Running Wild

by Susan Andersen

  “Yes, it’s a worthy cause, as was your agitating for the crop workers to strike for more money. But even you realize that you have a way of ordering people around that puts their backs up.”

  She sniffed indignantly, but admitted, “Perhaps I could have been more diplomatic.”

  “That’s like saying perhaps Genghis Khan could be a tad ruthless in his drive to create an empire,” Mags interjected, and stood her ground when her mother whirled on her.

  “These injustices need to be addressed,” the older woman said coldly.

  “No one knows that better than I, Nancy,” she replied with equal chilliness.

  “Mother! Not Nancy, I’m your mother!”

  She shrugged and agreed in a tone that leaned to the left of agreeable, “No one knows that better than I, Mother. After all, it’s the reason you sent me away from home when I was thirteen—to have more time for your causes.”

  She saw her mother open her mouth and jumped in before Nancy could climb on her political high horse. “I was under the impression the reason they kidnapped you in the first place was because you kicked up a fuss against Munoz’s conscription of the neighborhood kids into his organization. I’m kind of surprised you weren’t murdered outright. No, no!” she hastened to add when she saw the look of horror on her mother’s face, as if she’d actually believed Mags would be okay with that. “I’m gratified beyond words that you weren’t hurt! I just meant that drug lords aren’t exactly known for their mercy.”

  “For reasons that nobody truly understands, Munoz’s mother decreed that Nancy was not to be harmed,” her father explained. “And since everyone’s terrified of Senora Munoz, Victor sent us to Juan Carlos, the cousin who manages his farm for him.”

  “So, I don’t get it. This cousin was holding you both prisoner, then he just suddenly let you go?”

  “You know your mother is constitutionally incapable of not stumping for socioeconomic reform, and as we said, she fomented one rebellion after another. The health check for hookers was apparently the last straw for Juan Carlos. He had a couple of his men drive us into the rain forest about an hour’s distance from the farm and they turned us loose without water, food or proper clothing.”

  A chill chased down Mags’s spine. “Therefore being able to tell Victor Munoz that while he hadn’t killed you as ordered, you had still somehow managed to escape. But that, sadly, you hadn’t taken anything with you to aid in your continued well-being, so your chances of survival were virtually nonexistent.”

  She couldn’t help her sense of pride when she looked at her parents. They’d definitely taken a beating, so were in less than tip-top condition. But for a man and woman in their late sixties who’d been in the Amazon without proper equipment and zero supplies, they were still much healthier than they likely had any right to be. Certainly more so, she’d wager, than Juan Carlos had anticipated when he’d tossed them out like a couple of unwanted mongrels. “How long since they dumped you in the rain forest?”

  “Two days, maybe three,” her mother said, still sounding stiff.

  “It was two, dear.” Brian’s voice came from directly overhead and Mags looked up to see her father had drifted across the clearing to stand next to her.

  Mags handed him the water bottle and rose to her feet. “Sip that slowly,” she instructed and, seeing that Finn was keeping an eye on him, she took the tube of cortisone cream over to her mother, whose insect bites appeared in most need of attention.

  For a while, as she gently treated the worst of them, she maintained her silence. Ultimately, however, she said, “I take it this Juan Carlos guy didn’t know you and Brian spent years ministering not far from this very area and actually know your way around it quite well.”

  She noticed how much less plump and pliable her mother’s skin was than it’d been the last time Mags had seen her. Observed as well that veins snaked beneath the thin flesh on the backs of Nancy’s spotted hands. These were the first signs of aging Mags had ever noticed in her, and something about viewing them now made her heart hurt.

  For a brief moment, she thought she felt her mother stroke her hair. Then Nancy made an un-Nancy-like rude noise, and she nearly snorted as well at how active her own imagination was.

  “He cares for and knows nothing beyond that godforsaken coca farm,” the older woman scoffed. “He is a city boy at heart. And since he wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance of surviving the rain forest without every amenity known to man at his disposal, he clearly believed the chances of old coots like your father and me were even bleaker.”

  Finn came over and squeezed some of the cortisone from Mags’s tube onto the back of his hand. “For your dad,” he said as he handed it back and flashed Nancy a small smile of approval. “Guess you proved him wrong, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, we did,” she said with grim satisfaction at the same time that Brian murmured, “Oh, she determined we’d do that within minutes of being pushed from the car onto an old defunct road in the rain forest.”

  She turned to him. “They tied you up like a roped heifer—you with your bad hip!—and just tossed you out like so much garbage!”

  “They did the same to you, dear.”

  “Indeed. But I don’t have a tricky sciatica.” She made an impatient erasing motion as if that were hardly the point, when patently it was. “We couldn’t let them get away with that, could we?”

  Mags was surprised at the depth of her fury. She had to unclench her teeth before she asked, “How did you untie yourselves?”

  “Fortunately, when they trussed our hands, they did so in front rather than behind us. They obviously didn’t expect us to get loose either way, so being senior citizens in this instance worked in our favor.”

  “The fact they weren’t particularly skilled at knots didn’t hurt, either,” Brian said.

  Nancy’s lips curved up in a slight smile.

  Mags concentrated on doctoring her mother’s bites while she wrestled her anger under control. “A couple of these are infected,” she observed with laudable briskness to disguise the emotions roiling inside her. “But most of them aren’t too bad.”

  “The infected ones are bites we got before we found the andiroba tree.”

  It took her a second to remember the significance of the andiroba. Then the bitter smell she’d caught on her father’s skin kicked up memories of her youth and her mother concocting remedies from the local flora. “You managed to make oil from the seeds?”

  Nancy nodded. “It’s supposed to ferment for a week or two but obviously we didn’t have that kind of time. Luckily, even fairly raw it was beneficial. As you can see, as an insect repellant it didn’t work as effectively as a properly made batch would have. But none of the bites we got while wearing it are infected.”

  She and Finn finished doctoring her parents and fetched warm tops and socks from their supplies for the older couple to put on. And not a moment too soon. They had barely finished donning the garments when the sun went down and the temperature dropped what felt like—and likely was—a good forty degrees.

  As Finn built a fire and cooked them dinner he asked Brian and Nancy whether they’d be able to give directions to the grow farm to the Santa Rosa authorities.

  “We can’t go to the police there!” Nancy said in alarm.

  “I know,” he agreed in his most soothing voice and Mags watched his deep tones calm them the same way they always did her. “Mags told me Munoz’s cousin is a high-ranking officer there. I was thinking more along the lines of the US consulate. Do you think you can remember well enough to make them a map?”

  Her parents claimed emphatically that they could, but as they both showed signs of nodding off during the meal, Finn declared tomorrow soon enough to pursue that avenue and ushered them into the tent. He was back out a moment later with a handful of items he’d fetched to set up a rudimentary bed for the two of them.

  As soon as they were settled, he wrapped her in his arms. “You okay?”

  She nodde
d, although she wasn’t sure she truly was. “We dodged a bullet having them thrown out in the wild,” she admitted. “But I’m furious over the way they were treated.” She hesitated, then admitted, “At the same time—and I know this is juvenile and petty beyond belief—I’m struggling with my same old anger at them. And feeling guilty about putting you in danger. God.” She rubbed at her temples. “My thoughts keep twisting in so many different directions my head feels like it’s about to explode.”

  “Hey, don’t waste your guilt on me,” he said and dug his strong fingers and thumbs into the knots in her neck and shoulders, an action that probably did more to alleviate her headache than the two pain relievers she’d taken before crawling into their makeshift bed. “I’ve had fun.”

  “Oh, God, really? I thought it was only me! I kind of enjoyed the adrenaline rush of it all. I’ve been feeling guilty about that, too.”

  “You’d make a good Catholic girl with all that guilt,” he said with a grin.

  “You better hope my mother didn’t hear you say that,” she muttered. But she realized, as Finn drifted off, that he’d made her feel less blameworthy.

  She still didn’t sleep for beans. She was cold everywhere Finn’s body heat didn’t reach, and it was far less comfortable lying with only their dirty laundry between them and the ground than she’d grown accustomed to in his snug little tent.

  The physical discomforts, however, she could deal with. It was her folks’ unexpected appearance that had her brain spinning with what-ifs, an anger she knew she had to grow up and get beyond, and relief and regrets that intertwined in one long, no-resolution loop after another.

  She stumbled out of her nest at dawn and, to the accompaniment of birds and monkeys screeching overhead, trotted knock-kneed a short way down the path until she selected an out-of-the-way, hopefully critter-free tree to do her business behind. Black beetles the size of her palm lumbered along the forest floor as she squatted, and she engaged a bright green frog with red eyes and a blue-and-white striped stomach in a stare-down.

  When she got back to camp, she was a bit disappointed to find everyone else already up. She wouldn’t have minded a few more minutes’ solitude to get her Zen on.

  Nancy and Brian looked stronger this morning and after discussing strategy over breakfast they broke camp and started back in the direction she and Finn had come from yesterday. Her parents were still recovering from their stint in the rain forest without proper gear and nutrition, however, so despite earlier appearances the going was a good deal slower. Mags spent part of it wondering how far the train she and Finn had come in on went on its return trip. She hadn’t paid attention to its originating city when they were looking into tickets to take them toward the Amazon.

  With luck, perhaps it would take them a good part of the way toward Santa Rosa.

  Four days later

  Around 10:00 p.m.

  MAGS WAS FLATTENED by exhaustion by the time Finn parked the car that they’d rented in La Plata near the front of their capital-city hotel. She knew it, in turn, was near the American embassy where they had an appointment with the ambassador late the following morning. At the moment, however, she didn’t really care.

  All she wanted when she climbed from the automobile was to go up to her room and sleep for a week. Since her reunion with her parents she hadn’t managed more than a catnap here or there. So if she’d been rather uncommunicative during their trip back to Santa Rosa—well, it was better to say too little than too much. That was the only way she knew to avoid torching the few tenuous bridges she still shared with Brian and Nancy. Her temper was far too close to the surface, lurking like a troll beneath one of those bridges just waiting for someone to take a single unwary misstep.

  On autopilot, she followed her folks and Finn into the hotel. It was much larger and worlds grander than any other place they’d stayed on this journey. Her eyes kept drifting closed as they waited in a short line to check in. Giving in to the urge, she leaned against Finn and let her eyelids fall shut the instant she felt his arm slide around her.

  They were next in line when she heard Nancy say in her you-will-obey voice, “I bit my tongue and said nothing when you shared a room with my daughter in that small-town inn on our way up here—even when I failed to see why she couldn’t share a room with me, and you with Brian. But now that we’re in a big-city hotel with ample vacancies, I assume you will get Magdalene her own room, yes?”

  “No,” Finn said and stepped up when the clerk signaled. Hearing her mother sputter, Mags cracked a heavy-lidded eye open just enough to see where he was navigating them.

  And smiled to herself.

  Moments later Finn gave her folks their room card and ushered all of them onto an elevator across the lobby. Outside the doors to their across-the-hall rooms moments later, he said to her parents, “Get a good night’s sleep and meet us in the lobby at eight. We’ll get breakfast, then buy some clothes to wear to the embassy appointment.”

  “We don’t need fancy clothing to be credible!” Nancy protested.

  “We need to be taken seriously so we can shut that grow farm down, and looking like a bunch of refugees won’t aid in that. We’re getting some decent clothing. Deal with it.” He opened the door to their room. “Come on, darlin’. Let’s get you to bed.”

  “’Kay.” Mags yawned and fought to pry her eyes open once again. “Good night, Nancy,” she murmured. “Night, Daddy.” She staggered into the room ahead of Finn, barely making it through the door before her grip on her tote went lax and her big purse tumbled to the floor. Stumbling around it, she navigated past a desk and a chair toward the most luxurious-looking bed she’d seen in ages.

  The last thing she remembered was falling face-first on top of it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  IN A NEARBY café the following morning, over café con leche, eggs and sweet croissant-type pastries called medialunas, Finn spent most of breakfast trying to strategize with Mags and her folks about their upcoming meeting. It was like herding cats.

  It took no time at all for him to realize that, of the four of them, he was the only one with real business sense. Mags had that artist’s mind-set that made her so good at spontaneous disguises and role-playing. But when it came to the type of protocol they’d likely be smart to follow at their upcoming meeting, she kept losing focus, most of her attention spent on sneaking peeks at her mother while pretending she was above that sort of thing. Brian’s attention span was equally brief and Nancy kept wanting to sidetrack everyone with the social injustices she felt should be included in the discussion with the ambassador.

  “No,” he finally said flatly, the third time she tried to take them in that direction. “Today is about telling how you were kidnapped and held, how Mags twice escaped an attempted kidnapping, and how she and I were repeatedly threatened by armed men. It’s about pointing the authorities to the grow farm—and nothing else.” He leveled her with a stern look.

  Then blinked. Holy shit. You channeling Ma now? That was kind of embarrassing.

  Still, if it was what it took to make the Delucas see they might only have a finite number of minutes to state their case and they damn well better make the most of them if they wanted to see Munoz put out of business, so be it. They had a good map, made by all of them first thing this morning. The senior Delucas had given them detailed directions, he’d figured them to scale and Mags had drawn it. The more facts they had at their fingertips to help the authorities see ways in which they could facilitate their end of the operation, the better.

  But that meant staying on track and relating their experiences briefly and concisely, not wandering off on unrelated tangents.

  He would give them props for the way all three were briskly respectful of each other. Hell, if anything they were too respectful, working overtime to ignore their checkered family relationship. As if there really weren’t a two-ton elephant in the room.

  Until, in the midst of another rehearsal he’d forced upon them, Mags’s m
om leaned into the table. She pinned an uncompromising gaze on her daughter, who sat across from her, desultorily pushing food around her plate with her fork, and suddenly turned things very personal, indeed. “Why did you call me Nancy when you said good-night last night but called your father Daddy?”

  Finally! Finn felt like pumping a fist in the air. He’d been watching the Delucas’ interaction with Magdalene ever since they’d stumbled into camp five days ago. Brian was pretty much an open book. The man was good-natured, easygoing and slightly vague, and it was plain to see he was perfectly happy letting his wife rule the roost. Unlike Nancy, however, he had no problem demonstrating his love for Magdalene. Given the slightest opportunity, he touched and hugged her. And he kissed her every chance he got. On her forehead, or her cheek or her temples. Or on—Finn’s personal favorite—the little dent in her chin.

  Nancy did none of those things. But even as Finn winced to watch her shoot herself in the foot time and again by letting all that stiff-necked pride get in her way—not hard to see from whom Mags inherited hers—he recognized the longing with which she looked at her daughter whenever Mags’s attention was elsewhere. He saw the covert touches that skimmed Magdalene’s hair or brushed against a fold of her clothing.

  And he thought it was about time she actually said something.

  Mags’s chin shot up. “Maybe I call him Daddy because I know it was your idea to exile me when I was just a kid.”

  “Oh, no, sweetheart,” her father protested, but Nancy reached for his hand and gave it a squeeze. He fell silent.

  He did not, however, look happy about it.

  “She’s right, dear,” she admitted. “That was my idea.”

  Brian scooted his chair a little closer to his wife’s and said, “But not for the reasons she believes. And at the time, I totally agreed.”

  “What?” Mags looked as though he’d just kicked her kitten. “No.” Then her eyes hardened. “So tell me, for what other reason was I supposed to believe I’d been banished from my home?” she demanded. “You just wanted more time to improve the lives of other people’s kids.”