Insects: Braga's Gold

by John Koloen

  “Ramon, por favor.”

  “Eu não sei.”

  Cooper was exasperated, shaking his head as he looked toward Boyd.

  “He says he doesn’t know,” Boyd said.

  “What?” Harden exclaimed. “He doesn’t know what?”

  “He doesn’t know where we are,” Cooper said.

  “So we’re lost,” Harden, the six-three, beefy and bearded American, said, testily.

  “We’re not lost,” Boyd said quickly. “We haven’t gone that far. Josias can find our way out of here.”

  “Well, in that case, I vote we get outta here,” Harden said, his voice rising.

  “You’re scaring him,” Cooper said.

  Ramon, who was taller than Josias but shorter than the Americans, looked at Boyd for support. He had the defensive posture of someone who expected a beating. Boyd smiled and nodded, encouraging him to find their way.

  “It looks different now,” Ramon said in Portuguese. “I thought there was a trail.”

  While the Americans huddled to discuss the situation, Josias studied the ground. He could tell by their tone that they were upset. Although he was unfamiliar with this particular spot, he’d grown up in the rainforest, had gone through his tribal initiation and understood nature with greater intimacy than a naturalist. Unlike the others, he felt no discomfort. He was not lost. He saw the signs that Ramon couldn’t. The animal trail that his cousin had followed. It didn’t look like a trail. The vines and vegetation had never seen the sharp edge of a machete. But nobody had asked him and he was too modest to offer an opinion unless asked.

  He came over quickly when Boyd motioned toward him.

  “Do you know where we are?” the American asked in Portuguese.

  Josias smiled.

  “We are here.”

  Boyd chuckled.

  “That’s a big help,” Harden said sarcastically.

  “Lighten up. We just need to get our bearings.”

  Boyd asked Ramon what he was looking for.

  “Maybe there’s some sort of landmark,” Cooper suggested.

  Boyd and Ramon spoke briefly, the conversation ending as the young man pointed toward the sky.

  “He says there’s an opening in the canopy. That’s what he’s looking for. You know, it can’t be far. He’s been there twice.”

  “Maybe we took a wrong turn.” Harden said.

  Using his phone, Boyd typed a sentence into the translation app and recited it slowly to Josias.

  “Yes, yes,” Josias said in English, pointing in the direction from which they’d come.

  In less than five minutes, Josias led them to the spot that Ramon had missed.

  Ramon was apologetic as they neared the opening in the canopy.

  “No problemas,” Boyd said to Ramon.

  Ramon sighed and, as they stood in front of the patch of bare earth, he stared at the ground as if it were a gravesite.

  51

  They found the rotting carcass of Victor’s agouti. They found desiccated Reptilus remains. The three of them exchanged glances. They were on the right track. Ramon couldn’t understand a word they were saying and watched from outside the killing zone. He turned his eyes away when they showed him what had killed his cousin. How could he tell his relatives that Victor had been eaten alive by baratas? He shook his head in denial, not wanting to believe it but knowing that it was true. There was no other explanation. However, while this was the end of the story as far as Ramon Gaspar was concerned, it was only the beginning for the Americans, who documented the area with their phones, paying particular attention to the darkened area, still moist with the victim’s fluids.

  The spot where Victor died was a mile from the mining camp. As the only one with direct knowledge of Reptilus blaberus, Boyd realized that the terrain adjacent to the campsite lacked vegetation and thus held far fewer herbivores than a hungry colony could feast upon. Harden and Cooper meanwhile inspected the area as if expecting to find tiny footprints that would lead them to the colony.

  But the area had seen little rain since the previous year and, despite the population of monkeys and birds, he wondered how many ground-dwelling prey animals had remained. Rather than looking for the colony, he suggested they look for carcasses. He explained how they’d found the insects several years ago by looking for dead mammals.

  “Carcasses were everywhere once we got into the forest,” he said. “I was looking as we hiked here but I didn’t see any. Back then there was a lot of water as well.”

  “Yeah, I read that book by whatshisname,” Cooper said.

  “Duncan, Howard Duncan,” Boyd said.

  “Yeah, that’s it. But you guys were in a flood, right?”

  “Yeah. Nothing like now.”

  “The only water I’ve seen is that pond. You think that’s where they are?” Harden said.

  “I don’t think so,” Boyd said dismissively. “They can cover a lot of ground and they’re organized. They use scouting parties to find prey but as far as I know they only hunt on dry land. Anyway, it’s not like they're all going to gather around the pond like a bunch of cattle. They can't swim. They'd drown.”

  As they talked, Ramon slowly moved away, inching his way in the direction of the camp. Josias noticed this but was too polite to interrupt the Americans’ conversation. Finally, he stood in front of Boyd, tilting his head toward Ramon, who was nearly out of sight.

  “Hey, where are you going?” Boyd called out in Portuguese.

  “Where are you going?” he shouted. Monkeys and birds responded with a deafening chorus of squawks and howls.

  Boyd waved for him to return to the group but Ramon stood his ground. Boyd asked Josias to talk to him. A moment passed and Josias returned, shaking his head.

  “He no come,” he said in English. “He afraid.”

  “We don’t need him, do we?” Cooper asked. “We’re not that far in.”

  “Yeah, let him go. We paid him to show us this place and he did,” Harden said. “You know the way out, right?”

  “If I don’t, he does,” Boyd said, nodding toward Josias.

  52

  “Where did they go?” Cooper asked as they returned to the camp, after spending several hours looking for Reptilus.

  “I have no idea,” Boyd said.

  “So, how are we going to find them?”

  Scanning the barren buffer between the forest and the camp, Cooper studied the ground, looking for signs of an advancing army of insects, even kneeling in the sand when he thought he’d seen tiny footprints.

  “You’re not gonna see ’em,” Boyd said.

  “Why not?” Cooper asked, brushing sand from his knees as he stood.

  “They use scouting parties. They’re very organized. They’ll find you before you find them.”

  “Maybe so, but if we find one of those parties couldn’t we just grab a couple and get outta here? I mean, you said they’re looking for water.”

  “Possibly looking for water,” Boyd said. “Remember, we need a male and a female and there’s more males than females.”

  “I don’t think they do,” Cooper said.

  “Do what?”

  “I don’t think they need a female. They were working on cloning them in Dr. Thomas’s lab.”

  “Well, that’s not what they told me,” Boyd said.

  “I suppose you can tell them apart, huh?”

  “The females are bigger, but, yeah, we’d have to be lucky to find one. We were lucky last time.”

  “So, what happens if you can’t find a female?” Harden asked. “Does that mean we don’t get our bonuses? Man, that’s the whole reason I took this job.”

  “I’m telling you, they’re not breeding them,” Cooper said emphatically. “That ended when Duncan left. They’ll take whatever you can get.”

  “Well, I’d hate to get into a pissing match with them,” Boyd said.

  “You wouldn’t stand a chance,” Harden said.

  “I don’t know about that,” Coo
per said. “You could always go public with it. They’d pay you just to keep your mouth shut. Anyway, that’s what I’m gonna do if they try to screw me.”

  “How long you been thinking about that?”

  “I just thought of it,” Cooper said, beaming.

  “What about the nondisclosure you signed?” Harden asked.

  “If they fuck with me, I’ll fuck with them,” Cooper said, defiantly.

  The smoke had blocked out the sun as they returned to the camp. Ramon was in the tent he shared with his late cousin and two other men. His belongings were arrayed on his cot as he chose what to take and what to leave behind. Boyd stopped to thank him for leading them into the rainforest.

  “What are you doing?” Boyd asked in Portuguese.

  “I’m getting ready for tomorrow.”

  “What’s happening tomorrow?”

  “You will be leaving. You found what you are looking for.”

  Boyd shook his head. The young Brazilian stopped what he was doing. The look on his face needed no translation.

  “We must find live insetos,” he said in Portuguese. “Then we go.”

  Ramon lowered his head disappointedly. He had been under the impression that once he’d led the Americans into the forest that they would be leaving the next day and that he would travel with them to Jacareacanga. He blurted out a stream of words that Boyd didn’t understand, though it was obvious the Brazilian was upset. Boyd looked at Josias.

  “He is sad,” Josias said in English before speaking to Ramon in Portuguese, after which Ramon embraced the tribesman.

  “What did you say to him?” Boyd asked as they made their way out of the miners’ camp toward their tent.

  “I tell him things be better.”

  53

  Light was fading. It was the end of the workday, the air near the cook shack was fragrant with the aroma of a stew that simmered in a large pot. Braga had shot a monkey that had the misfortune of annoying him, which Grimaldi added to the pot. It was male so he boiled the stew longer than usual to tenderize some of the toughness out of the meat and imbued it with spicy flavorings. Boyd and Harden had returned, drawn by the alluring aroma and to let Braga know that they didn’t find what they were looking for.

  “That smells good,” Harden observed as they approached the cook shack. Braga, who was talking with Grimaldi, directed a question at Boyd. The American looked at Grimaldi, uncertain of what Braga had said.

  “He says, did you find what you are looking for?”

  Boyd shook his head. Braga frowned and said something to the cook.

  “Are you going back to the town tomorrow?”

  “No. We’re still looking for specimens. We think they’re nearby.”

  “He asks, why you are looking for baratas here?”

  “They look like baratas,” Boyd agreed. “But they’re not baratas.”

  Braga snorted and shook his head, repeating baratas several times.

  Boyd smiled, nodding in agreement.

  “He said something about cockroaches being everywhere. I’m sure he thinks we’re idiots,” Boyd said to Harden.

  “Why don’t you tell him they’re not cockroaches?” Harden asked.

  “I tried. What would you think, assuming you didn’t know anything about them, if I told you we’re looking for man-eating insects that look like cockroaches?”

  Harden nodded sagaciously. The language barrier made communication difficult but Boyd didn’t see any advantage to conducting a seminar on Reptilus blaberus. Braga might laugh at him or he might become alarmed. He didn’t mind getting laughed at but he didn’t want to frighten him, not knowing how he would react.

  “What’s for dinner?” Boyd asked as they were about to leave.

  “Monkey stew,” Grimaldi said.

  “You can have some if there’s any left over,” the cook said as they headed toward their tent.

  Boyd smiled and nodded in acknowledgement. As they crossed the dry streambed, Harden asked if they were going to return for the stew.

  “There won’t be any leftovers,” he said.

  54

  Night came quickly after their busy day and the four shared a meal of freeze-dried pasta that only partially satisfied their hunger. They sat around a small, smoky fire that did a decent job at keeping the mosquitoes at bay. Cooper ducked into the tent and emerged with a small flask and a collapsible cup.

  “You’ve been holding out on us,” Harden said as Cooper poured a measured amount into the cup, handing it to Boyd.

  Boyd sniffed it before downing it, returning the cup to Cooper who offered a drink to Harden who downed it immediately, exhaling with satisfaction.

  “No better time for a little Jack, hey guys?”

  Cooper offered a drink to Josias, who declined. Then he had his taste.

  The men grew quiet as they watched embers drift upward, their little circle of light the only thing separating them from the surrounding darkness.

  “You know,” Harden said, breaking the silence, “what were those guys talking about, you know, when the hat became a big deal? For five minutes they just talked.”

  Boyd looked at Josias. He’d noticed that he had been listening to the conversation between the cook and Braga but struggled to find the words to ask him about it.

  “What did they say about the hat?” he said, patting the top of his head.

  Josias nodded slowly, thinking about what to say.

  “They saw insetos before. They worry about you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Harden asked.

  “This is where it gets hard,” Boyd said, as he typed into his translation app, sounding out the words in his head until finally speaking to Josias.

  “They say you are ecologista,” Josias said.

  “We’re ecologists?” Cooper asked.

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  Boyd continued to recite sentences, ignoring his companions’ interruptions, as the Americans listened closely to Josias’s replies, a mixture of pidgin English and Portuguese that aggravated Harden to the extent that he abruptly moved away from the campfire to calm himself, returning as soon as the guide had finished.

  “Okay, this Braga guy doesn’t trust us.”

  “No shit,” Harden said.

  “Well, why would he?” Cooper asked. “I mean, he’s operating an illegal mine, right? We’re three white guys from America collecting insects but maybe he thinks we’re out to steal his claim or report him.”

  “I can see why he wouldn’t trust us,” Boyd agreed. “But that’s the way it is with strangers everywhere. We know Reptilus is around here. We know that at least one of their guys was killed by the bugs.”

  “He didn’t seem interested in finding the body. If one of your workers died wouldn’t you want to at least bury him?” Cooper asked.

  “You and me might do that, but you may have noticed he isn’t like you or me.”

  “Why don’t we just pack up and head back tomorrow?” Harden said. “I am getting more and more uncomfortable with this.”

  Although Boyd was uneasy with the circumstances, he had far more to lose if they left without specimens. The payoff for him was a quarter-million dollars, while Harden and Cooper were well-paid as contractors and had signed on for what they thought would be a weeklong project. They’d earn a bonus for a successful outcome but their rewards weren’t life-changing like Boyd’s. Neither was married, and neither struggled under a student debt that stood in the way of his wife’s dreams to buy a house. He’d done the math many times. They made decent money in their jobs, especially Carolyn, but they lived in California where even middle class neighborhoods carried upper class prices. Without a windfall, he feared the debt would hold them back for the rest of their lives and they would never be able to save enough for the down payment that would be required for a low-interest loan.

  “What do you think, Coop?” Boyd asked, unsure whether he would side with Harden.

  “I think we should sleep
on it, to tell the truth.”

  Harden nodded appreciatively while Boyd was thrown off guard. He’d hoped Cooper would have been more supportive. Sleeping on it was simply a delaying tactic, one he had used plenty of times. He was certain Harden wasn’t going to change his mind but he couldn’t tell what Cooper was thinking.

  The conversation faded along with the fire. Josias disappeared into the darkness to climb into his hammock while Harden and Cooper retired to the tent where they lay on top of their sleeping bags, whispering. Boyd stirred the remains of the fire with a stick, wondering what he would do in the morning. He was the leader. They knew it. But if they both wanted to leave, what could he do to stop them? He assumed the language barrier would prevent them from talking Josias into leading them back to Jacareacanga. No matter what they decided, he didn’t think they’d be stupid enough to go it alone, no matter how fearful of Braga they allowed themselves to be.

  But he had his doubts as he approached the tent.

  “That’s all I’m saying,” Harden inadvertently whispered loud enough for Boyd to hear. “Let’s sleep on it and then get the hell out of here in the morning.”

  55

  It was all going his way. Finally. Howard Duncan had his passport. He was scanning a list of airlines and departure times in his hotel room, his natural frugality insisting that he balance price against the convenience of the quickest arrival in Chicago. There were no direct flights, which meant counting the number of stops and the length of layovers. It got so complicated that he created a spreadsheet to determine the most favorable cost-benefit ratio, despite knowing that Maggie would cover any expense. But he wasn’t comfortable with it. Reliance on Maggie’s millions collided with his sense of personal autonomy. Even though he could imagine marrying her, he struggled with the notion of dependence. He’d always regarded himself as self-reliant and self-contained. As much as possible, he made his way on his own terms, followed his own counsel and was quite willing to go left when everyone else went right, sometimes out of nothing more than contrariness.