James Grippando - A King's ransom

“It’s too cold,” she said.

“Leave your clothes,” he said sternly. “Now!”

Slowly she removed her jacket and sweater, and then her boots. She was down to a blouse and pants.

“The rest,” he said.

“She’ll freeze!” shouted Matthew.

One of the sharpshooters fired a warning shot. It splashed in the water just inches from Matthew’s knee. He backed off.

Nisho looked nearly paralyzed with fright. Her eyes darted from one gawking guerrilla to the next as her trembling hand unbuttoned her blouse. The catcalls started. The show was in full swing.

Matthew turned his gaze toward the guerrillas. They were a repugnant group, themselves in need of bathing. The fat guy was especially disgusting, a hideous tattoo covering the entire left side of his face. The word “ cerdo ” came to mind-“pig.”

“The pants,” said Joaquin.

Matthew heard the zipper, then the hoots. The guerrillas atop the boulder were sharing a bottle of something. The fat one with the tattoo stood up and started dancing, which quickly degenerated into a vulgar pelvic thrust. The others applauded, egging him on. He jumped down from the boulder and went toward Nisho.

She was wearing only underpants, her arms covering her breasts. Cerdo grabbed her clothes, then wadded them into a ball and pitched them to Joaquin. He held the bundle in open hands, as if offering Nisho her clothes. She came toward him, pleading as she reached for the bundle. He laughed in her face and quickly pitched it back to the fat guy. He made the same phony offer, and again Nisho fell for it. He tossed her clothes back to another guerrilla. She was soon running back and forth, still trying to cover herself, tears streaming down her face.

“Stop it!” shouted Matthew.

The sharpshooter responded with another warning, this one even closer. Matthew stopped in his tracks, still knee-deep in the eddy.

“Nisho! Nishooooooo!” Joaquin shouted.

She was bouncing back and forth, one guerrilla to the next, as they played keep-away with her clothes. As she raced by Joaquin, he reached out and grabbed her by the panties, ripping them off. She screamed and fell. The guerrillas shouted with excitement as Joaquin waved the panties over his head. The guerrillas formed a circle around her, tossing her clothes from one to the next, over Nisho’s head, behind her back, howling each time she reached up and exposed her nakedness. Joaquin put his gun aside and grabbed her from behind, taking a breast in each hand. She kicked and swung wildly as he lifted her from the ground, then bit his arm.

He cried out and slapped her across the head.

Matthew seized the moment and dived for Joaquin’s gun. He got a hand on it, but only for a split second. Cerdo rapped him across the head with the butt of his rifle. Matthew fell to the ground hard, bleeding from the head.

Her screaming grew more shrill and desperate. The guerrillas were shouting, no longer laughing. It was more like a barbaric chant.

Matthew sensed that someone was standing over him, but his head was throbbing, his vision blurring. Gradually the noises faded. He raised his head one last time, just high enough to see three men drag a screaming Nisho off behind the rocks, and then his world turned black.

Maria and I had traveled by boat up the coast from Puerto Cabezas, then hiked another half hour into the thick of the rain forest. The Mosquito Coast was living up to its name. I was covered with insect repellent, but nothing short of dousing myself in gasoline and setting myself on fire could have deterred these monsters. I was sure they’d drawn at least a pint of my blood by the time we reached the first clearing. We stopped for water from our canteens atop a barren, muddy hill. Hundreds of short sticks were protruding up from the ground.

“What’s with all the sticks?” I asked.

“Mudslide. The last hurricane. Used to be a village here. The sticks are where we found the bodies.”

I took a wider look and saw even more sticks. Hundreds more in every direction, up one slope and down another. It was the jungle version of Arlington National Cemetery, except that everybody here, children included, had been washed away at the same horrific moment in the same giant river of mud. Maria fell silent, eyes closed, as if in prayer. I bowed my head and said a little one of my own.

That was our last real break of the afternoon. We walked nonstop for two more hours, sharing water along the way, until we finally reached an old Miskito Indian settlement at dusk. It was little more than a small clearing in the trees. There were no real roads, only footpaths that led from the hub to the forest in all directions, like the spokes of a wheel. In the center of the clearing was an old wooden building that appeared to be a combination church and schoolhouse. About a dozen tumbledown shacks surrounded it. A group of Indian children came out to greet us as we entered their village. I was suddenly surrounded by outstretched hands, some of them tugging at my backpack. They knew Maria by name, which lessened my anxiety.

“I used to teach here,” she said over the incessant chatter of the children.

“Teach what?”

“Bible school.”

I suddenly understood what had drawn her to Lindsey, a lost soul if ever there was one.

Maria said something in the native Miskito language, and the smiling children backed away, allowing us to pass. I followed her around to the back of the church, where she stopped at the door to a small cottage. She knocked twice, and the door opened. A woman with short blond hair was standing in the doorway, the first Caucasian I’d seen since leaving Managua. The short hair threw me. In the waning daylight I almost didn’t recognize my own sister.

“Nick?” she said.

“I came to see if you want to change your long-distance carrier.”

She smiled, appreciating the humor, then came out and gave me a rather unexpected hug. “I can’t believe you’re here.”

“I can’t believe you’re here,” I said.

We didn’t tell Maria that we wanted to talk alone, but on her own initiative she headed off to chat with her former pupils. Lindsey led me inside, closed the door, and lit the oil lamp on the table. It was a one-room shack, and the lamp was the only source of light. The bed was a woven hammock. A pitcher and washbasin were resting on the nightstand beside it. The floor was a collection of straw mats on dirt. We sat at opposite sides of the table on the only two chairs in the room. She offered me a tin cup of water.

“You’ve had your shots, right?”

“I got them before I went to Colombia.”

“You went to Colombia?”

The way she’d asked, it was clear that she didn’t know about Dad. She seemed genuinely shocked as I told her all about the kidnapping. It took several minutes. I finished with the part that I assumed would be of greatest interest to her.

“The insurance company thinks you’re behind Dad’s kidnapping.”

“That’s preposterous.”

“That’s what I thought. For starters, how would you even know he had kidnap-and-ransom insurance?”

She paused, then said, “Actually, I think I did know that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Dad never came right out and told me he had it. But he wanted to buy a policy for me, and I guess I sort of assumed he had it for himself.”

“Now I’m really confused. The last time you and I had a phone conversation, you said that you hadn’t spoken to Mom or Dad since Christmas.”

“The last time you and I talked was almost three months ago.”

“Are you saying things have changed between you and Dad?”

“Honestly, we were becoming. . close.”