Olimpia and Gabriel did not dance one step.
A downpour pelted the thatched roof awakening Olimpia from a deep sleep. She moved closer to Gabriel for warmth. He kissed the top of her head, told her it was inconceivable that he should find such love in the midst of that despicable jungle.
He said he would dissuade her from any notions of becoming a scientist. She would bear his children, he said, and when the time came, she would sit by his side at the head of Carrera Industries. He told her he would love her for three lifetimes, even longer.
To protect the locals’ sensibilities, Gabriel descended from Olimpia’s hut while an early morning deluge provided a screen. But he returned shortly.
Breathless, he explained that Eduardo and his dugout had not returned from the crew camp, and someone had tampered with the starter on his boat. He feared the worst. He needed to borrow Olimpia’s boat. Immediately.
“I am coming with you,” she insisted.
Within ten minutes, Olimpia, her maid and the body guards were clambering aboard the dugout as Gabriel backed away from shore. They roared up river, slowing down at the logging camp just long enough to see the crew was gone. Then Gabriel headed the boat upstream toward the blasting site at full throttle.
Just as they reached the turn at the mouth of the tributary, a concussion of cataclysmic proportions jarred the earth, rolling the boat from side to side. Olimpia was transfixed by the chaos erupting around them: The river shot skyward in four-foot spikes. A blast of wind tore at the trees. Monkeys ran screaming, and birds took off in confused flight. An unmistakable rumbling sound followed.
Gabriel whipped the boat into a precarious U-turn and retreated down river. But despite the boat’s considerable speed, the thundering drew closer behind them. Glancing back, Olimpia gasped in disbelief. The river was roiled up in a fury of rampaging water and tumbling logs—now less then thirty meters from their stern.
The sun had dipped around the side of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, but the distant sea still reflected its fire.
The Kogi laid out four sleeping bags. They would be needed at that elevation. Diane pulled a sweatshirt over her head and adjusted the sleeves. “More tea?” she asked Olimpia who distractedly held out her cup in response.
Diane poured, placed the tin pot on a warm rock, sat down and waited. There had been a paradigm shift in her relationship with Olimpia. After all the years of listening to tales of Diane’s successes and failures, her aspirations, her joys and her fears, Olimpia had finally pried opened a crack into her own life. And tonight they had become friends.
Diane realized she hadn’t just been listening to Olimpia’s story; she had been a participant. At times she had wanted to close her ears against it; it was all too voyeuristic, and in some odd way, incestuous. She was able to imagine Olimpia’s courtship and lovemaking with Gabriel in keen detail. She knew how Olimpia felt when he looked at her, when he touched her. She knew, only too well, the white-hot passion that ignited in that river hut.
Olimpia sipped tea and stared into the fire, then said in a flat voice, “We outran the logs, but we did not avert disaster.”
She told Diane about how she and Gabriel waited at the village, praying Eduardo would show up soon. Gabriel wrung his hands and paced saying he should have known Eduardo would do this; he had been begging Gabriel to let him take charge of the crew. Gabriel said he should have watched his brother more closely.
Now, Olimpia, voice trembling, turned to Diane, “I tried to defend Eduardo’s actions to Gabriel. That was the greatest mistake of my life.”
Olimpia explained to Gabriel that on the evening she met Eduardo, he had said how he admired his older brother, but felt smothered by his protectiveness. He said he had to prove himself to Gabriel. He encouraged Olimpia to accompany them up river. He said perhaps she could soften Gabriel’s view toward him. Olimpia thought joining the Carrera’s flotilla was a wonderful idea, an arrangement where everyone benefited.
It was then that two logging crew members, bruised and bleeding, dragged themselves into the village. They had just enough strength to recount their story to Gabriel and Olimpia.
Eduardo had lied to the crew. He told them Gabriel had placed him in charge. As the self-appointed leader, he chose to take the helm of the dugout carrying the detonators. For safety sake, Eduardo gave the dynamite boats a twenty-minute head-start, then motored slowly upstream against the fast-moving current.
The men had finished securing their boats near the levies when they saw Eduardo round the last bend in the river. He seemed to be wrestling with the tiller. His rudder must have hit a submerged tree limb; he couldn’t steer the boat. Then the throttle seemed to stick at the highest speed. He looked up and obviously saw that he and the detonators were charging headlong toward the three boats full of dynamite. Eduardo stood up and plunged into the rushing water.
The two men ran ahead of the explosion to the logging camp. But it had been set up on a low bank, and the water and logs destroyed it. The men then fled to higher ground. They saw no sign of Eduardo on their way to the village.
It was then that Gabriel turned on Olimpia in a murderous rage. He accused her of entering into a plot to dupe him. Then he congratulated her for her resounding success. “Do you realize what you have done?” he shouted over and over.
Now, Olimpia buried her face in her cupped palms and murmured barely loud enough for Diane to hear, “Gabriel left me there. I did not see him again for nine years.”
After several seconds, Olimpia raised her head. Her voice was calm. “I returned home. Sent my condolences when I read they had found Eduardo’s body. I came to Pennsylvania. Met you for the first time. Discovered I was pregnant. And I began another love story… I named him Eduardo Garza y Carrera.”
μ CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN μ
With black hair and white robes streaming in the wind, five men poured off the mountain, shouldered the trekkers’ gear, then proceeded antlike up a twisting pathway toward their village thirty meters aloft.
Hearing the chorus of whispers on high, Diane opened her eyes. She was looking at the thatched ceiling of a kankurua. It hadn’t been a dream; she was in the Kogi village and had spent a restless night in the hut reserved for Olimpia’s visits. She looked over at Olimpia’s bed. It was empty.
Diane rolled out of her hammock, stepped outside and gazed around in wonder. She was standing in a flat, open area just below the glaciers and far above the rain. Overhead, the great mountain sighed. The splendor of it all brought a lump to her throat. Her heart swelled in anticipation the day that lay ahead.
Last evening, Olimpia had introduced Diane to Yami the tribe’s shaman and high priestess who had promised Diane a tour of the Kogi lands this morning.
She bathed with the water provided in her gourd basin, then pulled on a sweat suit and headed toward the village common area. She and Yami had agreed to meet there after the shaman finished a training session with the young priestesses.
As Diane passed several round huts along the pathway, white-robed men and women poked their heads out of doorways. “Buenas, buenas,” they called to her.