by Nancy Gideon
"You don't know anything about me, Cobb. I don't care what you've heard."
She couldn't catch her breath. Panic and fury brought pindots of color to dance before her eyes. Behind them stood a stoic Frank Cobb, so smug in his assumptions, so cold in his summation.
"You asked, so I'll tell you. I think the biggest danger to Lemos is you."
Surprise and the absurdity of it shocked her back to a ragged sense of awareness. “Don't be ridiculous. It wasn't my idea to come here. What threat could I possibly be to Paulo? He's my oldest, dearest friend."
Then his question came with line drive directness right to left field.
"Are you crazy, Dr. Reynard?"
"W-what?"
"You know, crackers, loony tunes, nuts, bonkers. Are you insane? Is your instability going to put all of us in danger once we get out into the jungle? If it is, I need to know now. My job is to protect your oldest, dearest friend on his little hunting and gathering trek into the wilds. I have enough to worry about without waiting for you to go falling off the deep end."
"Don't you worry about me, Mr. Cobb.” She chiseled out the words as if striking them in stone. “My problems are not your concern."
"You're wrong there, Doc. You are my problem. And I've got to decide on how to deal with you."
She drew herself up with a fiery indignity. “You don't get to decide anything. You're just the hired help here, along for the paycheck. You've got no stake whatsoever in this."
"That's right. I've got nothing invested except my life and, excuse me, but I do tend to place some value on that. And I do get to decide where I'm going to risk it. If I'm going to go out there and put it on the line for, as you so succinctly put it, the paycheck, I need to know if you can keep it together. If you have any doubts, you stay behind."
"I'll be fine, Cobb."
"Will you? Are you? Then tell me what you saw earlier tonight in your room. Can you do that?"
"A mask on the wall."
"Bull."
"I didn't see anything.” His steady stare wouldn't let her leave it at that. “I didn't see anything real, okay. Is that what you wanted to hear? That I'm nuts, bonkers and all the rest? That I see things that aren't there? That I have a hole in my memories large enough to drive a Mack truck through? That I can't trust myself to know what's real?"
"Trust me."
His sudden intensity dragged her back from the edge of hysteria.
"Why, Cobb? Why should I trust you?"
"Because I can protect you if you let me. Because I know you're not crazy."
"How do you know?” she whispered, fearing to believe it because she didn't believe it herself.
"Because I know what's out there, and it's real.” He touched the scar on his face without being aware of the gesture.
"What's out there, Frank?"
A whisper. A plea.
"A nightmare that will suck you in and suck you dry if you let it. Don't let it, Doc. Stay close to me and tell me if anything strange happens to you, anything at all. I believe you, but you've got to learn to trust yourself and me if we're going to survive this little jungle walk. Can you do that for me, Doc?"
"Well, now, what's this? The party's inside, you two, or did you forget?"
Paulo's abrupt intrusion broke the tension between them and created a whole new arena of bristling confrontation between him and Cobb. Cobb smiled crookedly, the expression mocking more than it reassured.
"The doctor was just sharing a little jungle survival lore with me."
"I thought you were the survival expert, Mr. Cobb.” The statement was more a sneer.
"It's a foolish man who thinks there's nothing more he can learn. Or obtain."
Paulo's dark gaze flared at the challenge. He extended his hand to Sheba. A claiming gesture. “Let's go in. Uncle Sam was asking for you."
Sheba wrested her attention away from Frank Cobb, but his incredible claim still beat fast and furious within her breast. I believe you.
Had more wonderful words ever been spoken to soothe a frantic mind? Inside herself she would hold onto that truth in a desperate attempt to save her sanity just as on the outside, she took the hand Paulo held out to her.
Cobb watched the Peruvian shepherd the lovely doctor away, but his thoughts weren't tied up to jealousies or macho posturing contests for her affection.
He was more interested in saving her life.
Red eyes and fangs.
Cobb confronted the jungle with a fearsome certainty.
"So this is where you've been hiding, you son of a bitch. I know your name and I know your game, and you're not going to have her. This time, I win for good."
Chapter Ten
The morning sun lifted above the tree line, striking the gray-pink clay bank on the opposite side of the river and awaking a rippling palette of red, blue, green and yellow as parrots vied for choice perches. Sounds that would have been ear piercing in a pet store, blended into the harmonious whole of the beat that was jungle life.
Though he'd only managed to snatch a few scant hours of sleep, the glorious cacophony of the rain forest waking with the sun renewed Frank Cobb's energy. He'd spent most of the night here on the porch, listening to the restless sounds of Sheba's nightmares. But with the daylight, his worries lessened a degree. What stalked Sheba Reynard moved in the night. Whether it was in dreams or in shadowed realities, he would soon find out.
"Breathtaking, isn't it?"
He answered Paulo Lemos's question with an affirming nod.
"There's nothing in the city that can humble you quite so completely as the sheer enormity of the jungle. Come with me, Cobb. I want to show you something.” When Frank didn't respond, he smiled somewhat thinly. “She's all right now. She's sleeping."
Without any further argument, Cobb stepped away from the rail after snubbing out his cigarette. Lemos led him to the base of the canopy tower. Looking up the dizzying ten-stories as they disappeared into the trees, Cobb wondered perversely if Lemos planned to lure him up there to push him off to an ‘accidental’ death. Was he as big a threat to the botanist's budding romance as the unknown dangers Cobb was there to protect him from? Uncertain of the answer, Cobb began to climb.
He was in great physical shape, but after rounding the thirtieth turn or so, Cobb's knees began to protest Paulo's almost urgent upward pace. Was this to be a test of endurance, then? He sighed, cursing the decreased lung capacity from his two-decade old bad habit, and started up the final wooden ramp to the platform where Lemos waited.
And from that skyscraper-high perch, what was left of Frank's breath was snatched away.
Dawn rose over mist-covered trees that stretched for miles in every direction. High above the forest canopy, they saw a different world, where the brightness of the sky startled the eye and the jungle itself resembled bunches of broccoli. Out of those tight crowns of green burst birds of the most spectacular colors—iridescent fuchsia, daffodil yellow, brilliant viridian blue and tangerine—swooping and singing their welcome of the new day. As he admired the unspoiled view, he waited to hear what was on Paulo's mind. He got around to it, eventually.
"When I look at this amazing sight through a scientist's eyes, I see possibilities ripe for the picking. Cures for cancers, degenerative diseases, perhaps even life's longevity itself. But I look through different eyes as well, Mr. Cobb. I look through the eyes of my forefathers, those who would protect the forest and guard her secrets from the greed and indifference of the outside world."
"An interesting dilemma."
"Yes. How does one help the world without inviting the world to help itself?"
"You pick a forum that will respect what you're trying to preserve."
"And Harper isn't that forum?"
Cobb snorted. “Harper worships the god of bottom line. I've never known them to be overly concerned with anything other than results."
"Yet here you are, working for an employer you openly despise.” Lemos sounded curious as well as ridiculing,
so Cobb reeled out a little more of his story.
"I'm not here for Harper's benefit alone. What's going on out there, Lemos? What's preying on these people?"
"Sheba would say their superstitions."
"And you would say?"
"Oh, it's fear, all right. It's the fear of change. The fear of losing something you love, your way of life, your home, your culture, your beliefs."
"So you think that these attacks are the work of some radical protectionist group using native lore to keep outsiders away?"
"That's a simplistic view, Cobb, but essentially correct. That's why I've never felt myself to be in any real danger. I'm one of them, you see."
Cobb gave him the once over and smirked at the visual of the dapper scientist running about the forest in a loincloth “going native.” “But is that how they see you, Mr. Wizard, with your college degrees and fancy gear?"
Paulo was silent for a moment, weighing the dichotomy of what he'd become by leaving the land of his birth behind. “They know I'd never do anything to harm my homeland."
"Who's they, Lemos? Who's behind this terrorizing of the people?"
"It started out mildly enough, just subtle warnings that got the Indians stirred up, and delaying mishaps like stolen supplies and sabotaged equipment. Irritating but harmless."
"And then it got ugly."
The Peruvian nodded. Something worked behind his bronzed features, something more than just the thought of working against one's heritage. Something more personal.
"Who's behind it?"
The reluctant silence stretched out another beat, then Paulo could contain his suspicions no longer. “I think it's my grandfather."
Cobb arced one brow. “And he would be?"
"Ruperto Lemos, a shaman, a powerful man with many followers. He was the one who taught me that the rain forest trees are the lungs of our planet, and without them we would be unable to breathe.” Paulo looked out over the forest, his eyes clouding with pain as his memories played out before him. “We watched the rolling Amazon factory come like a fearsome monster on wheels two stories tall. It shot blue laser beams to slice down trees so they would fall on the conveyor belt that pulled them inside to be stripped, peeled and planked, leaving neat piles of lumber for the construction crews behind it. It ground up stumps, bulldozed the earth and laid down a smooth black road for more humans to follow, all in one neat, destructive pass. So efficient. So frightening.
"My grandfather, with all his powers, could not stop this hungry beast from coming, and coming and coming. He was angry and afraid and unable to strike back because he didn't know the white man's ways or words. He had to leave the fight to those like Rosa Kelly who could scream about deforestation and protest the oil company explorations. And still such a small percent of our lands are protected by parks and reserves. The northern rain forest continues to be destroyed by farmers who drain the ground of nutrients while lumber barons continue to cut away the cloud forest. The United States wants to spray a defoliant on the plantations that produce a 1.6 billion dollar a year cocaine trade and let that poison leech into the earth. Our heritage is stolen from us by tomb robbers, and our culture is stripped away by the well-intentioned missionaries who preach about a god who is not our own. Yes, my grandfather is angry and afraid for good reason.
"And when these invaders tried to include him in their blasphemous shamanistic tours, he was forced to retreat from the forests up into the hills near Cuzco, where he remains in hiding from the modern world."
"Hiding or plotting?"
"Perhaps both.” Such sadness echoed in that simple claim, Cobb almost felt sorry enough for Paulo to let it go. But he felt more sorry for what someone was putting Sheba through.
"Would your grandfather be angry and afraid enough to resort to murder?"
Paulo wouldn't meet his gaze. “Not with his own hands, no. But he may have summoned up the means to have it done. Means not of this world.” Then the young scientist braced for the jaded mercenary's laughter. When it didn't come, he looked perplexed, and a bit grateful. “You're not going to call me ignorant for believing such things possible?"
This time, Cobb couldn't evade his curious stare. “I know there are such things as demons and monsters. You don't need to turn me into a believer."
Lemos studied the American for a long moment, then nodded. “Bueno. Then perhaps we can be some use to one another after all."
"I want to meet your grandfather."
Paulo pursed his lips. “That may not be possible. He is very wary of outsiders."
"Then I need to speak to anyone who's had close dealings with this creature no one will name. Know thy enemy, I always say."
"That I can arrange."
As Paulo turned to start down the ramps, Cobb gripped his arm.
"How much danger is she in if she goes into the jungle with us?"
Paulo's reply was carefully phrased and obviously well thought out. “Not as much as if she remains here in the dark alone."
"Do you think your grandfather was behind her parents’ murder?"
A terrible guilt and grief colored his swarthy features. “I pray to God not."
Cobb didn't ask him exactly which god that might be.
* * * *
What was waiting for her out in that impenetrable field of green?
The exhaustion of the past few near-sleepless nights caught up to her. As she stood sipping hot coffee on the porch overlooking the jungle, her brain felt bruised and beaten beyond the ability for clear thought. Traces of her dreams clung like oily film to the edge of her awareness, shaving the veneer of calm away until she was a raw nerve. When she heard a soft step behind her, she nearly vaulted out of her hiking boots.
"Sorry. Didn't mean to startle you."
Sheba glared at Frank Cobb while dashing the contents of her coffee cup from the right leg of her shorts. “Then you shouldn't have snuck up on me."
"A bit testy this morning, are we?"
"Only when you're around to test my patience."
"I love it when you talk dirty."
She made an exasperated sound. “What do you want, Cobb?"
He sobered so quickly, she was immediately wary.
"I need your help with something."
"Oh?"
"Your buddy Lemos gave me the names of a couple of people to question regarding the strange things that have been happening. Only I'm not exactly the sort to inspire confidence with the natives, if you know what I mean."
"You want me to prepare the way for you?"
"That would be greatly appreciated."
"Who do we need to see?"
"There's a woman who works in housekeeping whose husband was killed. And that guide, Cross. He discovered the body of Samuels’ guest."
With tension seeping through her belly like ice over a winter pond, Sheba fought down the desire to beg off. Her eyes narrowed slightly. “This isn't some kind of cruel therapy you've come up with to make me face my fears, is it?"
Cobb blinked at her harmlessly. “Why is it that you doctor-types think everything revolves around you? I need someone who can speak Spanish better than my bumbling high school recall. If you don't want to help—"
She set the now empty coffee cup on the closest table. “Let's get this done."
Cobb had the decency not to grin.
* * * *
Maria Ruis was busy thrusting armloads of table linens into the two huge industrial washing machines. Her face was florid from the exertion, but she paused to regard them politely.
"Is there something I can do for you? More towels for your rooms, perhaps?"
"Maria Ruis?"
She straightened at Sheba's gentle inquiry, one hand going unconsciously to her low back. “Si."
"Mrs. Ruis, I wonder if we might ask you a few questions about your husband."
A dazed, trapped look of loss dulled the dark eyes. Sheba, familiar with that glaze of pain, would have backed off, but Cobb gave her arm a slight nudge to proceed.
"I'm sorry if this subject is painful to you,” she continued in Spanish. “But we must ask if we are to save others. What happened to your husband? How did he die?"
"My Paco was a good man,” she began in a quavering voice, trying to convince both of them of that dubious fact. “It was my taking a job here that ruined him and stole his pride away. It is my fault that he took up the bottle."
Cobb frowned with impatience, understanding enough to know things weren't going full steam ahead. Sheba reproved him with a sideward glance.
"I'm sure you were only doing what you had to do,” she soothed. “Tell me about Paco."
While Cobb chafed at the delay, Sheba listened as the woman poured out teary remembrances, past failures and regrets. And then, the tears were gone and the fear Sheba understood so well seeped into their stead.
"When he did not come back, I went out to find him. He was very drunk, so I knew he did not go far. I found him off the path, lying in the scattering of branches he was bringing back for our fire. He was dead. My Paco was dead."
Unable to wait any longer, Cobb asked, “How did he die, Mrs. Ruis?"
She stared at him through huge, luminous eyes, the image of her dead husband swimming there upon an eternally dark sea. “His throat had been cut."
"By a knife?"
She shook her head in quick jerky motions. “No. By teeth, two great teeth that bit him here.” She tapped the side of her fleshy neck with two fingers.
"Have there been other attacks similar to this that you know of?"
"A few, mostly deeper in the jungle. One hears whispers and chooses not to listen. If I had listened, I never would have let my Paco go out there after dark."
Cobb didn't pause at the return of her weeping. His tone was quietly intense. “Was it an animal that killed your husband?"
"An animal on two legs but not a man,” was her nonsensical reply. But watching Cobb's expression, Sheba could tell it made perfect sense to him. “All his blood was gone, señior. There was not a drop in his body or on the ground."
"You told this to the police?"
"There were no policia. I come tell Mr. Samuels and he take care of my Paco and see that he is buried like a Christian so no evil ones can disturb his rest. Mr. Sam, he take care of everything for me. He gives me a place to live here at the lodge, so I don't have to go back there into the forest again. But he can't give me back my husband.” She scrubbed at her eyes with work-worn hands then bent to transfer the wet linens from washer to dryer. “Now, I must get back to my job. There is nothing else I can tell you."