Insects: A Novel (20 page)

68

Despite neither knowing
much about old diesel trucks, Duncan and Suarez understood that starting the engine was the most important thing they could do. The hood raised, they peered into the shadows of the engine compartment, willing to do what was necessary, but lacking the skill and knowledge to do more than guess at what needed to be done. Duncan was moderately familiar with automobile engines, but only enough to be able to change spark plugs and filters, not enough to deal with fuel injectors or the electrical system. Suarez had experience working on his brother’s cars, but they were nothing like the truck, which was at least thirty years old.

“I’ve never been a car guy,” Duncan said. “Anyone here know anything about motors?” he called out.

They weren’t certain that there was diesel in the fuel tank. They rapped it with their knuckles several times, and it sounded hollow but not empty.

“I think it’s low, but there’s fuel in there,” Duncan told Suarez, who nodded in agreement. “Maybe it’s not getting into the engine. What do you think?”

“I don’t know for sure, Mr. Howard. I worked on a couple diesel when I worked in a garage. Maybe it’s the fuel filters. They need to be filled with diesel, or they won’t work. And maybe the fuel line could have an air pocket. That’s all I know about diesels.”

“Do you think the fuel is stale?”

Suarez shrugged. He could think of nothing else to say and stared awkwardly into the engine compartment.

Duncan noticed a commotion on the truck bed as Peeples and Rankin pointed toward the clearing. Boyd and Johnson were within shouting distance.

“What you guys got?” Rankin shouted. “I hope it’s gin.” Turning toward Peeples, she whispered, “I shouldn’t have said that, should I?”

Peeples smiled wanly, pursed her lips and shaped a silent “no.”

“Gas and diesel,” Boyd shouted.

Duncan sloshed around the side of the truck, careful not to slip off the submerged roadway, smiling broadly. When they reached the truck, he asked them to pour one of the cans into the tank and to give one to Suarez.

“When he’s done with it, go ahead and add it to the tank,” Duncan said. “We need to do this fast. Antonio, get busy on the filters and tell us what we need to do to check for air pockets.”

While Johnson poured the diesel into the tank, Suarez located the dry fuel filters and filled them with diesel. He showed Boyd how to work the injector pump and instructed him to do it until there was pressure in the fuel system. He pointed out the bleeder valve and told him how to bleed the air out of the system.

Everyone on the truck bed watched intently as the men hustled to get it ready to start. Duncan assigned Suarez to start the engine. He hadn’t decided who should drive. Nobody had experience driving on a road covered by six inches of murky, moving water. It would be stressful no matter who drove, he thought. It would be stressful for everyone. Everyone had just as much to lose as everyone else. He had been able to ignore the big picture by focusing on details. Now the seriousness of their situation hit him in the face. They could all die. Including himself. What should they do? Drive in the hopes that they would find high ground? Sit tight and hope that the water didn’t continue to rise and push the truck into the current? He wondered whether they could save themselves. He was not counting on being rescued.

69

Daniel Rocha was
worn out by the time Captain Juarez turned off the Rio Negro into the tributary that led to the cabin where he was supposed to retrieve Professor Azevedo and the Americans two days ago. Juarez puffed on a Derby cigarette as he slowly guided his boat into a lake. Everything looked different. Almost as if he’d never been there. This bothered him. He was sloppy about a lot of things, but not when it came to his boat and his role as a captain. He was a lousy bookkeeper, but his wife did that. Not recording the GPS coordinates was sloppy. Not making mental notes of landmarks was sloppy, and now it meant he moved more slowly and stopped more often.

Rocha was relieved when the boat turned off the river and out of the raging current. He’d struggled the entire trip to keep the small boats from banging each other into oblivion. During that time, he’d perfected his technique, learning how much rope to give them and how to keep the ropes from tangling, but it became easy when they were out of the current. The boats fell in line like ducklings waddling behind their mother. No longer concerned with the boats, he looked around him and wondered where the lake had come from. Though he had never been to this place, he had been in the forest numerous times but had never seen anything like this. He got the impression quickly that the captain wasn’t sure where he was going. He watched Juarez in the tiny wheelhouse as he stared at the fish finder.

“Are you looking for fish?” he asked, puzzled by what the captain was doing.

“I’m trying to keep the boat in the middle of the channel,” he replied curtly. “This tells you the depth, so I’m trying to keep the boat in the deep part. There was only one channel when I was here last week, and not this deep. It looks different.”

He felt confident that he had turned into the correct tributary though it was impossible to know for certain, given the flooding.

“I wish we could contact them somehow,” Rocha said.

“You’re telling me? I just want to find the cabin.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Squeeze in here and watch the depth finder while I steer. Keep us where the water is deep. That will get us there,” Juarez said.

70

Late that morning,
Augusto Santos and Julio Carvalho watched sheets of water slowly pass under Raul Barbosa’s raised cabin. They’d moved in after repeatedly telling guide Javier Costa that a flood was imminent and that they should abandon the expedition until the threat passed. Costa refused. He told them that he needed the money “and the Americans are doing important work. Ciência.” This happened shortly after the group crossed the shallow stream that turned into a torrent, preventing the group from retreating. The pair had backtracked across the stream before it became impassable and returned to the cabin, which they admired. Santos and Carvalho had grown up in the same gritty neighborhood in Manaus. Both had dropped out of Catholic school in the eighth grade and made their living as laborers and jacks of all trades with occasional thefts to tide them over during lean times.

Santos was tall and athletic-looking while Carvalho was short and stocky. Both were in their mid-thirties. They had worked for Professor Azevedo on several of his forays into the forest. Carvalho served as a cook and laborer, and Santos managed scientific equipment. They had told Azevedo that they could do anything from guiding to security, even though neither man had done either for pay. When Azevedo called them about accompanying the expedition, they told him that they needed money to purchase ammunition and supplies. Each purchased ancient shotguns at a pawn shop. One was a double barrel and the other a single barrel. After buying ammunition, they went to the river bank to try them out. Each man fired several shells at floating debris. Both were satisfied with their purchases. Carvalho joked that he was surprised his gun didn’t blow up in his face.

The area around the cabin had not flooded when they reached it, exhausted from the long hike. That night, they heard the water as it rippled across the landscape. By morning, everything within sight was under water, but they felt secure since there was plenty of food and water, and the wind turbine and photovoltaics supplied electricity. They fiddled with the radiophone but couldn’t figure out how to make it work. It was while both were standing on the deck that they saw the approaching boat.

“How deep do you think it is?” Santos asked in Portuguese.

“I don’t know,” Carvalho replied, spitting over the railing. “Too deep for me.”

“You think there are snakes in the water?”

“Probably.”

“And caiman?”

“I suppose.”

Carvalho leaned over the railing and spit again, the spittle arcing into the muddy water, splashing for an instant before being absorbed by the ripples.

“I’m not going to leave this place until it’s dry,” Santos said, waving his arm expansively.

“I’m with you,” Carvalho smiled and then grew serious as he squinted at something in the distance. Rubbing his eyes, he stared again and then ran into the cabin where he grabbed binoculars that dangled on a leather strap from a nail. Returning to the deck, he aimed the binoculars at an object moving slowly toward them. It looked like a boat, but was too far away to see clearly, even through the binoculars. He couldn’t even tell whether it was moving.

“What you see?”

“I don’t know,” Carvalho said, “see for yourself. Looks maybe like a boat to me.”

Santos agreed.

“And it is coming this way.”

“Maybe they can get us out of here,” Carvalho said, hopefully. “And maybe they got beer.”

“And cigars and dancing girls,” Santos said sarcastically. “I’ll be happy to get out of here, at least until the flooding is over. Then, maybe, I’ll come back. This isn’t a bad place. It’s got a lot going for it, and what I heard was that the guy who owned it is dead and got no relatives. So, you know, I might come back.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Carvalho said. “Exactly the same thing.”

“We might do it together, at least until one of us gets tired of living in isolation, all alone in the forest. Suits me,” Santos said.

Carvalho wasn’t certain whether Santos was being sarcastic or simply making an observation. He was something of a wise guy. He wondered whether his friend was trying to lay claim to the cabin or whether he was simply fantasizing about living in the forest. He felt tension as a result and didn’t want to concede anything but didn’t want to commit to anything either. But he forgot about it as he watched the boat approach, pulling several boats behind it. Having made out the wheelhouse, he knew it was the same boat that had dropped them off. He and Santos gave each other high fives. Any thought of being stranded vanished, and instead of thinking about living in the forest, they began looking forward to returning to Manaus.

With each moment, their elation increased as Santos started waving a large towel. Carvalho looked on approvingly. As the excitement of rescue passed, he said quietly to his companion, “Let’s not tell them we deserted the Americans, okay? Let’s just say we got separated.”

71

Suarez said a
silent prayer before trying to start the truck. The engine turned over on the first attempt but did not start. On the second attempt, it turned over a bit faster and then backfired, sending an explosive cloud of black smoke billowing out of the tailpipe. It startled everyone. The third try resulted in the engine shuddering and shaking so violently that Suarez feared the motor mounts had cracked. The battery seemed to be fading, and he worried about how many more attempts he could make before it ran out of juice. One? Two?

He waited a moment, lowered his head until his forehead touched the steering wheel and turned the key again. Another backfire, a cloud of black smoke, and the engine was running roughly as the guide manipulated the choke and tap danced on the gas pedal to keep from giving too much or too little fuel. He did this for several minutes until the motor had warmed up and ran relatively smoothly. He pushed the choke in and slowly removed his foot from the pedal. The engine continued to run smoothly. He sighed and crossed himself.

Duncan watched Suarez through the cab’s missing rear window. Confident within his areas of expertise, including expeditions in dangerous places, he was feeling the effects of sleeplessness, hunger, and anxiety. The same could be said of everyone. Rankin walked a fine line between hysteria and mere fear and had difficulty controlling her emotions. Her friends tried to reassure her but, failing that, avoided saying anything that might set her off. Duncan was so upset that he would have sent her packing had that been possible. Now she had become just another distraction that he tried to ignore.

“How much fuel’s in the tank?” Duncan asked Suarez, who left the engine running and climbed from the cab onto the bed. Suarez shrugged.

“The fuel gauge is broken.”

“Can we put a stick or something in the tank?”

Hearing this, Boyd lowered himself to the ground. The truck had two fuel tanks, one on each side of the cab behind the running boards. The fuel cap was missing from one tank and the second tank had a cap but had lost its gasket. He checked the fuel level in each tank by inserting a stick he’d picked up in the muddy water.

“Only a couple of inches each,” he said as he lifted himself onto the bed. “I guess we didn’t bring enough diesel. We’re gonna need more, or we won’t get far.”

With each passing moment, it seemed that either the water was rising or moving faster, and Duncan realized that it would take more than a couple of cans to fill the tanks. Boyd and Johnson wouldn’t be able to do it alone, so he volunteered himself, Hamel and Suarez, to return to the shed for diesel. With two empty cans in hand, the group shuffled its way toward the shed. All the while, Hamel was hyper-alert for reptiles. He was so anxious that he could not resist talking about his fear, which spread his anxiety to Boyd, who had his own issues with snakes. Duncan felt an urge to slap Hamel. But his fear was not irrational. They could feel things sliding against them in the murky water, and they sighted several snakes resting on debris piles in the clearing.

“That’s a python,” Hamel shouted, pointing nervously toward an object floating in the water a hundred feet away.

“Looks like a log to me,” Boyd said.

“Really?” Hamel said suspiciously. “You think so?”

“Just keep moving,” Duncan said. “Whatever it is, it’s over there, and we’re over here. Just keep moving.”

Hamel kept his eye on the object, which moved slowly with the current. Picking up the pace, he moved splashily to the front of the line next to Duncan. If it was a snake, he was determined not to be the first victim.

They paused as Johnson led the way into the shed. Somewhat spooked by Hamel’s sighting of a snake, he entered cautiously, scanning the water and the walls for reptiles. Seeing none, he waved the others inside. The water had risen several inches since their first trip.

“Okay,” Duncan said, “we’re here for diesel. Check the drums first.”

Four large drums stood on end in one corner. One was completely empty. Boyd pushed it on its side, and it floated across the shed into the opposite wall. The others had enough liquid in them that they were difficult to move. They struggled to unscrew the rusting filler caps with their hands. After several fruitless minutes, they looked for something they could use to either unfasten the caps or pound them out. Johnson grabbed the sledgehammer they’d found on the previous trip

“Here we go,” he announced. Boyd held his hand out, and Johnson gave him the hammer. He gently pounded the cap on its edge to try to break it loose but only managed to crush it. He pulled his multitool from the leather holster on his belt, pulled out the flat blade screwdriver and, with the hammer, started banging it against the cap in an effort to get it to turn. Worse than not turning it, he dented the cap, making it less likely that it would come off.

“Shit,” he said. “This ain’t workin’.”

“What’re you trying to do?” Hamel asked.

“I’m trying to get the freaking cap off.”

“Then what?” Hamel asked.

Boyd leaned on the drum. It wouldn’t budge. It was nearly full.

“I don’t know. But then we don’t know what’s in it. You see any labels?”

Work stopped for a moment as they assessed the situation.

“We need a screwdriver or something. My multitool isn’t big enough,” Boyd said. “Anything metal with a sharp point. We’ll just pound a hole in the side. Everybody look for something.”

It didn’t take long for Duncan to grab onto a rusty pry bar that he felt as he shuffled his feet. Pulling it up from the murk, he handed it to Johnson, who approached Boyd with it.

“How many cans do we have?” Duncan asked.

Each of the men sounded off. Three cans.

“That’s not enough,” he said glumly.

“I’ve been looking since we got here,” Johnson said, “and I’m not finding any more.”

“Too bad we couldn’t float one of these drums like that empty one,” Hamel mused, pointing.

“That’s not a bad idea,” Boyd said, “assuming there’s diesel.”

“If there is diesel, why don’t we drain some of it, so the drum floats?” Hamel suggested.

Everyone exchanged enthusiastic looks.

“That’s the ticket,” Johnson said.

With Johnson holding the sharp end of the pry bar against the side of the drum midway from the top, Boyd started to bang on it. On the third whack, he nearly smashed Johnson’s wrist. Johnson dropped the pry bar, stepping back quickly as if to avoid a second blow. Boyd apologized and reached into the water for the pry bar.

“Sorry, man,” he said, handing it back to Johnson. “I’ll try to be more careful.”

“Yeah,” Johnson said, “good idea. But don’t just try.”

Duncan felt uneasy as Boyd and Johnson worked on putting a hole in the drum. What if it was filled with gasoline? He wasn’t concerned about a fire as much as he was concerned about the fumes that would result. The gasoline would float on top of the water and cover every square inch. Even with the door open, there was little ventilation and virtually no wind.

“Cody,” he said, “don’t make a big hole until we know what’s inside. We don’t want to be standing in a lake of gasoline.”

Johnson and Boyd stopped banging on the drum.

“You know what you can do,” Hamel said, “cut a small hole in the cap on top. You should be able to tell what’s inside from the smell.”

Everyone was taken aback by Hamel’s suggestion. Duncan and Boyd wondered why they hadn’t thought of it. Boyd grabbed his multitool and extended the Phillips head screwdriver accessory. One of two things is going to happen, he thought, as he rested the tip of the screwdriver over the metal cap. Either he’d punch a hole in it, or he’d smash his multitool to smithereens. Be gentle, he whispered to himself. With everyone watching, he pounded it several times, each a little harder than the previous. And then the small screwdriver went through the cap. Lowering his head to the top of the drum, he sniffed.

“It’s diesel!” he shouted. Cheers filled the tiny shed.

He and Johnson attacked the side of the drum, and this time, with a newfound enthusiasm, they broke through the thick steel releasing a stream of reddish liquid, which began to fill the room with fumes.

“Thing to do is move the drum out there,” Boyd said, nodding toward the doorway.

Boyd, Johnson and Duncan frantically grabbed the top edge and started rotating the drum out of the shed while fuel poured out of the hole, splashing them with every turn. Once out of the shed, they waited for the level of the fuel inside the drum to drop below the hole. The drum was still too heavy.

“Think it’ll float now?” Hamel asked.

“I don’t think so,” Duncan responded.

“Yeah, we probably need to drain more of it before it’ll float.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Duncan said. “As I recall, we could determine this if we knew the specific gravity of the diesel and weight of the drum.” Stopping himself, he chuckled. “Forget it. Just empty it until it floats.”

While Duncan, Hamel, Boyd, and Johnson worked, Antonio Suarez stood out of the way, surveying the limitless sheet of water that covered the forest floor. He was hungry, and he knew everyone else was as well. He’d heard monkeys in the canopy, but unless he had a bow and arrow, they remained safely out of reach. Likewise birds. And fish, but no fishing line or bait. And he knew there were mangoes and bananas and edible plants in the forest, but none that he could see.