I unstring the locket and show him the portrait of the beautiful woman with kind features and lustrous hair. Then I tie it onto the leather thong around his neck.

The boy looks back at me for a long moment, and then motions us to the door and thrusts his arms downhill.

He’s showing us the way out, and telling us we should take off, Gisco. And he’s probably right.

No, he’s probably wrong. Gisco has gone over to the side of the hut that’s used for a laboratory. There are vials and chemicals, and bundles wrapped up in orange tarps. If we try to escape down the mountain either we’ll be caught or we’ll starve to death. Neither is particularly appealing. This is our only way out.

A drug lab is our way out?

Check out these tarps. They’re using them to make sure their cocaine stays dry and waterproofed.

They look like old raincoats.

Nylon. We can use them to patch the balloon. Gisco begins sniffing various vials and jars of chemicals. I can improvise a powerful adhesive. It won’t hold forever, but it will get us out of these mountains. Let’s go to work.

Gisco has the chemical know-how. I have the hands, critical for pouring and mixing. The young lad with the braid stands in the far corner of the hut and watches as we cook up a steaming witch’s brew. Occasionally he snaps open the locket and looks at the image of my mother.

The sun is starting to sink as we finish.

Are you sure this will work, Gisco? It smells awful.

I wasn’t exactly baking an apple pie. Let’s go.

We hike back up the mountain to where we crash-landed near the glacier. The descent was easy, but the steep climb makes us sweat, even though a freezing wind whistles through the high mountain crags. I’m huffing and puffing by the time we near our deflated balloon.

The boy follows us. He seems intrigued by what we’re doing, but also frightened. I see that he’s brought the machete along. He has the constitution of a mountain goat—he’s not breathing hard as he trails us up the steep slope.

I’ve heard that mountain sunsets come on fast. It seems to get colder and darker by the second. My hands shake as Gisco directs me to spread his odious adhesive on the torn balloon envelope.

The paste works like quick-drying epoxy. As soon as it’s on, I press one of the orange tarps over the rent in the nylon. The pungent mixture hardens like concrete, and now our balloon has a bright orange Band-Aid.

Voilà, Gisco exults. Not bad, huh?

Do you think it will hold?

Only one way to find out.

How are we going to reinflate the balloon? I ask. Old Houlihan probably had some special fan or air hose to fill it up.