Published by Haldolen at Smashwords
Copyright 2013 by Charles Nuetzel
Discover other titles by Charles Nuetzel
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AMAZON GOLD FEVER
Maybe I’m not the kind of guy that should complain about a raw deal, but I don’t think that really matters. Anybody in my shoes would feel the same way. Raw deal or not, there’s a lesson to be learned in my story.
And it is still my living nightmare.
Even in today’s world of international terrorist, falling empires and rising new ones, madmen screaming that their fanatical belief systems are the only Truths, the glitter of gold is a blinding light. It is brighter than the mere dark oil that powers modern civilization. Gold has drawn men and civilizations throughout history into its dazzling grip. It is the password to power; it is the universal rock of ages that melts down into riches only the imagination can embrace—it creates empires! Kingdoms rise and fall under its shining glow. And men fall victim to the fever to posses it at all cost.
Well, one has to ask: just how much a price-tag is it worth?
I discovered the limits in a most dramatic, personal, way; a horror story that haunts my life and won’t go away.
Few believe my story.
Not that I’m trying to convince people, any more, about the truth of my experience in the Amazon valley. Upriver, into those dark jungles are many unknown puzzles, mysteries and legends. Most are considered fool’s stories, or silly myths concerning white natives, golden goddesses, and most of all endless piles of gold. Sometimes it is simply the myths of the ancient Incas, wishful thinking. Sometimes … even the truth is best ignored and passed off as silly fiction. Sometimes the price is too high! Even for gold.
I’ve tried to convince myself not to tell this to anybody as anything other than fantasy! A nice little story. An adventure. A search for Inca Gold that...But that’s the story I must tell now for all to read.
Most readers won’t believe this to be anything but a big fat lie, joke, fancy tale to amuse people over a couple of drinks. And not a very satisfying tale, to be truthful. Only that it really happened and changed my life in a frightening way.
Nobody has believed me, so far. And maybe once you’ve heard my story you won’t, either. Hopefully, at least, it’ll entertain and give warning to overeager fortune hunters as to the dangers of finding the answer to all their dreams. Maybe my warning will be enough to alert all of you of the dangers that come with a fever for gold.
So, I’m willing to put it down so all can decide for themselves.
Imagine unlimited gold! Well, enough to feed a lifetime ten fold. Trinkets cut into Inca images. Nuggets, just begging to be picked up; gathered together into gunnysacks.
Oh, just the memory of it all, the damned fever pitch that fires the imagination always temps me like some hauntingly beautiful woman offering herself for a life-time of passion.
And the gold fever is hard to avoid when you come face to face with the real thing! And even harder to resist…
We all face raw deals, but when it involves an endless supply of gold treasures just beyond reach…well, to be truthful, that can hurt!
Nobody would like the idea of having a fortune of gold slip through and past their fingers. And the gold is still where I found and left it. The memory of those days will tempt me, taunt me, beg me to go back and get it.
And I never will!
That’s why I’ve taken a little more to the bottle, these past months. Not that I wasn’t always a boozer. But rum’s a poor way to escape from the memory of that hellish nightmare, yet it is good and cheap—and that’s all that counts any more. To put it bluntly, my little adventure into the dimension of Amazon gold fever not only took just about every last dime I had at the time, but also almost took my life as well.
I guess I might as well start from the beginning...
* * * * * * *
I’d been in South America for over two years, bumming from one spot to another. Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, places as far in as Manaus, on the Amazon River, had passed through my life like a series of drunken escapades. Women had come and gone, and much the money, too.
Finally, about six months ago, I found myself with dwindling funds, enough to last a bit, but the end was in sight—and this I didn’t like. The money was part of an inheritance, which my father had left me, and I’d made it quick to all the ports of the world, ending in the beautiful Caribbean—Jamaica, Cuba, Puerto Rico had seen me one time or another—and then finally I gave Brazil a swing. That land of tropical contrasts won me completely and this is where I was now. The three-year fling was nearly at an end, and something had to be done to replace the used up money. That’s when I started putting out feelers. You know the method.
“Been thinking I might go into something…”
I’d suggest this to friends. Or just mention something about going inland to the unexplored portions of the Amazon valley. There were still plenty of stories circulating about headhunters with white women goddesses ruling them, of gold fields untouched by civilization. You name the legend and you could buy a piece of paper telling you where such and such fortune could be found. It’s all fairy tales, but nice material to dream about. And tempting even for a bloody skeptic like myself.
At first nobody bit. I was left with my face hanging out, a bottle of cheap booze in one hand and a native girl within arm’s reach. And some of those ladies can offer up quite a whack-job right through a long night. One can’t complain about female companionship in these Latin countries, south of the border, way down beyond Mexico. An American, no matter how low on big bucks, or in the scale of things, is considered a prime target. And I’ve never lacked some attraction to the female sex. So this is an ideal place to hide away. Still, even then, it takes money. Even for a bum.
I dropped a lot of hints, let it be known I was to be considered a serious man. Most leads lead to dumb con-deals.
But you can’t ask questions too long without getting some real answers. One time, while sitting in a broken-down saloon, slightly under the effects of some tropical liquor which the natives make up and sell for a few American pennies per fifth, I got to talking to the bartender.
He was a pretty chatty guy, and after I mentioned that I was interested in something live to get my financial teeth into, he started telling me about a tribe of semi-white natives several hundred miles inland, away from the River. According to his story, there was a man who had just come from there not more than twelve months ago. At first the whole thing didn’t seem to have anything of interest for me. Just another one of those tall tales. Fiction. Or perhaps nothing but a con. Then he mentioned that these primitive folk were almost clothed in virgin gold. That sounded rather fantastic—and down right out of some fantasy adventure magazine.
If I hadn’t been slightly loaded I’d have walked out right then—and now I wish I’d done so—thinking it was, at best just another silly legend. But by this time I was not only desperate to find some path to easy money, but also willing to believe any story—no matter how fantastic it might be. Blame it on the booze. Rum can run wild through your veins, make you want to hide inside some woman’s arms, or simply pass out in a drunken bliss. Or believe any fantastic tale offered up to stroke your deepest dreams.
“It would seem, senhor, that this man Bill Jenson—an American like yourself—was flying over the Amazon when a storm came up out of nowhere. His plane finally crash landed and, from his story, just a few miles from this settlement of white natives.”
The idea that the guy was American struck me as interesting. At least I could communication in English with the guy, and read him a bit better than when speaking Portuguese. Plus I hadn’t seen a countryman
for months. That was the real reason for my going and looking the guy up—I didn’t even believe the story, really, but the idea of seeing an American struck my fancy. What people will do when outside their homeland to find others like themselves. Instant friendship in a lonely place. People who would never spit at one another are willing to become almost lovers under such conditions. In fact, I’d met one rich English woman, a tourist traveling by herself, who was so desperate and lonely that we spend a fabulous week together as long lost lovers. It was quite a raging affair, while it lasted. And don’t tell me the English are cold and reserve! She was just about one of the hottest females I’d ever known! And we never even learned one another’s last names.
The hotel where this Jenson guy lived was even worse than mine. Once I’d been given his room number and told that he wasn’t in I was about to give the whole thing up. The booze was beginning to wear off and my mind starting to think a little more soberly.
“Where’s the Cantina?” I asked the clerk, who quickly pointed to a doorway behind him.
The bar was like all other bars all around the world, except that it had only one American in it beside myself. It’s strange how a guy gets to recognize people from his own country. The man was American, by the way he sat, by his actions—but not by the color of his skin; it was dark, as dark as a white man’s can get from the sun.
If there is one thing that a person can do in a foreign country, it is walk up to a fellow countryman and introduce himself—especially in a place as remote as this. And expect an all-out welcoming. Actually that’s how I met that English woman.
“Hello, you must be Jenson!” I said, extending my hand in friendly greetings.
He just turned and looked coldly at me. Never had I seen such deeply penetrating eyes. His expression remained frozen and unchanging. “Who the hell are you?”
“A guy who’s going to buy you a drink!” I grinned, sitting down beside him. He just grunted and looked away, staring directly across the counter.
I sat there, studying the man, trying to think of some way to break the chill which he was quite determined to keep walled up between us. Obviously he wasn’t the friendly type. Then I decided to simply leap in.
“I heard you had quite an adventure some months back,” I bluntly prodded, realizing that the conversation had to move directly to the point, or not at all.
His reaction was explosive shock.
He turned so fast that I was almost knocked off the barstool. Those dark eyes looked at mine for a long time, his lips slowly moving upwards in a tight, contemptuous curl.
“Okay! Who put you up to this one?”
The words came out evenly spaced, as if he were attempting to control some inner, hidden fury.
It didn’t take any great intelligence to decide that either he’d been given the needle one time too many or that bartender had yanked my leg at his expense.
I quickly assured him that I was serious and really interested in his story. “This guy told me a little of it, but I had to find out if it was really true. I’ll admit I wasn’t quite sure—and the idea of meeting an American in this godforsaken place rather appealed to me. Not that many Europeans this deep from the river.”
The man calmed some, and then smiled weakly. “Sorry. Just a nasty business…all of it!”
“Want to tell me? I’m all ears.”
He laughed at that. “I think there’s more to you than just big ears!”
That made me laugh, too, and from then on the relationship warmed enough to make conversation run quite smoothly right in the direction I wanted it to take.
After a couple of drinks came he motioned me into a booth in the corner of the dimly lighted room. Once seated, he told me the following story, in much more detail than outlined here:
The storm had caught his plane, and when he’d finally been able to manage a landing he had no idea where he was. When he had gotten out of his plane, he found himself surrounded by white savages. Most of them were naked except for a G-string. There were a couple of women in the crowd. Before he had a chance to realize what was happening he was talking to what seemed to be the man in charge. The savage spoke a broken enough Spanish to be understandable.
Then, as his mind cleared from the shock of everything happening so fast, he realized what he was doing and started asking questions. The natives were friendly enough and seemed willing to tell him anything he wanted to know. What he discovered, partly then and partly from his later experience, was that several hundred years before, an expedition of Spanish explorers had gone into the Amazon valley in search of gold and fortune. They discovered it in the valley—but also discovered a tribe of beautiful men and women, suspected of being Incas, or at least distantly related in pre-Columbian times.
To make a long history short, it would seem that trouble developed between the natives and the Spanish and a battle started and ended the whole thing. The Spanish who survived weren’t educated enough to even read maps. They stayed on and intermarried.
He was shown some of the “holy” records that the natives worshipped. They turned out to be a Bible and several guns and a map. It was the map which caught his attention. Crudely drawn though it was he could read it easily, and what he saw told him that it gave the directions on how to get to where he was—or how to get back to the river. From then on it would be simple enough to find civilization—but not easy.
They let him make a copy of the map, but wouldn’t let him touch it. The night before he left they offered him a gift of friendship. It was a nugget of gold as big as his fist. He had naturally asked where it had been found, but they wouldn’t tell him. All they’d say was that it was from the gods. Nothing more could he get from them. When he forced the issue he was ordered out of the village and not allowed anywhere near it, on threat of death. After making several attempts and almost getting himself killed, he gave up the whole idea.
His plane was completely wrecked and there wasn’t anything he could do but start out on foot. The journey back to civilization was a long three-month nightmare in which fever struck him hard. When he finally arrived at a plantation he was out of his head. Nobody believed his story. The gold nugget was gone—where, he didn’t know. The adventure was finished. And he could get nobody to back a return expedition to get that treasure house of gold just asking to be taken. A few guns would be enough to part the natives of from their Gift from the Gods, if they weren’t willing to trade for modern, worthless trinkets.
He had planned on returning with men enough and arms enough to overpower the small tribe, but without money and proof of what he said was true, nobody would back him.
At least that’s the way he reconstructed the story. Most of it was conjecture—and as I later learned from actual experience to be fairly correct; it is pretty hard to tell just where myth and truth join hands. There is evidence of some Portuguese culture, but how much is hard to tell. Sure, they speak the Brazilian dialect—broken though it is—yet there could be other explanations for that.
Maybe it was the drinks which made me believe his story. Maybe it was just because I wanted to believe. A desperate man will bite into any tidbit of hope. Maybe only the fact that there wasn’t really anything better to do than goes along with the ideas which surged wildly in my mind. In any case I decided to believe his sanity—and the truth of the story. I told him that I’d back such an expedition for fifty percent of the take.
Never did a man change so quickly. From drunken, sullen bum to alert, sharp, sure businessman. The agreement was made over a bottle of rum. We wouldn’t wait a day. Beginning the very next morning we’d start plans for the expedition and to leave as soon as things could get organized.
It was several days before everything was ready to get moving. We went by barge up the Amazon for the first stage of our journey. This river is a breathtaking sight when first seen from land or air. A curving snake without end, with shining diamond-like ever-changing pinpoints that sparkle in the sun or the dim moon glow.
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sp; A watery twisting line cutting through some of the most beautiful tropical jungle and forest lands to be seen on the earth. Eden couldn’t have been more beautiful. But a person gets bored and tired of even such glorious sights as hours pull after dragging hours. This first stage was tempered slightly by the small case of booze that both of us had decided was necessary to make the trip up river bearable. Both of us bullshitted about the women we’d known—and both of us kept wishing we had one of them as a playful companion on this trip up the river. Once we even stopped at a small village along the way and found a couple of native girls willing to offer a night in their arms for a few cheap toys and drinks. That helped a little. Beyond that, there seems, in memory, hardly anything to recall about this part of the journey.
We covered a lot of water and miles in the upward trip toward the “end” of the Amazon River. It might be the light drunken haze or my normal lack of direction and distance, but I don’t know exactly where it was that we finally put to shore—not even within a hundred miles!
I’d never been this far inland before, and never in the real heart of the jungle. I know some people call it a forest, but to me it’s one hell of a jungle! Once we touched land, Jenson never drank another drop of rum. There was a bottle left, which I managed to slowly stretch out for two days. It was a mistake, for this was to be my only chance to discover the real route to our destination.
By the time the dazed fog of liquor slid from my brain we were deep into the jungle and I had no idea of where we were. I was completely dependent on Jenson.
This is when I began to notice the surrounding jungle. Never had I seen so much beauty. Birds and parrots of every brilliant color and combination conceivable—flashing splashes of yellows, blues, greens, reds, oranges, pinks, jet blacks, and purples. And the noise! Everywhere there was noise. If some recording company would come out with a super-power stereo for those sounds…and of course the insects. Though we’d managed to take a nice spray can to cover our exposed skin with its anti-bug chemical magic that actually worked!
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