CHAPTER TWELVE: MALARIA

Our route took us through the northern region of the Selva de Lacandon and into the lowland jungle of the Guatemalan Peten region. Here, the wild life was abundant. I saw quetzals, scarlet macaws, howler monkeys that yell like lions, spider monkeys and a whole assortment of insects that feasted upon my flesh.

Cassarina only showed a numb interest as she fell into an expressionless bewilderment.

Hornsby, in his massive horseback riding profile, remained stoic for the most part. His optimistic temperament had been stained by Cassarina’s distaste toward him. I kept an eye on her, as the hoofs of her horse trampled along our narrow paths, obediently following the rest of the pack.

On the second day, Cristobal found a cenote, a natural underground well in the Yucatan’s limestone bedrock, where we could re-fill our canteens. As we sat there resting the horses, Hornsby, in all earnestness, was determined to set things right with Cassarina.

“You see, there are too many foreign governments involved here,” he said. The statement was meant to reason the eventualities of a man-made menace we could not control.

“There is too much potential wealth here. The magnitude of natural resources is astounding.” He wanted to make a point that governments were going to run the business of the world whether people liked it or not.

“We can’t help it,” he continued. “There is no escaping this industrial scourge.”

The sky had clouded and rain started to pelt down upon us. I made haste to get our ponchos from our packs, covering Cassarina, as she made no effort to respond.

“If anything turned up at the South Pole that was worth taking, the beast of consumption would be there to devour it,” Hornsby reasoned.

There was destiny in his words, substantiated by a great deal of historical evidence. I thought at first he was being distasteful, but now I could see he was trying to show us, or at least to Cassarina, that we couldn’t allow such vile incidents to humiliate us into submission.

The age of technology was on a track of self-destruction. Human life was dwarfed in value by comparison to the technological advances embellished with patriarchal categories like, law, medicine, politics, industry, trade, and religious convictions. Anything regarded with worth was based on materialistic and monetary acquisition.

“No where can we find an artistic peaceful civilization valued or honored. Human decency has been robbed from us by the industrial conspiracies to steal what they can.”

The rain was pouring down as we sat there, huddled about each other. Hornsby looked intently at Cassarina with cherished hope that one way or another he was getting through to her.

“Nobody can diminish you, Cassarina,” he said in a soft whisper.

There was so much desire in his voice for redemption that I hung onto the next moment with anticipation of Cassarina coming back to her senses. She stirred.

“Too late,” Cassarina replied muffled by the pounding rain. She sunk lower into her abyss of despair, a dark heap under her poncho. Was it her payback and hurt and disgrace and rage that made her say it?

“Why are you angry with me,” Hornsby said. His kind eyes peered out from under the hood of his poncho.

“I can’t believe you,” Cassarina flung at him without a stir.

“I don’t believe you.” His voice was filled in compassionate tenderness. “Our opinions cancel each other.”

Cassarina fell forward hiding her face in her hands, sobbing. Every limb trembled. Hornsby looked at me with somber resignation. We sat there in the merciless jungle that could clutch the life of its victims into a rotting silence. The anguish of perishing here swelled up in my throat as the mood of fatigue consumed me. I was relying upon Cassarina to recover from her revulsion of the distressing experience.

“Oh, god, how much longer,” I thought to myself.

This remarkable woman could not be tarnished for life. The heavy dismal affair weighed upon my heart. And, I could see it fraying Hornsby’s nerves.

But no matter what, we would not fail Cassarina. I internally prayed for our salvation from this incomprehensible ordeal. It was then that Cristobal called to us in his enlightened goodwill.
“Darse prisa.” The horses were fed. It was time to move on.

Mechanically we rose, gathering Cassarina to her feet. The two of us, shoulder to shoulder, carried her over to her horse, as Cristobal steadied the four-legged beast with the reins. We lifted her up. She tried to gently wriggle out of our grip but Hornsby gave her a push that set her up across the worn leather saddle.

Adjusting herself, Cristobal handed her the reins. Suddenly, she let out a half-cry, half-laugh to no one in particular.

“Let me go,” she yelled in a soul-stirring shout, turning her head away in a wild stare. Her sudden switch into a manic behavior struck me as offensively independent. She despised having to be dependent on anyone. The horse reared.

Cristobal quickly grabbed the reins, steadying its nerves. Hornsby and I froze, so as not to encouraged the spooked horse. In a moment, the snorting beast settled down. Cassarina, who miraculously remained in the saddle, starred straight ahead, oblivious to what had happened. Hornsby decided it was paramount to lead her horse.

The rain kept on all day but at least we didn’t suffer having to walk in the mud. We bypassed the village of Lacandon in Guatemala. Cristobal told us that it was best to stay clear of the villages, though it would slow our progress. The more time I spent with Cristobal, the more I appreciated his knowledge of the area, his discipline to survival practices and a genuineness of heart. It dawned on me that I had not questioned him at all, tacitly turning over our lives to his expert attention.

That evening we spent the night in a crudely constructed tree house that Cristobal knew the location of. It was used by the chicleos from time to time, he said. The shelter was a blessed reprieve from the drenching we were taking from the tropical storm, but leaks in the roof didn’t give us much protection. It was impossible to light a fire under the circumstances.

Hornsby said he would look for food in the morning, as we finished the last of the tamales that Cristobal had brought. Regardless of our raingear, our bodies were soaked to the bone. I trembled from the chill and felt feverish. The best we could do was huddle together to preserve our body warmth, hoping that tomorrow would bring sunshine.

Cassarina sat between Hornsby and I. The touch of her body brought salient comfort to me though she was rigid. Cristobal was directly across from her on my right side and Hornsby on my left, who dozed off. We were drowsy from fatigue, leaning into each other when I felt Cassarina’s head drawing back. I looked up to see her blazing eyes fastened out into space as if her soul was leaving her body as a bolt of lightning flashed through tree house. Her lips quivered. I feared she had become delirious.

She swayed slightly for a moment. The dread of her going raving mad consumed me. Then I felt her hand searching next to me. Her fingers found mine and entwined them tightly with hers. A rumble of thunder filled me with apprehension as my pounding headache made me vacantly aware of what she was doing. Beneath the endless drumming of the rain on the shelter’s thatched roof, Cassarina sighed.

“Better now,” she whispered.

She squeezed my hand even tighter and rested her head upon my shoulder, her body sinking into mine. Cristobal aware of her shift glanced over at me with up lifted eyes.

“Dormir bien toda la noche,” he said warmly, wishing me a good nights sleep.

The next morning I found myself prostrate and alone in the tree house. Thin cotton sleeping bags have been laid over me to keep me warm. A poncho was draped over these to keep the rain off, but it was hardly the remedy. My fever was worse; radiating heat like a furnace. My body was shivering in damp clothes. I thought about moving but I couldn’t muster the strength.

I barely could move my eyes about to notice that our belongings were still strewn about the tree house’s lashed cane floor. I moaned, curling up in a fetal position, trying to keep my body tremors to a minimum. Directly, I felt I had just had a bad dream, a vague memory of the incident at El Desempeno. What I saw the next morning brought me back to stark reality.

The bare feet of a Metizos came toward me carefully stepping so as not to disturb me. He leaned down coming close enough for me to feel his breath upon my cheek. His shirt was open revealing deep scars from a machete blade. Through the slit of one open eye I watched him. He moved about as if in secret with stealthy systematic movements. I couldn’t be sure if he was Cristobal in the shaded light of the tree house.

If he was Cristobal, he was searching for something among our gear. There was a kind of perdition directing him. I suspected a malicious character. Each item he picked up to see if the object of his desire was underneath, he carefully placed back down so as not to alarm anyone that it had been moved. He moved out of my line of sight, rummaging quietly through the backpacks. The presence of the man gave me a scare. It was disheartening to think that Cristobal had betrayed our trust. I cursed myself for being too reliant upon him. I worried about the fate of Hornsby and Cassarina. Had he killed them? It caused me to find strength for truth’s sake to know what he was doing.

“Cristobal,” I gasped through a parched tongue.

I heard him spring like a spooked cat. I rolled over to look at him, his face darkened by the filtering sunlight behind him. He stood in a posture of awkwardness. Something dropped from his hand. I sensed he was uneasy. I thought that if Cristobal can go wrong on us, there is little hope for our survival. He had no business being sneaky like a thief.

There is no such thing as respectable bandits, even if from the necessity of habit because of one’s cowardice to be disciplined by their own inherit good nature. They always have a thousand petty inadequate excuses for being godless.

“Disculpe, senor,” the man remarked, half serious. I was resolute to know what he was doing, but my fever engulfed me in a hellish infernal. His lips kept moving, but I only heard my own incoherent voice coming from his mouth. I drifted into a lapse of unconsciousness only later to be aroused by the gentle shake by Cassarina’s hand.

As I opened my eyes, I saw she had returned to her senses again, compassionately kneeling by my side. Her face was washed and hair combed neatly about her face. She looked endearingly at me, holding a metal cup of some steaming concoction. I tried to speak but she motioned for me to sip, putting the hot cup to my dry lips.

As I drank I heard the creaking floor of someone else near me. I noticed Hornsby’s tan soiled trousers were hanging down from a line strung between the tree house’s cane walls. I didn’t have the strength to say anything as I finished the medicinal tea that Cassarina had prepared for me. I wanted to tell her about Cristobal the Thief, but then I wondered if my feverish imagination was out-of-control. Delirious, I laid my head back down on a bundle of clothes, feeling the weight of my sins, my sense of unworthiness. The fever-demon put its grip on me.

The day turned into night and day again but then I lost track of time. I was too weak to stand, but with the assistance of Hornsby and Cristobal I was able to move into a hammock they had strung up for me encased in mosquito netting. Cassarina diligently tended to my needs, always close at hand when I woke to give me more medicinal tea, water and an occasional injection of quinine.

At times Hornsby and Cristobal were in sight or I could hear them talking, but I was reduced to such a state of incoherence that it didn’t matter to me. I surmised that they kept their distance because it was probably too heart breaking to watch me dying from the ravages of a tropical fever.

Cassarina told me I had caught “that miserable malaria” and that it could have been much worse.

“Worse,” I thought.

It was the only period in my life that I had wanted to die. I continued to suffer through repeated bouts of high fevers till the curse finally broke. The first distinguishable voice I heard was an echo of low toned words from a grizzly bearded Hornsby, crouched next to Cassarina.

“There’s some life going on behind his eyes,” he said to her cheerfully.

She laid a damp cloth on my forehead and nodded with a genuine smile.

“Thank god you didn’t catch the dengue fever,” Hornsby said, “or we’d would have had to put you out of your misery with lead therapy.”

Two weeks had passed by the time I had recuperated well enough to move about. As they waited for my recovery the three of them had orchestrated a cooperative routine. We were eating well from Cristobal’s and Hornsby’s daily hunting for game, mostly snakes, and edible foliage that Cassarina collected.

When they weren’t hunting, they did repairs to the tree house, patching up the leaky thatched roof, and retying vine lashes that had rotted. Hornsby, to his delight, had found some remains of a few old Indian tortilla stones. These were a few flattened stone slabs, which he hauled up into the tree house with Cristobal’s assistance. Cassarina made good use of them as her food preparation table.

“Everything is about presentation,” she delightfully said, serving us a meal.

Exhibiting a domestic flair, Cassarina spruced up the small tree house quarters nice enough. She made flower arrangements of orchids to place by my hammock. This brightened my spirit as I imagined it did some therapeutic good for hers.

At times during the day, Cassarina and I were left alone. My elevated spirit inspired me to write in my journal during the quietness between us, as she still insisted that I remain sedentary. Her nurturance was like liquid gold, pouring over me, rendering me helpless and happy. Through the mosquito net draped over my hammock, she appeared like an angel as she moved about the tree shelter, in a soft focused glow.

Such scenes I wrote about in my journal with a growing impatience I felt in my heart. Scribbling down my passionate desires was the safest mode of expression to express my intimate feelings.
I wanted to know what she was thinking. What did she feel? In the presence of her stillness, as she rested in her hammock across from me, I yearned to embrace her. A gust of obsession swayed about me like wind through the trees. She would stir in a way that made me breathless, induced to the truth of my own fervent repressions. I wanted to lash out a furious gesture from my sneering torment of unrelinquished love.

“Better not,” I wrote. It was not morally right. Maybe when we’re out of here, some time in the future. If it’s meant to be, we’ll be both know, I concluded, bringing my amorous thoughts to closure upon the page.

“I had malaria once,” Cassarina volunteered to me one day after the two men had left to go hunting. She told me about her experience in Sri Lanka, assigned to provide humanitarian aid.
“The best they could do for me was let me lie in a hut like a dog.” Cassarina related that she had gotten so mad at the villagers for letting her suffer so much.

“I couldn’t understand why they didn’t do something,” she said, explaining that she didn’t have her medical kit, as she had moved into this remote region on her own, rather carelessly.
“I laid there in on a mat bed on top of a dirt floor, flies buzzing all about my head, in a feverish stupor.”

Later, the villagers had told her all they could do was wait and see if she would die. The disease had to run its course.

“If I was strong enough, I would be ok,” Cassarina spoke with finality as she prepared some greens with banana, avocado and coconut meat, a tossed salad of sorts, the ingredients of which she had gathered that morning in the jungle.

“I would never let anyone suffer like that, I decided,” she said as a matter-of-fact. She came over to my hammock, pulling up the mosquito net and handing me the salad in my mess kit bowl. What struck me as being perplexing was Cassarina’s absence of her fiery unprovoked aggressiveness. I was fascinated and bewildered at the same time. But it was a poignant trait that had vanished.

“You’re lucky. You got the benefit of my own hard knocks experience,” she said gleaming in sincerity.

The two men returned with a joyous laughter in their voices as they climbed up the tree house ladder. Hornsby and Cristobal were getting on as kindred spirits. I could see that Hornsby was alive and vibrant with his new outpost duty. Cristobal had found a like-minded companion, as I spied him admiring Hornsby as they cleaned game together and barbequed it over an open fire.

After diner, their jovial animated talk of the day’s adventures gave us delightful entertainment.
Through the night, Hornsby and Cristobal took turns with a vigilant watch over the horses to keep any predators away. I still had the uneasy sense of my vision of Cristobal the Thief, yet it was hard to determine that these two personas embodied the same individual.

When I asked where they had gone the first day, Cassarina said she and Hornsby had gone out to survey the area and determine what to do about my condition. Cristobal had been left behind to watch the horses and me. From then on, I secretly held my suspicion of Cristobal as a traitor to us, waiting to find some evidence.

Strangely, Cassarina did produce something while I was still delirious with fever, which she asked me about, half concerned. She found it in my clothes as she went through them to wash. It was one of the flints we had found outside of the cryptic vault with Baltazar.

She was a bit perplexed because she didn’t remember me taking anything. My response was the same, claiming I didn’t remove a thing. It was my cardinal rule as well as Hornsby’s. Cassarina affectionately placed it near the head of my bed under my journal, to enshrine it as a hidden symbol to bring me rejuvenation. The discovery made my mind run with into the wild regions of the mysterious visitor. That evening the truth was to be known about Cristobal.

In an arm stretching gesture as he told us a story of his exploits in the jungle, Cristobal’s shirt opened up baring his chest. In the firelight, I distinctly saw no marks whatsoever. To my relief, I sank into a peaceful sleep that night. Whatever the mystery of the flint was about, I didn’t want to speculate. The incident of the strange man was like a vaporous dream as time elapsed making me forget even more of the details.

When I had the chance not to be detected, I tucked the flint away in my backpack. I didn’t want to bring attention to it again. Cassarina thoughtfully didn’t say anything to Hornsby. He would have chewed on me regardless of my weakened condition. Even if I denied taking it, the irrefutable evidence was there. It was detestable to him to take relics from the ruins.

My illness came as a blessing I suppose, as it caused Cassarina to rally to my needs, and for Hornsby to indulge in his passion of wilderness survival. Their enthusiasm, I thought, was something that Cristobal hadn’t expected given our state of mind when we first set out. He was enlivened with the goodwill of their mutual interests.

The next evening, after dinner, Cassarina announced I was well enough to move on. Our liveliness faded from the pleasure of our diversion. For a moment, apprehension fell upon our hearts to leave our makeshift Shangri La. Our bond under the circumstances had gratified us with a devotion we had not shared before. Moving on meant more challenges and perils ahead. We would have to muster the love of this adventure. None of us offered any objections.

Cristobal leaned back and facing us in our customary evening circle as if we had gathered about the hearth of a campfire, looked content and recognized the inevitable.

“No hay más remedio,” he said. We couldn’t help it.

“On to El Destino,” Hornsby cheerfully exclaimed, as if he was making a toast. In unison we made the jubilant toast again with imaginary glasses in our hands.

“El Destino.” We said in cheerful unison.