Winter Fall

by Byron Tucker

  I gotta wrap up, as Dad's back. He says we're almost at the port, so we need to get ready to disembark. I'll write another entry later on once we've gotten settled in at the ranch.

  Chapter 36

  Speaking in accented but clear English, the Costa Rican Customs official leaned over his side of the large desk and asked, “Do you have the telephone number for Henry Adams?”

  Doing his best to hide his nervousness, Sam recited the man's number from memory, glancing at Jimmy sitting next to him. Irene and Eliza were waiting in the other room, having already been interviewed by another official.

  The pudgy-faced man jotted down the number and barked a command in Spanish to his assistant, which resulted in an old-fashioned telephone being brought out to him. Looking across the table at Sam, he said, “I'm going to give him a call to verify that he's agreed to host you and your family.”

  The nervousness within Sam rose to a fever pitch. He shuddered to think what would happen if Henry didn't answer, or worse yet, refused to “host” his family. Despite the payment of a hundred gold coins, the immigration people weren't too keen on just letting four refugees into their country, motorhome or not, unless they had someone willing to put them up. Earlier, another gentleman had explained to him that they'd been having a “serious problem” with Americans flooding into their country, as were other countries in Central and South America. It made Sam wonder exactly what Costa Rica was doing about these unwanted refugees, but he hadn't the nerve to ask.

  Sam held his breath as the official picked up the phone and dialed. Even from the other side of the desk, he could hear the ringing on the handset. One...two...three... Oh God, please let him answer the phone.

  What he heard next was like the music of angels. “Hola, Senor Adams?” After conversing in rapid-fire Spanish for a few seconds, the official smiled and handed the handset over to Sam. “Mr. Adams would like to speak with you.”

  Sam brought it up to his ear, speaking in a tentative voice. “Hello?”

  “You're Sam Durant?”

  “Yes, I sure am. The immigration officials wish to know if you're willing to serve as a host for our family.”

  “Willing? Of course! I'm amazed beyond belief that you actually made it. It's a genuine miracle that you were able to make it here. Do you still have the motorhome, or is it just you and the family?”

  “Yes, we were able to bring the motorhome over. It's being unloaded from the ship as we speak. We were planning to drive it up to your place. My brother has drawn up a map and directions on how to get to your farm.”

  “That's awesome. Do you think you'll make it today?”

  “If we get cleared by these folks, yes.”

  “Great! I'll have my wife cook a huge welcome dinner for you guys.”

  Despite the tremendous relief he felt, there was one major worry he still had to share with him. “Um, there is one thing I'm going to need to ask for your help with.”

  “What's that? Anything I can do to help, I'm more than willing.”

  “My daughter needs medical assistance with her asthma. In particular, we need to obtain a nebulizer machine to help her breathe. Is there a medical facility up your way?”

  The man paused a few seconds before answering. “I want you to come up here as quickly as possible, and I'll have something that should help her. There's hospitals over in San Jose, but that city is a mess, we'll see about trying some natural remedies first.”

  Not liking the sound of that, he said, “Well, perhaps there's a hospital here in Limon we can take her to?”

  Henry wasted no time in replying. “No, that's too risky. There's a lot of desperate people in the cities. For safety's sake, I urge you to drive up here straightaway. It's not far, about eighty some-odd miles. If you need fuel, try and get it at one of the villages along the way, where it'll be safer. You're liable to be robbed if you remain in Limon for any length of time.”

  So this is going to be no paradise after all. “Um, we will do that, then. Is it safe up where your ranch is?”

  “Yes, it's very safe up here, since we're away from populated areas. I will do the best I can to help your daughter. So you'll be sure to come directly here?”

  “Yes, we will.” The man across the table beckoned for the phone with his hand. “Well, I've got to let you go, he wants the phone back. Hope to see you in a few hours.”

  “By all means. We'll be ready for you. Bye for now.”

  Sam handed the handset back to the official, and after he chatted in Spanish with Henry for a few moments, the man set the handset into the cradle, smiling. “Since there is no doubt this gentleman is willing to host your family, I will issue residency permits for you and your family. Please carry these papers with you at all times, as you will be required to show them at checkpoints and to any government official that requests to see them.”

  Sam glanced over at his son, who raised his fist in a victory gesture. Looking back at the official, he said, “Well, I certainly appreciate you given us clearance to reside in your country. I'm extremely grateful to be here. Like we say back home, Merry Christmas.”

  The man laughed and said, “Here, we say, Feliz Navidad. And welcome to Costa Rica. It is my pleasure to welcome such a nice family such as yours to our country. I wish you the best of luck going forward.”

  After the man got up to leave the room, presumably to get their papers, Jimmy reached his arms around his father, hugging tightly. “We've done it, Dad. We've finally made it.”

  Sam wiped his tear-moistened eyes. “Well, we've still got a bit of driving to do to get to Henry Adam's place.”

  “Eighty miles, that's nothing. I can do that in my sleep.”

  Sam laughed. “I think you've done enough driving. It'll be me at the wheel this time.” He pointed at the doorway leading to the other room. “While we wait for our papers, care to give Mom and Eliza the good news?”

  “Sure thing, Dad!”

  * * *

  Sam started the engine of the motorhome, mentally thanking himself for having Jimmy remove the incredibly pockmarked Plexiglas shielding over the windshield before they left the ship, so they could have a clear view of the road. The rain streamed down at a steady clip, requiring the use of the wipers. Jimmy sat in the passenger seat, wearing the excited grin he'd had for hours, while Irene continued to comfort Eliza on the couch, stroking her hair with slow, tender movements of her hands.

  Before taking the parking brake off, Sam turned to look back at his daughter. “Eliza, we're going to get help for you very soon, okay? Can you just hold out for a couple more hours?”

  She answered by giving him a smile coupled with a thumbs up.

  “Awesome. You're my gal. You're stronger than the rest of us put together, know that?”

  Irene said, “Let's go, Sam. There's no time to waste.”

  Sam eased out of the port area, hoping that Jimmy would be able to direct him to the ranch using the hand-drawn map he'd given him. He came up to a gate, where an official asked for papers, and thankfully, the man spoke enough English to be able to give him directions on how to get on the main highway leading out of town.

  He drove cautiously through the narrow, rain-soaked streets of the gritty port city, appalled at the number of children running around barefoot, many of them waving their hands at the motorhome to get him to stop, presumably to beg for money. It was becoming increasingly clear that Costa Rica was no promised land, and the cool, rainy weather made it seem even more depressing, considering the climate was supposed to be warm and sunny.

  Sam was much relieved when they left the town limits, which was marked by a police checkpoint. The officer who asked for their papers asked a few questions in broken English, and when he was satisfied by his answers, they were allowed to proceed. A two-lane highway led them through a land of palm trees and hardscrabble farms, the number of people walking along the road dwindling to almost zero after a few miles.

  Jimmy turned to him and asked, “What's our gas situat
ion like?”

  Sam looked at the gauge, which read slightly less than one-eighth of a tank. “Getting a bit low. Probably about nine or ten gallons.”

  Jimmy's face scrunched up for a moment and then he said, “That should be just enough to get to Henry's. It'll be pushing it, but I bet we can make it without stopping.”

  Sam looked at the constant swish swish of the wipers on the windshield as he edged his speed up to forty-five, so that they'd be running on the highest and most fuel-efficient gear. “That's good, then, as I'd like to get there by dark.”

  Jimmy smiled. “It's only two, so we should have time. I'm just glad they let us in as quickly as they did.”

  “Yes. I was expecting to have to stay in Limon for a couple of days at least.”

  Jimmy laughed and said, “Nah, they just wanted our gold so they could get back home to celebrate Christmas with their families.”

  “You're probably right. Getting hold of Henry Adams was the biggie, as they really needed to see that we actually had a place to go, rather than just wander about in their country with no place to stay.”

  After some time had passed, during which Sam made good time with the motorhome, Irene walked up and knelt down next to him. “I think we need to find a hospital.”

  Sam looked at his wife with a puzzled expression. “Why? I thought she was doing reasonably okay.”

  She shook her head, pressing her lips together. “We're out of albuterol. If we don't get help for her soon, she's going to be in dire straits.”

  Sam pointed his hand toward the windshield. “We're out in the middle of nowhere. I think the best course of action is to go straight to Henry's place, as he said he could help her.”

  Irene displayed visible symptoms of anger on her face. “He's no doctor. How will he be able to help her?”

  “I don't know, maybe he has a store of medicines he can give her. Maybe his wife has asthma and has a nebulizer we can use. He was quite insistent that we come to his place as quickly as possible, and I think he's right. You saw what it was like back in Limon.”

  Irene took a moment to glance over at Eliza, her labored wheezing loud enough to hear even over the road noise. “She's really struggling, Sam. We've got to find a doctor, immediately.”

  “It's Christmas, that's not going to be so easy. I think we should get to Henry's as quickly as we can, as he'll know what to do. He's been living in this country for twenty-five years, so he'll be able to help us far more than us trying to do it on our own.”

  “How soon do you think we can get there?”

  Sam pushed on the accelerator, nudging the speed up past sixty. “Soon, very soon.”

  Irene returned to the couch and sat next to Eliza, and Sam continued to drive faster, eventually getting up it to seventy, sheets of heavy rain slashing across the windshield between each swipe of the wipers.

  “Dad, you'll gonna wreck if you keep driving like this,” Jimmy said, looking at him with a worried expression.

  Please, let this be over. He eased down on the pedal, dropping it back down to a safer speed. “You're right, we'll get there when we get there.”

  After a few minutes, he saw a sign marked Siquirres, with an upcoming highway junction. “Jimmy, do you know what to do here? Stay on this, or go on Highway 10?”

  Jimmy consulted the notes on the crumpled piece of paper in his hands and looked back up again. “Take 10. That's the route we stay on until we get to Paraiso, and we make another left there and go four or five miles, and make a right where the two churches face each other. Then we go another mile on a dirt road, and the ranch will be on the right.”

  Sam devoted his attention to making the turn onto the highway marked 10, hoping they wouldn't run into another checkpoint. There wasn't one, but the road soon became twisty and winding, with green-sheathed mountains rising up around them. The combination of the driving rain and the increasingly rugged terrain forced him to drop his speed to under thirty-five, and even that was pushing it. He came up to a slow-moving truck but, as luck would have it, it pulled off a few minutes later, with the road clear of traffic.

  “She's getting worse,” Irene called out from the back.

  Sam knew that she wasn't saying that just to make him hurry, with her voice laced with genuine fear. “I'm going as quickly as I can, okay?”

  Swinging the motorhome from one side of the road to the other in the curves, hoping nobody was coming the other way, Sam drove as hard as he dared, pushing sixty on the straightaways and braking hard in the curves. They came to a bridge and another town, and despite coming to a place where police cars lined the road, there was nobody flagging them down, so Sam kept going, narrowly missing a woman crossing the road carrying a huge sack on her crouched back. Oh God, I can't take much more of this.

  The town faded in the rear view mirror, and the road became quite curvy again as it climbed higher into the mountains, the average speed dropping to less than twenty-five. Stealing a glance at Jimmy, he said, “How much farther do you think it is?”

  “I'm guessing less than twenty-five miles now. Costa Rica is a small country, thank goodness.”

  One more hour, or less. There was another concern. The needle on the gas gauge now hovered squarely over “E”, with the orange “Low Fuel” light glowing ominously. It was going to be close, no doubt about it, but they couldn't afford another delay, especially since they'd neglected to buy local currency before leaving Limon.

  Sam pushed on, the windshield wipers swishing back and forth in the constant rain. Every so often, the motorhome splashed through torrents of water washing across the road, forcing him to slow to a crawl to keep control of the vehicle. Then, after a particularly grueling stretch of road, the rain finally began to lessen, making it possible for him to reduce the speed of the windshield wipers, as well as being able drive a bit faster. Unfortunately, Eliza's wheezing became even more noticeable, the sound making it painfully obvious of how hard she was having to fight just to breathe.

  Sam was much relieved when he came to a sign indicating route 224, and began slowing to turn left onto it. Before he had a chance to do so, Jimmy shouted, “No, the directions say we have to go through Paraiso first.”

  “But this is route 224, so it this has to be it.”

  Jimmy motioned at him to keep going. “I think we'd better follow the directions. Keep going.”

  Sam decided to gamble with his son being right, relieved to see the town of Paraiso appear after a couple more minutes of harried driving. It appeared to be much larger than the other towns they had driven through, almost a full-fledged city like Limon.

  Irene cried out, “If there's a hospital around here, stop.”

  Although there were people and cars moving about, there was no hospital that he could see. Everything being in Spanish certainly wasn't helping matters, either.

  Coming up to what looked like a central square filled with a fair number of people milling about even in the rain, Jimmy motioned his hand vigorously for him to keep going. “No, we're really close now, we've got to get to Henry's. He'll know where to take her.”

  Sam took in a deep breath and let it out as he sped forward, swerving around a cluster of kids riding bicycles in the middle of the street. He also got a few glimpses of adults staring at them with open-mouthed expressions, since they'd surely never seen the likes of a bullet-riddled motorhome with an attached plow on the front of it. Ignoring them, Sam gunned the motor, rocketing straight out of town once he realized he was indeed still on route 224.

  Jimmy picked up the paper with the notes scrawled on it. “Okay, when you've gone four miles or so, look for the two churches facing each other. That's how you know to turn right onto the dirt road.”

  With the road running reasonably straight and level, and coupled with a further easing of the rain, Sam punched it up to sixty, hoping against hope they had enough fuel to make it to the ranch. After four miles had passed, Sam looked ahead and then at Jimmy. “I don't see much of anything. Should we keep
going?”

  “Yes, I'll look for the churches.”

  After he had gone another mile and change, Jimmy's arm shot out. “There! The two churches. Turn at the first dirt road to the right.”

  Sure enough, about fifty yards past the pair of churches, there was a tiny unpaved track on the right, which looked barely wide enough to accommodate a car, let alone a motorhome. Just after making the turn onto it, he felt the engine sputter. Oh no, not now, not when we're so close. He pressed on the gas pedal a bit harder, the engine roaring back to life as the back tires spun on the muddy surface.

  After three or four minutes of slowly crawling on what was essentially a two-track, he heard Jimmy shout, “Look, Henry's ranch! There's a sign.”

  Sure enough, he spotted a crudely hand-painted sign, the words barely legible due to the paint being streaked by the rain before it had a chance to dry. Thinking Henry had put that out there just for them, he turned onto an even more rugged track, which followed the slope up a steep hill. The engine sputtered again, almost stalling out completely, red lights lighting up the dash display. Come on baby, just a bit more, just a bit more.

  The engine coughed into life one more time, allowing the vehicle to surge up a particularly steep stretch of driveway in a fit of high-revving power. They emerged out from a dense stand of trees into a wide expanse of cultivated fields, with a small, plain-looking house perched on top of the hill they'd been climbing. The engine stalled again, but he kept his foot on the gas pedal, and as the vehicle hit a level spot, it lurched forth another fifty yards before it cut out completely. Sam had just enough momentum to pilot the motorhome onto a section of level ground off to the left before it came to rest.

  Irene said, “Are we here?”

  Sam undid his seat belt in tandem with Jimmy, wondering if the modest-looking house really belonged to Henry and his wife. “I sure hope so, because we're plumb out of gas.”

  Jimmy pointed out the side window. “Look, there's somebody coming now.”