The Orchid Hunter

by Sandra K. Moore

  “That’s not what I was saying.”

  I picked up his monitor and slung it over my shoulder. “I’m going to get another orchid,” I said. “When I get back, I’ll be ready to fight.”

  I told myself that climbing alone again felt somehow right. True to who I was. The clenched fist in my chest told me I was lying. I swallowed and kept walking to the area where we’d found the orchid. Lying or not, I needed to harvest another plant and take off.

  I ended up not needing to track the moth. Instead, I climbed the Pterocarpus I’d scaled the night before, belaying myself as I was accustomed to doing, and worked my way back to the spot where the Death Orchids had clung elegantly to their tree.

  I switched the headlamp on full force in the gathering dark. No need to hide my activities. Daley was long gone. The man called Noah might be hanging around somewhere, but I didn’t care. My black mood, the tamped-down rage of loss, would be more than enough fuel to handle him if he showed his face. The image of green webbing flashed in my memory and I had to choke back a sob. Steady, girl. Do what’s in front of you.

  The lamp’s bright beam scattered a handful of howler monkeys that bobbed and bounded away. My slow sweep across the area revealed a nice crop of Death Orchids—three sprayed their blossoms in short cascading falls, stark white against the tree bark but for the fathomless, pouting black lips.

  I quickly maneuvered over and harvested all of them, filling the last of the cardboard tubes which fit snugly into my makeshift rucksack. The plants would keep well enough for the trip back to the States. And with the forged CITES certificates von Brutten had thoughtfully provided, I shouldn’t run into any customs trouble between here and there.

  Tonight I’d travel with the fighters to the gold mine. I’d gladly give the colonel something to think about the next time he wanted to slaughter a bunch of kids. Then I’d be on my way. I’d be back in the States with a couple of days to spare. Scooter would survive. And my life would go back to being how it was before I ever showed up in this place.

  It felt like a good plan. Scooter, I was confident, would approve.

  The voices of the war council rose like smoke through the trees. Now full night, the heat had faded and a coolish breeze filtered through the trees around the village clearing as I approached it.

  The men’s faces were lit only by the fire smoldering where the shapono used to stand. No women or children in sight. Twenty or so Yanomamo huya, young men, clustered in the shadows, well back from the fire, wearing red and black face paint and red-painted nut beads around their necks. Their hands bristled with arrows.

  In the inner circle around the fire, the men were arguing about the best way to get near the mine without being seen. The conversation was going on primarily in Portuguese and occasionally English, and I saw Father João whispering to the shaman and village headman. The headman, a smallish Yanomamo with black designs painted all over his body, squatted next to the shaman, who meditatively chewed a hunk of bark.

  On the far side from where I came into the clearing, Dr. Yagoda and one of his Stepford grad students waited. I guessed Kinkaid had called in reinforcements. He was probably going to need them.

  Next to them sat Porfilio and, of all people, Carlos Gutierrez.

  What the hell was he doing here?

  He looked up and caught my eye. His arrogant grin broadened and he bowed his head to me. When he met my gaze again, his eyes seemed softer, almost apologetic. Definitely warm. Definitely the eyes of a man interested in showing a girl a good time. His grin faltered as I stared at him. I wasn’t interested. Best if he got that message right away.

  Kinkaid’s frown deepened when he saw me. The shadows threw his face into sharp relief and his expression gave me no clue what he was thinking. I had planned to keep to the background, not knowing how these men would take a woman’s presence. The world’s advance into the twenty-first century didn’t mean much in places like this and I didn’t care to be on the business end of a curare-tipped arrow. I’d speak when spoken to. But Kinkaid motioned me to sit next to him on a downed log. He pointed to a hand-drawn map in the dirt similar to the one I’d drawn for him for our mine escape.

  “Why bring her into this?” Father João asked abruptly. “She’s not needed.”

  “She stays,” Rick said sharply.

  “But I don’t see—”

  Porfilio interrupted gently, “She took out two soldiers and humiliated the donos!”

  “That was an accident,” I said.

  “You didn’t see her in action, my friend,” Porfilio insisted.

  “No, you didn’t,” Carlos murmured, but loud enough for me to hear and to attract the curious looks of men sitting on either side of him.

  “Pissed” didn’t do justice to the anger broiling inside. I shot Carlos a glance that could have melted bone but he wasn’t looking.

  Then Rick said, “If you don’t care for the situation, Father João, you don’t have to stay.”

  The padre frowned slightly and nodded. “I shall stay.”

  “What’s the plan so far?” I asked.

  Rick turned slightly. “Approach the mine, subdue the colonel. Force a negotiation.”

  “With what?” I asked. “How do you think you’ll get him to cooperate?”

  Porfilio smiled. “The pistoleiros’ defeat last night will not make him happy. He’ll be glad to talk peace.”

  Optimistic outlook. “How many pistoleiros does the colonel have?” I asked Porfilio.

  “Ten, twelve, maybe, now.”

  I looked at him sharply. “I counted twenty-three when we left last week. Did the Yanomamo kill that many?”

  Porfilio nodded respectfully at the village headman. “The Yanomamo killed several. And that English hired some away.”

  A teaspoon of guilt lifted from my shoulders. Broken legs, ant bites, and fire liana stings were entirely justified. And Daley, bless his cowardly heart, had diminished the colonel’s little army.

  “They won’t expect a hit tonight,” Carlos said. “We’ll have surprise on our side. We can take the camp by coming in here.” He picked up a stick and drew a rough line indicating the airstrip.

  “Don’t the main buildings front that airstrip?” I asked. “And look what we have here.” I gestured to the group around the fire. “Three injured men, two academics, a bush pilot, a mine foreman, and a woman, none of whom are proficient in firearms even if we had any. And any invasion team—or whatever you want to call it—will be vulnerable to automatic weapons fire.”

  Even across the fire I could see Dr. Yagoda go green around the gills. “They’re carrying military weapons?”

  “The bad guy’s a colonel,” I reminded him. “Some of the pistoleiros are carrying military weapons, anyway.”

  Porfilio nodded. “And they have explosives, of course.” He grinned. “But I have explosives, too!”

  Yagoda shook his shaggy head. “We don’t dare get involved. It’s too dangerous. The university can’t risk an international incident.”

  “What about your study habitat?” Rick demanded.

  “The university won’t take the risk, even to save the habitat.”

  Disappointment registered in Rick’s clenched jaw. If he wanted to pursue this, it’d be on his own, without his science god.

  Then Yagoda threw him a bone. “I can offer you access to the station’s airfield. That’s it.”

  Rick nodded, his eyes lightening a little. I didn’t tell him not to get too excited about the airfield. Based on his previous performance, there was no way Carlos would volunteer to fly his crate into battle.

  “Look,” I said, “maybe it’d be best for the Yanomamo to leave this area until the mine is exhausted.”

  “Why should they move?” Rick demanded. “They were here first, it’s their land, and the laws are on their side.”

  “But cannot be enforced,” the padre said softly. “The government tries, but is spread too thin. Perhaps she is right.”

  “No,” R
ick snapped. “We have to try to negotiate a solution.”

  “With a madman?” I snapped. “You think his henchmen started killing children because the kids were some kind of threat? He didn’t send his men here to make a statement. He sent them to wipe the village out.”

  “Then what do you suggest, lady general?” Carlos asked.

  I ignored his sardonic eyebrow. “I suggest you figure out what your real objective here is. If you just go in and whack the colonel, you’ll have a paramilitary group, which might mean the Brazilian army, breathing down your necks as soon as word gets into the city. We may not like El Capitan, but he’s a star in somebody’s eyes.”

  The men stared at me in dramatic silence. Hadn’t they thought of this problem?

  “International English, Jessie,” Rick said softly.

  Then he translated, which set off a round of speed Portuguese I couldn’t follow.

  It seemed clear to me that the primary objective was not to take out the colonel, much as I liked that idea right now. It was to stop him dumping mercury from his processing plant.

  The strip-mining, ugly as it was, was negotiable. The land could be reforested to some degree by either the miners or the Yanomamo. While it wouldn’t have the same value in eco-biological terms as the old growth that had been removed, it would grow into that value in a hundred years or so. It was doable.

  And I had to admit Rick had had more or less the right idea with the negotiations. With the colonel connected in high places, he might very well just be performing a job for someone higher up the food chain. Tick that guy off, and you’d find yourself bombed into a state of reasonableness. Better to find the win-win.

  However, a paranoid schizo minor tyrant with delusions of grandeur, by definition, couldn’t be counted on to see reason. It was pointless to try to cut a deal with him. The only way reason might start looking more attractive was if the tyrant’s jewels were in a vise.

  The question was, What was the most expedient way of shoehorning said jewels into one’s grip?

  We could shut down his mine, but he’d just move the whole operation somewhere else. We could destroy his equipment, but he’d bring in more. A miner revolt wouldn’t do it. Yanomamo threats wouldn’t do it.

  No matter what we did, he’d come back to make prostitutes out of the Yanomamo women, rape the Yanomamo land, kill the Yanomamo children, and then move on to the next likely mining spot. And any village on its periphery.

  Either the Yanomamo or the colonel would have to go.

  I looked at the shaman, who was already looking at me. The last time I’d made serious eye contact with a shaman, I’d had the Evil Eye put on me. Pit viper. The Evil Eye had failed to keep me away. Is that what this shaman saw in me? Or did he see something else, something far less honorable and courageous than the heart of a jaguar?

  Men’s voices rose and fell around us. Still, he stared. I stared back.

  You know how sometimes things can fall into place when you quit thinking so hard about them? The solution to the problem happened somewhere between us while the shaman and I locked eyes.

  The shaman was our ticket out. And Porfilio was our ticket in.

  The shaman might be able to concoct a curare-type poison, preferably something that caused the death to look like something else—a stroke, maybe. That would take out the colonel. But what about Goldtooth, the colonel’s donos?

  “Porfilio!” I said loudly over an argument about whether to use Carlos’s plane for a dubious air attack.

  They hushed up and Porfilio looked at me expectantly.

  “Who’s the next in command at the mine after the colonel?”

  He raised his brows in surprise. “The donos. Then me.”

  “The donos is a poser.” International English, Jessie. “A pretender. Isn’t he?”

  Porfilio frowned. “You mean he has authority but has not earned it. The men do not respect him.”

  “Right.”

  “Yes, that is true.”

  “And they respect you?”

  Porfilio nodded. “They see me argue with the colonel about the mercury.” He made a hand motion demonstrating fumes wafting into his face. “It makes them sick. Very bad.”

  “Will they help us or are they too afraid of the colonel?”

  “The colonel is crazy,” he stated. “But they are scared. I cannot count on them to help until after he is gone.”

  And I knew from experience they weren’t happy with Goldtooth. That seemed to clear the way for Porfilio to take over. At least until the higher-ups decided to hand the mine over to another pet colonel.

  The Yanomamo headman had been talking with Father João for a while and now Father João stood. “The honored headman demands retribution from the men who attacked the village.”

  I understood their sentiments. Too bad getting revenge would only make things worse for the Yanomamo. “Will he be placated with the death of the man who ordered the attack?” I asked.

  Father João and the Yanomamo headman spoke at some length. Rick’s brow furrowed. I gathered the discussion wasn’t going well. Father João needed to convince the headman not to attack the colonel or his pistoleiros. Doing that would seal the village’s fate—they’d have to move deeper, further into the interior, and could never return here for fear of being picked up. Or slaughtered.

  Father João finally finished up and turned back to us. “He says the world of the white man is strange to him. He demands revenge, and if we cannot provide it, he and his warriors will take it.”

  “He’ll give us tonight to do what we can?” I clarified. “His warriors won’t attack the mine or the miners?”

  “No.”

  Not good enough. I needed to know the headman understood. “Will you ask him, just to be sure?”

  The padre relayed the question. The headman grunted and said a couple of words. The padre nodded. “He understands.”

  I said to Father João, “You may want to leave this meeting now.”

  “Why?” Rick asked sharply.

  “Because I cannot condone what she is about to suggest,” Father João said evenly. “I take it you found what you were looking for.”

  I figured left field was as good a place to play as any on a day like today, and asked, “What do you mean?”

  “You found the orchid.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  Then it hit me what he was saying. The Death Orchid wasn’t the elixir of life. Far from it. I’d intended the shaman to concoct a poison, sure. But not from the Death Orchid.

  Father João nodded, spoke a few words in an undertone to the shaman and village headman, and rose. “I cannot wish you God’s blessing on this endeavor,” he said. “I cannot in good conscience even wish you to succeed.” He turned to go, then paused to look at me once more, light glinting from his thick lenses. “You will leave after this.”

  “Yes,” I promised. “As soon as I prevent an all-out war, keep more innocent people from dying, and help the Yanomamo get what they want, I’ll leave.”

  He answered my cutting remark by simply walking away.

  “What is he talking about?” Yagoda asked.

  “He’s saying the Death Orchid is called that for a good reason,” I replied. I turned then to Rick. “Will you ask the shaman if the orchid can be made into a poison?”

  “Jess,” he said in a low voice.

  “I don’t like it, either,” I said, “but if the colonel’s death looks like natural causes, Porfilio can take over the mine. The Yanomamo will still get their revenge. And nobody else gets hurt.”

  If the Death Orchid could be used to kill, it would take a heck of a chemistry trick to make it a cure. I froze. Harrison was a taxonomist, the best in his class, not a medical research scientist. Had von Brutten fed me a line about the orchid’s curative powers just so I’d come after it? Did he want the plant because it took life away instead of restoring it? Or had Harrison actually been working with a research partner to develop the cure von Brutten told me ab
out?

  The distinct possibility I’d been used to gain an end I wasn’t aware of gnawed through my gut. If von Brutten had lied, if he’d promised to help Scooter when he knew it was impossible, if he’d lured me away from Scooter during my great-uncle’s last few weeks—

  I felt Rick studying me, felt naked under his scrutiny. Naked and open and as if he could see all the way down to the anger and hurt lying on my heart. He took a deep breath. I think he might have taken my hand if we’d been alone. And I would have accepted whatever he’d offered, even if it was only that single touch.

  Rick tore his gaze away and spoke to the shaman and village headman. The headman said nothing in reply but his eyes gleamed. The shaman chewed his bark for a full minute, his eyes on me. He clearly wanted something from me, but I had no idea what.

  Then the shaman spoke for several minutes. At the end of his speech, the Yanomamo warriors dispersed. The headman stood, surveyed us all regally, and left.

  You could’ve sliced the unease around the rest of the circle. It was one of those times you realize just how different our cultures are—the Yanomamo could have all been headed off for a communal whiz, but it looked like we’d been diplomatically snubbed. Would the arrows start flying?

  “He’ll do it,” Rick said quietly. “The poison provokes a heart attack. It’ll take an hour to cook up, but then we’ll be ready to head out. The warriors have gone to keep watch on the mine. But not attack.”

  Back in the hut, I carefully drew one of the Death Orchids from its cardboard cylinder and studied its white-petaled, black-lipped flower. It seemed ironic—that it represented, literally, black and white, life and death. The one who held it had life, and the one who would drink its nectar had death. Except the one holding it was me, and I lived in a world of shades of gray. Live and let live. Except, perhaps, for this one time.

  Killing a man in self-defense, as a reflex, was nothing like what we were planning. None of the reasons I’d thought of could truly justify this premeditated act. While I’ve always treasured my innate sense of moral ambiguity, I wasn’t sure I was prepared to become an assassin.