by Aaron Elkins
“I’d like to put forward an alternative supposition,” Gideon said.
“Oh boy,” John said, “watch out. When he starts talking like that, it means things are gonna get complicated.”
“No, they’ll get simplified. Look, why are we so sure the lance was thrown from shore? Couldn’t somebody on the boat have done it?”
Like fans at a tennis match, their heads swiveled in his direction. “Somebody on the boat… ?” Phil repeated.
“Sure. Come on down, let me show you.”
John was inclined to stay where he was and let Gideon’s alternative supposition wait till morning, but the others prevailed upon him and got him, complaining affably, out of his chair. On the lower deck, Gideon stood them in front of the bar’s Dutch doors, just where Scofield had been when the lance smashed through the window.
“Now. John, you and I were sitting right over there, up against the railing on the other side, watching the dolphins, right?”
A nod from John.
“Vargas was behind us, also looking at them. And Scofield was standing right here, doing the same. All of us with our eyes focused on where the fish were jumping around—”
“Dolphins,” Phil stated, “are not fish.”
“Even I know that,” commented John.
“Pardon me,” Gideon said, “where the cetaceans were jumping around. Okay, everybody’s eyes were on them, and the lance comes crashing into the window from behind us.”
“Where the shore happens to be,” John said, “only sixty or seventy feet away at the time.”
“True, but the starboard deck was right here, three feet away. My question is, why couldn’t someone have come up along the deck from the front of the ship — maybe coming out the side door of the dining room — flung the lance through the side window, and then run back into the dining room and out of sight, then left later? If the door was open, he’d have been back through it in two seconds.”
“Because Scofield would have seen him,” Phil said. “All he had to do was turn his head.”
“Is that so? Go ahead, turn your head.”
Phil turned to his right. “Oh. I see what you mean. The corner of the dining room blocks the view forward.”
“Yeah,” John said, “I see how that could be, but how could he miss Scofield with that thing from two feet away? He’d have to be blind.”
“Ah,” said Gideon. “Maybe he didn’t miss, maybe he accomplished what he was trying to do.”
“Well, if what he was trying to do was scare the shit out of him, he accomplished it, all right.”
“But that’s exactly what I’m getting at. I think maybe somebody’s playing games with Scofield.”
Phil looked from Gideon to John and scratched at his scraggly chin. “I have to admit, that sounds a lot more plausible than some ticked-off Chayacuro warrior who’s been standing there with his spear for thirty years, waiting for him to come back.”
“And what about the spider?” Gideon said. “That fits too. Someone having a little fun at the big man’s expense, cutting him down to size.”
“It was Tim that went to get the bag with the spider in it,” Phil observed thoughtfully. “So does that make him the someone, in your opinion?”
“No, the bag was in one of the luggage rooms. No lock. Anyone could have put it there.”
“But how would he know Arden would open it up?”
“He’d know he’d open it sometime.”
“Yeah,” John said, “but how long could a spider stay alive in there?”
“Long enough to last the trip, that’s for sure.”
“Well, okay, then, it’s possible. But it wasn’t poisonous, so what’s the point?”
“That is the point. Pay attention, John. If what I’m saying is right, they’re not trying to kill him; they just want to frighten him, or maybe make him look ridiculous.”
“But why?” Phil asked. “And who? Whom. Who.”
Gideon shrugged. “No idea.”
“In that case, let’s go look at the stars some more,” Phil said. “Maybe it’ll come to us. And be careful, you guys, we’re more buzzed than you think, and there’s no railing up there.”
John was shaking his head. “I don’t know about all this, Doc,” he said as they started back. “It sounds kind of crazy to me. That’s taking a lot of risks just to make Scofield look silly.”
“They don’t like the guy, you pointed that out yourself.”
John acknowledged this with a tip of his chin. “Yeah, well, that’s so. Okay, it’s possible, but that’s all. At this point it’s just a theory.”
“Correct, only it’s not even a theory. It’s not even a hypothesis. It’s what I said, a supposition, an inferential conclusion not based on anything close to adequate substantiation, empirical or otherwise. But it’s certainly worth considering.”
John sighed, as he often did when Gideon got professorial with him. “Well, whatever the hell it is, are you gonna mention it to Scofield?”
“That’s a good question and, you know, I’m not sure. Probably not, I’d say. First off, it is just a supposition. Besides, it’s pretty clear he and his people — Tim, Maggie, Mel… even Duayne — have some not-so-great vibes going on between them, so why should I want to stir things up any more? He’s obviously paranoid when it comes to the Indians. Do I want to make him paranoid about the people he works with? I think maybe I’ll just let it go — unless something else happens, and then I think I owe it to him to tell him.”
Phil nodded. “I agree with that. And anyway, assuming you’re right about what’s going on, I’m betting that’s it; it’s over and done with. Whoever it is made his point. If he’s trying to scare Scofield, or bring him down a few notches, how could he do any better than he did today?”
“Well, I think you should tell him, Doc,” John said as they mounted the steps. “I think you owe it to him.”
“Maybe I will, John. I haven’t really decided. Let’s see what he’s like when he comes out of his room tomorrow.”
“If he comes out of his room,” Phil said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t, or at least doesn’t show himself out on deck in the open anymore. Or if he does, I’m betting at least he finds some excuse for not getting out and going on any of the treks, even on the other side of the river.”
“Nope,” said John. “This is a guy who cares too much about how he comes off to other people to do that. No, I think Maggie and the rest of them are wrong. I think he’ll come up with some excuse — nothing to do with what happened, of course — for calling the whole thing off and turning the ship around. No, on second thought, he’ll probably get Vargas to come up with an excuse, engine trouble or something.”
Gideon disagreed with both of them. “Uh-uh. If he did that, everybody would see right through it, and he couldn’t live with that. My guess is, upset as he is, he’ll just laugh it off and go right on with the cruise. Too much pride to do anything else.”
As they approached their chairs, they were greeted first by trailing smoke that smelled a lot worse than marijuana, and then by a welcome of sorts.
“Hola, the three musketeers return,” called Cisco, laughing away.
“The three mouseketeers,” chortled Tim. They were both pretty much pie-eyed.
“The three mosquitoes,” amended Cisco, engendering even greater hilarity.
“These guys are a laugh riot,” John growled as he sank into his chair and put his feet up on the railing again. John had a hard time disguising his aversion to drugs and drug-takers, not that he generally made any attempt to do so; no surprise, considering that hard-drug trafficking was one of his areas of expertise and he was familiar with both ends of the long, wretched chain and all the sorry creatures in between. “For Christ’s sake, that stuff really stinks,” he called. “It smells like a rainy day at the lion house. Go back to your Mary Jane, will you? For our sake, anyway.”
“No, come on, man,” Tim said amicably, “don’t be like that. This is rea
lly good stuff here.”
“High-quality chacruna,” said Cisco. “Gift of the gods.”
“Psychotria viridis,” Tim explained, a professor in the making. “Mixed with tobacco and wrapped in a banana leaf. It’s not illegal, not even in the States, if that’s what’s bothering you, not that you can get any up there. Hey, pull your chairs over, why don’t you try some? It’ll mellow you out. Cisco’s got a ton of it.”
“Sure, come on over,” Cisco said, not quite as welcomingly.
“No thanks, fellas,” Gideon said for the three of them. He wasn’t quite as straight-arrow as John, but not very far behind. From the expression on Phil’s face, however, he could see that Phil was more than ready to try it just to see what it was like — there were few new experiences that Phil wasn’t open to — but decided to go along with his friends, at least for the moment.
“Suit yourself,” Tim said.
John, Phil, and Gideon retrieved their glasses from where they’d left them on the deck, and settled back, but John was unable to let things lie.
“Hey, Tim, you really ought to know better,” he said, not unkindly. “That stuff’s terrible for your health. Believe me, I know about these things. It’ll rot your brain.” His unspoken subtext was crystal-clear: Take a good look at your buddy there. Is that the way you want to wind up?
“Yeah, like that crap you guys are drinking is good for your health?”
“It may not be good for your health,” John called back, “but it doesn’t turn you into a zombie.”
Getting no reply, the three of them returned to their stargazing. Gideon decided on another aguardiente after all and poured himself a dollop. After being away from it for twenty minutes, he found that it stung his throat more than before, and he unscrewed the top of his water bottle to dilute it a bit.
Tim saw or heard him do it. “Hey, you want to talk about something that’s bad for your health, what about that stuff? Don’t you know that water’ll kill you? Every glass is like a nail in your coffin.”
“That’s true,” Cisco chimed in, “did you know that, like, every single person that ever drank it has died? Every single one! That’s why I never touch it.”
“That’s right,” agreed Tim. “And the bad part is, it’s one of the most addictive substances in the world, worse than crack. What happens is that once you try it even once — even a tiny sip — you’re hooked, and you have to have more. And then more. And more. You steal for it or kill for it; you can’t help yourself. And if you can’t get any more you go into withdrawal and you actually die.”
They were both cackling so uproariously they could barely get the words out, but that didn’t stop them. “And even if you do get more,” Cisco managed, “it don’t make any difference. You die in the end anyway.”
They were both collapsed with laughter now, unable to carry on, but Phil picked up the baton. “Never mind the biological aspects,” he said to John. “You know what water’s composed of, don’t you? Hydrogen and oxygen. And what do they make rocket fuel out of? Hydrogen and oxygen. I’m telling you, the stuff is too volatile to go anywhere near it, let alone drink it.”
Gideon smiled but John, pained, bared his teeth. “Phil, I wish, I wish you wouldn’t do that. What do you want to say things like that for?”
“Hard to say, exactly,” Phil said. “It might be because I love to see the veins stand out in your neck like that.”
TWELVE
AS it turned out, none of them were right about how Scofield would behave the next day, although Gideon came closest. Scofield didn’t merely laugh off the incident of the lance, he acted as if nothing at all had happened. Appearing in the morning looking ruddy, bright, and well rested, he greeted everyone cordially and went enthusiastically at the buffet of cheese omelets, fried bananas, rice, salsa, and toast. When Maggie mentioned that they thought that it was a good idea to move their excursions that day to the north side of the river, he merely said, quite mildly, as if it were no concern of his, that that was just fine. It was obvious that he didn’t want to talk about the previous day, and his wishes were observed.
After breakfast, the Adelita moored at a narrow beach topped by a thirty-foot bluff. Cisco scrambled up it and went to see about arranging a meeting with the shaman of an Ocaona settlement about two miles to the northwest, on the banks of the Punte, another of the Amazon’s hundreds of tributaries. He returned two hours later with the news that the celebrated curandero Yaminahua would be pleased to grant them an audience. He — Cisco — suggested that they each bring along at least a liter of water. For people who weren’t used to it, a four-mile round-trip jungle hike in the midday heat was going to make for a long, exhausting day.
And don’t forget insect repellent, he added.
SAY Amazon jungle to the average person, and a picture pops into the mind of intrepid nineteenth-century explorers in pith helmets, of giant leaves, thick, tangled vines, and hostile underbrush that has to be hacked through with a machete at every step. But except for the giant leaves, most of the virgin rain forest is far different. There are thick liana vines that hang from the tree limbs, yes — some sturdy enough to swing on, Tarzan-like — but they aren’t very tangled or really very prolific, and while a machete is sometimes useful, it’s hardly a necessity, because the canopy high overhead shuts out so much sun that there isn’t much undergrowth to contend with.
This is also the reason that what little is there is so huge-leaved; it’s their way of sucking in every possible mote of sunlight that does manage to filter through. Even the water lilies are as big as wagon wheels, five feet in diameter and able to support a small child, or more likely, a capybara or a python. The canopy effectively shuts out wind too, and the birds and insects are quiet during the day, so that there is a prickly sense of hushed expectancy, of something terribly important about to happen, although of course nothing does, aside from when a howler monkey occasionally lets loose one of its deafening hoots and every previously invisible bird within range flutters and screams in response before settling down again. Ninety-five percent of the time, though, walking in such a forest is like traveling through some surreal, silent, dimly remembered dreamscape.
“These big leaves and stuff,” Phil said, as the group made its way toward the Ocaona village, “and how still it is — it reminds me of this painter, what’s his name…”
“Henri Rousseau,” said Gideon, to whom the same thought had occurred. Still figures, giant, meticulously detailed jungle foliage, unseen mystery.
“Right, that’s the guy,” Phil said. “Fantastic, isn’t it?”
Gideon nodded. Fantastic it was. Beautiful. Cathedral-like, to use a well-worn metaphor that he truly appreciated for the first time. And the creatures! Jewel-like poison-dart frogs, no bigger than a thumbnail, that secrete a curare-like neurotoxin used by the Indians for their blowgun darts; three-inch-long millipedes; giant snails (giant even by the generous standards of western Washington State) — an amazing place, from every angle. But, God, was it hot in there! And humid — unbelievably, mind-deadeningly humid. After a few hours of it, Gideon’s shirt and shorts were as wet as if he’d been in a downpour. Even his bones felt soggy. The liter of water he’d brought was long gone, and all he could think of was getting back to his cabin, downing another quart or so, then climbing into the shower and standing for half an hour in the cool — relatively cool — green-brown stream of Amazon water.
The humidity in particular had been like nothing he’d ever encountered. Mel, trying to take notes for his article, had had to give it up. First, the ink from his gel pen wouldn’t dry on the page, but ran down it in streaks instead. Then, when he’d borrowed a pencil from Scofield, the point tore through the limp sheets. And as the last straw, by the end of the first hour, the glue in the binding of his notepad had liquefied and the pages had come apart in his hand. Mel, in a laid-back mood — like John, he had no trouble with hot weather — just laughed, gave Scofield back his pencil, and squeezed the notebook into a soggy w
ad the size of a Ping-Pong ball, which he then stuffed into a pocket.
Unpleasant climate notwithstanding, it had been a fascinating and enjoyable afternoon. Cisco, although no less spacey than usual, had proven botanically knowledgeable and articulate on the walks to and from the village, speaking confidently of epiphytes and chamaephytes and phanerophytes, so that one could see the ethnobotanists in the group rethinking their impressions of him.
The Ocaona village was a grouping of ten thatch-and-pole houses that were set up on two-foot stilts beside a marshy pond in which four exhausted-looking water buffalo lounged in water up to their nostrils while egrets strolled around on their backs. There they’d been surrounded by curious, enchanted brown children. Mostly naked, but some in T-shirts (and nothing else), they laughingly reached out to touch the newcomers and dash away, like Indians counting coup, as if to make sure they were real. They seemed to know but one Spanish word — caramelo — but they accepted with eye-popping delight whatever treats the visitors could find to give them: sticks of spearmint gum, Tic Tacs, and especially the cellophane-wrapped hard fruit candies that Mel had happened to have in his pocket. The only offerings that failed to be a hit were the minty breath-strips that Duayne peeled from a little dispenser and placed on their tongues. These elicited gasps, hacking, pretend-vomiting, and other evidences of extreme disgust, but even so, each child had to have a second one, as if to see if it was really as horrible as they remembered.
The curandero Yaminahua, a wrinkled, waspish old man in a sleeveless undershirt, clean, white Jockey shorts, and calf-length rubber wading boots, was waiting for them, smoking a cigar and sitting on the plank steps of his open-sided house, which was about twenty feet on a side, clean and spare, strung with four net hammocks across the center, and with a few open shelves along one side, on which were some old iron pots and utensils, and a few bowls. The entire structure was set on two-foot stilts. Two middle-aged women and a girl in her teens, all wearing only simple bark aprons, lay in the hammocks watching, but with no real signs of interest. The girl had a naked little boy sleeping on her abdomen. On one of the shelves, also watching, was a grumpy-looking squirrel monkey tied to a pole by a string around its waist.