Into the Jungle
by Cutlass
Copyright© 2025 by Cutlass
Coming of Age Story: A young man finds adventure the the jungles of Southeast Asia.
Caution: This Coming of Age Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa mt/ft Consensual Fiction .
June 2021
A carpet of green jungle stretched out before me, sweeping up over the mountain ridges on both sides to reach the lead-gray clouds that threatened at any moment to open with torrential rain. The flood-swollen river below was occasionally visible as a reddish stain through the breaks in the jungle canopy.
I banked the ancient Cessna 170 sharply to the left, peering through the dust-covered, scratched plexiglass for my next landmark. The left wing dropped, threatening to roll me even further left. I twisted the wheel hard right to counter the turbulence and to stop the turn. I was barely a hundred feet above the triple-canopy vegetation below. Should I crash here, I’d be forever lost – which, in a way, was why I was on what my father called “this fool’s errand”.
My father, I reflected, was why I was here in the first place. That thought brought the rest of my story to mind...
August 2015
“Peter, please hurry. We have to get to the airfield before dark.”
I looked up as I struggled to carry my luggage across the cracked, dusty tarmac toward the plane. My father looked out from the right front door as I approached the Caravan’s side door. Another man knelt there, waiting for me to hand my life’s possessions up to him. I first passed him my duffel bag, and then my rolling suitcase. I climbed in after my bags and settled into my seat.
Soon, we were in the air and headed to our destination – not that I knew exactly where that was. My father was a missionary, and we were visiting a village in a place where, if we were found by the nation’s authorities, we’d probably never be heard from again. All I knew was that we were going somewhere in Southeast Asia.
Two hours later, we were on the ground again, watching the Caravan depart the jungle airstrip in a drifting cloud of choking red clay dust. I coughed and turned to look at our new home. We were deep in the mountains, standing in a clearing that held the only runway for miles around. It was, according to my father, a vital lifeline for the people here. To my fifteen-year-old self, it looked like Hell, or at least Purgatory. I kept that opinion to myself, of course.
The local people gathered around us; my father, me, and three others he’d brought along. We had a nurse, another missionary from somewhere in the region, and his wife. We were shown to our huts and then to a larger hut where we ate a meal. The food was good, and the people seemed to be glad that we were there.
Over the next few weeks, we went about our work. I was assigned to help the nurse and anyone else who needed something taken from one place to another, whether it be a message or an item. I knew a little of the local language, and most of the people were friendly enough once they got to know me. The village certainly wasn’t what I was used to at home, but I kept busy enough to not dwell on the lack of creature comforts.
My father had spoken with me before we came on this trip. My mother had died of cancer two years earlier, and my father had decided to continue his missions work. He’d told me that it was a hard life, but that what we could do for the people we served made it worthwhile. Yes, it was hard, and yes, it could be dangerous, too. There were bandits and drug runners in the area, and there were mines and other ordinance left over from the decades of war that had ravaged the area.
One morning, the nurse told me to go check on a group of families who lived about two miles from the village. She gave me food and a basic medical kit, and I took my machete and my pack, as well. The only way to the area was over a footpath that ran over a ridge, and down into the next valley.
The trek took me just over an hour since I was carrying a heavy load of food. The steep path was treacherous in places, especially when it came to crossing the crude bridge over one of the valley’s streams. It was little more than a log with a rope handrail, and I almost fell into the water when my foot slipped on the mossy wood.
Finally, I found a group of five huts gathered at the end of the trail. These people were different than the villagers, and they were considered outcasts. They spoke a different language, and they were also shorter than the villagers. One of the younger women approached me. “Why are you here?”
“I am bringing food and medicine,” I replied. “The village nurse sent me.”
The woman nodded. “Then you are welcome here. I will help you give out the food.”
“I can also tell you about the medicines I have,” I replied as I followed her to one of the huts.
“I know about most of them,” she replied. “Our biggest problem is dysentery, as we are having problems finding clean water. We cannot use the well at the village, and most of the streams are too muddy to drink from. So, we use what water we can collect from the rain, but we don’t have a collection system that keeps the water clean.”
“Your English is very good,” I observed.
“We learned it from Americans, years ago,” she began. I worked with her to store the items I’d brought, and she prepared a meal for me while she told me the story. The village had rescued a group of five American soldiers who’d gotten lost in the jungle sometime around 1970. Other soldiers had hunted them for over a year, and the village had been searched twice in that time. Each time, the soldiers treated the villagers badly, including raping some of the younger women, and killing anyone who’d tried to protect them. After the war ended, no more soldiers came to the village. The Americans settled in and helped the outcasts to learn English.
Finally, three of the Americans decided to leave and try to make it back home. They’d left, and no one knew what had become of them. One of the others died in an accidental fall, and the last man had stayed for another ten years.
He’d made his home nearby, far enough from the village to not be connected with them, but close enough to visit as he needed. He fell ill from an unknown illness and died, leaving a wife he’d taken from the outcasts and two children, a son and a daughter. The family had kept to themselves, even from the other outcasts, and had rarely been seen in the hamlet, and not at all in the village.
“Maybe I can go see about them,” I said as she finished her story.
“I know that there is a child, a young girl. I’ve never spoken with her, though. I haven’t seen her mother in a few months. That isn’t unusual, as she’s Chinese, and the others here like them even less that the villagers like us. I’ve tried to visit, but she wasn’t comfortable, so I’ve waited for her to come here.”
“Well, I’m white and Hispanic, so maybe I’ll have better luck,” I replied. “My father and I are staying in the village, where he is a missionary.”
“Her father was a Black American, so maybe the fact that you are also American will help more,” the woman said with a smile. “I will await your return. If I don’t hear from you in a day, I will send word to the village.”
After lunch, I started off to find the girl and her mother. The woman had given me directions, which took me deeper into the jungle, away from the village. Fortunately, the directions were simply to follow a certain creek until I came to a small clearing. There, I was to turn left and look for a rock that towered above the trees. The house was located at the base of the rock.
It took me another hour to pick my way along the creek to the clearing. The soil here had eroded away, and the clearing was a rock surface that sloped down the hill to a deeper valley beyond the higher one I’d followed. The rains kept the rock cleared of soil, and so nothing grew here. I turned left away from the creek, and there was the rock. I turned that way and started toward the outcropping.
“Freeze, motherfucker,” a childish voice called out after I’d taken perhaps a dozen steps.
I halted in pure shock and looked toward the voice. A young girl, perhaps ten years old, stood next to a tree, holding a large pistol in both hands. I lifted my hands up level with my shoulders. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
“How did you find this place?”
“The woman at the little village, the outcasts, told me. I’m here to see about you and your mother.”
“Who are you, and why is an American here?”
“Can you please point that thing somewhere else? I don’t want to be shot.”
“Who does?” She lowered the weapon to point at the ground in front of her, but she kept it in a shooting grip with both hands. “So, why are you, an American, here?”
“My father is a missionary, and we’re staying at the village.” I pointed toward it.
“Assholes, all of them,” the girl spat. “They treated my mother like shit. Even the outcasts. Ain’t that some shit, too?”
I lowered my hands. “Well, there’s no doubt that you’re a soldier’s descendant. Can you tell your mother that I’m here? For all I know, she has a rocket launcher pointed at me right now.”
“I never met my great grandfather, and my mother is dead. She got sick and died three months ago.”
“Why didn’t you go tell the woman at the little village?”
“Why would I? No one cared about us, anyway!” The girl lowered the pistol to her side. “Just go away. I’ve been fine here, and I will keep being fine.”
I shrugged. “I can understand that. Can I at least give you the food and medicines I brought? It’s not a lot, but I can get you more if you need it.”
“Come on to the house. You don’t look that dangerous to me, not compared to the others around here.” She turned and walked toward the rock.
I followed her along a winding trail that seemingly led to a dead end at a small outcropping. The girl carefully ducked between a pair of trees, revealing an opening behind the outcropping. A few yards further, I spotted a wooden door set into a stone wall that was covered with vegetation. The rock towered overhead, with a bit of sunlight that filtered through the jungle canopy.
The girl opened the door, and we stepped into a tiny cabin that had been built right against the rock. The reason became evident when I saw the cave entrance at the rear wall. The girl went into the cave, and I was surprised to see that the cave was lit with LED lights.
“How did you get these lights?”
“My mother knew where there was gold, and she traded with some people for them. She never told me much, other than there are solar panels on top of the rock and batteries that power them. I have to climb up and check them every month.”
As she stood in the light, I was able to see her more clearly. She was, as I’d first guessed, a preteen or a tween, about five feet tall, with long legs for her age. Her body was slim and straight, and she wore a threadbare green dress that came to mid-thigh, and woven grass sandals. I looked at her face, and I was instantly mesmerized. Her features were a mixture of ethnicities, and she was absolutely, breathtakingly, stunningly the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.
She smiled awkwardly at me. “What?”
“Uh, I’m sorry,” I stammered. “You’re, uh, really pretty.”
“What’s your name?” She turned and set the pistol on a shelf.
“I’m Peter, Peter Halston.”
“I’m Bethany Robinson, but my mom calls – called - me Olina.”
“Which should I use?”
She shrugged. “Either, I guess. You said you had food?”
“Uh, yeah.” I took off my pack and took out some fruits and vegetables from the village, along with a few cans and pouches. “It’s just basic stuff, nothing fancy.”
“My mom would score stuff like this, but it was from China. I ran out a couple of days ago.”
“What were you going to do for food, then?”
“I do know how to live here, Peter,” Olina said with a grin. “I’ve never been anywhere else, you know.”
“It’s strange, meeting someone out here who speaks perfect English, and who isn’t like everyone else.”
She grinned. “Like you?” She giggled when I shook my head. “Okay, so I know what you mean. My family was different. My father was killed when I was five, so I barely remember him. He looked a lot like my great grandfather; he was tall and very dark. Mother said that she met him while traveling here. I think she was a smuggler, but she never said. I had an uncle, too, but I never met him, and I don’t know anything about him.”
“What will you do, now?”
She sat down at her tiny table. “I don’t know. Stay here, I guess. What else can I do? The government hates us foreigners, and they’d probably kill me if I tried to go to a city or leave the country. Mother taught me a lot of things, and so I know about the world out there.” She waved her hand at the ceiling.
I sat down across from her. “Come back to the village with me...”
“No! They hate me, too!” She glared at me.
I sighed. “I meant, come talk to my father. He knows a lot of people who help him with his ministry. You’re at least part American, and you’re a soldier’s descendant. That has to count for something.”
Olina sat back and crossed her arms. “Okay,” she said at length. “Just don’t pull any shit on me. I have a gun.”
I grinned. “So I noticed. Can we go now?”
She shrugged. “It’s not like I have other shit to do now that you brought food.”
I rose from the chair. “Okay, let’s go.”
Olina rose and stepped over to the shelf. She took down a faded green army belt with a leather holster and strapped it around her waist. She picked up the pistol and placed it in the holster. The thing was huge against her slim body, but her willingness to use it took any humor out of the sight. Then, I noticed the other weapons stacked next to the shelf. “You have M-16s, too?”
“Those are Stoners, not M-16s,” she explained. “Only one works, and I only have twenty shots left, so I don’t use it much. Besides, it’s really heavy for me to carry.” She picked up a small knife and put it in her belt sheath, and then she slung a bag that had a canteen attached to it over her shoulder. “There’s water here that you can drink, so fill your canteen here.” She stepped over to a faucet set into a small sink and filled her canteen.
“I have bottled water; we brought a bunch of it with us,” I said as I took out my bottle.
“Suit yourself, but this is cold.” She held up her canteen, took a drink, and then topped it off.
“I’m good. Are you ready?”
“Yeah, let’s split.”
Olina led me back the way I came in, until we reached the creek. Then, she turned away from the hamlet and began to climb the ridge.
“Is this the way to the village?” I asked as I rushed to keep up with her on the jungle trail.
“No, we’re going to New York City,” she answered with a sigh. “Just follow me.”
“Yes, Ma’am. Anything you say, Ma’am.”
“Asshole. Try to keep up and keep your voice down. There are bandits all over the place here.”
“The villagers didn’t say anything about bandits.”
“That’s because the bandits don’t bother them. It’s bad for business since they’re mostly running drugs. They don’t want the government to know they’re here.”
“So why are we worried about them?”
Olina snorted. “What do you think they’d do to me if they caught me alone out here? My mother had some pull with them, but now that she’s gone, I’m not about to find out if they’re friendly or not. I’ve heard stories about what they do to women.”
I blanched as I thought about what she’d alluded to. “Yes, we do need to be careful. I don’t even have a gun. Dad doesn’t really like them, anyway.”
“As long as he doesn’t try to take mine away, we will get along fine,” she retorted.
We didn’t speak much for the rest of our walk to the village. As we approached, I saw my father speaking with one of the villagers. “Wait here,” I told Olina. “I’ll go get him so that we don’t have to deal with the other people all at once.” She nodded, and I went to get my father.
The next few minutes were interesting. My father was upset about Olina having her pistol, and Olina was upset about his insistence that she stay with us in the village. Finally, they reached an understanding after my father pointed out that her best chance at living somewhere besides alone in the jungle would be to come with us.
My father also informed her that the government took a very dim view of their people being armed. A few of the villagers had guns, but they were kept well hidden. In the end, Olina gave my father her pistol, stating that it had been her great grandfather’s weapon. “I will see what I can do about keeping it for you,” he said at length. “I won’t promise you anything, but I will try.”
With that, Olina walked into the village, and into our lives.
November 2016
Over the next three years, we went about our business in the village. Our nurse befriended Olina and became her teacher. Despite their initial disagreement, my father and Olina got along well.
As for me, she and I studied together, and she helped me with the chores my father and the nurse assigned to me. Olina told me all that she could remember about her life and her mother, and I did the same. She was fascinated at the idea of visiting the United States. We spent hours looking at my tablet, where I showed her maps, pictures, and articles about my country.
As Olina aged, I started to notice that she was becoming a young woman. When we first met, she wasn’t body conscious – she would change clothes in front of me without a second thought. When she turned twelve, though, she would insist that I leave the room, or turn my back if we were outside.
My feelings for her changed, and, by the time I turned eighteen, I knew that I was in love. Of course, at age thirteen, I was still her cool friend; romance wasn’t even on her radar. Olina was sweet, playful, and had a terrific temper when she was angry – which wasn’t all that often, thankfully.
One other thing that we both enjoyed was flying. My father had acquired an aircraft that allowed us to move around the area much more easily. There was an airport, one of the few in the country, a hundred miles away. There, we could get fuel and maintenance for the plane, a Cessna 170, and there I also learned to fly it. Olina was terrified to fly at first, but she learned to enjoy it.
We went along like that for another year; I treated her the same as I always had, and she was her happy self for the most part. Then, one day, my father’s sponsor called him.
December 2020
The government had decided that missionaries were no longer welcome in their country, and that we had to leave immediately, or we would be arrested. We began to pack our personal belongings, but not the equipment we’d brought in. We were leaving nearly everything for the villagers to continue using.
I was just closing my travel bag when Olina knocked on the doorpost. “Peter, when are you coming back?”
“I don’t know, Olina. Dad says we have to go, or we will be arrested.”
“What about all of us here?”
“All they mentioned was foreigners.”
“Like me,” she said quietly.
I looked at her in dawning comprehension. “Oh, shit.”
She shrugged. “Exactly.”
“We need to talk to my father.” I reached for her hand, and she took it. I led her to my father’s room, where he was finishing his packing. “Dad, we have to talk about Olina.”
He turned to look at us. “What about her?” He stopped and looked at us more closely. “Let’s sit and talk.” He pointed to our small table.
We both sat down, still holding hands.
“I’m sorry, Olina, but I didn’t think about your situation when my sponsor called me. We were all taken by surprise.” He took a breath. “I have to ask – are you two in a relationship?”
“What? No!” Olina said, letting go of my hand. “I’ve not been with any man!”
My father shook his head. “That’s not what I meant. Do you love Peter?”
She looked at me with wide eyes. “I ... I never thought about it...”
“I love you, Olina, Bethany,” I blurted out.
She sat for a long moment, just looking at me. At length, she sighed and turned back to my father. “Yes. I love him. But, what good does it do? They will not let me leave to America.”
“You are right, Olina. We can’t take you with us.”
“We can’t just leave her here!” I protested.
My father held up his hand. “We can’t take her, Peter. They would throw all of us in prison, and you know very well what that means.”
“People just disappear. I know,” I replied morosely.
“What do I do, then,” she asked quietly.
My father thought for a moment. “Right now, I don’t know. I promise you; I will do my best to take you out of here and try to get you to America. It’s the least we can do for your great grandfather. For now, though, you have made friends here in the village, and even among the outcasts. You are no longer alone.”
With that, he rose to his feet. “I will finish packing and wait for you at the plane. We have to leave in a few minutes, Peter.” He walked to his room, closed his suitcase, and left Olina and I alone.
“Did you mean what you said, Peter?” Her voice was low and quiet.
I turned to face her. “Yes. I love you, Bethany. I will come back for you, I swear it.”
“They will kill you, Peter!” Her eyes flashed. “I would rather that you be alive and absent from my life, than see you killed if you come back.”
“And what about you? You’re just going to vanish into the jungle?”
“Yes. That’s exactly what I’m going to do. This is my life, Peter. My time here in the village has been wonderful, but it is over. I am not part of them, even though they are no longer hostile to me. I am still outcast, and I will always be outcast.” She pointed out the door. “That is my home. America was a nice dream, but that’s all it was.”
I opened my mouth to speak, and then I remembered my father’s admonition to think first, and then talk. “Look, I can come back and get you later. We’re going across the border, where they have an airport. I’ve been there a couple of times.”
“I remember, but you can’t do that. They will kill you if they catch you.”
I nodded. “I know. Come with me.” I took her hand and I led her to the house where our equipment was kept. “Your solar panels at the house still work, right?”
“Yes, but why?”
I pressed one of our satellite phones, it’s case and charger, and my tablet into her hands. “Take these. My number is programmed into the phone, and I have another tablet. We can keep in contact.” I remembered something else, and I went to a drawer and opened it. “Here.” I held out her holstered pistol. “You might need this, too.”
Olina took the items. “Peter, you can’t come back.”
I stepped up to her and leaned down to kiss her softly on the lips, the first kiss for either of us. “I can, and I will.” I stepped back and picked up my luggage. “I have to go.”
She nodded mutely and turned to leave the building. She didn’t look back as she began to run back to her room at the village. I watched her until she disappeared, and then I turned and walked to our plane...
June 2021
Another jolt, and the 170 dropped quickly enough for the stall warning horn to squawk for an instant. I still had two hours of daylight, which was good, because flying at night here would be suicide.
It had been six months since I’d last seen Olina in the village. We’d spoken on the phone, and she’d used it to hotspot her tablet for long, emotional emails. My father and I had made it across the border without incident, and we’d linked up with our sponsor. The villagers reported that the army had visited them and had taken much of the equipment we’d left behind. Olina had vanished into the jungle, and so she was safe.
I immediately began the process of trying to bring Olina back with me, starting with our sponsor. The situation turned into a diplomatic quagmire, as the nation we were in only tolerated our presence as missionaries. Worse, their prejudice against Olina’s people, and especially mixed ethnic groups with Western blood, was a serious impediment to receiving any sort of help.
Then, I hit on the idea of researching Olina’s great grandfather. His Special Forces team had been presumed lost during the Vietnam War, as they were on a secret mission when they disappeared, with no air support or other backup available. There was no help through official channels, at least not until I contacted the unit commander.
The process was agonizingly slow, and weeks turned into three months of waiting. One morning, I received a call from a member of the US Embassy in our host country. If I could bring Olina to their official in the nearby city, then they could offer her asylum – after they interviewed her, of course.
I called Olina and we planned to meet at the village airstrip in two weeks. The weather was predicted to be poor until then, and I didn’t care to risk bad weather over the jungle in a sixty-year-old plane.
Then, it all went to hell.
When Olina arrived at the village, she found that the army was waiting for her. Someone in the village had mentioned “the Western girl” that sometimes visited, and only the timely warning by one of the outcasts had given her time to escape. Still, they’d hunted for her in the jungle, where she’d had to kill two of the soldiers.
After that, she’d gone to her home, gathered what she could carry, and melted into the jungle. She called me from a remote hilltop, and we made a hasty escape plan. There was a stretch of open road a few miles from her location where I could land and pick her up. It was a desperate risk, since the army sometimes patrolled the road, but it was all we had.
I went to my father with the news, and he had given me his blessing, along with his opinion of the whole plan. I phoned Olina, and then I took off and turned toward my destination.
Now, an hour later, I was desperately trying to find the stretch of roadway. At any moment, I could happen upon a road convoy of army vehicles, or worse, one of their helicopters. My plane was too slow to outrun any of them, and it wasn’t armed.
I turned around another hill, and there it was! The road widened out at a straight course along the river. There was a bluff on the side away from the river, and the straight section was barely seven hundred feet long. The road curved away from the river at each end, so the approach and departure would have to be over the swollen water course. If the engine quit on departure, we would be doomed. I pushed the thought out of my mind and lined up to land. I’d taken the precaution of approaching from downwind, thus saving a time consuming and dangerous circling approach. The Cessna rocked in the turbulent air, and I wrestled it down to the makeshift runway. I landed solidly, the tires crunching on the graveled surface.
Two large potholes suddenly appeared, and I steered around them, the wings rocking alarmingly in the strong winds. I braked as hard as I dared, and then I stepped on the right toe brake and rudder, turning the plane around to taxi back to the downwind, or south, end of the ersatz airstrip.
I’d told Olina to wait at the downwind end, and so I peered outside anxiously as I taxied along the bumpy road. The taildragger handled the rough surface – I’d have never made it with a more modern plane with a tricycle landing gear arrangement. I reached the end of the section and turned back into the wind, all the while dreading that I hadn’t seen her.
There was no way I could stay; hiding the plane was impossible, and it was getting dark. I pressed the brakes with my toes and pulled the throttle back to idle as I looked all around the plane. Five minutes, I decided. That was all the time I had. We had.
The minutes passed on the instrument panel clock, the second hand sweeping around once, twice, three times, and then four. “Olina,” I said out loud. “Where are you?” The hand swept past again, and it was time to leave. I looked around carefully through the dust – and then I saw something move out past the right wingtip. I stared hard, trying to make out what it was through the dusty window.
My heart leapt in my chest as the something resolved into a slim figure, and then into Olina, running hard for the right door! I leaned over and popped the latch open, and she clambered up onto the wheel, and then into the seat beside me. “Peter! Go quickly!”
“Hold on,” I called, and I pushed the throttle forward, releasing the brakes at the same time. I reached down between us and yanked the flap lever, setting them for the maximum departure angle. They would help us get airborne more quickly, I knew.
We started down the road, and then I saw a truck drive around the corner at the far end of the road section. “Is that the army?” I called to her over the engine noise.
“No, it’s people from another village! One of them found me in the jungle, and I shot him. The others chased me.”
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