Fiction Authored by Ian Andcompany
Cundinamarca Antpitta-The bird at the center of episode 1-AI Generated Image
Brian’s Note: Juntos is a work of fiction inspired by actual events that occurred to people I had just spent a month birding with in Colombia. The characters and portrayed events are entirely fictional and bear no resemblance to either the people involved in those actual events or the actual events themselves.
Episode 1-One More Bird
“Pare! Pare! Gringa puta. Pare!” The mustached leader of the small band of four Colombian FARC rebels screamed at Laura to stop. All four pointed their Russian-made AK-47 rifles at her.
“Esta bien. Esta bien. No problema.” Laura walked back out of the forest onto the narrow trail and held up her hands in surrender. “I am not going anywhere. Necessito pissar. Entiende?” She indicated her need to urinate by pointing to her crotch and bending at the knees. She was dressed in khaki broadcloth long-sleeve shirt and pants, hiking boots, and broad-brimmed khaki crushable hat. Binoculars hung from her neck.
“En este momento, no esta bien. Andele. Move. Necesitamos irnos.” Moustache indicated the need to keep going. He seemed in a hurry to get further up the mountain, away from the road, away from Bogotá.
“How the fuck did we ever get into this mess?” Laura whispered to her two birding companions Bennett and Ted. “These guys want ransom. We are being kidnapped.” Laura had gone to great lengths to arrange time away from her law practice in Omaha. Just 35, she already had an established and promising career in corporate law. This was her first trip to South America. At five foot eleven, she stood a full head above her captors, and also several inches above both Bennett and Ted. Her height, short blond hair, blue eyes, and fair slightly freckled skin contrasted sharply with her shorter, dark-haired captors.
“You know damn well how we got into this mess,” Bennett said. “Following this idiot.” Bennett’s dark, almond-shaped eyes glared directly at Ted as he spoke. Bennett was an experienced international birder from Phoenix who had been to South America ten times before. A prominent fifty-year-old architect, Bennett was of Navajo parentage. His jet-black hair, short stature and bronze skin tone were similar to the FARC rebels. His North American origins showed in his long ponytail hairstyle and diamond stud earring in his right ear. Bennett and Laura had become quite intimate in the prior thirty days of birding together in Colombia.
“Andiamos! We go!” Moustache insisted.
****
Earlier that morning, Laura and Bennett piled into a dilapidated Budget Nissan with Ted. Ted had arranged their mini-expedition into the mountains just to the east of the city. Ted’s lawn care business back on Long Island was quiescent during the winter months, leaving him with a full six months to do nothing but follow his passion, chasing birds. Ted kept trim with his outdoor work and sported the disheveled long hair and droopy moustache of the hippie generation. The hotel clerk, drowsing at the front desk, mumbled, “Buenas” as they passed through the lobby. It was 4:30 a.m. when they exited the hotel. The streets were nearly empty. They wanted to be at the Antpitta site by 5:30 when first light appeared over the mountaintop.
Laura sat in the back by herself. She reached up and touched Bennett’s arm. He was sitting in the front passenger side. “I hate to think that this is our last day together,” she whispered. “I have had the best time of my life the last thirty days. I am really going to miss you.”
“I also have had a wonderful time,” he replied. His dark eyes smiled in concert with his mouth. “To find a soul-mate while on a birding trip to Colombia is pretty amazing. You are pretty amazing. I don’t want this to end either. What are we going to do?”
“We’ll find a way,” she said. “I’m not going to just walk away from this. This is the modern world. Omaha to Phoenix is just a hop. We can figure it out.” She caressed his arm, then sat back with a sigh.
Ted sped through the tortuous route out of Bogotá, running stoplights as he went. Left, right, left, and on. Soon they hit the two-lane macadam highway heading up into the mountains. Even at this early hour, the dilapidated trucks had begun to find their way onto the road, blocking progress as they lumbered slowly up the hill. Ted used the trick he had learned from the tour’s Colombian drivers. He simply pulled into the middle of the road, and passed, forcing the oncoming trucks to the shoulder. Laura closed her eyes and mumbled the serenity prayer.
By 5:00 a.m. they were at the turn-off that left the main highway and headed up into the coffee plantations and forest patches above the city. They were already at 8,000 feet. The city lights sprawled below them, their twinkling tranquility belying the underlying turmoil of a nation in revolution. The paved brick road quickly gave way to dirt, as the manicured coffee haciendas were replaced by roadside clapboard shacks. Emaciated brown children were already in the street, tending to the goats.
Bennett was sipping a diet coke. “Can’t get coffee in Colombia in the early morning. It’s still unbelievable to me. I have to drink Coke to get my caffeine. I get a terrible headache without it. Do you really remember how to get to this site, Ted? I sure as hell don’t. The beginning of this road looked familiar, but I don’t remember this at all.”
“Don’t worry Bennett,” replied Ted. “ I’ll get us there. Piece of cake.”
“Do either of you want a sandwich, or some crackers?” Laura had made sure to bring some food. Ted was unconcerned, or careless about such matters.
“Sure. I’ll have a sandwich.” Bennett seemed to be nervously craning his neck to see all the signs posted on fence posts and trees as they passed. Ahead, a gate and a cattle guard blocked the road. “I don’t remember this, Ted. Hey, and it says “Propiedad Privata.” We can’t go in there.”
“Sure we can. You were just asleep when we came here the first time with Peter and the group. You really are a nervous Nellie. Settle down, man. Be cool.” Ted brought the Nissan to a stop, opened the door, jumped out, and opened the gate. He was back in the car quickly, and driving over the cattle guard onto the private land. He stopped the car again. “Close the gate.”
Laura jumped out the back before Bennett. She ran back, closed the gate, and returned to the car. First light was beginning to show above the treetops. “Listen, Ted. If you get us lost I’m going to kick your ass. I need to be back in Omaha on Monday. This sure doesn’t look right to me either, and I damn well was not asleep when we came here.”
“How the hell would you know? You and Bennett have been so busy talking all the time we’re driving, you couldn’t possibly see anything. Relax, will you? We’re almost there.”
A few minutes later, Ted stopped the car in a wide space near an extensive patch of primary forest. Pasture was off to the right, looking downslope toward Bogotá. He jumped from the car, went back to the trunk, and opened it. From the trunk he took his Marantz tape deck, encased in black leather with a shoulder strap, and the recording shotgun microphone. “I won’t really need this. I don’t need to record and playback. Peter gave me his tape. It’s a copy of the one the LSU team recorded 10 years ago. It should work. No problem. I’ll just take the tape deck.”
Laura and Bennett piled out of the car, binoculars in hand. “I’m sure glad I use these 7x42 bins. They are excellent in low light conditions like this.” Bennett was proud of his unconventional binocular choice. Laura used the 10x40 Zeiss model that so many birders favored. “Those are much tougher to use in this light.”
“Come on you two. Times a-wastin.” Ted headed into the forest. They followed and soon came to a small clearing in the understory. “We’ll play the tape here. Be still and quiet now.”
“Oh, shut up Ted,” said Bennett. “We know how to bird. You are so damn bossy.” Bennett came up from behind Laura to confront Ted. “You’re such a jerk sometimes.”
“Easy, Bennett,” whispered Laura. “He was just saying that for my benefit. I’m still a novice.”
“Thirty days of birding in Colombia does not a novice make. You are a seasoned birder, and one fine woman to boot. He’s still a jerk.”
Ted focused on getting the tape spun to the correct location on the tape. Soon the repeated undulated whistles of the Cundinamarca Antpitta were emanating from the player. They settled in to wait for a response, sitting on their heels.
“Listen, I think I hear one in the distance.” Ted’s eyes were blazing with excitement. He seemed to have no ill effects from the ten bottles of Cerveza Aguila he had consumed the night before.
They all focused on the faint, distant whistle. Whump. A car door slammed behind them, near to where they had parked.
“Oh, shit,” said Ted. “We’re going to get company. Get your passports out. Shows them we’re foreigners, that we don’t know what we are doing.” Ted continued to play the tape.
Laura and Ted turned and looked back along the trail. They saw four men coming down the trail, all wearing camouflage fatigues and carrying Russian-made AK-47 rifles. There was nothing to do but await their arrival.
Continued in Episode 2
