It seemed to me then that one of those islands out there would be as good a place as any and I pushed out towards the centre of the river using the pole like a double-bladed paddle. It was slow work and I missed my first objective. By then there was hardly any strength left in me at all and each movement of my arms was physical agony.
It was the current which helped me at last, pushing me into ground on a strip of the purest whitest sand imaginable. No south sea island could have offered more. I fell out of the canoe and lay beside it in the shadows for a while, only moving in the end because I would obviously drown if I stayed there, so I got up off my knees and hauled that bloody boat clear of the water... then fell on my face again.
I don't know how long I lay there. It may have been an hour or just a few minutes. There seemed to be some sort of shouting going on near by, all part of the dream, or so it seemed. Perhaps I was still back in the Seco after jumping from the stern-wheeler? I opened my eyes and a child screamed.
There was all the terror in the whole world in that one cry. Enough to bring even me back to life. I got to my feet uncer-tainly and it started again and didn't stop.
There was a high spit of sand to my right, I scrambled to the top and found two children, a boy and a girl, huddled together in the shadows on the other side, an alligator nosing in towards them.
They could not retreat any farther for there was deep water behind them and the little girl, who was hardly more than a baby, was screaming helplessly. The boy advanced on the beast, howling at the top of his voice, which considering he looked about eight years of age was probably one of the bravest things I've seen in my life.
I started down the slope, forgetting my chains and fell head-long, rolling over twice and landing in about a foot of water which just about finished me off. I'm not really sure what hap-pened then. Someone was yelling at the top of his voice, me, I suppose. The alligator shied away from the children and darted at me, jaws gaping.
I grabbed up the chain between my wrists and brought it down like a flail across that ugly snout again and again, shout-ing at the children in Portuguese, telling them to get out of it I was aware of them scurrying by as I battered away and then the alligator slewed round and that great tail knocked my feet from under me.
I kicked at it frantically and then there was a shot and a ragged hole appeared in its snout. The sound it made was un-believable and it pushed off into deep water leaving a cloud of blood behind.
I lay on my back in the water for a while, then rolled over and got to my knees. A man was standing on the shore, small, muscular, brown-skinned. He might have passed for an Indian except for his hair which was cut European style. He wore a denim shirt and cotton loincloth and the children hung to his legs sobbing bitterly.
The rifle which was pointing in my direction was an old British Army Lee-Enfield. I didn't know what he was going to do with it, didn't even care. I held out my manacled wrists and started to laugh. I remember that and also that I was still laughing when I passed out.
It was raining when I returned to life and the sky was the colour of brass, stars already out in the far distances. I was lying be-side a flickering fire, there was the roof of a hut silhouetted against the sky beyond and yet I seemed to be moving and there was the gurgle of water beneath me.
I tried to sit up and saw that I was entirely naked except for my chains and my body was blotched here and there with great black swamp leeches.
A hand pushed me down again. "Please to be still, senhor."
My friend from the island crouched beside me puffing on a large cigar. When the end of it was really hot he touched it to one of the leeches which shriveled at once, releasing its hold.
"You are all right, senhor?"
"Just get rid of them," I said, my flesh crawling.
He lit another cigar and offered it to me politely then con-tinued his task. Beyond him in the shadows the two children watched, faces solemn in the firelight.
"Are the children all right?" I asked.
"Thanks to you, senhor. With children one can never turn the back, you have noticed this? I had put into that island to repair my steering oar. I turn my head for an instant and they are gone."
Steering oar?I frowned. "Where am I?"
"You are on my raft}senhor. I am Bartolomeo da Costa,balsero."
Balserosare the water gipsies of Brazil, drifting down the Amazon and Negro with their families on great balsa rafts up to a hundred feet long, the cheapest way of handling cargo on the river. Two thousand miles from the jungles of Peru down to Belem on occasion, taking a couple of months over the voyage.
It seemed as if that little bit of luck I had been seeking had finally come my way. The last leech gave up the ghost and as if at a, signal, a quiet, dark-haired woman wearing an old pilot coat against the evening chill emerged from the hut and crouched beside me holding an enamel mug.
It was black coffee and scalding hot. I don't think I have ever tasted anything more delicious. She produced an old blan-ket which she spread across me then suddenly seized my free hand and kissed it, bursting into tears. Then she got up and rushed away.
"My wife, Nula, senhor," Bartolomeo told me calmly. "You must excuse her, but the children - you understand? She wishes to thank you, but does not have the words."
I didn't know what to say. In any case, he motioned the chil-dren forward. "My son Flaveo and my daughter Christinas senhor."
The children bobbed their heads. I put a hand out to the boy, forgetting my chains and failed to reach him. "How old are you?"
"Seven years, senhor," he whispered.
I said to Bartolomeo, "Did you know that before I inter-vened, this one rushed on thejacare to save his sister?"
It was the one and only time during our short acquaintance that I saw Bartolomeo show any emotion on that normally placid face of his. "No, senhor." He put a hand on his son's shoulder. "He did not speak of this."
"He is a brave boy."
Bartolomeo capitulated completely, pulled the boy to him, kissed him soundly on both cheeks, kissed the girl and gave them both a push away from him. "Off with you - go help your mama with the meal." He got to his feet. "And now, senhor, we will see to these chains of yours."
He went into the hut and reappeared with a bundle under one arm which when unrolled, proved to be about as comprehensive a tool kit as I could have wished for.
"On a raft one must be prepared for all eventualities," he in-formed me.
"Are you sure you should be doing this?"
"You escaped from Machados?" he said.
"I was on my way there. Jumped overboard when we were on the Seco. They shot the man who was with me."
"A bad place. You are well out of it. How did they fasten these things?"
"Some sort of twist key."
"Then it should be simple enough to get them open."
It could have been worse, I suppose. The leg anklets took him almost an hoursbut he seemed to have the knack after that and had my hands free in twenty minutes. My wrists were rubbed raw. He eased them with some sort of grease or other which certainly got results for they stopped hurting almost immedi-ately, then he bandaged them with strips of cotton.
"My wife has washed your clothes," he said. "They are almost dry now except for the leather jacket and boots which will take longer, but first we eat. Talk can come later."
It was a simple enough meal. Fish cooked on heated flat stones, cassava root bread, bananas. Nothing had tasted better. Never had my appetite been keener.
Afterwards I dressed and Nula brought more coffee then disappeared with the children. Bartolomeo offered me a cigar and I leaned back and took in the night.
It was very peaceful, whippoorwills wailed mournfully, tree frogs croaked, water rattled against the raft. "Don't you need to guide it?" I asked him.
"Not on this section of the river. Here, the current takes us along a well-defined channel and life is easy. In other places, I am at the steering oar constantly."
; "Do you always travel by night?"
He shook his head. 'Usually we carry green bananas, but this time we are lucky. We have a cargo of wild rubber. There is a bonus in it for me if I can have it hi Belem by a certain date. Nula and I take turn and turn about and watch during the night."
I got to my feet and looked out into the pale darkness. "You are a lucky man. This is a good life."
He said, "Senhor, I owe you more than sits comfortably on me. It is a burden. A debt to be repaid. We will be in Belem in a month. Stay with us. No one would look for you here if there should be a hue and cry."
It was a tempting thought. Belem and possibly a berth on a British freighter. I could even try stowing away if the worst came to the worst.
But then there was Hannah and the fact that if I ran now, I would be running, in the most fundamental way of all, for the rest of my life. "When do you reach Forte Franco?"
"If things go according to plan, around dawn on the day after tomorrow."
"That's where I'll leave you. I want to get to Landro about fifty miles up the Rio das Mortes. Do you know it?"
"I've heard of the place. Thisis important to you?"
"Very."
"Good." He nodded. "Plenty of boats coming up-river and I know everyone in the game. We will wait at Franco till I see you safely on your way. It is settled."
I tried to protest, but he brushed it aside, went into the hut and reappeared with a bottle of what turned out to be the roughest brandy I've ever tasted in my life. It almost took the skin off my tongue. I fought for air, but the consequent effect was all that could be desired. All tiredness slipped away, I felt ten feet tall.
"Your business in Landro, senhor," he said pouring more brandy into my mug. "It is important?"
"I'm going to see a man."
"To kill him?"
"In a way," I said. "I'm going to make him tell the truth for the first time in his life."
I slept like a baby for fourteen hours and didn't raise my head till noon the following day. During the afternoon I helped Bartolomeo generally around the raft in spite of his protests. There was always work to be done. Ropes chafing or some of the great balsa logs working loose which was only to be expected on such a long voyage. I even took a turn on the steering oar although the river continued so placid that it was hardly necessary.
That night it rained and I sat in the hut and played cards with him in the light of a storm lantern. Surprisingly he was an excellent whist player - certainly a damned sight better than me. Eventually, he went out on watch and I wrapped myself in a blanket and lay in the corner smoking one of his cigars and thinking about what lay ahead.
The truth was that I was a fool. I was putting my head into a noose again with no guarantee of any other outcome than a swift return to Machados and this time, they'd see I got there.
But I had to face Hannah with this thing - had to make him admit his treachery, no matter what the consequences. I flicked my cigar out into the rain, hitched my blanket over my shoulder and went to sleep.
We reached the mouth of the Mortes about four in the morning. Bartolomeo took the raft into the left bank and I helped him tie her securely to a couple of trees. Afterwards, he put a canoe in the water and departed down-river.
I breakfasted with Nula and the children then paced the raft restlessly, waiting for something to happen. I was too close, that was the thing, itching to be on my way and have it all over and done with.
Bartolomeo returned at seven, hailing us from the deck of an old steam barge, the canoe trailing behind on a line. The barge came alongside and Bartolomeo crossed over. The man who leaned from the deckhouse was thin and ill-looking with the haggard, bad-tempered face of one constantly in pain. His skin was as yellow as only jaundice can make it.
"All right, Bartolomeo," he called. "If we're going, let's go. I'm in a hurry. I've got cargo waiting up-river."
"My second cousin," Bartolomeo said. "Inside, he has a heart of purest gold."
"Hurry it up, you bastard," his cousin shouted.
"If you want to speak to him, call him Silvio. He won't ask you questions if you don't ask him any and he'll put you down at Landro. He owes me a favour."
We shook hands. "My thanks," I said.
"God be with you, my friend."
I stepped over the rail to the steam barge and the two Indian deckhands cast off. As we pulled away, I moved to the stern and looked back towards the raft. Bartolomeo stood watching, an arm about his wife, the two children at his side.
He leaned down and spoke to them and they both started to wave vigorously. I waved back, feeling unaccountably cheered and then we moved into the mouth of the Mortes and they dis-appeared from view.
FOURTEEN
Up the River of Death
At two o'clock that afternoon the steam barge dropped me at Landro, pausing at the jetty only for as long as it took me to step over the rail. I waved as it moved away and got no reply which didn't particularly surprise me. During the entire trip, Silvio had not spoken to me once and the Indian deckhands had kept away from me. Whatever he was up to was no busi-ness of mine, but it was certainly illegal, I was sure of that
A couple of locals were down on the beach beneath the jetty beside their canoes mending nets. They looked casually up as I walked by, then carried on with their task.
There was something missing - something which didn't fit. I paused on the riverbank, frowning over it, then realised what it was. The mission launch was no longer tied up at the jetty. So they'd finally decided to get out? In a way, that sur-prised me.
An even bigger surprise waited when I crossed the airstrip. The Hayley stood in the open ready for off as I would have expected, but when I reached the hangar, I saw to my amaze-ment that the Bristol stood inside. Now how could that be?
There was no one about. Even the military radio section had been cleared. In fact, there was something of an air of desola-tion to the place. I helped myself to a whisky from the bottle on the table then climbed up to the observer's cockpit of the Bristol and found the 10-gauge still in its special compartment and a couple of boxes of steel buckshot.
I loaded up as I crossed the airstrip. All very dramatic, I suppose, but the chips were down now with a vengeance and I was going to have the truth out of him for the whole world to see, nothing was more certain.
I tried the house first, approaching cautiously from the rear and entering by the back door. I needn't have bothered. There was no one there. There was another mystery here also. My old room had been cleared of any sign that Joanna Martin had ever inhabited it, but Mannie had very obviously not moved back in for neither of the two beds was made up.
It was a different story in Hannah's old room. It stank like a urinal and from the look of things had very probably been used for that purpose. The bed had been recently slept in, sheets and blankets scattered to the floor and someone had vomited by the window.
I got out of there fast, my stomach heaving, and moved to-wards Landro, the shotgun in the crook of my left arm. Again, there was this quality ofdeja vu to everything. As if I had taken this same walk many times before, which in a way, I had. The same hopeless faces on the veranda of the homes, the same dirty, verminous little children playing underneath.
Time was a circle, no beginning, no end and I would take this walk for all eternity. A disquieting thought to say the least and then, when I was ten or fifteen yards away from the hotel, I heard the crash of glass breaking, a woman screamed and a chair came through one of the windows.
A moment kter, the door was flying open and Mannie backed out slowly. Beyond him, Hannah stood inside the bar clutchinga. broken bottle by the neck.
It was Hannah who saw me first - saw a ghost walk before him. A look of stupefaction appeared on his face, his grip slackened, the bottle fell to the floor.
He was certainly a sight, no resemblance at all to the man I had met that first day beside the Vega. This was a human wreck. Bloodshot eyes, face swollen by drink, the linen suit in-des
cribably filthy and soaked in liquor.
Mannie glanced over his shoulder. His eyes widened. "God in Heaven, we have miracles now? You're supposed to be dead in some swamp on the Seco. We had a message on the radio from Manaus last night. What happened?"
"My luck turned, that's what happened." I went up the steps to join him. "How long has he been like this?"
"Fifteen or sixteen hours He's trying to kill himself, I think. His own judge and jury."
"And why should he do that?"
"You know as well as I do, damn you."
"Well, thanks for speaking up for me,' I said. 'You were a real friend in need."
He said instantly, "I didn't know till the night before last when he started raving. Didn't know for sure, anyway. Even then, what proof did I have? You were pretty mad when you left here, remember? Capable of most things."
Jack Higgins - Last Place God Made Page 18
