Enjoy. I'd love to hear comments.
O, that I had
wings like a dove,
For then would I
fly away and be at rest.
Lo, then would I
wander far off and remain in the wilderness.
I would hasten my
escape from the storm and the tempest.
Psalm 55:6, 7 &
8 (KJV)
Maggie just had to
get some sleep. After all the air miles she'd logged on the job in
the last two years, she thought she could sleep on any plane,
anywhere, under any circumstances. But the last day and a half were a
blur of stopovers, layovers and weather delays. And all this on top
of a set of jangled nerves. This latest leg on the journey had been
the worst. It wasn’t even a passenger plane, but a cargo plane. The
pilot said his cargo often included wild animals, which he
transported from the jungle to zoos or wildlife refuges. The plane
was smelly and loud, the seats were hard, and the fee was excessive -
and it was the only ride she could get this way for days. Maggie
grabbed at it.
She’d gotten no
sleep the previous night in Bogotá, and no sleep on the cargo plane,
thanks to the pilot chattering non-stop in a Spanish she could hardly
keep up with. So it was with dry, blood shot eyes that Maggie looked
around at what was laughably called an airport on the map. The
mid-morning sun illuminated a lone plane, a Cessna twin engine, on
the concrete. There were a few little buildings dusted with dirt from
the airstrip - the rickety little hangar, a few tiny outbuildings and
the one against which the pilot, Hector Ramos, had stacked her
things. The sign over the door read Oficina.
Upon entering, it
took a moment for Maggie’s eyes to adjust to the building’s dim
interior. Then the sight of the young man behind the desk made her
hopeful. With sandy hair, fair complexion, and expensive sports shoes
casually crossed atop the desk, he had the look of a fellow American
about him. Maybe she’d found the person she’d been looking for
right off the bat. Maybe this trip would go all right after all.
“Excuse me,” she
said. He lifted his eyes from the magazine he was reading, but
otherwise did not move. “Good morning,” Maggie continued. No
answer. Apparently he was a local after all, though he didn’t look
like a typical Colombian.
“Buenos dias,”
she tried, but still there was no reaction from him. She had hoped it
wouldn’t come to this, but she haltingly tried one of the local
Indian languages she’d tried to learn. She got nothing but a
confused look.
“¿Se habla
ingles aqui?”
she finally asked. Does
anyone here speak English?
“Only me,” he
answered in a low Texas drawl, but his face remained as impassive as
before.
“Why didn’t you
say so?” she asked, exasperated.
“Why didn’t you
ask?”
“Couldn’t you
tell I’m an American?” she asked.
“Couldn’t you
tell I am?”
Maggie started to
answer, but held her tongue, reminding herself that she needed
something from this man. She drew a shaky breath to calm her shot
nerves. She would be pleasant if it killed her. “I’m looking for
a Marc Hansen,” she said in a controlled voice.
“Never heard of
him,” he answered.
Skeptical after
their first exchange, Maggie didn't take this answer at face value.
“Joe Hansen?” she tried. He only shook his head, shaking the
trendiest of sunglasses perched atop his head. Maggie rummaged
through her bag and produced a slip of paper. “How about Marc
Johansen?” she asked, reading the note she'd scrawled there.
“Hey! That’s
me!” Only now did he bother to take his feet off the grimy desk.
His rickety swivel chair groaned as he turned to face her.
“You weren’t
expecting me?” she asked. “You didn’t get the letter?”
“Mail’s a little
slow out here,” he drawled.
The mail’s not
the only thing,
Maggie thought. Then when he finally bothered to really look at her,
she saw a mild panic spread over his face. She didn't know why that
should be, but she tried to explain. “Well, the letter’s not all
that -”
“Esteban!” he
shouted. Had she done something wrong? Was he cursing at her?
“Esteban!” he repeated, jumping to his feet. The sound of
shuffling feet came from the little room behind Marc, and it started
to make sense - in a twisted sort of way. A lanky young man -
Esteban, she supposed - now leaned against the back door frame. At
the sound Marc asked over his shoulder, “I need to know,” he
said, “Did I get a letter?”
***
No comments:
Post a Comment