"Por Deus! Your barrigudo now drinks water!” Pedro laughed. “What marvel shall we see next?"
The barrigudo gave him an ugly look through his hair. I began to suspect that the man did know Portuguese. So I spoke to him in that tongue.
"Let us eat."
He only grunted as if he did not understand and did not want to, and shoved his dugout toward the furo. We did not stop to eat, but pushed out in his wake.
Again he turned westward. And all through that hot forenoon, senhores, he kept going. Sweating, breathing hard, groaning at times, but always pulling away at his paddle, he drove onward until noon. By that time his strokes were so weak that his boat merely crawled, and we were so hungry that we were ugly.
"Are you trying to kill yourself and us with work and hunger?” I complained. “What does all this mean? Where are you going?"
Slowly, looking us straight in the eyes, he answered:
"Eheh ahoh putare heretamo koteh. I am going away to my country."
So that was it. Somehow it seemed strange that this creature could have any country other than the place where we had found him. Yet I did not despise him now as I had. His grim fight to keep going in spite of his clumsiness and his rum-rot made me respect him a little. I was about to ask him, in a more civil tone, where his country was, when Pedro broke in.
"So are we. But we have eaten nothing today, and I am going ashore now to eat and rest a while."
The barrigudo watched him a minute, then stooped, drew something out of his basket, bit off a piece, and threw the rest to us. It was a flat cake of pressed leaves and bark, wet and sticky as if it had been soaked.
"Chew that,” he said. “Swallow."
Seeing that he was already chewing his own, we each bit off a chunk and ground it between our teeth. It tasted both sweetish and sour, quickly filling our mouths with water. After we had swallowed a few times our hunger left us and we felt refreshed.
"What is it?” Pedro asked.
"Petema. Tobacco,” he replied with a slight grin. “Yahoh uahn. Let us go now."
And he resumed paddling.
"It is no more tobacco than my foot,” Pedro snorted in Portuguese. “But I will not let that bag-belly outpaddle me."
And his shoulders also began to sway again and we moved on.
IT WAS sundown when we stopped at last. Up another inlet we went, around snake-like curves, and into a large, rounded pool.
"Here we are safe,” panted the hairy man.
Picking a shelving spot, he drove his dugout ashore, high and hard. As the canoe struck he tumbled forward and lay wheezing. When he was able to get up he crawled out on hands and knees, looking more than ever like a huge monkey.
While we landed he sat in the soft mud by the water, his head hanging, his eyes closed; and he stayed there until we had put up our hammocks, made a fire, and prepared our meal.
"Come and eat,” I called.
Wearily he lifted his head and slowly he got up. But he did not eat. He looked at the fire, then stumbled over to it and flopped down beside it.
"Anih hahmbuya heh. I am not hungry,” he sighed—and went to sleep sprawling on the bare ground, with the smoke creeping over him.
We let him lie. We did not feel hungry either at first, but after the first few mouthfuls we ate like starved men. When we were full we were stupid from fatigue and heavy eating. After building up the fire so that it would burn slowly and long, we tumbled into our hammocks; and I fell asleep at once.
When I opened my eyes on a new day the barrigudo was gone.
My machete also was gone. The rifles were there, however, and nothing else was missing. And when I looked at the water's edge, there was his canoe, just as he had driven it up at sundown Of the man himself, though, there was no sign—no blood on the ground, no fresh tracks near the water. He had not been killed or carried off, and he seemed not to have walked away. He had simply vanished.
Wondering, I made breakfast and awoke Pedro. We called, but got no answer. So, after some talk and argument, we ate and smoked, intending then to search the bush. Before our cigarettes were finished, however, a deep voice spoke behind us.
"Good morning!"
The words were English. The voice was not that of the barrigudo, yet it was familiar. And the man we saw as we whirled and looked was not the barrigudo either—not the barrigudo we knew; but it was such a man as the barrigudo might be if, by some miracle, he should become clean.
A broad, heavy white man stood there. Yes, senhores, a white man—burned to a coppery brown by the sun, black-haired of body as well as of head, but a white man for all that. His whole body glowed as if it had been scrubbed and scraped and scrubbed again. His hair was not long and greasy like that of the barrigudo, but cut close to his broad skull; and his scalp, too, was rosy as if rubbed almost raw.
Under his black brows a pair of deep brown eyes looked straight at us without wink or waver. His mouth was not loose-lipped but set in a resolute line. His head was up and his shoulders back; and, though he was overfat, both face and body were those of a man strong and self-reliant.
Open-mouthed, we stared until he spoke again.
"Understand English?"
"Y-y-yes, senhor,” Pedro gulped. “We both speak it. But—but are you—the barrigudo?"
"I was. Yesterday. Today I am—somebody else."
He talked slowly, halting for words as if it had been so long since he had last used his own language that it did not come easily to his tongue.
"Now that I am fit to do so,” he went on, “I will eat breakfast. Been cleaning up at a little pool back in the bush."
Calmly he advanced and handed me my machete. In a dazed manner I took it.
"Yours,” he nodded. “I used the back to scrape myself and the edge to saw off my hair. Overdid the haircut a bit. Shall have to make a leaf hat now. What have you to eat?"
Dumbly I arose and got out more farinha and dried fish. With the farinha I tried to make some chibeh, but I paused to stare at him again and spilled half of the water.
"Never mind the chibeh,” he said, gnawing off a chunk of the pirarucu fish. “I will make it myself. Sit down. You seem upset."
A little vexed, I put my mind on my work and made the chibeh as it should be. Placing the gourd on the ground, I made a new cigarette and watched him eat.
"Roll me a smoke too, if you please,” he added. “Haven't had one for four years. Now that I have quit boozing I need a smoke to steady me."
"You have stopped drinking?” I repeated as I reached for my pouch.
"I have. It's gnawing at me now, but I'm through with it. Damn the stuff! It's been my curse. I'll beat it or die trying. And I'll not die."
He bit savagely into the fish again, and chewed it as if grinding up with it his craving for drink. He ate his chibeh in the same fierce way. When that was gone he drank heavily—of water. After that he swiftly lighted the cigarette I had made, sucked the smoke into his lungs, coughed, choked, tried again, and made better work of it.
"Got to learn to smoke all over again,” he grumbled. “It makes me dizzy and it tastes rotten. But it helps some.
"Now you fellows are bursting with questions, I suppose. Shoot them quick. We've got to move."
"Anything you wish to tell us, senhor, we shall be glad to hear,” Pedro replied. “We ask no questions about matters that do not concern us."
"Thanks. Mighty decent of you. Then I'll say this much now, for it does concern you: About another day's paddle from here we hit a rambling sort of river running northeast. Are you hunting for a way to the Amazon?"
"No. We seek the Javary, in the northwest."
"Oh. I see. Probably this furo continues northwest after we reach the river. Not sure about that, though. We'll see. If you go northwest I leave you at the river. I travel northeast."
"To the Amazon?"
"To the Amazon. Then to the Atlantic. Then to America—North. Three A's in a row. They spell ‘Home’ to me. Let's go."
He heaved himself up, winced from the pain of stiff muscles, clamped his jaws, and marched to his canoe. As soon as we could gather up our hammocks, weapons, and food we entered our own craft, and again we were off.
ALL DAY we kept on his wake. All day he drove himself to keep his paddle going, eating nothing, only chewing a few mouthfuls of that “tobacco” of his which banished hunger and subdued fatigue. And as mile after mile crept past and the sweat continued to roll off him he seemed slowly to shrink—shrink to firm muscle and slough off his gross fat.
Whether or not this was only my fancy, I know that when we stopped that night on the far side of his rambling river—for we did reach it late that day—he was shaped more like a man and less like a monkey. And his face, with new lines eaten into it, was that of a man, fighting a hard but winning fight.
That night, too, he bathed himself again, though so tired that he could not stand steadily. And he ate and smoked before he lay down by the fire.
"Take my hammock,” I urged.
But he would not. And when I spoke of snakes, he retorted:
"Any snake that bites me will die of delirium tremens. There's a lot of bad booze in my system yet. I'll take the chance. Good night!"
So, as before, Pedro and I slept in our hammocks and he on the ground. And, as before, he was up first in the morning.
"Now,” he said after breakfast, “we have time to talk.
"You're wondering, of course, how I came into this part of the world. Briefly, then, I was a surgeon. I was a good surgeon. But I drank. More than once I operated when I was nowhere near sober. That meant trouble ahead.
"The trouble came. There was a delicate operation—a young woman—and I was shaky from the effects of a wild night. I had to quit in the middle of the job. Another doctor finished it, but the damage was done. She never recovered consciousness. It was just as well that she didn't.
"That botch broke me. I lost my grip. I drank harder—slid downhill fast. Lost my practice and about everything else, including self-respect and hope. Never committed any crime, though. I'm clean in that way if in no other.
"Drifted into Brazil as ‘doctor’ of a crowd of wealthy bums who came up the Amazon on a steam-yacht, calling themselves ‘explorers.’ Lots of money and fool ideas, but no brains. Only thing they explored was every known variety of Brazilian booze. I was the best explorer in the bunch when it came to that.
"Had a drunken row and got put ashore at some Indian town and left there. Thought I had hit the bottom then, but there was still some distance to slide. Yes, there was.
"I kept drinking. Quit everything else—even quit wearing clothes—but I kept drinking. Went from one place to another with Indians—only friends I had left, and some of them not very cordial. I was a no-good white, down and out.
"Just how I got into that place back yonder I don't remember. Drifting around, drunk whenever I could find booze—finally got lost, starved nearly to death, woke up in a place of scabby spotted folks who had fed me and then dumped me in a medicine man's hut.
"I got well, looked for more booze, and couldn't find enough. But I fixed a way to get plenty. Then I stayed with it until you fellows came."
He paused, scowling out at the river flowing past, as if he saw the last four years of his life floating by him on its surface. We said nothing. After a time he went on.
"There is more than one way of getting booze. Buy it, make it yourself, get others to make it for you. When you're lazy and broke there are objections to all these ways. Making it yourself means work and waiting. Buying it means paying for it. And folks won't make it for you unless they receive something in return.
"Of course, a man who won't make his own and has no means of buying it has two ways left—to beg it or steal it. But there are places where even these ways won't get you much. And I was in one of those places.
"There was a little booze in that town, but only a little. The reason why there wasn't more was because the people were too sick and sluggish to work and make it. What little I could get was only a teaser for a two-handed rum-hound like me. I grew desperate. And in my desperation I got a big idea.
"I had bummed many a drink—and many a drunk—among Indians who gave it to me because I could do surgical and medical work for them. I had knocked around in this country long enough to pick up a knowledge of your jungle diseases, and also of the medicinal virtues of your native roots, herbs, leaves, barks, and so on. I had seen that scabby, spotty skin disease before, and I knew how to cure it.
"But I was tired of begging drinks; I wanted to command them. And while I was in that dead medicine man's house I got the idea. I began to play God.
"I mean just that. God created men. I had to create men too. Those spotted Indians were nothing but living corpses, and I had to take those dead-alive people and turn them into healthy folks. Otherwise they wouldn't make booze for me.
"So, for the sake of rum, I became a creator and a savior of bodies. Their souls didn't interest me. My own didn't interest me either.
"Worrying along with what rum I could get and driven by my idea, I worked like a beaver inside the round house until it was ready. Then I made the air-devils talk and sing. After that I built Pajé.
"Pajé was just the boy to handle those Indians, both before and after they were cured; and I saw to it that he never botched things as I had botched that operation back home. So everybody got well, and as the servant of Pajé I lived on the fat of the land and was soused to the collar most of the time.
"And then you chaps came along and woke me up. That's all. Make me another cigarette, please."
"But senhor, that is not all,” I protested. “What was that work which you did in the round house? How did you make air-devils and Pajé? What is Pajé? How did you—"
I broke off and glanced upward. Above our heads sounded a sweetly singing little voice. Nothing was there; the air was empty. As I dropped my gaze again to the barrigudo I found him grinning.
"The singing voices follow us,” he laughed. “And so does Pajé."
Without moving, he suddenly boomed out in resonant tones:
"You have eyes but you see not. You have ears but your brain is deaf. I am Pajé, master of demons! I am the air-devils! I am the whole damn works! Give me that cigarette!"
It was the voice of Pajé himself.
"But how—” I gasped.
"Oh, give me the makings and let me roll my own smoke,” he said impatiently in his usual tone.
When his cigarette was lighted he explained.
"I built an inner wall to the house. A false wall, with space between it and the real wall for me to move. Fixed a blind doorway on a slant in a dim spot at one side. Kept the house dark and smoky all the time to conceal it. Could appear and disappear in no time that way.
"The great Pajé was hidden between the walls. He was nothing but a light framework fitting over my shoulders, with dark cloth draped over it. Had a very thin place in the cloth so that I could see through it. Trickery and a change of voices did the rest."
"Por Deus!" muttered Pedro. “You fooled us with our own trick. We ourselves used such frames and great false heads to terrify Indians back on the Jurua. But yours was headless and armless—"
"And you were sick, and I kept up the demon stuff, and the Indians firmly believed I was an infernal monster and told you so. As for the air-devils, I happen to be good at ventriloquism—throwing voices around, you know.
"I had a bag of tricks inside the house too—strings which would open and shut the door or the jaws of heads on the wall, and so on. You saw some of them, Lourenço. Remember the boa's head that ordered you out and the vampire bat that put you to sleep? That dust that fell into your face when you pulled down the vampire bat was a sure-fire knockout powder.
"There were other things which you didn't see because I didn't need to use them on you. I had a very complete workshop there."
"I believe you,” I agreed. “But if you yourself are the air-devils, how did you throw those voice
s all the way from the place where we found you to the spot where I first heard them? How did you even see us through all that bush? Why, senhor, you were asleep!"
"No more asleep than I am now,” he chuckled. “Wasn't far from you, either. I was right at the edge of the bush, squatting and grubbing around for a certain kind of root, when you hove in sight.
"Happened to have just enough rum in me to make me feel good. Kept out of sight and tossed voices around just to see what you'd do.
"Then, finding you had sickness aboard, thought I'd look it over. While you were paddling downstream and then going up that cove looking for me I took a shortcut, lay down under a tree where you couldn't miss me, and pretended sleep. After that I had to be surly and carry out my role. Anything else?"
"Yes. What ailed Pedro, and how did you cure the Indians of spotted sickness, and—"
"Not so fast. I am not going to tell you all I know. But if ever you become diseased with that spotted ailment, make strong sarsaparilla and drink it. Very strong, plenty of it.
"Pedro had malignant fever, which kills in a few hours. You brought him to me barely in time, and I had a job to pull him through. Didn't touch a drop of rum in all the time I was working on him—didn't sleep a wink either. The minute he was out of the house, though, I gulped about a gallon of jungle lightning."
I nodded, remembering his appearance when he passed me an hour after Pedro's release from the House of Voices. After being sober and sleepless for forty-eight hours, it was no wonder that he had become drunk so swiftly and completely when the tension ended.
"Now that I know what I know,” Pedro said slowly, “I am sorry, senhor, that I said what I did when I saw you the next day."
"You needn't be. It was exactly what I needed—a look at myself through another man's eyes. It jolted me into realization of just how much of a beast I had become.
"When I had shut myself up inside the round house and knocked out my hangover with a little homemade bracer I sat down and did some real thinking. Didn't have to meditate much concerning my exact social status—your disgust showed me where I stood.
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