The Rescue at Dead Dog Beach Page 7

  That’s when I heard the laughter and voices mocking me in English. They were coming from a house on my right.

  I slowed to a walk until I came to the edge of the driveway. I stopped and stared at the men. They sat silently but for a little mumbling among themselves.

  One of the men stood up and put his hands in the air over his head. He said something in Spanish. I didn’t understand the words, but I knew he was challenging me.

  I stood my ground and stared back at him. The pipe at my side was visible. I’m pretty sure it was the only reason they didn’t come closer. But I was alone, barefoot, in nothing but a pair of surf shorts.

  How dumb is this?

  I started to walk away, knowing I couldn’t do anything but get myself killed. The adrenaline started to ebb. My feet were killing me. I was pissed. I swung the pipe like a baseball bat at branches alongside the road as I walked the walk of shame back to the truck.

  I found Yann standing next to Laurence on the side of the road next to the truck. He had a pipe too.

  Yann and Laurence had knocked on a few doors until they found someone willing to let them phone the police. We waited by the truck, which was fortunately still there, for over an hour. But no one showed up.

  “Should we go try to get our stuff back?” Yann asked. I think we both knew the thieves had no incentive to give anything back easily, but we had to give it a shot.

  We walked back to the house without any exchange of words and took up positions at the end of the driveway.

  “We just want our stuff, man,” I shouted to the guys at the house. “No trouble, just our stuff, okay?”

  They laughed.

  I looked at Yann. “I guess we’re done negotiating then.” I knew they had understood what I’d said since they’d been mocking me in English a few minutes earlier.

  Yann and I nodded at each other and headed down the driveway. This is exactly what Pam had been worried about after my snorkeling experience with Brandon. She was right: I’d finally reached the point where I wouldn’t take the sensible route and walk away from danger.

  The shocked expressions on the faces of the men at the house betrayed their fear. They were not expecting this. A couple of them popped up from where they were sitting and backed away.

  “Come on, guys, just give us back our things. We want to go home,” I said in an eerily calm voice.

  Nothing.

  I had seen a couple of machetes leaning against the wall they’d been sitting on, but no one made a move toward them.

  “I’m not leaving without my shit!” I said.

  One of the men made a quick grab for the machete next to his leg, and, as he drew back, Yann and I countered by swinging our pipes in his direction, knocking the machete out of his hand. The man stumbled back, tripping on a tree stump, and fell to his side.

  The rest of the crew started screaming at us in Spanish. A couple of them reached for the remaining machetes, but no one moved toward us. I was steely on the outside, but inside I was shitting bricks. I knew Yann felt the same.

  “Fuck this, man,” I whispered to Yann. “It’s not worth getting killed for. Let’s go.”

  We slowly backed up until we were sure we were out of reach.

  “How the hell are we going to get home, dude?” Yann asked. The thieves had the keys to the truck, as well as Yann and Laurence’s wallets and cell phones. My phone and wallet were still hidden inside the truck. Wearing only our surf shorts and no shoes, we started to feel a chill as the day grew short. We needed to do something soon.

  A young man we’d seen fishing earlier in the day came walking up the road. We were able to borrow his cell phone to call Pam and ask her to get someone at her company to help. I was hoping that someone could bring us the spare truck key.

  I tried Pam’s cell but it kept going to voice mail. I didn’t want to leave the truck there, because I knew these assholes would steal it as soon as we left. For a moment I thought about busting one of the truck’s windows, but there was no spare key inside, so what was the point?

  We were standing in the last of the remaining sunlight at the edge of a rundown property next to our useless truck, when a police car cruised by. We ran to the edge of the road to flag it down. Miraculously, the car made a U-turn and slowly drove back to where we stood.

  “Do you speak English?” I asked the cop when he pulled up. He did. So we told him what had happened to our stuff, the confrontation in the yard.

  “Yeah, I know, I already heard all about it. A neighbor called a while ago, said a couple of crazy gringos with pipes were in the neighborhood threatening people.”

  “Really? So why didn’t you come then?”

  “I figured you must be gone by now, so why bother?”

  I wasn’t too surprised by his who-gives-a-shit attitude, but Yann and Laurence were visibly upset.

  “Why don’t you head back to your fancy resort instead of hanging out here?” the cop said. “It’s not safe around here for you after what you did.”

  “Excuse me? Not sure if you understand what happened here, but we were the ones who were robbed! Not the other way around.”

  “You should go home now. Seriously.”

  “We’d love to leave but those men have our keys!”

  The cop took a step toward me. “You need to calm down. I’ll go talk to those men and see if I can get your keys back.”

  “Fine, I’ll calm down, but we’re coming with you.”

  Back up the road, the cop greeted the men at the house like old friends. There were handshakes and hugs all around. There was a friendly conversation in Spanish punctuated by laughter.

  Meanwhile, a couple of women emerged on an upstairs balcony. They pointed toward the cinder-block wall where the men had been sitting earlier. It seemed to me they were trying to tell us there was something behind that wall. “I’m sorry,” they mouthed.

  The cop came back up the driveway. “They don’t know anything about your stuff.”

  I pointed to a tall skinny kid standing with the group. “He’s wearing my shirt.” It had MEC printed in bold yellow letters on the front.

  “So? No way to prove that’s yours.”

  “Where did you get that shirt, bro?” I yelled to the kid.

  “Surf shop!” the cop answered for him.

  I was dumbstruck.

  “Sir, you need to get back to your truck.”

  “And what do you suggest we do when we get back to the truck? They have our damn keys!”

  The cop pulled me to the side and whispered, “Listen, I want to help you. I grew up in this community, and I know these people. I can get your keys back, but they don’t have anything else of yours. You understand?”

  I could not believe the police tactics I was witnessing. What choice did we have but to follow his lead?

  “Go ahead. I just want to get the hell out of here,” I said.

  A few minutes later, the cop turned up with our duffel bag, the very one that had been swiped from the beach. Inside were the keys to the truck. And nothing else.

  I guess I was supposed to be grateful.

  “I’d like to file a police report for my insurance company,” I told him.

  “I’m sorry, sir. I can’t do that. It’s late, and I need to be getting back.”

  I wasn’t taking no for an answer anymore, and followed him back to his cruiser where his yet unseen partner was in the front passenger seat. As he was getting in and shutting the door, another police car pulled up behind him. We’d been dealing with the municipal cops up until now, but this one was marked Policia de Puerto Rico.

  “Is everything all right?”

  “Actually, no, it’s not, officer.”

  The municipal cop jumped back out of his car like a shot. Inside the car, his partner was scribbling something on a piece of paper. When she was done, she handed it to our guy, who handed it to me. “Your report. You can go home now.”

  I looked down at the piece of paper he handed me. Our official polic
e report was written on Hello Kitty stationery.

  CHAPTER

  FIFTEEN

  The day after the robbery in Arecibo, everybody was on edge. No one more than me.

  “Stephen, I think you’re losing your grip,” Pam said that morning during the drive to her office. “You lose your keys, and you go ballistic. You used to choose your battles wisely, but these days you don’t seem to be afraid of anyone or anything. You took those guys on even though you were totally outnumbered. The old you would never have done that. I’m afraid it’s going to get you killed.”

  “It wasn’t as simple as losing my fucking keys!”

  “Steve, you know what I mean.”

  “Give it a rest!” I snapped, although somewhere deep in my subconscious what remained of my reason knew she was right.

  “Stephen, I love you, but this isn’t like you. Please, don’t bite my head off.”

  This was becoming a common theme in our conversation: Pam worrying, me being obstinate.

  She kissed me good-bye. “Please be safe.” The look of concern in her eyes killed me. I hated that I was making her feel this way. She didn’t deserve it.

  I mumbled something back to her as she shut the door (this had also become a standard bit of behavior on my part). As I made a U-turn to exit the facility, I saw her wave to me in my peripheral vision. I didn’t bother to wave back.

  I knew my life was spiraling out of control. I knew she was right, I was losing my grip on reality, getting entirely consumed by the beach and my quest to save the dogs. I didn’t even have a plan or a solution in place. I just knew I had to do something, because if I didn’t, no one else would. I knew that the other people helping the dogs shared some compassion and food with them, but they’d given up on the possibility of actually saving the dogs and stopping the cycle of abuse.

  But it wasn’t right to take out my frustration on Pam. I didn’t want to turn into one of those people who loves animals but hates human beings. I resolved to call Pam later to apologize.

  I’m pretty sure I never did.

  In order to get some much-needed relaxation in, after we fed the dogs Yann and I decided to hang out on the beach at Palmas del Mar and do some snorkeling instead of going elsewhere.

  There was a coral reef in the bay that created a natural wave break. It wasn’t ideal for snorkeling, but the water was clean and clear, and we had a great time swimming. I hadn’t brought my swim fins with me, and after an hour or so my legs were starting to get tired. I turned to head back to shore.

  I felt something brush against my lower back and the back of my arm. I gasped, sucking in water through my snorkel. I pulled my face out of the water, panicked. Whatever had just rubbed up against me was really big.

  “Yann!”

  He was by my side in a flash. “What’s wrong?”

  “Something huge just bumped me, bro.” He could tell by the look on my face that I wasn’t kidding around.

  We looked around in the water, but whatever it was had stirred up the sand, and the water was cloudy now. We couldn’t see anything.

  “Should we make a break for shore?”

  “Hey, we only need to be faster than the slowest guy,” he joked. Yann swam better and faster than anyone I knew.

  “That’s comforting. Thanks!”

  Suddenly the smile on his face evaporated. “Dude, it just brushed against me!” he shouted.

  And then it brushed against both of us at the same time, which was intense since we were several feet apart.

  “What the—”

  Right between us, the water broke, and an enormous manatee surfaced. The shock initially scared us, but then we started laughing. The manatee blew her big blubbery nose in my face.

  “I wonder how long she was checking us out,” Yann said.

  “She must have been watching us this whole time, and finally summoned the courage to come over and play.”

  She was soft to the touch and remarkably gentle with us. We put our arms out to the sides and she swam between us, making contact with both of us as she passed.

  Two smaller manatees surfaced a few feet away. They weren’t as friendly and kept their distance.

  “I bet those are her babies.”

  The mother stayed and swam with us for about an hour before she and her young ones went on their way. It was heaven.

  CHAPTER

  SIXTEEN

  After Yann and Laurence flew back to France, I returned to my solo routine with the dogs. One night, as I was lying in bed, I was woken in the wee hours of the morning by great claps of thunder and lightning that lit the room. The sound of rain pelting the windows and roof of the house was intense.

  It was too late to go back to sleep and too early to start the day, so I lay still, careful not to wake Pam, waiting for my body to catch up to the business of my brain. Being tired didn’t slow my thoughts anymore; it stirred them up, disrupting the balance of questions and answers. Everything was bothering me. We were running out of money to feed and care for the dogs. My life had become a constant struggle against attitudes: government, hotel owners, and even friends who worried about my safety. And it was driving a huge wedge between Pam and me.

  My passion and concern for the dogs had set me apart from the rest of my species, it seemed, and I felt as alone and abandoned as the dogs. It wasn’t enough to make me want to stop, but it was making me feel increasingly isolated, especially in those early hours of the morning when solutions are hardest to find. I was starting to feel more at home with the dogs on the beach than anywhere else. It was where I always wanted to be, but it wasn’t mine, I didn’t own it, and it was dangerous.

  The following morning, I parked my truck near the metal storage containers by the boathouse. Kyle was the first one to greet me. “Hey, buddy, did you sleep okay?” I said as I knelt down to rub his ears and give him the affection he craved: the affection I’d come to realize that I craved as well.

  However, the rest of the pack hadn’t shown up yet. Usually, within moments of my arrival, I was surrounded by wagging tails and grinning faces nudging my legs and hands, but this morning was different. The dogs were slow to leave the safety of the jungle. Something was wrong. Maybe it was due to the storm the night before.

  I filled the food bowls as the pack, which at this point numbered sixty-eight by my count, arrived hesitantly. They munched away on their breakfast but kept a close eye on me. Kera, a Jack Russell terrier, had recently given birth to a litter of five puppies, so I began loading up the two five-gallon pails I carried with supplies for them, as well as any other newcomers I might find along the way.

  As I turned to walk across the parking lot toward a makeshift den Kera had made for her pups under a conveyer belt alongside the boathouse, the dogs abandoned their food and followed me closely. They knew my routine and rarely left the bowls until they’d finished eating. Now I was certain something was wrong.

  I was about ten yards from the boathouse when I heard the first dogs growl. I followed their gaze to the open doorway on my right. Squinting into the sun, it was impossible to make anything out in that dark space. Slowly, my eyes began to adjust.

  Uh-oh.

  The silhouettes of two men facing my direction came into view. This couldn’t be good. Ten different scenarios flooded my brain at the same time. I knew one thing for certain: They didn’t usually hurt the dogs when I was around. At least not in plain sight. They had to be here for another reason.

  I was aware of the dogs moving around me, but I didn’t dare take my eyes off the men. They moved a few steps forward. One of them shouted something in Spanish and gestured for me to come over.

  “No, gracias,” I called out, waving as if to say good-bye.

  They signaled again for me to come over, and took a few more steps in my direction. Behind them, more men appeared from the shadows. They wore sweat-stained wifebeater tank tops, and shirts pulled up over their heads and behind their necks.

  I couldn’t breathe. My heart was poundin
g in my ears and neck. Then I saw a reflection of light at their side. It confirmed what I dreaded the most: machetes.

  “Aw, shit,” I said to myself.

  I’d been frozen in one spot, still holding the heavy buckets. I slowly bent my knees and lowered the buckets to the ground, while trying to judge the distance back to the truck without turning my head. I had left my machete and billy club inside. Pam was right: my judgment was starting to get cloudy.

  As soon as my hands were free, the men took a few more steps out of the shadows. I felt my dogs lean into the threat. I hadn’t realized until then that they’d moved ahead of me. My pack wasn’t going to let this happen. I could feel an almost electric charge surging through them as they took up positions to fight. The other dogs flanked me, their mouths curled into snarls.

  I debated my next move. I slowly drew the keys to the truck from my front pocket. It took incredible concentration to move my left foot, then my right as I began inching toward the vehicle. The dogs continued to stand guard. Any rivalry between the alpha dogs was set aside. They were teaming together, standing shoulder to shoulder, creating a boundary between me and the men. They never once glanced back at me looking for guidance. It was clear that they were taking control of the situation.

  Everything seemed still and tense—the jungle, the attackers, the dogs, the ocean, time. The only thing moving was the air, which vibrated with deep, menacing growls.

  I continued making small sidesteps toward the truck, keeping my eyes on the men as I went. The dogs followed my lead, taking small steps with me. They were in full battle mode, ready to fight at any cost. I never took my eyes off the gang of men, looking for a signal or a sudden movement that indicated I should start running.

  The dogs and I had only gained a short distance when the tension exploded, and the men made their move, breaking into a run toward me. I ran for the truck. The next few seconds seemed to pass in slow motion. I could hear my breathing, my shoes slapping against the gravel. A confused rush of sounds and images flooded my mind—shouting, barking, growling.