21
The Chicleros
The camp was primitive but looked comfortable enough. There were mosquito nets draped everywhere and hammocks slung from trees. Metal boxes held provisions and there was a tank for freshwater.
Four men stood around a large iron pot set over a fire. It was filled with a thick, sticky, glue-like substance and one of the men was stirring it with a pole. The men looked fierce and half-wild, as if they had been living here in the forest for months. They had long black hair and the dark skin of Indians.
A woman sat by another fire, preparing food, with a small grubby-faced boy.
The men stared at the newcomers and one of them idly slapped a machete against his leg.
‘Hay alguien que hable ingles?’ James asked, and after a pause one of the men stepped forward.
‘Sí,’ he said. ‘I speak a leetle Ingleesh.’
‘We are lost,’ said James. ‘Perdido. We had an accidente…’
The man frowned and peered at the gash in Manny’s head. He whistled and beckoned his friends over. They crowded round Manny, staring and talking quietly to each other. James was worried that they would set him off.
‘Be careful,’ he said. ‘Not too close.’
While Manny wasn’t looking, he tapped his own skull to indicate that Manny wasn’t quite right in the head. The man nodded an understanding and waved his companions back.
‘Please,’ said Precious, ‘we are very hungry. Memuero de hambre.’
‘You want eat?’ said the man and mimed taking food to his mouth with one hand.
James nodded wearily.
‘We need food, and we need a guide,’ he said. ‘Someone who can show us the way to a village or town.’
‘Un guia?’ said the man.
‘Sí,’ said James. He wasn’t sure if he could trust these men, but, right now, they were his only hope, so he added. ‘We have money, we can pay. Pesos.’
The man smiled. ‘First eat,’ he said.
James sank to the ground, relieved. The smell of the cooking was delicious. It may have only been a clearing in the jungle, but this place suddenly felt like the best restaurant in the world.
The woman served up a meal of beans, rice, tortillas and fiery chillies. James ate every scrap of it and washed it down with cold water. When the three of them had finished eating, they sat in a sort of stunned silence, letting their bodies regain their strength.
James felt lazy and contented. His spirits had been lifted by the simple food and he could look on the bright side again.
Once more they had escaped death. Mrs Glass had the papers, but she was alone now. There was none of her gang left. That was justice of sorts.
He turned to Precious and smiled at her.
She smiled back at him. It was the first time he had seen her smile all day.
She looked quite beautiful.
James watched the men working. They had removed the giant pot from the fire to let it cool, and they were now stirring the rubbery contents and pulling out thick strands with a paddle, as if they were making toffee. When they were satisfied that it was the right temperature and consistency, one of the men rubbed a soapy paste on to his arms to protect them and scooped out a blob of the warm gum with his hands. He quickly dropped it into a wooden mould and spread it smooth. There was soon a mounting stack of golden-brown blocks, and, as each block cooled, the man carved his initial in the top of it.
James was curious to know what the stuff was and he forced himself to his feet and went over to join the men.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘Chicle,’ said Elijio, the man who spoke English. ‘We are chicleros.’
‘Chicle?’ said James, who had never heard the word before. ‘What is it? What’s it used for? Is it like rubber?’
‘Leetle,’ said Elijio. ‘Is for gom.’
‘Gom?’ said James. ‘You mean gum?’
‘Sí,’ said Elijio. ‘Chewing gom. We sell to the Yankees.’
‘Chewing gum?’ said James. ‘You’re harvesting chewing gum!’ He laughed. He had chewed gum before, but had never wondered where it came from.
One of the other chicleros broke off a piece of chicle and gave it to James to try. It was hard and almost tasteless, but after some vigorous chewing he managed to soften it.
He was still chewing it that evening as they sat around the fire watching the bats dart through the air chasing the insects that were attracted by the light. He had been negotiating a fee with Elijio for guiding them to safety and had agreed on 200 pesos. The woman, meanwhile, had been preparing a paste from leaves and berries she had picked in the forest. James thought it was for another meal, but it turned out to be for Manny’s wound. They persuaded him that it would be all right, and she gently folded the flap of skin and bone back against his skull and smeared the paste all over it. Then she bound it tightly with a clean bandage and said some words to him that he didn’t understand.
James was glad that the gaping hole was hidden. The sight of it had been making him feel sick. It didn’t make any difference to Manny’s mental state, however. He seemed to be slipping in and out of reality and didn’t really have a clear idea of where he was and who these people were.
It rained in the night. James woke up soaked to the skin and covered in seed ticks that had got in through the mosquito net and were having a morning snack of blood. After their own breakfast of beans and tortillas, and several cups of strong, bitter, black coffee, they set off, with Elijio leading the way. It was cold this morning and a thin, damp mist hung in the trees. The chiclero knew the forest intimately and led them through its heart as easily as if they had been strolling through a well-laid- out city.
It was tough going; the paths weren’t straight and they frequently had to hack at huge leaves and vines that were blocking their way. When they at last stopped to eat, Elijio explained that they were still only about halfway to their destination: a small settlement on the banks of the Rio Usumacinta from where they could take a boat out of the jungle.
Lunch was more beans and cold tortillas. Last night this simple food had tasted like the food of the gods, but James found that he was already growing bored of the monotonous diet.
As they ate, a group of howler monkeys yelped and whooped at them from the branches above and a brilliant scarlet macaw swooped past, adding a thrilling splash of colour to the unbroken greys and greens of the forest.
When they set of again Precious quizzed James about where they were going.
‘As far as I can tell, the river goes all the way to the Gulf of Mexico,’ said James. ‘We should be able to get a boat up to Vera Cruz from there.’
‘Not Vera Cruz,’ said Precious.
‘What do you mean?’ said James.
‘JJ is safe,’ said Precious. ‘Dad’s with him. We don’t need to go there.’
‘What about you?’ said James. ‘You’re not safe. Don’t you want to go to your father?’
‘I can’t,’ said Precious quietly. ‘Not without fixing everything first.’
‘You’ve got to stop thinking about Mrs Glass,’ said James. ‘You’ll only make yourself miserable. Put her out of your mind.’
‘I can’t,’ said Precious. ‘She has to be stopped. It’s fate, James. It’s like God asked us to do his work.’
‘You’re sounding as crazy as Manny,’ said James with a smile. But Precious did not smile back. He realised she was serious about this.
‘Think about it,’ she said. ‘Every time we’ve tried to get away we’ve been thrown straight back at her. After the storm, in Puente Nuevo, she found me and JJ, then, when we got away from her, there was Manny. We got away from Manny, and there she was again, in Palenque. But each time, each time there was one less of them. Whatzat, Sakata, Strabo. I tell you, this was meant to be. We’re going after her, James. We can do it. We can get the papers. We can make everything all right again.’
‘She’ll be halfway to her island by now,’ said James.
‘You see, James?’ said Precious. ‘We know where she’s going. We can follow.’
‘I’m not sure this island she talked about, this Lagrimas Negras, is somewhere we’d want to be,’ said James.
‘If you won’t come with me, then I’ll go alone.’ Precious sped up and walked ahead of James, as if she was in a great hurry to get on. James caught her up.
‘You’re just a girl,’ he said. ‘What do you think you can do?’
‘I don’t know. But before this started I didn’t think I could do half the things I’ve done. You just point me in the right direction.’
It was dark when they arrived at a ramshackle collection of huts and tents on the river. The settlement was inhabited by rough-looking men, most of who seemed to be headed for the only building of any size: a rowdy bar from which yellow light spilt out into the muddy street.
They had been walking all day and James was too exhausted even to talk. Manny was red-eyed and feverish, more confused than ever, and Precious, after her brief blossoming of nervous energy earlier, had retreated into the sullen mood that James knew so well. He could hardly blame her.
James paid Elijio his 200 pesos and he introduced them to a French logger who would take them on down the river. The tough little chiclero then bade them farewell and slipped back into the jungle. James wondered if he was intending to walk all the way back through the night. The journey certainly didn’t seem to have tired him out at all.
James was still chewing his gum, and he knew that whenever he chewed gum again he would remember Elijio and the chicleros working away in the jungle, tapping the trees for chicle and boiling it up, miles from civilisation.
There were rooms to rent behind the bar and James paid far too much for three beds for the night. The locals were content to carry on drinking, arguing and singing until daybreak. James spent another sleepless night.
He wasn’t alone. Manny kept getting up and pacing the room. At one point he walked out and James got up to follow him.
He found him outside, sitting on a step, smoking a cigarette he’d bought in the bar.
James sat down next to him.
‘Have you ever heard of an island called Lagrimas Negras?’ he asked.
‘Sure I have,’ said Manny. ‘Everyone’s heard of it, but it’s a fairy-tale, it don’t exist.’
‘Mrs Glass thinks it exists,’ said James. ‘She said she was going there.’
‘We all dream of going to Lagrimas,’ said Manny. ‘Every bad man with a big score and nowhere else to go. It’s a paradise for lawbreakers, where you can live like a king and nobody bothers you none. No cops. No judges. No nothing. But you gotta have a big pot of gold to get in. I tell you, if I had the dough, that’s where I’d be, Louis. That’s where I’d be.’
They talked some more until Manny’s mind slipped out of gear and James took him back into the room and put him to bed. He sat by him until he dozed off.
The next day they bought some basic provisions in the store and the French logger loaded the three of them on to a raft with a fat middle-aged Mexican and his donkey. Then they set off down the river with a flotilla of mahogany logs that were being floated to the timber yards in Tabasco.
Manny sat at the back and muttered quietly to himself, and James and Precious sat and watched the scenery drift by. The river water was thick and brown as tea. A fishing eagle splashed down on to it and came away with a fat silver fish. A great blue heron flew past. A crocodile wriggled out of the bushes and crashed into the water.
‘Do you really mean to go after Mrs Glass?’ said James.
‘I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life,’ said Precious. ‘I once swore I’d kill her, and I will do it. She thought she could destroy my family and everything I love, well she can’t. Do you know the story of the Greek Furies?’
‘Vaguely,’ said James. ‘Weren’t they female demons of some sort? With snakes for hair?’
‘Yes,’ said Precious. ‘And when they were unleashed, you couldn’t stop them until they had finished their task, until they had chased down the wrongdoers and punished them. Well, I may not have snakes for hair, but I am not going to stop, and you had better believe it.’
‘I believe it,’ said James. ‘But I’m not letting you go off by yourself. It looks like we’re in this together. We’re stuck with each other till the bitter end.’
‘Till the death,’ said Precious.
‘Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,’ said James, looking into the rushing, turbulent water of the river.
22
‘You Know the Type of Place You’re Going to?’
They drifted sedately along for the rest of the day and all through the night, and as the sun came up they found that the river was dividing into three branches and men were strapping the floating logs together into huge rafts and sending them in different directions. James, Manny and Precious transferred to another raft and took the easternmost branch. A couple of hours later they arrived in the small port of Carmen.
They found a bustling cantina and had a good lunch of huevos rancheros and tamales. The cantina was popular with local truck drivers. After a few times of asking they eventually found one who would, for a fee, take them up the coast to the larger port of Campeche, on the western side of the Yucatán peninsula.
The three of them crammed into the cab, trying to ignore the stink of the pigs being carried in the back. Manny seemed to come alive. Maybe the poultice was working. He still had the bandage around his head under his hat and didn’t complain so often of headaches. Or maybe it was because this was all more familiar to him than the jungle and the river. He took a lively interest in the scenery. The light sparkling on the bright blue water of the ocean to their left, the low hills to their right, and ahead, the road running along a flat, dry plain.
‘This is a fine country, Louis,’ he said. ‘An’ I am so glad you’re here to share the adventure with me.’
‘Me too,’ said James, humouring Manny.
‘You know I had no choice back there in San Antone, don’t you?’ Manny added.
‘What do you mean?’ said James.
‘I had to leave you behind,’ said Manny. ‘How was I to know the cops would be waiting for us?’
‘You couldn’t have known,’ said James.
‘Exactly,’ said Manny. ‘I knew you’d understand. If I’da stayed I’d be dead too. You do understand, don’t you?’
‘I understand,’ said James. ‘You had no choice.’
Manny laughed. ‘It sure is a weight off my mind, Louis. See, I was beginning to wonder whether you hadn’t come back for a reason. If maybe you were one of them ghosts that can’t sleep because somebody done ’em wrong. You swear you’re not sore at me, Louis? You swear?’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ said James.
‘When I heard you was dead,’ said Manny. ‘When I heard the cops had shot you twenty-three times. I didn’t know what to think. I thought I was gonna go crazy. I blamed myself. But then I thought and I thought and I looked into my heart and I reckoned I didn’t have no choice, Louis. I just didn’t have no choice. Same as it was with Ma. She should nevera shouted at me like that. I didn’t have no choice.’
Campeche had once been a major seaport, but a newer port at Progresso at the tip of the Yucatán peninsula had taken over most of the traffic. There were still a few cargo ships in and out, though, so James and Precious thought they would have a fairly good chance of finding a captain who would be prepared to take them to Lagrimas Negras.
They booked two rooms in the Hotel Cuahtemoc and the next day they started asking around. They tried the shipping office, the port authority and the numerous bars and cafes.
Most people they spoke to had never heard of Lagrimas Negras, others laughed and treated them as if they were crazy; some cursed darkly and told them to get lost.
Finally, at 10 o’clock that night, following a tip-off from a group of sailors, they found a drunken English first mate in a seedy bar who said his ca
ptain would take them if they could pay their way.
James had to offer most of the money he had left and when the man went away into the night chuckling to himself and counting the notes, James fully expected never to see him, or his money, ever again.
But at 5 o’clock the next morning, as arranged, a lighter was waiting for them on the small stone pier in the bay, and the first mate, still evidently drunk, took them out to his ship, which lay at anchor in deeper waters.
‘You know the type of place you’re going to?’ he said as they chugged slowly out to sea.
‘Yes,’ said James.
‘I won’t ask why you three want to go there.’
‘And we wouldn’t tell you if you did,’ said James.
The first mate laughed and belched and didn’t say anything else until they pulled up alongside the ship, a cargo vessel called the Lady Grey.
She was carrying sisal and animal hides, and the captain, who met them on deck, was a gruff, bearded Yorkshireman with a fat belly and a cigarette permanently hanging from his lower lip.
‘So, you’re my passengers,’ he said, giving them the once-over. ‘A rum bunch, if ever I saw one. Now, this is not a passenger ship, I’ve no spare cabins. You can eat with the men, but it’ll be tomorrow by the time we get to the island, so you’ll have to sleep where you can. On deck or in the hold. Makes no difference to me. Happy sailing.’
The three of them tried to make a nest among the hides in the hold, thinking it would be soft and comfortable, but the overpowering animal smell coming off the skins made it very unpleasant and they moved to a spot on deck beneath the lifeboats.
The voyage was dull and uneventful, and James took the opportunity to get some rest. He sat out on the deck in the sun, listening to the chug and thump of the diesel engines and smelling the fumes mixed with the ozone-rich spray from the sea.
He wondered if this wasn’t all part of his dream. It was crazy to be sailing off into the unknown with this obsessed girl and cracked bank robber. What would they find on the island? All he had to go on was what Manny had said. And Manny was unreliable at the best of times. Certainly they were being treated like criminals, and, strangely, he felt closer to Manny than he did to these sailors.