All the Creatures that Breathe Read online

  Copyright © 2021 by Denis Dauphinee

  This book is a work of fiction. While many of the main characters were real people, some were not. Conversations between characters (real or imagined) are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Though the book is based on real events and people, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locals is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Kicking Pig Press 24 Main Street

  Bradley, Maine 04411 U.S.A.

  www.ddauphinee.com

  Book design by Cyrusfiction Productions

  Printed in the United States of America

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2021925825

  ISBN: 978-0-9863089-2-5 (Paperback)

  ISBN: 978-0-9863089-3-2 (E-Book, Kindle)

  ISBN: 978-0-9863089-4-9 (Hardback)

  For Alberto, Robin, Ed, and John.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  1. Veritas

  2. “Service to the People”

  3. Friendship

  4. The Plan

  5. Council

  6. Logistics

  7. Christmas

  8. Commitment

  9. “On Belay”

  10. Death of a Lovely

  11. The Explorer’s Club

  12. Preparation

  13. Leaving Lima

  14. Cusco Magic & Mystery

  15. A Born Explorer

  16. “Remember the Apu”

  17. Highland Devils

  18. In the Shadows of Ausangate

  19. In Jack’s World

  20. “Put off Thy Shoes”

  21. The Trek

  22. The Urubamba

  23. Ollantaytambo and the Baker

  24. No Return

  25. The Expedition Begins

  26. Shangri La

  27. A Grand Discovery

  28. Into the Antisuyu

  29. “Can you do it?”

  30. Flight

  31. Jack’s Contrition

  32. A Report in Cusco

  33. Walkabout

  34. Revelation

  35. Stonington; The Sea & Broken Hearts

  36. Lost in Limbo

  37. Love Lost & Letters

  38. Back to the Sacred Valley

  39. Planning & Logistics … Again

  40. The Search

  41. Into The Manus

  42. True Evidence

  43. Science & Seeking Clues

  44. Two Weeks!

  45. Contact

  46. Capitulation

  47. Let us forget with generosity those who cannot love us —

  About the Author

  ONE

  Veritas

  — October 1985 —

  She was bent over, half squatting in the trench, covered in dirt from head-to-toe with smears of dried sweat streaking down both temples. Her T-shirt was riding up, and her hip bones, also dirty, showed above the waistband of her jeans. Flecks of sunlight trickled down through the hanging branches of the tall elms and oaks that framed the Yard. Casey sat on the grass and watched her from above. She glanced up from the trench as she wiped her brow.

  “Look at those idiot tourists, rubbing that guy’s foot,” Claire said.

  Casey looked across the Yard. More than thirty tourists were taking their turns, stepping up to the statue of John Harvard — or who they thought was Harvard — and caressing the polished right foot of the figure while another tourist took their photograph.

  “Don’t they realize it’s not even Harvard? It’s just some guy.”

  “Doubt it,” Casey replied. He looked back at Claire, who kept scratching at the trench wall.

  “Why does that bother you so much?” he asked. “You see them do it every day.”

  “Because, Case, nobody seems to give a shit about history anymore.”

  “That’s true,” Casey said, “but we do, and that’s why we’re covered in dirt and sweat. Anyway, it’s just a copycat thing from Verona, where tourists touch Juliet’s right breast for luck.”

  “Did you do that when you backpacked through Europe?” Claire asked. “I can’t picture you doing something that cheesy.”

  “No. Seventy-five years ago, I might have. But I don’t believe in superstitions. For me, Europe was all about the architecture — and of course the food. But I did grind my heel into the bull’s testicles in Milan, just for luck.”

  The conversation paused while Claire continued to work.

  Casey glanced back at the statue. “Hoar,” he muttered.

  Claire stopped scraping the dirt. She squinted up at him through the thin veins of shadows and sunlight. “Might want to work on your sweet-talkin’.”

  “No, Sherman Hoar. That was the law student who modeled for the statue — at least for its head.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” Claire said, turning back to her work. “Forgot.” Head down, she scraped the side of the trench first with a dental pick, then switched to a tiny brush.

  As Casey sat on the grass at the edge of the trench, he couldn’t help noticing how lovely she was.

  Her blonde hair was pulled back into a perfect ponytail, and it had a splendid, natural little flip at the end, almost touching the back of her neck before it turned upward in a sexy curl. Casey knew that her eyes were a lighter blue than most people’s, almost ice blue, which gave her an exotic look. Those almond-shaped aquamarine eyes were his favorite feature.

  “Is Jack coming tonight?” Claire asked.

  Casey snapped out of his trance. “He told me this morning he’s planning to.”

  “I wish he’d find a date,” she said. “I worry about his sex life.”

  “He has one?” Casey asked.

  “He’s lonely. If he could meet a woman, I think he’d be happier.”

  “Well, in the meantime, he’s got us.”

  “Is that a good thing?” she asked.

  Casey peered over Claire’s shoulder into the side of the trench. “What is it?”

  “Pipestem. Pass me a baggie?”

  Casey and Claire had been together for seven months. They had volunteered for the same dig in the Yard to chronicle the early days of Harvard College in hopes of finding some physical evidence of the school before the fire of 1764. The instant Casey laid eyes on Claire, he had been smitten. She had been standing at the counter in the foyer of the Peabody Museum, going over photographs of some pre-Incan artifacts — Moche, maybe, or possibly Nazca. He had stepped through the door and stopped dead in his tracks. In profile, the young woman before him had the most perfectly shaped body he had ever seen.

  He said, “Hello,” and Claire turned around. When he saw her eyes, he fell in love.

  He held out his hand. “Casey, but some people call me ‘Case.’”

  Claire shook his hand but let go and turned her attention back to the photographs. “Claire,” she said with a subdued grin as she glanced up at the other woman who had been standing opposite the counter. (Casey hadn’t noticed her.) It was an awkward meet.

  Before removing the piece of clay pipe stem, Claire photographed it in situ and recorded its position on a record sheet (north wall, so many inches from specific landmarks). Then she carefully lifted the artifact from the soil, brushed it off, blew air onto it with a small bulb syringe, and marked a record number with a waterproof marker on the baggie. Then she placed it in a shoebox.

  It was getting late. After Claire finished recording the pipe stem, she and Casey cover
ed the trench with tarpaulins. Then they placed the trowels, spoons, waterproof black markers, labels, plastic bags, pencils, some brushes, record sheets, two clipboards, maps, and two small sieves into a canvas gear bag. Casey lifted it, and Claire picked up the two shoeboxes lined with bubble wrap and the few newly found artifacts.

  “Let’s go get cleaned up,” she said. She lightly rubbed Casey’s back between the shoulder blades as they started walking.

  TWO

  “Service to the People.”

  — Maoist political slogan

  The following day, October eighteenth was the start of a beautiful day in Lima, Peru. At eight o’clock — the same time Casey and Claire were leaving their flat in Cambridge to go to work at the Peabody Museum — seventy-two-year-old Domingo García Rada, a Peruvian magistrate, walked out of his house on Roma Street in the San Isidro neighborhood and got into the passenger seat of his 1983 racing-green Peugeot sedan. He did not like riding in the back seat alone. He said, “Buenos días” to his driver, Segundo Navarro Silva, as he did every morning.

  It would be a busy day for the Judge. He was also the Commissioner for the upcoming Peruvian general elections, for which there was much to prepare.

  García Rada opened the morning edition of La República. He was traveling to his office to coordinate the details of the second round of general elections. Segundo surveyed his surroundings, checked the rearview mirrors, and pulled out onto the street.

  Less than three hundred yards down the road, they approached the intersection of Burgos Street. Fifty feet before the intersection, a light blue compact car sped from a stopped position and swerved in front of the Peugeot, forcing Segundo to slam on the brakes. Neither of them were wearing seat belts — most mornings, it was an easy, enjoyable ride to the office. García Rada was thrown forward into the dash, smashing his face on the glovebox. Segundo’s chest hit the steering wheel hard, knocking the wind out of him. Wincing, he leaned back, grabbed his chest, and tried hard to catch his breath as a bullet popped through the windshield and pierced his throat. His hands moved quickly from his chest to the wound in his neck, and he opened his eyes in time to see more small caliber holes bursting through the windshield.

  The third or fourth hole in the glass was made by the bullet that penetrated his forehead, just above the bridge of his nose, killing him instantly. His lifeless body slumped forward again onto the steering wheel as more bullets and shards of glass peppered his head and neck.

  Slumped next to Segundo, the sound of gunfire, broken glass flying in all directions, and the snapping sound of bullets flying by his head disoriented García Rada. It was as though he was in a dream — he could hear nothing except the snapping sounds, and he felt light-headed. He stayed down, leaning forward against the car’s dashboard. He could not see the eight men and a woman spraying the vehicle with bullets, and he did not see the man light a stick of dynamite and try to throw it under the Peugeot.

  The explosive missed its mark and detonated next to the vehicle, rocking it sideways. The blast tossed García Rada to the left, hard against Segundo’s lifeless body. He noticed his driver was not moving. Suddenly, the politician’s hearing began to return. Something other than muffled gunfire rang in his ears; people were screaming, and he could hear sirens in the distance. Then there was a sharp, severe pain in the side of García Rada’s head. He raised his hand to his temple and looked up at the driver’s side-door window, which had been shot out. He saw a young woman step to the door. She had hatred in her eyes. She looked straight at him, raised a handgun, and everything went black.

  The newspaper articles worldwide would report that the attackers were “Sendero” — the Shining Path terrorists — and that the young woman and four of the male attackers had been captured. All the papers reported that the terrorists were anti-democracy, but after four hours of brain surgery, Judge Domingo Garcia Rada, like democracy, would live on.

  In subsequent days and weeks, the news articles would use the attack to unify the people against the communist efforts of the Shining Path.

  Those articles, however, would not report what happened to the assailants in prison. Not one newspaper reported that the men were beaten unconscious every few days and that one of them died from head trauma.

  The woman prisoner, Alicia Maria Vilca, a pretty young woman from the highlands outside of Ayacucho, kidnapped by the Sendero when she was twelve, was also beaten by the military men and the prison guards but she suffered much worse.

  The interrogators wanted to know where the Sendero leaders were living, and they thought it would be easier to break Alicia than the men. After they had gang-raped her several times, and the beatings did not loosen her tongue, a Navy officer arrived to take over the “interviews.”

  One evening the officer and three guards woke her in her cell, stuffed a rag in her mouth, and dragged her to a room in the prison basement. The guards all covered their mouths and noses with bandanas. The officer did not. The room smelled awful. They ripped her prison uniform off and tied her hands behind her back. She stood, naked and defiant, staring at the officer as he walked around her, touching her breasts and cupping her buttocks. Her eyes closed as she braced herself for yet another raping.

  “Soon,” the officer whispered in a calm voice, “you will tell us where your comrades are hiding.”

  The man’s voice was low and ominous, and it was at once tranquil yet threatening. She could tell this was going to be different, and she felt the fear wash over her.

  The guards threw her to the cement floor and held her down. Two of them kicked her legs apart and held them in place with their boots. The officer loomed over her, brandishing a very small pocketknife with a tiny, triangular razor blade.

  He made tiny slices into her areola and nipples. Alicia tried to scream out, but the rag wouldn’t allow it. Her shrieks came out as guttural moans. Then the officer incised minor cuts on the soles of her filthy feet and another slice the length of her clitoris.

  The young terrorist was now crying, which sounded like choking because of the rag. If she wanted to talk or divulge information, they did not give her a chance. They left the rag in.

  The officer motioned to the guards, who lifted her by her arms, almost dislocating her shoulders. They tied her feet together and dragged her by her hair to a spot where they threw a rope over a rafter and hanged her by her feet. As she became airborne, she swung out over a cistern of filthy water with feces in it — human, llama, burro, dog — and urine too. She vomited, and some oozed past the rag at the corners of her mouth and fell into the vat.

  She became faint as the pressure in her skull increased.

  Then they lowered the rope.

  Alicia’s head went into the cistern. She writhed and twitched but could not lift her head out of the urine, shit, and water. She again tried to scream, and she was so afraid she urinated. Before she could drown, they quickly hauled her up again. She coughed and snorted light-brown material from around the rag and her nose.

  The guards then dragged her back to her cell, covered in blood, vomit, and feces, and tossed her in without any clothes. Her cell was empty, with no bed, no blanket, no toilet. They pulled the rag from her mouth as she gasped and cried.

  “In the morning,” said the officer casually, “we will return with paper and pen. If you do not tell us everything about your comrades, we will do the same thing again, but you will die. Then we will throw your shit-covered naked body into the Rímac where the eels will devour you.”

  They left the cell and shut the door.

  The newspapers did not report that.

  THREE

  Friendship

  Claire moved into Casey’s flat a month after they first made love. Before that, Claire had a South Korean roommate named Seo-yun, who went by “Sue.” Sue was perfectly friendly but was so quiet it became unnerving for Claire. By the end of the first week together, a week of exceptional quietude, she wondered if it was going to work out. Claire spent most nights with Casey
anyway, so she went about her decision-making empirically; she took progress notes in the third week of rooming together. In seven days, despite Claire trying to carry on conversations and inviting Sue places (which she invariably declined), the South Korean spoke forty-eight words — an average of fewer than seven words per day.

  Claire told Sue she had “fallen madly in love.” (An exaggeration), and she couldn’t bear to be apart from him for one night (a downright lie). She said uncharacteristic things like, “You understand…the heart wants what the heart wants.” She cringed as the words came out of her mouth — she hadn’t rehearsed that part.

  “Anyhow, sorry,” offered Claire. “We’ll see each other around campus.”

  Sue blinked but didn’t say a word.

  Claire smiled and left. As she walked to Casey’s apartment, she couldn’t help wondering why Seo-yun had chosen to study International Relations.

  j

  Casey felt his heart glow when she showed up at his front door, standing next to a bulging, wheeled suitcase and wearing an overstuffed backpack. He’d hoped for this.

  He stood inside the screen door, smiling.

  “You going to let me in?” Claire asked.

  He pretended to turn serious. “Well, if we’re going to do this, there will be ground rules.”

  Before she could say, “Just open the door!” Casey said, “Sex, a minimum once a day during the week, three times daily on Saturday, Sunday, and holidays.”

  Claire wasn’t laughing. “Open the door, asshole.”

  “Ah, ah, ah,” he said, holding up an index finger. “And, Thai food at least twice a month.”

  “Casey Rust Feagin…” Claire’s backpack was getting heavy.

  Casey opened the door, and she plunked her luggage on the floor. He had tried to play it cool, and he had tried to be funny, but he was damned excited. He took Claire’s shoulders in both hands and kissed her hard on the lips. He pulled back, looked her in the eyes, and said, “It’s as if the inner dome of Heaven has fallen, and now I am in it.”