The lightning glare penetrated the forest ceiling only as a faint wash of blueness. But the thunder burst like an irregular cannonade through the avenues of tree trunks. Rain water ran off every leaf in curving torrents.
David crouched between two upsloping roots of a thick tree. He held the little twenty-two revolver straight out in front of him with a rigid fearfulness. Each shock of thunder sent an involuntary trembling through his muscles. He wanted to give himself up to sobbing terror, but part of his mind said: “That would be stupid thing to do.”
Far off through the trees there came the tearing, crashing sound of a tree falling.
He bit at his lower lip, willing himself to feel only this pain, but the thought of pain brought a dull throbbing to the stump of his finger.
Gettler heard the tree fall as though it were directly on top of him. The sodden earth shook at the impact, and mud spattered him.
Close! Christ, I should’ve brought the flashlight!
Before darkness sealed off the jungle, he had seen David’s footprints move toward higher ground. There had been an aimless wavering to the boy’s tracks: a sure sign that he was lost.
The brief blue wash of lightning flitted across the jungle floor, revealed the fallen tree on his left. An immediate clap of thunder and smell of ozone told of the nearness of the bolt.
Gettler stumbled forward through the muddy darkness, slipping, falling. He knew it was useless to move when he could see nothing, but there was in him a need to do.
Again, lightning fixed the forest floor.
And David saw a crouching shape off through the trees where there had been no shape in the previous flash. In a paroxysm of terror, he squeezed the trigger of the twenty-two. The shot cracked loudly, and a yellow-orange flame gouted from the muzzle.
David’s ears rang. He trembled.
Gettler heard the shot, saw the spurt of flame about a hundred feet to his left. The bullet spatted into a tree beyond him. He picked himself up from the mud, shouted: “David! It’s Gettler … I’m here! Where are you?”
David heard the voice in the night, and his careful hoarding of calmness broke. He began to sob, and called out: “I’m here! Over here! I’m here! Oh, please hurry!”
Gettler blundered through the slippery mud, stumbled into the tree where David crouched, brushed against the boy, gathered him into an enfolding hug.
“I got lost,” sobbed David. “I was scared.” He buried his face against Gettler’s rough jacket, and cried.
“It’s all right,” whispered Gettler.
He felt the gun in David’s hand, took it, set the safety, pushed it into a pocket.
“It got dark,” said David. “And I was afraid you’d go on without me.”
“No!” growled Gettler. “We’d never do that!”
He pulled the boy down between the roots, sheltered him under part of the jacket.
Now, all the fear and rage and protest that had driven Gettler settled into a small throbbing within his temples. Lightning flashed, and thunder shook the air. Rain drenched him. And he felt that he was withdrawing from his body: acutely aware of David and every sound in the darkness. It was as though the essential core of himself existed in a curious vacuum: one step removed from his senses, experiencing everything as through the body of a stranger. The world of the night, its danger and terror, did not seem to apply to himself except in a mathematical way—like the function of a complex formula.
Gettler closed his eyes, and experienced a vision in brilliant clarity. It came with the flare of lightning against his closed lids, set off by the shock of thunder. He saw an endless network of interlinked rooms, and sensed himself in each room with nothing hidden. An open door drew him, and he followed the vision with rapt concentration. In the room his father whipped the child Franz, and followed the whipping with a lecture on morality.
The words dripped from the father’s mouth, red and splashing.
And Gettler remembered.
He floated through a series of rooms, above each door a glittering sign: “Thou Shalt Not!”
In each room the puppets acted, every action and detail perfect.
And Gettler remembered.
Quite suddenly, Gerda stood beside him in the middle chapel of their parish church. Father Braun, the kindly old one, intoned the marriage litany. And it was no longer a matter of puppets: Gettler re-experienced the scene with a draining sense of sweetness.
And when the scene was an empty husk, he moved on to a new experience out of his past. There came over him the slow realization that each memory thus seen became a room, and the rooms collapsed behind him like dusty shells destroyed by his passage. He saw the good times and the bad times in a swift kaleidoscope of images.
A moment came when he felt that he could thus examine the day of infinite horror, drain it dry in the same way. The puppets moved: his own figure came up the stone walk past the rose arbor—under his arm the paper-wrapped telescope: the gift for Peter. And now he realized that an emotional veil—the wonderful anticipatory lift of homecoming—had hidden from him the unnatural stillness of the house.
There came the remembered pause, the curious swaying sense of something wrong, an emptiness. Gettler abandoned the jungle night, flowed into the puppet figure of his memory, opened his front door, walked down the silent hall and into the demolished universe of his own living room.
It was a tableau: the gouts of blood, the twisted naked figures of Gerda and Peter, and over them the vacancy of death. The grinning S.S. officers, stripped to the waist, watched him with eager eyes. And for the first time Gettler saw the sadistic torturers as sufferers.
They looked for an answer to themselves in my pain! By their power over me they tried to force me to betray the secret of life. They wanted words to free them from their prison of words! Power? That dies in its instant of use. And cowardice never lives.
Again he felt the rage that grief-shock had suppressed. Now he permitted it, felt it spill out of him. After that, the rooms were easier to enter: even the one where he killed Bannon. He came to know that the horror of that homecoming had shattered him, strewing lost pieces everywhere. But now he saw where all the threads went, and he gathered them in.
Gradually, the world of the night re-established itself. He felt David against his side, realized that the boy slept in the exhausted reaction to terror. Like the remembered glare of lightning, Gettler saw the lost dreams he had projected onto this boy, saw the destruction that madness had worked.
David must live! No matter what, David must live!
The boy stirred in the throes of a dream.
Gettler’s arm tightened with convulsive protectiveness around David’s shoulder. A clarity of mind like the aftermath of fever filled Gettler. But he knew it for a tenuous thing with hungry chaos waiting all around.
David slept in the shelter of Gettler’s arm.
The nervous voice of the forest sank to a waiting hush, and daylight crept through the rain pall.
Gettler awoke the boy, headed downhill toward the river. Rain had obliterated their tracks, but he had an instinct for the jungle.
The first rainy light of morning found the plane sawing gently at the end of its anchor line. The metal had dulled to a grey that blended into the dove-grey mist of falling water. There was only a place where the river surface wasn’t cratered by raindrops.
Jeb slipped out his door and down to the pontoon. Both pontoons floated low, sloshing out hollow echoes with their burden of water.
Monti looked out at him.
“What’s wrong?”
“We took a lot of water during the night.”
He found the dipper Gettler had made, bent to bailing out the pontoons, and he scanned the shore while he worked. It was a pastel shore, mysterious behind the downpour—all colors pearl-washed by the rain.
Monti clambered down to the right hand float, stood beneath the wing behind him.
“Jeb, what if we miss them?”
“They’ll signal.
We can’t miss them.”
“If it’d only stop raining! We can’t see anything!”
“We’ll hear them.”
“What if it was a trick, Jeb? What if he isn’t looking for David? What if he’s gone on without us?”
Jeb shook his head.
“I’d bet everything I own—including my life—that he’d look for David until he found him.”
“But what if the Indians get to them first?”
“Let’s fight our battles one at a time, Monti.”
She buried her head in her hands. “I feel like I’m being punished.”
He capped the float, stood up, put a hand on her shoulder. “Monti, if you’re …”
She shook off his hand. “Don’t touch me! I have to think with my head … like a man.”
Again he reached out for her to comfort her.
“No!” she said. “When you touch me I think with my body. That’s why I’m being punished.”
“That’s nonsense, Monti!”
“No it isn’t!”
Jeb started to reply, stopped as a strange sound wavered across the river.
“Hallooooooo!”
Monti and Jeb whirled, stared toward the peninsula.
“It’s Gettler!” said Monti. “There! I see him! In front of that tree!”
“Yes!”
“Where’s David? I don’t see David!”
Jeb untied the canoe, grabbed up the cane pole.
“Let me go with you!” cried Monti.
“No! Stay with the plane! Be ready with the rifle.”
He pushed off, headed for shore.
“Hallooooooo!” called Gettler.
Jeb’s cane pole bit into river bottom, sent the canoe surging toward shore. Abruptly, he saw movement in the tree high above Gettler: an arm waving something bright—the machete!
David!
The canoe slipped through a line of reeds, grounded, and Jeb saw the handle of the twenty-two jutting from Gettler’s pocket. But Gettler was intent on helping David scramble out of the tree.
Jeb pulled the magnum revolver from his belt, waited.
Gettler turned, held David in front of him.
“Logan!” he called.
Jeb cursed under his breath. Gettler was shielded by the boy.
“I’m going to give you the revolver in my pocket,” said Gettler. “This is to show you that I don’t have to!”
He let go of David.
It’s a trick! thought Jeb.
He waited tensely for David to move aside, and almost pulled the trigger when the rifle roared from the plane behind him.
His first thought was that Monti saw the impasse on shore and was shooting at Gettler. But a spear suddenly sailed over the brush from the flooded backwater to their right, buried itself in the mud beside David.
“Canoe!” screamed Monti.
And again the rifle roared.
Gettler charged forward, swept up David, dumped him into the dugout, shoved off and leaped into the other end—all in one blinding motion.
“Shoot, you jackass!” he roared. And he grabbed the cane pole, sent them skimming toward the plane.
Jeb snapped out of his shock, fired at the bushes.
Again the rifle roared.
They cleared the end of the peninsula, saw a canoe drawn up above the falls on the other side.
Jeb shot into the undergrowth ahead of it.
Another spear sailed out of the greenery, fell short of the fleeing dugout.
David crouched low, still clutching the machete.
Something flicked into the water beside him.
Gettler grunted, shot the canoe under the right wing of the plane, caught the float.
“Out!” he roared.
Jeb helped David onto the float.
“Inside with you!”
He saw Monti on the opposite side. She raised the rifle, fired at the shore.
Jeb clambered onto the float, brought in the grapnel line. But the grapnel refused to come free of the bottom. He ducked back along the float, took the machete from David in the cabin, returned and slashed the grapnel line.
Immediately, the current turned the plane to the right, swept it away from the falls.
Jeb returned the machete to the cabin floor, looked down at Gettler, who still sat in the canoe, holding the float. Gettler was bent forward. As Jeb watched, his hand started to slip from the float. Jeb crouched, grabbed the canoe.
“Gettler!”
No response.
Then Jeb saw the tuft of kapok on Gettler’s right sleeve, the dark spot within the kapok.
Dart!
He threw a loop of the fish line around the canoe, cinched it, dragged Gettler half onto the float.
“Monti! Help me!” he called.
She came through the front of the cabin, took one of Gettler’s arms.
“What’s wrong?”
“Curare dart!”
David grabbed Gettler’s other arm.
Between them, they hoisted him into the cabin and across the seat back.
“What can we do?” whispered Monti.
“David! Give me the first aid kit!” barked Jeb. “Monti, keep an eye out for another attack.”
David brought the green metal box from the rear compartment, thrust it into Jeb’s hand.
“Take your pocket knife and cut away the jacket there,” said Jeb. He nodded toward the fluff of kapok.
David wet his lips with his tongue, stared wide-eyed at the protruding tip of the dart.
“Hurry up!” barked Jeb. He snapped open the first aid kit, fumbled in it for the hypodermic.
David swallowed, brought out his pocket knife, clenched his lips together, began cutting away the jacket.
Suddenly, Gettler whispered: “I’m all right.”
Jeb hesitated, looked at Gettler.
The man’s eyes were open.
“The race … from shore … wore me out,” husked Gettler. “Weak.”
Jeb turned back to the hypodermic, brought an ampoule from the first aid kit.
“What can we do?” asked Monti. “It’s poison.” She stared at Gettler’s bare arm.
Part of the dart bent downward.
“It’s broken off,” said David.
“That’s the way the bastards make ’em,” whispered Gettler. “Poison part breaks off inside.” He lifted his arm, stared at it.
Jeb lifted the hypodermic.
“What’s that?” asked Gettler.
“Prostygmine,” said Jeb. “No time for niceties like sterilized needles.” He swabbed a dab of alcohol on Gettler’s arm above the dart, sank in the hypodermic needle, depressed the plunger, removed the needle.
“Give me the knife, David,” said Jeb.
David handed it to him.
Jeb poured alcohol on the blade, turned back to Gettler’s arm, slashed once across the embedded tip of the dart.
Gettler winced, bit his lip. Blood poured down his arm.
Jeb flipped the dart tip with the point of the knife, pressed his mouth against the wound, sucking out the poison. He spat over the side, repeated the operation. And again.
Gettler’s head lolled.
“Salt tablets in the kit there,” said Jeb. “For the heat. They’re marked. Dump out all but a couple of cups of water from the water bag, drop in a dozen of those tablets.
David grabbed up the kit, obeyed.
“What’s prostyg—whatever you said?” asked Monti.
“Specific for curare,” said Jeb. He took the water bag from David, turned Gettler’s head, dribbled water between his lips.
Gettler gagged, coughed.
“This’s why you have prostygmine in your jungle kit,” said Jeb.
He dribbled more water between Gettler’s lips.
“Swallow it!” he ordered.
Gettler gulped, swallowed. Slowly, he drained the water bag.
“Why the salt water?” asked Monti.
“That’s how the Indians treat themselves for curar
e poison,” said Jeb. “It works.
“What’s it do … the poison?” asked David.
“It makes the muscles relax,” said Jeb. “You suffocate … or your heart stops.”
Gettler suddenly turned, arched his back, sagged in the seat. His breathing became labored, uneven. His head sagged forward.
“What if he stops breathing?” whispered Monti.
“Artificial respiration,” said Jeb. “David, mix some more salt water.”
David dipped a water bag over the side, began pouring salt tablets and purifier into it.
“Any sign of the Jivaro?” asked Jeb.
Monti jerked upright, glanced around. “No.”
“Mr. Logan!” hissed David. “I almost forgot!”
“What?”
“When I was in the tree back there. I saw a big black cliff downstream. It had a hole in it. I thought maybe it was another canyon, but the rain got worse. I couldn’t tell for sure.”
Jeb turned, looked downstream, back at David, down to Gettler.
The man’s breathing had become slower, shallower, each time he exhaled seemed more like a final collapse.
“Here’s the salt water,” said David. He passed the bag forward.
Jeb tipped Gettler’s head back, dribbled water between his lips. Once, Gettler’s eyes flickered open, closed. He swallowed with a convulsive gulp.
Gettler heard the conversation around him as though it happened behind a thick curtain of unimportance. His mind drifted through a series of velvet explosions. He shuddered, opened his eyes, closed them. Fire coursed through his veins, then ice. Again he opened his eyes, moved his lips.
Jeb bent closer.
“Oscar Wilde was wrong,” whispered Gettler.
“Don’t try to talk,” said Jeb.
“Thousand lives,” husked Gettler, “worth thousand deaths!” He smiled, closed his eyes.
Jeb forced more salt water down his throat.
Gettler turned his head aside. “Gotta tell y’ something,” he whispered. “Memory catches everything … like a fisherman’s net.”
“Drink this water!” ordered Jeb.
Gettler shook his head.
“’Simportant! ’Sbeautiful! Everything’s got to change.” He forced his head off the seat back. “Can’t stop changing! And anything’s possible! Anything!” His mouth opened, closed. “It’s holy!” He let his head drop back against the seat.
Four Unpublished Novels Page 42