Wild Orchids (29 page)
The presence of Minelli and DiAngelo in the cave further complicated an already tangled situation. With Tunafish unable to stand without assistance, there was only Max to find food, fetch water, assist with Tunafish's most private requirements, and keep guard over the two men. Lora did what she could, but those things were largely beyond her scope. She could not go into the jungle alone. Neither could she stand guard over Minelli and DiAngelo. If they managed to get free of their bonds, they would overpower her in a matter of moments, gun or no gun. Tunafish could guard them, but Tunafish was at times almost out of his mind with pain. He didn't complain, even managed to joke about it from time to time, but Max had known him too long. He could see the desperation in Tunafish's eyes. Max knew that he was inhaling smack when the pain was worst, but under the circumstances, who could blame him? Max was almost glad they had the damned dope…
The jungle was beautiful with a wild, savage beauty that he admired despite the harrowing circumstances. Everyday, as he fished in the pool that still reminded him of Lora's eyes, much to his annoyance, or gathered fruit or branches for the fire or performed one of a hundred other tasks, he discovered new wonders. Like the flowers. Gorgeous tropical flowers that covered the jungle floor like a carpet in places. Orchids in lush shades of purple and orange and white grew everywhere, thrusting up from the ground like weeds. So did poppies. Amapola poppies, with their velvety scarlet and black petals and heady aroma that caused giant bees and flies to swarm around them like addicts. These poppies grew all over Mexico, in vast fields. They were a cash crop, raised and razor-harvested for their white gold: opium.
Seeing the poppies growing wild brought back memories, some bad and others worse. In his days with the DBA, Max had spent a goodly amount of time in the remotest areas of Mexico. The
mestizos
who populated the villages raised poppies like Americans raised corn. It was their livelihood. Most times it was done willingly; sometimes the peasants had to be coerced into the business. But if they valued their lives, they cooperated. The Mexican drug families were a vicious lot. They thought nothing of wiping out entire families, entire villages. When word of these atrocities got around, the next village was more amenable to doing as it was told. The authorities rarely interfered. They were well paid not to. But since the highly publicized murder of that DBA agent, the authorities had—reluctantly, and only after much whip cracking by the United States—begun to crack down. Not that it would do any good. The smart ones would just lay low until the heat was off and then resume operations again.
Since 'Nam, Max had never touched so much as a single joint. He had seen what drugs could do to seemingly civilized men, and he hated it. He hated drugs… He hated what drugs did to people; made them crazy, violent zombies with only one goal in life: to get more of the substance that was killing them. He hated seeing kids who thought they could make a quick buck caught up in the dark world of the drug families. Many died. More became addicted. Some went to prison, in the States or in foreign countries like Mexico that had never heard of prisoners' rights. And some turned into animals as bad as the men they worked for. He thought of Ortega using him to run drugs, and his fingers twitched with longing to close around the man's pudgy throat. Ortega knew better than to pull such a thing on him—or if he didn't, he soon would. As soon as Max got himself and the rest of them out of this hellish paradise.
It was a hellish paradise. Max was not the only one to think so. Trapped in a cave with four men, two of whom were bound most of the time and had to be kept under constant guard, with inadequate food, clothes that were growing more repulsive by the hour, and the constant fear of snakes, insects, or other creatures who might decide to explore the cave, to say nothing of the nervous tension caused by waiting, waiting for whatever hostile rescue party would arrive first, Lora thought she might actually go crazy. It was like being snowbound for months, she thought, only worse. Because at least someone who was snowbound did not have to contend with flies and mosquitoes and huge fire ants that stung like hornets if you were unwary enough to put your hand down on them, daily downpours that left the world smelling of mildew, and the contrast of hot, steamy days with cold nights; to say nothing of the constant threat of danger from Minelli and DiAngelo, who were sullenly threatening as they sat bound hand and foot through the' seemingly endless hours. And then there was Tunafish's suffering, which was painful to watch. The heroin helped when he took it, but he only did so when the pain was dreadful. As a schoolteacher, Lora thought that drugs were an abomination second only to the devil, but in this one instance she had to admit that without them Tunafish's situation would have been unbearable. If he had been in a hospital, they would have given him painkillers, but they could not get to a hospital and the heroin was the only painkiller available. Under the circumstances, Lora could not think it wrong for Tunafish to take it. Guiltily, she realized that she even found it interesting to watch. Tunafish sprinkled the powder on a large flat leaf, rolled another leaf into a cigarette-sized hollow tube, and used the tube to inhale the drug. Lora actually caught herself thinking, so that's how they do it! and immediately banished the subject from her mind.
Max was another problem. He kept his distance, speaking to her only when necessary and then in a cool, distant way that she hated to admit hurt. Even Tunafish had noticed, and commiserated with her with raised eyebrows and a grimace when Max wasn't looking. Lora didn't know for sure what ailed Max, but it was beginning to bug her as much as the enforced confinement. Surely he was not still angry at her because she had witnessed him having a nightmare…
He was apparently uneasy about leaving her and Tunafish in the cave with Minelli and DiAngelo any more than he had to, but necessities such as food and water dictated that he leave the cave several times a day. During those periods, Tunafish would sit watching Minelli and DiAngelo, a gun propped in his lap. Though those two had never tried to cause any more trouble, Lora was always jumpy when Max was gone. Ten million dollars worth of drugs and a hundred thousand dollars in cash was enough to tempt many law-abiding men to murder. And Minelli and DiAngelo had never, she thought, been law-abiding, even in their cradles.
They made her uneasy for another reason, too, or at least, Minelli did. He watched her with an insolent attention that made her feel unclean. She always got the feeling that he was mentally undressing her, and as the days passed the feeling grew stronger. Even though she performed her daily ablutions—a sponge bath, with a cupful of tepid water and a rag made from the remains of Max's windbreaker—behind a bush just outside the cave and definitely out of sight of Minelli's avid eyes, she still felt uneasy about removing her clothes. As a result, she usually just pulled off her t-shirt and sponged herself as quickly as she could. Which, after three days, left her feeling grungier than she had ever felt in her life.
The two men were a problem at night, too. Max bound them more securely then, because even he had to sleep sometime. Their pallets—sans blankets or pillows—were on the opposite side of the large cavern from where she and Tanafish and Max slept, but that did not stop Lora from feeling particularly vulnerable when she lay down and closed her eyes. Tunafish now stood the early watch, while Max took the late one. They clearly didn't trust her enough with a gun to let her stand her share of watching, and Lora didn't much blame them. She didn't trust herself much that way, either. But with Minelli and DiAngelo across the cave, whether they were bound and supposedly sleeping or not, she found herself inching imperceptibly closer to Max. Until now her pallet was so close to his that there was scarcely a palm's width between them. If he had noticed her creeping encroachment, he had not said anything. But then, he didn't say much to her nowadays.
On the afternoon of the fourth day since the crash, Lora couldn't stand it any longer. She thought she would die if she didn't get out of the cave. The daily downpour had already passed, leaving that sickening sweet smell of rotting vegetation that she was beginning to think would suffocate her. Minelli and DiAngelo sat with their hands bound loosely in front of them, their backs resting against me curved wall of the cave as they seemed to doze. Tunafish was standing guard, but he looked as apathetic as the rest of them. His splinted leg must be hurting him badly, she thought, but as Max was out hunting for food he could not seek the relief of sleep or dope-induced insensitivity.
Adding to the misery, Lora had at least a dozen mosquito bites that were itching to distraction. Max had warned her not to scratch. She had tried it once, disregarding his curt caution, and found that scratching only made them swell up and itch four times as ferociously. After that, she had not argued about coating her exposed skin with the mud that he said was the only remedy for the itching and swelling, and the only way to guard against future bites. He had been right, of course, but she felt almost as miserable with smears of mud on her cheeks and neck and arms as she did with the mosquitoes chomping on her.
More than anything in life—except rescue and a decent meal—she longed for a bath. But that was clearly impossible. Although there was a spring somewhere nearby, according to Max, she didn't know where, and even if she did she didn't dare wander about the jungle on her own. Every night she heard the yowl of big cats and the screams of then- prey, and every day ticks and snakes were washed onto the shelf of rock just outside the cave. Danger lurked everywhere out there, and she wasn't stupid enough to brave it alone. She was stuck. Stranded. Unable to go further than a few feet from the cave that was rapidly growing more confining to her man the prison cell Max had rescued her from.
There was no reason Max couldn't take her with him on some of his expeditions, Lora told herself, feeling a righteous anger begin to build. Just because he was nursing some ridiculous grievance against her was no reason to treat her like she had leprosy. When he came back and Tunafish had had a chance to rest, she meant to demand that he take her someplace where she could breathe, and perhaps bathe. If he refused—well, he wouldn't refuse. That was all there was to it.
To her surprise, he didn't. He looked at her rather narrowly when she told him with more than a hint of belligerence that she needed a bath, but after eyeing her up and down he didn't argue. Lora didn't much like that when she thought about it—it was insulting to have someone agree that one stank— but she wasn't going to quarrel with the results. He meant to go fishing for their supper, and he agreed to take her with him, provided she did as he told her, and didn't wander off.
The spring-fed stream that trickled down the side of the mountain near the cave widened as it cut through the jungle. Max led her along it via a path he had already cut through the thick vegetation until, without warning, the stream shot out into space with a shower of sparks, to tumble down a staircase of gray rocks before cascading into a small lagoon perhaps twelve feet below. As waterfalls went, this one was nothing spectacular, but Lora found it beautiful. When she and Max had worked their way down over the steplike rocks on one side of the waterfall to stand looking up at the falling torrent of water, Lora felt the first rush of exhilaration she had known since the plane crash. The scene was like something from
Green Mansions,
which she had her students read every year. Framed by lush, hanging greenery, with sunlight falling tangentially through the canopy of leaves to glisten on the sparkling drops that shot away from the main fall of rushing water, the view before her took her breath away. Garlands of scarlet hibiscus trailed from the trees with which they were intertwined to hang over the water. Exotic orchids of nearly every color imaginable grew in thick patches along the sides of the lagoon itself. Near the rocky banks, a profusion of water lilies flourished. Their waxy white blossoms and dark green leaves glistened with water droplets that sparkled in the sun. Birds fluttered in the trees overhead, while monkeys chattered as they swung from branch to branch. Nearer at hand, a snake slithered across a rock, but Lora was so caught up in the beauty of it all that the snake didn't seem frightening at all, but natural. Even the rustling of a particularly dense patch of greenery on the far side of the pool didn't disturb her rapt appreciation. This was the jungle of Edgar Rice Burrows and Anya Seton. This was the jungle of Tarzan and Sheena. This was the jungle as she had always thought it would be.
Now, except for the occasional squawk of a parrot or the sudden chatter of a monkey, the dull roar of the water itself was the only sound. When Max spoke, she jumped. She had been so lost in admiration that she had nearly forgotten why she was here.
"If you want to take a bath, make it quick. We want to be away from here before sundown. That's when the animals come to drink."
His sour voice didn't detract from the validity of the warning. Lora shuddered at the idea of still being here when lions and tigers and pythons and God only knew what else came to claim the pool, and turned to survey the glistening water. She saw a flash of scales beneath the surface, and had a sudden thought.
"Is it safe?" She must have sounded doubtful, because she thought she saw a touch of humor in the black eyes that had been as remote as glaciers for the last few days.
"Yep," he answered, sounding as if he had copied his conversational style from a TV western. "Just stay near the edge and me, and you'll be fine. But watch out for the piranhas."
"What?" Her eyes were enormous as she silently begged him to admit he was kidding. His face, that expressionless stone face, did not change by so much as a twitch.
"Don't worry, they won't eat you. At least, as long as you don't go out in the center of the pool. Go on, do you want to take a bath or don't you? We don't have all day."
He had moved a little away from her as he spoke, settling himself down on a convenient rock and extracting the fishing line he had made from laboriously unraveling a thread from his windbreaker, which was made of nylon and therefore made the thread much stronger than it looked. At the other end was a hook which he had fashioned from a safety pin in the first aid kit. The result was crude but effective, as their dinners for the last two days attested.