As I poked at his T-shirt with the knife, there was a sudden grumbling and activity around me. Leandra screamed. Snapping my head to look upward, I found myself staring into an eye, and followed a line of sight down an arrow shaft, the bowstring held taut.
I dropped the knife and held up my hands.
Leandra appeared between the arrowhead and me. The young boy came forward, spoke to the native holding the bow, and had him lower his aim. He talked to Leandra in Spanish.
Leandra turned to me. ‘What the hell are you playing at? They think you were going to put him out of his misery with the knife.’
This was the second time she had stood between a weapon and me. But there was no time to thank her. Heat rising in my cheeks told me how stupid I had been.
‘The arrow wound is infected. All I was going to do was cut away his T-shirt and apply some antibacterial powder. Without that, he might not make it to the village. Please explain to them.’
Leandra turned and exchanged words with Boat Boy.
‘Carry on,’ she told me.
This time my actions were slow and deliberate. First, I opened my backpack and took out the packet of powder from the medical kit. I handed it to Boat Boy to hold, making sure he was involved.
Leandra must have spotted my hands shaking. She picked up the knife and deftly cut away Carlos’s T-shirt. I held out my hand for the packet. Tearing off the top, I sprinkled the powder around the wound.
‘Will that do it?’ Leandra asked and handed me the knife, which I slipped into my belt.
‘I don’t know. If the infection spreads – well, hopefully it won’t.’
The rest period didn’t last long and we were on our way. Somehow, I didn’t feel as tall after my encounter with the native and his bow and arrow. I guessed they owed Carlos some loyalty. Carlos had told us back at the campfire that he’d spent three months with the Indians, when illegal tree loggers had threatened to interrupt the supply line to the cocaine unit and to encroach on their tribal territory. No wonder he knew so much about their call signals and customs. He didn’t explain the outcome, but I could guess what it had been, seeing as how we hadn’t encountered any tree felling.
We must have travelled at twice the speed of the inbound journey as we broke through the edge of the forest to the clearing. We were greeted by the women and a group of children who joined in the walk to the community hut.
Inside the hall, it was a huge open space. They set Carlos down in the centre, next to an open fire. The women and children formed a circle around the stretcher, interrupted only by an out-of-place-looking, ornate gilt chair with a red velvet seat. The legs were bowed, with clawed feet, the likes of which I had only ever seen in one of those garish Italian furniture reproduction shops. Goodness knows how they had shipped it out here.
More of the natives joined in the circle and they all chanted. Boat Boy beckoned Leandra and me to join the circle, now swelled by the men. All went quiet as the chief entered carrying a spear and took his place on the ornate chair, with a warrior standing on either side.
‘What do you think is happening?’ Leandra whispered.
The chief raised his spear and started to chant alone.
‘Maybe he’s calling on the spirits to cure Carlos. At least his chest is still rising and falling.’
Truth was, the infection was spreading and the redness now extended to the bottom of his rib cage. It wasn’t looking good for Carlos.
The chief pointed his spear to the entrance of the hall. I turned to see the weirdest spectre it had ever been my misfortune to encounter. The ghostly apparition was painted head to toe in white, with symbols daubed in red all over his body. As he danced and chanted, his hand shook what I hoped was a monkey skull and not a shrunken head, attached to a stick. On his head he sported a panther head, with the skin flowing as a cape. Around his neck he had a multitude of necklaces with bird claws swaying to his movement. In need of some dentistry, he looked menacing with his top two front teeth missing.
His actions were agile and rapid. We flinched and ducked as he leaped over Leandra and me and into the circle. The skull must have had something like small pebbles inside to create a rattle. He circled Carlos, shaking the skull over his body and still chanting. He paused by the fire, reached into a pouch, and flung something into the embers. The fire sparked like a firecracker and a plume of smoke rose to the heights of the room.
The assembled tribe gasped.
The shaman knelt at Carlos’s side and, with his eyes closed, waved his hands and fingers over where the arrow had entered as if he were playing an imaginary piano. Everyone in the circle chanted. The shaman took a cloth bundle from a second pouch and rolled it out on the ground. He picked up a large dried leaf and scrunched it in his hands, allowing the fragments to fall onto another leaf. Rolling up the leaf, he then picked up a stick from the fire and began sucking on the leaf like a cigar, blowing the smoke over the area of the wound.
Fascinating as the exhibition was, I couldn’t see how it would do Carlos any good.
The shaman beckoned to the crowd and two of the men stepped into the circle alongside him. They took hold of Carlos and lifted him to a sitting position, his arms hanging limp, his head slumped forward. The shaman lifted Carlos’s arm and felt around the fleshy area where the arrowhead was lodged. After blowing more smoke under his arm, he discarded the leaf cigar in the fire. His attention turned to the contents of the cloth he had rolled out. Picking up an assortment of berries and leaves, he placed them in his mouth and began chewing.
One of the men handed him his knife. Lifting Carlos’s arm again, the shaman made an incision away from the entry point and then placed the blade in the fire. Leandra grasped my arm as he took hold of the broken arrow shaft. At first I thought he was going to pull it, but unexpectedly, he thrust it through the skin and pulled it out through the other side. I scrunched my eyes. Leandra gripped me tighter and buried her head in my chest.
Carlos was oblivious to what had happened, not making a sound. The shaman took the knife and seared the entry and exit wounds. Then, without warning, he spat the contents of his mouth onto the wounds. A mixture of purple and green slime dribbled over the wounds and the men lowered Carlos back to the stretcher.
My stomach churned at the thought of what might have been in that mixture.
‘You can look now,’ I said to Leandra. ‘I think he’s finished.’
She raised her head, the colour drained from her face.
Once more the shaman reached into his pouch, and tossed what looked like dust into the fire. The crowd gasped again as a magnesium type of sparkle erupted and a cloud of white smoke rose into the air. They all returned to chanting and swaying sideways in unison.
The drone went on and on in a hypnotic tone. My eyelids felt heavy.
The next thing I knew, when I opened my eyes, the tribe had left, save for the shaman. He was no longer chanting, but swaying back and forth, his eyes once again closed. It was dark outside. Leandra was still asleep, her head on my lap. I had to do a double take when I looked across at Carlos. In the light from the fire, the redness on his torso looked to have been reduced to a small area around the entry wound. Luckily, he was still breathing.
The trauma of the day’s events and the gruelling walk had left me weak, my limbs aching.
I moved my backpack to use it as a pillow, trying to move slowly so as not to disturb Leandra. As tired as I was, getting back to sleep again was difficult as I ran over my options. If I didn’t go back to the villa, Perez could order retribution against Mary and the kids. If Leandra didn’t go back, she might never see her child again. Moreover, if Carlos pulled through and we were gone, likely his life would be at risk, along with that of his girlfriend.
We were all in a hopeless situation. Carlos wasn’t in a position to stop either of us from leaving. All we had to do was to take a boat before anyone awoke and head up river, hopefully to find civilization.
But really, Perez had us all in checkmate
.
I heard someone call in the distance.
‘Kurt.’
I opened my eyes to daylight. Carlos was leaning on his good arm, with a weak smile on his lips, but nonetheless a smile.
‘Ayee, ayee,’ the shaman called at the top of his voice, followed by a series of clicking sounds made with his tongue. As some of the tribe entered, whooping with delight, the shaman held a bowl to Carlos’s lips and he took a sip.
Something was missing.
I looked around – Leandra and her backpack were nowhere to be seen.
Chapter 34
Leandra Goes Missing
With some of the tribe gathering around Carlos and the shaman, I took the opportunity to slip out of the community hall, unseen. A crazy, almost frenzied feeling took over my thought processes. My eyes rolled in all directions around the village looking for Leandra, not unlike forgetting where I had left the car in a crowded parking lot. However, this was no concrete jungle. She should have been easy to spot in the rainforest clearing, but she was nowhere in sight.
Under the shade of a leafy canopy, women were pounding seeds on stones with large pestles fashioned from logs. To one side, young boys under the supervision of one of the men were practicing with their bows and arrows on a swinging target. Over to my right, one of the men was passing palm leaves to another on the roof of a hut, carrying out repairs. An old woman stoked a fire in the centre of the village, the flames licking a steaming cooking pot. Two elders of the tribe walked toward the woman, carrying a string of freshly caught fish, and dropped them at her feet.
I called out. ‘Leandra?’
The activity stopped. Eyes turned to me and then everyone carried on with their chores as if I didn’t exist. A tap on my shoulder startled me. Gripping the stock of the rifle, I turned. Boat Boy greeted me with his almost permanent toothy grin and pointed in the direction of the river.
Walking quickly, I headed for the river. As I approached the brow of the slope down to the river, my heart thumped. Recall of the caiman slithering from the bank filled me with dread.
Leandra’s backpack stood at the side of the river, opened. Her fatigues were strewn on the bank.
Scanning the scene before me, I started to snicker. My legs weakened and I sat on the grassy bank. Children were splashing the water, laughing and giggling, their hair covered with soapy bubbles. The old woman I had seen when we first arrived, who was now watching over the children, had joined in the fun. Leandra rubbed the woman’s hair with a bar of soap. The children whooped with glee. Leandra formed her thumb and finger into a circle and blew bubbles. The children soon followed her example.
I shook my head and smiled. I’d almost forgotten what it was like to have fun as a family. The routine of the drudgery of surviving in the real world hadn’t allowed much time lately for family activities. Burying my head in my hands, I began to think about all the things that I would want to do differently when I returned home.
The short time in the rainforest had taught me how little I knew about nature. As a child, Dad used to take us camping as a family, until Mom died. After that, alcohol and prescription drugs hastened his following Mom. My taking Craig fishing was the nearest we ever got to nature. I had always wanted to do better than Dad had done. Working on an automobile production line wasn’t my idea of a life, but at least Dad had had regular hours and time to spend with us as a family.
My body sagged as the thought crossed my mind that Mary would need some serious persuading to exchange her Gucci shoes for hiking boots. Pictures of Mary as a broken woman on the television screen flashed before me. Not once had she lifted her head to look me in the eyes, such was her grief. I tried to recall the last time we had looked into each other’s eyes.
‘Kurt, join us,’ said Leandra, followed by an ear-to-ear smile.
Shaking my head, I mouthed ‘no’. I hoped she would leave it at that and let me wallow in my self-pity over what I had done to my family.
But Leandra wasn’t taking “no” for an answer. She waded out of the river. I didn’t know where to look, and my cheeks flushed. She looked like a Bond girl, walking to shore from the sea. Only Leandra wasn’t wearing a bikini, and her wet bra and panties left nothing to the imagination. The children followed her, scrambling up the bank. Surrounded, Leandra took my hand and hauled me to my feet.
‘Come on – playtime. Besides, you stink.’ She laughed.
The children followed her lead, pushing and pulling me to the river. The heat rose in my cheeks, taking my embarrassment to a completely new level.
‘Strip! You can’t go into the river with your pants on.’
At the water’s edge, I stripped down to my boxers. Leandra took my hand and had to drag me into the river. With the water up to my waist, Leandra and the children splashed me happily. My reluctance to join in the fun evaporated and I splashed them back. When I made the mistake of grabbing one of the boys and launching him into a dive, they all wanted a turn.
Leandra rescued me, rubbing my hair with the bar of soap and then washed my back.
‘How was Carlos?’ she asked.
‘Conscious and smiling. I don’t know what the shaman spat on his wounds, but his fever has gone and the infection is reduced.’
‘Boat Boy told me he uses kapok and coca leaves, together with some berries. The kapok reduces the fever and the coca acts as an anaesthetic. The berries fight the infection.’
‘Incredible. They should get the scientists to check it out.’
‘What, and have them come up with a new narcotic like they did with the coca leaf?’
‘Smarty pants.’
I playfully took her by the shoulders and ducked her under the water. The children thought it was a game and, piling on me, they dragged me under the water. Surfacing, I held my hands up in surrender and waded out of the river.
‘Wait, I’ll join you to dry off,’ said Leandra.
Frolicking in the water had loosened the bandage holding the key. I turned to Leandra. ‘I need a fresh bandage.’
‘Sit down and I’ll get a new one from my backpack.’
In the intense heat, my skin had already dried. Leandra took a fresh bandage from the medical kit and handed it to me. She slipped her T-shirt on over her shoulders. Unravelling the bandage from my hand, I took the key and grasped it in my other palm.
‘What are you going to do about escaping?’ she asked as she wrapped the new bandage around my hand.
‘I don’t have an option, I have to go back and escape from the villa.’
‘Why the frown?’
‘Because Perez has my family under surveillance, that’s why. I need to find some way of contacting them to tell them to get to a safe house before Perez can do them harm. Trouble is, I don’t know if the mini-sub will have a radio, or a GPS phone.’
‘So what, then?’
‘I really don’t know.’
Placing the key on the bandage, Leandra continued to wrap it around my hand and then tied it off.
I raised my eyes to the heavens. The key wasn’t enough by itself to guarantee my escape and to save both my family’s lives and mine. All I could hope was that on the journey back to the villa, I could come up with a new plan to overcome what seemed to be an insurmountable problem.
‘Do you think Perez will have the time or the inclination to harm your family?’ Leandra asked. ‘What with the Cobras mounting attacks on him, won’t he be distracted?’
‘I can’t gamble with my family’s lives. It’s not only Perez I have to worry about. Without knowing who put the original hit out on me, they might just be pissed at Perez for buying out the hit and place a new contract with someone else. It could be the Cobras. Carlos never did answer me, remember? Added to that, Perez may want to seek retribution when and if I get home. How in hell am I going protect my family?’
‘Can’t you move somewhere safe?’
‘It’s not that simple. I’d have to go into Witness Protection, along with my wife and kids. This whole thing
is a mess. We’d have to give up everything. Our home, our friends, our whole lives.’
Drawing my hand to my face, I shook my head to dispel the negative thoughts from my mind, but they weren’t going anywhere.
Leandra pulled my hand from my face, placed her fingers under my chin and lifted my head. She looked directly into my eyes as if she were trying to read my mind.
‘Oh, Kurt, I wish I could make your troubles go away.’
I wished that too, but it wasn’t going to happen.
Chapter 35
Return Journey
Inside the community hall, two of the men helped Carlos to his feet. Boat Boy handed him a crutch that he’d fashioned from a branch with the fork as an armrest and helped him to settle it under his good armpit. Carlos grimaced as he took his first step and then another.
‘Wouldn’t you be better off using the stretcher to rest?’ I asked.
‘No, it wouldn’t fit in the dinghy. Please, just make sure I don’t fall on the way outside. I need to make it to the bench next to the entrance.’
Slowly he made his way outside. His teeth gritted with every step, but the nature of the man didn’t groan. Pure grit and determination got him to the bench. He removed the crutch and with some skilful hopping, he manoeuvred to sit.
‘I’m surprised you two came back. I thought you’d have taken a boat and gone up river,’ he said.
‘What, and get ambushed by Indians? No thanks. I made you a promise and I’ll stick to it. Besides, you left us a weapon back there – thanks.’
‘I still reckon I owe you one, even though under threat, you promised me you wouldn’t escape.’
‘I may just have to take you up on that. When are we due to get the dinghy?’
Deadly Journey Page 20