Third Saturday Fiction

Prologue & Chapter 1, Rainforest Day One, from the novel Far Stone

By Steve Glossin

[Editor’s Note: Begun over ten years ago, Far Stone remains so far unfinished. It features the character Big Bob Tilden, who has appeared on Moristotle & Co. before – most recently on August 26 last year, when Bob took a wild camel ride across a Saudi Arabian desert.]

By AD 900 the Classic period of the Maya was ending. Their major cities were being abandoned and the monumental architecture was slowly being claimed and hidden by the Jungle of the dense rainforest. The inhabitants of Masuul, located in the heart of Maya region between Calakmul to the south and Tikal to the north would stand vacant until it was rediscovered by the archaeologist Sylvanus Morley, on 3 May 1922.

The five-foot, four-inch tall Ladino moved steadily under the dense green canopy of the Yucatan rainforest. His slender build was clothed in a faded cotton shirt, washed-out trousers, and a pair of worn leather sandals. The rough woven material hid the power in his compact body as he trekked the trail that was being engulfed by and explosion of ferns and vines that encircled and climbed the trees like snakes looking for prey. It had been three weeks since he had followed this route to the lost city and already the forest jungle was flexing its muscle and reclaiming the path he’d cleared.
    He slowed only when a thick tangle of vines or a branch required more than a practiced swing to clear them. The razor sharp machete he carried in his hand was moving in a silent beat with the ease and expertise of a man at home in the rainforest. Jorge was a chiclero who’d lived most of his adult life collecting sap from the sapodilla trees.
    When he wasn’t collecting chicle he worked as a guide for the occasional tourists that wanted to tell friends back home how they lived and survived the jungles of Guatemala. Or guided researchers looking for botanical discoveries that would lead to cures for the world’s maladies. The man who followed him had a different purpose.
    Jorge paused when he heard from the man a grunt and a jumble of words he didn’t understand. Jorge’s face, the color of burnt sienna, peered over his left shoulder, but the immense body of the Norteamericano wasn’t visible. The noise beyond the bend he had just taken, of thrashing through the vegetation, told him the man was closing. Jorge’s narrow lips spread into a crease as he turned back forward and hurried on. His arm worked the machete like a windmill, clearing a path large enough for his compact body to pass.
    “Hey, George,” a booming voice echoed through the dense flora, “where’s the damn fire?”
    Jorge stopped and looked back. A large smile spread across his face displaying a mouthful of white teeth. The smile faded when he saw the six-foot, six-inch hombre bulling through the jungle dragging a two-meter long, dark-brown and gray snake with dark cross bands on its body.
    “Don’t move, Señor,” Jorge whispered as he inched his way back. Three more cautious steps and he was praying to every god he had known—the one from the catholic priests and the protestant ministers, but mostly to the Maya. The hombre lifted his arm and Jorge could see that the head with its yellow throat was no longer a part of the snake’s body. The wrinkles on his brown forehead relaxed beneath his black bangs, and the breath he was holding eased out of his lungs.
    Jorge slid his machete into its leather sheath then reached out and grasped the dead serpent. He studied it for a moment then clicked his tongue and flung the snake into the foliage. “Very dangerous, Señor.”
    “Hey, that’s dinner,” said Bob Tilden, his blue-gray eyes following the body’s brief flight before it disappeared into the tangled undergrowth.
    Jorge wrinkled his nose. “No good to eat. The bite of the barba amarilla takes many lives and gives much pain before one dies.”
    Robert’s stomach growled with hunger. “Barbara who?”
    “Yellow beard in your tongue, Señor.” Jorge slid his machete out of the sheath. “Where you find it?”
    “I was making my way through those little holes you’re clearing and it was hanging down from a tree like a vine. When it opened its mouth in front of my face....” Bob swept his machete in front of him in a quick motion. “We called it by the Frenchy name, Fer-de-lance—back when I went through jungle training at Ft. Sherman in Panama. Tastes pretty good if you grill it. Kinda like chicken,” he added.
    “You like chicken?”
    “Yeah.” A beam spread across Bob’s tanned face as he slipped his two-quart canteen out of the carrier and unscrewed the cap. He popped a couple of salt tablets into his mouth, took a long swig, then unwound the OD (olive drab) handkerchief wrapped around his neck. He poured water on it and replaced it. “The humidity’s bad, but the flies biting my neck are worse.”
    Jorge reached into his cotton carryall and pulled out a small folded palm leaf. “Wipe skin with this and moscas no bother you.”
    Bob took the leaf, opened it and lifted what looked like a rancid potato too long in the sun to his nose. “Jeez,” he said when he got a good whiff. “This smells worse than road kill skunk that’s been festering for a week. What is it?”
    “It is the root of the apacin bush. I make it special to keep the mosca and mosquito away.”
    “The flies aren’t that bad,” said Bob as he handed the leaf back. “You said something about chicken.”
    Jorge refolded the leaf and dropped it into his carryall. “Maybe two hours, Señor. We stop and I make you best chicken you ever eat.” Jorge turned and moved forward on the trail.
    Bob thought about roasting chicken on a spit and licked his lips. He slid the canteen in the carrier and hurried to catch up with his guide.

Copyright © 2015 by Steve Glossin