The Adventurer's Son(72)
PEGGY WAS BORN the youngest of ten. She didn’t learn how to swim until halfway through college. On our first trip to Hawaii, when we were nineteen and twenty, she had not yet swum in ocean waves. Like many Alaskan-raised kids, she was afraid of deep water and could only “doggy-paddle,” as she called it.
Somehow, I coaxed her into Waikiki’s gentle surf. Heading into the shallow surf break, we held hands at first. But then, wading deeper, the surging ocean lifted her off her feet. Taut with exhilaration, she turned and wrapped herself around me. Her arms and legs felt warm in the cool Pacific as we drifted and bounded as one, my toes pushing off the bottom with each passing swell to keep our heads above water.
She clung to me, her smile wide as the sea. In that moment, I felt something for another person that I never had before: a physical sense of safeguarding and surety entwined with an emotional depth I longed to repeat.
It came again, just as richly with Cody Roman on a family camping trip to the island of Culebra near Puerto Rico. We had pedaled from the condo we rented in Luquillo to a nearby ferry dock, towing the kids in our bike trailer. Culebra is surrounded by coral reefs and we found a white sand beach where we camped in the shade.
A passing fisherman sold us spiny lobsters for a few dollars. Jazzy collected the foot-long seed pods of the flamboyán tree that she found fascinating, while Cody Roman, wearing his mask and holding his snorkel, bent over to peer underwater. I waded out to him and suggested we go deeper. The two of us set off to explore beyond the shallows where he normally stood.
At first, he rode on my back as I finned with my flippers. He clutched my neck with his left arm, holding his snorkel with his right. After he had ridden there a while, I reached to his hand with mine and he slipped off my back to glide along as we swam hand in hand.
It was a profound moment, somehow as deep as the instant I had witnessed Peggy give birth to him. There, over the splendor of a coral reef, to be so physically a part of his development, felt more enriching than holding his hand as he learned to walk.
The feeling intensified when we came to a deep channel in the reef and he climbed onto my back for the crossing. I could feel him tense up in my hand as the bottom fell away, then physically relax when on my back again. Once we’d crossed the channel, he slipped off to again swim hand in hand, but this time by his own volition. Without words he’d said, “Dad, I’m nervous and need reassurance.” Then, “I’m okay, let’s keep going.”
Experiences like those with my family are moments I cherish. Enriching their lives with physical trust has always enriched mine. Roman and I would learn to scuba dive together when he was old enough and Peggy would learn more than the doggy paddle, but fortunately she wouldn’t need to swim the Rio Claro.
MY FEET FELT a submerged sand bar that led all the way across the river. It would be no deeper than my navel. I came back for Peggy’s hand and we carried our nearly empty packs on our heads as we waded across to follow a trail through the coastal forest. During the afternoon hike we saw a crested guan and a pair of great curassows, big, turkey-sized birds clumsily balancing in the trees. Later we watched a tapir feed on sour fruits with its dexterous, elephantine snout. Halfway to Carate, we stopped to watch the sun drop into the Pacific as the full moon rose in the east in a cosmic balance. With tide out and sun down, we slipped by the guard station unnoticed, limping on sore feet to Carate.
The next day we caught the morning colectivo to Puerto Jiménez, convinced Roman didn’t complete the route he had described in his emails. “I think it’s got to be foul play,” Peggy said on the way into town. “He doesn’t seem to be in the park. Maybe somebody’s got him. Let’s talk to the private investigator.”
Chapter 41
Back to Alaska
Yaviza, Darién Gap, Panama, January 2015.
Courtesy of the author
At the end of the first week of September, soon after we’d returned from the Rio Claro, Lauren put us in touch with Fernando Arguedas, the private investigator who had cracked Kimberly Blackwell’s case and once been OIJ. Suspicious that people were telling us only what we wanted to hear, I gave Arguedas the names of those I’d interviewed to see if they would tell him what they had told me. He followed up other leads, too, talking to a dozen people altogether.
Most important, he asked Pata Lora our list of thirty-five questions about Roman’s gear, mannerisms, past, and intentions. The questions were meant to see if Pata Lora had actually been with Roman. Peggy even asked that Pata Lora draw Cody’s tent and hairline and describe the shape of his hands. Her intuition is sensitive to people’s behavior and motivations and her questions showed that perspective.
Arguedas and his partner went out each day to ask about our son, reporting their findings every night to Peggy, Lauren, and me at the Pearl. It was the rainy season, so guests were few. Arguedas spoke only Spanish, and I transcribed Lauren’s translation into my notebook. At the end of his investigation Arguedas gave us a written report.
Among those who had seen Pata Lora and the gringo together, the middle-aged Arnoldo of Dos Brazos had the most details because the pair had stopped by and smoked marijuana with him at his house. Arnoldo told Arguedas on September 9, 2014:
I saw “Pata de Lora” walk by with a gringo and sit at the entrance of my house. They stopped to rest for a while and asked for water. “Pata de Lora” had marijuana in a plastic cup. It was around three ounces. “Pata de Lora” told me he was going to take him for free. The gringo told me they were going to “Carate.” The gringo had money, food, a cell phone and a large camera. He was carrying a large backpack, blue. They were there for about half an hour, then packed their backpacks and left. Carate is about five hours away walking. The gringo was dressed with a blue-collar shirt. The gringo said they would return in eight days. The gringo had a good roll of money in a briefcase.