by TR Kohler
Sobs that luckily Hazik cannot hear, the mere sight alone enough to spike his disgust.
“That man there,” Fumu replies, “says she isn’t here, but she was recently. Says she’s been working throughout the various encampments, can’t be more than one or two farther along.”
Gaze fixed on the old man lying twisted in the mud, Hazik nods. “Any diamonds here?”
“No,” Fumu replies.
Pulling his focus away, Hazik glances to Fumu before heading back to his Jeep.
“Then there’s no need for this place. Burn it.”
Chapter Fifty-One
Standing under the dense foliage of the rainforest canopy above, Kidman turns a small circle, his face turned up toward the sky. Even knowing the hour to only be in the mid-afternoon, he scans the heavy fronds above, searching for anything more than slivers of daylight breaking through.
Something that seems to be sorely lacking, the world already fast descending into shadows.
“You look lost,” Anika says. A trace of amusement in her voice, Kidman lowers his focus from the canopy above to find a matching smile stretched across her features.
The first sign of either he’s seen from her since they met.
“Just wondering how you guys live in virtual darkness all the time,” Kidman replies, falling in beside her as they make their way back across the encampment. A slow trek past handfuls of people sitting out, many of them offering smiles as they pass. “Must be hell on the body clock.”
“Better than being subjected to the full abuse of the sun all day every day,” Anika replies. “Or being left out in the open to deal with Hazik and his army all the time.”
Reaching the hut that serves as Anika’s home and base of operation, she pauses alongside cases of water stacked beside the doorway. Using her middle and index fingers, she punctures the plastic wrap on the top one.
Removing a pair from the center, she extends the closest to Kidman. With the other, she motions to the pair of folding stools posted along the outside of the structure.
An impromptu waiting room from the looks of it, for times when there is a line to get in to see her.
Accepting the water, Kidman moves to the far stool. Lowering himself onto it, he rests with his elbows braced on his knees. Bottle held between them, he twists away the top, his focus on the people around them.
A crowd clustered into small groups. Families huddled around fires, multiple generations all sharing the same food and lodging.
“You look lost again,” Anika says, another hint of laughter in her voice as she lowers herself onto the seat beside him.
Returning the chuckle, Kidman flicks her a quick look before shaking his head.
“Not at all, actually. Was just thinking this place reminds me a lot of back home.”
“Which is where?”
“Hawaii,” Kidman replies.
“Ah,” Anika replies. “Makes sense.”
A cleft appears between Kidman’s eyes as he glances over. “Meaning?”
“Nothing,” she answers. “Just, the hair, the tan. You look like a surfer.”
His first instinct to refute her, Kidman pulls up. Though the assessment might be playing a bit to type, she isn’t wrong about either. The dark veneer of his skin has definitely been earned through hours out on the water.
And as Ma pointed out a few days earlier, his hair has undergone a transformation since he relocated.
“A paddler, actually,” he says. “But what I meant was, I live on this little island called Molokai. It’s known as The Friendly Isle, definitely has a vibe a lot like this.”
“Sounds nice,” Anika says. Open bottle of water paused just beneath her chin, she asks, “How’d you end up there? That where you’re from?”
“Ha!” Kidman retorts, a reflexive response out before he even realizes. “I wish. My parents would have wished. Ohio, originally. This little dot in the southern half nobody’s ever heard of.”
Nearby, a chorus of laughter rings out. A group of five gathered around a fire pit, a metal pot of some sort resting on the coals. Most of a traditional family unit present, all that is missing is a father as two young children, a middle-aged woman, and an older couple sit in a circle.
Heads thrown back, they cackle with aplomb. Eyes closed, their faces tilted toward the canopy above.
“How much do you want to bet they’re laughing about the new white boy that they tricked into bringing them all this free stuff?” Anika asks.
Present is the same bit of levity as a few moments earlier, the hostility of this morning already fading.
A direct result either of their agreement or of his repeated supply runs.
“No bet. Too easy,” Kidman replies. “Guarantee it’s either that, or they’re over there putting together their next shopping list.”
“Ooh, yeah,” Anika agrees. “Probably something good for getting around out here, like a Hummer.”
Water raised to his lips, Kidman coughs out a laugh. Enough to send fluid tumbling down over his chin, drawing a chuckle from Anika as well.
“A Hummer?! I was thinking, like, pizza. Good lord, Mama Warbucks.”
“Shoot, now I wish. You think you’re from a small town? I’m from a spot about the size of Bukari. On a good day.”
The first mention of anything personal, Kidman glances over. “Oh yeah? Where’s that?”
Meeting the glance, there is a moment of hesitation. A clear calculation about whether or not to share, before she says, “Canada, actually. My parents immigrated there shortly before I was born.”
Brows rising in surprise, Kidman replies, “No kidding? I spent a few years north of Calgary before heading to Molokai. Beautiful country, but damn it was cold.”
“Up the coast from Vancouver,” Anika responds. “And yes, and yes. Guess that’s why we both got as close to the equator as we could after leaving.”
“I guess so,” Kidman says. “Haven’t stopped sweating since.”
“Me neither,” Anika adds, the two of them both chuckling softly before drifting toward silence.
A quiet spawned by the approach of Keicha and Belvia. Two women walking side by side, each carrying plates piled high with food.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Holding the shingle of wood cupped between his hands, Kidman stares down at the food amassed atop it. Mounds of rice and beans offset by slices of fresh vegetables.
Even a couple slivers of meat of some sort, no doubt originating with the same small herd of goats milling around not fifteen yards from where he now sits.
A spread that looks to be more than most of the people around him eat in any given day.
The scent alone enough to remind him that the bar he had for breakfast left his system hours before.
“Hey,” he whispers, leaning over a few inches to the side, cutting the gap between he and Anika by half. “I don’t want to eat their food.”
Having no such compunction, Anika dips her hand down into the mash of beans and rice. Scooping up a small pile, she shoves her fingers into her mouth before sucking them clean.
“Too good for such simple fare?” she replies.
Reflexively, Kidman snorts. “Believe me, I’ve had worse.”
“What’s the problem then?” she asks.
“I brought that food for them.”
“You brought the food to get me to go back with you,” Anika shoots back.
Prepared to fire right back, keep the volley of banter going, Kidman pauses. The words of Ma earlier still fresh in his mind, he pauses, reminding himself that at one point he was subjecting an entire team to the same thing.
It being a wonder he made it out alive.
Another reason he owes Ma, he’d be willing to guess.
“No, the medicine on your list I brought to get you to go back with me,” Kidman counters. “The two food runs were for them.”
For the first time since the meal was delivered to them, Anika pauses. Fingers damp with saliva, they sit suspende
d above the dwindling mound of food atop her shingle, considering what was just said.
An internal debate that ends with a shrug of her eyebrows as she admits, “So you did, but to refuse their offering would be an insult. You did them a solid, you need to let them repay the favor.”
More objections rising to the fore, Kidman pulls up. Framed in the context just shared, he can’t rightly argue with the logic. A system similar to what would be employed back on Molokai, gratitude shared not in equal value, but equal effort.
Lifting his gaze to the spread before him, Kidman seeks out the two women that had brought them the food. Catching Belvie’s eye, he lifts the shingle, a nod of silent thanks, before falling to the meal.
Following Anika’s lead, he goes in with his fingers, starting on the rice and beans. Carbs and protein to fuel him for whatever the rest of the day may hold.
An open gap of time hinging on how long it takes Wembo to find Sanga and the others. How far away they are and the distance they must travel to make it back.
“So why the Congo?” Kidman asks between bites, returning to their previous conversation.
The first words spoken in several minutes, Anika pauses, casting a glance over at the sound of his voice.
Again, she seems to debate how much to share, before stating, “My parents were researchers. That’s what took them to Canada. Sociology, at UBC. University of British Columbia.”
Turning her focus toward the center of the encampment, she continues, “They always dreamed of getting here. Working their way into the rainforest, interacting with villages just like this.”
Noticing the use of past tense verbs, Kidman stops eating for a moment. He flicks a look her way before moving it straight ahead. A parallel track to the young girl beside him.
“They were actually raising funds to come here when they passed last year,” she adds.
It is obvious there is more to the story. Not only what happened to them, but how she ultimately made the decision to take off and head here on her own. Especially at such a young age.
Questions Kidman doesn’t bother voicing, having been down a similar path when he was her age as well.
Unending inquiries from people he knew meant well, though to him all they really were doing was refusing to let the wound heal.
“I’m very sorry,” he whispers instead.
“Me too,” she replies. Turning her chin to her shoulder, she glances over just long enough for him to see red tendrils permeating the sclera of her eyes. “About yours.”
So badly, he wants to tell her that it gets easier. That those pithy expressions about time healing and what not are true. That each day she will rise and the pain will recede, but the fond memories never do.
Things that he can’t bring himself to voice, knowing they simply aren’t true.
Platitudes others share to make themselves feel better.
Nothing more.
Pressing his lips into a tight line, Kidman nods. A punctuation to the topic before dropping his focus back to the meal before him. Food that suddenly seems much less appealing, his mind in a handful of different places.
Times long before, his father having passed in the early-80s.
His mother, nearly a decade later, the precipitating event for his landing in the program with Ma and the others.
“Ask you something?” Anika says, her turn to pull him from his thoughts, draw his attention her way.
“Shoot.”
“Your ability...” she says. Raising a hand between them, she makes a circular motion. A manifestation of the question she is trying to form. A circle of ideas she can’t quite articulate.
Something very similar to what he’s seen from many others over the years.
“The teleporting, or...”
Clear she is fumbling for the words, waiting for him to insert himself and bail her out, Kidman cracks a smile.
“I call it jumping,” he replies. “I’ve heard others say hopping. Leaping. Teleporting, as you just mentioned.”
“Yeah, that,” she says. “How does it work? How does it...?”
Lowering the food still in hand to the ground between his feet, Kidman balances his elbows on his knees. Lacing his fingers between them, he says, “Like I said before, it’s pretty simple really. If I can see something, I can literally just kind of put myself there.”
Lifting his hands in a sort of shrug, he adds, “I know it’s not the most elegant response, but it’s just kind of always been there. Clear back to when I was an infant.
“My mom used to love to tell this story about one time she stepped out of the kitchen and returned to find me – barely eighteen months old – up on top of the fridge trying to get in the cookie jar.”
Eliciting a laugh from Anika, she shakes her head slightly. “Guess you really wanted some oatmeal raisin.”
“Please,” Kidman replies. “Even at that age, I knew it was chocolate chip or nothing.”
Letting the joke hang just long enough to draw another chuckle, he continues, “Beyond that, the best anybody has been able to determine is my ability actually stems from accelerated cell regeneration. At roughly three times the average person’s, it is what allows me to jump, accelerates my healing, slows down my aging.”
“Damn,” Anika mutters, Kidman falling silent, allowing her to process. Continue what started earlier in the day, the girl’s initial shock at seeing him bounce around the interior of her hut now amplified by discovering it was only part of what he can do.
A list that it takes her several moments to even begin working through before twisting her focus back his way.
“Wait, so how old are you, exactly?”
“Really?” Kidman replies, a wide grin forming on his features. “All that, and that’s what you seize on?”
“I mean, if you don’t want to answer...”
“I’m twenty-four years old,” Kidman replies.
An answer that clearly doesn’t do quite what Anika was looking for, a quizzical look crossing her face before she asks, “Okay, but I mean, what year were you born?”
Already well aware what was intended on the first question, Kidman debates how to best answer. The way to reply to her question without encouraging the requisite slate of follow ups that always come thereafter.
Or, more likely now, the endless barbs that will arise.
An internal consideration that barely begins before being brought to a quick and decisive ending.
Thoughts ripped away by the sound of a shrill scream piercing the air, bringing all other movement and conversation around the center of the encampment to a halt.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Kidman has been in enough situations before to know how to differentiate screams. Based only on pitch and tenor, he can tell when a certain cry is meant to be playful. He knows when someone is looking to draw attention.
Just as he is instantly aware that in this case, the source is nothing short of abject terror.
Completely forgetting the shingle bearing his half-eaten meal on the ground between his feet, Kidman pops to full height, sending the food skittering away. His focus swivels to either side, looking for either the cause or the source of the scream.
A search that takes several moments as Anika rises in his periphery.
“You see anything?” she mutters.
Flicking his chin an inch to either side, Kidman scans the few people in his direct line of sight. Folks standing rigid like himself, a hint of confusion permeating the crowd, everyone looking to one another.
Effort spent to determine where the cry originated. What it might mean.
Answers that both arrive an instant later in the form of a second sound. One that for only an instant he thinks might be Wembo and Sanga returning before realizing there is no way that would bring cause for the scream heard a moment earlier.
A noise he was heard far too many times in just the last couple of days. Something he could go months or even years before encountering again.
T
he whining drone of a Jeep engine bearing down on the village.
Audible long before the source is visible, Kidman’s first thought is on the small clusters of people bunched up around the center of the encampment. Family groupings running the full age spectrum, from young children to the elderly.
Easy targets for whatever Hazik and his men have planned.
Sweeping his focus over the group once more, Kidman squares in on an aging couple sitting directly across from him. A woman whose hair has entirely trended toward silver. Presumably her husband beside her, most of his having retreated long ago.
A couple that both look to be well up in years. Seventies, if not eighties.
People that will stand no chance of protecting themselves in the face of intruders.
Even before getting a visual of the impending arrivals, Kidman jumps directly across the small encampment. Hurtles himself from Anika’s side to the narrow gap between the couple.
No time to introduce himself or explain what is about to happen, he instantly retreats along his previous path. A there-and-back that is almost instantaneous, taking the elderly couple from their seats by the fire to the pair of stools just vacated by him and Anika.
A leap that leaves both disoriented, the two mumbling something to one another upon landing.
Words that Kidman never hears as he steps forward beside Anika, his attention aimed on the mouth of the path entering the village from the southwest. A thin cut through the dense foliage that reveals nothing before practically spitting out the source of the dreaded droning engine.
Two in a row, the Jeeps enter the encampment. Arrangements exactly as in Bukari, with one man behind the wheel, a trio of shooters standing in the open rear spaces.
An arrival that multiplies the screams and shouts around the village. Chaos erupting instantly, women and young children wail on cue. Goats bleat as they scatter.
A burst of nervous energy as people dart for cover and try to make their way into the forest.
“We have to go!” Anika yells, words just barely heard over the grinding of engines.
