Bagley, Desmond - The Vivero Letter Read online

  Just before nightfall I woke Harry. 'I'm going down to the cenote now. Give me the water-bottles.' He leaned away from the tree and unslung them. 'What else have you got that will hold water?' I asked.

  'Nothing.'

  'Yes, you have. Give me that bottle of disinfectant. I know it will only hold a couple of mouthfuls, but water is important right now.'

  I slung the water-bottles over my shoulder and got ready to go. 'Stay awake if you can, Harry,' I said. 'I don't know how long I'll be away, but I'll make it as quick as I can.'

  I wanted to get down to the cenote before nightfall. It was quicker moving when you could see where you were going, and I wanted to get into a good position while the light held. As I came out on to the trail I took a scrap of paper from my pocket and spiked it on a twig as an indication of where to find Harry.

  The chicleros had lit a fire and were cooking their evening meal. I manoeuvred into a strategic place—as close to the water as I could get yet as far from the camp as possible. The fire was newly built and the leaping flames illuminated the whole of the cenote and I settled down to a long wait.

  The fire burned down to a red glow and me men clustered around it, some cooking meat held on sticks, and others making some sort of flapjacks. Presently the scent of coffee drifted tantalizingly over the cenote and my stomach tightened convulsively. I hadn't eaten for nearly two days and my guts were beginning to resent the fact.

  I waited for three hours before the chicleros decided to turn in for the night although it was still quite early by city standards. Gatt, the city man, stayed up late, but he remained in his tent, no doubt under mosquito netting, and I could see the glow of a pressure lantern through the fabric. It was time to go.

  I went on my belly like a snake, right to the water's edge. I had already taken the corks from the bottles and held them in my teeth, and when I put the first bottle in the water it gurgled loudly. Just then the first howler monkey let loose his bloodcurdling cry, and I praised God for all his creations, however weird. I withdrew the bottle and put it to my lips and felt the blessed water at the back of my parched throat. I drank the full quart and no more, although it took a lot of will-power to refrain. I filled both bottles and corked them, and then washed out the disinfectant bottle and filled that.

  I daresay that anyone with keen eyes could have seen me from the chiclero camp. The sky was clear and the moon was full, and a man, especially a moving man, would be easily spotted. But I managed to get back into the cover of the forest without any outcry, so probably the chicleros hadn't a guard.

  I found my way back to Harry without much difficulty and gave him a bottle of water which he drank thirstily. I had a problem—we had to get on the other side of the cenote under cover of darkness and that meant that Harry would have to move immediately, and I didn't know if he was up to it. I waited until he had satisfied his thirst, and said, 'We'll have to move now. Are you fit?' 'I'm okay, I guess,' he said. 'What's the hurry?' 'This cenote lies between us and Uaxuanoc and we want to get around it without being seen. I've discovered a trail on the other side which heads the right way. We'll be able to make better time tomorrow.'

  'I'm ready,' he said, and hoisted himself slowly to his feet. But he had to clutch the tree trunk for support and that I didn't like. Still, he moved fast enough when we got going, and stuck close on my heels. I think the water had done him a lot of good.

  I had a choice of making a wide sweep around the cenote and going through thick forest, or going straight down the trail and crawling around the chiclero camp. I chose the latter because it would be less strain on Harry, but I hoped he'd be able to keep quiet. We managed it without trouble—the dying embers of the camp fire gave good orientation—and I picked up the trail on the other side of the cenote. Once out of sight of the camp I checked the map and the compass and it seemed that the trail led pretty much in the direction of Uaxuanoc, which was all to the good.

  After a mile of stumbling in the darkness Harry began to flag, so I made the decision to stop, and we pulled off the side of the trail and into the forest. I got Harry bedded down—he wasn't in any shape to climb a tree—and said, 'Have some more water.' 'What about you?'

  I thrust the bottle into his hands. Fill up; I'm going back to get some more.' It had to be done—if we didn't get more water we'd never make it to Uaxuanoc, and since we only had me two bottles we might as well drink what we had.

  I left him again and marked the place by thrusting a machete into the middle of the trail. Anyone moving along the trail would be certain of falling over it, including me. I didn't think anyone else would be moving around at night. It took me an hour and a half to get to the cenote, fifteen minutes to fill up, and another hour to get back and bark my shins on that damned machete. I swore at it but at least I was certain that Harry hadn't been discovered. He was asleep and I didn't wake him, but dropped into an uneasy doze beside him.

  Harry woke me at daybreak. He seemed cheerful enough, but I felt as though I bad been doped. My limbs were stiff-ened and I was one big ache from head to foot. I had never been a hearty camping type and this sleeping on the ground didn't agree with me. Besides, I hadn't had too much sleep at all and had been stumbling around in the forest for most of the hours of darkness.

  I said, 'We have a decision to make. We can stick to the forest, which is safer—but stow. Or we can go up that trail with the likelihood of meeting one of Gatt's chicleros. What do you say, Harry?'

  He was brighter this morning and not so disposed to mere acceptance. 'Who is this guy, Gatt?' he asked. 'I've never heard of him before.'

  'It's a bit too involved to go into right now, but as far as we're concerned, he's sudden death. From what I've seen, he's allied himself with the chicleros.'

  He shook his head. 'Why should a guy I've never heard of want to kill me?'

  'He's a big-time American gangster,' I said. 'He's after the loot from Uaxuanoc. It's a long story, but that's the gist of it There's a lot of money involved, and I don't think he'll stop at much to get it. He certainly won't stop short of killing us. In fact, he's already had a damned good try at it. I can't think of anyone else who'd sabotage your chopper.'

  Harry grimaced. 'I'll take your word for it, but I hate like hell the idea of tackling the forest.'

  So did I. An inspection of the map showed that we were a little more than five miles from Uaxuanoc. As we already knew, the forest in the immediate vicinity of Uaxuanoc was exceptionally thick and, in our present condition, it might take us two days to hack our way through. We couldn't afford two days, not on our limited supply of water. True, we had filled ourselves up, but that would be soon expended in sweat, and we only had the two quarts' reserve.

  Then there was Harry. Whatever was wrong with him wasn't getting any better. The trail was easy travelling and we could do at least a mile an hour, or even more. At that rate we could be in Uaxuanoc in about five hours. It was very tempting.

  Against it was the fact that the trail existed in the first place. The only place Gatt could comfortably camp was at the cenote we had just left—he had to stick near a water supply. So it followed that if he were keeping an eye on Uaxuanoc then the trail must have been made by his chicleros, and the likelihood of bumping up against one was high. I didn't know what would happen if we did. but a!! those I had seen were armed and. from Fallen's account, they were quite prepared to use their weapons.

  It was a hell of a decision to make, but finally I opted for the trail. The forest was impossible and we might not encounter a chiclero. Harry sighed in satisfaction and nodded his head in agreement. 'Anything but the forest,' he said.

  We entered the trail cautiously, found nothing to worry us, and went along it away from Gatt's camp. I kept my eyes down and found plenty of evidence that the trail was in frequent use. There were footprints on patches of soft earth; twice I found discarded cigarette butts, and once an empty corned beef can which had been casually tossed aside. All that was in the first hour.

  It
worried me very much, but what worried me even more was Harry's slow pace. He started off chirpily enough, but he couldn't keep it up, and he lagged behind more and more. And so I had to go along more slowly because I didn't feel like getting too far ahead of him. It was evident that his condition was deteriorating very rapidly; his eyes were sunk deep into his head, and his face was white under the dark bristle of his beard. All his movements were slow and he kept one arm across his chest as he staggered along as though to stop himself from falling apart.

  The trail was just as wide as was necessary for the passage of men in single file, otherwise I would have helped him along, but it was impossible for us to walk side by side and he had to make his own way, stumbling blindly behind me. In that first hour we only went about three-quarters of a mile and I began to get perturbed. It seemed that we would be a long time getting to Uaxuanoc by trail or forest.

  It was because of our slowness that we were caught. I had expected to encounter a chiclero head on—one coming down the trail the other way—and I kept a very good lookout. Every time the trail bent in a blind corner I stopped to check the trail ahead and to confirm that we weren't going to run into trouble.

  We didn't run into trouble—it caught up with us. I suppose a chiclero had left Gatt's camp at daybreak just about the time we had set out on the trail. He wasn't weak with hunger and sickness and so he made good time and came up on us from behind. I couldn't blame Harry for not keeping a good watch on our back trail; he had enough difficulty in just putting one foot in front of me other. And so we were surprised.

  There was a shout, 'He, companero!' and then a startled oath as we turned round, which was accompanied by the ominous rattle of a rifle bolt. He wasn't a very big man, but his rifle made him ten feet tall. He had put a bullet up the spout and was regarding us warily. I don't trunk he knew who we were—all he knew was that we were strangers in a place where no strangers should be.

  He rattled out a few words and brought the muzzle of the rifle to bear on us. 'Aguarde acqui! Tenga cuidado!'

  It all happened in a split second. Harry turned and cannoned into me. 'Run!' he said hoarsely, and I turned and took off up the trail. There was a shot which clipped a splinter from a tree and ricocheted across the -trail in front, and a shout of warning, I was suddenly aware that I could only hear the thud of my own boots and I turned to see Harry sprawled on the ground and the chiclero running up to him with upraised gun. Harry tried weakly to struggle to his feet but the chiclero stood over him and raised the rifle to ram the butt at his skull.

  There wasn't anything else I could do. I had the machete in my hand, so I threw it. If the machete had hit with the hilt or the flat of the blade, or even with that damned blunt edge, it would have served enough to knock the man off balance. But it struck point first, penetrating just under his rib cage, sinking in deep.

  His mouth opened in surprise and he looked down at die broad blade protruding from his body with shock in his eyes. he made a choked sound which throttled off sharply and the upraised rifle slipped from his hands. Then his knees buckled under him and he fell on top of Harry, arms outstretched and scrabbling at the rotting leaves on the ground.

  I didn't mean to kill him—but I did. When I ran back he was already dead and blood was spurting from the wound with the last dying beats of his heart, reddening Harry's shirt. Then it stopped and there was just an oozing trickle. I rolled him away and bent down to help Harry. 'Are you all right?'

  Harry wrapped his arms about his chest. 'Christ!' he said. 'I'm beat!'

  I looked up and down the trail, wondering if anyone had heard the shot, then said, 'Let's get off this trail—quickly!' I grabbed the machete which Harry had dropped and slashed at the bush by the side of the trail, penetrating about ten yards into the forest, then I helped Harry, and he collapsed helplessly on to the ground.

  His mouth was opening and closing and I bent down to hear him whisper, 'My chest—it hurts like hell I'

  Take it easy,' I said. 'Have some water.' I made him as comfortable as I could, then went back to the trail. The chiclero was indubitably dead and was lying in a puddle of rapidly clotting blood. I put my hand under his armpits and hauled the body off the trail and into cover, then went back and tried to disguise the evidence of death, scuffing up earth to cover the blood. Then I picked up the rifle and went back to Harry.

  He was sitting with his back against a tree and his arms still hugged about his chest. He lifted lacklustre eyes, and said, 'I think this is it.'

  I hunkered down next to him. 'What's wrong?'

  That fall—it's finished me. You were right; I think my ribs have got into my lungs.' A trickle of blood oozed from his mouth.

  I said, 'For Christ's sake! Why didn't you tell me? I thought you were just bleeding from the mouth.'

  He gave a twisted grin. 'Would it have made any difference?'

  Probably it wouldn't have made any difference. Even if I had known about it I couldn't see that we could have done any different than we had. But Harry must have been in considerable pain marching through the forest with punctured lungs.

  His breath came with a curious spasmodic whistling sound. 'I don't think I can make it to Uaxuanoc,' he whispered. 'You get out of here.'

  'Wait!' I said, and went back to the body of the dead man. He was carrying a big water-bottle that held about a half-gallon, arid he had a knapsack. I searched the pockets and came up with matches, cigarettes, a wicked-looking switchblade knife and a few other odds and ends. The knapsack contained a few items of clothing, not very clean, three tins of bully beef, a round, flat loaf about the size of a dinner plate, and a hunk of dried beef, I took all this sniff back to Harry. 'We can eat now,' I said He shook his head slowly. 'I'm not hungry. Get out of here, will you? While you still have time.'

  'Don't be a damned fool,' I said. 'I'm not going to leave you here.'

  His head dropped on one side. 'Please yourself,' he said, and coughed convulsively, his face screwed up in agony.

  It was then I realized he was dying. The flesh on his face had fallen in so that his head looked like a skull and, as he coughed, blood spurted from his mouth and stained the leaves at his side. I couldn't just walk away and leave him. no matter what the danger from the chicleros, so I stayed at his side and tried to encourage him.

  He would take no food or water and, for a time, he was delirious; but he rallied after about an hour and could speak rationally. He said. 'You ever been in Tucson, Mr, Wheale?'

  'No, I haven't.' I said. 'And my name is Jemmy.'

  'Are you likely to be in Tucson?'

  I said, 'Yes. Harry; I'll be in Tucson.'

  'See my sister,' he said. 'Tell her why I'm not going back.'

  'I'll do that,' I said gently.

  'Never had a wife,' he said. 'Nor girl-friends—not seriously. Moved around too much, I guess. But me and my sister were real close.'

  'I'll go and see her,' I said. 'I'll tell her all about it. '

  He nodded and closed his eyes, saying no more. After half an hour he had a coughing fit and a great gout of red blood poured from his mouth.

  Ten minutes later he died.

  Ten

  They chased me like hounds chase the fox. I've never been much in favour of blood sports and this experience reinforced my distaste because it gave me a very good idea of what it's like to be on the wrong end of a hunt. I also had the disadvantage of not knowing the country, while the hounds were hunting on their home ground. It was a nerve-racking and sweaty business.

  It began not long after Harry died. I couldn't do much about Harry although I didn't like just leaving him there for the forest scavengers. I began to dig a grave, using Harry's machete, but I came across rock close to the surface and had to stop In the end I laid him out with his arms folded across his chest and said goodbye.

  That was a mistake, of course, and so was the attempt at a grave. If I had left Harry as he was when he died, just a tumbled heap at the foot of a tree, then I might have got clean away
. The body of the dead chiclero was found, and so was Harry's body, a little further in the forest; if I had left him alone then Gatt's men might not even have suspected that I existed. But dead men don't attempt to dig their own graves, nor do they compose themselves for their end in such a neat manner, and the hunt was on.

  But maybe I'm wrong, because I did take as much loot from the dead chiclero as I could. It was too precious to leave behind. I took his rifle, his pack, the contents of his pockets, a bandolier stuffed with cartridges .and a nice new machete, as sharp as a razor and much better than those I had been using. I would have taken his clothing too, for use as a disguise, had I not heard voices on the trail. That scared me off and I slipped away into the forest, intent on putting as much distance between me and those voices as I could.