It was hot and increasingly humid under the canopy of trees. As they headed away from the camp, they lost all benefit of the faint river breezes and seemed to walk into thicker air. Holly found it dense, although the undergrowth was surprisingly sparse. Only isolated ferns and shrubs broke through the mat of fallen brown leaves, making the forest look half-furnished, and there was a peculiar mustiness coming off the leaves that reminded her of the smell inside a deserted cabin. Before long, only Powell remained lively and energetic. He scraped a trace of bark from another tree for the boys to taste, laughing when they spat it out.
“Bitter?” he asked. “Locals use it to treat parasites.”
By this time, Powell’s drawl of authority had convinced Holly that he was a pilot, as he’d said. Soon he dropped back to walk beside her.
“I know trees,” he said, “but I’m a bird man, really.”
Holly coughed to cover her laughter, picturing Powell’s squat body soaring over the trees. Had he noticed her reaction? He was taking off his hat to wipe his head with a huge white handkerchief. Underneath the hat, he was bald as an egg.
Yet Powell strode forward with relentless enthusiasm. He said he’d become a birder years ago in Alaska, where he flew bush planes. He’d already compiled a long life list by the time he moved to Morocco — he’d flown for the national airline — but since going back to an American carrier, he’d got less interested in sheer quantity, and had been spending an increasing amount of time in the Amazon. Recently, he’d taken a leave of absence and set himself up in Manaus, planning to do some serious exploration.
“Over on the Peruvian side couple years ago, they found an entirely new species,” he told Holly. “Two guys from back home, one professional — ornithologist — one what you’d call an educated amateur. They’d heard rumours about this new type of parrot. Went out into bush which is practically indistinguishable from the bush around here. Bingo. New bird.”
Holly pictured Powell as a nineteenth century explorer bashing off into the jungle. She pencilled in a heavy moustache, a line of “locals” hired as bearers. There was something about Powell’s bland face and pale, barrel-chested body that let you picture him in other roles. Holly wondered if he played roles, possibly with prostitutes. That was his business. He was a person who had not been given many personal advantages, but he coped.
He also talked too much. His love of bird calls, his bashful hope of finding a new species. Larkin said that talking too much was a sign of loneliness. Holly pictured Larkin in her studio, the faintly exciting sight of his fingers in her book. It was true Larkin had his attractions. He grew on you — although he was wrong about the loneliness. People talked to cover things up, to obscure them, and loneliness was only one of the things they tried to hide.
What was Powell hiding? Not that she cared. Everyone had secrets, and Powell’s looked as if they’d only be sad.
The bird man reached for Conor’s arm.
“Look here, snickers,” he said. “See that hole in the ground? It’s probably made by an armadillo, but there’s a bird called a motmot who sometimes hides in burrows like that. We’re up real early tomorrow, maybe we’ll get lucky and see him.”
“My Daddy knows all about birds,” Conor told him. “Right, Mommy?”
“Your father is a very formidable man,” Holly answered. “Be warned,” she told Powell, who laughed rather weakly.
“Hear those parrots?” he said.
The path grew increasingly narrow and the trees huge. They eventually reached brazil nut tree with a trunk the circumference of a small house. Powell got them to join hands to try to circle the tree, making Holly think of Todd’s campaigns to save the old-growth forest on Vancouver Island. She wished now she hadn’t lost her temper. Todd was only behaving the way he’d always behaved, and losing her temper wasn’t going to change that. Better to plan a calm discussion. The boys needed more time with their father, she needed more time to herself. Yet Holly didn’t know how to convince Todd that her work was as important as his. She was also getting a headache, and found it hard to focus, more and more difficult to share Conor’s wonder at the size of the tree trunks, increasingly arduous to dog after Powell, who strode so vigorously ahead.
It must have been well past noon. Holly realized they still had a long hike back when they reached the rocks Powell had warned them about, rough boulders that rose barely ten feet above the forest floor, and were covered with moss and plants. Hearing a solitary bird call, Powell raised his binoculars to the canopy and clambered half-blindly onto the rocks. He walked carelessly over a bed of plants, breaking their sword-like leaves.
“Evan! Keep down!” Holly cried. She knew she sounded shrewish but her head just throbbed. Besides, they were orchids. Powell was trampling a bed of wild orchids. They weren’t yet in bloom, but that wasn’t the point. He’d obviously been telling the truth when he said his real passion was birds, although Holly couldn’t help noticing how little concern he showed for the supposed presence of the poisonous snakes he had warned them about back at the camp. He’d just wanted to tag along with them, and she shouldn’t have let him. His cheerfulness was wearing — undiminished even when he failed to find his elusive bird with its repeated, piercing who of a call — and Holly was relieved, not long after the path finally turned, to see the clearing appear at the end of the green tunnel of trees like an open door to a lighted room.
“Uh-oh,” Powell said, lifting Conor’s arm. “Ticks after all.”
Conor shrieked at the sight of the tiny brown speck on his wrist and grabbed Holly’s leg in fright.
“Hey, no problem,” Powell said. “What you do, you take off your clothes and jump in the river. No kidding. The cold makes them lose their grip. And you put your clothes in the sun, they scamper off. You want some help?”
But Holly was already urging the boys into the clearing. She took them to her bunkhouse and got them quickly into bathing suits. A middle-aged woman appeared with her arms out-stretched for the clothes. Powell must have sent her over. But Holly was angry with Powell for taking the boys so close to the brazil nut tree; far more angry with Powell now than she was with Todd. Her temples pounding, she hurried them down to the dock, where Todd rose from a chair.
“We’re just covered with ticks,” Holly cried.
“The river’s running fast. I’ll go first, and then they jump.” Turning to the boys, he said, “You hold onto the rope that’s in the water.”
Todd headed for a gap in the railings where the ladder descended and dove into the river. With a whoop, Evan jumped after him, leaving Conor to hesitate, hug himself and — seeing more ticks on his skinny arms — throw himself recklessly into the river. He surfaced near Todd, and when Holly saw both boys safely holding the rope, she dove in to join them.
Cold. Shocking cold. The water pierced Holly like needles. She surfaced gasping for breath, not knowing how she could stand it, shivering, close to panic.
Todd was treading water nearby. “You’ll get used to it.”
“Story of my life,” Holly replied. Yet Todd was right. Her headache was gone — instantly gone — along with her fatigue. She felt as if she’d just woken to a cool, clear morning. It was true the river was high and the current strong, and she had to work to stay in place. But treading water only warmed her.
“You’re okay?” Todd asked.
She raised an arm to make sure the ticks were gone, and lost some of her momentum against the current, drifting downstream to spoon against Todd. As he put an arm around her waist, the last of her fury drifted away.
“Why does everything have to be complicated?” she asked. Before Todd could answer, Evan let go of the rope to swim frantically toward them. With a jealous cry, Conor splashed behind him. They were all holding onto each other as Powell came thumping across the dock.
“Cannonball!”
Tumbling boulders hit the water with less
force than bird man Powell.
That night, it cooled down so far that Holly felt chilly, and Powell helped Todd build a campfire on the gravel near the barbecue. Powell clearly had his uses. Long after Holly and Todd had grown tired of playing with the boys in the river, he was still giving them rides on his back, only stopping to instruct them in the fine art of cannonball dives. Conor wouldn’t try at first, but Powell got him to climb just one step up the ladder before jumping, then another, and another, until in the end, Conor was happily diving off the railing a good fifteen feet above the river.
Sipping her drink, Holly thought that if Todd had decided to teach the boys how to dive, he would have placed Conor at the top of the ladder and gone below to wait for him, sounding increasingly stern as Conor stood there scraping his toe across the dock, finally ordering him to jump so that Conor started whining and they were into a cycle of impatience and stubbornness that could only end with Conor hating the water. Somehow, everything Todd did worked best with Evan, although never seemed to see that himself, much less change his behaviour.
Not that Powell was a model male. Wandering over to the railing, Holly saw desperation in his endless indulgence of the boys. When they demanded one more ride, he grabbed the rope without even pretending to protest, letting them clamber on his back while glancing up at Holly with doggy, abject eyes.
Todd had his problems as a father, but at least he was never that needy, and in no danger of living through his children. He played with them for long enough, then relaxed in a deck chair, lazily watching a heron fly downriver. Sipping his beer, scratching the drying hair on his chest, he looked entirely masculine; utterly adult in his expression of calm pleasure. He closed his eyes as a faint breeze riffled past, and when he stretched out his legs, Holly was stirred by the sight of his tautening shorts. She wished again that they were in a cabin, then realized she could take him to the women’s bunkhouse that night. Unless someone came in later, she would be the only woman there, and Powell would be in the other bunkhouse with the children in case they woke up.
Later, as the campfire crackled, the boys were so punch-drunk with exhaustion that Holly doubted they would have any trouble sleeping. Powell had brought out his telescope, but Evan staggered as he tried to look through the eyepiece, unable to hold himself steady. As frogs chirped from the trees and river, Holly remembered the night Evan was conceived. She’d known she was pregnant instantly, both times, and wondered idly whether her memory of lovemaking added something to the warmth she felt for her children. She was also wondering how they would manage in a hammock when Evan staggered over from the telescope, crawled into her lap and fell asleep.
“My grandchildren do the same when they come here,” said Doutor Eduardo, coming up behind her.
Holly was so startled that she let Evan’s head drop, although he only stirred without waking. As she settled him more securely, Holly could see her plan for the night rise like burning paper from the fire, hang in the air for an instant, then lift, drift, and finally fly away. Now Todd would stay up late to talk, and when she finally got him to the bunkhouse, he would rehash the conversation over and over as she drifted helplessly off to sleep.
Yet as the elegant old doutor sat down beside her, Holly realized that she might finally learn more about the uncontacted tribe and the prospectors, the garimpeiros, or at least why the old man had shown such an interest in Todd the last time he was in the Amazon. That would be enough to keep her awake, maybe even for days. In any case, all she could do was smile politely at the doutor, a middle-sized man in a clean white shirt that lapped over his khaki pants. Todd had told her that Doutor Eduardo Gusinde was the biggest landowner in the region, with acreage in the millions. Part he had inherited, part came with his wife. He was now about seventy, and had spent his rich maturity diversifying into cattle ranches, mining, airlines and recently, acutely, tourism. Most people who knew him only by reputation assumed that his title was an honorific, a tribute to his power, but Todd said that as a young man — a second son — he had taken his medical degree, and apparently planned to practice as a surgeon before his marriage made that unnecessary. A restless man, he moved incessantly between his ranches in the interior and a penthouse in Rio de Janeiro, while his regal wife travelled separately between their homes in São Paulo and the Continent.
Now he ordered a drink from the middle-aged woman Holly had seen before. The woman and her husband ran the camp, living in a small house attached to the back of the dining hall. Holly gathered they were the daughter and son-in-law of the boatman who had brought them upriver, Seu José. Todd called him Doutor Eduardo’s enforcer, which seemed a little melodramatic. Seu José was such a mild old man, big-bellied, broad-faced, kind to the children, patting them on the head with his ham-sized hands. Holly decided it was time she found out what was really going on. Making love in a hammock would probably have reduced her to giggles, anyway.
“Do you have many grandchildren?” she asked the doutor, as he took his beer.
“Five. Only five. My children seem to have had more divorces than offspring. But now I will sound like a very old gentleman asking what the world is coming to.”
“Maybe it isn’t so bad for our poor, crowded world to have only five grandchildren. It seems to me a respectable amount.”
“And to me, the world doesn’t seem so crowded,” he said, smiling and waving his hand at the immense singing darkness. “Your other boy isn’t tired?”
Meaning the opposite. He’d evidently heard Conor’s high-pitched stutter of over-excitement, and was dismissing Holly to deal with her child. Without answering, she picked up Evan and carried him to the bunkhouse, refusing Powell’s assistance when she returned for Conor, and wrapping them both in blankets against the growing chill. Conor was shivering with exhaustion and nerves, and she had to promise to leave the light on so he could get to sleep. Fortunately, the camp had a generator, which had hummed to life at sunset. Doutor Eduardo probably expected her to stay with Conor, but Holly wasn’t ready to turn in. She returned to find the three men standing by Powell’s telescope, looking for the moons of Jupiter.
In retrospect, Holly found it incredible that three well-travelled, sophisticated men could remain so unaware of what they unconsciously revealed. Todd and the doutor were clearly assessing each other, deciding when to talk. And Powell?
Standing by the telescope, Powell detailed its powers of magnification before mentioning binoculars — birding binoculars — and flitting quickly to the possibility of finding new species in the area. At first, he turned with courtly interest to acknowledge Holly’s occasional comment. But before too long he was standing with his back to her, looking up at Todd and the doutor, who were both much taller, as if seeking their approval. He seemed to lose interest in Holly, and by the time they went to sit by the fire, he turned his chair to face the others, canting his shoulder away from her as if he’d done his duty by her attractions earlier, and could finally, thankfully forget her — forget women; their emotions, their exhausting judgments — to relax in the company of men.
Holly couldn’t help feeling amused by the change. And noticed that Powell never really relaxed. He was trying too hard to impress, and when the lights flickered off and on — the generator stuttering, threatening to fail — he leapt up at the sound of Conor’s wavering cry for Holly, as nervous as the boy.
“Is he okay? I’ll go help.”
“He’s fine,” Todd said, and called across the clearing, “We’re right here. You go to sleep, now. It’s way past your bedtime.”
New species. Powell seemed to be one himself, a strange mixture of competence, servility and need. As he slowly settled back into his chair, Holly caught Doutor Eduardo giving him a look of amused contempt. The doutor must have known how useful it would prove if Powell actually discovered a new bird and he could launch his camp on a wave of publicity. But in making himself useful, in taking on the role of publicist, Powell had tur
ned himself into another of the doutor’s underlings — and one from whom the old man didn’t seem to expect much.
Something quite different was implied by his watchful attitude toward Todd.
“You’re unconvinced, Mr. Austen,” the doutor said. “You doubt the existence of our friend’s new species.”
“No.”
Todd had been listening intently, and once or seemed about to say something, but he’d stayed quiet until the doutor spoke to him, sunk so far back in his chair that he had to lever himself up to reply.
“No. They just discovered a new primate, a new monkey — where was it? Not all that far from São Paulo. Found eight individuals, as I recall. And shot one to prove it.”
“Mist nets,” Powell said instantly. “You place mist nets, photograph and release the specimens. Myself, I wouldn’t harm — “
“Though you brought your guns,” the doutor said. “Which is for the best.”
Powell muttered something inaudible.
“You mean, because of the garimpeiros,” Todd replied.
“There are no garimpeiros up this river,” Doutor Eduardo said mildly. “This is a designated nature preserve.”
“Designated by whom?” Todd asked.
“Me,” the doutor replied. He smiled and shrugged.
“So you need guns for — ?”
“I hope the birds,” said Doutor Eduardo. “I would advise being less sentimental and rather more incontrovertible about the proof. If indeed there are new species to be found.”
Drink the Sky Page 8