The Shining Path

By Mike Snow

Skyler wanted steak before they hit the trail, but the old Quechua woman at theroadside stand sold only llama stew. There weren’t many choices in this part of Andes, so he signaled for two servings as he and his porter, Damasio, hunkered down on their backpacks. While waiting for their order, Skyler nervously dug out of his pocket the tiny houses and cars that he had retrieved the night before from the grave of a freshly killed llama. He still couldn’t get over the ritual slaughter: Seven men had draped the creature in a blanket of silk and gold coins and forced beer down its throat. Then, invoking the name of the great earth mother, the Pachamama, they slit the creature’s throat, buried it, and spread the plastic cars and houses across its grave. Skyler scoffed at the local conviction that sacrificing the llama would somehow bring better luck. But he had marveled at how pure the animal looked in the moonlight. After the men left, he collected the plastic houses and cars. Now, as the old woman ladled out the meat, he rolled them like dice at a craps table.

The woman smoldered at his disrespect, then dumped the remaining liquid from the cooking pot on the ground and threw in some dirt. Skyler interrupted her scouring to ask for some garlic. He didn’t like garlic, much less believe that gold miners who ate it invited demons. But it would kill germs, so he motioned her to fetch a clove from the braid that hung from a rafter of her stand.

Disgustedly, she shook her head.

Demasio averted his eyes. Skyler sighed impatiently. Tolerance could only go so far, he thought. It would be lunacy to put his health on the line because of some superstitious, illiterate peasant woman who could be bought for chump change. As if to emphasize the point, he pressed his thumb hard onto an ant that crawled across the table, then walked defiantly over to the braid and pulled off a clove. The woman’s glare intensified as he popped the garlic into his mouth and swallowed it whole.

Damasio jumped up in a futile attempt to stop him. "Mister, no!"

Skyler wheeled around, pointing to the ground. "Just sit down!" He had sunk enough into this venture, and it was time to clear up any confusion about who was in charge. Demasio sunk back into his pack, his eyes downcast.

Only then did Skyler return to his seat. But the prospect of developing stomach trouble before setting out into the jungle suddenly robbed him of his appetite, and he left his food untouched. When it came time to ante up, he decided to teach the old shrew a lesson in basic enterprise by paying only for Demasio’s order, counting out three Bolivianos instead of six.

"Mas dinero." The woman extended an insistent palm. More money.
"You gave me indigestion, lady."

"Mas dinero." The woman jabbed her hand in his direction.

"One Boliviano for my indigestion..." Skyler hoisted up his backpack, smiling sarcastically. "And one for your attitude." He motioned the porter ahead, then followed after him.

"Ladron!" The woman’s voice trailed after them. Thief!

The path from Pelechuco was swathed in golden light as they descended along foot-high steps carved a thousand years before by Damasio’s Inca ancestors. The lower they went, the more the jungle came alive with ants, mosquitoes, and the raucous cries of birds, punctuated by long periods of silence. Skyler figured that getting to the Rio Madero would take seven days, which suited him fine. Going for the gold sure beat peddling securities. Being free, far from civilization, ready to reap the mother lode, was better than sex, better than anything he could imagine. He felt so good to be out of the market, and no longer having to deal with all those whiners. Could anyone blame him for skimming a little off the top? His clients would have squandered their money no matter what. Besides, he loved dancing a step ahead of the devil. If Damasio’s claims about gold so plentiful that a man could scoop it up with his hands turned out to be true, he would never have to work again. The thought of this made him laugh out loud. Damasio pressed a finger to his lips, reminding him that the bushes on the side of the trail could easily camouflage the fer de lance, whose bite could kill a man in twenty minutes. Or even Sendero Luminoso, the murderous Shining Path Maoists whose bullets killed instantly. If confronted, there was always plan b: If the guerillas ambushed them, he would turn to his money pouch; if that didn’t work, to his .357 Magnum.

Damasio negotiated the rugged trail like a jaguar. As the sun bore down, Skyler’s breath eventually became short and raspy. His pack seemed to weigh increasingly in excess of its sixty pounds. Flies and ants fed off the sweat on his nose and ears. He gave up trying to keep up with Demasio, finally stopping to scoop refreshment from the roiling waters of the Pelechuco River only to find the image of the old woman staring back at him. "Thief," she seemed to say. A little unnerved, he scurried to catch up with the porter. After what seemed like eternity, he finally spotted him waiting at a bend in the trail. The little bastard had obviously forgotten who paid the freight. Skyler marched up to him. "Where the hell have you been?" He yanked his collar. "Don’t ever run off like that again. "Claro?"

Damasio stared submissively at the ground.

Skyler slapped his face. "Claro!"

"Claro."

They set up camp in a valley filled with crickets. Clouds brooded overhead as Damasio gathered wood and fired up a meal of quinoa, rice, carrots, and llama jerky. When thunder cracked, the porter brought the pot inside, appearing more subdued than usual. Skyler finished eating as the patter of rain gave way to the rustling of bushes, causing him to sit up. The story about a jaguar that killed a hiker and left his remains beside a jungle trail came to mind, and he reached for his gun. Demasio motioned for him to back off. "Pachamama," the porter said, finally, using sign language and broken Spanish, as if to indicate that that the great god mother earth wore many masks. The rustling soon stopped, but then lighting ripped the distant sky, causing him to pause, then point upward, as if the earth mother could even take the form of thunderclouds.

"Whatever." Skyler tucked away the gun and replaced it with his journal. He jotted down a note to include future passages about how he fended off both wild animals and the Sendero. The juicier the details, he thought, the faster his "autobiography" would land on the New York Times best seller list. For his current entry, he focused on the superstitious beliefs of the region and his earlier encounter with the old Quechua woman, "a peasant with a chip on her shoulder and daggers for eyes," he wrote. "Only by standing up to her arrogance was I able to put her in her place." Before long the dim light forced him to set the journal aside. He crawled into his sleeping bag and blew out the candle before a chorus of chirping crickets overwhelmed the night.

Damasio fumbled around in the darkness, grunting, as he flicked on his flashlight.

"Hey, I’m trying to sleep."

"The dark is very dangerous," the porter said, rekindling the flame. Skyler sighed. But Damasio seemed both agitated and eager to make him understand, taking a pen along with a piece of paper from the journal. Soon he produced two rough sketches. The first showed a grotesque cockroach. "Before and after," Damasio said. The second portrayed a bloated version of the creature, fat from a meal of blood. Using a combination of sign language and bad Spanish, he demonstrated how the vinchuca, or assassin bug, drops out of darkness to bite the necks of sleeping victims, causing an infection that slowly eats away at their hearts until they die. Only light, he warned, keeps the bug away. Thunder roared overhead. "Pachamama is angry," Damasio said in a low voice.

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever." Skyler shifted in his sleeping bag, barely able to stop from laughing at the porter’s ignorance. But he caught himself. If success meant humoring the porter, so be it. If it meant kowtowing to his strange god, fine. Just as long as he got what he came for. When he yanked at the zipper, a jagged edge sliced into his forefinger, drawing blood. "Damn." He sucked the wound. "Maybe this Pachamama smells my garlic."

On the third morning, the wind kicked up, seeding the air with erratic energy that rattled the brush and ushered in the sun. The trail grew narrower, up sharply in one spot, then down just as suddenly. Skyler’s legs ached under the strain of his pack. He tried to ignore his soreness by focusing on the gold that awaited him, using a walking stick for support but also to complete his image as a swashbuckler. He swung it on the downward slopes as if it were a sword. He imagined the Earth Mother in the form of a rock, a tree, a waterfall, jabbing each as he passed by. "Pachamama!" he said, laughing, hitting the stick against a bush. The path narrowed. A stone gave way. He lost his footing, and tumbled down an embankment. His left leg slammed against a boulder. Pain tore through his knee. Dazed, Skyler tried to get up. But he could barely move.

"Que pasa?" Damasio hurriedly cut a vine with his machete, and held it down to him.

Grabbing on, Skyler pulled himself up. He took a cautious step before another jolt of pain sent him reeling. "Goddamn ligaments!" Again he tried to lift his injured leg. "It’s not going to work."

"Es necesario!" Damasio frantically motioned that they needed to keep moving.

"So call a taxi, smart ass."

Skyler wrestled off his backpack as he fought off the stench from a large pile of nearby mule dung that teemed with flies and worms. The moistness of the dung suggested that help could not be far away. Meanwhile, he had only codeine. He groped through his pack for the bottle, and then swallowed a dose.

Damasio set up camp in an isolated clearing just off the trail that enabled them, undetected, to see anyone who approached. Then he picked out a large, overhanging branch and hacked a pair of crutches for Skyler. Within hours, they spotted a passing courier on the way to Pelechuco with a load on his back. Damasio excitedly invited him to their campsite. The courier sold them a papaya, a pineapple and bananas, and promised to deliver an SOS message noting Skyler’s injury and offer of a big reward. Rescuers, the courier assured them, should arrive in no more than five days.

Skyler passed the time by working on his journal. While the injury angered him, it also dramatically improved his chances of the killing he would make simply by selling his story. For that to happen, he would have to appear especially strong and heroic. Wiping the sweat from his brow, he made another entry: "Despite Damasio’s unreliability and ignorance, he knows his life is in my hands. As a result of my survival skills and endurance on our journey he now respects me even more than he respects the Pachamama, which he and the other Indians in this area believe has supernatural powers." Skyler felt proud about being able to roll with the punches, like a true fighter, in contrast to Damasio, who appeared jittery and anxious to leave. The porter passed the hours by snapping his shirt at ants, flies, beetles, and mosquitoes that found their way into the tent, and by collecting and cooking the roots of the ratarata tree. Each night, he rubbed a little of the brew on his sore shoulder, then guzzled the rest. When Skyler asked to try some, however, the porter cast his eyes downward. "Yeah, I know," Skyler said. "Money." As he reached into his pocket, some of the plastic houses and cars fell to the ground. The sight of them made Damasio’s eyes smolder, just like those of the old Quechua woman.

"The Pachamama doesn’t like me to have these, does she?" Skyler said, leaning over to pick them up. "Too bad. They’re my good luck charms." After stuffing them back into his pocket, he thrust a few bills toward Damasio, pointing toward the rata rata brew. "Here, this is for that concoction of yours. Maybe it can help my leg."

Damasio lowered his head, ignoring the money. Impatiently, Skyler reached out to serve himself. Damasio threw up his hands. "No! Not for foreigners!"

Skyler affected a good-natured chuckle. He picked up the bills and tried to stuff them into Damasio’s pocket. But the porter backed away. A surge of pain made Skyler want to smack him again. "This Pachamama of yours is too damn picky, if you ask me." Angrily he dug out two more codeine tablets. "This is much better than that superstitious hocus-pocus, anyway," he said, downing the tabs with exaggerated motion. "Many powers, this!" He angrily waved the bottle in the porter’s face. "Will bring big metal bird, carry me away in the sky." As of to tempt the porter, he gave the bottle a shake. "American magic!" Skyler tore a page from his journal and dashed off a crude drawing of a chopper. "Here," Skyler said, shoving it into the porter’s hand. But the paper fell to the ground. Skyler shook the bottle again, and smiled. "American god stronger than Pachamama." Damasio looked at him with blank eyes. Skyler dropped the codeine inside his bag the, after a brief pause stopped and glared. "You don’t know shit."

He began the next day with a new journal entry: "Damasio’s superstitious beliefs make him increasingly difficult to deal with. Every night, he cooks a pot full of wild roots called ratarata, which is supposed to help his arthritis but just makes him hallucinate. He even wants me to try this ‘medicine,’ but of course I refuse."

The distant clanging of pots and pans interrupted his thoughts and sent him hobbling to the edge of the bluff for a better look. Peasant men boasting of rifles whipped a long line of pack mules forward along the dusty trail below, pots and pans dangling from the necks of the animals to ward off snakes. Exhilarated, Skyler raised one crutch while supporting himself with the other. He was about to call out to them when Damasio pressed a hand to his mouth and forced him to the ground.

"Shhh!

"What’s wrong?" Skyler hissed.

"Muy peligroso!" Very dangerous.

Skyler’s heart raced. But the muleskinners failed to spot the campsite and kept going until eventually the sun’s golden light enveloped their retreating shadows. This was his wake-up call. How could he realistically expect to be rescued in a half-assed backwater like Bolivia, let alone in the middle of a jungle? Hell, he would be surprised if there were two choppers in the entire country. With their food running out, he would have to try to make it out on his own, bad knee or not. With luck he could get back to Pelechuco in about a week. To prepare for the treacherous journey, he began to practice walking. If amputees could compete in marathons, he could surely cover the necessary ground. He swore he would get there, even if he had to pull himself up those ancient stone steps by his fingernails.

Skyler walked around the camp, down the trail that led from the camp, and back up again. When his leg grew sore, he pressed on anyway. The more he walked, the stronger his leg seemed to get. "We’re going tomorrow, come hell or high water," he blurted out. His sudden determination to leave pleased Damasio, who hacked out a new pair of crutches then presented them to Skyler with a smile. Skyler reciprocated by helping with the cooking. For the first time, he realized, they acted like a team.

But after dinner that night, as Damasio cooked his usual batch of ratarata roots, Skyler tripped over a tree limb, unleashing a fresh surge of pain. He swallowed some codeine, but it had no effect. A double dose only made him lightheaded. He glanced stealthily at the pot of ratarata, and then walked forward, deliberately bumping into the water bucket. "Hell!" The water spilled onto the ground. "Better go fill her up," he said. The porter dutifully grabbed the bucket and headed for the river.

As soon as Damasio was out of sight, Skyler hobbled over to the large cook pot, scooped up a tin of the brew, and sipped greedily. Within seconds, the maple-flavored concoction made him giddy with relaxation. Looking up, he saw the image of a sacrificial llama, translucent and beautiful in the moonlight, morphing into different shapes and sizes. The ratarata had given him a sense of total escape, enabling him to reshape the horizon and reconfigure the stars, and the power to be free. A rustling came from behind. The morphing llama suddenly vanished. Startled, Skyler jerked forward, spilling the brew over his lap.

Damasio appeared through the bush with his water jug. When he saw Skyler holding the cup, he stopped and glared.

Damasio just stood there, looking past him.

"You gonna answer me, or what?" Skyler hobbled around to face the porter, trying to meet his gaze. "We’re going to wait for a helicopter. You have a problem with that?" The porter continued to gaze into the distance. "We’re not going anywhere until then." Damasio just stood there. Skyler grabbed his arm. "Listen to me when I’m talking to you!"

Suddenly Damasio doused Skyler with the water, then slapped his face. Trembling, Skyler glared at him, ready to whack him with a crutch, put a few more scars on his face, beat him senseless. But he stopped at the sight of the porter’s hefty arms and the machete sheathed at his waist. Skyler hobbled back to the tent and unsuccessfully rifled through the pack for his gun. He slumped onto his sleeping bag, wet, his head pounding, prepared, if necessary, to defend himself against the porter. But Damasio remained outside. And as night crept gradually over the camp, Skyler drifted into fitful sleep.

The feeling of something crawling on his head jolted him awake, and his eyes flicked open into pure darkness. He rubbed his head frantically, then groped through his supply pack, finally coming across the flashlight. Its batteries, dead. The match box, empty. He zipped the sleeping bag over his head, gasping for breath, fighting to remain covered, trying desperately not to fall asleep. But as the night wore on, the assassin bug appeared before him, joined by the old woman and the faces of his clients. They danced around him, mocking him, gloating, teasing him that he was going to die a thief. He flailed away at them with fists, pounded, jabbed, pressed his hands to his face, and burrowed deeper into the sleeping bag. The harder he tried to get rid of them, the more they attacked. The top of the sleeping bag had worked down to his shoulders. When he pulled it back up, he felt a slight pinching sensation on his neck. He probed the sore spot for lumps until his fingers became wet with blood. The assassin bug! In blind panic, he groped for his jeans, his money pouch, his boots. Trembling, Skyler tucked the gun into his waistband, and then hauled himself up on his crutches.

The porter was fast asleep beside the cook pot. Guided by moonlight, Skyler struggled past him, up the dusty trail, above the river, toward the shadowy outlines of a cliff. His leg felt like it was about to explode. Sweat beaded his forehead. He stopped briefly to gaze down at the ghost river, and then staggered on, step after desperate step. He thought about the crippled marathon man as he dragged himself over logs and rocks, ever higher up the jungle path, fifty yards, a hundred, five hundred yards, toward Pelechuco. When he stopped to catch his breath, he felt the caked blood on his neck. Then he collapsed.

He awakened the next morning to the distant clanging of pots and pans. He felt no trace of the assassin bug, just a cut like the one he got when his finger caught on the sleeping bag zipper. He closed his eyes and lay back, succumbing to the warmth of the sun. Oddly, his leg didn’t hurt as much anymore. He lapped up water from a nearby pond, then immersed his entire body in it. The sun’s rays reflected powerfully off a white rock, making the path leading back to the camp appear to shine. He smiled in the certainty that he would be finally going home.

Once more, he heard the faint clanging of pots and pans. He gently brushed off some ants from his leg, then gazed toward storm clouds that hovered on the Pelechuco horizon. It was time to go. Hauling himself up, he set out for the campsite to collect his belongings, onto the shining path.

The clanging grew louder, then stopped, replaced by voices that drifted up from the jungle valley along with the faint aroma of mule dung. The closer Skyler got to the campsite, the clearer the voices became. As he rounded the last curve, he expected to see Damasio cooking breakfast. Instead, the porter sat on a mule, hands tied behind his back, ropes cutting so deeply into them that his veins stood out. A fire crackled beside him. The same wiry muleskinners who had passed the camp now watched a man emerge from the tent carrying Skyler’s pack. Then the old Quechua woman from the roadside stand came out with Skyler’s sleeping bag in her arms, the courier who had sold them food behind her.

Skyler dug into his pocket for the toy houses and cars, and balled them in his fist. With his free hand he reached for the gun. He swallowed. Then he stepped forward pointing the weapon. "Give me that!" The muleskinners slowly looked around at him. "Now!" The courier hesitated, and then brought over his rucksack. Skyler nodded for him to drop it at his feet. The courier obeyed. "My journal, where is it!" The courier fished the diary out of the bag and held it out. "Let me have it, I said!" Skyler snatched it from him and tossed it into the fire. He waved the weapon around, nodding toward the porter. "Untie him." No one moved. He fired above their heads. "I said, untie him!"

Two of the men did as he ordered. Damasio jumped down from the mule, wringing his wrists. Skyler jerked his head in the direction of Pelechuco. "Get out of here, now!" Damasio looked at him with big, frightened eyes. Skyler fired the gun in the air. The sound echoed in the hills. Damasio gave him another long look. "Go on!" Suddenly, the porter bolted from the camp, jumping over rocks and logs, quickly putting distance between himself and the camp. Skyler heard rustling behind him. As he turned, something slammed against his head. A man kicked his leg out from underneath him. The gun flew out of his hand. In an instant the others were upon him, jabbing him with their rifle butts. A shadow crept over him. Something crushed his outstretched hand. He tried to free it, but it would not move. He squinted up to see the old Quechua woman, silhouetted against the sun, pressing her foot down hard.

"Te insultada de la religion de esta senora," the leader barked.

"Pachamama!"

"Pachamama!" the rest of the men shouted in unison.

Dazed, Skyler looked around, his vision obscured by the morphing of a llama.

The old woman removed her foot from his hand. The leader nodded at two of the muleskinners. They yanked up Skyler and pitched him headlong into the mule dung. The plastic houses and cars fell from his hand. Pain stabbed his knee. Yellow maggots pressed against his face. He remained in the dung, baking in the sun, unable to move. He imagined the woman retrieving a bottle of beer from her pouch and pouring it into his mouth. Just like he had seen with the sacrificial llama. The leader raised his machete.

"Pachamama!" the woman shouted.

"Pachamama!" the men said in unison.

Skyler squinted into the sunlight, managing to spot Damasio running toward the horizon, bounding toward Pelechuco with the short, powerful strides of a jaguar.

And the dung smelled sweet.