onto an exhaust pipe. Its eyes and face were aimed forward, and she was grateful for that. Let the others deal with it.
As it turned out, once she’d hung the rope straight down from the ACAV, the line was too greasy and thin for them to ascend. Kleat wrapped it around his fists and hauled himself up a few feet, and the rope creaked, but that was as high as he could get. Duncan had no more luck. The brothers wanted nothing to do with it. Without a climber’s Jumars to grip it, the rope was only good for a one-way ride, down.
“You’ve done your job,” Duncan called up to her. “Come down.”
“Wait,” Kleat shouted. “What about the bones?”
“It’s too dark to see,” she called out.
“We’ll send up a flashlight,” he said. “And a bag for the bones.”
That was the part she’d been hoping to avoid. “My camera,” she shouted down on a whim. Through it she could filter any horrors before having to touch them.
“What?”
“I want my camera. And some water. And a PowerBar.”
The burlap sack came to about fifteen pounds. She pulled it up hand over hand, and someone, Duncan, no doubt, had included the bag of M&M’s. There were two more burlap sacks stuffed inside. Kleat was expecting a lot of bones.
She sat on the edge of the ramp with her back to the ACAV, her bare feet swinging, and ate the PowerBar and candy and drank the water. Then she stood and turned on the flashlight and went to work inside.
22.
Over the next hour, Kleat called up periodically, impatient. “What’s keeping you?” she heard his tiny voice say. “Are they all there?”
Duncan only wanted to know if she was okay.
She didn’t answer them. A ripple of thunder sounded in the far distance. That meant it was approaching noon. The monsoon was working up its nerve. Or else the typhoon was nearing. Would it announce itself or just open up on them?
She was thorough, exploring the deepest bay of the ACAV, poking with a stick where she was afraid of snakes. With each discovery, it became more obvious that the armored box held only questions. Their answers hid elsewhere.
She saved the head for last, climbing onto the top through the opening with the machine gun.
After an hour, there was no more to find.
She started to wrap the rope over one shoulder to descend, then had a thought. Untying the anchor knot, she threaded the end of the rope through the pistol’s trigger guard, and retied the rope. Then, dangling the burlap sack from her belt, she backed off the ramp and rappelled to the ground.
As she descended from the canopy, she looked across to the top of the terraced walls and saw the city waiting for her. Her view lasted only a few feet, then she sank lower into the terminus.
Kleat and Duncan waited for her at the bottom.
“Well?” said Kleat.
She opened the sack like Santa Claus and handed him the head. “You were wrong,” she said.
Kleat held it at arm’s length. “What the hell is this?”
“It’s a trophy. They had it mounted on their exhaust pipe.”
It was one of the terra-cotta warriors’ heads, its neck a long, rounded plug with a hole at the bottom. The jade pebble eyes glared up at them. The painted circles had mostly washed away, but the expression was still ghastly.
