Linksshifter II

The Road in the Shadow of the Mountain

Any child could have seen things were going to go wrong when they handed out the beer – back when the government was still running things, the beer ration for Leslie's machete swingers would have been real beer for real people doing real work. But the power company had been sold off and privatized again, and the slab that got handed off the truck with their food and their water pills was a crate of something called Quilermo N/A, imported up from Argentina at great expense on someone's brother-in-law's contract, because somebody thought the shareholders would pitch a fit or something at Demon Rum being allowed into the workplace. It was hard enough work, Leslie thought, surveying out where they were going to put this road in the first place; hard enough work making sure that Rod, their local guide, didn't shoot any jaguars while they were doing it, and that Bev, the biologist from the Cockscomb Basin sanctuary office, didn't kill him because she thought he was going to shoot a jaguar. The jungle was hard enough for anyone, just as it was – the last thing Leslie needed was a gang of macheteros pissed off that the little beer they got wasn't doing anything for them.

At least, though, they were able to catch a bit of a break on the second day out. They were far ahead enough of the work crews that a resupply was probably a couple days out, but in detouring around a mountainside that had collapsed in the spring floods, Leslie had happened across a flat plain at the end of the day. Nothing in this part of Belize was flat on purpose – someone had flattened this area out, and the lack of really big trees meant it had been clear within the last couple decades. Not a Maya site, just someone's abandoned plantation from the days of the British empire. They could make a base camp here, and then when the earthmovers came up, they would just sprint right across; if there were more of these around the edge of the sanctuary, they could go by jumps and sprints like this all the way across to the Guatemalan border, and spend as little time as possible out of reach of human civilization. The men's spirits were up, just seeing the flat ground, and when Leslie ordered them to fall out and start chopping vegetation clear to set up camp, they were enthusiastic and almost happy to get out to work.

Bev wasn't, but she didn't have the authority to talk over Leslie directly, and just stood there, pack still strapped up, arms crossed, as the men went to work hacking up the brush. Leslie felt her glare and looked up from the transit's integrated meter, nervously turning the iron ring on their little finger. "Yes?"

"You know what it is – even if this looks recent, we can't just decide that the road's going to gobble it up. You know we have to check – we have to make sure this isn't going to displace jaguars or prey populations." Bev kept on looking, straight ahead, arms still crossed.

Leslie didn't have to change how the party was set up on her say-so – they were still in charge here, not her – but she was right, and if she didn't really have to remind them about checking the area, she wasn't technically out of line in doing so. "Right, right, I understand. But we're going to be here for a while checking that out, making sure this line isn't going to get us in trouble going by the next ridge; it's not going to hurt to have a reasonable camp to work out of. Let 'em cut this bit down, and after they've got a clearing cut, you can take a couple and start looking around for spoor or game trails." Bev shook her head and snorted, but uncrossed her arms, letting her hands flap by her sides again; behind her, Rod looked significantly up at nothing at the edge of the tree canopy, grouting some gunk out from under a thumbnail with the point of his skinning knife.

"Boss! Boss!" One of the men behind Leslie was trying to get their attention, and they turned. "Boss, this musta been in use real recent – they still got these machines here." The guy was pointing at the rusted-up skeleton of some kind of farm machine, the steel black with age and the damp of the jungle. Leslie came over and poked at it, testing the strength of the metal. You'd expect steel or iron to just rot away and disappear here, especially with this much overgrowth on the ground, but the frame was solid to the touch, and didn't crack or stick as they pushed on it. Except for the rust, you could almost think it was still in working order.