It’s been pouring. The rainy season begun in earnest, thrashing us day and night, testing structure and will alike. The house leaks in new places. Out back, where a gentle spring used to ooze, a raging river now forms, complete with a waterfall. I consider making this a feature in the future, hollowing out a swimming hole below the precipice. But who wants to go swimming in the rain?
I need to go to the farm. Some people in from the World, looking at property, plying me with promises of filthy lucre. I never, ever, wanted to sell this place, but the last two years have beaten me about the head and face and I find myself making compromises all the time. Integrity gets put on the line, and I find myself wanting.
So despite the weather, or because of it, we’re off to the farm. They follow in a lesser vehicle, one not equipped with snorkel and appropriate tires. A few trees have fallen, but we creep past. Driving through a primary forest has its thrills, although now it has anxiety as well. The ditches are bloody with clay. Wind and rain whip against the Defender. We’re not far from the first test, a river without a bridge, one of several along the way, but this the deepest of the bunch. A steep hill leads down to the crossing, with a small house on the right. Figuring that the rain may increase, and not wanting to be stranded assuming we can’t get back through, I stop in and ask the cuidador, Miguel, if we can leave one vehicle there. He says no problem and suggests we use the lower entrance. The guests/clients/bullshit artists pull in while I stay poised just above the river. Looking pretty untenable, this crossing. Through the rain I see a figure wading through the river, clothes plastered wet, pants sagging in ultimate plumber crack mode.
Naturally, it’s my mechanic, Johnny.
Johnny, I say, can we cross? He shakes his head wearily.
“No, Señor...y...necesites hallarme del rio.” Pull what? I don’t see a car.
He points upstream. Apparently he tried a slightly different route.
I stiffen, because I know Johnny has just recently sunk my Defender in one of the rivers on the way to town, destroying the amp and most of the speakers, a charge he denied briefly and then copped to. Worse, somebody told me that he sunk it while pulling out other people, which might explain why my winch was looking a bit kinked. So, he was making money, using my truck, and at the same time cost me cash. It’s a testament to his skill as a mechanic that I didn’t immediately fire him. I’m kinda fucked without him, so I have to put up with some of this crap, although he agreed to pay for whatever damages he caused--even though I know I’ll never know the full extent of the damages or the truth of what really happened. People are liars, generally, and here it seems lying is a national pastime. The Gringo Tax is heavy.
Johnny, I say, tersely, which car, the white one (the Defender for the lodge)?
No, es Sherman.
Sherman being my boy Whiddy’s 1988 Toyota Landcruiser SUV, so named because of its tank like engine. Sherman, which he just brought down after getting it spit shined for the journey. Turns out he had a shitty mechanic as well, and it arrived here with exactly none of the work he paid for done. He’s already had to replace the carb, gas tank, radiator, and several other key items. He’s going to be thrilled to know his car is currently having a nice swim.
I tell the couple in the other car it’s off, we can’t cross. They are relieved and head back to town. I figure I have a 50-50 shot of seeing them the next day to try again. Definitely the worst time to show the place. “Hey, you want to buy my piece of paradise? Did I mention it was inaccessible half the time?” In truth, it’s rare that the rivers are so swollen, or that one has to wait more than an hour or two to cross. We just happen to have had 20” of rain in the last week, and that’s when they showed up. I doubt I’ll be able to convince them this is an extreme event.
I pull into the lower driveway/parking area/mud pit and ease towards the river. HOLY SHIT! Now, when he said he was stuck, I imagined he was stuck at the edge of the river, like he’d gone in, seen it was too deep, and then couldn’t back out. No. He’s actually pointed upstream, dead center of the river, water coming up to the windows. Whiddy’s girlfriend’s dog, a miniature Doberman/Chihuahua mix unfortunately named Sassy, is shivering on the front seat, like a passenger without a lifeboat, waiting to drown. I’ve got my iPhone and would really, really like to take a picture, but there’s no time and it’s pissing rain. The car will be a submarine in a few minutes.
I set the emergency brake on death grip and unspool the winch cable. I’m not getting too close, because the embankment is a muddy sluice of clay and water. Johnny has to swim out to attach the cable to the tow hook. He’s only got one tow hook, as it turns out, on the right side of the front bumper, which is less than ideal. Johnny gets back inside, water flooding the compartment as he does so. Amazingly, the engine is still running, even though the hood is almost under, and the rear is fully submerged. Smoke from the exhaust boils the water as he gives it full pedal to the floor gas and I start reeling him in. The Defender is gallant in resisting the pull towards the embankment/mud slide, and slowly the Toyota breaches the surface and approaches the safety of the river’s edge. But, now there’s a problem. We’re pulling it sideways, not up and out, and the rear tires aren’t getting any traction. The truck also isn’t equipped with posi-traction, which would allow it to transfer power to the non-slipping tires, so it’s turning into a mud bog mess that would make a Southerner grin in appreciation.
I stop winching, signal for Johnny, who is gunning the engine to the red line by now, to get out and reset. A bemused kid who has been watching the whole event makes himself useful with a shovel and starts digging out the rear and underbelly. We throw rocks, wood, branches, anything we can find under the right rear to give it purchase. Johnny is needlessly blaming the lack of tread on what I know to be very new tires. I’m thinking, really? The tread is to blame? How about you driving the truck into the fucking river? Where does that rank on the blame-o-meter? The edge of the river is slippery as hell, and naturally I bust my ass a few times, get muddy water inside my boots. I probably have a little ass crack showing as well, but Johnny’s is pure comedy, had I the time laugh, as he bends over and, I shit you not, tries to clean mud out of the tire treads with his fingers as the torrent rages down on us. He then decides it would be a great idea to tie off to the other side, but there’s no hook there. He loops the cable through the frame and attaches the hook to its own cable and looks at me with a smile like that’s a good idea. I veto it immediately because it will cut the cable the second we put pressure on it, but he has the temerity to argue his point for a half second more before my eyes suggest I’m going to throw him under the wheels for traction if he keeps talking. Instead, I thread the cable past a tree that’s big enough to angle the truck a bit when we start the hauling again, reattach to the original, legitimate tow point, and hope for the best.
I decide I’m too close to the river’s edge now that the truck is much closer than before, so I back up some more onto more level ground, spool out the cable another 30 feet, and we’re off and pulling again. The scary thing, of course, is that the cable might break and snap back and kill me, but there’s no cover to speak of except inside the car. The problem with that position is I can’t help guide the cable back onto the winch spool, which means it will start to bunch up and stall the whole mechanism. I know this because it’s happening. I have to get out and unspool, then guide it with my bare hands. This results in an immediate gouging of my palm. For good measure, a loop forms in the cable and I have to do the unspool, reel in thing again, this time with a little blood for lubrication. Maybe it will counteract the muddy grit that is slathered all over the line and is being wound into the core of my winch. I try not to dwell on the damage being done.
Johnny has his best Richard Petty impersonation going, gunning the engine again like a moonshiner outrunning the cops on some Tennessee mountain road, mud is flying out the back, little Sassy has a look of sheer terror on her face and at any moment I’m convinced my life will be ended by a cable which is visibly frayed. In a way, it’s kinda fun. Manly shit. Here we are, in the pure jungle experience, hauling trucks out of rivers, getting soaked, muddy, bloody and scared. It’s part of my job description, which may be written succinctly as “be prepared for anything.” Everybody who lives down here has to deal with stuff like this. You got a tree down in the road? Find a chainsaw or work at it with machetes. No public works dept. is going to come out and help. Hell, we build our own roads, police our own community, put out our own fires, set our own breaks. If we relied on some government assistance, we’d quite simply die waiting for it to show up. I mean, there may be a guy with a tow truck somewhere within 100 miles, but since there’s no phone service here, and no time if there were, I have to put on my tow truck driver hat. There’s just no other way to do it down here.
The trucks have played tug of war to a standstill. Johnny is signaling for me to get in the Defender and back up. I fear he’s right this time. Only, I’m going to have to do it blind, because even with the protection of the cab, I’m in the cable kill zone, so I’m keeping my head down. My dogs are in the back, strangely calm, and I’m worried for them as well. I ease off the e brake and clutch and press on the diesel. For a split second, I’m the one who is losing, and I’m going down the incline towards the Toyo and the head on collision that will wreck my vehicle and put Whiddy’s back in the drink. But some lucky arrangement of roots or grass or superior tire tread suddenly gives me the leverage I need, and we inch back up the hill, pulling Johnny along with us. One last stab of power on both ends, his and mine, and he’s out, water gushing from the doors. Truck, dog, and idiot savant mechanic saved. I smell the charred remains of my clutch and add that to the bill I’ll be giving Whiddy to give to Johnny.
I unhook and reel in. The hook falls off because somewhere in the excitement the cotter pin fell out, and now I have that to fix as well. Johnny is smiling like he did something commendable, and I’m thinking ahead to a warm shower. Of course, there won’t be a warm shower because there’s no solar, thus, no solar hot water. It will be cold. But it will be clean. And after all that mud and grime, cleanliness will be damn close to godliness. As will the bourbon I’ll be having when I’m all dry, a little toast to the git’er done hick in me, and to the pioneer lifestyle we live in our jungle, in our frontier town at the edge of something that looks, tastes, and feels suspiciously like freedom.
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