Patagonia Lost

Patagonia Lost

                                                                                    By

Hugh Morshead c2012

Twenty-five year old mountain guide Jack Green sat at the campground picnic table writing up his expedition report. The Isla Navarino trek in southern Patagonia had been successful despite severe weather and his clients were now enjoying the Buenos Aires nightlife before returning to England. They had applauded his effortless leadership, the reality was that he had spent every waking moment reading their diverse abilities, the terrain and the weather - or as the Cherokee say, listening to the whispers so you don’t have to hear the screams. It had left him drained and this unpretentious campground a day’s drive south of the city was perfect to recharge the batteries and plan his future.

    “Hola,” said the pretty girl. The campsite next to him had been vacant and now it was bustling with four girls erecting a large tent.

     “Hello,” he replied and his jaw dropped. Four nubile young ladies in bikini tops and thongs were cavorting with tent poles, pegs and billowing nylon. Jack’s natural bashfulness was compounded by the restraints engrained by an English boarding school and the protocols of outdoor leadership. These girls were stunning; however, his heart was with his girlfriend waiting for him back home in Scotland. They dreamed of building a guiding business together and now he had a way to make it happen. The hostel owner at Puerto Williams was a retired Chilean military officer and was receptive to the idea of having a foreign partner; Jack was excited by the thought of telling Katie that their dream could now become reality. 

      He continued studying the maps and filling his notebook with compass bearings as the girls cheeped and chatted like songbirds; he smiled to himself when he heard them discussing him. In the mountains, he was hyper-aware of his environment, in the laidback campground he tuned out distractions. He failed to notice a lone middle-age camper staring at them, the man was an amputee. 

      Smoke from dozens of fire pit grills hung low in the soft evening air, except at his neighbours, were it was more like a bonfire. The smoke stung his eyes and he could no longer ignore their cries of frustration.

   “May I help?” he asked and walked over with an armful of kindling, soon flames licked the dry tinder. He introduced himself and they invited him to share their huge flank steak. Jack felt bad not having anything worth contributing and so he walked over to the camp store for a bottle of malbec wine. Their animated conversation was punctuated with bursts of laughter as Jack recalled the dramas of shepherding greenhorns through the wilderness. Between the glow of the wine and being the center of attention, he didn’t notice the subtle shift in group dynamics. Three of the girls stayed in the background, allowing Melissa, a vivacious dark-hair beauty, to hold his attention. The three girls decided to walk into town for ice cream, leaving Jack and Melissa chatting over the embers as dusk fell.

     “Please show me photos of your trip,” he went to his tent for the laptop. Images of desolate jagged mountains, stunted beech trees bent double by the wind and close-ups of guanos, the indigenous llama-like animals, filled the screen.

     “Oh, these bugs are terrible,” she said, waving her arms around her face, “why don’t we go inside the tent.” The girl’s tent was a rummage sale of duvets and toiletries, he continued showing her dozens of photos and rhapsodizing about creating an adventure business in the far south. He could sense her warm body as she peered over his shoulder.

       “You can do this because you are not married, yes?”

       “I have a girlfriend, next time she will come with me.”

       “Is she very pretty?” she smiled and leaned closer.

       “How old are you?”

       “I am eighteen in two weeks.” A sudden chill snaked up his spine; he had spent the past hour in the tent alone with a teenage girl. Hastily, he closed the laptop and unzipped the tent opening.

     “Excuse me, I must go.” 

     “You English are so stuck-up,” she replied in disgust. Jack felt bad, he hadn’t intended to be rude, but how could he explain that, for a mountain guide, conduct is as important as carabineers? He decided to return early to the city the next morning and drifted off to a troubled sleep.

     “Policia, manos arriba!” shouts from outside the tent woke him with a start. He unzipped the tent and big army boots filled his vision. Six police in blue fatigues and with pistols in low-slung holsters surrounded the tent. A Federal officer sharply dressed in khakis addressed him.

    “You are under arrest, come with us,”    

    “Why? I have done nothing.”  The officer did not reply. Jack watched helplessly as they emptied his tent and search through his belongings. One of them found his multivitamin bottle and took it triumphantly to the lieutenant. The officer tipped the contents into the palm of his hand; amongst the multivitamin capsules were small red pills.

     “What are these?”

     “I don’t know, they’re not mine.” The officer barked an order, handcuffs were snapped on his wrists and he was manhandled into the police cruiser. He stared wildly out the window, police surrounded the near-naked girls standing outside their tent, the girls were wailing in anguish. Jack stood helplessly as they were escorted into an unmarked van. He was driven away past the scared crowd of onlookers, he didn’t noticed the smirking amputee.

                    A few days earlier Jack had admired  the Baroque splendour of the 18^th century town square with its cobbled stone street and the pastel shades of the ornate stonework, in contrast, the the rear entrance of the police station retained the dark foreboding menace of the colonial era. The razor wire and guards cradling machine guns emphasised the power of the state. The shock of his sudden arrest helped to numb the indignities of the strip search and being processed, freedom and personality were replaced with a number and denim coveralls; then he was taken, manacled, down two flights of steps. Worn red brick lined the wall of a narrow passageway, on either side there were narrow cells with thick iron bars, each housed pathetic inmates dressed in rags, the stench of excrement was overpowering.  The guard unlocked a cell door and unshackled him, a dim light recessed in the ceiling illuminated his destitution, the five foot by eight cell was empty except for a raised  sleeping platform, a thin grey blanket and a metal bucket. He sat listening to the hollow sound of the disappearing footsteps and wept. The silence was broken by rats scurrying along the pipes on the ceiling outside and the cries of an inmate clawing his way out of a nightmare.

                  Jack’s despair turned to rage, it was all a set-up to elicit a hefty bribe by hick cow town cops.  He would be damned if he’ll let these yahoos take his money. In the afternoon he was interrogated and the list of charges was long: sexual assault of a minor, drug trafficking and serving alcohol to a minor. The two cops also hammered him with questions about the Chilean military maps and his notebook full of map references and compass bearings. They told him that the trekking business was a cover for smuggling drugs into the country and the girls were his access to students.

      “This is bullshit; I demand to speak to the embassy.”

     “They have been notified of your arrest and will visit you in due course.”

      The guard took him back to the cell and as the steel door slammed shut, he felt something curl up and die inside him. All his hopes and dreams of the future were shattered and no matter the outcome, he knew the scandal would destroy him, his stomach burned in frustration. The questioning by the police became more adversarial and his demands for embassy official were ignored. A week dragged by and to Jack’s relief, instead of the two swarthy cops, a tall man in a tailored suit and polished brogues was escorted into the interview room. He introduced himself as a consular official.

      “You’ve got to get me out of this hell hole. I’ve been framed, I’m totally innocent...” Jack’s words trailed off as he saw the look of utter distain on the man’s face.

     “Her Majesty’s government has no authority over the judicial systems of sovereign nations, however, I can recommend legal counsel,” as he handed Jack a business card. He was as icy cold as the glaciers Jack had recently been climbing; the coldness of the consular official was harder to take than the thuggish bullying of the detectives. Two weeks later the lawyer visited, he was a crumbled middle-aged man with a harried demeanour that did not exude confidence. He took out a legal pad from his worn brief case.

       “Now tell me want happen, start from the beginning.” Jack recounted everything. “Your outbursts with the police and attempts at bribery have hardened their attitude and reduced our options. They have a strong case; a key witness is a retired captain in the infanteria de marina, their marine corp, a decorated hero of the Falklands war.

     “Where did he come from?”

     “He lives at the campsite and gave an eye witness account of you getting drunk with the girls and your time in the tent with the teenager. Had you not been so adverserial I might have been able to have the charges reduced. I will try and reach a settlement with the prosecutor, but don’t expect anything.”

     “You got to get me out of here.”

     “The media are baying for blood, the Falklands war is an emotional issue and they portray you as a drug-crazed pedophile and spy.”

     “What will happen?”

     “The best case is seven years, so long as you stay out of trouble in jail. Fights with other inmates and insubordination with guards can extend the sentence indefinitely.” The lawyer rose to leave ... “here are some newspapers for you, they show what we are up against,” as he pulled the papers from his brief case and handed them to Jack.

     The newspaper headlines from home screamed a lurid tale of sex and drugs with teenagers. Not only was his career ruined, his personnel life on the rocks. The letter from his girlfriend had an uncharacteristic formal tone and although outwardly supportive, he could read between the lines that it was all over. Two weeks later, he was transferred to a prison outside Buenos Aires and a trial date was set for two months time.

      The prison was a former military base with a central building holding several hundred prisoners. Jack shared a cell with three inmates, two were serving ten years for cattle rustling, the other was an ancient Indian. Jack slowly adapted to prison life with its own code and morals. The atmosphere gnawed at his soul, the inmates had a prevailing bitterness against society and suspicion amongst each other. Jack’s contempt for comfort and an ability to get along with people should have made the situation bearable, however, the other prisoners either were openly hostile or maintained a vacant stare. In time, Jack realized it was a coping mechanism against the unchanging surroundings and depression. The two rustlers were only semi-literate and Jack helped them with their appeal, in return, they watched his back, essential when fights with makeshift knives flared up without reason. The Indian slept much of the time and remained a mystery.

     “Who is he?” Jack asked one day.

     “A Mapuche Indian, he’s a walker between the worlds.”

     “Huh?” the local idioms put him at a loss.

     “He’s a priest and when he goes into a trance he travels to spirit world.” Over time, Jack developed a friendship with the shaman and began to learn about his beliefs. The Indian spoke slowly about how, since the dawn of time, beauty and perfection were woven into order of the universe and that the spirit world and the world of humans needed each other to create harmony and truth. When the shaman travelled to the spirit world in a trance, he brought back power and knowledge to help others. For the first time, Jack felt a ray of hope, although he could not physically escape the prison, he could learn how to roam at will through his mind. Perhaps, in time and with the shaman’s guidance he could master the art of travelling on the astral plane back to his beloved Patagonia or even expose the falsehoods that imprisoned him.