City of the Beasts (34 page)

"Have no fear. I promise that I personally shall protect the People of the Mist. The world listens when Ludovic Leblanc speaks," the professor assured them.

He added that he would publish his impressions on what he had seen—not only in an article in
International Geographic
, but also in a book. Thanks to him, he said, the Eye of the World would be declared an Indian reservation and protected from any form of exploitation. They would see who Ludovic Leblanc was!

The People of the Mist did not understand a word of that diatribe, but Nadia summed it up by saying this was a
nahab
friend. Kate added that she and Timothy Bruce would help Leblanc in his proposals, with which they, too, were included in the category of
nahab
friends. Finally, after endless negotiations about who were friends and who were enemies, the Indians agreed that the next day they would lead all of them back to the helicopter. By then they expected the stink from the Beasts to have dissipated.

Iyomi, always practical, ordered the warriors to go hunt while the women made a fire and braided hammocks for the night.

"I'm going to ask you again, Alexander. What do you know about the Beast?" Kate said to her grandson.

"It isn't one Beast, Kate, there are several. They look like gigantic sloths; they're very ancient animals, maybe from the Stone Age, or earlier."

"You've seen them?"

"If I hadn't seen them, I wouldn't be able to describe them, would I? I saw eleven of them, but I think there are one or two more wandering around here. They seem to have a really slow metabolism, and they live for many years, possibly centuries. They learn, they have a good memory, and—you're not going to believe this—they talk."

"Now you're pulling my leg!" his grandmother exclaimed.

"It's true. Let's say they're not very eloquent, but they speak the same language as the People of the Mist."

Alexander proceeded to inform her that in exchange for the Indians' protection, the Beasts preserved their history for them.

"Once you told me that the Indians didn't need writing because they have good memories. The Beasts are the tribe's living memory," he added.

"Where did you see them, Alexander?"

"I can't tell you, it's a secret."

"I suppose they live in the same place where you found the water of health," his grandmother ventured.

"Maybe yes and maybe no," her grandson replied.

"I need to see those Beasts and photograph them, Alexander."

"What for? An article in a magazine? That would be the end of them, Kate. People would come hunt them and cage them in zoos or study them in laboratories."

"I have to write something, that's why they hired me…"

"Write that the Beast is a legend, pure superstition. I can tell you that no one is going to see them for a long, long time. They'll be forgotten. It's more interesting to write about the People of the Mist. That tribe hasn't changed for thousands of years, and it can disappear at any moment. Tell how they were going to be injected with the measles virus, as other tribes have been. You can make them famous and save them from extinction, Kate. You can become the protector of the People of the Mist, and if you play your cards right, you can get Leblanc to be your ally. Your pen can bring a little justice to life here. You can denounce villains like Carías and Ariosto, and question the role of the military, and bring Omayra Torres to trial. You have to do something, or soon other evil people will be committing crimes in this part of the world with the same impunity as always."

"I see that you have matured a lot in these weeks, Alexander," Kate admitted with admiration.

"Can you call me Jaguar, Grandmother?"

"You mean, like the car?"

"Yes."

"Everyone to his own taste. I'll call you whatever you like, as long as you don't call me Grandmother," she replied.

"That's great, Kate."

"Roger, Jaguar."

That night, the
nahab
shared a meager meal of roast monkey with the Indians. With the arrival of the birds of noise and wind to Tapirawa-teri, the tribe had lost its garden, its plantains and its cassava, and since they didn't want to light a fire and attract enemies, they had gone hungry for several days. While Kate tried to exchange information with Iyomi and the other women, Professor Leblanc, fascinated, questioned Tahama about their customs and war arts. Nadia, who was called on to translate, realized that Tahama had a wicked sense of humor and was telling the professor a series of fantasies. He told him, among other things, that he was the third husband of Iyomi and that he had never had sons, which demolished Leblanc's theory about the genetic superiority of alpha males. In a near-at-hand future, the stories Tahama told would be the basis for another book by the famous Professor Ludovic Leblanc.

The next day, the People of the Mist, with Iyomi and Walimai in the lead, and Tahama and his warriors bringing up the rear, led the
nahab
back to Tapirawa-teri. A hundred yards from the village, they saw the corpse of Captain Ariosto, which the Indians had left wedged between two large branches of a tree to be picked clean by animals and birds, treatment for those who did not deserve a funeral ceremony. The body was so mangled by the claws of the Beast that the soldiers did not have the stomach to take it down and carry it with them to Santa María de la Lluvia. They decided they would come back later and recover the bones for a Christian burial.

"The justice of the Beast," Kate murmured.

César Santos directed Timothy Bruce and Alexander Cold to collect the soldiers' weapons, which were scattered around the camp, to prevent another outbreak of violence in case someone got nervous. It was not likely that would occur, however, because the smell of the Beasts lingered enough that they were all subdued. Santos saw to it that the supplies were loaded into the helicopter, except for the tents, which were buried because he didn't think it was possible to get rid of the smell. Timothy Bruce recovered his cameras and several rolls of film from among the debris, although Captain Ariosto had exposed the film he had commandeered. Alex found his knapsack, and inside, unharmed, the bottle containing the water of health.

The expedition party was in a hurry to get back to Santa María de la Lluvia, but they did not have a pilot, since one helicopter had come with Captain Ariosto at the controls and the other pilot had taken back the wounded. Santos had never flown one of these machines, but he was sure that if he could fly his broken-down airplane, he could manage this. The moment had come to say good-bye to the People of the Mist, which included exchanging gifts, the custom among the Indians. The
nahab
gave up belts, machetes, knives, and cooking utensils, while the Indians produced feathers, seeds, orchids, and necklaces of animal teeth. Alex gave his compass to Tahama, who put it around his neck as adornment, and the warrior gave the American boy a handful of darts dipped in curare and a three-meter-long blowgun, which Alex could barely find room for in the cramped helicopter. Iyomi again grabbed Kate and shouted something at the top of her lungs, and the writer responded with the same passion in English. At the last instant, as the
nahab
were hurrying to climb into the bird of noise and wind, Walimai handed Nadia a small basket.

CHAPTER TWENTY
Separate Ways

THE FLIGHT BACK to Santa María de la Lluvia was a nightmare because it took César Santos more than an hour to get the hang of the controls and stabilize the helicopter. During that first hour, no one thought they would reach civilization alive, and even Kate, who was as cool as a deep-sea fish, had bid her grandson farewell with a firm handshake.

"Good-bye, Jaguar. I'm afraid this is as far as we go. I'm sorry your life had to be so short," she told him.

The soldiers were praying aloud and drinking liquor to calm their nerves, while Timothy Bruce showed his deep concern by lifting his left eyebrow, the thing he did when he was about to explode. The only persons who were truly calm were Nadia, who had lost her fear of heights and trusted in her father's firm hand, and Ludovic Leblanc, who was so airsick he had no sense of their danger.

Hours later, after a landing as gripping as the takeoff, the members of the expedition could finally find some relative calm in the miserable hotel in Santa María de la Lluvia. The next day they would go back to Manaus, where they would take planes to their countries. They would make that trip down the Río Negro, the same way they had come, because César Santos's plane refused to leave the ground despite the new engine. Joel González, Timothy Bruce's assistant, whose condition was much improved, would be going with them. The nuns had improvised a plaster cast that immobilized him from neck to hips, and they predicted that his ribs would heal without consequences, although possibly the poor soul would never recover from his nightmares. He dreamed every night that he was in the coils of an anaconda.

The nuns also assured them that the three soldiers' wounds would mend. Fortunately for them, the arrows had not been poisoned. On the other hand, Mauro Carías's future looked dim. Tahama's blow had damaged his brain, and in the best scenario he would be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life, fed through a tube, his mind in the clouds. He had already been transported to Caracas in his own airplane, accompanied by Omayra Torres, who would not leave him for an instant. The woman had no idea that Ariosto had died and could not protect her any longer; nor did she suspect that as soon as the foreigners told the story of the fake vaccine she would have to face the authorities. Her nerves were shattered. She kept repeating that it was all her fault, that God had punished Mauro and her for the measles virus. No one understood what she was talking about, but Padre Valdomero, who went to offer spiritual counsel to the wounded man, paid attention and took note of her words. The priest, like Karakawe, had suspected for a long time that Mauro Carías had some plan to exploit the Indians' lands, but had not discovered what it was. The doctor's apparent ravings gave him the key.

While Captain Ariosto was in command of the barracks, the entrepreneur had done whatever he wanted in the territory. The missionary had been powerless to unmask those men, although for years he had reported his suspicions to the Church. His warnings had been ignored because he lacked proof, and also because some considered him half crazy. Mauro Carías had made a point of spreading the rumor that the priest had talked nonsense ever since being kidnapped by the Indians. Padre Valdomero had once traveled to the Vatican to denounce abuses against the native peoples, but his superiors in the Church had reminded him that his mission was to carry the word of Christ to the Amazon, not to get involved in politics. He had returned defeated, asking himself how he could try to save souls for heaven without first saving lives on earth. And beyond that, he wasn't certain about the propriety of Christianizing the Indians, who had their own form of spirituality. They had lived in harmony with nature for thousands of years, like Adam and Eve in Paradise. Why, Padre Valdomero wondered, was it necessary to teach them the concept of sin?

When he learned that the
International Geographic
party was back in Santa María de la Lluvia, and that Captain Ariosto had died, the missionary called at the hotel. The soldiers' versions of what had happened on the altiplano were contradictory; some threw the blame on the Indians, others on the Beast, and there was one who pointed a finger at members of the expedition. Whatever the case, without Ariosto in the picture, there was at last a small opportunity to see justice done. Soon another military man would be in charge of the troops, and there was no guarantee that he would be any more honorable than Ariosto. He, too, might succumb to bribes and crime, as happened all too often in the Amazon.

Padre Valdomero turned over the information he had gathered to Professor Ludovic Leblanc and Kate. The idea that Mauro Carías had generated epidemics with the help of Dr. Omayra Torres and protection from an officer of the army was a crime so horrible that no one would believe it without proof.

"The news that they are massacring Indians in that way would enrage world opinion. It's a shame we can't prove it," said the writer.

"I think we can," César Santos interjected, taking from a jacket pocket one of the vials of the supposed vaccine.

He explained that Karakawe had managed to slip it from the doctor's luggage shortly before he had been murdered by Ariosto.

"Alexander and Nadia surprised him looking through the boxes of vaccines, and though he threatened to hurt them if they told, they reported it to me anyway. We thought that Karakawe had been sent by Carías; we never dreamed he was a government agent," Kate said.

"I knew that Karakawe was working for the Department for the Protection of Indigenous Peoples, and that was why I suggested Professor Leblanc hire him as his personal assistant. That was a way for him to go on the expedition without raising suspicion," César Santos explained.

"So you used me, Santos," the professor protested.