Red Jungle (11 page)

“That leaves the other one.
Rio Amargo
. We look there,” Mahler said, flicking the ash off his cigarette. “It’s virginal, like that beautiful girl in the kitchen.”

“Okay. Sorry. It’s just—I’ve never owed $200,000 I can’t pay,” Russell said. “I have to make a payment next month. Twenty thousand dollars. I’ve got to pay it to
Banco Industrial
by the twentieth of the month. And I don’t have it. I don’t even have half of it.” The enormity of what he’d done hit him. He had no idea how he was going to raise the next payment.

“Don’t worry. Carl says he buys the stone lizards and the Olmec head outside, remember?”

“Yeah, for five thousand dollars. That’s not enough,” Russell said. One of the old men was bringing their horses. Russell could see him from the window leading them across the road from the stables, across the brilliant white volcanic sand driveway. He didn’t feel hopeful the way he’d expected to.

NINE

Rio Amargo
ran wide and not too deep, so they could use it as a road into the jungle. They’d seen spider monkeys, so Russell knew they were far from any roads now. He could hear the monkeys’ screams, echos over echos coming down from the jungle canopy, at times thrilling. It was hot and it was raining. Drizzle fell from the slot of sky over the river. The neck and flanks of Russell’s horse, a bay, were stained a tan color by the rain.

He’d strapped his shotgun around his neck so that it sat on his stomach. He wore a black nylon bodyguard’s vest, with extra shells in the loops. The vest was soaked through. The sound of his horse’s hooves splashing in the river was loud, the metal horseshoes tromping on the riverstones.

Russell stopped his horse and turned in his saddle. He looked down the river through the mist and rain. He could see Carl on his horse a hundred meters behind. The young man’s horse had stopped and was fighting to turn into the jungle, wanting to leave the river and climb to easier ground. Carl was having trouble controlling his animal. The man was completely out of his element in the bush, and was no horseman. Russell reined his horse, turning him back up river.

In front of Russell, in the lead, was Mahler, leading a mule. Mahler rode a small Arabian horse, far ahead of them now, his shoulders slightly forward as he rode. Like Russell, he could ride well, and the challenge of riding upriver against the current wasn’t a problem for him.

Mahler had insisted that Carl—who’d come to pick up the antiquities in the garden—come out to search with them. Russell had been against it. Carl had confessed that he’d never spent time in the bush, and Russell didn’t think
Tres Rios
was the right place to start. In the end he’d relented; he was sorry now that he had.

Russell had gone into the town to buy newspapers and come back late. He’d found Carl in the living room alone, reading. He was wearing his wire glasses and pajama-style slacker shorts. He looked like a college kid on vacation. A big black flashlight sat at his feet. Carl said the power had gone out briefly while Russell had been gone.

“Where’s Mahler?” Russell asked, putting his things down.

“I’m not sure,” Carl said. For a moment they looked at each other; then Carl stood up, and they shook hands.

“You did a smart thing here,” Carl said. “Buying this place. I was just looking up the objects out in the garden. They’re worth a lot, especially the snake. Collectors love those Olmec snakes. I can get you maybe ten thousand dollars for that right away. More than what I thought.”

“How much are you making?” Russell asked. “Just kidding. Ten thousand dollars, sure. I’ll take it.” He looked towards the kitchen; it was dark. “You want a drink? I called on the way home and told the girl to cook some dinner. Did she?”

“Sure. I’d love a drink,” Carl said. Russell put down his shotgun and walked towards the kitchen. There was a maid’s bell. He rang it.

“I’m starving,” Russell said. “Have you seen Gloria?”

“She was here earlier,” Carl said. Carl sat back down.

“Have you eaten, then?” Russell asked.

“No,” the Dutchman said. “We were waiting for you.”

Russell looked into the kitchen, annoyed that dinner wasn’t ready. The kitchen was tidy but empty. He’d called and asked that dinner be waiting for him. He walked into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and looked inside. There was German beer Mahler had bought, lots of it. He took a can and called to Carl and asked him if he wanted one.

Russell walked back out into the dimly lit living room that smelled sweet, like old books. “I don’t know what happened to the girl. I just hired her. I told her to have dinner ready by eight,” Russell said, handing Carl a can of beer. “You want a glass or something?” Russell asked.

“Yes. Thanks.”

Mahler stepped out of one of the hall bedrooms then. Russell caught a glimpse—for just a second—inside the bedroom. A bedside lamp was on. He saw the girl pulling her skirt over her head. She’d been naked.

Mahler pulled the bedroom door closed and came out of the shadows of the hallway. He was smoking a joint. He crossed the room and gave Russell a nod without saying a word. Russell could smell the sex on him.

“Did you get the cigarettes I asked for?” Mahler asked, patting him on the back and offering him the joint. Dressed now, the girl came out of the bedroom, her head down, obviously embarrassed, and went straight past them into the kitchen.

He could see Carl’s horse struggling to climb up the riverbank, wanting to leave the hard going of the river. Carl was yanking back on the reins and kicking the animal at the same time. Russell swore under his breath, turned his horse around, and trotted back down river toward him. His mother had had him riding as a child, on the plantation. She’d made sure he’d learned horsemanship with one of the cowboys at a cattle ranch they owned. He’d spent weeks with the cowboys during his summers, learning their trade, everything from roping and branding to shooting long rifles at poachers from horseback. When he fell from his horse in the beginning, when they were roping in the corral, he would often begin to cry, his hands and knees in thick green cow shit. The men would only laugh and tell him to pick his sorry ass up, and quit being a faggot. After a week he stopped expecting sympathy. It hardened him in a good way. In the end, he’d learned to love the lasso, the way he could bring down a calf, the way he could get his horse to step back and tighten the lasso. The war had just started then, and some of the cowboys started carrying M-16’s. A mercenary who had come to train the cowboys taught him that automatic weapons torque when you fire them. He was twelve.

Russell knew, watching him, that Carl was doing everything he could to confuse his horse. He wiped his wet face. “Fuck,” he said out loud. He shouted for Mahler to stop as he approached Carl. But Mahler didn’t hear him. Russell pulled his shotgun over his head and was about to fire in the air to signal Mahler to stop and wait, but stopped himself. He realized that the shot might be enough to get Carl’s horse— already frantic—to buck him off.

The girl had been embarrassed when she’d seen Russell looking at her as she stepped out of the bedroom.

“Buenas noches, Patron,”
she said.

“Buenas noches,”
Russell said. Mahler was still standing next to him, the joint burning pungently in his hand. The girl came across the room and explained that she’d had dinner ready in the stove, and that they were just waiting for him to arrive.

Russell turned to look at Mahler. “What’s going on?” he said in English.

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t fuck with me. What’s going on? I hired her. I’m responsible for her.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Mahler said. “She’s in love with me. No one is responsible. She’s a grown woman.”

“Is she?”

“She’s nineteen . . . most girls have two kids here by that age. Shall we eat?” Mahler said.

“She’s eighteen,
maybe,
and you know it. She might be younger,” Russell said.

Mahler looked at Carl, and then back at Russell. He shrugged. “Is he jealous, Carl? Is that it? What do you think, you’re a man of the world. Is she sixteen or is she nineteen? They don’t even know, most of the time. Did you know there’s no birth certificate for these people? Maybe something in the church. But not during the war. Who knows how old she is? She probably doesn’t even know.”

“He might be jealous. She’s
very
beautiful,” Carl said. Carl tried to smile about it, trying to make a joke of it.

“You see, my friend. Even Carl says she’s very beautiful, and he’s a fucking homosexual. Can you blame
me?”

“She’s a simple girl who’ll get hurt. She can’t even read. She’ll expect you to marry her,” Russell said.

“Shove the morality, old boy, will you please? She doesn’t need to know how to read for what we do, anyway.” Mahler slapped him on the shoulder.

“Wow, you’re something else,” Russell said.

“You wanted to sleep with her the moment you saw her, didn’t you? Tell the truth,” Mahler said. “Go ahead. I mean, in your newspaper you tell lots of pretty lies all the time, but here you don’t have to. It’s just us. Didn’t you want to sleep with her?”

Russell looked at Carl. “No, I didn’t,” he said. “You see, I’m not an
asshole
like you.”

They got drunk later and Mahler apologized, but it hadn’t sat well with Russell, and he didn’t let it go. The girl was in love with Mahler, Russell could see that plain enough. They slept together again that night, he was sure of it.

“You have to stop kicking and pulling on the reins. You’re confusing the horse,” Russell said angrily. He’d come back down the river, the water gray and turgid from the rain. The constant drizzle had suddenly turned to something harder. Above them, the strip of sky showing through the jungle’s canopy was completely gray. “Do you understand?” He could see Carl was scared.

Russell reached over and grabbed the horse’s halter, then moved up the neck and took the reins. “Now stop doing
anything
. Just stop for a moment,” he said, the rain dripping from Russell’s cowboy hat as he spoke. He’d told Carl to wear a hat but he hadn’t, and now he was scared and couldn’t see very well because the rain was hitting his glasses.

“I think I should go back; the fucking horse is wild,” Carl said.

“No, he isn’t. He’s tired of this river and he just wants out. But we have to go upriver; it’s the quickest way in,” Russell said.

“I didn’t know it was going to be like this.” Carl was wild-eyed. Everything seemed to be scaring him now. Russell led his horse out, away from the bank. The water was running off his hat and his clothes were soaked through, but he felt like he was sweating; it was that warm, maybe ninety degrees. He stopped his horse, got his plastic poncho out from the saddle bag and slipped it over his head. He would be even warmer now, but he was tired of getting wet.

“Now you have to stop putting on the gas and the brakes at the same time. It’s one or the other, but not both. Do you understand? And stop yanking the reins. They don’t like that.

Think about it; it’s a big piece of steel you’re shoving around in his mouth.”

“Yeah, okay,” Carl said. Russell pulled his horse around until they were directly across from each other, then handed Carl back his reins.

“What’s he looking for anyway? Mahler?” Carl asked

“How the fuck should I know,” Russell said. “I hope he’s looking for a big jade figure. And I hope to fuck he finds it. How much is Mahler getting of that ten thousand?” He hung his shotgun over his back, so that the weapon rode over the blue plastic of his poncho now.

“He gets a finder’s fee,” Carl said.

“How much? I want to know.”

“Twenty percent,” Carl said, collecting the reins and leaning back. He kicked his horse; the animal started stepping forward carefully, its head down. “I have to take a shit,” Carl said. “Very badly.”

“Go ahead,” Russell said and wheeled his horse upriver again. “Go ahead, nobody is watching as far as I can tell.”

Mahler was standing in the river next to the bank. He had his machete out. He was using one of those fat-ended ones, heavy and wide in the front. He had tied his horse and the mule, which carried all their equipment, to a tree.

“Here,” Mahler said. “I found this little creek. . . .” Like Russell, Mahler had worn a hat, but his was the military kind, a soft jungle hat. It was soaked from the rain.

“It will take us a day to chop ten feet,” Russell said, looking at the solid wall of jungle.

“Maybe. But I don’t think so. We go inside, we cut a path two-man wide. Leave the horses out here, see how it is.”

Russell looked around. He saw the water from the creek rushing out from the jungle, pushing against Mahler’s pants leg. The river was very shallow here. But otherwise, from what he could see, there was nothing to distinguish this spot from any other along the river bank.

“Wouldn’t there be more of a beach or something? I mean, if the Maya were going to develop something?” He had to hand it to Mahler, he could drink until late, stay up with the girl making love, he imagined, and now he looked fresh and strong here.