Ariel's Crossing - Bradford Morrow [161]
“This is just the kind of pretty talk I heard before. Kip’s fine, I’m fine, you’re fine, we’re all just doing fine here today.”
“Mr. Montoya, I’m not the government. I didn’t write the law. I’m trying to defuse what’s obviously not a great situation. There may be ways of getting your land back, but this isn’t one of them.”
Delfino looked down, then up.
“I’m just here to tell you this way won’t get it done.”
Despite himself, Delfino began to believe the sergeant.
“What did Carl say?” asked Marcos.
“Later.”
“Later,” Jim echoed, then asked Marcos, “Meantime, what are we going to do?”
“This place is his, it’s his call.”
To Ariel, “You want to speak to William Calder?”
“She’s here to do just that,” said Marcos. He’d begun to see himself as a kind of translator. No one was speaking quite the same language as anyone else.
Ariel watched mutely as Jim took a look at his own weapon lying dormant beside him on the stone. Confrontation was not in his orders, but humiliation at the hands of some civilian—whether his claims carried weight or not—wasn’t in his nature. Marcos looked at Delfino’s profile, attempting to read through the diminishing options. Delf gazed past Jim, out over the basin, wondering what Agnes might do if she were here with them.
“I would,” said Ariel.
Jim thumbed in some numbers on the keypad, made the request, signed off. After several minutes the callback came, and he said a few words into the receiver, then took a step toward her handing over the field phone like an awkward calumet.
“You mind?” he asked Delfino, whose shotgun was pointed more at him than not.
Ariel took the well-worn leather-cased radio into her hands as Jim stood back.
“How do I—?”
“Press the talk button to speak, release it to listen back. Channel’s clear, go ahead.”
Ariel looked like some seeker clasping a possible grail, yet doubting its authenticity.
Visibly trembling, she said, “Hello,” holding the earpiece hard against the side of her head.
As she might have expected, no one returned her greeting at the other end.
“Anybody there?” somewhat more forcefully.
The voice was reedy and strained and faraway. “Ariel?”
“Yes?”
“Ariel, it’s your—I’m Kip.”
“Kip?”
“Can you hear me?”
“Yes, yes.”
How she wanted to say, Yes, Dad, but couldn’t invoke the word.
“Ariel, are you all right?”
So this was his voice, what he sounded like. Tenor, somewhat melodic, a bit sandy. Thinned, she guessed, by his ordeal.
“The question is, are you?”
“Delfino and Marcos are there with you?”
“And the military police. Where are you, though?”
“Ariel?”
“Yes.”
The transmission wasn’t clear throughout, instead was flooded with static before going ungarbled again.
“Listen to me. If they make some kind of offer to let you come down to see me in exchange for your giving up on Delfino, don’t do it. You’re there for both you and me now, doing what I wasn’t able to. Can you hear me?”
“I hear.”
“Don’t do it, Ariel. You hear?”
Other voices, none too happy, spoke behind Kip’s.
“I hear,” she repeated just as Jim decided to take back the field phone and cut off the transmission.
“So,” said Jim. “You satisfied?”
“Satisfied with what?”
“With the fact that what you need to do is come out of here so we can all sit down and talk about the problem like adults?”
Declining Jim’s invitation, she turned to Marcos, who’d asked, “Are you sure?”
She nodded.
Delfino wondered aloud if the sergeant wouldn’t mind leaving them alone for the night. They’d gotten as far as they were going to get this evening. Jim, retrieving his gun and turning his back on the three intruders, acceded to the request without saying so much as a word. They watched him, a slow deliberate man, retreat across the short