by Greg Bear
The crane was strong enough to lift the boat clear of the car, and its steel bearings let it swing smoothly over to the log rollers already in place. Workers tied ropes to the boat and put chocks under the supporting rollers.
The struthios went first, silent in their cage. Peter wondered if they were all screeched out, or if they were just fascinated by the constant din of monkeys and macaws. Large black caciques flew around the clearing and the road, looking for scraps. One of them blundered into the venator's cage and the carnivore gulped it down like a fly. After that the other birds stayed away.
When the struthios' cage had been secured, the workers, instructed by Shellabarger through Billie and Jorge, gradually unrolled the long ropes and guided the boat with log poles and frequent stops and readjustments and much shouting down to the water. The boat stuck briefly on the mud, but with twenty men poling and wedging it farther, it floated free. They tethered it to trees on the bank.
"One down," Shellabarger said.
Shellabarger saved the venator cage for the last boat. He had changed the loading scheme and was going to put the venator alone on his own boat. They let the avisaurs out of their cage for exercise, and the bird-lizards rode on the trainer's and Peter's arms, shoulders, and head, down to the water.
Shellabarger and Peter were hidden beneath flapping wings and snapping beaks. None of the birds bit them, however. "They know I taste awful," he said. With the birds under Peter's charge, tied down with ropes around their talons, Anthony, Ray, and three of the workers carried their cage.
When the birds had been shut up once again, Shellabarger retrieved his cigar from Billie and relit it. Billie refused to smoke. His mother was Colombian, he said, and she used to smoke cigarettes and cigars with the burning end in her mouth. "They made her very sick, after a while," Billie said. "Maybe they killed her."
The venator stood in his cage, his forearm claws locked firmly on the steel water trough. As the cage swung out to rest on the boat, a chock beneath the forward roller splintered and the boat slipped sideways with a hollow rumble. Workmen scrambled to get out of the way. Peter jumped aside as the bow swung about. The boat's pilot shack struck the suspended cage with a mighty whack, tumbling the venator about. With a scream of rage, Dagger kicked and snapped, swinging the cage even more wildly. The crane made an ominous groaning noise.
Shellabarger leaped onto the cage with a rope and clung to the bars. Peter's throat seized; he expected the venator to grab the trainer through the bars and crush or claw him to death then and there. But Dagger could not right himself in time, and Shellabarger made it to the top, where the animal could only snap at him. From the top of the cage, the trainer swung the rope over the crane's boom and tied it to the cage on the other side, in case the crane's main cable snapped.
Peter and Anthony joined the film crew and roustabouts in chocking the boat with bits of log, rocks, even palm fronds, so it would not roll any farther. The roustabouts and workers began laboriously wrestling the boat back into position, pulling with ropes attached to log-drum winches. They lost two hours. Noon was almost upon them by the time the boat had been levered back onto its rolling logs.
Shellabarger remained on top of the cage the whole time, yelling instructions and checking the ropes. The cage swung a few inches back and forth and twisted slowly first one way, then the other. The venator stood within, motionless except for his neck and head, examining the top of the cage and the trainer's feet like a bird hoping to peck a piece of fruit. He made low grunting noises deep in his throat and flexed his claws against the bars.
Peter thought he had never seen anyone as brave as Vince Shellabarger.
Anthony had finished two rolls of film by this time and was loading another in the shade of a black cloth. He grimaced and clicked the camera back shut. "I wonder he's survived this long," he said under his breath.
With the boat secure, the crane operator lowered the cage onto the boat and it was locked down. The workmen maneuvered warily around the steel bars, keeping their eyes on the animal, ready to shout a warning to jump clear if he made a move. But Dagger kept his attention on the trainer, and Peter realized Shellabarger was not just checking the ropes: he was also distracting the dinosaur.
" Stand clear," Shellabarger said when the work was finished. "And put down some branches. I'm going to jump."
Billie took branches and palm fronds from the workmen and laid them in cross-thatch on the deck, and for good measure, put the pilot's seat cushion on top. Shellabarger jumped, landed on his feet, fell back onto his butt, and let out a groan. But he got up unhurt and brushed off his pants with his hat. The workmen cheered.
The venator leaned forward slightly, measuring the distance between the bars of the cage and Shellabarger: eight feet. Out of reach.
The workmen rolled the last boat down to the water, picking up the logs behind and carrying them around to the front. By one o'clock, the venator's boat was in the water, and all the boats strained against their ropes as the Caroni tried to push them downstream.
OBie and Ray finished filming with the big cameras and packed them up. Shawmut and Osborne carried them through the shallows to their boat. OBie took charge of the small camera. As the expedition prepared to continue upriver, Ray sat on the bow of the boat carrying the struthios and avisaurs, sketchpad in hand.
Peter thought he could tell without looking what Ray was drawing: Venator Escapes!
Billie showed them a chart of the river up the side branch to Challenger Canyon and the Jorge Washington Falls. Shellabarger, OBie, Anthony, Peter, and Wetherford crowded around him, listening intently.
"There are three sets of rapids," Billie said. "The first two, they are okay. These boats, no problem, so long as the engines keep going. There are channels right up the middle, between big split boulders. But here . . . the rapids are worse. I don't know how bad yet, because the water is still high, but we may have trouble."
Shellabarger removed his hat and wiped his head with a red kerchief.
"We will not know until we try, true, senor?" Billie said.
"Let's do it," the trainer said. He patted his pockets, made a face, and said, "We'll have to get there soon. I'm out of smokes."
Wetherford pulled a cigarette from his shirt pocket and handed it to Shellabarger. "Held one back for you," he said.
Shellabarger took it with thanks, looked at it, made another face, and handed it back.
"Something wrong?" Wetherford asked.
"Thinking about Billie's mother smoking with the burning end in her mouth . . ."
"Does put one off, doesn't it?" Wetherford agreed. He flipped the cigarette into the water. One of the workmen waded out and retrieved it. He raised it high and grinned triumphantly.
The disheveled officer and his three subordinates approached the shore at the last minute. "The radios are not talking with each other, senors," he said. "I can only assume you are who you say you are. Will you take a word of warning, kindly, senors?"
"Surely," OBie said.
"What we last heard, elPresidente Gallegos and my generals are very unhappy with each other. I do not know the mood of my colonel at Pico Poco, but he will not be content, for the radios must be silent up there, too. We are isolated. Do you understand?"
"We understand," OBie said. "Gracias." "jAdios!" the officer said, and waved his hat. The workmen cheered again as the boats switched on their engines and cast loose. Shellabarger and OBie shouted their thanks and Billie translated. The waving and shouting continued as the boats pushed out against the current, now making less than a mile an hour headway.
Peter stared up at the sheer flanks of El Grande. High up there, he thought, were animals even fiercer than the venator. He wondered if any of them ever ventured close to the edge, to peer down at the other, newer world below.
Chapter Eleven
After a week on the river, the thunder of the falls sounded like heaven to Peter. It meant they had made it this far with only scrapes and bruises, and that soon
they would be riding in trucks, climbing the road to Pico Poco.
The boats crept up the dark waters, surrounded on both sides by escarpments of a thousand feet and more. Fly and mosquito bites covered Peter's body and he itched all the time; his arms and legs ached from tugging on ropes on the rugged banks to guide the barges through the open channels in the rapids, one at a time.
The last set of rapids almost did them in. The third boat, carrying the centrosaur, was almost through the middle section of smooth high water when it fetched up against a submerged rock, and the shock pitched Anthony into the water. Sammy's cage swung forward, squealing on its blocks and straining against the tie-downs.
"Get him a rope!" Kasem shouted from the bank. His voice was almost lost in the roar of rushing water. Ray and OBie, on the fourth barge, threw a line forward into the white roil, and Anthony made a grab. A sudden undercurrent drew him down and he bobbed up in a whirlpool. The line was pushed back downriver.
Peter watched from the back of the third barge. He saw clear water between him and the whirlpool and rapids, and without thinking, he grabbed the loose towline and jumped over the side. He had always been a fair swimmer, and now he worked his way with the river current toward his father. Anthony's head bobbed above the surface and was lost again in foam. Something seemed to wrap around Peter's leg and he dipped under the water himself, then shook his foot loose from a vine tangled in the streambed rocks. Half drowned, spitting and coughing water, he bobbed up, still gripping the towline. He paddled to rotate himself, saw his father's hand a few feet away, and grabbed for it with his right hand. Anthony gripped the hand tightly and nearly pulled him down. Peter felt a tug on the towrope; Shellabarger was trying to reel them both in and the venator's barge was closing, less than a dozen yards away. Anthony came up and spit water and shouted, "The rocks! Grab a rock!"
Peter felt all the air go out of him as he slammed into a boulder. Water slid over his head and he tried to crawl up onto the algae-slick rock without letting go of Anthony. The towrope slithered from his grasp. Water sluiced around his arms and knees and a sudden surge almost shoved him off, but Anthony held on to his hand and arm and balanced him against the pressure. They both clambered onto the broad flat rock.
Anthony grabbed Peter by the ribs and squeezed hard. "That was too damned close!" he shouted over the river.
Peter gave Anthony a woozy grin. His ribs throbbed and he felt as if he had swallowed gallons of water.
The third barge was almost back to the beginning of the rapids. The pilot of the fourth boat cut her engines to avoid a collision. Keller, Kasem, and the roustabouts tugged from one side; the other towline was back in Shellabarger's hands. He tossed it toward them. Peter reached out and missed, lost his balance, and landed on his butt, then slid right off the rock into the water. Green and white bubbles surrounded him. No matter how hard he thrashed and paddled, there did not seem to be air anywhere. He felt something kick him in one leg, and then a hand closed around his head, grabbed his hair, yanked him painfully to the surface. Anthony had snatched the rope with one hand and Peter's head with the other. He wrapped his legs around his son and Shellabarger hauled them hand over hand to the barge. Billie powered up the engine and they began to pull away from the rapids.
Peter and Anthony lay on the rear deck behind the pilot house. Peter tried to sit up but couldn't. Anthony rolled to his side, hair in wet slick lines down his forehead, and said, "My God, what a swim! What a genteel afternoon dip!"
"Never again," Peter coughed.
"I owe you one," Anthony said.
Peter shook his head. He didn't know what to say. Only now did the fear catch up and make him shiver. He thought he might throw up.
"Quick thinking, Peter," Shellabarger said.
"I wasn't thinking," Peter said.
Billie leaned out of the pilothouse and wiped his brow dramatically.
A shaft of sunlight broke through the clouds and painted the whole river. Anthony held up his wet camera in disgust. In all the struggle, it had not slipped its strap from around his neck.
They stopped for a rest a mile upriver, taking advantage of a broad calm pool wide enough and deep enough to hold all five barges. The trainer changed barges and Ray joined them on the third barge.
OBie and Anthony exchanged disgruntled advice over the still dark water. The Leica could be dried out and oiled again;
Anthony's film, however, was getting moldy in the cans, and Anthony had been scrounging 35 millimeter stock from OBie, cutting and rolling it at night by feel in an unlighted tent. "Everything's wet," OBie said philosophically. "Everything's moldy."
Clothes still damp, Peter seemed to hear their voices from a great distance. The sound of the rapids and the falls seemed much closer. He wondered if what he had done was a brave thing. What was the difference between a brave act and a dangerous but necessary act? His father was not going to make a big deal out of it; but Peter had saved Anthony's life, and then Anthony had saved his.
Ray settled beside Peter when he had finished helping Anthony clean his camera. Peter came out of a light doze and blinked up at him. Ray's angular, affable features stood out against the darkness of the eastern cliffs. "What do you think of adventure now?" Ray asked.
"It's all right," Peter said.
Ray laughed.
"Want your own adventure?" Peter asked.
Ray suddenly went serious. "Lord, no," he said. "I'd like to get out of this alive."
"Why are you here, if you don't want adventure?" Peter asked.
"Bit of a cruel question, don't you think?" Ray asked.
"My father thought I should be here," Peter said. "He thinks I'm too bookish. And to tell the truth, I want to be here, I really do . . ." Their eyes met. "As long as I survive. I'd still like to read another book sometime."
Ray grinned. "Why am I here? OBie is from the old school. He thinks he's rough and tough, and he is. He's certainly a survivor. So many disappointments and tragedies . . . real sadness, though he doesn't show it much. But he's never been through the kind of action Monte and Coop saw. I think he envies them."
"What kind of sadness?" Peter asked.
"His son was killed," Ray said.
"In the war?"
"No. When he was just a boy." Ray seemed reluctant to give details. "OBie took me under his wing, gave me a break. Looked at my films—things I put together in my garage—taught me what he knows. Got me work. I owe him a lot."
"He wants to be a father to you?" Peter asked.
"No . . . My own dad suits me fine. But OBie has a heart as big as a mountain. The point of my wandering monologue is, if he wants to be here, and he wants me here with him, then so be it." Ray shrugged and peered downriver. "Maybe he's right. Maybe you need to dip your hand into the fire now and then, just for perspective."
"Which hand?" Peter asked.
"Not my drawing hand!" Ray said.
The barges set out again in the late afternoon. OBie came over to Sammy's barge to j oin Anthony, Peter, and Ray, jumping as the boats came within a yard of each other.
"Another mile," Shellabarger shouted from the venator's boat. Here, the river became ominously smooth, running smoothly north through shelves of forest snugged close to the canyon walls. The barges pushed steadily against the current. Anthony estimated they were making about two miles an hour; Billie concurred.
An hour passed before Ray spotted a long yellow curiara stationed beside a half submerged log near the left bank of the river. Three men in wide plaited grass hats sat motionless in the dugout canoe, faces hidden in shadow. OBie waved from the barge's blunt bow, but the men did not wave back.
"There are more," Billie called from the pilot house. More curiaras had been pulled up to the narrow shore, under the thick overhang of trees; dozens of them, on both sides of the river. Ray squatted beside OBie on the bow, panning the smaller movie camera, and Anthony lifted his Leica, twisting focus and exposure swiftly to take a panoramic series.
Peter stood
beside Billie, not sure whether to worry. "Who are they?"
"They are Indians and mestizos," Billie said. "Workers from south of El Grande." Peter saw them in the jungle now, stepping forward. Some stood in the river shallows where the water did not run too swiftly. Others sat in the crotches of tree limbs, and all watched silently. Then, acting as one, they scrambled into the curiaras and padded quickly to surround the barges. With little apparent effort, they kept up against the river's currents, saying nothing, staring at the animals in their cages. They paid particular attention to the venator, who stood high above the river in his tall thick-barred cage, erect on his big three-toed feet, and the venator observed them, moving his head with oiled grace to keep both eyes focused on the left rank of canoes, then suddenly spinning it around to observe those on his right. Where his gaze swept, the Indians drew back on their haunches, wincing as if hit by a blast of hot air.
"They have not seen the Challenger before," Billie said. "The Army will never allow them to climb Kahu Hidi, to meet him there. So they come to open the road for him."
They were passing the last of the dozens of men and canoes, and Peter walked aft. The Indians paddled quickly downriver, vanishing around a curve. In minutes, it was as if they had never been.
Anthony stood beside Peter, and OBie beside him. "They must have come from hundreds of miles," OBie said. His voice sounded like the buzzing of a gnat against the roar of Jorge
Washington Falls. Peter could no longer hear the cries of birds or the howls and squeals of monkeys; only the falls, tossed out into space from holes a hundred feet below the lip of El Grande, plunging six thousand feet to the huge pool below.
The spray drifted across the jungle and reached them even a mile away, soaking their clothes, bedewing the boats and the cages.
Everyone was wet, aching, exhausted, and happy. Even the animals seemed to sense the journey was almost over. The struthios craned their long necks and gave out high-pitched shrieks of hunger and excitement. Sammy had stopped eating but appeared healthy. He rocked from one side to the other, lifting his head and blowing through his nostrils, then inhaling great drafts of the damp, cooler air.