¡Socorro! ¡No puedo nadar! Help! I can’t swim! He ran out onto the sinking deck, waving his arms in panic. They both jumped into the water, the Capitán off the starboard side and Sebastián to the port, almost on top of Eusebio, who was going down for the second or third time.
“El Capitán Sebastián is a very good swimmer,” Eusebio said. “I couldn’t swim at all. Still can’t. Never learned. I’m afraid of the water.”
“He grabbed me and kept me above water. Saved my life. We were not alone in the ocean. There was another shrimp boat about a mile away, La Santa Teresa. It was owned by the same man and was not in much better shape than the Lily Mac, but they came to our rescue. If they had not I would not be telling you this story.”
“They saw what was happening, pulled up their nets and cranked up that worn out motor as far as it would go. We were all lucky it didn’t blow up. By the time they got to us, the old Lily Mac was at the bottom of the sea, along with our catch, all our clothes and the 300 pesos I’d been saving to buy a present for my girlfriend. I think her name was María. Well, I guess they’re all named María.”
“La Santa Teresa threw down some floats. You know, those old round rings. Sebastián grabbed one and put it under my arms while he himself kept treading water until they could haul us all aboard. By that time Capitán Alfonso had floated over to us, struggling to keep his head above water, so they threw down a rope ladder and we went up. The ladder was kind of rotten, like everything else on those boats that man owned, but it held us, one at a time.”
“There were no radios on those old tubs, so we couldn’t report the sinking until we finished the catch and got back to port. Wouldn’t have mattered anyway, what was anyone going to do?”
“But from that day, I stick with Capitán Sebastián. He’s the best. Without him there wouldn’t be an Eusebio.”
After a few more stories involving immense fish and possible sea monsters, we finally called it quits. Jeb and I nodded off about midnight and the gentle swells gave us a restful sleep. One of our last.
We were awake early the next morning. I would have liked to sleep in, since we would be having a leisurely day. At least we would until dusk, when the action would start. But it’s hard to sleep with the tropical sun attacking you.
We got up, had some decent coffee in the wheelhouse and were subjected to a fisherman’s shower. A laughing Eusebio squirted saltwater at us from the big hose they used to wash the deck. It was hard to stand up with that fire hose coming down on you. Lucy did better than either Jeb or I did. Maybe it was the yellow swimsuit. We then scrubbed down with the omnipresent ice to get the salt off and returned to our favorite lawn chairs in the shade of the wheelhouse to break out the Fantas and Chaparritas.
I appreciated your history lesson yesterday, I told Lucy, but I’d like to hear something about what’s coming down tonight and tomorrow and after that.
“Right,” she said. “It’s time we got to that. Tonight my cousin, Jaime, is going to meet us at the beach. He’ll have most of the supplies we’ll need, and a car, a Jeep of some kind. He’s only seventeen and this is his first big adventure. He’ll be very nervous, but it’ll be fine. Two of his big brothers will be traveling with us to make sure nothing goes wrong.”
“We’ll drive most of the night,” Lucy explained. “You’d better take one of your naps this afternoon because you won’t be sleeping much in the car. Some of the roads aren’t very good. And other places there aren’t any. You’ll be hanging on with both hands.”
“Tomorrow, at Los Muertos, we’ll pack up and get started toward either the first or second site. The first is the one I’ve already been to. The Pol wasn’t there then, but may be now.”
How will we know? I asked, where will we look? “We’ll know,” she said. “At least I will. I think you and Jeb will, too, but I’m not sure how sensitive you’ll be.” Sensitive to what, I asked. I’m a pretty sensitive guy. ”Well, the vibes,” she said, “you wait and see.”
“After that, assuming it’s not there, we’ll have some help finding the next place. Jaime’s big brothers, Arnulfo and Arnoldo are going with us and can make some good guesses. They don’t know the inner circle stuff, but they know the jungle. They often work as chicle gatherers, spend months at a time in the Petén.”
Chicle? I asked, as in chewing gum? “That’s the stuff. Here, have some.” She produced one of the little two chip packets of Chiclets that little kids sell on the street all over México for 20 centavos. “No charge.” The gum was OK, as usual, but clashed with my Fanta.
“We’ll be traipsing through the forest on horseback,” Lucy continued. “The horses and supplies will be waiting for us tomorrow in that little place, Los Muertos.” I still didn’t like that name. A bad omen. “It’s going to be a long ride, so watch out for the saddle sores.” Well, we’ve had saddle sores before, so I guess we’ll get over that, I told her.
We did, but it took time.
“That’s about as far as I can take it right now,” Lucy went on, “after that we’ll be playing it pretty much by ear. Trying to find our Pol and staying out of the way of the bad guys, or anyone else for that matter.”
LUCY
I told them something about the history of the ‘Item’, which we called the Lobil or Pol. I don’t think they believed much of it, or cared. No good reason why they should.
They were more interested in immediate things, like what to expect tomorrow and the day after that, so I told them what I could.
“My cousins are picking us up at the beach. In a car. And are taking us to that little spot on the map you saw. Los Muertos. Don’t ask me how the place got that name. I shudder to think. Who would want to name their town ‘The Dead’? I guess they don’t have a Chamber of Commerce.”
“That’s where we’ll pick up our horses and supplies and head into the Petén. My cousins Arnulfo and Arnoldo and some others will be going with us, which is good, because they know what they are doing in the forest.”
“We’ll plan our route when we get there, and had best leave most of that to Arnulfo. He knows the jungle better than anyone. He’s spent lots of time there, gathering chicle among other things, and knows how to live off the land. If anyone can get us where we want to go, it’ll be Arnulfo.”
“I would like to provide more details, but I don’t have many of them myself. We’d all just have to wait and see.”
CARLOS
Later in the afternoon, Lucy was napping in the shade of the wheelhouse and Jeb and I were sitting inside, out of the sun and wind, visiting about trivial things as Capitán Sebastián manned the wheel.
The Capitán said, “Let me tell you muchachos a story.” I said, fine, we like stories.
“It’s not about Mayan gods, is it?” asked Jeb, pushing his luck.
“No, no, not about gods,” Capitán Sebastián assured him. “It goes this way.” He settled down in his captain’s chair and frowned at us.
“Many years ago, so long ago that I was a very young man, I was a sailor on a shrimp boat—not a Capitán, you understand.”
“The man who was
