Steven Hunley
04-18-2012, 02:17 PM
The Road of Death
(El Camino del Muerte)
by
Steven Hunley
When the DEA left Center 41 with the prisoners in back of the truck it was mańana en la mańana-still dark.
Their plan was to take them to a lock-up in the capital, La Paz, where unlike in Santa Cruz they figured the officials could not be bribed. It was a mistake. The only way there was by a single road named El Camino del Muerte that wound its way up into the Eastern Cordillera or Cordillera Oriental of the Andes. It was called that simply because it was a treacherous single-lane tract, with many switch-backs, at times steep, and mucho buses of Indians fell over its edge into the canyons every year, as the altitude climbed from sea-level in the yungas, or flat lands, to over fourteen thousand feet near La Paz. The road had a reputation for danger. On this day it would keep its reputation… in spades.
As the agents pulled out of town the forest began to grow closer, surrounding the road with trees standing like tall silent sentinels. It was cool and still early. An hour later the dew still remained on the grass and leaves, and collected on the barrels of the AKs slung over the shoulders of the primos, or cousins, of the two brothers in back of the truck. Bolivia is named after Simon Bolivar, El Liberator, so the cousins called themselves liberators and secreted themselves in the forest on both sides of the road. Hugo in his wisdom had seen to that. Dude knew nothing about this. He was along for the ride, cuffed to the other two for crimes of his own. They jostled and bumped down the road in the bed of the truck along with canteens and extra gas stored in Jerry cans. On the truck rolled, deeper and deeper into the gaping mouth of the hungry forest. There would be no arrival at the capital and no turning back on this trip, but there would be a stop.
A jacaranda tree had fallen across the road. One agent stepped down to inspect.
“We’ll just use the winch and pull it aside,” he said to the other who remained in the cab.
“It’s OK,” the second one answered, “we’ve got all day.”
Then the first one went to the trunk of the tree to take a closer look.
When the agent saw the trunk he didn’t see a break or an uprooting. What he saw was a clean cut.
He noticed the forest gone quiet.
When he considered both the quiet and cut he knew he was dead.
A shot rang out of the trees proclaiming liberty. The AK barrels grew hot spitting fire and turned the dew to steam. The three prisoners regained their freedom and along with the gunmen gained the safety of the forest. Their laughter was soon muffled by the leaves and the creepers and lianas and the chatter of monkeys but after some time the clearing went silent except for the drip-drip-dripping of scarlet death as it stained the fallen leaves lying still on the forest floor.
A day later Dude packed up his stash and left town for good, his only souvenir of the incident the cuff marks on his wrists, and within a week they’d be history.
“Vaya con Dios,” Hugo said when they shook hands and parted. Before, when Dude heard the phrase it only meant goodbye. From Hugo it meant, “Go with God.”
When Dude stepped onto the aluminum stairs that led to the safety of the plane, he knocked the red mud of the Yapacani from his boot heels as easily as if he was stepping into his mother’s living room for a hot home-cooked meal served with love. Lloyd Aereo Boliviano looked just as comforting.
Dude copped a seat by the window and watched as the jet raced down the tarmac, then trees passed by in a blur, they, then white puffy clouds, and finally the Yapacani winding like a silver thread between gaps in the green canopy as the plane gained altitude to make it safely over the Andes. Dude grew reflective and thought,
‘The worst part of the trip wasn’t the heat or the insects or the language barrier or hoping you’d score from a Bolivian Goodfella instead of some greedy b*stard that might sell you out to the police. In fact, I can’t think what the worst part was.’
Dude was thinking in the wrong tense. The real danger was in the future, and so typical of Dude’s psyche it had not been considered.
The worst and most dangerous part was going to happen after he cleared customs in LAX and became famous overnight, a bag man with an endless parade of women and their numberless intrigues, unprepared to deal with his own greed and new-found arrogance, the eventual scandal that led to his inevitable bust, and watching helplessly as his life fell apart by default.
©Steven Hunley 2012
(El Camino del Muerte)
by
Steven Hunley
When the DEA left Center 41 with the prisoners in back of the truck it was mańana en la mańana-still dark.
Their plan was to take them to a lock-up in the capital, La Paz, where unlike in Santa Cruz they figured the officials could not be bribed. It was a mistake. The only way there was by a single road named El Camino del Muerte that wound its way up into the Eastern Cordillera or Cordillera Oriental of the Andes. It was called that simply because it was a treacherous single-lane tract, with many switch-backs, at times steep, and mucho buses of Indians fell over its edge into the canyons every year, as the altitude climbed from sea-level in the yungas, or flat lands, to over fourteen thousand feet near La Paz. The road had a reputation for danger. On this day it would keep its reputation… in spades.
As the agents pulled out of town the forest began to grow closer, surrounding the road with trees standing like tall silent sentinels. It was cool and still early. An hour later the dew still remained on the grass and leaves, and collected on the barrels of the AKs slung over the shoulders of the primos, or cousins, of the two brothers in back of the truck. Bolivia is named after Simon Bolivar, El Liberator, so the cousins called themselves liberators and secreted themselves in the forest on both sides of the road. Hugo in his wisdom had seen to that. Dude knew nothing about this. He was along for the ride, cuffed to the other two for crimes of his own. They jostled and bumped down the road in the bed of the truck along with canteens and extra gas stored in Jerry cans. On the truck rolled, deeper and deeper into the gaping mouth of the hungry forest. There would be no arrival at the capital and no turning back on this trip, but there would be a stop.
A jacaranda tree had fallen across the road. One agent stepped down to inspect.
“We’ll just use the winch and pull it aside,” he said to the other who remained in the cab.
“It’s OK,” the second one answered, “we’ve got all day.”
Then the first one went to the trunk of the tree to take a closer look.
When the agent saw the trunk he didn’t see a break or an uprooting. What he saw was a clean cut.
He noticed the forest gone quiet.
When he considered both the quiet and cut he knew he was dead.
A shot rang out of the trees proclaiming liberty. The AK barrels grew hot spitting fire and turned the dew to steam. The three prisoners regained their freedom and along with the gunmen gained the safety of the forest. Their laughter was soon muffled by the leaves and the creepers and lianas and the chatter of monkeys but after some time the clearing went silent except for the drip-drip-dripping of scarlet death as it stained the fallen leaves lying still on the forest floor.
A day later Dude packed up his stash and left town for good, his only souvenir of the incident the cuff marks on his wrists, and within a week they’d be history.
“Vaya con Dios,” Hugo said when they shook hands and parted. Before, when Dude heard the phrase it only meant goodbye. From Hugo it meant, “Go with God.”
When Dude stepped onto the aluminum stairs that led to the safety of the plane, he knocked the red mud of the Yapacani from his boot heels as easily as if he was stepping into his mother’s living room for a hot home-cooked meal served with love. Lloyd Aereo Boliviano looked just as comforting.
Dude copped a seat by the window and watched as the jet raced down the tarmac, then trees passed by in a blur, they, then white puffy clouds, and finally the Yapacani winding like a silver thread between gaps in the green canopy as the plane gained altitude to make it safely over the Andes. Dude grew reflective and thought,
‘The worst part of the trip wasn’t the heat or the insects or the language barrier or hoping you’d score from a Bolivian Goodfella instead of some greedy b*stard that might sell you out to the police. In fact, I can’t think what the worst part was.’
Dude was thinking in the wrong tense. The real danger was in the future, and so typical of Dude’s psyche it had not been considered.
The worst and most dangerous part was going to happen after he cleared customs in LAX and became famous overnight, a bag man with an endless parade of women and their numberless intrigues, unprepared to deal with his own greed and new-found arrogance, the eventual scandal that led to his inevitable bust, and watching helplessly as his life fell apart by default.
©Steven Hunley 2012