Amazon Adventure
Late 1632 to Fall 1634
Belém do Pará, Estado do Maranhão (northern Brazil), Late 1632
Like an arrow falling from heaven, the cormorant plunged into the waters of the Pará. For a few seconds it was lost from sight. Then it emerged triumphantly, a fish in its mouth. Two gulls spotted the capture and winged over, no doubt hoping to snatch the meal away. Before they could carry out their designs, the cormorant gave the fish a little toss in the air, and swallowed it. The would-be hijackers swerved and headed out toward the sea.
Henrique Pereira da Costa, watching this drama from the docks of Belém do Pará, hoped that his own dive into the unknown would be as successful.
He heard a cough, and turned. It was his servant, Maurício. “We’re packed and ready to go.”
“May I see the fabulous map again?” Maurício asked. Wordlessly, Henrique passed it over.
Maurício studied it carefully, then handed it back. “It’s got to be a fake, sir. I asked around, and no one has explored beyond where this river”—he pointed to the Rio Negro—“comes into the Amazon.”
“M-m-my family has assured me that I can stake my v-v-very life upon its accuracy.” Henrique had an unfortunate tendency to stammer under stress. It had been mild at first, but had worsened after his parents’ deaths.
“Trouble is, you will be staking your life on it . . . while they’re home, safe and sound in Lisbon.” Henrique was the da Costa family’s factor in Belém, which lay near the mouth of the Pará, the river forming the southern edge of the Amazon Delta.
“Bu—um—bu . . .” Henrique’s stammer was one of the reasons he was stuck here in Belém, rather than enjoying the high life of a successful plutocrat in the capital. Instead of collecting expensive artwork and mistresses, he was looking for drogas do sertão—products of the hinterland—that might one day have a market in Europe. Most recently, he was pursuing a strange material that his relatives called “rubber.”
“Speak English, or Dutch, sir, no one here will care.” Henrique’s stutter disappeared when he spoke a foreign language. Even one of the Indian jawbreakers.
Henrique nodded. “But there are those rumors . . .”
“Right. Like the Seven Cities of Cibola. Or El Dorado and the Lake of Manoa. Or the Kingdom of Prester John. Or—”
“Will you let me finish?” Henrique glowered at Maurício until the servant inclined his head in acquiescence. “Rumors of a town called Grantville, which has visited us from the future.”
“If true, showing poor judgment on their part.”
“Well, even if the story is false, I have my orders. Find the rubber trees, teach the natives how to tap it.”
“And your family knows how to tap it, even though they don’t know where the trees are?” Maurício’s eyebrows flickered.
“Perhaps they found the trees in the Indies already? Or perhaps it’s more knowledge from the future.”
* * *
“Coming aboard, Maurício?”
Maurício jumped into the canoe. The boat rocked for a moment, then steadied. Maurício nervously checked to make sure that his neck pouch hadn’t slipped off in mid-leap. What it held was more precious than gold: his letter of manumission, signed years ago by Henrique.
Maurício had been born into slavery. His mother had been one of the housemaids employed by Henrique’s parents, in Bahia. In his childhood, he had been one of Henrique’s playmates. Henrique’s handwriting was a disaster—sometimes, even Henrique couldn’t read it—and Maurício had been trained to be his scribe.
Henrique’s father, Sérgio, was a physician, the usual choice of occupation for a da Costa who was temperamentally unsuited for the business world. He had one of the largest libraries in Bahia, and it was Maurício’s second home. Maurício mastered Latin, and Greek, and even Hebrew. Not that there was much need for any of those languages in the rough-hewn society of Brazil.
Sérgio’s will had instructed Henrique to make Maurício a curtado, a slave who had the right to earn his freedom by paying a set price. Henrique instead freed Maurício outright. “I hope you can now be my friend, instead of my slave,” he had said. The words were burnt into Maurício’s memory, as deeply as a slaver’s brand had bitten into his mother’s skin.
* * *
The canoe, perhaps forty feet long, had eight Indian rowers and a “bow man.” The middle of the boat was roofed over with palm fronds to provide a somewhat flimsy shelter. Henrique was glad to be on his way. In town, his stuttering was a recurring source of embarrassment. In the wilderness, he could relax.
Henrique knew the Amazon about as well as a white man could. He was a criollo, a man born in Brazil but of European descent, and he had been among the first settlers in Belém. Henrique had frequently canoed up or down the main river and its tributaries, and he had lived in some of the native villages for months at a time. Maurício occasionally joined Henrique, but mostly remained in Belém to look after Henrique’s interests there.
It started to drizzle. Maurício held out his hand. “I thought you said it was the dry season.” It was an old joke between them.
Henrique delivered the customary punchline. “The difference is, in the dry season it rains every day, and in the wet season, all day.”
Whether in appreciation or mockery of the witticism, the drizzle became a shower. Henrique dived for the shelter, Maurício following.
* * *
“I don’t understand,” Henrique muttered.
“Huh?” Maurício had been watching a giant river otter playing in the water. He looked up. “Don’t understand what?”
“Why none of the Indians we have questioned have heard of the rubber tree. I would have sworn that they knew every tree within ten miles of their villages.” Henrique and Maurício had visited the tribes of the lower Xingu River: the Tacunyape, the Shipaya, the Juruna. The explorers had been shown some trees which produced sap of one kind of another, but none of them matched the description of the rubber trees.
“So it doesn’t grow on the Xingu. Perhaps we’ll have better luck on the Tapajós.”
“We’re in the shaded area of the map, where the tree is supposed to be found.”
“Perhaps we don’t know what to ask for.”
“We asked them to show us a tree which weeps when it is cut. Because, uh . . .”
“I know. Because the first letter from Lisbon said that rubber is also known as caoutchouc. From the Quechua words caa, ‘wood,’ and ochue, ‘tears,’ that is—”
Henrique finished the thought. “The ‘weeping tree.’”
“A lot of good a Quechua name does you,” Maurício said. “It’s the language of the Incas, who are, what, two thousand miles west of here?”
“Even if it’s a rare tree, you would think that some Indian would try cutting it down,” Henrique said. “See if it was good for building a dugout canoe, or at least for firewood. And then see it bleed.”
Maurício brushed an inquisitive fly off the document. “Sure, but that might have happened a century ago. And they don’t remember it, because they don’t use its, what’s that word . . . latex . . . for anything. The latex is old news.”
His expression brightened. “Of course, they might still know of the tree. Maybe they use its leaves to thatch their huts. Or—”
“Um . . .”
“Or, they eat its seeds. Or—”
“Uh-uummm . . .”
“I know, it’s sacred to their Jaguar God, so it’s forbidden to speak to strangers about it.”
“Maurício!”
“Yes?”
“Shut up.”
* * *
Henrique brooded. Clearly, he thought, merely asking for a “weeping tree” wasn’t good enough. But Henrique’s superiors, or the mysterious up-timers, had provided more than just the map. He also had received drawings of the rubber tree, and its leaves and seeds. And even a sample of rubber. So he had thought he had some chance of success.
“Shit!”
Maurício gave him a wary look. “What’s wrong?”
“I have been going about this all wrong. The drawings are meaningless to the Indians we’ve been talking to; their artwork is too different.
“What we need to do is make a model of the leaves and seeds. Out of clay, or mud, or something. Life size, if possible.”
Maurício waited for Henrique to continue.
Henrique crossed his arms.
“Oh,” said Maurício. “‘We’ means ‘me.’”
* * *
It had taken months, but they found the trees, trained and recruited rubber tappers, and went to work. The rubber tapping operation was nothing like a sugar plantation. The rubber trees were widely separated, perhaps one or two in an acre, and paths, often circuitous, had to be hacked out to connect them. Each tapper—seringueiro—developed several routes, and walked one route each day. A route might connect fifty to a hundred trees.
Henrique and Maurício made periodic trips to collect the rubber, and bring the seringueiros their pay, usually in the form of trade goods. And they also took advantage of the opportunity to spot-check that they were following instructions.
“Are we there yet?” Maurício asked.
“Almost. Yes. Pull in over there.” It was a short walk to the trail.
Maurício stood quietly, studying the man-high herringbone pattern carved on the nearest rubber tree.
Henrique joined him. “Something wrong?”
“I was just thinking, it’s like the Amazon writ small.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look. You have the diagonal cuts. Those are like the tributaries. And they feed into the vertical channel, the main river. First on one side, then on the other.”
Henrique considered Maurício’s metaphor. “And the cup at the bottom, where the latex collects, that’s the ocean.” He walked over to the trunk, and felt the cuts. “We have a good tapper, here. He’s getting flow, but the cuts are still pretty shallow. We won’t know for sure until next year, but I don’t think he’s harmed the tree significantly.”
“We really need something better than knives and hatchets for making the cuts the right depth.”
“I agree. In fact I said so in the letter that went home with the last shipment. But I have no idea what sort of tool would do the job.”
“Are we done here?”
“Well . . . I want to talk to this seringueiro. Perhaps give him a little bonus. Word will get around, and the other tappers will try to emulate him.”
They waited for the tapper assigned to this route to appear. Even though they knew the direction from which he would be coming, and were watching and listening for him, they had little warning. One moment, there was nothing but the green of the forest, and the next, he was standing ten feet away, appraising them.
They greeted him, and he relaxed. They offered the Indian some water, and he took a quick swig and set to work. He deftly cut a new set of diagonal grooves, slightly below the ones cut the time before, and rubbed his finger over them.
Henrique complimented him on his work, and handed him a string of glass beads. The seringueiro held them up in the sunlight, laughed, and fastened them around his upper arm. He gave the two Belémistas a wave and headed on to the next tree on his route.
The visitors returned to their canoe and paddled on. That evening, they were able to witness the climax of the seringueiros’ daily routine.
“Here, look,” one said, handing them a large gourd. He had made a second round of his trees in the afternoon, collecting the latex from the cups. Henrique dipped his finger in the milk to test its consistency, and passed it on to Maurício. Maurício rolled his eyes, but dutifully accepted the vessel. He made a pretense of drinking from it, which greatly amused the Indian.
It was time for the next step. The Indian dipped a wooden paddle inside, coating it with the “milk.” He then held it in the smoke of a fire.
“This is exciting,” Maurício said. “Like watching paint dry.”
The first coat of latex slowly hardened into rubber, and the tapper put the rubber-coated paddle back in the gourd. He repeated the process, building up the mass, until it had reached the desired thickness for a rubber “biscuit.”
He then pried it off the paddle, and handed it to Henrique. Henrique nodded to Maurício, who handed the Indian some brightly dyed cloth.
“Time to call it a night,” Henrique said. Maurício agreed.
Henrique pointed. “There’s a good place for you to hang up your bed.” Maurício walked over, hammock in hand, to the trees that Henrique had marked out. He tied it to one trunk, and was ready to fasten it to the other, when he suddenly stopped short. A moment later, he was hurriedly untying the hammock.
Henrique was laughing.
“Very funny,” Maurício commented. “I haven’t been in the rainforest as often as you, but I don’t fall for the same trick twice.” One of the trees in question was notorious because it often served as a nest for a breed of ants of malignant disposition. It was commonly used in practical jokes on greenhorns.
Maurício sniffed haughtily. “As punishment for your crime, I am going to read you the poem I wrote last night.”
* * *
The men were getting bored. And irritable. There had been two knife fights a day for the past week. Bento Maciel Parente, the Younger, knew something had to be done.
“Time for a coreira,” he announced. His people were delighted. They so enjoyed hunting. As they readied their canoes, one man accidentally knocked down another. What a few hours earlier would have led to another duel, was laughed off. Clearly, Bento had made the right decision.
Bento had scarred himself like a native warrior, but he was no friend to the Indians. Like his father and his brother, he was a slaver.
It took a bit of time to find a suitable Indian village. At last they found one which, according to his scouts, was in the throes of a festival. The kind that involved imbibing large quantities of fermented drink laced with hallucinogens.
Bento watched as one villager after another collapsed to the ground. At last he waved his men forward. Their first target was the place where the Indians had stacked their bows. They cut the bow strings and threw the weapons into the fire. Then they started shooting. The snores were replaced by screams.
Bento nodded approvingly. “Kill the fathers first, enjoy the virgins afterward,” he reminded his band. They didn’t need the reminder; and half their work was done already. They laughed as they chased down the women.
* * *
The da Costa family had helped finance some of the sugar mills in Bahia, and it made arrangements for the sugar boats, en route to Lisbon, to stop in Belém and see if Henrique had any rubber for pickup. Those ships came up the coast monthly . . . assuming they weren’t picked off by Dutch privateers near Recife. And the captains didn’t mind the stopover too much; it wasn’t out of their way and they could take on food and water.
The visits had increased Henrique’s popularity in Belém. The town mostly exported tobacco, cotton, and dye wood, but not enough to warrant regular contact. There was some sugarcane grown in the area, but it was used locally to make liquor. So Belém was a backwater compared to Recife. Before rubber tapping began, a whole year could go by without a vessel coming into port.
Henrique was under orders to expand production, but to do that he needed to find more rubber trees, and more Indians to milk them. He hoped that the town leaders, who were mostly plantation owners, would help him now. They had looked down on him for years as a mateiro, a woodsman, and a small-time merchant. The stuttering hadn’t helped, either.
* * *
“Henrique, I am astonished,” said Francisco de Sousa. He was the president of the Municipal Chamber of Belém. “I never would have expected a bachelor, in Belém no less, to have such an elegant dinner presentation.”
“Th-th-thank you, Cavaleiro Francisco. It is in large part my late m-m-mother’s legacy.”
“I particularly like your centerpiece,” his wife added.
“It is a family . . . heirloom.” The piece in question was a massive flowerpot.
Henrique had hired extra servants for the occasion. They brought in one serving after another. First came a mingau porridge, followed by a farinha-sprinkled pirarucu, caught earlier that day. There were Brazil nuts, palm hearts, and mangoes, too. The meal ended with a sweet tapioca tortilha.
“So what are you doing with those Indians?”
Henrique had known this question would come, and had rehearsed his answer with Maurício, to make sure he could deliver it smoothly.
“There is a tree that produces a milky sap. They tap the tree, a bit as you would a pine tree to collect turpentine. The sap hardens into a substance which is waterproof, and can stretch and . . . bounce.” Grrr, Henrique thought. I almost made it through my spiel. I hate B’s.
“Bounce?”
“Wait.” He left, and returned with a rubber ball. He dropped it, and it returned to his waiting hand, much to their amazement.
“So, there’s a market for this?”
“Somewhat. The rubber can be used to make hats and b-b-boots to protect you from the rain. And I understand that it can be applied in some way to ordinary cloth so that the fabric stays dry, but I don’t how that’s done.
“I could produce and sell more, if only I had enough tappers.”
“Perhaps I can help you there. I can demand labor from the Indians at the aldeia of Cameta. We just need to agree on a price.”
* * *
“What are you doing here, B-B-Bento?” Henrique had seen the slaver, followed by several of his buddies, saunter into the village clearing. Henrique kept his hand near the hilt of his facão.
“Just paying a friendly visit to these Indian friends of yours, H-H-Henrique,” Bento said, imitating Henrique’s stutter as usual.
“You’ve been making life difficult for folks, Henrique. I hear you’re paying your tappers ten varas of cloth a month. It’s making it tough to get Indians to do real work.”
“Ten varas isn’t much, Bento.” A vara was about thirty-three inches. The largesse had not entirely been of Henrique’s choosing, although he was known to be sympathetic to the Indians; he had specific instructions about wages from Lisbon.
“It is when the Indians are accustomed to working for four. Or three. Or two.”
“Or none, in your case.”
“Yes, well, it’s my natural charisma. Anyway, dear Henrique, you want to watch you don’t end up like Friar Cristovão de Lisboa.” Cristovão had preached a sermon against settlers who abused the Indians, and later someone had shot at him.
“I assure you that I am extremely careful.” Henrique’s own men had in the meantime flanked Bento’s party. Bento affected not to notice, but several of his men were shifting their eyes back and forth, trying to keep track of Henrique’s allies.
“So I thought I’d have a palaver with the big chief here. Mebbe he’s got some enemies he’d like to ransom.” If a Portuguese bought a prisoner condemned to ritual execution, he was entitled to the former captive’s life; that is, he had acquired a slave. An “Indian of the cord.”
“You know the Tapajós don’t ransom. How many times have you tried this?”
“Aw, can’t hurt to ask. And look at this bee-yoo-tiful cross I brought the chief, as a present. Hey chief, you want this? It would look real sweet right in the center of your village.”
The chief gave Henrique a questioning look. Henrique shook his head, fractionally.
“Sorry, no,” said the chief. “It is too beautiful for our poor village, it would make everything else look drab.”
Henrique thought, Good for you. The cross was a scam. If the cross fell, or was allowed to fall into disrepair, then it was evidence that the tribe opposed the Catholic Church, and war upon it would be just. Leading, of course, to the enslavement of the survivors. The Tapajós were a strong tribe, and the slavers so far had been leery of attacking them, but that could change.
“Well, I can see I’m not welcome here today,” said Bento. “I’ll go make my own camp. But remember, Henrique, there’s always tomorrow.”
* * *
Whump! Henrique ducked, just in time, and took cover. He looked around, trying to spot the shooter. As he did so, one part of his mind wondered what had been shot at him. The sound hadn’t been quite that of a bullet, or an arrow, or even a slingshot. More like a grenade exploding, although that made no sense at all.
It happened again. Whump! Suddenly, he realized that the Indian tappers were completely ignoring the sound. With the exception of one, who was laughing his head off.
Henrique rose cautiously. “What’s making that sound?” Laughing Boy pointed upward at the fruits hanging from the rubber tree, and then down at the ground. It was thus that Henrique discovered just how the rubber tree spreads its seeds.
His superiors in Lisbon would be very pleased. Henrique had received precise instructions to collect seeds, if he found them. Henrique set the Indians to work.
Belém do Pará, Early 1634 (In Rainy Season)
Henrique fumbled with the door, and stepped into his home. He stumbled. Looking down, he saw that he had tripped over a cracked vase.
It was no ordinary vase. It was Henrique’s magnificent flower pot. When it wasn’t gracing his dining room, it reposed in a case in his foyer. His housekeeper, apparently, had taken it out to clean it, dropped it, and then fled the house.
Henrique blanched. His reaction had nothing to do with the cost of the piece, or even its sentimental value.
Did she see the secret compartment? he wondered.
He was hopeful that she hadn’t. He studied it carefully. What he found wasn’t good. The vase wasn’t merely cracked; a piece had broken off and been reset. Lifting it off again, he could see into the compartment. Unless the woman were completely devoid of curiosity, she would have looked inside. And what she would have seen would have been far too revealing. A b’samin spice box. A small goblet. And, most damning of all, a miniature hanukkiya. The housekeeper was a caboclo, a half-Indian, and had certainly received enough religious instruction at an aldeia to know what that signified.
It was the hanukkiya, a silver candelabra, that was missing. And that led to some fevered speculations. Had she taken it as evidence, to show to the authorities? If so, his hours were numbered.
Henrique thrust his facão into his belt sheath, and barred the door. He loaded a musket, and set it close by.
The soldiers would be sent to arrest him. There was no inquisitor in Belém, but an inspector would be sent from Lisbon. Henrique would be questioned, tortured. He would be called upon to repent his heresy, and he would refuse. Eventually they would classify him as a recalcitrant, and the Inquisition would recommend his execution. He would don the black sanbenito, tastefully decorated with pictures of flames and devils, and be paraded to the place of execution. He would be tied to the stake and—
Wait a moment. Perhaps she was planning to melt it down, knowing that he wouldn’t dare report a theft?
Of course, even if cupidity had triumphed over piety, he was in trouble. Unless she could convert it to an innocuous ingot herself, she would have to recruit an assistant, who might alert the Church. And even if she didn’t arouse any suspicion, life wouldn’t be the same. She might blackmail him, or denounce him if he did something to displease her.
As a secret Jew, Henrique had known that his life might come to this turning point. It was time to get moving.
There was a knock at the door. Henrique put the musket on full cock. “Who’s there?”
“Maurício.”
“Are you alone?”
“Yes.” His voice sounded puzzled, not nervous or fearful.
“Bide a moment.” Henrique uncocked the weapon, and set it down again. He unbarred the door, took a quick look at the street past Maurício, and pulled his servant into the room.
“What—”
“Bar the door again,” Henrique said. “I am glad you returned in time.” Maurício had been off on an errand to Cameta.
Maurício fiddled with the door. “I hope you have a good explanation.”
Henrique started throwing provisions into a sack. Cassava bread. Beef jerky. Acai fruit. “I have to flee for my life. Actually, we both do.”
“What’s wrong?” Maurício asked. Henrique told him.
Maurício raised his eyebrows. “I certainly don’t want to see you get burned as a heretic. But why exactly do I have to flee? Can’t you just, oh, tie me up so I can swear that I wasn’t complicit in your crimes?”
“Sure. But they would probably put you to the torture anyway, you being my long-faithful servant and all.
“Even if they didn’t, the Church will seize my assets. And where would that put you?”
Maurício blanched. Under Portuguese law, an ex-slave could be re-enslaved by the creditors if his former master went into debt.
“Is there a ship about to leave for Lisbon?” Maurício asked. “We could board it, and outrun the bad news. Once in the city, we could lose ourselves in the crowd, perhaps sail someplace outside the reach of the Inquisition. France, perhaps.”
Henrique shook his head. “A sugar boat came through two weeks ago.” They didn’t have a regular schedule, but they came up the coast once a month, on average. There was no reason for another to appear within the next week.
Henrique pried up a floorboard, probed underneath with a stick. In Amazonia, you didn’t search a dark opening with your hand. Not unless you were fond of snakes. He pulled out a pouch, which held money and jewels. He might need to bribe someone to make good his escape.
“Could we reach Pernambuco? Or Palmares?” There was a Dutch enclave in Pernambuco. And, farther south, in Palmares, there was a mocambo of runaway slaves.
“We’d never make it by sea; both the wind and the current would be against us.” That was, in fact, why Maranhão had been made a separate state, reporting directly to Lisbon, in 1621; it was too difficult to communicate with Salvador do Bahia in the south. Coasters did go as far south as São Luis, the capital of Maranhão, but taking one would just delay the inevitable. The authorities in Belém would send word to São Luis, and the latter was too small a place to hide for long.
“And the overland route is completely unexplored. Nor would the map from the future aid us there.”
Maurício had started collecting his own possessions. Mostly books. “Then why not sail north? There are English, and Dutch and French, in Guiana and the Caribbean. We might even get picked up en route by a Dutch cruiser.”
Henrique was sure he was forgetting something important. Ah, yes, a hammock. You didn’t want to sleep on the ground in the rainforest. Not if you didn’t like things crawling over your skin. Or burrowing into it. Hammocks were a native invention, which the Portuguese had adopted. And that reminded Henrique of a few other native items he needed. He gathered those up, too.
“Henrique, are you going to answer me?”
“Going north is what the garrison would expect us to do. And before you ask, they would be equally on guard against the possibility that friends would hide us, and smuggle us onto the next sugar boat to Lisbon.”
“So, what are we going to do? Did the people from the future teach your family how we might turn ourselves invisible?”
“In a way. We will flee into the Amazon, lose ourselves among the trees of the vast rainforest. Go native. At least for a time.”
Maurício wailed. “But I’ll run out of reading matter!”
* * *
Captain Diogo Soares shook his head. His good friend, Henrique Pereira da Costa, a Judaizer! He could scarcely credit it. Perhaps it was a mistake, a dreadful mistake. Although Henrique’s flight was certainly evidence of guilt.
Diogo leaned back in his chair. Even an innocent man, if he thought he was to be the target of an accusation of heresy, might flee. Especially one with enemies, who might try to influence the inquisitors. Everyone knew that Henrique had enemies. The younger Bento Maciel Parente, for example.
The captain’s superiors thought that Henrique had boarded a southbound coaster. A fishing boat had been commandeered, and was heading down to São Luis already, to stop what boats it found, and also warn the authorities. The governor of Maranhão could also send a guarda costa back up the coast, and make sure that Henrique hadn’t tried sailing north, to Guiana.
Nonetheless, Diogo’s sense of duty demanded that he consider other possibilities. Such as Henrique taking refuge with one of the Indian tribes. One of the Tapajós tribes, perhaps. It was fortunate for Henrique that Bento was off on a slaving expedition, as Bento would be delighted to bring Henrique out of the rainforest, dead or alive. Probably the former.
But Diogo was obligated to cover that avenue of escape. Exercising appropriate discretion as to who he sent, of course. “Sergeant, call in all the soldiers who are on punishment detail.”
In due course, the sergeant returned, followed by six soldiers whose principal point of similarity was a hangdog expression.
“Ah, yes, I recognize all of you. And remember your records. Which of you degredados is senior?”
One of them slowly raised his hand. The others edged away from him.
“You are Bernaldo, right? I remember you, now.” Bernaldo winced. “You will be in command of this little patrol. You are hereby promoted to corporal in token of your good fortune. You are to go out into the Amazon and arrest Henrique Pereira da Costa, who has been accused of heresy.”
“But how will we find him, sir?”
“Did your mother drop you on your head when you were an infant? You are looking for a lone white man in a canoe. Or perhaps in one of the Indian villages. Or wandering a trail. It shouldn’t take long to locate him. Sail to Forte do Gurupa first, put them on alert.” The fort, which guarded the south channel of the Amazon Delta, had been captured from the Dutch in 1623.
“How long should we look for him?”
“If you come back in less than six months, you better have him with you. Or you will be on your way to where Brazil and Maranhãos send their undesirables. Angola.”
They slowly filed out. “Good,” said Diogo to the sergeant. “That solves more problems than one.”
* * *
“I still think we should make a sail,” Maurício said. “It’s not easy for the two of us to row upstream. With a sail, we can take advantage of the trade wind.” He let go of the paddle for a moment, opened and closed his hands a few times to limber them up, and took hold of the wood once again.
“And you brought the cloth, after all. You can cut some branches and vines for the mast and stays.”
Henrique shook his head. “A sail will be visible from a great distance. And the natives don’t use sails.”
“Not before Europeans came. But a few do.”
“Not enough, just those who are in service. It would still draw attention. Even if the searchers didn’t think it was our sail, they would approach the canoe, to ask if we had been seen, or perhaps to recruit more rowers. If they got close enough—” Henrique drew his finger across his neck.
“Then why don’t we just head upriver with the tide, and lie doggo in a cove the rest of the time. We need to conserve our strength.”
“It will be easier soon. We’ll leave this channel, then cut across the várzea, the flooded forest.”
Henrique wiped his forehead. “We’re lucky that we had to make our escape during the rainy season. If this had happened a few months later, we would have been limited to the regular channels, and they could catch us more easily.
“And there’s less of a current in the várzea, too.”
“Also, less in the way of anything to eat. The land animals have fled to high ground, and the fish are hiding in the deep water.”
“We have enough food to get us to a friendly village.”
“And another thing. It’s easier to get lost in the várzea.”
“I never get lost.”
* * *
“Okay, we’re lost.”
* * *
The good news was that Henrique and Maurício had made it back to the main channel of the Amazon. There, it was hard to get lost; you always knew which direction was upstream.
The bad news was that they had emerged, closer than Henrique had planned, to the fort at Gurupa. They had to worry about being spotted, not just by Portuguese troops, but also by the Indians who traded with the fort. They might pass the word on. And they would be a lot harder to avoid.
* * *
“You, there!” shouted Corporal Bernaldo. He was addressing a lanky Indian, sitting in a small canoe, and holding a fishing rod. His companion seemed to be asleep. “Speak-ee Portuguese? Have you seen a white man? About so tall?” He stood up, and gestured, almost losing his balance. The Indian shook his head.
“Ask him if he has any fish to sell?” one of his fellow soldiers prompted.
“You have fish?”
The Indian pulled up the line, showing an empty fishhook.
“Ah, let’s stop wasting time, we’ve got plenty of rowing to do.” They continued upstream, and rowed out of sight.
The apparent sleeper opened his eyes. “I thought they’d never leave,” Maurício said.
Henrique smiled. “Well, you were a cool one.”
“Cool? I’d have shit in my pants . . . if you had let me wear my pants, that is.”
Henrique and Maurício had hidden their European clothes, and Henrique had painted himself with black genipapo. The vegetable dye not only made him look like a native, at least from a distance, but also protected him from insects. Both wore loincloths, which observers would assume was a concession to European morality, but which would in fact conceal that they didn’t follow the native custom of having their pubic hair plucked.
Now that the pursuit was in front of them, they could take it easy for a while. But not too easy. There were other soldiers, after all.
* * *
Corporal Bernaldo and his men, with six impressed Indian rowers, strained at the oars of their longboat, fighting against the current. They had set aside their helmets and cuirasses, so their heads were bare, and their torsos protected only by leather vests. These exposed the sleeves of their shirts, cotton dyed with red urucum.
As the western sky darkened, they beached their craft and wandered inland, looking for a suitable campsite. They couldn’t see more than fifteen feet or so in front of them, so it wasn’t an easy task.
They gradually became aware of a rumbling sound.
“Sounds like rapids,” João suggested.
“Perhaps it’s an elephant,” said António.
“There are no elephants in the Amazon.”
“That’s what you think.”
The Indians became agitated. Bernaldo tried to figure out what they were talking about, but their excitement made them more difficult to understand, and Bernaldo was the sort of person who felt that if you couldn’t understand his question, the solution was to repeat it, louder.
After a few verbal exchanges which satisfied no one, the Indians fled.
“What’s was that all about?” João asked.
“What do you expect?” Bernaldo shrugged. “They’re cowardly savages.”
António wondered whether the natives knew something that they didn’t. He also knew better than to say anything.
They could now hear a clicking sound.
“Giant crickets?”
“What’s that stench? Some kind of skunk?”
Several dozen white-lipped peccaries burst out of the undergrowth. They were piglike animals, each about two feet high and about fifty pounds. They weren’t happy to discover the Portuguese party. Had they not been clicking their tusks to warn other creatures to get out of their way? The herd included several youngsters, which made the adults especially temperamental.
Peccaries are also known as javelinas, because of their formidable weaponry. They charged. Manuel stumbled, and was gored to death. António and João tried scooting up the same tree. António, already on edge, had made his move earlier, and made it up without difficulty, but João lost his hold, and slid down. An angry male swung its tusks, slicing open his leg. João screamed, but was able to get hold of António’s outstretched hand, and was pulled out of the immediate danger. The other three soldiers were on the periphery of the peccaries’ stampede, and they simply ran out of the way.
It was hours before they were reunited. The survivors congratulated each other on their narrow escape.
“Where are the Indians?” asked Bernaldo.
António was studying the riverbank. “More importantly, where’s the boat?”
“Dios mio!” Plainly, the Indians had decided to row off without them. The five survivors were stranded in the rainforest.
* * *
Despite his perilous situation, Henrique was happy. According to his reckoning, today was a Friday, and at sunset he intended to celebrate the Sabbath as best he could. He had improvised Sabbath candles from the stems of a resinous plant, and he had allowed a fruit juice to ferment to make wine. He would have to use the concavity of a stone as a kiddush cup.
He had no bread, let alone challah, unfortunately. But he had a tortilha made from manioc flour, and that would have to do. The Lord would understand when Henrique uttered the prayer, “Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the universe, who brings forth bread from the earth.”
“So, do I pray, too?” Maurício asked.
“Sure.”
“I don’t know. Is it a good idea for me to call God’s attention to us? You’re a heretic, after all.”
“Maurício . . .”
“He might send an angel to tell those idiot soldiers where to find us.”
“Maurício . . .”
“Or perhaps he’ll just hurl down a lightning bolt.” Maurício darted a quick look at the threatening sky.
“Or—”
Maurício’s mouth was open, and Henrique deftly thrust a tortilha where it would do the most good.
* * *
“Just a little farther,” Henrique said.
“Are you sure you know where we’re going?”
“Of course I’m sure.”
“That’s what you said about the ‘shortcut’ through the várzea.”
“This is different.” Near the mouth of the Maicuru, they had made a detour north, to find a small hill overlooking the Amazon. There, in a patch of upland forest, Henrique had prudently secreted a cache of trade goods and other useful items. Just in case he ever had to make a run for it.
“I wonder if this hill of yours should be considered an outlier of the Serra de Tumucumaque. According to that fabulous map of yours, the source of the Maicuru is there, about one hundred miles to our north.
“You know, perhaps we should backtrack to the Paru. We could cross the mountains over to the Litani, and the Maroni, and end up in what the map called French Guiana. Not that the French are there yet.”
Henrique grunted. “Keep walking, I want to reach the cache by nightfall.” The sun was just setting. And night came quickly in the tropics.
“Or perhaps,” Maurício continued, “we should head up the Trombetas and the Mapuera, cross the Serra do Acarai to the Essequibo, to Dutch territory.”
“Serra up, serra down,” Henrique muttered. He stopped for a moment to adjust his warishi, his backpack. Maurício walked past him; they were on a well-defined game trail.
“According to the maps,” Maurício said, “they can’t be much more than three thousand feet high. That can’t be hard, can it? Hannibal took elephants across the Alps, after all.
“Not that I’ve ever climbed a mountain, mind you. Unless this hill counts. Have you, Henrique? Climbed a mountain, I mean?” Henrique didn’t respond.
“Henrique? Did you hear—”
“Freeze!” Henrique shouted.
Maurício froze.
“Don’t move your arms, or your head. Not even a muscle. You can move your eyes . . . slowly. Look a little above, and slightly to your left.”
Maurício scanned the foreground. Then he saw it, a jararaca verde, a leaf-green-colored viper, perhaps two feet long, hanging from a branch nearby. Close enough to grab. Not that grabbing a fer-de-lance of any kind was one of the options Maurício was considering.
“Very slowly, put your left toe back . . . not so far . . . now slowly, bring your heel down, without bobbing your head. Good, now, same with the right. Keep your eyes on the snake at all times.”
The fer-de-lance, untimely awakened by Maurício, was eyeing him suspiciously.
“Can’t you kill the snake?” The words were mumbled; Maurício was trying not to move his jaw as he spoke.
“With a machete? While it’s hanging on a tree? Not a chance. Need to club it on the neck, while it’s on the ground. With a long club, mind you.
“Keep up your little dance backward, please.”
Gradually, Maurício inched away from the serpent.
“Okay, you can relax.”
Maurício fainted. Henrique poured a bit of water on his lips and forehead. After a few minutes, Maurício revived. “How did I miss it?”
“In the rainforest, you can see perhaps fifteen feet ahead. But you can cover that distance in ten seconds, even at a walk. You can’t afford to relax your vigilance, even for a moment.”
Maurício, his spirits somewhat restored, harrumphed. “You’re just looking for an excuse to keep me from talking.”
* * *
Bento grinned. “So dear Henrique is a pig-loving Jew. Well, it is my duty, my sacred duty as a son of the Church, to bring him home and teach him the error of his ways. Or perhaps the other way around, yes?”
His fellow thugs laughed. Bento had just returned to Belém from a slaving run down the Tocantins, and in town there was much gossip about Henrique’s disappearance, and the stymied search for him.
“We’ll take three boats, I think. Might as well do a little enlistment of native labor, while we’re up the Amazon. Be ready to leave at the crack of dawn tomorrow.”
* * *
“Sing, Maurício.”
“I thought you didn’t like my singing.”
“I don’t. But you have a loud voice, and that’s what we need right now.”
“How come?”
“We’ve never been in this part of the sertão. This is a well-marked trail, almost certainly leading to a village. We want them to know we’re coming.”
“But wouldn’t the Indians sense us? Being wise in the ways of the bush, and all.”
“Let me rephrase that. We want them to know that we know that they know we’re coming.”
“I am not sure that was an improvement. You are as clear as a philosopher.”
“If they think we’re trying to sneak up on them, they’ll think we are up to no good. And either flee, or prepare an ambush for us. Whereas, if we approach them openly, they’ll assume we’ve come to trade.”
A couple of dogs came down the trail and barked at Henrique and Maurício. They stopped, and let the dogs sniff them. Then they continued walking, and the dogs, still barking occasionally, followed.
The village was just a circle of conical huts. Various animals milled about the central clearing, but no people were there. Occasionally, a head would look out of a hut, then pull back in.
“Hey, that was a pretty girl, over there,” Maurício exclaimed. “Hope she comes out again.”
And, a moment later, “Ugh, look at that crone. Hope she’s not the mom, wouldn’t want her for a mother-in-law.”
Henrique didn’t respond; he was studying the village. “Maurício, we need to leave. Now.”
“What about trading for food? What about getting better acquainted with the young ladies?”
“Didn’t you notice? There are only women in this village.”
“Hey, you’re right. Wow, we found the village of the Amazon women warriors. The ones Father Cristobal de Acuna wrote about. And Sir Walter Raleigh. There are only two of us, so we will certainly enjoy favors of their queens. For a whole month. And—”
Henrique grabbed Maurício by both shoulders and forcibly rotated him about-face. “What it means, Maurício, is that their men are off on the warpath, and we really, really don’t want to be here when they come back.”
* * *
Henrique and Maurício made it safely back to their canoe, and pressed on. They felt safe enough, at this point, to erect a makeshift sail, so they could travel more quickly. It didn’t seem likely that they were still being pursued.
A few days later, they saw a large canoe overtaking them from the south. They hastily took down their mast, but it was a false alarm. The canoe was crewed by Manao Indians. The Manao were great traders, criss-crossing the central Amazon. The Portuguese had first encountered them on the Solimoes, the “River of Poisons”—so-called because the tribes there used poison arrows. Rumor had it that the Manao came from far to the north, way up the Rio Negro, but no Portuguese had visited their homeland.
Henrique raised his hands, palms open, signaling peaceful intent. The Manao greeted him, and, politely, asked his business in their region. He said that he was looking to trade and, perhaps find a path to the Great Water in the north. He gave them a few beads, and they offered him some cachiri to drink.
This particular trading party was returning from a run up the Madeira, one of the tributaries on the right bank of the Amazon. That night, Henrique, Maurício and the Manao camped together, on an island, and Henrique questioned them about what tribes lived along the Madeira, and what goods they had to offer.
Maurício had other concerns. He eagerly asked them whether they had seen any women warriors there, and they told him that it was a nonsensical idea. “No more cachiri for you,” one suggested kindly.
Maurício whispered to Henrique. “Perhaps these Manao haven’t traveled widely enough. Someone else at the village may have heard of the Amazons. After all, Acuna and Raleigh reported them.”
Henrique was unimpressed. “Perhaps Father Cristobal de Acuna and Sir Walter Raleigh were a pair of bald-faced liars.”
The Manao invited Henrique and Maurício to follow them to their village. This was located near where the Solimoes joined with the Rio Negro to form the mighty Amazon. The site had been abandoned, for some mystical reason, by the local Taruma Indians. The Manao had first used it as a trading camp and it had gradually evolved into a village. It was definitely a good location for traders.
And for refugees from Portuguese law, it was a place to gather news of pursuit.
Summer 1634
Henrique raised his eyebrows. “You sure you want to go through with this?”
Maurício continued painting himself for the ceremony. “Coqui told me that I have to, if I want to marry Kasiri. Or any other of the village girls, for that matter.”
Henrique knew who Kasiri was. Wherever she walked, she was followed by a crowd of admirers. Including, most recently, Maurício. Henrique did have to admit that Maurício seemed to have eclipsed the former favorite. The lure of the exotic perhaps.
As soon as Maurício discovered that Kasiri’s name meant “moon,” he had started composing poetry in her honor. Fortunately, it was all in Portuguese.
These ruminations only occupied a fraction of a second. “Uh, huh,” Henrique said. “Kasiri’s older brother really wants to help you get inside her loincloth. Right.”
“He’s always been polite to me.”
“Are you sure you understand what this ritual involves?”
“I just have to let them put a few ants on me. And not complain. No big deal, I’ve had ants crawl onto my hammock and bite me. Thanks to you. If ants are so bad, why did you try to get me to hang my hammock on that ‘greenhorn’ tree?”
Henrique decided not to answer with the truth, which was that after years in the wilderness, he had acquired the native taste for practical jokes. “Have it your way. At least you’re doing the ant ceremony, not the one which uses wasps. Remember, it’s all a waste if you cry out in pain, or flinch away.”
Maurício went off the join the other initiates; in other words, to dance and get drunk, not necessarily in that order. The village maidens brought them gourd after gourd of cachiri, which was made from fermented manioc root. And encouraged their dancing and drinking with flirtatious looks and gestures. At first Maurício was self-conscious about being in the company of youths little more than half his age. But the cachiri soon took care of that problem. Well before the three days of ceremonial boozing were completed.
* * *
On the third day, Henrique went off with the party that was to prepare the marake. The Indians had picked out, in advance, a likely ant colony, and their first task was to drive the ants out into the open. They blocked all save two tunnels, and blew tobacco smoke into one of them. That did the trick. The ants emerged and were carried, on top of leaves or sticks, to a calabash. They were dumped inside, and found themselves awash in an infusion of roucou leaves. This dulled them satisfactorily.
One of the shaman’s apprentices used a parrot feather to carefully position each of the two hundred or so somnolent red ants into the mesh at the center of the damp marake, their heads all facing the same direction. It dried, tightening the mesh about them, before they recovered. The apprentice gingerly carried the armed marake back to the chief’s hut, where it would remain until noon.
* * *
Maurício felt like he was flying through the air as he danced in the big circle. I wonder what they put in the cachiri? “I am a bird,” he shouted. “A kokoi, a hawk.” He looked at Kasiri. “Shall I swoop down on you?” he cried. She giggled. Her brother, Coqui, also seemed amused for some reason.
The initiates were called into a line, standing in front of a great trench with bark stretched across its entire length. They rhythmically beat upon the bark with sticks, summoning the Sun God.
At noon, with the sun at the zenith, the oldest woman in the village tottered forward. She picked up the marake, and pointed at Maurício.
“You first. Arms up, feet apart.” He complied, still in a hallucinatory daze.
She raised the marake, and put the business end against his cheeks for a few seconds. Then his arms. His dreamy expression started to show signs of uncertainty, but fortunately he didn’t show any pain. His chest. The outside of his thighs.
“Did they warn you that some initiates die in this ordeal?” she asked. He didn’t respond.
She paused. Then, very deliberately, she put the marake against the inside of his left thigh. She gave the back a tap, and then held it in place. Ten seconds. Maurício’s eyes widened. Twenty seconds. Each ant bite was a lance of fire, mortifying his flesh.
“Kasiri is supposed to marry my grandson, did you know that? Her grandmother and I had it all planned out, when they were both little. You, a stranger, of no great wealth or skill, are trying to spoil our plans.”
Maurício’s eyes were tearing now.
“I can’t help feeling a bit . . . resentful.”
Thirty seconds. His breath was unsteady.
“Of course, if you fail the test, there’s no problem.”
Forty seconds.
“And I take this marake away, and the pain will be over.”
Maurício didn’t notice it, but there was angry muttering in the background. And suddenly he heard Kasiri’s voice, strident with rage, but he couldn’t understand what she said.
The old woman pulled the marake away. “Passed,” she acknowledged regretfully. “Next.”
Maurício looked at Henrique. “See, that was nothing,” Maurício declared. Then he fainted.
* * *
It had taken a week for Maurício to recover from the vicious bites. His only consolation had been the solicitousness with which Kasiri had applied oil to the inflamed areas of his body. Still, he had had to be real careful how he walked until the salves finished their work.
Maurício and Kasiri, arm in arm, strolled down the sandy beach where her people went bathing. They passed a small stand of palm trees and, abruptly, Coqui stepped out in front of them.
They halted. Coqui, his lips compressed, arms akimbo, watched them silently. Maurício waited for Coqui to say something. Kasiri, for once, was also quiet.
Suddenly, Coqui started hopping about, bowlegged, his hands on the inside of his thighs, yelling “ahh, ahh, ahh.” After a minute of this, he exclaimed, “You very funny. You now my friend, Ant-Man.” He walked off, laughing.
* * *
“Wake up, Maurício.” Maurício didn’t stir. Henrique gave the hammock a push, and it started swinging wildly, to and fro, dumping Maurício to the ground.
“What the hell, Henrique!”
“Time to pack. A trading party came back from downriver. Said that they saw three big canoes tied to trees, and many men camped nearby. Best guess is that they’ll be here soon, perhaps tomorrow or the next day.”
“An entrada?” That was the term for an expedition whose principal purpose was purchasing or capturing slaves.
“They did ask whether the Manao had any captives to sell. But what they were most interested in, was whether any white man, alone or accompanied by a black man, had been seen recently.”
“Uh-oh. Did the Indians reveal our presence?”
“They couldn’t; this party had left the village way before we left Belém. But there’s more. They described the leader.”
“And?”
“He’s our old pal, Bento Maciel Parente.”
“I’ll start packing.”
* * *
Maurício broke the news to Kasiri. “So I have to flee at once. I love you, but I don’t want to put you in any danger. So I guess this is goodbye—”
She slapped him. “Don’t be stupid. I’m coming. And you’re letting me come, or I’ll kill you myself.” She squirmed out of his embrace and started ordering her family around, collecting the supplies that would do them the most good.
The plan was to go up the Rio Branco and the Takutu. The latter did a hairpin turn, and then ran parallel to a Guianan river, the Rupununi. The markings on the map suggested that the ground there was relatively flat. In fact, the Manao told him that there was a lake that appeared and disappeared there. It sound a bit improbable, but Henrique was willing to grant the possibility that the land between the two rivers flooded during the rainy season. In any event, Henrique hoped to ride the Rupununi down to the Essequibo, and ultimately to the Dutch settlements near the mouth of that waterway.
Somewhat to everyone’s surprise, Coqui announced that he would join them. “I don’t like any of the local girls. Perhaps I’ll have better luck upriver.”
* * *
The going had been slow. During the rainy season, the water level of the Amazon and its tributaries rose, eroding the banks, and toppling forest giants. When the waters began to recede, the trunks were left behind, hindering navigation.
From time to time, Coqui and Kasiri would leave them and scout their backtrail, to see if they were being pursued.
Henrique and Maurício, left alone once again, held the canoe steady against the current, studying the latest obstruction. They could get out of the canoe, thus lightening its load, and try to push the canoe over or under the log. They could try to shift the log out of their way. Or they could beach the canoe and portage around.
Like the Indians, they didn’t much like the idea of getting into the water. There were caimans, electric eels, stingrays and piranha to worry about. Not all in the same place, of course. And when the waters were high, piranhas usually were a problem only if you were bleeding, or acted as if you were in distress.
On the other hand, the vegetation on shore looked especially nasty, with plenty of long thorns. They would have to cut their way through, and that would be extremely slow and arduous. And a giveaway to anyone following them.
“I guess we’re going to get wet,” Henrique said. They probed the bottom with their paddles, then gingerly lowered themselves into the water. They each grabbed a side of the canoe and started moving forward, shuffling their feet to minimize the stingray hazard. They looked back and forth, studying every ripple to make sure it wasn’t the wake of an inquisitive caiman.
At last, they reached the obstruction. They tentatively rocked the offending log, their attention still divided between it and the river surface. The response was an angry drumming sound.
“Down!” Henrique took a quick breath, and submerged himself.
Maurício saw what appeared to be black smoke coming over the log, and heading straight toward them. Wasps. Hundreds. Perhaps thousands. Enough to kill them both, several times over.
“Shit!” he agreed, and followed suit.
Henrique had flipped the canoe, and they both swam underneath, putting their heads in the breathing space it provided. The canoe slowly floated back downstream, away from the angry insects.
After some minutes, Henrique poked his head out of the water. No wasps attacked, so he rose further. Maurício copied him.
“Why did you overturn the canoe? We’re going to have a devil of a time finding all our belongings. And some will be ruined, for sure.”
“We had to use the canoe so we could just breathe quietly in place. If you swam underwater, in a panic, your flailing about might have attracted piranhas.” He paused. “Some things will float down to where we are now, and in an hour or so, it’ll be safe to go back and look for the stuff that dropped to the bottom. Provided we don’t rock the log, of course.”
“How come we didn’t hear the buggers? Or see them flying into and out of their nest?”
“Those were Acaba da noite, night wasps. We disturbed their beauty sleep.”
“Jeesh. They should have a sign, ‘Night workers. Day Sleepers. Do Not Disturb.’”
* * *
“Trouble,” Coqui announced. “Some of the bad people are coming up this river.”
“How many?”
“Many.”
Henrique cursed the inadequacies of the Manao counting system. “How big is their canoe?”
Coqui thought about this. “It makes two of this canoe.”
“Okay, so call it eight of them.”
Maurício piped up. “How soon will they be here?”
“One day, perhaps,” said Coqui.
“Too close for comfort,” Henrique said. “They have a heavier canoe, so the logs will slow them down more than they do us. But they have more oarsmen, so in clear stretches, they’ll be faster.”
“If they come as far as the wasp nest log, Henrique, they’ll see where we cut around. Then they’ll be sure we’re up here.”
“We need to set up an ambush.”
“I know,” said Maurício. “We can half cut through a tree, then, when they reach the vicinity of the wasp nest, fell it. It drops on the log, and rouses the wasps. And they sting the bastards to death.”
Henrique sighed. “Have you ever felled a tree before? Can you imagine how hard it is to control where it falls in a forest like this one, dense, with lianas everywhere? And if the wasps didn’t kill them all, then the wasp swarm would be between us and the survivors.
“We’ll try to kill them with arrows, not wasps.”
* * *
Henrique, Coqui and Maurício had bows, but Maurício wasn’t a particularly good archer. He was a good shot, but the musket which they had carefully preserved over the months and leagues of their flight was now entertaining the local fish life. Kasiri only had a knife, and so she had been cautioned to stay back.
The slavers’ canoe came into view. Coqui gave a bird call, to warn the others to engage, and then fired. His arrow took down the rear man, who was steering. Henrique’s shot killed the poleman in front. That threw the crew into disarray. Coqui picked off another.
The slavers were returning fire now, and Henrique’s party had to take cover. In the meantime, the slavers beached their canoe on river left. That was Henrique and Maurício’s side. There, on the strand, another of Bento’s men fell, with one arrow in his chest, and another in his left arm. The others ran into the bush.
Coqui, on the right bank of the river, grunted, and set down his bow and arrows. “Wait here,” he warned Kasiri. “Stay out of trouble.” Coqui, armed with a blowgun and the steel hatchet Maurício had given him, went downriver, and around a bend, then swam across, out of sight of the pursuers.
Henrique and Maurício had dropped their missile weapons; there were too many leaves and branches in the way. The slavers likewise realized that the time for musketry was passed; they drew their machetes.
The slavers were at a disadvantage; they hadn’t walked this ground before. Henrique and Maurício took advantage of their ignorance, making quick attacks and then disappearing. In the slavers’ rear, Coqui aimed his blow gun at the rear man, the dart hitting him in the neck. He slapped, thinking it an insect sting. A moment later, he collapsed.
Coqui picked out his second victim, and fired. But the second one cried as he fell, giving warning to the others. One turned, and Coqui had to leap quickly out of the way of a machete swing. There was no longer any question of reloading the blowgun. And the hatchet was a good weapon, but not the equal of a machete. Coqui backed up rapidly, a move that would have been dangerous for anyone lacking his wilderness senses. The machete wielder followed and, in his haste, stepped in an armadillo hole, turning his ankle. Coqui finished him off.
One of the surviving slavers decided he had enough, and fled downriver on foot, running past the boat. Coqui hesitated, then decided he couldn’t take the chance that the man would summon reinforcements. He gave chase.
Henrique and his last opponent gradually shifted deeper into the forest, out of sight of the others.
Maurício and his foe wandered onto the beach. Both were tired, and bleeding from small cuts, but neither had been able to strike a decisive blow. They circled each other warily.
One of the slavers struck down on the beach earlier was not dead, as Maurício had assumed. As soon as Maurício’s back was to him, the injured man slowly crawled to where his musket had skittered earlier in the action. It was still loaded. He only had one good hand, so he braced the musket on a rock.
Maurício’s more obvious foe could see what was happening, and did his best to keep Maurício’s attention directed forward.
The musketeer took aim at Maurício’s back . . . then slumped, an arrow in his neck.
Kasiri was holding her brother’s bow in her left hand; a fresh arrow was already in her right.
Maurício’s other foe was taken aback, and just stood, open-mouthed. Kasiri’s second shot killed him.
A few seconds later, Henrique struggled out of the bush and gave Maurício a nod. Henrique grabbed a leaf and wiped his blade clean.
“Where’s Coqui?”
Kasiri crossed the river and told them she had caught a glimpse of him heading downriver, pursuing the last of the slavers.
“We better not take chances. Grab a musket, Maurício, and I’ll get my bow.” They all concealed themselves, not knowing if more slavers might be on their way.
Soon, Coqui returned, smiling. Until he saw Kasiri, still holding the bow.
They were soon screaming bloody murder at each other.
Maurício gave Henrique an anguished look. “What are they saying? They’re talking too fast for me to make out more than one word in three.”
“He’s angry at her, because she used his bow.”
“I’m not complaining! She saved my life.”
“He says, ‘Picking up a man’s bow makes a woman sterile, everyone knows that.’ And that means that she can never marry, because by Manao law, a man and woman cannot marry until she is pregnant.”
“What about Raleigh’s Amazons? They use the bow, according to legend.” Coqui turned to look at Maurício, his face suddenly a frightening mask. He shouted an insult, and brandished his hatchet. Kasiri shoved him and did some shouting of her own.
“Ouch, you shouldn’t have mentioned that. He remembers now that you spoke of them publicly once. He thinks that Kasiri must have overheard, that you put the idea of female archery into her head. Thereby ruining her marital prospects.
“He also says that the Spanish story of the Amazons is complete nonsense, that the Spaniards must have seen one of the tribes whose men wear their hair long.”
Henrique paused to listen to Kasiri’s response. “And she said that she made her own little bow years ago and has been sneaking off and practicing with it for years. And then he said that explains why she hasn’t ever gotten pregnant, despite, uh, never mind.”
Maurício said, “I’ll settle this.”
He confronted the quarreling siblings.
“So, Coqui, you think she’s unable to bear children.” The Indian nodded.
“Well, perhaps that means that only with an Indian father. But I’m not Indian.”
She ran over and hugged him. Then dragged him off into the bushes.
* * *
“Brother, when my tummy comes out, so you know I am right and you are wrong, I expect you to make me a real bow, not the toy I had to sneak around with.” The “real bow” was six feet tall, and used eight-foot arrows.
“You mean if your tummy comes out.”
“I said, ‘when.’”
“Fine. When. In the meantime, I’m going hunting.”
* * *
“Stop tickling my toe, Kasiri. Kasiri?” Maurício awoke to find a vampire bat feeding happily on the appendage in question. “Get the fuck off my foot,” he screamed, and started kicking, to persuade it to move along.
Kicking while in a hammock isn’t recommended. Maurício tumbled to the ground, and a well-nourished vampire bat flitted off.
Fall 1634
It was an awkward time to attempt to cross from the Takutu to the Rupununi. A few months earlier, the area was completely flooded, forming Lake Amuku, and Henrique and his companions would have had an easy time canoeing across. A few months later, at the height of the dry season, and they could have abandoned their canoe and just walked across the savannah. Unfortunately, this was the transition period. Paddle and carry; paddle and carry.
Visibility was surprisingly poor, given that they were in flat country outside the rainforest. The Rupununi savannah was pockmarked with “sandpaper trees,” each six to ten feet high, and appearing every twenty yards or so.
When they spotted it, they were already too close. What they had seen was a mound, a few feet from the edge of a creek. As Amazon dwellers, they immediately recognized it as a caiman’s nest. The question that came first to mind was, where’s Mama? Unlike, say, turtles, crocodilians were quite protective of their young.
Very, very softly, they set their canoe down on the ground. Kasiri climbed one of the trees, so she could see over the bank. After a few minutes, she spotted it. “Jacaré açu. Big one. Close.”
The black caiman. The largest crocodilian of South America. Unlike birds, caiman didn’t just sit on their nests. But if they left them, they didn’t go far off. Any suspicious movement, or sound, would be investigated. And Mighty Mama’s motto was, “bite first, ask questions later.”
They signed to Kasiri. “Leave?”
“No. Too close. Wait.” She would tell them when the caiman had moved far enough away that they could slip off unnoticed.
The three males kept watch on the mound. If the mother lay down on her nest, and went to sleep, that would work, too. They could pass, at a respectful distance. Even if their passage woke her up, she probably wouldn’t charge. Probably not.
What’s going on now? thought Henrique. He had seen a disturbance on the side of the mound. It’s too early for them to hatch, I thought.
A tegu, three feet long, emerged in a puff of dirt, a black caiman egg in its mouth. It did a little victory dance.
The last spasm of dirt movement had not gone unheard. Mighty Mama threw herself out of the creek, and saw the dastardly lizard. She—all fifteen feet of her—charged.
The tegu fled. Straight toward Henrique and his companions. With Mighty Mama in hot pursuit.
Maurício gallantly, and rapidly, decided to join Kasiri. He started climbing; Kasiri extended a helping hand. Coqui ran, at right angles to the track of the approaching behemoth, and then found himself a tree of his own.
Henrique hesitated for a minute. Could he grab the tegu and throw him back toward Mighty Mama? That would make a nice distraction.
It was also an insane idea. Henrique sprinted, picking the direction opposite Coqui’s.
The tegu ran past Maurício and Kasiri’s tree. Mighty Mama, still intent on the thief, ignored the humans’ scent and kept running. The tegu was normally much faster, but it refused to let go of its prize, and that slowed it down.
Maurício and Kasiri looked at the departing beasts, then at each other. In silent accord, they dropped to the ground and ran forward, in the party’s original direction. Mighty Mama, they hoped, was sufficiently distracted at this point.
The following day, the rest of their party showed up. First Coqui, then Henrique. Of course, there was one problem. No canoe. They had to circle back and, very stealthily, carry it off. It helped that they knew where the nest was, and, equally important, where Mighty Mama liked to lurk. This time, Mighty Mama was indeed asleep on her nest, and they took pains not to disturb her.
It wasn’t long before they wondered whether it had been worth the effort. The Rupununi fed into the Essequibo, as predicted. What they didn’t predict was what the descent of the Essequibo would be like. As the river dropped out of Guiana highlands, there had been a succession of falls and rapids. Most of which had to be portaged. In Kasiri and Coqui’s home country, they would have just left their canoe upriver and taken someone else’s canoe at the end of the rough water section. They couldn’t be sure that this convenient custom applied in the Guianas, unfortunately, so they had to carry their canoe whenever they couldn’t just unload it and line it down.
Eventually, they reached the calmer waters of the lower Essequibo and were able to paddle with fewer interruptions.
Soon, Fort Kykoveral came into sight, looming above Cartabo Point. It was really a glorified watchtower, with barracks, a magazine, a storehouse, and a few private rooms. It overlooked the confluence of the Essequibo with the Mazuruni and the Cuyuni.
Henrique’s party beached their canoe, and approached the fort. A bored-looking guard called down for him to identify himself. “I am Henrique Pereira da Costa. We come from Belém do Pará, in the Amazon.”
The guard’s boredom vanished. “Wait here!” He came back a moment later with several other Dutchmen.
“I am Commander Van der Goes of the Zeeland Chamber of the Dutch West India Company. You say you came from upriver, but ultimately from Belém do Pará?”
“Yes, we found the connection from the Amazon to the Essequibo.”
He was congratulated on this great achievement. The Dutchmen ignored Maurício, assuming he was a slave. And of course the Indians were equally uninteresting to them.
Maurício fidgeted. Henrique realized, suddenly, that Maurício might be uncertain of how their return to civilization would affect his status. Kasiri also seemed ill at ease, sensing Maurício’s discomfort. Coqui, on the other hand, appeared oblivious to their emotional turmoil.
Henrique interrupted the governor. “Forgive me. Allow me to introduce my fellow explorer, Maurício . . . my half-brother.”