He turned back and went to Christian.
“Up, Christian. You’re getting up now,” he said, prodding him with his foot. “I’m not carrying you any farther.”
“Uhhhh?”
“At least you’re not dead,” said Zeus. “Let’s go. Come on.”
“What the hell… what’s going on?”
“There’s a Chinese patrol boat. Come on — we must be really close to the border. We may even be over it. Come on.”
“Shit.”
Zeus took Christian’s arm and pulled him up.
“How did I get here?” asked Christian.
“I carried you, you bastard. Let’s go.”
Zeus tugged, then let go and began trotting farther inland. The jungle was thick; most likely the sailors wouldn’t follow too far inland.
It didn’t matter. They would outrun them. And if they didn’t outrun them, he would shoot them.
Zeus reached to his beltline. He’d forgotten the gun back in the boat.
It was an idea, rather than a voice, something he felt rather than heard. Something he knew immediately was true.
He would kill them — he would succeed, there was no question of it, no doubt, only dead certainty.
The questions, the doubt he’d felt just a few hours before had disintegrated somewhere in the afternoon sun, dissolving into the steam rising from the shallow water above the sand amid the dank debris.
Something rumbled in the distance.
“What the hell?” said Christian, huffing behind him. “There’s not a cloud in the sky.”
“It’s gunfire, not thunder,” said Zeus tightly. “Don’t worry. They’re still pretty far away. Run. Run.”
They ran for almost a mile, weaving through the trees, gradually moving uphill. There was no sign that they were being followed, and in fact the single gunshot they’d heard was the only indication that there were any other humans in the world nearby. Still, Zeus kept running, his legs pushing onward. In a sense, his mind was no longer in control — his body was telling it what to db, or what would be done: They would run until their energy completely flagged, then they would rest for only a short minute, then they would begin again.
It was as if the rest of his body no longer entirely trusted his brain, as if the questions that had bothered it earlier had shown it to be unreliable, unfit for command in a military sense.
“Let’s go,” said Zeus, pushing through the thick weeds. “Come on.”
“I’m here,” grumbled Christian behind him.
“Faster,” said Zeus.
“Shit.”
Christian picked up his pace, pushing through the trees until he was only a few paces behind Zeus. The ground rose sharply ahead. Zeus took a breath, girding himself for the climb. Suddenly his foot slipped, and he found himself pirouetting to the side, falling into a small, narrow stream that ran in the crevice at the base of the hill. He landed flat on his back with a thud, his head smacking against a rock. He saw stars, or an approximation thereof; with a shout he twisted to his stomach and began up the hill, climbing first on his hands and knees, then pushing to his feet and trudging up. Christian grabbed the back of his shirt, pulling him to the summit of the hill. There they both collapsed, finally out of breath and energy.
“Are they still after us?” managed Christian after a few minutes of rest.
“Probably,” said Zeus.
“I just want to stay here.”
“Yeah,” admitted Zeus.
But they both got up.
They walked at a good pace across level ground. The trees were thicker and closer together than before. Every so often, Zeus turned to see if they were being followed. But he found he couldn’t look more than ten or twenty yards behind them.
He tried listening instead. But the jungle had too many noises for him to tell — birds in the distance, insects near and far, a frog somewhere.
“They can’t possibly follow us through all this,” said Christian after they’d been walking for about ten minutes. “Why would they bother?”
“Why would they fire at a fishing boat?” answered Zeus. “We’ll keep going for a while. It’s our best bet.”
“You really think we’re in Vietnam?”
“Maybe. More likely we’re still a few miles from the border.”
“How many’s a few?”
“I don’t know.”
Zeus took the map from his pocket. It was wet, either from the ocean or the stream. He unfolded it as he walked, then refolded it so he could hold and look at a small portion in one hand.
It was fine for roads, but trying to extrapolate the physical details of the coastline where they’d landed against the broad strokes of the map were next to impossible. They were definitely somewhere between Fangchenggang and the Vietnamese border, much closer to the border he thought than the city, but given the fact that they’d fallen asleep and drifted for hours, who really could tell?
“I’m hungry,” said Christian.
“Yeah, well, you see a McDonald’s, let me know.”
“Why are you such a jerk?”
“What?” Zeus stopped and turned around. Christian, a few feet away, glared at him but continued walking. “What do you mean, I’m a jerk?”
“You’re always busting on me.”
“You’re the jerk,” muttered Zeus, speeding his pace.
“I’m a jerk?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re just jealous.”
“Oh yeah, right.”
Neither man spoke for a few minutes. Zeus’s anger gradually dissipated. It made no sense to get mad at Christian, especially now. And it served no purpose: The guy had been a jerk for his whole life; a sudden conversion wasn’t likely.
“I mean it, Zeus.” Christian didn’t slow down. “You’re always riding me. You and your sidekick Rosen.”
“Steve wasn’t my sidekick.”
“Well I’m guessing he wasn’t your gay lover.”
“Ha-ha. Hill rises to the left,” said Zeus, pointing.
Zeus angled toward the hill. A narrow stream of water cascaded diagonally from above; he walked along it, crossing and recrossing to take advantage of the path. The vegetation thinned as they moved upward. Glancing back, Zeus realized that they had cut an easy-to-see path through the jungle as they brushed aside the thick vegetation; they would be easy to follow.
“We’re going to have to keep going,” he said. “Up along this creek and a lot farther, some place where we can’t be tracked. We left a pretty big trail through the brush back there.”
“You’re just figuring that out?” said Christian.
“Yeah, actually.”
“I’m surprised you admit it.”
The steeper the grade, the slower Zeus went, until finally he was moving in what seemed like baby steps. Christian was even slower, pausing every third or fourth step.
Zeus reached a clearing on the side of the hill. The ocean lay in glittery azure in the distance, sparkling with the setting of the sun.
Belatedly realizing he was in the open, he dropped to his knees. He could still see the water.
