by Moulton, CD
Clint asked if Obilio really had that authority.
“Oh, certainly. I am what you would call the first vice president in your corporations. I am in full charge on this mountain and the parts in the comarca around for most of the close mountains. Javier handles half and I handle half, but he is in charge.”
You live and learn! Clint had known Obilio for more than three years and didn’t know he was second in charge in the comarca!
He called for Judi to bring his camera, took pictures from all angles of the scene, then asked Obilio if he could find some kind of trail where Maria had been taken. Obilio went outside and a short distance from the bodega and circled around. He had a flashlight Ann brought to him, but said they would have to wait for light. A trail would be nearly impossible to find or follow with no more than the flashlight. The flashlight didn’t have the right kind of light to see like the sunlight did. Mike said the sun had the full spectrum was why plants grew in sunlight and not in artificial light not designed for plants.
“I believe her body would be here if they wanted to kill her,” he said. Clint thought about it and nodded.
They went inside to have some very strong coffee and to wait for dawn. Clint asked how they charged their phones up there and Obilio showed him the solar panel with an adapter. It was the kind of panel used to trickle-charge car batteries.
Mike came to sit with them. He was still a little sick from seeing that mutilated body. Obilio sat close. That was the Indio way. They offered comfort by touching. There’s no word for “Thank you” in their language. They don’t have to say something so obvious. They say such things through contact, even if it is only a slight squeeze of the hand. Clint found many parts of the culture very natural to him. Apparently, Mike did, too.
Dawn was just breaking when they heard the chopper coming across the valley. It would be dark in the bottom of the valley for some time yet, but the mountaintop had the sun first. The police officer, Samuel Lopez, directed the one detective with them and took pictures much as Clint had, then searched through the effects of the Garza’s. There wasn’t much, but the passports had good pictures they could use to try to find Maria. They would take the body back to David. Clint, Mark and Obilio started the search for a trail to find Maria as soon as the light was enough. They found two trails. The attacker(s) had come from the direction of the carretera and left toward Volcan Barú. They could find the trail lower, but there was a stretch where it would be almost impossible to track.
Mark called from a short distance away. He found a small bit of plastic on a bush. There was no plastic up there. It would have to have been put there.
Obilio said the winds would sometimes bring a plastic bag or such, but this was placed with too much force for that. It was a small scrap of pale blue that would not stick to anything in the wind and was only there for a few hours because the sap was still wet where a leaf was torn off. Clint had to search very carefully to find wet sap that Obilio saw automatically. It looked like dew from the clouds that sat there until nearly daylight and was only now completely drying to Clint. Obilio said sap contains sugar. Ants eat the sugar. There were two small ants on the twig. Also, light was a very little bit different on sap than on water. Clint couldn’t see any difference, but knew Obilio could, whether from a learned more sensitive reception of color or because of genetically different receptors in the eye.
Matt called Mike and said he was to protect the women with his own life, if it came to that. He and Cori would take the .38 and would shoot first and ask questions later if Lila said someone was not a familiar and trusted face. Cori said she would put up the flag for Luis to come. She was sure they could trust him. Clint agreed.
Clint, Obilio and Matt followed the trail for two kilometers until it was hopelessly lost in a small shallow rocky creek. There were a couple more small scraps of plastic to be found before the creek.
“This quebrada reaches another more than a kilometer down the valley, then that one goes to a larger one that goes to the big river,” Obilio explained. “If someone was forcing the woman to go they will not yet be to the river. She has left several scraps of plastic from a bolsa for us to find. Perhaps we can reach the river before they do. There is a very easy path close. There will be very few scraps because she is trying to have whoever she is with not know she is leaving them. Very small bits can be torn from a bolsa on the carry loops that will not be noticed where larger pieces will be seen. She is very intelligent. She may be too ... we must be careful. She knows she has to be careful. This is not a good situation for any.”
“Now I’m confused,” Clint said. “If they knew the area they would know of the faster path. If not, they wouldn’t even know about this route out of here. It doesn’t compute somehow.”
“Ah!” Obilio exclaimed. “So they are going somewhere before the river that is also close to the quebrada.”
“Are there any houses along here?” Clint asked. Obilio shook his head.
“We passed a cave back a ways. Are there caves?” Matt asked. Obilio said there were a few. Small, but easy to reach from the trail.
“Then it’s someone from here and they’re in a cave. I’ve been here four times and didn’t know about them,” Clint suggested. “We can go spelunking.” He checked his Glock. Matt grinned and took a .32 automatic from his belt in back. Clint had noticed it when they left Obilio’s, but had waited to see if he would let them know he had it. Clint was relieved that he did. Obilio simply nodded and went to the little cliff ledge to study the valley below. He waved for them to come and went down an almost invisible trail into the forest. He said they could reach the more likely of the caves very quickly from where they were. It was mostly downhill and the mountain here was not so steep it would be difficult to stay on the path.
“Very quickly” turned out to be almost an hour. There was evidence that someone had been there recently, but no Maria. Matt went slowly around and found a very small plastic bit on a branch. “Does this mean they came from that way or that they left that way?”
Obilio searched back along the path and finally said, “Both.” They followed the path, several times losing it and having to circle to find it again.
They spent most of the day searching. They didn’t find anything else. Late in the afternoon they came to a small group of huts with a path that led to a trail that led to the carretera. Obilio said that was where the bruja (witch woman) lived.
“Oh, shit!” Matt exclaimed. “He was always worried about a curse, he’s dead, Maria’s missing – and the trail leads to a witch! This is a little beyond weird!”
“His curse was from the Dominican Republic,” Clint pointed out.
“But he was scared here. He said the curse followed him anywhere.” from Matt. “He was scared in Jamaica and in Guatemala. He was as much as terrified, but he seemed to believe it was directed more at Maria. She was always a bit fatalistic about it. She said it had to be lifted by the one who placed it and could not be escaped. They’re terrified of their voodoo kings and queens on the islands. Haiti is the center.”
“Brujas communicate over the whole world,” Obilio stated positively. “I will ask to meet with her tomorrow. Perhaps she will tell me things. Perhaps not.”
They went to the trail and back to Obilio’s place. Luis was there with Mike and the women. He had four horses.
“I think there was someone over there on that mountain watching us,” Judi said, pointing across the valley to the near mountain that was only two or three hundred meters lower than Obilio’s. “Twice, I saw a flash like the sun reflecting off a mirror. Maybe a lens.”
Clint nodded. Mike got him aside and said he didn’t want to scare the others, but he’d seen someone on the other side of the stream where they bathed. He said it wasn’t an Indio. He was much lighter in color, but he couldn’t see much else. He was wearing camouflage clothes that looked too much like military issue so it could be someone from the police. He didn’t know if they would leave someone to watch, b
ut didn’t think that chopper could carry three. They had to carry Pablo’s body on the runners – which meant someone might have ridden in on a runner.
“No one was left on the comarca,” Clint replied. “Obilio would have to approve and would know about it.”
Mike looked grim and nodded. Clint was impressed that someone his age was so much in control and so aware of reality. This was no exciting adventure to him. He wasn’t lost in some TV show mentality.
Cori got Clint aside a bit later and said almost the same thing. She didn’t want to worry anyone. Things were tense enough without that. She had told Luis, who went casually down to the stream to see if he could find anything.
Ann and Lila also got him alone to tell him the same thing. All of them had noticed something and had acted in a way not to scare all the others. It would be funny as hell if it weren’t so serious.
There wasn’t much to be done with it getting dark. They sat around to talk until they went to bed. Clint and Obilio knew how to find the glow of a fire that was screened toward the house and both noted the spot across the valley. Judi had seen the reflection off a lens to binoculars, almost certainly.
Obilio said he knew how to get to that little ledge from in back. They would leave before light from the back of the house so they wouldn’t be seen. Matt would have the women moving around the place to be seen and would dress so that he would look like Clint at times. Mike wanted to go with them. Obilio said he could go if he knew how to be quiet and how to move where he wouldn’t be seen. He said he would surprise them all with what he knew. Mark would go with Lila to talk with the bruja. They would be seen a bit after daylight in plain sight of the watch ledge moving along the path toward the place. Judi had Clint’s .22 pistol and was an expert shot. She would know how to protect from certain types of attack. She also knew a few tricks. She would surprise hell out of any attacker who thought she was the helpless woman type.
Clint and Obilio left before dawn, climbing out of a rear window that couldn’t be seen from anywhere in the area. They were soon on a covered path through the forest toward the side and behind the ledge. Luis stepped from the forest ahead of them two hundred meters from the house. Clint had as much as forgotten he was there. He had watched the entire night.
“Someone came to the loma there (pointing at the little hill) perhaps an hour after midnight,” he reported. “He did not come close. He stopped a moment, then returned. I think he wanted to see if there were any lights in the house or bodega. He was very large.”
Obilio told him it was a good thing to know. He could go to the house and sleep a few hours. Clint and Obilio went on. An hour later Obilio held up a hand. Clint stopped. They were moving silently along and Obilio would have heard or seen something. Mike made a snapping sign with his hands as though he were snapping a twig. Obilio nodded and pointed ahead and slightly to the left.
Mike slipped into the forest on that side. Clint moved to stop him, but was too late. Obilio looked surprised, then shrugged. He and Clint waited. A monkey made a “woo-woo” sound ahead and Obilio again looked surprised and waved for Clint to come along.
“Perhaps to the right?” Obilio suddenly said in a hissing whisper, surprising Clint this time. He was waving to stop.
There was a “Thunk!” sound ahead, then Mike stepped out about a hundred feet ahead and waved for them to come on.
A big black man was unconscious behind a large boulder. Mike had come up behind him, couldn’t get close enough, moved away a bit and climbed a tree to make the monkey call, then had come back down to come up behind the watcher when Obilio had drawn him down to behind the boulder. He’d smacked him with a good-sized rock. He would have a concussion at best.
Mike took a roll of duct tape from his carry sack and taped the man’s hand and feet together, then taped his mouth. It was a very professional type of tying.
They went on. Mike was surprising Clint and Obilio with his knowledge and cool attitude. Clint wouldn’t have expected that from his reaction to seeing Pablo’s mutilated body.
They were still moving silently. Clint couldn’t ask questions.
They went into a high valley and across the quebrada to ascend the next mountain. Obilio soon had them moving to the left. He motioned for them to stop and drew a short line in the dirt, pointed to a large boulder and put a pebble next to the line, then drew the line around it and motioned downward. He pointed to Mike and the line. He then drew a line with a hook that came to the same spot Mike would be and pointed to Clint. He pointed directly left to a slight animal path. He pointed past the turn Mike would take and to himself, nodded sharply and erased the diagram in the dirt.
Clint moved to the path, Mike went to the boulder path and Obilio went ahead.
Half an hour later Clint was to the left of the ledge where there was a frond lean-to with a small fire with a coffee pot on the rocks beside it that couldn’t be seen from the house across the valley. Mike waved a white handkerchief one short wave from just above.
There was no sign, otherwise, so they waited. Ten minutes later Obilio strolled from the far side toward the lean-to. Two men stepped out and asked him what he wanted. They were both blacks and both pretty big.
“This is comarca land and you are here. I am council. I ask what YOU are doing here, not the other way around!”
“It’s none of your business!” one of them snapped. He took a knife from his belt and started to advance toward Obilio.
There was a shot. He dropped. Mike yelled, “No movir! Movir y morir!” (Don’t move! Move and die!) The other one stood perfectly still. Obilio picked up the knife the other had and advanced toward the standing man. Mike and Clint came from their places and watched.
“I will ask the questions and you will answer,” Obilio announced. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”
The man shook his head and said nothing. Obilio flipped the knife and there was a cut along the side of the hood’s neck that was oozing blood.
“Who are you and what are you doing here?” he asked again.
The hood started to say something, then shook his head again.
There was another flick of the knife. There was a cut along the side of the hoods face that was a bit deeper and was oozing more blood.
“Who are you and what are you doing here?” Obilio asked calmly.
The hood sobbed and said that he was Armand Montaigne. He was watching the house across the valley for another person. The dead man was Liam Costigne. He was just watching. They didn’t know what it was about. The papaloi ordered them to come and to watch. He was in Haiti. They would be turned into zombies if they didn’t do as he ordered.
“Who is the one back along the trail!”
“Aurelio Smith, from Colón. He is to show is how to move here. There is also Antoin. Antoin is black.”
This was asked in Spanish and answered in bastard English, much like wadi-wadi.
“Get your ass out of Panamá. You can tell the police about your buddy here if you like. If not, the people here will bury him and nothing will be known except he came into the mountains and was never heard of again,” Clint said. “Is the bruja involved?
“The most important thing you can answer is where is Maria Garza and is she alright?”
“She is the woman they are after? I don’t know anything except she has to answer questions from ... some people in Haiti. I know nothing of any bruja. Perhaps Aurelio spoke with her.”
Clint nodded. He warned the hood to get out of Panamá again. Today.
Mike, Obilio and Clint turned away and went back along the path without another word. Clint wanted to ask a lot of other questions of Armand Montaigne, but realized it would be a bad idea. It would also be more likely Aurelio Smith could answer them faster and better.
But Aurelio Smith was gone.
“Damn! I wanted to ask dear Aurelio a thing or two!” Clint said.
“Antoin. Aurelio probably isn’t black,” Mike said.
Witch Connection?
>
“She knows something, but will say nothing other than that she sensed a little spell on someone. It was not a dangerous spell, in itself. It was a way that the person could be located anywhere or something,” Lila reported about her interview with the bruja. “She is afraid, I think. That is a bad sign.
“A very big black man went to her with another who was part black and not so large. Verna said that the smaller one spoke in a strange language that was much like Ingles. The black man spoke very good Spanish.”
Clint thanked her. That would be Aurelio Smith and Antoin. Antoin would be a bit bigger than Aurelio. Every little bit added to what they had to know.
Luis had gone to his finca and would return before dark. It was late enough that he would be there in a few minutes, probably, though he could travel easily enough with the moonlight. It was clear this high on the mountain. Cori was cooking a meal for them. Judi and Matt had been almost going crazy worrying about them. Judi heard a shot and was afraid it wasn’t from any of their guns. Ann was helping a woman who had been hurt when she had fallen over a vine across the path below, partway between Luis’s place and Obilio’s.
Clint asked about the vine. It was just a vine that had fallen when the limb it was on fell. The woman was carrying laundry to the stream and hadn’t seen it.
Clint remembered the witch had two visitors, one not among those they’d seen. He would be the one with Maria. He would be the one who got Antoin out. He would be the one who put a vine warning trap across their path. He would be the one with answers. He would be close.
In the morning they would find who that man was and what he knew. Somehow. This was the comarca and Obilio could get the people here to cooperate. They had very little fear of the witch woman. She was more a medicine woman who knew a few things about what was considered to be magic here.
They had to make a plan of sorts. This was a long way from over. None of them knew what was going on, in reality.
