by David Klass
“Shut up,” P.J. commands with a little chuckle, gently squeezing my hand.
“Okay. Sorry.”
“It wasn’t just that you liked me, Jack. A couple of other boys did, too.”
“Dozens,” I admit. “I was jealous of all of them.”
“You had your share of female admirers,” she reminds me. “It also wasn’t that we were such good friends. Nor even how cute you looked under the bleachers that day, with those wide shoulders and those bright blue eyes of yours.”
“What then?” I demand. “Pheromones? Did I smell nice?”
“You smelled okay,” she admits grudgingly. “But you were no flower garden. No, it was something I saw in your eyes after that first kiss.” P.J.’s whisper becomes softer. “A kind of genuineness … and sincerity. I knew somehow that I could trust you—that you weren’t just a bozo jock with raging hormones. I especially knew that you’d always tell me the truth. And you always did.” She lets go of my hand and moves a few inches away, so that our shoulders no longer touch. “So tell me the truth now.”
“Okay,” I whisper back. “But one question first: what if the truth doesn’t make any sense?”
“The truth always makes sense,” P.J. assures me, sounding more and more like the healthy, grounded, decisive girl I remember from Hadley. “That’s why it’s the truth.”
“You’re wrong about that,” I tell her. “But judge for yourself. Here goes. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” I suck in another big breath, and this time I know exactly where to begin. “It started that day I scored all the points in that stupid football game. Afterward, we went to the Hadley Diner to celebrate. I thought I saw a man’s eyes flash. You laughed and said I must be on mind-bending drugs.”
“I remember.” P.J. nods. “People were taking your picture. I thought you must have seen a flashbulb …”
“There were no hallucinogenic drugs or camera flashes involved. A tall man’s eyes flashed white to silvery. They marked me, somehow. And, even weirder, when I got home, my dad knew what it meant.”
“What did your dad say?” she wants to know, drawn in.
So I tell her. Odd step by step, harrowing adventure by adventure, mind-blowing event by event.
P.J. doesn’t listen passively or accept things on faith. She interrupts with probing questions.
“Why didn’t you at least call me?” she wants to know when I describe my escape to Manhattan. “Or e-mail me?”
“I was afraid you were being watched. I wasn’t sure who was chasing me, but I knew they were powerful. I was scared that if I tried to contact you, I might put you in danger.”
“Okay. I see that. But you could have dropped a postcard in a mailbox. Or called a mutual friend and left a message for me. You could have tried something, anything …”
“Maybe you’re right,” I concede. “My dad had just told me he wasn’t my real father and my mom wasn’t my real mother. Then he sacrificed his life for me to get away. My whole world flipped upside down and backward. It was a hard time to know what to do …”
“A very hard time,” P.J. agrees, and the pain in her voice is palpable. “The police were convinced I knew something. They interrogated me for days. Meanwhile I was worrying about you so much I couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t eat. I lost fifteen pounds. My hair started to fall out. I was certain that if you were still alive, you would call. You would reach out to me. You would know what I was going through and you’d find a way. But you didn’t …”
“Maybe that was because I was running for my life,” I blurt out, and for just a second anger rings in my voice. I stop and take a few breaths, and get myself back under control. “I went from a monster in a Manhattan penthouse to a speeding train to a motorcycle gang. You weren’t there, P.J. You don’t know what it was like. So I don’t know how you can judge me.” I pick up my story and describe meeting Gisco, and how he tricked me into going to the Outer Banks, and ditched me in a locked barn.
Then I hesitate a long beat, and I start to tell her about Eko.
55
P.J. lets me get through the whole Outer Banks part of the story without interrupting. Then she asks softly, “So you were able to dive to the bottom of the ocean because this Eko girl gave you a necklace with magic beads?”
“Not magic,” I tell her. “Condensed oxygen in solid form.”
“Where’s the necklace?”
“Right here.” I take it off my neck and pass it to her.
“You still wear it?”
“I might need it again. You never know.”
“No, you never do.” She fingers the beads, and then looks right at me. “It’s nice. She has good taste.” P.J.’s eyes probe my own.
I hold her gaze and don’t say anything.
Seconds pass.
“So what happened next?” P.J. finally asks. “You were in an open boat with that telepathic dog, in a storm.”
So I finish my strange tale. I describe surviving the hurricane, and being picked up by the trawler Lizabetta, and how I was taken to Dargon’s island, where I found Firestorm and used it to wreck the trawler fleet.
“So I guess I did what I was supposed to do,” I tell her. “I fulfilled my mission—the reason I was sent back a thousand years. On some level, that means a lot. But when Eko and Gisco disappeared … I was suddenly left all alone. I started to realize that I’d saved a future I didn’t know, and completely screwed up my life in the present.”
“My life, too,” P.J. says softly. “I was walking home from a babysitting job when a town police car pulled up. A cop waved me over, and asked me if I’d seen a gray van drive by. I leaned down to answer, and he sprayed something cold on my face. When I woke up I was bound and gagged, and on my way to the Amazon. No goodbyes to Mom and Dad, no idea what was happening. Just … taken.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t know what I could have done to prevent it, but it’s terrible.”
“Yes,” she agrees. “Look, Jack, I want to believe your story. I accept that you got caught up in something huge and confusing, which neither of us fully understands. I’ve seen the colonel and how strange and powerful he is. But … a lot of what you just told me is pretty incredible. I can’t just swallow it all down in one big gulp.” Her tone hardens slightly. “Nor can I forget everything’s that’s happened to me … or completely forgive.”
“Then where do we go from here?”
She lets my question float on the fetid night air for a few seconds. “Out of the Amazon,” she finally suggests.
“Literally or metaphorically?”
“Both. We’re lost in a dark jungle. Let’s find a safe path out.”
“Together?”
She turns her head to look at me. “Do you still love me, Jack?”
I look back into those eyes that I missed so much, for so long. “More than ever,” I tell her. “You’re right, my story was incredible. But it was true. And when you’re swept up in an adventure like that, and you find yourself fighting off Gorms and helping weird time travelers try to save endangered future worlds, you gradually realize that the only thing that really matters is …”
“The girl next door?” P.J. suggests softly.
My fingers gently trace the curve of her cheek. “You never lived next door to me.”
“Just down the block,” she replies, and her lips are so close I can feel the warmth of her whisper.
“That hardly makes us neighbors,” I point out. My own voice trembles as I ask her, “Do you know why I kissed you back in the gym that day?”
“Why, Jack?”
“You looked so damn cute, in your tight jeans and red sweater. No bozo jock with raging hormones could have resisted.”
She smiles and her eyes sparkle in the firelight. “You really know how to speak to a girl’s soul.”
“And you smelled good, too,” I tell her, as our lips brush. “And you do now.”
“Hold me, Jack,” she requests. I take her tightly in my arms. “
Kiss me.” I kiss her, hard and true. “Never let me go again,” she whispers.
“I won’t,” I promise. But even as I hold her tight, I wonder to myself if there’s any way I can ever really get even a part of my old life back.
56
For breakfast we eat bitter fruit and discuss strategy. The previous afternoon we put twenty watery miles between the colonel and ourselves. Now we’ve reached a crossroads: we can wind our way deeper into one of the wildest sections of the Amazon, or we can head out of the forest, toward the nearest decent-size city.
Some of the Indians would prefer to seek sanctuary in the unmapped jungle, but one of the women and two of the kids in our group are running high fevers and need urgent medical care. We all want to stick together, so the decision is made to strike out for civilization.
“It’s a small city, but it has a hospital,” Ernesto tells P.J. and me as we drag our canoes back to the river.
“What about an airport?” I ask.
“Don’t expect jumbo jets, but you can catch a flight to Rio or São Paulo.”
And from there to New York, I think, but I don’t fill in the blank out loud. Let’s take this one step at a time.
“Do you think this small city will have a hotel room with clean sheets and hot breakfasts?” P.J. asks.
“Definitely,” Ernesto assures her with a smile. “I can also promise you a long, hot soak in a big bathtub.”
“Say no more,” P.J. tells him with an answering grin.
Our honest talk the evening before, followed by a sweet sleep with her head on my chest and my arm draped protectively around her, seems to have done wonders for P.J. Her eyes are brighter, her speech is more hopeful, and even her sense of humor is coming back. Give her a pancake breakfast and a soak in a hot tub and she’ll be as good as new.
Soon we’re out on the river again, leading the procession of canoes. P.J. sits in the front and requests a paddle of her own. She wields it like a club, whacking the water as she tries to speed us on our way.
“If you splash you’re doing it wrong,” I tell her, recalling Eko’s kayaking lessons. “Don’t just use your arms. Try to put your legs and back into it.”
On her next stroke P.J. slaps the water harder, splashing both the chief and me.
The Korubo chief glares at her, but his warrior’s scowl melts into a grin, and he splashes her right back. The next thing I know I’m trapped in the middle of a no-holds-barred water fight between a highly skilled Amazon chieftain and a stubborn American girl. It’s hard to say who wins, but I’m the one sitting between them, so I definitely end up the big loser, soaked from head to foot.
People in nearby canoes laugh and shout advice. I spot Mudinho grinning and apparently having the time of his life watching me take an unwanted bath. We’re all feeling relaxed and hopeful, eager to leave this nightmare behind.
For an hour we make fast progress down a wide and gently flowing stretch of river. Then the current picks up, and as we come around a bend I hear a grating roar. The chief stops us and points.
The river ahead flows level for a hundred yards, and then descends in precipitous steps. Swirling white eddies funnel around sharp-edged boulders. Logs and debris have become trapped all along the way, beached on shallows or pinned to boulders by the current. There’s even a dead tree, stripped of its bark, with long, naked branches reaching out like the useless arms of a stranded swimmer.
Ernesto paddles up, and there’s a brief conference. We could try a portage, but it’s apparently an arduous and time-consuming thing to drag a dozen canoes through thick rain forest. Ernesto and the chief decide that the rapids don’t look too dangerous, and we should risk shooting them.
The chief, P.J., and I have the dubious honor of going first. The chief speaks to us, and Ernesto translates. “He will steer. You two keep low. The higher you sit, the more”—Ernesto searches for the word—“unstable your canoe will be. Keep the nose pointed downriver, and if you see a rock, push off before it smashes you.”
All the other canoes form a semicircle and watch as we inch forward.
“Ready?” I ask P.J.
“I always knew you were trouble, Jack Danielson,” she replies, tight-lipped. “How did I ever let you get me into this?”
“What’s life without a little spice?” I ask, trying to hide my own fear. I signal to the chief that we’re ready, and he gives a quick thrust with his paddle. The current grabs us and down we plunge, into the rapids.
The water roars around us like an angry creature with a sore throat and an empty belly. Now it’s a snake, now an ogre. It coils and hisses and sprays us with venom. Enormous white fingers reach over the sides of our dugout as if trying to climb in and devour us.
The chief does a masterful job of steering from the back, picking out safe channels where the water funnels through rocks cleanly. We move in jerks and starts and sometimes in spine-jarring drops, when the bottom seems to fall from under us and we plummet a foot or two before smacking back down.
When we’re almost free and clear, the current suddenly pins us to a boulder. The water pressure may flip us or snap us in half at any moment. The chief paddles valiantly, but he can’t extricate us. I lean way out and push my paddle against the boulder. P.J. joins me. Inch by inch we’re able to shove our canoe forward till the current catches the stern and the boat swings away.
We shoot out through the last gate of boulders, and the roaring water subsides into placid river again.
“We made it!” P.J. shouts and lets out a whoop of pure triumph. The chief emits an answering triumphant bellow, and I pound my chest and give my best Tarzan imitation.
Each canoe that makes the treacherous descent goes to school on the previous one’s mistakes. Gisco and Mudinho come down second to last. I know the boy can’t swim, but there’s not a trace of fear in his eyes as he helps paddle their dugout through the roaring torrent.
Gisco appears to have no recognition at all of the dangers around him. While it’s true that the big dog is as buoyant as a manatee, the old Gisco would have been hugging the floor of the canoe and cutting deals with the Great Dog God. But the sweet-natured simpleminded hound who sits near Mudinho just cocks his big ears and peers around at the roiling rapids as if contemplating a midmorning bath.
57
Lunch is nuts and berries, eaten on a great flat rock that looks like a giant’s table. A troop of monkeys finds us hilarious—they hoot and cackle above us, showing off as they swing back and forth on vines.
The truth is I wouldn’t mind a nice hot pastrami sandwich. “At least this trip is lowering my cholesterol,” I say to P.J. as I crunch a nut between my teeth.
“That was never your problem,” she tells me. “By the way, nice paddling back there in the white water, Bozo.”
It was her pet name for me. I almost tear up when I hear it. “Nice pushing off rocks,” I manage to say back.
“I hate to admit it, but this part of the trip is almost fun.”
“I’m sure there’s something nasty up ahead that will try to devour us,” I tell her.
“Nothing like an optimistic attitude.” P.J. pauses, and lowers her voice. “Jack, I’m sorry if I was tough on you last night. I really want to believe your story.”
I put my arm around her. “I don’t even believe it myself half the time. What’s important is that we’re back together. Now, how about a kiss, sugar lips?”
“Here? In front of everyone?”
“Why not?” I demand. “Think of it as a public declaration that we’re going steady.”
“Next you’re going to ask me to wear your stinky varsity jacket.” She leans toward me. “Just don’t go for second base,” she whispers, “or you’re caiman feed.”
She gives me a big, sweet smooch.
When we break apart, I see the Korubo chief watching us and smiling. He walks over, slaps me on the back, congratulating me man to man, and then points to our canoe. Time to get going again.
The sun is high ov
erhead now, an orange-yellow blowtorch firing through the narrow gash the river rends in the tree cover. P.J. rides in the front of our canoe, her long hair blowing back toward me as we gather speed. She’s getting the hang of paddling, splashing less and digging in more. She bends and straightens, and I watch the muscles of her back and legs flex and release, enjoying her every graceful movement.
With three strong paddlers, and helped by the swift current, our canoe shoots forward. Even though I know the small city is still far away, we’re traveling so fast that part of me expects to see a shack or a motorboat around every bend. But we see no one—no rubber tappers, no fur traders, not even a native fisherman.
The river narrows between rocky banks and the current picks up even more. “At this rate we’ll be home before supper,” P.J. shouts back to me.
“You gonna invite me in for cookies?”
“If you behave yourself.” She turns and flashes me a grin.
And that’s when the trouble starts.
First I hear the roar. I recognize the sound immediately. But this roar is of a whole different magnitude from the rapids we traversed earlier.
Then we round a bend and I see the forest floor all around us fall away into a deep rift valley. The river drops with it. Steam boils up and hangs in the air at the spot where the gleaming water starts its several-hundred-foot descent.
The chief steers us closer to a bank, and from this angle we get a little better view of what lies ahead.
It’s not Niagara, but it’s plenty big and outrageously loud, a liquid rock concert with drums and bass and a light show. There are four separate stretches of white water, spanning a distance of more than a mile. The first two feature spectacular cataracts, with tons of water cascading over rocks, sending up tall geysers of silvery spray.
“No way I’m going down that!” P.J. says.