The dog yips, then runs off toward the small city of tents.
“Why did you name your dog after ... poo?” I ask.
“What else would you call a smelly brown lump on the ground at your feet?”
Caca comes back with a hand-carved wooden pipe in her mouth. “Good girl.” The tour guide takes it, then tosses a hunk of meat at her.
The other hikers are friendly and laid-back, but the soldiers watch us in small groups, wearing muddy boots and holding automatic rifles. They don’t seem to care about the alcohol and pot being passed around the campfire, but a cold, hollow feeling swells in my chest when I notice them whispering to each other on the edge of the light cast by the fire. I try to listen, but all I can make out is something about increased foot traffic on some jungle path.
“What’s with all the soldiers?” Penelope asks when she notices me watching them. “Is this a police state?”
“They’re for security, on the beaches, and they patrol known drug trafficking routes in the jungle,” Nico explains.
“See?” Holden turns on me. His eyes are glazed and his words are slurred. “Thereisdrug trafficking here.”
“There’s drug trafficking everywhere,” I tell him. “But no one ever tries to paint that as the defining characteristic of the US or Canada as nations. The truth is that the RDP—La Revolución del Pueblo, the People’s Revolution—is in talks to end the guerrilla rebellion, and the Moreno cartel was nearly eradicated last year.” According to my dad, theCIA made some shady backdoor deal with another cartel to drive them out of business, and while I don’t support the approach, Colombia is better off now that its citizens—and its tourists—have little to fear from armed militants.
Bored with my politics, Holden joins a drinking game with the bros. Luke takes a little of everything that is passed to him, and soon, I notice him staring into the fire, tracing bits of burning ash as they rise from the pit.
“You okay?” I ask.
He stares through the flames. “The fire makes your cousin look evil.”
“Wings and a halo could make my cousin look evil,” I mumble. When the joint comes our way again, I try to pass it to the bro on Luke’s other side, but he intercepts my arm with a scowl.
“Hey. You can’t just skip people.”
I’ve seen Ryan wasted often enough to know that the fog Luke’s mired in can’t be penetrated with logic. Which will make him easy to bargain with. “Would you rather have a hit from this or from the bottle?”
Luke gives the decision more thought than it deserves. “I want the weed!” He sucks deeply on the joint, determined to get the better end of a choice he was under no obligation to make.
When he starts to tilt sideways, I guide him to his bright blue tent.
“Thanks for inviting me,” Luke says as I help him into his sleeping bag. “This is the best vacation I’ve ever had.”
I start to tell him how sad that sounds, but then I notice how long and thick his guy-lashes are, now that his hair isn’t falling into his face.
With Luke tucked in, I head toward my own tent to crash, free from both the bite of mosquitoes and the sting of Miami’s queen bee.
As I duck beneath the flap, I notice the silhouette of a man holding a rifle, backlit by the campfire in the distance. The soldier stares at me in the dark until I zip up my tent.
Even in my sleep, I can feel him watching me.
53 HOURS EARLIER
GENESIS
When the campfire has died down and Holden and the bros have passed out, I zip up my tent and collapse onto my sleeping bag, still buzzing from several shots ofaguardiente. My phone screen is lit up for the first time since we arrived at Tayrona—I have one-bar reception at this outpost. There must be a tower somewhere nearby, which makes sense, considering that this bunkhouse is a point of communication for soldiers and tour guides.
I have twelve missed calls and three text messages. They’re all from my dad.
Genesis, answer your phone!
Call me as soon as you get this message. I want you on that jet ASAP!
Go back to your grandmother’s house as soon as you get this, Genesis. THIS IS NOT A GAME.
No, it’s not a game. It’s mybirthright. Colombia is my history. It’s in myblood, just like it’s in my father’s, and he has no right to try to take that from me just because he wants nothing to do with his homeland anymore.
