The Jaguar ch-5

by T. Jefferson Parker

  Darkness closed and Hood looked at the logs scattered on the beach. They were long, straight and thick, stripped of branches, ready to be milled. Thirty of them, maybe forty. Valuable, thought Hood.

  Then one of them opened its very long mouth and Hood saw the pale inside of it and the long teeth, and he heard the wheeze of a yawn and the hollow knock of the jaws closing.

  Juan wheeled at the sound and the dog barked.

  — Crocodile, he whispered.

  — More than one, Hood whispered back.

  — They are everywhere.

  — The reserve experts told me they don’t eat people regularly.

  — I heard of a boy who was eaten. I saw one eat a pig. They shake the animal to pieces and then they eat the pieces. These are the very big ones from the reserve. What do we do?

  — Let’s sit still and think.

  Hood watched another of the crocs lurch forward, then stop and apparently fall back asleep. He heard a rippling in the water and when he turned he saw the black shape of the crocodile just now climbing onto the beach. It rose, dripping onto all fours and lumbered curvingly to an unoccupied part of the sand and plopped down. The dog barked until the croc stopped moving.

  Hood looked in the direction of Tuxpan. In a straight line between them and the town were a hundred feet of sand beach, eight crocodiles, then miles of jungle.

  — Is there a road from here to Tuxpan?

  — Yes. It is narrow and dirt but good.

  — Do you know where it is?

  Juan pointed toward the jungle.

  — There.

  — Can you find it?

  — It is a good road.

  — I asked if you could find it.

  — I don’t want to die.

  — I think we can get past the crocodiles and into the jungle. I don’t think they will bother us.

  — Why wouldn’t they eat us?

  — Because they are tired like we are and not ready to eat.

  — They can tear off your foot and eat it with the shoe still on.

  — But after we get into the jungle we can’t go to Tuxpan without the road.

  Hood watched as another croc stirred, opened its gaping jaws, then slowly closed them. Another jerked forward as if dreaming of a kill. The dog barked and the newly arrived croc snapped at something so fast that Hood never saw the movement, just the afterimage of it. But he clearly heard the meaty whack of the mouth closing.

  — They smell us, Charlie.

  Another crocodile rose and swung its tail in a big arc that threw sand into the river. It seemed to be looking at them and it took two steps in their direction, then settled back down with a heavy exhale, a log ready for the mill.

  — I’ll carry the bag. You can go first because you’ll be faster.

  — I want you to go first.

  — Then I’ll go first. I’m going to run between that one there, and the two that are on his right.

  — But that one is the biggest.

  — If we go to his right we will be headed for Tuxpan. And look, there are probably forty others if we choose the other directions.

  — Crocodiles like to eat human feet because they know we make boots out of them.

  — You can wait and if they come after me you can run where they are not.

  — No. I go with you. You have a gun.

  — Let’s do this quickly, Juan. I’m going to stand, take the suitcase in one hand and my gun in the other, and run like hell.

  — I will also run like hell.

  — Let’s stay close to each other in the jungle.

  — I don’t know where the road is.

  — I know you don’t. We can find it. Okay, Juan-let’s get it done.

  Hood drew his pistol and grabbed the long-side suitcase handle and started up the beach. The bag was waterlogged and profoundly heavy and the drenched sand sucked his feet deep, then closed quickly over them. He was aware of Juan behind him and slightly to his right. He saw the logs coming to life around them, even the ones far up the beach. The big croc on his left suddenly rose and watched them. The two animals to his right both stirred and stood alertly. Fifty feet to the thicket of jungle. His heart beat very fast and his feet were sinking deep and were hard to pull out of the heavy sand and the bag was a cumbersome anchor. Forty feet. The big croc looked at them and Hood knew that their eyesight was excellent. The two animals to his right did likewise.

  By the time all three of them had focused and made up their minds to kill them, Hood and Juan were just fifteen feet from the foliage. Under the weight of the suitcase and sunk nearly to his knees in drenched sand, Hood stumbled. Juan appeared on his right. Ten feet to go. Five.

  The crocodiles launched with speed supernatural. Hood swept up Juan with his gun hand and held him tight against his shoulder and he charged forward into the black jungle. He churned across the firmer ground, ramming his lowered head and shoulder through the branches and the leaves, ripping the heavy suitcase through behind him. He ducked onto a path through a stand of river cane.

  With the harder ground under him he managed a balance between the boy and the luggage and he leaned forward for speed. The dog shot past them, ears back and disappeared around a bend. Through the high walls of Carizzo cane the trail wandered, a faint, meandering miracle. He tried to run faster but had no strength left. He was pretty sure that crocodiles hunted only in water but he didn’t look back. He slipped and stumbled but kept a hold on both of his precious bundles. His breath came in short fast bursts and his legs felt heavy and slow. Up ahead he saw a clearing. He told Juan to be ready. Hood plodded all the way through to the end of the clear ground before launching Juan as high into the cane as he could, dropping the suitcase and turning to face the crocs with his gun up and ready, the barrel of it pitching down and up with his desperate breathing like a ship on high seas.

  No crocs. Hood tried to hold the weapon steady where the monsters would come in but he couldn’t quite. He tried to listen for them but he couldn’t stop panting. Suddenly Juan slipped off the thick slick poles of the river cane and landed hard and now he crouched at Hood’s side with a short length of green cane in his hand, ready to fight.

  — Is there. A way out?

  — Yes, see the dog.

  — You. Go.

  — I fight.

  — I won’t. Argue.

  — You are too fast for them.

  Hood stopped and wrestled the suitcase upright, then went down on one knee and rested his pistol on the bag. With the butt held firm he could cover the narrow opening into the clearing. He still had not heard them, no sounds at all coming from the jungle, no monkeys or night birds, no fish hunting in the mangroves or river lapping the shore, nothing but his own deafening breath.

  A minute went by. Hood recovered quickly as young men do.

  — They don’t come.

  — I hope you’re right, Juan.

  — I’ll show you the trail. It is made by cows.

  The dog vanished again and Juan led. Hood lugged the suitcase from the clearing onto the trail. It was a narrow trail like the other. They marched briskly, taking long strides and the only sound was the sloshing of their shoes in the mud and cow dung and the lighter splashing of the dog up ahead. It was dark but there was enough light for them to follow the trail. Behind him Hood heard a flare pop open and at the edge of his vision he caught an echo of its light.

  Half a mile toward Tuxpan the trail broadened to a path and became firmer and Hood was able to pull the suitcase rather than carry it. He pulled it gladly, his left arm aching. He looked at the dog trotting gaily on point and Juan not far behind, and he glanced down at Erin McKenna’s rescue bouncing along the muddy trail and he knew that he had gotten away with something huge and impossible to get away with, or maybe possible to get away with only once in a lifetime, and this had been that once.

  The trail became a path that became the road and they trudged toward Tuxpan. There were fallen trees and clusters of giant river cane and gr
ass and sea grape heaped upon the road, leaking snakes of every size, and Hood ploddingly dragged the suitcase around them like an exhausted passenger in a late-night terminal.

  They walked into Tuxpan just before one in the morning. The electricity had not been restored and the streets were under a foot of water. Most of the buildings were still standing. City Hall was intact and appeared to be open as a shelter of some kind, generators humming, some lights on, people coming and going through the front doors with food and supplies. There was a Red Cross truck parked outside with its red lights flashing. The Palacio Municipal and the downtown shops and offices and hotels looked fine also. People had gathered on the higher floor balconies and they looked down at Hood and the boy as they sloshed along. Some waved. As they walked, Hood saw that a small mercado had fallen in upon itself, and an apartment complex was missing, and some of the humble homes on slightly higher ground above the river were gone also.

  The Floridita was now only half a foundation tilted radically toward the street, the other half undercut and washed away by the raging waters. Hood and Juan stood and looked. The quaint old hotel was simply not there-no hand-painted Hotel Floridita sign, no welcoming lobby, no cheerful floral display or ceiling fan visible through the high glass windows, nothing. What was not swept away lay visible before them for a hundred feet or more, the water racing through it like a river around rocks. There were jagged piles of cinder blocks with the rebar jutting out, and the twisted remnants of water pipes and faucets and sinks and bathtubs and toilets-anything heavy enough to sink and resist the flood.

  Hood saw that Juan’s chin was trembling.

  — We’ll find them. Let’s go to City Hall. Where do you live?

  — Veracruz.

  — Why did you and your mother come to Tuxpan?

  — To see my aunt. My father stayed home to work. What if everybody is dead?

  — Let’s be hopeful.

  — What if God only had time to save us and not them?

  At City Hall they found Juan’s mother and Luna and most of the other people who had been in the room. Two of the elderly and one child were still not accounted for, and there were volunteers ready to search the riverbanks between Tuxpan and the harbor as soon as there was enough light. There were rumors of government help but no actual help.

  Juan fled to his mother’s arms and they both cried and hugged each other and Juan’s sisters closed in also and Hood felt good in a way that he had not felt good in a long time. Juan’s mother looked up at him through her tears and smiled.

  Hood and Luna sat on folding chairs in a corner and ate flavorless Mexican pastries and drank good coffee.

  “I was worried about you,” said Hood.

  “I was not worried about you,” said Luna. “Not with your bag of pesos to protect.”

  “It floated me and the boy.”

  “Eight dead, that they know of.”

  “I know we were lucky. You should have seen those crocodiles, Valente.”

  “I have seen them. Very, very lucky.”

  Hood looked at the villagers, many of them indigenous. The Indians were compact and quiet and kept mostly to themselves.

  Luna had already checked the Impala, which Hood had had the foresight to park on the second floor of a pay parking lot across from the hotel. Luna had dried the plugs and the distributor and the car was operable even though the highway was closed in both directions. He had also grabbed Hood’s travel duffel as well as his own just before the Floridita finally fell into the water. The duffels were drenched but standing side by side in the corner, their zippers open so the contents could begin to dry. Hood briefly pawed through his things, glad to have stored his Mike Finnegan photo albums and the satellite phone in doubled, locking freezer bags. The vacuum-wrapped ransom money was mostly undamaged.

  “If we can’t use the roads we can’t get to Merida,” he said. “Armenta doesn’t seem like the type to give us a rain check.”

  “They’ll pick us up this evening,” said Luna. He nodded to his duffel, where his satellite phone sat atop a wad of plastic grocery bags. “I know a captain with the Veracruz State Fugitive Police. I have done him favors.”

  “Even police vehicles can have trouble on a flooded-out highway.”

  “Helicopter.”

  Hood thought about the difficulty of arranging that, in the middle of such a disaster. “I guess you did him some large favors.”

  “They were very large, yes.”

  Juan and his mother and two sisters came over and sat with them for a while. The mother introduced herself as Teresa de Asanto and she never stopped stroking her son’s dark hair. She explained to Hood that her husband had stayed home to work and this was good because their home in Veracruz was old and built to take such calamity. He was a manager in the city government. She was a travel agent in a hotel and she wished she would have stayed home too. Juan ate five pastries and was reaching for a sixth when his mother cut him off. Juan had much to say about his night.

  — The crocodiles chased us but we got away! Charlie threw me in the river cane!

  Hood handed the woman one of his Finnegan photo albums and she looked at the pictures patiently, then gave Hood an odd look before shaking her head no and handing the booklet back to him. He said she could keep it and he told her about the thousand dollars but she refused to touch it when he held it out to her.

  — I meant no obligation.

  — No. No obligation. But you have my gratitude for saving Juan.

  — He’s brave and capable.

  — He’s eight years old and I thank you again.

  In the multipurpose room there were cots set up and people slept or read the lobby magazines and newspapers or played cards because there was no way to leave Tuxpan except on foot.

  Another rain front crept in and Hood fell asleep to the sound of it tapping the roof. It was a light rain that sounded almost apologetic. He dreamed of crocodiles chasing him through a jungle with his son in his arms and in the dream he was sure they would not catch him. When he came to a clearing he ran into it and spread his nylon wings and flew away.

  He opened his eyes early in the evening to find Juan’s mother bent over his duffel in the half light. She set something underneath the bag, then turned away silently and stole back in the direction of her family.

  Hood stayed still for a few minutes, then sat up on his cot. He wrote a letter to Beth, about everything that had happened to him in the last days. Dear Beth, I have seen the most amazing things…He tried hard to explain killing the gunman, and this came easily to him because he had killed in order to preserve his own life, but when he tried to explain how he felt about it he started sounding sentimental and he finally had to settle on the word “bad.” Reading over the letter, Hood decided it was a rather dry synopsis of events and he wished he could really write up a story like it was supposed to be written. He liked Conrad and Jack London and Steinbeck and Tom Wolfe and Sebastian Junger. He smelled coffee and heard voices coming from the lobby. Through the window he saw one of Tuxpan’s remaining palm trees swaying only slightly in the breeze. No rain, thought Hood. No rain, please.

  He slid his hand under the duffel and brought away what had been placed there by Juan’s mother. It was a page from one of the glossy magazines, folded into a triangle. He half expected it to contain money and he hoped it did not. But the page contained nothing but an advertisement for shampoo and some very neat feminine handwriting in the upper left corner.

  Taberna Roja

  Avenida Zaragoza

  Veracruz, Veracruz

  Hood memorized the words then refolded the paper and slipped it into the freezer bag with the pictures of Finnegan.

  An hour later he sat in the back of a Bell 204 twisting off the roof of the Palacio Municipal and into the spent subtropic sky.

  22

  Bradley looked through the windshield at the Campeche lowlands. They had ridden out Ivana in the Sierra Madre de Chiapas and he was thankful to be off the precarious
mountain roads and making good time on Highway 186.

  It was Sunday afternoon on the seventh day after the kidnapping and they were one hundred miles from Erin. Crisp shafts of sunlight came down through the trees. Bradley felt edgy and impatient. A day and a half was plenty of time to travel a hundred miles by truck, he thought, so why was he stuffed with anxiety and dread? Did at least one of the pigeons make it through the hurricane? One, he thought: we only need one. He fidgeted inside the antiballistic vest. The vests were hot and sweat-inducing and they pinched the flesh and itched incessantly where it was hard to scratch. His palm was still open from Mike’s knife. The wound would neither heal nor fester but rather remained half-closed and half-open, prone to painful accidents. He bummed another cigarette off Cleary and with his thumbnail flicked the wooden Mexican match to life.

  They stopped in Las Flores for gas and cold drinks but the mercado shelves were practically bare. They found a few cases of bottled fruit punch and discounted packs of old tortillas, along with spicy corn chips and bananas. There were still cases of frijoles so they bought three of these and Caroline got the last ten gallons of bottled water and Cleary bought a carton of Mexican Marlboros. Young Omar tried to buy tequila but Fidel ordered him not to.

  Bradley sipped the warm punch and tried to scratch his back against the gas pump while he watched the numbers race and the 1500 suck up almost a hundred liters of Pemex supreme. Fidel joined him, leaning against the SUV. He seemed cool and comfortable and impervious to the vests.

  “Two more days, amigo.”

  “I know what day it is,” said Bradley.

  “Are you afraid to think about it?”

  “I’m more afraid not to.”

  “You’ve done what you can. It’s now up to her.”

  Bradley thought of Fidel walking into the warehouse where his wife and family hung dead. He couldn’t imagine Erin in such a way and he wanted to say something to Fidel but there were few words he knew that were adequate and not overworn.