River of Nightmares

by Alex Archer

  “They float to the surface, and the natives scoop them up.” Moons pantomimed the action. “I suppose used in a certain way the toxin might have some medicinal value. Or maybe some sort of sleep remedy.”

  “And this tree is the annato.”

  “Achiote,” Moons corrected.

  “Fine, achiote.” Edgar made a face.

  Annja spun away, certain she’d seen someone or something mirroring their path. But the shape melded into the green, frustrating her.

  “Look there,” Edgar said. “That fruit, spiny and not very tasty. I know, I’ve tried it. I’ve tried to eat just about everything here. It’s the seeds Dillon wants out of that fruit. They’re used as food color and in cosmetics all around the world, and now they’re researching medical applications. Some of the natives use it as face paint, sometimes they streak their hair red with it. Moons used it once, but it didn’t show up much since her hair is so black.”

  The pair continued to talk, Marsha kept recording, and Annja drifted back. She’d heard something, a branch snapping. Leaves rustled, but not from any breeze. The plant growth was so tight here the wind couldn’t reach down. The air was still. She stared toward the source of the sounds, seeing a darker patch of green...maybe a man...maybe one of the tribesmen who’d gone in search of F’yd and Baladi...maybe something else. Maybe more than one man or creature was dogging them.

  Edgar fingered a low-hanging leaf. “Basically, what everybody should know, is that rainforests cover a little more than ten percent of Earth’s land area. More than half of the world’s species of everything—plants, animals, insects—live in rainforests, but things are going extinct because of interference from us. We’re killing species, and in the end it’ll kill us.”

  Marsha began to speak, but what sounded like two gunshots rang out.

  Annja and Marsha pressed themselves against a tree trunk. Annja reflexively opened her hand, waiting a beat before calling the sword, but in the same instant it started to form, she banished it, hearing Moons giggle.

  “Nobody’s shooting at us,” Edgar said.

  “Possumwood tree.” Moons gestured east and up.

  The tree was massive, and Annja couldn’t see the top of it.

  “That one’s probably a hundred feet tall.” Edgar started looking on the ground.

  Another sharp bang sounded!

  Marsha recorded Edgar as he prodded something with his foot. There were three more bangs in rapid succession, silence, then the howl of a monkey and the squawk of a big blue macaw that landed on a low branch and regarded them curiously.

  Annja glanced at the canopy, and then back to where she’d earlier heard a branch snap. She still had the definite feeling she was being watched.

  “Here. Over here.” Edgar picked up something that resembled a gourd, about the size of a big apple. It was cracked open and stuffed with seeds. “When these pop—and they do when they’re ripe—it sounds like a gun going off.”

  As if the tree wanted to illustrate the point, Annja heard another succession of bangs. Again she thought she saw something moving—someone maybe—from the corner of her eye. Two shapes this time.

  “The tree can shoot these things a few hundred feet,” Moons said. “Besides the pods, Dillon’s interested in the tree’s sap.” She rested her hand against the trunk, smiling sadly for Marsha and her camera. “The Dslala dip their darts in it and use it as a mild poison when they’re hunting. But Dillon’s looking at it as medicine. They’re tapping the trees around here.” She indicated a few places on the trunk and pulled her finger away, liquid glistening on it. “Tapped today, I’d say. And the one over there is dying, looks like it’s been tapped dry. See?”

  It reminded Annja of tapping trees in the northern United States for the production of maple syrup, but the operation she’d seen there was easier on the trees. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up.

  “Speak of the devil,” Moons said.

  There was another possumwood just beyond Moons, and a man in dark green coveralls stepped from behind it, perhaps the source of the eyes Annja had felt on her. But she’d thought there might be two people.

  “Hey! You’re not welcome here! We told you to stay out.” The man was tall and skinny, the coveralls hanging on him in folds. He wore a hard hat with a big brim that shadowed his heavily bearded face. Annja couldn’t see his eyes. But she saw his hands, gloved in black leather, each holding a Taurus pistol. “We warned you kids. Yesterday, in fact. And we’re tired of warning you. We’re done warning you.” He waved one of the guns for emphasis. “Maybe I should just shoot you, leave your carcasses for the leopards and monkeys. The blue one ought to be tasty to a big cat, you think?”

  Annja knew a lot about guns, having had more pointed at her in the past several years than she cared to remember. These were Brazilian made, double-action, with magazines that when full carried a dozen shots.

  Her palm itched, waiting for the sword to form against it. She almost called it. One man with two guns, Annja could take him if he turned the guns on them. She judged the distance between her and him, how many steps, the angle to strike. She’d do it...if she had to.

  “Look, Hammond,” Edgar started. So he knew the man by name. “Don’t you know who we’ve brought with us? A celebrity. Annja Creed. Ever hear of her? You’re going to wish you’d never heard of her after she—”

  “Shut up,” Hammond said. “Just shut up.”

  “Hammond, we want to talk to Mr. Dillon,” Moons said. “We just—”

  “I said, shut it!”

  Annja could tell that Hammond didn’t know quite what to do. She heard a faint click from over her shoulder followed by a bang that didn’t come from a possomwood tree.

  Annja whirled to see a second man; he had only one Taurus pistol, and he’d shot in the air to get their attention.

  “That’s the big guy we told you about,” Moons said. “Don’t know what his name is.”

  “All right, let’s go talk to Mr. Dillon,” the “big guy” said. He was dressed similarly to Hammond, but this one filled out the coveralls better; his shoulders were so broad they strained the seams. Clean shaven and without a hard hat, Annja took in the sharp planes of a face that wore a cruel expression. He looked more like a hired thug than a botanist interested in plants.

  Marsha had the camera up; she was recording all of it. “This is some awesome footage, Annja,” she said.

  Chapter 16

  An eggshell-white tent the size of a double-car garage took up a good bit of a large clearing, a generator sat next to it, alongside a mound of crates wrapped in a heavy net with a hook on top, likely brought in recently by a helicopter. There were also two tents a little less than half the size of the big one and four pup tents sat behind them.

  The trees that had been cut down to create the clearing had been turned into logs. They ringed three sides of the camp, forming a four-foot-high wall that was bolstered by mud that had been pressed up on both sides. Barbed wire was strung to complete the enclosure. Annja thought it looked more like a military camp than anything, drab and forlorn, stern men walking around with guns. A thin cloud of insects hovered over everything. Past the enclosure was a stretch of ground that had been cleared and burned, ugly amid all the green of the forest that rose around it, large enough to accommodate a helicopter.

  No heavy equipment, but Annja saw chainsaws on a crude table, along with machetes and overlarge pliers. There was a sheet of plastic covering objects on the other half of the table—who knew what was under it. Another table was empty, benches on either side. And near that was a muddy horseshoe pit with a post that canted at a forty-five-degree angle.

  “Move,” Hammond said. “You got enough pictures. Too many pictures.” He prodded Marsha with his pistol; she was still recording images. He took her video camera and dumped it onto the empty table. “Ri
ght up to the wire, then inside. All o’ you.”

  “Sorry, Annja,” Edgar whispered. “Didn’t mean to get you caught up in this. Well, not quite like this anyway. But see what we’re saying? These guys are up to no good. They got guns. If all you’re after is plants, why do you need—”

  “Shut up, punk,” Hammond directed to Edgar. “Just shut up, unless you want me to shut it for you.” He opened the gate and nudged them inside.

  Annja saw that the barbed wire was rusty and blood and feathers hung on it near the gate, suggesting that a low-flying parrot had met its demise.

  There were four men in the clearing, all in coveralls, all with hard hats, and all watching Annja and her crew. She heard them talk in soft voices, about “the kids,” and the “blue lady.”

  “Boss!” Hammond shouted. “Trespassers! Them damn kids came back. Told you they would.”

  “We weren’t trespassing!” Moons said. “We’re not kids. We were minding our business, and we—”

  Annja recognized the sound of another couple of possumwood pods bursting. One of the men in the clearing jumped and reached in his pocket. Maybe he was armed, too. Maybe they all were.

  “Boss!” Hammond shouted again. “Trespassers!”

  A middle-aged man in khaki trousers and a sweat-stained muscle shirt emerged from the largest tent. He had thinning red hair and a pencil mustache, dirt smudged on his high forehead. He brushed his hands on his pants and regarded the entourage for a moment before approaching. He looked vaguely familiar, like she’d seen him in passing somewhere. He stank of sweat and insect repellent.

  “That’s Dillon,” Edgar whispered.

  “Keep your hands up,” Hammond cautioned. “Higher. Followed them all the way from the village. They’re like boomerangs. Throw ’em out and they keep coming back.”

  So Hammond had been the shape Annja had noticed on their way here, watching the Dslala village and dogging them, responsible for the hair rising on the back of her neck. He’d been relatively stealthy. Why hadn’t he pulled out the guns earlier and told them to turn around? Had he wanted them here so his boss could take action?

  “I told you to ignore them, Ham,” Dillon said. “You shouldn’t have been messing around the Dslala village. You should be here working. I wondered where you were.”

  “Hard to ignore the kids. Tired of ’em.” Hammond shrugged. “Joe and me...we were watching for them, in case they were up to no good. This time they had company. Company with a camera. That’s the ‘no good’ they’ve got going, taking pictures of our trees. Get a load of the blue one. I think we—”

  A howl burst through the clearing, and Annja saw a pair of monkeys cavorting on a wide branch. From somewhere a good distance away, another answered.

  The possumwood went off again.

  Dillon crossed his arms. He wasn’t muscular, but he appeared reasonably fit. “The blue one has been dreaming with the Dslala, Hammond, something that might do you a world of good. In a place where mysticism is as thick as mosquitoes, I would recommend you avail yourself of some of their thinking.”

  “Mr. Dillon, I—”

  “Since you seem so interested in the village, Ham, you ought to trade them something for a dream.”

  “No thanks,” Hammond said. “About these dumb kids—”

  “We weren’t trespassing,” Moons repeated. “And your goon had no business following us.”

  Hammond growled.

  “Honest,” Edgar said. “We weren’t even all that close—”

  “Annja Creed, right?” Dillon swept his arm toward the table. “The television archaeologist? Chupacabras and all that.”

  Annja noticed that the four men who’d been milling in the clearing went to work; one picked up a chainsaw, another a machete, the other two carried folded burlap sacks. She watched them leave and head west, and then she quickly lost sight of them.

  “Ham, don’t you and Joe have something better to do? Like collect the root samples we’re scheduled to ship? I’ll talk to our guests.” He indicated the table with the camera. “Join me, Ms. Creed?”

  From the moment they’d been escorted into the camp, Annja sensed Moons and Edgar’s tension. Moons had her hands clenched, knuckles white. Edgar had rabbit eyes, not locking onto any one thing for more than a second, nervously trying to watch everything.

  “Annja Creed. Please, join me.” Dillon thrust out a hand, but Annja didn’t take it. He gave her a hurt look, but she didn’t find it genuine.

  “You have me at a disadvantage,” Annja said. “You know who I am. I don’t know you.”

  “Arthur Dillon, and this is my outreach base for Dillon Pharmaceuticals. We’re a research company with offices in Atlanta and Dallas. Small, but we’re cutting-edge.” Judging by his accent he was from the south. “We focus on finding cures, not just treatments.”

  Annja stepped ahead of him to the table, getting a good look at the remaining chainsaw and machetes on the other table. Marsha followed, sitting next to her. Dillon took the opposite bench, and Moons and Edgar stood behind Annja. Hammond and the big guy kept a respectable distance.

  “We’re gonna stick around just a bit, Mr. Dillon,” Hammond said. “In case you need help with them.”

  “Fine.”

  Annja saw movement in the large tent, shadows darkening the tarp. At least two more people were in there. After a moment, one of them poked his head out, saw Dillon seated at the table, and then retreated inside.

  There was more movement toward the north, beyond the log barricade. Maybe a large monkey? Again she had the unnerving sense of someone watching her.

  “We weren’t trespassing,” Moons insisited. Annja picked up the brittle tone in her voice. “We actually weren’t all that close to your camp—”

  “—when your goons pulled guns on us,” Edgar finished. “They brought us in here. So we were herded, not trespassing. Not this time.”

  Dillon kept his eyes on Annja. “I apologize for Hammond and Joseph. They are my security, and—like me—they’ve grown very weary of your young companions.”

  Annja studied him. His careworn face was tanned, the lines around his eyes and mouth marking him as on the far side of middle age. It was an old tan, one he’d probably brought with him from the States, no hint of sunburn. His hands had a delicate appearance, but the nails were chipped with dirt beneath them—a boss who worked at the side of his employees. She was certain she’d seen him somewhere before.

  “Listen here, Dillon—” Moons’s voice rose.

  “No, ma’am,” Dillon said. “No, I will not listen.” Definitely from Georgia, Annja decided; his voice had that gentle lilt. “You will listen. Hammond overstepped his bounds, and I apologize for that, but you’ve pushed him. You break into my camp and destroy my equipment. You cost me time and money.”

  Annja glanced over her shoulder to see Edgar reddening.

  “The damage the two of you have done has been significant. Not that the lab equipment by itself is all that costly, but getting replacements brought in by helicopter is, and you have added weeks to my work by your shenanigans. You have destroyed plants we’ve processed, burned my men’s sleeping tents. And yet you say I’m the one who is the menace. I’ve been civil to you. I’ve not contacted the authorities. But if I catch you one more time—”

  “Authorities?” Moons stepped to the side of the table and put her hands flat against the wood. “I’d love for you to contact the authorities. I’d really, really love for you to contact the authorities. ’Cause I bet they’ll haul you right out of here.”

  Dillon let out a breath and steepled his fingers under his chin. “So we do this dance again, for Annja Creed’s benefit. I’m here legally. And I’ll continue to stay here legally. I have all the permits and—”

  “You’ve not shown them to us,” Edgar said.

&n
bsp; “And why should I? Same dance. Same music. I don’t answer to you. I answer to the people of Brazil. You’re American teenagers, ill-mannered thieving college students—”

  “We’re not teenagers,” Moons offered. “And we’re not students. Not anymore.”

  “Meddlers, then,” Dillon said. “Vandals. How about we agree on those terms? Far more appropriate. Meddlers, vandals, thieves. I’m hurting nothing and no one. And believe me I know just how very precious this rainforest is. And now you’ve got a television archaeologist roped into your sabotage schemes. You’ll paint me as some villain on your show when all I’m trying to do is help the world. You have Annja Creed out here to—”

  “—not do anything about your biology research operation.” Annja gripped the edge of the table. “Mr. Dillon, I’m here filming a series on beasts of the Amazon. I stopped in the Dslala village—”

  “—where she dreamed and turned blue,” Moons supplied. “I’m dreaming that we’re gonna take you down with television exposure courtesy of her. I’m dreaming of your sorry self being—”

  Annja’s eyes were ice when she glanced at Moons. “Can you stay out of the conversation a minute?”

  “Yeah, give it a rest, you two. You’re only feeding the fire,” Marsha put in. “Give the adults...or rather the people who are willing to act like adults...a chance to talk.” She nodded toward Hammond. “I’d like my camera back.”

  Moments later, Annja and Marsha were shown into the largest tent, Hammond keeping an eye on Moons and Edgar outside.

  “Film anything you like,” Dillon offered. “Hmm. You don’t use film anymore. So what’s the word?”

  “Film works fine,” Marsha said. “I get the drift.” She panned the interior, which was crowded with tables, equipment and a pair of refrigerators. “So if you’re all scientist-types here, why do you need guns?”

  “Leopards. Jaguars. Caiman the size of a VW Beetle,” Dillon answered. “And as a precaution against any guerillas, and I don’t mean the animal kind.”

  “Guerillas in this part of the country?” Annja asked. “I thought that was settled.” In the close air inside the tent, Dillon’s sweaty odor was stronger. Annja backed up a few steps. She noticed cases of batteries stacked on the opposite side of the tent. The printing on each side showed there were 336 D batteries per box, and there looked to be twenty boxes—though how many were full was a mystery. She did the mental calculation: roughly five thousand batteries. Boxes under the center table were marked double-A batteries, again, cases of them. Dillon had a generator; what did he need all these batteries for? The quantity was obscene and more than a little suspicious.