The Inadvertent Avenger
by Anita Holmes


EXCERPT

1.
Chiapas, Long Ago

The scream came again, slicing through the green-leafed forest canopy and knifing into his ears. Longer and more chilling than the first. The dark priest halted for the briefest of moments. Not for the first time, he thought on the irony of jungle living. The scream that sounded so like a snake-bitten maiden, or a child being beaten, made the staid little burros tremble. Shy monkeys leapt even higher up the gnarled branches of the mahogany trees, where they swayed like drunken sailors. But it was no human victim; it was the fiercest of predators in the Chiapas undergrowth, the tigre.

Was the stealthy cat warning them he was coming, or making triumphant announcement of his latest kill? The priest never had discovered a pattern to the predator's cries—not in thirty years of jungle life. He only knew that where the fanged beast was, man should not be.

Little Joseph leaned back on the lead rope of his almost sprightly burro (it's packs all-but-empty), and turned to the still-trailing priest. Desperately, he silently signaled for his mentor to follow. Quickly. The dark priest sighed, clenched his walking stick tightly, and recommenced the ascent. One swollen foot after another.

It was early afternoon and the jungle air was sticky with the heat, humidity, and swarms of small flying creatures whose life mission appeared to be to make men of God go mad. The priest longed for the bare, dry hills of Segovia. He knew now he would never see them again. Yet he yearned to once again feel the summer sirocco winds of another world, another life, on his leathery cheeks.

Leading the way, young Joseph tilted his head slightly, hearing things that the dark priest could only guess at. At the cry of a macaw, the boy turned back to the priest. “Padre, we must hurry. They come closer.”

“Joseph, my burro has but one speed, and he will hear of no other.”

“Then it is time we leave them. They know the way back to the lowland village. We are almost to the cliffs, although I do not know how you will get up the vine ladders, Padre.”

For the first time in many, many days, the old priest smiled. “Push from behind, Joseph! But get to the plateau we must.”

Joseph shook his head in equal parts exasperation and admiration for this strange man he loved as a father. And on they went, one tired foot after another, the priest’s body bent by exhaustion, little Joseph’s with worry.

At first the dark priest thought it to be the onset of dusk. But peering ahead through the jungle undergrowth he saw that the gray-walled cliffs of the plateau dimmed the sun. Come, old body, serve me well for but a few more hours, and I will ask no more of you.

Until five days ago, it had been a decade since the dark priest had descended the liana-laced vine ladders. Now he was ascending them for the first time in as many years. Little had changed. He swayed and banged against the ragged outcropping, grabbing at ferns. Always his eyes locked on the stone at the end of his nose, or just above his head. A downward look meant disaster. Move the left hand, wipe his brow, right one on the next rung; watch Joseph’s foot move upward, then stretch his leaden foot up to the next rickety cross tie.

Joseph’s soft breathing and occasional quiet grunt lead the old priest upward. From below, the pianissimo rustling of their adversaries’ progress became a crescendo of cries as they spotted the priest.

“Joseph, faster!”

“Padre, I see the rim!” Joseph heaved his slight torso upward, the dark priest grasping the shivering vine ladder as the boy’s body disappeared over the plateau brink.

The priest reached for the next rung. One hundred fifty feet below, an agile young Tuxtla warrior jumped onto the ladder. The vines trembled under the priest’s fragile hold. His right leg, halfway to the next rung, swung crazily for a chilling moment. His now trembling foot finally found the vine and he continued up the last few feet as quickly as sweating hands, clumsy cassock, and wavering ladder would allow him to go. Oh, how he looked forward to feeling solid ground under his wobbly old feet again.

Safely at the rim, Joseph clawed at the old priest’s robe, pulling his aching body over the blessed cliff edge. Together they crawled back to a clump of grasses, and with the boy’s gentle but urgent help, he stood up.

Joseph scurried toward the vine rope, his knife ready to slash. Still winded, the dark priest blocked his way, placing his gnarled hand over the boy’s smooth one; “No, Joseph,” he wheezed, “It will only set back our enemies by a day—and it will add many times that to hunting trips for your peoples; a delay they can ill afford.”

“But Padre, how do we escape them?”

“You will head to the northern rim after getting your mother, and descend on the old river trail to the valley.”

Joseph froze as his mentor’s intent dawned on him. “And you, Padre?”

“My mission is done, little one. I do believe you are the only one who would mourn my passing. And you have family, friends and a long life ahead of you.”

Joseph frowned and kicked at a stone on the path. Young as he was, he grasped that his best friend would shortly be gone. But there was no time to wrestle with this revelation; Joseph set his feet to the well-worn path ahead, an ache inside that he could not now work through. The old man was determined to get back to the tunnel ahead of the Tuxtlas. Joseph understood this, and would do what he could to help him, for just as long as he was allowed.

The dark priest, who should have been exhausted beyond reason, was spurred on by myriad thoughts, not the least of which was the premonition that he would not survive the day.

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