Against All Odds

by Richard Bard

  Dad shrugged. He was still mad, and I raced to catch up as he stormed back up to our room. Once there, he rifled through his backpack until he found the tracker hidden in the lining. He smashed it with the heel of his boot.

  ***

  Ten minutes later Dad and I were standing in Mandu’s hut with our gear strapped to our backs. She was seated on a floor cushion with her leg propped up. Her ankle was red and badly swollen. She grimaced as she massaged a salve into it. “Frank stomped on it. It was his way of making sure I wouldn’t guide you to your destination.”

  “The bastard,” Dad said. I could imagine he regretted even more that he hadn’t killed the man. A small part of me did, too, though I felt guilty about it so I shoved the emotion into a drawer.

  “He’s not a good man,” Mandu said. “And Trumak’s tribe are killers. They don’t live amongst us, and several of our young girls have gone missing because of them.”

  “And Frank is a friend to them? Why on Earth would you stay with a man like that?” Dad blurted out the words probably louder than he intended, and Mandu clenched her jaw. He shook his head. “I’m sorry, it’s not my business.”

  She looked away. “Perhaps not, but I’ll tell you anyway. There’s no such thing as divorce in our culture. When a woman is wed to a man, whether it be for love, or for the sake of the tribe, she is his for life. It’s the way it is, and the way it has always been. Yes, it has been a sacrifice in many ways, but my tribe, and those from the other tribes who have joined us here, have benefited because of it. That is my reward. As is my daughter, Lucy, who wouldn’t be here otherwise. Being Frank’s wife is my lot in life.”

  “What if he was dead?” Dad asked.

  She stopped rubbing her foot and stared at him. “You must not kill him.”

  “Why not? He deserves it.”

  “Perhaps. But if he dies, we lose the means to support ourselves. And we don’t have the money needed to move the tribes elsewhere.”

  Dad and I exchanged a glance. Neither of us had considered that. We may not have killed Frank, but we set him up so that the mercs likely would, and when Frank was gone, Mandu and her people would be lost.

  Dad frowned. “What if you had five million pounds? That’s over six million dollars. Would that be enough?”

  “Yes, of course, but where—?”

  I caught where Dad was headed and handed Mandu the thumb drive.

  “W-what’s this?”

  Dad explained everything, skipping over the details of the fight in Frank’s room except to say the man would be unconscious for quite a while. Her eyes widened at that, but she didn’t question it when Dad told her the secrets Frank had revealed. She was angry. But as she realized what she could do with this newfound information, she couldn’t hide her growing excitement. This brave woman wanted nothing more than to care for her daughter and her tribe, and the means to do so were finally at hand.

  When Dad was finished telling her about Frank, he said, “It means you’re going to have to haul him out of there, and keep him hidden while the bounty hunters are here. When they finally clear out, you’ll need to lock him up and contact the authorities. Can you handle that?” He gestured toward her injured ankle. “You’ll need help.”

  She puffed her cheeks behind tightened lips, as if holding back an eagerness that had long ago been vanquished. “Oh, I’ll have all the help I need. The tribe will rally like never before to do what must be done.”

  “And by then we will be well on our way,” a young voice said behind us.

  We spun around. Lucy was standing there. I blinked twice at her transformation. The timid girl in Western clothing was gone, replaced by a fierce young woman dressed in native garb. She wore animal-hide wraps around her waist and top, and her remaining exposed skin was stained with earthy colors. This made her light blue eyes stand out in contrast. Her long, black hair was held back by a leather headband. She had a pack and a sheaf of arrows strapped to her back, and a knife at her waist. She held a bow at her side.

  She’d slipped into the hut without a sound, and she was magnificent.

  “Good,” she said, noticing our packs. “You’re ready to go. But we can’t leave yet. There are still people at the far dock. We must wait for the signal. Then we move.”

  “Signal?” Dad asked.

  “My friends will create a distraction to draw Frank’s people to the bar. When it’s clear, they will tell me.” Her accent mimicked Mandu’s and Frank’s.

  “Lucy?” I said, still not believing how different she appeared. I noticed the deep bruises on one of her arms. They looked painful, though you’d never know it from the way she carried herself. “You speak perfect English?”

  She placed a hand on my shoulder. “Of course I do.” She glanced at Mandu. “My mother taught me years ago. She told me it would be the language that would one day save our lives.” She gestured out the door. “And the lives of those who have come to depend on us. It was one of many secrets we kept from Frank.”

  “But others must have noticed, right?” Alex asked. “I mean, it’s a pretty close-knit community up here. Somebody must have overheard you. How could Frank not know?”

  Lucy glanced at Mandu again, as if deferring to her mom to tell the story. But Mandu was focused on wrapping what looked like dried fruit and fish in banana leaves, so she simply nodded, giving her daughter permission to continue.

  “Mother and I never speak English in the village. But once a month, when it is otherwise not a good time for Frank to bed my mother, we partake in what has been an ancient obligation and tradition of our tribe for as far back as anyone can remember—that the ancestral first daughter of the tribal shaman become one with the forest with every moon.” Her eyes took on a faraway look. “To live within the forest that the Great One has provided, to suckle, to thrive, to survive its many threats…and to learn.”

  I couldn’t imagine it. “And you’re saying you go out there with her?”

  She nodded. “Mother has done so all her life, guided as a child by my grandmother, who’d learned from her mother before her, and so on. It’s a practice Mother had insisted she continue when she met Frank years ago, and after my birth she simply strapped me to her chest and took me along. Five days every full moon, twelve times a year for thirteen years, we lived and breathed the forest. I will guide you.”

  She seemed so much older to me just then, standing before us holding a handmade bow that was worn from use. Her eyes were steady and confident.

  Dad scrutinized her, and I could tell he was torn because of her age. What father wouldn’t be? I trusted her, though.

  “It’s meant to be, Dad. She can do it.”

  Lucy looked perturbed. “Of course I can. Besides, without me you won’t survive your first day.”

  Mandu folded a cloth around the food she’d wrapped and handed the bundle to Dad. “She’s right,” Mandu said. “There is no one more capable. And she’s the only one besides me who knows the dark path to your destination. No one else dares travel in that part of the forest. Not even Trumak.”

  “You already know where we’re headed?” Dad asked.

  Mandu looked at me. She was thinking about the memory we’d shared earlier that day about the kind old man she’d encountered by the waterfalls. “I know exactly where you must go. And so does Lucy.”

  A monkey hooted in the distance. Lucy and Mandu exchanged a look. That monkey call probably came from one of Lucy’s friends.

  Mandu said, “You’re out of time.” She closed her eyes, held her palms toward us, and recited something in her native language. I didn’t understand the words, but felt the blessing beneath them.

  Lucy touched her forehead to her mom’s in a ritual that I guessed went back thousands of years. Neither warrior shed a tear, and when they separated, Mandu handed Lucy a key that had a fishing bobber attached to it.

  Mandu said, “This will give you the head start you need.” She winked. “Plus, it will make Frank very angry.” Her grin was wolfis
h. “Now, child. Run like the wind!”

  “Come,” Lucy said, her eyes on fire. She disappeared out the hut so fast, Dad and I had trouble keeping up.

  She ran uphill, leading us over the cleared knoll that supported the solar and wind farm, and into the forest beyond to a path that angled downward to the second dock we’d seen in the distance when we landed. Shouts came from the direction of the bar. A surge of adrenaline helped me run as fast as my short legs could take me. But it still wasn’t fast enough, and Lucy was pulling farther away into the darkness. Dad scooped me off the ground and hauled me onto his back so that my butt rested on top of his pack. The assault rifle slung over his shoulder dug into my sides, but I ignored it and latched my arms around his neck. I pressed my cheek against his, and the smell of him made me feel safe. The mini’s energy was fueling his movements, and foliage blurred as he picked up speed.

  Chapter 8

  JAKE WAS SCARED AS HELL. Not so much for himself, because he’d been in more situations like this in the past several years than he wanted to count. A part of him believed danger would be his constant companion in life, like it or not, and that he’d had it coming to him after he cheated death eight years earlier. But Alex deserved far better, and concern for his son’s safety had Jake tuned up and ready for anything.

  Not that his son couldn’t handle himself. Hell, Alex had proved it several times over in the past few days alone. Still, having the weight of responsibility for his son’s life literally riding on his back was enough to make any father throw out the rule book. So, if protecting Alex meant following a thirteen-year-old girl into the unexplored depths of the rainforest to avoid a bunch of blood-hungry mercenaries, then so be it.

  He caught up easily with Lucy. The sleep, the food, and the mini’s energy made him feel stronger than ever, and a minute later they broke into the clearing that enveloped the second dock. The pier looked solid, and the aluminum warehouses on both sides of it were well lit. There was nobody in sight, and he suspected Frank’s thugs had all rushed to the man’s aid at the bar. A covered water garage protruded partway into the river. Lucy scampered onto the pier and into the entrance. After Jake lowered Alex to the ground, they followed her inside to see a gleaming speedboat. It was a twenty footer with a closed bow, two rows of seats, and twin Yamaha 225 outboards.

  Lucy untied the lead rope, motioning as she did so toward a row of five-gallon gas cans along the wall. “We need two of them.”

  There were ten cans in all. Jake grabbed the first two. “They’re empty.”

  “It’s the two on the other end. I filled them earlier.” She tossed the rope into the boat and stepped inside.

  Jake retrieved the full cans and lugged them beside the boat. Alex had untied the stern, and held the line taut while Jake shuffled the cans into the stern well.

  Lucy inserted the key. “It’s going to be loud so I’ve got to move us out fast. This may not be the most practical boat for where we’re going, and it gulps fuel like crazy, but it’s definitely the fastest of the lot. So nobody’s going to catch us anytime soon. Are you ready?”

  “Wait. Fastest of the lot? There are others? Where are they?”

  “In the warehouse on the other side of the pier.”

  Jake grabbed one of the gas cans and stepped out of the boat. “I’ll be right back.”

  “But we need that.”

  “If anyone shows up, clear out of here and head downriver. I’ll catch up.”

  “But we need to go upriver!”

  “Trust me,” he shouted over his shoulder.

  Jake ran out of the garage to the warehouse. Two roll-up doors fronted the river. They were closed, but the side door for foot traffic stood wide open. He stepped inside, skirted around a double-stacked pallet of eight fifty-gallon drums of gasoline, and surveyed the warehouse. Besides a well-stocked reloader station with three different presses and a variety of ammo, the space housed three power boats on wheeled trailers that could be winched in and out of the water, plus a variety of related gear and equipment. Jake guessed it had all been salvaged from previous guests of Frank’s who’d never made it out of the rainforest alive. He still regretted not killing the man, and hoped the failure wouldn’t haunt him later.

  He grabbed rags from a workbench, unscrewed the gas caps on the boats, and stuffed the rags partway inside. He uncapped the fuel can and began dousing the rags and the boats. He was leaning into the stern of the third boat when a man’s voice stopped him cold.

  “Drop the jerry and raise your hands.”

  The man was behind him, likely with the gunsight trained on the back of Jake’s head. Jake let the can slip from his fingers. It toppled to the cement floor, and the remaining contents gurgled out in a stream that followed the sloping floor toward the roll-up doors. He raised his hands.

  “Nice move, you bleedin’ wanker,” the man said, referring to the dumped gasoline. He spoke with a cockney accent thicker than Frank’s. “I oughta end you where you stand, but that wouldn’t please Frank none, would it now? But mind your manners, mate. Because I’m holdin’ an AA-12, and one squeeze of the trigger will blast you to kingdom come whether Frank likes it or not, and then he and I will have to mourn the lost opportunity to slice your head off over a pint or two. Now that would be a damn shame indeed.”

  The AA-12 was one of the few weapons Jake hadn’t come across back in the day when he was flash reading anything he could get his hands on. He only knew it was a fully automatic twelve-gauge shotgun that could fire ammunition ranging from buckshot to high-explosive rounds. Whatever it was loaded with now, a pull of the trigger would obliterate him.

  “Very slowly now. Turn around.”

  He was about to move when another vision invaded his mind. It was more abrupt than the previous ones, and he was once again transported to the cavern. He sensed Alex’s presence beside him, and for an instant he saw his son in the boat with Lucy. But that image vanished as quickly as it appeared, and suddenly he and his son stood alone in the cavern facing the entity who’d called them. The man’s image—if he was a man—was clearer now. He wore a long, green robe. His hair was white, and his sallow cheeks were spotted and wrinkled. He was old and looked worn out, but there remained a faint sparkle in his blue eyes. “It won’t stay closed much longer.” His voice was frail and desperate—and foreboding. The man took wheezing breaths as he continued. “You are close, but you must hurry. I have lowered the shield. Use the lake. Tell the girl to bring you to the mist. She will know.” The man’s image was replaced by an overhead view of a wide waterfall spilling hundreds of feet to a massive valley shrouded in fog. “Everything is at stake,” the man said, his voice trailing off.

  And then the vision was gone.

  “Last chance, mate. Turn around or face your maker.”

  Jake moved slowly, his mind reeling. There was no time to waste, and getting there before the clock stopped ticking meant a change in plans.

  A big change.

  He stared at the surly man holding the shotgun. With weathered skin, yellow teeth, and a bald head wrapped in a spiderweb tattoo, the man looked like a mangy pirate from a Pirates of the Caribbean flick. A gold ring dangled from an earlobe. That he was a killer like his pal Frank, there was no doubt.

  Jake raised an eyebrow. “You’re an ugly bastard, aren’t you?”

  The man stepped closer and raised the shotgun. His finger was inside the trigger guard. “And you’re a dead man walking.”

  Jake kept his hands up but relaxed his posture, willing the man to move closer. The man took another step and stopped. Still not close enough.

  “Ah, I see,” the man said. “You’re getting ready to make a move, right? Trust me, you’ll never make it, mate.” His finger seemed to tighten around the trigger. “And speaking of ugly, what the hell happened to your face? ’Course, as bad as it is, it’s going to look even worse when it’s no longer attached to your neck.” He chuckled.

  Even with full use of the mini, Jake couldn’t outrun a
shotgun blast. If he tried to send a surge of energy into the man’s skull, it would likely make the pirate squeeze the trigger.

  “Hey, mister,” Alex’s voice sounded from behind the pallet of drums. The pirate spun, while keeping the shotgun trained on Jake.

  Jake sensed his opening—just as an arrow whistled across the space to embed itself in the pirate’s neck. The man’s mouth went wide, his body stiffened, and he went down like a statue. He still gripped the shotgun, but his paralyzed system couldn’t signal his finger to squeeze the trigger.

  Jake was on him in a beat. He peeled the man’s fingers back and took the gun. The man’s eyes darted back and forth, but he had only a few breaths left, so Jake ignored him.

  Alex and Lucy stepped into the open. Alex said, “Lucy doesn’t use a blowgun so she dips her arrows in the frog potion.”

  “Nice shot, Lucy.”

  She nodded.

  Alex took her hand. “Are you okay?”

  She frowned, as if wondering why she wouldn’t be. “Death is part of life. It was time for him to move on.”

  Alex turned to Jake. “I saw you in the vision. Came to help. I guess you know we need a new plan.”

  Jake smiled. Putting two and two together was never a problem for his son. “Already on it. Here’s what we’re going to do.”

  ***

  Two minutes later Jake was standing outside the roll-up door with a BIC lighter in his hand.

  He now had the shotgun slung alongside the assault rifle. He’d loaded it with a thirty-two-round drum magazine he’d grabbed from the workbench. The canister had a skull and crossbones painted on it, and he’d grinned when he realized it held high-explosive rounds, which essentially turned the weapon into a fully automatic grenade launcher.

  The orange glow from the water garage confirmed the flame Lucy had started there had taken hold. He glanced over his shoulder to see her and Alex waiting in a canoe at the water’s edge. Alex sat low in the front, and Lucy was at the stern using her paddle to hold them in place. The moon was gone, the night was dark, and it was time to go.