Ruthless River Read online

  “I live here.” He stopped to face us.

  He began talking so excitedly that saliva flew through the holes where his teeth should have been. He made swirling gestures with his arms, but we couldn’t make out what he was saying.

  “Por favor,” Fitz told him, “no comprendo.”

  “Sí, sí.” He put down the wheelbarrow and spoke more slowly. I caught the words for sister, tree, and seven. Fitz began to look in his pocket dictionary.

  The meanings of some words were clarified by the man’s mimicry. He spread his legs apart, made a fist in front of him, then pulled his other arm way back, held it there for a second, then lunged it forward again before repeating the motion.

  “He’s doing a bow and arrow!” I laughed at the incongruity of playing charades in the jungle with this Indian.

  “Siete fleches.” His words flew out of his mouth on a stream of spittle.

  Fitz stared at the dictionary, translating, “That means seven arrows.”

  “Which goes with his charade,” I replied, “but what’s his sister got to do with seven arrows?”

  Fitz flipped pages again. “Oh,” he said, looking up, his eyes large. “I think he’s saying he tied his sister to a tree and killed her with seven arrows.”

  “You’re kidding? Here, let me see that.”

  “Suit yourself,” Fitz said, eyeing me with a grim look of surprise.

  I searched the pages for the words I didn’t know: tie, kill, arrows. Sweat rose on my forehead. “Could some of these words have second meanings?”

  “I don’t think they would all have second meanings.”

  I looked at the man now swinging his machete wide across the path as he hacked at new growth in front of us. His lithe body was wiry, his sunken jaw making him seem older than he probably was. With his exuberant speech and fiery eyes, either he was a lot younger than he looked, or he was delusional.

  “We’re walking with a murderer?” I whispered, slogging through thick mud with mosquitoes nipping at my ankles and flying up my skirt.

  “It looks that way.” Fitz wiped his neck.

  After we had been following the man along the winding trail for some time, my throat felt parched. Spots began to dance in front of my eyes. “I need water.”

  We didn’t have any. Fitz stepped back to my side and touched my shoulder. “Take some deep breaths. Wherever we’re going, I’m sure we’ll be there soon.”

  I stopped to inhale heavy air but felt like I was sinking into the mud.

  “Sepa, Sepa,” the man said, pointing up the trail.

  “Where are the others?” I asked, more wary than before.

  Fitz and I looked up the muddy path into a maze of dense brambles on each side. They arched out and upward, darkening the jungle around us.

  “Here, sit down for a minute,” Fitz suggested.

  “No, we better keep going.”

  “Vamos,” the man replied, as if he understood us.

  He dropped his machete over our packs in his wheelbarrow so that he could move more easily. His feet barely touched the slippery ground as Fitz and I struggled over roots jutting up from the trail. We slid and crashed into the mud but pulled ourselves up and continued on. My lungs were on fire. The man disappeared around a bend. Then Fitz disappeared, too. Vines seemed to loop out just to slow me down. It took time to snap them back. My heart began to pound as I fell behind.

  Slipping over a gnarled root, I stubbed my toe. Grabbing that foot, I hopped for a second before skidding out of my sandals altogether. Darn these Dr. Scholl’s! I pushed them on my feet and looked up. “Fitz?”

  No response. I hobbled forward as panic rose in my chest. Glancing ahead toward minuscule movement in the bushes, I spotted a brown-and-tan snake, dappled like sun and shadows, maybe four feet long, slithering across my path. It vanished into the brush on the other side. My eyes followed it and caught sight of another snake curled up like a tire in the low crotch of a tree. I lunged forward, feet slapping mud against the wooden soles of my sandals.

  “Fitz!” I yelled.

  Silence. I was way behind now.

  A spiny vine caught my hair. “Let go!” I hissed as I jerked myself forward, finally entering a fork in the trail. Staring up each path I had no idea which one to take. Perspiration slid down my back. Damn, it’s hot! Damn, I’m thirsty! Damn, where is Fitz? I couldn’t believe he hadn’t looked back for me.

  I searched for footprints and threads from his clothing along the start of both paths but found no clues to indicate which path he’d followed. I didn’t dare choose. When Fitz noticed I was missing he would come back to this spot. I had to stay calm and wait.

  Dusk was lengthening the shadows through the vines; I strained to hear voices. Underbrush rustled. I stood taut, watching. Not another snake, please! I wanted to run, but to where?

  It seemed like half an hour—but maybe not—when Fitz finally reappeared.

  “Where’ve you been?”

  “I thought you were right behind me!”

  “Well, I wasn’t!” I snapped, too rattled to feel relieved. “Why didn’t you look back to check on me?”

  “I got caught up staying with our bags.”

  He put his arm around me, but I twisted away.

  “Well, that’s important,” I said, shifting my uplifted hands as if I were weighing scales. “Bags…wife…so hard to choose.” Sometimes he was so dense I could spit.

  “That’s not fair.” A grin broadened across his face. “You know the bags always come first.”

  “Yeah!” I snorted, startled. Despite myself, an edge of laughter crept in. That was his way: deflect anger or fear with humor. “Look, I was scared. I was out here all by myself. I…”

  “I’m sorry…really. I got scared, too, when I looked back and couldn’t see you. I could swear it had been only a couple of minutes.”

  “It sure felt a lot longer to me.” I was going to add that it didn’t take that long for a snake to bite, but Fitz leaned in for a kiss. I didn’t pull away this time.

  The Indian was waiting behind us.

  “Come on,” Fitz said. “I think we’re almost there.” He took my hand and guided me back the way he’d come.

  We could be lost in here forever, I thought, but I let it go. After all, he did apologize.

  “Sepa,” the Indian pointed.

  As if by magic, the jungle opened to a meadow full of sunlight, like the city of Oz. The huge rectangular field had long, low buildings on either side. A village!

  The buildings were gray, not the usual cheery colors of houses we’d seen in other communities. At the edge of the path was a large sign cemented into the ground. I assumed it welcomed us to the town, so I barely glanced at it, too busy feasting on the sight of civilization. Across the grounds I saw some of the passengers from the plane.

  “Look!” Fitz stared at the plaque.

  In bold, carved letters it read in Spanish: WELCOME TO SEPA, NATIONAL PENAL COLONY OF PERU.

  I read the words a couple of times to take them in. Our plane had crash-landed on the grassy airstrip of a federal prison.

  A guard waited for us near the sign. “Vamos,” he said. “Take your things.” He nodded toward the wheelbarrow.

  Evidently, our wheelbarrow man was not coming with us. We hoisted our packs onto our shoulders, and then Fitz reached into his pocket and took out Peruvian currency. He thanked the man for helping us with our load.

  “It’s not much,” Fitz said to me. “Perhaps he can buy cigarettes or something.”

  “Don’t give him money,” the guard reprimanded Fitz. “He’s a prisoner.”

  Fitz and I looked at each other as the guard confirmed exactly what the Indian man had told us. He had, indeed, executed his sister.

  The man giggled and pocketed the money. The guard shrugged then escorted us across the field toward the building where the other passengers were milling around.

  “But he’s outside,” I remarked. “He’s walking around, like he’s a free
man.”

  The guard scowled at me. “The jungle is the prison. No one escapes.”

  “But he has a machete,” I persisted.

  The guard shrugged again. “The prisoners work. They need the machetes to keep back the jungle.”

  He told us there were no roads out of Sepa, and the field was too muddy to bring in another plane. Only little motorized dugouts traveled back and forth from the colony to the landing strip. With the rainy season still upon us, no one knew when the landing strip would be ready again.

  Deep in the dense and unforgiving thicket, prison walls were not necessary. The inmates could wander wherever they wished. They could never escape. It dawned on me that now we were imprisoned, too.

  Chapter 4

  Sepa

  The line curved into the office of the comandante, where our passports were to be checked.

  “Why are you here?” he asked.

  “Touristas,” Fitz replied.

  The comandante raised an eyebrow. “This place is not in the tourist books.” He smiled bleakly.

  Along with the other passengers we were then taken to the guards’ barracks, to a huge room with bunk beds. The walls and floor were cement, making the room cooler than outside.

  A guard pointed to the bunk closest to the door. Mine, the bottom bunk, had a heart-shaped pillow leaning against the regular pillow and bearing a hand-crocheted “I love you” in Spanish. It was a simple touch that reminded me that these men had lives, too.

  The guards disappeared, leaving their barracks to us. They had relocated their personal items so smoothly that we hadn’t noticed. I wondered where they would sleep. Two guards remained standing near a wall by the door to help us settle in. They told us dinner would soon be served in the canteen. Fitz and I wondered if our bags would be safe left out in the open. An observing guard saw us mumbling and guessed our concern.

  “Your things are safe,” he assured us. “You can leave them here.”

  Since we were the only gringos and didn’t know the language well, we did what the other eleven passengers did. We changed our muddy clothes and followed them to the mess hall where we all sat down at rows of long tables.

  A young man came around with plates of rice topped with bits of what could have been canned tuna. It was unappealingly dry. We all fell upon it, eating feverishly. Fitz, a cautious eater, was so famished he gulped it down without a mutter. No one talked during the meal. When we were finished, one passenger asked, “What happened to the pilot?”

  No one had an answer.

  “When will the next plane arrive to take us to Maldonado?” the lady in the polka-dot dress demanded.

  The guards just chuckled.

  The boat we had planned to take to Riberalta would be leaving Maldonado soon. I began to worry that we might miss it.

  After dinner, four of the guards pulled out some playing cards at a table in a corner of the mess hall. One of the men gestured to Fitz and me, asking if we’d like to join them. We pulled up a bench.

  At first, we concentrated on learning the rules, but as we relaxed, the guards, curious about us, our trip, and life in the United States, peppered us with questions. They were proud and excited when they recalled President and Mrs. Kennedy’s visit to South America. We asked them about themselves and learned that they signed up for guard duty for five years at a time. They told us that Sepa held the most dangerous prisoners in all of Peru: murderers, rapists, and armed robbers, and they warned us not to walk anywhere alone. They assured us, however, that the prisoners’ huts were on the other side of a field, a safe distance away from us. I would have felt better if there were at least barbed wire between us. I decided to focus on the game. Fitz, a good cardplayer, was playing it cool. He would usually win whenever we played with our friends in Boston. I smiled at him, thinking back to the night he had walked into my life.

  BOSTON, SUMMER, 1969

  —

  It was the day before Woodstock. I met Fitz at my twenty-fourth birthday party, hosted by our mutual good friend Jane, who had been a roommate of mine in college. She was so happy to see Fitz safely returned from the war that she insisted he come to the party, knowing he’d have stories to tell. Prior to his war experience, he had flunked out of college and moved to the East Village, where he’d worked as a messenger then news clerk at the New York Times. He’d spent his evenings writing poetry at McSorley’s Old Ale House. When the draft loomed near, Fitz quit the Times and hitchhiked to San Francisco a few months before the 1967 “Summer of Love.” By mid-August he’d been drafted and would serve eight months in combat in Vietnam.

  “He’s the best storyteller there is and smart as anything,” another college friend, Olivia, had raved. As promised, Fitz had us all at the edge of our seats, laughing at him laughing, waiting for the punch line. He also recited poems that he pulled from his head and relayed in a bold, captivating tone.

  When I said that was impressive, he told me he always carried a book of poetry with him and that memorized poems helped him get through the service. He complimented me on my yellow dress and worked hard to get my attention all night.

  Fitz had registered for the upcoming fall at Suffolk University, where I was taking my master’s in counseling. He seemed more mature than the rest of us, though he was actually a year younger. He fit right in with our group and spent the rest of the summer going to restaurants, cafés, and parties with us. Sometimes I would notice a pensiveness cross his face, but I didn’t ask him about it. Fitz insisted on paying our tabs, saying he was glad to be home. By summer’s end, however, I learned that his generosity had left him broke. Worried that he might be hungry, I went to the grocery store and bought a steak, chicken breasts, some vegetables, potatoes, and bread.

  Forty Anderson Street was a brick apartment house on the cheap side of Beacon Hill, only a few blocks from the gold-domed State House. I rang the front doorbell then stepped back out to the sidewalk, knowing the bell could be heard in the apartment but the buzzer could no longer unlock the door.

  Fitz came to a window on the top floor and leaned out to drop me the key. “Hi,” he called out, grinning, his mop of brown curls catching the sunlight. “Coming up?”

  I could see the long dimples in his cheeks even from that distance. I’d never been to his fifth-floor studio without the others and was nervous because this was our first conversation alone. The brown bag of groceries was heavy in my arms. I looked at it, suddenly feeling awkward. “Hey, man,” I tried to sound casual. “I thought you might like these. I’ll leave them here.” I set the groceries on the step and turned quickly to go.

  “Wait, Holly! I’ll be right down.”

  “Oh, I can’t. I’m…I’m on my way to class.”

  I actually had a half hour before class started, but it hadn’t occurred to me that Fitz might want to talk. I felt speechless—worse than when I’d sat next to Paul Newman in my dad’s seat at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. I could barely nod hello to the stunning blue-eyed actor who’d smiled as he chewed gum. Fitz was more handsome and charismatic to me. I wanted to run, but my legs were spaghetti. What if I tripped on the broken brick sidewalk in my sling-back magenta heels? I’d make a fool of myself in front of him. Just let me get around the corner. Finally, I escaped up the hill before Fitz made it down the stairs.

  Later that afternoon, he phoned me at my apartment in Cambridge.

  “Would you like to come to dinner?” he asked. “I’ve got plenty of great food!”

  Although I’d been hoping he’d call, my stomach did cartwheels. Dinner with him, alone?

  He’d been so entertaining in the group. Now I wondered if I’d be amusing enough. “Well, sure.” I laughed hesitantly. “That sounds like fun.”

  —

  The September night was cool. I wore a linen jacket that reached just below the belt of my Marimekko black-and-white-print miniskirt. A guy coming out the front door of 40 Anderson Street let me in so I didn’t have to buzz Fitz to throw down the key. I climbed
the four flights of stairs, readjusting bobby pins to keep my long hair in place.

  Outside Fitz’s door I took a deep breath before I knocked. What was there to worry about? I felt good, for heaven’s sake. My hair glistened after I’d washed it. I’d even put on mascara to enhance my blue-green eyes under my dark eyebrows. As I waited for the door to open, I glanced at the silver rings on each of my fingers. One was decorated with royal blue cloisonné; another was a poison ring with a little box under a turquoise lid. It seemed to be taking some time for Fitz to answer. I readjusted the bobby pins again. Oh, yes, I’d forgotten to knock.

  Fitz stood tall as he opened the door, but not overbearing, unlike the first time I ever saw him, when he’d looked intimidating until he’d smiled.

  “Hi,” I said to his bright blue eyes behind his glasses. “Someone let me in the front door so I just came up.”

  He looked handsome in a pale blue button-down shirt, open at the collar, a tea towel flung over his shoulder. “Well, I’m glad you did. Here, let me help you with that.”

  As he eased me out of my jacket he caught his hand in my hair. “Oh, Jesus, I’m sorry,” he said, untwisting the strands from his fingers. “Not a good way to start!”

  We both began to laugh, lightening the moment.

  Fitz chatted about the Boston we both loved and how he’d wanted to live on Beacon Hill since he was a little kid. Now he couldn’t believe his good fortune.

  His studio’s bay window let plenty of light into the sparsely furnished apartment, with its table, two chairs, and a bed covered in black sheets. In the center of the white horsehair-plaster wall above the bed Fitz had hung a three-foot wooden crucifix with a bronze Christ. The effect was monastic and, frankly, strange, but somehow appealing. He’d bought the cross at Goodwill Industries, but when I asked about it, he couldn’t really say why he had brought it home, other than that “it looked good.”

  Before dinner, he took me up to the roof through a trapdoor in the outer hall ceiling. He opened two folding chairs and placed them close to each other. Though we didn’t touch, I felt his heat. The Charles River was practically at our feet, just a few blocks away. Small sailboats tacked gracefully, flooded pink by the lowering sun. I lost myself in the ripples of light and shadow on the water and the salt-shaker contours of Longfellow Bridge. The early autumn evening air was soft on my skin. The sounds of subdued laughter and of sultry music blended with honking cars and distant sirens. I could not recall when I’d ever felt so relaxed with a guy.