by David Faxon
He was breaking her and she was losing the will to survive. How many more times could she take his vileness before giving up entirely? That would please him because he couldn't possess her the way he wanted.
She lay awake, unable to sleep, head throbbing from the beating. Then gunshots! It couldn't be him, he didn't target practice at night. She heard yelling, shrieking, screaming, more shots. Something very different was happening. It gave her hope. They had come, as she knew they eventually would. Her heart pounded. She held her ear to the wall, trying to hear every sound.
Except for a few horrifying cries, the noise slackened before she heard a door being smashed in, men running to De Santana's room. She heard a man speaking in a loud voice, a language she heard only a few times in her life. He did all of the talking, sometimes interrupted by others who spoke a variation of her tongue. De Santana's voice was pleading, begging. He was in trouble and it caused her immense satisfaction. When the shouting subsided, she banged on the door. A weak sound, but someone was there to rescue her and they would hear her cries; then footsteps outside, men trying to break in. There was a chance they would mistake her for one of them and kill her, but she kept pounding, shouting. “I'm here! I'm here!”
Then the click of a key, the door opened, a shaft of light from torches. A tall man stood in the light. He spoke in that strange language. She thought he asked her name but wasn't sure. Seeing her condition, he lifted her up. No one carried her this gently since she was a small girl. The others stepped aside for him. What power did he command? What power did he have to save her?
He brought her to the room where Teman-e’s men were speaking loudly, but at the same time, under the control of this man. Their painted faces frightened her; some were blood smeared. Across the room, now illuminated by torchlight, cringing like a cowered animal, was the man she hated. She wanted to kill him. Instead, she pointed her finger.
“My father! You took him away! You blamed him for a murder you yourself committed. I saw you! I was there!”
The words came chokingly. All her hatred directed at De Santana until, in a fury, she lunged at him but was restrained by Connery.
“What is she saying, Teman-e?”
Teman-e vaguely understood. The dialect was different, but some of the words were the same used by the Machi-te.
“Ask what he has done to her. Ask what she knows.”
The Indian spoke and his words calmed the girl. Her story spilled; from the day an important person was killed and her father taken away, to the day she came to this place, forced to suffer the indignities heaped on her. Teman-e translated and Connery nodded. When she finished, he turned to De Santana.
“Get up!”
Connery pulled De Santana to his feet.
“Listen carefully! Castelo Branco didn’t send me. But I’ll tell you why I’m here.”
He pointed to Teman-e.
“These people. You poisoned them with your cyanide and mercury. Did you know you murdered an entire village? You and your boss are responsible. You're alive only because you can be of use to me. If that weren't so, my friend here would have filleted you an hour ago. Think you've seen bad shit? You’ve seen nothing like what they’re capable of if I give them just one word. You tell me anything that's not true, anything! You belong to them. Clear?”
De Santana shook. He looked at Teman-e and understood immediately. He thought, what if he is lying? What if he really was sent by Castelo Branco and it was all a charade to test my loyalty? Giving information would be fatal. Then there was the savage. It was a no win situation. He decided to talk.
Connery said:
“Tell me about Reyes. What was his connection to your boss?”
“Castelo Branco paid him well. He used his influence to get whatever he wanted. Reyes owned a lot of people, he opened doors.”
“Then why was he killed?”
“He got greedy. He also knew too much. Castelo Branco used him like he did me and everyone else but was afraid Reyes could destroy him.”
“Who killed him?”
De Santana's eyes shifted around the room, the torch brought closer to his face. Sweat poured from his forehead. He wasn't sure who this man was but was positive of what would happen if he didn't have the right answers. His fear of the mysterious tribes was now reality. He continued.
“I told you before, I did.”
“Tell me again. This time, I want details.”
“Because that fat bastard has owned me for years, worked me both ways to get me to do whatever he wanted. If I didn't, he'd have me killed. Do you think I want to be here? These hellholes have been my life for twenty years, making money for him while he threw me scraps. He wanted Reyes’ murder blamed on the Indians, something about environmentalists. He thought that way. I set one of them up. It was easy.
There! He said it, spilled his guts. There was no turning back. He stared at Connery.
“You are a clever man Mr.... what's your name? De Santana? You are calculating, cover yourself well. You’re nobody’s fool. Tell me about that small recording device I saw in the desk. Why would you need something like that out here? Dictate to your secretary? I don’t think so, so I’ll ask one more question.”
“Where's the little disk you used to record your conversations with this boss of yours? Think about it before you give me a wrong answer.”
It was a calculated move. Connery figured he had more than half a chance of being right.
“I have it.”
“Don't move, just point to where it is.”
“It’s in the desk, taped to the back of the bottom drawer.”
Connery pulled the drawer all the way out and found a small plastic case. He held it to the torch light, showing it to Teman-e, whose patience had now grown thin. It was time to offer an explanation.
“I know you don't understand the reason, but this small thing will guarantee you will live where you belong. No one will poison your waters in the days to come. Do you trust me?”
With the disk in the recorder, Connery turned it on. The tribesmen were startled when it produced a voice, loud and clear:
“Don't worry about it. I will take care of everything. Reyes was useful. I will miss his influence but he knew too much. He could bring me down very easily. Now he's out of the way...”
“Was that Castelo Branco?”
“Yes.”
“You've saved yourself for now. I'll need you later. Teman-e, please have your men take him to the same room where they found this young girl. I'll lock it myself.”
Teman-e knew much of Lateri's dialect. It wasn't long before he learned more about her and how she got there. She came from far away, up river, where there was gold. Where De Santana had once been in charge.
CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT
A smoky haze smothered the forest that morning. Every building destroyed but for two, no one left alive except De Santana and Lateri. Two tribesmen lay among the dead. Neither Connery nor the Machi-te had slept for more than eighteen hours, so they rested a short while.
Connery awoke before the others, a good time to search for more evidence linking Castelo Branco to massive pollution and murder. He over turned file cabinets and desks. In the first five minutes, he found more than three thousand dollars in Brazilian currency, stashed in a lock box. He stuffed it in the pocket of his dirty shorts. It would come in handy when he got to the capitol. He was full of confidence. If those jerks made it in, he could make it out.
File folders yielded correspondence from De Santana to his boss, verifying that he was present at the mining camp the day before Reyes was murdered. Those papers, along with the recorded phone conversations, should be enough. But enough for what? Legal action? He didn’t think so. That might take years. In the meantime, the poisoning would continue. He wanted another solution. Castelo Branco had come close to destroying him. Now the situation was changed. He had a distinct opportunity to shift the tide, stop the deadly polluting, contribute something to the world. But his motives weren
’t entirely pure. He wanted to get back. Stop that corrupting bastard in his tracks, and he wasn’t afraid to do it. The past year had taken away many of his fears. He could deal with people and situations that he once would have avoided.
In the back of one of the file cabinets, a folded paper caught his eye. A map showing the river and its tributaries, the camp's location; more importantly, the location of another mining site further up river, labeled Tapejo I. Connery thought, this must be where De Santana came from, near Lateri’s village. There was a scale in kilometers, and he roughly calculated a river journey of nearly three hundred miles. He refolded the paper, stuffed it under the broad brimmed hat he found, then went outside.
In one of the partially destroyed buildings, smoke rose from a few burning embers. He swung the door open and went inside. He felt his heart skip. Flames crept closer to four wooden boxes labeled “dinamita.” In another corner were unopened barrels of cyanide and mercury. He left the smoldering warehouse hurriedly, looking for Teman-e.
“I found some things inside. If your men do as I ask, we will destroy this place. It will be the biggest celebration you and your people have ever seen. I would like your men to fill those empty buckets with river water, and bring them here.”
Connery went inside, feeling nervous in the presence of so much dynamite and lingering embers. Vaporous steam rose when the first bucket splashed on the embers. He did the same with the other fourteen until there was no danger of the fire reigniting. Only then did he ask Teman-e to have his men carefully move the dynamite outside. When they finished, he explained what was going to happen.
“Soon now, you will hear the loudest noise you ever heard. You may be frightened, but you will be at a safe distance. It will be over quickly. No one will be hurt if you do as I say. Warn your men so they will be prepared.”
He went back to De Santana's building to waken Lateri. He left her outside with tribesman and asked that they stay with her.
Now for De Santana. Teman-e’s men would kill him in an instant if given the chance. Maybe the thing to do was set him free. See if he could survive as well as he did. He doubted it. Connery knew the man was desperate, capable of most anything, so he would approach cautiously. He put the key in the padlock and slowly pushed. There was no sound. As he opened the door wider, it became more difficult to move. He peered behind.
De Santana's body lay in a pool of blood, his wrists slashed. Connery placed two fingers on his carotid. No sign of any pulse. He wasn’t surprised. De Santana had broken completely- afraid of what he divulged, or who he had divulged it to. Afraid he would die hideously, apparently unsure which death would have been worse, one at the hands of the Indians or at the hands of Castelo Branco's men, so he chose to take his own life. It was just as well, he thought.
He went back to the warehouse for spooled fuse wire and duct tape. Once more, he asked Teman-e to have his men go to the river. This time, they would bring back the partially filled drums of cyanide, about ten in all, being careful not to touch any liquid that might remain inside. He took Teman-e and Lateri to where the dynamite boxes were stacked, found a claw hammer and pried open the tops.
He intended to show them how to assemble packages of dynamite with duct tape, ten sticks to a package. His words were ignored, as he suspected they would be. Neither Teman-e nor Lateri had an inkling of what dynamite could do. A simple demonstration might help. He lit the fuse of one stick and threw it as far as possible. The blast shattered the morning calm, sending Lateri and Teman-e running. A cruel introduction, but it prepared both for what was to come.
Connery walked them to where the explosion had uprooted a tree that now leaned heavily to one side, roots exposed. His idea to enlist their aid was ill conceived. Neither would go anywhere near the dynamite. He would do it himself. He assembled twenty packages, carefully taping them together, then attached thirty-foot fuse cords to each. Two remaining boxes of dynamite were placed in the warehouse and De Santana's quarters, along with the partially filled drums of cyanide. He was ready for something the Machi-te would talk about for a long time.
The far interior gold mining site of Companhia do Azevedo Limitada was about to disappear in a ball of flames. Connery wasn’t too sure that the chemicals would be vaporized in the explosion, but thought it was better than burying them. Someday the drums would erode, causing the poison to find its way back into the river. No, he would take the chance and blow it up, along with everything else. First, he moved the group far enough away so they wouldn't be injured by flying debris or showered by droplets of cyanide. He asked Teman-e to cross the river with his men and Lateri and wait for him to return.
Standing amid the smoldering debris, he was alone for the first time in months. Since that day after the crash, he always had Teman-e by his side or nearby, but now all was quiet as he eyed the dead bodies, the scarred, contaminated land, the rusting equipment, the burned out buildings. This was greed gone wild. Money and possessions could be replaced, but raping the land, killing people with poisons, that would affect generations to come. He came to respect a people that, a year earlier, scared the hell out of him. Nevertheless, they were human, thousands of years removed from the outside world in terms of social progress, but still human. No one had the right to poison their land and jeopardize future generations.
One thing he hadn't mentioned to Teman-e was a small motorboat, seen earlier, tied to a tree. It could be his ticket out. He would find the mining camp up river, take Lateri home, then get to Brasilia. He had money, and what he learned during the past year would help him survive a three hundred mile river journey. He would tell Teman-e of his plan but suspected the wise warrior already knew.
The sun was blistering, shedding its heat on the compound's open area. It was show time. He placed the dynamite packages inside the buildings next to the remaining boxes of explosives and strung the fuse lines outside. Once lit, he figured about two minutes to run into the jungle, hug the ground and wait for the explosion. A thick tarp would shield him from the chemical rain. He inspected everything one last time, flicked the lighter and held it to the fuse in his left hand. The sparks jumped faster than he anticipated, almost burning his hand. He dropped it as the magnesium blazed a fast, smoky trail to the dynamite.
Shit! I used the quick fuse!
He sprinted through the main gate to just inside the tree line, expecting a deafening roar and rush of wind to launch him forward. He hit the ground and covered himself with the tarp just as the ear-shattering explosion blew the roof off De Santana's building. It produced a giant fireball, followed by a small mushroom cloud rising high in the air. Ten seconds later, the warehouse and chemicals blew with an equally loud blast.
From across the river, the sound waves from the twin blasts scattered the tribesmen. Never had they experienced anything like it. For Teman-e, only one other day could equal this one. Miles away, Guardara, and the rest of the tribe, heard the explosions and thought the world was ending.
But he wasn't through. There were three packages left. He placed them beside the water cannon, the diesel powered generator and a collection of other mining apparatus. Three more explosions in fast succession shook the ground.
CHAPTER THIRTY NINE
He had eliminated the source of poison, rescued an innocent girl, discovered a map to find his way back, and was in possession of tailor- made evidence for what he had in mind. If that weren’t enough, he had cash and a medallion he estimated to be worth a great deal. It was a good day no matter how he looked at it. Now he would concentrate on finding his way to Tapejo I, see that Lateri was brought safely home, and then on to Brasilia. There, he would pay a visit to Mr. Castelo Branco.
Smoking out the culprit would be a big gamble. He imagined the man was quite powerful, well insulated, and ruthless. Other than the cash tucked safely in his backpack, his immediate resources were few. But if he was correct about the medallion, it would be the source of considerable funds. The promise he intended to keep, would allow Teman-e and ot
hers like him to live as they always had. It was a tall order. He needed luck, his business skills and some poker faced bluffing to pull it off. It might require moves that were questionable in a court of law, but the law had already been broken. He would merely restore a balance. The need was urgent, and the methods he intended to use were certainly the lesser of two evils.
He walked away at a slow pace. Behind, flames and thick smoke plumed into the tropical air currents. There was an odor of burning flesh. He was tired of death. As he neared the river, he slid through mud and heavy vegetation looking for the easiest place to cross and rejoin the tribe. He slid down an embankment into murky water. There, hidden among weeds and bamboo was the small boat made of aluminum. It had a half horsepower motor. Inside lay a red plastic container of gas. Once again, fortune smiled. The container was almost full but hardly enough to get him where he wanted to go. For that he would need a good set of paddles, or oars. None were evident. Maybe Teman-e would help fashion a pair sturdy enough to paddle hundreds of miles.
He got in, checked the motor's spark plug and ignition switch and pulled the starter cord. Nothing. He pulled a second time. The motor gave an encouraging cough. Adjusting the choke, he pulled again. It jumped to life with a puff of white smoke. He now had a means to travel, albeit not far on the small container of gas. But it was better than foot slogging through the jungle. He untied the rope and steered down river to where he thought Teman-e would be. The gas would take him as many as twenty-five or thirty miles upriver. Only ten percent of the way back, but that was better than nothing.
Ahead, he saw wild boar, snuffling and foraging for food. That would be welcome news for the tribe.
A short while later, Teman-e waved from a sandy stretch. His men ran into the water to help, but the sound from the outboard frightened them. A smiling Connery was glad to be back. On the river bank, Lateri watched anxiously. The tall man was the only link between her and the possibility of returning to her family.