It was all charming, at first. Virgin lands, a paradise which lacked only a lovely half naked lady to sooth away the night hours.
Finally even this wore off and the business of walking miles and miles through jungle undergrowth became a tiring and torturous thing. Bugs wanted to attack us at every bare part of our skin. The spay usually worked. Spiders seemed to be everywhere, their black, nervous legs wiggling insanely. Then the ants. Harmless ones to biting ones. The jungle lost its glory and became a horrible, slime-infested rot of heat, rain, and creatures of all kinds trying to make a meal out of us. Even the spray seemed to be less than perfect in discouraging some of their assaults on us.
But these little annoyances became a blur, which could be suffered through. It was the other things, which took my attention away from the minor dangers and problems. Snakes. Green boa constrictors! Crocodiles—even though they seldom will attack people, they were a rather frightening, possible danger. Then, once, when starting across a river, one of the bearers saved our lives by dying the most horrible death I’d ever had the chance to witness at the time.
He’d just started across, then suddenly without warning, he gave a horrible scream. This kind of yell is beyond description—for it is the fear, pain, and terror of a man suddenly being eaten alive.
I started to jump to his aid, not knowing what was happening, but Jenson stopped me.
“What the hell!” I cursed at the other man, struggling to be free and help the bearer.
“No! Piranhas!” he muttered, gripping tighter at my arm.
I relaxed. The bottom of my stomach began to surge upwards and an acid-like taste flooded my mouth.
Around the struggling bearer was a churning and rippling sea of now-colored water. Red colored water.
The man tried to step backward, but instead fell off balance, into the water. After that it was only minutes before the cannibal fish had stripped his body clean of every shred of flesh.
I doubled over; everything seemed to be turning black, the world fading around me.
I didn’t know that this was just the beginning of the gore that I was to witness before civilization thankfully swallowed me up again with its greedy claws.
After that, we were more careful into which rivers and streams we treaded. Jenson seemed to consider the bearer’s death as his fault. In fact, it was that incident which was the turning point in our mutual attitudes about the trip. Up to this point everybody had been drunk with gold fever. We had promised the bearers a certain small percentage of the take so that we could get them cheaper and therefore afford more guns and ammunition, but now things were solemn and everybody felt the heavy weight of the dead man’s fate. The lighthearted adventuring of the whole affair had suddenly turned into something deadly serious. Nobody smiled. Nobody sang. Everyone took each step forward as if he wished it were two backward.
For the first time I felt like I’d made a mistake. Maybe I shouldn’t have started out on this thing in the first place. The idea that I was partly responsible for taking another man’s life left me slightly numb and feeling sick. The fact that this man, and all the others, had willingly begged to join our expedition did little to sooth my sense of personal guilt.
We started reaching the highlands, and this was where Jenson became very careful in following the crude line map which he had made from the old Spanish one that some long-dead explorer had created in order to be able to retrace his steps back to civilization. We reached a series of hills and valleys and then finally Jenson explained that we weren’t far from our destination.
“Somewhere around here is a river, which we’ll follow into the valley where the people of gold are!”
True to his claim, we found the river, and a few hours later were in the valley.
By now the fever was upon us once again. The nearness of our destination had brought it back, and every eye and nerve and muscle was alert. The rifles in our hands were ready and the fingers anxious to squeeze the triggers.
The plan was to march into the village and take it by force. From there it would be a simple thing to just move in and make arrangements to have the gold. We didn’t plan to steal it, just buy it at robbing prices. Toys of civilization which were cheap to buy but impressive to primitives. Jenson had discovered that the people had needed salt desperately and considered it of great worth, as many primitive people do. With that, we had boxes of other things like colorful plastic beads, lighters, matches, candy, and other minor, cheap things for which simple, uneducated people would give golden rock. We weren’t fooled into thinking that they didn’t think gold was worth something, but we knew that they wouldn’t think it worth as much as a match or a colorful string of beads or any of the other gadgets with which we were supplied.
The next couple of miles were like two thousand. Any moment we expected to be surrounded—and what would happen then we had no way of knowing. But everything went rather smoothly. We passed the wrecked plane which had brought Jenson there the first time. It was rusted red by now. A twisted bird that had died in a crashing death.
The jungle had changed slowly into a light brush land. Trees were scattered all around, with globs of underbrush and vines surrounding them, but they were giving way to the grassland.
We were walking up a rise when Jenson motioned us to be ready for anything.
“Just below this hill...” he whispered, waiting for the others to reach us. Then he ordered silently with his hands that we were to spread out in a long line and move forward.
When we reached the top of the hill everybody came to a shocked and frozen stop. Jenson had known that the village was below us—but he didn’t know what we would discover—nobody would be prepared for what was taking place.
There was more activity than seemed possible for such a band of people to cause. From what Jenson had told us about them, he had assumed that there weren’t more than around fifty or sixty people in the tribe, but from what we now saw, there must have been two or three hundred.
“Lie down!” Jenson ordered quickly, and the ten of us hurriedly did as he suggested.
The village was several hundred yards away and we were certain that nobody had seen us.
“What do you make of it, Bill?” I asked.
“Can’t figure it.” He was silent for a moment, then I heard a quick intake of breath. “Notice how they’re dressed!”
Just as he spoke I saw what he must be talking about. It was breathtaking. From where we lay it seemed that most of the men were dressed in suits of armor—much like the Spaniards used to wear—but they looked as if they were made of solid gold.
I felt sweat cover my body at the sight. My mind seemed to leap ahead to what might happen if we could get all that wealth into our hands. The world would be ours!
Just then I heard a yell of pain and terror shatter the silence which had surrounded us.
When it comes to action, the human body can react without the mind even being aware of what commands it has given the muscles. I turned and fired without thinking or even really knowing exactly what was happening. All I knew was that we were being attacked. By whom, it didn’t matter. Death was seeking us out and there was only one way to escape it. Shoot, and ask questions later.
I shot.
A white savage, covered almost from head to foot with golden trinkets and beads and clothing, fell at my feet, the spear in his hands digging into the ground only inches from my chest—exactly where I’d been lying on my stomach an instant before.
I didn’t have time to marvel at the richness in which the attackers were dressed; all I could do was fire bullets at these savage golden warriors. I squeezed the trigger. A man fell dead. There wasn’t time to move from where I was lying. All I did was shift the pistol from point to point.
Five men died under the fire of the gun in my hands. My finger squeezed once more—for the last time. Another man fell.
Then I attempted to leap to my feet. The gun was empty—but there were still more white savages.
&nbs
p; That’s when the bottom dropped out from under me as an explosion smashed into the side of my head. Blackness. Spinning. Stars throbbing into existence.
I opened my eyes.
Darkness.
The first reaction was terror. Fear of blindness. I couldn’t remember where I was or what had happened last. I started to move, and a hand clamped over my mouth.
“Quiet!”
Then I heard a scream. The scream was something out of a nightmare.
I struggled to be free. Whoever was holding me was stronger was very strong. I was quite helpless.
My eyes became used to the darkness and I realized that it was night and that the sky was overcast with heavy clouds.
Then I saw who was holding me. It was one of the native bearers. When he saw that I recognized him and had stopped my struggling he released his hand from my mouth.
“What’s going on?” I whispered.
He explained that the two of us had been left as dead, and that Jenson and the remaining three bearers had been captured and taken off to the village.
“I waited for you to awaken!” he muttered after finishing his brief story. “We go quick! Before it’s too late!”
“Jenson and the others!” I said. “What about them?”
“Too late. Nothing that can be done! Dead! Dying!”
I couldn’t believe his words. At first I wanted to go to the village and see for myself. Then another scream sounded. It came from the village.
“What is it?” I asked, still too dazed to really think straight. The throbbing at the side of my head was becoming more reality than the world around me. I wanted to pass out and escape the pain.
“Jenson—they torture!”
A numbness invaded my gut. Turning toward the village I took out the binoculars from the case at my side. From this hill I was able to see into the clearing where all the white, golden warriors were yelling and singing and pounding drums. One look at the man who was holding the whole village’s interest and attention was all I needed.
I don’t ever want to see such a horrible sight again in my life. He had been staked out on the ground, naked, and his stomach carefully slit open—just the outer layer of skin. Most of his bloodied guts were showing. A man stepped up and threw a flaming stick into the throbbing mass of red and gray, the pulsing innards. Another scream, so loud that it almost struck a deafening blow to my ears, sounded from the dying man’s mouth. His guts went up in flame, as if they had filled them with some sort of gasoline. It was only a matter of minutes before he’d be dead.
I didn’t wait to watch. I didn’t wait to even think. Without a word I stood, helping the native bearer to his feet—one of his arms was badly cut up, useless.
We turned and half ran from that valley of gold and golden-white warrior savages.
We didn’t stop until we hit the Amazon River. How the bearer was able to find his way back seemed a miracle to me. He died a couple of weeks later of jungle fever which had overtaken both of us.
Nobody will believe my story, of course. You can’t blame them. They look at me in that knowing way, as if I were trying to pull their legs.
They laugh and say things like: “If that’s true, why don’t you return? Get all that wonderful gold you talk about!”
I try to tell them I have no way of knowing where it all is. I wasn’t very smart about the journey in and certainly not in any condition to understand our desperate route back to the Big River. It is all a terrible blue. Even then, though, the sight of that burning man is always a killer of any fevered wish to return. It would take an army to overpower those savages. Even if you could find them and get in close without being discovered.
That was a mistake we’d made; being overly confident and believing they were nothing but a few primitive villagers. Apparently what he’d seen that first trip was only a small representative of what was, no doubt, a larger community of people hidden away in the depths of the jungle. A lost tribe, which had survived, all these years, generations, without anybody finding them until my friend made his accidental discovery. Primitive but not stupid.
We blundered. Yet would it have mattered what we did?
Still that doesn’t matter, because I couldn’t force myself to return to that place, even if I knew how to find it again.
But it has taught me one thing: there is more truth to some of those fantasies which tell about golden cities, or tribes of white men guarding ancient golden treasures, or of White Goddesses ruling in the depths of the Amazon Valley, than most people will believe. One has to wonder which ones are fantasies and which are actual reports of lost wonders hidden in the depths of the jungles.
Of course most are bull.
And only a fool, or madman, would chase after such fanciful tales.
Smart people!
Even the real ones, the true reports, backed by old maps, aren’t worth exploring. Not at the price tag. These places haven’t been kept secret without good reason—mad though those reasons may be. If there was easy, safe access to such places, they would have been discovered ages ago by other people.
And, of course, the way modern civilization is slowly cutting down the forests it will surely, given time, expose some of these legends as reality based.
Only time will tell.
I know this all really happened to me, one story which nobody will believe—and I wonder about all those others that I’d laughed at before. And how many of them are as horribly real as mine?
Who knows? But someday, when the Amazon has been completely explored and settled by civilization, we’ll discover the factual evidence of what lies out there that our legends tell us about with their wild tales that nobody will believe.
But as maddening as it is, even with all that gold out, I wouldn’t go back under any circumstances. That screaming man, whose guts were boiling him to death, has plagued my dreams every night since, and will follow me to the grave.
Exploring the Amazon, and seeking golden fortunes, can go to the other mad ones with Gold Fever. The fools who think they can beat the odds.
No fever is worth dying for.
So, here I am, telling my story in print for the first time, knowing that few will believe, and those who do won’t take my warning seriously.
At least, now I can put it all to rest, and try to find some sanity in a world gone mad with terrorist, political gamesmanship, international power brokers, you name it, who are even more dangerous threats to life on earth. Maybe our planet won’t survive modern civilization. Maybe only small tribes will survive after we’ve fought our religious wars, after the terrorist has sparked a world wide mutual destruction.
If there’s anything to be learned from my little story its that a small group of Spanish explorers were chopped down to a few survivors who inter-married and left behind them this hidden culture which has continued to exist without discovery until recent times. And they now remain lost. That may turn out to be our future—surviving somehow in a new primitive world, groups of people isolated and managing … Empires fall and rise. Rome stopped existing. The English Empire and the USSR simply melted down. China may be the new, future, super power to rise in the 21st century. Who knows. But nothing lasts but the myths, legends and the survivors taking on new forms, new cultures, and new histories. Only the natural wonders of the planet continue to last. Even our species may soon go the route of the dinosaurs.
Perhaps the only lesson is that as long as Homo sapiens manage to exist gold will be one of the universal treasures which all cultures will value as they have throughout history.
We humans are fascinated by its glitter, and have been from the beginning of time. And it will continue as long as there are men to worship its golden promise.
As for me? I’m cured of any gold fever, Amazon or otherwise. I plan on returning to the states, once I get enough cash to buy a ticket. Maybe the publisher will pay enough for this story to get me home.
Until then, well, the nightmares continue; and will never totally disappe
ar.
But…I’ll survive.
THE END
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Charles Nuetzel was born in San Francisco in 1934, and writes:
“As long as I can remember I wanted to be a writer. It was a dream I never thought would materialize. But with the help of Forrest J Ackerman, who became my agent, I managed to finally make it into print.
“I was lucky enough not only in selling my work to publishers but also ending up packaging books for some of them, and finally becoming a ‘publisher’ much like those who had bought my first novels. From there it as a simple leap to editing not only a science-fiction anthology, but also a line of SF books for Powell Sci-Fi back in the 1960s. Throughout these active professional years I had the chance to design some covers and do graphic cover layouts for pocket books & magazines.”
Much of his work in covers and graphics are a result of having had a father who was a professional commercial artist, and who did a number of covers for sci-fi magazines in the 1950s and later for pocket books—even for some of Mr. Nuetzel’s books.
In retirement he has become involved in swing dancing, a long time lover of Big Band jazz. But more interestingly world travels have taken him (and his wife Brigitte) across the world, to Hawaii, Caribbean, Mexico, Kenya, Egypt, Peru, having a lifelong interest in ancient civilizations. His website is full of thousands of pictures taken during these trips.
Check out his website: Haldolen.com
Amazon Gold Fever Page 2
