The Legend of the Phantom (15 page)

Chapter 19

The loss of the gold was a hard blow to the pirates, and they mourned it for some time afterwards. However, the captain realized that with Miya along, all was not lost. She knew where there was more of it… much more.

The
following morning the pirate captain woke to the sound of squawking parrots calling to their neighbors. The white noise of the waves from the beach coupled with the excitement from the previous night had lulled him into a long sleep, and he found the morning sun well above the horizon.

As he rolled out from under his covering of palm
fronds, he instinctively surveyed the beach in search of his ship. The remains of wreckage scattered the coast, and the grim reality of his situation scoured any remaining sleep from his consciousness.

Moving toward the jungle fringe to relieve himself, he glanced over at the captive. His eyes widened as he realized the prostrate form wasn’t the captive at all, but rather another of his crew. His
captive girl was missing.

The body of the pirate on the sand next to where she was staked, along with his slit throat and the cut lashings from her bindings, told the story all to
o well.

By the tracks left in the sand, she was alone. He was determined to get her back.

“Up ye scurvy dogs!” he bellowed. The commanding voice had its effect as heads rose and men grumbled to their feet. “Pack up this camp, lads, we’re going hunting.” Waking the camp, he forced an early walk. Due east. Straight into the filtered light of the jungle.

Her escape into the jungle was for Miya like returning to a familiar place. She was at home in the jungle, and though there were certainly dangers, she knew of them and their signs and avoided them much as one avoids the traffic and seedier parts of big cities.

However, just because she avoided them didn’t mean that her captives
knew the dangers or should avoid them. Miya was wise enough in her own right to realize that the bad men wouldn’t give up looking for her. So she searched out and skirted every danger she could locate along the way; a crocodile infested river here, a manchineel tree there, an anaconda nest there. Over river and marsh, through jaguar trails and past poisonous plants, the girl led the five desperate men through the jungle.

The jungle is an unforgiving place to the
uninitiated, unequipped and unaware. Hidden pitfalls filled with leaves, poisonous snakes, and huge spiders were just the beginning.

Soon the men were sweating under their loads, while trying to keep their wits about them in their green prison.

A hidden root of a large tree caught one weary man’s foot, one of the Spaniards of the crew, by name of Sosa, throwing him off balance. As Sosa found himself falling, he threw out his hands to catch himself; but instead of finding purchase on a smooth vine or giving branch, the man caught hold of a branch from a nearby bullhorn acacia tree.

Native to Central America, the common name "bullhorn" refers to the hollowed-out
, enlarged, and swollen thorns which resemble the horns of a steer; that occur in pairs at the base of leaves. Large in nature the thorns easily puncture. However, that is not the tree’s only defense. Additionally there is a species of ant that lives within its hollowed-out thorns. The aggressive ants act as a defense for the tree by protecting it against harmful insects, animals or humans that may come into contact with it. When threatened, they come rushing out of their thorn in great numbers to attack the intruder.

Not only did
the poor unfortunate find himself grabbing hold of a handful of thick hollowed out thorns, which cut and tore at his flesh, but immediately following the fall, a swarm of angry ants emerged from the plant, covering the lacerated man.

Screaming
, he ran for the nearest water, a nearby, slow moving river off to the side of the trail. Yet, either the water or mud did the trick; and as he stood up, the ants washed away. As Sosa stood there thigh deep in the river, drenched from head to toe, with a pool of ants floating around him, dripping of mud and river water, the rest of the crew couldn’t help but burst into laughter.

Even the
drenched and bloodied Sosa began to laugh as he realized how funny he must look. But what he forgot was that he was in crocodile country and a not too lazy crocodile lounged nearby. The scent of blood from the still bleeding cuts drove the beast forward.

In
mid laugh Sosa was unexpectedly pulled under; his laugh turned to a gurgling cry as a large greenish-gray mass rolled with him to the bottom of the river bed.

And
in an instant there were just the four.

The others stopped laughing, as terror came over their faces. As a whole
, the only thing they wanted to do was leave that place. In their haste, their heavy packs were light and slow foot treads became fast.

As the men rushed forward, they never saw the
deep hole that had come about through heavy rain and soft sandy mud. Alvarez took the lead and as his heavy foot came down on what he considered a wet spot in the trail, he pitched forward landing square into the sinkhole. The weight of his heavy pack pulled him down further and though he was able to free his face, the pack just filled with sand and water, only increasing the weight. He struggled to free himself of the weight, but with every struggle he dropped further into the quagmire. The men panicked and only the pirate captain kept his cool. Some of the men attempted to get him out by throwing him a vine, but by that time Alvarez was up to his neck in the muck, with no way to grab hold of anything. Their efforts were to no avail.

As Alvarez pleaded for help, the captain slowly filled and cocked his pistol. A single shot ended Alvarez’
cries.

Down to just the three of them, the captain decided it would be best to rest a spell. So when they came to the gray bark tree with the bright green apples, he allowed them to break. A nearby stream beckoned and while Mallory stayed behind,
the captain commissioned McGarvey to watch for the long green water beasts while he drank. The sweet smell of the fruit was enticing enough to McGarvey that he cast his eyes about to see if he could find some nearby fruit to eat while waiting for his captain to finish. But even as he glanced about, Mallory had picked a fruit and upon taking a bite, began clawing at his throat. Screaming he dropped to the ground, writhing in pain. The captain came storming up from the rivulet expecting to see one of the great beasts dragging off the man, but instead saw nothing more than Mallory as he convulsed and died. As he let go the ghost, a single green apple with a single bite from it came rolling out of his now unclenched hand.

Suddenly i
t was down to just the captain and McGarvey.

The poor man McGarvey had the jitters so bad that
it took a direct command to get him to even move. Every step was a feat of sheer will power, being more afraid of being left behind in this jungle of death than staying in the company of his superior. Finally, a short distance from the manchineel tree, he quietly took out his flint pistol and, bidding farewell to his captain, took his own life.

The first report from the gun surprised Miya. She could tell that the men were a distance away but she also knew that they were slowly making their way through the jungle. She assumed that all of her ploys to slow them down had failed and gave up trying to skirt danger for the more arduous task of placing as much ground between her and the others.

She ran from the manchineel tree along well used animal paths that kept far from danger.
The trail led out into a clearing on the other side of the jungle, with a shallow but long stretch of recently burnt acreage. There was no place to hide and little time to cross, so making certain she was safe from predators, she started down the incline.

As she was close to half way across, she heard the second report from the pistols. She had stopped due to an immense ravine that cut through the middle of the burned area. She knew she needed to get across but couldn’t find a good way to do so.

Even as she scouted for a safe passage, the pirate captain came out of the jungle fringe.

As Christopher ran, he felt the surge of emotion fill his chest as he heard the thunder of a pistol echo across the land. Fear for his wife moved him into the jungle as he followed Miya’s and the others’ footprints. The trail seemed to meander, as if she was taking her time. ‘Was she hurt? Why was she moving so slowly across the jungle? She knows jungles better than anyone. Was there some danger here that even she was leery of?’ The thoughts continued to pour across his mind as he moved from spoor to spoor, and sign to sign. Then the second shot echoed.

Christopher
attempted to hurry, yet the jungle pressed in, and dangers continued to loom from every corner. Abruptly he halted. The crocodile in front of him grunted as it slid into the slow moving river. His mind raced a thousand knots a second, ‘Why did she come near here? Surely, she would have spotted the signs of the river long before arriving there.’

He moved forward quickly. Again he came to an abrupt halt rather quickly as his foot sank into the quagmire of unstable sandy earth. Falling backwards, he
scrambled to get free. The earth had hold of him and didn’t want to do so, and it took all of his effort to pull his leg out. Little by little, the foot came free, inch by inch, as the mucky sand swarmed into the loose fittings of his boot. Finally, he was able to grab hold of an extending root and with the force of a man accustomed to physical labor, he finally was able to pull his foot out. But not without a loss... his bare leg attesting to the suction power of the quicksand.

‘Aha!’
He shouted to himself with his inner mind’s voice. He realized that Miya was leading the pirates through dangerous ground in hopes of killing them off. ‘Perhaps she has killed off a few…’ as the denizens of the jungle would have helped to erase the signs. Gathering himself up, he hurried on, sans one boot, toward the love of his life.

As Christopher rounded a bend in the jungle trail
, he needed no help interpreting what he saw next. Not all of the signs of death had been erased and the remains of one of the pirates told the story all too well. Lying under a manchineel tree, the pirate’s face was contorted into a grimace of pure pain. The sight sent shivers through Christopher’s mind as he recalled his own near death experience with the manchineel as a youth. Yet having come across the victim he ascertained what Miya was doing and congratulated himself on marrying such an intelligent woman. Shortly, they should be coming to the other side of this jungle, arriving at the big lake near the Nicarao’s land. As he wondered how far ahead she was, he once again heard a pistol retort, coupled with a scream.

He
quickened his pace. 

As the second report of the pistol echoed across the jungle, Pierre, quite insane now, gleefully clapped his hands and rushed toward the sound.

He arrived in time to see the hat of the pirate settle on top of the sand as the dead man slowly sank out of sight.

“A hat! A hat for Pierre.” Grabbing the vine from the ground, Pierre whipped it toward the object which fell on the far side of the hat. Then, pulling back on the vine, it kicked the hat toward him, where he picked it up and placed it upon his own head. Stumbling forward, he somehow made it past the edge of the quagmire and continued on, fingering the hat as he went.

Pierre didn’t even stop for the body of Mallory except to say hi as he continued on. But as he came across McGarvey
, he spotted something that his deranged mind instantly recognized. A flint pistol.

The captain saw her as he emerged from the jungle, but he didn’t immediately rush forward. The dangers of the jungle had made him leery and so he peered out with hatred burning in his eyes. He wasn’t certain Miya was worth all of this, yet, she still held the keys of immense wealth in her very life, so having made the decision to keep her alive he stepped out of the jungle twilight into the sun of the burned-out meadow.

Pierre had no idea of the jungle dangers. His only thought was revenge. As he came upon the edge of the jungle he saw the captain race across the meadow. Stopping long enough to gleefully load the pistol, he started running behind the captain.

As he ran forward, a gust of wind blew off his precariously perched hat and he stopped and returned for it. Then
, spotting his captain ahead, he ran off again, chuckling feverishly to himself.

Again
, as he raced forward the hat blew off, and again he returned for it, loudly chastising the hat as he gathered it up.

Something must have warned the captain that there was someone behind him. Perhaps the wind carried Pierre’s voice far enough that he heard him. Perhaps it was nothing more than a backwards glance to ascertain whether there was anything or anyone following him. Whatever the reason, the captain spotted Pierre behind him, and assuming it to be Christopher, made a quick decision.

Turning quickly, he pulled his loaded gun from his pouch and taking aim, fired
at the approaching man. As the man fell from the ball wound, the sound of the pistol fire reverberated through Miya’s ears. She screamed, fearing the worst.