Page 39 of Girl in the Water
The man who wouldn’t let Daniela’s mother be buried in the cemetery?
Daniela had told Ian the story. He wanted to choke the Wintermann bastard.
Before he could decide if they had time for that, and before Daniela could recover from discovering the identity of her father, a man plodded up the path, drawing their attention. He walked with the ambling gait of a water buffalo. And he looked like one too.
“Pedro,” Daniela whispered.
Talk about people Ian wanted to strangle…
The man was watching the path in front of his feet and hadn’t seen them yet. He was about two decades older than Ian, in his fifties, larger than the average Amazonian, and not a weak man. According to Daniela, he owned a store. He probably hefted plenty of crates.
The man who sold Daniela to Rosa.
Ian clenched his jaw so hard, his teeth hurt. He pushed to his feet.
Pedro looked up, startled, then his gaze slid over Daniela, once quickly, then once again, more slowly. His face lit up. “Querida!”
“We leave now,” Ian whispered to Daniela, “or I’m going to start beating up people. Your choice.”
She shook her head and stepped forward, a hint of unsteadiness in the step and in her voice as she said, “Olá, Pedro.”
Ian shot a look that warnedclear and present danger up to and including murderat Pedro, but the bastard only had eyes for the woman in front of him.
“Daniela!” Pedro reached out and put a hand on her shoulder, ran his palm down her arm. And said something Ian thought might have been a question about why Daniela was here, followed by a statement that Senhora Rosa would not be happy.
As Pedro reached for Daniela’s waist, Ian stepped forward, but Daniela was faster. Pedro hit the mud, flat on his back the next second.Oomph.He flopped in a quickly forming puddle like a trapped fish, yelling at Daniela, or trying, the air knocked out of him so the words came out wheezy.
Daniela stood over him, rain streaming down her face, and the scene reminded Ian of the first time he’d seen her, as she’d emerged from the river with that giant black eel. He half expected her to pick up a stone and bash in Pedro’s head.
And maybe Pedro did too, because he stopped struggling and lay still on his back in the mud, staring up at her, his gaze reflecting surprise and confusion, then flickers of fear. The balance of power had shifted, and he knew it. The victim was victim no longer.
Ian wasn’t going to stop her if she wanted to kick the shit out of the son of a bitch. He had a hard enough time stopping himself from doing it for her.
But instead of kicking Pedro in the face, Daniela grabbed Ian’s wrist and drew him away, back toward the river, the metal box held tightly under her arm. “He’s just an old man.”
Because she wouldn’t kick a man who was down. She was bigger than that. She was bigger than anyone in the small village who’d looked the other way while she’d suffered through hunger and worse.
She let go of Ian to walk in front of him on the narrow path.
Pedro rose and moved to grab after her.
Ian hit him. Just once. Hard enough to break the man’s jaw.
Pedro went down again with a keening sound.
Daniela looked over her shoulder.
“He’s overcome with remorse,” Ian said as he followed her, the deepening mud doing its best to suck off his boots, but he kept up.
She walked barefoot toward the Içana, straight and tall, all that black hair streaming down her back past her waist, her steps graceful.A river goddess.She didn’t look back at the hut or her village.
* * *
Carmen
Carmen stood in the middle of the empty house in Santana, her gaze returning to the bloodstained floors. Nobody seemed to know what had happened. But people in the neighborhood confirmed that a young woman fitting the description of the girl who’d gone missing from the brothel upriverhadlived here, having shown up in the middle of the dry season. The timing matched.
“I think she was sold to someone that same morning that we wanted to rescue her.” Carmen’s voice rang hollow even to her own ears. “If only we’d acted a day sooner.”
