The driver shifted into first gear, and the truck moved ahead, gaining rpms, until it was time to shift into second. But, then, they could tell that other trucks were moving too. And by third gear, the workers on both sides had made themselves comfortable, with their legs through the wooden side gates and their backs leaning against the canvas-covered bales of marijuana.
Remi, then Sam, lowered the guns and lay back in uneasy immobility. The trucks kept gaining speed, bouncing along the gravel road, while the men spoke to one another in Spanish, happy that the day had come to an end. After about ten minutes, the truck stopped, and about half the men got off in the center of a small village. The truck drove on again and stopped after another ten minutes, when several others got off near a double row of buildings. Ten minutes later, more workers jumped down to the road.
Sam and Remi listened for another ten minutes or so before they were sure. Remi lifted the canvas slightly and looked out, and Sam lifted the other side. “Everybody off?” he whispered.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Thank goodness. I was afraid I was going to sneeze from the dust.”
“I guess the next thing is to get off the truck and make our way to a town,” he whispered.
“I can’t wait,” she said. “Let’s hope they don’t reach their unloading point before we can bail out.”
They pulled aside the canvas a little and watched the sides of the narrow road while the truck wound its way through heavily forested stretches and up onto plateaus, where, for brief periods, they could see sky above them thick with stars. The distance between trucks had grown greatly during the drive. Now and then, on a curving stretch going up or down a slope, they would see the next truck’s headlights a half mile or more behind them.
Finally, they reached a steep incline where the road wound upward for a long distance. The driver downshifted as the engine labored. Remi darted out over the tailgate and stared ahead, and said, “There’s a town up ahead, at the top of the hill.”
“Then maybe we’d better bail out before we get there,” Sam said. “Get ready to jump.” They got on the right side of the truck and looked out. There was the gravel road heading upward, and, by the side of the road, a covering of low plants and bushes that didn’t seem in the dark to be woody enough to be dangerous. They moved close to the back of the truck to be ready. The road turned, so the truck slowed, and the driver needed to be looking ahead, and Sam said, “Now.”
Remi jumped and rolled, and Sam jumped after her. They scrambled off the dusty road into the bushes, and watched the truck bounce and rumble upward away from them. At the top of the hill, they could see a church, with a pair of short, square-sided steeples on the front. When the truck reached that point, it seemed to level and disappear.
Sam and Remi stood up and began to climb. She looked down. “Your leg — is that blood?” She bent and looked closer.
He looked too. “I guess it is. I must have scraped it on something when I hit. I’m all right.”
They walked up the last few feet of the hill and around to the other side of the church and sat in the moonlight to look at Sam’s leg. The blood streak went from his knee to his ankle, but it was already drying. “No harm done,” he said.
They kept to the side of the church, sat down in the dark shadows by it, and watched the second truck make its way up to the level of the church, where the town’s main street began. The truck traveled along the street without slowing. At the end of the block of closed shops and restaurants, the road curved a little and went downward, and the truck disappeared.
Sam and Remi stayed at the back of the church building and waited while the other trucks climbed the road and passed through the town, one by one. Their small convoy had consisted of five trucks, but the Fargos stayed where they were as long as they could see headlights in the distance. They counted twenty trucks before the road was clear again. It was nearly dawn when they walked out of their hiding place and saw that there were people in some of the shops already. They passed a baker’s shop, where a man was firing up a big wood-burning oven behind the building. There were people in the yards outside their houses, gathering eggs, feeding chickens, starting fires.
Sam said, “I’m hungry.”
“Me too. Did any of our Guatemalan Quetzales survive our swim?”
“I think so. I’ll look in the bag.” He opened the waterproof bag, shuffled around in it, and found his wallet. “That’s good news. My wallet survived.” He looked inside. “The money too. Let’s see if we can buy some breakfast.”
They walked toward the shop where the man was stoking the oven and saw two men heading for the same place. One wore a wrinkled seersucker suit and the other a priest’s black coat and collar. They strolled down the center of the street, chatting in a friendly way, as they approached the little restaurant.
They and the host had a quick exchange of greetings, and then the priest turned to the Fargos and said in English, “Good morning. My name is Father Gomez. And this is Dr. Carlos Huerta, our town physician.”
Sam shook their hands. “Sam Fargo. And this is my wife, Remi.”
“So,” she said, “the parish priest and the doctor together at dawn. I hope nobody has died during the night.”
“No,” said the priest. “A baby was born a while ago. The family sent for me to baptize the little boy immediately, so we thought we might as well begin the day here. Miguel Alvarez saw us coming. And to what do we owe the pleasure of your company?”
“We were hiking and camping north of Cobán and we seem to have wandered a bit and gotten lost,” said Sam. “We had to abandon most of our gear. But we found our way to a road, and here we are, safe and in a town.”
“Yes, you are,” said Dr. Huerta. “Will you join us for breakfast?”
“We would be delighted,” said Remi.
They talked while the restaurateur’s wife and two of his sons arrived and began to cook. They produced a feast of thick, handmade tortillas, rice, black beans, fried eggs, papaya, slices of cheese, and sautéed plantains.
After a few remarks about the area, the climate, and the people, Father Gomez said, “You came from that way, beyond the church?”
“Yes,” said Remi.
“Did you stop at the Estancia Guerrero?”
Remi was uncomfortable. “It didn’t look to us like a friendly place.”
The priest and the doctor exchanged a meaningful look. Dr. Huerta said, “Your instincts served you well.”
Sam looked at Remi, then said, “I’m afraid we got a pretty good look at part of the place. The reason we had to abandon our gear was that some men were trying to shoot us.”
“This isn’t the only story like that I’ve heard,” said Father Gomez. “It’s a disgrace.”
Dr. Huerta said, “Father Gomez and I have been trying to do something about it for a year or more. First, we wrote to the woman who owns the Estancia, an Englishwoman named Sarah Allersby. We thought she would want to know that a part of her huge property was being used as a drug plantation.”
Sam and Remi exchanged a look. “What did she say?” asked Sam.
“Nothing. The response came from the regional police, who told us we didn’t know marijuana from sugarcane and were wasting everyone’s time.”
Remi said, “Do you know Miss Allersby?”
“No, we’ve never seen her,” said the priest. “But who can tell what she knows, far away in Guatemala City, or in London, or New York?”
The doctor said, “Meanwhile, heavily armed men roam the forests, and trucks full of drugs come through town every few nights. Lots of the villages around here have young men who work there. Some come home, others don’t. Are they all right? Who knows?”
“I’m sorry,” said Remi. “Maybe we can talk to the authorities in Guatemala City and pass on the story. Sometimes outsiders can seem more objective to the police.”