“I don’t care whether he arrives in one piece or not,” Welles replied, wiping the tail of his jacket over his perspiring face as he stepped down from the elevated gateway chamber and into the anteroom. His skin color had taken on an unhealthy purple hue, and his small eyes were crinkled and leering, a crazed look topped by a manic toothy smile.
“So, what was the point, sir?”
“Peace of mind. And I’ll tell you this much. I hope Tanner made it. Hell, yes, I hope he made it, the arrogant son of a bitch, and wherever he is, I hope he’s choking on whatever future hell he’s trapped in now.”
Chapter Thirteen
Always the master of understatement, Jak delivered the most precise and telling description of what the group of friends were now facing in the darkness of the rain forest.
“Caves.”
The albino always used a minimum of words, even fewer than the usually closemouthed J. B. Dix. Sometimes, such abbreviated ways of speaking made conversation with Jak a frustratingly one-sided experience. Other times, the tautness of his verbal expression summed up a situation so perfectly that the florid Doc and his love of language could never conceive of competing.
This was one of those occasions.
“Yep,” J.B. added. “And lots of them.”
Ryan didn’t bother to restate the obvious. The impressive face of the rock wall was a honeycomb of cavern entrances, dark womblike mouths opened wide and indicating the presence of random holes of varying sizes. J.B. dug in one of the many pockets lining his leather jacket and took out a small flashlight he’d “liberated” from Jamaisvous’s supply room back in El Mono.
Thumbing the switch, he used the beam to illu- minate the wall and the caverns, darting across the dark openings, spotlighting in a flickering white circle the varied entryways. J.B. moved the light over the holes one by one for the group’s visual perusal.
“Plenty to choose from,” Krysty said. “Take your pick.”
“Too many,” Dean added disgustedly.
Soto coughed, and cleared his throat. “I am afraid all of El Yunque is reported to be honeycombed with such caverns. Some are easily seen like these, others less so. This area is a good place to start, since there are existing tunnels already in place that were used by the local Indians for hiding dating all the way back to the time of Christopher Columbus.”
“Who?” Jak asked.
“A white man. He came to Puerto Rico like most others-to claim land in the name of his Spanish masters,” Jorge explained.
“Typical white male power fantasy,” Krysty added. Ryan shot her a look and she shrugged. “That’s what Mildred always says.”
Once they had arrived within the section of Puerto Rico considered to be the rain forest, Jorge had taken time out to explain a bit about the area to the out-landers. The forest was named for the 3,496-foot-high mountain looming above and in front of them, El Yunque. The forest itself was a rough 28,000-acre stretch of jungles, hills, streams and waterfalls. Two hundred species of trees were to be found inside this dank, overgrown area, and El Yunque was almost always wet from the thunderstorms that sprung up two or three times a day to violently drench all within.
Such abundant rainfall, when combined with the rich soil, was responsible for giving the area lush and exotic greenery.
“Most of the tunnels only go down and back for about twenty feet before they dead-end,” Jorge continued, as he hitched up his gun belt. “A few of the passages intertwine and connect with others. Those are the ones where it is suspected El chupacabras make their lair. The legends state they breed here, where there are few people and no interference.”
“Make sense,” Jak said. “Stay where nobody comes.”
“So the question is, why have they been heading out to San Juan?” Ryan mused, still not fully sure of the how or why of the queer-looking muties and their hunting habits. “You’d think there would be enough wild game here. It’s a bastard long trip to the city.”
“œ7 chupacabras are hunters,” Jorge noted. “They have probably expanded their area to find new prey. Besides, a distance of thirty miles is nothing to these creatures. They move quickly, and some of them possess the ability to fly, although only for short distances.”