My head rang with an empty scream of horror that could never coalesce into something understandable. My body shuddered spastically, no longer controlled by the normal channels of nerves, blood, muscles, and thought. Instead, an internal series of alien thudding and clanging moved my limbs.
“Okay, Johnny, I hear you. God bless you. Okay. Okay.”
I found myself walking back the way we had driven, gun in hand, not taking in my surroundings until I heard the cough.
The jaguar’s grumble stirred my stunned self into understanding. The cat was somewhere ahead of me but not close enough to pounce. I gained control of my body, fought down panic, and stealthily moved back towards the Land Rover, aware that I might trigger a chase instinct in the cat if I moved too fast. I paced each step, looking back, listening. Knowing fear, letting it control each step, kept me alert.
And forestalled the knowledge that I was returning to where two dead men sat.
I could feel the guilt on the gun. My pants were covered in piss and blood. Shrieking terror shook me, doubling me over with physical pain when I opened the Rover’s door and forced myself into the seat next to the still rifleman. Initially, I clung to the belief that I had to be respectful of the dead thug, but after a while I pushed his body deeper into the tangled leaves of the tree branch to hide the bullet holes and dried blood and unseeing eyes.
Johnny was twisted in his seat, facing backwards, his left shoulder slumped against the steering wheel. Beyond him, the scrap of my shirt clung to where the ignition and key had been blasted into ruin. Wires dangled uselessly.
I rolled up the windows as far as I could, took the rifle from my seat-mate, and rummaged through the supplies until I found Johnny’s rifle. Adding a canteen of water and an Orange Crush to my arsenal, I sat and waited.
For what?
The clouds rolled away, and the midday heat stifled my breathing. The dead man next to me leaked a long gaseous sound. Flies buzzed constantly. I swatted and waved. A trail of ants advanced through the window utilizing the intruding tree branch. The marchers busied themselves across the crumpled body, then fanned out through the seats and floor, discovering Johnny, our supplies, and me. I brushed at the swarm, scratched at itches that never ceased. My arms turned red with bites from small flying bugs. Hives blossomed on my skin. My lips felt raw and blistered. A large brown insect, maybe six inches long, crunched its mandibles as if eating dead air. It dangled upside down from the rear view mirror, sprouted wings, then dropped clumsily onto Johnny’s oiled hair.
Although my body was sweat-soaked, I dragged my blue jean jacket out of my suitcase and put it on, hoping to discourage the ever-increasing carnivorous insects. I rolled my window down, made a decision to piss in my already soiled pants. The fresh air was cool compared to the steam in the Rover. The piss reminded me that I was still alive.
I lay my head back, tried to find the capacity within myself to make a decision about what I should do. My mind swooned from exhaustion and heat. It wasn’t until I heard a large thump that I realized I had drifted into an awake dream. Footsteps of a small animal scampered across the roof of the vehicle. I sensed, more than saw, a gray-flecked, brown body scramble along the tree branch back into the jungle. Maybe a monkey?
I had been somewhere else. Where?
Removed from the horror I found myself in.
What had I dreamed? It slowly materialized into my consciousness. I had been thinking I would die if I just sat here. My mind had floated out to look for the jaguar and an escape route. Was the cat lying nearby, well-camouflaged? What about the trail I was stuck on? Although wild and overgrown, it looked used, probably by cattle or horses, but how often? Where did it lead?
It was then that I must have drifted away from my predicament, appearing back in the apartment above the store in New York with Teresa during our summer together. We were healing ourselves from the Poconos, growing close, becoming wild creatures. We romped—naked, stoned, and laughing. But in the quiet moments—exhausted or reflective, always candlelit—we shared stories and secrets, becoming tender lovers also.
Teresa sat at her small jewelry table, combing her hair in front of the mirror. I handed her a small box, wanting to make her happy, hoping she would never feel the pain she had experienced in that mountain cabin again, trying to chase the memories and scars away with a gift.
Standing behind her, I watched her in the mirror. She looked up at me, smiled questioningly, pleased that I had given her a present, then opened the box with an intake of surprised breath. She lifted out a pair of earrings and, pushing her hair back while turning her head slightly, dangled them under her earlobes.
“Did you make these?”
“Yep. The spotted cat is resin I cast and painted. The banana leaves are carved from wood.”
She held them in her palm, looking down at the tiny sculptures for a long silent moment. The quiet seemed a translucent aura filling the air around her, giving clear illumination to some memory long forgotten.
She looked up. We met in the mirror. The tears brimming in the lower edge of her eyes reflected the sparkle that radiated naturally from within her. Something hurtful had been let go.
That night, she told me when she had played with Cynthia and her friends in the maze of phragmites as a child, one of their games was hide and seek. She would run deep through the twists and turns to a sand dune that could only be reached by crawling on hands and knees through a short tunnel of marsh grass. Curled up in her hideaway, she listened to the screams of delight as the others were spotted or made a dash to freedom. A small shaft of blue sky looked down on her, and she would look back up at it, sure no one could find her but secretly wishing someone would.
She lay her head softly into my shoulder, whispering that I had discovered her passageway, and she felt safe.
Safe.
When I became conscious of my surroundings again, and the visitor on the roof had disappeared into the jungle, I knew what I needed to do.
I pulled the body of my kidnapper out onto the road. When he thumped to the ground six or seven flies crawled out of his nose. He was beginning to bloat already, and I heard a popping sound within him. Carrying a machete, the pistol tucked into my belt, I loaded him onto a hammock and dragged him about one hundred yards back towards jaguar territory. I did the same with Johnny, talking to him, telling him about Hank and if he saw him to say hi. When I rolled his body into a grassy wet ravine, I fell down to my knees and cried for him, thanking him, asking him to stay with me. I still needed him. Goddamn it. Goddamn this whole evil lunatic scheme.
A cool breeze brushed a finger across my cheek. I thought of Johnny telling me to keep the mountains on my left shoulder to travel north. I stood in the foothills, the Andes jutting up directly in front of me, the first sharp cliffs not a mile away.
Back at the Land Rover, I battled bugs for an hour, clearing and killing them the best I could. To prevent further invasion, I hacked away the branch from the broken window and wedged a sleeping bag into the hole of jagged glass.
I added a few cans of Spam to my knapsack, already stuffed with my sketch pad, pencils, the Polaroid, flash attachment, bulbs, and film. The Nikon and its case were too bulky to carry along with the two rifles, pistol, machete, and pair of canteens I planned to take on my escape.
The three matchbooks I found were soggy. My one pack of cigarettes, unusable. I tore apart the supplies looking for, but couldn’t find, more bullets than were already in the guns. I folded a map into my back pocket, cursing myself when I remembered lending Cecilia the flashlight and realized it had been left behind.
I planned to wait out the day, spend one night in the wreckage, then set out at dawn. I wanted to find a way to the asphalt highway, probably a day’s hike, but I kept hearing Johnny say, “Keep the mountains to your left.”
At the edge of the Andes, shadows came early with the sun setting quickly. I wrapped
myself up in the tent, a mesh opening near my mouth.
I got to choose my own body bag, Ma. Holy hell.
When the grunts and coughs started, they were behind me, from the direction of the river and highway. The cat rumbled on, announcing its presence continuously for hours. My mind raced with fevered calculations—she’s nearer, farther, louder, softer. When the jungle unexpectedly settled into a still silence, I shriveled into the terror of complete darkness, surrounded by things that wanted to bite, poison, strangle, or drag me away. I prayed to hear the cat’s frightening, but, by then, familiar vocalizations. They’d keep me sane, letting me know where the jungle feline prowled. My imagination steered me through the ink night—every minute sound, every shift of air becoming a petrifying last moment on Earth. How much noise does the slither of a snake make? Could I sense the presence of a scorpion? Things crawled and hissed and creeped through my mind until, in a state of panic, I threw off the tent, gripped the machete determinedly, climbed out into the dark, and removed the extra tank of gas. I circled the truck, dumping the fuel on the ground, hoping for a perimeter of smell that would keep the night creatures away.
Just before dawn, I fell asleep, knocked senseless by the dangerous fumes. In a hazy dream, I saw a red light in the jungle nearby. At first, I interpreted it as the eye of an animal, but it flared into a bright glow—revealing Doctor Steel smoking in the darkness. He took another drag, then flicked his cigarette towards the ring of gasoline.
A circle of fire burst around me. A jaguar crept through the flames.
I’ve got to get out of here.
I stumbled from the truck, fell to my knees. Doctor Steel, the blaze, the spotted cat—all faded. My eyes spilled molten tears, my head thickened to sludge, and my lungs strained to inhale.
The air was poisoned.
That fire… the tigre... Must’ve been a nightmare induced by gas fumes.
A sharp repetitious scream greeted the rising sun. I recognized it as the call of a monkey Cecilia and I had heard while we frolicked in bed one morning in María’s room. The rest of the jungle erupted in whoops and whistles as I rose to my feet.
I gulped my last Orange Crush to try to zap myself out of my stupor, then walked up the trail, scouting it. A suffocating headache still fogged my senses as I debated which direction to head.
Christ, that was dumb, almost killed myself. Not a brain cell left in me.
Chapter 15
I chose to follow the trail towards the mountains, hoping to find a path that double-backed to the highway. It felt safer to trace Carlito’s route than return the way we had come, directly back into the jaguar’s territory.
But the big cat could be anywhere.
The first few hours I stepped carefully, stopping frequently, analyzing sounds, calculating the threat of overhanging limbs, clumps of overgrowth, and the impenetrable view into the jungle. I battled the knapsack’s straps cutting into my shoulder and the weight of two rifles while the canteens banged against my thighs. Exhausted by lack of sleep and the constant tension of fear, I debated what I could jettison. When the sun reached directly overhead, I tossed the heavier of the rifles aside. I’d conserve strength without it.
The trail was still wide enough for a vehicle, winding over hills and dipping into small wet ravines. It brought me within yards of granite overhangs and steep inclines. My view of the Andes had been reduced to the one mountain I skirted. Sometimes I had clear sightings of the vast plains to the east, but I couldn’t make out the asphalt strip Johnny and I had driven south on a week or so earlier nor any other sign of civilization. The highway must have been only five or ten miles away, Cecilia’s ranch somewhere southeast of it, probably fifty miles from where I stood. Studying the map of Venezuela, I guessed that roughly twenty to thirty miles northward, a different road, running east-west, came up from the plains and entered into the Andes.
I continued upwards, along a valley ridge that I calculated ran north and slightly west. To cut cross-country eastwards would mean turning back or penetrating directly into the jungle and swampy grasslands, which I wasn’t willing to attempt. The rough trail I followed seemed a sign that people traveled in this area, if sparsely. A camp or village would have been a welcome sight.
Stopping atop a rise, I sat down to eat some Spam. Gazing back the way I came, hoping for an angel or a helicopter or a glimpse of where the highway might be, I spotted buzzards circling on an updraft along the mountainside. With a lurch in my soul, I knew they were concentrated above the spot where Johnny’s body lay.
By late afternoon, the shadow of the mountain thickened with the first tinge of nightfall. The terror of being on a jungle path after dark had been creeping through my mind all day. The sheer fright I felt at night’s inevitability was countered by an acceptance that I had no choice, once the sun set, but to survive if I was to see sunup. Looking for ways to strengthen my chances to do so, I ruled out climbing or camping under trees, crawling under a nearby bat-covered rock overhang, or settling onto a group of boulders interspersed with freshly dug holes that looked to be burrows.
The jaguar had been silent since the night’s growling. Other than the bats, I hadn’t seen any mammals the whole day. No reptiles either. An abundance of colorful birds and butterflies helped keep my mind steady, but hordes of buzzing insects constantly harassed me. Throughout my trek, the distant screeching and cawing of parrots had sounded communicative but not alarmed. A chattering I thought might be from a monkey passed from one side of the trail to the other, then repeated itself a number of times further ahead of me. My presence had been announced to the community.
As the sky above turned orange, the flatlands to the east became shadow. The path crested, then dipped into a small water-filled valley. Speckles of the fire-sky danced among silhouettes of black wetland grasses. With thoughts of piranhas and caiman and the monstrous anaconda, I sat in the widest part of the trail, rested the rifle over my lap, readied the pistol in one hand, the machete in my other.
The night blinded me.
I hoped I smelled like something no animal wanted to approach.
I didn’t trust the threat of the marsh and kept my pistol trained at its stillness. Voracious bugs attacked my hands and face, but a far worse torture came from the killing creatures of my imagination, slipping nearer and nearer every few minutes. For hours, I twitched at the malevolent secrets hiding within the closely knit trees and froze when the clumps of bushes stalking the dark trail weren’t where I had last thought them to be. Vines crept from high branches, stealthily winding their way to the ground. At one point I leaped up, believing a thick, pitch-black viper was about to strike. I slashed downwards with the machete, hysteria twirling me in mad circles as I chopped at the killer who outmaneuvered me from every direction.
That scream. It’s not a snake, it’s me.
Even after I convinced myself the serpent had been my night-mind playing tricks, I remained standing for about an hour, vigilant. A loud splutter, followed by a swift series of splashes from the watery area, silenced the frightening voice that conjured snakes to strike. I crouched, facing a very real sound. It stilled the chirrs of insects and hushed the burps of frogs that had pervaded the night up until then.
The nearby splashing continued, then moved slowly away from me until, gratefully, I no longer believed it to be a threat. When the riot of buzzing and croaking sounds started again as loud and consistent as before, I was overcome with relief. I let the feeling sink into my bones, past my thoughts, into my soul.
And on that night when I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face, the gods decided to sprinkle some grace into my life. In the brief respite from the dread of my surroundings, I turned my attention to the stars pouring across the sky. As lost and scared as I had been during the previous two days, I believed all that light shone for me, sustaining my hope that I would survive the darkness. I heard the heavens whisper that I held preci
ous secrets inside myself. And with the clarity of a crystalline blessing, I understood those unspecified secrets to be a gift I carried for someone else.
I offered bittersweet silent prayers for Johnny to that wonderful sky and thanked it for being there above me. Moments later, a shooting star crossed from horizon to horizon, bursting into a ball of light as it approached the mountains to the south. Watching it wink out, I finally let the exhaustion of my day filter into me. I nodded my head in sleep a few times, jerking awake until I no longer could. My worries slipped into the same oblivion the meteorite had, and I gave myself up to whatever would happen and rolled to the ground, falling asleep immediately.
There’s a large animal nearby. It’s sniffing, wondering if I’m a dream too. I’d better wake up. Don’t panic. Take it slow.
I half-opened my eyes. Groggy.
What’s this?
A hefty creature, about half as long as I was tall, was snuffling my boot, its big, brown nose twitching. Confused by morning mist surrounding me, and my own foggy daze, my vision wavered between dream and solid, furry beast as the investigatory sniffing continued, advancing up my pant leg.
Its cold nose bumped my hand softly.
I lifted my head slightly with a tiny questioning sound rising in my throat.
“Hmm?”
A giant rodent hovered over me, busily analyzing my foreign stink. Despite its enormity and sturdy beaver-like teeth, I didn’t feel threatened. I recognized it as a creature Cecilia had pointed out to me, calling it a chigüire.
They no hurt. When I little person girl, I give food to baby chigüire.
Pretty cool. They look like giant guinea pigs or something. Face looks like a big-jawed squirrel.
In book, name be capybara. Cute. I like.
At the sound of my whimper, the capybara snorted a polite retort but didn’t pause in its exploration. Not shy, it tickled its nose diligently at my belly, curiosity propelling it to examine my neck and chin.
Magic (The Remarkable Adventures of Deets Parker Book 2) Page 8