Wilson squatted down. He pushed his chapeau away from his forehead and scratched at his beard. His eyes avoided the wooden face of their prisoner. “Zé ... why don't you ask her the meaning of the airfield?”
Da Silva shook his head. “In the first place, I wouldn't believe anything she told me. And in the second"—his voice hardened slightly—"I don't think you could stand watching me question her.”
The girl shivered perceptibly.
Wilson stared at the swarthy man towering above him. "Zé," he said softly, “I don't think I'll ever completely get to understand you.”
Da Silva shrugged. “Then don't try.”
Wilson continued, almost curiously. “Are you sure there isn't a touch of—well, disappointment? Frustration? In the way you feel about her?”
“And don't try to psychoanalyze me.” Da Silva looked at the squatting man evenly for a moment, and then a faint smile of bitterness crossed his face. “I'm always disappointed in people who try to kill me.” He looked up and changed the subject abruptly.
“Let's get the canoe in the water.”
The long, slim craft was easily wrestled into the water by Captain Freitas and tied to hold it steady in the swirling eddies near the bank. Da Silva studied the night sky: the half-moon was riding the boiling edge of storm clouds. Without a word he bent, picked the girl up, and laid her in the canoe.
“All right,” he said quietly.
The three men took their places in the rocking craft, stepping easily over the packs and the curled figure lying silently between the seats. In the back Da Silva lifted a paddle. Captain Freitas, hunched over the prow like some gargantuan figurehead, lifted the other.
“We'll wait until the moon goes behind the clouds again,” Da Silva said. “Remember ... no paddling and no splashing. We'll let the current carry us over, and we'll just steer with the paddles. We're aiming for that little spit we saw before, if we can make it. And if there's any trouble, duck as low as possible and start praying.”
Wilson cleared his throat. “You mean keep on praying.” He swiveled his head. “What do we do with Little Miss Muffet once we get over there?”
Da Silva's voice was wooden. “We gag her and tie her to a tree for the night.”
There was a muffled gasp from the bottom of the canoe. Da Silva looked down. “I'm sorry I hurt you back there,” he said quietly. “I'd be sorrier if I had to kill you.”
There was something in his voice that carried the complete conviction of his seriousness. The figure cramped in the bottom of the canoe subsided. Da Silva leaned closer, his voice deadly.
“Because alive you might be of some use to us.”
The shadows on the river deepened; the moon, which had been flirting with the ragged edges of the twisted black clouds, had decided to submerge itself in their roiling obscurity.
Da Silva took a deep breath.
“All right,” he said.
He leaned to one side and tugged at the knot the huge captain had left. The cord snaked free, and for a moment the eddies at the bank tried to twist the small craft. The steadying effect of the paddles instantly corrected the yaw and they moved sluggishly away from the bank, edging into the river. A silver band widened as the moon strayed closer to the cloud edge once again. Da Silva felt the current catch at them, dragging them with increasing swiftness into the blackness.
He locked his wrists on the paddle, fighting to hold them on a course. The night swallowed them.
Chapter 11
THE RAUCOUS, CACKLING cry of a nearby jungle hen awoke Wilson. He rolled over, still fighting sleep, and staggered to his feet. Dawn was lighting the small glen where they had hidden after their landing; wisps of fog were curling lazily in the trees above. There was a sudden scurry from the underbrush as some curious denizen of the forest hastily withdrew from the presence of these strange interlopers. Wilson rubbed his eyes and yawned and then came wide awake as he suddenly remembered where they were and why. Bad punctuation, he thought sourly as he stared about; I should say: I remember where we are—and why?
Da Silva was sleeping peacefully, his back against a tree, his arms cradling his rifle across his knee. Captain Freitas was slumped against the canoe, which had been drawn back into the bushes from the little spit of land on which they had landed; his leonine head was supported on his great arms. Elena's head was slumped in sleep; her bound arms were twisted behind the tree, where Da Silva had imprisoned her the night before.
Wilson bent and shook Da Silva gently.
"Zé!”
Da Silva opened his eyes instantly. He stared into the face above him a moment and then screwed his eyes tightly shut again. When he opened them the second time intelligence had replaced his original blank look. He took a deep breath.
“I tried to stay awake and watch her, but I must have dozed.”
“Like six or eight hours?” Wilson grinned at him. “That's the king-size variety of doze. Known among purists as a good night's sleep.”
Da Silva smiled and pushed himself stiffly to his feet. The large captain had awakened at the sound of their voices and also came erect, shaking himself into alertness like a Labrador retriever shedding water. The three men stared down at the girl; as they watched, her eyes opened slightly and then instantly closed. Da Silva bent down and pinched her nose. The dark eyes opened with startling suddenness and this time remained open.
“That's better,” Da Silva said softly. “I'm going to remove your gag so you can eat. I'm afraid someone will have to feed you, though, because you're going to stay tied up. And I don't have to tell you, I'm sure, how stupid it would be to try to make any outcry.”
They ate dried corn washed down with tepid water from their canteens. Wilson was still holding the canteen cap to Elena's cracked lips when Da Silva finished and bent to retrieve the binoculars from his pack. He pushed his way through the surrounding wall of trees to the edge of the river and raised the glasses.
In the light of early morning the little spit on which they were hidden was well defined, a small finger of land poking into the river, covered with brush and edged with an unbroken wall of trees that offered excellent cover. Their luck at striking this point in the dark of night was evident to him as he peered downriver; the bank below stretched in a straight line for several miles before bending in a gentle curve to disappear into the wall of green that formed the jungle. Beneath the solid bank of trees was a sheer vertical drop into the swift current; beaching there would have been difficult, if not impossible.
Da Silva nodded to himself and pushed back to the tiny glade.
“No sign of anything,” he reported with quiet satisfaction. “My guess is that they don't have enough people to guard an area this big properly.”
“So what's the program?” Wilson had finished feeding Elena and was squatting on the ground beside her, recapping his canteen.
The girl's eyes had closed again; her head was leaning back against the tree.
“We go in there, just you and I. With one pack—light. We're going to be traveling fast. Captain Freitas stays with Sleeping Beauty here.” He bent down, dragging their packs from the canoe. “We go in there and try and find out what the score is.”
“That's a wonderful idea,” Wilson said interestedly. “Just one question: how do we find out what the score is? We don't even know who's playing. Do we stop the first Jivaro we come across? What do we say? ‘Pardon us, but we're from Journal Do Brasil and we happened to be strolling by and we couldn't help noticing your airfield; would you mind giving us some of the details regarding it? We're sure our readers would be interested.'”
Da Silva finished sorting their gear and was busy packing the items he had selected into one small pack. He looked up with a smile. “That might not be a bad idea. Anyway, we'll worry about that when we get there.” His eyes dropped to the girl, and the smile was wiped from his swarthy features. She bit her lip at his tone as he added quietly, “As a last resort we can always come back and question Elena.”
> He turned back to his repacking in silence; when he had finished he slung the slim pack to his shoulders.
“Let's go,” he said quietly to Wilson, and turned to the captain, waiting silently at their side. “We should be back by dark. If we're not back by tomorrow night...”
He left the sentence unfinished and turned without looking back to disappear into the thick woods beyond the spit. Wilson hesitated a moment and then grasped his machete and rifle and plunged into the dense foliage after his friend. His last memory was of the huge steamer captain staring down woodenly at their captive, his thick fingers stroking the edge of his machete evenly.
Da Silva was waiting for Wilson, studying his compass. He slipped the instrument into his pocket and nodded, looking ahead.
“We'll have to cut our way.”
Wilson stared into the gloom beyond them. “What about noise?”
Da Silva shrugged. “It doesn't carry far in this stuff. And there's no other way. We don't have time to waste.” He tightened his grip on his machete and started forward.
The forest here, some four kilometers above the great clearing with the Indian village and the hidden airfield, was primeval—solid jungle wrapped about with flower vines, liana, and tough roots that twined at times halfway up the trunks of other trees to form an almost impassable barrier. Da Silva pushed on, his arm rising and falling mechanically, tearing holes in the solid tangle that tried to bar their path. Wilson followed silently, panting in the humid jungle heat. The forest gave way before their relentless onslaught; they pushed on, ruthlessly forcing their way through every opening, slashing clearance when none was available. Branches whipped into their faces cuttingly; mosquitoes and black flies tormented them every step. But the larger animals, as if aware of the inexorable violence plunging beneath them, ran for the higher branches, leaving these juggernauts at peace.
The morning wore on. They beat their way steadily eastward, now coming to open glades that afforded easy passage, now forcing their way through the thick interwoven jungle with machetes flashing. At times the compass was consulted; Da Silva would glance back along their trail and nod in satisfaction. They paused more often now, panting in the rising heat of the day, to strain their ears for any unusual sound. Hearing none, they would once again attack the jungle furiously.
They paused at noon to eat. Da Silva swung his pack to the ground, and the two of them made a meal by munching on maize and farinha.
Wilson interrupted his repast to take a drink from his canteen and then burped gently.
“When I finally get back to civilization,” he said quietly, “there's one food item that's going off my diet for ever. That's corn, in all its insidious forms. Including succotash, corn bread, cornflakes, hominy—although I wouldn't eat that paper pulp if I were starving—mush, popcorn, corn on the cob...”
Da Silva grinned at him. “How about bourbon?”
“Well,” Wilson said, “you have to make one exception to prove you're not a fanatic. I'll allow bourbon, but nothing else. In fact, if I ever have to go west, I intend to skirt any state that even grows the stuff. That includes Illinois, Iowa, Kansas...”
He stopped speaking suddenly, all nerves tense, all senses alert. There had been the clear ringing of metal on metal borne faintly on the still air. He placed his food to one side; his hand slipped to his rifle. The idle look on Da Silva's face disappeared; he was suddenly alive. He rolled over soundlessly beside Wilson, gripping his rifle tightly. The metallic sound came again.
"Zé..."
“Quiet!” The bearded lips were drawn back in a grimace. The two men waited a moment, peering intently into the thick foliage in the direction of the sounds. Da Silva rose slowly to one knee and slipped the pack out of sight under the brush.
“Stay here.” It was a whisper. “I'm going to look around.”
Wilson nodded silently. Da Silva eased himself forward and disappeared into the brush. The stocky man drew himself to one side, hiding further into the heavy undergrowth beside the pack, preparing to wait.
Minutes passed, and then Da Silva was suddenly back, wriggling through the undercover.
“It's there,” he whispered. “The end of the field. But I couldn't get close. There seems to be a lot of activity at this point.” He paused, thinking, while Wilson waited. “We have to work our way around to the north side of the field if we want to see anything.”
Wilson looked at him. “They'll have guards,” he said quietly.
Da Silva nodded. “Of course they'll have guards. We'll have to be careful. Let's pull back a bit and circle.”
Wilson pulled the pack from hiding and slipped it over his shoulder. The two clutched their rifles tightly and slowly faded into the denseness behind them. Da Silva led the way, creeping silently. He had looped his machete about a hook in his web belt. Here they could not afford the noise of cutting their way. Passage would have to be forced with bare hands.
At each sound they froze, waiting breathlessly, and then pushed on again. The insects attacked them relentlessly. Twice they startled families of huge multicolored spiders, who scurried from them and then paused, as if deciding whether or not to return and test their venom on these intruders. The dank smell of the jungle floor was sickening, the soft touch of fern and rot repugnant. Their outlines as they crawled along were faint shadows against the darker shadow of the twisting and weaving underbrush about them.
Over an hour passed before they arrived at their destination. A band of light became discernible through the trees ahead. So thick was the jungle that they were almost upon it before the light could be seen. Da Silva raised a hand. They paused, studying each leaf, listening to every creak and groan of the soughing limbs high above as the sounds etched into their acute hearing. Wilson eased the pack from his shoulders, twisting on the soft forest floor to accomplish the maneuver without noise. The two looked at each other, nodded, and then crept forward, unencumbered and with even greater caution. Brush fronted them at the edge of the clearing and they spread it apart to peer through. They stared amazed.
The thin camouflage covering the hidden planes allowed sufficient light to pass through: the reflection of the early afternoon sun clearly detailed the sleek aluminum monsters poised in line along the hard-packed-earth runway.
Da Silva caught his breath; he turned back, bending over, whispering in Wilson's ear.
“Do you see?”
There was an imperceptible nod. "Bombers!"
They stared at each other wordlessly a moment; then Da Silva returned to his inspection of the scene before him. Beyond the staggered line of planes, angled in towards the edge of the forest like frozen sniffing dogs, a wall of glittering tins could be seen.
Da Silva leaned over, bending his head to whisper once again.
“Let's pull back.”
They inched their way backwards some thirty yards and paused. Da Silva licked his lips, attempting to control his breathing.
“You stay here. I'm going to see what they have over there.”
Once again he disappeared into the brush while Wilson waited silently. Only the faintest of rustling marked his passage; the flowers and vines bent themselves obediently back into place behind him. Wriggling slowly, freezing at every suspicious sound, he edged his way closer to the mountain of five-gallon tins he had seen in his last inspection. It was the fuel dump, of course. How they had managed to amass that spectacular quantity of gasoline here in this wilderness was a mystery. But it was only a small part of the greater mystery of how they had managed to collect that squadron of airplanes—and why....
He studied the field intently from his new position and then returned his gaze to the huge pile of tins. A frown crossed his face as he made a rough calculation: although the quantity of stored gasoline before him was most impressive, there could actually be little more than enough to fill the tanks of the thirsty bombers. If that much. He lay there, attempting to correlate this calculation with the other information he had, trying to pierce the mystery, an
d then shook his head. His eyes hardened. It looked as if a session with Elena was going to be necessary.
With infinite care he began his retreat, worming his way back to the spot where he had left Wilson. In the increasing dimness of the jungle it was hard to distinguish forms; only the occasional sounds from the airfield marked its place to his left. He paused, his eyes searching the jungle. Certainly he had come two hundred meters. Where was Wilson? Could it be that he had cut too deeply into the forest? But no; the faint band of light filtering through the trees from the field was at the same distance. Then where was Wilson? He froze, straining his ears. Nothing. He slowly rose to one knee.
“Wilson!” It was an intent whisper.
A voice sounded almost in his ear. “Don't move! You're covered!”
He swung about, startled.
A tall figure had emerged from the shadow of a tree; a rifle was pointed steadily at him.
“Up! And don't reach for anything.” The voice was raised. “Aldo! Here!”
A second figure appeared almost silently, rifle raised. Da Silva stood rigid, his mind racing. A hand removed his revolver belt; his machete fell to the ground. If Wilson had escaped...
This dream was instantly shattered. “Get the other one on his feet,” the harsh voice said, and prodded Da Silva with the rifle. “All right; let's go.”
The second guard bent, straining. Wilson came up from the brush knees sagging, head bloody and rolling. Da Silva stifled a curse and took a step forward. The rifle dug into his back.
“Hold it!” There was a pause and then a hard chuckle. “All right, if you want to help him, fine. Less work for us.” Another chuckle followed. Maybe we did your friend a favor at that, hitting him on the head. “The Jivaros don't like broken heads.” The rifle was steady on the two men. “Let's go.”
They came through the edge of the jungle to the airfield, Da Silva supporting the sagging body of his friend, the two armed guards behind with their rifles at the ready. Da Silva's mind was churning. Each step they took reduced the possibility of escape, but with Wilson wounded he couldn't leave him. Be philosophical, he said to himself. You wanted to find out what this was all about, and it looks as if you're going to.
The Shrunken Head Page 14