Orinoco

by Dan Pollock

  “Who was he, the American?”

  “Daniel Ludwig. The world’s richest man—at the time.”

  “Isn’t he the same man who started raping the Amazon rain forest?”

  Sam chuckled. “You heard about that, eh? Must have been one of those PBS documentaries.”

  “It’s not a joke, Sam.”

  “No, it was a pretty thorough debacle, all right. Not only ecologically—for the planet, I guess you’d say—but financially for Ludwig. Cost him a good chunk of his fortune by the time he bailed out. He burned millions of acres of Brazilian jungle just to plant some exotic African trees, basically for pulpwood, only they never grew a goddamn.

  “But his La Vergareña ranch worked pretty well. Venezuela’s cattle ranches are mostly up in the llanos. Those are the grasslands north and west of the Orinoco. But when U.S. Steel found iron ore on Cerro Bolívar, Ludwig decided to try and grow cattle down here, so he could supply the construction crews and miners. And Big Steel sweetened the deal as I recall, giving him concessions to haul a lot of the ore down the Orinoco in his ships. But the risk paid off nicely down here. Once the land was cleared and his access problems got solved, it turned out the savanna made even better cattle country than the llanos. And we don’t get the droughts and floods like they do up north. From June to September, those llaneros up there use little flat-bottomed boats to round up their strays.”

  “Then you’re actually going Ludwig one better with Cerro Calvario, aren’t you? I mean, you’ll produce the iron, plus sell your workers beef from your ranch?”

  “Guess maybe I should have brought my lawyer along, to defend myself.”

  “I’m not saying it’s wrong, Sam. I only meant—”

  “The fact is, Jake, Proteus only found ore on Cerro Calvario because I was already down here and told our geologists to look for it there, and look deep. And believe me, I wasn’t thinking about ways to broaden my cattle business. But forget all that. There’s actually something else about this whole deal I want to talk to you about.”

  Jake gave him a dismal look. “Maybe you shouldn’t. All I want is to have a really good time with you today, okay? Let’s not argue. Because, believe me, Sam, there’s no way you’re changing my mind.”

  “What about my mind?”

  “What about it?”

  “Can’t I change it?”

  She eyed him sharply. “I don’t know. Can you?”

  “Guess I already have.” He slowed his horse to an amble, and she dropped back alongside. “I flew down here intending to kick Dr. Laya’s butt off the mountain, along with his broken pottery. Same reason your dad sailed up the Orinoco. Only I made the mistake of taking a look at what he’s doing up there first, what he’s found so far. And what I saw changed my mind.” He shrugged. “Simple as that.”

  “You’re saying you actually want Arquimedeo to continue his work, and you’ll stop the mining in the meantime?”

  “Right. Until he’s satisfied there’s nothing more to find. Like he says, the ore’s still gonna be there when he’s finished. But suppose he discovers something—oh, I don’t know, like petroglyphs, or cave paintings, something that can’t be moved. Then we try and work around it, or we write off the iron altogether. That clear enough?”

  “Sam, when did you decide all this?”

  “When I was snooping around up there. Ask your dad. I told him at the time. I know he thinks I’ve gone wacko or senile, or both. You may have noticed we’re sort of estranged at the moment.”

  “But why didn’t you say anything yesterday, instead of letting Félix and me make all those nasty little remarks about bulldozing everything in sight?”

  “I almost did. I guess I wanted to get you alone—before I bared my soul.”

  Sam grinned at her, then glanced away self-consciously, focussing on the horizon. A moment later he felt his gelding jostled by her mare, heard the creak of saddle leather, then felt her arm snake around his middle. He turned slowly.

  Jacqueline was leaning far over toward him, her young face inches away. He had a split second to read her intentions and react. He turned his cheek, presenting it to be pecked. But Jacqueline had other ideas. The brim of her hat slid under his, while her lips pursued, then pressed fiercely against his. There was nothing friendly about it, and it hit Sam like a mulekick.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Sam started to lean into the kiss. Then, by an access of will, he extricated himself and caught his breath. As they jogged along together, he regarded the young woman warily—and wondrously.

  And Jacqueline stared right back. Unrepentant was the word to describe that look, Sam thought. Various reactions flashed to mind. They ranged from avuncular indulgence to stodgy reproof—all embarrassingly inappropriate. And while he was debating his response, she spoke:

  “Sam, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea, okay? I mean, I hope you don’t think I kissed you to influence corporate policy or anything, okay? Because I didn’t. I kissed you because—”

  “Whoa!” Sam held up a palm. “There’s no need for you to be telling me—you know, whatever it is. And less need for me to hear it. And Hector here would appreciate it if you’d keep Esmeralda from crowding in on him. He doesn’t see too good out that eye, and he gets kinda jittery when he gets blindsided. Now, as far as you and I are concerned, the best thing all around, I think, is to go back to what we were talking about before whatever happened, happened.”

  “You mean pretend ‘whatever happened’ didn’t happen? That’s called denial, Sam.”

  “Now you got it,” he said with a grin. “Trust me on this, Jake. Now, what the hell were we talking about?”

  She sighed theatrically. “Politics? Changing your mind? My dad thinking you’re wacko?”

  “Much obliged. Now, I was getting ready to say, if D.W. wants to go to the mat on this—and I think that’s the way to bet—we could have a hell of a fight on our hands. Time was when the board pretty much did whatever I told ‘em to do. But like it or not, those days are gone. I still oughta be able to swing enough votes to win a showdown on this. But I wouldn’t bet the ranch on it. There’s too much involved here, for us and the Venezuelans. You follow?”

  “Don’t worry, I’m listening. And I’m more optimistic than I was five minutes ago. I mean, I thought it was strictly Arquimedeo against the world, including Sam Warrender. But speaking of the Venezuelans, what about them? I mean, they did vote to suspend mining.”

  “True. But, by my guesstimate, only three members of the Council of Ministers are still solidly behind suspension—Culture, Information and Environment. The rest are either for resumption or are up for grabs, and the president’s chief of staff used to be Energy Minister, so we know which way he’s voting. I figure D.W. doesn’t have too many arms to twist—or palms to grease.”

  “Arquimedeo says the way things usually get done down here, they could combine all those ministries into one big one and call it the Ministry of Corruption.”

  “There is, unfortunately, more than a grain of truth in that.”

  “So, the situation is basically hopeless?”

  “No, but let’s say the odds aren’t good, and things could get nasty. My point is, there’s no sense in your getting caught in the crossfire, especially between me and your dad. So far D.W. has been doing exactly the job I hired him to do. I’m the guy who’s got to take him on, not you, savvy?”

  “Don’t worry about me and Daddy. We’ve butted heads on stuff like this for years, Sam. Eventually he calms down and everything is fine between us. Of course, he’s still wrong.”

  “But you forgive him?”

  “Eventually.” She smiled. “For instance, you’re not going to believe this, but guess who’s going to hostess D.W.’s shipboard party tomorrow night.”

  “Not you?”

  “I promised him days ago, before I learned the real situation on Cerro Calvario. And I’m going through with it. We’ll call a ludicrous truce for one night. You’re going to be the
re, I take it?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it for anything now. So far I’ve mostly seen you in blue jeans.”

  “Well, tomorrow you’ll see me in my Dior black strapless, smiling till my dimples ache, at all those ministers you were just talking about, plus their wives and mistresses or whatever. Daddy’s planning a real blowout. But God, Sam, wouldn’t it be delicious to smuggle one of those lipstick-sized videocameras in my purse—the kind FBI guys use on sting operations—and get it all for my documentary—you know, like in Roger and Me? Oh, don’t make ugly faces, Sam. I’m only kidding. But I will take careful mental notes. And what will you be doing?”

  “At some point, I expect I’ll be trying to talk sense to D.W.”

  “Well, as someone once said, it should be a bumpy night.”

  “Bette Davis, right?”

  “Very good, Sam! I seem to remember Daddy telling me you only liked cowboy movies.”

  “Well, if you want to update your file, put in there that I sometimes watch the old black-and-whites, like at three in the morning. Beats staring at the ceiling, fighting insomnia and, you know, the usual middle-aged angst.”

  “My, my! Sam, are you trying to dazzle me with your vocabulary?”

  “Maybe just a tad. Truth is, I am kind of partial to John Wayne movies.”

  Throughout this diversionary dialogue, Sam had been thinking more or less nonstop about the topic he had ruled out of bounds. He wondered, for instance, what had or had not happened between Jake and Félix, and if today’s outing and its little amorous surprise had been engineered with an eye toward exciting Félix’s jealousy.

  In any case, Sam remained on guard as they slow-walked their mounts onto a rounded bulge of exfoliated rock. The outcrop, Sam explained, was one of many in the savanna known as lajas—Cerro Calvario being a rather larger example—rust-colored crowns carved and contoured over millennia by rain and wind.

  From the modest summit, Sam showed her part of the herd grazing in the distance, and a lone horseman working the fringes. Then he dug in a saddlebag and tossed her a plastic bottle of Andean mineral water, opening one for himself.

  “So tell me, Sam,” Jcqueline asked, gesturing at the landscape, “with no mine workers next door, who’re you going to sell your beef to?”

  “That’s Enrico’s problem, and he doesn’t seem to be particularly worried. Lately, though, he’s been talking about turning the place into one of those fancy dude ranches. Hato Doña Bárbara over in the llanos is already doing it, he says. And there are ranches in the Argentine pampas that cater to polo players. What we’d do, I gather, is add a wing to the casa grande, use the airstrip for flyovers of Angel Falls and day trips to Canaima. If things work out, we could throw in archaeological tours of Cerro Calvario. What do you think?”

  “I think you’re putting me on.”

  “Maybe a little. I really don’t want to come down here and find he’s rented my bedroom to three guys from Düsseldorf on holiday. But tell me something about your filming. Can you really make a documentary with only a camcorder? Don’t you need professional equipment?”

  “That depends. Without a crew, the eight-millimeter Handycam is really the best way to go. If I had my sixteen-millimeter Arri, I’d also need a sound tech with a Nagra—or one of those DAT recorders synched to the camera with a time code. But actually a lot of terrific Gulf War footage was shot in Sony Hi8. You can detect scan lines if you transfer it to sixteen-millimeter or thirty-five film, but it’s done all the time.”

  “Okay. But if you change your mind and need something, give me a list. I can scrounge stuff in Caracas and get it flown down overnight.”

  “Thanks, Sam. I appreciate the offer.”

  It dawned on Sam that she was smiling at him too long—and he at her. He broke the spell with vintage flatland twang: “Reckon we oughta be gettin’ you back, Missy, afore the sun gets any lower.” With this, he laid the right rein against his horse’s neck, and the big gelding swung obediently left, planting its shod hoofs gingerly as it descended the sloping rock.

  Jake followed, calling out from behind: “Coward.”

  There was no further dialogue for several minutes as they pursued their elongated shadows over the brushy ground. Then, entering a dry arroyo, they came upon a dozen light-colored, humpbacked cattle—strays—with several calves strung out behind.

  Jacqueline remarked that they looked like rodeo bulls. Sam explained they were indeed Brahmas, or zebus—a breed that old man Ludwig had imported from India, figuring, correctly, that they’d handle the tropical climate better than other breeds. It was about this point that he glanced over and saw that he’d lost her.

  “Sorry about that,” he said. “Sometimes I forget cattle breeding isn’t the most fascinating subject in the world, except to other breeders.”

  “No, I’m sorry, Sam. I guess my mind was wandering.”

  “Where to—or should I ask?”

  “I was thinking about you, if you must know.”

  “That’s what I was afraid of.”

  “Daddy told me you have a daughter my age.”

  “Couple years older, actually.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Teresa. A lovely girl—or woman, I should say. She’ll be twenty-five in December.”

  “Do you see her often?”

  “Often as I can. What else did D.W. tell you about her?”

  “Only that you and her mother never married.”

  He shrugged.

  “I’m just curious, Sam. You don’t have to talk about it.”

  “I don’t mind. I was going to propose once. María Elisa stopped me—that’s Teresa’s mother. She knew I was just trying to do the right thing. Showed a lot more sense than I did. It wouldn’t have worked.”

  “And Teresa, what’s she like?”

  “In some ways like you—proud and independent. Which is also like her mother. But she’s much more creative than either María or me. Teresa’s good at all kinds of things. She got her fine-arts degree in painting and ceramics. She’s a teaching assistant at UNM in Albuquerque, working on her MFA and studying with some Indian potters at local pueblos. And dating the assistant basketball coach, last I heard. Nice guy.” Sam grinned. “Thinks I’m a small-time rancher over Oklahoma way. Teresa’s still not ready for her friends to know too much about her disreputable old dad. Says it’ll screw up her social life.”

  “It can, believe me. I mean, D.W.’s been a great dad, and I’ve had so many advantages in life thanks to him, and he knows I’m grateful, and proud of all he’s achieved—I mean, after coming here as a war orphan and all. But, honestly, Sam, it can be a royal pain sometimes.”

  “What can I say? Change your name and move to Albuquerque.”

  “Do you have a picture of her?”

  “Just might.” He sidled Hector over, took out his wallet, handed her a snapshot.

  She studied it intently. “She’s lovely, like you said.”

  “Like her mom.” He showed her one of María Elisa at twenty-five, one reduced from a studio portrait.

  “She looks like a saint.”

  Sam chuckled. “Santa María. She has a few livelier moods, believe me. I’d guess that was taken around the year you were born.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “In Albuquerque, too. She has a New Mex-Mex restaurant over there—María’s Cocina. Sopaipillas, posole, green chile stew, blue-corn tortillas. I get hungry just thinking about it.”

  Jacqueline handed back the photos, but held her Appaloosa alongside. “All those years since María. Why didn’t you ever remarry?”

  “Funny, Enrico is always asking the same question. He’s still got a couple candidates in mind.”

  “Seriously, Sam.”

  “Seriously? There’ve been a couple—well, close calls, I’d guess you’d say.”

  “What happened?”

  “What didn’t happen, you mean? Probably the same as with your dad. Why hasn’t he remarried?”


  “I’m asking you.”

  Sam shifted in his saddle. “Well, without going into lurid detail, the first one was real close—actually one of the reasons María took off with Teresa and moved to New Mexico. For a while there the lady and I even made the Tulsa society pages. And she would have been the perfect wife, in the corporate sense. Maybe in a lot of other ways. Number two was pretty much the same deal. But both would have tamed me some, I could see that coming. I wouldn’t have been able to do a lot of the damn-fool stuff I seem to like to do. Fly down here at a moment’s notice. Hang out with Enrico. Go on an afternoon ride like this, at the drop of a hat. In short, my secret adolescence would have been—” he drew a finger across his throat—”cut short.”

  “A strategic mistake,” Jacqueline said emphatically. “They shouldn’t have tried to change that in you. You’re obviously not ready to get let go of the little-boy side of you. Know how I know?”

  “Let’s see. Could it be because I went snooping around the dig, pretending to be a ranchhand? I mean, some folks might say that’s not the way CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are supposed to act.”

  “I was thinking more about your almost chasing me into Canaima Lagoon in your jeans—just because I kicked sand in your face. And what about the water fight, and grabbing my legs and pulling me under? That wasn’t what you’d call real mature behavior, now was it, Big Sam? Hmm?”

  Their horses were suddenly close enough to rub flanks and nuzzle each other. And Jake was even closer.

  “No,” Sam answered after a blank moment. “You have a point there.”

  They met halfway this time, with a dizzy-making impact. Sam had almost forgotten it could be like that. It took him back to that first falling-into-his-arms kiss with María Elisa—then all the way back to high-school and octopus clinches with Suzie O’Malley in his toy-sized ‘49 Nash, pre-orgasmic kisses that somehow lasted all night. Ironically, never once had Sam experienced this implosive ferocity with the woman he’d married, Caroline Lindquist—she of the breathtaking profile, cool passions and muted climaxes. What a terrible waste!

  Slowly their lips disengaged, and Sam opened his eyes. Jacqueline Lee filled his vision, studying him with a kind of fierce tenderness. Her ranch hat had departed. Sam saw it out of the corner of his eye, skimming the brush twenty feet behind her. Jacqueline frowned at his wandering gaze and promptly refocussed it on herself—taking his face in her hands, then smoothing her palms down his stubbled cheeks, drawing their lips slowly back together...