Born Into Love (22 page)

Teodoro spoke into a handset—his words lost in the barrage of noise--the craft descended.
Their entrance into the jungle had been simplified. They would not use what the Incas called “a brother of the road”. The helicopter eliminated their need for bridges.

They
dropped. Mercedes screamed. The gunmen poked each other and laughed.

Treetops—-a perspective
he and Rodrigo had never imagined—turned frenzied as the craft tipped forward. Amid the green carpet appeared an opening: a space hacked out of the jungle. Several large crates already dotted the area. This was a bad sign. Teodoro had showed more organization than Diego thought.

The craft hovered close to the ground. The men tossed cartons and duffels out the door. One pointed to
Diego. He and Mercedes unbuckled. They had to jump.

Mercedes shook her head.
He acted before her fear found a voice. Snatching her into his arms, he leaped out the door landing on the jungle floor with her cocooned in his arms. Twigs and dirt flew around them stirred by the departing helicopter. Diego closed his eyes as she burrowed more tightly into him.

“Stay where you are,”
he shouted. “Wait until the helicopter clears the trees.” For once, she obeyed.

Coughing, she set about fleeing from
his touch.

“Now what?” she asked.

Teodoro approached. “Mercedes, this seed is for you.” He handed her a small plastic container. “The liquid is lemonade.”

She unscrewed the top and sniffed. “What happens if I don’t take it?”

“Diseases you have never heard of will rack your body.”

“You win, but I’m tired of being treated like an invalid. No wonder my sister rebelled.” She popped the seed and drank the six ounces in four gulps. She returned the vessel.

Diego tried to break into the sorcerer’s thoughts to find where he stored the supply and found the route closed.

Suddenly
the sorcerer peered into the forest. The jungle hushed and Diego wondered if Teodoro could control nature. Also suddenly alert, the remaining two gunmen panned the area with assault rifles. The earth groaned. Trees twisted like tormented beings. Only Teodoro remained indifferent.

Someone shouted, “Temblor!”

“Earthquake!”

Remy took off in one direction then stopped, then ran again, panicked.
Diego pulled Mercedes onto the ground. The rolling motion increased. Dampness driven from the depths of the rainforest wafted over them. Mercedes gagged. A huge kapok collapsed into the clearing. Then stillness.

Teodoro remained standing. He grabbed his gear even as
other trees crashed close to the site. “Get up! We’re wasting time!”

Mercedes spat dirt. “Are you crazy? There could be aftershocks.”

He turned to Diego. “Which way?”

Diego
stalled. “Let me see the sketches.”

“No. Go by instinct. Your memory is long. You’ve walked the jungle before.”

Teodoro wanted action so Diego walked around the fresh gouges in the churned earth and circled the perimeter of their landing site. The faintest molecules of the soil he sought rose in the air, shocking him, but they were fleeting, inconsistent, unreliable. He made a decision. “We head east.” That is the direction Marta had chosen for him and his brother and Rodrigo had remembered. That heading proved good enough then perhaps it would be good enough now.

Mercedes dusted her khakis and swore under her breath.
“Where’s my stuff?”

“Replaced,” Remy answered.

Teodoro pointed to new, smaller knapsacks. Her hand landed protectively over the canvas pack circling her waist.

“What’s in there?” Remy asked.

“Women’s things. I suppose you’d like to run your hands over tampons.” She slipped the pack from her waist and offered it to him.

“If you knew the power I hold over you.” His gaze then leaped to
Diego. “Control her or else.”

Diego
grabbed their new gear. “Be quiet, Mercedes, and put on the repellent.” He guessed she carried it. She ignored him concentrating on Remy with a gaze hot enough to burn a hole in his corneas.

“Bastard.”

Procteur folded his arms genie-like. “What’re you going to do, cry?”

Diego
cut off the encounter. “Mercedes, the insects are diving for you as we speak. Use the repellent.”

Exposed parts received a dose.
They wore long sleeves, sturdy boots and long pants made of fabric that breathed but could still offer protection. Diego wore a shirt that had been treated by Luz to shield his skin from the sun should it penetrate the canopy.

Leather boots covered most of
their calves, a safeguard against bites. The danger existed not for him, but for her. “If you trip, do not grab a vine or a branch. It could be home to something nasty or be coated in poison or spines.”

Diego
headed for an open spot between trees with buttress roots. Insects coated gashes made in the bark due to the recent tremors. The scent he needed had evaporated. He did not let this slow his footfall.

Their
journey had begun.

Plants with enormous leaves, spiky vines and lumps of fungi stood before
their cortège of grave robbers. They walked into the wall of vegetation. Even the muted light held an olive tinge.

After twenty minutes, the jungle closed in.
Diego stopped.

Teodoro pounced. “What’s the delay?”

“I need a machete. Without it, the group will have to crawl.”

Teodoro spoke with one of the soldiers in a tongue
he did not understand. The mercenary maneuvered to the front of the line. “This man knows how to wield a machete. Direct him. He’ll clear the path. No one wields the blade better than José. Manuel, however, has other talents.”

“English or Spanish?”

Teodoro considered. “Use English to avoid misunderstandings and it is the only language Remy comprehends.”

“What about her?” piped Remy.

Mercedes bluffed. “
Comprendo todo
.”

Diego
indicated the route and José raised a muscled arm in a perfect arc and sliced.

Before dusk while Remy and Teodoro plotted under a mahogany tree, José felled an area for camp. Mercedes slumped to the ground. Her hair curled away from her sweaty face. A baker’s dozen of bites swelled along her hairline and around her wrists. At the back of her head wet strands fell onto her shirt.

She scratched the rising bumps. “I’m never coming here again.”

“Then neither am I.”
Diego made himself useful and opened the knapsacks. Although they were without tents, they had netting and Diego had his shroud and the small sack of soil he traveled with. She accepted large flat leaves from José.

“For bedding?” she asked.

He nodded and pointed to the ground.

“Shouldn’t we have hammocks? Something to protect us from bugs and snakes?”

José shook his head and pointed at Teodoro. “He do magic. Camp okay.”

Mercedes frowned
. Diego passed her the protective net. “Sleep under this and do not irritate the bites you have accumulated. If you bleed, insects will find you even more irresistible.”

“I guess for tonight you mean just the disobedient insects. Thanks for the warning.” She examined her leafy mattress. “I hope there aren’t spiders in here.”

She must have been satisfied because she copied José as he made his own bed using the leaves. With more energy than Diego thought natural under the circumstances, she tied the netting to an overhead branch and stretched out within the cocoon of fabric. “With my luck a creature’ll tumble down, crash into me and bite my leg off.”

Even though
his exit would seem abrupt since he offered no comment, Diego excused himself to speak with Teodoro who sat mumbling into his hands. Was that more magic? The sorcerer raised his head.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“An assurance that Mercedes will not be molested when I feed.”

Remy glanced up from a laminated map. “Don’t worry. We aren’t planning to attack her.”

“Good. A wise decision. Retaliation would be unpleasant.”

Teodoro called to Manuel and barked an order, forgetting to use English. The henchman spread his legs in a comfortable stance and held the weapon across his chest. The sorcerer turned to
Diego. “You have my word that she will be unharmed except for the poison that breathes in her veins.”

* * *

Night dropped like a heavy burden. José stirred the fire and delivered dinner, pale meat in a can, crackers, a small tube of vanilla wafers and a packet of flavored crystals. Teodoro informed
them that the camp water came from a nearby stream and had been decontaminated. This Diego accepted as true. The sorcerer would benefit by keeping everyone free of dysentery.

Mercedes ate the cookies and crackers. When
Diego offered the flavored water, she shook her head. “If you dehydrate, you will feel worse. Drink.” She accepted his logic, he thought, because exhaustion stifled her need to argue.

Remy’s whining voice called José away from the fire. Exhausted, pale against the rainforest night, the treasure hunter ordered the man to prepare his bed. If the soldier thought Procteur a fool, his expression betrayed no such assessment. Was José’s indifference a learned response or a strategy?

Remy, now settled, called across the small campsite. “Hey Castilla, what’re you eating for dinner?”

Diego
ignored the taunt. Movement in the camp decreased. Teodoro added more leaves to his green mattress and loosened his boots. Smoke from a lantern curled around him.

“When will we reach our destination?” he asked.

Diego told him what he thought would be true. “As soon as we reach a riverbed our chances increase. I need to examine the soil.”

Teodoro
slurped coffee. “Do not pretend you have forgotten the way.” He reached into a pocket and withdrew a pen and notebook.

Diego
did not want Mercedes out of his sight, but he could wait no longer. She glanced up as he passed. He kept his voice low as he squatted to speak through her netting. “Stay where you are. Incite no confrontations, at least until I return.”

“Tell me something,” she said.

That she initiated conversation came as a surprise. “Anything.”

“Do you know what you’re doing?”

“I am a bit rusty, but some of the foliage looks familiar.”

* * *

The selva turned black at night which suited
Diego’s transformation into a bat; easier to travel in that form and important to establish distance from the camp quickly because his need had intensified and the larger animals avoided their presence. Another reason also existed: he did not want to feed close to the woman he loved.

Even after all this time,
he was not sure how he shifted species. The process was a mystery that did not require his complete comprehension to work. A vision of the animal formed in his mind. Maybe the atoms shattered and reassembled. He did not know. The metamorphosis was painless but drained energy. For several seconds he would lose a sense of self. Perhaps the feat was magic, but he had never divined the method and he would never create another like himself to compare notes.

Vines blocked
his path. He went higher. Sounds that separated one creature from another hovered in the air. Suddenly, he was not alone. He flew with real bats, creature cousins. They were simple beasts that belonged there.

Ripe fruit. The air drowned in the fragrance.

He tore away to a glistening stream. Lower. He had to go lower. Hooves stomped as he resumed his human form. He fed, but his bones still ached from need. He searched impatient for another source of nourishment. A nose twitched when it should have been still. That creature would not return to the burrow.

Later, awash in rainforest scents, and living through a wolf’s form,
he dug his snout into many trails this time trying to recover the past. Other predators sniffed his tracks. Defensive, he growled.

Then the soil of
his death entered his nostrils. He did not want to roll in it, but he did. He howled in misery for even as he walked on paws, dread consumed him. He smelled the riverbed of his misfortune, the cradle of his heartbreak.

* * *

A few kerosene lanterns still burned in camp. The fire smoldered. José rested under a lean-to and the other guard smoked a cigarette.
Diego slipped under his netting. He did not need it, but pretense saved explanations.

“You were gone so long,” Mercedes said.

Had she been worried? “I mixed with relatives.”