Seconds later we’re there, we’ve reached the bottom of the steps—the wide, broken, moss-covered steps—where, again, Will instructs us to hold and we hold, standing in the rain, standing in the open. Exposed—even as a pack of rangy, feral dogs begins sniffing about our trail.
Caution, he signals.
He looks at Beth and me and indicates his eyes; then the rain-dappled foliage to our left and right. Watch our flanks, he’s saying—then points to Ensign Slater, his lips moving rapidly, “And you ... watch the women.”
And then we proceed: climbing the cement steps toward the market and my uncle’s two-story warehouse (which is on Pike Street, right next to the original Starbucks). Covering the distance like soldiers; like a seasoned platoon, all the way to street level and yet another set of stai
