The Empty Trap by John D. MacDonald Read Free Book Online Page B

again, and what objects he should bring back from the village. He sat up in the darkness and he was very excited. He listened. He missed many words, but he could follow all they said. And he could understand words he had not realized he knew. Some of them had slipped into his mind during the early weeks when he was close to death, he decided.
    From then on he and Isabella began to speak together in simple sentences. When the others understood they should go slowly, he could converse with them too. He became pleased with his own increasing proficiency. One afternoon Armando brought a man back with him. Lloyd was sitting outside. They squatted on either side of him, fingered the bound jaw, argued violently. Armando, Lloyd understood, felt that the jaw was now sufficiently healed, that enough time had passed. The other man, Rosario, claimed that when a man had been very ill, the bones healed more slowly. Armando said heatedly that if it was bound much longer, it would no longer work. In the end they cut the strip of leather. It had worked itself into the flesh of the underside of his jaw and had to be pulled free gently. Both men were delighted when Lloyd thanked them with an articulation he could not previously manage. There had been a considerable atrophy of the muscles. When he sat upright his lower jaw, after a period of time, tended to sag. He could not chew at first, and later,when the muscles had regained strength, he could only chew far back on the grinding molars.
    The sun had moved and the nights began to be chilly. When he asked, Isabella told him it was the seventeenth day of October. It shocked him to learn how many months had gone by. Five months and eight days since he had gone over the cliff. He walked for the first time that day, sweating with effort, leaning heavily on the sturdy shoulders of Isabella, walking ten steps while she grinned encouragement. His left ankle was very stiff, yet not frozen in place. He could move it, but only at the expense of grating pain. For three days it was too swollen to attempt walking again. Soon he could walk without help, but not far. He felt too tall, teetering and fragile, like a man on a tightrope. Appetite and strength improved and he began to put on weight more rapidly.
    As yet, with any of them, there had been no talk of past or future. On a day colder than any that had gone before, Isabella came to him with a strange shyness. She held something out to him and said, “Is it permitted to wear this?”
    He took it from her and it took long moments to identify it. It came from another life, a life before this one. He saw that it was one of Sylvia’s sweaters, cashmere in a dark red, with a design in white at the throat.
    Holding it, he said, “Is there more clothing?”
    “Yes. For you and for her. A lot of it.”
    “It is more cold now. You and Concha must take her clothing and use it. She is dead.”
    “I know. What was her name?”
    “Sylvia. And the other clothing, the boys must use what can be fitted to them. You have … shared all you have with me. I will share with you.”
    She thanked him. She wore Sylvia’s clothing. The skirts were too long. They fit at the waist, but were tight over Isabella’s heavier hips. She was shy at first, and then pleased with herself. Armando self-consciously wore one of Lloyd’s tweed jackets. It fit across the shoulders, but came almost to his knees.
    He said one day to Isabella, “How did I come here?”
    She looked at him and finally nodded. “It is time to talk. I will tell my uncle.”
    There was a conference that evening. Goat skin covered the doorway, a protection against the chill of the nights. Now, each night, the cook fire was left burning. The lantern was lighted on this special occasion. The boys were sent into the adjoining room. Armando, Concha, Isabella, the man named Roberto, and Lloyd sat around the lantern.
    “We must talk,” Armando said. And he reached over and handed Lloyd an object which Lloyd