Redemption's Warrior (15 page)

It’s shattering to realize he was so wrapped up in his feelings for Juanita he did not translated, decipher, the danger to him, to her and their future.
If I’d paid better attention I could have warned them. But who would listen to my
gringo
warning?
Juanita has a six to seven hour trip ahead in the roughest seas of her life. He tries reassuring himself.
The odds are this storm will head north.

But he can feel nothing but a terrible dread. The oppressive darkness has begun to leak fat raindrops. By the time he arrives at his chicken coop it’s raining sideways. The top half of a palm tree breaks loose from above crashing into the coop. Chickens flapping short wings rush into surrounding brush. “Don’t go far,” he yells to the departing chickens. “I’ll find you after the storm.”

Christopher sprints to his quarters. Adrenalin fuels his muscles masking the pain in his ankle. Checo and
Ave Bonita
stand at the entrance. Christopher yells, “Wait for me. I have an idea.”

Gathering clothes, shoes and bedding he wraps them in a tarp he’d stashed under his mattress. The green feather he’d saved inside a shoe. A tree falls. Ripping through the roof and filling the room with water and wind. He sprints for the door. Checo stuffs
Ave Bonita
under his shirt. Christopher yells, “Follow me.”

As they run Christopher prays for Juanita. He prays in his father’s catholic voice and his mother’s Hebrew voice. The prayers run together. A terrible ripping in his gut warns him,
Juanita in danger
.

• • •

“Juanita
, aqui  pronto, pronto
,” the Captain calls. Juanita staggers to join her father in the tight cabin. From the locker below the console he pulls out a life jacket. “Put this on!” he insists.

Never taking her eyes from his face she slips into the vest. In the surging, foaming sea their boat is a mere speck. Pushed from behind in mounting winds the boat pitches and heaves, cresting waves over fifteen feet high.

Terribly sea sick the
putas
cling together on the deck. They are crying with terror and misery. Juanita instructed them to tie onto the boat railing. Cursing her they ignored the instructions. Instead they cling helplessly to each other.

Juanita pulls the inflatable life boat from the deck locker, it whips away torn out of her hands. She groans and stumbles back to the cabin, her father’s face stark with desolation. “This is a devil storm
meja
. It comes from the wrong direction.”

Taking her father’s rough and calloused hands in her own Juanita says, “Go back Papa. Go back.”

Shaking his head the Captain replies, “The boat will swamp if I turn it around. We must pray the storm tracks north… as they always do.” He whispers.

Instead, storm swells rise higher. The boat surfs the downward side of a twenty foot wave, Juanita thrown around the cabin. Hitting the trough, water pours in over the stern. The boat pumps cannot keep up. The women scream. Juanita cannot hear them but shadowed in rain their faces, mouths wide and distorted, are gruesome snapshots.

Yelling to be heard over the storm she tells her father, “I tried to get them to tie down on the boat railing.”

Her father grinds his teeth in frustration. His only daughter, his livelihood and his boat are in mortal danger.

• • •

Like a punch in the gut, bending him in half, Christopher knows Juanita is in dire trouble. His thoughts unwelcome visitors crash through his defenses.
She will not escape this monster. This storm will eat everything in its path. It moves east toward the mainland not north and out to sea.

Pausing to yell in Checo’s ear, “We’ll go to the church. The walls are thick.”

The small chapel located just outside the closed gates of town. Checo grabs his upper arm pulling him. “Let’s go!” he shouts.

With every thundering step Christopher prays,
help her lord. Help her
. It’s both a demand and a petition.

Hurricane Olivia is building in intensity. The gusts toss Christopher and Checo like rag dolls. Driving rain obscures their vision. A full grown tree including the roots flies by them like a missile. At last they stumble into the chapel.

• • •

A thirty foot wall of water dead ahead and Juanita’s hand tightens around her rosary. She shakes with fear. Slate grey mountains of water surround the boat.
How will this boat climb such a wall of water?

Her rosary and its smooth round beads filled with Christopher’s love steady her. She slips past her panic until the diesel engine stalls. The fishing boat slides back. It’s unable to climb the towering wall of water.

Sliding into certain doom, a gust lifts the boat. A stay of execution, the Captain grinds his teeth. Stepping around Juanita he slides her in between his arms and the wheel.  Like a tiny toy, the storm gods deposit the boat on the wave’s crest.

The boat freezes at the apex, poised at the pinnacle, balancing as if on a teeter-totter. Inevitably the bow plunges. The vessel buries into the valley of grey foam below. The entire ship is immersed under water.

Clinging to each other for dear life, the
putas
are washed away when the vessel pops to the surface. Horrified, Juanita slaps her hand over her mouth.

Miraculously the engine putters to life. Juanita and her father make the sign of the cross over their hearts. They hug tightly and continue to fight the wheel. A calm in the howling wind has them looking at each other in confusion. One, two, three breaths of quiet pass. As realization dawns, terror replaces their bewilderment. A single ray of sunlight breaks over the boat exploding in prisms and rainbows of color. Open flat seas sparkle for a quarter mile ahead. Juanita shudders,
did God spare us? Are we in the eye of the storm
?

• • •

In the church Christopher huddles against the thick adobe wall. The chapel nestled in a small gorge. Surrounded by protective rocks it offers literal sanctuary. Adobe walls two feet thick buffer and muffle the storm. They keep the worst of the dangers at bay. Christopher is shaking with shock. He leans against the wall to subdue the tremors.

Outside the thunder of poorly constructed island structures thrown together in mindless abandon is the grotesque dance of Hurricane Olivia. An explosion of glass flies into the church. A palm tree, transformed by the storm into a torpedo, shatters the church’s most prized possession. The stained glass window depicting the last supper lies in fragments littered across the stone floor. The window and its beauty had survived countless other storms. It was a beacon of spiritual hope in the desolate surroundings of prison life.

A hush fills the church. Through the broken window shines a patch of sunlight. Gone is the howling wind and clatter of building torn apart flying in multiple directions.
Is the eye of the hurricane passing over us?

Wrapped in his blanket and tarp, he slides down the wall and prays for Juanita’s safety. Shaking and rattling with fatigue Christopher stares out the open window. Fighting fatigue, against his will he falls into a half-waking consciousness. Through the open window he can see Juanita standing at the helm of the boat. He sighs,
in the arms of her father.

At first the sea is quiet in his vision. He bows his head in relief. Juanita is safe. She is beyond the dangers of the storm. On the island, once beyond the eye the hurricane will still use trees as torpedoes. A supernatural streak of sunlight breaks across the bow of her father’s boat. Cascading into prisms, sunlight surrounds the vessel. Waterfalls of brilliant color are so bright they make his eyes tear. The flat sea glistens with sunshine. He whispers, “Yes! She is safe.” Christopher exhales.
All is well
.

Juanita lifts her eyes.

Somehow she can see him. She is looking directly at him. How they can see each other he cannot explain. Yet they are connected. In Juanita’s eyes he sees the reflection of her white swan. Behind her, within her, the swan reaches out its fullest wing span.

A grey wall of water fifty feet high roars toward the boat. Hanging his head Christopher knows
there will be no escape for Juanita or her father
.

He watches, as he bi-locates; his body in the church, his spirit with Juanita. He hears a whisper,
when two hearts, in inner most heart, are joined as one
. “Juanita!”

Condensed into a spark of eternity, Juanita’s arms are the outstretched wings of her swan. The giant bird lifts. Her powerful wings lifting higher and higher until she is immersed in sunlight and prisms of color refracted and broken.

The fishing boat disappears into the maw of the wave. Boards splinter, flying in different directions. Christopher falls. He falls long corridors filled with light. He falls past awareness, lands crashing into unconsciousness, safe from the storm and its tragedies.

H
urricane Olivia has departed
Islas Tres Marias
leaving behind a grey and churning sea filled with debris. Christopher thinks
half the island is in the ocean
. Countless trees, palms and brush are stripped bare and broken. Housing and roofing material scattered throughout the island. The dock half its original size; a miniature version, its pieces litter the shore. The guard’s launch still tethered, partially submerged in the sea, lying on its side. The storage shed has vanished.

Another punch to the gut;
Juanita, she is beyond mortal problems
. Christopher’s dream was more vivid than life.  It revealed her transformation.
Did she change from woman to swan
? A swan larger than life, filled with supernatural power.
Had the swan’s strength lifted Juanita toward the sky? Are the swan and Juanita one
? He cannot understand the strange merging of Juanita into the swan and the swan’s power.
Is the swan an angel
?

He sits down on a piece of drift wood, his head in his hands. He’s unaware of tears sliding down his face.
What happened to Juanita
? He shakes his head,
Juanita, dead. I’m alone on
La Luna.

Feeling like a zombie Christopher inches his way through the rubble with all his worldly belongings under one arm. Heading to the cliff, along the shore, where his money is hidden. The bluff where he and Juanita spent their time has dramatically eroded and large parts of the face have fallen away. Gaping holes redefine the silhouette and surface.

The climb slippery, shifting terrain slows his progress. Christopher doesn’t care about the dangers of mud slides,
Juanita is gone
. Pulling himself up the hill, he looks for his marker. The small opening marked by a stick is full of mud. His heart sinks. He no longer recognizes the topography. Heedless of dangers Christopher drives his fist into a tight space. Clinging to the side of the cliff, essentially a mud wall, he uses every fiber of his strength to stay vertical. He presses his hand inside the wet mud up to his armpit and miraculously he feels the jars.

“Yes!” The interior cavity holds three pickle jars of money.
Safe
. For the moment enough to know he still has his
dinero
. They are in-tact along with the bottle of champagne. He checks again.
One, then two and yes, three jars
; his life savings survived the hurricane.
Thank you
.

Reorganizing the jars to the new surface of the tiny cavern takes all his muscle. Once he’s finished he returns to join Checo. Together they face the damages in the wake of Hurricane Olivia. The gates of the town remain securely lock. No one has ventured out to help or supervise the inmates.

Reconstruction of the island is daunting. Securing a food supply and water is the first priority. “Has the storm damaged access to the island springs?” This is the first question Christopher asks Checo.

Checo answers, “The town remains closed off. Their resources are available only to administration and town residents. We do or die and fend for ourselves.” Christopher watches Checo’s jaguar pace.
Ave Bonita
standing on the bare branch of a fallen tree squawking and ruffled.

Checo says “Fights already break out. Without food, water and the organization we can expect violence.”

At an island meeting Checo emerges as the alpha leader. He convinces the prison factions to work together under his organization. Leaving the meeting after each group is assigned a duty Christopher says “You are a charismatic leader.”

Checo shrugs off Christopher’s comment. “Hey
gringo
, in case you haven’t noticed these men are a bunch of criminals. Without organization they’ll kill each other and maybe you and me.”

“They could escape. Build a raft and drift out to sea.”

Checo laughs, “You’ve forgotten
amigo
the currents pull deep in the Pacific. They would be lost at sea.”

Christopher shrugs. Checo slaps him on the shoulder, “Remind me of the organization plan you designed for our crew.”

Months ago Christopher had suggested to Checo he organize their crew like a
futbol
team. Some would specialize in repair. Others cleaned and serviced machinery. Christopher even trained a few men in electrical protocol. As a boy wanting to earn money Christopher apprenticed to one of his father’s brothers, an electrician. He ran for equipment, handed tools called for, held ladders steady. At first he wasn’t allowed to do much. But he’d watched and learned and saved his uncle time and hundreds of extra steps. Eventually his uncle allowed him to wire lights, install circuit breakers, and repair wiring. He taught a handful of me the protocols beginning with “turn off the power!”

The reorganization in their crew significantly reduced mindless errors and poor performance. Christopher’s goal was also achieved. The observant eyes of
El Jefe
, no longer fall on Checo’s maintenance crew.

Aided by Christopher’s suggestions Checo applies the same strategy to ordering crews responsible for tasks post Hurricane Olivia. Over the next days every group Checo sends out has a purpose and mission. Fresh water retrieved from indigenous springs, food, undamaged by rain or sea water collected and stored.  Checo sends one squad fishing. Another squad collects undamaged fruit. Hunting parties look for wild pig, chickens. They achieve a surprising albeit modest success.