Keeping Up Appearances (A Gass County Novel Book 4) Page 2

  “I just wanted to make sure people moved out of the way,” Brody explained, answering the thought in Bryce’s head. “Should there be any, that is.”

  ***

  Outside the window cornstalks were replaced by houses, and eventually the city noise of Amerhurst poked his interest and he was relieved the trip to the airport had been shorter than he first expected. Bryce unhooked the sunglasses from his jacket and hid his shame of ordering three married men away from their families and jobs because Jack Daniel had urged his finger to hit submit when he had ordered the tickets that one night. Some would have found his misdemeanor irritating, his friends never questioned it, they followed because that’s what he needed, and he was immensely happy about that. In silence.

  “Gate 34, now ready for boarding,” screeched from the speakers above them as they walked down the yet busier corridor in search for the right gate number. The brown dirt from the fields around Jefferson’s farm came off of his boots then became engulfed by the maroon carpet rolling out like an enormous tongue until they stepped through the small door to the airplane. Wayne and Brody were the only two to have previously explored the world of aviation during trips to the Middle East while in service for the country. Jefferson’s camera snapped photo after photo out the miniscule window of the plane, instantly sending some home to Raylyn and his two beautiful daughters. Bryce turned his head away from the activity by the window, swallowed hard and counted down the minutes to when he had been told alcohol would be served in flight.

  A yellow taxi had pulled up to the curb outside the airport and a handsome older gentleman in black slacks and a white short-sleeve shirt had taken the four suitcases and miraculously fit them all in the back of his trunk faster than anyone had time to find a way to tell the man a bigger car may be needed. As the trunk closed the men were in the car, the driver gave what looked like an almost toothless grin and in chirp and eager Portuguese asked where the four men, all hiding behind black sunglasses and retail-bought Bermuda shorts, were headed.

  As Bryce stumbled across the words in the dictionary the size of a pack of Marlboro for daily conversation pieces in the native language he knew little to nothing about Brody’s arm coming into view between the two front seats. With one point of his finger on his fold-out map the driver nodded at Brody and took off as if in hot pursuit into the hustling and bustling of traffic in South America, where fists and honks seemed as common as a McDonald’s restaurant on every corner in the United States. The cab held a decent yellow paint job and with an engine rattle took them out of the city, leaving the fumes of vehicles and irritated drivers behind to enter a lush landscape from which the Beatles must have found the title to The Long and Winding Road. Up, up, and around they went, under large green leaves shading the narrow road in privacy. Endless fields of green surrounded by mountains hiding their tips behind the clouds in the sky went by the car and Bryce did his best to trace the path on the map in his lap, hoping this trip was not bound to end with robbery and death by drug lords hiding on the hill tops.

  Suddenly, the car rolled to a halt causing Bryce to break the impact with his hands shoved hard onto the dashboard of the car and the driver pointed to the map in Bryce’s lap then out the passenger side window. All four men followed the direction of his hand.

  “Hope you didn’t use up your 401k on this, Bryce.” Jefferson ran his hand through his long dark hair and stepped out of the car to retrieve bags the driver was already hauling out of the trunk and onto him, sending both him and luggage to the ground.

  “I’m not going to like my credit card statement this month,” Bryce mumbled and folded the map into the side pocket of his shorts and stepped out of the car and into the humidity of the Amazon rainforest.

  ~ Chapter Four ~

  Valerie Houston unrolled the rubbery white gloves off of her hands that had been inside a pregnant cow’s most utterly private parts in what felt like hours. Calf was fine and dandy, roasting until ready to come out and greet the pasture. Now turned the right way, that is, with the help of human hands. Hers. Literally. With the gloves came the white apron she’d fashioned, all into the trash can, and she toed off the rain boots outside the front door to the hut.

  She’d let a chain of a week’s dirty boots and standing rakes tumble one by one to the ground in a simultaneous assembly. Sleep craved her entire body and she couldn’t be bothered by such pettiness as cleaning. It ended up secondary, always, and anyone visiting her miniature house could attest to that. Which people usually did. If they were from the city.

  The mattress was in the same mess she’d left it this morning and she had no one to blame but herself. Had she set the alarm a few minutes earlier the bed might have stood a chance. On the other hand, who would care? No one visited, except for the two tribe leaders carrying injured animals onto her home grounds. And the landlord, or should she say, “Mr. Yale and Stanford,” the American hotshot and owner of the remote piece of land, seldom visited and had her rent payment transferred wirelessly from the closest city’s post office into his account. But when he did pay a visit the too-tight navy blue dress pants and pressed white shirts still sported cufflinks with the University’s logo twenty years post graduation.

  She pulled open the mosquito net and fell onto the pile of tangled sheets and pillows and closed her eyes. Calves and pregnant cows fell to the back of her mind and the noise of the forest filled her being. In rhythm with the crickets and the rustling of leaves she breathed deeply until she felt as if one with the bed and nothing more existed in the world.

  “Ms. Valerie,” a soft male voice grabbed hold of her dream and brought her back to her hut. “Ms. Valerie, sorry to awake you, we have found another Ocelot in need of care. Please, miss, come now.”

  Valerie opened the net around the bed and looked out the squared hole in the wall next to the bed resembling what others called a window when living in civilization. “Oz, my friend, how far and how bad? My feet are fighting me and so is the rest of my body.”

  “Not far this time, we brought him to you.” Oz held up the gangly body of an injured animal in the window.

  “Oz, no!” In seconds Valerie was back in her shoes and ran behind her hut, tossing a thick blanket on the ground.

  “What happened, Oz?”

  The tall, thin tribal man with a face dusted in red sand and distinguished black dotted lines at the side of his face, speaking of years as a leader, placed his walking stick steadily on the ground and kneeled next to her in the moist, brown dirt.

  “We think a snare held him captured long enough for starvation to be used as fur, miss.” He nodded to the protruding ribs under the dirty coat, usually of glimmering gold in the rays of the sun.

  “You did well, Oz, I can save him,” she answered, running her hands softly at the side of the starved animal. ‘Please don’t feel the need to stay, in a week or two he will be back into the wild. Your tribe must be waiting for you, it’s almost sundown.”

  Oz stood and after a simple nod walked the narrow path his feet had paved for months to Valerie’s hut between thick emerald foliage and left her with the sound of trickling raindrops, rustling their way through leaves to soak the fabric of her top. “You’ll be just fine, little one,” she whispered and carried the animal in her arms to place him in one of the two kennel cages her back porch featured.

  The entire night she tended to the injured animal. Through whimps, roaring thunder clouds washed the hut from fallen leaves until daylight crept over her face and she opened her eyelids to welcome the new day. The animal had survived, this time, and with her back to the side of the cage she felt at ease listening the ocelot’s rhythmic breathing as she stroke the fur encasing his thin body. The intravenous drip still sat perfectly, the open wound around his neck from the snare had left little amount of puss behind, nothing antibiotics and a tight wrap would heal.

  “Damn them,” she whispered and held the syringe filled with water underneath the ocelots upper lip and let the fluid drip into its mouth
and the ocelot answered by licking the fluid with its tongue with its eyes closed. “You’ll be fine here with me. Stay for as long as you please. Although, I might be out on goat and cow calls, from what it seems like lately, so you may have to get use to me not sitting here next to you every minute of the day.”

  She finished speaking to let the ocelot recuperate and crawling she exited the back porch. She locked the door of chicken wire behind her should the animal get agitated and try to escape the confinement, as spacious as it was, not understanding the goodwill of a human.

  The instant coffee turned the boiling water from the tea kettle a delicious brown when a whisper from outside the bamboo door to the front porch let her know her day had surely begun. “Miss, Valerie, it’s time.”

  Valerie opened the door and smiled at the dark skinned person greeting her. Always with the most delighted smile in nothing more than a leather skirt and a white bone through his nose. “Lethido, it’s time for what, dear friend?”

  “My woman, it’s time to welcome baby. Please come.”

  Valerie dropped her veterinary bag in shock and placed a hand over her chest. “But, I’m a veterinarian; I know nothing about delivering a baby! You need to rush to the other tribe, ask for help from their leader.” She noticed she panted and dragged her hands through her hair in despair.

  “No time, miss. I saw the hair on the baby’s head before I started my way here. Might have come out already.”

  “Oh, for goodness sake, why didn’t you say so. We must run, I’ll make the best of it.” She grabbed Lethido by the arm and together they left the hut behind to hurry down the path in the forest.

  “Calf or human baby, you know how to pull them out either way, miss.”

  Valerie looked at her friend and sighed. “I’m used to 60lbs bovine animals but I dearly hope that’s not what we’ll meet today.”

  The sun stood bright on the sky when, sweaty and slightly shaken, Valerie doodled in her sketch book of which she become quite attached since she’d come here. Now, looking through the pages it felt more like a book of memories than of simple sketches. She folded the book closed and placed the pen on top of it, took a deep breath of pride for having successfully brought a new human being into the world, a girl. Hair and head already out when she had arrived at the small tribal village. It had been a good day and with that she closed her eyes for a short nap.

  ~ Chapter Five ~

  Bryce hauled the heavy backpack over his shoulder once more and this time feeling the skin on his shoulder roll away to expose flesh against the polyester fabric of the bag. “Grunt.”

  “What’s wrong?” Jefferson stopped in his tracks and turned to his friend.

  “We’re not where we’re supposed to be according to the map and my backpack is literally trying to eat me up, bones and all.”

  “I told you to study the map well before we left, but I guess you didn’t do your job well enough.”

  “Don’t be an ass, Brody,” Bryce elbowed his friend while passing him on the narrow trail on the slight hill. Sighs had turned to grunt for most of them, except Wayne, who was taking too many self-portraits of them all using his long arms and his extension stick making sure to capture every irate look and exhausted exhale. They should have reached the water hole should they have known the map better, instead they were reaching the top of a lush, green hill, trees slanting down its sides, canopies of emerald blocking their view of the afternoon sky.

  “Turn back or hope to God that what we’re looking for is on the other side of this hill,” Jefferson said, grabbing hold of Bryce’s hands, pulling him up the last few steps of the trail.

  “This is not even a trail,” Bryce complained as he came to stand at the top by Jefferson’s side. Wayne and Brody grabbed branches hanging from the surrounding trees, pulling themselves up to their friends.

  “It’s a ridge down to—“ Dry mud crumbled into dust beneath Bryce’s feet and before he knew it he was not quite airborne, more grass-sliding and dirt-borne, going in high speed down the steep side of what he had just complained was not a trail, but vegetation. Voices and shouts came from above but with the amount of speed down the hill, feet first attempting to stop the motion, they grew more distant. Concentration turned into survival trying to avoid any lethal hit of a tree trunk or painfully snag in the hanging branches on his way down. At last, a slight hill made him airborne and with a loud thud he landed hard on his bottom in a heaping pile of moist leaves. His backpack tumbled into a pair of heavy, brown walking shoes and tall legs.

  “A ten out of ten for the entrance. Wow, you should have seen yourself.”

  ***

  One after the other the men slid down the slant, breeching their weight on the trunks of the tall, thick trees making her living spot a secluded cave of wet vegetation. With rake still in hand, the other at her hips, she watched the men brush off dirt and leaves as they kneeled by their injured friend lavishing him in concerns and worry. Before long the first man was back up on his legs, rubbing his left knee in what looked like agony. Still, who knew, he hadn’t seemed to mention it before he’d taken a few steps.

  With wary eyes they stared at her: at her boots, her beige shorts, and her dirty white tank top. Her hair was tied in a high pony tail keeping her neck free from tickling strays of hair in the sweaty sauna that was her life, and it gave her the upper hand swatting bugs away from her should they try to land on her skin, which was a never-ending battle in these necks of the world.

  “Hello, boys. Seems your friend here took the fall fairly well, and yes, I know I look like shit. I literally dumped some out just here.” Valerie pointed at the heaping pile of leaves and debris in which the first man had landed. “That’s probably why those flies are desperately trying to land on you.”

  The first man ripped off his backpack then his shirt. Valerie swallowed hard and a tingle spread up her spine and hardened her nipples and warmed between her legs. That man would make Tarzan ashamed, she thought, and before turning away from the men she let her eyes scan the man’s body once more. “Delicious” and “I want that” were phrases that pumped in her head and with an exhale she took the steps back to the hut and placed the rake by the wall.

  “Ma’am!” She heard one of the men calling from behind as she drew up water from the well and let her hands delve into the wonderful coolness which she tossed onto her face.

  “Yes?” She turned and grabbed the towel hanging from a hook on the wall. The four men were close now and she suddenly realized they could do whatever they wanted with her, should they attempt to do so. Rape her, kill her. Nobody would hear unless someone from the tribes stood guard close by and came to her rescue. “I need to get a gun,” she mumbled under her breath.

  “I’m sorry what?” one of the men said. He was tall with dark longer hair, slick from the moist air.

  “I said,” she cleared her throat. “I need to ask who you are and why you’re here? I can call on assistance at any time should there be any trouble. Do you understand? All of you?” She pointed her finger in everyone’s direction. “And, I have a gun!”

  “Yes, ma’am, but we are not here to cause any trouble.” The same dark haired man explained and held up his hands in a sign of peace and surrender. “Our friend here thought he could read our hiking map, and we’re not from here. He took a tumble down the hill and this is where we ended up. We sort of followed him in a rescue attempt.”

  A yet taller gentleman, at least two inches over six feet, short hair almost down to the skin, a light dust of brown and gray stubble across his face reached out his large hand to shake hers. “Brody Jensen, Primrose Valley Chief of Police. One of Gass County’s finest.”

  “I’ve no idea what Gass County you’re talking about, and if you’re the finest of them all stands to tell.”

  The three men at his sides chuckled lightly. “She got you there, Brody. I’m Wayne, and we’re actually here on vacation from the States, and by hearing your accent you must be from there too, right?”
The man built in solid muscle and short blonde hair shook her hand steadily.

  “I might be,” she responded hesitantly. She wasn’t planning on giving any information away just yet.

  “Oh, fuck!”

  The man who’d first tumbled down the hill grabbed his left ankle and fell to the ground as he tried to stand. “It really hurts. Seriously guys I can’t walk!”

  The three men encircled their friend and one bent down to move his ankle in every which way. The injured man growled in displeasure. The man who’d just introduced himself as Wayne tended to the leg and turned on his knees, sighed, and gave a faint, apologetic smile. She knew his question before he even had a chance to say it.

  “I’m a paramedic and so is my friend here,” he pointed to his friend rubbing his ankle is agony. “Sorry to say, but there is no chance we’re hiking back to our rental house tonight. If it turns out better tomorrow I promise we will leave by then.”

  “That leaves you no other option than to stay here, am I right?” Valerie said quietly and pointed to the hut behind her.

  “I’m sorry,” Wayne said and stood. “If not, is there any other place to stay? As from what we’ve understood it rains a lot here, so preferably something with a roof.”

  Before Valerie opened her mouth she noticed a familiar man taking a few steps out from between the vegetation and she felt relief not being the only person in a group of strangers.

  The three men staggered back in shock, the fourth attempting the same but ended up with a crawl away from the imposture.

  The man clad in short leather skirt, a spear in his right hand, and to her a familiar face colored in red and white bowed in her presence, and as a friendly gesture she returned his greeting feeling relief for his visit. Oz.

  “Ms. Valerie. I’ve watched these men before my eyes with curiosity. It does seem these men tell the truth of the direction from which they came. My hunters have observed them for miles.” He turned in the men’s direction, bowing in welcome.