Dagoberto had his Chevy parked near the tents. He tossed the keys to Mayté, who went to look for a lighter in the glove compartment while the other three talked, sitting on a hollow log in front of a campfire.
Trading "chiles"—funny anecdotes of past relationships—Dago recounted the time he dated "a girl from San Pedro who was a bit of a witch" and how hard it had been to break it off. Mayté and Marley listened with rapt attention and a touch of awe. Dagoberto clicked his teeth; Mayté lit a joint.
"Are you crazy, man? Did she ever look for you or keep bothering you?" Marley asked.
He explained she hadn't; they had parted on good terms, and the girl ended up dating someone else shortly after. They shared a few laughs, though Agustín was the only one who didn't ask questions or offer comments. They all knew why: he didn't believe in anything. He was too much of a skeptic to believe that witchcraft worked or that any of those things were real.
Mayté tried to reclaim the spotlight by telling them about a friend of a friend who had climbed up to the Cerro de la Muerte to strike a deal with a demon. The boy had pleaded for help, and eventually, his request was granted. All the problems he had sought help for were resolved, the result of a pact with a fixed duration of two decades.
"My ex told me something like that once," Dago added. "That you had to write the terms of the pact and what you were asking for on a piece of paper, and it had to be signed in blood."
"I don't think it's true," Agustín interrupted. "Personally, I’ve never met anyone who’s actually benefited from those carajadas. If they were true and reliable, everyone would be doing them."
"Well, it's because there are many things you can lose. They always collect eventually," Mayté explained.
Agustín shook his head in disagreement. "And who is he? Do you know him, Mayté?"
"Well, no. He’s a friend of a friend, I told you."
"Well, Agustín, would you do it? Just to prove it’s all bullshit?" Dago chimed in. Marley looked at them both with caution.
"You don't play with those things," Marley said. "Because you never know if you'll end up calling something you don't want, even if you don't believe in anything."
"I would. Why should I care?" Agustín replied. "Those are just old wives' tales. None of it works; it’s just to manipulate people and take their money, just like those garage churches starting to pop up everywhere."
Agustín stepped into one of the tents, pulling a notepad and a pen from his belongings. The others exchanged glances as Agustín began to write on the pad, detailing a supposed petition in a letter that read:
"To whomsoever is willing to listen and fulfill my request:
I greet you cordially as an invoker, to offer my obedience and recognition in exchange for the fulfillment of a desire of my choosing.
I request that whoever accepts my demand appears in human form so the contract may be signed once I have decided upon what I crave.
I harbor no fear, but rather a great curiosity regarding the dark arts—should they prove demonstrable—alongside a strong conviction. I offer my faith to whoever is capable of awakening it over my skepticism. I also accept detachment from all that is displeasing to the invoked.
I expect my response before the end of this journey, to then conclude whether I am correct or not.
Signed, eager for an agreement, Agustín Vinicio Flores Solís"
Agustín opened a small wound on his index finger, signing just below his name with the drop of blood that seeped through the cut.
"Now what do I do with this?"
They all looked at each other. None were sure what to do with it, and frankly, they hadn't expected Agustín to take the whole thing so seriously.
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"You have to... deliver the pact."
"To whom? There’s no one here."
"Well," Mayté added, "since you left it as an open request, why don't you bury it? I suppose whatever accepts it will come get it, right?"
Agustín nodded and stood up again to bury the letter among the trees, guided by the beam of a flashlight.
Two more days passed, and the trip was nearing its end. They woke up early on Sunday to leave before sunrise, loading their things into the pickup. Dagoberto, Mayté, and Marley took the seats, while Agustín sat in the truck bed on the cooler, his gaze lost in the flora that traced a border between Route 36 and the shoreline.
Passing the cacao plantations near Hone Creek, Dagoberto spotted someone ahead on the road hitchhiking and decided to slow down.
"What is someone doing asking for a ride at this hour?"
"Is he coming from Hone Creek? He looks like a gringo," Marley added.
"I’m going to pull over. You talk to him, Marley."
Agustín only noticed the car stopping. He turned to see Marley on the passenger side asking the stranger in Patois if he spoke Spanish and where he needed to go.
The man looked to be about their age, with shoulder-length wavy hair—caramel at the roots, turning to gold at the tips. He wore jeans and a striped dress shirt open at the chest, with handcrafted bead and stone necklaces underneath.
He had a deep but kind voice and spoke in a neutral Spanish with no apparent accent. He mentioned he wasn't going far but was tight enough on time that he preferred not to walk. No one questioned such an odd explanation; they assumed he must be the son of foreigners, perhaps from a family of Americans still working for UFCO or Chiquita. It was barely 4:00 AM, and the sky was beginning to tint with a purple hue, announcing the dawn.
The man climbed into the back of the truck, sitting on the spare tire cover opposite Agustín. The boy smiled at him, tilting his chin in greeting, and the man returned the smile. Dagoberto hit the road again, and Agustín lost himself in the firmament once more.
"The sky is beautiful at this hour, isn't it?" the man asked, interrupting Agustín’s thoughts.
"Ah, yes, it is. So many stars, even at dawn."
"You can see Orion, Pegasus, and Andromeda in some places. Taurus, too."
"Do you know much about astronomy?"
"I’m no expert. I just like the stars very much. But I have a friend who is."
"I see... Are you from around here?"
"No, I have to travel often for work."
"I see."
They made eye contact for a moment. The man's eyes seemed to glow—deep and yellow. Hazel? Agustín wondered. Then he shifted on the cooler and turned away, trying to divert his gaze.
"Uh... do you want something to drink?"
"Yes, thank you. Very kind."
Agustín reached through the bottles and melted ice to hand the man a soda. The man thanked him with a slight tilt of his head.
"You said you traveled a lot for work. May I ask what you do? If it's not too much trouble."
"I am a consultant."
"A consultant? Sounds interesting. What kind of things do people hire you for?"
"Oh, well, all sorts of things. I help with a wide variety of problems or needs—it all depends on what the interested party asks for. Business troubles, relationships, financial issues... sometimes more unusual things."
"Unusual?"
The man nodded. Agustín didn't want to seem nosy, so he didn't ask anything else. They passed several kilometers of plantations and forest before the man asked Dagoberto to pull over. He complied, and the man said goodbye to Agustín and Dago. Mayté and Marley had fallen asleep.
"Where was he going?" Agustín asked, leaning toward the back window of the cab as Dago drove off.
"I don't know, he didn't say. Why?" Dagoberto replied.
"No, nothing... It’s just that—"
Dagoberto wasn't listening anymore. He had turned up the radio and started singing along to the Nino Bravo song someone had requested on the station.
De día viviré (By day I will live)
Pensando en tus sonrisas (Thinking of your smiles)
De noche las estrellas me acompa?arán (By night the stars will keep me company)
Serás como una luz (You will be like a light)
Que alumbre mi camino (That shines upon my path)
Me voy, pero, te juro que ma?ana volveré (I am leaving, but I swear, tomorrow I'll return)
Halfway home, the friends stopped at a restaurant for breakfast. It was nearly eight in the morning by then. They sat together at a table overlooking the viewpoint, a few kilometers before the center of Turrialba.
"Where did he get off? The guy who was with us? I woke up when we were already in Limón downtown," Marley asked, stirring sugar into her coffee.
"He got off before the entrance to Cahuita, after passing the Hone River."
"Hone River? But there's nothing there."
"Who knows, maybe he needed to get into the park or one of the cacao farms around there."
"But after the river, there’s no entrance until you get to the ranger station in Puerto Vargas."
"Well, yeah, I know, but he didn't ask me to pull in anywhere specific. He just said right there was fine, by Punta Riel."
"What a weird guy! Do you think he was looking for a way into Cahuita without the rangers seeing him?" Mayté interrupted, wiping her hands with a napkin.
"What for?" Dago asked as he took a bite of a shredded beef sandwich. "Did you see how he was dressed? Who’s going to go trekking into that jungle in denim jeans?"
"He's probably one of those guys who sells plants and insects on the black market, and here we are helping him," Marley joked.
Agustín shook his head as he took a sip of his coffee.
"He told me he was a consultant. That people hired him from all over, and that’s why he traveled so much."
The four of them looked at each other. Agustín spoke again as he buttered his bread.
"Oh, what do I know?... He had beautiful eyes, tho."