Tears of the River

by Gordon L. Rottman

  Lomara leaned over and plucked at Karen’s T-shirt sleeve.

  Turning to look at the back of her arm she saw a fat black, segmented worm.

  “Oh, gross!” She pulled her shirt up to look at her tummy. “Just great! Leeches!” She shivered knowing they were all over her. A wet three-inch leech clung to her tummy. She resisted swatting the slimy creature off.

  Jay was wide-eyed looking at his own arms. “What’ll we do?”

  “Don’t yank them off.”

  Gross. Leeches had hundreds of tiny teeth around their little suckers. If they were yanked off, the teeth could be left in the wound and become infected. Conventional wisdom was to touch a match to them, rub them with salt or insect repellent, something irritating. They’d let go, but could regurgitate their stomach contents from past hosts into the wound and that too could cause infection; double-gross.

  “Jay, just gently slip a fingernail under their suckers to break the suction and they’ll let go safely. The tiny bite will bleed for a while because they secrete an anti-clotting enzyme.”

  She shucked her tee and jeans and started working on the gross critters. She laughed inwardly at Tía’s shock, who tried to shield Jay’s startled eyes. She was wearing a sports bra and undies covering a lot more than most two-piece bathing suits, but even one-piece girl’s bathing suits exposed too much for this culture.

  “You too, Jay.”

  Poor Jay was beet red with embarrassment, but did as told. She took two off his back and him one from hers, a task he did with quivering hands. He was beginning to exhibit normal boy behavior. “Don’t try copping a feel,” she warned.

  “I wouldn’t ever…”

  “Yeah, right.”

  She picked off ten and him eight. After dabbing on antiseptic, she handed him the tube. “We’ll put on more after the bleeding stops.”

  His dismayed expression was priceless.

  “Relax. I can give you a transfusion.”

  “What!”

  “Just kidding.” What a dweeb.

  Tía was sure snotty about all the exposed skin and made Lomara turn away, which was a good thing. Tía was so offended she was at a loss for words, also a good thing, thought Karen gleefully—her rebellious streak was seeping through.

  There was an inch of water in the boat bottom. A seam or two had cracked during the whitewater run. Just great!

  Karen watched the slowly surging bands of light and shadow and cloud reflections undulate and ripple across the river’s surface. She could stare into the water’s pulsations all day and still not divine what lay ahead.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Karen’s arms felt like lead. Four hours getting through the logjam cost them many miles. They needed to start a fire soon and then look for a campsite and repair the boat’s damage. She set Jay and Lomara to bailing.

  After rounding a bend Karen saw another stream outlet on the left. Something drew her and it looked as good a place as any to light up the fire. Too, she was hoping the stream’s water might be less silty than the river’s. They needed to refill water bottles.

  Nosing the boat ashore she saw clear water flowed over the gravely sandbar in the stream’s mouth. One could walk across it in ankle-deep flowing water. Behind the bar were several pools.

  Lomara conjured up a fire in the hubcap as Karen and Jay filled water bottles. A pool on the stream’s far side appeared to contain clearer water and Jay ventured across the sandbar only to sink to his knees. The crew was laughing as he struggled across like a man walking through deep snow, an image the crew had never seen, Karen thought.

  On the other side Jay shouted, “Hey, a fish!” pointing at the pool.

  Karen rowed the boat to the other side. Luck had finally struck them. The pool was twelve feet across and only a foot deep. Inside the pool was a catfish, trapped by the receding water. It was nearly two feet long.

  Karen knew trying to fish by hand was an exercise in futility and going after a catfish would be painful, its fins were tipped with quills. Jabbed by one of those needle quills could lead to infection.

  One edge of the pool had a couple of inches of water over it and it was possible for the catfish to fish-tail over. Jay helped her drag a log to block the escape route.

  After checking on Lomara’s fire, Karen fetched the spear and machete.

  Fifteen minutes later a frustrated and hard-breathing Karen had yet to experience the thrill of the catch. Jay had taken swipes at the darting fish with the machete, but she warned him off for fear either of them stabbing the other in their wild thrashings. “Just because you’re in the jungle doesn’t make you a machete expert.”

  She’d had a dozen near-miss stabs, fractions of an inch, but near misses only counted in horseshoes.

  She needed to improve her chances. She cut a one-inch diameter bamboo pole six feet long. With the machete she made four lengthwise cuts into the first nine inches. This gave her eight prongs. She jammed in four small crossways sticks, one crisscrossed above the other in each pair of opposite slits. This spread the eight prongs outward four inches across the top. With the pocketknife she sharpened the eight prongs to points and notched a barb in each using the multi-tool’s saw-blade.

  On her third try she speared the cat. Lifting it on the end of the spear she shouted, “¡Cena!” —Dinner!

  The crew cheered. Tossing the fish into the boat, she checked to see if there were other trapped fish—nada. “Memo to self, check each stream’s mouth for entrapment pools.” They boarded and were underway—it was late though. They could have stayed at the stream mouth, but every yard they put in their wake the better.

  She felt something beneath her tee. “Dang. Not again.”

  Karen got a clean T-shirt out of her pack, sky blue. Heading into the bushes she pulled off her green tee and her bra to find two more leeches. At the pool’s edge she rinsed out the filthy tee and bra.

  Climbing into the boat, Jay was all but gawking at her damp blue tee.

  “A little respect here,” she shouted.

  “Sorry, but…”

  “But nothing, your turn to row.”

  “I should learn to swim.” Desperately changing the subject.

  “You want to learn, really?”

  “Yeah.”

  She rolled an idea around in her head. “I can teach you, if your mom’ll let you.” That almost sounded like a putdown.

  “You’d do that?”

  “Sure, everyone should be able to swim.”

  “Tope”—cool.

  Around the next bend she started looking for a campsite. They came upon another stream, a smaller one, but the water was as brown as the river’s. There were no fish-entrapping pools. The bank here was higher. Just beyond the stream a tall pole rose above the waterside brush and on the bank was a bare earth path leading up the eight-foot slope and over the top. It was manmade. The path was six feet across and although water-scoured, crude steps hacked in the bank, some reinforced by timbers, marched up the slope.

  Another boat landing. There was a rope attached to the pole and a heavy post sunk in the bank; mooring posts. Did she want to risk it? Should she? They needed food. She decided to chance a quick look and had Jay pulled into shore. What were the chances of running into another gang of thugs?

  Grabbing the machete and telling everyone to stay put, she scrambled up the steps and peered over the embankment.

  Tía cautioned her, “Cuidado, Karena.”

  There sat a flooded village, two-hundred feet distant. Behind the embankment the mostly cleared ground was underwater. A dozen houses sat upon stilts, plus outbuildings and animal pens—no animals. The houses were built of planks or bamboo, topped by tin or thatch roofs. Empty doors and windows and torn roofs revealed them to the world. No movement, no smoke.

  Noiselessly, Jay laid down beside her. He carried the screwdriver-tipped spear.

  Something told her to be careful. The chance of finding food pushed caution aside. Being flooded, she didn’t think there wou
ld be people here. She’d at least check out the closer houses. They were above water, which looked maybe a foot deep.

  She returned to the boat and helped Tía and Lomara out, telling them she was going to search for food. Concern written on her face, Tía said nothing. She’d either given up trying to tell the Americana what to do or she now trusted her.

  What bothered Karen was going in alone…that was scary. If she took Jay and something happened to both of them, Tía and Lomara would be helpless, like what had almost happened before.

  She had to go it alone. Maybe she’d better reconsider. But they needed food.

  “I’m going to look for food. You’re staying here.”

  “I’m not afraid to go.”

  “I didn’t say you were. If something happens to me, don’t you come after me. Get the others in the boat and row away as fast as possible.”

  Giving him those instructions scared her even more.

  “I’m supposed to just leave you?” He gave her a stern look. “No way, after you came back for me.”

  “I’m not arguing. If something had happened to both of us back there, Tía and Lomara would have been as good as dead. You got that?”

  He gave her another hard look, but she knew he got it. “You be careful, extra careful.” He shook his head. “You are Supergirl, taking all these chances.”

  “I don’t have…”

  “I know, you don’t have any choice. Just be careful.” He squeezed her hand.

  She found herself gazing into his eyes again. “Yeah, sure.” She stood.

  Carrying her empty backpack and the machete, she waded for the nearest hut trying not to think about Jay. It was nearly two-hundred feet with the water’s drag hard on her legs. The bottom was muddy and submerged bushes, clumps of weeds, and holes made it hard going. She was gasping for breath when she reached the first house.

  She hadn’t shouted Hola for fear someone might answer. An unhealthy reek of mold and mildew and damp rot permeated the air.

  Plodding up the steps, Karen entered the house tensely alert. Sheet metal sections had been torn from the roof. Heaps of sodden La Prensa newspapers were piled in a corner. Furnishings were sparse. Wilting pictures from magazines and a fertilizer calendar adorned one wall. Lingering echoes of voices hung in the air.

  On the sink board were plates, bowls and cups, utensils too. These things would make life easier, but she couldn’t bring herself to take anything. These people would probably return and they had so little. Food was a different matter. She’d have no qualms taking food. But she found nothing.

  She waded to the next house. Its roof was intact, but part of its bamboo wall was blown in. There was an actual bed in one room, its soaked mattress and sheets heaped on the floor. A cloud of flies rose from a dead bird crumpled in a corner. Strong musty smells.

  Plates had been dropped on the kitchen floor, their shards scattered like a fortuneteller’s divining bones. In a cupboard were opened cartons of teabags, flour, and cornmeal. Everything was damp and covered with gray mold except the cellophane-enveloped teabags. She took those. Pulling out the teabag carton she saw something behind it.

  Bingo! While most food had been taken, three cans had been missed, two of pinto beans and the other of corn. It would get them through two more days.

  The larger neighboring house was thirty feet away. The porch’s front door was open revealing a collapsed roof within. Sprawled on the porch was a small body, an abandoned rag doll, limp and damp. Thinking of Lomara, she shoved it into her pack.

  Ducking under the hanging roof two-by-fours and twisted corrugated tin, she worked her way toward the kitchen. With a deep-throated growl, a dog charged out of the backroom, bounded off a tin sheet and came over a fallen rafter straight at Karen.

  She turned, ducked under a rafter and ran full tilt into the next. The crack to Karen’s forehead knocked her backward as momentum carried her legs forward throwing her flat on her back and banging her head on the plank floor.

  The black dog leaped over her carried by its own momentum and turned on a dime after hitting the porch with a thud. Dazed as she was, she kicked the door into the dog’s snout resulting in a double-bang and a yelp. She rolled forward, shoulder-slamming into the door as the dog banged into it again, snarling. Throwing the bolt she couldn’t help shouting, “Up yours!”

  The dog was assailing the door with a vengeance. “Now what?”

  The riverbank was a flooded football field away. From a window she could see Jay atop the embankment with his spear. “Don’t be a hero, Jay.”

  She felt like talking to herself. “What was that thing?” A big grotesque, blunt-nosed round face; seamed with scares and ripped off ears. Had to be a pit bull, either trained for fighting or a guard dog. It seemed reasonable they’d abandoned him. “Who’d want him in a boat?”

  The dog body-slammed the door. She snatched up the machete. Blood trickled down her face.

  “He’s got me pinned. If I bail out a window I’ll never make it to the boat.”

  She looked back at Jay. “I need a diversion.”

  Shouting as loud as she could with cupped hands, “Jay! A dog’s got me trapped. Start walking this way. Run away when I say, when the dog goes after you.”

  Jay seemed to hesitate, but he stumbled down the embankment and the dog ceased battering the door. She grabbed a chair, set it against the wall and heard the splash as the dog rocketed off the porch. She couldn’t let it go too far or it wouldn’t come back, but go after the bait—Jay.

  Shocked, she said, “What have I done?” Helpless Tía and Lomara were still ashore.

  She frantically yanked the door open. “Run! Go to the boat, now!”

  Jay retreated with no further encouragement. She started waving her arms. The demon dog turned in a spray of water and bounded back to the house, his eyes maddened like he knew he’d been duped.

  “This had better work.” She dropped the machete on the porch, left the door open, jumped onto the chair, pulled herself atop the roofless front wall, and perched. The dog hit the porch and came through the door like a bowling ball bound for a strike. Karen dropped onto the porch framed by the door and yanked it shut. “Stupid mutt.”

  The door banged hard and she heard throaty snarling. After grabbing the machete, she leaped down the seven steps in a single bound and was taking long, high strides through the water in no mood for anymore witty name-calling.

  Her lungs burned, sucking down air and her legs felt like she was wearing the sandbag weights she used for training. Jay was still atop the embankment. Behind her she heard a splash. The dog had dived out a window. Don’t look back. “Get in the boat!”

  Jay turned and disappeared behind the embankment.

  Don’t look back!

  She focused on the path up the embankment. Snagging a bush, she almost fell.

  Don’t look back! She did when she heard splashing right behind her. The evil black eyes were fixed on her butt as the monster bounded through the water. Oh my God! Right behind the crazed monster was another one, even bigger and uglier. Her insides turned liquid.

  She hit the embankment almost losing her footing as she scrambled down its river-side.

  The boat was just feet from shore. With all she could summon, she flung herself at the boat and barely missed Tía as she crashed onto the bottom. Jay started pulling mightily and Lomara screamed. The first dog hit the water and churned toward the stern. Karen grabbed for the machete she’d dropped, but saw Jay’s spear and snatched it instead.

  The dog found hind-leg purchase on the shallow bottom and two paws came over the transom. This monster won’t quit! Tía fell off the stern seat rolling onto her back with a strangled grunt. Karen jabbed and missed in the rocking boat. Evil beady eyes appeared. A hind leg came over the transom. He’s getting in! Karen thrust again to be rewarded with a startled yelp and the hideous face and paws disappeared.

  The current pushed the boat back to shore and the bigger dog, still ashore, was readying
to leap. With the poise of an Olympic javelin-thrower, Jay lanced the wooden-tipped spear into the creature, earning a screeching yelp. It shook the spear from its hip and made a staggering retreat up the embankment.

  The other dog-paddling aberration receded in their wake.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Karen’s hands were trembling. She tried to help Tía sit upright, but she doubled up in pain and groaned to be left alone in the flooding boat’s bottom. Jay was pulling hard, as though the devil dogs were still after them. Karen dropped down beside Tía shaking and gasping, too weak to pull off her pack. Black spots bounded before her eyes and she was so lightheaded it felt she would crumple into a pile. She was sucking down air and her legs felt like rubber. Her head throbbed, front and back. Putting her hand to her forehead it came down bloody. Her knuckles were skinned and the left knee had taken a good bang. Her legs cramped. Lomara was beside her, her arms around Karen.

  She slumped there begging for breath, worrying about Tía, but unable to help her until she could breathe. Jay was still chopping the oars into the water with a vengeance.

  “Jay, you can stop rowing,” she wheezed at him.

  Suddenly realizing the sea monster dogs were no longer after them, he shipped oars and let the drift take the boat, but kept eyeing their wake.

  After a time she could almost breathe. She helped Tía up and gave her a painkiller and water. She chugged down some water herself. Tía wanted to look at her head wound. Karen looked at herself with the broken mirror after wiping away more blood.

  Geez, what a mess she was. She barely recognized herself she looked so worn-out—puffy-eyed, bruised, lips swollen, gummy and greasy hacked off hair, and a blood dripping cut across her forehead. It was a simple cut. She’d have more of a headache than anything else.

  Drifting now, she talked Jay through cleaning the cut, applying antiseptic, and bandaging it—a folded gauze pad taped around the edges. It throbbed, but she didn’t want a painkiller now.

  “We need to eat.”

  Lomara had never cleaned fish so Karen took out the pocketknife. First she showed them the canned foods and it cheered everyone up. Hot tea in the mornings would do them good.