The Adventurer's Son(86)
Chapter 50
Gather the Ashes
Clouds over Costa Rica, December 2016.
Courtesy of the author
By August 2016, we heard from Georgina that Roman’s dental records matched. In October, she sent the DNA results from the bone marrow sampled inside a tibia. The DNA showed conclusively that the tibia came from our son. Then the embassy wrote asking us what we wished to do with his remains. We agreed on cremation. At the end of November, we flew down to see the bones, collect the ashes, and pay the reward to the miner who had found him.
Tourism was down since Hurricane Otto had just hit Costa Rica and the volcano had erupted again. We met Peggy’s sister Maureen and her husband, Steve, at the San José airport. In the morning, Gerhardt picked us up and took us through thick traffic to the funeral home, where I paid for Roman’s cremation. Then we flew to Puerto Jiménez, rented a car, and went to the bank, where Steve donated money into a Cruz Roja account. I had a big wad of $5,000 in American bills to give to the miner who had discovered Roman’s remains. The $50,000 offer was only a ruse to get Pata Lora to talk. We had no intention to pay that sum.
The entire town served as a reminder of our two years of searching. Peggy and I pointed out the new Fiscal headquarters to Maureen and Steve. It had moved from Golfito to Puerto Jiménez about the time Jorge from the embassy took charge of the investigation, perhaps because of Roman’s disappearance, but more likely because of crime’s increase on the Osa.
We walked by the ballfield where we had studied young men’s feet in search of Roman’s Salomon shoes, the secondhand store where we had looked for Roman’s gear and clothes, and the Corners Hostel where Roman had stayed. Do?a Berta recognized us and came over to say that she was happy that we’d found Roman, clutching my hand in hers. At a restaurant where we had breakfast, Andres, who’d taken us to Cerro de Oro, said the same thing. Maureen even spotted Pata Lora at the grocery store. I made sure to avoid him.
We drove past the waterfront restaurant where I had called Peggy and told her, “Roman will probably be irritated I’m here,” and we had both laughed but agreed it was the right thing to do, coming down. So many places triggered so many memories of being wrong so often about what had happened to our son.
Sitting there along the waterfront, a gringo nodded and smiled. He looked travel-worn, with curly beach-blond hair, a scruffy beard, and a flowered travel shirt. Hmm, another local who recognizes us. Nodding back, I realized it was our friend Chris Flowers from Anchorage. We had planned to meet up in Costa Rica, but not here and not now.
Chris had his boys with him: Cody, nine, and Cole, eleven. When his second son was born, Chris called to tell me the news. I asked his newborn’s name and Chris said, “Cody,” adding, “I just hope he doesn’t change his name to ‘Roman’ when he gets older.” We both laughed.
Chris and his boys followed us to Dos Brazos to pay the miner’s reward. We bumped along the potholed road, past flooded fields and Brahma bulls. The recent rains from Hurricane Otto had ravaged the Rio Tigre’s banks and eaten into the oil palm plantations. Even the road looked like it might fall into the river.
We went to Jenkins’s place. He had a nice new house with a metal framed roof and white walls, a tiled floor, and two bedrooms that opened with doors rather than curtains. Jenkins’s younger brother was there. Out of hospitality, Jenkins’s wife, Gladys, and their teenage daughter passed out pink Nestlé’s Quik to all.
Jenkins told us the weather had been bad for almost three weeks, leaving everybody out of money, like the jungle’s birds and monkeys were out of fruit. He showed us the portable sluice box he had received as a tip from a client he guided. He looked a little tubbier than when we had last seen him. He said that he was like a little sausage in his shirt: “fat and happy” came to mind.
He had his new house, built by the government, and he’d made money in construction out at La Leona on the park boundary past Carate. Peggy and I had walked there six months earlier to tell him that Roman had been found and most likely killed at El Doctor by a fallen tree or a snake. We thought he should know, since he had been the last person to see Roman alive.
Jenkins said the town was happy. Most had seen the show and everyone could see that Pata Lora was lying, and that I had conflict with Carson, who believed all of Pata Lora’s story. Tourism was returning now that the rains had slowed. People in Dos Brazos had heard what I said on the news after Roman’s discovery. It seemed to confirm what the consul general, Ravi, had relayed to me: that everyone had appreciated my gratitude toward Costa Ricans.
We talked about fathers and sons. Jenkins told how his father was part Nicaraguan Indian and could charm snakes with his touch and wrap them around his neck like a scarf. Jenkins said he read a lot about Christ but wasn’t religious. I told him I liked Christ, too, and that I hoped there was a God.
Jenkins went with me to translate while I paid the miner who had found Roman, then took Jenkins home where Arnoldo was waiting. Arnoldo had hosted Pata Lora and Cody all those years ago. I greeted him, then hurried after Peggy and the others who had hiked into the hills on the Fila Matajambre trail. I caught them where they had stopped to watch a big millipede crawling across the forest floor.
Before it rained, Cole found a green and black poison dart frog and a yellow spot damsel fly that looked like a helicopter as it flew. Peggy spotted a tamandua, the small black-and-cream-colored anteater with a long prehensile tail. The handsome little animal had been walking along the trail when it reared up like a boxer just a foot away from her, brandishing its long razor-sharp claws before climbing up a slender tree to escape.