Assignment - Amazon Queen

by Edward S. Aarons

  "Where are we going?" Wells asked quietly.

  "I know part of the way. We'll find out the rest."

  Wells' dark face was angry. "I wouldn't trust that old capitao farther than I could punch his old lard-belly. He hates your guts, Sam. And do you know why?"

  "I'm beginning to guess."

  "It's something personal, going way back, right?"

  "I think so," Durell said.

  Wells sighed. "Small world, to coin a phrase."

  "Is O'Hara sober yet?"

  ''Anda nao, as Agosto says. Not yet." One of the Indian crew came up the ladder to the Texas deck where they were gathered. He checked himself at sight of Agosto's trim police colonel's uniform, then spoke to Manoel in a rapid flow of Indian, pointing over the bow. The man was naked to the waist and wore a silver crucifix and a pagan Indian charm on a chain. He looked undernourished. Agosto spoke sharply to him and the Indian stopped chattering, but kept his finger pointed forward.

  A steam launch came around the first bend of the river. They were just opposite the verandas and tall windows of the Hotel O Rei Felipe. There were uniforms on the steam launch and the sound of its horn hooted over the hot, flashing water. Manoel responded by pulling on the Duos Irmdos' whistle. Then he rang the engine room to halt.

  "It is the police, senhor." He looked at Agosto. "This man is maybe not police. They demand that we stop."

  "Can you handle it?" Durell asked Agosto.

  Agosto shrugged. "It would seem odd if we resisted their order. We must stop to see what they want. I can bluff it."

  "I know that they want," Durell said grimly. "I see their passengers. Atimboku has brought in the local constabulary."

  The launch came alongside with a rush of foam. Its squat funnel gave off oppressive fumes in the hot morning air. Durell and Agosto went down the ladder to the main deck. The steamboat's paddles hung dripping and motionless in their coverings. Inocenza opened her cabin door, looked at him and Agosto, and abruptly retreated inside. Her face was angry and jealous the moment when she glimpsed Sally Hukkim step lightly aboard.

  Agosto spoke sharply, "One moment. Lieutenant."

  The police officer on the launch saluted sloppily. He needed a shave. But the flap over his bolstered gun was loose.

  "Senhor Colonel, it is my duty to put these people aboard the steamboat. We have been ordered—"

  "This boat is requisitioned by the provincial government," Agosto said. "It is now on government duty. Stand clear and keep your passengers off, Lieutenant."

  "But it is I who have orders from the provincial government, sir." The man looked ugly and determined. "In the name of the governor himself, you are directed to take these distinguished people from Africa aboard your vessel."

  Durell murmured, "Let them come on. We don't want a shoot-out with the locals, Agosto."

  Agosto nodded and yielded to the police launch. The Lieutenant looked smug. Prince Tim, Sally, and his two seven-foot men came up the gangway. Atimboku grinned. The warrior with the broken wrist now wore a white bandage and a leather strap. The whistle hooted, the local cop saluted, and the great paddlewheels began to chum and thrash at the river current.

  "I will take the best suite," Prince Tim announced. “We will not disturb you."

  Sally said, "I want to talk to Sam." "You remain with me. I do not permit it." Sally was anguished. "Do you understand, Sam? I am his weapon against you. My own brother. He says he will hurt or kill me if you do not cooperate with him." She swallowed. "You remember, he tried to kill me before, when he wanted to gain power in Pakuru. He will do what he threatens to do."

  "I remember," Durell said.

  Atimboku looked complacent. Agosto ordered a crewman to show them to the cabins aft, and Durell turned away to walk into Inocenza's cabin.

  2

  "Who is she?" Inocenza asked angrily.

  "An old friend." He closed the stateroom door. It was oppressively hot in her plush, Victorian cabin. "How is O'Hara?"

  "He complains of piracy. He says strange things, but I do not understand them. How good an old friend, Sam?"

  "I helped Sally a few years ago."

  "She is very beautiful, but she is African. I have American blood in me, O'Hara says."

  "Forget Sally. Just what is O'Hara mumbling about?"

  “You, mostly. He fears you. How can I forget a beautiful woman you once loved? Why is she with us?"

  "There is nothing to be jealous about, Inocenza."

  "Jealous?" She pretended to be offended. Her big hoop earrings shone as she tossed her head. "She is nothing to me. You will come to know me, Sam. We will travel together to wherever you want to go."

  "I wish I knew where that was."

  "But I know the place," Inocenza said. "Of course, I know the place."

  He looked at her sharply. "You do?"

  "You never asked me, Sam. Ask me now." She put her hands on her hips. "Ask me properly."

  "Don't be a bitch," he said.

  "But you have not been nice to me."

  "What is O'Hara saying about me?"

  "Ask me where it is you want to go, Sam.”

  She stood in the doorway, blocking his path. O'Hara sprawled on the bed. Underfoot, the deck trembled as the old engines struggled against the river's hard current. O'Hara made a groaning sound. His bald head gleamed in the light. The curtains were drawn across the cabin windows, the small fan whirred, and O'Hara's sweat permeated the stifling air. Durell pushed past the standing girl and said over his shoulder, "I thought you said you wanted him dead. But you're taking good care of him now."

  "He is only a frightened old man, now."

  "What is he frightened of?"

  "You, Senhor Sam."

  He looked down at O'Hara on the rumpled bed. The old man wasn't faking. His bearded face was covered with cold sweat. Spittle drooled down one side of his chin. He had not been injured; and it was not just his drinking. A riverman like O'Hara would have to be in a deep trauma to ignore the movement of his vessel, even through a drunken stupor.

  "O'Hara?"

  "Lemme 'lone."

  "O'Hara, where do we go from Tiparucu, upriver?"

  "It's end of the line. Railroad there."

  "The railroad is long gone, O'Hara."

  "With lots of good men. Death's Railroad, they called it. Finneran, O'Malley, Gadsby—all good men. Dixieland. Good Confederates. Fever got 'em. Bugs. Dysentery. Heat. Jaguar got Tommy Lee. Stupid boy. Good times, though. All dead and buried out there. All in the forest, dead and buried."

  "Look at me, O'Hara. Come back from the past."

  All at once the fat capitao opened his eyes. He glared up at Durell's tall figure, outlined against the light of the pink lamp. His mouth opened and he tried to spit up at Durell and only succeeded in wetting his matted beard.

  "Goddam you to everlasting hell, Jonathan! I did what I did, and it was long ago, and you oughta forget it now—"

  "What did you do, long ago?" Durell asked quietly.

  "You upright, lucky bastard, you 'n' Clarissa, and me workin' for you on the Trois Belles! But I got smarter than you, hey? I made a deal with Don Federico, down in Brazil, hey? To hell with your contract. So what if I jumped ship?"

  "O'Hara," Durell said. "O'Hara, I’m not Jonathan. He's my grandfather."

  "He sent you to kill me, didn't he? He did! He ain't forgot a thing, the old varmint, the luckiest damned card man on the Mississippi." A ghastly chuckle came from O'Hara's wet, open mouth as he glared at Durell. All at once he sat up, fat arms bracing his weight on the bed. His eyes looked blind. "I did nothin' wrong, you hear? I never meant to hurt Jonathan. I tried to send her—I told her to go back to you—"

  "Who?" Durell asked quietly. He felt cold, despite the heat in the cabin. "Are you talking about my grandmother? She died in Bayou Peche Rouge a long time ago. Before I was born. When you couldn't have been more than in your early twenties."

  "Clarissa was a real lady, a real pretty gal, you know that?" O'Hara g
asped. "So what are you, a ghost come to haunt me? I need 'nother drink." The fat man collapsed backward on the bed. Great tears welled in his rheumy eyes. "Wasn't my fault. Not my fault at all. You lemme alone, you hear? Why'd you come here after all these years? Why? You oughta feel sorry for me, a sick, fat old man. . . ."

  Durell looked at Inocenza. Her face was stricken; she was oddly subdued. "Did he ever talk like this before?"

  "No. Never."

  "Do you know what he's talking about?"

  "No, I swear it. Why do you look like that? What is the matter with you, Sam? He thought you were someone else, yes? A someone from his past."

  "I suppose so. Inocenza, where do we go from the river-town upstream? You do know, don't you?"

  "Why, he just told you. The old place. It is far back in the forest from Tiparucu. I do not understand, because no one goes there now. It was Don Federico's old rubber plantation, fifty, maybe seventy years ago. He told me all about Don Federico, who bought O'Hara and this boat so,, long ago. But the rubber men are all dead now, Sam. The whole forest is dead. It is filled with the ghosts of all the Indians who died tapping the trees, and the young Americans who came here to make their fortune and died of disease in the jungle. He named them all. You heard him. But there are nothing but graves there, Sam."

  "Don Federico's old plantation," he repeated.

  "Sim."

  3

  O Rio Xapajos was desolate and uninhabited beyond a few satellite villages near Paramaguito. After that was the forest, dark and gloomy under the brassy equatorial sun, heavy with foliage, the trees unmoving with no wind to stir them. Manoel followed the west bank channel with extreme care. Driftwood, a few dead animals, an overturned Indian canoe were all that broke the swift red current of the river. The distant shore was only a smudge seen through the heat haze and humidity. Now and then a fish broke the surface with a mighty splash, startled by the churning paddlewheels and the chuffing twin stacks high above the pilot house. If there were people in this shadowed forest, they kept out of sight.

  It was a long, hot day. They took turns keeping watch in the pilothouse, and Durell snatched some sleep in one of the staterooms on the upper deck. Nothing changed during the long hours of the afternoon. The river seemed limitless. O'Hara kept to his stateroom, although Durell refused him any more liquor. Later, he went down and talked to the fat man, who was eating a plate of beans that Inocenza had fixed for him. His eating habits were as slovenlv as his appearance.

  "Don Federico?" O'Hara muttered through a mouthful of food. His eyes were sober and sly now. "A perfectly grand man, the last of the great gentlemen. He knew how to live, my boy, in the high manner. Everything he wanted, he got, ordering from the States sometimes, but mostly from Europe. Nothing but the best. Grand piano, crystal chandeliers, fine silver, carpets from Persia—the finest, the very best. A grand man. When he wanted a riverboat, he bought the Duos Irmaos and put it on this here river. The rail terminal came down to Tiparucu, see. He built the railroad from his rubber trees to the river, and I took the smoked balls down to Paramaguito, sometimes all the way to Belem. Made a fortune, he did."

  "How many men died on the railroad?"

  O'Hara looked at him with piggish eyes. "Nobody counted, in them days. It was like the Alaska goldrush, only everybody was after a rubber stake then. Get rich quick by roundin' up a Indian tribe and makin' 'em work, even if you had to stick guns in their ribs and hold their women on the plantation. The bastards wouldn't work too good, though. Died like flies. Just sickened and died. Nobody counted, like I say."

  "What happened to Don Federico?"

  "Well, the bubble broke finally when the Asians broke the Brazilian monopoly. Don Federico was a gentleman, sonny. He knew how to cut his losses. He would've made a fine riverman on the Mississippi, in the old days. He didn't even count his losses; he just up and quit, packed up and went back to Lisboa. Died a few years ago, I hear, at the age of ninety-two. Big Society funeral, respected man, all that. A real gentleman. Gave me the Duos Irmaos before he left for Portugal. A long time ago, sonny. I disremember the details. Slim pickings for years, like a blight hit the whole river territory. Then I built up a bit of steady trade, a scheduled passenger run, and I did pretty good; but it's always nip and tuck."

  O'Hara paused and belched. "You look here, young Durell. I'm a man for hire, see? You need my help, an' if you pay more than the folks at the old plantation right now, I'm yours. Me and the ship."

  "Who are the folks at the plantation?"

  "Nobody really knows. I only seen the flunkies."

  "You must have some idea," Durell insisted.

  O'Hara ran sausage fingers through his beard. "I been honest with you, sonny."

  "Not honest enough."

  O'Hara looked aggrieved. "Inocenza tells me I talked a lot when I was sick this morning. Nothing to it. I get dreams, like. Don't mean nothing."

  "You mentioned my grandmother, Clarissa Durell."

  "Yeah. Well, she was a right smart lickety-split gal. Pretty as an old chromo. Crazy about your grandpappy. Lovely woman. I was only a kid when I last saw her."

  "How did she die?" Durell asked.

  "Lordy, boy, how would I know? I come down here with the Duos Irmaos and worked for Don Federico. Didn't hear about her unfortunate passing until years later. Unfortunate, 'cause she was so young. Gave birth to your daddy, who was killed in an auto accident with your ma, I heard, too."

  "Yes. How do you get to Don Federico's station from Tiparucu?"

  "Can't rightly say. It's been a long time. There was kind of a road there, up from Paramaguito along this river, but it's broken down and got lots of fallen trees, I reckon. Need a Jeep. River traffic's easier."

  Durell said tightly, "You didn't mention the road before."

  "Why bother? Nobody uses it. The river is quickest."

  During the late afternoon, the estuary of the Rio Xapajos began to narrow. The opposite bank became distinct, marked by endless forests. They had stopped once at a small landing on their side of the river to pick up cord-wood as fuel for the steamboat's engines. Nobody was near the small shack beside the river's bank. A caiman dozed in the mud and the sun. Durell stepped ashore, after ordering Wells and Agosto to stay in the pilothouse. Insects whirred, hummed, chewed and bit at him. The small dock was treacherous with broken planks. The caiman lifted his alligator-like head and stared at him. He looked at the rutted trail that ran from the shack into the dark gloom of the trees. Parrots squawked and flashed among the leaves. He could see no junction from the trail that led inland from the road O'Hara had described to Tiparucu, but a broken-down old Chevrolet truck, painted bright yellow with Indian decorations in red stood beside the shack. The truck was empty. He went into the shack, kicking open the plank door.

  The floor was dirt, the furnishings a hammock and a camp stove. The river glittered through cracks in the planked siding. A man lay in the hammock, his bare legs and arms dangling. There was a small pool of dark blood on the floor. Ants were busy at it, a squirming black blot against the sand. The heat inside was like an oven, but there was no smell yet.

  The man had been shot in the back of the neck. The face was just a face, coffee-colored, with surprised eyes.

  He went outside and studied the trail. There were tire marks in the dirt; they did not match the tires on the broken-down truck. An axe glittered in the stump of a nearby tree. Cordwood was stacked a short distance from the landing.

  He went back to the boat and climbed aboard. Inocenza was waiting at the gangplank. "What is it, Sam? You have that strange expression on your face again."

  "It's nothing."

  "Come with me to my cabin. It is two more hours to Sao Felice. A small junction. You should rest, Sam."

  He shook his head and went up to the pilothouse. He said nothing about the dead man at the fueling station.

  4

  "Sao Felice," Manoel said. "And the Devil's Falls."

  "Can we go around it?"

  "Sim,
" said Manoel.

  "No," said O'Hara.

  Durell looked at the two men. "Which is it?"

  Manoel flushed under his dark skin. "The river conditions are bad. It is a narrow channel. It has been done, senhor, but not for some years, not in the Duos Irmaos."

  O'Hara said rustily, "It's the end of the trip. Sao Felice, and there she is, a stinkin' hole."

  The river town was only a collection of thatched huts, a stone church with a domed belfry, a single dock like a broken skeletal finger thrust into the stream. The river was definitely narrower here, and a reddish foam marred its formerly smooth surface. A dull, endless roaring came from around a bend upstream. Durell suppressed his anger. Neither man had mentioned the falls. It was not even marked on the sketchy pilot's chart he had studied. There was a vague indication of a second narrow river channel, but he had to take O'Hara's word for it.

  "Willie?"

  Wells sat in the back of the pilothouse. "Yo, Sam."

  "How much explosives did you dig up aboard?"

  "Enough to blow us all up over the halls."

  O'Hara said, "What are you talking about? It's my dynamite. You can't have it—"

  Durell ignored him. The town seemed peculiarly empty. He knew that the Duos Irmaos made this trip once every five or six weeks, and their arrival should have stirred up

  some commotion on the waterfront. From the domed church came the mournful tolling of an iron bell. A long open shed with a sagging tin roof paralleled the old dock. The sun in the west made an impossible glare behind the town. Manoel pulled the engine-room signal and the heavy clank of the rocker arm slowed and the big paddles halted as they drifted toward the landing.

  Wells stared at the shore and said, "I don't like it."