Tears of the River

by Gordon L. Rottman

  We’ll meet this together.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  She broke the surface with a desperate gasp. Lomara thrashed. Karen lay on her back floating and told the girl, “¡Estate quieta!”—Stay still! Karen tried to kick, to head back to the boat. There was no telling how far it was now. Even though half swamped, it would still float and she had to get back to Tía. Her head suddenly bumped hard into the boat. Hands grabbed her free arm. Hands? Whose? Turning she was looking at a green boat hull. The hands took Lomara and hoisted her aboard. Karen was pulled in next by strong brown arms.

  “We got you good, Missy,” said a Jamaican-like accent.

  She was in a twenty-foot boat. A grinning man sat in the stern manning the puttering outboard motor. Another smiling face held the wide-eyed coughing Lomara, slapping her on the back as she spit out water. Karen looked around frantically. Fifty feet away was the half sunken Nuestra Esperanza. Riding alongside was a larger bright red boat. Two boys, maybe fourteen, dove from it and swam to the Nuestra Esperanza. Tía wasn’t to be seen. The boys were tossing the bags into the red boat. Relief flooded through Karen when she spotted a man with a huge straw hat holding a water bottle to Tía’s lips in the red boat.

  A moment’s confusion tore through her and she frantically remembered. “Jay!”

  She desperately looked to seaward. All she could make out through the sun’s silver surface-glare and the white-capped chop were some leafy limbs and other debris. There was no sign of the Jay. Another boat was approaching, a green and white one.

  “You be okay, Missy?” the man asked.

  “There’s a boy, he was pulled away, by the current.” She pointed in the direction.

  It registered in her mind they shouldn’t be speaking English. Where are we?

  The man shouted something in a strange language, maybe Mískitu, to the red boat and the motor kicked into life as they hove around and deftly slid to the green boat’s side. Men helped her and Lomara into the boat. The boys in the Nuestra Esperanza were bailing with tins so fast the water was literally flying.

  “My sons, day bring dat boat to you.”

  “We need a doctor for this woman.”

  Without a word the fisherman throttled the engine and skimmed toward the village.

  “The boy can’t swim,” she shouted.

  “Day find ‘im…maybe,” said the helmsman with the realistic pessimism of a fisherman.

  Karen could see other boats heading to the area. Please, please find him, she prayed in her mind.

  “Dat maelstrom, it take many,” he said solemnly.

  Maelstrom, she knew they meant a riptide, from reading.

  A crowd had gathered on the low concrete pier, men, women, and lots of kids. Dogs too, which Karen was instinctively leery of. The fisherman in the bow tossed a rope and a man caught it tying it off to a piling. She could only wonder what their little band of refugees looked like to these people…some provisional aberration of greasy refuse bobbing on the water.

  “¿Què lugar es éste?” Tía asked weakly.

  “Muelle de Karatá,” said the man.

  Karatá, thought Karen. “This is the place,” she said out loud. “¿Hay un doctor?”

  “No doctor here, Missy,” said a brown shirtless man.

  “You speak English?” Karen finally asked.

  “Surely, Missy,” said another smiling face, equally a warm brown.

  They were dark-skinned, like the Miskito Indians at the barge crossing—Cruce Del Rio Hauhau. They didn’t all look Latino or Indian. Some looked like Jamaicans. More people were collecting.

  “We need a doctor. This woman is very sick.”

  “Are you Americano?”

  “Sí.”

  “Where you come from?

  “Concepción Del Norte.”

  “I hear dat place. Far aways.”

  “Ten days by foot and boat,” Karen said. She was anxiously peering across the water. Half-a-dozen boats puttered back and forth. Her emotions were a rolling boil. They were safe, but Jay…brave Jay. She had to stay focused. She had to get Tía to a doctor.

  “Ten day?” the man saying in wonder looking at her. That started everyone chattering.

  “Is there a doctor in Puerto Cabezas?”

  “Oh, most certainly, now.”

  “How can we go there?”

  “By boat, Missy. You come down Rio Hauhau.” A statement.

  “Sí. Yes.”

  “Then you pass river dat take you to Puerto Cabezas. You can no row against the current,” the man said. “You need motorboat.”

  Karen felt sick. He wasn’t offering a lift. Maybe it was too far. She looked around in desperation. A woman was leaning from the pier with her hand on Tía’s forehead. She said something to one of the men. Concern etched her face.

  “Can someone take us there?”

  A man stepped forward, the one the woman had spoken to. His curly hair was salt-and-pepper, his leather-tough brown face punished by a lifetime of wind and sun and salt. “Can you pay?”

  With an angry glare the woman slapped his shoulder. She said something in Mískitu that didn’t sound very complimentary.

  Karen looked around. The green boat was towing in the Nuestra Esperanza. The boys were still bailing water. Karen said, “You can have our boat.”

  The man studied the boat a moment and smiled, reached out and shook her hand. “It is deal, Missy.” He turned. “Winston.” A lanky boy about Karen’s age stepped up.

  “Aye, Dada.”

  “You be a man now, you first boat. Now you t’ink up name and paint it right dare on her.”

  The boy beamed at Karen, his eyes huge in appreciation of the gringa’s generosity. He pumped her arm enthusiastically.

  Two men gently lifted Tía out and carried her up the pier. A woman swooped up Lomara. Boys carried their wet bags and packs. A young woman supported the wobbly Karen. The procession walked to a bigger red and green-painted boat with a high bow and an ancient outboard motor on the stern. They boarded and all their gear was loaded. The fisherman’s wife handed Karen a small newspaper-wrapped bundle. People were handing them bottles of Coke.

  Word was passed that if the missing boy was found to take him to the Puerto Cabezas hospital where they were heading. Karen was sick with each passing memory of Jay.

  A girl of about twelve stationed herself in the bow. She winked at Lomara. Tía was laid on a pile of nets and covered with blankets. The fisherman yanked the motor’s cord several pulls and it sputtered into roaring life. Ropes were cast off and they pulled away with people waving and shouting goodbyes and blessings in Creole English, Spanish, and Mískitu.

  “We go by da river,” said the fisherman. “Da sea too rough still.”

  Passing their little blue boat Karen realized its charcoal-written names, Huck Finn and Nuestra Esperanza, had long since washed off. The latter name, bestowed by Tía, “Our Hope,” had been the more fitting.

  After days in the rowboat dependent on the river for momentum, this boat’s speed seemed recklessly fast as they cut a furrow across Laguna de Karatá.

  “¿Dónde está Jadon?” asked Lomara.

  “Están buscando a él, Hermanita,”—They are looking for him. Her insides felt hollow.

  In no time they were heading up the short stretch of river. Each pounding jolt shot fire through Karen’s leg.

  Crossing the small lake, Karen could see the broad mouth of the Rio Hauhau off to the left from which they had issued during the night as the wind dried her clothes.

  Their boat veered northeast up the lake’s length and there was a smaller river’s mouth. Karen was avoiding having to accept that Jay hadn’t made it. How could he, a non-swimmer lost in the rough riptide and sucked out to sea? She’d deal with that later. She had to get these two to safety.

  “Are those alligators or crocodiles?” she asked.

  “Cocodrilos. One take a girl, three, four year back.”

  “Three year, Dada,” shouted the
girl.

  “Smart, my girl Sara,” said the father nodding.

  The greasy newspaper held tortillas, mangos, baked sweet potatoes, and a little jam jar of molasses. They ate with mango juice dribbling down their chins and chugged their Cokes. The Coke’s stinging fizz and sweetness were alien to Karen. Tía couldn’t eat. She wasn’t responding well, muttering incoherently. Karen got some Coke down her—she needed the blood-sugar boast.

  “Dat was my dinner,” laughed the man.

  “I can’t thank you enough. We’ve not had much food.”

  That reminded her. “There are three people at Cruce Del Rio Hauhau with no food. Do you know the place?”

  “Aye…Missy,” was his guarded reply.

  “Can you take them food? Bring them out if they want?”

  The fisherman looked questioningly at her. “Dat be most long way, Missy.”

  “I gave you a good boat, worth a lot more than only this trip.”

  He stared dead ahead, nodded. “I can do, Missy.”

  “Today,” she said sternly.

  “Aye, yes, today,” he sighed.

  “You’re a good man.”

  “Tell my wife dat, please Missy.” A toothy smile.

  They tore up the narrow, sharply winding river at a frightening speed and sped up as they came onto an irregular-shaped lake. Making a hard starboard—right—turn into a fifty-foot wide stream, they slowed their insane speed.

  “Two kilometres,” said the fisherman.

  “To Puerto Cabezas?” asked Karen.

  “No, missy, naura, close. Four kilometers more by da road to Cabezas.”

  “How do we get there?”

  “We find you ride for sure, Missy.” His face cracked with a grin.

  “How is it you speak English?”

  He gave a healthy laugh. “Turista peoples ask alla time. Englishmens live here longtime go, pirates too, and sailors jump ship here, and slaves run away, from Jamaica, mon.”

  “Cool.”

  He laughed deeply again. “Very much cool, Missy.”

  Ahead were piers, dozens of boats of all descriptions.

  “We here, Missy. This be Lamlaya. I get you ride or I beat driver to make ‘em go.” Ominous, but he was smiling and Sara was laughing.

  “Aye, you beat ‘em good, Dada.”

  People were gathering, gawking at the grubby refugees.

  “We needs to dake dese good peoples to hospital,” he shouted. The men here obviously knew this amiable fisherman. There was a hubbub, shouts.

  Tía was lifted out and three men carried her up the pier. Others toted the bags and packs. Karen limped down the pier, shrugging off help. The closer they were to their seemingly unreachable goal the more wound up she felt. What will block our way next?

  There was an old cream-colored Toyota flatbed truck. A man was waving them toward it. They jammed Tía and Lomara into the cab and boosted their gear onto the truck bed.

  “¿Usted paga?” the driver asked with a shy smile.

  Karen couldn’t blame them for expecting some kind of payment. They probably all had homes damaged and had lost work. She opened a bag, pulled out the pliers, tow strap, and rope. “¿Es esto suficiente?”—Is this enough?

  The driver nodded, “Bueno,” and shook her hand firmly. She climbed into the cab to cradle Tía after noticing Lomara’s backpack with the TP had disappeared. We don’t need it now.

  The truck didn’t start and the driver and several arguing “experts” were doing a lot of shouting under the hood.

  Karen groaned. She should have seen that coming. What else? She leaned her head back and squeezed her eyes shut. Her heart was racing. She just wanted to have a complete screaming breakdown. I have it coming and I want it. But she couldn’t do it now. Soon, real soon. It gave her something to look forward to, more so than a gallon of shampoo or a double-meat, double-cheese, jalapeño burger with thick tomato slices, pickles, dripping bacon, and avocado wedges with mayo oozing out. And I’ll have a large fries and onion rings with that, and tater tots too.

  Fantasies of food were replaced with a vision of Jay. She pushed him out of her mind for the present. She had the living to see to. That thought frightened her. Had she changed into someone too hard?

  “Tenemos que ir,”—We must go, Karen shouted to the driver. Karen gratefully shook hands with the fisherman. His name was Samuel Córtez. She earnestly told him, “I will see you again, Señor Córtez.” She clambered into the truck’s bed.

  “Andale, rápido,” she ordered. She didn’t know now much longer she could keep moving, and Tía…

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  The Thaeler Memorial Hospital turned them away. They were packed to capacity with the wreckage of people sprawled in hallways. More injured and ill were being brought in along with fishermen who had been adrift at sea for days clinging to capsized boats.

  They were told to go to the Escuela Rigoberto Cabezas, where a government medical team had just set up in the primary school.

  Within this nightmare, Puerto Cabezas was a pretty tropical town of garishly painted homes and shops with red or blue tile roofs. Hurricane debris still littered many of the winding concrete block-paved streets. The main part of the town, facing the sea, was up to sixty feet above sea level and had been spared from storm surge and flooding. Buildings, streets, and telephone poles, and cars felt strange to Karen.

  The rattling truck pulled into the school grounds before the blue and white buildings with red tile-roofs. Okay, we’re finally here, thought Karen. But the expected relief didn’t flood through her.

  A young man wandered out, obviously dragging butt, wearing filthy, once mint green scrubs. He took one look at Tía and darted back in. Two teenage Miskito girls hurried out with a gurney—volunteers in T-shirts and jeans. The driver helped lift Tía onto the gurney and then unloaded their stuff. Karen, finding it difficult to stay on her feet, thanked him and waved as he drove from the courtyard. Her head was swimming. She piled what little gear they had left under a veranda. Lomara hung onto the gurney encouraging Tía as they wheeled it squeaking down the covered walkway. “Voy a encontrar un médico.”

  Karen grabbed the medical bag to give to someone. There wasn’t much left, but she figured they could use it. “Grubby scrubs” returned and wasted no time starting an antibiotic and saline IV in Tía.

  A sensation that she was walking in a surreal, imagined world swirled around Karen. Were they really there or was this another weird dream? Would she wake up in the boat and find something new coming at them? She couldn’t accept they were truly safe now. What was going to happen next? For all she knew an earthquake would hit and then a cop would arrest her for stealing a boat and cruelty to dogs.

  I’m going mad I think.

  People were rushing all about even though it was almost two weeks after the hurricane. The girls spoke Creole English. They said the tropical storm coming through on the hurricane’s heels hadn’t helped. They were just now bringing in people from outlying villages and the government planes hadn’t arrived until yesterday. They’d brought in relief supplies and an international medical team.

  “Estaremos bien, Hermana?”—Are we going to be okay, sister? asked Lomara trying to grasp this new hustling, crowded world.

  “Sí, Hermanita.”

  “¿Y Tía?”

  “Sí, Tía también,” Trying to sound convincing.

  A blonde girl in purple scrubs and a black ball cap bearing a Canadian flag asked, “You’re a Yank, eh?”

  “Sí, lo soy.”

  “What’s your name?” She was wide-eyed and wrinkling her nose at Karen’s stench.

  “Karena Herber, enfadosa,” she said too curtly, calling the well-meaning Canuck an ‘annoying girl.’ Karen’s chopped-up spray-wet hair was greasy-pasty with wood-ash, dust, and bits of leaves. She was sunburned, chap-lipped, scratch and mosquito bite-covered, hunger-haggard, fatigued, and gaunt. Her sopping filthy bandages crawled with maggots, her clothes were torn, greasy, and m
ud-caked with a pant leg mostly missing. Her hands were blistered and raw and her knees scrapped

  They rattled down the walkway passing another gurney going the other way with scrub-wearing people clustered around it. Karen was busy trying to lug the medical bag, hold up Tía’s IV bag, and dragging her blood-dripping leg. It took everything she had to hold herself upright. She had no idea what had happened to her crutch.

  The Canuck girl said, “Herber.”

  Karen turned and said, “¿Qué? ¡Déjame en paz!”—What? Leave me alone!

  Someone else said, “What?”

  Karen was looking into her dad’s startled eyes as he stopped beside the other gurney.

  A high-pitched voice said, “Karen? Oh my God, Karen!”

  She pivoted, almost crumpling to her knees, and her mom was pulling off a surgical mask, her green eyes glowing from her freckled face.

  A slideshow of misery, desolation, sorrow, terror, and pain gushed through Karen’s mind. Throwing herself into her mom’s arms, Karen allowed herself to simply and hysterically fall apart. She could finally afford to, she didn’t have to be the strong one anymore. She didn’t have to lead or make life-saving decisions. They were all safe. Her dad’s arms were around her. “You came back, you came back.”

  The last thing Karen remembered was sobbing, “I couldn’t save him. I lost Jay.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Karen awakened in a white room with a slowly turning ceiling fan. Gauzy white curtains floated from the window. She’d been moved to the Thaeler Memorial Moravian Hospital, she kinda sorta remembered. She felt dopey and lightheaded, and really, really hungry, and clean too, scrubbed real clean. She remembered her parents were here, her parents! Where are they?

  “Good morning, Wild Girl!” Her mom hurried in, fluffing her short red hair, her eyes tearing up. “And what happened to your hair?”

  “It got in the way,” Karen replied.

  Her dad followed, his body visibly sighing, seeing his little girl was safe. “It’s about time you returned to the world. You’ve been out since yesterday.”