by Justin D'Ath
‘Can you help me find my uncle?’ I asked.
The boy relayed the question to his father, who shook his head.
‘Father say first we take monkey to village,’ the boy translated.
Before I could ask, ‘What monkey?’ the Indians disappeared through the reeds into the jungle. I followed them to a small clearing, where a howler monkey lay stone dead on a log. They must have been returning from a hunting expedition when they heard my cries for help.
Next to the dead monkey lay a wooden quiver of poison darts and a water gourd.
‘Can I have a drink?’ I asked.
‘Certain,’ said the boy.
The water tasted muddy but I didn’t care – it was the first drink I’d had since just before Uncle Shaun spotted the sloth. I could have emptied the gourd five times over, but I remembered to leave some for the boy and his father.
‘My name’s Sam,’ I said, tapping my chest so the man would understand.
‘I am Gabriel,’ said the boy.
I had expected something more unusual – an Indian name. ‘What’s your father called?’ I asked.
‘Father not have school name.’
‘What’s his Yanomami name?’
The boy shook his head. ‘I not allowed to say for you.’
I wanted to ask why, but now wasn’t the time. ‘Is it far to the village, Gabriel?’
‘Not far,’ he said.
I had to look the other way when his father lifted the monkey carcass across his shoulders. I’d seen dead animals before, but never a monkey. It put a lump in my throat.
‘Why do you hunt monkeys?’ I whispered to Gabriel as his father led us along a narrow path that went deep into the jungle.
‘For eat,’ he said, patting his stomach. ‘You are hungry?’
I shook my head. I was hungry, but no way in the world was I going to eat monkey. I hoped there would be other food at the village. Gabriel reckoned it wasn’t far.
Half an hour later, I began to wonder about his understanding of English. How far was not far? We must have walked several kilometres through the jungle. Worse, we seemed to be travelling away from the river. Which meant we were moving away from Uncle Shaun and Caesar.
I tapped Gabriel’s shoulder. ‘I’m going back.’
He shook his head. ‘You come to village.’
‘It’s too far.’
‘Not far,’ he said.
I stopped in the middle of the track. Half an hour ago he’d said the same thing. ‘I’m going back,’ I said. ‘I have to find my uncle.’
‘Uncle be okay.’
‘He’ll be worried sick. If he and Caesar don’t find me before dark, they might start back down the river without me.’
Gabriel’s father came back to see why we’d stopped. A cloud of flies buzzed around the dead monkey. He spoke rapidly to his son, waving the blowgun at the vine-entangled trees that pressed in on both sides of the track.
‘Father say jaguar eat you.’
I knew about jaguars. As savage as leopards and as big as lions, they are the top predator on the Amazon food chain.
‘I can look after myself,’ I said, my hands sweaty on the loaded crossbow. ‘Thank your father for me, Gabriel. And thank you, too. I really appreciate all your help. But I’ve got to go back and find my uncle.’
Turning, I began walking back down the track the way we’d come. But I didn’t get far – only ten or twelve paces. Then I stopped dead.
What was that rumbling sound?
The others heard it, too.
‘Climb tree!’ called Gabriel.
I looked over my shoulder. Already he was two metres off the ground, shinnying up a liana vine. His father had left the dead monkey in the fork of a sapling and threaded the blowgun through the waistband of his loincloth. With the darts quiver swinging from his back, he scrambled up a big, smooth-trunked tree that had shiny leaves shaped like elephants’ ears.
The rumbling noise grew louder, and a flock of huge red-and-blue parrots – scarlet macaws – went flying overhead, shrieking in alarm. They were followed by a giant-billed toucan. Then a little scaly armadillo came scuttling out of the undergrowth. It raced past me as if I wasn’t even there, fleeing from the rumbling sound.
‘CLIMB TREE!’ Gabriel yelled.
None of the trees near me looked easy to climb – and I couldn’t shinny up a vine wearing Uncle Shaun’s boots – so I started running towards the elephant-ear tree.
‘OTHER WAY!’ yelled Gabriel.
I skidded to a halt.
Something was coming. A wave of swaying vines, jiggling palms and shaking bushes swept towards me through the undergrowth. It looked like a wide, green avalanche. It even rumbled like an avalanche. There was another sound, too – a strange, clicking-grinding sound. Like thousands of teeth.
‘RUN!’ screamed Gabriel.
But it was too late to run. The green avalanche swept past the elephant-ear tree and came rushing towards me.
Bracing myself for the worst, I raised the crossbow.
12
SHISHKEBAB!
The first one came so fast that there wasn’t time to pull the trigger.
It burst out of the undergrowth and shot past me almost before I saw it.
But what I did see was enough. A pair of curved yellow tusks, two beady black eyes and a long, low, barrel-shaped body. It was a peccary – a South American relative of the wild pig. And it wasn’t alone. The thunder was the sound of galloping hooves. The clicking was the sound of grinding tusks. It was a herd of peccaries on the run. A stampede!
And I was right in their path.
The second peccary broke cover three metres away and came straight for me. There were animals on either side of it and more behind, so it couldn’t slow down or swerve to miss me, even if it tried. It didn’t try. It lowered its head and charged.
WHAM!
It knocked me for six. I landed flat on my back with the peccary on top. We stayed like that, neither of us moving, as the rest of the herd stampeded past on both sides.
Only when they’d gone, and the rumble of their galloping hooves faded into the distance, did I push the peccary off me and sit up. The arrow that I’d shot when the peccary charged was buried all the way to the feathers in the dead animal’s neck.
‘Sam, stay still!’ Gabriel called down softly from his refuge high in the jungle canopy.
I craned my neck to look for him, but saw his father instead. He was still in the elephant-ear tree, supporting himself with one hand and holding the blowgun in the other.
For the second time that day, it was pointing right at me.
‘Hey, what’s … ?’
A deep, throaty growl made the words die in my throat.
Slowly I turned my head.
Shishkebab!
I was looking directly into the honey-coloured eyes of a puma.
13
ANACONDAS DON’T HAVE FINS
I didn’t know there were pumas in the Amazon. I thought they were only found in North America. Was I dreaming?
I hoped I was dreaming.
The puma bared its eight-centimetre fangs and let out another growl. Warm droplets of spit sprayed my face. No dream could be that real. Nor that terrifying. The big, straw-coloured cat was so close I could have reached across the dead peccary and touched it. But no way in the world was I going to do that – I wanted to keep all my fingers.
I slipped my hand into the top pocket of my shorts, searching for Uncle Shaun’s folding scalpel. All I found was a big lump of gold. Wrong pocket.
The puma hissed.
Steady, boy!
I tried another pocket. EpiPen, anti-malaria pills – no scalpel.
The puma edged closer until it was standing right over the peccary. Nothing was between us now.
Up in the tree, Gabriel’s father spoke softly to his son.
Why doesn’t he use the blowgun? I thought. Swivelling my eyes, I saw the problem. I was right in the line of fire. If the p
oison dart missed the puma, I’d be the one to cop it.
‘Father say go back plenty slow,’ Gabriel called down to me.
I started inching backwards, crab-like, along the ground. The puma bared its teeth and let out another hiss. But it didn’t come after me. All it wanted was the peccary.
When I was three or four metres clear, I rose slowly to my feet and starting backing towards the elephant-ear tree. The puma watched me every step of the way. It had the most ferocious glare – a look that said, You killed the peccary, but now it’s mine. I wasn’t going to argue.
When I reached the tree, I switched from slow motion to fast forward. I went up it like a monkey, and didn’t stop until I was higher than Gabriel’s father. He was still watching the puma, but he no longer held the blowgun to his lips. Now that I was safe, I was glad he hadn’t fired a poison dart at it. A peccary and a monkey were enough dead animals for one day.
Gabriel’s father and I stayed in our tree until the puma dragged the peccary into the undergrowth. Then we climbed cautiously back down to the ground. Gabriel came swinging down on a vine like Tarzan.
‘Good shooting, Sam,’ he said, prodding the remains of the crossbow with his foot. It had been trampled to bits in the stampede. ‘You find uncle now?’
I glanced nervously at the spot where the puma had disappeared. ‘How far is the village?’
Gabriel grinned and said, ‘Not far.’
His father wasn’t grinning. His expression was more like a grimace. And he was holding his nose. He said something to Gabriel.
‘Father say you wash before go to village,’ the boy said. ‘Peccary make you smell bad.’
Now that they’d mentioned it, I noticed the bad smell, too. Gross! I’ve never smelled a skunk, but I reckon they can’t be much worse than peccaries. And now the peccary smell was all over me.
Gabriel’s father led us to a narrow animal trail that zigzagged downhill to a small creek. There was a pool where a fallen tree had created a dam. The surface was covered in giant water lilies. I couldn’t see what was under the huge lily pads, but I didn’t care. I was hot, I was caked with dried mud, I stank. I ploughed straight in, clothes and all.
I grew up in northern Australia, where you have to be careful if you go swimming. There are crocodiles, leeches and snakes. This was the Amazon jungle. It’s even more hazardous for swimmers than northern Australia. There are caimans, piranhas, giant anacondas, parasite fish and freshwater stingrays. And there’s something worse – something more dangerous than all the others put together.
At first touch I thought it was just the thick rubbery stem of a water lily dragging across my leg as I waded into the waist-deep water.
But when I stopped, the stem kept moving.
It slid smoothly around my calf like the cold tentacle of an octopus. A very big octopus. But there aren’t any octopuses in the Amazon jungle.
Another anaconda! I thought, and froze in terror.
It’s lucky I froze. Because when I looked down through a gap between two lily pads, I saw a large bullet-shaped head and two fan-shaped fins. Anacondas don’t have fins, fish have fins.
And so do eels.
Holy guacamole! Wrapped around my leg was an electric eel!
14
KILLER KING
The jaguar is the top predator in the Amazon – but only on land. In the water, the electric eel is the undisputed killer king. When it’s hunting or feeling threatened, it can produce six hundred volts of electricity – enough to kill a horse. It doesn’t even have to touch you to be dangerous. Electricity travels through water. You can be swimming five or six metres from an electric eel and still be electrocuted.
And I had one wrapped around my leg. If I moved, or if it saw me as prey, I’d get zapped.
‘Sam, what is wrong?’ Gabriel asked from the shore.
‘There’s an electric eel,’ I said softly.
Gabriel and his father had a short conversation.
‘Father say come out from water plenty plenty slow.’
‘It’s coiled around my leg.’
Gabriel spoke to his father again. The man muttered something in reply, dropped his blowgun and the dead monkey on the ground, and vanished into the jungle.
‘Father get sleepy berry,’ Gabriel explained.
Before I could ask what a sleepy berry was, his father returned with a leafy branch. At its tip was a bunch of purple berries. He twisted the bunch free and tossed the berries onto the lily pad next to me.
‘Father say squeeze berry, make juice go in water,’ Gabriel instructed.
The berries were ripe and soft, full of dark juice that dribbled through my fingers when I squeezed. It created a pink underwater cloud that spread slowly around me until I could no longer see the eel. But I could still feel it wrapped around my leg like a big, soft rope. I hoped the juice of the sleepy berry wouldn’t upset it. My survival depended on the eel remaining calm. If it got scared or confused by the pink cloud in the water, it might turn the power on. The big, soft rope would become a high voltage electricity cable. ZAP!
It didn’t happen. After about a minute, I felt the creature’s grip on my leg begin to relax. Then it let go. I held my breath as the two-metre eel floated to the surface next to my elbow. It wasn’t moving.
‘Is it dead?’ I asked.
‘Just sleeping,’ said Gabriel. ‘Father say you can wash now.’
Within minutes of rejoining the main track, I heard the sound of children’s voices ahead. We turned a corner and found ourselves at the edge of a wide jungle clearing. Standing in the middle was an enormous round building made of sticks and logs and palm fronds. It looked big enough to house fifty people. There were gardens all around it. Two women picked long, bean-like vegetables from a row of leafy plants propped up with sticks. A couple of small naked children played nearby. They noticed us and came running. Twenty metres away they stopped and stood gawking at me. We stopped, too. Gabriel’s father said something, then walked ahead carrying the monkey. I started to follow, but Gabriel clutched my elbow.
‘Father say you wait here.’
I began to feel uneasy. The women had stopped work. One came hurrying forward. She picked up the smaller child, grabbed the other by the hand and hurried away, glancing over her shoulder a couple of times as if she was scared of me. It felt weird. Did she think I was the boogey man?
An old man emerged from the building carrying a stick. He nearly dropped it when he saw me. Another man came out and they both stood staring at me. Gabriel’s father walked up to them and started talking. More men joined them. Everyone seemed to talk at once. The old man waved his stick in my direction.
‘What are they saying?’ I asked Gabriel.
‘Some Yanomami not like white man. They say you steal our land and cut down our trees.’
‘I wouldn’t do that,’ I said. ‘My uncle came to save the trees.’
Gabriel nodded. ‘Certain. Father will tell them.’
But nobody was listening to Gabriel’s father. More men had come out of the building. Soon he was surrounded by a big noisy mob. Everyone sounded angry. Every so often, someone would point at me and raise his voice. I could guess what they were saying: Get out of our village!
‘I think I’d better go,’ I said softly.
This time Gabriel didn’t argue. He was listening to the men and chewing his lower lip. ‘You go that way not far,’ he said, pointing back down the track. ‘Wait for me to come. I will bring for you water and food.’
‘Not monkey,’ I said.
Gabriel grinned. ‘Not monkey.’
I turned and walked back into the jungle. Several of the men started shouting at my back. I didn’t blame them for being angry. Other white men – men who looked like me – had done bad things to them and their people in the past. But it was horrible being yelled at and sent away just because of the colour of my skin. I felt like the worst person in the world.
It was a relief to reach the bend in the track where the
jungle hid me from their view.
And an even bigger relief to meet someone coming the other way.
‘Dr Livingstone, I presume?’ he said.
15
THE BRIBE
It was the last thing I expected. We were hundreds of kilometres from the nearest town, in one of the remotest parts of the Amazon, yet here was another white man. Two white men – a second one came trudging up the track behind him. Both wore sweat-stained khaki shirts, blue jeans and sneakers that looked brand new. Both were bent under the weight of enormous backpacks. And both carried pistols, strapped to their right hips in brown leather holsters.
‘I’m Sam Fox from Australia,’ I said, shaking the first man’s hand. ‘It’s good to meet you.’
‘Good to meet you, too, Sam Fox from Australia,’ he said. He was short and muscular, with ginger hair and a floppy red moustache. ‘I’m Henry and this is Bernard.’
Bernard was tall, with blond hair and shifty blue eyes. He spoke with a strong accent. ‘Vot are you doing here, Sam?’
‘Looking for my uncle – Dr Shaun Carrington, the famous botanist. He’s doing a study of climate change and its effects on the Amazon rainforest. We got separated when some fire ants fell into our canoe and he and our boatman jumped overboard.’
‘That explains it then,’ said Henry.
‘What are you doing here?’ I asked.
‘Following you,’ said Bernard, studying my boots. ‘Ve came upon your tracks a vile ago and decided to find out vot you are up to.’
‘But why are you in the Amazon jungle?’
The two men exchanged a quick glance.
‘Looking for rare butterflies,’ Henry said. ‘We’re butterfly collectors.’
They didn’t look like butterfly collectors. Where were their nets? And why the big pistols?
‘Zere ver other footprints vith yours,’ Bernard said, interrupting my thoughts. ‘Bare feet.’
‘And we thought we heard shouting,’ Henry added.
‘Yanomami Indians,’ I said. ‘A boy and his father. They took me to their village.’
‘Vere is zis village?’ asked Bernard.