Sam Gabriel, Adventurer

by Peter Gifford

Sam took the last part of the staircase running hard, then made a leap into space, his eyes shut tight. There was a gut-twisting sail through clear air, with just enough time for him to squint through his left eye before he slammed into the opposite cliff. He was scrabbling at the twisted foliage that faced the stone for several seconds before handfuls of leaves gave way to more solid purchase and he started to breathe again. For a second. The branches holding him up snapped and with a cry Sam plummeted earthward through the greenery, his hands scraping on stone and rough bark. He realised he was screaming like a big baby, and abruptly shut up and held on at the same time. It worked. He let out a loud “oof!” and came to an abrupt halt, his shoulder bag swinging to hit him heavily in the side.

Only problem now, he was no longer a moving target. A dart went ‘dink!’ about an inch from the side of his face where it was pressed up against the mossy stone. It was followed by a rapidly increasing fusillade of ‘dinks’ and ‘thuds’ as the natives reached the edge of the stairs and skilfully began trying to turn him into a human pin cushion. The vines and foliage were protecting him for now, but one lucky hit and he’d be history - stuck on this wall like a cockroach on a kitchen wall, paralyzed by the native poison they called goruma.

Not this sucker they won’t, Sam silently promised himself, and ignoring the aches shouting complaints in his head he reared backwards, ripping a thick vine from the wall with the weight of his body. The vine came tearing away with a loud sucking and ripping noise, breaking free at the top but slowing his fall slightly as Sam began a long acceleration down the cliff and towards the valley floor below. He heard angry shouts from the natives above him and smiled grimly. Either this works or you’re jungle pizza, Sam my boy, he thought to himself as he picked up speed.

“C’mon, give me a go Nigel!”

“Hold on! Hold on watch it ’ oh shit Brett you idiot! I was just about to go to the next level! Now I have to go through the whole Native Escape level again you idiot!”

“Well, you’ve had it for too long anyway Nige. You were supposed to give me a turn ages ago. My turn.”

“Nigel, give your brother a turn.” Their mother’s head appeared around the edge of the chair in front. She looked tired. She also had headphones on and was speaking too loudly. “Remember what I said about sharing.”

“Awww, OK.” Nigel passed the Gameboy to his brother, who grabbed it and huddled up against the plane’s window. He pitched his voice to the level of sarcasm he knew from long experience would be most annoying. “Good luck” he said, retrieved his headphones from the chair pocket, and curled sideways in his seat to watch the film.

The plane was lit only by the glow of soft lights above the baggage compartments. Passengers slumbered fitifully under thin blankets, lingered over the latest in a determined sequence of drinks, or stared into laptop screens, their faces lit ghoulishly. The plane smelled of people. A movie played on the screens, its soundtrack the steady windtunnel sound of the plane’s engines.

Sam grabbed his hat and started heading for the door, but Abby wasn’t giving up just yet. She wasn’t going to be abandoned like some token female in an bad movie, while her man went galavanting off into the jungle on a mission doomed to failure, or worse, no profit.

“I’m telling you for the last time, Sam Gaylord Gabriel, I’m coming with you, and that’s that.”

Sam winced at the use of his middle name. He paused in the act of opening the door and heaved a large sigh. “Look Abby,” he said without turning around, “I promised you I’ll get the thing and get back alive and I keep my word. Your buyer will get his goods.” Sam already knew he didn’t have a chance. He turned around to face her.

Abby began walking around the cheap hotel room, throwing things into a small overnight bag. Sam watched her and couldn’t help noting how her unruly hair stayed in place, even when she was really angry. “Oh, I know my buyer will get the goods,” she said, bundling a flimsy neglige into a ball and stuffing it into the bag, “not only because you need the money,” she threw the bag with alarming accuracy at his solar plexus, “but because I’ll be right there by your side when you get the goods.”

In what seemed a surprisingly short time, even for a well-travelled adventurer like Sam, they were huddled together by the side of an ancient stone causeway in the jungles of Peru.

“So, Sam, what’s the plan” whispered Abby.

Sam grimaced at the rhyme. “I prefer to remain flexible. That way nothing ever goes not according to plan.”

Abby raised her big blue eyes to the grey sky.

“Come onnn, Brett, look this bit is really tough, let me take over“

Noo, it’s mine turn!”

“Shhh, Mum’ll hear. Look, just let me do this bit and you can play the rest of the game OK? I want to watch the movie after that anyway. OK?”

“Well ... OK. But I get to play for as long as I want after that OK? Promise.”

“Yeah, sure, I promise. Hand it over.”

Sam raised his hand and the two of them clambered up from their hiding places and over the lip of the causeway. To their right the last of the natives could be seen in the misty distance, just rounding the shoulder of the hill the road clung to. Sam gave Abby a look that said “quiet” and the two of them began to follow.

The jungle was wet and warm, and ahead the voices of the natives chanting in their strange tongue sent shivers of fear down Sam’s back. Or maybe it was just the little rivers of perspiration. Somehow Abby managed to look a million bucks even in the jungle, he thought, stealing an admiring glance at her. Her brow was furrowed with lines of concentration as she stepped over a snake strewn across the stone path.

Soon they were at the point where the road bent. Sam motioned for them to stop and carefully craned his upper body around an outcropping of rock. The voices had stopped. A hundred yards ahead the road became a set of wide stairs climbing the cliff face to the left; on the right the steps opened out into space. Not far up, the steps reached a point where an entrance had been carved into the rock, and past this the steps continued upwards to culminate at a precipitous landing built to overlook the valley floor far beneath and face another cliff across an misty chasm.

He turned back to find Abby touching up her lipstick as she looked into a compact. “This is it baby,” he said, “the last resting place of the Jade Skull, lost for centuries.”

“Don’t call me baby, Sam. Well, what are we standing here for? Let’s get the thing already. I’m dying for a G and T.”

Soon they were in the entrance. A passageway, dirt-floored, led into the mountain, leading to a red light leaking from a crack in the distance. Sam realised Abby was clutching his left hand as they walked further into the darkness. At the end of the passageway they came to a huge open space, carved out of the rock and lit by flickering wall torches. Patterns of darkness danced across the walls. The room was filled with kneeling natives, faces pressed to the floor, arms outstretched. Sam and Abby’s eyes followed the way the arms were pointing and there, on a rock dais at the end of the chamber, sat a perfect human skull carved of jade, a green beacon in the red light, glowing like dreams of avarice in the heart of a stockbroker.

Sam licked his dry lips. He had one chance, and he took it.

Ignoring Abby’s gasp he lunged forward, sprinted for the dais, grabbed the idol, and was back at the entrance as the natives rose from their genuflections. There was a brief moment of stunned silence as the room full of men stared at emptiness where their god used to be, then shouts and curses as Sam and Abby were spotted running out of the room. The natives scrambled frantically to their feet and reached for their blowguns.

From the dark entrance Sam and Abby burst into the light, Sam stuffing the idol into his bag as they paused to look left and right. Blowdarts zipped past them like angry wasps. Suddenly Sam heard Abby’s cry and turned to see her pitching forward, an uncharacteristic look of shock on her lovely face. Before he had time to reach out she had disappeared over the edge of the cliff as though she had never existed.

’Baby!’ cried Sam.

Seeing the stairway down blocked by a horde of angry natives, he took only a second to reverse his course and sprint up the stairs to the high landing.

“Bugger!” Nigel’s eyes flickered to the back of the seat in front but his mother hadn’t heard. His brother craned over his shoulder, his legs folded up under him on the seat.

“Good one Nigel, you killed Abby Donsdale.” said Brett, the sarcastic tone he’d learnt from his older brother in his voice. “That’s five hundred points you lost.”

“I’m sick of the game anyway. I’ve played that level heaps of times. Here, take over and run the rapids if you think you’re so smart.”

Brett looked briefly worried but happily grabbed the machine and settled his fingers into position.

Sam’s world exploded as he hit the water, and suddenly he was lost in a maze of bubbles and raging white foam. He struck out for what he hoped was the surface, and by blind luck he was right. Gulping air, he got a mouthful of water. The river was a giant washing machine and he was caught in the rinse cycle. For a moment he caught a quick glimpse of tiny figures outlined against the sky, then all his attention went to fighting for the shore. His body slammed against boulders.

Somehow, he found a quiter eddy and pulled himself towards a tiny bay in the river side. At first he saw what he thought was some kind of large fish beached among the rocks, then realised it was the shape of a woman’s thigh, wedged against the shore. He swam frantically towards it. There was Abby, bobbing in the current, her sweet face looking up at the sky, still with that funny look of surprise on her face.

Sam pulled her body out of the river and knelt down beside it on the muddy riverbank.

“Abby, baby, I’m so sorry I brought you along. I shoulda forced you to stay at the hotel. This ain’t the life for a girl like you. I wish we were on the plane back to Boston, you ordering a gin and tonic in that funny way of yours, me in a new suit, with money in our pockets and a new life ahead of us. I’d give it all up for that baby, really. I only wish we could start again.”

Suddenly Sam felt a warmth against his thigh. He looked down to see a strange green glow coming from his shoulder bag.

The Gameboy was suddenly snatched from Brett’s hand. “That’s enough, boys” said his Mum, still talking too loudly. A few people looked around at her. She took off her headphones and studied the small machine. “It’s time you two tried to get some sleep, or you’ll be impossible to deal with when we get home. What’s this anyway — hmmm, ‘Sam Gabriel in The Adventure of the Jade Skull’ ... honestly, I don’t know why your father buys you these things, they just give you nightmares.”

“Ohhh, Mum ...”

“Don’t ohhh Mum me boys, I’ll take care of this. Now try and get some sleep. ” She took the Gameboy with her, little screen still glowing, as she turned back behind the seat in front. Dad said a few words and took the machine from her.

Nigel and Brett looked at each other in disgust. Just then, somewhere forward of them in the plane and loud above the engine’s din, they heard a woman’s voice instruct a stewardess. “That’s right, I’d like a G and T please ... heavy on the G and light on the T.”

Dad was giggling to himself. He’d started playing with the Gameboy.

Sam grabbed his hat and started heading for the door, but Abby wasn’t giving up just yet. She wasn’t going to be abandoned like some token female in a bad movie, while her man went galavanting off into the jungle on a mission doomed to failure, or worse, no profit.

“I’m telling you for the last time, Sam Gaylord Gabriel, I’m coming with you, and that’s that.”