by Pam Withers
Twice on the planting hill, when no one is looking, I pull out the cellphone I lifted from Owen’s house that first night and dial Captain. I want to ask him how long we have to be here. But no surprise: we’re in a dead spot. No reception.
“Pineros! ” Baldie mocks us, using the Spanish word for illegal tree planters and waving his pistol. “Fancy-boy Latrinos. More trees, faster, if you want more food. No pampered children here. You complain like old women and take twice as long as our last truckload of wetback trash.”
I notice that the guards always lump Owen in with the schoolboys, never acknowledging that he’s not Hispanic.
I double my efforts, but get it even worse than the others.
“Hey darkie,” Beard taunts me. “Not Captain’s pet anymore, eh? But so lucky to be planting trees with us. Way better than shining shoes. Hey, precious schoolboys, does dark boy shine your shoes every morning before we open the doors? Har har!”
So funny. Har har, I think.
“Leave him alone,” the twins say, standing together with their hands on their hips and directing fierce looks at the guards. It means a lot to me, even if Baldie and Beard just laugh.
Waving their pistols around, the men throw insults at the African team, too.
“Idiot gorillas, stop dragging your feet! Plant faster, or no supper!”
Worse than taunts, of course, the guards find more fault with my planting than with anyone else’s, only as an excuse to lower my numbers and assign me extra time. It washes right off me; I have heard it all my life, and worse.
Ignore them and keep planting. Show the boys, who have less experience with this crap, how to handle it. Just like I did with my shoeshine boys. Don’t reveal the slightest reaction. Be patient, practice self-control. The guards will get their own, eventually.
What doesn’t wash off me is the thought that I shouldn’t be here. My bitterness toward Captain is welling up like a blister in danger of popping. Where is he, anyway? All the other times Captain sent clients to the work camp, he and I relaxed on board Archimedes, waiting for them to finish. Then we split the money we got from the extra labour, which the clients were forced to do on some made-up excuse.
But why did Captain send me this time? Why should I be here sticking trees into stony ground, stumbling up and down rises littered with dead branches, stumps, and roots, and earning scratches and sores that bleed or swell purple? Did the robbery really put us so short that he needed my labour as well to cover the debt? That must be the reason. How long will it take to finish here, get rid of the boys, and head home with Captain? I can’t help but wonder whether it is out of bad habit that I am still loyal to him.
The schoolboys complain of their hunger and thirst, and the racial slurs. They have no idea what any of those really are.
I notice that Owen, on the other hand, appears deaf to the jabs and does not utter a word of complaint. And, like me, he occasionally sneaks over to plant in Pequeño’s section to keep the increasingly sick youngest boy from being assigned extra time for “laziness.” How long before Pequeño drops? I worry. He reminds me of one of the youngest of my shoeshine squad. A little fragile, but always trying his hardest, setting an example.
• • •
By the fourth morning, I’m frantically concerned about Pequeño.
“Get up!” the guards shout from beyond the door as they lift the bar. I extend my hand to Pequeño, but he can barely struggle to his feet. When I let go, he drops back down to his sleeping bag and closes his eyes.
I lean down and hold my hand to his forehead. Sweat dampens my palm.
“Look at me, Pequeño,” I say as the guards start kicking anyone who’s not heading out the door. His eyelids flutter open, but his pupils seem glazed. I place my hand on his chest, then lower my ear to it. A sort of shuddering sound comes with each laboured breath.
“Out, you two!” Beard shouts, waving his gun.
“I come, but this one too sick to move. Needs doctor,” I dare to say.
“He’s just faking it to get out of work,” Beard retorts. “We’ve seen it before. Get to work. I’ll deal with the lazy one.”
His shove gives me no choice. But I’m relieved when I see Beard emerge without Pequeño, then stroll back into the shipping container with some food and a water bottle.
“Where’s Pequeño?” Owen asks as we climb into the van.
“They give him day off,” I say hopefully. “Maybe are calling doctor.”
• • •
One hour into planting, I form the opinion that Owen is a born tree-planting machine; the boy pauses only to sip water and call out words of encouragement to the others. Nor does the water ever make him ill. The gringo even offers advice to me once: “If the ground is soft, use your hands to close the hole. If it’s hard, use your boot.”
“Okay,” I reply after some hesitation, and work hard to imitate my island friend.
That night, everyone is given a potato, a slice of ham, and an orange. Owen and I win large bowls of steaming chilli besides. Wordlessly, we share the chilli around the group evenly.
CHAPTER TWELVE
OWEN
Using a sharp twig to scratch on a patch of dried mud beside my foamie, I calculate that we’ve been tree planting for five days now. It has been over a week since I left home. My parents are definitely back by now, totally stressed out about my disappearing act, and without one clue to go on. Why didn’t I at least leave a note?
Good thing they can’t see what shape I’m in. My hands and feet are as calloused as bark, and I smell so putrid that the mosquitoes have almost given up tackling my torn-up skin. My stomach is shrunken, but my muscles are taut. I feel immune to devil’s club, stinging nettles, hunger pains, torrential rain, and the guards’ taunts.
Mind over matter. Survive. Unlike the other boys, I haven’t fallen victim to diarrhea or fever. Only Arturo and I have ducked that fate so far. Nor has either of us picked up the deep, hacking cough that the twins have. I’m no doctor, but it sounds like pneumonia. And now Gabriel is starting to cough.
“They need medical help,” I tell the guards. “You need to get them out of here.”
“They’re fine,” Baldie retorts.
“Give them more food and breaks if you want them to plant lots of trees for you,” I press.
“What do you think this is, a vacation camp?” Beard snaps. “Shut up unless you want a bullet through your foot, like one of the gorillas got for trying to escape yesterday.”
He’s not lying. I heard the shot and the screams.
I turn and lope back to my tree planting, discouraged. And yet, as I look around, I remind myself I’ve got it way better than the others.
I have jeans, a fleece, and a parka, while the boys’ school uniforms, which look ridiculous out here, have been torn to shreds by now and offer little protection from the cold, wind, and rain. I even have my wetsuit to pull on if I’m cold at night, and my rain poncho to protect me during the day.
Meanwhile, the twins, with their large frames, are suffering more than the rest of us from the starvation rations.
“Arturo, you okay?” I call out as he trips over some brush.
“Am okay,” he says with a sheepish grin. “Gabriel,” he calls to his left. “Is eagle watching us from sky. Smile!”
The guy never complains, I’ve noticed, and is always trying to cheer up the rest of the gang, despite how they used to order him around on Archimedes.
Like Arturo, I’m still healthy and a strong worker, I remind myself. And I have a goal: earning extra food for the others and trying to care for them at night.
Even so, I’m weakening by the day.
I wince to think what kind of panic I’ve caused my parents. Officer Olsen probably has a full-on manhunt going for me, but there’s no way any kind of search is going to locate us here. Nor have our keepers indicated we’ll be released anytime soon. We have to escape. Preferably before Pequeño, who is now so ill from a stomach bug that the guards leave
him locked up all day in the shipping container, dies. Would Arturo be into escaping?
• • •
The next day, the monotony is broken by Danillo’s shout. “Gabriel!” I look to where Gabriel was planting trees seconds ago. The other boys charge through the brush to where his limp form lies on the ground.
“Fainted,” Sebastian rules.
Gabriel: always the skinniest.
“Hey! Back to work!” the guards shout, rushing toward the stalled tree-planters.
This is my chance. I drop behind a log, then roll down the hill, spiky grass and sticks pressing into me. When I reach the creek, I scramble up and splash through it, crouched down. Then I slip into dense forest and take off at high speed, zigzagging a little just in case one of the guards has a gun trained on me. When I spot a hole under a stump large enough to hide me, I dive in.
Burrowed in as far as possible, curled up like a frightened fox, I breathe in the moist smell of dirt. It’s quiet here, otherworldly with veins of roots, almost cozy. No wonder groundhogs hang out underground till spring. Then I hear twigs crackling above. Boots moving. Boots pausing. I hold my breath. I can actually see a soiled red lace that has come undone on Beard’s worn boot. I know it’s Beard because Baldie has yellow laces and new boots. I could lift my fingers and tie those red laces for him if I wanted to. Or tie his two boots together.
He’s that close, but so is the promise of freedom. Seconds tick by like hours. I breathe out again when the boots move on. There are miles of rough terrain here and thousands of stumps with holes under them. Besides, I figure he has to return to help Baldie stop the others from following my example.
• • •
It’s nightfall when I guess they’ve given up. Yes! I can flee now, west toward the ocean, whose direction I’ve identified by the position of the sun and an occasional salt-tinged breeze. Maybe I can build a fire there till someone spots me. I know we’re on the Strait of Georgia somewhere northwest of Texada Island, perhaps even as far north as Stuart Island. Remote but not entirely without logging roads or cabins. What wouldn’t I give for a GPS to figure out my location right now, or a radio to contact someone with. Or my cellphone to call my parents.
Heart knocking against my rib cage, I crawl out of my hole and breathe in the tang of evergreen. Then I dig into my pockets for the two tools I’ve hidden on me for days in case this moment came: my compass and my headlamp.
Though I try to walk lightly, every footfall sounds to me like some jerk chomping on popcorn in a movie theatre. And I get less than a mile before my boots halt.
Nope, keep going, little brother. You’re thinking about going back and releasing them. Dumb idea.
“Shut up, Gregor.”
Last time you tried to help them, you got put in a dog cage, remember? Maybe they don’t want to be broken out. And then there’s Arturo. Who knows whose side he’s on? You can always call the Coast Guard when you finally get somewhere.
“By then, more of them will have collapsed and some might have died. You know it. And Arturo’s as fed up as the rest of us.”
Or not.
I scoop up rocks and throw them through the air. Gregor shuts up. I kick the dirt one way, then the other. Eventually, my boots turn around.
I approach camp cautiously and wait at a good distance till the men have finished off a couple of beers. Beard tumbles into their trailer for the night. Baldie stays up, I’m guessing to catch me if I dare to sneak back. But he’s soon asleep, slumped in his camping chair beneath an insect-swarmed lantern.
In slow mo, I slip up to our shipping container. With excruciating patience, I lift the bar slowly so that it doesn’t make a sound. One by one, I tap the sleeping boys.
“File out barefoot,” I whisper in their ears. “Carry your shoes and duffle bags.” I grab my own pack.
Arturo stands, but doesn’t move. Will he shout and wake the guards? Betray us? I shiver as I face him down. “Pequeño will die if we don’t leave now,” I say in a hushed tone.
Without a word, he leans down, sweeps Pequeño into his arms, and carries him out. Sergio leans on his brother Sebastian, both of them restraining their coughs; Danillo leads Gabriel.
I head toward the Africans’ container to lift the bar, only to feel a knifepoint prick the back of my neck.
“Leave them,” Arturo orders. “Not our problema.”
Reluctantly, I back up. Then, like a night scout, I lead the boys away, sweat pouring down my back. As I pause on the hill above camp to let them put on their footgear, Arturo says, “No good.”
“Huh?”
“They find us. I have idea.”
“What kind of idea?”
He explains. I hesitate. Do I trust him?
Don’t, urges Gregor.
I motion Danillo over and explain what we’re up to. He gives me a thumbs-up and leads the group into a dense patch of trees to wait as Arturo and I creep back down the hill.
• • •
ARTURO
“Plan is we confuse guards,” I elaborate to the island boy.
“Right,” my companion replies with a twitchy smile.
We enter the container, push the mattresses to the rear, and arrange them to make it look like there might be a pile of boys under them. I remove the circles of metal on our ventilation holes.
Then, after closing the big doors and lowering the bar without a sound, we glance toward the still-sleeping guard under the tarp shelter and move through the grass to the rear of the container. Here we’re out of sight of the trailer unless we peer around the corner to look.
“Ready?” I whisper, my heart going a gazillion beats per second, the electrical buzz powering up.
“Ready.”
We squat, lean forward and scream into the ventilation holes till our shrieks are bouncing off the inside walls of the container.
“What the —” comes a growl from across the clearing.
I peek to see that Baldie is up and gripping his pistol, then banging on the little trailer’s door to wake his partner.
Soon two groggy armed guards stumble over to the doors of the container, at the opposite end of where we’re lurking.
“Shut up in there, y’hear?”
“Or we’ll give you something to make a ruckus about!”
We wail and howl through our holes on the other end even more dramatically. When I pause for breath, I’m grinning like a monkey.
The guards pound, shout, and finally lift the bar.
“Heeelp!” screeches Owen with all his strength as I move away. “Heeeelp!”
“Silence!” It’s Beard, moving cautiously inside the container toward the mattresses, his pistol raised.
“Cover me,” he orders his mate, who’s standing just outside the doors, oblivious to me sneaking up behind them.
“Ugghh!” his mate says as I kick him in the butt hard enough to send him sprawling into the container. And before either of the men can leap back to the entrance, I clang the doors shut and put the bar down. I could light up a Christmas tree with the electricity dancing off me.
“Hey!” come echoey shouts from inside the container.
But Owen and I are too busy sprinting across the clearing to hear any more. First we lift chicken drumsticks off the guards’ barbecue grill, then enter the smelly little trailer to collect more food, stuffing some into our mouths and the rest into the pockets of a tree-planting bag Owen throws on.
Grease coating my lips, I’m all but twirling with happiness at capturing the bastards and getting some food into me.
Then, crack!
I freeze and catch Owen’s shoulder, almost choking on a mouthful.
Crack, crack, crack!
“They’re trying to shoot their way out.”
I nod grimly.
We dash up the hill and hustle our companions down to the van. Owen jumps into the driver’s seat and reaches for the ignition.
“No keys!” he shouts.
“I’ll check their trailer,” Danil
lo says and dashes off, ducking to avoid any stray shots spitting out of the container.
“Or they’ve got the keys on them,” Gabriel mumbles.
“No worries. I’ll hotwire this thing,” Owen rules.
“I help,” I offer, leaping out after him.
“Hurry!” Sebastian urges. “Before they break out!”
Danillo returns empty-handed, but brightens when he sees Owen’s and my heads under the hood.
We high-five one another as the van kicks into action. Then we dive into the front seat and keep our heads down as we roar away from the gunfire and whatever satellite phone the trapped men might be using. I picture the trail of dust we leave settling over the detested site.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
OWEN
I manage to drive for an hour in the inky night until I spot a turnoff with a sign reading Raven’s Retreat.
“A cabin. Maybe people and a phone,” I say, veering the van up the rutted road.
The outline of a rustic cabin with neither lights nor vehicle in the driveway comes into view as the moon moves out from behind a cloud and dances on ocean waves below.
“Yes!” I shout. Never have I been so pleased to see the Georgia Strait.
We hop out and open the van’s rear doors to release the others. Soon we’re at the cabin’s front door, where Arturo manages to pick the lock.
• • •
“That was way too close,” Danillo says as we recount the details of our getaway while settled on a musty sofa in front of the crackling fireplace. “Lucky you guys knew how to jump-start the van.”
“Not luck — skill,” Sebastian rules.
I smile, but Danillo is certainly right that our escape was dodgy.
“I hope their bullets ricocheted off the walls of that container and into them,” Gabriel says soberly.
“Don’t say that,” Pequeño says in a quiet voice.
“They probably had a satellite phone on them, even if the shooting didn’t get them out,” Sergio says.
“What I want to know is why you two stole a tree-planting bag,” Danillo addresses Arturo and me. “Needed a souvenir?”