Los Angeles. I don’t see any angels. Perhaps they’re up there on the rooftops looking down at the mess. Perhaps one has me in its sights, waiting to skewer my heart and commence judgement on its dark purpose. Down here there are only people. They flash a glance but keep their eyes on their own affairs. They’re too cautious for the familiarity that small towns foster. It suits me. In Curacautin they looked too long into these eyes. They saw the flickering shadows and the violence. A man couldn’t hide there. Whispers crept from shop doorways to pantries to parlours: ‘the strangers are hiding. The gringos have a secret.’ We gathered our things in the dark and slipped east towards Lonquimay and the border. The way was high and though dark clouds were forming behind us we could see clear all the way back to Argentina. That place. Would they have found the bodies now? In the recent heat a rotting carcass’d be smelt leagues away. It wasn’t wholly our fault. There’s a fine line between hero and dead. If you want to play one you’d better prepare to perfect the other. I hoped the borders weren’t too close.
Resupplied in Lonquimay we trudged on but the rainclouds continued to build until like a sinner on Sunday they let loose every foul tale they had to tell. I hate to be wet. With the sun blocked by a featureless grey blanket it was cold and every raindrop had a price tag, the sum rising fast to match and negate my resolve to go on. We lurched from shelter to shelter cowering from elements that didn’t even have the good grace to be fearsome, only miserable and relentless. Night was falling, or at least the clouds were getting darker. We put up the shelters next to the roadside. There was nowhere else. The road would be quiet; virtually the only thing at the end of it was the mountain pass to Argentina and the border gangs would let no-one approach after nightfall. Ash said we should turn back; to hell with legit permits, but I knew that without them any contact with militias would lead to arrest and investigation. That’s when things would get ugly. I’d gut and shoot them like pigs rather than face a noose. We’d never leave South America alive without permits.
Sleep was a blessed relief from the damp, all the more irksome that it should be broken by the loud crack of a gunshot in the early hours. It was close. I could hear the rattle of some kind of engine. It grew closer. Bang! Another shot, this time only twenty feet away.
“What the fuck? Did you hear that?” Ash murmured from the other shelter.
Even given the situation I had to laugh. “Yes,” I replied succinctly and shuffled through a pile of clothes that smelled like wet dog to slip my revolver from the holster. Just stay calm, Black; you’ve gotten out of plenty of jams without gunplay before. I heard Ash cock his piece in the other shelter. True, not recently I haven’t, I thought, as I did the same with mine. They could be shooting at wild animals from the road; they could be robbers or pranksters out to take two travellers. Men come to kill didn’t generally let off warning shots. I wanted to jump out. I prickled to face them down, turn the threat on its head and watch the fear in a man as he realises he’s facing his end. The seconds grew more pregnant. Now. Come now. But they turned away. A third shot rang out further down the road. I eased the hammer back to its resting place and slumped back to a surprisingly settled sleep, the gun nestled in my palm for the remainder.
In the morning the blistering sun had returned. In this Chilean summer you could only count on a day or two free from its burning, scouring eye but today it was welcome. We saw no one on the road all day save for two Germans carrying guitars. They were happy to see anyone out here and bounced across the road towards us. I prayed there wouldn’t be too many questions. They were happy to do the talking: Yes, they’d been to the border and with a little paper bribery they’d been given permits to remain without engaging the Argentine border. I asked to see one. To get a look would be useful but they became hurried. They had to attend to some business in Victoria. We bade them good day.
At Liucura, the border post, armed members of the so-called ‘New Arm’ slunk around and idled on rooftops, eight or nine of them, waiting lazily like so many fat alley cats hoping for a winged bird to land in their laps. They were gang members. Hoodlums with machetes, rifles and uniforms, there only to exact whatever tariff fear would bring them. Usually, but not today.
“I can’t grant any permits unless you’ve come from Argentina,” a fat, greasy-faced man smiled. Parasite. His gut and his uniform were the only difference between him and a fungus. I wanted to turn his smile inside out and shove it up his fat ass.
“You gave two yesterday, to two Germans…We have money.”
“What money?” He flicked at a gold tooth now revealed as he grinned.
“Paper. No one carries gold around here,” I lied.
“Life is complex here, Senor. Gold smoothes so many of its wrinkles. Paper? I take your paper and I draw you a map to Argentina…You want to go there, gringo?” He laughed in an unsettlingly knowing manner. Had word spread this far north? It could have done. Argentina could mean a swift execution.
“Is there another way?”
“You see El Capo in Los Angeles.”
“That’s a long way north,” I said as I moved the water battle hanging at my waist so that my holster showed. I wasn’t spoiling for a fight, just testing the waters. They quickly came to boil as a lean man in the corner of the room slipped out and cocked a revolver without even shifting his eyes.
“Yes. It is,” the fat man said and pointed to the exit.
“We could have taken them,” Ash lamented as we trekked back, a carnivore’s taste for blood never subdued. It was useful.
“You may still get a chance,” I replied. “He knew about us. He was testing us. Chances are we’re being followed and we’ll do what we have to, but this Capo fella may be useful; he won’t be if we arrive just after a border slaughter, that’s if we didn’t get dead in the process.”
“We could blame the Germans,” Ash laughed. He scoured the skyline. “Central roads gonna be too dangerous.”
I nodded. “We’ll have to find another way.”
In the store in Lonquimay I pointed to a map, specifically to a road nearby that disappeared as it turned east. “What’s this?” I asked the store owner.
“That’s Bio Bio. No one takes this road any more,” his brown wrinkled face cracking into a thousand-line grin. In the corner a man soaked to his gills in the local drink ‘pisco’ began a high pitched screaming. I couldn’t tell if it was laughter at me or plain madness.
We spent two days hacking our way across mountains. We were drenched in sweat and its salty tide marks. Through a rare low valley we came across a village but it was dead long ago. Ended by the virus. Wiped clean by the ingenuity of man. I’d killed before; I would do again, but to have something of that scale on your conscience…nice work, boys: Skeletons, long since picked clean by decomposition and opportunistic grazers, were scattered, dead where they lay as they’d dropped to their nears from the pains. One family had clearly been sat around the table, awaiting the grace of God with a bible in the centre. Too bad, folks, He doesn’t listen anymore. At least you won’t be wanting those tinned goods.
On the third day we were lost. Every direction seemed wrong and rivers flowed every which way they could. “We’ll have to go back the way we came,” I said, shaking the compass in the vain hope it would show something other than south. I’d found it on a dead salesman. Seems it hadn’t brought him any luck either. A desperate fatigue was breaking my resistance and, worse than that, the bullet hole my bank guard friend had given me in my left leg had opened up from the strain of the climbs.
We traced back and took a new trail across the river at an old bridge, hacking through the foliage until through blood and sweat we came across what appeared to be a tunnel. We hadn’t seen the like down here. It looked hewn by human hands. Ash fired a low crescent of shots into the inkiness, like as not hoping he’d hit someone.“Must be this way,” he grinned and disappeared. I followed, my own gun facing back. The path grew less visible and veered over even higher peaks but at least it was northwards. A day passed and then at dusk we saw tin roofs glinting in the half light, maybe a day’s walk away across a breathtaking valley. Life was there, you could tell it.
“Shangri-La?” I pointed. Chenqueco was its name but in the scorched ruins of Earth as is now Shangri-La would have fitted. A place that time and history had left unscathed. When we arrived there it was market day and bright stalls of exotically coloured fabrics and smuggled foods crowded the small village as smartly dressed families paraded proudly on horseback. This was the secret of Bio Bio: not doom but a new prosperity. It was bewildering and invigorating. They were wily folk and would not be outdone in a trade but we managed to get rice and stock. I had a flash thought to stay here, up in the mountains just as other folks had, away from the pestilence of the real world, but I am a cold man with a cold purpose and I had blood-soaked gold to move. I couldn’t pollute these people with it. My place was down in the grime. Added to that I needed a quack for my leg. They weren’t happy to let us leave but these were peaceful folk. The smart ones recognised that our foul stench was better away from them and their children. They gave us a guide to take us out of the mountains to the river road and help keep the trail concealed. A funny chap, he babbled as much as spoke and referred to us as ‘the dumb outsiders’. After two days the trail hit hard road and he left us, making us swear a tenth oath not to reveal the village. I meant it. If I could help keep one place of virtue safe then maybe some of that would filter into me.
The river road was long and hard and my injury was getting worse. Walking was hard; blood seeping into my boot. Had to get somewhere but no civilisation until Ralco, a small town that seemed to be emptying onto crammed westward transports. No quacks. We picked up a few supplies from a woman too glamorous for this place. She had dreams of old Paris in her eyes. Shame it was no longer there.
We carried on under the scorching heat, the nights spent surrounded by disease spreading rats, until we hit Santa Barbara. I had to rest. Quack fixed me up, even brought me wine. It had been fourteen days since the last drop had passed my lips. It felt good.
That was two days ago. Now we sit here in Los Angeles in a sweat-filled bar and wait. It’s still hot. El Capo’s man watches us and cackles when I make eye contact. I hate pricks who know more than I do. Just stay calm, Black…
Hey folks! Just wanted to do something a bit different this time but it’s all based on fact, even the gunshots outside our tents! If it’s slightly dark then that’s because it actually was a bit. Been pretty homesick. Of course, the Chilean border police aren’t a gang and are very professional but they did refuse us new visa stamps if we didn’t leave so we wait to see the office in LA (not that one). My compass has brought lots of luck and was in permanent use in the mountains so thanks Shel, Paul, Becky, Jacob! My ‘injuries’ were bloody blisters and a calf strain : ) We’ve done something like 1,880 miles now.
Adios. Love you, byee x x
Rob
Matt & Rob's Big Trek 