Devotion Apart Read online

  "That's right. Ask Naul Bueno about Cord Dalton. That's my name. And don't forget my face."

  "Naul Bueno?" His hand shifted away from his windbreaker. "All right then. If you say so."

  "Yeah, I say so, Mr. Josh Bruning from Tennessee, age forty-eight. Every time you hear me ask you for something, you just say that. If you say so. I'm not here to hurt you. Believe it or not, I'm interested in what's best for you. We both know you're up to no good, exploiting these women, and if it were up to me, I'd put you out of business. But for now, we co-exist. Now, what do you say to that?"

  "Man, whatever you say. I mean, if you say so."

  "Thank you, Josh. Now, walk away and don't look back. I'll be watching."

  He clenched his teeth, turned, and walked away. I watched him like I'd warned, not wanting him to see me leave with Ruth's father. It had been a calculated trump card to bring up Naul's name, but I knew people on the street feared the Buenos and the APB's, and Naul would love to stand up for me if he were contacted. He wasn't a Christian, but God's people in the Bible had often appealed to authority figures to settle problems with the locals. The City of Devotion was in a state of lawlessness, but it still had an authority structure, even if that structure was a Mexican covered with tattoos. A street pimp would've been easy pickings for the APB's, and Josh Bruning knew it.

  I returned to the Jeep and drove away. McMaster was quiet for a few minutes as I drove into the city.

  "What now?" he asked.

  "It'll be a couple days before your partners figure out you and Ruth are missing." I parked the Jeep in front of a sporting goods store. "We'll go by your place, pack up a few belongings, then tomorrow, we're going fishing."

  "Fishing? At a time like this?"

  *~*~*

  That night, Roger McMaster and I stayed in a hotel room together at the Crystal, a four-star establishment. He had lapsed into silence, and I guessed he was sensing the loss of his old life, as well as his daughter. In one single day, everything he'd once valued so highly was gone. Now, he was relying on a man with a bad haircut whom he barely knew.

  We'd returned to his apartment for his most basic possessions. Where he was going, even his backpack would seem too much, but I didn't tell him that.

  Late that night, on the balcony of the hotel room, I called Craig and asked him to charter a flight for Friday to Quito, Peru.

  "Is it for that Roger guy?" he asked. "You're doing way more for him than he deserves."

  "He may not think so when he finds out where I'm taking him." I sighed and checked on Roger through the glass door. He was lying on one of the hotel beds, staring at the ceiling, the television volume low. "He'll be totally isolated there, and unable to speak the language. There's no technology or access to the world. It'll be a different kind of prison, but it's where he'll need to live now. This is his sentence. I don't see any other way to keep everyone safe."

  "He's hurt a lot of people."

  "We've all hurt a lot of people, Craig," I said softly, remembering my friend's own private challenges. "God knows all of that, and He still extends His hand of love and forgiveness—but we have to rely on Him in faith."

  "I want to believe you, Cord, but some things are unforgivable." For a second, I thought he was referring to McMaster still, but then I realized his voice was strained and introspective. He was talking about himself.

  Chapter Nine

  I roused Roger McMaster before dawn, then we left the city to pick up my father. Roger was still in quiet mode, so I didn't explain with whom we were going fishing. Jesus hadn't always explained to His disciples what He was doing, yet they learned from Him, purely by being involved. For the Spirit of Jesus Christ lives inside me, and I hoped to impact Roger a little more before I passed him off to the next stage of his life.

  My father was not awake, and I had to use my knife to let myself in. Roger joined me in the unkempt house. I left him in the living room and went to the back bedroom to wake my father. He'd actually slept in the bed! Apparently, all he'd needed was clean sheets and his laundry put away.

  "My stupid alarm didn't go off?" He rubbed the sleep from his eyes. "I know I set it."

  "They're tricky sometimes. Don't feel bad. I used to get the AM and PM confused. I'll wait in the living room while you get dressed. The fish will be biting soon."

  "I got some snacks." He rolled out of the bed. "They're already bagged up."

  In the living room, Roger was snooping like a nosy neighbor left alone in a stranger's house.

  "This guy has nothing personal in here," Roger whispered to me. "Look at the walls, the counter. No pictures or anything."

  "You're right. This is our opportunity." I hadn't really noticed it all like Roger had. "We might be his first friends, so let's not let him down."

  My father emerged from the hall and stopped short.

  "Who's he?"

  "A friend of mine. Earl, meet Roger."

  Both seemed skeptical as they shook hands, then my dad went to the counter where he'd left a tote bag on the counter.

  "It's just granola bars and sodas." He glanced up at me. "That okay?"

  "Sounds like the perfect fishing fuel to me, huh, Roger?"

  We climbed into the Jeep, with Roger in the back seat, and drove to Liberty Lake. I'd already looked into the boating options, so we parked at a small marina on Duje Road. I involved my father in picking out a twenty-foot fishing boat with a soft top. Roger waited off to the side, his baseball cap pulled low. Since it was a weekday, not many customers were about the marina.

  We loaded all our gear, climbed into the boat, and headed to the south shore.

  "Cast first, Earl," I encouraged, once we'd dropped an anchor. Roger and I ducked as my father wildly whipped the rod. His lure floated through the air and landed with a small splash. "That's it. Now we're living it up, huh?"

  "Yeah." My dad smiled, reeled in his lure, and cast again. "I think I see a hole a little farther out. There's gotta be fish there. I watch those angler shows sometimes."

  I sat in the boat chair at the stern, Roger was mid-ship, and my father made himself comfortable in the swivel chair at the bow. As the sun rose, the air warmed, and we each exclaimed every time a trout jumped nearby. For a little while, we seemed like three old friends.

  Dad was the first to get one on the line, and I dropped my pole to join him in the bow as he fought the fish.

  "Not too fast!" Roger instructed. "You'll yank out the hook!"

  "He's right, Earl," I coached over his shoulder. "Nice and easy. Let him tire himself. Just keep the tension, but not too aggressive."

  My father started laughing, his midsection jiggling. When he glimpsed the fish on the line, he was so overwhelmed with joy that he gasped and chuckled, and I realized he was also crying between breaths.

  The trout was only eight inches long, but we celebrated like it was a thirteen-foot, green and white pirarucu from the Amazon's black water. Maybe for the first time in my dad's life, he was the hero. I couldn't help but think how our roles as father and son had been reversed, but I didn't mind being the son who'd taken his father on his first fishing trip, instead of the other way around.

  It was hard to beat that moment of victory. A little while later my father lost interest in fishing when his line got tangled. While Roger fished and I worked to untangle the line, Dad sat in the chair and rehearsed the landing of his trophy fish in the cooler. Like all masters, his story grew taller and the fish grew bigger by the third rehearsal, and I truly enjoyed his company, learning more of what was meaningful to the man.

  Roger caught a few fish by mid-morning, and I caught one that was a couple pounds heavier than Dad's. Two hours later, Dad crossed his arms across his ample belly and fell asleep, his mouth an open invitation to the mayflies.

  "Why do I feel like this is the calm before the storm?" Roger said. "Wherever you're sending me, will I see you again?"

  "Probably, but why would you want to? I'd think you'd consider me the one who ruined
your life and took your daughter from you."

  "I'm not looking at it that way." He sighed loudly, his next cast lacking effort. "My daughter is being taken care of. My enemies no longer have a hold on my life, and I'm going somewhere safe, right?"

  "You're going someplace good, but not altogether safe."

  That afternoon, we returned to my father's place, and we made an evening of watching baseball on the television while frying up the fish. We didn't talk much, but we enjoyed each other's company anyway, until my father fell asleep in his recliner.

  "Who is he to you?" Roger asked as we prepared to leave at dusk. "Why would you spend an entire day with someone like him? I'm not saying I didn't enjoy the day, but it doesn't figure."

  "You realize you're just like him, don't you?" I bagged up the garbage in the kitchen.

  "Like him? Yeah, right! I have friends, girlfriends, money, cars, favors to call in, thousand dollar suits in my closet, and six percent body fat." He swore. "How am I like him?"

  "Some people are polished on the outside, but they're pure cancer and toxic waste on the inside. Some people may not be very attractive on the outside, but they have potential on the inside if they're given a chance."

  "I have potential." Roger held the door open for me. "You'll see. And I won't do the same things with my second chance."

  "We'll see." I carried the garbage outside and set it in the container at the curb. When I returned, I continued. "Time will tell if it's a change to your inner man, which will take a miracle from God, or if it'll be just a new fashion statement from self-discipline. Either way, it's your choice, and your choice will determine where you spend eternity."

  That night, I hoped he was thinking about what I'd said. On the hotel room balcony, I talked to Detective Fletcher and Craig, and called Karen. She said she was helping Ruth McMaster begin her detox from heroin, and Talia Huella was slowly learning English and looking for employment around the duplex, maybe as a caregiver, which would require some training.

  The next morning, after a heavy continental breakfast downstairs, we packed our few belongings and drove to the airport northeast of the city. We walked through the separate screening area for privately chartered flights and met Fletcher in a wide, blue hanger.

  "This was all a setup?" Roger asked when he saw the detective. "You two know each other?"

  Fletcher and I shook hands, then faced Roger.

  "I'm here to see you off," Fletcher said, "and to tell you never to return. I may not be able to put you in jail where you belong, but Cord tells me where you're going, the world will be safe from you. If you try to leave, it'll be all bad, so stay put."

  Roger said nothing.

  "Get on the plane," I told Roger, and Fletcher and I were alone as the two pilots boarded. "My people in Brazil will keep him in line."

  "I don't know how." He thrust his hands in his beltless trench coat. "What'll his life be like now?"

  "The rainforest has a way of breaking a man." I chuckled. "Insects, boas, monkeys stealing your hard-earned food, sleeping in bamboo huts, and hunting for drinkable water. He'll have to go native to survive."

  "Will the natives accept him?"

  "Oh, not at all. They'll barely tolerate someone like him. Until he learns their ways, they'll barely feed him, which is why he'll learn quickly to gather his own food. And if he doesn't learn to speak lingua geral soon, he'll be further alienated. But none of that discomfort is our goal, is it? We're putting him into a place of humility so he'll think about his ways, and his eternal soul."

  "You have a lot more compassion than I do. I'm more tempted to put him down."

  "We have to look past ourselves in this kind of situation." I took my satchel from the Jeep and hung it over my head and shoulder. "Our spiritual life needs to prevail with Christ's character where we know we're inadequate."

  "You'd never make it in law enforcement." He held out his hand as the jet engine roared to life. "But you seem to have a knack at taking down bad guys. I'll never understand how you convinced him to leave like this."

  "We all have our callings, Fletcher." I shook his hand. "When I get back, I might be interested in receiving another name from you. Maybe together, we can make a difference for Christ."

  "The despised detective and the Amazonian missionary?"

  "Sounds like a heavenly team to me!"

  I waved and boarded the plane.

  *~*~*

  Two days later, we were on a Peruvian riverboat in the Upper Amazon. Roger was swatting at mosquitoes and trying to find a comfortable position in the shade of the pilothouse, and I was thrilled to be back in the forest that had grown me to manhood.

  We'd rendezvoused in Peru with traders I'd known from transactions over the years. We didn't have far to go downriver until we were in Majerona territory, a reclusive tribe that had recently given up cannibalism, or so I'd hoped. But I'd told Roger none of this.

  I visited with the boat pilot's teenage son while his father steered us toward the northern bank where a sandbank was covered in black sand and debris from recent flooding. The boy was restless about working for his father, and he wanted to run away to explore the world, women, and wealth. Sometimes, people will talk to passing strangers they know they'll never see again, rather than their loved ones. Though I was an earpiece for this young man, I wasn't about to pass out of his life without some Christian counsel. Soon enough, I told him, he would be an adult and responsible for a family of his own. His father and mother would suddenly have more value, even if he couldn't see it now. I encouraged him to be patient and not to seek adventure as an excuse to rebel. His family held to traditional religious views, so probably against his parents' desire, I voiced a warning about trusting in idols, dead saints, and the world's treasures. In those few hours, I tried to assure him that the Bible contained all the counsel he'd ever need.

  Before hopping off the boat onto the sandbar, I prayed over the pilot and young man, then shook their hands. They seemed perplexed to have met a white man who cared about their souls, but I believed God used such strangeness to touch hearts.

  "Now what?" Roger asked from where he stood, up to his ankles in moist sand. "I'm gonna live out here?"

  The riverboat disappeared around the next bend in the river. In a few days, they'd reach Lucas Norman's trading station, which serviced all kinds of clients from his isolated outpost.

  Instead of answering Roger, I sent him upriver to search the foliage for any hidden canoes. I went downriver to search, and found an old five-person dugout. It was half-rotten, but it would float, and it was old enough that I knew it wouldn't be missed.

  When I returned to the sandbank, I found Roger soaked with sweat, a torn shirt, and a bleeding brow. I wasn't surprised that he hadn't made it ten yards through the dense brush. Foot travel in a forest that grew so rapidly required special skill and knowledge, which he'd learn eventually.

  For an hour, we worked on the boat and carved rough paddles, then we shoved off the sandbank. He sat in the bow, trying to acclimate to the rough paddle while I steered from the stern. I'd shed my shirt and tucked it into my satchel, to which I'd added salt and a hammock since leaving Quito.

  It didn't take long to find an igarape opening, a channel of water for canoes that ran parallel to the main river for hundreds of miles. I explained to Roger that the natives used the igarapes to remain hidden from eyes on the river, and it was safer back in the trees from logs and other heavy debris that could tip a small vessel. There was always the dreaded black caiman as well, which was a reptile, like an alligator, but they were more easily spotted on the slow-moving, shallow waterway.

  Monkeys screeched, parrots swooped, and vampire bats from the shadows hid their faces as we floated silently through their habitat.

  That night, we made camp at the next igarape river opening, just out of sight from the river itself. I had no blow-pipe, so I was restricted to hunt with my knife. As Roger wrestled to set up our hammocks next to a small sindicaspi fire, I returned t
o the igarape and searched for a paca burrow. An adult paca was two feet long, and usually hid its burrow opening with leaves and sticks, arranged in an unnatural way.

  When I spotted a burrow, I readied a stout stick and dug at the wet earth to uncover the ferocious rodent, known for its sharp claws and long hind legs. Later, Roger cringed at the spitted mammal over the flames, but his aversion gave way to his hunger, and we ate well. Our meal was supplemented with roasted banana, picked from a seventy-pound bunch on the slope above the igarape.

  Roger fell three times trying to climb into his hammock, until he figured out how to hold it open and lay back toward the head.

  "You're enjoying my awkwardness, aren't you?" he asked as the fire crackled between us.

  "Are you already regretting your decision to leave civilized society?"

  "Just promise me it gets better."

  I didn't respond as I gazed up at the Southern Hemisphere's stars, so much brighter than the city sky. Tree frogs croaked all around us, and I thought about catching a few for Elizabeth Ardent for her work at the Amazonia Biodome.

  In the morning, I woke to a strange silence. The Amazon forest is never silent, unless a predator is sensed by the ever-vigilant creatures. I rolled out of my hammock and landed on my feet. The light in the trees showed it was the hour of dawn when the night creatures settle to sleep and the day creatures rousted themselves for breakfast. But this was more than a strange transitional period from night to day. Danger was afoot!

  My knife was on my belt, and nothing else, I slipped through the broad leaves of young plantain plants. I was tempted to dash noisily through the forest, but instead, I lowered myself to all fours and distanced myself from where I'd entered the foliage. Moving parallel to the igarape, I passed our canoe on a low bank, then rose to climb a fallen tree across the ten-foot-wide waterway.

  Fifty feet from camp, in a fork of the tree, I remained in a crouch and used all my senses to discern the situation. Animals had returned to their usual noise making, but an enemy could still be near. Natives sometimes camped along the banks of the river. We were near the Majerona tribal territory where I had some friends, but the Majeronas were diverse and widespread across multiple villages.