Tears of the River

by Gordon L. Rottman

  Karen stacked everything a short distance from the van. Shouldering the coiled rope, she would have to get a wonky and confused Jay up the gorge’s side. Climbing up should have been easier than going down, but not with Jay. It took three times as long to make their way up the crumbly wall. Of course she was going to have to go down again once the rope was in place.

  His scalp bleeding had pretty much stopped. Tossing the rope over the side, it uncoiled to land right atop the gear. She tied the end to a sapling so it would not drop into the gorge.

  “Jay.” She snapped her fingers to get his attention. “I need you to pull up the load and then drop the rope for the next load.”

  He started pulling up the rope. Groaning, she explained, “No, I have to go down first and you need to wait for my signal.”

  He’d not spoken and still had a scrambled expression. She knew he was in no condition to be doing this, but there was no help for it.

  Down she went. She stuffed the water bottles in the backpacks. The first to go up was Johnny’s medical bag after she shouted and tugged the rope. So far so good, as long as Jay dropped the rope again and kept pulling up the loads. She was grateful to no end when the rope snaked down again. She’d been afraid he’d wander off. It all worked out. The backpacks went up in pairs and lastly, Jennifer’s medical bag.

  By the time she made it back up it would be late afternoon. Karen was certain by now the woman and girl were thinking she wasn’t coming back. Jay hadn’t drank any water, but she talked him into doing so once she was at the top.

  There was too much to carry in one trip. She shouldered a backpack, picked up a medical bag and told Jay to do the same. He looked vacantly into the sky.

  “Okay,” she said. She dropped the medical bag, grabbed his arm and pulled a pack onto his shoulders. He tried to pull away, but she got it on him. He turned away. He wasn’t angry, just apathetic. She picked up a medical bag and shoved it into his arms, “Jay, you have to help me. I know you’re hurt and it’s hard, but…but I don’t know what. Just carry this, please.”

  He did, but obviously wasn’t thrilled about it.

  Karen kept the two empty water bottles to refill at the spring. She tried to keep her mind blank on the way up that lonely road.

  Chapter Eight

  Lomara ran laughing down the road to greet them and gripped an end of Karen’s medical bag trying to help bear the load. The woman, too, was glad to see them. She greeted Karen with a barrage of questions, but Karen understood little, except the part when she asked where the boy had been.

  She tried to explain about the van and that the others were dead. She managed to tell her she had medical supplies, some food and water, and also that she needed to go back for the rest of the stuff. First she needed to treat them. She gave them each a water bottle.

  The woman asked if she had a knife and Karen pulled out her multi-tool flipping open a knife-blade. The woman nodded to Lomara, who took it and proceeded to quickly dress and clean the goat. Indeed, a more useful child than Jay.

  I shouldn’t be thinking that way. He’s bad hurt; in shock.

  Now to look at the woman’s arms. It was a painful ordeal. Her left forearm was broken, possibly twice, and swollen. The right thumb was broken or dislocated and the wrist at least cracked. Her entire left upper arm was one solid bruise, deep dark purple. She had other bruises all over and a few cuts.

  Jennifer’s black bag bearing a red cross was well stocked. Karen wrapped both arms loosely with gauze, then fitted wire ladder splints and bound them with gauze strips. There was no way she could attempt to set the breaks. The woman might come out of this with a deformed arm. She rigged both arms with envelope slings. Next she used two tongue depressors to splint the thumb. They’d be able to tell in a few days if it was broken or simply dislocated.

  Lomara watched with wide-eyed interest as she cleaned the goat. Jay didn’t speak, but sat staring down the road like he was trying to remember what happened back there.

  Karen cleaned the cuts with an IV bag’s saline solution, which saved water, and dabbed on antiseptic. She gave the woman two antibiotic tablets and one to Jay and both a painkiller pill with codeine.

  Karen knew she would have to do everything for the woman and that became glaringly apparent when she said she needed to relieve herself. This won’t be fun. Karen helped her up and led her into the bushes with a roll of toilet paper.

  The woman was embarrassed and at first uncooperative, but realized she couldn’t do this for herself. Karen knew she had no choice but to help the woman. Okay, she’d have to deal with this, helping her do her thing. Her mother’s taunt, “Do you want to empty bedpans for the rest of your life?”

  Jay was next. She checked his eyes. His pupils weren’t dilated—enlarged—or of unequal size. That was good. That would have been a lot more serious than a simple concussion. She hoped he’d not try and punch out her lights, but he sat listlessly as she scrubbed his scalp gash with saline and liquid soap, which started bleeding again. Head injuries can look worse than they are because there’s lots of blood. She could tell this gash wasn’t too deep; at least it hadn’t exposed the skull. She had him pull off his T-shirt and she quickly washed it, folded it up and told him to press it over the cut. The bleeding soon stopped.

  She found a disposable razor in Johnny’s pack and shaved the hair around the four-inch gash and cleaned it again, being generous with antiseptic. Infection in the tropics was deadly. Next she tried to pull the scalp together a bit, which evoked a groan and a twitch from Jay making her ready to duck. But he held still while she stuck on five butterfly suture bandages and made a couple gauze wraps around his head. It was going to be a challenge to keep it clean and infection free. Flies were already buzzing around him.

  Lomara suffered only a few easily cleaned cuts and scrapes. While unnecessary, she put a couple of Band-Aids on the girl’s bruises and little scrapes. Everyone knows they ease pain better than anything, she thought, except kisses.

  Okay, there was firewood and a dressed goat—dinnertime. Karen started digging through bags. In frustration she found not a single thing to light a fire, no matches, lighters, magnesium sticks, nada. This could be a problem. Maybe something was in the other three packs back at the bridge, but they needed to eat. She went through the medical bags again and found a treasure in Johnny’s. A little folding magnifying glass he’d used to find splinters.

  She made a little kindling pile using the paper packaging from the gauze and little balls of fuzzy lint she picked off her cotton socks. Then she focused the sun’s beam so the white point of light was as small and round as possible. It took a long, long time for it to reach 451 degrees Fahrenheit and begin smoldering. Bark and dead grass were added and then twigs. Lomara, fascinated by the magnifying glass, added progressively larger pieces of wood. Soon, a fire was burning. Karen waited for it to burn down to red-hot coals. That’s what really cooked meat, not flames. As the wood burned down to coals Karen cut seven stout sticks. She made two tripods two feet high tying their tops together with adhesive tape. The larger diameter and longer stick she laid across the tripods to span the fire. When the coals were glowing red she hung the butchered goat over the spit.

  Once in a while Tía directed Lomara to toss on damp leaves telling her it would keep flies at bay. Lomara carried away the guts, hide, and head so they’d not attract more flies.

  As Karen readied to head back to the bridge she noticed the tape on one of the tripods was charring on the edges. What to do about that? Tía said something to Lomara and the girl packed mud over the tape. Cool! She’d not have thought of that.

  Leaving the goat-cooking in Tía’s and Lomara’s hands, Karen stood to leave. Motioning to Jay, she said, “Let’s hit the road, Hulk. You can make it.” He only sat looking at the fire. She walked over, took him by the arm, and pulled at him. He yanked his arm back and turned from her.

  “Jay, I need your help.” She glared at the boy. He’d get the message. With her fists cli
nched she shouted, “On your feet, slug! No free rides here. Get up and let’s go!

  Jay looked like scalding water had been thrown on him. He quickly reverted to an uncomprehending expression.

  She tried a different approach. “Jay, I don’t know if you, like, understand, but we’ve got to do this and I need your help, really.”

  He finally climbed to his feet and ambled down the road after Karen. She knew she was pushing him with a concussion, but she had to.

  Tía said something to the effect that a girl had no business shouting and ordering an older boy around. Karen pretended not to understand. In Nicaraguan society, women deferred to men and that included older teens if no men were around, she guessed. He was two years older than herself after all. She’d keep that in mind, even if he had some circuit problems.

  Chapter Nine

  Karen was looking into the gorge. On the far side of the wrecked van’s ledge was one of its hubcaps. She’d not seen it before. They could use it.

  It was risky and would take more time, and most of all, she was really, really hungry.

  She envisioned the hubcap as a big bowl. It laid there full of rainwater, which was what made her realize its value. They could cook in it, and better yet, boil water. She couldn’t count on finding a large turtle and using its shell for that. She’d not found anything useable for that essential need.

  How, and most of all, why, had she survived? They must have missed the mudslide by minutes. Or it could have happened when she was walking back, but she would have felt it in her feet, heard it. They must have been in the van when the ridge slid down on those poor people.

  Such thoughts could wait. She’d put them aside, for now. There was the here and now to worry about.

  Karen left Jay sitting near the edge where he could see her this time. That made her feel better. Trying to think ahead, she tossed down the rope in case there was something that needed to be pulled up.

  The third trip down didn’t take as long and wasn’t as scary.

  Approaching the van, a flash of light struck her eyes. She stopped. It was the sun’s glare from a mirror hanging on the van’s side. A signal mirror! She should have thought of that before. They needed something to attract an airplane’s attention…if one flew over. Climbing up on the van she was sickened by the clouds of flies and the stronger reek. As hard and fast as she could, she beat the mirror’s bracket with a rock to break it loose. It took more pounding to cut the little cable for adjusting the mirror’s angle. She couldn’t get off the van fast enough.

  She’d dropped down the roof side to retrieve the hubcap, Frisbeed it over the van, and climbed back over. Karen looked around for anything else of use. The license plate, it would be a cooking grill. She unscrewed it from the front bumper using her multi-tool’s screwdriver.

  Now, how was she going the carry up the stuff she’d scored? She needed her hands and the items’ shapes prevented them from being tied to the rope. She needed a bag. Nothing. She should have emptied and tied the tool bag to the rope. There was no point in trying to talk Jay through it from down here.

  It had been drilled into their heads about Nicaraguan modesty. Well, there’s no Nicaraguans here so the heck with it. A gray sports bra would have to do. She pulled off her T-shirt, looped the rope through the sleeve-openings, stuffed the treasures inside and tied a knot in the bottom-opening. She shouted to Jay to pull it up, nothing happened. Making her way to the top, she found him just sitting there, uninterested in current events. After pulling up the rope she coiled it, but couldn’t get Jay to carry it. After donning her tee—no spark of notice on Jay’s part—she stuffed the items in a backpack, hung the rope atop it, and slung on the heavy load. She finally got Jay to don one of the packs. The other she carried in her arms.

  Karen smelled the roasting cabrito before they reached their little camp, but it didn’t help her black mood. Jay seemed to perk up though. He was ready to eat, but not share the work load. Must be a guy thing.

  Lomara cut off strips of cooked meat with Karen’s multi-tool knife-blade and laid them on a big elephant ear leaf. Tía was munching on a strip Lomara had popped in her mouth. Karen stuck the license plate in the fire to burn off the paint.

  Karen passed a bottle of water around urging everyone to wash their hands. They ignored her, even Jay. She washed her own anyway and splashed some on her face remembering the swarming flies. She hoped Tía would help her convince Lomara to wash her hands. No help there. That’s the problem with these people, she groused. They tried to keep things harmonious for the short term and didn’t stir things up to sort it out for the long run. She’d thought about that, guessing they’d have to do that so things would stay cool in a little community. She knew she was looking down on them, but knew too, she’d have to be patient.

  After they ate their fill, there was still meat aplenty and Tía told Lomara how to reposition the goat to smoke it. They could eat it tomorrow. They couldn’t properly smoke it to preserve it. It required a lengthy saltwater soak and a long time hanging over a very hot smoky fire. They couldn’t do that.

  Once done, Karen hung it in a tree to keep ants away. Tía told her not to worry so much about ants and flies. These folks could do with a little remedial sanitation instruction, thought Karen.

  Karen considered the poor chickens. They had sat all day tied up, no food or water. Using doubled gauze strips from the medical pack, she fashioned a leash with multiple tethers so Lomara could “walk” them as they scratched though leaves for bugs and visited water puddles. Not quite as bad as herding cats.

  The sun was low, but there was time for Karen to search through the other backpacks and take stock of their resources. They had a lot more than Karen normally envisioned in a survival situation, more than she had taken on some backpacking trips…except for chow. They were good there, for now.

  They had a lot of medical supplies. She was more worried about using it properly or even knowing what to do with some of it rather than longing for a Band-Aid and an aspirin.

  The tool bag yielded a couple of screwdrivers, pliers, adjustable wrench, jumper cables, and best of all, a roll of duct tape. The yellow twenty-foot long nylon strap with hooks was a towing strap.

  The five small backpacks held all sorts of goodies. Karen had to put it behind her that three belonged to Johnny, Cris, and Jennifer. She told herself they’d be okay with them using their stuff.

  There was a pocketknife, rolls of TP—priceless, handy-wipes, a small flashlight giving them two now, a table knife, a spoon, three towels, extra underwear and socks in Ziploc bags, and toilet kits with all the usual stuff. There were five lightweight hammocks, and three cans of insect spray plus a couple of paperbacks. Also there were Jennifer’s and Johnny’s digital cameras.

  There was food too, a little. Enough bread for a half-dozen peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches made from half-full jars. There were some snacks: cheese crackers, an almost full freezer baggie of trail mix, half a bag of stale potato chips, a box of Fig Newtons, a dozen granola bars, two candy bars, and a package of peanuts. She found four oranges and two mangos. There was a can each of Vienna sausages and mandarin oranges. They still had twelve bottles of water, almost two-liters of Coke, and a can of orange soda.

  It wasn’t much, but it would help. With some of it packaged, they could save it until they really needed it.

  It was dusk when Karen slung her hammock and realized she’d have to hang the others’ too. Hulk wasn’t any help. Rather than a hammock, she dragged Tía’s mattress near her own hammock. It would be more comfortable for Tía and not so difficult to get into. There were bugs, but Karen sprayed some repellent around. The smoked goat suspended in a tree was still ant-free.

  Tía sat on the mattress staring into the hot orange coals. She was muttering to herself and Karen noticed as the sun fell below the low western hills, she began glancing about and grew more agitated. Karen sat beside her on the mattress and Lomara followed.

  “Cihuanaba,” the woman said
with dread in her voice.

  Lomara suddenly clutched Karen’s hand.

  “La bruja que camina por la selva. Ella está aquí” —The witch who walks the forest. She is here. She gazed at Karen, her eyes wide as she spoke in a voice that actually shuddered with fear.

  Groan. That’s all I need, thought Karen, a superstitious old woman.

  Cihuanaba had a ghostly face and her eyes stared into her victims’ souls, Karen made out from Tía’s ramblings. The witch wore a white corn leaf dress, her face covered by a veil. When she spoke in her horrific voice, her victims were driven insane in an instant.

  She sounded like she really believed the BS. Karen knew she shouldn’t think that way, but couldn’t help it. Maybe there was something to the myth. She allowed herself a little smile. She’d bet the story was spread by wives to discourage their men from flirting with strange women on the trail.

  She patted Tía’s back. She felt silly saying it, but did anyway. “Yo te protegeré.” —I will protect you.

  Tía turned to her. “Eres demasiado joven para proteger a alguien.”—You are too young to protect anyone.

  Ouch, that hurt. But now Karen knew where she stood in Tía’s eyes.

  “¡No te puedo ayudar si piensas que los fantasmas son reales!”—I cannot help you if you think ghosts are real! Karen shot back.

  “¡Son reales!”—They are true!

  “No, no lo son.”—No, they are not.

  “Eres una chica Americana tonta.”—You are a foolish American girl.

  “Vamos a ver”—We will see.

  The woman turned from Karen and glared into the fire.

  So much for tribal harmony. Okay, it was my fault for challenging her. No matter what Karen thought, it was what the woman believed. She could work around that, she’d have to respect Tía’s beliefs. No point in being bratty about it.

  Karen turned her attention to Lomara. They sat beside the fire as it burned down. She was grateful the girl was there, for being so helpful. Even though they didn’t say much, it helped Karen take her mind off everything. It was all too much, the loss of her friends, all those good people on the farmstead, and maybe even her parents. Now she had to deal with a silly superstitious, hardheaded woman and a stubborn jerk and unsanitary habits. They’re different; they have their own ways. Once she had lain down, she thought of Dad, Mom, and Ellen, her sister at Texas A&M. Ellen, who was at a loss why her little sister was so “outdoorsy.” They lived so deeply in their lives she sometimes felt like an outsider looking in. But, how deeply had she lived in my own outdoorsy life? She realized she was going to have all the outdoors she’d ever wanted.