“Glennon. Why the hell did I keep that phone charged? Why the hell do you think that poster is still on my fucking wall? Granted, I wasn’t jerking off to it, but it certainly reminded me of you every day I saw it.”
Once again, it was quiet in the truck, and he settled in to do some last-minute research on the next stage of their travels.
Approximately an hour later, when they made it to Necoclí, there appeared to be hundreds of people milling about the makeshift camp, looking for supplies and bartering for passage on the ferry to the standard entrance point for South Americans entering the gap.
He knew that the four or five hundred dollars per person those people were paying—and age made no difference in the fare—was just one of many ways people were cheated on this risky endeavor. Those who had made it this far and could afford the ferry would be stuck again at another makeshift camp, where they would be told they had to barter for guides. Roughly another one hundred fifty dollars each.
That didn’t take into account the exorbitant prices for food, water, and other items the travelers would need on the journey.
On top of that, many of the travelers were families with small children. Single mothers, sometimes with incredibly young kids they had to carry most of the way, made up another significant portion of the travelers. The lengths people were willing to go. The risks they were willing to take in order to escape dictatorships, extreme poverty, and disease filled him with rage. It shouldn’t be this way.
As they traversed the camp, he discovered much worse. The number of children traveling alone, some not even teenagers yet, broke his heart. They arrived with nothing. Many of them didn’t even have a full set of clothes. If they had shoes, they were usually slide sandals or flip-flops, many held together with tape. Some of the boys wore swim trunks or even nothing more than a pair of boxer briefs. They came with nothing; they had to beg for money and food, and they often had nothing at the end of the day.
He and Glennon worked the tents, often no more than two tarps strung between trees, paying triple the prices that native South Americans were paying. Those prices came with promises to keep their arrival to themselves, but both of them knew those promises would likely mean nothing. Especially if the cartel showed up with guns, which they were never without.
Finally, they had what they needed, with their backpacks stuffed to the breaking point and jugs of water. As they made their way to the edge of the camp, ducking behind a shedlike structure that proclaimed it was a place for first aid, but that no one could afford, Glennon stopped short, her eyes on a mother sitting under a tree, a baby clutched in her arms. Triumph had taken an additional two steps, then stopped when he felt her no longer moving.
“What is it?” he asked.
“The baby. It’s dead.”
He looked at the mother sitting zombielike. “Glennon, it’s terrible, and I don’t like it any more than you do, but there’s nothing we can do for her.”
She wasn’t hearing him. Instead, she approached the mother straight on to avoid startling her. When she was within two feet, she crouched to make eye contact.
She spoke to the mother in Spanish. The frightened woman answered so quietly he couldn’t hear the conversation. The only word he understood was “water.” He watched as Glennon handed her the jug she'd just purchased and a few packets of food from her backpack.
Jesus, this woman.
With a comforting squeeze to the mother’s shoulder, she stood and returned to his side. “Do you have two hundred dollars? Small bills.”
“Yeah. Sure.” He reached into one of his vest pockets and pulled out a small bundle of cash folded over twice. “No idea how much is there, but it should be about that.”
She walked back to the woman, held out the money, and the woman took it.
Glennon walked back to his side, and together, they walked fifty feet to the jungle’s edge before disappearing.
INTO THE GAP
Glennon
He heldout a hand to her and helped her over a fallen tree. “A few days ago, Steel vanished by taking two steps into the jungle. If we hadn’t just done it ourselves, I wouldn’t have believed that was possible. You literally can’t see the camp.”
“And that means no one can see us either. It works to our advantage right now. In some places here, Guillermo’s men could be ten feet away, and they wouldn’t see us. Of course, that also means we might not see them and stumble onto them unprepared.”
“Let’s not test that,” he suggested.
“Agreed.”
It took about ten minutes before he spoke again. “What was the deal with that woman?”
She wondered how long it would take. Surprisingly, it took longer than she thought it would; however, they were working hard to navigate the intense vegetation. There was absolutely no path here, and until they found one, the going would be frighteningly slow.
“Honestly, the baby looked too small. She told me she went into labor early. Probably stress because she ran from the father—he was beating her. Along the way, she couldn’t produce milk because she had no food. Between being born too early, no money—which meant no food or water once she got here—and the stress of travel, the baby didn’t stand a chance. She hadn’t had anything to drink in over two days. The money was to bury the baby. Get herself someplace better.”
A hand wrapped around her wrist, halting her movement. He stepped into her and curved a hand around her jaw. “You’re an amazing woman, Glennon.”
“I did what any decent person would do,” she grumbled, dropping her eyes to his chest. It wouldn’t pay for him to see how much his words affected her.
