First Descent

by Pam Withers

“No money,” I tried to tell him in Spanish. “They have no money.”

  His sneer indicated what he thought of that. He shoved the paper into my hands.

  Trying not to picture Mom’s or Gramps’ faces when they learned I’d been kidnapped, I slowly penciled their names, address, phone number. What choice do I have? Will I be freed when the guerillas figure out my family can’t pay whatever outrageous sum they are asked for? Killed? Tortured? Will my government intervene? Will the Colombian Army come up here and swoop in for an attack and rescue?

  After the commander left, I huddled back in my corner. Memories of the day before played like a looped tape. Kissing Myriam. Myriam finding the necklace and turning angry eyes on me. Myriam running away. Abuela’s accusing finger. Abuela revealing her story. Abuela banishing me. Abuela and Myriam leaving.

  I had nothing to do but play these scenes over and over in my mind, hour after hour. My fault, my fault, my fault! my mind screamed at me. Who do I think I am, coming to Colombia for a first descent, like nothing here exists but a river and me? Who do I think I am, pursuing a girl with troubles I can’t even imagine?

  Slowly, my thoughts turned to the falls. That was where Gramps had fallen ill. That was where his legacy ended and I had imagined mine would begin. I shuddered as I pictured the Furioso all but imploding as it protested being fed into the dead end. I pictured the hideous, foaming swirl that resulted from too much water attempting to slide down an unseen drain. Such a feature was a monumental death trap. There had been no eddies on either side, nothing to stop a kayaker from being sucked into the hole, drowned and possibly decapitated in one massive plunge. To exit the pool below the falls was to hurtle to one’s death. End of story.

  I leapt up and paced around my tiny hut. Gramps had never seen the falls or whirlpool, I was sure. Otherwise he’d never, ever have let me come here – to my potential death. But how can I be so sure? From knowing my grandfather for seventeen years. From knowing deep down that he loved me. From pure instinct. From the way the dark Furioso was whispering the secret to me even now. He’d heard the falls, returned to camp, then fallen ill.

  I stopped my pacing abruptly. The journal! Stuffing my hand down my pants, I felt it still lodged there. I drew it out and removed it from its sealed plastic bag. Slowly, almost fearfully, I opened it to its last pages, pages I’d read hundreds of times before by flashlight, as a boy and as a youth, enthralled.

  Finally we approached a sharp bend, beyond which I thought I could hear a thundering waterfall. Tomorrow we will find out, but tonight I returned to camp exhausted and somewhat feverish. Once we get past the waterfall, I anticipate a half day of very challenging paddling to reach the point where the Furioso joins the Magdalena. Must sleep now, feeling a little off. – Malcolm Scruggs

  “You had a parasite from drinking bad water, Gramps. You almost died.” I tried to picture Abuela shyly visiting his site with a fiber bag of herbs, no doubt initially accompanied by male chaperones. I pictured her as a double of Myriam: seventeen, beautiful, proud. “You were ill for two months, Gramps, long enough to know you’d gotten Abuela pregnant. Long enough for village elders to know it, too.” I double- and triple-checked the next entry’s date. The next day. Liar!

  They came at dawn, a rabble of angry savages. They had loud voices, sticks and rocks in their hands. My companions ran off in fright and never returned. – Malcolm Scruggs

  “No, Gramps, your companions abandoned you much earlier, leaving you and a young, admiring seventeen-year-old way too much time together. You would have died if the village hadn’t allowed her to tend to you. You didn’t pay them for their food or medicine; you treated them like dirt. When you realized you’d knocked up someone who thought she loved you, you panicked and ran. The elders would’ve been angry, all right. Angry enough to run you off the mountain? Maybe, maybe not. Who’d blame them? Or maybe you just slunk away without so much as a good-bye and made up a dramatic story.”

  When a man is alone and outnumbered by a vicious lynch mob, it’s time to retreat. Sadly, I was forced to abandon my tent and my beloved kayak. – Malcolm Scruggs

  “Nothing else ‘beloved’ but your kayak? Funny how you managed to retain the journal and necklace, though, and whatever else you needed to fly home to your pregnant wife and family.”

  I escaped only by the skin of my teeth, running hard, hiding well, and using my best survival instincts in that hostile mountain environment. Who’d have thought the natives of these parts would be so uncivilized, so wild? By the time I made it into town, I decided it was time to return home. I never saw my expedition companions again, but in subsequent correspondence, I was able, of course, to determine they had also narrowly escaped. – Malcolm Scruggs

  I moved the journal closer to my face to see whether he’d altered the entry’s date. No sign of that. I ran my fingertip down the stitches of the binding. A slight gap, or was I imagining that? More space between these last two pages than elsewhere in the book. For just a second, my grubby fingernail caught. I opened the journal up as wide as it would go and kneeled on it, one knee on each margin. I leaned down so that my nose almost touched the binding. Yes, there it was, the tiny fragment of a torn page. He’d been meticulous in trying to leave no evidence, but he had torn out at least one page. A page Abuela had just filled in for me.

  Still a question nagged at me: Why had he been so reluctant for me to come, and yet, in the end, had allowed himself to be persuaded by my mother? It was definitely not so I could complete his only failed first descent. It was definitely not to help me launch my career or fulfill my dream of taking on his legacy.

  I thought about the necklace still hidden in my kayak and suddenly knew: A sliver of guilt over leaving Abuela had surfaced in Gramps when my grandma died. He’d all but admitted it to my mother when he’d said, “Your mother was a good woman. And I was a bastard of a husband and father sometimes, Anne. I’m sorry. Guilt is a terrible thing to live with.”

  He’d stopped short of asking me to return the necklace, but he’d wanted me to meet the Calambás family. So what am I? An unwitting messenger sent sixty years too late on the chance Abuela still happened to be alive? Or is it for me to find out the truth that he can’t bring himself to tell?

  Our conversation came back to me in mocking tones:

  “Anyway, try, and if you fail, maybe it’ll be out of your system.”

  “I’ll do it, Gramps. I’ll finish that river for you.”

  “Or you’ll come back with your tail between your legs.”

  I slumped down on my blanket, turned my face to the wall, and felt the sting of tears. Maybe he wanted me to fail so his legacy wasn’t threatened. But it wasn’t really about failing or succeeding, in the end. It was all about sending me to discover his other family.

  I slid the journal into its plastic bag and hid it back in my shorts. “I hate you, Gramps!” I shouted. I banged my head against the rough wood until blood dribbled from my forehead. I banged it some more until my guard unlocked the door and shouted at me.

  “Quieto!” he ordered.

  My head sank into my hands. My salty tears mixed with the blood, stinging the small wound. I didn’t care. I was too numb to care. I slumped into a ball and stayed there until sleep came again, about the time the rain stopped.

  Three days passed in a blur. I hated myself. I hated Gramps. I banished all thoughts of Mom and Myriam from my mind. I didn’t deserve their pity. Mom especially didn’t deserve the pain I was inflicting. I felt I shouldn’t be set free, even if anyone had the money or force to free me. I worked myself into such a state of self-hatred that I started refusing the food they shoved into my hut twice daily. I knew that the hunger pains would eventually subside. I drank from the big jug with handles, but that was all. I wanted to shrink to nothing, to disappear from the earth. Even if someone opened the door, I didn’t think I would move from the corner where I lay, day and night, staring at my four walls without talking to anyone. I pledged that if I didn’t die, I w
ould never kayak again. And that when I returned home, I’d get a job and send a portion of my savings to Myriam and Papá and Abuela. It wouldn’t be much, but money went a long way here. It would be something.

  After three days of not eating, I had little hunger. Once, a soldier tried to spoon-feed me, coaxing me in Spanish. I closed my eyes and turned away.

  The next day, they sent Alberto. They opened the door, slid in the plate of beans and rice, and let Alberto walk in, locking the door behind him. Even in my numb state, I registered the irony. Do they think we are friends? That he’ll be the one to persuade me to cooperate? Alberto, the one who probably got me kidnapped in the first place?

  Alberto stood there, barely looking at me. Then he sank down and sat slumped against the corner opposite mine. He stared at the floorboards. He sat there silently for so long that, eventually, I began to study him. His army fatigues were ragged. His rubber boots were faded. His face was gray. He seemed to have as little energy as me, and his body was so slight that I wondered for a moment if he’d been fasting, too.

  Someone shouted at him from just outside the door, which seemed to jar him out of his stupor. He looked at me.

  “Eat,” he said in Spanish.

  “Go to hell,” I said.

  He nodded, like he’d expected that.

  “Papá and many men are dead in my village,” he said, raising his eyes to mine.

  I stared at him. What is he trying to pull?

  “A massacre. The paramilitaries. Revenge for me joining the guerillas.”

  My shrunken stomach balled up. Is it possible? I searched his eyes, which had gone watery. I saw his body trembling and felt my veins freeze. He was speaking the truth.

  My mind flashed back to working on the trout pool with the men of the village. I pictured Papá, the gentle giant. Papá, murdered?

  Alberto slid towards me slowly, the plate in his hands, his eyes darting once towards the door as if measuring whether the slits between the boards held prying eyes.

  “Eat. Eat because your mamá and papá would say eat.”

  “Go to hell.”

  “Eat because your cousin says eat.”

  “Go to …” I stared at him, blinking stupidly.

  “Your cousin who wants to go to university.” He lifted the plate of food and held it out to me. I shrank away. But his eyes held mine in an almost pleading fashion. Then I noticed that the hand holding the plate had a scrap of paper peeking out from it.

  “Eat everything,” he said as I accepted the plate, my hand folding around the note. “Everything,” he repeated, with the slightest of nods at the note in my fist.

  I was still looking intently at him as he left. The note sat balled in my sweaty palm, the plate of food atop it. As the door opened to let Alberto out, I lifted the spoon and dug in, shoveling the beans greedily into my mouth. The soldier guarding my hut nodded approvingly, first at me, then at Alberto. Alberto walked away, shoulders slumped. The door slammed. The padlock clicked back into place.

  I couldn’t finish the food in one go. My stomach had shrunk too much, and I was reeling from Alberto’s news. His village attacked by the paras? Lots of men murdered? If it really was in retaliation for his defection, the guilt weighing on him must be overwhelming.

  I placed the plate on the ground and curled back into a ball on my blanket. If anyone was peeking through the cracks, they could not see me staring at my hand. They could not see me unrolling the tiny piece of paper. They could not see me reading it, could not know I was ready to swallow it unread if anyone interrupted me.

  “Rex: I am hiding near your camp. I am hoping to slip this to Alberto. Many from our village have died in a massacre. Abuela and I were spared, but now she has passed away. Alberto will find a way to free you if you will help Alberto and me escape down the river. I know I begged you not to kayak the canyon, but now I must trust that you can do it and can take us with you somehow. The paras and guerillas have blocked all other ways. They will catch me soon. Please, Rex. Trust Alberto. Myriam.”

  I read it twice. The food in my stomach tried to lurch to my throat. I lifted my hand to my face, shoved the note into my mouth, and swallowed it between gags. Paddle the canyon? Take two others with me? Trust Alberto? She had no idea what ludicrous things she was asking.

  I crawled to my toilet bowl, lingering on all fours with my head over it. Must not retch. Must keep the food down to grow stronger. Myriam is alive.

  I lay down and began to sob. I felt the hut whirl around me. I was in the whirlpool below the falls again – whirling, whirling, choking, choking. They would capture her because I couldn’t help her. I deserved to die.

  I fell into a troubled sleep. This time I dreamed of ziplining, my hut door opening, and me stepping out to find a zipline attached to it. I stepped up, hitched on my harness, and slid away from the guerilla camp on a long cable. I ziplined across the Furioso’s falls, over the treetops, all the way to Jock’s place. He greeted me with a big smile. “See how beautiful Colombia is? A great place for tourists to come.”

  I eased myself off the zipline and saw a deer grazing on Jock’s lawn. A pudú, a Colombian miniature deer. The tiny deer lifted its head and gazed at me with almond-shaped eyes. Gramps raised his rifle to shoot it.

  “Deer season’s open. Let’s get us one. I’ll make a man of you yet.”

  “No!” I shouted, leaping over to lift the barrel of Gramps’ gun as it went off. “No, Gramps!”

  ——

  A key turned in the lock on my hut and the door opened. My guard was checking on me. I’d probably shouted out in my sleep.

  “I’m okay,” I reassured him, rousing myself to drink some water.

  I looked at my five-gallon plastic water jug and its funny handles, which resembled pudú ears. I thought about the pudú under the zipline that day with Tom, the pudú that the stream had sucked into the underground cavern but that had emerged alive on the other side. I sat bolt upright and pictured the Furioso’s falls, its pool, the nightmarish whirlpool. I ran my filthy fingers through my greasy, uncombed hair, thinking, thinking so hard that it hurt.

  The next day, I refused to eat again. They sent Alberto, tailed by the commander.

  “Eat,” Alberto pleaded. The commander looked on.

  I took my time considering as Alberto cajoled me in a soothing voice. Finally I put my spoon into the rice like an obedient child.

  “It’s good. It’s good,” I mumbled as Alberto’s eyes and mine met.

  Then my eyes slid to his feet. “You should wear shoes, not boots,” I stated, pointing to his feet like it made sense for a prisoner to take on the role of fashion police.

  The commander’s eyebrows knit as he looked from me to Alberto’s rubber boots.

  “I need another water jug,” I addressed Alberto, pointing to make sure he understood. “And a rope to hang myself with.” I made signs for a length of rope and for hanging myself.

  Alberto was quick enough to shake his head and pat my shoulder. “You’re okay, you’re okay,” he murmured with appropriate sympathy as the commander watched. I was pleased he’d caught on to the game. He’d quickly realized that the other soldiers thought he was the only soldier to whom I’d respond. This was pretty ironic, given that there was a time Alberto would have told me to go right ahead and hang myself. The commander gazed at me as if trying to assess how suicidal I really was.

  After they left, I lay back on my blanket listlessly for anyone peeking through the cracks to see. I waited through the midday heat. I waited through the night and all the next day, conscious of nothing except that it wasn’t raining – and it mustn’t rain before Alberto came for me. What is he waiting for?

  More days and nights passed. I ate any food shoved into my hut. At dusk one evening, I peeked out between the boards to see that fog engulfed the camp and made the campfire’s glow a watery image. Fog was good. Is Alberto thinking the same thing?

  It was not quite dawn when I heard the padlock click. I sat up, eve
ry nerve electrified. Feeling my way to my water jug, I lifted it to my lips and nearly drained it, leaving only a few swallows. Holding it in one hand, I moved on my hands and knees towards the door. Silence. Nothing but silence. Then the door creaked ever so slightly as it came ajar. Shivering, I stuck my head out.

  The inky blackness engulfed me, but I could feel the shroud of fog. An arm gripped my wrist, and I nearly cried out.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “Follow me,” Alberto whispered, his breath prickling my ear.

  “Did you bring some rope?” I whispered back. I felt a length of rope being pressed into my hand. “And another water jug?”

  He pressed another five-gallon jug against my chest. It was full. He hadn’t understood. I removed the lid and poured most of the water into the grass. Then I clutched it in my other hand, careful not to let the two precious plastic containers knock noisily against each other. Looping the rope over my shoulder, I allowed Alberto to pull me by my wrist again.

  I stepped as lightly as I could, pulled by the ghostly arm, guided by short flicks of his flashlight. I noticed he was wearing his threadbare basketball high-top shoes again, not boots. Good, he’d gotten that message, too. Does he know where the land mines are planted? One mistake and we’ll both be blown sky-high. How can he know in this darkness, in the closeness of this damp night cloud? I shivered, but Myriam’s words echoed in my head. “Trust Alberto.”

  He was deserting his unit and freeing a kidnap victim in the process. I could only imagine how seriously he could be punished for this. He was placing his life in my hands as much as I was placing mine in his. Soon, we’d be placing our lives at the mercy of Dead Man’s Canyon. If a glance from the falls confirmed my latest, reckless theory.

  Dawn broke all too fast. While it allowed us to see the path underfoot, even in the fog, it also increased the chances of guards or followers spotting us. My feet felt heavy, and the near-empty water jugs felt like iron weights as I jogged behind Alberto. My days of not eating or moving had weakened me. Alberto, on the other hand, was as fast as a puma in his holey shoes. I was glad of my neoprene boots against the rocks and sticks on the path. I was especially glad of them when we veered off the path at unexpected intervals – whether for land mines or guards, I was not about to ask.