“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.
Gettler’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.”
“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.
Four Unpublished Novels Page 23