Gettler hesitated, then passed the gun out the door.
Jeb kneeled on the pontoon, waited.
The pig came around the end of the logs, stopped with its tusked snout pointed at the plane. It looked like a curious old man surprised by an intruder.
Jeb sighted, squeezed the trigger. The rifle bucked against his shoulder, and its sound filled his ears.
The pig flipped onto its back, jerked once, was still.
A scream erupted from the plane: Monti! “Where? Where are they?”
“It’s just a pig!” shouted Gettler. “Food!”
Jeb stood up, looked into the cabin. Monti sat stiffly upright, shivering. Her left hand was pressed against her cheek.
“I … I thought it was the Indians,” she quavered.
“Jeb shot a pig, Mother,” said David.
Gettler opened the right hand door, clambered out, went to the pig. He brought out his knife, began cutting off the hams.
David leaned down to Jeb. “Mr. Logan?”
“Yes?”
“Is it dangerous to shoot at jaguars and boa constrictors?”
“What?”
“Will they attack you if you shoot at them?”
“Not usually. Why?”
David lowered his voice, related Gettler’s story.
Jeb looked across at Gettler working over the pig, felt the weight of the rifle. He swallowed, glanced up at Monti.
She seemed completely hypnotized, all attention focused on the weapon in Jeb’s hands.
He wet his lips with his tongue, slowly worked the bolt. The empty casing clicked out, dropped into the river. Jeb glanced down at the gun, felt a wave of frustration. There were no more cartridges in the magazine. He shook his head, passed the useless weapon to Monti.
She looked into the empty magazine.
“Why’s he afraid to let us have a gun?” whispered David.
“I don’t know,” said Monti. “Now hush.”
“David, I have a job for you,” said Jeb.
“Yes, sir?”
“See these caps on the floats?” Jeb pointed down at a round lid near the front of the pontoon. “They unscrew. There’s a little pump in the luggage compartment. I want you to check the floats, and pump out any water in them.”
“Aren’t you going to do anything about the guns?” whispered Monti.
“What can I do?” asked Jeb. “Let’s be patient. Our chance will come.”
“But he may kill us all!”
“Not unless we excite him.”
“He’s crazy!”
Jeb nodded. “Yes. But I think we can keep him calm.”
“Do you hear that, David?” asked Monti.
“Yes, Mother.”
Jeb worked his way along the pontoon to the beach, collected driftwood, started a fire. He could hear David pumping out the floats. Presently, Monti and David joined him at the fire.
“There wasn’t very much water,” said David.
“How much?”
“About an inch.”
“In each one.”
“Yes.”
“Did you put the caps back on tightly?”
“Yes.”
Gettler came up with the bloody meat. “Not very well hung, this meat.” He grinned through his beard.
“Too bad we can’t smoke what we don’t eat,” said Jeb. “It won’t always be that easy to come by.”
“Aren’t there fruits and things we could pick?” asked Monti.
Jeb nodded toward the far shore about two hundred feet away. “That tree leaning over the water is papaya. There may be no Jivaro back in there watching us. Then again …” He left the thought hanging.
“How far d’you figure we’ve come?” asked Gettler.
Jeb looked upstream where the mist was beginning to lift. “Maybe a hundred and sixty miles from the rancho.”
“No farther?” asked Monti.
He shook his head. “The current averages three or four knots in the dry season. Figure it yourself.”
“Even counting the first night when you used the motor?” she asked.
Jeb nodded.
“When the rains start we’ll go faster,” said Gettler.
“We’ll be rescued before then,” she said.
Gettler looked at the sky: darker now in the west. The snow cone of Tusachilla appeared abnormally close in the clear air. A tuft of black smoke curled eastward from the volcano.
“Easterly wind,” said Jeb.
Gettler nodded, bent to cooking the meat.
“What’s that mean?” asked Monti.
“Rain before long,” said Jeb.
Gettler left the meat on a spit over the flames, straightened. “We’ll hit white water today.” He turned, studied the plane. Both pontoons trailed green reeds. Mud caked their tops. A length of vine hung from the left wing.
Jeb followed the direction of Gettler’s eyes.
The plane looked deceptively ready to fly, aluminum and paint still glistening along the sides. But the mud and vines were like symptoms of dissolution. And there were other signs: the dark bullet hole in the engine cowl, a smudge behind the cowl from oil smoke.
“Shall I fill the water bag?” asked David.
“And don’t forget the purification tablet,” said Gettler.
David went to the plane.
Gettler pulled a box of rifle cartridges from his jacket, jounced them in his hand, stared directly into Jeb’s eyes.
Jeb’s face darkened.
Gettler returned the cartridges to his pocket without smiling, turned away.
And Jeb felt that he had looked death directly in the face. He had never felt it so strongly: not even during the war.
Monti leaned against a log. The rifle shot that killed the pig had shocked her from a dream. Now, she remembered the dream: There had been an amorphous grey place full of frightening shadows. She had raced away from every hint of terror. And at every turn, Roger had appeared—eyes full of that maddening calm, voice pitched to that enraging reasonableness: “It’s time to forget me, Monti. You must forget me, Monti.”
Over and over and over and over and over …
“Meat’s ready,” said Gettler.
Monti shook her head.
The sun lifted over the jungle, and they felt its first impact.
They ate quickly, cast off.
Almost immediately, the river took on a new character. The hills drew closer, bent down over them. A faster current tugged at the pontoons and the sea anchor that Jeb tossed into the flow. More lines of eddies trailed from the shores, curved on the dark surface of the water.
For a time, a band of long-tailed monkeys paced them, roaring and chittering through the trees along the left bank. The monkeys abandoned the game at a river bend.
“The rainy season’s overdue,” said Gettler.
“It’ll be hell in the rapids when they start,” said Jeb.
“What’s that?” asked David. He pointed downstream.
A column of smoke stood vertically out of the jungle: a grey exclamation point.
“Jivaro!” snapped Gettler.
“That smoke’s at least ten miles away,” said Jeb.
“Signal smoke,” said Gettler.
The column of smoke broke off, dissipated.
“Does that mean they’re going to attack?” asked Monti.
“It told those downstream where we are,” said Gettler. “They’re waiting for us.”
“The first rapids you talked about?” asked Jeb.
“Maybe.”
The river straightened, and the hills beside them dipped even lower. A thick twisting of hardwood trees along the shore gave way to lines of sago palms backed by rising waves of the overpowering jungle green. Only infrequently was the green broken by the smooth red-skinned trunks of guayavilla leaning over the water.
Around another bend, they surprised a long-legged red bird feeding in the shallows. It lifted on silent pinions, flew downstream.
Another bend—swif
ter current.
They heard the roar of rapids, felt another quickening of river flow even before they saw the white foam.
Quite suddenly, no more than half a mile downstream at the end of a straight sweep of current, they saw the snarling boil of foam, misting spume hurled into the air. The sound grew louder: a crashing, violent drumming without rhythm.
Jeb brought in the sea anchor, wedged it tightly against the strut, lashed it there, leaped back into the cabin, primed the motor.
Start! Please start! he prayed.
The current picked up more speed. They felt that they were hurtling toward the maelstrom.
He pulled the starter. The engine coughed, backfired. Again he pulled the starter. The motor caught, began to die. He nursed the throttle. A great banging, spitting roar came from the engine, drowning out the sound of the rapids.
“No sign of Indians!” shouted Gettler.
Smoke from burning oil fanned out behind the plane, began to fill the cabin. Jeb closed the vents. A line of foaming rocks broke the current.
To hell with everything! thought Jeb.
He pushed the throttle in to the limit, wondered if the crazily rocking motor would jerk from its mountings. But the little plane began to skim, and for a brief heart-skip they were airborne above the first rocks. Then the straining engine coughed twice. Water caught the floats. The river dipped down, roared and leaped, down, down through ever steepening banks. Jeb fought the controls. The plane lurched and twisted. Spray filled the air. Roaring of river and motor competed for domination.
Something wrenched at the right hand float. A tearing sound of tortured metal battered the air. The nose dipped, came up. They skimmed out of the gorge into a wide bend. The river flattened out in a slowly frothing boil as though in exhaustion from the rapids.
Jeb aimed for a white line of sand beach on the left, cut off the motor at the last possible moment. The right wing dropped—lower, lower and lower as the torn float drank up water. The left hand float grated on sand, spun the deeper float in a short arc.
The damaged pontoon gurgled, sighed out a burst of bubbles. Six inches of air remained between the tip of the right wing and the surface of the river.
Jeb took two deep, gulping breaths.
“Now, we find a dugout,” said Gettler.
“Maybe,” said Jeb.
Monti lifted her face from her hands. “I thought it was the end.”
“Were there Indians?” asked David.
Jeb looked back up the foaming steps of the rapids. “I don’t think so.”
“This was not the place,” said Gettler. “That means there is a better place downstream for an ambush.”
“Let’s have a look at the pontoon,” said Jeb.
“It’s done,” said Gettler. “Kaput.”
Jeb opened his door. Immediately, the sound of the brawling water grew louder. Insects began to invade the cabin. Jeb slipped down to the slanted top of the left float, studied the jungle beyond the beach: a confusion of interlaced branches, vines, creepers and tree ferns. A damp track at their left crossed the sand, disappeared at a dark hole in the undergrowth: game trail.
“There could be an army of Jivaro ten feet inside that jungle, and we couldn’t see them,” whispered Gettler.
“Game trail over there to the left,” said Jeb.
“I saw it,” said Gettler.
“What kind of game?” asked David.
“All kinds,” said Jeb. He sniffed the air.
A line of ripples moved upstream toward them, pushed by a wind out of a furnace. The ripples fanned out before the wind, grew as the wind grew. Then the wind died, and the air around them trembled in the heat.
Jeb took a deep breath. “We don’t solve anything just sitting here.” He scanned the river for piranha. The water ran as clear as a sheet of glass. Mica sparkled in the sand of the bottom. Reflections danced and shimmered on the metal underside of the wing. A pressure of heat radiated from the sand beach.
No sign of piranha. Jeb slid off into the water. It was warm. He splashed around beneath the tail, waded out to the damaged float. Another examination of the water. No flashing of deadly fish. He bent down, ran a hand along the outside of the float.
Just back of the leading edge his fingers encountered a jagged rip in the metal. He explored the break, straightened.
Gettler still sat in the plane, attention fixed on the wall of jungle beyond the sand.
He’s frightened silly! thought Jeb.
Monti opened her door, leaned out. “That water looks cool.”
“It’s warm.”
“Can we fix the float?”
“It’s only about a foot long, and maybe an inch wide in the worst spot.”
“What could we use to fix it?”
“I can see a gum tree in the forest there,” said Jeb. “Bark, gum and vines. We can pound the metal back into some kind of shape with a rock.”
“We must find a canoe,” said Gettler.
“You hunt for one while we’re fixing this!” snarled Jeb.
Gettler paled.
“How’ll we get that float out of the water?” asked Monti.
“Vines,” said Jeb. “Run them from the float around a good solid tree beyond the beach and back to the float. Put a strong limb between the vines, turn it. You twist the doubled vines.”
“Back in Montana we called that a Spanish Windlass,” she said.
“Some big leaves under the float will make it slide easier,” he said. “Just goes to show there’s a complete supply house and repair shop here if you only know how to use it.”
“Too bad we can’t fix the motor the same way,” said David.
Jeb sighed. “Yeah.”
“I say get out of here while we still have our heads,” said Gettler.
“Go ahead,” said Jeb.
“Is there danger from Indians?” asked David.
Gettler looked downstream to where the beach sand trailed off into a red clay bank. He seemed to be having trouble with his breathing.
“If they were going to attack, they’d have been on us before now,” said Jeb. “We’re sitting ducks.” He took a deep breath. “Hell! They may’ve quit a hundred miles back.”
“Not the Jivaro,” muttered Gettler.
“We’re wasting time,” said Monti. “Cut the vines and let’s get started.”
“Machete’s under your seat,” said Jeb. “Let’s have it.”
The sun climbed higher as they worked. Insects clung to every patch of exposed skin. The air took on the consistency of molten tar full of inflated tensions.
Slowly, with creakings and poppings, the damaged float came out of the water onto the sand. A rivulet ran out of the hole.
Gettler flopped down in the shade of the wing, cradled the rifle in his arms, studied the jungle. Earth and sky around them had sunken into a deep and sultry oppression.
He reflected the same mood.
“I feel a little dizzy,” said David.
“Get into the shade of the wing there,” said Jeb. “You’ve been working out here without your sunshade.”
“That leaf!”
“You should use it,” said Monti.
“It won’t stay on!”
Jeb pulled one of the small canvas buckets from the survival kit, picked up the machete, crossed to Gettler. “Let’s have my revolver.”
Gettler glanced up at him. “Why?”
Jeb nodded toward the jungle. “I’m going in there to that gum tree. We can seal that float with gum and pita fiber.”
Gettler looked at the blue-grey bark of the tree towering out of the first screen of lianas. He frowned.
“The revolver,” said Jeb.
“You going to shoot the sap out of that tree?”
“No telling what’s back there,” said Jeb.
“Call me if you need help,” said Gettler. His eyes looked glassy, veiled.
“If I don’t come back, you’ll have to go in there,” said Jeb.
“Why?
“I don’t see any canoes around here.”
Gettler looked at the river. “We should’ve kept the one I got away in.”
“But we didn’t.”
“No gun,” said Gettler. “You won’t need it.” He began to shiver.
“Okay!” snapped Jeb.
“Be careful when you walk around any big trees,” said Gettler. “The Jivaro like to step from ambush and drive a spear up through a man’s guts.”
“Provided the man has guts,” said Jeb.
A wild flame lighted Gettler’s eyes. “Careful, Logan.”
“You may be a great jungle macho,” said Jeb. “But right now you need me.”
“Don’t count on it.”
“Before you get other ideas, Gettler, ask yourself if you’re ready to tramp off through that jungle.”
Gettler looked at the wall of green.
“You need me and you’re going to continue to need me,” said Jeb.
“Arrrrrgh!”
Jeb turned, hefted the machete, crossed to the dark hole of the trail. He felt his back tingling, dared not turn around.
I could kill him now, thought Gettler. But he could not lift the rifle.
Jeb left the beach and entered the jungle in one step. He found himself in an orchid-lined aisle with a path of grey mud laced by tiny roots beneath his feet. The damp gloom produced a first illusion of coolness that disappeared quickly. He moved through muggy shadows, searching for the bole of the gum tree.
There it is.
The tree stood six feet off the trail, but it took Jeb five minutes to reach it, hacking through a long-spined thorn bush. He chopped a V-shaped notch in the grey bark, propped the bucket in position with a limb. A narrow length of bark went into the base of the notch as a trough. A thin trickle of milk sap ran down the bark, dripped into the bucket.
Jeb returned to the trail.
Pita bark. Where the hell will I find it?
He wet his lips with his tongue, moved on up the trail.
Dirty son-of-a-bitch! Refusing to give me my gun!
The trail climbed steeply, dipped and leveled, and again climbed. The drumming of the rapids grew fainter, the air slightly drier. Around him the jungle was dappled by shafts of sunshine on pollen and dust.
A line of leaf-bearing ants crossed the trail ahead of him on a low vine. The insect caravan wound around a ridged root, struck off into the shadows.
High above him a squirrel monkey suddenly scolded, fell silent. The whistling of perdices partridges answered from the hill on the right.
Four Unpublished Novels Page 27