Lab Notes: a novel (23 page)

Diane realized she hadn’t just been listening to Olimpia’s story; she had been a participant. At times she had wanted to close her ears against it; it was all too voyeuristic, and in some odd way, incestuous. She was able to imagine Olimpia’s courtship and lovemaking with Gabriel in keen detail. She knew how Olimpia felt when he looked at her, when he touched her. She knew, only too well, the white-hot passion that ignited in that river hut.

Olimpia sipped tea and stared into the fire, then said in a flat voice, “We outran the logs, but we did not avert disaster.”

She told Diane about how she and Gabriel waited at the village, praying Eduardo would show up soon. Gabriel wrung his hands and paced saying he should have known Eduardo would do this; he had been begging Gabriel to let him take charge of the crew. Gabriel said he should have watched his brother more closely.

Now, Olimpia, voice trembling, turned to Diane, “I tried to defend Eduardo’s actions to Gabriel. That was the greatest mistake of my life.”

Olimpia explained to Gabriel that on the evening she met Eduardo, he had said how he admired his older brother, but felt smothered by his protectiveness. He said he had to prove himself to Gabriel. He encouraged Olimpia to accompany them up river. He said perhaps she could soften Gabriel’s view toward him. Olimpia thought joining the Carrera’s flotilla was a wonderful idea, an arrangement where everyone benefited.

It was then that two logging crew members, bruised and bleeding, dragged themselves into the village. They had just enough strength to recount their story to Gabriel and Olimpia.

Eduardo had lied to the crew. He told them Gabriel had placed him in charge. As the self-appointed leader, he chose to take the helm of the dugout carrying the detonators. For safety sake, Eduardo gave the dynamite boats a twenty-minute head-start, then motored slowly upstream against the fast-moving current.

The men had finished securing their boats near the levies when they saw Eduardo round the last bend in the river. He seemed to be wrestling with the tiller. His rudder must have hit a submerged tree limb; he couldn’t steer the boat. Then the throttle seemed to stick at the highest speed. He looked up and obviously saw that he and the detonators were charging headlong toward the three boats full of dynamite. Eduardo stood up and plunged into the rushing water.

The two men ran ahead of the explosion to the logging camp. But it had been set up on a low bank, and the water and logs destroyed it. The men then fled to higher ground. They saw no sign of Eduardo on their way to the village.

It was then that Gabriel turned on Olimpia in a murderous rage. He accused her of entering into a plot to dupe him. Then he congratulated her for her resounding success. “Do you realize what you have done?” he shouted over and over.

Now, Olimpia buried her face in her cupped palms and murmured barely loud enough for Diane to hear, “Gabriel left me there. I did not see him again for nine years.”

After several seconds, Olimpia raised her head. Her voice was calm. “I returned home. Sent my condolences when I read they had found Eduardo’s body. I came to Pennsylvania. Met you for the first time. Discovered I was pregnant. And I began another love story… I named him Eduardo Garza y Carrera.”

μ CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN μ

With black hair and white robes streaming in the wind, five men poured off the mountain, shouldered the trekkers’ gear, then proceeded antlike up a twisting pathway toward their village thirty meters aloft.

Hearing the chorus of whispers on high, Diane opened her eyes. She was looking at the thatched ceiling of a
kankurua.
It hadn’t been a dream; she was in the Kogi village and had spent a restless night in the hut reserved for Olimpia’s visits. She looked over at Olimpia’s bed. It was empty.

Diane rolled out of her hammock, stepped outside and gazed around in wonder. She was standing in a flat, open area just below the glaciers and far above the rain. Overhead, the great mountain sighed. The splendor of it all brought a lump to her throat. Her heart swelled in anticipation the day that lay ahead.

Last evening, Olimpia had introduced Diane to Yami the tribe’s shaman and high priestess who had promised Diane a tour of the Kogi lands this morning.

She bathed with the water provided in her gourd basin, then pulled on a sweat suit and headed toward the village common area. She and Yami had agreed to meet there after the shaman finished a training session with the young priestesses.

As Diane passed several round huts along the pathway, white-robed men and women poked their heads out of doorways. “
Buenas
,
buenas
,” they called to her.

Arriving in the lower village, she watched Yami line up several young women behind a flat-topped boulder that stood in the center of the common area. The large stone held a bouquet of dried thistles. One by one the girls approached the bouquet, reached for it timidly, then squealed when it pricked them.

After Yami dismissed the class, she greeted Diane warmly. “Come, let us walk.”

The high priestess stepped out energetically, white woven gown flowing against her willowy form. Diane fell in beside her. Yami answered Diane’s question before it formed on her lips.

“They are seeking their strong life force.”

“How do the thistles help?”

“The thistles are a test. When the young priestesses are able to approach them with courage, it means they have found the center of their power and reached into it. Then the thistles cannot harm them.”

They came to a narrow trail, and Yami led the way. After an hour-long walk they reached an open plateau. Yami stepped to the edge and pointed out the Kogi aerial farmlands terraced into the mountainsides below them. Then she held out her arms and turned clockwise, chanting the names of the peaks penetrating the heavens before them.

Lastly, she called out to the great glacial mountain that stood behind them,
“Avistar.”
The mountain inhaled.

Yami sat on a long, flat rock and reached into a deep pocket woven into her gown. She patted a spot beside her. “Come, I have brought food.”

They ate pan-fried bread made with manioc and sprinkled with tiny black seeds. Yami explained that the seeds were from the
craoa
, one of their ancestor plants that gave them vision.

They were silent for several minutes, watching the cloud forests floating in verdant valleys below.

Then Yami spoke: “My people have named you ‘the closed emerald one,’” she said.

Turning, Diane studied the shaman’s weathered but ageless face and smiled. “I like the emerald part.”

Yami explained: “They say your eyes are the color of the stones inside our mountains. But your mind blocks them from knowing who you are.”

Perplexed, Diane said, “I haven’t intentionally put up any mental barriers. I wouldn’t know how.”

“A thread is broken in the loom of your inner vision. This keeps your mind from weaving into ours. But soon you will conquer the fear and pain that have been your masters. Your strong life force will return, and you will become part of all things.”

“But how?”

“While you sleep, the mountain will bring your dreams into a closer weave; it is for this purpose Olimpia has brought you here.”

Diane pondered this silently.

Yami patted her hand. “The knowledge will come to you - like it did Olimpia years ago when she returned to us full with child.”

“She trekked up here pregnant?”

“That is why she returned here. She begged me not to turn her away. She said her family would send her to Europe; the baby would be given away.

“I helped her bring Eduardo into the world. He was the first emerald one. But, unlike your mind, his was open from the beginning. I raised him. Olimpia came often. And when he was six, she took him away with her.”

Diane turned to Yami. “It must have been painful for you to let him go.”

Yami stared at a distant mountain. “Except for his captive years, he has come to visit often. But even when he is gone, he is with me. Olimpia is the mother of his body, but his mind is always joined with mine.”

“Who held him captive?”

“They only captured his body. You must talk with that mother about it.”

Yami stood up and took Diane’s face between her hands. Her voice held a mystical tone. “The mountain divines that your eyes will become jewels of light that will bind you to the emerald fire within Eduardo.”

On the way back to the village, they stopped at Yami’s small, private plateau. She retrieved a white tribal gown from her hut and offered it to Diane. “I have woven this for you.”

“But when—”

“Wear it at all times. The small holes are to let the weak force out. The larger ones let the strong force in. Food will be brought to your hut.

“Olimpia is staying with friends in a lower village; you will not be disturbed.” She placed her hand on Diane’s head as if anointing her. “Sleep often,” she murmured.

As Diane walked back to her hut alone, her gait became uncertain, her brain whirled and her vision fractured into impressionistic dabs. She blamed it on the altitude.

Passing by the thistles in the village center, she reached out to touch them, only to jerk her finger back in pain. She staggered uphill to the hut.

She would have known him anywhere. There were the scruffy cowboy boots of course, and when he turned his head to snatch the briefcase away, she glimpsed his profile and the angry set of his jaw.

Leonard Everly had his back to Diane and was scuffling with another man who was looking at her and mouthing the words “help me.”

She was startled to realize it was Harry Lee. But how did she recognize him? She’d never even seen his picture.

She stepped forward to help him just as he disappeared over the railing of the observation deck. Stunned at what she had witnessed, she backed into the shadow of the building to hide from the murderer. But when he turned around, he had become Gabriel Carrera, and he was pointing one of his father’s antique pistolas at some invisible foe off to her left. She turned and ran.

Reaching the door, she heard a voice behind her chanting Raymond Bellfort’s name. She glanced over her shoulder to see Bellfort lying facedown on the floor.

Diane made her way toward the cable car to escape the observation deck, but was blocked by a jostling crowd.

Her eyes fluttered open, and she realized
Vari
had been nudging her awake. He had brought more food.

She struggled out of her hammock and let the Kogi tribesman lead her outside to a small wooden table where she had been taking her meals. How many days had it been now? Her dreams had left her too exhausted to count. After a couple mouthfuls, she dragged herself back inside and fell into her hammock just as the mountain began to roar.

The wind and water grew fierce. She and Vincent clung to the damaged sailboat while they watched the large yacht motor away.

Suddenly, they saw someone fall overboard just as a rogue wave rose up and engulfed the white vessel. The yacht sank, bow first. The last they saw of it was the word written across its stern: “Enterprise.”

Vari
appeared in a haze. Time to eat again. “Today, you must stay inside,” he warned. “The mountain is excited.”

Diane had no appetite. Listless, she sat at her makeshift table, watching dirt and thatch blow by the doorway, listening to the hut shiver and scrape in the wind.

Then she heard a bell ring.

Yami had summoned the priestesses forth; the warrior hunters were arriving out of moon phase. This had only happened once before in her lifetime. But she and her priestesses were prepared.

She circulated among them in the village common area and inspected their labors. Fruits, vegetables and bread were laid out in traditional patterns, then woven into baskets with lliana vines to keep the provisions from spilling on their journey down the steep mountain paths.

The priestesses had been taught all about the warrior hunters. Through the tribe’s collective consciousness, the young women traveled back centuries to recall the Spanish conquest. They learned how the warriors protected the tribe’s remote home from men who tried to bring weapons and metal implements to remove their gold and emeralds and weaken their mountains with greed and violence.

The priestesses also learned about the revolution that occurred just two hundred years ago and how, at that time, the Kogi had rewarded the warrior hunters for centuries of protection.

The tribe had looked through the mountains and the days and weeks ahead, then sent messengers to report future positions of the Spanish occupiers to the greatest warrior of all, Simon Bolivar, helping him secure the northern provinces and beyond.

The women were also told about the warrior hunters’ visits every third full moon and how the Kogi maintained their hacienda and supplied them with food, nurturing the bonds that had been forged eons before.

The women stepped carefully down the mountain trail, chanting to forewarn wildlife of their approach. In keeping with a four-hundred year old secrecy pact, only the shaman and her priestesses were permitted to carry food to the hidden valley.

The cloud forest, home to a Kogi ancestral village that held the hunters’ lodge, was forbidden to outsiders. Only one person had ever trespassed and lived.

Dazed, tripping on the ankle-length gown, she followed them at a distance down the precipitous mountain path. Yami’s red sash and the chanting voices were her beacons. Every turn in the trail presented new challenges. Sharp rocks, shifting soil and fallen trees conspired to slow her progress.

Once inside the cloud forest, the clamor of jungle noises and air drenched in mist obscured the voices and concealed the red sash.

She was lost.

Weary, Diane collapsed onto a soft mound of ferns.
Just a short rest
, she promised herself.

Aroused by the slow approach of hooves, she opened her eyes and looked up.

The rider sat astride his horse, watching her. Even in the dim light, she saw the crest on his shield and glint of his sword.

Heart racing, Diane groped for a vine and pulled herself to a sitting position. At that moment Huck appeared. He growled and barked and tried placing himself between her and the intruder. But some barrier prevented him from coming close.

Calmly, the horseman pulled something from behind his shield and tossed it into Diane’s lap. She rubbed her eyes with her cuff, then blinked. The jungle wavered in and out of focus. She looked up at the horse and rider—and froze in place.

Astride a magnificent white steed sat Carlos Carrera. His sword—a simple machete. His shield—a plain khaki shirt. He looked like a hunter. Was she the prey? They made eye contact and held it for a long moment. Then Carlos turned his horse and headed down the trail and out of sight.

Diane struggled back up the mountain. In mid-afternoon she found a sun-dappled stream where she drank greedily and bathed. Afterwards she climbed toward the village, eating wild jungle berries and wondering how long her mind had taken leave from the world.

At dusk she approached the tribal common area. She saw Olimpia conversing with a group of white-clad Kogi. When she spotted Diane, she sprinted toward her. “Where have you been? Are you okay?” Her voice was frantic.

“I’m not sure. I think I followed Yami, but I lost her. I don’t remember much else.”

Olimpia appeared flabbergasted. “I thought you would know better than to do such a thing. Yami is on a solemn tribal journey. To follow her is taboo.”

Diane smirked. “Right. Well, I can’t be held responsible for whatever I might have done—your friends drugged me.” She shook her head trying to clear it. “Powerful hallucinogen; what was it?”

Olimpia took Diane by the arm. Her voice held an urgent tone. “It was a necessary part of the healing ritual. Your spirit is free from external influences once again.”

Diane shook off Olimpia’s grasp. “It didn’t work. I feel rotten. I need some sleep.” She turned and stumbled away.

Passing the boulder at the center of the village, Diane reached out and grabbed a bunch of milk thistles from the bouquet. Then, astounded, she opened her hand and looked at the plants, crushed nearly to powder, in her palm. Not one spine had pricked her skin.