Diego, Run!

by Deborah Ellis

  ‘They will,’ Mando said, but not very firmly.

  ‘Who will we complain to if they don’t? Nobody. So it’s on us. We can’t go back to Cochabamba empty-handed.’

  ‘I’m not going back at all,’ Mando said.

  That surprised Diego. ‘You have to go back. Your father will worry.’

  ‘My father is in prison! I don’t want to go back to living in a cell. I’m going to stay with Rock, help them carry the coca paste out of the country to the lab.’

  ‘Have they asked you to do that?’

  ‘No, but they will.’ Again, his voice was not very sure.

  ‘We’ve always stuck together,’ Diego said.

  ‘Do you have a better suggestion, tycoon?’

  ‘We steal the paste,’ Diego said.

  Mando dropped the wood he was carrying. He almost shouted, but stopped himself in time.

  ‘Do you want to be shot?’

  ‘We can do it if we’re smart. We won’t take all of it, just a pack or two. If they can sell it, so can we.’

  ‘I ought to turn you in. I ought to tell them your plan.’

  ‘I’m not going back to the prison without money.’

  ‘And I’m not going back to the prison at all.’

  ‘What are you ladies doing in the bush?’ Rock shouted from the camp. ‘Did you find a romantic little spot?’

  ‘We’re getting wood,’ Diego shouted back. To Mando, he whispered, ‘We don’t know how much longer we’ll be here. Once all the coca is stomped, the men could take off and we’ll never see them again, or our money. Just think about it.’

  ‘Keep away from me,’ Mando said. ‘And keep away from that paste. I’ve found a place for myself. I have a future with these guys. Don’t ruin it for me.’

  They went back to the camp and endured dumb jokes from the men. Diego found himself missing school. At least the idiots there had someone to shut them up occasionally.

  Days went by. The stomping became harder as their feet became covered with sores from the chemicals. Even Diego cried out when the chemicals first hit his blisters at the beginning of a work session, before the drugged cigarettes dulled the pain.

  Smith came and went from the camp. He berated Rock and the others for their lack of progress.

  ‘My other pits are producing twice the paste you are! If you want to keep your jobs, you’ll step it up.’ Rock’s idea of stepping it up was to yell louder at the boys.

  Diego continued to make himself useful. The glue boys didn’t have it in them to do anything but smoke, stomp and sleep. Some of the men took to taunting them at night, holding the paste cigarettes just out of their reach so they’d beg for them. Diego spoke up for them one night, so the men made him stomp the coca leaves without any of the drug. That night was long and hard. He couldn’t take his mind off the pain in his feet.

  Still, the next day, he forced himself to do extra chores again. He’d seen men and women in the prisons who gave up, who stopped washing or working or doing anything to make their lives better. A deadness took over their eyes and eventually their faces and whole bodies.

  So Diego did chores for the men he’d come to hate. He pounded their laundry upstream from where the chemicals were dumped, and spread their clothes in the sun to dry. He kept the kettle full of water, and kept the yard swept.

  ‘You’ll make somebody a good wife,’ the men joked. Diego let the laughter bounce off him, and took note that the man Smith put in charge of guarding the packages of coca paste had trouble staying awake in the heat of the day.

  Everything he did helped him learn a little more, and everything he learned helped him feel a little stronger.

  Bit by bit, the stack of sacks full of coca leaves was getting smaller. The work was getting harder, though. The coca paste cigarettes didn’t have the power they first had to make everything bad disappear. Diego tried to push away thoughts of his parents worrying about him, but as the days went by, that was getting harder, too. By now his mother would have learned that he wasn’t staying with his father. She would be imagining all sorts of terrible things.

  Smith put an end to the music, saying it gave him a headache. For awhile he entertained them with stories of jungle warfare, tales of bloodshed and violence that he told with relish, as though he were describing a great meal or a vacation.

  ‘You can stay alive easily in a jungle,’ he said. ‘Lots of things to kill, lots of things to eat. You boys are so lucky, getting to live rough like this while you are still young, not having to put up with school clubs and orthodontists and parents who worry if you don’t eat your vegetables! You’re being treated like men out here, not babies!’

  Diego didn’t understand half of what Smith was saying. He was glad when the man finally shut up about knifing people and setting booby traps with sharpened bamboo, but there was nothing to relieve the tedium of the work. The closer they came to the end, the edgier the men all seemed to be. There were fewer dumb jokes and more stupid arguments.

  ‘Everybody shut up!’ Smith bellowed one night, three and a half weeks into the job. ‘Listen!’

  The rhythmic thump-thump-thump of a helicopter was coming closer and closer.

  ‘Douse those lights!’

  Lamps were put out, and water was splashed onto the cookfire. The boys bumped against each other in the sudden darkness. Diego felt somebody slip and fall.

  The helicopter noise got louder. The trees above had broad, thick branches, but Diego could still see the spotlight, searching for people doing just what they were doing.

  When the helicopter had passed, Diego heard somebody spit in disgust. It was Rock.

  ‘Trying to keep decent people from earning a living,’ he said.

  ‘That’s just what you’re doing by not paying us,’ Diego said.

  ‘I’ll pay you with bullets,’ Rock snarled.

  ‘Okay, okay, let’s get the lamps on and get back to work,’ Smith said. ‘Cocaine used to be legal. They put it in Coca-Cola! The Pope put it in his wine. And now we have to hide in the jungle like animals. Get those lamps lit!’

  Diego heard the men stumble around, finding matches, and bit by bit, the small clearing had light again.

  The sight that greeted them was not good.

  Mando had slipped, crushing the plastic wall of the pit. Gallons of the solution were spilling out.

  ‘On your feet!’ Rock roared, rushing over and kicking Mando.

  ‘My ankle . . .’ Diego heard his friend say. He helped Mando untangle himself from the plastic and took him away from the pit. Rock followed, yelling and hitting them with the butt of his machine gun. Not even Smith stopped him.

  ‘Get this cleaned up,’ Smith ordered, when Rock had tired of hitting. ‘You’re in charge of these kids, Rock. Any losses are coming out of your share.’

  The pit was repaired, the dirt was washed off the boys’ feet, and back they went into the chemicals and leaves. Mando had hurt his ankle, and he leaned against Diego while they stomped.

  There were no more friendly conversations between Rock and Mando, no more drinking chicha together, no more lessons on how to clean the machine gun. Rock ignored him altogether.

  Given who and what Rock was, Diego felt that Mando had got off lucky.

  THIRTEEN

  ‘We need more firewood,’ Rock declared two days later. ‘Smart boy, go get some.’

  ‘I’ll go with you,’ Mando offered. ‘Two can carry twice as much as one.’

  Rock waved them into the bush. It was a quiet day at the camp. Smith had gone to check on one of his other coca pits. Some of the men had gone for supplies. Most of the others were asleep in the tent. The glue boys were crashed out on the ground, sleeping in the dirt.

  ‘All right, I’m with you,’ Mando whispered, as they picked their way carefully through the underbrush. His ankle was sore, but better. ‘Do you have a plan?’

  ‘It would be better for us if they didn’t know they’d been robbed.’ Diego told him what he’d been thinking. Th
ey could wrap some dirt up in foil, making a fake package of coca paste, and somehow put the fake one on the pile and sneak the real one away.

  ‘What about the other boys? We have to include them.’

  Diego wasn’t so sure. ‘The more people in on a secret, the more chance it will get out. Plus, they don’t seem able to carry out a plan.’ He picked up a piece of dead wood to add to his bundle. Staring up at him was a spider, as hairy as a dog and as big as a dinner plate. It waved its front arms at Diego as if to say, ‘Put that wood back!’

  Mando laughed and picked the creature up. Its legs hung over the edges of his open palm.

  ‘It’s a tarantula,’ he said. ‘It won’t hurt you. Well, it might hurt you, but it won’t kill you. I saw a guy in Cochabamba showing these off in the street. He had a little spider circus, made them ride in swings, go down a little slide. He told me all about them.’ Mando held it out toward Diego. ‘Touch it.’

  Slowly, Diego moved his fingers forward until they stroked the hair on the spider’s back.

  ‘I think I’d rather have a dog,’ he said.

  ‘The man told me it’s the little spiders you have to watch out for,’ Mando said. ‘They’re the ones that can kill you.’ He lowered the tarantula to the ground to let it go. But Diego had an idea.

  ‘Let’s keep him. He may come in handy.’ He took his handkerchief out of his pocket and opened it. ‘Put him in here.’

  Mando handed him the spider, and Diego tied the corners of the cloth together so it couldn’t get out.

  ‘We’ll hide it at the edge of the camp until we need it.’

  Diego believed what his friend had told him about the huge spider not being poisonous, but he didn’t like the thought of it crawling on him, and he wouldn’t like to be surprised by it. He imagined the men in the camp would feel the same.

  At the edge of the camp, they stopped.

  ‘Let’s leave our friend here,’ Diego said. He put down the firewood to free his arms and used a stick to brush away some leaves. ‘We’ll hide it here. I’ll put a marker over it so we’ll know how to find it.’

  Mando, his arms aching, headed into the camp to put the wood he had collected on the woodpile. Diego made a circle in the leaves, put the tied handkerchief in the middle and piled leaves on top. Then he arranged some sticks in a pyramid on top of it all. He hoped the spider would be all right in there.

  He picked up his firewood again, straightened up, and looked right into the barrel of Rock’s machine gun.

  ‘Hiding something, smart boy?’

  ‘What would we have to hide?’ Diego asked. He shifted the firewood in his arms, hoping to cover up the sound of his heart thumping in his chest.

  Rock knocked the wood out of Diego’s arms.

  ‘I’m on to you, smart boy. Always watching, always doing your little jobs, making everyone think you’re so useful. Well, I’ve got you now.’ He kicked over Diego’s pyramid. Keeping the gun pointed at Diego, Rock knelt down, brushed away the leaves, and found the handkerchief.

  ‘Not hiding anything, eh? What do you call this?’

  ‘It’s just personal stuff,’ Diego said, his voice casual.

  ‘I think you’ve been stealing from us, and now I have the proof. I hope you like the jungle, smart boy, because your bones will be spending eternity here.’ Rock picked up the handkerchief and nodded for Diego to go ahead of him into the camp.

  As they came into the clearing, Diego could see Mando out of the corner of his eye. Mando grasped the situation instantly, and moved casually over to the folding table, to the stack of cocapaste packages.

  ‘What’s this?’ one of the men asked, frowning.

  ‘I caught him stealing. He was hiding this in the underbrush. He’s probably got stashes all over this camp.’

  The other men in the clearing gathered around Rock. They looked down at Diego.

  ‘Are you stealing from us, boy?’

  ‘Do we kill him now or wait until Smith gets back?’

  Diego saw Mando slip one of the packets off the table. He held it down by his side a moment, then dropped it down his shirt.

  At the same moment, Rock untied the handkerchief. The tarantula, angry at being trapped and bounced around, leapt out and onto Rock’s face.

  Rock screeched. Diego started to run but was grabbed by one of the other men. Mando lobbed firewood and coca packets at the men’s heads and took off as soon as they let go of Diego to defend themselves.

  ‘Run!’ Mando yelled, zooming off down a trail. Diego plunged into the bush after him, moving his legs as fast as they would go.

  ‘I’m right behind you,’ he yelled. ‘Keep going!’

  Suddenly, the jungle stopped. The ground dropped away into a canyon. All that stood between them and the river far, far below was a bridge made of rope and a narrow strip of planks tied together. Some of the planks were missing.

  ‘Saved your life again, tycoon,’ Mando called back, jumping onto the bridge. It swung wildly with every step he took.

  ‘Be careful!’ Diego hollered.

  Mando turned around and let go of the guide rope—maybe to show off, maybe to wave. Diego never knew.

  For a long, terrible moment, Diego watched his friend waver, almost hover in the air, as if he was waiting for the Angel Gabriel to swoop down from heaven and carry him away.

  But the Angel was sleeping, again, and Diego’s friend tumbled over the rope railing, and fell down, down and away.

  ‘Mando!’ Diego screamed, darting out to the edge of the ridge, his feet slipping and fumbling in the soft earth and loose stones. He saw his friend’s body smashed on the river boulders deep in the canyon. It seemed to Diego that he could easily join Mando there, and he didn’t care.

  Then he felt the strong, wide hands of Smith gripping his shoulders, pulling him back from death, and along the trail to the camp.

  FOURTEEN

  Crying and shaking, images of Mando’s father waiting by the prison door, of Mando saving Diego’s life and Diego not being able to return the gift. Someone put a blanket around Diego’s shoulders and he dropped to the dirt, curling up around his pain and wanting the dirt to cover him up in darkness.

  ‘There’s a packet missing.’

  ‘Of course there is,’ Smith said. ‘Why else would they be running?’

  Diego was lifted to his feet. Rock raised an arm to slap him, but Diego was faster. He rammed himself head first into Rock’s belly and, with a whoosh of air from his lungs, Rock was on the ground.

  ‘This was supposed to be a job, just a stupid job!’

  Rock sprang back to his feet and came at Diego with full force, his face grotesque with rage, but Smith stepped between them.

  ‘We already have one dead boy,’ Smith said. ‘Corpses interfere with business. Start breaking camp.’

  ‘He stole from us!’

  ‘Don’t you worry about him.’ Diego felt Smith’s fingers digging into his shoulder. ‘He’s ours now. He’ll make good. Pack up.’

  Rock snorted, but he couldn’t disobey Smith. Smith bent down and looked at Diego, eyeball to eyeball.

  ‘You took something of mine.’

  Diego didn’t blink. He owed this man nothing.

  ‘Is it still in the camp? Or is it floating down the river with your friend’s body?’

  Diego’s eyes teared up again.

  ‘That’s just as I thought.’ Smith ruffled Diego’s hair, then took hold of his arm and didn’t let go as he moved around the camp giving orders. The tents were taken down, the packages of coca paste were packed into a suitcase, and anything of value was piled up at the entrance to one of the trails.

  All through this activity, Julio, Domingo and Roberto sat cowering on the edge of the clearing.

  It didn’t take the men long to get their things together. The clearing was a mess of garbage, torn tarp, plastic jugs and buckets. It was a garbage dump, not a rain forest. It looked like a handful of jungle had been stomped on.

  ‘You’ll t
ake care of them?’ Smith asked Rock, nodding at the glue boys.

  ‘As usual.’

  ‘You’re not going to kill them!’ Diego twisted in vain to get away from Smith’s grip. ‘Run!’ he yelled to the other boys, but the boys just sat, too frightened and confused to move.

  ‘Calm down, Diego. He’s not going to kill them. You have my word.’ Smith’s word didn’t mean anything to Diego, and that mistrust must have shown in his face. Smith bent down again to talk to him. ‘As I’ve already said, we’re not in the business of killing boys. They’ll be driven back to Cochabamba, given enough money for a few pots of glue, and will soon be back to sleeping on their garbage dump. They probably won’t even remember this, and if they do, nobody will believe them. We don’t need to kill them.’

  ‘Let me go back, too,’ Diego pleaded. ‘I want to go back to Cochabamba with them. I promise not to remember a thing! No one will find out about you.’ He kept squirming, even though he knew it was no use.

  ‘Cochabamba is such a dreary city,’ Smith said. ‘We’ve got something much better in mind for you. Where’s your adventurous spirit?’

  Diego opened his mouth and started to scream, because there was nothing left he could do.

  Smith’s hand moved from his arm to his mouth.

  ‘You’ll scare the wildlife. A lot of endangered species here,’ he said calmly. ‘And you’ll give me a headache. So stop that noise or I’ll rip out your tonsils.’

  Diego stopped. There was no point to it anyway. He watched in utter misery as Rock and Paolo ordered the glue boys onto the trail. Julio was the only one able to turn back and wave at Diego before Rock’s rough shove made him disappear into the thick of the trees.

  Only two of the men remained behind with Diego and Smith. One of them picked up the suitcase, but Smith, still clutching Diego with one hand, took it from him.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he said. He led the way, dragging Diego. The men followed with the last of their property.

  Twenty minutes down another trail, the forest opened up to a long strip of cleared land. Trees had been chopped down, and the afternoon sun shone on a smooth length of grass. Smith put the suitcase full of coca paste on the ground between his feet and lit a cigarette. The air buzzed with cicadas. Diego felt very, very tired.