by Greg Bear
The sun chose this day to beam down in full tropical force and the heat was intense. Everybody was soaked in sweat by ten, and by one o'clock, as the barge engines started, Peter could hardly think straight. The sun seemed to actively hate him; its brightness and heat lay on his head like a hot brick.
Peter felt as if everything he drank went directly from his stomach to his sweat glands. Rivers of sweat rolled off him. The town of Puerto Ordaz drew its water pretty nearly untreated from the Caroni. Anthony had brought along water purification tablets. He thought they might be able to drink the water safely at El Grande, but certainly not where they were now. He dropped a tablet into each of their canteens.
Anthony took quick shots from the boat and the dock, then rode a motorboat with Peter out to the third barge, which carried Sammy and the avisaurs. Sammy was none too happy with this new floating platform, and let out mournful groans and grunts as the barge rocked in the river.
The best pilots on the river, Jimenez had told them, were Indians. Each barge had an Indian pilot hired by Jimenez. They sat on padded stools within small cabins at the rear of the barges. The pilot of the third boat, a short, skinny fellow only a few years older than Peter, introduced himself as Billie. He spoke English very well.
Shellabarger finished his inspection, accompanying Jimenez on his own motorboat, leaping up on each barge, examining the tie-downs and the cage chocks, peeking under the tarps to see how his beasts were doing. He shouted as he passed the third barge, "They know they're going home. They remember!"
OBie, Ray, and the roustabouts and camera crew took their own boat rides from the dock and clambered onto the barges. Ray and OBie joined Anthony and Peter on the third barge.
They began the journey to the station at San Pedro de las Bocas at two o'clock, late, but Shellabarger had expected to have to tie up at night several times during the upriver journey. The diesel motors were powerful, but they couldn't push the barges faster than ten miles an hour, and the river flowed at three miles an hour.
Anthony and Peter stood on the bow as the barges moved toward the middle of the river and the deeper water.
"No more iceboxes," Anthony said to Peter. "No more fresh food, unless we find fruit or fish on the way."
"Not much chance of that until we get up near El Grande," OBie said, making his way carefully around Sammy's big cage, "and even then, I don't think Shellabarger will take time for us to hunt for bananas. Food isn't that easy to find in these jungles."
"Tell us what it's like," Peter said.
OBie stared philosophically at the barges forming a long line up the river, their engines chugging in unison, laying intertwined trails of black diesel exhaust above the water. The air was still and the exhaust hung behind them for minutes before dissipating.
"It's been years," he said. "I haven't been there since we shot jungle footage for Kong. That was after Gomez shut down the tepuis, and we didn't get to El Grande that time. But all the way up to the canyon and the falls, it's green and beautiful. There are bugs everywhere—butterflies, midges, no-see-ums, flies, biting bugs, and crawling bugs. It rains a lot, and I don't think it'll get any hotter than this, but on El Grande . . ."
He shook himself. "I won't spoil it by telling you ahead of time," he said. "Just believe me, you'll never forget it."
Behind them, half a mile downriver, Captain Ippolito blew the whistle on the Libertad. Peter watched the ship work itself into the deep channel and head back for the open sea.
Billie responded by blatting their barge's horn. The other barges followed suit, the Indian pilots grinning at one another.
Peter sat in the shade of Sammy's cage, gaze fixed on the green eastern shore of the Caroni. He felt as if he had been hypnotized. Only a month ago, he had been in New York, wondering what he would be doing this summer . . .
Shellabarger yelled at them from the first boat. "Anthony! OBie! We're going to put in for the night about a mile ahead." He waved the map Jimenez had given him. "There's a little cove where we can tie up our boats out of the current. I'll want a watch set up . . . Jimenez says there are bandits even this far south, trying to steal from the diamond miners."
The cove nestled under an overhang of huge trees, just barely big enough to hold all five barges. A line of creosoted wooden piles from an old dock served to tie up the barges. Anthony and Peter and Ray jumped from the third barge to the shore and walked a few yards into the jungle, but much beyond that it was impenetrable. Peter kept looking for the deadly veintecuatros, the twenty-four-hour ants, but saw none. He did see enough mosquitoes and flies to keep him occupied swatting and brushing at his clothes.
"How about a little yellow fever?" Ray asked testily, turning over his palm to reveal a mosquito he had just squashed. A red smear on his skin showed it had already drawn blood.
"Nature's little creatures of the air feed all the fish," Anthony said with mock piety, and crossed himself, then swatted at a cloud of gnats. "And we'll be feeding them."
"Is it true, male mosquitoes don't bite?" OBie asked from the barge as he stretched out a plank for them to climb back aboard.
"I think so," Peter said.
"The harmless male," OBie said regretfully. "He doesn't know all the finer arts."
Peter watched a small fly land on his hand. It did not look like a mosquito so he did not smash it. Then a needle-stab of pain shot up his wrist. He swatted at the fly but missed, and a small drop of blood welled from his pierced skin.
"The little black flies, they are hell," Billie said, putting on a worn jacket. "They are calledjejenes." He pulled a netted cap down over his face and the back of his neck, tucking the net into his collar. Peter envied him; but at least they had havelocks hanging behind their hats to keep sun and insects off their necks, and mosquito nets for when they slept.
They set up a small steel cookstove on the second barge. The pilots insisted the gringos cook their meals first, and stood by their cabins, each of them wearing their netted caps.
Keller served as cook. "I used to cook in the Navy," he said. "My food never killed anybody, so I'm qualified."
Gathering around the stove, swatting at jejenes, they ate cups of soup and canned beef. The venator let out a roar just after nightfall, scaring dark fogs of birds out of the jungle all around. They rose with pumping twitters and flapping wings into the twilight and swung about in a cloud to another, less disturbing part of the river.
On the first barge, Shellabarger fed the big predator one of the five sides of beef they had left. "In a day or two, the raw meat's going to go bad," the trainer said, watching Keller and Kasem slip the beef into the venator's cage. Under the tarp, the dinosaur swung about, making the boat pitch and roll in the water. Chewing, crunching, and sucking sounds followed, and Shellabarger backed away, hands on hips. "Dagger won't mind," Keller added. "He's always liked it a little gamy."
Dark came on quickly. Shellabarger suggested they turn in early, for they would head out on the river again at dawn. The five pilots stood by the cookstoves, waiting for their beans to cook, and Billie read Spanish- and Portuguese-language newspapers to the others.
Anthony and Peter rigged their sleeping rolls and mosquito nets. Peter was exhausted. He crawled into the sleeping bag and gazed up through the netting at the dark clouds and brilliance of stars. The last things he heard were Billie's voice, saying prayers in Spanish, and Shellabarger murmuring softly to the struthios.
In the morning, Peter was covered with welts from the jejenes. Anthony's skin seemed tougher and his welts did not show as much, but he still itched and swore under his breath.
"Adventure," OBie said, "is nine tenths misery and one tenth disaster."
Ray suffered as badly as Peter. "I feel a little woozy," he said.
"Yellow fever," Peter suggested.
"You're a pal," Ray said, grimacing.
"Or malaria," OBie added, helping untie the barge from the piling.
"Malaria does not come on so soon," Billie said from the cabin. He
smiled, showing even yellow teeth, and started the engine on number three.
Peter shared binoculars with his father and studied the forest. The forest took on more meaningful detail the longer Peter observed it. At first, it had seemed a mass of rolling green foliage and brown vines and creepers, dotted at random by white, yellow, and red flowers. The flies had kept him from paying much attention to individual plants and trees near the shore, but here, in the middle of the river, the flies were less bothersome. Now he made out trees strangled by cages of vines, trees that seemed to thrive at different altitudes and brightnesses of sunlight within the canopy. In places the river had changed course recently and undercut the banks, revealing a cutaway of the forest interior, gloomy and bare beneath an almost opaque lid of thick foliage.
OBie was chatting with Billie, and Ray sat sketching on the bow. Sammy had fallen quiet after the boats set out. When Peter lifted the tarp to let air flow through the cage, the big centrosaur, hunkered on his belly with legs half underneath, blinked at him with translucent membranes, but did not lift his head. "Soon, fella," Peter whispered.
Occasional curiaras—dugout canoes—slid past the barges, heading downriver, piloted by scrawny brown men with impassive faces half hidden by broad floppy hats. Piles of dirt filled the middle of the dugouts, and in the rear, one or two men sat holding big rifles, hats tilted back. They glared fiercely at anyone who dared to notice.
"Diamonds," Billie said from behind the wheel. "One or two diamonds a day, little ones, for industry. Not for ladies' rings. They are slim pickings around here. But everybody is hopeful . . . diamonds, or maybe gold."
"They look pretty wild," Ray said.
"And hungry," OBie added. "They might be interested in our food."
The jungle gave way to a broad stretch of grassland and Anthony took out his camera, giving Peter a poke in the ribs. Peter, who had been dozing, lifted his head. "Huh?"
Anthony pointed. "Thar she blows," he said.
The northwestern escarpment of El Grande rose in the distance, an immense black mass with a projecting silhouette like the prow of an ancient galleon. Gray and white billows capped the prow, and the rest of the massive tepui fell back in the shadows of rank after rank of thick dark clouds, filling the horizon. The sun gleaming against the brilliant green and yellow grassland and the gloom of El Grande beyond made a striking contrast—cheer and tropical splendor against mystery and danger.
Ray Harryhausen
"Eighty-five miles from end to end," OBie said reverently. "Eight thousand feet high at this end, the highest point. With six big lakes and who knows how many little lakes and swamps."
"Fabulous," Ray said. He grinned at OBie and Peter. The thrill was returning—a real sense of adventure that had been damped by the soldiers and the fire. "Lord, it's huge."
"Wait'll we get closer." OBie stuck his thumbs in his pockets like a proud papa and winked at Peter. "Takes me back to when I was young."
"It looks like a monster all by itself," Anthony said. Peter looked at him to see what he was thinking, whether he was seriously considering sending Peter back now.
"The ship's gone, Dad," Peter said softly, squinting at his father.
"There's an airstrip up ahead," Anthony said, but with a slight smile. He put his hand on Peter's shoulder and squeezed. "Impressed?"
Peter nodded and turned the binoculars on El Grande. He could see a long, thin waterfall descending in a bright silver thread from a shelf of clouds hiding the upper third of the galleon's prow. "Will you look at that!" he said, and handed the glasses to Anthony.
Anthony peered through them. "It's falling from about five thousand feet," he said. "Straight down."
"That's Raleigh Falls," OBie said. "The folks here call it Bolivar. There's a higher one in Challenger Canyon. Jimmie Angel saw that one first. He called it Jorge Washington Falls. He picked a smaller one on Auyan Tepui to name after himself."
Peter looked at the five boats with their precariously balanced cages. Despite the jejenes and the mosquitoes, he was really enjoying himself. He doubted that any other Norteamericano boy had seen what he was seeing—at least not since the 1920s.
"Ten kilometers to San Pedro de las Bocas," Billie said. Tall trees and jungle rose on the left bank again, blocking much of their view of El Grande. More of the big flame-winged water birds clustered in shallows on the southern bank, and the river took a gradual turn to the northeast, toward the highlands. Peter went to the cabin.
"Shouldn't there be falls or rapids or something?" he asked Billie.
Billie nodded. "Farther up. Little ones we will climb, but the big ones, they are beyond San Pedro. Big rapids, many falls."
"Have you been up here a lot?" Peter asked. He felt like talking and was afraid Ray and OBie would get tired of him if he chattered.
"Not a lot," Billie said. "Only by canoe above San Pedro. A few miles up the rapids—then the flies and the mosquitoes, they are too much. You will be glad to take a train."
"Yeah," Peter said. "Do you know anybody who went to El Grande?"
"Yes," Billie said, his smile suddenly vanishing. "My father. He was full-blooded Makritare. We have been going up there for thousands of years. We climb up the old trail on Pico Poco, and sling a rope, and climb across . . ." Billie raised his arms and made hand-over-hand motions, then got a distant look in his eye. "Especially if we want to be chief, or to have many beautiful wives and become great warriors."
Peter nodded.
"My father went there two months before I was born. He did not come back."
"Oh," Peter said. "I'm sorry."
Billie shrugged. "I am proud of him."
Peter wondered how much Billie had really wanted to go, if he had been stopped by just the flies. Maybe I just don t know how bad the flies can get, Peter thought. Then he remembered that the Army had restricted access to the tepui, especially to Indians.
Billie saw the look in Peter's eyes and turned away to examine the river, jaws clenched. "In my father's day, there were no prospectors and diamond hunters and not so many thieves on the river. He had to worry about other tribes—the Arecuna, perhaps, or the Camaracotas. But they did not have guns. The soldiers have guns."
They anchored in a stretch of still water and fed the animals as darkness approached. They had seen more dugouts, but so far, no one had offered any resistance, or even harsh words, to the strange barges moving steadily upriver. Billie thought that by now, nearly everybody on the river knew about the dinosaurs. OBie asked Billie to join their group around the cookstove. "If you don't mind beans," he said.
They were about to eat when the venator decided once again to protest. He did not move enough to rock the barge on which his cage rested, but he let out a peevish, ear-splitting shriek nevertheless.
Howler monkeys in the jungle began a ragged chorus of angry whoops.
"He is the Challenger," Billie said.
OBie, Ray, and Anthony traded looks and OBie stirred the pot, then ladled up black beans for each. "You mean like the professor," he said.
"No." Billie gave them a quizzical look. "The one who challenges. He asks questions only ghosts can answer."
Ray lifted his eyebrows and grinned. "True enough," he said.
Billie stared across the dark waters to the other boats and their cages. "Perhaps a Challenger like him ate my father," he said, as if this were a matter of merely casual discussion.
"He damn near ate Shellabarger, before he was captured," OBie said. "He was just a youngster then. Less than eight feet high. In his gangly youth."
"I am proud to be near them," Billie said. "More Indians will come to see them."
Quietly, they ate their beans.
Chapter Ten
San Pedro de las Bocas was a bigger town than Peter had expected. With many whitewashed stone and brick buildings, an imposing railway station made of local granite and sandstone, and a wharf with a big if somewhat rusted steel crane, it had been built ten years before to accommodate the miners and
oil explorers on the north side of the river. OBie, Keller, and Shellabarger inspected the crane, which had been built to lift heavy mining equipment from boats on the river and transfer them to the railway cars. Within an hour of their arrival, the cages were lifted from the barges and loaded on a train with twelve flatbed cars. By three o'clock, the barges themselves were hoisted from the river. Anthony and Ray recorded the transfer, which went smoothly enough.
The stationmaster, a tall, lean man with leathery skin and deepset eyes, wore an ancient ragged leather hat and a threadbare white pinstripe suit. He told them that the advance crew had arrived three weeks before with five trucks. He spoke very good English. His family, he said, was descended from English settlers in British Guiana.
"I think your man, who is supposed to greet you, he is in town now drinking. He will be here soon. I come to welcome you personally." He smiled at all this activity—and all the money he was doubtless being paid. "The oil, it is slow up here now, only a trickle. The engineers say El Grande is too heavy, it squeezes everything south."
"They only left one man?" Shellabarger asked.
"They needed every able-bodied fellow at the railhead. So they told me . . ." He smiled slyly, then stared at the cages in concern.
The animals were putting up a great fuss. Sammy in particular seemed out of sorts and gave out bugle-like bellows every few minutes, startling the railroad workers. They laughed and shook their heads, vowing not to be frightened again, but each time, Sammy made them jump.
"It'll be a six-hour ride or more, but we won't leave today," OBie said, wiping sweat from his reddened forehead.
By late afternoon, the barges were lashed down, one to each car. As OBie had suspected, the train's engineer refused to set out with dusk so close, and so they pitched their tents beside the train. Shellabarger did not want them to go into town. He did not trust the prospectors and diamond miners and all their associated hangers-on to leave the train alone. "We'll need to stand watch all night," he said wearily.
