Orinoco

by Dan Pollock

  “Madre de Dios! All I know is, she’s supposed to be filming us up here. Now, all of a sudden, she’s riding into the sunset with some cowboy.”

  “Don’t worry about it, okay? She’ll be back for dinner. That ‘cowboy,’ he’s an old friend—her father’s boss, she said.”

  “When did she tell you all this?”

  “At lunch. They had a big fight, and Jacquie felt bad about it. So she telephoned him from camp about an hour ago. He has a big ranch over there.” Marta paused, then added significantly, “If you ask me, the way she talked about him, she kinda likes him.”

  Félix hadn’t asked her. What the hell could Marta know about it? She was probably just making it up, trying to remove Jacqueline Lee as a possible rival. Anyway, Jake couldn’t possibly be interested in an older guy like Sam Warrender. Riding with him had to be... sort of a diplomatic gesture on her part. Didn’t it?

  But Félix couldn’t undo the damage. For nearly three days he had dreamed his private telenovela. Now, in a matter of seconds, with what he had just seen and Marta had speculated, that dream was rapidly unraveling.

  He gripped Marta’s strong shoulders. “Look, I’m supposed to be helping Arquimedeo schedule evening lectures for the crew. Tell you what. Catch me tomorrow about the workout. Okay?” To forestall her disappointment, he spun her around and swatted her tight fanny. “Now get out of here, muchacha!”

  Marta yelped, but scampered up the path, looking back several times. Félix waited till she was out of sight, then followed slowly, mired now in familiar self-pity. He was back where he’d been too many times before—full of improbable dreams, waiting for a big break that never came.

  The same euphoric cycle had played out years earlier at a Caracas bodybuilding gym, Los Gigantes in Chacaito. When he wasn’t wet-nursing new members, swabbing the locker room or reracking dumbbells, Félix managed to squeeze in some of his own training—and made solid gains. One morning a visiting IFBB bodybuilder dropped in before a local posing exhibition. The ageless Jamaican with dreadlocks, twenty-inch arms and a booming baritone announced that Félix had “damn good genetics,” “damn good potential,” and ought to train for the pro circuit. The rewards described were mouth-watering—international appearances, endorsement fees, freaky women, even movie contracts, like Arnold and Ferrigno got. Before leaving Caracas, the Jamaican jotted down a crash bulk-up program. Félix lasted exactly one gung-ho week before giving it up. The workouts weren’t the problem. There was just no way he could afford the protein, enzyme and vitamin supplementation, let alone the expensive injections. In fact, Félix couldn’t even afford a fucking dentista to fix his rotten teeth.

  But, in a last-ditch attempt to follow the Jamaican’s blueprint, he’d approached several club members with the idea of sponsoring him for a few months in exchange for a percentage of later earnings. When one of them complained to the club’s owner about being harassed, Félix promptly found himself out on the pavement beside his gym bag.

  Even then, Félix hadn’t completely abandoned his dreams. So maybe he couldn’t get huge on liquid protein and Dianabol. He could still work on his “cuts”—increase his definition and vascularity. And he found a job that let him do exactly that. He got himself hired by a distant relative—Arquimedeo Laya López—at an archaeological site deep in the Territorio Federal Amazonas near the confluence of the Orinoco and the Cataniapo rivers. For the next several months, Félix had labored beside bare-assed Makiritare Indians, digging mud and sifting silt, looking for ancient flake-scrapers. The wages were a joke, but the spadework thickened his delts and lats, the endless twisting and spilling of shovelfuls ripped his intercostals and obliques, and the equatorial sun baked his hide nearly as dark as the Jamaican’s. Even the spartan rations did their part, helping to burn off bodyfat. In three agonizing months, Félix turned himself into a bronzed anatomy lesson. Then he quit the dig and hitched a mail plane back to civilization just in time for the Mr. Caracas contest—where he got blown out in the prejudging by a stageful of steroid monsters.

  That was the end of Félix Rosale’s bodybuilding career.

  Somehow he’d picked himself up. Tried some odd jobs, and some downright bizarre. He even auditioned as a porno actor, but quit when his debut required him to be suspended from ceiling hooks and flogged by a flabby Brazilian dominatrix in Nazi garb.

  Totally out of funds but rich in self-contempt, he’d finally hitchhiked back to the jungle—where he caught the only solid break in his life. Arquimedeo not only rehired him, but took him along on subsequent digs, encouraging him, meanwhile, to begin some basic coursework in archaeology, anthropology and paleontology.

  Now, several years, maybe a dozen courses and a half-dozen expeditions later, a degree was nowhere in view; but, under Arqui’s patronage, Félix had advanced steadily from assistant digger to digger to field supervisor. He was confident of his skills in the camp environment, and he liked showing the ropes to the amateur and student volunteers—especially the girls. As a class, these were far from attractive; many tended to look like Marta Mendes, and many worse. But there were always a few acceptable. And, even after squatting and troweling all day in the trenches, one or two always seemed willing to volunteer for hammock or sleeping-bag duty.

  Félix still had no real passion for archaeology. But this was far from the worst job he’d ever had, and he had considered himself reasonably content. Until two days ago, that is, when Jacqueline Lee had stepped out of her father’s Land Cruiser and reawakened all his adolescent fantasies.

  Félix had now reached the main tent area beyond the rockfall. Through a gap between the larger work tents, he glimpsed Marta Mendes in a huddle with the two lesbias. Was Marta gossiping about him, telling those two man-haters how she’d found him staring after the departing rich girl? But what did it matter? Let those putas think what they liked.

  Okay, so maybe he should have made a decisive move on Jacqueline yesterday in his truck, when Sam wasn’t around. But he hadn’t, dammit, so now it was time for him to make a move for himself—or spend the rest of his life as chief flunky to Arquimedeo the Great. And, as usual, Félix had a half-assed plan in mind.

  He’d actually thought it up yesterday, on the droning flight back from Canaima. But he’d set it aside as being too risky. Besides, even if he pulled it off, it would definitely screw his chances with Jacqueline. Now, with the millionaire’s daughter apparently galloping out of his life, what did he really have to lose? His fucking scientific career?

  He pushed into the largest tent and closed the flap behind him. It was empty, as expected. Arquimedeo would be on the East Hill another hour or two, showing some of the newcomers how to sink pairs of electrical probes into the ground and measure the resistance between them. Félix ducked under the long work table and pulled out the single sideband radio that was stowed right beside Arqui’s ammo case. The SSB radio was wired to an antenna mast lashed to the tentpole, and its hundred twenty-five watts fed off the Honda generator just outside. Félix powered up, keyed the microphone and pressed the presets for the standby frequency of a twenty-four-hour operator at Simón Bolívar University in Caracas.

  When the woman came on, Félix gave her a Ciudad Guayana telephone exchange, the one Jacqueline had used last night when Félix had helped patch her through to her father’s yacht. Then he waited, feeling his thigh muscles bunch and knot, the sweat trickle down his sides and between his pecs. There was still time to abort. Even if someone walked in on him—even if it was Arqui—Félix could say he was just ordering supplies. But the number was ringing now. Once... twice...

  A man answered: “Hello?” A norteamericano.

  “Mr. Duk-Won Lee, please.” Félix’s voice sounded a little shaky. But he was committed now.

  “Who is this?”

  “An archaeologist on Cerro Calvario. Tell Mr. Lee it’s urgent.”

  “I’m afraid Mr. Lee is in an important meeting.”

  “What I tell him will change his plans. It is about the minin
g of Cerro Calvario.”

  “You can tell me, and I’ll tell him.”

  “Please—I must talk to Mr. Lee. No one else.”

  “Okay. Wait a minute.”

  Félix’s palm was wet now, coating the microphone he was clenching. His heartbeat felt jerky. There was a vertiginous feeling in his stomach, like the way he’d felt in Sam’s plane, watching Angel Falls plummet down the cliffside of Auyán Tepui into the yawning depths of Devil’s Canyon. He could still back out of this. He could still—

  The radio’s speaker crackled into life, and a voice growled at him:

  “Hello? Is this Dr. Laya? This is D.W. Lee. What do you want?”

  Félix hesitated an instant, then words tumbled out:

  “No, Mr. Lee. This is not Dr. Laya. This is his assistant, Félix Rosales. We met two days ago, on Cerro Calvario. I have something urgent to tell you.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “How do I look?” Jacqueline Lee asked Sam Warrender as they walked their horses down the winding flank of Cerro Calvario.

  “Terrific. Of course, you’re the first female llanero I’ve seen.” He’d just presented her a ranch hat tufted with red feathers from a gavilán, or sparrow hawk. After some tugging on her part, the brim now haloed her grinning face. “Your hat size is a wee bit larger than I figured.”

  “It’s my massive brain,” she said with a mock sigh. “I try to minimize it, but there you are.”

  The quip probably conveyed more than a little truth, Sam thought. He knew, from her father’s occasional boasts, of Jacqueline’s academic prowess, though D.W. lamented her frequent switching—not only of majors, but universities. And, assuming Félix Rosales somewhat indicative of her taste in men, Sam could picture her being drawn to collegiate jock types and having consequently to blunt her natural wit and edit her showy vocabulary. Sam had observed her doing precisely this with Félix. But then maybe she did the same thing with Sam himself. The embarrassing thought caused him to chuckle softly.

  “What was that Mephistophelian rumble?”

  “Just speculating. Actually, I think you just cleared up my quandary. You obviously assume a weatherbeaten Okie like me knows who Mephistopheles was. Or maybe you just figure I’ve made a few Faustian bargains in my time.”

  “Actually, Sam, the girl didn’t give it that much thought. Her mouth opens, and—lo!—words fly out.”

  “Well, I choose to be flattered. By the way, Jacqueline, if I forgot to mention it on the phone, I’m delighted you came along, especially after our little set-to at the ranch. And before we go any farther here. I want you to know I’m not doing this to keep an eye on daddy’s little girl.”

  “Clarification accepted. And appreciated.”

  “Okay. Now, where’d you learn to sit a horse? Miss Hepplewhite’s Equestrienne Academy, was it?”

  “Something like that. How’d you know? Am I sitting funny?”

  “You’re doing just fine. The night I met your dad—that would be in Oman, back in ‘83—he showed me a picture of you on horseback, beaming and holding a big blue ribbon. You were in one of those short-stirrup, English saddles, with your knees up.”

  “That’s the way we gentlefolk were taught to ride, I’ll have you know.”

  “Absolutely. Wouldn’t want our future debutantes posting and cantering and doing dressage, or whatever it is, in one of these big stock saddles. Those leather postage stamps work fine for that horse-show stuff. But if you’re going to be bouncing around all day across cattle country, now that’s another matter.”

  “Oh, fooh! Is that all we’re going to be doing—cowpoking along? I was hoping to have a chance to shift this little pinto into high gear.”

  “I’m afraid Esmeralda there doesn’t have that many gaits. She’s an Appaloosa, by the way, not a Pinto. The way you tell is by all those little brown spots on her rump.”

  “Got it. And now maybe you’ll explain why you’ve got plain old stirrups, and I have these fancy leather whatchamacallems?”

  “Tapaderos. Taps for short. They’re just stirrup hoods to keep your feet from slipping through—though Enrico has llaneros who ride barefoot. Anyway, I didn’t have time to order you a pair of high-heel boots.”

  “You seem to think of everything.”

  “I try.”

  The spiral track leveled out, leading to the Proteus gatehouse and the paved north-south road. But Sam swung his big chestnut gelding in the opposite direction, walking west alongside a tall steel-mesh fence topped by concertina wire.

  “Where are we going, Sam?”

  “There’s a sort of postern gate along here, which opens onto the rangeland.” After a moment, Sam dismounted, walked to a padlocked hasp and fished out a key. Then he froze while his eyes swept a brow of rock a hundred yards to their left.

  “Quién anda allí?” Sam yelled out. “Show yourself!”

  A man rose up slowly from the rocks. Sam made out a faded red shirt, a darker red headband, gray beard and mustache, and dangling binoculars. It must have been the lenses flashing back the westering sun that Sam had seen. But what caught his eye now was a holster-sized hip bulge. The man waved—and ducked down again.

  Sam turned to Jacqueline, who had waved in response. “You know that guy?”

  “I forget his name, but he’s Arquimedeo’s uncle or something. He got himself hired as a security guard. Looters and treasure hunters are apparently a legitimate concern around digs.”

  “Maybe so.” Sam indicated the high, barbed-wire barrier. “But the company already strung this perimeter fence and put on a couple armed guards around the clock. Dr. Laya doesn’t need to be hiring old guys with guns.”

  “I think he’s pretty harmless, Sam. What happened, I gather, is that Arquimedeo caved in to family pressures to hire him. It turns out even Félix is some kind of relative.”

  “Well, I better let our guards know there’s a harmless old fart roaming around up there with a sidearm. I don’t want them running into any nasty surprises on their patrols.”

  *

  Oscar Azarias Rivilla watched the white-haired man latch the swinging gate, then mount up again beside the black-haired girl. So, there was a back door to the property, a way to bypass the Proteus guardhouse. To use it, of course, one would need a key to that padlock—or good bolt-cutters. And with a pair of those, one could open the barbed-wire anywhere one chose. All in all, Oscar decided, the scrap of information was of minimal value. He filed it in memory among other vagrant, possibly useful items.

  He lifted the binoculars and watched the two ride into the rolling savanna. The anglo was unknown to him, but he had made it his business to find out about the girl. She was the daughter of a very wealthy man, Señor Lee, the president of Proteus Industries. This information, too, Oscar had filed away, with a higher priority.

  Not that he was planning anything. Not at all. With Oscar it was simply a process of selective observation that never really got switched off. One went to the bodega to purchase beer and cigarettes, nothing more. All the same, one could not help noticing where the cash was kept, and what quantity was likely to be there at any one time, and who looked after it, and with what caliber of weapon, and how many exits were available.

  For now, of course, the prudent plan was to content himself with the measly wage Arquimedeo was offering. Oscar needed a place to stay and a little something in his pockets. But was it not incredible, after less than a full day on this godforsaken job, to discover a capitalist princess almost under one’s nose—here in the Guayana bush, more or less on her own? What might such a prize fetch at auction, especially if her father were to open the bidding? The prospect was alluring, considering the pittance Oscar was being paid.

  Amazingly, the presence of this girl had now all but convinced Oscar to split that pittance with two Kamarakota Indian brothers he had met in a cantina the previous night in San Félix. After all, with his bedroll and meals already provided, four thousand bolívars a month wasn’t that much less than eight. Os
car could give the brothers two thousand each, perhaps less, and thereby free himself from the daily necessity of guarding the camp, or even appearing to do so. At the same time he would be securing two very capable helpers, should a profitable course of action suggest itself.

  These issues swirled in his mind as he refocussed the binoculars. They were exceptionally good—rubber-coated Nikons, liberated from a Nissan Stanza in the big company lot of Venalum, the Venezuelan-Japanese aluminum consortium in Puerto Ordaz. The seven-power optics showed the mounted figures side by side, seemingly motionless against the afternoon horizon. The man was nothing to watch, a norteamericano as old, perhaps, as Oscar himself. But the girl was a circus for the eyes. Her shiny mane tossed in syncopation with the horsetails, while her pear-shaped, tight-jeaned nalgas moved up and down, up and down, just skimming the saddle. And now her arm fluttered in the air. Was she pointing out something, or merely being theatrical?

  Oscar smiled. She reminded him of one of the girls Carlos Lehder had kept on his island in the Exumas. Not Chocolata or Liliana, but the oriental one, with the flower-petal features. Of course, all those putas had been kept constantly coked, and their spirits had been broken. Not this bright creature. She had never been broken, not all the way. Oscar watched her out of sight.

  “So now we’re on the Warrender Ranch. Just how big is it, Sam?”

  “Hato La Promesa isn’t all mine, by any means. I’ve got several partners. And Enrico’s got a stake in it, too. It’s about, oh, twenty-four hundred hectares.”

  “Help me out. I’m not that good with metrics.”

  “Just testing. That’s roughly six thousand acres, or what we’d call back in Oklahoma ten sections of land. Say fifty miles of barbed wire. We run about two thousand head. Originally it was part of a much larger cattle ranch, Hato La Vergareña, which begins south of here off Route 16 by La Paragua. Back in the early Fifties, an American industrialist got the ruling junta to sell him almost a half million acres, and he cleared several thousand for livestock.”