The General was a man used to fighting. Not combat, not physical but words. He was a second generation military man brought up strictly by his father who was a combat hardened veteran and wanted – demanded – that his son be the same. So he sent his son to physical training at a young age and off to a military prep school at age fifteen. The General didn’t really want the military life, but he had no choice. Though he tried hard, he just didn’t have what it took and when he made captain, his commanding officer laid it on the line. “Captain Gutierrez, you are a decent officer but lacking in skills that you should have by this time. I had to fight to get you to the rank of captain with the understanding that we would have this talk. Simply put, this is as far as you go. My advice – and it is for your own good – is that you seek your place in life in some other occupation.” The General was a man who accepted criticism and always tried to improve but knew that he was going no further, so he resigned and searched for a military job elsewhere because the military was all he knew. He picked up a short-term position in Africa and did well under trying circumstances with a lot of luck. But when the position with Ramiro Esteves was posted, The General jumped at it when others didn’t because of who Ramiro Esteves was. With a good recommendation from his commanding officer in Africa, he got the job. And when he went looking for men, he picked qualified but not necessarily combat hardened men because he didn’t expect any combat. And now push was coming to shove and he was going to have to stand up for his decision and his men.
“We are trying to find Soldado Diego Sanchez,” The General said and pointed at the parachute still lying on the ground. “That’s his parachute, but his body and most of his equipment are missing. And another of my men, Soldado Thiago Garcia, was killed by your black panther when my men went into the rainforest to search for Soldado Sanchez.”
“You’re certain about that?” Ramiro’s tone seemed to have calmed down a little bit.
“Yes, one of my men took a shot at the panther,” General Gutierrez said and quickly added, “but missed. That was intentional because he was only trying to scare it away.”
He didn’t know whether or not Esteves was mollified, but it was out and there was nothing that he could do.
“What are your men going to do if they encounter one of the predators?” Ramiro said, sounding on the attack again. “There are four …” he paused a moment when he realized that recently it was really three “… four of them who have taken shelter in there.”
“Four?” General Gutierrez was incredulous.
“Yes,” Ramiro said and held up his hand showing four fingers. “The black panther,” and he pushed one finger down. “The grizzly,” a second finger followed the first. “The black bear,” a third finger joined the other two. “And the caracal,” and his hand was now a fist which he was shaking in the general’s face. “And if one of those animals is killed by your men, you will join it and I will be the one to pull the trigger.”
With that, Ramiro turned around and had started back to the truck when The General spoke, “Sir, the body of Soldado Sanchez has provided food for at least the black panther. You want the predators to attack each other for food not my men. If we can find the body and retrieve it, then that takes a source of food away from them.”
Ramiro stopped and spun around pointing a finger at The General. “Fine, do that. But I warn you again. None – Not One – of those predators is to be killed by your men.” Then he turned and almost stomped back to the truck where his driver was patiently waiting. When Juan José Orejon (Soldado 25) had been assigned the duty of being the driver for Ramiro Esteves, he had been ecstatic but now he was wishing that he was one of the men in the rainforest. Even if he was unarmed and facing all four of those creatures, whatever they were.
As soon as Ramiro was out of his face, Gutierrez turned to his third in command and said, “Tell the men that when they find and retrieve the body of Soldado Sanchez, they can terminate the search.”
The word was passed and fifteen minutes later, halfway through the rainforest on the first full sweep, Axel Martin spotted the corpse in a Ceiba. Though he wasn’t thrilled with the idea, he and Agustin climbed the tree with a rope and lowered the grisly-looking corpse down. It was put in a body bag of which the supply was getting short and taken back to the compound where a coffin was made, and the body buried beside the others in a full but shortened ritual military ceremony. The firing of ornamental salutes was one of the items not performed.
The oldest tree in the rainforest was on the northern edge about a third of the way from the western edge to the eastern edge. It was a strangler fig and because it was on the beginning of the slope of the volcano, it stood taller than the trees around it. But it was so old that it didn’t have long to live. It had only survived the hurricane because it was sheltered by the younger trees around it. At its base it was surrounded by rainforest vegetation where small animals loved to hide. The search party had been gone half an hour and any indication that there had been a parachute on the ground and a body lying at the base of the big kapok had been covered up. The foliage on the north (volcano) side of the tree looked as though a wind was blowing it, but there was no wind. Then an arm clothed in jungle camouflage could be seen coming out of the tree and soon a similarly clad shoulder and then a head and, with a mighty heave, a whole body appeared. Gerallt took a quick look around and then disappeared back into the tree.
He had gone back to the mouth of the cave and used his shirt to sweep the ground and cover up any tracks. He had gone into the cave feet first removing as much trace evidence of his entering the cave as he could. Then he had shouldered the pack and checked the cavern room to be certain that he had left no obvious trace and gone to find the source of the draft. As he progressed deeper into the tunnel, he could feel the draft grow stronger and after fifteen minutes walking on a slight uphill grade the darkness of the area ahead had lightened somewhat and in three more minutes he had found a way out. Not surprisingly like the room behind the waterfall, someone else had been here first. Helping him spot the exit was a ladder hanging on the right side of the tunnel. Like the one in the waterfall cave, it was made with hemp ropes but there were two ropes and separating them were wooden rungs kept in place by knots in the rope. Also behind the rope ladder was a natural shelf on which were a blanket and some wooden sticks. He picked one up and found that it was obviously a torch, because one end was heavily covered with an orange tarry substance. Gerallt couldn’t help but wonder how many young ladies had lost their maidenheads in this hideaway.
He climbed the ladder carefully and found himself inside a strangler fig. There was a hole opposite the side the ladder was on and he had taken a quick look around and hurried back into the tree. To the east he had seen the entrance to the volcanic basin and the three guards who seemed more interested in something one of them had found than watching for any aggressors. Still Gerallt couldn’t chance being seen because, for all intents and purposes as far as the island’s military – and hopefully anyone else – was concerned, he was dead.
The ladder was fastened securely to the strangler fig with nails but continued on up. Curious and wanting – needing – to know as much about his new home as he could, he climbed the ladder. From where it ended about fifteen feet further up, he got a much better view of the volcano’s entrance, although he was still about thirty feet below it and sheltered by the branches and leaves. Satisfied, he returned to the tunnel and, leaving the pack but taking the rifle and two of the torches, he proceeded further into the tunnel using the flashlight and noting that on the roof of the tunnel there were signs that torches had been used for light.
As he walked he kept his eyes on the floor ahead of him and it was fortunate that he did so because a dark spot across the corridor’s width turned out to be an almost perfect circular hole. Gerallt stopped and directed the light down but other than relatively smooth walls, all that he could see was blackness. He listened and all that he could hear was the faint sound of running wate
r. Using a match in a waterproof case that he had found in the utility belt, he lit one of the torches that he was carrying, and it ignited into a brightly burning torch. Stretching his arm out over the hole and leaning forward he dropped the torch and watched and listened as it fell. Its flame seemed to dance as the torch rotated lengthwise as it plummeted deeper into the earth. The flame grew smaller and smaller until it went out and then, after a short pause, he heard the sound of it hitting water. He thought that the hole was ten to twelve feet across in the middle and probably four or five along the wall. He could jump the four or five feet, but he would be close to the wall and if he hit it … splash and goodbye.
That’s the end of my exploration, he thought. Then suddenly there started a rumbling. Low at first but getting louder. A pulsing sound that started as a whisper and grew into a roar. It was coming from the hole and he looked over into the hole, shining his light down. What he saw both amazed and terrified him. At first, he had seen nothing but blackness. Then something glistened in the light’s beam and disappeared. Then, on the upbeat of the sound, the glistening reappeared, and he realized what was happening. Water had come up filling the hole to within twenty feet of the top and now was sinking back in time with the pulsing: coming up as the sound grew and then receding as the sound decreased and it was getting closer and closer to the top of the hole. The pulsing was getting quicker and quicker. The water, higher and higher. And he turned and ran.
Chapter 18
Gerallt ran down the corridor as though he was running for his life and, as far as he was concerned, he was. The crescendo of the roar increased quickly and suddenly it was a deafening roar. There was an equally deafening crash. He knew that meant that the water had smashed against the ceiling of the corridor, but this time the roar continued. He didn’t chance to look behind him because he knew that all he would see was a wall of water bearing down on him. And he was correct because suddenly he was engulfed in its wetness thrusting him forward and he was falling, not onto the rock floor of the corridor but into a rushing cushion of water that bore him quickly down the corridor. Then as suddenly as it had appeared, it ebbed and left him – not high and dry but low and wet on the rock floor of the tunnel. Not only that but the water had ripped both the flashlight and the rifle from his hands and he was left in pitch blackness. And to make things worse, the way the water had twisted and tumbled him in that brief moment he wasn’t certain which way he was facing and, worst of all, where he was in the tunnel.
In an effort to get his bearings, he quieted his breathing and listened intently trying to catch the smallest sound. And finally one came – the slight sound of a small rivulet of water running somewhere nearby. He reached out his right hand searching from above his head to his right, fingers gliding lightly across the floor. Nothing. Then he did the same with his left and about sixty degrees from above his head his fingers found that little rivulet. He determined that the dying rivulet was running by his fingers toward his elbow. He had, indeed, been turned around and was facing back at the hole because the slope of tunnel he had been following was uphill. And as quickly as his fingers had found the rivulet, it was gone, the last of the water flowing down the corridor always seeking the lower ground.
Gerallt moved to his right until he found the wall and then he got to his feet, keeping in contact with the wall and then and only then did he turn to face what he had determined to be the direction of the entrance to the cave – the one he had first entered in the boulder field. He had no idea where the light or the rifle had gone but knew that they were between him (or at least the hole) and the entrance. That was unless the surge of water had carried them completely down the hall and out into the boulder field. As he thought about all this a sensation hit him that came as a surprise. He was wet, but he wasn’t cold. The water had been warm, hot but not scalding. The underground river must flow close to the remaining fiery furnace of the volcano. Close enough and long enough to heat it and somewhere it had been given the impetus to rise through the hole. To him that could only mean one thing: although dormant, the volcano was still functioning as a heat source and that meant that someday it could come out of its dormancy.
As he had been thinking these thoughts, he had been walking along the corridor, left hand always in contact with the wall. He hoped that it would come in contact with the rope ladder which seemed to have survived, for want of a better term, prior tidal wavesw. The only other option, unless he was facing the wrong way, was that he would find himself at the front of the cave. As he walked, he realized that the darkness was thinning – that somewhere ahead (and he hoped not too far) light from the outside was making its way inside. Whether through the low entrance from the boulder field or down the hole from the strangler fig, he didn’t care. Then the light seemed to penetrate faster and cut the darkness quicker. He realized that the tunnel made a slight turn and he was approaching the top of the bend and would soon know which hole was the one emitting the light.
And just as suddenly as that thought was became vivid in his mind, he reached that point of the turn, and he knew that it was the strangler tree hole. He breathed a sigh of relief because here also was his pack – unless the water had washed it way from its mooring – and a supply of torches. He already knew that he still had the supply of waterproof matches because the container was safely in a buttoned pocket in his pants. Once at the foot of the strangler tree, he got three torches, sticking two into the utility belt, and lit the third, then he turned and started back to the hole, curious as to the depth of the water. As he walked, he looked for anything that might have been swept away, and the first thing he found was the rifle. He knew that he would have to clean it and didn’t even bother trying to see if it worked but slung it across his back and kept moving. Soon he could see the darkness of the hole ahead and was surprised to see the glistening of water in it. And there was something else in the water – something dark and long lengthwise across the width of the tunnel. He started running as he realized that the water in the hole was ebbing and when he reached the hole he threw himself flat on the floor at the edge of the hole and reached out with his left hand and grabbed what he had seen and pulled it toward him. It was heavy, and he knew that if he didn’t get a better grasp on it, it would be gone. He laid the torch on the floor with the flame over the edge of the hole and grabbed whatever it was with both hands and pulled it up and to the edge of the hole and then he realized that it was a crudely made ladder. He knew that he needed the ladder and so he wiggled backward the best that he could, as quickly as he could, pulling the ladder past him on the right side. The wood from which it was made wasn’t thick, but it was heavy, and he knew that it was waterlogged from being in the water for a long time. Finally, with one last effort he yanked, and the ladder slid safely out of the hole. He grabbed the torch and rolled over exhausted, the torch illuminating the ceiling of the corridor. For a moment, he stared at what he saw and then he burst out laughing because on the ceiling, crudely etched in the stone, was a heart and inside the heart were two names joined by a plus sign: José and Mia. And he guessed there was only one reason for it being on the ceiling at this point because this is where Mia expressed her true love for José by giving him the thing she could only give once – her virginity.
Chapter 19
It was late in the morning and the heat was starting to build. For the animals that meant two things. Shade and water, not necessarily in that order. Although they had basically drunk their fill in the morning. Now they were looking for sleep and with full bellies from the grizzly, sleep was looking good. Although a few of them – the lion and the tiger, and the cheetah – felt that a bedtime snack – and some water to wash it down – might be just the thing. So they were making their way back toward the pool.
It was a lazy walk. No hurry. The sun was beating down. And suddenly there was a low rumble and around Prometheus’s Aerie (Colina da Rocha), the ground began to tremble just a bit. It didn’t bother the birds or the other animals to whom São Rochel
le was home and had been for all their lives. But this time – for the first time – something was different. As before the rumbling pulsed, up and down, faster and faster, louder and louder and then as the intensity increased it reached a spot where the sound was usually stable for a while but not this time. The rumble became a roar and all the animals who were close enough to Prometheus’s Aerie to be affected looked at the hill and saw a spout of water that went about thirty feet into the air. When the water fell back, the remnants splashed on the rock surface of Prometheus’s Aerie, running down the sides of the hill or being sucked back into the hole in the mesa top of the hill. There were some new pieces of stone left lying on the surface and the hole caused by Gerallt’s and the cougar’s combined weight hitting the top and cracking it open (which was going to happen anyway, just not for another few months or maybe a year) became a little bigger.
“What was that?” Waldo said, being at that minute the only member of the Bundle in the theater. “Horus?”
“I think we know what caused the Aerie’s strange sound,” Horus said. “I am locating some video. Ahh, here it is. It’s far away, but this is all I have.”
The video currently on the big screen of the theater was replaced with a shot of the lion proceeding toward the pond at the base of the hill. He stopped and looked at the hill and the tiger did also, and both the drones changed their filming altitude. The lion’s drone started toward Prometheus’s Aerie as fast as it could go, gaining altitude as it went. When the eruption occurred the drone was about a quarter mile away and closing fast. The waterspout was gone when the drone reached the mesa and, but it was able to capture the water bubbling (there was the sound of burbling) at the top of the hole and then slowly, with less pulsing receding down and stabilizing about three feet below the mesa’s surface.
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