"The forest did not tolerate frailty of body or mind.
Show your weakness, and it would consume you without hesitation."

October 2004
Guaviare Department, Colombia
Day 3

For a first lesson of the jungle, Ford's could have gone a little smoother.

Scorpions Like Boots wasn't exactly an ideal place to start.

(And Eliot knew Ford would be a liability, but that Ford didn't already know at least that much took the term liability to whole new levels.)

Ford was up near dawn, just as the jungle was greying towards daylight. Eliot had been up for an hour, packing up, doing a little scouting, orienting himself. Mentally mapping out the day.

(They had a long trek ahead of them, one that would be mentally taxing as much as physically. One of them had to be ready for that.)

When Ford slung his legs over the side of the tarp-hammock and sat upright, and Eliot nearly burst out laughing at the sight.

Eliot had spent his own first night in a jungle when he was still in the military, before he had learned to control his sleep - to own it - to get what he needed when he needed to fuel his body. He remembered well how stunned he'd been by the oppressive humidity; the bugs that no amount of DEET could fully repel;and the awful, relentless noise, like a monstrous wave crashing and crashing and crashing and never withdrawing. He'd laid awake all night, swatting at the bugs and scratching at bites and tossing and turning.

But as bad as that had been back then, he couldn't believe it had produced results quite like this.

There were crease marks across the right side of Ford's face from a fold in the tarp he'd slept on, and the left side of his face and neck was pocked with mosquito bites. His hair was matted flat on the right, pressed against his head like it was painted on, and on the other side, it was flying away wild, Einstein-like. And if the redness of his eyes were any indication, he'd maybe gotten an hour of uninterrupted sleep. He was swaying slightly where he sat, like a drunk.

"Look who's all bright-eyed and bushy tailed," Eliot snickered, pulling on his amphibious hikers over his bare feet.

Ford blinked slowly, and rubbed his eyes.

Eliot dug in his pack for his surplus of socks and sock liners. He threw a pair of each into Ford's lap. "Here. You're gonna need these."

Ford lifted them up and looked at them. Then he looked at Eliot's feet and saw that he had changed shoes. Then he thought about that. It seemed to take him an inordinate amount of time to resolve that mesh shoes minus hiking boots meant surplus socks.

"Perk up, Ford," Eliot said, and clapped him on the back. "Only 80 more miles to go!"

Ford grunted and tipped himself forward out of the hammock. He took off the dry t-shirt Eliot had packed for him and shuffled over to the branch his clothes were hanging from, and if Eliot hadn't already known that the cotton cargo pants and linen shirt would be chilly and damp, the look on Ford's face when he pulled them on confirmed it.

He sat back on a tree root and was just reaching to pull on one of boots over the new socks and liners when Eliot lunged at him. He slapped the boot out of Ford's hand and turned it upside down, shaking out a scorpion as thick as a roll of quarters.

Eliot couldn't believe he'd be so stupid.

"Rule number one. Shake out your damn shoes!"

"How long is this really gonna take?"

"We've been walking for an hour, Ford."

"I realize that. But you know, I'm just uh . . . I want to know how long we're really in for here."

Eliot stopped in his tracks and turned to look at Ford. "More than an hour!"

They walked in silence for a few minutes more, before Ford said "I'm holding you to seven days you know."

Eliot hacked into a branch close to him with slightly more force than was absolutely necessary.

"We're almost three days down," Ford continued, as if Eliot couldn't do math. "Four to go. Three really. We've got to get on the last plane out of San Jose del Guaviare by the 26th."

Eliot pulled back a long rubbery palm branch, but rather than hack at it, he stepped forward and let it snap back, swinging behind him, smacking Ford right in the face.

"Oops!" He called out over his shoulder, and turned to hide his smile.

Eliot decided that maybe his pace wasn't as fast as it should be, because Ford kept talking. He talked while they walked. He talked on their ten minute breaks. He talked while he sipped water, while he chewed on the tender inner stalk of a palm stem that Eliot had cut for him. He even talked while they were standing side-by-side, urinating.

They were resting in a small clearing, Ford sitting on the ground to rest his feet, when he said, "So, ah, you've done a little work in the jungle?"

And from the tone of his voice, Eliot could tell it was a question he'd been waiting to ask.

"More'n you."

"Was that on a retrieval or . . . "

Eliot didn't answer, but he gave Ford a sharp look. One that definitely said Don't Go There.

"Just curious," Ford said, lumbering to his feet and stretching his back. He grimaced as he shifted his weight from one foot to another. "That's good for us. Makes me thing . . . I don't know, maybe I picked the right guy after all."

"What are you, sucking up?"

Ford smirked. "No, Spencer, I am not sucking up. Just, you know, making note." He leaned back against a tree. "Of course, you haven't made the deadline yet."

The deadline. Eliot was on the verge of a retort, a threat even, but he decided to let nature be his best response.

He had seen the trail of ants along the back of tree Ford was standing next to. Ford had not. As soon as Ford's body touched bark, he was swarmed by them.

He never saw Ford move so fast.

He spun away from the tree, swatting as his neck and his arm and his shoulder. Then he turned in circles like a dog chasing his tail, trying to get at any on his back.

Eliot laughed hard enough that he felt it in his stomach muscles.

When Ford finally got done, he looked at the red welts on his arm. Then he looked at Eliot, exasperated, and held up a hand - as if Eliot had been coming to assist, and he was waving him off. "No really, not at all. No help necessary. I've got it alllll under control."

Eliot wiped a tear from the corner of his eye. "Rule number two, Ford. Watch what you lean against."

By afternoon, the mucky, flat terrain had turned into mucky, hilly, rocky terrain, and Ford was gasping and panting behind him. And occasionally stumbling and slipping and falling and cursing behind him.

Eliot's own clothes - which were made for wet conditions - hung damp on his frame, so he knew Ford must feel like he was dressed in steamed towels. And then there were his feet. They'd crossed at least two murky streams, wading thigh deep, and no amount of synthetic fibers or liners were going to keep his feet dry with that kind of water pouring into his shoes. But the leather and gore-tex sure as hell would trap all the moisture in there.

Eventually, they came upon a narrow stream with water bubbling clear over the rocks in it, small crayfish swimming in the pools. Eliot kneeled over it, filling their water bottles.

"Is that safe?"

Eliot grabbed a crayfish and held it up, "Should be - these are a good sign."

Then he popped it in his mouth and crunched it up.

"Seriously?" Ford gave him a slightly repulsed look, scratching at the mosquito bites on his neck.

"Delicious," Eliot smiled. Then he waved Ford over. "Come here."

Eliot scooped a dollop of mud from the edge of the stream and spread it over a couple of mosquito bites on Ford's face. Ford almost pulled back - he was clearly surprised by the contact - but Eliot could tell that he was feeling the cooling effects of it. His face softened with relief almost immediately.

"Put that on your ant bites, too. That's better'n benadryl right there."

Ford nodded and Eliot could feel his eyes on him as he turned to finish with the bottles.

"Thanks."

Near nightfall, when they were ready to set up camp, Eliot scaled a tree to scout their position. He was looking for the river, but he was looking for any sign of trouble, too. Perhaps some fire or other indication of whether Ventura and his FARC goons were closing in on them, but there was nothing.

"We should have a pretty good head start right?" Ford asked, when Eliot's feet were back on solid ground.

"Yeah, pretty good," Eliot nodded. And he was cautiously optimistic. The truck he took was the last vehicle in the little town without slashed tires, and the closest town where Ventura could get more was Miraflores - six hours away. Even if Ventura had woken up immediately after Eliot left, had new vehicles sent his way, they wouldn't have made the jungle before dark, and they wouldn't have tried to track them overnight. "We should have probably a day's head start."

"Good," Ford said earnestly.

While Eliot started to get the tarp and the hammock out, Ford examined his arms and legs and lifted his shirt, looking at his chest and belly, feeling around his back. (They'd already pulled at least a dozen leeches off their bodies.) Then he flopped onto a clear spot on the ground and sipped his water, staring blankly at the ground near his feet.

He had been visibly limping when they made camp, and Eliot could see in his eyes that the jungle was getting to him. Getting in his head. It had a way of doing that, especially with first timers. (But even, under the right circumstances, with people who'd been there often). It was enormous, and it pressed down on you like a heavy weight. Relentless humidity and wild noise and dozens of things that bit and stung and sucked your blood.

Eliot decided to try to keep it light. "Try not to sleep on your face tonight, okay? That was not the most attractive bedhead."

Ford scowled without bothering to look up.

"Or if you do," Eliot said, "at least try to sleep on the left side of your face. It'll give the mosquitoes something new to chew on."

Ford did look up at him then, eyes glaring, but there was a wry amusement there, too. "Thanks alot. Did anyone ever tell you you suck at giving advice?"

Eliot couldn't help but smile. "Did anyone ever tell you you shouldn't criticize the guy with the machete?"

Eliot woke to the sound of a heavy branch snapping, of monkeys screaming a retort.

He jerked up, his face pressing up against the insect netting on his hammock. He immediately unzipped it, and listened hard, waiting for any other unusual sounds.

Just a falling branch, he told himself. And it was a common thing. Falling branches, falling trees. Those killed as many people in jungles as jaguars or snakes or crocodiles or spiders.

Still, something felt . . . off.

He unzipped his hammock, using the flashlight that he kept next to him to scan the ground before he let his feet touch. Ford lay unmoving in his tarp-hammock, probably exhausted enough by now that the bugs and the noise weren't keeping him from sleeping.

Eliot scanned the trees with the light, half-expecting to see glowing eyes staring back at him, but he saw nothing. And there were no more noises either, beyond the usual cacophony of bugs and frogs and monkeys.

He slipped his feet into his shoes and started walking.

He monitored the ground closely, listening intently, every muscle tense and ready, ignoring the cloud of gnats around his face, the mosquito buzzing in his ear. He swept the light in a semicircle around him as he walked, until turning to his right, he saw something that made him stop.

It was a carving in a tree trunk. One that looked almost exactly like the crocodile Ford carried in his cargo pants pocket. He focused the light on it and stared at it. It was not fresh. The curves and edges were worn, as grey-brown as the bark of the tree itself.

Eliot moved the light and saw something similar in another tree about ten feet behind that one, and he was just trying to make out what it was when he heard a noise behind him, and he whirled around.

Ford was standing there.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"What the hell are you doing?" Eliot demanded. He moved the halo of the flashlight down Ford's legs. "Are you walking barefoot in the jungle in the middle of the night? Jesus, Ford!"

"What are you doing?" he asked again.

"Nothing! I thought I heard something."

"What?"

"It . . . just . . . nevermind! Let's go," he said, and turned Ford by the elbow back towards camp.

As they started to go, he turned back around, to give one more look at the trees with their carved figures, but he didn't see them anymore. The trees were there, but he saw that what he thought were carvings were just natural knots and swirls in the wood.

He shook his head at himself. This place was getting to him, too.