Galapagos Below

by D. J. Goodman

  Galápagos Below

  A Quintero and Hoyt Adventure

  D. J. Goodman

  © 2016 Derek Goodman

  1

  Out of the six passengers in Ernesto Padilla’s panga, five of them fell into a reverent hush as they approached Isla Niña. The sixth, Debbie Schmidt, didn’t speak either, but the look on her face made it clear to Ernesto that this wasn’t because of any sense of awe on her part. She’d probably just tired herself out with all the complaining on the ride here. Everyone else in the boat, her husband included, seemed grateful for her silence. It meant they could enjoy this moment in peace.

  So, of course, she had to wreck it. “I still don’t see what the big deal is. It just looks like someone took a giant shit in the ocean.”

  I will not throw my paying customers overboard, Ernesto thought. That would be unprofessional. Although he wouldn’t be surprised if any of the other tourists cheered as he did it. Even Bernie, her husband, had begun to look like he’d had enough of his wife’s whining by the third day of their week-long trip. Ernesto wasn’t even entirely sure why the two of them were here. The other four people in the panga were biology students, here because, for them, these islands were their closest thing to Mecca or Jerusalem. Bernie Schmidt seemed to share some of their enthusiasm for the Galápagos Islands, but his wife had refused to participate in most of the activities. Instead, she usually preferred to stay back on the main yacht and turn her skin from pasty white to tomato red. Bernie had convinced her to come with them for Isla Niña, even though Ernesto had subtly tried to tell him that maybe, out the five islands on their itinerary, this one was hardly the best for her.

  In a way, Debbie Schmidt was right about Isla Niña. From a distance, it looked like nothing more than a mound of brown and black, completely uninviting and not appearing to host any life. That was the amazing thing about the Galápagos Archipelago. To humans, they were hostile, barren, many of them devoid even of fresh water. That was part of why they had been left alone for so long. That was part of why they had been able to thrive in their own unique and beautiful way.

  Debbie groaned as they got closer to the island. “Where’s the dock?”

  “There is no dock,” Ernesto said in his heavily accented English. “I said before, this is going to be a wet landing.”

  She stared disbelievingly at the black volcanic rock that circled the island. There was no flat beach on Isla Niña, just the jagged rocks hanging between three and ten feet over the surf. “Where’s the stairs then?”

  “No stairs,” Ernesto said. “We will tie off the panga at a low point on the cliff and climb up.”

  “Climb?” Her voice rose to a hoarse shout. “You can’t be serious.”

  “That’s the only way to get up onto the island.”

  “You can’t expect me to climb anything. This is my vacation.”

  “You could stay in the panga, if you want.”

  “No, I insist you take me back to the yacht.”

  There was a collective groan from everyone else in the inflatable raft. Mrs. Schmidt seemed thoroughly surprised that she was the only person who thought this was unfair.

  “Why aren’t there stairs?” Mrs. Schmidt asked. “Or a ladder?”

  Ernesto thought he had done well so far in maintaining his cool. He was responsible for these people, after all, and silly little blow-ups could put them at risk when they were floating out upon the ocean. He had to admit, though, that even his well-known calm started to slip.

  “There has been much effort to keep the islands as natural as possible. Any sort of permanent structure on the island could affect the wildlife.”

  Mrs. Schmidt mumbled to herself, something about wildlife knowing its place or something like that, but she didn’t say anything more, nor did she try to get him to turn the panga back around. Maybe, just maybe, she would behave herself long enough to learn a little appreciation for the island.

  They had needed to arrive in the morning to take full advantage of the day and the light, but that had the unfortunate added effect of making them approach Isla Niña when it was coming up on low tide. At high tide, any climb would be easier, since their handholds would not be as slick from the retreating waters and the water would be higher up the steep rock face. He’d come to Isla Niña enough times now, though, that he was aware of the best landing spot even at low tide to provide his passengers with an easier way up. He maneuvered the panga into a shallow alcove of rock where the cliff hung closer to the water. This was where the sea lions were most likely to congregate, although for some reason he didn’t fathom, there didn’t seem to be any basking in the sun here today. There were, however, a number of marine iguanas feasting on the algae-covered rocks, and he stopped the panga long enough for a couple of the biology students to take their cameras from their wet-dry bags and snap a few photos. One young woman cooed over a larger specimen, noting the way it bobbed its head, and correctly identified that as a sign that it wanted to mate.

  Mrs. Schmidt ignored it all, instead staring back in the direction of their yacht some distance away.

  After the students had taken their fill of pictures for the moment, Ernesto instructed them on scrubbing their shoes with brushes before going onto the island. Isla Niña had been completely off limits to anyone other than scientists up until recently, meaning that out of all the islands the Galápagos Park allowed people on, Isla Niña was one of the most unsullied when it came to invasive species. Most of the tourists already knew the drill, although of course Mrs. Schmidt scoffed at the idea that her expensive hiking boots could somehow cause any damage to the tiny island’s ecosystem. Ernesto, still not showing his growing impatience, gave her the talk he’d given everyone else when they’d gone to previous islands—that anything, even a tiny seed from one of the other islands, could cause a radical change in Isla Niña’s unique pool of flora and fauna. She didn’t seem to understand or care, but eventually she scrubbed the bottom of her shoes with a stiff brush just like everyone else.

  “When I get home, I’m going to need a vacation from my vacation,” she said.

  “And I’m going to need a divorce,” Bernie whispered, not to anyone particular, although he was close enough that Ernesto could hear.

  “What was that?” Debbie asked.

  “Huh? I didn’t say anything,” Bernie said.

  Once the panga was tied off, Ernesto helped the others up onto the least steep part of the rocks. The marine iguanas, displaying their famous lack of care for all things human, made no effort to get out of the tourists’ way, forcing them to use some fancy footwork to get around the creatures. For a moment, as Bernie was helping her up the rock, Debbie looked like she was about to purposefully kick one of the iguanas. If that happened, Ernesto would have no choice but to take them all back to Isla Santa Cruz immediately and end the tour. Any attempt to intentionally harm the animals was illegal, and he could be held accountable if he didn’t enforce those rules. Her foot slipped before she could do anything, though, and she scraped up her hands and arms as she scrambled for purchase. The rough black rock could be almost glass-like in the right circumstances. Even though he hated himself for it, Ernesto felt a small amount of joy at the idea of this woman bleeding. Any blood that fell would need to be cleaned up, of course, but Ernesto was willing to do it if it finally meant she was going to stop making things so difficult.

  Once everyone else was up the slope, Ernesto followed, spider-climbing up with the ease of much practice. Finally, they were on Isla Niña, and Ernesto couldn’t help but smile as all his tourists (short of Mrs. Schmidt, of course) stared around themselves in wonder.

  Again, to anyone who didn’t know better, Isla Niña wouldn’t have seemed like anything worthy of a second look. The ground,
rocky in most places and reddish in the few places that could actually be considered soil, was home to only the scrubbiest-looking plants and grasses. Further in on the island’s three-mile radius, they could see a few cacti, but the average person still wouldn’t recognize any of this as special. Only when they paid closer attention would someone notice the scrawny variety of scalesia, an alien-like flower distantly related to the sunflower, growing in a few clumps. On one island, the scalesia had evolved into something the size of trees, but Isla Niña’s breed stayed small.

  “This is seriously what we’ve come all this way for?” Mrs. Schmidt asked. Her husband ignored her, instead caught rapt by the sight overhead. The biology students, too, stopped everything to stare. Overhead hundreds of blue-footed boobies circled, and nearby a number of great frigatebirds joined them. Ernesto recognized most of the frigatebirds as female by the white coloring of their necks, but those weren’t the ones that got everyone’s attention. Instead, it was the male frigatebirds, their red throats swollen up with air like bizarre, fleshy and feathered balloons. Ernesto smiled. It must be mating season for them.

  Bernie’s gaze move downward to where something else flittered and caught his eye. “Wait, is that…?” He pointed at something about the size of his palm, a small dark shape that zipped through the air and landed on a cactus.

  “Yes, it is,” Ernesto said.

  The biology students oohed and ahhed. Mrs. Schmidt raised an eyebrow. “Just looks like a bird to me.”

  Ernesto would have corrected her, explained why this one little finch meant so unbelievably much to the Galápagos Islands, not to mention the entire history of biological study itself, but she wandered away before he could say anything. Her path was technically forbidden, as tourists weren’t allowed to go anywhere other than on designated paths, but Ernesto let his duty as a guide slip for the moment. Let her be miserable elsewhere. These other people had paid him to take them to, what was to their mind, an ancient lost paradise, and he wasn’t going to let one person ruin it for them. And so he ignored her, instead choosing to carefully creep up to the cactus and explain the specifics of the tiny finch they were seeing.

  “So, that’s one of the famous Darwin’s finches, right?” Bernie asked.

  “Yes. Specifically, this is a small cactus finch. Each of the finches are endemic to specific islands. While some types can be found on multiple islands, this one only exists here, on Isla Niña. An entire species of bird that only exists within a three-mile radius, and that’s it.”

  Ernesto went into his typical spiel about what made the Darwin’s finches unique, specifically their beaks. The biology students nodded sagely, most of them apparently already knowing most of this, but Bernie Schmidt ate it up the most. Ernesto had to wonder how someone like him had ended up with someone like Debbie Schmidt, but he supposed that wasn’t any of his business.

  “Amazing, isn’t it?” Ernesto said. No matter how many times he went over this with tourists, he still felt some awe even in himself. “Such a small creature. And yet when Charles Darwin found them, it changed everything we knew about nature and the world.”

  The cactus finch tweeted at them, more annoyed at their presence than afraid, and flew away. The tourist group, apparently satisfied for the moment, broke up and milled around as Ernesto checked all their supplies. They would be here for a couple of hours before heading back, and while that might not seem like a lot of time, the amount of supplies he had ready for it was great. He had food and blankets and first-aid supplies, enough that they could stay the night if something went wrong. He’d never had that happen, though. He’d been a licensed guide in the Galápagos long enough that he could head off most emergencies long before they happened.

  Which reminded him of Debbie Schmidt. Her hands had been scraped on the climb up the slope. While he was more concerned about what her left-behind blood might do to the ecosystem than he was about what she might get infected with, he still needed to disinfect any small wounds she might have.

  When he looked for her, however, she was gone.

  Ernesto had a brief moment of panic before he brought himself under control. This was no worry. He’d had tourists wander off before. On some of the larger islands, that might be a problem, but Isla Niña was so small that he should be able to see her no matter where she was if he found a high point. He was more concerned that she could have wandered too close to the edge, slipping on the algae and loose rocks to plunge into the ocean.

  He told the biology students to stay put and get ready for lunch, then pulled Bernie Schmidt aside. “Did you see which way your wife went?”

  “Um, that way, I think,” he said, pointing a slight distance away.

  “Let’s go get her,” Ernesto said. “She will probably listen to you more that she would to me.”

  Bernie made a mirthless chuckle. “Debbie listens to herself and her mother. Sometimes, I think I actually catch her arguing with herself if she doesn’t have anyone else.”

  “Still, come. She cannot be wandering around the island by herself.”

  The two of them went off in the direction Bernie had indicated, both of them silent at first. Once they were a distance away from the others, though, it was like the tourist sprung a leak in whatever held his quiet in.

  “I know what you’ve been thinking this whole time. You’ve been wondering how I put up with her.”

  Ernesto certainly had been thinking that earlier. For now, he was more concerned with getting the group all back together. They were well off the trail now, and if certain authorities knew he was leading tourists off the approved paths, he could get in trouble. The animal life on the islands had a tendency of getting underfoot, to the point where boobies would build nests right in the paths, unaware that such a move might put them in danger of being squashed. If Mrs. Schmidt accidentally stepped on and destroyed something important, not only would Ernesto likely lose his permits, but Isla Niña would once more get closed to the public. Considering the uproar some environmentalists had unleashed over opening a new island to the public, Ernesto suspected any such accident would turn him into a non-person in Puerto Ayora.

  While Ernesto had been thinking on this, Bernie had still been talking. “…it was either that or her sister. And I couldn’t do that, you know?”

  “Um, right,” Ernesto said. Then he pointed, glad for the distraction. He hadn’t actually been paying attention to the tourist’s words, but he suspected they contained more personal information than he wanted to bother with. “There. She is over there.”

  Wonder of wonders, it looked like Debbie Schmidt had actually seen something that didn’t cause her to go into complaining fits. She was stooped down on the rocks, dangerously close to the edge, so close that the spray of the ocean waves misted her face. She didn’t appear to notice or care, though. In fact, she actually looked like she was smiling.

  “Debbie?” Bernie asked as they got closer.

  “Shh,” she said. “You’ll scare it away.”

  Whatever it was, Ernesto doubted that. The Galápagos animals indifference to humans was legendary, going all the way back to the tales Darwin had told of having to push iguanas out of his way in The Voyage of the Beagle. Still, happy that the woman had found something on this trip to enjoy, he slowed his walk so that whatever she had found wouldn’t feel threatened.

  “What is it?” she asked Ernesto, her voice almost reverent.

  “Uh, looks like a crab to me,” Bernie said. Unlike with the finch, he didn’t look terribly impressed. Funny, how he and his wife had suddenly switched places.

  Ernesto inched closer to see the thing crawling around on the edge of the rock face, prompting Debbie to hold tight to the black rock if she wanted to continue watching it as it made its way back down to the edge of the water.

  “A Sally Lightfoot crab,” Ernesto said. The crab, only about ten centimeters long, was nonetheless a sight to see given it spectacularly bright coloring. Its pincers were small, almost stunted compared to other
crabs, giving it a feeling that couldn’t really be said of any other crustacean: it was almost cute.

  “Who’s Sally Lightfoot?” Bernie asked.

  “Jesus, Bernie, who cares?” Debbie said. Her voice lacked much of the venom it had earlier. She leaned further over the edge, trying to watch the crab as it joined twenty or thirty others just below the high-tide line.

  As much as Ernesto wanted to let her continue having her moment of awe, her proximity to the edge unnerved him. “Mrs. Schmidt, please come back this way. We shouldn’t be this far off the path.”

  For a second, the glare she gave him made Ernesto think that she was going to throw another fit, but it went away quickly to be replaced with a gentle, contented smile.

  Ah, Ernesto saw. That was why Bernie had married her. The islands did, after all, have a way of bringing out the best in some people.

  “Okay,” she said. Ernesto backed away so she would have room to scuttle away from the cliff edge. “Are there more like that on the island?”

  “Oh yes.” Confident that she had inched far enough away from the edge that he wouldn’t need to grab her, he turned around and waved for the two of them to follow.

  He took several steps before he realized that neither of the Schmidts had moved. When he looked back, he saw them both in quiet conversation. In that moment, they almost looked tender and loving toward each other.

  I can give them a minute yet, Ernesto thought. He started walking toward the trail again.

  Something erupted behind him. A massive spray of water hit him in the back with enough force that he fell on his face, his cheeks immediately feeling the sting of sharp black rock. The water continued to fall on him for a second, a very localized rain storm.

  He sputtered seawater from his mouth, dazed from the fall. It took him several seconds before he heard Bernie Schmidt screaming.

  Ernesto got to his knees and turned to face the Schmidts. Except there was only one Schmidt, now. Bernie stood about a meter from the edge, staring down at the water below. He was drenched, although it took Ernesto a few seconds to realize it wasn’t just water darkening the man’s clothes. There were spatters of blood as well.