Chapter 4
The plane’s cabin was an isolated piece of civilization: clean fabrics, glistening Plexiglas, chrome, the round eyes of gauges—and the droning motor in the background.
Monti sat on Jeb’s right. She had changed into a man’s tan shirt, dark green riding breeches, Jodhpur boots. The silver scarf still tied her red hair. An indrawn look pinched her features. Already, her mind was projecting ahead to the meeting with Roger.
Will he be happy to see us? Of course he will! What a godforsaken place for him to choose. Why couldn’t he just sit back and let me support him? What’s he trying to prove? Jesus! It’s been more than seven months! Has he changed?
David sat directly behind her, crowded by the stack of empty Jeep cans tied down beside him. The boy wore a light blue shirt and jeans: colors that accented his sunburned look. Like his mother, he was silent, but unlike his mother, his eyes moved to catch each change in the landscape.
For the first time since they’d left the States, David was allowing himself to recognize his own feelings and thoughts. Excitement tensed his throat and chest. The veneer of adult cynicism that had rubbed onto him from the Bohemian atmosphere surrounding his mother began to slough away. More and more, there appeared a twelve-year-old boy filled with the vibrancy of adventure.
I’ll bet there’s lots of hunting at the ranch, he thought. And Indians. After mother leaves, and we’re alone: Dad and me …
He chewed nervously at his lower lip.
The plane entered the pass. Peaks climbed the sky above them on both sides. Turbulent winds shook the little ship. The passengers bounced and jerked. Wings creaked. The Jeep cans banged.
David lifted the camera from his neck, took a picture through the side window. The thin air added to his feeling of exhilaration. He took another picture straight ahead through the propeller blur.
Then they were through the pass. The ground receded. The air became even rougher from the thermal winds pouring up from the hot country ahead.
“There’s the jungle,” said Jeb.
David lifted against his safety belt, peered ahead.
It was a cauldron of liquid green boiling over the edge of the world. The immensity of it filled him with a momentary sense of fear. The green stretched out forever, and it was not life—it was something alien, an enemy.
Jeb tipped the plane’s nose down slightly, eased back on the throttle, adjusted the carburetor heat, the trim tabs, re-set the gyrocompass.
That David’s a funny kid, he thought. Not like a kid. He acts too grown-up to be happy. And then he wondered at himself: Does being grown-up mean being unhappy?
The mountains slipped behind. Now, the jungle poured beneath them.
An hour and twenty minutes later the dark adobe walls and tin roofs of Ramona came under their left wing. The town sat on a point to the north side at the juncture of the Rio Tapiche and Rio Itecoasa. A wide stretch of dirty concrete steps reached down to the water on the Itecoasa side. Launches and dugouts nosed against the foot of the steps like a jumble of thin insects.
Behind the town a thick wall of jungle held civilization at bay along an indefinite balancing line: here a finger of cultivation invading the green, there a creeping-in of wild growth attacking the houses.
Figures moved along the concrete steps, looked up.
A rippling shadow of the plane passed over the town and out across the Itecoasa. The river was a sheet of dark glass roiled by an imperfection where the narrower Tapiche joined it.
Jeb banked for an upriver landing.
Monti glanced at her wristwatch. “Two thirty-five,” she said. “I thought you said it’d take more than six hours.”
He tugged at the visor of his cap. “We were lucky and found a tail wind.”
“Where’s all the danger that frightened you so?”
Jeb smiled. “So it’s been milk run—this far.”
She sniffed.
He dropped the flaps, aimed the plane up the Itecoasa. Now, they were low enough that the river became a wide, flat lake between low walls of green. Heat poured in the vents: a burning wash of air that inflated the cabin with moisture and a kind of molten tension.
“My god, it’s hot!” said Monti.
The plane feathered out on a cushion of air, splashed down opposite the town. Jeb gave it right rudder, taxied up to the con–crete steps to dark people with volatile features. Voices called out in Portuguese and Spanish. Hands clutched at the wings. Jeb shut off the motor, fearful that one of the dark figures would stumble into the propeller. He opened his door, slipped down to the float.
Now, he became conscious of the town’s odor: an exhalation of bad breath—fetid earth, rotting fruit and flesh. Black flies arose from the bottoms of the launches and dugouts, invaded the plane.
Monti slapped at her arms.
Jeb singled out one of the smiling, jabbering faces around the plane, pressed a bill into the man’s hands, told him in Spanish that he was in charge of keeping the aeroplano secure. The man replied in Portuguese, but apparently he understood. He immediately started ordering his companions to stand clear.
David released his safety belt, leaned forward. “May I get out, Mother?”
She stared at the scene outside, her mouth drawn into a curve of distaste. “I guess so, but stay in sight where we can call you.”
Two soldiers in green uniforms, peaked caps, carbines over their shoulders, appeared at the top of the steps.
Jeb worked his way along the float, leaped to the steps and climbed up to the soldiers. They stared at him suspiciously until he passed over his pilot’s license and Brazilian flight permit folded around two fifty-milreis notes. The documents came back to him without the money.
“Gasoline?” They looked at each other with a kind of resigned wonder at the stupidity of all foreigners. One shrugged. The other shrugged.
“Un momento, señor,” said one.
They went back into the town, strolling unhurriedly down a palm-shaded street through green shadows and hot patches of sunlight.
Jeb fidgeted, stared at the town, at the river.
I was a damn fool to take her word about the gas here, he thought. If we can’t get any … we’re stuck. He looked down at a scattering of outboard motors on launches and dugouts. Oh, hell! We’ll get gas here all right. We just won’t like the price.
Presently, there appeared at the head of the steps a small, chocolate-dark fat man with thick-lidded bloodshot eyes. He wore a wrinkled blue suit, a damp white shirt, a red tie spotted by perspiration.
“A message about gasoline?” he asked. “By wireless? What message? What gasoline?”
Jeb sighed. Another fifty-milreis note changed hands.
The man looked speculatively at the airplane, as though weighing its probable salvage value. He glanced at Jeb, smiled, turned back into town. He strolled at the same casual rate as the departed soldiers.
Jeb made his way back down the steps to the plane.
Monti leaned out the door on her side. “What luck?”
He held out his hands, palms up. “Quien sabe?”
Twenty minutes later a crude hand truck bearing two fifty-gallon drums rumbled and sloshed up to the top of the steps. It was pushed by what could only be described as a swarm of children.
The drums bore a Brazilian government seal with a legend in Portuguese warning that they contained gasoline “for official use only!”
Again the chocolate-dark man joined Jeb on the steps. “The gasoline is very expensive here, senhor.” He shrugged apologetically.
“How much?”
“In dollars, senhor?”
Here we go, thought Jeb. He nodded.
The man held up two fingers. “Two liters—one dollar.”
Jeb winced. He knew that the dark little man would almost double the money on the black-market exchange, thought: Maybe I can shave that some.
Without warning, Monti spoke from just behind Jeb: “How much does he want?”
Jeb turned, surprised that he had not heard her come up. “He wants fifty cents American per liter.”
“Pay it.”
“But …”
“I said pay it.”
Jeb nodded, turned back to the vendor of gasoline, who was smiling broadly at Monti. “Agreed. Start pouring gas.”
The man bowed, waved to his swarm.
Presently, the official gasoline began gurgling into the wing tanks and the Jeep cans that were brought out and lined up along the steps. The laboring children scrambled about their work, pushing and shouting. The air became thick with the cloying smell of gasoline.
Jeb looked around for David, saw him at the top of the steps taking photographs of the scene.
“I think I’ll look at the view,” said Monti. She started toward David.
Latin eyes followed her movements. Comments were called back and forth by the men on the steps. The children grinned and laughed.
Monti turned to Jeb. “What are they saying?”
Jeb smiled. “They say you have a boy figure—that your breasts are smaller than the average hereabouts … that you don’t have a proper female bottom. Things like that.”
The anger spots colored her cheeks. “Well! That’s too damn bad!”
“Take it easy,” said Jeb. “Women have to get used to that sort of thing in a Latin country.”
“We’ll see about that!” She turned, resumed her climb to the top of the landing, and looked out at the river. A familiar feeling swelled in her.
“Your damned show-off compulsion!” her father had called it.
She called it “my show-them feeling.”
The built-up personality of Monti Lee—the ballad singer, the torch singer—came over her. She visualized a microphone before her, called up the Spanish lyrics that had been coached into her for a movie about Mexico.
One deep breath: the husky voice rolled out over the dirty landing, into the humid, odorous, insect-filled air.
“Quiéreme mucho, dulce amor mio …”
All work on refueling the plane stopped.
She had them under control when she hit the second line.
Someone raced up the steps. Presently a guitar sounded behind her, filling out the melody. Then another guitar … maracas. An older boy from the swarm picked up the counterpoint by tapping two hardwood sticks.
Her voice sank to the closing verse: “… tan separados vivir …” She left it hanging there.
The landing erupted to shouts: “Olé! Olé!” They wanted more.
She gave them “Siboney” … “Babalu” … “Sin Ti” … “Luna, Luna, Luna.”
Finally, her voice grew tired.
But they wanted still more.
She looked down at Jeb on the landing below her. His face was drawn into a craggy frown. “Tell them I can’t sing anymore,” she said.
“Tell them yourself!”
“Wha … Oh!” She began to laugh. “I don’t speak their language. I just know the words to some songs. They’re just … noise.”
“Some noise!”
He waved the guitarists away, turned to the crowd on the steps. “The voice is tired,” he said. “No more voice.”
“Ahhhhhhhhh …” It was a long multiple sigh of regret.
One of the guitarists wanted to know, “She is a star of the cíne, no?”
“Kind of,” said Jeb.
“Oh.”
Another stepped forward. “You are staying the night? There is a fiesta that …”
Jeb shook his head, glanced at his wristwatch.
The guitarist turned to Monti. “Señorita, quiere usted un …”
“She doesn’t speak Spanish or Portuguese,” said Jeb.
“But …”
He explained about “noise.”
This amused everyone.
“We are flying on over the jungle to the rancho of her husband,” said Jeb. “We must hurry to arrive before dark.”
Slowly they retreated. Work resumed.
David crossed to Monti’s side, frowned. “Mother! Why must you make such a show of yourself?”
“That’s what buys your beans, sonny boy!”
It was ten minutes to four before they got off the river. Jeb aimed the plane across the roiled juncture of rivers, using the wavelets to help break the grip of the water. They lifted sluggishly, heavy with extra gasoline. He pulled up the flaps, played the controls delicately to avoid extra strain on the already overstressed wings. They circled back over the town.
People ran along the steps. Hats were waved.
“How long to the rancho?” asked Monti.
“Maybe two and a half hours,” said Jeb. “I’ll push it. Your exhibition back there wasted time. I’ll have to waste gas now to make it before dark.”
“That’ll teach them who has a boy figure,” she said.
Jeb smiled, shook his head. He checked his instruments, glanced back at David. The boy sat in the corner behind his mother, crowded by the Jeep cans of gasoline. The cans rattled faintly in their lashings.
“How’re those cans riding?” asked Jeb.
“All right, I guess.”
“Let me know right away if they shift around.”
“Yes, sir.”
Jeb turned his attention back to their course.
David peered down out the side window. Far below them, the loops and whorls of the Tapiche were a snail track curving through the omnipresent green. Excitement keyed up the boy’s senses, made him feel desperately alive.
Will dad ever be surprised!
A chuckling happiness bubbled within him. Reflected sunlight exploded in a glare-flash from the river. David squinted. He saw Jeb reach out, adjust the gyro compass, noted the empty socket in the panel where the radio had been.
“What’s that thing you keep fixing?” asked David.
Jeb looked over his shoulder. “Huh?”
David pointed at the compass. “That.”
“Oh.” Jeb turned back. “That’s the gyrocompass. It’s steadier than the magnetic compass. We have to fly a pretty straight course overland to conserve gas.”
“Couldn’t we follow the river?”
Jeb smiled. “It’s eight or nine hundred miles to the rancho by river. That land down there is pretty flat in lots of places. The river wanders all over the map.”
“How fast are we going?”
“About one seventy … maybe a little more.”
“Will we get there before dark?”
“Sure. And some to spare.”
Monti stabbed a glance at David. The boy fell silent, sat back. Jeb looked at her.
“That was some performance you put on back there in Ramona,” he said.
She frowned. “Not one of my best.” Anger showed in the way she clipped off her words.
“What were you trying to prove?”
“I don’t have to prove anything, Mister Logan. Leave the brilliant questions to my psychoanalyst!” She waved a hand toward the instruments. “You just fly the plane. That’s what you’re being paid to do.”
Jeb shrugged, thought: Man! What an acid tongue! No wonder Bannon chose the jungle!
They passed over a clearing, stark galvanized metal roofs standing out against the green.
Monti said, “If we had to cut way down on our luggage, why’d you bring that big heavy valise I saw you cram into the back?”
So that’s what’s eating her!
“That’s our survival kit,” said Jeb.
“Survival kit?” She turned squarely toward him.
“In case we get forced down.” He reached around behind her, tapped the seat back. “There’s a loaded .44 magnum revolver and twenty-five rounds of extra ammo in the seat pocket behind you. There’s a machete under the seat.”
“Are you trying to frighten me again?”
“Nope. You can starve to death down there just as quick as you could out in an open boat on the ocean. So you carry a few necessities … just in case.”
“Such as what?”
“Oh … fishing gear, snares, food concentrates … a twenty-two pistol and a few boxes of ammo for it … atabrine, terriamiacin, a pellet stove, tea, a flashlight and extra batteries. Things like that.”
“Stupid!” she muttered.
“You wouldn’t think so if we ever needed that kit.”
She turned away, sniffed.
David said: “What’s this thing on the floor under my feet?”
“That’s the grapnel for anchoring us to the beach when we land,” said Jeb. “Sorry we had to put it under your feet. No other place for it with this load.”
“Oh, that’s okay.” David sat back. “We flew over some buildings beside the river back a ways. What were they?”
“Agricultural experiment stations,” said Jeb. “Abandoned now. The help had a falling out with the Indians.”
He turned, looked across the Jeep cans out the windows. “That’s sure a big mountain over on our left.”
“That’s Tusachilla,” said Jeb. “Active volcano. See that ring of black near the summit? She put on a show a couple of months ago. I flew some scientists in near there. Vulcanologists.”
“There’s not much around here, is there?” asked David. He sounded frightened.
“Not much civilization,” said Jeb. “Your dad’s rancho is at the head of navigation on the Tapiche. There’s an army post—one sergeant and a radio—about a hundred miles downstream from the rancho. Then—nothing but the river and a few Indian villages for almost a thousand miles.”
“Beastly country!” snapped Monti.
“One of the last frontiers,” said Jeb. “That’s one of its attractions, Mrs. Bannon.”
“Oh, call me Monti,” she said. “Roger’s mother is Mrs. Bannon.”
Jeb glanced around at the height of the sun, adjusted the throttle for a few more revolutions. “Is that your real name: Monti? Or is that one of those names they pick for an actress?”
She sighed. “It’s really Montana.”
“After the state?”
“My father was a gold camp lawyer there. Later, he was a judge. I was born at a place called Meadow Creek after we became respectable.”
“Montana’s a good name,” said Jeb. “It means mountain in Spanish.”
“What’s in a name?” she asked. “As the Bard so appropriately put it.” She squirmed into a more comfortable position, took a deep breath. “May I call you Jeb?”
“As you said, ‘What’s in a name?’”
“How well do you know my husband, Jeb?”
“So-so. About as well as you get to know anybody after flying with ’em a couple of times.”
“What makes him come to a Godforsaken place like this?”
“Quien sabe? Maybe he’s looking for something.”
“But there’s nothing here!”
“Nothing except what you make for yourself. Maybe that’s what he wants.”
Anger flooded her. “You can’t talk simple sense with a man! All of you go wandering off into … into philosophy!”
Jeb smiled. “So what’s unusual about a man wanting to make something for himself?”
“He’s running away from himself!”
“Quien sabe?”
She was silent for almost five minutes, then: “Do you know Roger’s partner, this Gettler?”
“Franz Gettler? Yeah. He’s been around these parts a bit longer than your husband. I’ve ferried him a few places.”
“Where’s he from?”
“I think he was prospecting in the Serra do Craval before he hooked up with your husband.”
“No, I mean where’s he from originally?”
“Some place in Westphalia, I think. He spent some time in the States, too. I heard he was a professor of some kind at one time.”
“Hardly likely!”
“You never can tell.”
“What’s he like?”
“Big guy. Blond. Accent.”
“Do you like him?”
“Oh, now look here …”
“I mean it: Do you like him?”
“What’s that have to do with …”
“I want to know what he’s like.”
“Your childlike faith in my judgment is very touching,” said Jeb.
“Well, you must know if you like him or not.”
“I don’t know. Never thought about it. He’s a kind of a cold fish. Always feeling things, making funny cracks about texture.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh … my amphibian’s got plastic upholstery. He ran his hand along it, said it felt dead. Things like that.”
“He sounds crazy!”
“Well, maybe he doesn’t have all his marbles. Some people get eccentric from being alone too much in the jungle.”
“Why’d Roger choose him for a partner?”
“How the hell do I know?”
“Would you choose someone like that for a partner?”
“Gettler knows the jungle.”
“Huh! I don’t see why anyone would want to know it.”
Jeb shrugged, scanned the sky.
A passage of turbulent air shook the plane. The cans of gasoline banged and scraped. Time passed in the droning somnolence of motor sounds, the flowing of the green sea beneath them. The air became more turbulent. Jeb became conscious of a stronger smell of gasoline in the cabin. He spoke over his shoulder to David.
“How’re those cans riding?”
“There’s a little bit of gasoline spilled down the side of one of them,” said David.
Jeb frowned, studied the winding river track ahead.
Monti began humming faintly to herself.
The tune filled Jeb with disquiet. He tried to place the reason, and recognized the melody: The lament of his morning nightmare.
Immediately, the sodden sense of premonition came back, started the perspiration in his palms. This is stupid! he told himself. I’ve got to stop this!
“Is that another one of the noises you sing?” he asked.
She seemed to return from far away. “Huh?”
“That tune you were humming.”
She hummed another stanza. “Oh, that. I heard it in Puerto Bolivar. It was on a jukebox. Sad kind of song.”
He translated the words for her.
She shuddered. “What a morbid thing!”
David leaned forward between them. “How much farther?”
“About an hour,” said Jeb. “The rancho’s in those foothills straight ahead.” He glanced up at the wing tank gas gauges. “We’ll be letting down pretty soon to top off our tanks.”
“Couldn’t we make it without that?” asked Monti.
“Yes. But I want to get rid of those cans. They make me uneasy.”
“Where’re you going to land?” asked Monti.
“A wide stretch of river up ahead. There’s a beach.”
“Will there be Indians?” asked David.
“Probably not,” said Jeb. “No villages along this stretch.”
“I saw a village back a ways,” said David. “Are they good Indians or bad Indians?”
“I guess they’re pretty tame,” said Jeb. “Except when they get all hopped up on cachasa.”
“What’s cachasa?”
“Mostly fermented saliva. The women chew some stuff, spit it into a gourd.”
“Do they really dr …?”
“David!” Monti whirled on her son. “Stop asking so damn many questions!”
He sat back. “Yes, Mother.”
She drew a nervous breath, extracted a package of cigarettes from her blouse pocket.
Jeb glanced at her. “No smoking.”
She jerked her head toward him, glaring.
Jeb nodded toward the rear. “The gas.”
She frowned, returned the cigarettes to her pocket. “Sorry. I forgot.”
He tipped the left wing down, began a slow, banking turn. “There’s where we’ll refuel.”
The river ahead widened, stretched out in almost a straight line—a thick finger pointing at the hills.
Jeb pulled back the throttle. The jungle moved up toward them at a deceptively rapid rate. There came a moment of gliding suspense. Then the floats touched the river with a cushioned bounce. They slowed, turned toward a low sandy beach on the right.
Damp heat poured in the vents. It was sticky, and with a feeling of actual weight.
Sand gritted under the floats. The plane’s nose lifted, stopped.
Beyond the beach the jungle arose in steady waves of color: harsh lines standing out in the bold flat light of the low sun. There was a deep blue-green at the bottom, a sun-bleached sage at the top. Above the green towered a candelo tree with bat-falcon nests cluttering the forks of its branches. The front line of the forest was a wall of mata-polo trees hung with a twisted screen of lianas.
Jeb shut down the motor. Silence flooded in upon them.
A flock of violet swallows dipped across the sand, lifted and turned over the trees. Behind them came a squall of black flies that enveloped the plane, faded away in a diminishing drone.
Heat devils shimmered above the beach, twisting the lower level of the jungle into dancing lines.
“It’s beautiful,” murmured Monti. “I never realized it could be so beautiful.”
“And it’s deadly,” said Jeb. “You’re not allowed even one mistake out there. Never forget that.”
“But it looks so peaceful.”
“Are there wild animals in there right now?” asked David.
“Lots of them,” said Jeb. He opened his door, released his safety belt. “You can stretch your legs on the sand, but stay away from the jungle’s edge.” He lifted the revolver from the seat pocket, tucked it into his waistband.
Monti noted the motion, grimaced.
A swarm of gnats hummed in the open door, settled on every stretch of bare skin. Jeb slapped at his neck. “The bugs can be fierce. We’ll make this quick.”
He stepped onto the float, took the grapnel and line from the rear, anchored the plane, and began refueling.
Monti got out her side. David followed. They wandered up the beach, voices lowered in a murmured conversation.
An odd pair, thought Jeb.
The memory picture of Bannon came back to him: the skinny frame, the sandy hair, the deep-set eyes with their mystical light. There was a kind of overpowering calm about Monti’s husband. It reminded Jeb of the relentless Latin-American courtesy.
How’n hell did two like that ever get together? he wondered. The boy sure looks like his father. Especially the eyes.
The thick smell of gasoline began to make Jeb dizzy. He wiped perspiration from his forehead with the back of his sleeve. Flies and gnats crawled over his skin, buzzed and hopped, their bites like fire. He hoisted the last can from the rear seat, topped off the wing tanks. The can remained half full. Jeb re-tied it in the rear, carried the empties across the beach, and hid them inside the screening lianas.
Monti watched Jeb working. David kicked at the sand behind her. She ignored the splash of sand, puffed thoughtfully on her cigarette.
This Jeb is like Roger, she thought. What makes people like them come to the end of nowhere? The cigarette burned her finger. She dropped it, stubbed it out with her toe. Why’m I here? What do I want from Roger? Dammit! I should never have married him! We should’ve had an affair … and that’s all!
She stared at her toe marks in the sand.
God! But I need him!
“Won’t Dad be surprised?” said David.
A feeling of love for her son passed over Monti. “He most certainly will, dear.”
David came around to stand half-facing her. He looked away at the plane. “Do you really love Dad, Mother?”
Her mouth twitched. She glared at the boy. “Don’t ask stupid questions!”
Jeb leaned out of the plane, called to them: “Come along. We don’t have much more daylight. Have to hurry.” He stepped down to the float, helped them aboard, brought in the grapnel and cast off. The current caught the plane as he climbed into his seat.
Abruptly, David pointed upstream. “Hey! Look!”
Around the upper reach of the river nosed a caoba dugout with five Indians: a sinewy rippling of bodies, painted paddles flashing in the late sunlight. A stolid figure sat in the bow holding a pindu cane pole across his lap. His hair was cut squarely across his forehead in low bangs, his face marked by red streaks of achiote.
Jeb started the motor, swung out into the river, faced downstream away from the canoe.
The Indians backpaddled, waited.
Jeb pushed the throttle ahead: the motor roared. They gathered speed—faster, faster. He rocked one float off. Then they were airborne, reaching out over the jungle in a wide turn, and back above the upturned Indian faces.
“Those are Zaparos,” said Jeb. “Fairly tame.”
The plane climbed faster now, freed from part of its load. Again the jungle took on its appearance of a soft green carpet.
“It looks so calm down there,” said Monti.
“Just on the surface,” said Jeb.
“Will I be able to swim in the river?” asked David.
Jeb shook his head. “That river’s one of the deadliest parts of the jungle, full of piranha.”
Monti whirled toward him. “Those terrible fish that eat you alive?”
“That’s right.”
“My God! I almost went wading back there!”
“It probably would’ve been safe enough if you’d stayed close to shore,” said Jeb. “The river’s clear. You could’ve seen them coming.”
“Can you fish for them?” asked David. “Are they good to eat?”
“Yes, to both,” said Jeb. “Just don’t fall in.”
“You just stay away from the river, David!” snapped Monti. She shuddered.
“The jungle’s not really peaceful,” said Jeb. “It’s just a matter of difference in time sense.”
“Time sense?” asked Monti.
“I saw a movie once,” said Jeb. “Taken by some naturalist. He exposed one frame every hour—pictures of a jungle vine. That vine just boiled up—writhing and slithering like a snake to choke off the tree it was attacking. All that plant life just looks slow and silent … and tame. He took pictures of some pods: they jerked open, hurled out their seeds. The seeds leaped upward toward the sunlight. That’s the jungle as it really is.”
“You make it sound horrible.”
“Depends on your point of view. When you come right down to it, that’s what all life’s really like.”
“Men! You spread your damned philosophy around like a dirty smell. It spoils everything it touches!”
Jeb chuckled.
The plane droned onward. More and more orange crept into the light as the sun sank lower. Jeb glanced at his wristwatch. “Almost there. Timed just about perfect for the light.”
“It wasn’t so dangerous after all, was it?” asked Monti.
“We’ve been lucky,” said Jeb. “If we …” He broke off, stared ahead. A thick blue column of smoke arose from the jungle-carpeted hills.
“Looks like a fire,” said Monti.
Jeb nodded, throttled back.
The plane crossed the snake-track winding of the river. He banked, began a slow glide toward the water, keeping as much attention as he could on the smoke.
“What would they be burning?” asked Monti.
“Probably clearing land,” said Jeb.
The plane swept out over a wide reach of water.
Jeb tensed.
A line of dugouts swarming with coppery backs stretched across the river. All faced downstream. Paddles foamed in the water.
Downriver from the Indians stood a single canoe with one figure in it, a white man in an Aussie hat, tan clothes. Desperation showed in the way he flailed the river with his paddle.
“Something’s wrong,” said Jeb.
The lone figure suddenly stopped paddling, took up a rifle. He turned, fired at the pursuing dugouts. One canoe overturned. The others scattered for shore. Water geysered in front of the retreating canoes as the rifleman fired once more. He put down the rifle, looked up at the plane sweeping overhead. Now, he lifted his paddle, waved downstream with frantic, chopping gestures.
“Is it Daddy?” asked David. His voice came out high-pitched, squeaking.
“I couldn’t see,” said Monti. She turned toward Jeb.
“It looked like Gettler,” said Jeb. He dropped the flaps, banked to circle back. In that moment, the nightmare premonition came back like a tight band around his chest.
Death and a river! And Maria’s vision!
“What’re you going to do?” asked Monti.
“Land and pick him up.”
“Why was he shooting at those Indians?” asked David.
“David! Please be quiet!” barked Monti.
The plane passed over the dugout a bare ten feet off the water, splashed down ahead of it. Jeb reached back, pulled the magnum revolver from the seat pocket, circled back toward the canoe.
Now, there was no mistaking the occupant of the canoe: It was Bannon’s partner, Franz Gettler. He was a heavyset blond man with sharp Teutonic features, overhanging eyebrows. There was a bull-like quality to the man, a brutal and instinctive violence to his movements. He paddled with swift dipping motions that rocked his canoe, sent it surging toward the plane.
Jeb scanned the matted greenery of both banks for a sign of the pursuers. There was nothing. Only the overturned dugout floated sideways downstream like the back of a floating alligator—the sole reminder of violence.
Monti put a hand over her mouth. “Something’s happened to Roger! I can feel it!”
Gettler’s canoe came under the left wing, swung in beside the float. Jeb opened his door.
“You’re a blooming miracle!” shouted Gettler. “Let’s get the hell out of here! Fast!”
“Jivaro?” asked Jeb.
“You’re damned right: Jivaro!”
“Where’s Bannon?”
Gettler grabbed the strut. “Dead!” He handed his rifle up to Jeb. The plane rocked to the man’s weight as he lifted himself up onto the float. Jeb passed the rifle back to David, leaned forward as Gettler clambered into the rear.
“They attacked about an hour ago,” panted Gettler. “No warning. No damn warning at all!”
Jeb slammed his door, swung the plane downriver.
“They must’ve spitted Bannon at least ten times,” said Gettler.
Monti gasped, bit her lower lip.
Jeb heard a sob from David. “This is Mrs. Bannon and their boy,” he said. He scanned the water for obstructions, pushed the throttle ahead. The plane’s nose lifted.
Something splashed into the river directly in front of them. There came a booming roar from the bank to heir right. A crashing sound of torn metal filled the air. The plane shook violently, and the motor set up an immediate clattering, banging. Jeb throttled back, passed the revolver to Gettler. “Use this! They’re on the right bank!”
“What’s happened?” asked Monti.
“Muzzle-loader,” said Jeb. “They hit the engine.”
The thick smell of burning oil filled the cabin. Dark smoke clouded the air, streamed in the vents. Jeb closed them. The plane held a speed of about twenty miles an hour, but the motor coughed and bucked as though it would quit any moment.
Monti’s voice climbed almost to a scream. “They’re going to catch us!”
“Not unless the engine conks out,” gritted Jeb. He scanned his instrument panel, fussed with the mixture. The motor smoothed slightly, but its racket was still deafening.
The plane’s right hand door swung open. The magnum revolver roared in their ears. A stench of cordite was added to the oil smoke.
They rounded a bend in the river. Jeb opened the throttle another notch, reduced it as the motor increased its erratic banging.
“I think we’ve got a badly cracked head … and probably worse,” said Jeb. “It’ll never get us off the water.”
Monti stared at him. “What’ll we do?”
“If we can’t fly, we’ll float,” said Jeb. “We’ll try to reach the army post downstream.”
“Army post!” said Gettler. “One sergeant and a radio!”
“We’ll make it if we can stay afloat,” said Jeb.
Again the magnum roared.
They rounded another bend. The river stretched ahead, shimmering with a glassy haze. In that moment, the sun sank behind the mountains, and the sky became a luminous silver.
For the first time, Jeb had a moment to take stock of the situation. And a thought smashed through his mind, stunning him: A river and death!
He shook his head. Nuts! It’s just a coincidence! But there was Maria’s vision … Christ! Next thing I’ll be wearing an amulet of monkey balls!
A roar from Gettler shattered Jeb’s musing, “Hey, kid! Leave that rifle alone!”
“I’ll kill ’em!” screamed David. “They killed my Dad! I’ll kill ’em! I’ll kill ’em!”
The plane rocked to a struggle in the rear.
“I said leave that rifle be, kid!”
Jeb looked back as Gettler forced David into a corner, wrenched away the rifle, and jammed it behind the rear seat.
David’s face was contorted. Tears streamed down his cheeks. He had lost all of his pseudo-adult reserve.
Gettler said, “I’m sorry, kid, but you might kill one of us.”
Monti spoke in a tone of washed-out calm: “David, try to be brave … and quiet.” She took a quavering breath. “You won’t help by making a commotion in here.”
And she thought: That was a dirty trick … a dirty, stinking, filthy trick you played on me, God! Letting me arrive just when it was too late! She buried her face in her hands. I mustn’t think this way! I mustn’t think at all!
A feeling swept over her that she was up for try-out in a new play—without script or rehearsal, without knowing the words or music, or what part she had to take.
“I think we’ve outdistanced them,” said Gettler. He closed the right hand door, sank back into the seat behind Jeb.
David chewed his lower lip, stared out the window. It’s all her fault, he thought. If it hadn’t been for her, Dad never would’ve come here. Always jawing at him! Never giving him a moment’s peace!
Jeb raised his voice above the banging engine sound, spoke over his shoulder: “Are you sure … about Bannon?”
Gettler spoke carefully, as though balancing his words one against another: “I’m sure. They hit our cultivation crew about six-thirty, when the men were all tired and ready to quit for the day. I was out on the river knocking over some ’gators, or they’d have got me, too.”
“You were damned lucky,” said Jeb.
“Yes. I heard the shouting, then I saw Rog come out of the house with a rifle. But there were a couple of them at the back of the house by then. They came through the house and got him before he could turn.”
“They’ve been chasing you ever since?” asked Jeb.
“Yes. I knocked off several from the river, then got the hell out of there. Thought I was done until you showed up. What brought you?”
“Mrs. Bannon and the boy were coming for a visit.”
Gettler cleared his throat. “You picked a bad time to visit. I’m certainly glad you did, though.”
Jeb mulled over Gettler’s story. Something about it bothered him. He was out shooting alligators. Would the Indians attack across cultivated land—out in the open—if they heard rifle fire? I always thought they were more cautious than that. Unless it’s a religious war of some kind.
“What set them off?” asked Jeb.
“God knows.” Gettler leaned forward. “Is that motor going to hold out?”
“God knows that, too,” said Jeb. “Did you kill any ’gators before the attack?”
Gettler’s voice was suddenly wary: “Why?”
“I’m looking for a reason for the attack.”
“I got two of them,” said Gettler. “But the Indians don’t object to killing ’gators.”
So he was shooting—according to him, thought Jeb. And the Indians would’ve heard rifle fire.
“We’re far enough ahead now,” said Gettler. “Better try your radio. Maybe you can contact that army post.”
“We don’t have a radio,” said Jeb.
Gettler said, “Ugh!” as though someone had hit him. Then: “Well, it’s less than eighty miles to the post.”
“We’ll make it tonight some time, given any luck at all,” said Jeb. He glanced at his instrument panel through eyes watering from the oil smoke. “I hope she doesn’t start to overheat.”
Monti began to sob: dry and wracking. Her shoulders jerked as though she were fighting away from someone.
“I’m sorry,” said Gettler. “There was nothing I could do. Nothing.”
Out of the corner of his eye Jeb saw one of Gettler’s long-fingered hands come forward, stroke Monti’s hair. It was a sensuous gesture—disquieting.
Monti shook her head. Gettler withdrew his hand.
The river channel narrowed to no more than twice their wingspan. They were hemmed in by a shadowy wall of over-hanging trees. Jeb snapped on the landing lights. They picked out two caverns of brilliance that soon became filled with fluttering, darting insects. The light touched the riverbank, outlined twisting medusa roots that clutched the dark red clay.
A melon curve of new moon lifted into the eastern sky. It was the color of molten copper: the color of a native’s back glistening in the sun.
Gettler tipped his head back, stared up at the moon. He felt the false coolness of the plastic cushion against his neck. It carried a reminder of civilization—refinement. For the first time since he’d started running, he allowed himself to think.
I get another chance! A tight smile played along his lips. You were wrong, Rog: I did get away with killing you! He thought of the surprised look in Bannon’s eyes when the bullet smashed into him. Just that once they’d lost their irritating calmness. If only those bastard Indians hadn’t been watching! Always sneaking around! Spying! And who would’ve thought they’d give a damn whether one white man killed another!
He put his left hand into the game pocket of his hunting jacket, felt the four leaf-wrapped packets: four raw emeralds of the clearest transparency, their color a rich, vibrant green with the luminosity of crème de menthe. The smallest would cut down to ten carats; the largest would go three times that size. And there was no real way to tell how many more there were in the clay mountain behind the rancho.
You were stupid, Rog, thought Gettler. Just plain stupid to think I’d forget such a find just to save your noble savages! The dark shadow of Monti stirred in front of Gettler, sent him off on a new tangent in his soundless conversation with the dead man: And, Rog—if I want—maybe I can have your woman, too. How’s that for a joke?
Reflections from the landing lights revealed the interior of the plane, distracted Gettler from his musing. The soft curve of fabric overhead filled him with a sense of luxury. Every glint of light on chrome—the foxfire green of phosphorescent dials, the purposeful controls added to this feeling. He thought of what the gems in his pocket meant in wealth and luxury. His mind rejected the uneven banging of the damaged motor, and he imagined himself flying smoothly over the jungle: over everything unclean and contaminated.
Jeb Logan had gambled his life too many times on his ability to detect motor trouble by ear alone, and now he could not blank out that irritant clamor as Gettler had. He tolerated the sound for an hour and ten minutes, then turned off the ignition, nosed the plane into deep sedge at the upriver end of a narrow island.
In the sudden stillness, the whining hum of insects came to them like a memory of the engine sound. Then the metallic chime-call of river frogs intruded. The wing lights picked out the cold green reflection of their eyes. Jeb turned off the lights. The coughing bark of a red monkey sounded from the left bank. Patrolling bats flickered overhead, and skimmed the water to drink.
David spoke in a low, frightened voice: “Why’ve we stopped?”
“I want a look at that motor,” said Jeb.
Monti stirred from a lethargic crouch, looked around. I don’t know what’s happened to me, she thought. It’s too soon to think. I won’t think yet.
“Is the motor any worse?” asked Gettler.
“Probably,” said Jeb. He stared out at the darkness, sensed the watching animal life around them, thought: When you’re in the jungle there’s nothing else. It flows over you, through you. And it says: “You’re nothing! I could chop you down anytime!”
“What do you mean probably?” asked Gettler.
“I mean it sure as hell can’t be getting any better from the sound of it,” said Jeb. “There’s a flashlight wedged on the ledge behind you. Hand it here, please.”
Gettler passed the flashlight forward.
Jeb took it, said: “You can start unlashing that Jeep can beneath your feet. I want to dump it into the wing tanks and get rid of the can. Too much fire hazard this way.”
“Can’t we put up with it this way until we get to the army post?” asked Gettler.
“Just give me the can,” said Jeb.
Gettler grunted, bent to feel the lashings. “How much gas do we have?” he asked.
“There’s about three gallons in that can, and one more full one in the luggage compartment behind you, plus about forty gallons remaining in the wing tanks.”
He opened his door, swung down onto the float. Immediately, the insects descended upon him. He felt them swarming over his face, touching his lips, his nose, his eyes. When he turned on the flashlight some left for the new attraction. Jeb worked his way forward, dropped into the sedge, waded across to the other float, climbed up. The light revealed a jagged hole in the cowl. He lifted the flap, shone the light inside.
The bullet has smashed into the head of the first cylinder, ricocheted back and down. Smoke curled out of a crack along the cooling baffles and through a hole torn in the valve cover. A splinter of metal had smashed the top plugs on the first two cylinders. The bullet had taken out the bottom plug on the second cylinder. That left four cylinders, and the motor completely unbalanced.
Jeb shrugged. What a mess!
“How bad is it?” called Gettler.
“We’ve got four cylinders,” said Jeb. “I started out with six.” He closed the cowl flap, turned to emptying the gas cans.
Presently, the smell of gasoline filled the air. It drove away some of the insects. Jeb straddled the cowl, listened to the gas gurgle into the tank. The moon set while he worked. He looked up: a wilderness of stars flooded the sky. And when he lowered his gaze, he could see the tremulous shimmering of the stars on the river surface. Quite suddenly, the river became for him an immense loneliness locked between jungle walls. He sniffed the odorous night: thick with the baited and the repelling perfumes that marked one line in the jungle’s endless battleground.
What if the Indians beat us to that army post and the radio? he wondered. We have to follow the river. They could go straight over the hills—or signal ahead with drums.
In that moment, Jeb realized that there was no way to beat the Indians to the army post if this was actually a race. He tossed the last empty can into the sedge, slid down to the float, found a length of driftwood that he used to push the plane off into the current.
Monti came out of her lethargy. “Have we gotten away from them?” she asked.
“I think so … at least for now,” said Jeb. He wedged the pole against the strut, clambered back inside, slammed the door.
“You’re sure this thing won’t fly?” asked Gettler.
“I’m sure.” Jeb handed back the flashlight, said: “If anybody’s hungry, there’s K-ration in that big valise in the luggage compartment. You can pull your seat-back forward to get at it.”
Gettler took the light, said: “Here, kid. Hold the flash for me.” The light flared, threw raw shadows ahead. A blackish brown helicon butterfly hurled itself against the windshield, clung there.
“I’m not hungry,” said Monti. She slapped at insects on her arms and neck.
“I don’t feel like eating, either,” said David.
“That makes three of us,” said Jeb.
“I’m going to keep up my strength,” said Gettler.
There came the sound of scrambling from the rear. The light wavered. The plane rocked. Presently, the light went off.
“Aren’t you going to start the motor and get going?” asked Gettler.
“The river’s going our way,” said Jeb. “As long as there’s no wind to foul us up we can use the free ride.”
And he thought: There’s a real chance that we may need our gasoline. If that army post’s been hit, we face eight hundred miles of river!
“It’s only thirty-five or forty miles ahead,” said Gettler. “Two hours with the motor.”
There came the sound of cardboard tearing as he opened the ration box.
Jeb cupped his hands over the altimeter, studied the luminous dial. “We were at twenty-eight hundred feet elevation when we picked you up. We’ve come down fifty feet. My map shows the army post at twenty-six hundred feet. That means a current of around eight knots between here and there.”
“Five or six hours,” said Gettler. “Maybe seven. I say use the motor.”
Jeb shook his head. “I say save the gas.”
Gettler absorbed this. “You think we’re going to need it?”
“Yes. I think that’s a possibility.”
Silence settled over the cabin, broken only by the sound of Gettler eating, the occasional slap of a hand killing insects.
The plane floated on a black carpet with the deeper blackness of the jungle slipping past on both sides. They turned in an eddy, floated sideways.
“Why do you think we may need the gasoline?” asked Monti.
Jeb shrugged. “If the Jivaro want to beat us to that army post, they can—motor or no motor.”
“Do you think they’ll try to beat us?” she whispered.
“They know where we’re going,” said Jeb. “And they know that the sergeant at the post can talk through the sky to summon airplanes with bombs. That’s one of the things they fear. They don’t like airplanes.”
“Have they been bombed?” asked Monti.
“Several villages have been flattened after Indian raids,” said Jeb. They know about bombs.”
“They should kill them all with an atom bomb!” said David.
“I still say use the motor,” said Gettler. “We could beat them.”
“Don’t be foolish,” said Jeb. “Our only hope is that they may fear the dark more than they do the planes we can call by radio!”
Gettler leaned forward. “Start the motor.”
“No.”
Violence hung in the air—in the controlled breathing.
Jeb thought of his revolver tucked in Gettler’s belt. The nerves of his back twitched. Then he heard Gettler take a deep breath, exhale, settled back.
“Are they really afraid of the dark?” asked Monti.
“They’re supposed to be,” said Jeb. He opened his door, slid down to the float, groped on the rear floor for the grapnel and line.
“What’re you doing now?” asked Gettler.
“I’m going to make a sea anchor,” said Jeb. “There’ll be a breeze up the river before long. The anchor will keep our nose pointed downstream, give us a little control.”
“What’s a sea anchor?” asked David.
Jeb smiled involuntarily, thought: The boy will be all right in spite of his loss. You can’t suppress youthful curiosity.
“It’s a kind of a drag that floats just below the water surface,” said Jeb. “Only the current affects it. The wind will blow against the plane, and the current will pull the anchor downstream. That’ll keep our nose pointed the way we’re going—keep us from getting tangled up in the trees. And our motion downstream against the wind will give the plane’s control surfaces something to work on: I’ll be able to guide us a little.”
“How’re you making it?” asked David.
“With a piece of wood I found along the shore back there.”
“Oh.”
There came a low splash as he dropped the anchor into the river. He paid out the line, fastened it to the struts.
“Let me have the flashlight,” said Jeb. He reached inside, felt the smooth cylinder pushed into his hand. The switch clicked under his thumb, and a shaft of light leaped out to the jungle wall. It illuminated a cluster of sago palms in front of the reed-like screen of a line of cana brava. The light began to siphon in a flow of fluttering, darting insects. Jeb turned it off.
“Maybe six hours at this rate,” said Jeb. He glanced at the luminous dial of his wristwatch. “About three a.m. we can start watching for the radio tower.”
“We could make it in two hours with the motor,” muttered Gettler.
“And chance piling into a log or ’gator, and holing a float,” said Jeb.
“Your landing lights seemed to show everything,” said Gettler.
“Yes, and the lights and motor sure advertised our presence, too!”
“They know we’re here,” said Gettler. “They know exactly where we are.”
“We couldn’t hear rapids with that motor banging away,” said Jeb.
“No rapids between here and the army post,” said Gettler.
Jeb clambered back inside, shut his door. He glanced at Monti. “Why don’t you lean back and try to get some sleep?”
“No, thanks.” She shook her head, a shadowy half movement in the dark.
“They know exactly where we are!” snapped Gettler.
“What can we do when we reach this army post?” asked Monti.
“The sergeant’ll radio for help,” said Jeb. “An army plane’ll come to fly us out. Then I’ll have to worry about flying in a new engine to get this ship out.”
“I’ll get you a new engine,” she murmured.
“We’re wasting time!” snarled Gettler.
Jeb whirled. “If they want to go over the mountain straight to the post—how long? How fast could they get there?
Gettler was silent for a long minute, then: “Three hours at the outside.”
“We couldn’t possibly beat them,” said Jeb.
Gettler sighed. “I guess you’re right.”
Jeb faced forward.
Monti began breathing in ragged gasps as though she were choking. Jeb gripped her arm. “Are you all right, Monti?”
She nodded, then: “Mr. Gettler … are you sure, are you absolutely sure … about Roger?”
“I saw it,” said Gettler. “They kept stabbing him with those damned barbed spears, twisting them. There was blood all …”
“Why don’t you shut up!” barked Jeb.
“Easy now,” said Gettler. “She asked the question. She knows these are head hunters.”
“I hope the soldiers kill every one of those Indians!” snarled David.
“They’ll kill enough of them, son,” said Gettler.
Again, the feeling of uncertainty swept over Jeb. Something about the scene upriver: Gettler pursued by the Jivaro … something about it didn’t fit Gettler’s story. The dugouts had been stretched across the river, boiling with coppery bodies that …
Jeb tensed.
There had been no ceremonial spears and blowguns: none of the flashy painting and decoration that meant war. The Indians had been dressed and geared for hunting or fishing.
Jeb turned, held out his hand. “Let’s have my revolver.”
Gettler did not move. “Let’s leave it where it is.”
Something warned Jeb not to press the issue. His mind went to the little twenty-two revolver in the survival kit. He turned back.
Monti leaned against her door. “It’s so hot,” she said. “Doesn’t it ever cool off?”
“Toward morning we should get a little relief,” said Jeb. “Why don’t you try to get some sleep?”
“Would it help to open the doors?” she asked.
Jeb slapped a gnat on the back of his hand. “Take your choice: heat or bugs.”
She sighed.
“We’ll be at the army post before morning, won’t we?” asked David.
“Shortly before dawn,” said Jeb.
The first hesitant puff of the night breeze rocked the plane. The wind steadied, blowing softly up the river. The plane swung on its submerged sea anchor until it pointed downstream.
“Why don’t you all try to nap?” asked Jeb. “I’ll take the first watch.” He tried the rudder controls. Slowly, the plane drifted sideways toward the center of the stream. The anchor-plus-wind did give some control.
“I’ll watch with you,” said Gettler.
“What Jivaro tribe was it?” asked Jeb. “Which headman?”
“I didn’t ask them,” said Gettler. He stirred restlessly. “What’n hell do you think I …”
“I thought you might have recognized their paint,” said Jeb.
Gettler coughed, rubbed the handle of the revolver in his belt. Logan suspects! He said: “I was too busy getting away.”
Something very phony here! thought Jeb.
“Maybe you’d like to go back and have another look!” said Gettler.
“I saw enough the first time,” said Jeb.
Gettler pushed himself against the back of his seat. Will I have to kill them, too? Will I?
“As long as you’re going to watch anyway, I’ll take forty winks,” said Jeb. He turned sideways toward the door, listened tensely to Gettler’s movements, thought: If he naps later, I’ll jump him, get the gun. I’ll stay awake.
Slowly, Gettler relaxed. I don’t have to decide now.
Jeb could just make out the darker shadow of the shoreline in the starlight. The hypnotic flow made him drowsy. He concentrated on trying to see through the blackness, senses strained to their limits. There was the movement of the river dragging them against the breeze, and it awakened in Jeb a sense of mystery. Tonight the river was haunted, peopled by the ghosts of every passenger it had ever carried.
And the night was hushed out of fear—not out of peace. The serenity of their movement was false.
It was like the false serenity of landing a plane: slowly gliding down the imaginary wire of the landing path with the motor ticking away. Yet that was one of the moments of greatest danger.
His head nodded. He shook himself awake, glanced at his wristwatch. The luminous dial revealed that an hour had passed.
Where’d the time go? he asked himself.
Gettler moved restlessly in the back.
The plane had floated closer and closer to the left bank. Now, a wing caught a trailing vine. They turned, dragging heavily.
Jeb sat up, started to open his door.
But the current against the sea anchor pulled them free, swung them back toward center stream.
Jeb relaxed, tipped his head against the seat back. He could hear Gettler’s uneven breathing.
Doesn’t the bastard ever sleep?
Another hour passed: another and another and another …
The river widened, slowed.
Jeb fought the monotony, trying to keep his eyes open. Could we float the plane clear down to Ramona? he asked himself. Christ! It’d be almost impossible!
He became conscious of a reddish fire glow downstream on the right bank, snapped upright. “Trouble!”
The others stirred around him.
“I’ve been watching it,” whispered Gettler.
“What is it?” whispered Monti.
“Fire,” said Jeb. He looked at his wristwatch, leaned forward to peer at the altimeter. “We should be just about at the army post.”
“That’s it,” said Gettler. “The fire means they’ve been here ahead of us! I told you to use the engine!”
“So we could get here in time to be slaughtered,” said Jeb. “You know we couldn’t have beaten them!” He stared into the surrounding darkness. “Are they still here? That’s what I want to know.”
The plane drifted closer to the fire glow.
Gettler shifted his weight, passed the rifle to Jeb. “You may need this,” he whispered. He leaned across David, opened the right-hand door.
“It’s coals,” said Jeb. “Nothing but coals. The night breeze has stirred them up.”
An eddy swung them toward the right bank, then pulled them away. The current tugged at their anchor, as though impatient to get them away from here.
Jeb became acutely conscious of the tense breathing around him, realized that he was holding his own breath.
“Are you sure it’s the army post?” whispered Monti.
Jeb nodded. “I’ve landed here before.”
“This is it all right,” whispered Gettler.
Something barked and gibbered in the jungle beyond the coals.
David leaned forward close to Jeb’s ear, whispered: “Can they see us out here?”
“They couldn’t miss,” said Jeb. “Their eyes are trained to see unusual movements.”
“They see us all right!” snarled Gettler.
“Then why don’t they attack?” asked Monti.
“You tell me,” said Jeb. He reached down, found the flash on the floor under his feet, pointed it toward the coals, and pressed the switch. The shaft of light silhouetted the girder structure of a radio tower toppled crazily into the jungle. Something ran on four feet from a mound near the river edge into the jungle blackness. They could see a warped and blackened tin roof flat on the ground. Smoke curled around its edges.
Jeb turned off the light. The welcome darkness enfolded them. “There was one body near the river bank,” said Jeb. “It was burned. Might’ve been Jivaro.”
“How long ago do you figure?” asked Gettler.
“Four or five hours,” said Jeb. “They must’ve started for here the minute they began chasing you. Some of them came over the mountains on foot. We never could’ve made it.”
“Where are they?” demanded Gettler. “Why don’t they attack?”
Jeb sensed the note of hysteria in Gettler’s voice, thought: I had a premonition against coming on this flight. I should’ve believed it. I had a premonition against wasting gas tonight. I was right. From now on I believe.
The plane drifted past the coals, around a bend. Again they were isolated in the darkness: a floating metal oasis at the bottom of the abyssal depth that was the night.
Jeb responded with a feeling of weary loneliness. He thought ahead to the winding, twisting river course: the rapids, the sunken limbs, the shoals of deadly piranha ready to tear flesh from bones, the hunger and the disease.
And the probability of Indian ambush.
The plane around him felt fragile and inadequate: a corrupt and impermanent thing. He wondered that he had trusted his life to this machine high above the jungle when it was so vulnerable.
Getter’s low rumble broke the shocked silence that filled the plane: “How far to Ramona?”
“More than eight hundred miles by river,” said Jeb.
“Aren’t there any settlements along the way?” asked Monti.
“Indian villages,” said Jeb. “We’re in Jivaro country now. No telling how far their control extends. They raided clear down to Ramona twelve years ago.”
“But you said those Indians in the dugout where we refueled were some other tribe,” she said.
“Zaparo,” said Jeb. “Probably a trading party that came up to get curare.”
“Curare?”
“Dart poison. The Jivaro witchmen are the only ones in these parts who make it.”
“Will this thing float us down to Ramona?” asked Gettler.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” said Jeb. He turned. “Have you ever been up the Tapiche by launch?”
“No. but I’ve talked to some who have.”
“How many rapids?”
Gettler counted on his fingers, musing: “Eight or nine. Maybe more. I’m not sure. Depends on the season and the height of the water. But how could we run even one in this thing?”
“Under power,” said Jeb. “Provided the gas holds out and the engine doesn’t quit on us.”
“Are you sure you can’t get this thing into the air?”
“No. But I’m reasonably sure I couldn’t keep it there.”
“How long would it take us to float down to that town?” asked Monti.
“I don’t know,” said Jeb. “What’s your guess, Gettler?”
“Six weeks or more—with luck. How’re we fixed for drinking water? Got anything to boil it in?”
“I’ve enough pills to purify about sixty gallons. There’re two canvas water bags in that survival kit. Water’s no problem. I’m worried about food. We’ll have to stop and hunt … and if the Jivaro follow us …”
“They’ll follow,” muttered Gettler.
Jeb stared downriver. The sense of worry about Gettler still nagged him. He felt the smooth metal of the man’s rifle against his palms.
“If we could steal a canoe we could make better time,” said Gettler.
A sudden negative feeling gripped Jeb. He held tightly to the safety belt beside him until the feeling passed, the rifle still in his right hand. Presently, he propped the weapon into the corner at his left, reached across Monti, closed her door. A faint, musky perfume filled his nostrils when he leaned close to her. It left him with a keen awareness that she was female … and desirable.
“We need a canoe,” repeated Gettler.
Jeb shook his head. “The plane gives us some safety. It’s some protection from darts, arrows. They don’t have many of those muzzle-loaders. The few they have don’t shoot very straight.”
“One of them shot straight enough to stop us,” said Gettler.
“A chance hit,” said Jeb.
“A chance …” said Monti. “Do we have a chance?”
“Certainly,” said Jeb. “If we don’t panic.”
A shocking laugh—almost a giggle—came from Gettler. “Like the man said: If we can only keep our heads!”
Far off, a night bird called: “Tuta! Tuta!” with a fluting voice like a woman.
Jeb shuddered. The near hopelessness of their position pressed in upon him. They were at the beginning edge of the rainy season with eight hundred miles of jungle river stretching ahead: rapids, chasms, whirlpools, clutching snags. Weariness was a weight upon his shoulders and upon his eyelids.
The flux of night sounds pulsed in his temples. He stared out into the darkness, saw the witch light of fireflies along the shore, smelled the wind from the jungle like an exhalation of evil breath.
In that moment he felt that the jungle rejected all civilization with a conscious and purposeful effort: an active hostility. He saw the jungle as a reservoir of unrestrained savagery that alerted every civilized hackle.
And the waiting Indians were like the embodiment of all he feared: a focus of cruel intelligence that did the jungle’s bidding.
I will not submit! he thought.
“They’re out there in the jungle … looking at us right now,” said Gettler.
“I don’t like floating in the dark,” said Jeb. “We could come on a snag, get caught in rapids—anything!”
“There’re no rapids right away,” said Gettler. “Forty miles or more. Not until we start down off this plateau.”
“We’ll watch for an island,” said Jeb. “It’s not very likely that they’ll be waiting for us on an island.”
“Good idea,” said Gettler. He settled back into his seat, thought: So my second chance won’t be easy! All right, I’m used to fighting. I’ll make it even if it kills these soft fools!
The river tugged gently at their anchor, and all of them sensed their alliance with this current dragging itself endlessly down to the sea like a black chord of emptiness.
But now … no longer empty.