The plane shot over the brink of white foam.
Something geysered the water beside them. A staccato rattling shook the right wing: an insect sound beneath the overpowering thunder of water.
All in one flickering moment, Jeb saw the quick violent motion of Indians along the rim of the canyon. A line of boulders thundered down the rock walls above the plane. And it was like a slow-motion movie. Everything stretched out … everything except his own responses. He slammed his hand against the throttle. The motor banged and leaped as though it would break out of its mountings.
The plane slammed down against a curling wave, and a new current rushed them forward. River and straining motor combined. The little plane surged ahead in the plunging current … and they were airborne!
Jeb fought the controls in the raging air of the canyon. In three pulsing seconds they were out of it, and thundering over a line of trees … then back across the river channel. Another tree-spiked hill shot beneath them, and a long straight avenue of river opened out ahead. It looked like turbulent brown oil.
He became conscious of Gettler pounding his shoulder.
“Go, man! Look at us go!”
Monti was crying and laughing beside him.
“We made it!” she shouted. “Oh, thank God! We made it!”
But the controls felt heavy under Jeb’s hands. He saw downstream a great bend in the river—and lowering beyond that a wide, island-broken lake of flooded land. He eased back on the wheel, trying to gain more altitude. The plane began to stagger at the edge of stalling. He tipped the nose back down, inches below level flight, nursing it for distance.
“How long to Ramona?” shouted Monti.
Jeb shook his head. He glanced at the oil pressure gauge, the temperature. The temperature needle climbed inexorably toward the red zone. Oil pressure was falling away.
Gettler said: “Man! I thought you said this thing wouldn’t fly!”
“It’s not going to fly much longer,” said Jeb.
The river curved off to the right through more drowned land. A thin furrow of turbulent water marked the main channel. Jeb followed it.
The temperature needle hovered on the edge of the red.
He became conscious of a heavy smell of gasoline, looked left, then right, and fought down a surge of terror. A multi-barbed spear, its tip glistening with shards of aluminum, protruded through the wing. Gasoline whipped away from the spear hole in a spray.
Jeb yanked back on the throttle, cut off the motor.
A whistling sound filled the cabin.
“What’s wrong?” shouted Gettler.
Jeb pointed to the right, kept his attention on the river.
“Jesus!” whispered Gettler. “Skewered!”
The plane yawed sickeningly. Jeb fought the controls, brought the plane down in a splashing, rocking dead-stick landing.
An eddy turned the plane.
Monti spoke in a dried out voice: “How far’d we come?”
“Maybe ten miles,” said Jeb. He looked at the spear tip jutting from the wing, glanced up at the gauge on the wing tank. It read empty. A last few drops of gasoline dripped from the spear, made rainbow circles on the muddy river.
“No smoking, Monti,” said Jeb. He nodded towards the spear. “Right in the tank! The bastards!”
He looked at the gauge on the left wing tank: three quarters—twenty to twenty-five gallons.
“How much gas does that leave us?” asked Gettler.
Jeb told him, turned to David. “David, get down and check the patch on that float.”
“Yes, sir.” He crawled over Gettler’s knees.
Monti held the door handle. “What about Indians?”
“We’ve left them behind,” said Jeb.
“For a little while,” muttered Gettler.
Monti opened her door. David clambered down to the float.
“Will they try again?” she asked.
“As soon as they discover that we’re down,” said Gettler. “And they’ll be twice as mad because we escaped their ambush.”
Jeb nodded.
David leaned in the door. “It’s dry inside. I felt the patch under water, and it seems to be all right.”
“Once that gum sets it holds like iron,” said Jeb. “Okay, David. Put the cap back on tight and get in.”
David obeyed.
“What’ll they try next?” whispered Monti.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” said Jeb.
The current swept the plane across a flooded island.
“Here go the Volga boatmen,” said Jeb. He opened his door, slid down to the pontoon. The cane pole was gone, lost in the wild flight through the canyon.
Gettler went out the other door, stood on the opposite pontoon. He placed the rifle on the floor in the rear with the butt ready at hand.
“Is your pole gone, too?” asked Jeb.
“Yes.”
Gettler turned, stared at the spear tip.
Jeb reached for the machete under the front seat, hesitated. A rough, leaf-wrapped object about two inches long and an inch in diameter lay on the floor by the machete handle. Jeb glanced up. They were all looking at the spear. He palmed the object, slipped it into his pocket, slid out the machete.
“Look for a stand of caña brava,” said Jeb.
“Right.” Gettler nodded, studied the drowned shore.
Jeb took the machete in his left hand, slid his right into his pocket, fumbled off the leaf wrappings. The thing inside felt hard, glassy. He risked a glance at it in his cupped hand., jammed it quickly back into his pocket.
A raw emerald! And Christ! What a monster!
Jeb’s mind began to fill out details of his suspicions.
There’s why Bannon was murdered. They found a mine! Maybe one of the old Inca mines! And Gettler wants it all for himself!
The plane rounded another bend, twisted along an eddy toward a shallow mud bank. A line of cane trees screened the jungle beyond the mud.
Jeb knelt, paddled with the machete, saw Gettler crouch on the other pontoon, paddle with both hands.
A tongue of current pushed them onto the mud. The plane swung around with its tail pointing downstream. Jeb tossed the grapnel over the cowl, saw it catch in matted grass. He slid off the pontoon, slogged across to the canes.
Gettler stared at the jungle, one hand on the rifle butt.
Jeb cut four poles, passed them to Gettler, then stepped down and worked the spear out of the wing.
A short stream of gasoline flooded out behind the spear handle, dwindled to random droplets.
Behind two of the spear barbs a dark brown gum remained. Jeb touched it with his fingertip, tried to smell it, but was defeated by the overpowering odor of gasoline.
“Curare?” asked Gettler.
“Looks like it.”
“The sonsofbitches!” snarled Gettler.
“Is it really deadly?” asked Mont.
“An alkaloid,” said Gettler. “It paralyzes the muscles.”
“Isn’t there any cure?” she asked.
“A stuff called prostygmine helps,” he said. “Any in your kit, Logan?”
“Four ampoules,” said Jeb. He stared at the gummy substance on his finger, wiped it against his pants.
Monti shuddered.
“It kills by smothering,” said Gettler. “So artificial respiration helps. The Indians force down big doses of salt water, and that seems to—”
“Stop it!” she cried. “I don’t want to hear about it!”
Jeb recovered the grapnel, sloshed back to his float, clambered aboard, scraped the mud from his shoes. He wedged the spear against the strut beside a spare cane pole.
“Why’re you keeping that spear?” demanded Gettler. His eyes looked wary.
“It’s a weapon,” said Jeb. “We may need it.”
“It’s no good against a gun,” said Gettler. He leaned into a cane pole, pushed the plane off the mud.
I read you, thought Jeb. And his mind returned to
the emerald in his pocket. What happened if Gettler misses this rock? He glanced across at the bulges in Gettler’s jacket. Maybe he has enough that he won’t miss this one. Would he kill us if he finds out I have the emerald?
Jeb pushed on his cane pole.
The plane moved toward mid-river. A whirling current caught the floats, swept the plane along on a brown tide.
Gettler rested.
What’ll it take to turn him into a raging killer? Jeb asked himself.
The uneasy truce between them filled Jeb with a sudden fearful anxiety.
We’ve got to get the guns away from him!
The plane coursed around another bend.
Downstream, on a flat elevation behind the left bank, a squat grouping of thatched huts huddled behind a thorn wall. Two lines of fire-blackened stumps reached out toward the jungle like rows of rotten teeth. No canoes lined the river bank. Nothing moved in the huts.
A dog yapped in the jungle behind the village, and was silenced in mid-yelp.
“Jivaro village,” said Jeb.
Gettler studied the scene. “Jivaro,” he agreed.
“Where are they?” asked Monti.
“The fighting men are all back at the canyon,” said Jeb.
“There’ll be nothing but women, children and old men here,” said Gettler.
“Where?” asked David.
“Hiding in the jungle back there.”
The plane drifted closer, and the pungent odor of freshly ground cassava root wafted across Jeb’s nose. It started a swift, stomach-gripping pang of hunger.
“Where’re their canoes?” asked Monti.
“Some of them are hidden,” said Gettler. “The others are upstream at the ambush.”
They drifted past the village, watched the blank doorways. A plantation of cassava and pineapple came in view below the village.
Gettler pointed, said: “Christ! Look at the pineapple!”
“Enough to last us a month,” said Jeb.
“Don’t I know it!” snapped Gettler. He lifted out the rifle with a sudden, violent anger, sent a bullet smashing into one of the huts. “That’ll teach you! You dirty bastards!”
Jeb felt a quick affinity with the gesture.
“Why don’t they come after us in their canoes?” asked David.
“They’re vulnerable on the open river where we can outshoot them,” said Jeb. “And as long as our motor holds out, we can outrun them.”
“But there’re so many of them.”
“They’re not the kind to commit suicide,” said Jeb.
David shook his head. “They have guns, too!”
“But they aren’t very good with them,” said Jeb. “It was a lucky fluke shot that got us.”
“What if they snagged us with something?” demanded Monti. “A net or something?”
Gettler’s voice arose in screaming fury: “Shut up!”
Monti fell silent.
Another bend hid the village.
Jeb could feel Gettler’s hysteria dissipate. “How about checking that pontoon again?” he asked.
Gettler nodded, bent over the cap. Presently, he stood up, said: “Still dry.”
“The sky’s clear,” said Monti. “Why doesn’t a rescue plane come?”
“They probably don’t know there’s anybody to rescue,” said Jeb. He pushed his cap back, wiped at his forehead. A sudden wave of nausea swept over him. The sun glare off the river hit him with what felt like an actual physical pressure. His head throbbed.
The plane floated through a great silence of trembling heat. A damp pressure of warmth and unnatural stillness enclosed Jeb. He shook his head against a momentary dizziness. And for a brief second he saw two shorelines, one above the other. It left him strangely out of breath. Another wave of dizziness passed over him. The river rose and fell nauseatingly before his eyes like waves of the sea.
Monti leaned out the door above him. “Jeb? Is something wrong? You look pale.”
“Just the heart,” he whispered.
“Maybe you’d better rest awhile.”
Gettler frowned across the cowling. “You sick, Logan?”
“The heat’s getting me.”
A brief compassion touched Gettler. “Then take a rest.”
And he snarled at himself: Sure! Let me do all the work! I’m the strength by which we survive!
The thought of resting caressed Jeb’s mind. He wedged the cane pole against the strut, dragged himself up into the seat. How good the seat back felt against his neck. An electric current of fatigue tingled through his body. The sensation drained away into sleep.
Monti studied Jeb’s face. A bristly matting of reddish beard softened the angular chin line. He breathed in a shallow, choppy rhythm. Perspiration dotted his forehead. He appeared almost drained of vitality.
She shook her head, turned away, and for the first time allowed herself to examine the possibility that there would be no rescue. The river stretched out endlessly in her mind: a track that carried them along curves of burning light and crawling darkness.
Her own words came back to her: “I flew over this jungle without understanding it.” And she thought: That’s the way it’s been with all my yesterdays. I flew over everything and never looked down.
The river and her own life underwent a subtle fusion in her thoughts. It was a decadent pilgrimage on a current that narrowed everything down to its one track. And she floated on it so carefully inert … so static, willing everything under the surface to remain undisturbed. But something was going on beneath her frozen surface, and the currents that boiled up to tear at her consciousness filled her with a mind-clotting dread.
We can’t possibly make it, she thought. There’s too much against us. We’re going to die.
She pressed the knuckles of her right hand against her teeth. The air around her throbbed with heat and fear. The river was a great serpent that would devour them.
Gettler leaned in, cleared his throat. “Is he sick?”
Monti shuddered, focused on the question. She put her hand on Jeb’s forehead. “He feels feverish.”
“Christ!”
Gettler withdrew, fended a log with the pole.
Let him die then! he thought. One less to feed. And I’ll have the woman to myself. He glanced at Monti. There was a female grace to her even in the repose of fatigue. Jeb beside her was drained out, sprawling like a sack.
The plane drifted past a long tendril of muddy land.
Gettler poled away from it.
Jeb climbed out of a black pit into semi-awareness. Faint sounds intruded: a splashing, the soft creak of metal, an unintelligible whisper. He hung suspended in a place that had no shape or size, no orientation, no relationship to himself. There was an odor of mildew.
Damn plane’s rotting apart under us!
Plane!
River!
He opened his eyes, and his first impression was of violent colors: sunset splashing across the peaks directly ahead. He lowered his gaze to the shoreline. It appeared blurred by grey fuzz.
I’m not awake yet.
Jeb shook his head. But the fuzz remained.
Can’t be rain.
He looked to the right. Gettler stood on the pontoon, a cane pole gripped loosely in his left hand. There was no fuzziness to Gettler’s outline … only the shore beyond.
“Are you awake?” asked Monti.
Jeb swallowed, spoke past a dry tongue: “Yes. How long have I been sleeping?”
“About three hours.” She pressed her hand against his forehead. “You had a fever, but you feel okay now … cooler.”
Jeb straightened against a pulling of torpor. Still that feeling of clarity and detail about everything except the shoreline.
“Can’t seem to make out the shore.”
“Ashes,” said Gettler. “Been falling all afternoon.”
“Fire?”
“Volcano,” said Gettler. “Caught a glimpse of it awhile ago.” He looked across the cowling. “Sky’s darker d
own there. Smoke.”
“Is it dangerous?” asked Monti.
“The river doesn’t go close enough to it,” said Jeb. He looked back at David. “In the medicine box … bottle of terramycin … give me two pills.”
David turned, dug behind the seat. Presently, he handed Jeb two tablets.
Jeb washed them down with a splash of warm water from the canvas bucket. He handed the bucket to Monti, leaned back, closed his eyes. I can’t get sick, he thought. I don’t dare!
He heard Monti drinking from the water bag, the gurgling slosh as she put the bag on the floor.
Gettler came along the float, leaned in the door. “Logan.”
Jeb opened his eyes, turned his head without raising it from the seat back. “Yeah?”
“How far d’you figure we’ve come?”
Jeb closed his eyes. The question seemed to have no reference to reality. A heavy weight just behind his eyes obstructed thought. He struggled against the weight without success, shook his head.
“The high water’s giving us a boost,” said Gettler.
He reached out with the pole, fended off a snag that turned in the brown current beside them. A root lifted, rolled, submerged.
“How far’ve we come from that village?” asked Jeb.
“Maybe twenty-five miles.”
It was an unintelligible figure … a zero added to zero.
“Don’t you have a map?” asked Gettler.
Map?
Jeb opened his eyes. “There’s a home-made one with the others in the seat pocket behind Monti. Not accurate except for some of the altitudes I recorded myself.”
“Over three hundred miles anyway,” said Gettler.
“Won’t the Indians from the village follow us by canoe?” asked Monti.
“They’re with us,” said Gettler. “Canoes or afoot.”
Jeb sniffed at the odor of mildew in the plane, the clinging sourness of perspiration. We’re starving, he thought. Got to find food.
“Will they come in the dark?” she asked.
“Probably not,” said Jeb. “Superstitious. Can’t see the death finger at night.”
“What’s the death finger?” asked David.
“They think death’s not natural,” said Gettler. “They think it comes only when a witch doctor points his finger at you.”
Jeb opened his eyes. The forest skyline was a blurred ridge against the saffron hem of sunset. The sky overhead was tawny with falling ashes. Darkness washed over them with an abrupt feeling of purity, dissipated as a wind arose to swirl ashes into the cabin.
Four Unpublished Novels Page 32