by Jeff Ross
“Jose cut me off.”
“What?” Esme asked. “We saw him catch the wave ahead of the one you got on.”
“That’s what I thought too. But he must have dropped off it and caught the next one. He came out of nowhere and went straight at me.”
“That’s weird,” Alana said. “He didn’t strike me as the kind of guy who would try to rub you out on the rocks.”
“Well,” I said as they helped me stand, “that’s what happened. The weird thing is, I swear I saw Kevin. With Jose.”
“What?” Esme said.
“When I came to, I swear I saw Kevin standing over me. Everything was foggy. Their faces looked see-through. But I swear I saw him.”
“Where did he go?” Esme said, looking up and down the beach.
“I don’t know,” I said. “The surfer who brought me my board said he saw a couple of guys pull me out of the water. But he didn’t get a good look at them.”
“Um,” Alana said. “You might want to get that looked at.” She pointed at my leg. Blood dribbled from a long cut on my shin. “And that,” she said, pointing at my shoulder. I put my hand there, and it came away red. “And kind of all over.” She looked back at the water. “I’m not going in there for a while. You just sent an open invitation to every shark within fifteen nautical miles.”
“Sorry,” I said.
She smiled, a really warm smile, and stepped up beside me. “No worries, I was done for the morning anyway.” She grabbed my arm and threw it over her shoulder. “How about we get you over to see Delgado.”
“Delgado?” I said.
“Yeah, Delgado used to be a doctor or something,” Alana said. “He’ll patch you right up.” Alana and I took three steps together before Esme spoke up.
“You want me to bring what’s left of your board?”
I looked at my surfboard. It was broken in two, and bits were missing as well.
“No,” I said. “It’s toast.”
Esme took the two ends and jammed them into the sand so they looked like a couple of headstones. “Rest in pieces,” she said.
chapter seven
“A paramedic, actually,” Delgado said. He had made room for me on his couch and was digging in a cabinet for a first-aid kit. “What happened?”
“This guy cut me off my wave.”
“That doesn’t really happen around here. Normally people are very cool about taking turns.”
“Do you know a surfer named Jose?” I asked, touching my head gingerly. There wasn’t a cut there, but it was throbbing painfully.
“Jose? What does he look like?”
“Kind of small, dark-brown eyes. Faux-hawk.”
“What kind of board?” Delgado asked. “That’s normally how I tell who’s who.”
“Looked like a Channel Islands. I don’t know which model.”
Delgado put some swabs and cotton balls on the coffee table and handed me an ice pack for my head. He inspected the cut on my shin. “Can’t say I do,” he said. He looked up at me. “This is not going to feel nice. How are you with a bit of pain?”
“It needs to be cleaned,” I said.
“He whimpers and cringes like a child,” Esme said.
“I do not.”
“Remember that splinter I took out of your foot last week?” She gave me a lopsided grin.
“I just really hate splinters,” I said. “That’s all.”
Delgado dabbed at the cut on my leg with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball. It stung at first, and then it felt as though the alcohol dove deep into my flesh and was grinding away in there. It was all I could do to not grab my leg and scream.
“Yeah,” Delgado said, looking up at me. “But I’d say that’s the worst of it. It’s not really that deep a cut.”
“How deep is it?”
“We’ll see. Hold still.” He went back to work.
I buried my head in the back of the couch to take my mind off the pain. Then someone took my hand and held it tightly. I glanced over, expecting to see Esme, and found Alana kneeling beside the couch. She took the ice pack from me and pressed it to my head.
“Are you sure it wasn’t just an accident?” Esme asked.
“A guy pretends to take one wave, jumps on another, then comes out of nowhere and tries to ram me into some rocks? No, I don’t think so.”
“Maybe he missed the first wave, then pumped for the next one and didn’t see you. It happens,” Alana said.
I thought about this. It does happen. Sometimes you miss a wave and don’t want to give up on a good set, so you catch the next one. There’s a chance you might not notice someone on the following wave because you are taking it late. But it seemed as if Jose had wanted to force me into the rocks. As if he was aiming for me.
“Maybe,” I said. Delgado did something to my leg. I inhaled quickly.
“What could he have against you?” Alana said. “You’ve only just met.”
“Barely met,” I said through clenched teeth.
“You’re in luck. It’s a surface cut. A bit of liquid skin will do the trick,” Delgado said. “Same with the shoulder.”
“Liquid skin?” I said.
“It’s like a band-aid you spray on. It helps seal the cut, keeps germs and bacteria out, and lets it heal. I don’t think you need stitches,” Delgado said.
This was a relief. I looked down at my leg and, now that it was clean, could see that what I’d thought was a gash was simply a long, thin scrape down my leg. “Go for it,” I said.
“Who knows you’re here?” Alana asked.
“No one,” I said.
“Well, there’s you two and the boat driver,” Esme said. “And the surfers that were out yesterday. But they don’t really know us. I mean, we’re just a couple of tourists to everyone else.”
“A couple of tourists who are looking for someone,” I said.
“You didn’t tell anyone you were coming to Bocas?” Delgado asked. He was applying the liquid skin. It made a hissing sound as he sprayed it on my leg.
“My parents know I’m down here with Esme, and her dad is in Panama City. But we haven’t talked to him since we got here,” I said.
“It must have been an accident,” Delgado said. “This is a very chill spot. I can’t see that kind of thing happening here.” He sprayed a few spots on my feet. “You have to keep these covered or you’ll have an infection by tomorrow. Wear shoes today.”
“You mean you think I can surf again tomorrow?”
“With the size of the waves coming in, I’d guess you’d have to lose a leg before you stayed on shore. Am I right?”
Yeah, I thought and nodded. Pretty much.
The cuts didn’t look bad at all once we were out in the sun. Esme had gone to our hut and returned with my Reef shoes. Esme, Alana and I settled down on the beach and watched the surfers.
“Are you here on your own?” Esme asked Alana.
“Yeah. I broke up with my boyfriend in Mexico. We were doing a whole surf-trip thing. Straight down the west coast. But…”
“That didn’t work out,” Esme said. “Gotcha.”
“Yeah, it didn’t work out. We hadn’t really been dating very long. It was stupid of me to take off with him. But I wanted out of Florida, you know? I wanted to surf some real waves. Anyway, we had planned to come here after Mexico. But he decided to go back up north and find some giant waves. You know, some real monsters, not these crappy little Central American ones.”
“If Surfline is right and this place goes off in the next couple of days, then the joke will be on him,” I said.
Alana nodded and dug her toes into the sand. “So do you really think Jose tried to ride you into the rocks?”
“Yeah. I really do. It seemed deliberate.”
“Well,” Alana said, “he’s local local.”
“Local local?” I asked.
“Like, he lives on this island, not one of the other ones around here.”
“What makes you think that?” Esme asked.
“He told me.”
“What else is on this island?” I asked.
“There are some huts on the north end. I think there might be some other restaurants and clubs. But they’re all for the locals. I was told they’re not tourist-friendly.”
“But you think Jose might live on the north side of the island?”
“It’s possible,” Alana said.
“Well, I’m not doing any surfing until I get a new board.” I looked at Esme. “Want to go for a little walk?”
Esme stood and wiped sand off her long legs. “Sure,” she said. “Why not.”
“I’ll come too,” Alana said. “You know, in case you need some muscle.” She flexed a slender arm for us and laughed.
chapter eight
After lunch, Alana, Esme and I walked as far up the beach as we could before ducking onto a trail that we hoped would lead to the north end of the island. Alana led the way, looking over her shoulder now and then to keep the conversation going. The jungle was loud. Birds cawed from trees, and there seemed to be giant crabs everywhere. Each time we took a step or spoke, they scurried into the undergrowth.
“Have you been up here before?” I asked.
“No, like I told you, I just got here the night before you arrived,” Alana said.
“So how do you know about the clubs and everything?” Esme asked.
“You didn’t hear them last night? It was whomp, whomp, whomp, all night long.”
Esme and I shook our heads. We had passed out well before a dance club would have started up.
“Did Delgado tell you anything about the village?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Alana said. “Not to go.” She stopped in front of a tree that had fallen across the trail. “I think the locals feel their island gets overrun by tourists.”
“What makes you think that?” I asked.
She put a foot on the tree and hopped over. “Because Delgado told me they felt that way.” She laughed. She really had a great laugh.
“So us going up to the north end?” I asked.
Alana reached a hand out and helped me over the log. I did the same for Esme.
“Maybe not the best idea,” said Alana. “But it’s not like they dislike foreigners. Delgado said they’re just worried about getting run out.”
We started walking again. “On another note,” I said. “How many different things do you think live in this jungle that could kill us?”
Alana laughed. “More than you want to know.”
The village came into view slowly. It was like nothing I had seen before. All the huts were on stilts about five feet off the ground. They were connected by raised board-walks made of different-colored planks. The huts were painted random colors as well. Most of them were made of plywood. None of the windows had screens. And where a portion of a house had fallen away, it was replaced by corrugated steel or bamboo stalks or whatever else washed up on shore.
Music filled the air, and there were people everywhere speaking Spanish.
“Keep an eye out for Jose,” I said.
We decided to stay on the main track. No one was unfriendly, but no one was inviting us to dinner either. A wave came in, crashed on the break wall, spilled over and flowed beneath the walkway. People moved slowly in the heat, and dogs barked in the distance.
“I wonder what will happen if the waves that are coming are as big as Surfline says they will be,” I said.
“I don’t know,” Alana said. “The villagers might not even know about it. They aren’t exactly hooked into the web, are they.”
“They have to know, right?” Esme said.
It seemed as if all that came out of the local radios was reggae. Though maybe every so often there was a quick interruption of news and weather.
A pair of locals approached. We moved to the side to let them pass and were forced onto a second walkway. A woman shouted at us from a nearby hut.
“What did she say?” I asked quietly.
“Umm,” Alana said as we stepped back onto the main walkway. “Kind of like, ‘Stay off my lawn.’”
“Oh,” I said. I suddenly didn’t feel safe. The warm glow of a beautiful afternoon faded.
We made it to the northern tip of the island. There was a dance club and a little bar facing the ocean. We ducked into the bar and found a table with a view of the water and the village. The bartender ignored us until Alana got up and ordered three fruit juices from the bar.
“What are we going to do if we find this Jose guy?” Esme asked.
“Just talk to him. There has to be a reason he doesn’t want me out surfing,” I said.
“But why?” Esme asked.
“I swear I saw Kevin. And Jose was right beside him.”
“Come on, Luca. You had just been smacked in the head and nearly drowned,” Esme said. “You could have seen angels or gargoyles.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t. I saw Kevin.”
Alana came back with our drinks. She shook her head. “I’m not so sure you want to drink these.”
“Why?” I asked.
“This is not really a tourist bar. You know?” Alana said. “More of a locals-only vibe. The bartender cringed at my Spanish.”
We stared at our fruit juice. I was thirsty, but I wasn’t prepared to drink something that might make me ill.
“She scooped the ice from a different bucket,” said Alana. “The juice came out of a plastic container not one of the bottles that were right there. And she only washed her hands after she’d finished making the drinks.” We pushed our drinks to the middle of the table. “Plus, I’m pretty sure I was overcharged.”
“We’ll pay you back,” I said.
Alana laid her hand on mine. “No problem, señor.” She had amazingly green eyes, big and wide. They looked like the water in the depths of a coral garden.
“There he is,” Esme said.
I whipped my head around. “What? Who?”
Esme slowly stood. “Jose.”
Jose was with two other guys. One of them was pushing a wheelbarrow full of coconuts. I half stood, and he spotted me. Before I could say anything, Jose bolted. He ran off so fast he knocked the coconuts right out of the wheelbarrow.
chapter nine
I was first around the table and out the door. Esme and Alana followed. The walkway was jammed with people. I jumped onto a smaller one to get past them. A flourish of angry Spanish followed my every step.
I spotted Jose on a walkway leading to the eastern side of the island. I skirted around a pair of women, then leaped over a bundle of bamboo stalks lying on the ground. The walkway veered out over the ocean. Beneath me, crabs scurried into hiding. I slowed down and checked to see if Esme and Alana were following me.
“Did he go this way?” Esme asked when she caught up.
“Yeah,” I said. “Where’d Alana go?”
“I don’t know. She was right behind me.”
“Come on, she’ll catch up.” We started running again, saying, “Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me” as we passed people.
At the eastern edge of the island, we headed south. The five-foot-high walkway stretched out over deeper water. Ahead, a group of people chatted and drank beer at a wide junction. I slowed down and searched for Jose’s face in the crowd. The walkway forked. One section cut back into the jungle, the other continued out over the water. I was about to take the jungle route when I saw Jose slink out from beside a hut. He had his head down and his hands in the pockets of his surfer shorts.
“There he is,” I said, pointing. We started running and got within twenty feet of him when a big guy in dark sunglasses ran out of a hut and barreled into us.
I tried to get my balance, but I slipped and fell headfirst into the water. I popped up just in time to see Esme hit the water.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
Esme felt along her leg. A bit of blood hazed the water.
“Yeah, just a scrape from the coral,” she said.
I looked up at the walkway. Jose
and the big guy had disappeared. A bunch of people were laughing and shaking their heads at us. Someone yelled at us in Spanish. I think it was, “Go back where you came from, gringos.”
“Esme, over there,” I said, pointing to where the walkway led onto the beach. We swam out past the reef and into deeper water before cutting back to shore.
“Well,” Esme said once we were sitting on the beach. “That sucked.” She checked her cut knee. It was just a scrape, but coral scrapes were worse than pavement scrapes. Coral reefs are a living organism, like a giant animal. When you’re cut, part of the organism stays in the wound and makes it sting more than you could ever imagine a little cut stinging.
“Do you still think Jose is just a local who doesn’t like gringos on his island? He recognized us and ran away.”
“That’s odd,” Esme said. “But what would Kevin be doing with someone like Jose? If Kevin is even here.”
“He is,” I said. “I’m more sure of it now than ever.”
“But why would Kevin take off? If he knew we were here, he would come and find us, right? He would…” Esme stopped and touched her cut knee. “He would want to be with us.”
I put my hand on her shoulder. “I don’t know, Es. Maybe he’s in some kind of trouble. If he’s here, we’ll find him.”
She looked at me with watery eyes and a trembling chin. It would be heartbreaking to have come this far to find Kevin, only to have him disappear again.
“We have to go back and find Alana,” I said.
“No, you don’t.” Alana jumped off the end of the walkway. “Alana found herself.”
“You’re all right?” Esme asked.
“I am. I thought you guys had gone the other way. It took awhile to figure out you came this way. Um, why are you both soaked?”
“Some giant tossed us into the water,” I said.
“What?” Alana frowned. “I know Delgado said the locals can be unfriendly, but that unfriendly?”
“Someone doesn’t want us to find Kevin,” I said.
Alana sat down beside me in the sand. “And so you two are just going to go on home and forget any of this happened?”
“Um, no,” I said.
“Yeah, I didn’t think so.” She bumped me with her shoulder, then stood back up again. “Come on, there has to be a way back to the other side of the island from here. Unless you want to go back through the village.”