Orinoco

by Dan Pollock

  She also saw something she’d missed before. The back end of the pond curved around to her left, following an indentation in the cliff wall. The river flowed gently out of what looked like a dark, vertical fissure. She didn’t think she could make it that far. But she could hear Oscar splashing close behind her. She had to try! Her head slid under, and she kicked out—but the result was pathetic. Again she tried, and again, and knew she was sinking, losing her horizontal attitude.

  An instant later her feet touched bottom, and her head came up—and out of the water! She gulped oxygen.

  Then, as Oscar surfaced right behind her, Jacqueline whirled toward what she prayed was an opening in the monolith.

  *

  Sam whacked the pond surface in a flat dive, while D.W. high-stepped in beside him, clawing water as soon as he was deep enough. Both men were spent from an all-out sprint—and obviously dead last in a desperate race. After Jake had tripped Oscar and sent him sprawling, they were hardly surprised to see him go after her, waving his fucking machete. But her second pursuer, the giant Kamarakota, had risen up out of nowhere, a pure nightmare figure. Then an eternity had passed, it seemed, before they reached the water and fought their way out toward the cliff-shadowed depths.

  Sam led the way, D.W. dog-paddling after, but moments later both were treading water side by side in terrible confusion. Jake and her pursuers had vanished, apparently into sheer walls. It took them a further anguished moment, scanning around the shimmering circumference, before they spotted, in steeply furrowed rock shadows, what looked like a deep crevice. They swam closer.

  It was barely a meter wide, a tapered opening to a winding passage through jaggedly opposing, fantastically sculpted escarpments. As they entered the sunless gap, the bottom shelved up, allowing them to wade in shoulder-deep and single file. Surging ahead, Sam glimpsed a shadowy movement down the cavernous zigzag. Behind him, D.W. was shouting. Sam leaped forward and stepped into a pit, submerging completely. He recovered, windmilling forward till he found solid footing again. But the distant figure was gone now. There was only the quiet channel snaking between moss-encrusted, steep-buttressed towers, vaulting hundreds of meters over their heads toward an aloof, sky-blue thread.

  They plowed this gauntlet in tandem, their lungs aching, sliding and plunging repeatedly on moss-slimed rocks, but floundering on. They dared neither think nor feel now, only go forward against hope—and perhaps toward their own deaths, as well as Jacqueline’s.

  Sam, still in the lead, was first to glimpse the bright stripe of water at tunnel’s end, but both men had heard the crescendoing roar—not polite applause this time, like the first Kavak cascade, but a full ovation. Just ahead now, the canyon walls widened out into a ragged proscenium, framing another sun-lacquered, sherry-tinted pool. Then, still groping for handholds against treacherous riverbed footing, they emerged into the full sunshine and reverberant thunder of an enclosed waterfall grotto—what their Indian guide had called the “most beautiful place.”

  But they gave hardly a glance at the encircling precipice, or the radiant explosions of water from high overhead. Instead their eyes raked anxiously along the wet-varnished rocks and recessed shadows of the rough-quarried basin, and into the fuming cauldron at the base of the falls, simultaneously seeking and fearing discovery.

  Suddenly, almost lost in the crashing foam, there was Jacqueline’s seal-black hair, her face unseen. And closing in on her from either side were two men, one with a blade that gleamed in the sunlight.

  *

  Alternately swimming and wading, Jake had burst through the gap several yards ahead of her pursuer. And her flash impression of the La Cueva, as she went floundering out into its funneled sunshine, was that it was a trap—a deadly one. The feeling was sharpened moments later as she glanced over her shoulder. Oscar Azarias had staggered out of the dark tunnelway, stood sagging against a projecting rock, jaw hanging, glancing vacantly around—scanning for her.

  In vain Jacqueline searched for a hiding place. It was too late anyway. He’d seen her now.

  So she retreated, following the right-hand grotto wall. She kept to the pebbled shallows, avoiding the treacherously polished slabs, especially green-carpeted ones. And as she hurried on, she was pelted constantly from above by cascading droplets, plummeting from the grotto’s circling rim like long, glistening strands of diamonds.

  She could no longer hear Oscar over the barrage of falling water. But she knew he was back there, so she hurried on, unable to stop the nightmare. Still, it couldn’t go on much longer. She was ready to drop and, in fact, fell frequently now. One pantleg was ripped open, exposing a bloody knee. The next instant the ball of her foot slithered on moss and she lost her balance again. Unable to catch herself with her pinioned arms, Jacqueline twisted violently, hoping by falling backward at least to protect her face. She landed hard against the grotto-side, bruising her forearms, wrists and left hip, then slid down and banged her tailbone on a submerged ledge.

  Get up! demanded a merciless inner voice. Damn you, get up!

  Somehow she obeyed, and discovered as she did so that the abrading rock had severed her wrist ropes. Her arms were finally free! In a burst of euphoric energy, Jacqueline plunged straight out toward the churning, sunlit center of the grotto. Only she wasn’t wriggling along like an armless tadpole now, but really swimming—thrusting her long legs, overhand-stroking both arms, digging and pulling against the turbulent current.

  Dear God, maybe she could simply outswim the old bastard! Stay out here like a seal till he gave up! That would give her father and Sam a chance to ambush him as he came out of the passageway—or better, for Sam to blow Oscar’s fucking head off with that rifle she’d seen.

  But the nearer she got to the spilling thunder, the harder it was to make headway. She was only a dozen strong strokes from the edge of the maelstrom now. Yet suddenly, not only wasn’t she gaining, she was being shoved steadily back by the outward surge.

  One rearward glance crushed her brief euphoria. The annular current was sweeping her directly toward Oscar! Jacqueline gasped, gulping water. Then she kicked and clawed, trying to sidestroke out of the millrace. But her arms and legs were lifeless and leaden. She had expended too much precious energy battling in toward the waterfall.

  Oscar, just beyond the full tidal force, now lunged forward on a perfectly timed intercept course. In seconds he was within reach of her. Jacqueline saw the machete blade lift clear of the water, gilt-edged and lustrous in the high sunlight. Her scream was lost in the cascading roar.

  Then, as the blade reached the top of its arc, a huge form reared out of the water behind Oscar and wrapped him in muscular arms. Jacqueline, who had closed her eyes on her life, opened them again to see Angel and the old man wrestling in the foam at her feet.

  The big Kamarakota had saved her! But danger remained. Suddenly the Indian came up for air and found himself momentarily blinded by clinging strands of his own thick hair. As he swiped at his eyes, Oscar, too, surfaced, having somehow held onto the machete. He seized the instant to deliver a murderous, two-handed slice across Angel’s midsection.

  Jacqueline, still backing away, gasped at the gaping red wound, and the hideous, intestinal spillage. Angel, too, his vision cleared now, could only look down in bewilderment at the yawning incision and the bright red cataract of his own blood splashing down into the tannin-stained pool.

  There was nothing Jacqueline could do now. Oscar closed in for another deadly stroke, mercifully blocking her view of the gore. She shut her eyes anyway, then opened them in time to see the Indian stagger, yet stay somehow on his feet. Then, impossibly, he lurched forward, reaching to grapple his executioner. Oscar swung again. Still Angel did not go down, but came on.

  It must have occurred to Oscar then that the Kamarakota might be killed, yet not stopped. For the old man began now to back away in terror from this butchered giant. And Angel followed him, kicking through the bloodied water, arms extended. Oscar whirled, dropping his use
less blade at his feet.

  *

  Despite their best efforts, Sam and D.W. had arrived in the thundering grotto in time only to witness the denouement. They, too, saw Angel rise up and—miraculously and inexplicably to them—rescue Jacqueline from the madman’s blow. The two tardy rescuers rushed forward, horror giving way to uncomprehending shock at the ensuing struggle between murderous accomplices. As Jacqueline shrank back from the thrashing figures, Sam and D.W. veered toward her. But like her, they were riveted by the appalling battle, with its swift, grisly reversal.

  They saw Oscar, on the verge of extinction, stagger up and deliver uncontested slashes to the Indian’s stomach, one after another. Then, stupefied, they watched as the gutted Kamarakota refused to acknowledge his own death and continued in tottering pursuit. And finally, dripping his entrails, they saw him pin a terrified Oscar against a slab of the grotto wall. The finale played out in grotesque pantomime to the incessant barrage of water. Angel fastened a death grip around his victim’s neck, then collapsed fully on top of him, taking both under.

  Neither man surfaced from that embrace. But, to the astonishment of both Sam and D.W., Jacqueline—apparently still unaware of their presence—waded back toward the suddenly motionless, entangled corpses. D.W.’s frantic shouts to her were blown away by the blasting water. They could only hurry forward, falling and scrambling up again, while she stooped in the shallows, reaching down to take the Indian’s head tenderly in her hands.

  They saw her turn his bloodless face upward and stare down a long moment. Finally, then, she heard their close-echoing shouts and looked up. Even then, as anguished relief flooded over her, she took a moment to gently put down the head of the Kamarakota warrior.

  *

  Now that Jacqueline was safe, Sam let D.W. surge past him. While watching their fierce embrace, he began to feel slightly dizzy, as though the cylindrical cavern, with its top fringe of jungle foliage, was wheeling slowly around him. He put out a hand, touched unmoving rock, held it there.

  When he glanced back, father and daughter still crushed one another jealously. The sight lifted a heavy burden from Sam’s heart. It had been a hell of a few days. Then Jake gave a characteristic whip-toss of her dripping mane, uncovering her face over D.W.’s shoulder. She was looking directly at Sam now. And suddenly his heart felt even lighter.

  *

  Several times, to renew the miracle of her deliverance, D.W. held his daughter off at arm’s length, then embraced her anew. At some point he began to cry shamelessly. But perhaps she couldn’t tell, because chains of droplets were spilling steadily from above, diademed in the sunlight when he squinted up. It was the most utterly ecstatic moment of his life.

  Finally, nearly overcome with his joy and relief, he let her go. Blinking back tears, he watched her slosh through the rippling, crystalline current toward Sam, who stood in a shadowy niche—looking, D.W. thought, completely worn-out and haggard. What happened next, however, came as a complete shock. Jacqueline waded straight into Sam’s opening arms—actually throwing her own arms around him. Then, as Sam’s large bony hands spread across her back, she kissed him full on the lips!

  At that moment, for D.W., the full volume of the waterfall cut off to eerie silence. Had he gotten his beautiful daughter back, only to lose her—and to the last man on earth he would have suspected?

  Was this, at last, Samuel’s revenge?

  *

  Chucho had watched the proceedings from high on the canyon wall. He had seen the two bodies being brought out of La Cueva in rubber rafts, fitted into slings, then winched up into the low-hovering military helicopter. The first had been Oscar’s, the second one Angel’s, and Chucho had followed every bit of its fitful ascent into the belly of the orange-and-white machine, whose rotors whipped the pond surface into a swirling fury.

  Then the others followed, swaying up in harnesses. The millonario, then his daughter, the norteamericana princess, then the white-haired man, and finally a uniformed crewman. A moment later the cabin door banged shut—on the living and the dead—and the helicopter dipped its nose and went thrashing away down the canyon toward the savanna. Chucho had watched it take almost the exact line earlier, when it came to pick up the two curare sleepers. He followed it now till it was only a tiny glint of gold in the late afternoon sun. Then it vanished, and the valley was quiet again.

  It was all a mistake. Chucho’s mistake. Angel had not wished to go with Oscar that night in the cantina. But Chucho, knowing it was in his power to do so, had convinced him.

  Where else can we go? he had said when the old man went to fetch fresh bottles. We have no home. We cannot go back to Canaima Camp. And we are too proud to go back to Kamarata. Perhaps you miss the penitentiary of Tocuyito. But I, for one, do not wish to return to that filthy cell in Sabaneta.

  Chucho could always talk, and Angel could only listen and nod. Yet Angel had been right.

  Now he resumed the long climb to the top of the great plateau of Auyán-Tepui, Devil Mountain. He didn’t know where he would come down, or where he would go when he did, or what he would do if the federales found him. But those were not important matters now. Chucho used to think that he had lost his tribe long ago, but, truly, that was not so. He had only lost his tribe today, when he lost his brother.

  So now he simply climbed and grieved with every upward step. Except for his black body paint and leather breechcloth, he was naked. And he carried only the little woven basket with foodstuffs and blowpipe over one shoulder, and dangling heavily from his left hand the blue Avensa bag.

  Epilogue

  Unlike many of his business friends, Sam had never boasted of hating New York, nor of having any particular love affair with it. Manhattan was simply a necessary venue for high-powered meetings, a movie-set backdrop for hit-and-run forays out of the corporate apartment at the Mayfair Regent. He tended to fly away from these cometary visits with a hangover-hazed memory of conference rooms, astronomically priced eateries and some brassy Broadway show whose tunes he could never recall.

  But this trip was different. For one thing, he was on his own, not staying at the Proteus apartment—though his current contract gave him that privilege. He was at the Plaza, on a whim, and woke to find the city dusted by an early December snow and Christmas beckoning from every window display.

  He prowled Fifth Avenue in ranch hat, shearling jacket, Levis and boots. Pedestrians hustled past him on their random urgencies, bundled against winds that knifed down the geometric canyons, while tires plowed back and forth through the street slush, making surf sounds. After a fast-food lunch and a brief hotel nap, still not having found exactly the right item, Sam grabbed a cab south to a recommended boutique, which turned out to be within easy walking distance of her TriBeCa loft.

  On the appointed hour of six, he walked up to the correctly numbered warehouse and pressed the button Dymo-tagged “J.N. Lee.” Then he stood in the recessed chill, holding his red-ribboned box and feeling not very different than he had on antediluvian high school dates. He had, after all, been anticipating this precise moment all day long. Longer. And he had a respectable stomach squadron of honest-to-God butterflies. Suddenly her remembered voice buzzed through the intercom:

  “Sam?”

  “Jake?”

  “Don’t move! I’ll be right down.”

  He heard a long, muffled grind within, followed by double sliding bangs. A moment later the steel door beside him swung back and she was standing there. She wore a paint-stained NYU sweatshirt, faded jeans and had her hair pulled back into some kind of sumo topknot. Sam experienced a moment of total vulnerability—and didn’t give a damn.

  Jacqueline came to him, reaching around the gift box and his bulky coat. But, before their lips could meet, she stepped back, unzipped his long coat and stepped inside it, snaking her arms all the way around his back. In the time away from her, Sam had often inventoried their previous kisses—that first one on horseback, the champagne exchange on the Kallisto, the climactic em
brace in Kavak Canyon. This one was sweeter, less demanding, more of a “Remember?” kiss. Yet quite enough to make a man giddy, if he were inclined that way. Then she pulled back a few inches.

  “Sam, I’m sorry to be such a complete mess, especially with you looking like the cover of GQ. But I’ve been squirreled away for days now, just wearing my grubs and trying to make sense of all the tape I shot.”

  “Hush up. I know gorgeous when I see it.”

  “Excuse me, what was that deranged compliment? Never mind. Come on up.”

  She led him into a tiny lobby and onto the elevator, which was elaborately graffitied and smelled of ammoniated cleaner. As the tight metal box went lurching up, Jacqueline leaned against him. “Sam, it’s wonderful to see you. I can’t believe you’re really here.”

  “I told you I’d track you down.”

  “Yes, you did. Is that for me?” She pointed innocently to the cubical, red-ribboned package.

  “Ah, you noticed. It’s not a bowling ball, by the way. Tell me, what does the N stand for?”

  “Nicoletta. After mother’s mother. She came from Genoa—a Genovese. I’m part Eye-talian. Does it show?”

  “I don’t know, but whatever you are, they should patent the recipe.”

  She kicked at him playfully. “You’re going to be awfully good for my ego, Sam. But a girl can only take so much flattery.”

  “Just how much would that be?”

  “I’ll let you know if you get anywhere close, okay?”

  “So, how have you been, Jake?”

  “I still get the sweats sometimes, or something will bring it all back—even the sound of the shower—and I’ll get pretty shaky. Working helps. Helps a lot, actually.”

  The platform shuddered to a stop on four, opened onto a sheetrock-paneled hall with two steel doors. “Winston Tolliver has most of the floor. Have you heard of him?” Sam shook his head. “He does these mammoth blue-green acrylics that look like underwaterscapes. I have the space left over.”