Actually it was Ashley and she didn’t really scream. She just said “Ugh! Shit! A dead horse”.
It was enough to shatter my fantasy though. Probably for the best – the others were surely getting sick of me narrating the whole journey in a bad American accent.
“The group recoiled in horror from the corpse of some hideous beast…”
“Shut UP Tony!”
“Sorry.”
The dead horse, or most of it, was scattered around a clearing we’d carved at the base of a small waterfall. It was hard to believe that all this land belonged to Johnny. Two days ago for no apparent reason he’d decided to discover the course of a river which ran across the farm through a good mile of virgin cloud forest. The phrase cloud forest had conjured up images of infinitely tall trees, ramrod straight, disappearing into the mists in some ethereal dreamscape. Well, before I’d arrived of course. Soon after getting here I’d realised it was just a posh word for jungle. But this made me very happy. I love jungle.
The thick layer of tangled branches and vines started about a foot above the level of the water and rose impenetrably high above our heads. Jimmy had gone first, carving a path with ruthless efficiency. But being Jimmy he had also carved it about four and a half feet high, which left Toby and myself the job of expanding his hobbit hole to fit westerners. We took it in turns, chopping away at the foliage until our arms ached then switching sides. The girls followed, hacking at the undergrowth on both sides to expose a strip of riverbank. I was having so much fun I hardly even cared that my left welly was leaking.
It was the third day of splashing through the river with one boot full of water when it started to bother me – mostly because of the decomposing animal we’d just found. There was something altogether less wholesome about the water now. Ashley was poking at the remains with a soggy stick. “Ah man! There’s still skin attached to these bits…”
“If there’s any meat left it’s mine!” I said.
“Ew, you can’t eat horse!” said Ashley.
“Ash, I’ve eaten more bloody vegetables in the last week than I did in my entire life previously. I’d eat you if I thought I could get away with it.”
“Human meat is supposed to be closest to pork,” Layla declared.
I looked at her. The truth in her words became immediately apparent. Don’t say it! I warned myself. It’s too easy… With an effort I ignored the comment. What I couldn’t ignore was the next image that leapt into my mind; Layla with an apple in her mouth and a skewer going in between her bum cheeks for slow roasting… I had to laugh. Oh did I laugh! I doubled over and hugged my knees for support until I could control the guffaws.
Ashley was nonplussed. “What’s so funny?”
If only I could tell her! “Oh, I’m, um, laughing about that dead horse…”
That earned me a pair of peculiar looks.
“Anyway, no point flogging the poor creature,” I added. “Might as well clear it up.”
“I am not touching it,” said Layla.
“Well, more for us.”
Clearing the river took a good few days. Sometimes it was only Layla and Ashley helping me as we sloshed around pulling branches and rotting leaves out of the water (Toby had conveniently discovered some urgent computer work he had to do). Sometimes the Real Men mobilised, and we had the bosses plus Leonardo, a friendly vet from Quito, and local tour guide ‘Falco’ Freddy lending a hand. The two were opposites – Leonardo was stout and cheerful, with a wispy black comb-over covering his balding head and the undeniably sharp intellect within. He even spoke occasional words of English, as though to keep us guessing at just how much of our conversation he could eavesdrop on. Freddy was big and dumb; his full head of hair and imitation Ray-Ban aviator sunglasses concealed very little worthy of note. He was working far too hard to project the same image Johnny did effortlessly; his khaki shirt was covered with sew-on badges making him look halfway between a third world military officer and a boy scout.
Johnny directed the mismatched pair in the setting up of a rope system for hauling the debris out of the river valley. I say ‘system’. This is perhaps an overly grand label. It consisted of a rope. Stuff was tied to one end and I was tied to the other. Hand over hand I raised sacks of branches and buckets of leaves. Every so often I’d hear my favourite Spanish word – a sharp cry of “Cuidado!” (careful!) – from below, which would indicate that whatever they’d just fastened to the other end of my rope was particularly heavy, or spiky, or sharp. Glass and jagged chunks of metal came up. I struggled at one point, straining with teeth clenched and veins throbbing, until Johnny and Freddy climbed up to lend their combined manhood to the task.
Between us we dragged up the bank an inch at a time a colossal framework of rusted metal. It wasn’t until we collapsed in the long grass with the mission finally accomplished that I noticed what it was. Where they’d dug it out from I’d no idea, and fuck knows why it was down there in the first place, but we’d just dredged up half a small car. A Citroën I think.
Bones we had aplenty. Toby guessed that at some time in the past the landowners had simply tipped any animals that died over this cliff, handily disappearing them into the jungle with the minimum of effort. Now Johnny had picked the exact same spot to be the culmination of his grand River Walk, which meant that what went in had to come out.
We found a wolf skull – ‘Falco’ Freddy identified it, drawing upon his intimate knowledge of wild animals and their environment. I had a feeling he was full of shit and had just made his best guess but I wasn’t about to say so in front of Johnny. Anyway, my idea was even less likely – I was still trying to convince everyone it was the skull of a sabre-toothed tiger.
From start to finish the ‘walk’ was a mile long. We’d cut a lovely channel through the vegetation above it and cleared the river of all debris in both directions. Quite how it was going to become a commercial success as a tourist attraction I couldn’t see. There was nowhere to walk other than wading down the middle of the river. Boardwalks would be ideal, but so far out of our ability to buy and/or create that we might as well be considering conveyor belts and escalators. Still, Johnny was enthusiastic and the work was immense fun, so I ignored the logistical issues and struggled on.
There was a reward at the end. We climbed up over a series of small waterfalls and followed the water upstream to a narrow cleft in the cliff wall. Above us the road curved through the uppermost reaches of the forest, but from down below we were totally hidden. Toby ventured into the opening first. He was our fearless leader after all. Something moved in the darkness. Did a bat just fly past my head? The stone walls pressed tight on both sides as we edged sideways through the defile. It was almost completely dark inside. I shrieked as something touched me. Which made Toby snigger, as it was him that had touched me.
“I think it opens out up ahead,” he chuckled.
“Fucker,” I responded.
What was living down here in the darkness? Something ancient and monstrous, skulking in the jungle and surviving on the flesh of dead horses? Was this a pit of sacrifice to the beast? Just ahead I heard Toby gasp. I quickly pulled myself around the corner behind him. We were in a small, glistening cavern. A single shaft of sunlight filtered through the water that cascaded from the roof. The effect was magical. The walls, wet with spray, reflected the light in a million glittering points all around us. The floor was a stone basin, catching the falling water in a cold deep pool before allowing it to spill out down the channel we’d followed in. I could have stayed there, gawping open-mouthed at the beauty of the place for hours.
“Shit, I’m soaked!” said Toby. “Let’s get out of here.”
It became a tradition, as each new volunteer arrived, to bring them all the way down the River Walk whilst recounting the adventures and mishaps we’d had creating it. We’d finish by making them go first into the darkness of the cave and see the look of terror on their faces become wonder when they came out again. It was the most amazing thing we ever discovered, tucke
d away beneath a forgotten pocket of jungle halfway across Johnny’s land.
But it never became a tourist attraction.
Pit Stop
“You can drive, can’t you?” Toby asked.
“Well, no,” I informed him. “I mean, I can, of course, but I can’t, you know, legally speaking.”
“S’alright mate, I figured you could do it. Just don’t hit anything.”
He tossed me the keys.
Sweet! I was going to get to drive the white 4x4 all the way across Santa Martha, to the fat puma’s enclosure. It was a long, long time since I’d been behind the wheel of a car, and what with never actually taking a test and all, not many people felt comfortable about letting me loose in theirs. But now I was in Ecuador. No licence? No problem! Stuff like that just didn’t matter on Johnny’s farm – it was one of my favourite aspects of the place. I had to be a man after all, and men can drive – it goes without saying. My only regret was that it wasn’t Johnny’s own monstrous truck. I’d ridden up the mountain in it often enough to respect its raw power. But then again that might be a bit much for me to handle on my first attempt. I’d be less worried about hitting something and more worried about roaring straight off the side of the mountain! Be calm, I told myself, the time will come. Today I gain their trust with a flawless trip in the white truck. Before they know it they’ll be lending me the big one to go on a night out in Quito… Bwah ha ha HA!
The other volunteers were standing around the car looking at me strangely. Had I accidentally laughed my super-villain laugh out loud? Did they know what I was planning? No, impossible! Then what…? Ah. They were waiting for me to unlock the car.
I reversed somewhat quickly out of the barn and screeched to a halt outside Johnny’s house. Toby had lingered by the front door to watch this manoeuvre, most likely to reassure himself that he’d made the right decision in giving me the keys. I waved at him through the window and gave him a triumphant thumbs up. He merely shook his head in what I assume was mock despair, and went into the house. Ashley and Layla walked over to the truck and threw their tools in the back. Then they both rather prudently climbed into the cab behind me instead of joining their equipment. Clearly my opening gambit had not instilled much confidence.
“It might be a little bumpy,” I warned, to cover my back in case I went a bit too fast. I had to get used to the clutch and the brakes, whilst travelling downhill over a narrow, twisty and seriously knackered farm track. ‘Bumpy’ was likely to be the understatement of the century, so it seemed fair to warn them.
Off we went. I drove slowly, but not too slowly – you never know when Jimmy might be watching, and even Toby copped shit from him for cautious driving! I had no desire to be told I drive like a vegetarian. I swung round a few corners and bounced off some of the larger rocks in the path. A few minutes later we’d arrived, rattled but essentially undamaged, at Garfield’s enclosure. My heart was beating triple time.
“Here we are,” I pointed out, trying to sound casual. The girls peeled themselves out of the back seat and reclaimed their tools.
“You can go a bit slower you know,” moaned Layla. “We’re not on a time limit. Every time you go over a bump our heads hit the roof, and the faster you go the harder we get bashed.”
Mental note to self: Drive Faster. “So sit in the back next time,” I told her. I felt that I had the right to be flippant. I was the driver.
Entering Garfield’s enclosure was my second adrenaline rush of the day. It was always thrilling to be so close to such a massive beast, though he never seemed even remotely bothered. I’d still never seen him move. I could easily have believed he was too fat to stand if it wasn’t for the amount of effort he seemed to put into distributing scraps of chicken carcass all over his enclosure. Chunks were scattered through the bushes, stuck halfway up trees, partially buried in half a dozen locations. It always took a long time to gather the various pieces and finally inter them. Maybe he just liked the company and wanted to prolong our visit? I’d like to think this was the case. Because the other alternatives were that either he fed with a mindless ferocity that belied his bulk, or that he sadistically enjoyed tearing the chickens to shreds.
Eventually the gory duty was finished. All three of us trekked back up to the car and ditched our tools and gloves. I was elated – time for me to take the wheel again!
“Hop in guys!” I said gleefully.
“You’ve got to turn round first,” Layla pointed out.
“Oh, yeah. Do you want to get in now, or shall I go turn around and pick you up on the way back?”
The girls exchanged glances. “We’ll wait here,” said Ashley.
Women!
I fired up the engine and roared off down the track. For most of its length this path ran around the side of the mountain, with a steep slope upwards on one side and a very steep slope down on the other. The path itself was quite narrow, and there were few places where a car of this size could easily turn round. In fact, as I kept driving, I discovered there were no places where the car could turn around easily. It was going to be difficult wherever I tried it.
‘Hm, not there,’ I thought, passing another slight widening in the path. Up ahead was the quarantine pen where we kept the ocelot with HIV. The clearing sprang to mind as the perfect location, but the closer I got the smaller it looked. Any overly enthusiastic reversing would send me careening backwards down the mountainside, sealing the fate of the unfortunate cat even sooner than nature had ordained. That would really piss Toby off – only recently I’d witnessed a heated argument when Johnny again suggested we have the ocelot euthanised.
No, better keep looking. After a minute or so I came to the main ocelot enclosure. Sure enough, the track widened quite a bit at that point, enough so that the top fence was set back from the road by a few feet. From there the fences led downhill at a crazy angle, enclosing a huge chunk of land that quickly fell away from where I had pulled up. The place was almost impossible for humans to traverse – regardless of the six strong pack of stalking Ocelots, the sheer steepness of the mountainside at that point negated any possibility of simply walking down. To the cats it was a fantastic multilevel playground, but to us it was pretty close to being an overgrown cliff face. All of which put me in an uncharacteristically cautious mood. There was almost enough room to turn around, but was there quite enough? I couldn’t be sure. And my clutch control still left much to be desired. This was a point at which one wrong move, one tiny little wrong move, could be the end of the car – and more importantly the idiot who’d decided to attempt a twenty six and a half point turn in it.
No, there had to be somewhere else.
It occurred to me that the girls had been waiting quite a while by now. At each potential turning point I’d stopped for a few seconds to evaluate the possibilities, and all that time was starting to add up. Pretty soon they were going to get worried, start thinking that I might have had a crash. The smart thing to do was get back in the car, drive a bit further up the path, turn the thing around and get back to them ASAP. So I did.
Except that, the further up the path I drove the narrower it seemed to be getting. A couple of minutes beyond the ocelots I was struggling to find enough road for the wheels. The track here was carved straight out of the mountain, obviously by someone who was seriously bored with carving it. He’d made it as wide as he could be arsed to, and not an inch more. I held my breath a few times as I eased the truck around tight bends where at least one wheel was hovering over the abyss. Holy shit, I thought, this is a goat track! And for bloody skinny goats at that.
The track was rising too. I’d passed a ridiculously steep trail which led off to my left, straight up the side of the mountain. Other than that there’d been no escape at all from the rapidly dwindling path. Maybe if I could stay on it long enough it’d lead me right to the top? In any case there was absolutely no chance of backing up. If I didn’t find somewhere wider to turn around soon… I didn’t want to think about it. All of a sudden
a tiny stream of doubt trickled into my mind. Had I missed the right place? Almost certainly. At the ocelot enclosure? Most likely. Was I going to find somewhere else suitable? I shied away from the obvious answer.
One last corner. The path seemed to crest a ridge just beyond where I was. I edged forward, first gear, slower than a slow walk. I climbed up the ridge, and over, and looked down on a great big meadow. Saved! Except that, like most of Johnny’s land, it angled downwards so steeply it made my stomach churn.
Bugger.
What to do? By now the girls were almost certainly fearing the worst. And sooner or later they’d come looking for me. That didn’t matter – it’d take them a week to hike up here and they’d surely give up before getting this far. For starters they’d never believe I could possibly have come this way in the car. But more worrying was that they might go back to the house for Johnny. My first trip out in the car… I couldn’t have them putting any doubts in his mind. So there was only one thing for it. This was a 4x4 after all. Speed down the hill, swing a wide loop at the bottom and use my momentum to power back up. Simple! Then a few narrow corners and I’d be back with the girls in no time. I took a few deep breaths, then caught my face in the mirror. Desperation stared back at me. Was this, I asked myself, a really, really stupid thing to do? Oh God I hoped not.
I set off down the hill in first gear. Straight away the car accelerated so much the engine roared. I approached the bottom of the hill at breakneck speed and hauled on the wheel to spin the truck for its return journey. It slewed around in a massive semicircle and I stamped on the accelerator to blast back up the hill. The car fairly leapt the first few metres, assisted as planned by a shit load of momentum.
Then it slowed. Slowed some more. And finally stopped.
I’d had my foot to the floor the whole time but to no avail. And now, wheels spinning frantically on the grass I could feel myself slipping very slowly backwards… I shit myself and grabbed for the hand brake. Pulling it on as far as I could with all the panicked strength I could muster just about managed to stop the car rolling the rest of the way back down the hill. I was stuck. Halfway up a crazily steep hill. Miles from the farm. Miles from anywhere. And all on my own. In Johnny’s car.
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