Jeb suddenly recalled the crazy fallen look of the radio tower at the army post, and he wondered what it had looked like as it dropped.
Then he thought, In the long run, everything falls.
And he felt a terrible indrawing need to find some kind of happiness, to accumulate a few biting pleasures against the darkness. He looked up at the shadowy figure of Monti standing in the smoke.
“We’d better stay here for the night,” said Gettler.
Jeb nodded, turned his attention to the plane, saw it glinting red in the firelight. Shadows hid the slow deterioration of metal.
Quite abruptly, Jeb was shaken by a great affection for his plane. Despite its crippled and patched condition, it still contained the essence of a tremendous symbol: It stood for safety, for the gregarious security of the swarming civilization that had spawned it.
He spoke brusquely to cover the sudden emotion: “We should get back aboard. Douse the fire, David. Just scatter it with a stick. The rain’ll put it out.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We need a canoe,” said Gettler.
And even though he knew that his own reaction was most likely foolish—that Gettler had logic on his side—Jeb shook his head. “I’m sticking with the plane.”
“Arrrrrgh!” snarled Gettler. He crossed to the plane, lifted his shadowy bulk onto the float and into the rear of the cabin.
Jeb hesitated, thinking: Is Gettler tired enough that he’ll dope off into a deep sleep? If we could only get the guns away from him!
Monti stepped close to Jeb. “He’s tired,” she whispered. “He’ll sleep. Maybe we could get the guns tonight …”
Jeb shook his head. “Sure he’s tired. But he’s living too close to the edge of panic. He’ll sleep on his hair trigger.”
“If he’d only get sick,” whispered Monti.
“Yeah.”
And Jeb wondered: Shall I tell her what I learned from that Indian? That Gettler did murder her husband?
David came up to them, and the moment was lost. “Is that scattered enough, sir?”
Jeb glanced back at the embers. “That’s fine, David.”
The boy threw a charred stick into the water, went across to the plane, climbed into the cabin beside Gettler.
I don’t dare tell her, thought Jeb. She tends to get hysterical, and she might give it away to Gettler that she knows. He’d kill us for sure.
“Don’t trust anyone,” she murmured. “Why doesn’t that beefy sonofabitch trust anyone? Does he think he’s kidding us—the way he’s sitting on the guns?”
“He’s …” Jeb shrugged. “Jungle happy.”
“He’s more dangerous than that snake,” said Monti. “I don’t know how, but he had something to do with Roger’s death.”
And again Jeb wondered: Confirm it or deny it?
He took a middle ground: “There could be other explanations for the way he’s acting.”
“Name one!”
“He’s nuts.”
“There we agree.”
“David has some kind of control over him,” said Jeb.
“I noticed.” Intuitively, she added: “He had a son once, Gettler did.” She shook her head. “Something terrible happened to that man somewhere, Jeb. There are moments when I almost … feel sorry for him.”
“He’s going to get curious at what we’re talking about,” said Jeb. “We’d better get inside.”
She stared pensively at the plane. “I suppose you’re right.”
Jeb looked down at the dim outline of her silhouetted against the last glow of the dying embers. “You’re still the best looking bug-chewed woman I’ve ever seen.”
“You’ve been in the jungle too long, man.” She gave a chopping, brittle laugh, rubbed the welts on her left arm. “They’re getting worse. Let’s go in.”
They crossed to the plane, clambered inside.
“Get everything all decided?” asked Gettler.
“We’re lost, aren’t we?” asked Monti.
“Everyone’s lost,” said Gettler. He sounded drunk.
“We’ve lost the main current in this flood,” said Jeb. “We could be way out in the middle of a swamp.”
“How far’ve we come today?” asked David.
“We’re no more’n twenty miles overland from where we stopped last night,” said Gettler.
“Thirty at least,” said Jeb.
“It’d been seventy-five miles if we had a canoe,” said Gettler.
“And we’d be out there in that rain,” said Jeb.
“You didn’t seem too anxious to come inside,” said Gettler.
“The bugs are better company!” snapped Monti.
“Perhaps I should come up front and change your mind about that,” said Gettler. “I grow on people.”
“No doubt!” she said. “Like a cancer.”
“The plane has its advantages,” said Jeb.
“And you’ve the blisters on your hands to prove it,” growled Gettler. “We need a canoe!”
Jeb stared out into the night. The last embers of their fire had died, leaving utter blackness. The rain had increased and its incessant rhythm mingled with the humming of insects, the washing swirl of the river against the floats, to create a womb-like somnolence within the plane. He inhaled deeply of crusting odors that surrounded them: rotting fruit, the musky creeping of mildew, perspiration, the smell of cooked fish—and a distant hint of perfume.
“Maybe we’ve lost the channel,” said Jeb. “But as long’s we float we’re pretty sure to find it again.”
“If the Jivaro don’t find us first,” said Gettler.
“This water all goes down to the Amazon,” said Jeb.
“Can they find us in the dark?” asked Monti.
Gettler made an odd whimpering sound, whispered: “They’re with us every minute … waiting.”
Jeb looked at the firefly lights of the instrument dials in front of him. “If we stick with the plane we’ll make it.”
“This is their country,” husked Gettler. “We don’t stand a chance!”
“For Christ’s sake! Stop it!” cried Monti.
“Sure,” said Gettler. “For Christ’s sake.”
Jeb slammed a palm against the control wheel in front of him. Metal creaked. “We can make it! I know we can!”
And Gettler laughed: a pure sound of enjoyment. “You know!”
“Yeah, I know!”
“Maybe a little of your blood will drift past Ramona,” said Gettler. “In a very diluted form.”
“Do you like to scare people?” demanded Monti.
Gettler sighed. “Okay, I’ll talk about knowing. The only way you know something is by experience. I’ve experienced the jungle … and I don’t trust any of it. I hate it!”
“Then why’d you stay?” asked Monti.
“Because it’s the only honest place left in the world.”
“No,” said Monti. “You’re lying.”
And Gettler chuckled. “Maybe you’re right, come to think of it.”
“I saw some fungus on one of those logs out there,” said Monti. “Suddenly the fungus flew away. It was a moth or a butterfly or something. Yesterday, there was a bug on the windshield that looked like a dead stick.”
“There’s deception here,” agreed Gettler. “Maybe deception’s the real key to survival.”
Monti said: “These damned philosophers and their phony pretentions!”
“I see lights out there!” hissed David.
“Fireflies,” said Jeb.
“Honest!” sneered Monti. “The world’s a jungle, yes. But one part’s no different from another.” She stretched.
“We just wander around until we find the brand of dishonesty that suits us.”
“Mr. Gettler,” said David. “The other night when you said I was like the light shining from the flashlight … Well, I’ve tried to understand that, but—”
“David! Drop that!” snapped Monti. “Christ! I won’t have you turning into one of t
hese word-twisters, too!”
“Leave him be,” said Gettler. “He’s come upon the paradox of identity at an early age. That’s good.”
“Men!” said Monti. “It’s in their blood. I swear.”
The plane tugged abruptly at its mooring, turned, grazed some bushes.
“River’s rising again,” said Jeb.
Monti leaned against the seat close to Jeb. “Maybe they’ll send a boat up to look for us,” she whispered.
“Who?”
“Somebody’ll miss us. They’re sure to.”
“Mr. Gettler,” said David. “What’s a paradox?”
“Something that seems foolish, absurd, but which happens to be true nonetheless.”
“Listen to him!” whispered Monti.
Jeb touched her arm, patted it.
She put her hand in his, leaned her head against his shoulder.
David said: “But how can—”
“Look out there,” said Gettler. “What do you see?”
“Those fireflies.”
“No you don’t.”
“But I—”
“You think you see the fireflies,” said Gettler. “Think is the key word.”
Monti said: “I’d like to close my eyes and wake up to find this was just a horrible nightmare.”
Jeb squeezed her hand.
“What you actually see, son,” said Gettler, “is your own body responding to the light. It’s all inside you.”
“Or wouldn’t it be wonderful if this was actually some little river … in Georgia, say,” murmured Monti, “and damp here like it’d be in Georgia. We might just be drifting along a safe, clean little river.”
“We have only our senses,” said Gettler. “Nothing else. We just think we sense things outside us, but all the time we’re only feeling our own bodies.”
“And somewhere out there the Negroes’d be singing,” murmured Monti. She began humming to herself, low.
“The trouble,” said Gettler, “comes when we mistake this pattern of feeling things … we mistake that for ourselves … for our own identity. And we start acting like the things outside us were inside us.”
David suddenly had the sensation that he lived inside a thin and imperfect shell that was filled to the bursting point with confusion … but that if he gave everything just the right kind of a shake it’d all settle into something understandable and safe.
“How’d we get this way?” he asked.
“It’s the way we learn about words,” said Gettler. “That sets us into habits that fool us. We group things together for convenience: trees, birds, dogs, houses … Very useful. But that gets us into the habit of thinking that somehow these things are identical—something has to be the same for them to be called by the same label. See what I mean?”
“I think so.”
“Well, son, if you enter any problem with a preconceived idea of how to solve it … and the problem doesn’t happen to fit your idea, you may never solve it. You’ll see things that aren’t there … or not see things that are there—all because your mind is prepared for something different from the reality staring you in the face!”
Monti said: “Roger used to ramble on like that for hours. Drove me mad!” She pulled her hand out of Jeb’s, straightened.
Christ! What’s wrong with me? she asked herself. When I had a live husband I didn’t hesitate to enjoy whatever came along. Now that he’s dead I have to develop a moral compunction!
Her anger turned abruptly on Gettler. “Why’nt you shut up back there?”
“Leave us be,” said Gettler. He turned toward David in the darkness. “See what I mean, son?”
“You go to sleep, David!” barked Monti.
“Look,” snarled Gettler. “I leave you alone with the irresistible ladies’ man up there. You leave me alone with this boy who wants to learn something!”
“You don’t know anything he needs to know!”
Gettler lashed out, slammed the hinged back of the seat, hurled Monti forward. “Watch your tongue, woman!”
Jeb whirled, uncertain of what had happened, thinking that Gettler had hit Monti. “Just a damn minute!” he shouted.
“I’m all right,” said Monti.
There came the sharp click of a gun hammer being cocked.
Gettler said: “You’ve no refinement, Logan. A woman might think she prefers you to me.”
He’s going nuts! thought Monti.
“But give her five minutes with me, and she’d see how wrong she’d been,” said Gettler.
“Lay off that, Gettler,” said Logan. He tried to wet his lips with a dry tongue.
Gettler shifted his position, chuckled—an emotionless, deadly sound.
“No,” whispered Monti.
Gettler put out his left hand, touched Monti’s hair. She tried to pull away, but he clutched a lock of her hair, held her.
Monti gasped.
Jeb braced himself to leap over the seat at Gettler. If he’s going to kill us he’ll have to do it the hard way!
“Mr. Gettler, please don’t argue with her,” said David. “I still don’t understand what you’ve been explaining to me.”
Slowly, Gettler released Monti’s hair, sat back. Wildness drained out of him, and he thought: Now, why was I angry? What’d she say to make me angry? He couldn’t remember, and another thought arose in his mind: Her hair doesn’t feel like Gerda’s.
“I don’t understand how words can be the same as a problem,” said David.
Monti, held her breath, exhaled when Gettler spoke.
Gettler eased down the hammer on the revolver, said: “Our words are preconceived notions about the world … the universe. The problem is in understanding. Do you see that?”
“Ye-e-e-ess.”
“You sleep on it,” said Gettler.
Jeb silently turned around in his seat, faced forward. He felt that the crisis had not been solved—only extended.
Gettler patted David’s shoulder, “Maybe after you sleep on it, the whole thing’ll become clearer to you.”
That was too close! thought Monti. We’ve got to disarm him! We’ve just got to!
“G’night,” said David. And he thought: Why’d mother have to go and make him angry? He’s all right as long as he’s just talking. What harm can talking do?
He went to sleep to dream about a succession of words that weren’t exactly words: more like the irregularly shaped blocks the psychologist at the school had made him play with once. Only … he knew they were words, and he had to fit them into holes of peculiar shape. But none of the words would fit.
“Take the first watch, Logan,” whispered Gettler.
“Yes, sir,” said Jeb.
“I’ll be sleeping very lightly, in case you need anything,” said Gettler. And he chuckled softly—with only the faintest hint of madness.
The sonofabitch! thought Jeb.
He heard Gettler turn, settle himself for sleeping. Presently, there came the shallow, cat-rhythm sound of Gettler sleeping.
Jeb settled himself to staying awake. He sensed the tense, watchfulness of Monti beside him. The phosphorescent glow of instrument dials held a hypnotic fascination for Jeb. He found he could not look at them without having his eyelids droop. He forced his attention onto the surrounding darkness, listened to the monotonous drumming of rain against metal, the restless skirt-swishing of water beneath the floats.
Abruptly, Monti leaned across facing Jeb.
There came a momentary break in Gettler’s breathing, and the rhythm resumed.
She put her left hand behind Jeb’s neck, her lips found his. He pulled her against him with a rough strength, and for a long minute they were an island of isolated awareness in the sea of night. Monti pulled away, brushed her cheek against his beard, whispered: “Thank you.”
Jeb stroked her hair, acutely aware of the warm softness against him.
“I was so afraid,” she whispered.
“Shhhh,” he said.
And he thought: The
poor kid. Nothing ever prepared her for an emergency like this. But something about that thought struck him wrong, and Jeb sensed that all the rest of them might die while Monti survived because of some mysterious strength a man couldn’t understand.
Monti shifted in his arms, cradled her head in Jeb’s lap.
He continued to stroke her hair, wide awake now in spite of his fatigue … keenly aware of every sound in the damp darkness: the slow sloshing of a limb in the current, the close drum of rain on the plane … and now the soft, even breathing of Monti as she slept.
Far off there came the soughing and rumbling of trees in the wind. The sound grew.
A new storm coming, he thought.
The wind was a live thing talking in the jungle—shuddering against the plane in a pellet-rattle of rain, hissing and whispering.
Jeb tried to put meaning into the wind sounds, aware that it was an insane thing to do, yet fascinated by the thought that the wind could talk. And it made the time pass quickly.
Gettler stirred, said: “I’ll take over, Logan.” He cleared his throat, and Monti moved restlessly in Jeb’s lap. “Any signs of trouble?”
“Nothing I could identify,” whispered Jeb. He glanced at his wristwatch. Midnight. And he thought: Gettler must have a built-in clock.
The weariness that had been building up in Jeb flooded over. He suddenly felt that nothing could be as important as sleep. He tipped his head against the seat back, and the dark overcame him.
Gettler rubbed his left elbow to restore circulation where he had been sleeping on it. The warm dampness of the night felt very familiar, as though this moment were the thing he knew best of everything in the universe. But it was tinged with melancholy: the inner balancing emotion that told him he had only a small part of control over a small part of his destiny. And he re-experienced a sense of regret, thought: I’m sorry, Rog. Sorry I killed you. But you shouldn’t have tried to play God!
Jeb awoke to a wetly dripping dawn. A gauze curtain of rain blurred the drowned forest. The river was a desolate emptiness that reached everywhere into the greyness. Countless rain craters repeated themselves endlessly on the surface.
Monti still slept across Jeb’s lap. He lifted her gently to a sitting position. She opened her eyes, smiled at him with sleepy half-awareness.
Four Unpublished Novels Page 35
