Panama Pursuit

by Andreas Oertel

  We took off again to the north at a light jog. The twists and turns were still familiar and fresh in my mind, and I had no trouble copying the route we took that morning. We popped out of the jungle and onto the main trail a short time later. The path was smooth and well travelled, so I picked up the pace and ran for the village. The trees whizzed past me in a blur, and I just kept thinking one thing: Please be home, Lucia. Please be home.

  Only she wasn’t.

  We pounded on the door of her house again and again. But no one answered. I twisted the door knob—it was unlocked—and opened it a foot. “Lucia! Hey, are you here?”

  “Nuts!” Eric said, panting to catch his breath. “Now... what?”

  An old lady came up behind us and said something in Chocoan or Spanish. I think she heard the yelling and needed to investigate. She gave us the same suspicious glare all senior citizens give teenagers and repeated what she said before.

  I straightened up and tried to look like I wasn’t there to steal food from her garden. “Lucia?” I said.

  She frowned and shook her head.

  I knew she wasn’t around so I tried a different approach. “Lucia?” I said. I quickly pointed at the various houses in the community. Maybe she was in one of them.

  Her frown turned into more of a scowl.

  I tried a third time. “Lucia?” I pointed down the road to the east and raised my eyebrows. Then I pointed to the west, back down the trail we just took—the trail that went to Lake Gatun. “Lucia?”

  The old lady nodded and said, “Lucia blah blah blah Lago Gatun.” Well, she didn’t really say the “blah blah blah” part, of course. But that’s what it sounded like to us.

  We nodded, said Gracias, and took off back down the trail to Lake Gatun. By the time we got to the turnoff to the pillars, my lungs were on fire. I knew the lake was somewhere up ahead; I only hoped it wasn’t too far up ahead. Eric seemed like he had recovered from whatever ailed him the night before, but I was pretty sure this wasn’t good for his health. I slowed to a walk and pretended that I needed a drink of water. To be honest, I really did need a drink of water, but I didn’t want Eric to get dehydrated either.

  “Man, am I hot,” I said, digging out two water bottles. I passed one to Eric and guzzled half of mine.

  Eric copied me and drank a bunch of water. “I sure hope Lucia’s by the lake,” Eric said. “Otherwise...”

  I packed away the bottles, not saying anything. We both knew what otherwise meant. If we couldn’t find Lucia, we couldn’t find the skulls. And if we didn’t get Mr. Zola his skull, he was going to blow up the tent city at Camp Gatun. I shook my head. Does this kind of stuff happen to other kids? I wondered.

  We hurried on down the trail that wound through the forest and under the jungle canopy. Finally, after another half a kilometre, the trail opened up and we found ourselves in a small bay on Lake Gatun. But there was no sign of Lucia—or anyone else, for that matter.

  “Rats!” I said, studying the odd assortment of boats and rafts dragged up on the shore.

  “Do you think...” Eric wheezed, “do you think that old lady lied?”

  “It’s possible,” I said, “but I can’t imagine why.” I looked out across the lake at the many islands. A long row of buoys snaked across the water and disappeared south around the point. I knew where we were now—we had cut across the point overland. If we followed the shore south and around the corner, we would eventually find Krotek swatting mosquitoes beside his inflatable.

  “She must be fishing,” Eric said, “somewhere out there.”

  A giant freighter poked its nose around the corner, and then straightened itself for the trip across Lake Gatun.

  “We can’t stick around here,” I said, mopping the sweat from my face with my T-shirt. “We better go back and check with her neighbours again.” I turned to go.

  “Wait!” Eric cried. “Look!”

  I spun around and searched for whatever he was pointing at to the north.

  “There’s a small canoe,” Eric said, “coming at us... between those two islands.”

  “I see it!”

  “I think it’s her,” Eric said. “Yeah, it’s Lucia.”

  We both waved our arms and yelled for her to hurry. But that was a dumb thing to do, because instead of paddling faster, she stopped paddling altogether. She glided across the water and stared at us like we were nuts. We screamed and motioned with our arms that she should continue paddling—and FASTER. She got the message that something was up and leaned into her strokes.

  Eric and I ran into the water up to our waists to meet her boat. Lucia remained seated while we each held one side of the bow steady.

  “What is it?” she said. “What is the matter?”

  I tried to explain. “The man in the fancy boat—the rich man—said he will blow up Camp Gatun if we don’t bring him a skull.”

  “He can not have the skulls,” she said defiantly.

  “No, no.” I tried again. “He doesn’t know there are two crystal skulls. He thinks we only found one skull. We need to use the fake to trick Mr. Zola—that’s his name, by the way.”

  Lucia’s eye’s looked like they were about to pop out of her head. “It is the Chocoan prophecy... The dream of my ancestor foretold of this day.”

  “Exactly,” Eric said. “We need to give Mr. Zola that phony skull to protect the real skull.”

  She suddenly became panicky. “But we... But I do not know which one is the true skull.”

  “I know,” I said. “That’s why we need to go back to your house. We have to examine the skulls again. There must be something about the real skull that makes it unique.”

  She shook her head slowly.

  “What?” I said.

  Lucia quickly explained that she hid both skulls on one of the many islands on Lake Gatun. “How many days do we have to get him the skull?”

  Eric and I stared at each other over the bow.

  I studied my watch. “We’ve got one hour.”

  “Can we get to the island and back in sixty minutes?” Eric asked.

  “No,” Lucia said, “but I can ask my father to meet us at the island. He has a boat with a motor, and he can bring us back here very fast.” She dug through the rucksack at her feet and flipped open a phone.

  “You have cell phones?” Eric said.

  Lucia began dialling. “Everyone has cell phones. Do they not have them in your country?”

  “Well, yeah,” Eric said, “but you live in... in a jungle and... Ahhh, never mind.”

  Lucia spoke to her dad in urgent tones. I didn’t understand a word of it, but she repeated the words Isla Carmelita a few times. I suspected that was the name of the island where she stashed the skulls. She snapped the phone shut and said, “He will meet us there as soon as possible.”

  We dragged her canoe up on the bank and she pointed at another, larger boat. The three of us flipped the three-seater, slid it into the lake, and paddled like mad across the water. Lucia steered us north between the two islands and then farther east. After twenty minutes, our canoe banged into Isla Carmelita.

  I knew right away why she picked the island. It was a graveyard. The ground was covered with hundreds of stone markers and tombstones.

  Lucia grinned at our expressions. “Isla Carmelita is no longer used as a cemetery. It is considered haunted and cursed and evil. No one would dare come here and dig for treasures.”

  “Except you,” Eric said, appreciating her logic.

  “You’re not superstitious?” I asked, jerking the canoe above the high-water line.

  She shook her head and quickly tied the boat to a tree. “I’m more concerned about protecting the real skull.” Lucia jogged through the ancient burial grounds. At the far side of the island, she stopped in front of a single moss-c
overed headstone that stood apart from the others.

  “This is the spot?” I asked.

  Lucia nodded, dropped to her knees, and began digging with her hands. “As children we often came here to scare ourselves—sort of a test, I suppose. Anyway, I was always drawn to this grave and the simple Chocoan symbols engraved on the marker.”

  Eric and I helped her scoop the earth away from the grave.

  “What do the markings mean?” Eric asked.

  “It says: CHIEF THIAGO—WISE AND BRAVE. That is all—no birth date, no death date, and no second name. The stone has always fascinated me. That is why I buried the skulls here.”

  A minute later we had the loose earth piled high around us and the skulls in our hands. At the same time, the sky opened up and poured rain on us. It was even worse than the rain that caught us on the canal the night before.

  “This is insane!” Eric screamed above the noise of the rain.

  “This is Panama,” Lucia shouted. She calmly cleaned one skull using the water that spilled down on us. She passed me the clean crystal and began washing the dirty one. “Don’t worry, the rain will stop soon.”

  Eric and I started examining the skull. But no matter how we twisted and turned it, we couldn’t see any markings or features that made it unique.

  “It looks perfect,” Eric yelled.

  “I know,” I screamed back, “but does that mean this is the real skull, or a perfect fake?”

  Lucia studied her skull from all angles and then traded heads with us.

  “This skull seems foggier,” Eric said, tapping our head. “The crystal in the other is clearer.”

  I nodded because I thought the same thing. “Yeah, but what does that mean?”

  Eric shrugged. “Beats me,” he said. “But we better think of something, cause we’re running out of time.”

  As suddenly as the rain started, it stopped. The sun shone on Isla Carmelita and sparkled on the two skulls. Eric swapped crystals with Lucia and re-examined the clearer head.

  “Let’s go to the boat,” Lucia said. “Perhaps Father is here. He may be able to help.”

  “What the...?” Eric whispered.

  Lucia and I turned to Eric. He had his face mashed against the side of the skull.

  “Did you find something?” Lucia asked.

  “For sure... I mean, yeah, I think so.”

  “What was it?” I asked.

  “I was trying to look through it,” Eric said, “kind of angling it toward the sun, when I saw something inside. I think... If I can just hold it the right way again... Shoot, I lost it.”

  “Well, what was it?” I asked again. “What’d you see?”

  Eric ignored me and continued to twist the crystal.

  “We have to leave,” Lucia said. “Father will be waiting down by the canoe.”

  “Just a sec,” Eric said. “I know I saw... Come on, come on... THERE!” He froze and studied something inside the head.

  Lucia and I held our breath.

  “It’s a picture of two people. And I think there’s a rainbow too.”

  “Let’s see,” I said.

  Eric passed me the crystal and showed me where to look. It took several tries, but I finally saw what he saw—a hologram of a man and a woman standing side by side. A three-dimensional image was suspended and locked in the crystal. I think the stress was really getting to me too, because the picture in the skull looked familiar.

  While I showed Lucia where to look to see the hologram, Eric re-examined the other skull. After a few seconds later he triumphantly said, “Nothing! This has to be the fake skull.”

  We quickly agreed that true skull was the one with the images inside the crystal. Lucia placed it back in the water-filled hole next to the grave. The three of us pushed mud back into the hole and packed the earth as best we could. We raced through the cemetery and down to the water to meet Lucia’s father and catch a ride back.

  Only her father wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

  Chapter 12

  I GLANCED AT my watch. “We’re never going to make it back in time,” I said. “We’ve only got twenty minutes. There’s no way we can paddle across the lake, run down the trails to find Krotek, and get to the boat.”

  “We must try,” Lucia said, untying the canoe. “People will die if that madman sets off an explosion.”

  “Hang on,” Eric held up his palm. “I think I hear something—a motor maybe.”

  We waited as the noise of a boat coming from the north grew louder and louder. Suddenly, the Balboa roared around the corner at full speed.

  Lucia waved her arms and yelled, “Father is here! He will help us!”

  Eric and I stared at each other dumbfounded.

  “Father?” Eric mumbled.

  “Captain Pescada is your dad?” I asked.

  Lucia continued waving her dad in toward us. “Of course he is. Did I not tell you that this morning?”

  I was pretty sure I would have remembered her telling us that, but I let it go. We had more important things to sort through right now.

  The Balboa pressed her nose against the muddy shore just long enough for the three of us to climb aboard. The second we were over the rail, Captain Pescada threw her in reverse and backed away from Isla Carmelita.

  Eric and I followed Lucia across the deck to the wheelhouse. I didn’t see Elvis around, so the captain had to stay at the controls. He slid down the giant window next to the throttles, and shouted something at his daughter. We had no idea what he said, of course, but I’m pretty sure it was something like, “What the heck’s going on?” or “Why are these dummies with you?”

  Lucia pointed toward the bay where we found her and screamed deprisa, hurry up. Captain Pescada aimed the tour boat in that direction and pushed the throttles to their stops. The bow rose high and out of the water as we left the island behind us. At first we plowed water and accelerated awkwardly, but once the boat gathered speed, the nose settled down, and we sped across Lake Gatun like a hundred-person speedboat.

  I looked at my wrist watch. Nuts! We only had fifteen minutes to get to Krotek.

  Lucia did her best to fill in her dad in on what was happening, while Eric and I stood behind her listening. His scruffy face went through all kinds of emotions as his daughter explained the situation. First he looked mad. That was followed by an expression of surprise. And then finally he became determined. I could tell he was determined, because he scowled straight ahead and wedged the stump of another one-inch cigar firmly in the corner of his mouth. He clamped down fiercely on the soggy mess as we forged ahead.

  “We might still make it,” Eric shouted above the noise of wind, water, and diesel motors. “But it’s gonna be close.”

  I felt a glimmer of hope when I saw the Chocoan cove straight ahead between the two islands. But then the captain swung the Balboa wide and farther east. “Hey!” I yelled at Lucia. “What’s he doing? The bay’s right there.”

  “There is a reef between the islands,” she shouted. “We will hit rocks unless we go around.”

  I looked at my wrist and groaned. This wasn’t good at all. We needed every minute. There was absolutely no way we could run to Krotek in time. I had to do something before it was too late. So to show everyone I could be decisive too, I yelled, “Ummm... I think... I think I may have an idea. I mean, if you guys are okay with it, that is.”

  Captain Pescada ignored my decisiveness and kept the throttles gunned.

  “What is it now?” Lucia shouted, sounding slightly annoyed.

  “Forget about taking us to the bay,” I said. “There’s no time. Just tell your dad to drive directly to Mr. Zola’s boat. It’s our only chance.”

  Eric nodded vigorously. At least he supported me.

  “But what about meeting Krotek?” Lu
cia asked.

  I shrugged. “I don’t think that matters, as long as we get the skull to Mr. Zola in...” I looked at my wrist. “In twelve minutes.”

  Lucia nodded and screamed at her father. The captain didn’t hesitate. He threw the boat into a violent turn and cut across Lake Gatun—now aiming for the canal buoys that led to the Gaillard Cut and Mr. Zola’s yacht.

  After racing across the lake for a minute, Captain Pescada indicated Lucia should come into the wheelhouse. Once she had both hands firmly on the giant steering wheel, he left the controls and came out to talk to us, or yell at us—I wasn’t sure which yet.

  He studied us sternly and said, “Yesterday, I suggested you do not leave Camp Gatun. Did I not?”

  We both nodded. I guess we were going to be yelled at.

  “And today,” he went on, “I find out that you violated the sacred stone site and found both the Chocoan skulls of legend.” He lurched forward and embraced us both in a big, greasy, sweaty, cigar-smoke-smelling bear hug.

  Eric and I groaned in shock and pain and revulsion.

  “My people have obsessed over those skulls for generations. And my daughter...” He blinked away a tear that threatened to leave one of his bloodshot eyeballs. “Lucia has been searching for the true skull—to protect it—for a long time. You children have proven the legend is real and ensured that the prophecy will be fulfilled.”

  I nodded.

  “You’re... ahh... welcome,” Eric said.

  He ignored us for a second and tried to suck something tasty from his cigar. “You are like true Chocoans,” he said. “You are clever, you are courageous, and sometimes you are stupid.”

  Eric looked at me and shrugged. “Thanks again... I guess.”

  “The special skull will continue to be protected,” he explained (in case we didn’t get that). “And the fake skull will finally be used to trick a powerful man. Everything is as it should be.”

  “As long as we get the phony skull to that boat,” I reminded him, “before he starts blowing stuff up.”

  “Do not worry,” Captain Pescada said earnestly. “You have saved our special skull; now we will help you and your friends.” He took three quick puffs of his cigar and then studied what was left of it. He seemed surprised that the slimy tobacco leaves weren’t burning—which wasn’t a surprise to me—and flicked the butt into Lake Gatun.