by Koloen, John
“Where are the people going to sit?”
“When I carry a lot of people, they sometimes sit on the deck,” Juarez said.
“These aren’t workmen. They’re American scientists. And is there enough room for equipment?”
Juarez felt Azevedo was disparaging his boat and by extension himself, but instead of responding angrily, he decided that it didn’t matter to him whether Azevedo hired him. So he quickly brought up the topic of cost and high-balled the estimate to give the professor a reason to go elsewhere, but Azevedo agreed to it without haggling. Juarez thought, I should have known. Americans have money. He should have asked for more. Still, he was pleased that he would be paid more than if he were transporting a work crew.
The first thing he heard when he answered his cell phone was a loud “olá,” which caused him to hold the phone away from his ear. Even so, he could hear but not understand everything that was said by the excited voice.
“Slow down, slow down,” Juarez finally said in Portuguese into the phone, “and don’t talk so loud. You don’t have to shout.”
Rocha apologized profusely, and after introducing himself and confirming that Juarez was the captain the professor hired, he relaxed and spoke normally.
Juarez asked if the young man spoke Spanish.
“What? No. I’m learning English …”
“Then slow down,” Juarez said. “I don’t speak Portuguese good.”
“You want to speak English?”
“No, no, I know only a few words.”
Rocha was surprised that someone living in Manaus wouldn’t be fluent in Portuguese, but he chose his words carefully as he explained that he’d received a call from Azevedo, who was in trouble in the forest, and asked whether Juarez had received a call from the professor. Juarez suspected that the young man was going to criticize him for not returning to the cabin yesterday though, in fact, Rocha knew nothing of the agreement between Juarez and Azevedo.
“They need help,” Rocha said insistently. “Can you help?”
Juarez was hesitant in his response. The river was filled with debris, and he was worried about damaging his boats.
“The river is still rising,” he said, looking out from his dock. “I see all kinds of things floating in the water. It would be dangerous to go now.”
“But they need help. They’re stuck in the forest and, as you say, the water is rising. The whole place is flooding, and Professor Azevedo is an old man. I’m worried about him.”
“Maybe tomorrow will be better,” Juarez said, as he tried to end the conversation.
Becoming frustrated, Rocha’s voice grew louder, insistent.
“Mr. Juarez, you’re a guide, you know the forest, you have a boat. I have nothing, but I’ll go with you. I have coordinates.”
“I’ll tell you what, give me the coordinates, and I’ll call you back. I have to go home to use my computer.”
Rocha was optimistic again, and Juarez was happy to end the conversation. He promised to be quick about it and hung up. As a businessman, he knew how to put people off and felt that he’d handled the call well. He liked things to be on his terms.
62
Rocha felt relieved. Reaching the boat captain satisfied Azevedo’s expectations and gave him a feeling of achievement. He’d connected the dots, turned a name into a phone number, and into what he thought was a promise to get back to him. At nearly twenty-two, he was on the verge of graduating, and for the first time, he felt he’d done something important, something that could affect people’s lives. He left Azevedo’s office with a spring in his step and a reason to hunt down some friends for drinks. Even though he was poor, he felt so good that he told one of them that the first round would be on him.
Juarez did not immediately go home. Instead, he walked to a dock nearer the river and watched the muddy, fast-moving water as it boiled past Manaus on its journey south to form the Amazon river. The Rio Negro, almost nine miles wide near its mouth at Manaus, is the world’s second largest in terms of water flow. Captain Juarez would have needed binoculars to see the opposite bank, but he was more interested in whether it would be safe to take his boat out. The call from the professor’s assistant made him feel uncomfortable. He fully intended to return to the cabin, but the floodwaters had risen so quickly that they took him by surprise. He had no backup plan but learning now that the Americans were in some kind of trouble only made him anxious. It was as if Rocha, by making a simple phone call, had transferred his anxiety to someone else.
When Juarez returned home, he went straight to his old desktop computer and pulled up several local weather reports. He could see for himself that the rain had let up in Manaus, but weather maps showed rain throughout the surrounding forest. Using Google Earth, he input the coordinates that Rocha had given him and went into the kitchen to make coffee.
When he returned, cup in hand, he pinned the coordinates and then moved the map around to the area where the cabin stood and pinned that. Then he attached the two points. They were about ten kilometers apart. As he zoomed in, he saw a few clouds, huge swaths of dense forest with clearings and occasionally a building, and several streams, one in particular that headed northeast and appeared to get within several kilometers of the coordinates. He’d guided fishermen in the general vicinity but had never traveled the length of the stream. He called a friend in the guide business who was familiar with the area, who said that during the dry season the streams weren’t navigable and were dotted with stumps that were underwater in the rainy season and could tear the bottom out of a boat.
“If you’re gonna take someone fishing there, it’s best to go at the beginning or the end of the rainy season but not right now with all this rain and floods.”
Juarez thanked him and looked at a calendar that he hung on a wall next to his desk. He’d circled the date when he was supposed to pick up the Americans. That was yesterday. It was too late to leave today, so he was already two days behind schedule. But he wasn’t worried because it seemed the Americans would be late returning to the cabin, too. He looked at the weather report for tomorrow and saw that there was little chance of heavy rain though floodwaters would remain elevated for weeks after the storms had passed.
63
Having left the clearing behind, and armed with rusty machetes, Duncan and the others followed the young guide Antonio Suarez as he made his way down the primitive road, past piles of discarded equipment, stopping when they came across an abandoned flatbed truck stuck in mud. Not far from the truck, they found another skeleton. It no longer seemed strange to find such things in the forest. Everyone looked and then turned their backs on the bodies despite the awareness that they too could end up dead. However, the rising water was a more immediate threat. Everyone was soaked, their shoes, despite waterproofing, squishing with each step. Water was starting to sheet across the road, which was raised slightly above the surrounding terrain. Though the road was mostly soil, two parallel columns of stones had been laid out to provide traction for vehicles, and as long as they walked on the stones, their shoes weren’t sucked into the encompassing dark brown mud. The person whose body lay nearest the truck appeared to have bogged down in the mud, as his shoes were buried in it.
The forest grew darker as the day wore on, and more and more rain made its way through the canopy so that there was little respite from the droplets bouncing off their hats. They had a growing sense that they weren’t going to find high ground before dark and, eyeing the truck, with its bed more than four feet off the ground, Hamel whispered to Maggie Cross that they should spend the night on the truck. Others heard this, and while they milled about near the truck, trying to keep from getting any muddier or wetter, Alison Peeples suggested to Cody Boyd that he ask Howard Duncan if they could pile onto the truck and at least have one less thing to worry about for the night. The inescapable fear of reptilus blaberus infected everyone like a virus, but it was over
whelmed by the greater, more immediate fear of walking through a dark forest with rising floodwaters populated by an array of fearful creatures. Whether it was snakes, eels, caiman, jaguars, or piranhas, there were plenty of threats to pump up their already inflated imaginations.
After speaking with Boyd, Duncan watched as Hamel and Cross started to clamber onto the back of the truck, with boosts from Peeples and Carlos Johnson.
“Looks like a decision’s been made,” Duncan said to Boyd.
Within minutes, everyone was on the truck, either on the bed or in the cab. This would be where most of them would spend the night. Suarez preferred to climb into the crook of a nearby tree, ten feet above the truck.
“More room for us,” Hamel observed. “Besides, he makes a good lookout.”
“It’s also safer up there,” Boyd said in passing.
64
“I’m not kidding,” Cody Boyd was saying to Peeples, Johnson and Stephanie Rankin. “I’ve got enough footage for a reality show.”
“You’ve been shooting all along?” Rankin asked.
“I thought you didn’t have enough memory cards?” Johnson said.
“Yeah, well, I lied, Carlos. I didn’t want y’all to know ‘cause, well, you know, you might not be spontaneous and real. You know, reality is what they want.”
“Like people scared shitless?” Peeples said coldly.
“Yeah! No! Not exactly. Are you scared?”
“Damn right. Aren’t you?”
Johnson and Rankin stared at Boyd expectantly. As did Peeples.
“Well, not really.”
“What!” Peeples exclaimed. “How can you not be? Don’t you understand the situation we’re in? For Christ’s sake, man.”
“Look, maybe because I’m seeing everything like it’s a movie. Okay. You know, looking at life through a camera lens is…I don’t know. It’s different. It’s like you’re an observer looking in from the outside.”
“So this is just a game for you?” Peeples said. “A bunch of people is dead. We’re in a flood with all kinds of animals around us that could kill us. And I’m not including the fucking bugs. I am scared shitless. I admit it. I’m not brave. I would never have done this if I’d known what was gonna happen. It’s like a nightmare.”
“You think you’re the only one who’s afraid?” Boyd said sternly. “Fuck, we’re all afraid when you put it that way.”
Azevedo had the front seat to himself. Duncan, Cross, and Hamel shared the truck bed with Boyd, Johnson, Rankin and Peeples and heard everything. Duncan gave Cross a tired look.
“Okay, okay,” Duncan barked. “The immediate thing we need to do is protect ourselves from the rain. Let’s get something up instead of stressing out. Do something to get ready to spend the night. Use your common sense. You’ve got tents and ponchos. Let’s get a roof up.”
Nobody had a plan at the start; several tents and ponchos were spread out on the truck bed. Rankin grabbed one of the tent bags and set the contents at her feet. Tent. Disassembled tent poles. Stakes. She put the stakes back into the bag and set it aside. She fitted the pieces into a pole measuring nearly twelve feet. She stuck one end into a hole in the edge of the metal truck bed and bent the other end into a matching hole on the opposite side. The arch it formed was low. The pole needed to be at least sixteen feet long.
“Does someone have duct tape?” Rankin called out. “We need a way to bind poles together.”
“I’ve got some,” Boyd called out, digging through his backpack.
Within minutes, they had fashioned a Quonset-like covering over the truck bed using rainflies. It was tall enough for all but Duncan and Cross to stand. The bed itself was soaked, so they spread several tents across the wet wood. Movement was limited, so everyone rolled out their sleeping bags and stripped down to underwear. They rigged a rope from one end to the other of the truck bed and hung wet clothes from it though with the continuing rain and one hundred percent humidity, there was little chance anything would dry. Two LED headlamps, set on low beam, were hung from the rope, providing them enough light to see one another as well as a temporary sense of security. Raindrops, falling from fifty feet or more, bounced on the thin nylon fabric like bombs, making it difficult to hear anyone speak. Duncan, raised up on his knees, surveyed his group, noticing that the younger members huddled at one end and the older members at the opposite end. As darkness descended, he suggested that one of the lights be turned off to conserve batteries.
“I’m sure everyone is hungry,” he said forcefully, leaning forward on his knees. “Let’s take a minute to gather everything we have and put it all in the middle. No holding back. We need to inventory our resources.”
Rankin was careful not to include her remaining stash of gin, but like the others contributed energy and fruit bars. Hamel also kept back his alcohol and would have done the same with his foodstuffs had Maggie Cross not scolded him.
Duncan gathered the food, which included vacuum-packed salmon packets and nutrition bars, measured nine equal servings, and passed them around, signaling Suarez to come down from his perch for his share. Some ate quickly, others lingered with their food, eating slowly as if the servings would seem larger. All that anyone could say was that they weren’t quite as hungry after the meal as they had been before it.
As darkness settled in, they grew quiet. Suarez returned to his tree, promising to keep watch while awake though even with his headlamp, he could see very little, just patches of dimly lit forest floor. Rain continued to ping off the nylon rainflies. Fortunately, there was no wind, and the rain fell straight down and wasn’t getting inside. On either side, they were transfixed by the dark emptiness that lay before them.
“Is there any way we can, like, close the ends?” Rankin asked.
“You think that will make you safer?” Boyd asked.
“No,” she said quickly. “I just would rather not look out there. Besides, there’s a little rain getting in.”
Since there was little room for people to move, there was no mass scramble to find materials to close the ends. Boyd gave Duncan one of his tent poles and, using the duct tape, Duncan secured a rainfly to the edge of the pole and then inserted it into the truck bed. He carefully taped it to the inside edge of the rainfly. While imperfect, it eliminated the view into the forest.
“That’s better,” Rankin said approvingly. “What about this end?”
“It’ll get really stuffy in here if we tape that one shut, too,” Johnson said, “don’t you think?”
“Just hang something from it,” Rankin suggested. “Just so it’s not wide open like that.”
“You got something we could use?” Boyd asked Rankin. “About the size of a bath towel.”
“I have something,” Cross said, waving her hand. She pulled out a pair of silk scarves and waved them toward Rankin.
“Perfect,” Johnson said, grabbing them and handing them to Boyd, who taped them to the top edge of the rainfly, setting his wet shoes on their ends to keep them in place. Rankin was hoping for something more substantial but didn’t complain.
With the ends in place, they started to figure out how they would all sleep in such a confined space. The bed was barely wide enough to stretch their legs, and Duncan had to fold his knees to keep his feet from poking out the underside of the rainfly. As each found an acceptable if not comfortable position, the fidgeting began, small movement that resulted in unintended knees to the back, misfired elbows to the head and whispering meant to avoid disturbing others but resulting in everyone straining to hear what was being said. Mostly, Boyd, Johnson, and Peeples were trying to calm Rankin, who was on the verge of hyperventilating. Peeples wrapped her arms around her and was shocked to feel her friend’s body shivering uncontrollably.
“How about a drink, Steph?” Peeples whispered in her ear.
Rankin shook her head affirmatively.
“Cody, check her pack. She’s got some vodka in it.”
“Gin, it’s gin,” Rankin whispered.
“Okay, gin. Cody, find it, please.”
Carlos Johnson pulled Rankin’s backpack from behind her and passed it to Boyd, who rifled through it, pulling out a plastic pint bottle wrapped in a T-shirt. It was not the only one he found. Johnson retrieved the pack and set it up so that Rankin could lean against it. He handed the bottle to Peeples, who broke the seal and twisted the cap off. She held it near Rankin’s face. The frightened woman grabbed at the bottle like a struggling swimmer clutching at a life preserver. She took several gulps and appeared prepared to finish the bottle right there when Peeples pulled it away.
“For medicinal purposes only,” she said as Rankin reached for it. “Let’s give it a few minutes,” Peeples whispered. “You drink it all now, you won’t have anything left for later.”
“There’s more in the pack,” Rankin said, under her breath as if trying to keep her stash a secret between her and Peeples.
Peeples looked at Boyd and Johnson for suggestions. Boyd shook his head.
“Just wait a few minutes.”
“She’s a happy drunk, right?” Johnson whispered timidly.
“Yeah, and kinda off-color sometimes,” Peeples said. “You’d be surprised.”
“She’s not an angry drunk, is she?” Boyd asked.
“Not that I’ve seen,” Peeples said, patting Rankin on the back.
As the three tried to soothe Rankin, Duncan, Hamel, and Cross watched sympathetically and hoped that the young graduate student would calm down so that the others could sleep. Azevedo was already snoring intermittently in the cab, which had a vinyl-covered bench seat that suited him well. Unexpectedly, the windows were intact and could be rolled up most of the way.
“You know, I have sleep aids,” Hamel said in a normal voice that startled everyone. “By the way, why are you whispering? You trying to keep secrets?”