Green Ice

by Gerald A. Browne

  Now it seemed very little to Wiley. What could Lucho be getting per pound? A dollar? Probably even less. He recalled that back in the States coffee prices had been extremely high, but he doubted Lucho had benefited from that.

  “I could be doing better,” Lucho said.

  “You will when you get the help Miguel promised.”

  “Yes, but still my machine is broken. I must pay to use the machine of a neighbor.”

  Lucho welcomed this opportunity to talk coffee. The norteamericano Wiley seemed interested. Lucho explained how the beans came from the tree two to a berry, covered by a tough hull which had to be removed by a machine.

  “What kind of machine?”

  “Gasoline makes it run. My machine was good but it is through. There is a new machine that can be bought.”

  “For how much?”

  “Five hundred dollars.”

  “You could have made that much easily from the emeralds.”

  “That was one of my thoughts. But I also thought, what sense would there be in having the machine if I have no land?”

  “No one would know where you got the five hundred.”

  “I could have gotten the machine and paid for it a little at a time, as I would normally have to do.” Lucho was thinking out loud.

  “So, tell Miguel you’ve reconsidered.”

  “I cannot,” Lucho said regretfully.

  “Still afraid the emeralds might be traced back to you?”

  “It is not that so much now. If I had it to do again, I would ask for the picking help and the five hundred. However, I have already put my word on the deal.”

  “I will speak to Miguel.”

  “No. It is done,” Lucho said.

  “There must be some way,” Wiley said.

  Lucho glanced up at the walleyed Jesus. “I wish it would be shown to me.”

  They finished off their portions of aguardiente, had another. Wiley felt it to the tips of his fingers, a well-being.

  “How do you market your beans?” Wiley asked.

  Lucho explained how he put them into large jute sacks, a hundred pounds to the sack, took them by burro to Leiva whenever the agent for the coffee exporter was scheduled to be there.

  Did Lucho have to sell through the agent?

  No.

  Maybe he could get a better price by selling more directly.

  Probably. But the agent paid on the spot.

  “The agent pays according to grade,” Lucho said. “The size, weight and shape of the beans.”

  “At that point what do the beans look like?” Wiley wanted to know.

  “They are green, a rich color, like an olive, with a delicate silvery skin.”

  “I would like to see some.”

  “I will show you. But my beans are not the best. I have never received the best price.”

  “Why not?”

  “This land is too high to grow the best coffee,” he said resignedly.

  Wiley wondered if there was any subtle, respectful way he could buy that machine for Lucho. Maybe, to hell with pride, he should come right out with the offer. He was about to when there was a knock on the door. Wiley thought it might be Lillian, come looking for him.

  But it was Julietta Magdalena Rosario.

  When Lucho introduced her, he ran the names together melodiously as if he were introducing the most sought-after beauty of the area.

  She was as old as Lucho and as tall as Wiley. Thin and straight as a rail—to her shoulder blades. From there up, she was hunched, her shoulders nearly to her ears, her head drawn in between. She wore a dark-red, almost black, long cotton skirt and a dark-brown ruana with a faded-yellow geometric design woven around its border. A tightly tied black bandana covered her head. Not even a wisp of hair showed, and it occurred to Wiley that she might be bald.

  Lucho poured her a drink, a stiff one.

  She thanked him with her cup and gulped it down with hardly a change in her expression. Smacked her mouth as though applauding. She appraised the plaster Jesus, patted it rather consolingly.

  “Do you live nearby?” Wiley asked, making conversation.

  She didn’t reply, looked to Lucho.

  “He is not from around here,” Lucho reassured her, then explained to Wiley, “The belief is she does not need to live in a certain place.”

  “Why?”

  “She is supposed to be a bruja, a witch,” Lucho said.

  “I do not want to disappoint anyone,” Julietta said with a grin that greatly altered her face. She had deep lines descending from the corners of her mouth and others just as deep between her eyes and across her forehead. However, when she grinned, her face seemed to become smooth.

  “She lives in a shack off the road to Sachica, about five miles from here. Do you believe in witches, Señor Wiley?”

  “Yes,” Wiley said for the hell of it.

  “Julietta has powers sometimes.”

  “Sometimes,” Julietta agreed.

  “She can tell your tomorrows.”

  “Among other things,” Julietta said.

  “Tell his tomorrows,” Lucho suggested.

  Julietta studied Wiley intensely for a long moment, then got up and went around behind him. She cupped her hands over the top of his head and then moved her fingers slowly over his skull, feeling firmly from his eyes to his temples, behind his ears to the base of his skull. “Acceptance by others is very important to you,” she said when her fingers concentrated on a spot on the back of his head.

  What else is new, Wiley thought.

  She gave the same attention to an area about two inches above his left ear. “You will be rich,” she said.

  Lucho chuckled.

  Julietta pressed her thumbs to the rear area just above the nub of his spinal column.

  “You are a better lover,” she pronounced.

  “Better than who?”

  “Than those who are not so good. You can have any woman you want.”

  “What about the one I want now?” Wiley asked.

  She felt a little more and told him, “She is already yours.”

  Julietta also told him such things as that he would take a boat trip, live to be eighty-one, have three children, get a new car and fall from a high place but not be hurt.

  That was fun, Wiley thought, and realized he was a little drunk.

  Lucho was delighted. “I told you she was a bruja.”

  Julietta took two leaves from her pocket, rolled them into a ball that she stuck into her jaw, between her back teeth and cheek. Coca leaves. She offered Lucho and Wiley some leaves.

  Lucho accepted.

  Wiley thought he should, and did.

  Then they were all chewing.

  “Bruja.” Lucho nodded. “Is there anyone you do not like, Señor Wiley? She can cast a spell.”

  “How far?” Wiley asked.

  Juilietta shrugged modestly.

  “As far as Bogotá?”

  “I have cast as far as Cali and even once to New York,” Julietta claimed.

  If only she could, Wiley thought.

  “What else can you do?”

  “I can locate water,” Julietta replied.

  Wiley acted not very impressed.

  “I can also locate the green stuff,” she said. Emeralds.

  “They came to her,” Lucho said.

  “Who?”

  “From Bogotá.”

  “The Concession?”

  “That is it,” Julietta said.

  “They had heard of her powers and wanted her to show them where they could find the green stuff,” Lucho said.

  “Did you do it?” Wiley asked Julietta.

  “It would not have been difficult once I put my mind to it, but I did not show them.”

  “Why not?” Wiley asked.

  “If I did it once, they would have had me sniffing around like a dog for them from morning until night. Not me,” she said. “As it was, they gave me nothing for my bother.”

  Wiley must have looked skeptic
al.

  “Now do you not believe she has powers?” Lucho asked.

  “She is a remarkable woman,” Wiley said, drinking to her and offering her a Camel.

  Wiley got switched and mauled by bushes on his way back to camp. But between the aguardiente and the coca leaves he wasn’t feeling any pain.

  Dirt had been kicked on the fire hours ago. Not a single ember remained.

  He crawled into the shelter, fought his clothes off and inserted himself into the sleeping bag.

  She’s asleep, he thought.

  “What time is it?” Lillian asked, not the least torpid.

  “Around twelve,” he said, merely picking a number.

  “It was one the last time I looked.”

  “When was that?”

  “Where’ve you been?”

  “I put out the cat,” he said and almost laughed. The coca leaves.

  “Did you go to town?”

  She was next to him but not in touch with him.

  What was it she’d just asked? He tried to reach back for it, but it was gone.

  “I can’t remember if I locked the front door,” he said.

  “It’s locked,” she said, ambiguously cool.

  “Five hundred dollars,” he said.

  “You’re stoned.”

  “I was up at Lucho’s.”

  “I thought so.”

  Now she fit herself against him. She put her leg over him, discovered with it. “What’s this?” she said.

  What better verification of his fidelity?

  He was unaware of his state until she had her hands around it. Must have been the coca leaves, he thought. Those brujas sure knew how to live.

  With the first light of the next day Wiley suffered for his excesses. He was grateful that Miguel had imposed a two-hour work limit. Wiley kept up, shoveling and sifting with the others, but his head was so blurry he probably overlooked a precious few.

  The yield of emeralds that morning from Lucho’s upper terraces was thirty-four stones. Worth about a hundred thousand dollars at the dealer level.

  It was a little after eight when everyone returned to camp. Wiley’s stomach couldn’t bear the thought of breakfast. He crawled into the shelter and slept until two that afternoon. He awoke with a terrible taste in his mouth but with a clear head and a grumbling appetite.

  Lillian was kind, made him some coffee and served him up a huge portion of locro de choclos that had simmered until the chicken was tender down to the marrow of its bones. For dessert a couple of Oreo cookies. There were only six Oreos left in the box. Lillian had been nibbling while reading. She’d deserted Stendhal on page 135 and was now a fifth of the way into Jean-Paul Sartre’s Troubled Sleep. Wiley wondered if she ever finished a book, or anything else.

  He asked her.

  “Don’t pick on me,” she said.

  “Just trying to know you better.”

  “Sounded more like a criticism.”

  “That’s not how it was meant.”

  “Did you criticize Jennifer?”

  Wiley was surprised she remembered the name. “No.”

  “She was perfect.”

  “Hardly.”

  Lillian went back to Sartre.

  Miguel was seated nearby with a tree for a back rest. He had been detached, focused on whatever was taking place in the front of his mind.

  “You know electronics,” he said to Wiley.

  “Not as well as I used to.”

  “Lillian told me that was your profession.”

  “I try to keep up.” True. He subscribed to the journals and understood many of the recent concepts.

  “An interesting field,” Miguel said. “I wish I knew more about it.”

  “It’s overcomplicated,” Wiley said.

  “What do you know about missiles?” Miguel asked.

  “I’m no expert.”

  “You built missiles, didn’t you?”

  “I helped think out and put together certain components. That’s about as much as any one person does.”

  “You know a lot about electronics.” Miguel concluded with an inflection that asked Wiley to confirm his opinion.

  It was by no means Wiley’s favorite topic. To get off it he agreed.

  Miguel blinked, his eyes glazed over again as he went back into his thoughts.

  Just before dark Wiley told Lillian he was going up to Lucho’s for a while. Did she want to come?

  She didn’t. She needed to catch up on her sleep, hadn’t napped that day. “Don’t be late and don’t be drunk,” she told Wiley. He took along the flashlight.

  Lucho was waiting for him on the tenth terrace down from the house. He had a shovel and a bottle of aguardiente with a couple of swigs gone from it. Julietta was with him. She said she was in high spirits. From the bulge of her right cheek Wiley surmised she had plenty of reason to be. She shifted her euphoric cud to her left jaw, taking a couple of chews on the way. She looked skyward. The night was ideal, she said. There was a seven-eighths moon. A wind way up there was driving clouds swiftly across its face. Gazing at it, Wiley had the sensation that he, not the clouds, was moving.

  Julietta showed him what she used to find the green stuff. No forked witch-hazel branch for her. She had some tricycle handlebars, with red rubber grips on them. Tied to the center of the handlebars was a length of common twine, about two feet of it. A greenish ceramic medallion dangled from the end of the twine, a primitive medallion with a grotesque face in relief on one side and a hexagonal design on the other. Dangling from the medallion was a tiny handmade copper bell.

  Instruments for a divining bruja?

  What more had he expected? Wiley smiled.

  To keep from laughing he lighted a cigarette, gave a pack to each of his companions. He couldn’t blame Lucho for wanting to believe in Julietta, nor could he fault Julietta for seeking importance. What the hell, he’d play along with them for an hour. He could make up an excuse for not spending more time than that.

  Which way to the green stuff?

  Julietta was not the least bit uncertain. They would not look on Lucho’s property, she said, because some emeralds had already been found there and she wanted an indisputable challenge. The adjacent hillside, her instincts told her. She made for it with long strides, as though she could see in the dark.

  Lucho followed after her.

  Wiley tagged along, thinking what a good sport he was.

  20

  After four more days Miguel decided enough.

  They were still finding emeralds on that upper section of Lucho’s land, but there was no point in pushing their luck. Each day increased their chance of being seen and reported. They should leave now with what they had.

  They had 183 stones, about 2,500 carats. At only $200 a carat, that was half a million dollars’ worth. Miguel believed he could get at least $300, perhaps $400 a carat. The stones found during the last three days had been better quality, with more kelly to them.

  The most critical phase lay ahead.

  Getting the emeralds to Bogotá.

  All roads were patrolled by federal troops on the lookout for poachers. Also, at any point along the way they could encounter esmeralderos, those emerald-minded gangsters organized by The Concession to maintain fear and violence. Either would be equally bad.

  The troops and the esmeralderos usually learned of poachers in advance, waited until they were bound for Bogotá, then waylaid them.

  Miguel was sure that was what had happened to the foco’s last poaching expedition, led by Professor Santos. Only ten days ago.

  Miguel’s original plan was to use Lillian. For her to carry the emeralds to Bogotá. She had the nerve for it, and the enthusiasm, and it was doubtful she’d be stopped. That had been Miguel’s reason for asking her along on this expedition.

  Now he had changed his mind.

  The problem was the jeep. Why hadn’t Lillian rented a car, as they had discussed? No matter that she’d thought the jeep would do better up in the rugged
terrain. It was suspect on sight. Had probably been noticed on the way up. It offset all her advantages.

  Miguel told Lillian that.

  She realized and admitted he was right.

  Miguel’s revised plan was that the emeralds would be carried in equal amounts by Tomas, Jorge and himself. They would depart for Bogotá at different times that day, and each would take a different route to better the chances that at least one would make it.

  Lillian was angry at herself, felt she’d failed the cause. She couldn’t just leave the jeep there. That would incriminate Lucho. But what she could do was abandon it somewhere else, along the road. With the emeralds concealed on her, she could take a bus to Tunja and rent a car. She’d complain about motor trouble when she talked to General Botero.

  She was about to suggest this plan when a simpler, more accommodating solution came to her.

  Which route to Bogotá was the worst for traveling by car? she wanted to know.

  Why?

  Which? she insisted.

  There was a road south through the mountains via Sachica and Samacá. In some places, depending on the season, it was impossible by car; at all times it was very questionable.

  Sounded ideal to Lillian. “Is that road patrolled?”

  It surely would be.

  “At night?” Lillian asked, making her point.

  Miguel understood what she was proposing. He didn’t jump at the idea, but a couple of hours of hazardous driving was certainly better than a whole day of risk by foot and slow bus. He went to check the jeep, to make sure it would start.

  For a final meal Lillian broke out the delicacies. Miguel was amused when she told them she’d taken them from Argenti’s larder. Miguel scooped up a mound of caviar with a Carr biscuit, and another, and another, popped pistachio after supercolossal olive after pistachio into his mouth.

  Come the revolution, Miguel will be looting gourmet shops, Wiley thought.

  They packed and were ready to go.

  At eight Miguel went up to have a final word with Lucho. Wiley went along.

  Lucho showed them the shelf he’d built for the plaster Jesus. Candles flickered at its feet in several ordinary food jars painted red.

  Lucho’s farewell handshake with Wiley had something extra in it. He also winked like a conspirator.

  Then it was dark.

  Lillian wanted to drive.

  Miguel gave that responsibility to Wiley, leaving Tomas, Jorge and himself free and ready in case of trouble. They sat in the back, Russian automatic rifles covered at their feet. The jeep was carrying the emeralds in a bandana taped to the inside of its spare tire.