Aaron Elkins - Gideon Oliver 14 - Little Tiny Teeth

by Little Tiny Teeth

  The curandero Yaminahua, a wrinkled, waspish old man in a sleeveless undershirt, clean, white Jockey shorts, and calf-length rubber wading boots, was waiting for them, smoking a cigar and sitting on the plank steps of his open-sided house, which was about twenty feet on a side, clean and spare, strung with four net hammocks across the center, and with a few open shelves along one side, on which were some old iron pots and utensils, and a few bowls. The entire structure was set on two-foot stilts. Two middle-aged women and a girl in her teens, all wearing only simple bark aprons, lay in the hammocks watching, but with no real signs of interest. The girl had a naked little boy sleeping on her abdomen. On one of the shelves, also watching, was a grumpy-looking squirrel monkey tied to a pole by a string around its waist.

  On the step next to Yaminahua, who looked as if he had other things on his mind that were a lot more urgent than these pesky newcomers, were three lidless plastic containers of the sort used for fishing gear, filled with leaves and twigs. Using their contents as props, with no preliminaries whatever, aside from removing the cigar from his mouth and placing it on the step beside him, he launched into a monotone presentation that he appeared to be reciting from memory, to no one in particular, while his mind was off somewhere else, doing more important things. Cisco translated as he went along.

  “This is charcosacha. You mash it with cow fat to cure inflammations of the throat. This is pono palm. You use it to cure foot fungus. Also, it makes good roofs. This is mashunaste, for broken bones. You mix it with juice from a rubber tree, put it on a cloth, and wrap it around the broken arm or leg. The bone will heal in eight days. This is chuchuwasi. You use it for headaches… .”

  This went on for a solid hour, during which Yaminahua’s gaze remained fixed on the middle distance somewhere above their heads and the listeners, one by one, took seats on the ground in front of him. Questions were entirely ignored, so much so that Gideon wondered if the man might be deaf. Note-taking was impossible because of the dampness, but Mel had a small tape recorder that he turned on, promising to have the tapes transcribed for the others who wanted them. The tape, swollen with moisture, stopped turning after a few seconds.

  The conclusion of the lecture was as abrupt as the beginning. Yaminahua just stopped talking, shoved the now-dead cigar back in his mouth, and sat there looking at them, or rather through them. The women in the hammocks had never moved a muscle, except for the few that were necessary to keep the hammocks gently swaying. The monkey had disgustedly turned its back on them and gone to sleep on its perch.

  Cisco took another moment to finish translating. “… for toothache, but it might give you convulsions for a few days. Thank you. And now somebody should give him a gift.”

  “But he hasn’t said a single word about insects,” Duayne protested. “Aren’t insects a part of their pharmacopoeia?”

  But Cisco shook his head. “Nah, show’s over. Th-th-th-that’s all, folks. Gift time.”

  “What do we give him, money?” Tim asked.

  “No, certainly not money,” Scofield said, scolding him. “It would shame him. I brought something more appropriate.” He pulled from his pocket a Ziploc bag with some shiny metal objects in it and offered it to the shaman with a bright smile. “A dozen fishhooks,” he said confidently. “That’ll take care of it.”

  Yaminahua looked at them with disdain. He shook his head and said something to Cisco.

  Cisco translated. “He already has fishhooks. He says he’d rather have a hat with a picture on it. Anybody got one to spare?”

  “A hat with a picture on it… ?” an incredulous, seemingly offended Scofield echoed.

  Gideon had one in his day pack, a white baseball cap with two smiling green alligators on it and the words Woodland Park Zoo. He pulled it out and offered it to Yaminahua, who grabbed for it eagerly. He examined it with care, turning it round and round in his hands, obviously coveting it, and yet somehow not entirely satisfied. He surprised Gideon by seizing him by the shoulder and turning him around so that, by standing on the first wooden step Yaminahua was tall enough to pull up the flap of Gideon’s backpack and root around inside, right up to his skinny elbow, in hopes of finding something else, all the while querulously chattering at Cisco.

  “Is there a problem?” Gideon asked Cisco.

  “He says the hat’s okay, but don’t you have any other colors?”

  THE rooftop stargazing that Gideon, Phil, and John had found so enjoyable the previous night wasn’t quite as relaxing tonight. The problem was that everyone else had discovered the cool, pleasant locale as well and carried up chairs to enjoy it, so that it had gotten crowded up there. Mel, and then Duayne, had come wandering up and had decided to join Gideon, Phil, and John, so that Gideon, who was really interested in getting himself as close to horizontal as his chair would allow, turning his face up to the stars, and letting the refreshingly cool night air wash over him, was forced to participate in a coherent conversation, or at least pretend to listen to the one going on around him.

  Maggie was the last to come upstairs. For the first few hours after dinner, she had been in the lower deck salon, working with a portable plant dryer that she’d set up there, processing the considerable haul of medicinal, toxic, and hallucinogenic plants that she’d collected during the hike. But at about nine, she had come up and, somewhat to Gideon’s surprise, had set down her chair next to Tim’s and Cisco’s. He could hear the three of them comparing observations on the various exotic botanicals they had encountered. Beyond them, Scofield, who, much to Gideon’s envy, had discovered an ancient, full-length, folding beach chair somewhere, lay quietly, with a pot of tea on the deck beside him. His choice of a spot at the very rear, between the guy wires that supported the smokestack and well away from the others, had made it clear that he preferred to be left alone, and he was left alone. For a while the smell of his too-sweet tobacco hung in the air but now he was sound asleep, his pipe having fallen from his hand some time before. An occasional soft, snuffling snore could be heard.

  “You know what that stuff is he’s drinking?” Mel was saying, looking rather unkindly in Scofield’s direction. Mel had ordered a bottle of Merlot for dinner, and although he had offered it freely around, nobody had had much appetite for red wine in that kind of weather. He had consumed almost all of it himself and he was showing the effects.

  “It’s not tea?” asked Duayne.

  “Oh, yeah, I guess you could call it tea, but your mother’s orange pekoe it’s not. It’s made from coca leaves.”

  “You mean mate?” said Phil.

  “That’s what he says, but regular mate has the watchamacallit removed—”

  “The cocaine alkaloids,” contributed Gideon, marginally awake.

  “Right, whatever. Well, this stuff has something in it, I can tell you that. I had some after-dinner sessions with him at his house a couple of times while we were working on the book. And both times, come eight o’clock or so, he gets all wiggly and jumpy and then makes himself this tea — it’s supposed to be for some stomach problem or something, yada yada yada—”

  “Actually,” Gideon said, “they do drink mate down here for stomach problems.”

  “Well, all I know is, both times the guy’s completely out of it inside an hour. I had to let myself out. Once I came back the next morning at nine, and he shows up on the doorstep in the same clothes, all sleepy and dopey, with his hair all mussed and all. I mean, obviously, he’d been spaced out the whole time, probably never got out of his damn chair.”

  This was the most wordy they’d heard Mel, and the most irate, and for a few moments there was silence. “You don’t get along very well with him, do you?” John asked.

  Mel was indeed in a confiding mood, and there followed a list of grievances, foremost among which was that Scofield had assured him — had promised him — that his name would be on the title page of Potions, Poisons, and Piranhas, right up there with his own.

  “So he gives us all the book, right? Big fanfare a
nd everything. ‘Hot off the press, fine bookstores everywhere.’ So naturally, I’m excited, I look for my name and I don’t see it, and that sonofabitch tells me with a smile on his face, oh yes, sure my name’s there, see? Right on page Roman numeral three, down there with his faithful typist and the nice lady at the library. And he looks at me like I’m supposed to be grateful. I swear—” He folded his hands and sank back with a sigh. “Ah, what the hell. I don’t know why I’m getting so worked up. Don’t pay any attention to me. I shouldn’t have had that wine. I’m gonna hit the sack. Night, all.”

  Duayne also heaved himself to his feet. “I’m off too,” he said. “I’m hoping for a better day tomorrow.”

  “You didn’t have a good day today?” Phil asked. “I thought it was pretty cool, especially the shaman.”

  “Oh, that was fine as far as it went, I suppose,” Duayne allowed. “Very interesting. But this is not the Amazon I’d expected. We’ve been here two whole days now, and I haven’t seen a single cockroach, not a one!” He shook his head. “Who would have thought?”

  “Yeah, that is tough,” John said.

  “I’m not talking about giant cockroaches, John, I’m talking about any cockroaches!”

  “Well, cheer up, Duayne,” said Gideon, “tomorrow may bring another giant spider.”

  Duayne’s expression lightened. “It is a beaut, isn’t it?”

  “It sure is,” Gideon said warmly.

  And Duayne went off to bed with a smile on his face.

  The three men lay back enjoying the relative quiet for a while, and then Phil said, “So what do you think? Did Mel just give us a pretty good reason for playing nasty tricks on Scofield? He’s pretty upset.”

  “You mean just because he didn’t get his name on the title page?” John asked doubtfully. “I mean, the spear and all? Isn’t it a little much? He got his money, didn’t he? And he got mentioned — acknowledged. What’s the big deal?”

  “Don’t ask me,” Phil said, “I wouldn’t know about such things. Let’s ask the academic over there. Among the weird and wonderful types you associate with, Dr. Oliver, would a person go to such lengths to humiliate someone over a failure to provide proper attribution?”

  Gideon smiled. “Humiliate, kill, maim, draw, and quarter.”

  NOT long afterward, Maggie came up and slipped into Duayne’s vacated chair. “Do you mind if I join you? The fellows” — with a tilt of her head she indicated Tim and Cisco, who were now vigorously snuffling something out of coffee cups, the visible effect of which was a lot of sneezing and hacking — “are getting a bit too empirical for my taste.”

  “What are they snorting now?” John asked, disapproval etched in every line of his face.

  “It’s cooked from something Cisco brought along. He gave me a sprig.” She held up a twig with three narrow green leaves attached. “He says the locals call it mampekerishi, not a familiar name to me. I’m guessing it’s one of the Gesneriaceae, but I don’t know the genus. I’ll check it later tonight. Possibly, it’s something new. Now wouldn’t that be nice?”

  “What do they use it for?” Phil wanted to know.

  “According to Cisco, the Nahua use it for headaches. And of course ceremonially, for visions. He says it gives you visions of eyeballs.”

  “Eyeballs?” Phil echoed. “Why the hell would anyone want visions of eyeballs?”

  “You’ve got me there,” Maggie said, laughing.

  “What is it like?” Duayne asked. “Did you try it? Did you really see eyeballs?”

  She shook her head forcefully. “Absolutely not. I’m not one of these ethnobotanists that goes around sampling all these things. Not anymore. I found out very early that they’re mostly quite unpleasant. Aside from the unsettling visions — and eyeballs would be among the least of them — there’s an awful lot of vomiting involved, you know. And defecating. And half the time, the drugs induce amnesia, so that you have no memory of the experience anyway, so what’s the point? No, I just want to classify them. And analyze them, of course, to see if there’s some valid medicinal use. Which there often is, I might add.”

  After that they sprawled in their chairs, enjoying the cool, quiet night for a while until John suddenly coughed, said “Jesus!” and batted at the air in front of his face. “Now they’re smoking something again!”

  “That’s just pot,” Phil said, sniffing. “That’s what you told them to smoke yesterday. They’re just taking your advice.”

  “I know it’s pot,” John groused. “You think I don’t know what pot smells like? I’ll tell you what it is that gets me, though. Not Cisco, he’s a lost cause; he can’t help himself any more. But Tim — a nice kid, and he seems bright enough, good future in front of him—”

  “He’s extremely bright,” Maggie said. “One of my favorite students.”

  “And yet there he is, snorting or smoking or drinking every damn thing that comes his way. He shouldn’t be taking lessons from a guy like Cisco. He’s screwing up his life.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t go that far, John,” Maggie said. “A lot of ethnobotanists have their fling with the hallucinogens they study. I did. It’s appealing to many young people. And then, you have to give Tim a bit of leeway. He’s under a lot of stress right now. Arden has been giving him a hard time.”

  Arden was Tim’s major professor, she explained, and his signature on Tim’s dissertation was all that stood between Tim and a Ph.D. — and the postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard that he longed for. She herself thought the dissertation was more than good enough; she and the third member of Tim’s dissertation committee, a professor named Slivovitz, had already signed off on it, but Arden was driving Tim crazy with it, sending him back to the drawing board again and again. And again.

  Gideon thoroughly sympathized. His own graduate years were not far enough behind him to make him forget what the ordeal of the dissertation had been like. “That’s tough, all right. Will Arden ever go along, or is it hopeless?”

  Maggie shrugged. “Oh, I suppose he’ll go along eventually. It’s not that his criticisms are necessarily invalid, it’s just that they’re… well, quibbles: style, punctuation, chapter organization, that kind of thing. But between us, Tim’s material is certainly no worse than what you find in the published journals. Personally, I think it’s a damn shame, and I’ve said so to Arden. But Arden’s his own man, and where I come from, what Arden says goes.”

  “Arden’s the department chair?” Gideon asked.

  “The director. Formally, we’re an institute, not a department, although we come under Biological Sciences. That is to say, we were an institute. As of September, we won’t exist anymore. The ethnobotanical faculty will be whittled down from three to one — that’ll be Arden, it goes without saying. The other prof, Slivovitz, saw the handwriting on the wall and lined up a job for himself down south.”

  “And what will happen to you, Maggie?” John asked. “Where will you be?”

  “Well, technically I’m still a contender for that one slot, but that’s never going to happen, and nobody’s pretending that it will. So, in answer to your first question, I’m out. In answer to the second, it looks like I’ll be moving down here.”

  “To the Amazon?” Phil asked.

  “To the Huallaga Valley, a few hundred miles south of here. Much the same jungle ecosystem, but a few hundred feet higher, so maybe not quite as hot and humid… but close. Arden’s gotten me a faculty appointment at his school down there. In the idyllic garden spot known as Tingo Maria.” It was too dark to read her expression, but Gideon heard her sigh. She wasn’t happy about the prospect. He wouldn’t have been either.

  “That sounds like a terrific opportunity for someone in your field,” he said with as much enthusiasm as he could muster. “For an ethnobotanist, it must be paradise.”

  He heard her chuckle, a single arid note, as she got to her feet. “All things considered,” she said with a side-of-the-mouth twang, “I’d rather be in Iowa City. Goodnight, all.”

>   “Well, Doc,” said John, watching her leave, “as far as your theory of aggravating Scofield goes, at least there’s one problem it doesn’t have.”

  “Namely?”

  John laughed. “Shortage of motives.”

  THIRTEEN

  OF the entire trip, this was the moment that Capitán Alfredo Vargas had most dreaded. He had managed, by and large, to keep it from his waking thoughts, but not his sleeping ones. For the past two nights he had dreamed the same dream, something out of some movie about Devil’s Island: with his hands tied behind him and wearing a blood-drenched, open-throated white shirt, he was being marched to the guillotine while six drummers, three on either side of him, kept up a dismal drumbeat that grew louder and louder and faster and faster until it shook him violently awake. Both times the drumbeat had turned out to be the hammering of the blood in his ears, and the wetness had come from the sopping T-shirt in which he slept.

  Well, he was wide awake right now, but it seemed to him that the thumping in his chest was loud enough to be heard ten feet away — even the leaping of his shirt front with each beat must surely be visible — and his uniform, the best, cleanest whites he had, was already dark under the arms and at the small of his back, and spotty streaks were starting to show on the front.

  Scofield had laughingly assured him that there was nothing to worry about, that nothing could possibly go wrong, but Vargas had heard those words before from others, spoken in the same carefree manner, and he had observed that disaster had a way of almost invariably following them. Scofield, after all, had never dealt with the volatile, hard-drinking, unpredictable Colonel Malagga, a hard case if there ever was one, and a greedy, vulgar grafter besides. And Scofield wasn’t the owner and captain of the Adelita, the man on whom all responsibility must ultimately fall. Scofield, he was sure, already had figured out some way to wiggle out of trouble if it came, leaving Vargas holding the ball, or the bag, or whatever the hell it was.