"We're being tracked."
"Yes, we are," Narcisse agreed. Her strong good hand still locked the ring of muscle and bone around his neck and shoulders that allowed him to bear her.
"You wouldn't have some hot pepper somewhere in that food bag, would you?"
"I wasn't planning on cooking, child."
Green cotorras screeched at them from the trees above. The noisy parrots mocked them.
"How did they catch you, when you ran before?" Valentine asked, pushing up yet another steep hill. Perhaps he could outlast the tracker, if not the dogs. Talking to Narcisse might get his mind off the pain in his legs and back. Exhaustion was an enemy that could not be beaten, but it could be delayed if he kept his mind from giving in to it.
"The first time was when I worked in the cane fields, in Santo Domingo. I hitched a ride on a taptap-"
"What's a taptap?"
"One of those painted trucks. They are still running after all these years. The only thing on them that isn't forty years old is the tires. The driver of this taptap turned me in at the first station we came to. There's a standing reward for runaways; he was a poor man.
"After that I met my lover; he was one of the guards who came for me. Kinder than the rest. After punishment, a whipping, he got me a job cooking at a waystation for the guards on one of the highways. They would stop, and I would cook and wash. I had time on my own when there
were no soldiers to take care of. I went into the woods, and at a waterfall met a juju-man."
"A witch doctor, you mean?"
"Yes, Dav-eed. When I touched the stream to drink or bathe, he said I made writing in the water, which told him I could practice voudou."
Valentine set her down next to a great mahogany tree, looked downslope, and set the sights on his rifle. He worked the bolt and chambered a round.
"So he taught you?"
"People think voudou is all fear and hate, but there is love and healing in it, Dav-eed. There is a bad side-like anything, it can be used to destroy. Those who work their magic with both hands can cause much sadness. Have you ever heard of a zombie?"
"Yes."
"On the east side of the island, there are many zombies, slaves to the Evil Ones. They hardly need their Whisperers to feed from them. Such a sad thing, to have the gros-bon-ange taken, and the poor soul standing there, with no chance to even run."
"The 'great good angel'?"
"It is the spirit that enters you at conception. It animates you."
"I learned it was called the 'vital aura.'"
"One word or another-it is all the same. Didn't I tell you that already?"
"Yes. Seems different when it comes from a Lifeweaver."
"Still think there's nothing to voudou?"
"I never said that. I've seen enough to know not to laugh off anything."
Valentine settled down behind a thick tree root, stomach against the moist earth, with a good view of the slope. "Our gros-bon-anges may be packing for a tap. I'm going to see if I can't take out a couple of these dogs before the light fails. I smell a rain coming. That'll throw them off if they don't get here first."
"Wait for me to tell you to shoot," she said, sliding next to him for a better view down the hill. She removed her bandanna, and Valentine saw more scars going up the side of her head. They had a stretched-over, half-healed look to them: burns from long ago.
"Why, are you going to work a charm to make me aim better?" he asked, tearing himself away from the tales told by the scar tissue.
"Don't know one, or I would, Dav-eed."
The occasional barks and yips grew louder. Valentine tucked the rifle closer to his shoulder. He wished he had had more time to get familiar with the gun; it felt a little nose-heavy. Too late to fill the stock with lead weights now.