by James Gray
“There was a guy named Theodore Morde, back in 1939, claimed he had found some incredible ruins he was certain were Ciudad Blanca. He’d even written something and filmed the Ciudad Blanca with a movie camera. So Morde went to see people in London who were willing to invest in a major expedition. Some people say that he committed suicide, others say that the poor guy was run over by a car.” The Dog took a deep breath, emptied his drink and banged the glass on the table. “But whatever the hell happened, the knowledge of the exact location of the place died with him.” He bent over the wrinkled map on the table and studied it for a few seconds. His eyeglasses made his eyes appear to bulge out. “If you play your cards right, well …” He laughed again, but his wild laughter quickly became a hysterical wheeze and then a heavy cough. “Where the fuck did I put those pills?” The Dog searched through his pockets and found what he was looking for. “These damn things are going to kill me if the booze don’t first.” After he managed to calm down, he continued, “Shit, what I’ve taken out so far is only a drop in the bucket. When Esmeralda is ready, she’ll be all geared up to transport goods by the ton and we’ll set up camp in Roatán. And no one will be the wiser because we still look like a charter boat.”
I still had one question. It was a little crazy, considering, but oh well. “What about Valeska?”
“Valeska?” He looked a little confused. “Uh, right now Miss V. should be on her way back to Tegucigalpa. Sooner or later, she’ll take over from him because he can’t live forever.” He laughed sardonically. “Then it will be just the two of us running the show.”
That week, the Dog and Ronnie flew to Miami to pick up some electronics.
Then I got a surprise visit from guess who.
“Hey, Jack, can I come up?”
Before I could answer, Valeska was already halfway up the ladder. She was wearing tight shorts and a Miami Dolphins T-shirt. Her head was covered by a green ball cap with Bad Hair Day written just above the peak. I put down my tools and helped her on board.
“I like the hat. What’s the reason for your visit?”
“Another gofer job. I had to pick up another piece for one of the engines. It arrived at the airport in San Pedro this morning,” she said and gave me a warm kiss. “I missed you, Jack.”
“How long will you be around this time?”
“Until the day after tomorrow — before Dog and Ronnie come back.”
“Yeah, I noticed that they weren’t around. It’s been kind of quiet here lately.”
“Good, no prying eyes.” She smiled and kissed me again.
“Valeska …”
“Don’t let him spoil anything. I’m doing my best just to keep things going smoothly between us. That’s it.”
“What about your uncle?”
“He really wants to get rid of him, but without Barker, there’s no access to La Ciudad Blanca.”
“So your uncle should give him something else to do, something that will keep him out of the way,” I said.
Valeska hesitated. “Yeah, something that would make him disappear.”
“Like?”
“Like buying him off.”
She paused, then her eyes lit up. “Jack, I have an idea. It’s Sunday and nobody’s around. Let’s go to the beach. There’s a beautiful stretch out past the Garifuna village, on the other side of Puerto Cortés.”
The idea sounded good, but I could hear the Chief’s voice in the back of my mind the time he advised me to stay out of trouble. “Sorry, Valeska, I have a ton of things to do today.”
“My ass you do, Jack Legris. You’re just chicken to ride on that bike of yours with a crazy girl on the seat behind you.” She moved in close and placed her hands behind my waist, pulling me toward her. “I’ll make it worth the trip.”
Twenty minutes later, we were speeding down the road on the Jawa. Valeska was pressed up against my back with her arms wrapped around me. Each time we passed a house, we could smell the farm animals or cooking fires. It took a while to navigate through the deep puddles of water that had been left over from the rain the day before.
Gradually, the muddy road turned into a narrow sandy trail, then to a hard-packed beach. We passed a cluster of tin-roofed shanties and fishing nets. This was the beginning of the Garifuna village. It was obvious that the Garifuna weren’t used to visitors. The kids stared; the adults smiled, but with unsure expressions.
A little further on, the sand became too deep to ride on, so we parked the bike, kicked off our shoes and walked along a wide stretch of golden sand. There were no people on the beach, only the occasional mangy dog or stray horse. Our hands brushed together as we explored the overturned hull of an abandoned fishing dory.
We walked against the trade wind, only stopping from time to time to drink water out of the bottle that Valeska had brought along. A few miles or so from the village, we stripped off our clothes, ran into the breaking waves and dove in. After exhausting ourselves in the water, we returned to shore, lay down on the hot sand and just listened to the surf.
“Valeska, you never did tell me your real story.”
“Maybe I don’t have a real story.”
“Where were you born? Who are your parents? Where did you grow up?”
“I was born in San Pedro Sula and brought up on my father’s banana plantation. That was the place I took you to.”
“I remember.”
“I was an only child. I don’t remember much except that life was peaceful until the situation in Nicaragua — between the Contras and the Sandinistas. Despite his relative wealth, my father was a socialist and always paid his workers well. He was also speaking out against the big American companies for buying up the best farmland in Honduras and exploiting the workers. A couple of henchmen from a big multinational came to see him one day, but he refused to sell. One night, during a plantation worker’s rally, some vigilantes hired by that same fucking company came in and shot into the crowd creating chaos, then they shot my dad. After that, we lost our land. They bought it for peanuts. That’s when my mother and I moved in with my uncle. I guess that was in the mid-eighties.”
“Where is your mother now?”
“She’s being looked after in Tegucigalpa. She has Alzheimer’s disease.”
“That’s rough.”
“Yes, but she is well taken care of. My uncle makes sure of it. I go to see her when I can, but I’m not sure that she knows who I am. That makes me sad but sometimes when she smiles, I have a feeling that forgetting about the past is a good thing.”
“Perhaps it is. What about this uncle of yours?”
“Igor Zarkin is a good man. He brought me up, and I’ve been working for him ever since I graduated from university. He paid for everything. Now we’re working on the project in La Mosquitia. Developing a project is exactly what I would like to do, and the La Mosquitia region has always attracted me. My uncle eventually wants to incorporate it into the master plan for a national park that the government of Honduras has started in that area.”
“In La Mosquitia?”
“Sure, the Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve is in La Mosquitia. It’s the only one in Honduras and it’s a very big deal. Haven’t you heard of it?”
“No, nothing about a biosphere project, but I’ve heard lots about the Mosquito Coast. Have you ever been there?”
“Just once. I flew in on a chartered plane with Dog and my uncle. Dog’s a good pilot; he landed that plane right on the river near the ruins. We explored there for days.”
“So what’s it like?”
“It’s one of the few remaining areas of virgin tropical rain forest in Central America and covers about two thousand square miles. And there are prehistoric Mayan artifacts. There is plenty of pine, cedar, ceiba and mahogany. You can also see rosewood, sapodilla and all kinds of orchids. You don’t see that in many places north of Panama.”
“A kind of Amazonia of Central America.”
“Exactly, and it’s only a few hundred miles that way.” She poin
ted toward the long stretch of empty beach.
“If we continue our walk along the beach, we could be there in about a week. Shall we try?”
“No, no, calmos chica calmos (calm down), I don’t want to be eaten alive by sand flies.”
I said, “I’d rather sail out there.”
Her eyes lit up. “On Esmeralda?”
“It could happen.”
“I knew you would like the idea. I told you already that I’d talked to my uncle about you. We need a guy who we can trust to skipper the boat. Think about it. It would be good money and we could work together. Would you do it?”
“Maybe.” I thought of old Ben back at the boatyard and his theory about choice.
“Look, Jack, I’m sure he will make it worth your while. He’ll pay you well, don’t worry.”
“No, I’m not worried about that. I just wonder how much work we could really get done. When you’re around, I have a hard time concentrating, and I think that being so close to Barker there would a problem sooner or later.”
“My uncle will handle Dog. Besides, I think that Dog cares more about making money, than what’s going on between you and me. Besides, if he ever becomes impossible, it would be the perfect excuse to dump him.” As she laughed, I thought of Chaucer who once wrote: Very often I have heard a truth said in jest.
“That’s the second time that you have said something like that,” I said.
“So?”
“Humm, sounds dangerous, like a Cold War about to turn hot.”
She shrugged. “Sometimes conditions make associates into enemies. My uncle should know. Russian blood runs thick in our family, and my uncle is used to dealing with guys like Dog.” She smiled and let herself relax as I began to massage her back. For a while we didn’t speak. The sound of crashing surf filled the void.
“Yes, right there, feels so good,” she finally said. “I think I’ll hire you as my private masseur instead of a boat skipper.”
“Okay, and then what?”
She propped her chin up with her hands and looked out to sea. I continued, working down to her lower spine, then slowly went down to her beautiful butt, and worked it for long minutes before slipping my hand between her legs.
“Do you know you’re turning me on?”
“And you’ve been turning me on ever since I saw you this morning,” I answered.
We kissed.
After we made love, we both lay there for a moment, holding each other. But Valeska rolled onto her back, shading her eyes from the sun with one arm. I sat up and ran my eyes over her sand-sprinkled body.
Suddenly she jumped up and ran into the surf. I followed her. We swam past the sandbar toward the turquoise rolling seas.
Back on the beach once more, we lay on the sand and let the warm trade wind dry us off. Our conversation drifted back to La Mosquitia.
“Tell me more about the people who live there.”
“Poor, very poor. There are three peoples — the Miskito, the Pech and the Tawahka. They’ve inhabited La Mosquitia for perhaps thousands of years. The problem is that big logging companies are after the pine and mahogany. Clear-cutting and erosion are killing the rain forest, and if ever there’s a major hurricane, the flooding could be catastrophic.”
“What is the Honduran government doing?”
“The government? It’s a sick joke; corruption is everywhere. Ecology means nothing when your family has only rice and beans to eat.”
I changed the subject. “Valeska, I saw you and Dog at the yard the other night when that boat came in.”
She grimaced. “I know you did. But it’s no big deal. We’re covered. We have the contacts at the base. We do what we want. Dog’s got a bunch of ex-soldiers lined up who aren’t afraid of anybody.”
“Yeah, I know. One of them gave me a very sore rib.”
“I know that, too. I’m sorry, it was bad timing.” She looked uneasy.
“Where should I have been?”
“Not spying on us. That’s what it looked like to the guy who bumped into you on the dock.”
“Perhaps, but Barker seemed kind of upset about the way I was handled. He even invited me back to Esmeralda to talk about the project.”
“I know that, too. The story got back to my uncle and he told me everything. I think that they both have become aware of your potential value as part of the team.”
“And what about you? What do you think?”
She rolled over, sat up and took a deep breath.
“Jack, I think that we’re in trouble big time. I’m very attracted to you and it’s scary.”
Ciudad Blanca was one thing, but Valeska was another. Her special kind of beauty, her intelligence and the way she came on to me — now this. All the alarms were going off, but I had to keep going. I was exactly where I wanted to be.
It was late afternoon when Valeska and I finally pulled into the boatyard and almost crashed the bike up against some empty forty-five gallon drums that the yard workers had dumped near my boat. We laughed ourselves silly but quieted abruptly when we spotted Rackman and a few of his guys underneath Esmeralda. They were adjusting one of the big propellers.
“Shit, what’s going on? They’re not supposed to be here,” said Valeska, as she descended from the Jawa. Rackman came over to greet us.
“Sorry to break up your fun but we got back early. I hope it didn’t upset any of your plans.” He stared at Valeska.
Valeska climbed the big ladder that was leaning up against the Esmeralda.
Rackman looked over at me with a grin. “If you want my free advice, you better kept it in your pants. Barker has jealous streak and can get rather nasty.”
“If you want some of my free advice, Rackman, keep your nose out of my business.”
Early the next morning, I met Valeska in the yard behind the big hangar. I immediately noticed a dark bruise on one arm.
“What happened?”
“It’s Dog. Last night he got drunk, broke into my cabin and tried to rape me. If that pig ever tries to touch me again, I’ll shoot him with his own fucking gun.”
She sounded convincing, There was no doubt, but her loathing was spreading. She read me perfectly.
“Jack, don’t get involved. I’m returning to Tegucigalpa this morning. This is my problem and I need to solve it, myself.” Then she spun around and walked away, but not without turning back one more time. As our eyes met, I knew right then and there that perhaps some day, if things worked out, we would sail away together.
THE ISLAND OF ROATÁN
By mid-December, the naval base was on the verge of closing down for Christmas. I hadn’t even submitted a proposal for an article to Aventura and the work on Numada wasn’t even half-completed. And even worse, the little money I had in my emergency fund had set off the low-level alarm. Then, the mechanic at the diesel shop broke it to me that my engine block was cracked and that would mean more big bucks down the drain. There was only one way out, and it came faster than I had expected.
While working on a small welding job with Mario one day, I heard the Dog shout out. He was standing with Rackman up on the deck of Esmeralda, with a telephone in his hand.
“Hey, Frenchman, Señor Zarkin wants his boat down in Roatán. If you want the job, you better decide now ‘cause we’re goin’ to leave in four days. He’ll pay you two thousand on arrival. US dollars, cold cash.”
Good timing, I thought. But it took me a few long seconds to give my answer. “Okay, I’m in.”
For the next few days, Mario and I worked together, usually wearing soot-colored welding masks, thick leather aprons and fireproof gloves. I began to appreciate how hard he worked. We worked mostly during the cooler hours of the night under dozens of glaring light bulbs strung up like pears. It was tough going, but as we hammered and bent the steel plates into place, we communicated in our own strangely functional language — a pidgin consisting of Spanish, French and English. One by one, we cut and shaped the new pieces of metal for my schooner, while t
he hissing sound of acetylene gas took over from the pounding. It was as if we were between heaven and hell, living in our own world of flying sparks, molten metal and white flame. We had become sculptors caught up in the task of fusing steel together into a form that would carry me out of that place and over the blue waters of the Caribbean Sea.
The sun was high over the hills when I arrived at the yard. As I parked the Jawa, I noticed that a new girl had arrived on board Esmeralda. She was about twenty years old, tall, athletic-looking. She was up on deck cleaning what had already been cleaned while the Dog sat there on a deck chair talking on the phone.
“Hey, Frenchman,” he called over to me. “Come up, we’ve gotta discuss a few things.”
He showed me where his charts were and explained the electronics. It all seemed straightforward. He introduced me to the new girl on board. “Shirley’s from the Bay Islands and will be doing the cooking, the cleaning and any other odd job that I ask her to. They’re putting us in the water tomorrow afternoon and then, around 2200 hours tomorrow night, it’s off to Roatán.” He slapped the side of the wheelhouse with his hand. “A little over twenty-four hours and I’ll be out of this hole, and it’s about fuckin’ time.” Dog swaggered down the deck toward the bow. “Look, everything is clean and put away, like a real efficient yacht should be.”
I peered down into the cavernous empty cargo hold lined with heavy-duty panels of new marine plywood.
“There’s lots of room down there, that’s for sure,” I said.
“Yeah, and we’re going to need all of it.”
For a moment, I studied the new lifting equipment between the wheelhouse and the foremast. The big new electric winches and the block and tackle system could easily handle heavy, heavy loads.
“What about the sails?” I said, looking up at the rig.
“They’re all new, so is the roller furling system. You’ve probably noticed that the mainsail is inside the mast. You push a button and out she comes. No fuss, no bother.” He put a foot on top of the huge windlass up at the bow as if he was claiming a new territory.