Chapter 32
Snails
MARCH 5
Fifteenth day trapped
It had rained all night and into the afternoon. We ventured out to collect water and relieve ourselves, but hunting food was impossible. The rain finally let up, but minutes after it stopped, the tent became a sauna. It was getting harder and harder to breathe the heavy, stale air. My abdomen felt like an empty bowl. A desire to chomp my teeth into something consumed me. I thought about chewing Fitz’s leather boots or my Dr. Scholl’s straps.
“Fitz, I really want to bite into something. Do you?”
“Yes, I can’t stand it.” He was grasping his stomach. “Why the hell do we want to chew so much?” He pushed at his jaw.
“Our primeval urges are taking over.”
I heard tapping on the plastic. “Oh, no! Are the bees back?”
Fitz darted a look at the tent wall. The tapping was much heavier than the bees could make. It started slowly, but within a few seconds we were bombarded by giant raindrops again.
“Good.” I sighed. “This will keep the bees at bay and cool us down a little.” I was already sweating and felt utterly weary, despite my full night’s sleep.
—
An hour or so later, the rain stopped and the air had cooled. We were anxious to go outside.
Fitz opened the flap. “Don’t see the bees. I’ll make a fire for coffee. I really need to taste something.”
We slowly struggled out of the tent with some kindling that we’d brought inside to keep dry. The swamp smelled fresh; large leaves dripped like newly washed green robes. Small birds swooped overhead, and macaws greeted us from the canopy as Fitz and I found our places on the raft. Every day we hoped this might be the day. I opened my journal and read the previous entry’s date, March 4. My heart quickened as I realized the implications of our having made it to the fifth. We had grabbed at any goal—one of them being dates.
“It’s March fifth.”
Fitz was crouched over the stove nurturing a tiny flame. “So it is.”
Setting down my journal I inhaled the swampy air. “Juan should be back in Maldonado today. When he asks the aduana about us, he’ll find out we didn’t get to Riberalta. Unless he found gold. Then he would stay longer in the jungle,” I said nervously.
“If he did find gold, he would probably still have to go back to Maldonado for supplies. I bet he’s already organizing a search party.” Fitz sounded reassuring, but the indentations in his cheeks were deep, warning that we didn’t have much time. We needed Juan to find us soon. We waited in silence for the water to boil as the heavy rain clouds lifted.
I mixed the powdered coffee into our cups. “This is the last of it,” I said. I felt saddened to be losing this small but cheering ritual.
Fitz looked down at the murky water as he sipped his final cup of coffee.
“I’m going to miss it,” I added, wondering if I would get a headache from lack of caffeine.
“Holly, look!” Fitz fell to his knees, reaching his hand down the outer log.
The anticipation in his voice had me on my knees, too. “What is it?” I asked, peering over the side of the raft at a cluster of wormy-looking creatures that had attached to the logs near the water’s edge. Some of them were even up on the top of the logs, underfoot.
“What the hell are these?” Fitz asked excitedly. “They’re moving! Hol, they might be something we could eat!”
My stomach lurched into a spasm at the thought of food.
We studied them closely. The worms were each about an inch long and three-quarters of an inch round, were perfectly camouflaged, a mix of greens and browns, almost the exact color of the balsa wood. They were covered in a glossy film that caught the sun the same way the wet logs did. They were different from anything we’d ever seen.
As we stared at them, Fitz noticed something. “They have two tiny antennae popping up from their heads, like snails without a shell.”
“Have they always been here?” I asked, amazed that we hadn’t seen them, or stepped on their squishy bodies.
“How could we miss them? We know this raft backward and forward.”
“This is incredible!” I was salivating.
As we squatted down, we saw more and more of them. First there were half a dozen, then a dozen, almost invisible, moving soundlessly in their microcosmic world.
“It’s fantastic!” Fitz yelped, throwing his arms into the air in a wide “yes!” sign.
I laughed with delight. The worms definitely appeared to be some kind of snail, or at least it seemed more palatable to call them that. Although we were famished, we still discussed whether or not they were safe to eat.
“What if they’re poisonous?” I cautioned.
“We could die if we don’t eat them,” Fitz replied, his eyes fixed on them.
We turned to God for the last word. The snails had appeared overnight either to save us or to kill us.
“This is crazy!” Fitz finally announced. “Here’s food, right in front of us! It has to be a sign that God wants us to eat. What are we waiting for?”
“Okay,” I agreed.
Fitz nodded.
As we took the leap of faith, the weight of uncertainty fell from our shoulders, leaving us euphoric. We carefully plucked every “snail” we could find, plopping them into our frying pan of simmering water, killing, we hoped, any bacteria.
As I pulled the last snail off the log I saw something move a foot away. It was a tiny frog, no bigger than my thumbnail, like a spring peeper from back home. I was stunned when I was able to snatch it. “Fitz! Oh, my gosh!” I held it between both palms, afraid it would jump, then quickly dropped it into the pan.
“There might be others.” Fitz put the lid on the pan so he could look, too.
We found three more baby frogs. They appeared from nowhere, as if by magic. Was this some kind of spring spawn? I felt sure God was providing us with the food we so urgently needed. I couldn’t wait!
When the snails and frogs were cooked, Fitz and I prayed that they’d be safe to eat. They looked meager and repulsive, but we were going to have our first meal in fifteen days, nine snails and two frogs each.
I picked up a snail and stared at its little snout and antennae. Wincing, I popped it into my mouth then swigged some water. When my tongue pushed up to swallow, I felt a large, gelatinous lump against the roof of my mouth. Fighting my gag reflex, I got it down. I managed three more snails this way, ignoring a strong desire to spit them out. Then I tried to think of how lucky we were to have food at all, and I got two more down. “They’re like escargots,” I joked, my shrunken stomach starting to feel almost as full as my spirit. “We’re supposed to chew them.” My snails looked nothing like the escargots I’d enjoyed in France.
“Go ahead, Hol, but I’m just dropping mine down my throat. I can’t bear to bite into them.”
My urge to chew was overwhelming. “It’s the garlic sauce we’re missing,” I reasoned.
“Yeah, but the garlic sauce is all I’d like about escargots. That’s why I’ve never had them.” He always got to the heart of things.
“That’s really all I like about them, too,” I said, laughing. “But I’m still going to try chewing the last of these.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and crunched on a curled snail, imagining the garlic. The snail’s exterior was rubbery against my teeth and tongue. An icky texture, yet it felt magnificent to clamp down on it. Cringing, I bit deeper into the snail’s flesh. It felt spongy; then came the ooze. Grabbing the canteen, I chugged water, washing the snail over the back of my tongue in a waterfall to my stomach. “That’s it for chewing,” I said, gulping down my last two snails like massive pills, followed by great swigs of water.
Fitz wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Yum!”
I chuckled. “You’re really going to gross your readers out over their breakfast with this story.” Now for the two baby frogs. I held up the first frog to my mouth by its tiny foot, tryi
ng not to think about its little head, three small toes on each limb, and its luminescent white belly. I closed my eyes as I placed it on my tongue. A wisp of what must have been legs brushed against the bridge of my mouth, light as flower petals, as the baby frog slid down my throat. The second little frog dropped down the same way.
The Pink Palace was becoming part of the environment, a tiny floating island in this jungle world, watching out for us by welcoming life to form on her logs.
Fitz put his arm around me as the sun dropped, decorating the sky in hues of lilac and deep purple, slashed with magenta-rose. “Don’t worry, Hol, Juan will send someone for us tomorrow.”
Chapter 33
Like Sticks
MARCH 6
Sixteenth day trapped
We both woke up! Our hot meal of snails and tiny frogs was not poisonous. It bought us two more days during which time it rained sheets constantly with lightning, thunder, and high winds. We couldn’t risk crawling out onto the slippery logs. We had to be patient, sure we’d find more snails once the storm was over.
The swamp current was faster and the water was rising higher up the trees. The discolored plastic of our tent was weakening. A gust of wind had jumped up one side and ripped the plastic right off. We’d scrambled to rescue it from the water then managed to nail an extra piece of plastic on top to secure it. We were so light that we almost blew overboard ourselves. Heaving hard, we lay back down inside, waiting for the storm to end.
Rain still fell in buckets, but the wind began to let up. The incessant downpour had cooled the air and kept the bees away. Their effects on us were still visible on our arms, hands, and legs, reminding us that they might return.
As the day wore on, we hunkered down and read books to distract ourselves. I was still reading Papillon. Reading was helpful, but my mind drifted. I missed my family and friends. I promised to be a better person if we survived.
I thought of how my sister-in-law had given me a tombstone rubbing she’d made in England of a young woman with my name. I’d framed and hung the rubbing in our hall. The woman had died at twenty-seven. Now I lay dying beside Fitz on the raft. I was twenty-seven. Coincidence or fate? If it was fate, I had to master it to the best of my ability or die trying.
We began telling each other stories again about people who had survived drastic situations, looking for hope from their success.
“Tell me again about Rickenbacker.”
Fitz was happy to oblige, weaving a dramatic tale of the pilot crashing his B-17 into the sea in 1942. Surrounded by sharks, he and several others had drifted in inflatable rafts with a few oranges and little water for twenty-one days. Fitz had read about the World War I ace when he was a boy. It helped to know that Eddie Rickenbacker had survived. Surely we might make it, too.
Torrential rain and wind continued to batter our spirits as we lay in our tent through the afternoon. I listened to leaves being turned inside out and the cracking and breaking of boughs as they were ripped from their trunks. The tent shuddered as heavy tree stumps hurtled past our violently flapping plastic. Had Juan forgotten us?
Two thoughts consoled me. First, I now believed that we were being held in the hands of God. Second, I imagined my grandmother waiting to greet us, standing tall and dignified, younger again and without her cane, netted dark brown bun atop her head, her patrician face watching for us, eager to hug us tight.
My personal pendulum swung between hope and doubt. Hope was like cupping water in my hands. No matter how I held my palms, it could trickle out. Doubt, however, lay like granite on the heart. I looked at Fitz lying by my side. “Love is what’s really important,” I said, looking into his eyes. “We have plenty of that.”
He looked away. “I could have been much better. My temper…I’m sorry.” He paused. “I love you so much.”
I took his hand as he tried to hold me closer.
“We need to find more food,” he whispered, his eyes glazing over. “We’re like sticks.”
The wind pulled and yanked at the tent as Fitz placed both his hands around mine and softly massaged my fingers. “If I do die, I don’t think you’ll be alone for long. You’ll have your old guys to choose from.”
“How do you know you will be the first to die?” I wailed. “Look, we can’t give up.” I squeezed his arm, imploring. “As soon as this blasted wind stops I’m going to look for more snails.”
I knew that if Fitz had any strength left in him he would rise and join me on the deck. I hoped he would.
But he didn’t. He couldn’t.
Chapter 34
My Hero
MARCH 9
Nineteenth day trapped
Over the past two days, the plastic had torn off the tent frame three times. Exhausted, we’d hammered it back onto its wooden frame. The downpours eventually became intermittent. When it seemed safe to go out, we searched for food.
Snails and little frogs again appeared on the raft, this time a few more than we’d found four days ago. They popped up in groups. We assumed this resulted from the onset of spring, bursting forth new life. Whatever the origin, we took anything we could find. It was cooler to work between the rains. The sun soon brought the bees back. They hovered above us, awaiting our sweat.
As we pulled the suction-cupped little snails off the Pink Palace’s logs, Fitz looked out at the current, strengthened by the storm. It carried debris, including a log raft, about six feet by four feet, which floated by us thirty feet away. He stared like a hawk at its prey. “We could use that!”
“How are we going to catch it?” I asked.
He didn’t take his eyes off his bouncing quarry.
I saw what he was thinking. “Fitz, that’s too far to swim. You’ll never get back. We’re fine with the little balsa.”
“We need it. We sink to our waists on the little balsa. That one’s bigger and sturdier,” he insisted. “We’ll go faster on it and find snails more easily.”
“But you’re not up to this. We’ll make do.”
He’d already slipped into the water and was stroking toward his target. Desperate to find food, he would see hope in anything. I couldn’t be upset with him for that. When he was just feet away from the new raft he disappeared underwater. Seconds later he emerged, gasping but determined. Please make it back, I thought, gripping the edge of the balsa.
—
Fitz dragged the new raft to the Pink Palace. Kneeling, I put my hands out and helped him climb aboard. “Take the line…off the little balsa…and put it on this one,” he panted, his chest rising and falling as he rested at the stern. “This raft’s a lot better.”
Still stunned at his feat, I swapped the painter then turned to him, laying my hand on his shoulder. “My amazing husband.” I said the words reverently, proud of our inseparable bond. “What willpower you have.” I felt humbled at the apparent return of his resilience.
I helped him into the tent, where he collapsed onto the sleeping bag and fell asleep immediately. I crept out to try the new raft. It wasn’t waterlogged like the little balsa, and was much less rocky to sit on. I paddled the area, finding a few more snails, a couple of grubs, a dozen berries. I found three tiny frogs and dropped them into the bottom of the can. They were so light they barely made a sound. But they were protein.
Up ahead, growing on long vines that clung to logs and bushes not far from the Pink Palace, I spotted purple grapelike berries. They smelled so sweet, so ready to eat. The sight of them triggered the pinching tweezers in my empty stomach. Starvation is a kind of madness. My tongue wanted to flick like a lizard’s, to curl around the berries, to sweep them into my mouth. It was a great struggle not to eat them. The birds had eaten most of them already. Didn’t that suggest they were safe? I plucked the few berries that were left. Their red juice dyed my palm, dripping toward my fingers. Just one lick. Oh, what the heck, I thought. We have to take a chance before they’re all gone. How could they smell so sweet and be poisonous? Just the same, I made myself hold back. Fitz and
I would decide together.
“I’ve got frogs, snails, and berries,” I called to Fitz, pulling myself aboard the Pink Palace. I peeked into the tent to display my bounty.
He was groggy but awake, lying on the maroon sleeping bag with clothes bundled beneath his head. “Supper,” he said, peering into the can.
“Why don’t we each try a berry. Then if we’re okay we can eat more tomorrow?” I suggested, taking a berry out of the can to show him. “The birds are eating them all. Pretty soon there won’t be any.”
Fitz sniffed at it. “All right, I’ll try one.” He took the berry and popped it into his mouth.
“I’m eating one, too,” I said. “If you go, then so will I.” I reached for a berry.
“Holly, don’t. If I get sick, I’ll need you to take care of me, get me water.”
I put the berry to my mouth to take a bite. “I’ll compromise and have half.”
“No!” Fitz pushed my hand and the berry flew out of it, rolling onto the sleeping bag. “For your size it could still be too much.”
“Fitz, stop! I’m not sitting back and having nothing while you take a chance.” I was dumbfounded that he had the physical strength to push the berry away. I picked up another berry and took a bite. “It’s delicious.”
It didn’t appease my stomach, but I held on to the flavor in my mouth, swirling my tongue around and around. I thought of my mother’s small Concord grape arbor and the jelly she made.
Fitz pulled me close to him. His beard scratched my cheek but I didn’t mind. I felt blessed just to be with him.
Chapter 35
Marsh Birds
MARCH 10
Twentieth day trapped
This morning the air was dewy cool with a soft sun and no bees. We’d made it through the night. The pink plastic glowed on Fitz’s sleeping face. He looked like he didn’t have a care.
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