Vargas plunge-stepped down the steep slope of mud. It was hard to keep up, even while he sliced the herbaceous growth with his machete as he bushwhacked off-trail. The blade let out a reassuring tzing, tzing, tzing that left a path clear of snakes and a trail of fresh green leaves to follow should we need to retrace our steps, like Roman had in El Petén.

Midway down, a series of waterfall drops forced us to lower our packs to each other. The exposure here emphasized how readily Roman could have been injured had he slipped into a steep gorge or canyon, like those in the Negritos below Zeledón. I vowed to return to Zeledón and search Negritos’s canyon with ropes and climbing equipment.

The travel was difficult, not physically but emotionally, especially when calling his name. My grief painted the jungle black, but the heart of the Osa’s wilderness still left me awed. Every neon-colored dart frog, every emerald green bird, every fascinating jewel of the jungle that we passed left me with a pang of regret and sadness, remembering how our family had thrilled together at rainforest wonders. Those vivid memories grimly reminded me of why I was here. They left my eyes watery, my heart heavy.

But I couldn’t shut out forever the joy in seeing a kingfisher’s blue flash or a spider monkey’s graceful swing. To ignore those pleasures devalued our lifetimes shared in places like this where we marveled at nature’s creations. Sometime on the third day, I could again see rainforest colors and delight in the flight of a basilisk across a stream or the primeval look of a motmot in bamboo.

After we made our way back to the network of miner trails, Jefe killed a small fer-de-lance at an abandoned miner’s camp. Young poisonous snakes are the most dangerous. In their youthful inexperience, they have not yet learned to regulate their venom’s delivery, often over-envenomating in self-defense. A sixteen-inch juvenile can readily kill a man.

Soon after, Thai stepped over a log where, unknown to him, an olive-green eyelash viper was coiled for a strike only inches from his femoral artery. He could just as easily have put his hand on the snake, or swung his leg over and sat on it.

Thai was five strides ahead of me when I called out to him, “Hey, Thai! You just about got bit by a viper coiled on this log!” I held out the little green serpent, its prehensile tail wrapped tight around my trekking pole.

Thai just flashed that world-wise smile, shook his head a few times in disbelief, then turned and hurried through the heat back to town where the Cruz Roja was closing down the official search for Roman.

Chapter 31

Negritos

Steve Fassbinder rappeling a Negritos waterfall, August 11, 2014.

Courtesy of the author

The official search was over. Weary Cruz Roja volunteers headed home to their jobs. In a meeting, Dondee reminded Thai and me that my son had planned to enter the park illegally, that searches for illegals were difficult to approve in the first place, and that an exception had been made for him. Resources needed for other searches had been consumed here. Cruz Roja and MINAE would not resume their search without hard evidence.

Dondee also discouraged any offer of a reward, bringing to mind the painful story of David Gimelfarb. In 2013, four years after he had disappeared, his parents received several phone calls. The caller claimed a drug cartel held their son hostage. For twice the reward offer, the caller would reveal their son’s location. FBI investigators know that Latin American criminals take advantage of families of missing persons and dismissed the call as a scam. There was little chance anyone would hold a hostage so long before asking for ransom.

The same day Dondee said was Cruz Roja’s last, Thai went home to his wife and infant daughter, leaving me depressed and alone. Sitting at the Iguana Lodge with my hands tied, knowing every day counted more than the last, I sobbed briefly, as I did every day during private moments. I quickly choked back to regain control. Guilt followed.

What kind of father have I really been?

Parents aren’t supposed to pass out pills, smoke dope, or drink booze with their kids, and we never did. Instead, we bought them airplane tickets to exotic lands. Travel itself can be an addiction. Adventure is. Here I was, searching for Roman missing on a trip that traced directly back to me. I had not simply introduced him to international travel and the risks of wilderness adventure. I had included him, again and again, to the point that a large part of our relationship—his very name—was built on experiences like his illegal bushwhack into Corcovado.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that everything I had done with him in the wild had all been a mistake, that in the end, I had been that irresponsible father the cowboys saw on Umnak. I might not have hurt the six-year-old boy then, but the suffering of a twenty-seven-year-old man lost and broken in the jungle now felt like my fault. Yet every time those thoughts circled round me, Tennyson’s words came too:

I hold it true, whate’er befall;

I feel it when I sorrow most;

’Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all.

The love that I had for Roman—and for Peggy and Jazz, for that matter—was stronger and deeper for the time we had spent together in wild places. I would not give that up, even as I felt more helpless than ever. And while moments like this would plague me—still plague me—I would hold it as a truth that the bonds we form in nature with others are the truest bonds between us. While Roman may have been lost and dying because of our time in Australia, Borneo, or wild Alaska, that time we had together compelled me to come and do whatever was necessary to find him now.

SOON, THAI’S FRIEND Ole Carillo from Anchorage; my friend Steve Fassbinder; and his Spanish-speaking coworker, a young woman named Armida Huerta, both from Colorado, would arrive. Ole lacked Thai’s wilderness skills, but he was even more easygoing and had nearly as much travel experience. He also spoke fluent Spanish. I knew Steve well from a two-hundred-mile beach bike and packraft trip along Alaska’s southern coast, but I’d only soon be meeting Armida. Neither had tropical experience.

Meanwhile the Pata Lora story had seeped deeper into the Osa, into every pulperia and hovel. A rumor had spread that we were offering a reward. The situation was spiraling out of my control. But a lifetime of risk had taught me that a calm mind works better than an excited one. On this—the most important journey of my life—I controlled what I could: my emotions.

Dizzy with a pounding headache, I woke sick to my stomach and hurried to the toilet. Chewing Pepto Bismol pills only added nausea to my diarrhea. Morning meetings with officials didn’t make me feel any better; they thwarted my plans to ask the Cruz Roja for personnel and a long rope to take into the Negritos. Park Superintendent Eliecer Arce, a father himself who was sensitive to my plight, remained adamant that the area was illegal for anyone but park officials.

I decided to keep my canyon rappelling plan to myself. Every official made it clear they were upset with me already, both for my known forays into Corcovado and for the ones they suspected I’d made or soon make.

Back in Alaska, Peggy fielded phone calls and sifted through offers from Facebook friends. Most were of the we have contacts in Costa Rica variety:

I just heard a little about your son. Interestingly enough, my next door neighbor here has a nephew who owns a place called Good Times, a surfer retreat in Costa Rica. He has been there a while and speaks Spanish. If you give me information, I can pass it along and maybe he can do some nosing around for you.

So many people wanted to help. But people asking questions around the edges of Corcovado, Puerto Jiménez, and Carate would simply turn up the Pata Lora story. We needed immediate assistance from people with tropical search and technical rescue skills. Mead Treadwell and his friend Josh Lewis—both active Alaskans in the venerable Explorers Club—were eager to effect this kind of assistance. Mead even took precious time out of his run for U.S. senator to do what he could.

Mead wrote a letter of introduction to Costa Rican officials that described me as “well-known for exploration and search and rescue work under very difficult conditions in many climates including tropical rainforests.” He informed the embassy that I was “more than a distraught parent,” but “an asset [that he] would want on any search in these conditions.” In the end, MINAE permitted me into the park because of Mead’s efforts and Josh Lewis’s connections.