“If Gutiérrez is the type I think he is,” the canon said, “he would choose a place with no safe water supply. Murder by indirection is what he’s after.”
“We’ve got to have something more to eat,” Simon said. “I’ll have to go a little farther.”
“No, Simon. You went beyond voice range last time, and almost got lost.”
“But I didn’t get lost. I got back.”
“You might not, the next time. It’s not worth the risk of being separated. I know neither of us cares if we never see another coconut, but we can survive on them for a while longer, if you’ll climb another tree. And by tomorrow I’ll be able to walk.”
Simon knew that Canon Tallis did not think much of the boy’s chances of surviving alone in the jungle.—And I’ve never been a Boy Scout or anything, he acknowledged. —Aunt Leonis and I have led very sedentary lives.
He could recognize a water moccasin or a rattler or a coral snake. He did not think much of his ability to fight off a wild boar singlehanded.
By mid-afternoon it was apparent to both of them that the priest’s wound was worsening. Despite frequent fresh dressings of cool leaves the wound became steadily more inflamed and suppurating. The flush of fever rose boldly in the canon’s cheeks.
He reached up to the woven sun hat covering his bald pate. “I think I must have a touch of sun.”
“You have fever, sir.”
“Yes. Perhaps I have.”
“You’re not going to be able to walk by morning, sir.”
The priest did not answer. Around them the jungle noises seemed to increase, to draw closer. They heard hoots, clucks, cackles; hisses, screeches, growlings.
“They smell my wound,” Canon Tallis said. “If Hurtado has not found us by tomorrow you had better leave me here and head for the sea. Do you know how to guide yourself by sun and wind?”
“I’ve never had to, but—as you said—necessity makes a good teacher. I’ll do my best to—” He broke off as there was a crescendo of noise and activity, and a sudden screeching of birds flying high up into the air above the jungle. Near their clearing twigs crackled, leaves rustled, a branch creaked.
Then, above them, Simon saw eyes, great obsidian eyes in a cat-shaped face. The body was spotted, and rippled with muscles tensed to spring.
“Run!” Canon Tallis ordered. “Simon, run!”
Blind with terror, Simon ran.
Geraldo would not leave his hot box of a galley. He stood at the sink and washed cups and saucers which did not need washing. His face was stained with tears.
Poly hovered. “I know he didn’t do it, Herald.”
Tears gathered again in Geraldo’s dark eyes. He blew his nose.
“But”—Poly asked hesitantly—“why did he lie about the key to cabin 5?”
“Jan does not lie.”
“You still think he’s covering up for somebody?”
Geraldo shrugged.
“You think he’ll go on covering even if he’s hanged for it—or whatever they do in Venezuela?”
Geraldo hunched his shoulders upward again.
“And the portrait—” Poly said. “How did the portrait get off the Orion and into the Umara’s house at Dragonlake?”
“It could be done,” Geraldo said slowly. “A fishing boat could come close enough so that a strong swimmer could get to the Orion unseen.”
“Unseen by radar?”
“Yes. It is possible.”
“And then what?”
“From the lower deck, where the pilot comes on, from there the portrait could easily be lowered into the water. And you said that it is painted on wood.”
“That’s what Simon said.”
“So it would float.”
“But wouldn’t the salt water hurt it?”
“Perhaps not if it were only for a short time and if it were to be cleaned off immediately.”
Poly looked at him admiringly. “You’ve really thought it all out, haven’t you?”
“It seemed necessary.”
“Have you told Comandante Hurtado?”
Again Geraldo shrugged. “I did not think that it would help Jan.”
“You mean, it’s something Jan could have done?”
“Jan—or the man who tried to push Simon overboard. And I have no doubt that the señor comandante could figure this much out for himself. He does not need me to tell him.”
“But we don’t know what he said to Jan, or what Jan said to him.”
“We know enough. Jan was not quiet. He was heard. He swore he had nothing to do with it, any of it.”
“And Simon and Uncle Father?”
The tears began to flow down Geraldo’s cheeks. He spoke over a sob. “I do not understand the comandante Hurtado. I thought he was a man of wisdom. Why has he not found them and brought them to the Orion? We do not even know if they are alive.”
Poly put her hand over Geraldo’s mouth. “Stop! Stop!” She wondered at her own dry eyes.
Charles sought out Hurtado, and was finally summoned up onto the bridge, where the policeman had been talking with the captain.
“You want to see me?” Hurtado asked.
“Yes, please. I had a dream last night.”
Hurtado wiped his hand over his somber jaw. “It is late for dreams.”
“Please—I saw a man being handcuffed, and it was not Jan, because Jan was crying, crying for the man.”
“Who was it, then?”
“It was a man in a winter uniform, with his cap pulled down. I do not know who it was. But it was not Jan.”
“Your dreams do not tell you enough.”
“But my dreams have never lied. And it was not Jan who was being handcuffed, because Jan was there, weeping for whoever it was.”
Hurtado spoke heavily. “Charles, I have to trust the evidence.”
“But it was not Jan, I know it was not Jan.”
Hurtado reminded him, “You yourself said that dreams do not hold up in court. I’ll speak to you later, Charles. I have work to do.”
“Simon and Uncle Father?” Charles asked. “Have you found them?”
Hurtado looked over the boy’s head, not meeting the blue eyes. “A party of Quiztanos is searching for them, and they can move in the jungle where no white man can manage.”
“But you think they’re all right?”
Now their eyes met. “I will not think otherwise.”
Simon did not know how long or how far he ran in his panic, crashing through underbrush, not thinking of scorpion or snake, not feeling the lash of vines cutting across his face. At last the density of the jungle itself stopped him. He had run into a wall of trees and bushes laced together by vines.
He stood still, panting, his heart thudding wildly. Sweat suddenly poured out of him, while his mouth and throat were parched.
He had run away.
He had run away from Canon Tallis with his wounded leg. He had run away from whatever kind of wildcat it was which had been about to leap on them.
He had abandoned Canon Tallis, incapable of protecting himself, left him to be killed. He had thought only of saving his own life.
Suddenly he was furious, furious with Quentin Phair.
—If you hadn’t run away from Dragonlake I’d never have run away from Uncle Father. If you’d been where you ought to be, then I’d never have deserted my friend. It’s your blood in my veins that’s responsible—
No. He could hear Aunt Leonis as clearly as though she were there in the jungle beside him. ‘Ultimately your decisions are yours, Simon. You have a goodly heritage, but it is up to you to live up to it. Quentin Phair cannot make you brave in an emergency. You have to condition your own reflexes of braveness.’
If Quentin Phair could not make him brave, neither could he make him a betrayer.
—But I’m blood of your blood, Quentin, he thought bitterly.
His anger ebbed, leaving him spent and heavy of heart. He began to walk. He had no idea in what direction he had run, or
if he was heading toward or away from the clearing. He was afraid of returning to the clearing, afraid of what he might find there. But he had run away, there was no evading that, and the only thing left to do was to return. He knew that it would be too late, but it was still what he had to do.
Shortly after lunch Gutiérrez appeared. His mother had recovered from her illness; the sight of her son had given her renewed strength.
Vermeer, staying on the Orion in Hurtado’s absence, greeted him effusively, rejoicing over the miraculous recovery of el señor jefe de polica Gutiérrez’s beloved mother, “and I am happy to tell you, my dear Gutiérrez, that Hurtado has made a definitive arrest. All our troubles are over.”
Gutierrez’s surprise was as enlarged as Vermeer’s sympathy. “But who can it be? Never have I known so complex a problem!” When Vermeer told him, he said, “Of course, I should have guessed. I have been suspecting that young man of indulging in smuggling for some time, but could not pin anything definite on him.”
“Smuggling as well as murder and theft and kidnapping!” Vermeer exclaimed.
Gutierrez rubbed his pudgy hands together. “It explains much.”
“Does it? Why does smuggling explain the murder?”
“The Bolivar portrait,” Gutiérrez said. “That is an extremely valuable portrait. If Jan were caught stealing the portrait by Mr. Phair, then he would be forced to dispose of him. There is much profit to be made from stolen art treasures.”
“You think Jan was part of a ring of art thieves?”
“It is likely, is it not?”
“And what about the boy and the Englishman?”
Gutiérrez moved his face into distressed lines. “They have of course been found?”
“Not yet. We know more or less where they are; the Quiztanos saw smoke in the interior of the jungle, and a party is out looking for them. We expect them to be found shortly.”
“A happy issue to all our problems,” Gutiérrez said, but he did not sound happy. “Pray do excuse me, señor consul, but I must get back to my job. I wanted to come directly to the Orion, but now there is work to be done, all the daily routines to be picked up.”
When Gutiérrez had bustled off, greeted at the gangplank by what seemed to be hundreds of waiting minions, Vermeer went out onto the dock and spoke to a man who was lounging in the shade of his truck.
During the afternoon the pain in Canon Tallis’s leg had become so acute that he knew he was not going to be able to keep it from the boy much longer. As his fever mounted, his mind began to remind him of a movie camera; sometimes everything was close up, clear, each detail visible; then the camera would move back so that all was far away. When he became aware of the beast in the tree above them, crouched to spring, he viewed it as from an incredible distance, as through the wrong end of a telescope. He knew that he could not run. He heard himself calling to Simon to run, and then he crossed himself and prepared to die.
His life did not flash before him—after all, he was not drowning—but he had a quiet feeling of pleasure that his life had been rich in experience and friendship and the love of God.
He closed his eyes.
Then he heard a thwack, and a scream, and a thud, and the wildcat dropped from the tree, dead, an arrow piercing its heart.
The Smiths sat in the shadow of the canvas canopy on the promenade deck. “That nice Jan,” Mrs. Smith said. “It is hard to believe.”
“Not many people who knew us in Burlington would ever have suspected that I was once so involved in gambling that I nearly ruined our lives.”
“But—murder! I cannot see Jan as a murderer.”
Mr. Smith patted her hand gently. “The human heart is too often an ugly thing, Patty. There are not many gentle souls like you. If it hadn’t been for you I would have ruined us.”
“I knew what you were really like,” Mrs. Smith said. “You’re a good man, Odell, and I love you.”
“You’ve made me what I am, Patty. You gave me the courage to stand up to Phair and refuse to be blackmailed. I love you, too, and just as much as I did fifty years ago.”
They sat holding hands, and smiling at each other, and did not even notice Dr. Eisenstein looking at them with a rather wistful expression.
It was blunder and stubbornness and sense of smell and possibly pheromones which guided Simon until finally he broke out of the undergrowth and into the clearing. The jungle closed quickly over his tracks.
The fire was there, no more than smoldering ashes.
That was all.
No Canon Tallis. No beast crouched to spring, ruby eyes gleaming.
Simon’s heart began to pound again. Could this be someone else’s clearing?
No. This was the branch from which the puma—or whatever it was—had prepared to attack. This was the small pile of green wood and leaf mold he had collected for the fire. There were the coconut husks. These were the beds of grass and fern which they had made, Canon Tallis’s still bearing the imprint of his body. And there was the palm-leaf hat Simon had woven for the priest.
For a moment Simon had a horrible vision of wildcat, lion, leopard, snake, scorpion, vulture, all feasting on the ample body of the priest.
But something would have been left: white clerical collar, silver cuff-links, belt. Or buttons; there would at least have been a button. He scrabbled about on the ground.
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
He sat back on his heels in perplexity.
What to do?
Then he stiffened. In the distance he heard a motor, completely incongruous amid the jungle sounds. But it was approaching, and it came from above. Leaf and vine had quickly closed over the tearing by Gutiérrez’s helicopter. The smoke signal which might once have penetrated the green was dead ash. If this was a helicopter sent out by Hurtado there would be nothing to see.
The sound came closer, high above his head, then lower, lower.
He began to tremble. Only Gutiérrez or one of his men would know how to get here without a signal from the ground, and a landing strip.
The noise of the rotors was deafening.
Monkeys screeched, birds flew up in the air. Then there was a sound of ripping and the helicopter dropped through the vines. The blades quivered to a stop.
Simon pressed back into the surrounding tangle of jungle, but there was no point in running away. This time there was to be no escape. He had abandoned Canon Tallis and anything that happened to him now was his own fault. He waited.
Gutiérrez climbed out of the machine.
He was followed by the soldier with the rifle who had thrown Simon into the hearse and the priest into the copter.
Simon did not move. He would have welcomed boar or wildcat.
“Where is he,” Gutiérrez demanded, “the Englishman?”
“I don’t know.”
“What you mean, you don’t know?”
“I don’t know,” Simon repeated.
Gutiérrez grabbed him by the arm. Simon tried to jerk away, but he could not.
The soldier kicked him in the belly. “Where is he?”
The wind was knocked out of Simon. He gasped like a fish out of water. He saw the boot raised to kick again.
He closed his eyes.
When Hurtado reached the dock at Port of Dragons, a message was waiting for him. A man who seemingly had been asleep all day in his hammock had received a message from the Quiztano village. The English priest had been found, and the boy was not with him.
Vermeer and Hurtado were closeted in the captain’s quarters. “This is serious,” Hurtado said. “You actually told Gutierrez that smoke was seen in the jungle?”
“I did.”
“Vermeer, I do not understand you.”
Vermeer’s smile had a slightly fixed look. “I did not forget what you said. It was the only way I could think of to force Gutiérrez’s hand.”
Hurtado wiped the back of his fist across his sharp blue jaw. “Gutiérrez left the Orion, went to the police
barracks, got in a small police car, and took off. One of his subordinates reports that Gutiérrez was called to meet someone at the airport.”
“You have called the airport?”
“Gutiérrez did, in fact, go there. He stopped only long enough to collect one of the soldiers who hangs about the place, and preempt a helicopter.”
“Are you having him followed?”
“Vermeer, I am only a policeman. He has a good start on us. I have three helicopters out, but I cannot cover the entire jungle. If Gutiérrez has gone back to his mother’s village there’ll be no tracing him.”
Vermeer asked, “Alejandro, what else is on your mind?”
“Tom Tallis has been found. He has a badly injured leg, where he was gored by a wild boar.”
“And the boy?”
“We don’t know where the boy is.”
“But why?”
Hurtado told him.
“Tallis is with the Quiztanos?”
“Yes. His leg is evidently in bad shape.”
“But what about Simon?”
“The Quiztano party has gone back into the jungle to look for him. He evidently ran in terror. He will have left traces. But they must find him quickly. There are dangers in the jungle.”
Vermeer said, “Alejandro, you have to get hold of Gutiérrez.”
“Why is Gutiérrez so important at this moment?”
“I have a hunch that he has something to do with the kidnapping, and that he and the murderer are—what do you say—”
Dragons in the Waters Page 23
