by Jeff Strand
I doubled over and threw up.
“How should we interpret that?” asked Ignacio.
I stood back up and wiped off my mouth with the back of my hand. “It was stress vomit.”
“That makes sense,” said Ignacio. “The snake situation was very stressful for all of us.”
“So what’s the plan?” asked Henrietta. “You want to just stand here tugging your garter snakes until the villagers come back to eat us, or shall we get moving?”
Ignacio cleared his throat. “I’ll have you know, ma’am, that I have more of a—”
“No dick jokes,” I said. “Let’s go.”
We walked for about fifteen minutes, but we still had no idea if we were improving our situation or making it worse. Being crushed by a boa constrictor would be a more pleasant death than wandering around the rainforest until we died of starvation, so I didn’t want to be in a position where I regretted the rescue.
“We’ve put some distance between us,” I said. “Let’s go back to the plan of waiting until morning. I’m not sleeping this time, though. You guys did a terrible job. What happened to brushing tarantulas off me while I slept?”
“To be fair,” said Ignacio, “we did brush several tarantulas off your face. Then I got lost in my conversation with your friend. He’s had a fascinating life. You both have. Your life is even more fascinating now that you were almost strangled by a boa constrictor. How many Americans can say that? But I do apologize for being inattentive.”
“Apology accepted. But I’m done trying to sleep.”
“I’m not,” said Henrietta, sitting down against a tree.
“I wouldn’t mind getting some rest,” said Ignacio. “I know that Roger and I did a poor job of watching for danger, but I’ll trust you to do better.” He sat down and leaned against a tree as well.
“You can try to sleep if you want,” I told Roger. “I’ll be awake forever now.”
“Nah,” said Roger. “If I fell asleep I’d dream of cannibals and snakes and spiked pits and stuff.”
“Why spiked pits? Do you think we’re going to fall into a spiked pit?”
“I hope not. Just seems like something that could happen.”
“Maybe all of our troubles will be over when the sun rises.”
“Maybe.”
“Probably not.”
“Yeah, probably not.”
Chapter Ten
I’m not trying to brag, but we made it through the night without anything truly horrible happening. Henrietta and Ignacio slept through the night, those peaceful cretins, while Roger and I just sat up quietly talking. The primary subject matter of our conversation was “We can’t let this shit happen ever again,” though we also discussed the fact that we knew perfectly well that we’d let this shit happen again.
After the sun rose, Henrietta took the lead and we resumed walking along the trail. I had absolutely no idea if we were going the right way, but she seemed satisfied that we weren’t moving in a “lost in the rainforest forever” direction.
Before too long, I heard the distant sound of running water. Either we were headed toward the river, or so much blood was flowing that it sounded like a river.
Soon we emerged from the trail right next to the riverbank. And there, in a stroke of good fortune that almost defied belief, was Henrietta’s boat.
Oh, it wasn’t on the same side of the river as us, of course. But this still counted as a victory.
“Let’s not waste any time,” said Henrietta, wading right in.
Thoughts of leeches and piranha and homicidal hippopotami went through my mind, but I didn’t want to be the one to say, “So, uh, we don’t all have to go across the river, right? Like, somebody could get the boat and bring it to the other side?” Instead, all four of us ventured into the water.
It wasn’t very far across. Only thirty feet.
It got deep quickly. Soon it was up to my chest, and by the time we were a quarter of the way across we had to swim. The current was strong but not enough to sweep me away to my demise, so I vigorously swam until my feet touched the bottom again. I was pleased that I didn’t feel the fearsome jaws of a caiman chomp down upon my leg.
“Is everybody okay?” asked Ignacio.
We all indicated that we were. Henrietta stepped out of the water without any visible leeches attached to her body, followed by the rest of us. We’d made it. We’d achieved this straightforward task without everything turning to garbage.
Something occurred to me. “You got the rifle from the boat, right?”
“Yeah,” said Henrietta.
“Why’d you leave the boat here? Why didn’t you bring it to the other side?”
Then I noticed that our possessions were scattered all over the inside of the boat. I had no idea what had been stolen, if anything, but somebody had been going through our belongings.
“They took our food,” said Henrietta, answering the unasked question before the ones I asked. “Smashed up a bunch of stuff. Destroyed the engine. I promise you, I was more upset when I found this out yesterday than you are right now.”
“Destroyed the engine? You mean, the engine that was going to power the boat?” I asked.
“Yeah, that one.”
“When were you going to tell us this?”
“Just as soon as we escaped from the cannibals, swam across the river, and made it back to the boat. So, now.”
“Why would you keep this from us?”
“Morale. Bad morale makes it harder to survive. Good morale makes it easier.”
“So...we can paddle it, right?”
“Up the river? Nah. Not with that current.”
“Well, we sure as hell can’t walk back! How long has it been since the last sign of civilization? Twenty miles?”
Henrietta shook her head. “Thirty-two.”
“My morale is pretty bad right now.”
“I don’t see any holes in the boat,” said Henrietta. “As long as it floats, we can continue down the river.”
“Toward our doom?”
“Maybe toward our doom. And maybe to a place where your phones work. It’s possible that every mile we travel further down the river brings us closer to certain death, but I for one am not going to walk thirty-two miles through the rainforest.”
I sighed and said “Dammit” a few times.
“Nobody’s forcing you to get on the boat,” said Henrietta. “If you choose to walk, I’ll make sure you leave with one of the rifles. You seem somewhat resourceful. You might survive.”
“I’m not going to walk through the rainforest,” I said. “I’m just whining.”
“Then let’s get this boat back in the water. The ticking clock to starvation has already begun.”
We shoved the boat back into the river and everybody got on board. As we let the current carry us along, Roger, Ignacio, and I gathered up the possessions and tried to sort them out the way they’d originally been packed.
“Oh my God,” said Ignacio, picking up a brown folded piece of paper. “Percival didn’t have the treasure map on him when he was captured!” He unfolded it and ran his finger along one of the lines. “I can’t tell exactly where we are, but I should be able to orient myself fairly quickly.”
“Are you serious?” I asked. “You’re not really planning to still go after it, are you?”
“After all we’ve been through, is it better to return home with a treasure or without one?”
“Is it better to return home with internal organs or without them?”
“You’re a very reluctant man, Andrew Mayhem.”
My instinct was to rattle off a list of all the bad things that had happened since we embarked on this journey, focusing on the cannibalism, but I decided that it wasn’t worth it. I didn’t want to be the killjoy. If he wanted to get out of the boat and find his own way home, more power to him.
We continued to float down the river. Roger was keeping a close eye on his cell phone in case he got a signal, though for now i
t felt like the odds of coming anywhere close to a cellular tower were virtually non-existent.
As we went around a bend, Ignacio said, “Yes!” He tapped his index finger on the map. “We’re right here. The path we were trying to find is here. I’m not entirely sure about the scale, but maybe five more miles. I’m not ordering anybody to come with me—I’m certainly not going to point a gun at you or anything—but it would be nice if I didn’t have to go alone.”
“You think we’re just going to park the boat and wait for you?”
“I wouldn’t ask that of you. If I find a treasure worth millions after you’ve abandoned me, I’ll happily build a raft.”
“Why don’t we just table the idea of finding the treasure and come back when we’re not in the middle of a shitshow?”
“With all I know about your past, I’m surprised by how timid you are,” Ignacio told me. “I expected somebody much different.”
“Is this the ‘I thought you were cool’ speech? You think you’re going to peer pressure me into going along with this?”
“No, but I’m offering equal shares. We no longer work for that coward Derek Wilson. That’s right, Percival Longshore was a totally made up name. He didn’t know I knew that, but I saw it on a document once. I didn’t confront him because I didn’t want to make things awkward. He thought everybody believed the accent was real, even when it slipped on occasion or he said things like ‘Bless your heart.’ Anyway, we no longer have to settle for a percentage. Equal shares for the four of us, or three of us, or two of us, or just me, depending on who goes after the treasure.”
“What if there’s no treasure?” I asked.
“What if there is?”
“But what if there isn’t?”
“I choose to focus on the possibility that there’s a treasure worth millions not too far from where we are right now. If you choose to focus on the possibility that we might leave empty-handed, that’s fine. I’m not sure what happened to you, though.”
“What happened is that I matured,” I said. “I gathered life experience that made me realize that there are smart decisions and there are dumb decisions, and after a lifetime mostly spent making dumb decisions, I thought I should start trying to make more smart ones. And I have five kids. Three of them are babies. What happens when you have five kids at home is that your brain looks at things like you almost getting devoured by cannibals and says, ‘Hey, let’s remove ourselves from this situation as quickly as possible.’ How do we know there aren’t more cannibals? How do we know this area isn’t teeming with cannibals? There could be cannibals aiming blow darts at us right now.”
“All right,” said Ignacio. “You’ve made your point. And like I said, if the rest of you wish to continue without me, I’ll make a raft. We’ll discuss it further when we get there.”
We floated down the river in silence. I wasn’t going to feel bad about this. I knew I wasn’t cool. I didn’t need to impress anybody with how willing I was to take risks. I was several years from a midlife crisis.
The river had been relatively smooth through most of our journey, but I noticed that it was starting to get choppier. As we went down another bend, there was a significant decrease in how safe the river seemed to be for boat passengers. Henrietta didn’t seem concerned, so I didn’t say anything.
“Do we need to be worried?” Roger asked. “The water’s getting kind of rough.”
“It’s fine,” said Henrietta. “You may get knocked around a bit, but we’ll be okay.”
“I just don’t want us to go over a waterfall or something.”
“We’re not going to go over a waterfall.”
“I believe you. But is there a process in place for if you see that we’re approaching one?”
“Yes,” said Henrietta. “If I saw that we were headed straight for a waterfall like in a cartoon, I’d scream for everybody to jump out of the boat. You’d be paralyzed with fright, so we’d all shout ‘Noooooooooo!’ while you went over the falls and were dashed to pieces on the rocks below. I’d mourn you and your sweet ass.”
“Since you keep talking about his ass, I thought I’d mention that Roger’s single,” I told her.
“Yeah?” Henrietta asked. “I’d pounce on him right now, but the boat doesn’t have a privacy curtain and I’m not giving anyone a free show.”
“We’d avert our eyes.”
“Oh, you’d take a peek, trust me. I’d have him begging for his life.”
“Anyway,” said Roger, making an admirable attempt to pretend that he was able to ignore the dark turn this conversation had taken with no mental trauma on his part, “I just wanted to verify that we’re fine going through rapids, since the boat isn’t working right.”
“I’ll let you know if we’re going to die,” Henrietta assured him.
Ignacio was studying the map. “Can I take a look?” I asked.
He shrugged and handed it to me. It looked like a child’s drawing. I could tell which line was the river because there was an arrow pointing to it with the word “river” written next to it. An actual “X” marked a spot that was labeled “treasure.” Another “X,” closer to the river, was labeled “Find the key amongst the ruins.” There were also lots of crudely drawn skulls.
“What’s up with all the skulls?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“When Percival told me about this trip, he didn’t say anything about the map having a bunch of skulls on it. I’m not a professional treasure mapmaker, but I would probably use skulls to indicate bad things instead of good things. Like, I’m guessing this skull right here isn’t used to mark the place where we’ll find a spa.”
“I didn’t know about the skulls either. Maybe they were just put there to dissuade people from going after the treasure.”
“Well, you know, those skinned bodies were put there to dissuade us from going down the river. How do you know those skulls don’t represent death traps? I’ve been in lots of death traps. They suck.”
“If you’ve been in lots of death traps, why aren’t you dead?”
“I escaped. That doesn’t mean I want to find myself in more of them. If you shove your head in a lion’s mouth twenty times and he bites your head off on the twenty-first, that pretty much cancels out the first twenty victories.”
“You are just filled with cowardly wisdom,” said Ignacio, taking the map from me.
“I’m not a coward.”
“You’re so cowardly that your mind conjured up the lion thing because you were thinking about the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard Of Oz, which is the character you most relate to in that movie.”
“No, I relate most to Dorothy, because she wants to go home. And I look at you as the Scarecrow, because you don’t seem to have a brain.” I suddenly felt bad about that insult, even though it was relatively mild, all things considered. “I apologize. That was too harsh. You have a brain. You’re just confusing being cowardly with being risk-averse. If a great white shark jumped into the boat, I wouldn’t leave the rest of you to die. I’d fight it alongside you. But if there was a sign warning us that we were entering an area where great white sharks routinely jumped into people’s boats, I’d suggest that we go someplace else. Cowardly versus risk averse.”
Ignacio looked at me for a moment, then nodded. “You’ve made your case. I withdraw my description of you as being cowardly.”
“And I already withdrew calling you the Scarecrow.”
“Anybody who calls me The Wicked Witch gets a kick in the buttocks,” said Henrietta. “I may have an unhealthy complexion but that doesn’t make me a witch. And I’m not one of those flying monkeys, either. To hell with those monkeys. I don’t know who I relate to in the world of Oz. Who’s the most lustful?”
“Probably the munchkins,” said Roger. “There are a lot of them.”
“Well, you can lick my…” Henrietta trailed off. “I’m trying to come up with something about the Lollipop Guild but I can’t quite get it to make sense. Ignaci
o, you’re the joke crafter. Finish it up for me.”
“No, thank you.”
I gave Ignacio the map back. Though the skulls were concerning, it didn’t look like the treasure was too far from the river. Maybe if we instituted a policy of “At the first sign of this becoming a complete Dumpster fire, we turn right the hell back around” it might not be such a bad idea to try to acquire twenty million dollars’ worth of treasure.
Had Ignacio gotten inside my head? Was I suddenly worried that I was the whiny guy who ruins everyone else’s fun?
We went around another bend and my stomach dropped as the boat took an unexpected plunge. We all got splashed. If we were on a water ride at a Florida theme park, this is where I’d know that things were about to become really wild and fun.
The water ahead looked pretty frickin’ scary.
“Okay,” said Henrietta. “Do you want the bad news?”
“You’re not giving us a choice between bad or good?” I asked.
“No. There’s only one piece of news and it’s bad.”
“What’s the bad news?” Roger asked.
“It looks like the water is going to get much worse. And it’s going to be almost impossible for me to control the boat. So, uh, keep your arms inside the boat, and you may get wet.”
Chapter Eleven
The river conditions deteriorated rapidly. Within a couple of minutes I went from “This is gonna be a bumpy ride!” to “We’re all gonna die!”
There was a huge rock ahead in the center of the river. I hoped we didn’t smash into it.
We smashed into the rock.
The boat spun around so that it was now traveling down the river backwards.
“Hold on!” Henrietta shouted.
We smacked into another rock. Though I was holding on and seated, I lost my balance and crashed into Roger. Fortunately, neither of us fell out of the boat.
The boat continued traveling backwards. I was too scared to be pleased that we were suddenly making extremely good time. The boat swung around and rocketed down the river sideways for a while, before facing backwards again.