The DMZ

  Rick chewed off another piece and washed it down with a swig from his canteen. “Okay, what’s going on?”

  Julie tried to swallow her own bite without tasting and failed before answering in the same low English. “We were right. It was Bernabé’s village where the C-PAP group ended up. Bernabé was actually one of the paddlers who took them downriver. But it seems the story started a long time before that. It’s funny, but outsiders don’t seem to think of the Indians when they try to sneak around out here. It’s like they think of them as just part of the wildlife. But these people don’t miss much of what’s going on in their lands, and Bernabé says it’s been a couple years now that they’ve been seeing strange boats coming into their territory.”

  “The cargo boats from San Ignacio,” Rick confirmed with satisfaction.

  “Yes, it sounds like it,” Julie agreed. “The I’paa weren’t too happy about it. The colonists have been eating away at their territory for years. But the boats moved farther south, and when they didn’t bother them any or touch their hunting grounds, the I’paa let it go. That is, until a few months back when Bernabé and a few of the other hunters went on a—well, the closest translation in English would be a ‘long trek.’ An expedition, I guess you could call it, out of their usual hunting range. It’s a tradition for the younger men of the tribe—to add to the tribal knowledge of the area. Or more than anything, just to see what’s over the next hill, as they say.”

  Julie shifted position and winced as one foot brushed against the root on which she was sitting. “Anyway, they were out in this area where we are now when they came across what Bernabe calls a ‘big path’—some kind of road, in other words. They’d never seen colonists that far into the jungle, so they moved in closer to check it out. Bernabé isn’t very clear about what they saw—there just aren’t the words in I’paa. But it sounds like some kind of an installation. He was very clear that they saw white men there—not Colombian. Whatever they were speaking wasn’t Spanish or any Indian dialect. He says they were dressed like you—in other words, in combat fatigues.

  “While they were checking it out, two of his party disappeared. Bernabé insists ghosts took them. He kept talking about a ‘ghost cloud’ and something about a giant bug too. I can understand the cloud. Ground fog isn’t unknown out here, and I can see it would spook them even more. But the bug …”

  Julie gave her head a perplexed shake. “When I asked him if it was an airplane or helicopter like he’s seen at San Ignacio, he said no. And he insists it was impossible for human beings to have taken his men. They didn’t go too close or allow themselves to be seen. You’ve seen the way these guys move—like ghosts themselves.”

  “Surveillance cameras,” Rick said. As Julie looked at him questioningly, he threw a measuring glance at the circle of I’paa who stood patiently and silently watching the two Americans. Then with some impatience he said to Julie, “Don’t you see? This explains their whole ghost story. These guys may move like ninjas, but they don’t know beans about technology. If surveillance cameras were there—maybe even motion sensors—those guys would be picked up.”

  Julie nodded. “Anyway,” she continued, “when the other two didn’t turn up, the hunting party headed home. They’d hardly made their report to the village elders when the C-PAP bunch showed up. You know what happened from there. The chief sent some of the hunters, including Bernabé, to show Dr. Renken where they’d seen the white ghosts—or men. It seems the chief was as skeptical of their story as you were. To give the I’paa credit, they didn’t just run off when Dr. Renken and the others disappeared. They waited until the next morning, then sent three of the hunters after them while the rest waited with the canoes. But after two days, when no one came back—not even the last three they sent—they panicked and got out of there.

  “By the time they reached the village, the pilot had taken off, looking for his passengers. The village elders decided that was it. They’d had unhappy experiences with outsiders before, and they figured somehow they were going to get blamed for their visitors’ disappearances. So they just up and abandoned the village, leaving behind Dr. Renken’s computer that had been left in the canoe, so they wouldn’t be accused of stealing it. After a couple of weeks they drifted back, figuring anyone looking for them would have come and gone by then.”

  Julie paused, and her expression revealed that what was coming next wouldn’t be pleasant. “Rick, those environmentalists—they weren’t the only ones to die.”

  “What do you mean?” Rick demanded.

  “Bernabé says that when they got back to the village after those weeks away, the bodies of the three missing paddlers were there, plus those of the two men who disappeared on the first hunting trip. He would hardly talk about it—just said that evil ghosts killed them and brought them there. There were no visible wounds, just like the C-PAP party and those villagers. But if they were killed by our ‘ghosts,’ why haul the bodies clear back to that village?”

  “A warning!” Rick answered grimly. “We’ve already seen these guys’ pattern with leaving witnesses. I’ll bet if that village hadn’t been abandoned, they’d all be dead by now. As it was, the bodies did the trick—drove the villagers out of the area.”

  Julie nodded agreement. “The I’paa—well, any native tribe—has a horror of infectious disease. They’ve had enough experience at seeing whole tribes wiped out. They burned the whole place to the ground right down over the dead bodies. Then they left. But there was still the problem of the rains. Besides, the village elders were beginning to think this ‘evil,’ as Bernabé calls it, was too big for them. I think they figured one bunch of white men would know what to do with another, so they headed north toward San Ignacio. That’s the closest outsider town, and they’ve had contact there since my parents’ day. Only they didn’t know who was responsible for bringing these ‘ghosts’ into the jungle—the paramilitaries or the guerrillas or even the multinationals, who haven’t always been innocent themselves in their treatment of the native tribes. Anyone they talked to could be an enemy. Especially once they found out that Dr. Renken’s party had turned up dead! Then they found out that I was back.”

  “That still doesn’t hold water!” Rick interrupted. “You want to tell me how a bunch of Stone Age natives are supposed to have gained access to a restricted military base like San José?”

  Julie shrugged. “That’s easy. As maids or gardeners or any general labor. Like I said, people treat the native Indians as though they were invisible or part of the local animal life. But there are those who leave the jungle and even learn Spanish. Bernabé, for one. Problem is, they get outside, and they have no education or usable skills, so they end up as servants. Bernabé says there’s a couple of I’paa at San José now, serving as jungle trackers for the counter-narcotics troops.”

  “Come to think of it, he’s right,” Rick admitted. “I’ve been out with them myself when I was over there on TDY—though no one ever said what tribe they belonged to. Okay, so that’s where they learned how to use a phone. You’re telling me they have tribal members with phone service in San Ignacio?”

  “That’s the incredible part. It was my own father who first suggested to the village chief that it would be good for the tribe if some of the children had a chance to study. The chief’s youngest grandson was one of the first who came into San Ignacio not long before I left. He’s still there, even with the guerrilla takeover, working for the family my father arranged to take him in—basically as a gardener and all-around laborer, from the sounds of it. But he’s going to school and is due to graduate this year—the first in his village. I guess San Ignacio has gotten phone service since my day, because when they saw me in San José, the trackers telephoned the place he works. He passed the message on to the tribe, who were temporarily living on the outskirts of town.

  “To give the guerrillas credit, they usually leave the tribal groups alone unless they stir up some kind of trouble. So by the time we landed in San Ignacio, the I’
paa had staked out the airport, and like everyone else, they recognized me right away. I guess I haven’t changed as much as I thought since my teen years. They were deliberating whether they should approach me and ask for help”—Julie grimaced—“when I was dumb enough to get myself kidnapped.”

  Rick made no comment, and Julie hastily went on. “To make a long story short, the chief has had these guys trailing me ever since. They were watching the whole time I was with the guerrillas, but they’ve had enough experience with modern weapons, they didn’t dare try any kind of a rescue operation. Then after we got away—well, they weren’t sure about you. They’d seen you with the guerrillas, but I wasn’t acting like a prisoner. So they played it safe and just kept obeying their orders to keep a watch. Besides, we were heading in the right direction.”

  Julie broke off to glance around at the listening Indians, and though she knew they couldn’t understand a word she was saying, she lowered her voice instinctively. “Rick, they seem to have the idea that we’re deliberately heading for this ‘ghost’ place, that it’s been our destination all along. That village—they found it two days before we did. They didn’t go inside the village, but they saw enough to decide it was the same great ‘evil’ that had killed their hunters and Dr. Renken’s party. When they saw us heading right into the village, they panicked and almost turned back, they were so sure we were going to die too.

  “The only reason they stuck around at all was because they weren’t going to go back and tell the chief they’d abandoned Don Ricardo’s daughter out here. But they stayed well back on our trail until they saw by our tracks that we’d made it out of the village and through a whole day and night alive. Since they assumed we knew where we were going, they couldn’t figure out why we’d head into the swamp. But when they finally closed in our trail and saw that we were going around in circles and that I was”—Julie’s color rose under the mosquito bites—“uh, not keeping up, they … well, Bernabé didn’t quite put it this way, but basically that’s when they realized we didn’t have a clue where we were going, that we were lost and likely to kill ourselves out here like some of the other dumb gringos they’ve seen over the years. So they decided to show themselves.”

  She paused, her forehead wrinkling. “What doesn’t make sense is why they didn’t realize we were lost earlier, why they would think we were deliberately heading into this ‘ghost’ territory they spoke of.”

  Rick got abruptly to his feet, the swift movement triggering a soft murmur among the watching Indians. “Don’t you get it, Julie? Remember, they think your family—and you too—are some kind of miracle workers. They think we came here to do something about this great evil.”

  The clipped harshness of his tone quickly raised Julie’s eyes to him. He was looking out toward the jungle with his cold, forbidding profile. There was nothing of the man who a short time earlier had expressed such tenderness to her. Julie was silent for a moment before she answered quietly, “And can we do something about it?”

  Rick didn’t turn his head. “I don’t know.” The murmur of the Indians rose suddenly in decibel, and he added sharply, “Julie, ask them to be a little quieter. We don’t know what, or who, is out there, and I’d just as soon we didn’t draw any more attention our way than we have already.”

  He broke off as Bernabé stepped into view around the base of the cedar, reappearing as silently as he had disappeared. He uttered a swift phrase, and the rest of the I’paa fell silent. Throwing Rick a swift, hard glance, he muttered to Julie. As she translated, it became clear that if he hadn’t understood their English, he’d once again read Rick’s expression.

  “He says there is no reason to be concerned. There are no strangers but ourselves in this part of the jungle. The white ghosts are too far away to hear or see. And I can tell you,” Julie added, “if he says there’s no one out there, you can be sure there isn’t.”

  Rick didn’t question Bernabé’s veracity but swung around instead to demand sharply in Spanish, “Are you saying you know where we can find these white ghosts? Where are they? How soon could we be there?”

  Bernabé ignored Rick as he propped his spear and bow and bundle of arrows against the trunk of the cedar. Lifting his carry bag from over his shoulder, he dug out a handful of small, freshly picked leaves. He dipped the leaves into the pool to rinse them, shook off the water, and crammed the bunch into his mouth much as though it were a wad of chewing tobacco. Then, around the wad, he muttered his answer.

  Julie translated. “He says yes, he knows where to find the white ghosts. As for how long it takes—that depends on how quickly a man walks and how many times a man stops.”

  From the tightening of Rick’s lips, she suspected he thought the Indian was being sarcastic. Julie might have thought so as well if she hadn’t known the I’paa thinking.

  Bernabé spat the wad of leaves, now a pulpy green mush, onto a palm frond he removed from his carry bag. “If you do not stop to hunt …”—he paused to thrust another handful of leaves into his mouth, and Julie could see him struggling to put into terms these foreigners would understand a distance that meant nothing to a people without measurements of miles or kilometers—“perhaps the time to watch Betty La Fea twice on the tele.” He used the Spanish abbreviation for TV as the I’paa language contained no words for such technology.

  Rick nodded as Julie translated. Betty La Fea was a popular Colombian half-hour soap opera. “About an hour, then,” Rick said. This time he didn’t try to speak directly to the I’paa warrior. “Maybe he can show us where it is. Tell him I need to see this place for myself.”

  Julie relayed the request and caught surprise in Bernabé’s black eyes as he spat the second wad into the leaf. “Of course! That is why you are here, is it not?”

  Rick’s right, she thought in dismay. They really do think we’re some kind of miracle workers here to take care of this evil for them. But just what do they think two people can do?

  At least by going to this place, they could see for themselves what lay hidden out there. With the I’paa as guides, there was every chance they could then return downstream and to the proper authorities before anyone else got hurt. At the least, they were miles ahead of the desperate situation that had faced them only a half-hour earlier.

  “They’ll take us.” Julie pushed up her sleeve to read her watch. “We’ve still got most of the afternoon. If we leave right away, we could be there and gone again well before dark.”

  “Not we!”

  Rick’s uncompromising statement drew Julie’s gaze upward in surprise. Rick wasn’t even looking in her direction, but was busily checking over his equipment, counting his remaining banana clips, removing a grenade from his vest pocket for inspection before returning it, though Julie was sure he must know every bullet in his ammo vest by now.

  “What do you mean?”

  The slide of the AK-47 made a click as Rick pulled it back. “I mean,” he said flatly, “that it was one thing to drag you into this when there was no other alternative—or anyone to leave you with. Now that your friends have shown up, there’s no point in risking the two of us. I’ll take a party with me, and the rest can stay here until you’re back on your feet, then get you out of here and to safety.”

  The soft sound as he released the slide was as much a dismissal as the uncompromising set of his jaw. In other words, time to clear civilians out of the way and let the professionals get to work, Julie interpreted.

  “No!”

  Her flat rejection drew Rick’s attention. Shoving the AK-47 back on his shoulder, he squatted down on his heels in front of her. “Come on, Julie, be sensible!” he said harshly. “Can’t you see I’m trying to do what’s best here—for you and this mission? Just look at you! Right now you wouldn’t get ten meters on those feet.”

  Julie met his hard gaze levelly. “I am being sensible, Rick. These people don’t know you. Do you really think they’re going to take you anywhere without me? And how are you going to talk to them? Bernab
é won’t speak to you as it is, and from what I’ve seen, the others don’t know any Spanish at all. You need me!”

  Besides, I’m afraid! Afraid to have you go out there without me. Afraid of seeing the man I love—there, she’d said it—walk away from me and never come back … just like my parents.

  “No, I’m sorry, Rick. I’m not trying to be uncooperative, but if you’re going, I have to go too.”

  Rick’s eyes were narrowed and somber. He nodded abruptly, his jaw tightening to a grim line. “You’re right—unfortunately. Which leaves us right back at square one, because there’s still no way you’re going to walk on those feet.”

  “Well, actually, there is,” Julie interrupted with a half-apologetic gesture. “Bernabé is taking care of that.”

  She nodded toward the I’paa warrior, who had been stolidly masticating one mouthful after another of the leaves he’d brought back until he now had two palm fronds spread with the green mush. He knelt down to place one of the fronds carefully, pulp-side up, under Julie’s nearest foot. Julie’s mouth tilted wryly as she caught Rick’s upraised eyebrows.

  “Bernabé is the son of the curandero, the village witchdoctor. He hasn’t practiced any of the curses and charms since his family became Christians, but the curandero is also responsible for the healing arts. Even if some of it is hocus-pocus, they do know a lot about medicinal herbs and plants.”

  Whatever plant it was that Bernabé had chosen as poultice, it was an effective one. Julie could already feel the stuff drawing the pain from her swollen and broken flesh as though it had some kind of natural anesthetic in it. Wrapping the leaf around Julie’s foot, Bernabé picked up the pieces of Julie’s khaki shirt that Rick had endeavored in vain to fashion into a bandage and used his knife to slice them into long, thin strips. In seemingly no time, he had them plaited rather than tied around Julie’s foot to form a covering that tied off with a neat knot around the ankle. Swiftly, he wrapped the second leaf around her other foot and repeated the process.