“Wait,” said Christopher, looking heartbroken, “so we won’t be able to walk through Machu Picchu? At all?”
“I’m afraid not,” Ruben answered regretfully. “We should head down to the parking lot as fast as possible to get on one of the buses.”
“What about tomorrow?” Quattro asked, stepping closer to Ruben.
“We’ll have to see,” said our guide with another apologetic shrug.
There’s nothing like a group of rapidly moving, purpose-driven people to set off primal survival instincts. So when a fleet of highly fit Japanese tourists trotted past us while we lingered, I felt an electric shock of unease, especially when one of the trekkers shook her head at us as if we were making a fatal mistake by remaining in place.
“What do they know that we don’t?” I heard Grace ask from behind me.
That’s what I wondered. Ruben caught up with their guide, both men wearing the solemn expressions that my parents had perfected these last few weeks. As the other tourists barreled down the trail, Ruben returned to us.
Mom asked, “What did he say?”
“We need to catch the bus now,” Ruben said. “The road to Machu Picchu Pueblo is starting to flood.”
The meaning wasn’t lost on any of us: We could be stranded.
Grace’s face was taut with stress from walking faster than I had seen her move during this entire trip. Miraculously, we caught up with Eduardo, one of our porters, whose forehead was damp with sweat from the strain of carrying Stesha. Hank and Dad followed closely behind them.
“Let’s take a two-minute break,” Ruben said, gazing at Grace worriedly. She was bent over, huffing hard.
“Put me down,” Stesha commanded, but once she was on her feet, she listed off balance. Dad immediately lifted her. When Mom started to protest, Dad said, “I can at least hold her while we’re standing.”
Mom nodded, which made two of us grateful that Dad wasn’t under the illusion he could manage the trail with Stesha in his arms.
“I can walk on my own!” Stesha protested, but her feeble attempts to free herself from Dad must have exhausted her. She sighed, closed her eyes, and rested her head against his shoulder.
From behind me, I caught a fragment of an argument brewing between Quattro and his dad.
“We might never get this chance again,” said Quattro as he began to unzip his backpack.
“No,” said Christopher with a tone of finality I hadn’t thought he was capable of producing. He placed his hand atop Quattro’s to stop him. “Son, this isn’t the right time.”
So I wouldn’t be tempted to eavesdrop, I took the camera out of my pocket and trained my lens not on Machu Picchu but on our group standing before it: banged up, heartbroken, and going blind. They were drinking in the ruins so thirstily, it was like they were desperate to find any bit of beauty in the rubble of this trip and our lives.
As hard as I tried to ignore Quattro, I shifted the lens to him. He was gazing at the ruins intently, as though it were his ancestral birthright to rule this place. But then, without a word to anyone, Quattro stomped down the trail with Christopher staring after him. Sighing, Christopher held his arms out to my dad, saying, “Here, I’ll take Stesha for a bit.”
Mom and I exchanged another look. Was Christopher even strong enough to carry Stesha? Maybe it was a trick of the light, but Quattro’s dad looked like he had solidified. For the first time on the trip, his cheeks were ruddy instead of faded pale, and a new steeliness energized his gaze.
“I’m stronger than I look,” Christopher said. He may have shrugged wryly, but even his shoulders looked wider. He was occupying space.
“I’d trust you,” Helen said, tucking her hair behind her ear. Her vote of confidence reminded me that it was Christopher, after all, who had rescued Helen from drowning in mud. Ducking his head, Hank took off down the trail without a word.
Despite a bashed-up chin and what was probably a nasty concussion, Stesha swung back into tour guide mode and asked us triumphantly, “See? Didn’t walking every single step here make this view so much more meaningful?”
No one answered. In the uncomfortable silence, Ruben reminded us that not a single person alive today knew for sure what Machu Picchu’s true purpose had been: religious sanctuary or military citadel? As we continued down the trail, I kept my eyes lifted to the ruins. Maybe the what and the why of Machu Picchu didn’t matter. Maybe all that mattered was that it was still standing.
Just as we reached the turnstiles guarding the entrance to the sanctuary, one lone bus pulled into the parking circle. The doors remained shut. I didn’t blame the driver. The long line of dirty, tired, and impatient backpackers at the curb surged forward as though prepared to storm the bus.
As soon as we reached Hank and Quattro near the back of the line, the few tourists behind them grumbled in different languages, none that I spoke, but I’m pretty sure I interpreted correctly: No way in hell were all of us cutting in line. As it was, only a magician could have squeezed in every person angling to board the bus.
“We should have come down earlier to secure our spot in line,” Hank said to no one in particular.
Dad said, “We can walk. I think I read that it’s only about an hour on foot to town.”
“Helicopters are coming today to fly people back to Cusco. That’s what everyone’s been saying,” Hank said, shaking his head emphatically. “We’ve got to get down fast.”
“I can walk,” Grace agreed.
“I can walk, too,” said Helen. Overhead, the sun broke free from the clouds. She brushed her thick hair off her face, tilting her cheek up to the sunlight. The massive stone on her engagement ring no longer glittered; it was covered in mud, like all of us.
“People are saying that the train isn’t running. The track’s been flooded,” Ruben informed us after checking in with another guide. His brow furrowed with concern. The helicopters are our only chance of getting out.”
Stesha cleared her throat, but her voice was still strained. “First things first; the porters need to get home. There is no way the helicopters are going to fly them back to Cusco. The government is only going to evacuate tourists. We all know that.” With trembling fingers, she handed a wad of cash to the porters, asking Ruben to translate. “Tell them thank you and that I’m giving them a huge bonus when I get back to Cusco.” Her voice faded. “Let’s give them as much food as we can.”
The porters refused to leave, backing away from the money until Stesha threatened to do all the cooking on the next trip.
From the corner of my eye, I watched Quattro move away from our group like he was going to make a run for it with the porters. Christopher blinked then as though waking from a hundred-year sleep. First, he asked Quattro, “Can you scout out the trail?” Then to Ruben: “You need to get on that bus and get Stesha to a doctor and on the helicopter.” When Ruben protested, Christopher explained, “You’re the only one who can speak the language. The rest of us will be fine.”
Both Christopher and I watched as Quattro scowled but readjusted his backpack before walking across the parking lot to the trail head. Only then did Christopher glance over first at Grace, then at Hank. “You and Grace need to go ahead and make sure we have rooms.”
“Grace?” Hank protested. “I can handle the hotel by myself.”
“Yeah, Grace,” Christopher answered, casting a quick glance at Helen, who nodded her approval. “She needs to get off her feet.” As Hank began grumbling again, Christopher added, “And no one’s going to complain about you getting on the bus if you’re accompanying her.”
That shut Hank up, but not Grace, who planted her hands on her hips. She demanded, “Don’t I get a say in this?”
Mom rushed to answer: “Grace, you’ve walked the entire Inca Trail.”
Even though I felt like a traitor, I nodded when Grace glanced at me, because Mom had a point: There was no reason for Grace to prove anything more, and we needed to hustle if we had any chance of snagging a spot on the
rescue helicopters.
While we watched, Ruben pounded on the bus door until the driver cracked it open. Catching the gist of the conversation wasn’t tough: Ruben kept waving over at Stesha, who was sitting on the curb with a bloodied bandage hanging off her chin. After a few minutes of negotiations, Ruben waved us over in triumph. People behind us began complaining loudly again as the reality of scarce seating sank in.
“I can walk with you,” Grace protested once again.
“Grace, Stesha needs you.” I pointed to Stesha, who was now seated on the bus, her head leaning against a window, her eyes scrunched shut like she was in pain.
“And Hank’s going to need you to sweet-talk the hotel into giving us rooms,” Mom added.
Grace nodded reluctantly before promising, “We’ll see you there.”
I felt like chasing after the bus as it departed the parking lot, not because it was transportation but because it was our link to half our team. As the bus disappeared around the corner, the porters reluctantly accepted the rest of our food supplies. I teared up at the sight of them leaving, too. No, this wasn’t how our trek was supposed to end.
“We should go,” Christopher told all of us now. I wondered if his urging was really meant for Quattro, who had returned with his report: “The trail looks fine.” He was staring at the gates barricading the ruins like he wanted to vault over the turnstiles, scale the chain-link fence, and break into Machu Picchu.
Mom sighed, lifting her eyes to Dad, and murmured apologetically, “I’m sorry about this trip. You were right. We should have stayed home.”
As we cut across the parking lot to the trailhead, a woman in a high ponytail and pink stilettos better suited for a beach resort picked her way between potholes and rocks back to the hotel, the only one sited next to the ruins. Her loud complaints to her husband echoed over to us: “There were nothing but rocks. For this, we’re spending five hundred bucks a night at an overrated Holiday Inn?”
Dad scrutinized that woman and her dissatisfaction the way he would an especially nasty pest. For the first time since the mudslide, he reached for Mom’s hand and told her, “At least we got to see Machu Picchu in person.”
“You really think so?” Mom’s smile was so brilliant, it made up for the sun’s disappearing act.
“Yeah,” Dad said, reminding me of who my father really was—not the bitter man who had grumbled through the past few weeks but the one who appreciated even the second-best things in life.
Our choices were to follow the longer asphalt road with steep switchbacks or to take our chances on the trail, which cut a sheer vertical path down the mountain to the town. Naturally, what remained of our group chose the mud chute of a trail, especially when Quattro reconfirmed that what he had seen looked fine. But where there weren’t stairs, there was mud. Every gloppy footstep through the thick jungle felt like a prelude to a fall. My quads trembled on the steep, slick path.
“Be. Careful. Be. Careful,” I chanted to myself, then gasped when my right foot slipped on a slick rock step. I fell hard on my tailbone.
In front of me, Dad’s shoulders hunched in defeat as he grasped an overhead branch for balance. He yanked off the headlamp Quattro had given him earlier that morning. “I’ve got to walk on the road. It’s so dark here, I can’t see where I’m stepping.”
That rare admission about his failing eyesight shocked me. Mom edged around me on the narrow trail and asked him softly, “Is it getting worse?”
Dad flushed, shrugged, then conceded, “I don’t know. Probably, yes.” Finally, he admitted, “There’s a black dot in my good eye now.”
I wanted to scream at the unjustness. The ophthalmologist had warned us that Dad could begin to lose vision in his good eye during our trip, but the reality of Dad going blind was still hard to accept, especially when he was so stubbornly mobile.
“I’ll walk with you,” I told him.
“No, I’ll just meet you guys down in town.” He started rifling through his pockets.
“What’re you doing?” Mom asked, annoyed.
“Getting the cash. You two might need it.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Mom said at the same time that I protested, “We’re sticking together, remember?”
By now, the rest of the group had stopped to check what was causing the delay. Dad explained, “I’m walking on the road.”
“Shana’s right,” said Christopher firmly. “We’ll stick together. I’m pretty sure this trail intersects with the road up ahead, and it might be faster and safer if we continue instead of backtracking. Quattro, take the lead.”
While Quattro cast an annoyed look at his father, he did what he was told. Dad’s jaw was equally tight, but he didn’t protest either. In fact, no one spoke. A few more minutes of tough downhill, and we made it to the slick asphalt on the narrow, zigzagging road, just as Christopher had predicted. I couldn’t imagine how two buses heading in opposite directions could pass each other safely. Backing up would be suicidal; the road was so steep and without any guardrails that I could see.
Almost two hours later, the road leveled out. The entire walk had been devoid of conversation. Our silence only accentuated the thunder of the whitecapped and muddy river running alongside the road now.
The river.
I’d never told anybody about the dream I had the night Dom broke up with me. I was inside a log cabin that smelled like the forest and wild growing things. Standing in front of a mirror, I stared, horrified, as sheets of skin peeled from my forehead, my cheeks, my lips. The roar of a river drew me away from my reflection and out to the ironwood deck. Water rose around the cabin, turning it into a houseboat. Or an island. All I knew was that I had to cross the churning waters. Had to reach Dom on the opposite shore. Scared, I started wading. The river was waist deep, unforgiving and cold. Thousands of silvery fish darted around me. I was convinced I was going to drown. And just as I finally, finally staggered onto the shore, Dom climbed into a pickup truck and drove off without me.
Nobody could survive this violent river, churning wild and angry, if they fell in. But I wasn’t trapped in a dream, stranded and alone at a riverbank. Quattro stood next to me. Over the river’s raging, he said loud enough so I could hear: “You were practically running back there. You okay?”
“I was just remembering a stupid nightmare.”
“What about?”
“I thought I was going to drown in a river.” Sheepishly, I admitted, “I’m a little freaked out.”
“I won’t let anything happen,” Quattro said flatly.
No, I knew he wouldn’t, whether he was boyfriend or friend. Wistfulness tightened my throat, as I thought about how much I wanted him to be my guy. The one who would think about me as constantly as I thought about him. Who would want to be with me. So much for my Boy Moratorium. That self-imposed no-boy diet didn’t do a darn thing to stop me from falling for Quattro, much less stop me from feeling hurt.
Why did I have to fall for the one guy on a well-enforced Girl Moratorium? A guy who seemed pretty much impervious to me?
Why?
Anything was better than beating myself up with these thoughts. So as we approached the stone footbridge, I asked Quattro, “Everything okay with you and your dad?”
“Sometimes Dad can be so by the book. I mean, life is just going to pass him by if he doesn’t watch out.” Quattro took a deep breath. On his exhale, he gestured to the river and asked, “What’s going to calm this down, do you think?”
It wasn’t me who answered but his father, who had caught up to us: “Time.”
Had Christopher overheard Quattro? His face, impassive as always, didn’t show it.
“Time.” The word came out as a derisive scoff from Quattro. He looked dangerously remote.
I understood. In all these months after Dom, I had retreated into my own fortress, refusing to let anyone get close to me, even my best friends. But now I wanted to echo Christopher and reassure Quattro: Time hadn’t just dulled my heartache over D
om. It had allowed me to see clearly. I’d never had a real relationship with Dom: We flirted, I chased, he showed me off when it suited him. For the first time in weeks, months, I actually felt at peace.
As soon as my parents neared us at the river’s edge, Christopher urged, “We better keep going.” As if to second that motion, the river swelled over the banks, spraying our hiking boots. I took a quick step back. “Looks like once we get across, we’ll have to follow the train tracks.”
“But what if a train comes?” Mom asked, worried.
“The trains aren’t running,” Dad answered.
“According to the rumors,” Mom said. “And there’s a tunnel I read about in some woman’s blog…”
The truth was, if the trains were running, we’d be roadkill, and we all knew it.
“We’ll have to make a run for it then,” said Helen. I saw her sidelong glance at Christopher, who nodded back at her confidently. He said, “We’ll just have to have a little faith.”
“Whoa, you sounded like Stesha there for a second,” I teased him, hoping to ease Mom’s anxiety.
“Yeah, I did,” Christopher said, grinning, looking exactly like his son at his mischievous best. I missed that Quattro.
“You sure this is safe?” Mom asked suspiciously as she studied the bridge. Frankly, the bridge’s stones and concrete looked fragile and insubstantial against the ruthless current.
“Nothing in life is ever a hundred percent safe,” Christopher said softly, his gaze flickering to Quattro. Without another word, Christopher accompanied Helen across the bridge, holding out his arm for her to take as water spattered them. Dad followed them and held Mom’s hand. He stopped to shoot a look at me. “Wait right there. I’ll help you across.”
“I got it,” I told him confidently even though I had my doubts, reinforced when another wave swamped the bridge.
Give it time, and a wild thought just might sweep away the last pangs of falling for the wrong boy. I took Quattro’s camera out and snapped a photo of this threatening river and whispered, “Good-bye, Dom.” Quattro’s eyes were trained on me when I lowered the camera.