Deadly Shoals (6 page)

Stackpole had told Adams to load the schooner with salt as well as provisions, Wiki remembered, so it looked as if the storekeeper had been following the whaling master's instructions right up to the moment of the robbery. But why pack the provisions to the dunes, instead of waiting until the schooner had been sailed back to El Carmen, where it would have been so much easier to stow them on board?

Stackpole interrupted his meditations, saying impatiently, “Come on, let's go.”

“Don't you think we should be asking more questions while we're here in El Carmen?” They should notify the governor, too, Wiki thought.

“About what?” the whaling master demanded.

“About Rowland Hallett, for instance. Is he the master of the
Athenian
?”

“Nope. The captain of the
Athenian
is a fellow called Nash.”

So who was Hallett? An officer who belonged to the
Athenian
—the sealing master, perhaps? Or had he been an agent, like Adams, acting as Nash's representative?

Wiki said, “Have you ever heard of this man Hallett before?”

“Nope. All I know,” said Stackpole bitterly, “is that he's got my money, but I don't have a schooner.”

“Do you know Captain Nash?”

“Never clapped eyes on neither him nor the
Athenian
. I heard lots of gossip that they did uncommon well in the sealing line, and that's it.”

“What about Dr. Ducatel? Do you know him?”

“Aye.” Stackpole grinned contemptuously. “He's a joke. Three or four Americans live here, trying to make their fortune up the Río Negro. Caleb Adams is one of them, and Ducatel another. But at least Adams behaves like a regular Yankee. Ducatel acts like a comedian.”

“What kind of comedian?”

“He pretends to be a real live gaucho, wears their fancy gear, rattles away in some kind of Spanish. The governor encourages him because he finds it so comical.”

Reminded of the governor, Wiki said, “We should pay our respects to His Excellency.”

“Damn it, no. By the time we got through with all the ceremonious nonsense these trackers would've given up and gone home.”

This was a good point, Wiki thought, but objected, “It's late. We'll probably be out overnight.”

“What difference does that make?”

Wiki shrugged, and headed into the store. Inside, he chose a brown-striped poncho, pleasantly surprised at the weight and quality of the wool, and paid over some coins to the clerk, who didn't look at all excited about making a sale. Back at the door, he had another thought, and returned to the counter to sort through the red bandannas. When he rejoined the whaling master, he was wearing one of these tied about his head at forehead level, gaucho-style, taming most of his ringlets, while the folded poncho lay over his left shoulder.

Stackpole studied the effect with open contempt, but said, “Out all night?”

“Aye.”

“Then perhaps I should get one of those ponchos.”

“Good idea,” said Wiki.

Instead of waiting for Stackpole to make the purchase, he mounted and cantered after the gauchos, who had already headed off down the street. The whaleman seemed to take a long time, because when he rejoined them they had arrived on the path that led upriver, and were waiting impatiently to go. Bernantio was in the lead, leaning down from his saddle at such a steep angle that he could have dragged his knuckles on the ground, but keeping his seat with miraculous agility. Once, he pointed at a mark in the sandy embankment, and even Wiki could see the print of a horse that had favored one foot.

Soon, however, the baked mud of the track turned into stones and gravel, furrowed with old wagon wheel ruts that were encrusted with some kind of chalky mineral deposit. Bernantio stopped, and slid to the ground stealthily, as if the hoofprints Wiki could barely distinguish would take flight if disturbed. They all waited as he cast back and forth. Then, with an abrupt movement, he sprung back onto his horse, beckoning his companions from over his shoulder as he went.

“They went that way,” he said, and pointed up the trail.

*   *   *

As the troop rode inland, always heading west, the valley widened into a plain of gravel, pumice, and sunbaked mud. The pink and gray rampart of the sandstone cliffs, which had been so close to the river before, was now about three miles away. The scant growth that struggled to survive in the flatness the cliffs had left behind was studded with small thorn bushes, and trampled with ruts and dried wallows, which straggled off to the side of the trail. These old tracks had been made by parties who were traveling back and forth between scattered ranches and the river, Wiki supposed. Then, however, Bernantio pointed a finger at the distant cliffs, and said significantly, “Men who plot rebellion against de Rosas have their hideouts there.”

Wiki, feeling interested, would have liked to rein in and have a better look, but the
rastreadores
kept on, and he was forced to gallop after them. As they progressed, the cliffs receded even further, so that the expanse of the plain became immense. Then the flatness of the vista was interrupted by strange pale pyramids that stood up out of the hammered clay. As Wiki cantered closer, they proved to be heaps of salt piled up on the bank of the Río Negro, blindingly white against the background of the black water. They had been pushed into the curved shapes of dunes by the wind, so that Wiki was yet again reminded of Arabia. A rough pier extended out into the water, but no vessel was moored there. Nor were there any craft at anchor, the only feature disturbing the rushing water being the willow-swathed islets dotting the way upriver.

Here by the dunes, the wagon wheel ruts became denser than ever, their furrows, both old and recent, interspersed with the hoofmarks left by the bullocks that had drawn the carts. It was impossible to distinguish one mark from another in the dusty muddle, Wiki thought. He watched as Manuel Bernantio walked his horse back and forth, leaning precipitiously from his saddle again, and was not at all surprised when the
rastreador
straightened, reined in, and said regretfully, “The trail is lost.”

When Wiki translated, however, Stackpole exclaimed, “No!”

The
rastreador
contemplated him with the disdain of a man looking at someone who refuses to see the obvious—that they had reached a dead end, that the prints were irretrievably confused with the tracks of many wagons, many bullocks, and many horses. Instead of troubling to reply, he lifted his shoulders in an eloquent shrug. Then he set to scraping a plug of tobacco with his huge knife, and delicately prodding the shreds onto a thin piece of paper, which he rolled into yet another skinny cigar.

Stackpole said to Wiki, “The schooner must have been moored at the wharf when they loaded her—so where has she gone now?”

Out to sea with whatever crew Adams had been able to scrape together, Wiki thought, but, instead of saying so, he asked, “How long would it take to stow the provisions and load salt?”

“Days! How much salt do you think a sealing voyage requires?”

The whaling master knew what he was talking about, Wiki supposed, but still thought he'd been wildly overoptimistic to hope to find the schooner here. He slid down from his horse, at the same time keeping a firm hold of the rein, because if the mare ran away it was a long walk back to the village. Then he went over to a trench that had been dug out of the side of the nearest dune, and hunkered down to study its shape. The edges were crumbling and falling in, making it evident that the digging had been done some days ago. He scooped up a handful of salt and let it run through his fingers, surprised at the size and squareness of the crystals, rather like the brine that crystallized on the surface of old salt meat, only pure white instead of brown.

The gauchos sat on their saddles and watched him. Most were smoking, and none of them spoke. Instead, they watched and waited. Wiki had the strong impression that the leadership of the group had moved from Bernantio to him, and they were waiting for him to make the decision about what to do next. Brushing his palm against his thigh to dislodge the last of the salt, he looked around, disturbed by the empty desolation of the scene. Where there had been bullocks, horses, and men, there was no one, and he wondered where the salt harvesters had gone.

And the packhorses—where had they been driven after the
Grim Reaper
had taken on the provisions, and finished loading with salt? He was very conscious of the strong tang of dried brine overriding the warm sweat scent of the mare and the musty wool smell of his saddle fleece. When he looked up at the sky, the scudding clouds were spreading out toward the horizon, their edges shining gold and pink with the late afternoon sun.

Then Wiki's quick eyes spied black specks high in the sky, revolving over an unseen spot that could be as far as several miles away.

Vultures.
Their slow, circling, apparently motionless mode of flight was unmistakable. He pointed them out to Bernantio, saying, “They're waiting for something to die.”

Manuel Bernantio turned in his saddle, and shaded his eyes with a thin brown palm. “No,” he said. “Some animal is dead already.”

Wiki wondered how he knew that. Surely, if there was a corpse, the vultures would have been on the ground, indulging in their ghastly banquet? Then Bernantio added, “If something drowns in the
laguna salada,
the vultures cannot scent it. They know there has been death, as they saw the last throes, but because of the salt they cannot locate the body. It often happens.”

Laguna salada
—lake of brine. “Is that where they collect the salt for these dunes?” Wiki asked. He could see many ancient wagon-wheel ruts leading in that direction, and salt-rimmed potholes made by the hooves of many cattle and horses.

The
rastreador
didn't answer. Instead, as he looked that way, too, his bearing became alert, as if he had suddenly discerned something he had missed before. Dismounting, he gave his bridle to a comrade to hold, and then cast back and forth about the ruts and potholes for what seemed a long time. Then he returned, and said, “The man who rode the horse that favored its hindfoot traveled on to the
salinas.
”

“Alone?”

Manuel shrugged. “It is impossible to tell.”

The sun was lowering, turning the distant heights to purple, and a breeze came up off the river. The short hairs on the back of Wiki's neck lifted in a shiver, and he abruptly didn't want to go anywhere near where the vultures circled. However, though Bernantio's mouth, beneath the flourishing mustachios, was as straight as ever, Wiki knew that the
rastreador
was deeply chagrined that he had taken so long to see what was now obvious to him.

Back in the Bay of Islands, loss of face was an important issue, so Wiki understood how he felt. To allow Bernantio to regain
mana
—prestige—he said, “Would you think it was possible for you to do us the great favor of tracing those prints, even as it grows dark?”

Still, the
rastreador
was expressionless. However, Bernantio inclined his head in acknowledgment as he agreed, “I believe I can do it.”

Without another word, he remounted his horse and set off, with the others following in a line, as before. This time, Wiki was in the rear. As they progressed over a semibarren plain, where the short, scrubby bushes were armed with increasingly long thorns, the wagon ruts became deeper, having run through mud that had later baked dry in the sun. The horseman, obviously, had avoided these, though Wiki could not pick his tracks out of the general muddle. In places the furrows were crusted with salt, where puddles had become brackish and then dried out.

Abruptly, he became aware of a shocking smell, like putrefying eggs. His stomach clenched, and he expected to see the legs of some poor dead beast sticking up ahead. Instead, a flat shimmer appeared in the dun of the plain. It was like a vast plate, white and almost featureless, a reflection of the paling sky. The vultures still circled in the far reaches of the clouds, with a long line of pink flamingos arrowing south below them, but were yet some distance off.

Then Wiki understood that the great white shimmer was the
salinas
—a lake of solidified salt. The little cavalcade had stopped where the plain ended and the
laguna salada
began. As he joined them, they were sitting still in their saddles, staring over the wide lagoon, which was whiter than ice and eerily still, frozen in space and time. It was possible to see where there had been ripples in the original brine, which had set so fast the movement had been caught forever.

At his mare's feet there was a thick ribbon of black mud, studded with giant crystals that gleamed in shades of yellow and green.
“Padre del sal,”
said Manuel Bernantio, pointing at the strange prisms. The band of mud marked the boundary of the salt lake. There was a reddish effect just below the surface of the
salinas,
which seemed to creep, very slowly, as if some incredible life-form lurked there, in the form of animalcula, perhaps. It emanated a greenish froth, which scudded toward them with a frisk of the breeze, and was the source of the terrible stench. When the wind died down the smell became so strong that it seemed to have physical force.

“The horseman traveled farther,” said Bernantio, who had dismounted to study the ground again, and gestured toward the west, where the vultures still patrolled the sky. “And,” he added, “I can see now that one other rider went the same way.” He climbed back into the saddle, and spurred his mount into moving again. Like the others, Wiki silently followed.

*   *   *

Just as the sun began to dip below the horizon a strange landmark bobbed into view, standing out black against the sky. It was on the top of a rise, and proved to be a huge thorn tree, its trunk about a yard around at the base. Its horizontal branches extended out for several feet, seeming quite luxuriant though very stunted in height. The sun was setting in a garish display of red and purple behind it.