The Jaguar (20 page)

Hood sat dutifully on the toilet beside the suitcase, dinner plate on his knees, listening to the rain lash the walls and thinking of Beth Petty back in Buenavista.

After an unusually violent flurry of rain and wind, he rose and went into the room and stared through a window to the street. The floodwater was almost to the tops of the ground-level doorways now, its ownership of Tuxpan nearly complete.

An hour before sunset the room shook violently, then pitched toward the flooded street. It felt to Hood as if one corner of the foundation had been pulled away. He lost his balance and fell to one knee. Several of the others fell fully and hard, and the children yelped out, terrified. There was a great grinding roar from below, then the windows burst. Hood knew they were going over and braced himself. A long moment passed. Then, as if saved by invisible brakes, the Floridita
came to a shuddering stop and now hung precariously in midair over the street. Hood and everyone else in the crowded room instinctively flattened themselves to the floor but gravity pulled them forward toward the gaping glass-toothed window openings and the raging brown torrent below. He crawled back into the bathroom and found the suitcase slid nearly to the downside wall, outstretched on its handcuff chain. Luna crawled in too and saw the luggage and they gave each other wordless looks and Hood felt the building start to fall again.

He climbed onto the suitcase and reached his arms around it and held on tight. Again he heard the great shear of the foundation parting and again the room hurtled downward. But the Floridita fell faster this time, and it was still accelerating as it whooshed into the floodwaters below, then burst apart like a tower of dominos.

Hood landed hard in the water and held fast to the money. He felt the water pipe break free. He took a deep breath as the current took him down. He had ridden bodyboards in the Pacific and now he tried to use the same balance to control the suitcase but he was rolling over and over in the current and knew his breath would not last long. He grabbed a handle and dropped through the torrent to the street and felt his feet touch bottom then lift off, and when they hit bottom again he sprang skyward and at the apex of his feeble jump managed to suck in one blessed lungful of air.

Nearer the surface the nylon suitcase established buoyancy. Hood held on with one hand and with the other he pulled himself toward an orange tree gliding past and when he grabbed a branch it lifted and pulled him and the suitcase along, floating not sinking. He breathed hard and looked futilely for Luna. Instead he saw one of the children from the Floridita down current, bashing valiantly to stay afloat and crying, and Hood, kicking for all he was worth, was able to steer his barge so the boy could take the nearest handle. The suitcase with its plastic-wrapped million in cash and the orange tree were lifesavers as
Hood and the boy careened down the middle of the flooded street, past the last buildings to where the town ended, then swiftly accelerating straight and deep into the raging Tuxpan River.

They raced. Far ahead through the gray evening and the pelting rain loomed the Navy frigates and the Pemex tankers and the barges and beyond them rose the towers of the oil platforms. From across the suitcase the boy looked at Hood in wordless terror. Hood could see a black dog paddling amidst the logs and brush and suddenly they were among hundreds of rose bushes in blooms of many colors, all in identical black plastic pots, dipping and bobbing wildly, the flowers bowed but stubbornly undestroyed.

Hood felt their slow clockwise pivot as they raced mid-river. He tried to kick the crude barge toward the nearest shore but he sensed no influence over their speed or bearing.

—Are we going to die?

—We will live.

—How?

—We’re not ready to die.

—Who will save us?

—Whatever you believe in will save you.

—When?

—We’ll reach the harbor soon. The water will be slower and we will swim to shore.

—I don’t like the dark.

—It’s not dark yet, but some of the lights in the harbor are on. See.

—As long as I see lights I can live.

—Good, then. Watch the lights.

—There are sharks in the harbor and sometimes crocodiles but I can live.

—Done deal. I’m Charlie.

—I’m Juan.

T
HE RAIN SLOWED AND THE
wind slackened and the evening light turned to pewter. Hood felt suddenly cold and very sleepy. He laid his head over on one shoulder and looked out at the Navy ships and the lights of the oil platforms just beyond the harbor. He could still feel the speed of his makeshift barge but it seemed less now and its rotation was slower too as the Tuxpan River widened into harbor. Hood roused himself and tried to kick them to the port shore, where he could see the smattering of lights and the Navy ships and oil rigs grown taller, looming in the gray sky. The boy was quick to join him, holding the suitcase handle with just one hand and trailing his legs out and kicking steadily.

After tiring minutes of this Hood looked ahead again to judge their progress and saw that they were farther from the port shore than ever and drifting to starboard.

—We can’t fight the current.

—Are we going to die?

—Let’s go with the river. Let it save us.

—That is the wild side not the safe side. There is only the lighthouse and swamps and that is all.

—It’s where the river wants to take us.

—I’m going to pray again.

They surrendered to the river and it took them toward the starboard
shore. Hood floated and watched. Ivana had saturated the world and now the evening cool condensed the moisture into fog. Through this quiet silver blanket drifted the river and its random cargo—not far from him, Hood could see a Ford coupe, a lifeless horse, a tangle of resin chairs apparently lashed together so they couldn’t blow away, a wooden picnic table, a freezer with a big Fanta advertisement on it, a cable spool, the roof of a
palapa
, a gate made of palm fronds, hundreds of plastic bottles.

Hood heard Juan’s teeth chattering, but the boy said nothing. Hood kicked easily with the current and soon he could see the low round tree line of the jungle. He pointed the orange tree toward the shore. Voices carried across the river from the port side, a woman crying and men shouting, but here on the wild shore was only silence. He could still see the frigates and the tankers and the barges and Hood thought he saw people gathered on them but wasn’t sure. A flare wobbled into the sky and opened into a dome of bright white light.

—Are they looking for us?

—They are signaling us.

—It’s not dark yet. They should save the flares. Where are my mother and father?

—I don’t know.

—Why are we alone? There were many people in your hotel room.

It dawned on Hood that Ivana might have drowned every last one of them.

—We’re safe now. The shore is close. We can walk back to town if there’s a trail.

The current eased them nearly to shore and Hood kicked to make landfall. His teeth were chattering too and he felt exhaustion coming over him. The wind kicked up in a furious gust and suddenly the rain was blasting down again. Juan looked at Hood with a woebegone
expression, but he said nothing. They drifted for what seemed like hours though Hood’s wristwatch proved him wrong. The hurricane weakened and raged, then weakened.

At evening’s end and without warning, a branch of the river not visible until now drew them into the jungle. They drifted down the middle of the channel with the mangrove banks on either side. The roots had collected hundreds of plastic bottles that undulated and gleamed dully in the failing light. There were watermelons and pineapples and mangos bobbing. A fat snake pushed along the edge of the mangroves, head high, then joined the roots and vanished.

They floated into a small sheltered bay. Hood felt the eddy slowly spin them toward a sandy beach. The bay and beach were littered with flotsam and jetsam of every kind, from driftwood to furniture to a Volkswagen van that had floated up against the mangroves. Hood saw that dozens of the battered roses were bobbing just offshore or had washed up on the beach. The beach was strewn with logs apparently loosed from an upstream lumber mill. The black dog they had seen was watching them from atop a big shit-stained rock that rose abruptly from the sand.

Then Hood felt the river bottom and he pushed the barge onto the shore. He climbed onto dry land without letting go of the suitcase, then he and the boy dragged the bag onto the sand.

—Do you have your clothes in this?

—Clothes and other things.

—Things that float.

—Thank you for saving my life.

—Thank you for saving mine.

Hood and Juan pulled the suitcase a few yards farther up the beach and lay back on either side of it. For a long while they were silent. Another flare lit the darkening sky to the north. Hood sat up and looked around for a road or trail leading back to Tuxpan, but
saw neither. He guessed they were three miles away, maybe four. The dog barked at them once and Hood wondered why it didn’t just climb down from the rock and come over. He whistled and the dog stood and wagged its tail and barked again but didn’t come down.

Darkness closed and Hood looked at the logs scattered on the beach. They were long, straight and thick, stripped of branches, ready to be milled. Thirty of them, maybe forty. Valuable, thought Hood.

Then one of them opened its very long mouth and Hood saw the pale inside of it and the long teeth, and he heard the wheeze of a yawn and the hollow knock of the jaws closing.

Juan wheeled at the sound and the dog barked.

—Crocodile, he whispered.

—More than one, Hood whispered back.

—They are everywhere.

—The reserve experts told me they don’t eat people regularly.

—I heard of a boy who was eaten. I saw one eat a pig. They shake the animal to pieces and then they eat the pieces. These are the very big ones from the reserve. What do we do?

—Let’s sit still and think.

Hood watched another of the crocs lurch forward, then stop and apparently fall back asleep. He heard a rippling in the water and when he turned he saw the black shape of the crocodile just now climbing onto the beach. It rose, dripping onto all fours and lumbered curvingly to an unoccupied part of the sand and plopped down. The dog barked until the croc stopped moving.

Hood looked in the direction of Tuxpan. In a straight line between them and the town were a hundred feet of sand beach, eight crocodiles, then miles of jungle.

—Is there a road from here to Tuxpan?

—Yes. It is narrow and dirt but good.

—Do you know where it is?

Juan pointed toward the jungle.

—There.

—Can you find it?

—It is a good road.

—I asked if you could find it.

—I don’t want to die.

—I think we can get past the crocodiles and into the jungle. I don’t think they will bother us.

—Why wouldn’t they eat us?

—Because they are tired like we are and not ready to eat.

—They can tear off your foot and eat it with the shoe still on.

—But after we get into the jungle we can’t go to Tuxpan without the road.

Hood watched as another croc stirred, opened its gaping jaws, then slowly closed them. Another jerked forward as if dreaming of a kill. The dog barked and the newly arrived croc snapped at something so fast that Hood never saw the movement, just the afterimage of it. But he clearly heard the meaty whack of the mouth closing.

—They smell us, Charlie.

Another crocodile rose and swung its tail in a big arc that threw sand into the river. It seemed to be looking at them and it took two steps in their direction, then settled back down with a heavy exhale, a log ready for the mill.

—I’ll carry the bag. You can go first because you’ll be faster.

—I want you to go first.

—Then I’ll go first. I’m going to run between that one there, and the two that are on his right.

—But that one is the biggest.

—If we go to his right we will be headed for Tuxpan. And look, there are probably forty others if we choose the other directions.

—Crocodiles like to eat human feet because they know we make boots out of them.

—You can wait and if they come after me you can run where they are not.

—No. I go with you. You have a gun.

—Let’s do this quickly, Juan. I’m going to stand, take the suitcase in one hand and my gun in the other, and run like hell.

—I will also run like hell.

—Let’s stay close to each other in the jungle.

—I don’t know where the road is.

—I know you don’t. We can find it. Okay, Juan—let’s get it done.

Hood drew his pistol and grabbed the long-side suitcase handle and started up the beach. The bag was waterlogged and profoundly heavy and the drenched sand sucked his feet deep, then closed quickly over them. He was aware of Juan behind him and slightly to his right. He saw the logs coming to life around them, even the ones far up the beach. The big croc on his left suddenly rose and watched them. The two animals to his right both stirred and stood alertly. Fifty feet to the thicket of jungle. His heart beat very fast and his feet were sinking deep and were hard to pull out of the heavy sand and the bag was a cumbersome anchor. Forty feet. The big croc looked at them and Hood knew that their eyesight was excellent. The two animals to his right did likewise.

By the time all three of them had focused and made up their minds to kill them, Hood and Juan were just fifteen feet from the foliage. Under the weight of the suitcase and sunk nearly to his knees in drenched sand, Hood stumbled. Juan appeared on his right. Ten feet to go. Five.

The crocodiles launched with speed supernatural. Hood swept up Juan with his gun hand and held him tight against his shoulder and he charged forward into the black jungle. He churned across the
firmer ground, ramming his lowered head and shoulder through the branches and the leaves, ripping the heavy suitcase through behind him. He ducked onto a path through a stand of river cane.