Run Afoul (29 page)

This man, Senhor da Silva, was bright yellow from past bouts with fever, but remarkably cheerful and energetic. Being a lonely old bachelor, he was delighted to have company. Wiki was taken on an extensive tour of the sugar house, which was full of idle, apparently derelict machinery, the harvest being over. Then he was taken to a mysterious pond, where, it was rumored, a giant alligator lived, but the beast remained invisible.

Having run out of things to look at, they returned to Senhor da Silva's shadowy tropical mansion. Wiki's host wished much to regale his guest with pale rum, and seemed quite put out when Wiki asked for coffee instead. Perhaps because of this, Senhor da Silva did double justice to the bottle, and became garrulously drunk. It was rather like an evening with Forsythe, Wiki mused. Otherwise, there was an awful similarity to the fazenda at Ithocaia, because as the hours went by the scientific party still failed to appear.

Instead, just as the sun dropped behind the trees, Sir Patrick Palgrave arrived, having come upriver in a felucca. His friend, da Silva, was too inebriated to care about the nonarrival of his guests, but the Englishman made a great fuss about bad manners and goddamned arrogance. In the middle of the tirade, Senhor da Silva passed out, and Wiki seized the chance to escape down the road to the jetty, and get back on board the brig.

When the next day dawned, and the party had still not put in an appearance, the felucca set sail, Sir Patrick calling out as he passed that he was headed for the next rendezvous to warn the expectant host that his guests would be late by at least a day. As it happened, however, it was thirty-six more hours before the scientifics hove into sight at the end of the trail, and the shadows of the third day were very long by the time they arrived at the house.

The news his father communicated was just as Wiki had feared. Dr. Olliver had reverted to his early grossly inconsiderate habits—though his mule was also partly at fault. Not long after leaving Ingetado it had mutinied, and they had not been able to persuade any other beast to take its place. Accordingly, the surgeon had been forced to travel on foot, with the inevitable result that the rest of the party, moving faster, had overtaken him on several occasions—and each time he had been left behind, Dr. Olliver had seized the chance to disappear into the trees. By the time they realized he was out of sight, they'd not only had to retrace their steps, but had been forced to wait around for hours, until Lieutenant Forsythe or Captain Coffin found him, or the surgeon returned of his own accord to the trail.

Dr. Olliver seemed absolutely unaware of the maddened expressions on the faces of his companions, instead reveling in the prize he'd brought with him—a twenty-foot anaconda! Wound up into a massive coil, it had been loaded on a wild-eyed mule by the gang of men who had captured it. Never had Wiki imagined anything so awful. When he violently objected to taking it on board the brig, Dr. Olliver refused to listen. “How could a savage New Zealander possibly understand the priorities of science?” he loftily demanded.

“Want me to handle him?” queried Forsythe with a grin.

“You really think you can make him see sense?” Wiki said dubiously.

“Wa'al, I surely haven't had any luck so far,” Forsythe drawled, then grinned evilly. “But this is going to be fun.”

Accordingly, Wiki followed the snake-loaded mule to the wharf. Then, the load of snake plus fat scientific being as much as the boat could bear, he stood with Forsythe at the fringe of the forest, waiting for the boat to come back.

Dark was falling fast. As always, Forsythe had his rifle slung over his shoulder, and Wiki could see his big left hand moving on the weapon as his eyes shifted about, checking out the river and the trees. The whine of insects had intensified. The air, which had been so hot and humid it was scarcely breathable, became cool, and Wiki felt the nape of his neck ruffle up with the breeze. Birds began to call eerily from the sugarcane fields,
Whip, whip, whip, poor Willy, weep, Willy, weep,
and Wiki remembered that someone had once told him that whippoorwills were the ghosts of dead slaves. He thought of the runaway cimarrons, and when he heard a rustling in the trees, he felt another chill.

It was a relief when the boat reappeared from the darkness, and he and Forsythe jumped into it. As they clambered onto the brig's deck, the companionway door opened, throwing a shaft of lantern light into the area covered by the awning. It silhouetted the massive shape of Dr. Olliver, and the great snake heaped in a circle around him.

George emerged from the doorway. Over the past two days he had put the time to profit by surveying the river, and he now had a pen in his hand, and looked preoccupied and busy. He took one look at the anaconda, stepped back a smart pace, and said, “I am
not
taking that on board the brig.”

“But a pristine example of
Eunectes murinus
is a rare and wonderful find!” Dr. Olliver exclaimed.

“I don't give a damn about that,” said George, who seldom resorted to strong language. “It's too bloody big, for a start.”

“But this is a very small specimen,” the naturalist informed him. “I have read travelers' accounts that have spoken reliably of one-hundred-forty-foot anacondas!—of anacondas which have crushed and engulfed grown men with their extensible jaws! So huge are they, the Indians believe they metamorphose into ships!”

“Well, I most certainly don't want it on board
this
ship.”

“You'd like it overboard instead?” inquired Forsythe.

“Most certainly,” replied George, and with marvelous communion of spirit he and Forsythe bent, gripped, heaved the anaconda up, and returned it to its natural element by dropping it over the rail. Dr. Olliver gobbled incoherently. Wiki, fascinated, watched the snake disappear beneath the black ripples like a bit of old hawser—and a shot blasted out from the night.

Cimarrons!
It happened so fast—first the flash, and then the roar, and then an abrupt crash and clatter as the awning collapsed. Wiki, fighting to fend off the descending weght, glimpsed Forsythe swinging up his rifle. He heard the sound of his shot, and another from the shore, and then he was engulfed in canvas.

There was a great deal of muffled shouting as everyone fought to get free, and then Wiki got his head out just in time to hear the sound of distant galloping. A confused moment later the last man struggled out of the stiff, heavy folds. A babble of questions followed, and then, as the canvas was shoved about, everyone realized that the cimarron's first shot had snapped one of the ropes that held the awning up. It had been a shock when it came down, but it could well have saved their lives.

“I'm almost sure I winged one of the bastards,” said Forsythe, and jumped down into the boat, yelling for some oarsmen and a lantern.

Wiki went with him. On shore, the birds had been shocked into silence, but the insects still whined. He and Forsythe clambered onto the jetty, and kept low as they ran into the trees, though it was obvious the cimarrons had fled.

Forsythe headed unerringly for a small clearing. “They waited here,” he said, and pointed. The lantern light fell on hoofprints in the mud, which swelled and filled with water. Then his tone became puzzled as he said, “It looks like there was only one.”

“But why would one man attack so many?”

“I'd reckoned they planned to pick us off, one by one, and then take the brig,” Forsythe said. “But that would need a whole gang.” He paused, and Wiki could imagine him pursing his thick lips in and out. Then, he said slowly, “So what the hell did he think he was doing?”

Wiki had no answer. The whippoorwill birds started up again, and gooseflesh rose on his arms.

Twenty-two

Two days later, the brig worked her way up the Rio Macae, which—thank God, thought Wiki—was their last rendezvous. This was where the scientific party would meet up at Sir Patrick Palgrave's fazenda, and then, after they had organized their notes and drawings, everyone would board the brig for the swift passage back to Rio.

The cautious upriver passage was very like the exploration of the San João river, except that the landscape about the banks was flatter and the forest was lower. Being more open to the long afternoon sunlight, the water was not so brown, being a pewter color. It was also a lot deeper. Beyond the margins of the river, dense jungle beckoned, rising over foothills to the mountains.

“Let's have a haul on the starboard mainbrace,” said George to Constant Keith. The river was executing a wide bend. Then, as they made the turn, a small village came into sight, an assemblage of flimsy houses on stilts, painted bright colors, and with flat-sterned, high-prowed boats and log canoes drawn up on the mud beneath them. As the brig neared they could see another street beyond the waterfront, lined with more substantial buildings, including one flying the Brazilian flag. Another paved street led down to the river, with a wharf at the end. It was the most civilization the crew had seen in a week.

Sir Patrick Palgrave's estate was high in the hills, some miles away, and, according to Wiki's instructions, someone from the fazenda would come with a horse to take him there. Sure enough, only an hour after the brig had moored up to the jetty and furled her sails, a couple of horses arrived, one with a rider, and the other led by the rein. However, though both George and Wiki waited on deck expectantly, no one came on board. Instead, the horseman waited. In the end, with a shrug and an eyebrow lifted quizzically in George's direction, Wiki vaulted down to the soggy planks of the wharf. Then he strode up to the pair of horses, looked up at the rider, and exclaimed,
“Meu Deus!”

Manuela Josefa Ramalho Vieira de Castro de Roquefeuille twinkled down at him. “Aren't you pleased to see me?”

She was riding astride, Wiki noticed, which was the reason he had assumed the rider was a man. He said, “How did you get here?”

“I've been at the fazenda for
days
—all alone save for servants. It has been very restful, but also very boring. Now I am your guide to our country estate, which used to be my father's. Why aren't you pleased to see me?”

“But I am,” Wiki assured her. “You are very much more beautiful than Lieutenant Forsythe, and more fun than the scientifics. But where are they? I thought they would be at the fazenda by now.”

“You'll see them soon enough,” she promised.

Wiki went on board again, collected his kit bag, waved a hand to George in farewell, and jumped back to the wharf, while Madame patiently waited and all the villagers watched. As soon as he was aboard the second horse, she clicked her tongue, rattled the bridle, and led the way along the waterfront street to a narrow path, which wound past small fields, climbed a steep slope, and then plunged into the primeval jungle.

The air became thick with humidity. Great trees blotted out the sun. Spanish moss and woody lianas dripped and swayed, spectacular orchids clung to the branches that sprang from massive white tree trunks, great spiderwebs stretched from twig to twig, and the filtered light was green. The sweetish smell of leaf mold was overwhelming. The trail of hoofprints left by Josefa's horse pooled with moisture and then swelled back to the original mud. Every now and then there was a bloodcurdling cry as an unseen monkey swung from branch to branch high above, and for some magical moments an enormous blue butterfly fluttered about the flicking ears of Wiki's horse.

He called out, “I thought we were going to Sir Patrick's estate.”

“Oh, he likes to pretend that it's his,” she called back casually, and waved a dismissive hand.

“It's yours?”

“It belongs to my family, yes, but he does the business.”

He wondered if she resented that, but couldn't ask, so shouted instead, “What do you grow there?”

“Coffee, of course,” she shouted back. “What else?”

What else, indeed, Wiki mused; after all, he was in Brazil, the land of his favorite beverage. Then conversation lapsed, because Josefa, being a much lighter burden, was drawing farther ahead. The air had become filled with the thunder of an unseen waterfall, and was even wetter, and the potholes were full of water, which splashed up. The trees on either side were overhung with great ferns.

Then, just as Josefa disappeared about a bend, the path turned into a ribbon of pure mud, and Wiki's horse, growing tired of his weight, staged a mutiny. It stopped dead, and refused to take another step. When Wiki kicked at its sides, it turned its head and delivered him a grin of baleful derision. Finally, he gave up and jumped to the ground, right in a hole where the mud was higher than the tops of his boots. While he was struggling to get out of the morass, the horse grabbed its chance to lash out with its hooves. Wiki dodged the kicks, but was liberally sprayed with mud from head to toe.

By the time he got to the turn in the path, Josefa was beyond the next bend, and well out of sight. Wiki trudged after her, knee-deep at times, hauling the horse along by the reins. The world was filled with the rush and crash of unseen water, and bright birds flickered in and out of the trees. It was as if he were alone in this lavishly primeval world—a daunting prospect, as dusk was fast descending.

Then the path widened until it was almost the width of a road, looking much more traveled, and a couple of bends later Wiki abruptly broke out of the trees. A mountainside that he hadn't even suspected existed suddenly reared up before him, its aspect black because of the red sun setting behind it.

The last light glittered on a magnificent waterfall that hurtled down its side, rushing through lush vegetation and tumbling over rocks. Close to where Wiki stood, it widened into an artificial pool, walled with rocks and ferns, before disappearing into the forest. A surprisingly formal garden stretched beyond it, reminding him of Sir Patrick's place at Praia Grande. The road he was following blazed through the first part of the garden to where a complex of low, well-maintained buildings surrounded a quadrangular courtyard. Their terra-cotta roofs were a warm color in the last light, surmounting white-plastered walls.