New Beginnings

So, it's been a long time since I have posted our adventures. Actually it has taken all of this time to put the past in the past. The life we lived in the minutes of our travel back from the old west put a bender on our minds that has taken all of these months to clear.

We never went back to get the gold, me and Lou. We let the others go. Done that, been there... if it turned out different we didn't want to know. Our share would be safe with Antonelli. We wanted to get home to El Corazon, to see Jerry... to fly once more in Abigail. It took three days for us to make contact with Jerry through the airport radio to Tapia. He was confused and a little pissed off that he had to make a run all the way down to Puerto Barrios when we had a perfectly good aircraft sitting right at the airport. But we had to see him, to have him fly us back... at the controls. This nightmare of three minutes that saw Jerry dead and us bleeding out at the controls of Abby was too recent of a memory. You wouldn't believe how real it felt, the detail... the pain.

So we have Jerry come pick us up like a couple of spoiled kids and fly us back to El Corazon. I fought the urge to hug that fucking hippy. It would be weeks of night terrors and a few screams that cleared the monkeys out of the compound and shut that jungle noise down for ten minutes at a time. That is how real it was.

But with everything, time heals those wounds. Someone once likened the death of a loved one to a sharp-edged stone in a flowing river. After a while those sharp cutting edges dull with the passing of time until they are as smooth as the last trip to grandma's house for Christmas dinner.

I can only speak for myself. I would spend entire days sitting outside the fenceline on an old plane wreck... tail section. The verticle and horizontal stabs sit at a pretty comfortable angle and provided a good meditation spot. I never have been into that kind of thing, but when you have visions like those from Anahuac, it isn't easy to put them behind closed doors.

Lou, on the other hand, has been a rock. Some time ago he was able to reckon with death and the sights of mutilation and destruction. I know it haunts him... I can see it in his eyes. Just for a second there is a pain in those eyes that is quickly sheathed, hidden like a dagger that has just cut the throat of God. I feel his pain, it is deep... but sudden, like a chilling flood water that will consume you in an instant. I think he worries about his soul. But I know his heart, and God will know as well. The world is full of bad men and things that go bump in the night. Believe me, God put people like Lou on this Earth to let us sleep at night and wake to see another glorious sunrise.

So, enough of this shit. What has been going on all these months? Well, not all that much that you might find interesting. Abigail was down for a month for a complete inspection, prompted by the fact that we had to change out a cylinder on her starboard engine after she sucked a valve. We really missed having Naomi on hand. It took two weeks and a whole lot of time on the shortwave to arrange to have her brought up here. But once she was on deck, the parts runs started. We flew sixteen sorties out to the coast to pick up parts. It would have been nice to make it all in one trip, but that isn't how it works with these things. You get one thing fixed and then find another. I think it was just Abby's way of getting back at us for putting her in harms way so many times.

Most of the time it was Jerry on the parts runs. He and Ollie would fly for parts while Lou and I turned wrenches. There was plenty of cold beer, marinated pork and chicken from the girls at the cantina in town. Aside from the usual problems... fasteners not coming out, bolts snapping off, there were unique jungle issues that only we face. Monkeys stealing wrenches and parts, beer and food. It is funny at first, but then... after the tenth time, it becomes trying at best.

They stopped doing that after Lou threw an old grenade to one of them. He found the thing in the corner of some box in the hanger that he brought back from Santa Cruz so many months ago.

"Here you go you fucking monkey." He pulled the pin and threw it. That monkey must of thought it was a treasure because for a moment or two he was victorious at keeping his buddies away. Then there was a messy explosion... then nothing. They didn't come around after that.

Once Abigail was back in the air with a fresh motor and everything else running like a Swiss watch, we tried to get back to normal. It was lucky that Ollie was here with us, ready in an instant to take a run with Jerry when we didn't feel up to it.
The fact is that none of us need to work again. We have enough gold to spend in six lifetimes. With the prices today... hell, they are almost twice what we got in Mexico City so long ago. It is a fortune, we know. But we aren't the types of people that have cared all that much about the money side of things.

Lou took a run out to his old stomping grounds at Santa Cruz Hautulco two days ago. He came back with a case of Cuban cigars, ten bottles of Havana Club Dark, and an orange hang glider with a motor and a helmet. Just one more thing to break his neck with.

"Course I know how to fly it. Damn thing flies itself, Jake."
"You better stay close."
"What now?"
"Stay close... to the ground and to the compound."
"You're not my mother, Nancy."
"Thank God for small favors."

I look back over my shoulder at the PowerWagon. There is a small plastic bucket under the radiator that catches whatever coolant is left in the system every time we stop. She took a hit out on a Jungle Mart parts run a week ago and we haven't found the time to braze it or find a replacement. If he goes down anywhere but here, it will be a short ride or a long walk.

"Don't sweat it, Nancy. I'll just take her up and catch a thermal right over the compound."

There is an hour at least of set up and staging as he checks and rechecks the glider assembly. I would have helped, but I know Lou... he doesn't want to be bothered when he is in this mood. So I find a lawn chair and a grab a couple of beers.

Finally, after triple checking every connection, Lou heaves the glider up and checks the way it balances. He actually dawns the helmet, which is a sign of personal growth for Lou. He sees me looking and then flips me off. Still, though, the Lou I knew would rather piss in that helmet than put it on and admit he is infallible.
Even as I am thinking that last part he yanks the helmet off and throws it my way in defiance.

"That's a bad move."
Once again the finger.
I crack a beer and settle back for the show... or so I think.
"Nancy... come start this thing."

This thing looks like a combination of box fan and leaf blower. He is in a hanging harness so the motor will be at his back to give him thrust. There is a kill switch on one of the handles. He checks to see that it is on.
"Ignition on."
"Funny."
"Just pull the fucking starter."

I set the choke and pull the handle, hard so it jostles him.
"Easy, Nancy."
After about five pulls it sputters. I ease up on the choke and pull it again. That did it, the motor comes to life. After a moment or two I take the choke off and we let it run for a minute.

I give him a tap on the shoulder. I point to the helmet and Lou nods. Good, I don't feel like spoon feeding him when this flight turns him into a vegetable.
After he straps on his safety equipment I settle back into the lawn chair and watch the show.

He takes a couple of moments while he shifts the glider around... checking the weight I presume. Then the throttle goes up and he starts to run along. Now that alone starts me smiling, but when he gets enough lift he runs he is up and down a few times, his feet running in mid-air before touching down, then up, then down.

It isn't long before he is all the way to the end of the strip.
"WE'LL CALL THAT A TEST RUN..." I yell his way, but he doesn't hear me. I can't see his face from here, but I know the determination is cut in stone.

I hear the throttle go up and see him running, then he pops the nose of that glider up to the point that it might just stall. His feet come up off the ground by ten, fifteen, then twenty feet. He drops the nose just a bit but loses altitude so he once again flirts with a stall. Half way down the strip he tries a turn, very slow and sweeping. Good thinking to keep his climb in the middle of the strip in case he has to abort there is ample clearing to glide back down.

I'll be damned if he isn't doing it. Slowly he is climbing in this turn. He lets out a whoop as he makes his altitude. He calls down to me but I can't make out what he says. After about six or seven complete turns he is up about fifteen hundred feet and pretty small. I hear the motor cut back and he straightens up and starts on a course over the compound.

Well I'll be damned.

I am two beers down before I hear the engine stop. He has been out of sight for a while, high and nearly a mile to the southeast of the compound. He had stayed in one spot, making several figure eights... examining the jungle south of our airstrip before heading further south. I would have expected him to go toward town, drop into the cantina and make me come and get him. But that isn't the case today.

I'll be damned if I don't have to water jug the radiator on the Dodge. I fill up a couple of the empty anti-freeze jugs that are on the trash pile and throw them in the back.

She turns over slowly and then finally catches, making me work at getting her to idle. By the time I get out on the airstrip I can barely make out the "life jacket orange" fabric of the glider before it is swallowed up by the triple terrace jungle.

"Oh for Christ sake. I told him... I told him." I start down toward the end of the airstrip and try to go quickly before I run out of water.

The parts run trail at the end of the strip is nothing more than a couple of ruts competing with each other. I am buffeted hard, like a prize fighter getting pummeled on the ropes. I try to keep visual toward my last sighting. When the trail takes on a different direction, I shut the truck off and step out.

The jungle noise is at a minimum this time of day.
"LOU... " I reach in and hit the horn button, but it just clicks... typical.
"HEY LOU... WHERE ARE YOU, MAN?"

I strain to hear him, but the low hum of bug life out here might just be enough to...

"Jake?"

It is faint and far off, somewhere south east of where I am. There is enough clearing through the jungle that I figure I better take the truck as close as I can get.

As I rumble deeper into the jungle, I can see orange in the shadows above and ahead. In another hundred yards the glider is visible, caught in a rather large tree. Lou is dangling from a thin white cord about twenty feet off the ground. He looks none the worse for wear. There is blood dripping off one of his arms and he has a shoe off.

"Pull under me."
"Hello to you, too."
"Put the cab right under me."

I pull up so he is twirling above the cab and shut her down. I just get out and down he comes, after the first bounce he is on the jungle floor and there is another dent in the top of the truck that we have to push out.

"Welcome to Earth."
"Stow it, Nancy. There's something about two clicks over that way." He points deeper into the jungle.
"They're called trees... or monkeys. I don't know which of those you were looking at."

"God damnit, where is my other shoe?"

I aid in the search and we find it in the other direction. It is already covered in ants. Lou fires it back toward the truck and then beats it mercilously on the bumper until he is satisfied that the intruders have left. After he dons the shoe he is ready to go.

"You're bleeding."
"It'll stop. I think we can get the truck in through these trees."
"Yeah, just keep in mind we are probably going to run out of water before we can make it back."

I start through the trees, hoping that the trees don't choke down to nothing. I at least want a place to turn around if that is at all possible. Backing all the way out of a dead end sucks the...

"STOP."
"Jesus, you startled me. I'm right here you motherfuc... "
"Look."

On the jungle floor off to our right is a small plane, a single engine... probably a Cessna 182. There is a tear in the canopy above it from when it came through the trees and the light is shining through, illuminating this pilots last resting place.

We get out of the truck and make our way over. This is a fresh crash site. I can smell fuel, so there was no fire on impact. But that is little consolation to whomever was inside. It is a fatal impact... you can tell from just looking at it.

"Just the pilot." Lou is squatting next to the flattened cockpit. He stands quickly and starts wiping the ants away from him. The jungle has already started to claim this prize. First the ants, then the blow flies, then God knows what else.

In the passenger compartment we find a carry-on bag and a satchel.
"He was traveling light." I pick up the bags and pull them out for examination. Lou takes the suitcase and I open the satchel. What I find makes this more than just a crash site.

I remove a sealed envelope.

"Whatcha got?" Lou asks, rifling through the shirts and neatly folded undergarments.
"I don't know yet, but it has our names on it."