by Dan Smith
‘I didn’t think this was going to be such a pain in the arse. I thought I’d come out here, collect and deliver.’
‘So where’re you from?’
He looked at me as if deciding whether or not to tell me. ‘Vila Rica.’
I stretched out my feet and propped myself back on my elbows. ‘How come a man from Vila Rica is so scared of the water?’
‘I’m not scared of—’
‘You didn’t know what a boto is. You’ve got city written all over you, Leonardo. Where’re you really from? Goiânia? Brasilia?’
Leonardo shook his head and looked at the deck, hanging his head so his hair fell down across his brow.
‘So you’re running away from something. Came down here to get away – not that long ago, I’d guess – and you’re earning money the only way you know how.’ Maybe we had some similarities, after all. ‘So what did you do? You get angry and kill someone? Find out you enjoyed it and came down here where there’s not so much law, is that it? This got anything to do with that person you were thinking about back there on the river after you shot those men?’
Leonardo’s head moved and although I couldn’t see his eyes, I sensed he was watching me through his fringe. ‘You can’t judge me. You think you’re different from me, but you’re not. You think you’re better than me, but I can see the things you’ve done.’
‘You don’t know what I’ve done.’ My thoughts went to the picture in my pocket. I considered not what I had done but what I was going to do.
‘Not the details,’ he replied. ‘But I can see it in your eyes.’ He took a long drag on the cigarette and exhaled into the cool air that still remained after the storm. ‘Others don’t see it,’ Leonardo went on. ‘They only see that you’re different somehow. Maybe they’re afraid of you but they don’t know why, or maybe they can’t put their finger on the reason why they don’t like you, but I know why. It’s the way you smell. You smell of death.’
‘Only thing I smell of is fish and sweat,’ I said, but my mouth was dry. ‘Don’t pretend you’re some kind of witch doctor. You know what my job is on this boat. You know that I was armed. It doesn’t take a witch doctor to guess I may have done things I’m not proud of.’
‘You’re not armed now.’
‘No.’
‘And are you afraid of me?’
‘No.’
Leonardo nodded as if my words had confirmed something, then he took a last drag and flicked his cigarette overboard. ‘You thought I was wrong to kill those men yesterday, but is it always wrong?’ he asked. ‘To kill a man?’
I looked at him, his face in half shadow. I couldn’t see his eyes but I knew they were looking for mine.
‘You see, you can’t judge me,’ Leonardo said. ‘Only God can do that.’
‘Is that what you really think?’
‘No,’ he laughed. ‘There’s no God.’
‘So when you die—’
‘When I die, I die.’
‘And you know it will be violent.’
‘I won’t die of old age,’ Leonardo said. ‘Or of some disease like your old friend. I won’t die like an old animal stinking of sweat and piss.’
‘Oh, I think you’ll die like an animal,’ I told him. ‘And there’ll probably be sweat and piss. Blood, too.’
Leonardo made a quick sound, coming through his nose in a blast of air that was gone almost as soon as it began.
‘I’ve known people like you,’ I said. ‘I’ve seen them die, too. Probably more men than you’ve killed I’ve seen die in their own blood, screaming like girls and asking for their mothers. People like you never die in a good way. They never close their eyes and fade. And they never go out like heroes. Always like losers.’
‘Don’t you mean people like us?’
‘It’s never too late to give it up,’ I said. ‘Never too late to get out.’ But even as I said the words, I doubted they were true. I wanted to believe it. For a while I had believed it. Since meeting Daniella, since stopping the work I did for Costa and the people who used him as their messenger, I had left that life behind me. And yet here I was, heading towards another beginning for that life, as if my time without killing had been a lull, like an alcoholic in a dry period, and now I was going back to it. I was returning to death to pay for a marriage and a life beyond that.
The shadow darkened and I wondered if, perhaps, I was even worse than Leonardo.
36
Leonardo and I both knew the penalties that might be suffered if we allowed ourselves to sleep, so we struggled to keep awake. We willed ourselves through the darkest hours, listening to the night living around us. There were the usual sounds of cicadas creaking, accompanied by the frogs and the splash of fish in the shallows and the bump of debris against our hull. But there were other sounds. Unidentified sounds. The calls of unknown creatures somewhere out in the forest. The flicker of lights among the trees that could make a man think the boitatá might be real after all.
Late in the night, when sleep’s assault was most difficult to withstand, I found myself drifting in a haze of fatigue. My mind meandered like the waters of the River of Deaths, bringing phantoms into my thoughts. Sister Beckett, Sofia, the old man and Antonio swam through my exhaustion, mingling into one, their faces merging. Leonardo and Daniella were there too and I fought hard to keep sleep at bay. I forced my eyes open, slapped my face and stood up, taking deep breaths.
Leonardo was gone.
He was no longer sitting against the box seat that had been his territory since he had taken control of the boat. Another day, another journey, my first thought would have been to retrieve my weapons. There was a padlock, but it could be broken. Perhaps I could get to them before ... not today, though. Now my first thought was for Daniella.
My breathing quickened as I snapped my head round in her direction. The shape of the hammock was there, hanging deep, heavy with a person’s weight. But there was another shape there, too. Beside the hammock.
A figure in the darkness.
For a second I was frozen, watching the dark shadow that hung over Daniella like a malevolent, brooding spirit, paused for a heartbeat in the process of doing evil. Perhaps the old hag Cuca had come to take Daniella while she slept, or some other obscenity had slipped from the forest to torment us.
When the figure reached out to touch her, its arm extending towards the darkness that was Daniella, an image of Anhangá came to me, as if the spirit were reaching out to touch her and plant its evil visions in her mind.
But there were no hags or demons on this boat; we shared this space with only one source of wickedness.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ I started towards him, balling my fists. The edge of my vision glowed white then red as my body and mind prepared themselves for the imminent fight.
The unmistakeable click of a pistol being cocked.
‘Relax.’ Leonardo’s words were quiet. Almost whispered. ‘Stay there.’
‘What’s going on?’ I hissed.
‘Sh. You’ll wake her.’ He came back down the boat, passing me on the other side, never coming too close, and returned to his usual spot. ‘She was making noises.’
‘So you thought you’d check on her?’ My heart was thumping hard. My voice cracked in my throat. Sofia’s name was shouting through my thoughts. What had happened to her couldn’t happen to Daniella. Please don’t let it happen. Please.
‘Relax, Zico,’ he said again. ‘I won’t do anything unless you make me.’
My eyes didn’t close for the rest of the night. Seeing him standing over Daniella, watching her that way, was like a shot of electricity right through me. My stomach turned at the idea of what he might have done had I not awoken. After what he had said before Marco took the old man back to Piratinga, I knew the kind of malignant thoughts in his head
I paced the deck close to Daniella for the rest of the night, never stopping, always watching. I wouldn’t sleep.
I couldn’t sleep.
Le
onardo stayed still, commenting from time to time, taking the occasional pinch of cocaína to invigorate him or kill the pain, or both, while I had only my determination to keep me awake.
And my fear.
Every time he rummaged in his pocket, I squinted into the darkness to see what he was doing. Every time he snorted his drug, I became a little more anxious. Every time he moved, my muscles tightened and my heart quickened.
‘You’re like a dog,’ Leonardo said sometime in the early hours. ‘Circling round to find a comfortable spot, always coming back to guard her like a loyal animal. Like that damn dog I almost killed today. Or was it yesterday?’ His voice was low and menacing, as if his mood was falling into a dark place, driven there by fear and pain and drugs. ‘All the days are the same out here.’
‘That damn dog saved your leg,’ I said. ‘If it hadn’t been for her, you might even be under the water now, rotting down for some hungry jacaré.’
He must have smoked his whole packet of cigarettes now because he hadn’t lit up for a while, and his supply of cocaína would not be endless. I didn’t know how it felt to be hooked like that, but I knew he’d always want the fix and would be trying not to think about how little he had left. It would be another reason to make him desperate to reach the mine, and that worried at me. This was no place for a man with paranoia. The trees and the river can close in on a man like that, especially at night when the forest is alive with the sounds of unseen creatures moving in the dark.
‘You know why this is called the Rio das Mortes?’ he asked me. ‘You know why they call it the River of Deaths?’
I checked the barbecue, the metal cooling now, the carbonised wood nothing more than grey ash scattered with a few last embers glowing like the eyes of the boitatá. I went to the side of the boat and tipped the ash into the water.
There was a hint of light in the air and it wouldn’t be long before the sun started to raise its face.
‘Hey, Zico. I asked you something.’
‘One story is that there was a massacre somewhere on this river.’ I said. ‘A long time ago. Soldiers killing missionaries. Another story is that it’s because the Xavante killed any settlers who came here.’
‘So which is it?’
‘I don’t know.’ I shook the tin, letting the grey dust float across the surface of the river like the ashes of a good friend. The still living embers died with a chorus of hissing. ‘But I guess I wouldn’t blame them for getting pissed off, people coming in here and taking their land. I’ve seen how it works.’ I banged the tin with the palm of my hand.
‘I bet you have.’
I looked at Leonardo, sensing the meaning in his voice. He was the kind of man who would put a match to a man’s home if the price was right, and he thought I was the same. But he was wrong. I’d killed men, but I’d never burned a man’s home. Never done that.
‘There’s always someone pushing for their land,’ I said. ‘Always something to dig up or pull down, so they steal it from them day by day. The mine at Mina dos Santos is a pain for them; it’s dirty and killing the river in places, but it’s not too big. As long as it stays that way, it should be OK, but if the miners want to expand ...’ I shrugged and glanced at Leonardo. His features were becoming clearer as the day brightened and chased away the horrors of the night. ‘You know something about the mine?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know anything.’
I dusted the ash from my hands and took more charcoal from the bag in the store, refilling the barbecue. ‘I heard there’s soya farms, too, pushing right up to the boundaries of their land. Miners from one direction, farmers from the other. And there’s loggers out there, bringing down their trees.’
‘Their land? Their trees?’
‘Those people have lived there for who knows how long.’ I relit the fire as I spoke. ‘Who else does it belong to?’
‘I reckon it belongs to whoever wants to take it.’
‘Whoever has the most guns, you mean?’ I looked up at Leonardo. The light was growing in the sky behind him, the rising sun already warming the land. There was an ethereal mist lifting from the trees, seeping among the shrubs and grasses, rolling out across the bank and touching the surface of the water. Soon it would burn away to a dry heat and the sky would clear.
Leonardo smiled at me in a way that told me he knew something about those guns we were carrying, but I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. I pretended not to notice.
‘Another story,’ I said, Is that it’s because of all the piranhas in the water.’ I watched the flames dancing in the barbecue.
‘Well, we know that’s true. Plenty of jacaré too.’ He reached down to touch his bandaged leg.
When the barbecue was hot enough, I filled a pan with clear water from a five litre plastic bottle and put it on the heat to boil.
I looked over at Daniella. She was awake in the hammock, lying on her side, watching the two of us talking in the early morning light. I went to her and ran my hand across her forehead, showing her my smile. ‘Did you sleep OK?’
‘Not much. You?’
‘Not at all.’ I left Daniella alone and she used the waterproof for privacy again, Leonardo taking too much interest when she re-emerged, and came to sit with me.
The way he watched her made me feel like tiny spiders were crawling over every part of me, and each time he slipped his eyes over her, I wanted to twist them out.
I poured coffee into three small cups, filled it with sugar and we drank in silence, chewing dry bread and washing it down with sips of hot coffee. On another day, in other circumstances, it would have been a perfect morning. The gentle sound of the water slopping against the hull, the soporific sway of the boat as she moved in the eddies of the river.
‘We need to refuel,’ I said aloud, shaking myself awake and throwing the dregs of my coffee overboard. ‘Then we can get going again. You’ll have to help me.’
‘Help how?’
‘Lift the barrel ...’ I shrugged.
He thought about it, knowing he’d have to get close to me. Leonardo always kept a safe distance – the kind of distance that a bullet could cross much faster than a man – but this would bring me close enough to be a threat.
‘You try to screw me around,’ he said, ‘I’ll kill you and make her suffer long and hard.’
‘I understand.’
Together, Leonardo and I hauled a barrel from the store, him trying to hold it with both hands while keeping the pistol close.
‘Where does it need to go?’ he asked, panting with the exertion of it. Neither of us had slept, and we were both exhausted. He was limping a little on the bandaged leg.
I stopped and pointed to the hatch where I accessed the fuel lines, so Leonardo waited while I pulled it open and looked in to see the opening to the boat’s fuel tank.
‘How d’you get it in there?’ he said. ‘The hole’s at the side.’
I held up a coil of clear plastic hosepipe. ‘No pumps out here. Just a pipe and gravity.’
‘What the fuck is gravity?’
I shook my head at him and mimicked putting the pipe in my mouth.
‘You siphon it in?’
‘We used to do it to cars back in Rio. Use the petrol for ... Well, you know. Sometimes it went into bottles, sometimes we used to sell it.’
‘You’re from Rio? I always wanted to go to Rio. Carnival and Copacabana.’
Sofia and I used to go down to Copacabana with Pai and play in the surf when we were little. By the time I was ten years old, though, he didn’t do much other than drink and lie in bed so we used to go down there on our own. We would buy a few warm pão de quiejo from the bakery, made fresh that morning, and eat them on the sand. There were always boys hanging around Sofia, but she was too busy looking after me and Pai to take much notice.
Another two years, though, and we didn’t go to the beach any more. By then, Sofia gave all her time to cleaning and Candomblé and I had my responsibilities to the gang.
�
�You didn’t say where you’re really from,’ I said to Leonardo. ‘It’s not Vila Rica.’
‘Belém.’ He sniffed and took off his cap, scratching the top of his head with the butt of his pistol. His features were drawn and bags had formed under his eyes. He still had the soft looks, but the stress and lack of sleep was taking them away.
‘You’re a long way from home,’ I said.
‘You, too, Carioca. So, what are you doing out here? Why would a man from Rio want to live in this shit-hole?’
‘Looking for something better. You?’
‘And this is better?’ Leonardo looked around us. Water and trees and land so scorched by the sun it was red and baked hard.
‘Yes.’ A kind of realisation for me. ‘Yes, it is.’
Leonardo sighed and shook his head. ‘No. This is a shit hole.’
‘So why are you here?’
‘For the money. I do this job and then—’
‘And then you’ll have enough? It’ll be the last one?’
Leonardo looked at me as if I’d seen right through him. As if, in that moment, I understood everything there was to know about him.
‘Then you’ll go back to whoever it was you were thinking about, right?’ I said.
He didn’t speak.
‘So who is it? A girl? Mother? Father? Brother?’
Leonardo’s eyes flickered and he looked away for a fraction of a second before coming back to stare at me.
‘You have a brother?’ I asked.
‘It’s none of your business.’
‘In Belem? Older or younger?’
‘We going to fuel this thing or not?’ he said. ‘I want to get moving.’
He put his cap back on, shifting the weight of the gun in his hand, reminding me who was in charge.
*
I was rolling the empty barrel back to the store when I heard a grumble somewhere in the sky. I stowed the barrel, then went out to the bow of the Deus, where I’d get the best view of a sky that was as brilliant as I had ever seen it. Pale and with no hint of cloud to sully it. There was no indication that it had rained so much yesterday, except for a freshness in the air and a sweetness in the scent of the river.