Lamia (4 page)

I nodded and she scurried away from me in the early morning light.
  Eventually she became a shadow as she moved through the trees.  She was so close to the men that I felt sure they would see her.  Then she grabbed one of their packs and ran away, not bothering to move silently any longer.  The men shouted and all four of them began to follow her.  This was my chance.  I picked up the bags and ran to the rocks as fast as I could, following the ledge and eventually hauling myself into a small cave, barely big enough for two people with packs.  I waited for what seemed like hours before Maria’s face popped up in front of me, making me jump and hit my head painfully against the
roof of the
cave.

“Here take these,” she said as she handed me three leaves that were almost
as
tall
as she was.

I took the leaves with one hand while rubbing my head with the other.  Maria jumped up beside me, laying flat and backed into the narrow part of the cave.
  Then her bottom half disappeared and I realised that she was standing in a small vertical
shaft
.

“Follow me,” she said as she vanished into the
rocks
.

I backed up, dragging the packs and the leaves with me.  My legs found the
shaft
and Maria guided me into a small but comfortable cave.  It was dark but after a time we could just about see each other.

“Who were those men?”

“There’s no time now, I’ll explain later,” she said as she threaded one of the leaves down the back of her shirt and into her jeans.

She re-tightened her belt to secure it and used a piece of string to tie together the other two leaves.

“
I flung their pack from some rocks, but it won’t take them long to retrieve it.  I’m going to leave you here and run to the village.  We’re now in part of a lava tube which is a short cut down the mountain.  The men will have to go round some of the rocks as there are sheer drops.  I can run down the lava tube in a couple of hours but it will take them the rest of the day.”

The cave was dark but I could not even see the tube.  I wondered how she would navigate it in total darkness.  She picked up a water bottle and took a long drink.
  The leaf protruding from her shirt bent forward over her head and I noticed she had removed a rope from her pack and put it on like a
back-
pack, further se
curing the leaf against her
.

“What are the leaves for?”

“They help me to see in the dark, like a cat’s whiskers.  I know this tube reasonably well.  It snakes around a bit but most of it is flat and wide.  There are a couple of places where the ceiling drops quite suddenly and a few places where it narrows, but I can run down most of it.”

I do not know if I was more worried about Maria running in the dark tunnel, or the fact that she was going to leave me here alone.

“If the men find the entrance, should I follow you down the tunnel?”

“They won’t find it, most of the locals don’t even know it exists and the ones that do won’t use it.”

“Why not?”

“They are outside people and have no need to go underground.  Besides, there’s a big drop at the other end, which of course means that there are no creatures in it.  I’ve got to go now.  You’ve got plenty of food and water so just relax and I’ll come back for you.”

“How long will you be?”

“Oh I should be back before nightfall, but if not, I’ll come and get you some time tomorrow.  Don’t worry, you’ll be quite safe in here
.”

“I don’t suppose I could come with you, could I?”

She laughed, put a hand on my shoulder and then turned and jogged out of sight.

It astonished me just how quickly the rocks sucked away the sound, leaving me with a silent ringing in my ears.  I settled down and tried to relax but the silence disturbed me.  Eventually I drifted off into nightmarish dreams from which I was rarely fully detached.  I could not stand the darkness any longer and decided it would now be safe to at least look out from the cave.  I wriggled t
hrough
into the
outer cave and squinted in the light of the setting sun.  I had been in the cave all day and now I quite desperately needed to relieve myself.  I managed to hang on until the sun had dropped over the horizon before venturing out into the jungle.

It wa
s a thrilling feeling
being alone in the Andean rainforest.  I felt freer than I had ever felt
and the trees and the terrain had become familiar to me over the previous two days.
  The light was fading, I was miles from anywhere and yet I still sought out the most secluded bush to duck behind.

When I had finished, I thought it would be a waste not to take advantage and explore a little of my immediate surroundings.  I walked up an embankment and came to an overhanging rock.  I could see out over miles of forest and it was from here that I watched the light fade and the clouds melt into the early evening grey of the sky.  One thing that I forgot was that although the sky still gave enough light to the surrounding rocks, the jungle was a very much darker place.

By the time I had decided to return
to the cave, the forest looked
completely different.  Gone were the bright colours of the flowers; gone were the many shades of greens and browns from the leaves
and bark
.  Now there were just dark shapes hiding, menacing, knowing that I was far from my comfort zone.  The noises of the night creatures had begun, rustling through leaves, screeching through trees
, snuffling through the undergrowth.  My body was rigid, frightened to move in case I disturbed one of these creatures.  Eventually logic told me that I could not remain there all night and I began to creep through the chilly night air, towards where I thought the cave was.

My mind was making animals out of every dark shape and I crept past each one in case it was not a tree or a bush.
  Something grabbed my leg and bit me.  I began to run, only to be brought down by my assailant.  In panic I lashed out and then grabbed at it, finding that it was simply a branch with a sharp end that had dug into my leg.  I untangled myself but by this time I had lost all sense of direction.  I stumbled on in the dark before tripping over a boulder and landing in some soft vegetation.  Something small struggled from under me, squealing to be free.  I panicked and I jumped up and ran as fast as I could before finally hitting a rock rather painfully.  I raised my hands and felt the ledge.  Delighted by my good fortune I followed the ledge to the cave, hauled myself up, scrambled head first down the
shaft
and grabbed hold of the familiar blankets. 
I curled up in a ball, covering myself head and all.  There I stayed until morning.

CHAPTER 3

It was dark and silent when I awoke.
  It took me a moment to work out where I was but then the memories of the previous night came flooding back.
  I closed my eyes again in the vain hope that it would all go away, but it was not to be.  I thought it must be early as it was still quite dark and I did not want to venture out again until everything was in plain sight.

Taking a long drink, I thought that I should at least see how light it
really
was as I would need to relieve myself again.  I pulled myself up the shaft and crawled to the edge of the cave.  The sunlight was blinding, reflecting all the colours of the forest and
returning my world to the relative safety of the daytime.  It must have been the darkness of the cave
that made me sleep in so long because the sun was now quite high in the sky.
  Worried that the men might return I quickly ducked out behind a tree, then straight back to the cave.  It is easy in a quiet dark place to drift off into sleep, and this is what I did until I heard my name being called.

Maria, her father and three of the villagers had come to take back the body for a Christian burial, and of course to rescue me.  They covered the body, much to my relief, before placing it on a stretcher
and taking it in turns to help carry it.

Back in the village there was much clearing up to do.  The men had ransacked the houses and the
medical
centre but Maria’s early warnings made certain that the village was empty of both people and valuables.

Maria chatted away in Spanish to the villagers and I took the opportunity to ask John about what had happened to the man.

“Guardianes,” he replied.  “They are people who work for the drug barons.  They are paid to get people to grow coca instead of the more lucrative coffee.  The US has given subsidies to the coffee industry, to try to stop the flow of cocaine.  If a farmer grows coca and the government finds the field they will spray it and destroy the crop.  The farmers can’t afford to
lose a crop, so they grow coffee.”

“They killed a man just for growing coffee?”

“No, they killed him as a warning to other coffee growers in the area.  They can’t possibly get around even a quarter of the farms and they are paid as long as the yield is high.  Therefore they employ fear tactics to keep the people in line.”

“But there were terrible wounds on his body.”

“Yes, he was beaten with a palillo dentado
; literally a toothed stick.  They split a length of bamboo, hollow it out and sharpen the edges.  Then they place the segments around another piece of bamboo and whip them at one end.  They then exert pressure on the segments to make them bow in the middle and whip the other end.  When the victim is struck, the open parts spring shut.  The result is a stick that will bite out chunks as well as causing deep bruising.
  You’ve seen the result.”

“Will his family be able to grow a crop without him?”

“Who knows?  He might not
even
have been a farmer; just some unlucky man they came across and decided to make an example of.”

I was shocked by the lengths to which people would go to earn more money.  Human life was not worth a thing.

Over the months to come I came across other examples of the Guardianes work, though neve
r as bad as the first one.  The victims
would be treated in the
medical
centre and Maria would once again become a different person who could cope with every emergency.

I learnt much from day-long forays into the forest with Maria.
  I also learnt a little about local medicine from helping her in the
medical
centre.  The thing I failed to learn was how to get close to her.  There never seemed to be the opportunity for me to suggest taking our relationship a step further than simple friendship.  Patricia told me that Maria went to an all-girl school and that she and john were concerned that she did not have any male friends her own age.

“She is so shy,” she said.  “I often worry about how she would cope out in the real world.”

“She does seem to be able to handle any situation,” I said.

“Oh yes, she’s the one to have with you in a crisis!  It’s just her social developmen
t that worries me.  I was hoping that perhaps you could bring her out of herself.  You’re more her age group and you speak the same language.”

It seemed to me that I was being given permission to date Maria. 
If I were to get close to
her
, I
would
ha
ve to make my move quickly as i
t was only a few week
s before I was due to go home.

It was not really true to say that Maria and I spoke the same language.  She would find it difficult to survive in my world, but I would find it impossible to survive in hers.  She could go from little girl to survival expert able to handle any situation and back to shy little girl, in one day.
  I tried to imagine those qualities in my world. 
Loving mother getting the children ready for school, changes to a tenacious stock broker making a killing, then back to loving wife cooking hubby’s dinner.  Thinking about it that way, she really was
the perfect woman!
  I vowed that I would make my move the following morning.