1976

Don took the 11:45 train out of Vallicia rather than wait for the next. Before they split up Harry insisted they each take a share of the gems with them to ensure at least one-third arrive safely back at Ogden Sumner University.

Harry and Nancy were already deeply in love, and they vowed to marry as soon as they had time to do it. They figured Iquique in the northern portion of Chile would be most romantic by virtue of its name alone. They rode fast on a 1960 Triumph Trident T150T that was badly in need of a new leather seat, stopping only for gas and at the end of the day for a quick meal and sleep. Nancy was obliged to wear a sizeable backpack while sitting tightly between Harry and another bag strapped to the back end of the bike. After the first grueling day of travel and sleeping outside, Nancy insisted they would rent a room, no matter how modest.

"If you want to marry me," she said rather jokingly, "you had better see to it I get a bed."

"A bed it is."

After day three, the driving chain broke in the middle of the desert highway, and they were lucky to hitch a ride on the back of a flatbed Ford. The driver wanted money from the "rich Americans." The problem was, at least as Harry saw it, the driver was only going another hundred miles, which was about fifty short of Iquique. Nancy asked the driver, who was from Brazil originally if he wouldn't mind taking them all the way in, but he wanted too much money. It happened that Nancy spoke passing Portuguese and negotiated a trade for the bike. Still, he only left them off on the outskirts of the city.

In the evening of day four they found the Americana Hotel, a small unprepossessing domicile on the fringe of the port there, and from their room, they could see the fishing boats pulling into the harbor. They had enough money to stay in a better place but didn't want to run short remembering what Niko from the Ouro Maia said many times on their way south, "American money may go a long way in these parts, but to the people of the coast, Americans have too much of it. It is American money after all."

To Nancy, the room was quaint, and she imagined that Hemingway had written "To Have and To Have Not," in just such a place. Harry called it a "shithole." She said the patchy plaster on the walls was rustic. He knew well the old adage that a happy wife made a happy home and agreed it was a fine hotel.

Their first night there, Nancy had just finished taking a shower and stood wrapped in a towel at the window looking out at the ocean when Harry came up behind her drenched from the shower, and put his arms around her waist.

"Harry, you're all wet,"

"You took the only towel," he said and tore it off her body and dried his hair and threw it over his shoulders and she jumped away and turned to face him. "They can see," she said, coyly pointing toward the fishermen who were within a cat-call away.

He looked over her shoulder and out the opaque window, which had no curtain, and said, "We are two floors up and at least 100 yards away from the nearest fisherman. They can't see a thing." He held her tightly and squeezed her close to him. "I have a raging desire," he whispered, "to throw you into that bed and have my way with you. Mercilessly."

She smiled and reached down and stroked him. "Oh," she said and giggled. "I thought that motorcycle was a hard ride. Turn off the light."

"I like it on," he said and nibbled on her ear, and caressed her neck.

"Your beard itches," she protested, but wanly. Harry threw her onto her back, and it squeaked wildly for a while.

The morning came and it was soon lunchtime, and they walked the piers and visited the local taverns and enjoyed the sights. They found a midsized twenty-crew member boat leaving for Panama in two days. It was a fishing trawler that didn't mind taking on a few passengers, and Harry managed to hire a cabin. They discussed getting married on board, and Nancy thought that would be most romantic. They made their plans and ended the day with dinner at a small restaurant owned by a man who owned three boats in port, one of which they had passage on.

"Dinner was great, don't you think?" she said, shrugging.

"The wine wasn't bad, but I think there was too much garlic in the linguini."

"You're an ass Harry Thursday. My fish and chips were just fine." The waiter came over and asked if they would like anything else, and behind him, a man played a Concertina and he wooed a nearby table where a couple sat and caressed each other's arms.

"I didn't know sailors could be so romantic," she said looking over at them.

"There's an old saying in ocean ports," Harry said. "'Seamen and women don't mix.'"

After the tumultuous three months they endured in Chile, their world seemed to be sliding back into normal. The grueling and dirty work in the field was now something they would boast about to their fellow collegians. "Ah, the gold," they would say, "and the mysterious men." And of course, "poor Dago."

Harry felt happy, and well. Nancy looked more at ease, and he could now see that she had put her work ahead of pleasure and that had added lines to her face and those lines had since dissolved and her shiny brown hair had returned and she let it flow long and free, as was the fashion. When they made love, it was wild and whimsical, and as Harry often said, "It would be illegal in nineteen countries."

They paid the bill and on their way back to the hotel room they stopped at the docks where people tied up small fishing boats and pleasure craft. The gulls flew overhead and squawked and dipped down to snatch at anything edible and when they realized Harry and Nancy had no food to offer them, they flew away. Only when a family with children arrived did they return.

Nancy climbed down the ladder and sat in a small boat there. It had two oars and a tiny motor on the back. She looked up at Harry who didn't follow. "Why don't you come on down?"

The boat rocked in the swells, and she had to hold on. A large yacht had just gone by leaving behind its wake.

"Nah, I think I want to stay here and watch you get into trouble."

A young man looked over the seawall at that moment and began yelling in Portuguese at her. He looked at Harry for answers who tried in limited Spanish to explain. "I think you had better come on up," he said. "He doesn't understand Spanish."

Nancy climbed quickly and showed her reddened face. "Lo siento mucho, señor."

Harry lifted her over the wall and they headed off with the man still yelling. Harry stopped suddenly and turned to glare at him, and he stopped and put his attention to his boat.

At their door, he fumbled for his room key, and she toyed with him and put her hands deep into his pockets before he could. "Let's not go in just yet," he said.

"But why Harry? Besides I'm tired, and I've got the key," which she pulled out of his pocket

"I could use a drink."

"You won't need it," she said, and she rolled her shoulder against him and opened the door. They stepped inside and standing there was a man. At first, he was a shadow in the ambient light of the window. Nancy let out a small scream, and Harry instinctively stepped between them and flicked on the light.

"Turn out that light," the man said. His voice was higher than you would expect from a menacing intruder. He was shorter than Harry and impeccably dressed for a thief. He was a strong man, dark-skinned like someone who spent years in the sun. He was stocky and athletic, and his nose was bent like a hook, and his one ear was bulbous and deformed. His lips were full and he sounded like he had a perpetual cold, which made him sound stupid, though he wasn't.

"Where is it?"

They knew immediately what he wanted, and Harry was determined to make it painful for the stranger.

"Where's what?"

"Harry, give it to him," Nancy said. She held tightly onto his arm. "He's got a gun for Christ's sake."

Their bags were a collateral mess. He had been busy, and even the bed was thrown over. Harry was pissed, but not enough to be a hero. Who the hell was this guy, he thought. Was he in Vallicia all the time, and if so, why hadn't they seen him? Did he follow them? And how the hell did he find them?

"We turned them in to the authorities back in Santiago," he said. Convincing enough, so he thought.

"I was with you in Santiago," the wrestler said. "You have them, and I want them." He walked toward the couple and Harry was ready.

"He creeps me out, Harry," she said quietly to his ear. "It's under the chair."

He stopped and looked over at the chair by the far wall. Harry did something else that night that he would regret, but it was something that would make great conversation fodder for future gatherings. He reached out for the gun in the man's hand to knock it away, but the wrestler threw his free hand up to block Harry's approach, knocking Harry off balance. He came around with the pistol, planting it firmly against his temple and dropping Harry quick as that.