My illustration had worked out well—good composition and salable, but it would be a wedding present, never to be seen by Esso or its clients.
Putting aside the art, needing to piss, I walked around the outskirts of the village until I found a patch of banana trees to duck behind. I didn’t know where everyone else was relieving themselves, but I saw Carlito standing in a grove of trees nearby.
I had been wary of him since catching that hard look he gave me the night Cecilia playfully kissed me on the lips. Now, not wanting to be seen by him, I shifted my stance among the giant leaves, trying to will myself to finish quickly. He was talking with someone hidden from my sight. I looked away, playing innocent pisser. When I zipped up and glanced once again in his direction, he was gone. Beyond where Carlito had stood, a man with a tangle of beard pushed through tall grass, heading away from the village. A glint of sharp light cut through the air—the reflection from a rifle slung across his back.
Goddamn guns everywhere in this country. Don’t blame him though—jaguars and anacondas on every corner. Like muggers in New York or the Cong in Vietnam. Ha, don’t know how far my luck will go with a can of Spam and a plastic blow-up snake for protection.
When I returned to the party, Cecilia grabbed me and taught me some dance steps. We clasped hands and held each other close, swaying and smiling as we kicked up dust and some concerned eye exchanges between Mama and Papa. Johnny grinned with mischievous approval.
Over the next few days, I drew details of the farm, the wedding, and Cecilia, concentrating on depicting the brilliance of tropical color that surrounded me. I feared I would forget the area’s true atmosphere when I returned to the more monotone hues back home if I depended solely on photographs. When I worked indoors, Cecilia played Beatles albums, and we shared stories about our different worlds while handing the dictionary back and forth. Whenever we got the chance, we copped a feel or kissed in some hidden corner or closet.
One misty predawn morning, her father left to oversee a cattle drive while her mother snored. Ignoring the whereabouts of Johnny, figuring he knew what we were up to and gave us his blessings, we crept into María’s room again. Despite the reckless tease of Cecilia’s cunt, I ended up rolling her over and sliding up and down between her ass crack. She offered herself enthusiastically, moaning or whimpering as I prodded and probed into her. Our forbidden breath slammed the quiet of the sleeping house until the rising sun streaked through the window, witnessing our sweaty, naked secret.
She asked me if I had ever fucked a woman the way we just had before. Reluctant to share memories with her, I told her I had read about it in a book. She said I could do it again to her anytime I wanted to but expressed her dissatisfaction that we didn’t have any rubbers. We lingered in bed, jumping up and dressing only when we heard sounds of her father, back unexpectedly, tending to his horse and talking to her mother outside. Cecilia moved to the window, but I pulled her back. We waited in anticipation, face to face, assessing the situation. Her breath was still steamy from bed, her lips not wanting to leave yet. I slipped my finger down her pajama pants until she shook and gasped, holding my shoulders firmly for support, rocking against my hand. Her eyes, careless and half-lidded, no longer watched for approaching parents.
Chapter 13
The morning Johnny and I were leaving, I threw the loose Polaroids and exposed 35 millimeter rolls, along with my sketch pad and art supplies, into the knapsack I had been using as my field drawing kit. We promised to visit the Gutierrez’s home in the Andes before I left Venezuela, then said our goodbyes—Cecilia frowning, begging her parents’ permission to go with us and meet them back in Merida, Papa handing me more of his business cards, and Mama graciously thanking me for the artwork I gifted the family.
As the Land Rover’s engine kicked over, Cecilia called out, “I miss you.” She wiggled her fingers in a gentle, sad farewell.
Johnny leaned back behind the wheel. We lit cigarettes, shared an are-you-ready-for-whatever-happens-next look, and rolled away. Johnny spent the next few minutes dodging dogs nipping at our tires, and I drifted off into daydreams, exhausted not only by the humidity but by the insatiable frenzy of quick and daring masturbation sessions Cecilia and I couldn’t stop after our last visit to María’s room.
Twenty miles down the road, a few miles from the bridge, a furious rainstorm came thundering down the mountains, pelting the grasslands, jolting me out of my sexual reveries of Cecilia.
“Do you think we should turn back?”
“What, so you can spend an hour out of the terrible, wet rain and hide in a back room with a pretty girl?”
“Ha, ha.”
“This time of year, there’s always rain. This may not last long, but there’ll be more soon.” He flashed his teeth wide and white. “I kept her parents occupied while you had all the fun.”
I acknowledged his efforts with a nod.
“I stalled them when you two were missing for awhile and steered them away from going to check on Cecilia. I showed them pictures of our trip, looked at maps with Papa, then had him draw me one of the ranch. Every day, I’d ask him to mark it to show me where he thought different animals lived. I spent so much time pouring drinks and flirting with Señora Gutierrez I thought she was going to smuggle me back into María’s bedroom.”
We howled in laughter.
“Thanks, man.”
“No one told me this job would involve protecting you from drunken parents of horny girls. I was told to drive, translate, and keep you fed and safe. Coño, Deets, some of these past few days were tougher than the battle we had in the stream with Filomena’s gang.” He chuckled. I joined him. The dark desires in the aftermath of that naked fight had been drained from me by the constant risky rendezvous with Cecilia.
As exhilarating as my visit had been, I still felt somewhat relieved to be leaving the farm. I wanted to stay for the sex, but Cecilia and I had become like kamikaze pilots. It was easy to read in our uninhibited looks that on the next visit to María’s room, precautions would have been abandoned. Cecilia had declared she wanted to feel me inside her again. I was all for it, even though a shotgun to my head or another baby seemed a predictable outcome if I had stayed. Thinking I might already be a father, knowing what a failure I felt like concerning Sam’s pregnancy, I decided I had to get back to Caracas, clean up the sketches still fresh in my mind, fly home to finish my assignment, get paid, and find Sam to see if I could make amends.
I didn’t know how I was going to help Sam, except with money, because I still couldn’t find any desire to spend time with a child. Or with Sam. We both had our brand of kinkiness, and I didn’t think we would blend well over time. I went numb when I contemplated the responsibility of a family. I had just turned twenty and barely could keep my pants on if a pretty woman looked my way.
Well, maybe once I’m paid, I can put a few bucks aside, buy a pack of rubbers or those pills Teresa had depended on, and fly back to see Cecilia.
Chapter 14
Carlito was standing at a fork in the trail, holding the reins of a horse.
Johnny rolled down his window, and the two of them spoke rapidly. There wasn’t a word I understood. My Spanish had improved with Cecilia’s tutoring—I had become an expert on naming the parts of the human body, but Johnny and Carlito were obviously speaking of some problem further up the road. They pointed towards one trail, then another, finally agreeing to a plan.
Johnny grunted. “The embankment near the bridge is caving in. Some boards have broken off and floated downriver. We’re taking the road towards the village but then turning onto that cattle trail we used when we first arrived. The crossing upstream is passable even with this rain.”
“Okay. He leading us on the horse?” I nodded towards Carlito.
“Yes.” Johnny looked almost apologetic, glancing up through the front window. “This storm could turn the earth very muddy.�
� He seemed lost in thought, and where I expected his grin, his mouth was twisted in a somber grimace. “Deets, this could be a tough trip.”
“Hey, if it gets impossible, we’ll just sit it out, eat some spam, and drink tang mixed with beer.”
“You filled the canteens with water, right?”
“Yeah, we’re cool.”
Then he said an odd thing. “Remember, to go north, the mountains are on our left shoulder.”
As we drove closer to the foothills, I could barely make out the towering gray shadow of the Andes through the torrent of water drenching the land around us.
Carlito slouched as his horse plodded on, turning off the village track onto a wide expanse of hoof-rutted muck. With the Rover spitting mud and water out behind us, progress forward was slow-going as Johnny worked the gears and gas pedal, but we finally reached and crossed the rock-strewn, shallow rapids. We pulled up the low embankment and leveled out on the other side, easing to a stop as Carlito dismounted.
The drenched cowboy approached the Land Rover, then climbed into the back seat. Wiping the water from his face with one hand, he pulled a gun from beneath his rain jacket with the other and stuck the barrel to the back of Johnny’s head. Johnny’s eyes met his in the rear-view mirror. They exchanged a few words, with Johnny staying calm despite Carlito’s belligerent tone. The ranch hand pointed the gun briefly at me, gesturing for me to keep my head facing forward.
Johnny turned the truck left, towards the mountains, following a track that skirted wetlands, entering into deep elephant grass. After we sloshed across a thin creek which ran through the walls of green that towered above us, Carlito ordered Johnny to stop. A man with a rifle leveled at my head parted the tall grass and, opening the door, joined Carlito in the back seat.
At Carlito’s command, Johnny revved the engine and continued on. I was trying not to feel dead already, trying to sense opportunity, desperate not to be helpless.
When we came to the main paved highway, Carlito ordered Johnny to cut across it and keep following the increasingly unmanageable track. The sides of our vehicle scraped against tree branches and vines as jungle vegetation became more predominant. A slow rise turned noticeably steeper as Johnny, fighting the slick, muddy terrain, dropped into lower gears and battled wheels that slipped over uneven road. The Rover’s rear slid in one direction as the front spun in another. One tire would climb, while another sank. A thudding jolt against the bottom of the vehicle reverberated through the truck, pulverizing my bones. Johnny strained to maneuver the deteriorating trail, the truck’s metal frame constantly shuddering, the engine roaring, its gears protesting.
Johnny never uttered a word as he struggled with the driving. I knew his mind must be plotting, devising some clever ploy to get us out of our dire predicament. Over and over, I calculated the move I would have to make, and the odds of our survival, if I grabbed under the driver’s seat, pulled out the gun I knew must be there, and shot the two armed human beings sitting behind us. I didn’t know exactly where the gun was though and, frozen with inaction, kept trying to convince myself there would be a better opportunity further on.
What do I do if Johnny reaches for the weapon? Slam my seat back and grab for their guns?
This was more than a robbery. No naked girls in a stream this time. I had the feeling we were meant to be some jungle scavenger’s next meal. If I dared to think of reasons behind this life-threatening situation, I pictured Doctor Steel to be the next one to step from the jungle—smoking, contemplating me, a cruel smirk slashed across his face. I began to look for magical signs of salvation from Santa Pigeon. A bird swept in low, spread its wings to slow itself, then landed on a tree branch. It had the unmistakeable hunch of a buzzard. Not the kind of omen I wanted. I saw a white speck on a rock and believed it to be a mystical feather—ready to manifest a miracle. No, the chalky spot turned out to be lichen.
Somehow, despite the clanks and roars of the straining vehicle, I heard the distinct grunt and moan of a jaguar. With it, a snow-covered mountain flashed through my mind. I had conjured up the image of that tall peak many times in the past year, remembering the strength of its first appearance when I massaged Teresa in the Poconos hotel room. It had always been a source of intrigue, wonder, and a strangely magnificent sorrow as I drew. Now, in the midst of a desperate journey through snake-infested swampland and relentless jungle, it appeared that the terrifying cough of a jaguar had propelled that majestic scene into my mind.
Why?
Two kidnappers sat with loaded guns directly behind Johnny and me, and there I was, believing a jaguar had just spoken to me. It seemed in times of stress, I became sharply attuned to my surroundings and the strange inhabitants of Doctor Steel’s and Santa Pigeon’s bizarre dream. Over the past year and a half, I had thrown aside rational thinking during encounters with the mystery that I had been drawn into, acting instead on the blind trust of an hallucination, a synchronous image, or an impulsive intuition. I recognized the jaguar grunt bringing forth the vision of the mountain as more than coincidence but failed to see any relevance to the trap I found myself in. No Indian, no dog, no toy panda, no Shadow, no masked monkey.
Instead, a cold, lonely wind swept through me.
It cut my heart to pieces. I wanted desperately to see Teresa. One more time after my intoxicating week with Cecilia. One more time before I sought Sam and my child. One more time before the rifle behind me blew my head apart. In the next instant, the torment I felt within me struck forth from its entrapment, manifesting itself as a chaotic rhythm that infiltrated the vehicle—shaking the Rover, bruising souls.
Johnny barked out a loud curse. He slammed the gears into low, grinding them. The long, metal-stripping sound ripped the air, and the truck began to roll backwards. Johnny turned the wheel viciously, trying to keep the vehicle moving forward as it slewed to one side.
Carlito called out sharply, waving his weapon angrily.
Johnny answered with a low and urgent growl.
We all bounced in our seats, reaching out to steady ourselves as the Rover jolted over a large rock. The chassis rattled. Johnny gunned the engine, muttering nervously. Then I saw his foot was holding in the clutch. The backwards roll, the loss of control and power, was intentional.
We slipped on the muddy incline, swerving sharply as Johnny yanked the wheel.
“Shit.” My shoulder slammed into the door as we went off the trackway. The truck’s passenger side whacked into a tree. A limb crashed through the window behind me. Glass pelted my head, wet leaves thrust against my neck and cheeks.
“Coño.” Carlito rolled across the back seat, clambering for a hold. He tumbled into his companion who reached through an entanglement of vines and hanging moss to grab at my hair.
“Tu madre.”
From out of the commotion behind me, a rifle barrel thrust itself between the two front seats. Johnny slammed it up with his palm, and dove his right hand under the driver’s seat, ducking his head away from the steering wheel.
The explosions went off near simultaneously.
The rifleman’s first shot blew a hole through the roof. I know it sounds impossible, but I saw two bullets leap from Johnny’s pistol in quick succession. A sharp rail of flame outlined each one as it crashed out. I heard the air shriek, felt it concuss. Another blast rocked the truck. The bullet ripped through my seat from behind me, catching my T-shirt. A wet warm liquid spread across my lap. The dashboard exploded. Caught on the sharp metal edges of the newly punched hole was a green piece of cloth. My shirt.
Carlito rammed his gun into Johnny’s face and evil howled down his arm, forced his finger to squeeze, and Johnny’s teeth and skin and bone hit the windshield and flew into every corner of the Land Rover. Johnny’s gun went off one more time. I don’t know if he pulled the trigger or his shade did, but Carlito screamed and more blood spiraled through the cabin.
Carlito pushed
open his door, tumbled out, and, holding his side, walked stiff-legged away from the carnage without looking back at me. Pain held his body rigid, each step a determined grimace as he tried to keep himself from succumbing to the wound that colored his shirt a dark red.
I watched him, making sure he didn’t turn back for me. I watched him, to see where he was going. I watched him, because I couldn’t look at Johnny.
God, Johnny was dead.
Johnny. Oh Christ, Johnny.
Then, Carlito vanished—the tall grass blocking my view of his bloody, puppet-like walk.
I closed my eyes, and loss stabbed at me. For a long time I breathed gunpowder smoke, tasting in it the smell of blood and gasoline, fear and piss, burned metal and rotten wood.
The engine sputtered into silence.
Everything felt still and distant.
Alone with death.
Slowly I turned my head, daring myself to look.
His sunglasses rested perfectly on his nose. Slicked back into a ducktail, each individual, combed strand of his hair still held its crease with beautiful, curving parallel lines. But his mouth—the reckless grace in which he wore it, the way he shared his thoughts through a slight turn or twitch of his lips—it was gone, unrecognizable.
He looked incomplete. I sensed he wasn’t grinning from the other side. He had dedicated himself to me over the last three weeks, died saving my life, and now I could hear him urging me to move.
“Get out, Deets. It’s not over yet.”
I took his gun from his hand, then peered into the back seat. Carlito’s friend sat tangled motionless in the tree branch. Blood covered his chest—two seeping holes, one in each lung.
Magic (The Remarkable Adventures of Deets Parker Book 2) Page 7