The Orchid Hunter

by Sandra K. Moore

  Porfilio leaped toward Goldtooth, grabbed his gun hand. The much heavier donos levered the pistol’s muzzle toward Porfilio’s face. I swung the rifle at the donos. The steel barrel caught him across the neck. He staggered. Porfilio ripped the pistol from Goldtooth’s grip. The donos lunged for the revolver. My next swing hit the back of his knee. He dropped, grabbing at his leg.

  Porfilio and I stood over him, both of us panting more with adrenaline rush than exertion.

  I glanced at the doorway. “Did he bring any friends?”

  “His friends are all gone,” Porfilio said. “The pistoleiros were the colonel’s men, not his. They are scared we will kill them.”

  “You don’t have many buddies, do you?” I asked Goldtooth as I plucked the jammed shell from the rifle’s chamber and loaded up my last one.

  The donos levered himself to his feet. Porfilio’s pistol clicked loudly as he cocked it.

  I raised the rifle to Goldtooth’s chest. “Stand against the wall.”

  Goldtooth’s cheeks had gone gray with pain. A massive red welt was spreading just beneath his ear. It was a wonder I hadn’t broken his neck.

  “You’re responsible for the colonel’s condition, aren’t you?” I demanded in Portuguese.

  “When his superiors are angry with him, he blames me.” His voice rose, tight with indignation. “The mine makes money because I make it so. He’s an old man and foolish. I do what needs to be done. I keep his superiors happy.”

  “By bullying the garimpeiros.”

  “They would not eat if not for me!” He winced as his shout strained his neck muscles. “I feed them. I give them clothes,” he said more calmly. “They hate me. Do not think I do not know.”

  Give the man a medal. “And the Yanomamo?”

  A sneer cracked his fleshy face. “They are animals.”

  I thought of the village, constantly alive, constantly in motion with its twenty families. The men joking after a successful hunt. Women chatting and arguing. The children. Always the children, running in and out of the shapono, getting into everything. Laughing.

  Marcello dancing along in front of me, his climbing harness tied around his little body. Batting his eyes. Grinning.

  I lifted the rifle’s muzzle to Goldtooth’s face. Sweat oozed from his temples. No, I wouldn’t shoot him. That’d be too quick. Too easy. I’d shot two dead men over and over but it hadn’t helped, hadn’t resurrected Marcello. Anger curled around my heart, sweeping me under, pouring down my throat. No. I had a better idea. I handed the rifle to Porfilio, who automatically took it.

  I unsheathed the machete from its holster on my back. The donos’s eyes widened. Fear. That’s what I wanted to see. Fear and blood, like Marcello’s blood, running all over—

  I stopped. My God. What the hell was I doing? The machete felt suddenly heavy, hateful, in my hand. God help me. I wasn’t an executioner. I slowly backed away.

  “You deal with him,” I told Porfilio.

  He silently gave me back the rifle, not taking his eyes off Goldtooth. I holstered the machete and tried to breathe. Porfilio motioned for the donos to put his hands behind his head.

  The padre stepped forward, silently contemplated Goldtooth for a moment before threading his fingers through the man’s greasy hair and forcing his head up to look in his eyes.

  “You will scream in hell for what you have done,” Father João said in soft, slow Portuguese.

  The donos’s shoulders hitched once, then several times in succession. The bastard dared to laugh? His lips drew back in a teeth-baring smile. “No one cares about the Indians. The government does not care. The garimpeiros do not care. Not even your God cares,” he said. “I don’t believe in your hell, old man.”

  The cold rage I thought had drained away like water suddenly boiled, hot and fierce, in my chest. “But I assume you believe in the Roger prison in Paraíba.” I glanced back at the bed, where the colonel moaned pitifully, like a dying animal. “You’re guilty of trying to murder a respected Brazilian army officer.”

  The arrogance faded from Goldtooth’s eyes as that sank through his thick skull.

  I persisted. “You gave him the mercury, didn’t you, trying to make it look like he’d inhaled the fumes or got hold of mercury-tainted water. But he’d have to drink a helluva lot of water to get that sick that fast.” I glanced at the padre. “Make sure that empty glass goes to the authorities. I bet there are trace amounts of mercury in it.”

  The donos’s eyes creased as he tried to smile, but his mouth failed him.

  “I don’t think they’ll let you keep that pretty gold tooth for long in prison,” I added as boots clunked on the anteroom’s wooden floor.

  Carlos led a pair of dirty-faced garimpeiros into the bedroom. Porfilio stepped back as the miners trussed the donos with lengths of rope.

  “Do not disobey me!” the donos ordered the miners, who acted as if they’d either stopped understanding Portuguese or lost their hearing. “They are traitors! The colonel will be angry!”

  Porfilio tore a strip off the colonel’s nasty sheet and stuffed it in the donos’s mouth. “Shut up.”

  The garimpeiros towed the gagging Goldtooth outside. I noticed they weren’t being too gentle.

  “Where are they taking him?” I asked.

  “I’m flying him to Boa Vista at dawn,” Carlos said.

  “With the colonel?”

  Carlos looked at Porfilio, who looked at Father João. Father João shook his head. “I don’t see how he can survive,” he said simply. “He’s too far gone.”

  “We should try, even though he is not a good man,” Porfilio insisted.

  What no one was saying, or would say, was that Porfilio, in trying to save the colonel’s life, would insure his place as head of the mine. We all knew the colonel would die before they reached Boa Vista, but Porfilio needed to look like a hero, someone the army could trust to run its operation.

  “Leave him to me,” Father João said. “I will clean him up for the journey.”

  “Have you got the camp under control?” I asked Porfilio.

  He nodded, eyes bright but calm. “The garimpeiros are glad. Now we can do what we know is right.”

  And still make a profit, I added silently. At least with Porfilio in charge, the mine stood a chance of giving the desperate miners a living while leaving the Yanomamo in peace.

  Carlos and Porfilio left me and the padre alone with the dying man. Father João didn’t have anything else to say to me, but I did to him.

  I tugged the vial of shaman’s poison out of my zippered pocket, then dug around until I found the vial of morphine I’d once thought about giving Rick. I looked at them both for a moment, then handed one to Father João.

  “Morphine,” I said, “in case the pain gets too bad.”

  Father João’s eyes widened as he stared at the vial I offered.

  “I know you don’t believe in suicide or mercy killing. I’m not suggesting that.” I glanced at the colonel’s skin stretched over his bony face. “He’s an old man. The plane ride’s going to be hell. This might make it easier.”

  The padre took the vial from me and tucked it into his shirt pocket. “Thank you.”

  That was probably the best I was going to get from him. He didn’t like me or “my kind,” thought I was a cold-blooded murderer at heart, and clearly wanted me to go.

  So I went.

  Besides, it was time I gathered up my gear and hit the road. I left the colonel’s quarters and headed for the airstrip. I was double-checking my duffel when I heard something shuffling through the underbrush toward me. I froze, then heard Carlos’s voice.

  “Jessie!” he hissed.

  “Here.” I watched him slink close and then asked, “Why are you sneaking around?”

  “The other plane belongs to an Americano.”

  “Lawrence Daley?” I asked, my heart thudding with anticipation. I’d love to pound that guy into the ground.

  “No, a customs officer. He�
��s looking for you.”

  Shit.

  Daley had probably alerted customs to my existence and my purpose, damn him. The last thing I needed was to try to smuggle not just my plants but me back into the States. My brain started firing in several directions trying to figure a way out. Would Carlos fly me into Paraguay or Venezuela so I could leave from there?

  “What did you tell him?” I asked.

  “He knew I brought you here. I told him I hadn’t seen you since dropping you.”

  “Did you say anything about Kinkaid or the research station? The village?”

  Carlos shook his head. “But you cannot come with me to Boa Vista now. He is watching the plane. He intends to search it before I leave.”

  “He can’t do that,” I argued.

  “Not legally, no,” he agreed, then shrugged philosophically. “But you know how it is. You play the game when the other player has…influence.”

  I stared at his handsome face. “He’s got something on you, doesn’t he?”

  He shrugged again. “Listen, I will come back for you tomorrow. Go hide in the jungle and I will be back at dawn.”

  Scooter, I thought. Five days.

  “We’ve got to be smarter than this guy,” I insisted. “I’ve got to get back home.”

  “Then I will take you to São Paolo tomorrow instead of Boa Vista. That alone will save you a day. I owe you.” He slid his hand over mine where it rested on the duffel between us. “I should not have left you. It’s why I came back. After a while, I started thinking they might kill you.” His smile in the faint light that reached us held chagrin and even a little surprise, as if he’d never expected to find himself doing something honorable. “I will make it all up to you.”

  Had I not been well aware of just how studly this guy was, I would have thought his admission almost gentlemanly. But as his thumb subtly caressed my wrist, I recognized the old game being played out once again. Like he’d said, you play the game when the other player has influence.

  But you didn’t have to play the game, I suddenly realized. Rick had refused to play it with me for reasons I didn’t understand, and now I didn’t have to play it with Carlos. Not again. Not to wake up once more to an aching loneliness and the realization that I’d given myself to a dream that didn’t exist. I’d thought the sex would make the emotion happen. I’d been doing it bass ackwards all my life.

  No wonder Rick didn’t want to have anything to do with me.

  Back at the village as I was leaving, Rick had looked me in the eye and said, “Do what you need to do, Jess.” I’d thought he was talking about killing the colonel. Now I knew he wasn’t. He’d meant I should go back to the States to save Scooter, or stay with Carlos if that’s what I wanted. Or keep on doing what I’ve always done. Be the kind of person I am.

  Problem was, I wasn’t sure who that was anymore.

  “I’ll be here tomorrow morning at dawn,” I said to Carlos.

  He lightly kissed me on the lips, and when he tried to make it into something more, I leaned away. He sighed, then drifted into the underbrush. A few minutes later, I saw him stride from the colonel’s office building toward the airstrip, where the tall Americano intercepted him. I put the field glasses on them. The crew cut American was definitely not the Brain from San Antonio. And I knew now it was unlikely he was the man called Noah. Noah, the Brain had implied, was a botanist like yours truly.

  Carlos and the customs agent spoke briefly, then turned and walked toward Carlos’s plane. And me.

  I picked up my gear and backed deeper into the trees. Waiting in the jungle all day was going to be a pain. The agent, a burly, middle-aged guy with a stern face, waved at someone in the mining camp and three pistoleiros, apparently picking up fresh work for the American government, fanned out along the airstrip’s edge.

  Looking for me, no doubt.

  A slight hiss caught my attention. I turned to see a Yanomamo warrior step out from behind a tree. A single hand motion invited me back with him.

  And as I didn’t really have a choice, I followed the silent warriors back to their home, to a place I didn’t belong.

  Chapter 13

  I showed up at the village in the light of false dawn, dragging myself one more time along the trail behind my silent and swift Yanomamo escorts. One day, I thought as I stopped at the little hut, I was going to stop retracing my steps and actually get somewhere. My shoulders ached from carrying my duffel, my feet and ankles ached from hiking over uneven terrain for what felt like nonstop for eight days. The rage had finally drained out of me, leaving nothing but a heart aching from new hurts that had dragged up old hurts. Even the little detour for a bath hadn’t soothed my nerves. I felt like I’d been on the verge of weeping for decades.

  Inside the hut, Rick wasn’t sleeping like I expected. He was meditating, I guess, sitting on a kapok-fiber-stuffed pallet, wearing only his pants, his bare back to the door and his legs pulled up in lotus position. My duffel’s contents rattled despite my best attempt to set the bag down quietly. Rick turned his head. He wasn’t wearing his glasses. Then he swiveled and rose somehow at the same time, his brow furrowed as he took the two steps to where I stood.

  “Are you okay?”

  His warm grip on my fingers felt too good. I couldn’t say anything for a minute because I was trying not to burst into tears again. I just shook my head.

  He tugged me into his arms. I latched on to him and held on for dear life. That’s what it felt like, trying to save myself from drowning in all the pain left when the rage eased out of me. I could have stood there with his arms around me all day, but after I got hold of myself and thought I could talk without crying like a baby, I pulled away.

  “Change of plans,” I muttered.

  He took that in, then asked, “What happened?”

  I dropped into my hammock and pulled off my boots while he settled again on his pallet. I lay down, too tired to undress, and gave him the details, right down to the customs officer and Carlos’s offer of a ride into São Paolo the following morning.

  “So you didn’t have to kill the colonel,” he said.

  “I don’t know if I could have even if he’d been well.” I studied my hands, innocent of shedding blood. “I’ve only killed one man in my life and that was in self-defense.” I shook my head. “But the donos.” I remembered the lines of terror around the man’s eyes as I unsheathed the machete. “I nearly killed him. I wanted someone to pay. I’ve never been so angry in my life.”

  “But not just pay for Marcello.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Pay for Scooter, too.”

  I was too tired to be annoyed at his digging around. Besides, it kind of sounded right. “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Does Scooter know you’re down here, trying to save him?”

  “I didn’t have time to talk to him. I left a message with a close friend of his, told him I was trying to find a cure, but I didn’t talk to Scooter.”

  “Jessie,” he said, then hesitated.

  “Look, I know it was lame to come down here without—”

  “What if Scooter doesn’t want you to save him?”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “How old is he? In his sixties, seventies?”

  My mouth clamped shut.

  “What if he’s ready to move on?” he persisted, more gently.

  “You mean, what if I’ve come down here for no reason.”

  “Jessie, listen to what I’m saying instead of what you think I’m saying. Did you ask Scooter what he wanted?”

  Tears abruptly spilled from my eyes. And in that moment Rick made me angriest of all, because I knew, damn him, that he was right. I hadn’t bothered to ask Scooter what he wanted because I believed I knew what was best for him. I covered my face with my hands and tried to breathe.

  “You don’t have to save everyone you care about,” he said gently. “Or get retribution. Sometimes terrible things just happen and there’s no one to pay for it.”


  I could only let the waves of grief crash over me. Maybe Scooter didn’t mind dying. Maybe he’d gotten into the Parkinson’s drug trial despite the risks because he figured he had nothing to lose. Maybe that was why he never complained about what had happened, but just kept cooking up four-alarm chili and caring for his beloved orchids.

  But if he weren’t around, I’d be standing there in the middle of a dry cornfield, the noon sun beating down on my head and dust rising around my feet, no place to go. No Scooter. No home.

  “I can’t let him die.” I mopped my face with my shirtsleeve. “I’ve got a possible cure in my hands. I can’t stop now.”

  He seemed to accept that. “If Carlos takes you straight to São Paolo, does that give you time to get back to Scooter?”

  “It’s cutting it close. I’ll call von Brutten from town and let him know I’m coming straight to San Antonio. He can fire up the lab and be ready for me.” I sighed. “With the mine out of the way, that’s one less thing for me to think about.”

  “You’ve done a good job,” Rick said.

  I met his eyes and looked at him, really looked at him, for the first time.

  He wasn’t gorgeous, but he was definitely attractive. He was the kind of guy you don’t really look at twice until suddenly something shifts, either in you or in him, and for an instant, he becomes the sexiest man on the planet. Rick’s inner bad boy lurked underneath his dark, expressive eyes. I could go on ad nauseam about his shoulders and pecs and how strong he was and all that, but the point is the best time I’d ever had in my life with a guy was waking up with Rick’s arm around me.

  “Are you tired?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Finding the colonel like that—” I paused, seeing again the old man’s frail body twisted on his filthy bedsheets. “The poison would have been mercy. Better than the donos leaving him to die.”

  “I know.” He stared at me a moment, then stood and walked over. “Come on, you need some sleep.” He stretched out with me in the hammock, tucking me into his arms.