Diego, Run!

by Deborah Ellis

  ‘Where am I going?’ he asked, not really expecting an answer.

  ‘Where would you like to go?’ Smith replied in an almost jovial voice. ‘New York City? San Francisco?’

  Diego remembered the posters of the long bridge and the crowded city.

  ‘Cochabamba,’ he said.

  Smith laughed. ‘I’m glad you’ll be with us for awhile longer,’ he said. ‘I’ve really come to like you. Most stomping boys are too stupid or too drugged out to talk back. And here’s an important lesson for you. Make the drugs, sell the drugs, become rich from the drugs, but don’t use the drugs. Let others destroy their brain cells.’

  ‘That’s good advice, boss,’ one of the men said.

  ‘I should go on the lecture circuit,’ Smith said. ‘Just like Kissinger, right, Diego? Just like Dr Phil.’

  ‘If you like me, you should let me go home.’

  ‘Can’t do it, son,’ Smith said. ‘Can’t bear to think of you living in that prison again and missing this opportunity to see the world. Besides, you have to pay back what you stole. We’re going to strap cocaine to that tiny chest of yours and send you up to feed all the hungry noses in America.’

  In the distance, Diego heard the thump-thump of a helicopter propeller.

  Soldiers! They were his best chance now. He kept talking, trying to distract Smith from the sound. If they came close enough, maybe he could run out in the field and signal to them.

  ‘I don’t have a passport,’ he said. He knew a bit about travelling. ‘And the plane ride will be expensive. I don’t think you would make much money by sending me north. But I do a good business in Cochabamba. I work as a taxi, and I have a homework service. I could pay you back that way.’

  The helicopter was getting closer.

  ‘I told you this was a bright boy,’ Smith said to his men. ‘You’ll have to watch your backs. He’ll be after your jobs!’

  Then Diego saw the helicopter appear over the tree tops. In a burst of energy, he yanked himself away from Smith and ran out into the clearing, waving his arms.

  ‘I’m here! I’m here! Help me!’ he yelled. He didn’t look back, sure Smith and the others were close behind, or were raising their guns to shoot him. He kept running and waving.

  A massive wind swirled up dust and debris around him as the helicopter landed. He reached it just as the door was opening.

  ‘Help me!’ he screamed above the noise of the engine. ‘They’re drug makers! They’re taking me away!’

  ‘That’s right, Diego,’ said Smith, right behind him again, speaking directly into his ear. ‘We’re taking you away.’

  Diego saw then that the pilot was not in a uniform. Smith’s men opened the back of the helicopter and loaded in the things from the camp. They got in, too. Then Smith pulled Diego up beside him. They sat by the open door, legs dangling out. Diego held onto whatever he could find, but was horrified to feel the helicopter lurch and see the ground drop away.

  ‘Isn’t this better than living in the prison?’ Smith asked. ‘Stick with me, kid, and I’ll show you the world. Money, power, you can have it all. I like your spirit.’

  In spite of his fear, Diego was captivated by the sight below. So much green! Endless forest, thick and dark, so unlike Cochabamba’s red earth mountains. This was Bolivia, his country, the land of his ancestors. It had been given to them by Pachamama, the same way coca had been given to them, to be cared for and respected. It did not belong to this gringo, who wanted only to drain it of all that was good.

  Smith’s big hand grabbed hold of the back of Diego’s neck.

  ‘It’s a big jungle,’ he said. ‘Can swallow a man whole.’

  Smith tightened his fingers into Diego’s flesh. Diego shut his eyes and prepared to die, then opened them again. If he was going to die, he wanted to see it coming.

  ‘I am God,’ Smith said. ‘Serve me well, and I will bless you. Curse me, and you will find yourself in hell.’

  He kept his hand on Diego’s neck, but he did not push him out. They soared over the tall trees and river valleys, into a green that did not end. It was magnificent, and terrible, and Diego was so exhausted and scared that he no longer distinguished between the two.

  After a time, the ground began to get closer, and Diego saw they were aiming for a small clearing with several buildings. Soon the helicopter was on the ground, and Smith and Diego were on their feet.

  ‘Did you like that?’ Smith asked, as the propellers slowed to silence. ‘One day you, too, could have your own helicopter. Or maybe you’d like a plane instead.’

  Men came out of the buildings to greet them.

  ‘I’ve brought us a first-class courier,’ Smith said. ‘Treat him well.’ He handed Diego over to one of the new men, then turned to get the suitcase of coca paste out of the helicopter.

  For that one moment, no one clutched him, and Diego took full advantage, plunging headlong into the jungle.

  FIFTEEN

  A spray of machine-gun fire followed Diego into the bush. Birds rose up from the trees, and their shrieking propelled him forward. He scrambled over fallen logs, smacked into trees, tore through barbed vines, and tripped over things he couldn’t see.

  When he finally stopped running, he tried to calm his panting so that he could hear if he was still being followed. The birds and monkeys were settling down. He didn’t hear any footsteps, but he didn’t know if he would. Would they be able to sneak up on him? Would the jungle hide the sounds he made? Diego didn’t wait around to find out. He started moving again.

  On and on he went, not knowing if he was going in a straight line, if he was going away from trouble or into more.

  He kept moving until his legs simply wouldn’t move any farther. He tried to climb over a large log, but found he didn’t have the strength. He sank down to the floor of the forest.

  He was so thirsty! The air in the forest seemed to be sucking all the moisture out of him. All the water in his body was on the outside of him, not inside, where it belonged. He leaned his head back to rest it against the log.

  In the next instant, he was on his feet again, shrieking in pain. He forced himself into silence, but something was sticking little knives in him all over his body.

  Tiny creatures were crawling on him. Diego did a crazy dance, hopping around and slapping himself, trying to brush the fire ants from his skin without getting more bites. He jumped and spun and bumped blindly into a tree. He looked up to grab a vine to steady himself, then snatched his arm back again—he was about to grab onto the swinging end of a very large snake.

  Finally, the bugs were off him, and there was nothing left to do but cry. He couldn’t pretend any more that he was brave. He was tired of being strong and looking after business. He wanted his mother to be there, to take care of things, and to bring Mando back.

  ‘Diego.’

  The sob stifled itself in Diego’s throat. He looked up, but all he could see was jungle.

  ‘Diego. Don’t cry, son. Everything will be fine.’

  It was Smith.

  Diego sprang to his feet and spun around, looking in every direction. No Smith. But he was there.

  ‘You remind me of myself when I was young,’ Smith said. ‘Tough. Of course, there were no jungles in Wisconsin, where I grew up. There used to be a forest. I hunted there with my father and grandfather. Now it’s a shopping mall.’

  Diego couldn’t make any sense of what Smith was saying. He took off again, running away from where he thought Smith’s voice was coming from.

  He ran and ran, until his chest ached and his legs burned with pain, pushing himself to the point of exhaustion, stopping when he could go no farther.

  ‘Diego.’

  He heard Smith’s voice again.

  ‘Where do you think you’re going to run? I’ve been hunting people in one jungle or another since I was eighteen. There are a lot of things in a jungle that can kill you. You really have to watch your step.’

  A single rifle shot sounded. Dieg
o jumped and started running again.

  ‘I’m getting too old for this,’ Smith called out. ‘I should just leave you out here to die, but I don’t like loose ends. Loose ends are not professional.’ He shot again, but Diego was already out of the range of his rifle.

  Diego didn’t know how he kept moving. With every step, he expected to die, killed by a bullet or a snake or a creature he didn’t even know about.

  Smith kept talking to him as they moved through the bush.

  ‘You could have had a great future with us,’ Smith called out. ‘We were going to make you into a courier, running drugs across the border, maybe even all the way into Canada. Wouldn’t you like to see Toronto? Go to a hockey game?’

  Diego kept moving. If he gave up, no one would ever know what had happened to him. Even if he went back to the prison with empty hands, at least his family wouldn’t be left with a big question mark in their lives.

  A series of small logs had fallen over a pond, giving Diego a bridge to scamper over. He hopped from one mossy, slippery log to another. Most were big and solid. One was skinny and unstable. It bobbed and shook under his weight, but he got off it quickly and made it to the other side.

  Smith’s voice was getting closer and closer. Diego dashed up a small ridge overlooking the pond.

  And couldn’t go any farther.

  His foot was stuck.

  He had stepped into a hole, or a tangle of roots. He pulled and yanked, tears of panic soaking his face as Smith appeared on the other side of the pond.

  ‘I guess my eyesight’s not what it used to be,’ Smith said, his voice calm, as if he were buying onions in the market. ‘All those years as a sniper. I could put a bullet between the eyes of one of Ho Chi Minh’s comrades from a quarter of a mile away. Old age—it’s not for sissies!’ Smith laughed. He began to cross the log bridge.

  ‘These days, of course, I usually get others to do my killing. Remember what I told you about power? But I’m a better shot than the others. I’ll be able to kill you without wounding you. I’ve developed a fondness for you, Diego, and I don’t want you to suffer. A clean kill is a gift to an enemy you respect.’

  Smith was halfway across the pond, moving slowly. Diego was trapped. There was no need to hurry.

  ‘Why kill me at all?’ Diego asked. ‘I’ll probably die out here anyway.’

  ‘Yes, but a slow, painful death. I’m not a monster, Diego. I like to think of myself as a father figure to all you throwaway boys who make your way to my cocaine pits.’

  Smith raised his rifle. Diego bent this way and that, moving as much as he could so Smith couldn’t get a fix on him in his rifle-sight. Then Diego picked up whatever he could get his hands on—sticks, rocks, dirt—and threw them down on the big American.

  ‘Hold still! You want me to wound you?’ Smith recoiled from a stone that hit him on his bald head, drawing blood. He moved closer to get a better shot.

  He stepped onto the skinny, wobbly log. His balance failed him. He tried to retrieve it, but the log rolled underneath him, and his feet did a brief, crazy dance to try to stay on top of it.

  It was no good. He went into the water. His rifle landed on a patch of sand not far away, on the edge of the pond.

  The water was not very deep. Smith’s head surfaced as he regained his footing.

  ‘Nothing like a dunking on a hot day,’ he laughed, as he waded through the water toward his gun.

  Diego wiggled his foot and pulled. It was coming loose.

  Smith was almost within reach of his rifle. This close to Diego, he wouldn’t miss. There wasn’t much time.

  Diego kept pulling on his foot.

  Smith reached the sand bank. Two more steps, and he would have his gun. And then . . .

  ‘Diego!’

  Diego looked up. Smith’s legs had sunk into the wet sand past his knees. The rifle was just beyond his reach.

  ‘Toss me a branch or a vine,’ Smith ordered. ‘You help me, I’ll help you. That’s good business.’

  Diego didn’t waste time answering. One final tug, and his foot came loose. Smith was now buried almost to his hips.

  I should run, Diego thought. But he didn’t.

  Instead he crept down the bank, testing each patch of sand with his foot before he put his weight on it. He could feel the breeze from Smith’s waving arms as he passed within inches of him and grabbed the rifle.

  ‘Good boy,’ Smith said. ‘Hold on to one end and I’ll grab the other. You’re strong. You can pull me out.’

  Diego scrambled back up the bank. He turned and pointed the rifle at Smith.

  One shot, and it would be over. No nightmares, no voices in the dark. And no one would know. One dead gringo, and Mando’s death avenged.

  ‘Now, that’s not right, Diego. That’s not respectful. After all I’ve done, I deserve some respect.’

  Diego closed his ears to the stupid words coming out of Smith’s stupid mouth, but he couldn’t silence his own heart. Killing Smith would be easy. It might even be right. But he couldn’t do it.

  He tossed the gun as far as he could into the water. It splashed, sank and disappeared. Then Diego took off into the shelter of the jungle.

  ‘You think quicksand can kill me?’ Smith bellowed after him. ‘Show me some respect!’

  Diego kept running.

  Too much had happened, and it had happened too fast Diego needed not to think and not to feel. The rainforest towered around him.

  For the rest of the day, Diego just walked. When the sun went back down and it was too dark to see, he dropped to the ground and fell asleep right there. If something wanted to eat him during the night, he didn’t really care.

  SIXTEEN

  Diego slept a long, deep, dreamless sleep, waking up to birds singing at the rising of the sun. He was stiff, bug-bitten, and his mouth was dry with thirst, but he was alive.

  He moved himself slowly, feeling the aches. The canopy of leaves above him was green and glorious, and he was small against the ferns, insignificant among the trees that grew and grew, right up to heaven. Diego wondered if maybe he should just stay where he was. It was as good a place as any to wait to die.

  A branch above him began to sway. He wiped a grimy hand over his eyes and saw a group of monkeys bouncing in the branches. They howled, showed their teeth and threw things down at him—sticks, leaves, and fruit.

  A banana landed not far from Diego. He picked it up. Although it was still mostly green, it was food. He peeled it and shoved it in his mouth. He looked around for other things the monkeys threw, and found two more bananas. One was already peeled. He wiped the dirt from it and swallowed it down.

  The good sleep had cleared his head, and the food gave him back some of his strength. He stretched to get the ache out of his back, then started walking again. There was food in the jungle. And, somewhere, there was water.

  There were many things in the jungle that could kill him, but there were many things that could keep him alive, too. After all, people had lived in the Amazon jungle long before cities, hotels and prisons even existed.

  ‘Maybe I’ll build myself a home here,’ Diego said to the monkeys. ‘I’ll live off bananas, and hunt capybaras, and build a beautiful house for my family to live in when they get out of prison.’ A flock of brilliant red and orange parrots flew by him, and he took that to be a good sign.

  Diego wondered briefly if Smith’s men would come after him, and decided they probably wouldn’t. They had the coca paste, and he didn’t think any of them liked their boss enough to go wandering in the jungle looking for him.

  As he walked, he planned the house he would build. It would be on stilts, but higher than the village houses, right up into the trees. Corina’s screeching would scare away the snakes. He’d have his own room, with a door he could close to keep Corina out. His father would make furniture out of tree branches, and his mother would knit blankets out of vines.

  The forest thinned, grew thick again, then opened up at a small watering hol
e on the edge of a meadow. A pair of giant otters rolled around each other in the pond. Diego was about to go down to the water’s edge for a drink when he noticed a wild boar coming out of the brush, big tusks jutting out of the side of its face. Diego stuck to the edge of the trees, moving slowly so he wouldn’t attract the boar’s attention. Then he started to cross the clearing.

  A meadow rose up around him in great moving clouds of colour. Giant blue butterflies, smaller ones of red and yellow, others with bright purple wings flew up out of the grass as he walked through. Diego laughed, and the sound of his laughter seemed to draw out even more butterflies. They landed on his head, on his arms, on his shirt, before flying away again.

  When the butterflies had settled back down, Diego looked around and saw the tops of hills rising out of the forest some distance away. If he could climb to the top of one of them, maybe he’d be able to spot a road or a village.

  It was hard to continue in a straight line once he was back among the trees. There were too many things to avoid, like stands of nettles, and too many things to go around, like giant logs that were too big and mossy to climb over. For a long while, Diego worried that he was going off-course. Then the ground started to slope upward.

  The thick vegetation started to thin out a bit, and the trees grew farther apart. There were tree stumps here and there.

  Someone had cut firewood. That meant people might not be far away. Diego caught a hint of a fresh breeze. He went toward it.

  The more he climbed, the more the forest fell away. After several hours, he noticed a change in the temperature. The sun was hanging low in the sky. Night was coming. The sweat cooled on his body, and he began to shake with chill.

  The trees gave way to bushes that were not much taller than he was. He recognised the little green leaves. They were the ones he had been stomping on for weeks.

  Diego started pulling leaves off the bush branches and stuffing them in his mouth. The moisture in the leaves hit his throat like a prayer.