Go with God.
Chapter 21
Crawling along the slippery mud of the jungle’s river bank, gripping rocks and tree roots to steady myself in my fight against the river’s pull, I worked myself as quietly as I could upstream. Even though I had survived three weeks in the jungle without being killed, I hadn’t forgotten a predator could attack at any time. Almost every night, laying in my hammock, I had heard some luckless animal scream its final breath. Despite the threat of violence all around me, I had no option other than continuing on in the dark. If I thought of calling out for help—a lost gringo—I reminded myself Nora was somewhere in the vicinity, possibly stalking me with knife drawn, maybe only yards away.
I had to stop frequently to plot my next few steps and gauge the dangers involved. At one point, holding myself still as I listened for possible threats in the myriad of night sounds, I looked out onto the river. The current rolled over boulders with flashes of white spray slashing the darkness. My eyes moved to the far side where the impenetrable black of a mountainside rose. And above it, were the stars. The wonderfully thick, sparkling, living dance of light was still there. Despite my terror, despite my bitten-up, scabby stink of a body, despite the hunters, and despite my being lost in a jungle battle zone, there were still stars.
They shined just like the ones Teresa and I had seen as we felt the universe unfold for us in the Poconos.
Teresa, you’re still my comforting dream. Where are you? What are you doing? Do you think of me? Sometimes I convince myself that you’re just around the corner, that I just took a wrong turn, and I’ll be home soon.
But I’m in some god-forsaken river, running from soldiers, and a gringo-hating psycho.
Nora. What’s up her ass? Weird, how many women have wanted me dead in the last year. Brenda with her knife and twisted sexual revenge. Filomena, that demon criminal, ramming the muzzle of her gun up to my heart. And now this crazed guerrilla assassin lurking nearby with the jaguars and mapanares. Christ, Sam gave up on me in disgust, and even Teresa pummeled me.
What happened?
Then, as if the stars themselves answered, I remembered as Teresa and I fled from the cabin in the Poconos, she had whispered to me words that could now be my own, “I’m going to be a mess for a while.” The sudden memory snapped my focus back to my immediate dilemma—how to get to the other side of this mountain valley in the dark. A blind leap from a waterfall into the middle of a raging river didn’t sound too promising for my chances of survival.
I heard a burst of gunfire off in the distance and changed my mind. Vladimir’s plan was my best route to safety.
I lay on a large flat rock, judging my jump. A group of pale boulders with a grassy isle on their downriver side lay about fifteen feet from me. I had the advantage of height as my perch was part of a mass that pinched the rapids into cascading down a sharp drop. I might be able to risk a few steps on the wet surface to build momentum; however, night still surrounded me, and I couldn’t make out if the water I aimed to land in was rocky or clear. Nor could I determine the depth and speed of the river if I strayed from my target and missed getting a handhold on the little island.
I don’t know what caused me to finally act. One moment, I was worrying I couldn’t see the details and dangers involved well enough—the next, I was flying through the air with no thought but to escape the hell behind me. Maybe the stars would enfold me, or the water would sweep me far, far away. Maybe that midstream patch of earth was a refuge from gunfire, snakes, Nora’s knife, and large man-eating jungle cats.
I hit with a splash, my knees buckling and slamming up into my chest as I fell forward. My boots sank into soft muck, and my hands braced themselves in gritty, moist sand. I had landed in about a foot of water on a spit of sediment piled up against debris and jumbled rocks.
As I righted myself, amazed to be alive, I felt a sharp pain in my left knee and a stabbing twist to the ankle of the same leg. Dragging it behind me, I hoisted myself onto the jutting boulders. Vladimir had said that from here, I could reach the other shore without problems. I couldn’t see the river’s edge but saw general forms of vegetation and a white speckled tree limb reaching out of the darkness. Another twenty feet?
The excruciating injuries to my leg hampered my movement and rendered impossible any exploration of the bouldered island. As far as I could tell, the channel I still had to cross had whitecaps and sounded furious. I had to take another leap of faith—about a six-foot jump for the branch while hoping it could hold me.
My left leg completely failed me. I fell short of the thicker part of the limb I had aimed for and found myself scrabbling through a tangle of brittle shoots that kept snapping as I grabbed for another. My hands wrapped around a bundle of wet leaves. The bough looped downwards.
No.
My boots went beneath the water’s surface, filling with liquid and weighing me down, threatening to rip me from my slippery hold. The current tugged at my knees, quick and heavy, and the extra weight and force sank the tree branch even lower.
Hand over hand, I fought the river’s drag. I was grasping blindly, near panic when my left hand crunched through the crust of a paper-like lump. Instantly, countless searing needles jabbed furiously, deep into my fingers. A horde of stinging insects bumped against me, buzzing in a relentless frenzy as they trapped themselves in my beard and hair. My hand recoiled from the stabbings, instinctively swatting at my attackers.
A second later, the river’s pull yanked my other hand loose, and I flipped sideways towards the rage of the unknown beneath me.
But again, greater plans than my drowning were in play. I plunged underwater, tumbled completely upside down, then found air and hacked and spat until I realized I was lodged against something. The furious whitewater slapped and ravaged me but wasn’t washing me downstream.
Whatever blocked me from being swept away felt slippery. And alive. And it was pushing me towards dry land. With thoughts of anacondas and caimans, I kicked away and found myself scrabbling onto, then hugging the nearby shore. I had finally reached my destination, but my crippled leg and a cliff that jutted straight up from a narrow beach prevented me from moving away from whatever had been in the river with me. I rolled over to face it and waited.
It must have submerged or slipped away as I couldn’t see it nearby.
The moon rose and covered half the sky before I started entertaining thoughts that the nightmare thing wasn’t coming after me.
The mud felt soothing to my tortured hand, and the cool water was almost luxurious as it rushed over my damaged leg. I needed to rest, needed to forget, needed to go home. My mind began slipping in and out of an exhausted blackout. Not knowing if I was awake or asleep, I dreamed my soul walked on a path of interlaced stars as a large fish tail slapped the nearby water and a laughing, hairy ape-like man sat on the tree limb just upstream from me.
In the gray of dawn, I awoke to gunfire. The shots were distant, but steady, lasting for a few minutes. Somebody was still putting up a fight. A small plane flew down the length of the valley. I crawled out of sight, thinking it best to reveal myself at my choosing. My ankle and foot were swollen, so I decided to wait out the battle and rest my leg.
The sun was nearing noon when I considered my obligations to Vladimir and Chaco had been met. I began to call for help.
“Help. Hola. Gringo Aqui. Hey, over here.”
I shouted and whistled and screamed for hours, hoping the soldiers would investigate before shooting in my direction. I stayed hidden, but watchful, keeping up my cries until the sun dipped behind the mountains. Maybe no one could hear my frantic yelling over the river noise. There had been no further shooting on the other side of the valley nor movement since the plane had passed overhead in the early morning.
A new panic set in. I was going to be alone in the jungle another night, water in front of me, a mountain rocketing up behind me. I pack
ed my hand in mud and set my leg into the soothing current and waited for the moon to bring me sight.
I stayed awake all night, my head going around in circles thinking about Monkey Man and Fish Man, hoping they were nearby. Did they live in a dream world that I could sometimes inhabit consciously? Or maybe they were dream characters come alive in my reality? The window box in Monster Alley featured monkeys and fish. What did that mean, and why their interest in me? All clues as to who they were made no sense. But whatever the truth was, I was convinced Fish Man had saved me from drowning. With the knowledge that Monkey Man had chased Filomena away when she had threatened me in Yare, I felt an odd comfort. That night, they were my grip on sanity and familiarity. If they watched over me, there must be a reason for my existence. They were a thread to the curiosities in New York and the mysterious adventures that I had so far survived.
I whispered into the night, hoping they would hear, thanking them for their companionship.
Chapter 22
The next day, after calling for help all morning, I gathered my knapsack, plus a wooden branch for a crutch, and began to pick out a trail that led uphill. Granite cliffs dropped straight into the river by the waterfall and also downstream from me, so there was no choice but to climb wherever there was passable terrain. I staggered along narrow cliffside protrusions or hefted myself up rocky ravines. Dragging my leg, I grasped tree root or bush or branch wherever steep jungle dominated.
I no longer had a plan. I didn’t know where I was. Besides my leg stiffening more with every step and my ankle forcing me to stop often, my bee-stung arm and hand remained swollen. I suspected an infection festered beneath the skin of a very warm and swollen spot on my face, and many of the cuts on me oozed a liquid that hardened into a yellow crust.
As the sun set, a mass of granite boulders jutting out from the jungle offered me refuge and an unobscured view of the valley. I was discouraged at how little distance I had climbed. From my perch, I could see the waterfall almost directly below me, still close enough to discern the flat rock I had leaped from. Sitting still, welcoming the rest to my leg, and studying the terrain, I resolved that in the morning I would try to find the headwaters of the river. From there, I could try to loop back around to the other side of the valley and make my way downriver to, hopefully, familiar paths or the military on patrol.
Since there had been no air traffic in the valley all day nor any sign of soldiers, I imagined their operation in the area had concluded. Maybe they had mopped up all of the guerrilla band and had no reason to search further, but I held out hope they had found the Land Rover and were looking for me.
Above my resting spot, jungle rose layer upon layer, steeper and steeper. Upriver, the mountainside vegetation appeared very different from my immediate surroundings. Pine trees covered its crest. Beyond one of its shoulders, I could make out a long, brown ridge with very few signs of greenery. It lay on the far side of the next valley, or perhaps a valley beyond that, and climbed steeply into a cloud bank.
I couldn’t imagine those mountains or valleys offering me an obvious route out of the Andes. They only reaffirmed my belief that the downhill flow of the familiar river was my best guide back to civilization.
Along with the fading sun came the constant dread of fangs and claws, the jumping at unexpected sounds, and the aggravating combat with insects. Talking to the heavens had been my saving grace in helping push aside the interminable fears of the last few weeks, but that night a drizzling rain blocked out the moon and star light. So it was a blessing that, despite my nerves and physical aggravations, sheer exhaustion knocked me into sleep quickly.
I had no idea I was dreaming when I stood up and threw myself off the cliff. With my arms spread out like wings, I circled above the valley, soaring higher, looking down at the mountain I slept on.
That’s me lying there.
Seeing my body brought memories of the time I had almost died in the New York ambulance. The same joy I experienced then, swept through my heart again. It seemed natural but still a pleasant surprise when, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a black dog gliding alongside me. She barked and wagged, sniffed and smiled. I understood her to be telling me about secret trails somewhere. But when I awoke, wet and bone weary, I grappled with remnants of the dream. What did it mean? I had no idea what the dog had communicated to me—the esoteric details seemingly lost and scrambled amid loose pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
Clouds hung around me and, for a moment, I thought the dream hadn’t ended, but the dampness that permeated my clothes plus the twinges in my ankle brought me back quickly to the practical realities of my waking life. As the fog started to dissipate and the sunlight strengthen, I stripped bare, laying my torn and dirty rags out to dry. An almost imperceptible movement in the nearby trees had me scrambling defensively for my walking stick. A tawny orange color with a thick swirl of black was visible between the leaves. A scream ripped through my mind, followed by a flash of flinging myself over the cliff. I didn’t want to face death by teeth and claw.
A fist-sized head with two wary feline eyes stared at me from a branch. The cat looked as scared as I was and scurried away, disappearing into a jumble of vegetation.
I blew out a deep breath of relief and weighed the dangers of the ocelot I had just seen. I concluded it probably wasn’t really a threat unless I disturbed it. But knowing it wasn’t exactly Wimpy the cat from back home and sure it could inflict a nasty bite or scratch, I stayed alert for its return.
The last of the mist curled along the river below. A hawk swept past me in a graceful dive. A minute later, about forty blue parrots beat their wings and squawked a greeting as they flew by. They were cruising down the valley just below the altitude of my perch. I watched them until the flock turned into one tiny speck. Upriver, a large tree was covered with pink blossoms, and I set it as my landmark in my search for where the river might be narrower. As my clothes dried and the sun warmed my nakedness, I noticed patches of brilliant color scattered around me. Orange petals, white flowers, purple sprinkles, red tube-like plants high in the treetops. I relaxed, finding soft places inside me that needed the nourishment of beauty. The appreciation of simple moments and feeling good had been rare while living in fear of jungle nights and guerrilla violence. Sitting high above the valley, surrounded by a tropical palette, scooping puddled rain water with a leaf, and with the blaze of sun rays on my body—it all felt natural and refreshing. A place of wonder. Eden. The world was perfect.
But, of course, I was lost and had no food. My feet looked like wrinkled raisins and itched constantly. The pain in my ankle and knee, plus the flourishing skin infections and swellings, were worrisome.
I spent the morning alternating between enjoying the pristine beauty around me while resting my leg and strengthening my resolve to survive another day in the hellish jungle. In hopes of discovering a way back to the open plains, I would have to retrace about a week of hiking in jaguar territory to find the area where the Land Rover crashed and Johnny died.
Christ, I wished Johnny was with me. Or Hank. Even Carlito.
Seeking ghosts as my companions stole away from the time I spent appreciating the flora and fauna. I couldn’t afford to believe for one moment that all was right, nor could I flirt with grief or allow sorrow to rule my thoughts. I had to begin the journey back. As my eyes wandered lost down the river, I tried to remember how many days walk it was to the chicken and goat farm and whether or not it had been located in a side valley.
Okay, enough thinking. I’m not going to figure it out sitting here. Just follow the paths nearest the river.
I pulled on my jeans and took inventory. My Strathmore sketch pad was a water-stained mess. Polaroid photos laying loose in my knapsack had softened or blossomed specks of mold. All the rolls of film from my Nikon had been lost, probably strewn along my escape route from the battle or swirling downriver from the midnight river plunge. The Polaroid
camera looked unscathed, and, at least from the exterior, the film pack still looked usable. I had three graphite pencils, but no colored pencils, except one Prismacolor that had the word Purpura on it. It was the only one left from my set of ninety-six I had brought from home and some two dozen I had picked up in Caracas.
I wondered if I would find anything useful in the blasted-out guerilla campsite. Walking to the edge of the cliff and looking down towards the battlefield, my mind was jolted into emergency, raw-survival mode. And quick.
The jaguar stood on the rocks below. I knew immediately it was the same one I had seen on the trail weeks before. She was by the waterfall, sniffing where I had lain as I estimated my jump into the dark river a few nights earlier.
I flattened myself and carefully peered over the edge at her. She set herself down and began grooming herself. After finishing with a lick along one foreleg, she lifted her chin, enjoying the morning sun.
Inching backwards, I abandoned all plans. I had to get away. Move. Anywhere but back down that river. Climb over this mountain, get to the other side. Now.
It had taken an afternoon for me to climb to the rocky nest. That cat, what? She could probably make the same distance in less than an hour. The skin on my chest shivered with apprehension, but my hands were nimble as I pulled on socks and boots, slipped my ragged T-shirt and jean jacket on. Quickly, quietly, I gathered my belongings and walking stick, then limped away without looking back down at the river. After pushing through a hundred steps of wet leaves and wrestling through a rage of thorny thickets, I emerged onto a barely visible track and hoped the sound of the waterfall was allowing my escape to go undetected.
The rocky terrain and steep slopes steered my course, but when faced with a decision, I always chose to climb higher rather than to descend as I staggered and limped along the mountain’s face. After scrambling for hours up a rocky ravine, I came to an area where pine trees grew. Despite the aches in my legs, the fear in my heart, and the desperation of my path, the recognition of a tree that could have been in my parents’ backyard was an inexplicably welcome sight. I began to cry. Propped up against the rough bark of an evergreen, in place of my vows to stay strong, I let gouts of tears roll down my cheeks. Everything was so wrong. My life had involved so much hurt and death.
Magic (The Remarkable Adventures of Deets Parker Book 2) Page 13