Wandernorth
Part VI: The Black Tapir
It was a cloudy night. We figured we had a twenty minute window to get the gate unlocked, lure it out, and get it to the wagon and on the plane. Without looking up from the binoculars, Mr. Rey gave the signal that the guard was leaving. He had been such a lifesaver the entire time we were in this country that it felt strange that this was probably the last time we'd ever see him. Even stranger that our last hurrah together was centered around stealing a tapir named Bodil.
As the guard disappeared around the corner, Kim hopped out of the basket and looked back at us with a bewildered look on her face; the gate wasn't even locked. I readied the squeaky toy we got from Mr. Rey's shop in Valparaiso from my pocket. Once she swung the gate open, I took aim and threw the toy right at the Bodil's butt. It only let out half a squeak, but it was enough to get the animal running. Kim directed it down the path towards the wagon.
I hopped out of the tree, closed the gate, and started down the path too. I looked back at Mr. Rey, and not quite sure what to do, I waved. He nodded his head and made a peace sign with his hand and started to say something. Just as he began to speak, he quickly glanced over to see the guard was coming back. Shit. Why was he back so soon? He'd obviously notice the missing tapir, which means we had to somehow get it on the wagon and to the plane in a fraction of the time we had planned for.
The guard stopped before he came around the corner and leaned on the wall. He lit a cigarette and started writing in a pocketbook. I guess the universe was giving us another few minutes to finish what we had started. But the relief was bittersweet; I suddenly remembered that the stupid squeaky toy was still sitting in Bodil's pen. Heart racing, I looked at Mr. Rey and mimed as if I was squeezing the toy in my hand. His eyes widened. They could trace the toy back to his store in Chile.
He looked at the guard and then back at me, motioning that he was still smoking and writing. As if kidnapping a tapir wasn't enough, going back in the pen with the guard directly on the other side of the wall was perhaps the riskiest thing we'd done in Argentina. I took a deep breath and quietly crept back towards the gate, often looking back at Mr. Rey for any warning gestures. I gently opened the gate just enough to get through, and made sure the latch didn't make a sound upon closing. I snuck to the middle of the pen and carefully reacquired the squeaky toy. Turning around, I held it up to show Mr. Rey, but he wasn't paying attention to the toy in my hand.
The guard was stamping out his cigarette, and Mr. Rey was frantically motioning for me to get out of there. I glided back to the gate, pushed it open, and swiftly began walking down the path. The gate slammed closed and the latch clattered. Fuck me. I looked over my shoulder to see that Mr. Rey was gone and that the alerted guard had just realized that a heist was literally taking place behind his back.
As I sprinted to the rendezvous wagon, I couldn't help but think of what a botched job this was. There was no way we were getting out of Argentina with this tapir now. I got to the road to see that the wagon was connected to the stagecoach and Bodil was already on it. "Go, go, go!", I screamed. Gordon whipped the reins and the horses got moving. I jumped in the stagecoach with Kim.
"Where the fuck were you?", she demanded.
"I had to go back for this god damn thing", I pulled the squeaky toy out of my pocket, "I dropped it in the pen. They would have been able to trace it back to--"
"--I know, I know. Did anyone see you?"
I paused for a moment, "Yes. A guard saw me. He heard me slam the latch on the gate."
"You told me you've done this kind of thing before", her tone of voice was almost condescending.
I defended my actions; "Fuck you, I was covering our tracks."
"You were covering his tracks."
"He's done a lot for us, Kim. I know you two have history, but I felt like we owed him."
She looked down and shook her head, "Let's just get to the plane."
We arrived at a dirt airstrip littered with garbage and old military equipment, and among it was the old Pilatus turboprop plane that Félix stole from the Argentine military and left here for us. We had to get the tapir in the cargo hold. Gordon grabbed our things and ran to the plane to start the engines while we dealt with Bodil. We untied him from the wagon and jogged with him across the runway. As the turboprops fired up, Bodil got startled and veered off course, tripping over what looked like a very old military satellite phone. Our luck couldn't be worse, because just then, the guards showed up.
"No se muevan, cabrones!", they ran at us and yelled, holding crossbows loaded with tranquilizer bolts that would normally be used on large animals such as a tapir. We got Bodil running again, as crossbow bolts whizzed by our heads. As the guards got closer, their shots became more accurate. They managed to hit Bodil in the rear. Kim yelped as a bolt entered the tricep of her left arm. We ushered the tapir onto the plane and jumped in with him. The engines roared as Gordon pushed the throttle up to take off.
The plane received a series of tranquilizer bolts to the left side of the fuselage as the plane moved along the runway. As we taxied, we moved out of range of the shouting guards and took off. While the plane wasn't going to fall asleep from the bolts, the tapir certainly did. The bolt in Kim's arm didn't get a chance to administer very much serum as it had gone through her muscle with the tip pointing out the other side. Regardless, she was drowsy and bleeding, and we had essentially no medical supplies. Gordon also noticed that some of the bolts were uncomfortably close to the left propeller. Should they get into the engine, we could be in big trouble.
So, where are we at? Somewhere deep in northern Argentina we kidnapped a tapir named Bodil, we escaped in a stolen military plane with people shooting at us, one of us is bleeding from a tranquilizer crossbow bolt, we have no idea if Mr. Rey was able to get away unharmed, there are likely many people hunting us, and now we have to fly our way across the border and land safely in Paraguay to try to meet up with Félix. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a million dollar bounty on my head.
Insanely far from home, and even further from being home free, I can't help but think about how I wound up in this situation. A feeling of dread hits my heart as the plane breaches the clouds.
