Ketspaldigo

Inside Jack Boldin’s house, Jack sat quietly reading his account of what occurred on his ill fated venture into the Bolivian wilderness. The two investigators assigned to determine what had happened to Jack’s companions on that trip, listened attentively.

*

I stood waist deep in the Amazon muck wondering what the hell I was doing there. The part of me above water was no drier than that below, and the onslaught of insects to my upper half made total submersion seem almost a good idea. That’s a laugh, I thought. God only knows what horrors are under the surface. I looked ahead and saw my companions climbing out of the fetid slop onto marginally firmer ground, and I plodded and sloshed after them. We were all lost, had been for days, but figured a straight line following our compass would get us somewhere, to a village perhaps, or an actual river we could follow downstream, get us out of this shallow ooze we had been wading in and out of since leaving La Paz six weeks ago.

I was there in truth on a lark, a romp, a whim, and I had nobody to blame but myself. I had talked my way onto this expedition by footing the bill, or most of it anyway. An uncle of mine had died and left me a very nice chunk of change at roughly the same time my fiancé dumped me for another guy. I was seriously conflicted and, as they say, “At sea.” I needed to get away and do something, something different. A couple of friends of mine, Simon Elie and Robert Dana, had been talking about a certain adventure for years. When I offered to cough up the financing for the trip, we were packed and in flight to Bolivia before I could say…“We’re going WHERE?” Simon and Bob were veteran trekkers used to wilderness hardships. They had scaled mountains and mapped trails throughout most of the more rugged parts of North America. This, though, was their first foray into the jungle, and they didn’t seem to be faring any better than I was. Besides paying, I had also begged on board by promising to chronicle our adventure. Having been a journalist for a number of years, I had some writing skills. If I had known, however, in advance, even some of what I was to write – believe me – you would not be reading this now.

Progress in the jungle is a tedious and torturous thing. On dry ground, or should I say drier ground--nothing here is ever completely without moisture--you have to hack your way through dense foliage to create passage. When and where the water rises, the only choice available is to drag your soggy boots through the mud and slime and ignore the creepy feeling that the swamp is trying to pull you down. Boats, we learned quickly, are impossible. We had abandoned ours. They’re too heavy, too awkward. Too much time is spent untangling vines or dragging them off mud spars. Horses and mules don’t work either. They’re at the mercy of insects, poisonous plants, and packed they don’t do well in mud. And so we walked. On a good day we were able to cover as much as two kilometers give or take. Most days, though, far less. Like I said, it’s slow going in the jungle.

The plan was to follow the footsteps of a famous adventurer named P.H. Fawcett who had explored the Amazon on several occasions in search of an ancient civilization thought to be rolling in gold, a sort of El Dorado, if you will. Fawcett and his entire party, including his grown son, had disappeared on his last expedition and it was our hope to uncover what had happened to them. If we discovered a golden city along the way, hey that was all right too. Ours was not, however, a completely original plan. Other explorers had followed Fawcett’s route. Many of them--too many--had disappeared as well. What was unique about our plan--and don’t ask me why I agreed to this--was that we were taking only the same technology available to Fawcett when he entered the jungle during his several attempts to find the gold. No GPS for us. No fancy packs or dried foods. We were going to duplicate as closely as we could Fawcett’s last try, without, of course, the disappearing part.

It all went well for awhile. The initial route through the muck and mire was better now. Civilization had crept deeper into the jungle. Throughout the first week, we saw signs of farming, logging, and even a few gringo enterprises like hunting lodges. The natives we encountered were friendly, and many offered to join us as bearers. We declined their help, choosing to go it alone until we met an old man named Jango at a remote village on the cusp of the deep wood. He said he remembered Fawcett. He said he was a boy at the time, but remembered him clearly. He then gave us descriptions of Fawcett and his son that matched exactly those of photos we had discovered in our research. After asking the old man every question we could think of to verify his sincerity, we essentially deduced that he had seen the Fawcett party, but didn’t know much else. Until, that is, he told us he knew where Fawcett had gone and, for a price, was willing to show us. Now Jango was, as I’ve said, old; had to be ninety at least. His skin, lined and wrinkled from head to foot, covered little more than his bones. It appeared as though someone had wrapped his skeleton in the skin of a man twice his size. There were folds upon folds. He had hooded black eyes that were bright and alive, though, and as he spoke he surprised the three of us by jumping nimbly to his feet, waving his machete wildly in the air and trotting toward a path leading out of the village. “Come” he hollered, “I will show you.” We looked at each other and quickly agreed to meet his price. (It was trivial.) What the hell, was our consensus. We had a map, but a guide would surely be better.

And he was, for another two weeks. We were then a day or so beyond the place where the map of Fawcett’s last journey ended. Having by then consumed all our packed-in food, our diet now consisted of whatever we could pick or shoot along the way. We were each down about twenty pounds and looking almost as lean as Jango. We might have been thinner yet if he hadn’t taught us which plants were edible. The three of us were badly in need of a rest, and we told the tireless old man exactly that.

“One more day,” he said, walking ahead. “One more day.”

We reluctantly trudged after him.

Near the end of that “one more day” we stood looking across a field of tall jungle grass at what appeared to be a small, uninhabited village. To reach it we had to wade into the grass that was growing from a soft, sucking mud that clung to our boots and had to be scraped off every few steps. It was nearing dark when we at last dragged ourselves from the ooze and climbed onto the denser ground of the village. Too tired at that point to even put up our small tents, we pulled our insect repellant nets over our bodies and fell deeply asleep.

I awoke to the sound of Jango speaking a language that was something other than the Spanish he used with us. Pulling the net from me, I saw that we were surrounded by a dozen or so short, squat natives, wearing only unidentifiable animal skins that draped from their waists to about mid-thigh. Their bodies were covered in dried mud the color of weak chocolate milk and they held wooden spears taller than themselves at their sides. I poked my companions awake. Jango was talking and gesturing excitedly to the group at large, and several of them spoke back. The Mud People, as I’ve chosen to call them, did not appear threatening, but Simon, Rob and I clung tightly to the butts of our revolvers nevertheless.

When Jango finished what appeared to be a negotiation with the Mud People, they dispersed and he turned and explained the deal he had made. He would leave us now and return to his own village. A member of the Mud People would lead us on the next leg of our journey. We would have to think of something to give him in payment as they had no concept of money. Jango himself, however, would now take the money we had promised him. He further explained that the Mud People plugged their ears and noses and slept under a layer of mud. They breathed through hollow reeds like we’d use a snorkel. This way, Jango explained, they remained cool throughout the night and were not bothered by bugs. He also said that only a few times before had the Mud People heard of white men coming to their village. Their elders had rarely spoken of it, but when they did, they said the white men journeyed on to a place where they wouldn’t go. He called it “Ketspaldigo” or, as best as Jango could translate, The Hungry Forest. The elders also said not one of the white men had ever returned.

It’s not because we were arrogant or considered ourselves especially immune to danger that we decided to press on. There were two, we thought, good reasons to do so. The first was that we didn’t quite believe the spooky, superstitious prattle of the Mud People, and the second was simply that we had come too far to turn back. Our journey to this moment had been of interest but lacked conclusion. And so it was that the next day, rested and repacked with edible grains, shoots and dried fruits, we set off anew behind a Mud Man guide whose name we couldn’t pronounce. Didn’t matter, he wasn’t with us for long.

At the end of the day with the light fading rapidly and the night bugs closing in, our no name Mud Man stood pointing at the horizon where we could see tall trees clustered tightly together. Jungle, swamp, whatever you wanted to call the muck we were in, meet rainforest. We pitched our light tents and watched our guide slip off into the dark to find, we supposed, a puddle to sleep in. He seemed happy to be going.

That was the last we would see of him. In the morning we called out repeatedly and eventually fired a few rounds into the air to no particular avail. Our guide was gone. We were left with but one choice to make, forward or back. We packed our gear and set off to the forest. From where we stood it looked inviting, calm, serene. In the brightness of early day, it even looked dry.

Which brings me full circle to where I began, the being lost part. The part that even now, many months later, as I write it, rips me with a shudder of cold fear and disbelief. Yet I know it to be true.

The forest was there to our front. Right there. For three days we trudged relentlessly towards it, but got no closer. For three days we ignored the evidence of our own eyes, assuming there was some sort of optical trick, some play of light and shadow that deceived us and made us believe we were making no progress. We had to be getting closer, we reasoned. The landscape behind us changed with every step. We clearly were not locked in place. We must be moving forward.

But no, we weren’t. The forest remained there… in the distance.

On the fourth day we conferred. Something very odd was going on here. Perhaps, we thought, we had eaten something hallucinogenic. Maybe we were victims of a mass hypnosis or something not one of us could conceive. Whatever. We decided then and there to trust our compass and follow it AWAY from the mysterious, elusive forest. It was time to quit, we agreed, time to give up, to go home. We plotted a course and set out again. North I think it was, but that is of no matter. We weren’t going to find a village, a river, or a trail back to the Mud People. It was our destiny, as it had been for Fawcett and his party, to find the forest. Or, perhaps, more correctly, it was going to find us.

A reverse effect then occurred. As we retraced our steps away from the offending canopy, it appeared to come closer. When we looked back we could discern no movement, but each glance behind found the vine laden, towering arboles creeping nearer. Or so it seemed. We tried picking up our pace to distance us from its approach, but that served only to hasten the forest’s advance.

Finally, convinced we were mad, we turned and walked again towards the now looming tangle of tropic trees. This time it neither receded nor advanced. It was just a wood, quiet and still.

We entered through an archway of linked foliage high above us and felt immediately the cool of forest shade. We dropped our packs after hiking a short way in and fell back against the trunks of what were once ominous trees. Our sudden joy was palpable. We grinned at each other like happy children and then we laughed. Delirious laughs, belly laughs, laden with relief.

I realize now that it is almost funny how short lived such a feeling can be. As our laughter dwindled to chuckles and then stopped completely. We were unanimously aware of the sudden, omnipresent stillness. There were no bugs, no birds, no breeze to rustle leaves and fill the air with sounds of life. Our small human doings made the only noise at all. We gathered our packs and headed deeper into the forest, our follow-the-compass plan intact. As we walked, the vegetation around us grew surprisingly thick considering how little sunlight filtered through the forest canopy. We were no longer struggling to pull our boots from sucking mud, but rather yanking them free from small, clinging ground creepers. We walked in single file as that was all the room the forest permitted.

And now here is the part where you will think me mad as I often do myself, but it is the truth as I know it.

Simon, the last in line, seemed to be having the most difficulty. He was grunting with effort and, despite the cool of the canopy shade, he was perspiring profusely. Rob and I had grown used to his grousing and no longer turned to see what was wrong when Simon let loose with one of his frequent string of curses. We had gotten quite some distance ahead when we were suddenly startled by his terrified screams. We turned at once and saw him there a good stone’s throw behind. He appeared from that distance to be nearly enveloped in vines. We started towards him at a run, but achieved only about half the distance when the forest floor in front of us erupted with a huge fronds of wide leafed ferns. Our view was completely blocked, our path impeded. The last thing I saw before turning and fleeing after Rob--who had surely seen the same thing--was a small branch covered with leafy shoots cram itself into Simon’s mouth, silencing his cries. He was then pulled, or rather, abruptly flung backwards, into a great maw of densely leafed darkness.

We ran. We ran like never before. Adrenaline and its bitter taste of fear drove us forward and we fled through the forest, screaming like madmen. There were tentacles of something–we could feel them–grabbing for our backs, trying to find purchase, trying to slow us, to stop us. We ran, frantically, maniacally, flailing our arms at vine and branch, real and imagined that reached for us at every step. And then, quite suddenly, I realized I was alone.

Younger and faster of foot, I had gained substantially on my comrade. The forest was thinner here, the gaps between trees and plants wider. I slowed some and risked a look back. Rob was down. I stopped, fretful, my eyes wide, darting about, looking for the danger that was sure to find me. I was in an open area, several feet from the nearest shade of green. I could see Rob in a similar clearing. He was struggling to rise. My wits were shattered, but still I started towards him. I had to swallow my fear, I had to help him. A few tentative steps in Rob’s direction were all I needed to stop me dead, stop me cold. I was now near enough to see why Rob could not rise. The ground, the sediment, the debris that had fallen from the canopy above was coming to life. It had seized Rob at ankle and wrist and was pulling him down, back to the earth, to the soil where the young verdant shoots were growing rapidly to clutch and still his struggle. In less than a minute he was gone, consumed by a forest whose hunger was insatiable.

I turned and ran again. My heart pounded furiously in my chest, threatening to explode. I ran, I knew, for no purpose. There was no escape. The forest surrounded me, hovering, looming, waiting now, I imagined, for its final course. I was to be dessert. I laughed, I hooted, I hollered, but still I ran. I ran even knowing there was no hope.

And then, suddenly, there was. Ahead of me I could see an opening through the trees; a burst of sunlight that framed an arch to freedom. I was at the edge of the forest. If I could reach it, I would find the swamp; the wonderful, splendid swamp with its glorious mud and its biting bugs.

It was as if…no, it WAS… that the forest read my mind. Its efforts to catch me and hold me intensified. I was still running but the creepers at my ankles were growing stronger and it was harder and harder to break their grip. I was so near to the edge, so close to escape that I found a final expenditure of strength and tore across the living forest floor. I would make it, I would be free!

And then I was down. A step, no more than two from the swamp. I was going to dive, I was going to leap, I was going to hurl myself gleefully into the muck, but it was too late. I was down; too entangled to rise. I tried to crawl. I dug my fingers into the soil and levered myself forward, an inch, maybe two. It was no use, my hands were quickly encircled. I pushed with my knees, my elbows, the toes of my boots. Fear again giving me strength where I thought none existed. I gained not another inch. I knew then it was over. I was over. I lay there waiting to die. Waiting to be eaten by this monstrous, evil, sentient forest. Thin, reed-like creepers slid up my nose and found the orifices of my ears and throat. I choked and fought for air. Heavier, snake-like vines were climbing my legs and arms through my cuffs and sleeves. They were clinging tightly and they were sucking at my flesh. I cried out one last time and then my will to live trickled from body like blood from an open wound. My world went mercifully away.

*

What happened after that I only know from others. A daze, perhaps my mind’s attempt to save me from complete madness, clouded my mind, relieving me of memory until now, at the moment of this writing.

Jango had followed us to the forest. When I appeared at its edge, he had chopped me free with his machete and pulled me into the swamp. I had lain there for a day, he told me, before I was able to move. When I was conscious and ambulatory, he had led me back to the Mud People where I stayed for several weeks recovering from wounds I could not recall receiving. That the Mud People slept under water seemed a new revelation to me. I made my way, eventually, with Jango’s help, to his village, then La Paz, then home, where you find me now.

If this account sounds one of madness to you, in honesty, I can only further your assumption. For I must tell you, I sense the story is not at an end. There is unfinished business. I know it. I can feel it.

*


Outside Jack Boldin’s house, his lawn was growing curiously long, curiously fast.