"Coiled before us in plain sight, and we almost walked on it,” said Pedro. “Two steps more, and one of us would have talked with Deus Padre this night."
We stood searching every foot of ground. No other snake was in sight. But as our eyes roved along the earth we looked again on death. At the edge of the bush, down at our left, lay a jumble of bones.
Wordless, Pedro pointed his machete at them. I nodded. Then our eyes went back to the man who waited above, and on up the hill we went until we were within two spaces of him.
He was not tall, and his face was hidden from us by the droop of his head and the shaggy black hair hanging down over it—hair slightly streaked with gray, but not that of an old man. His body was lean but not gaunt, his shoulders were well muscled, and his skin to the waistline was darker than below. Yet his legs were not white. They too were dark, but with a different shade of darkness than that of the upper body. They seemed to have a bluish tinge. And they were swollen.
From head to foot, from foot to head and down again, we studied him. And our eyes rested longest on those puffed legs with their unwholesome color. Presently Pedro stooped, peered sharply at the feet and ankles, and grunted as if he saw what he expected. Still stooping, he looked up into the down-turned face. His own face tightened.
I slipped my gun-butt flatwise under the dead chin and lifted it. Somehow I did not feel like touching it with my hand. And when I looked squarely into the face I was glad I had not put my own flesh on it. Not only was it drawn into lines of horror and agony, but it was blotched with terrible sores.
Great livid patches were eaten into the hollow cheeks as if by some poison. One eye was raw and blind. And the nose—
"Ugh!” I grunted.
And I dropped my rifle-butt and stepped back. The head flopped stiffly forward and hung as before.
Pedro arose, and he too stepped back. After glancing around us he laid down his gun, got out his rubber smoking-pouch, made two cigarettes, and passed one to me. We stood and smoked a while before saying anything.
"Killed by snakes,” he said at length, moving a thumb toward the distended and discolored legs. “Forced back against those poisonous assacu spikes, tied tight, and then struck again and again by snakes—probably jararacas. Before that—no one can say how long before—someone threw assacu poison in his face. I have seen such sores before."
I nodded, for I too had seen such things. The poison of the assacu not only is fatal if drunk, but if it is merely sprinkled on the skin it causes sores which can not be cured.
"He was a bush-traveler of some sort—perhaps like ourselves,” he went on. “He is tanned to the waist, as we are, from going without a shirt. His muscles are those of a man who has paddled much. He is not more than forty-five years old, and he was strong and healthy not long ago. He died last night."
Again I nodded. That long despairing scream in the dark seemed to ring once more in my ears.
"But the big gold crucifix,” I said. “What do you make of that?"
He made no answer until we finished our cigarettes. Then he said:
"Nothing. I do not believe he was a priest. He has not the face of a priest, nor even of a man who would wear such a thing. I doubt if it was his at all."
"Whose, then? It must be worth much money, and it is not a thing to be left hanging on a naked murdered man."
He only shrugged his shoulders. Then he strode down the hill to the bones at the edge of the bush. I followed.
The bones were those of men. Among them were seven skulls.
I bent to scan them more closely, but at once I sprang back. Just beyond them, in thick grass, sounded a hiss.
For a few seconds we saw nothing of the snake hidden there. Then among the stalks I spied a flat head and a darting tongue. I lifted my rifle, but let it sink again and pulled my machete, which would make no noise to tell other men we were here. Balancing it carefully, I threw it, point downward.
Up flew a thrashing tail. A louder hiss sounded. The grass heaved and bent. We glimpsed the body of a six-foot surucucu, into whose coil my blade had plunged. Pedro slipped forward, swung his bush-knife in a half-circle, and clipped off its head. I stepped in and got back my own weapon.
Leaving the twitching, headless coil where it lay, we turned away from the bones and walked cautiously around the rest of the knoll. We found no more bones, no more snakes. But at the edge of the water, south of the tree, we found the marks of men. In the clay were the prints of three canoe bows and the trampled tracks of human feet.
That was all. Looking southward along the ygarapé we saw only that the water wound another turn and disappeared. So we turned back to the tree.
"This is not only a poison tree—it is a murder tree,” I said, “Those bones down there never fell naturally into that place. Seven men have met a frightful death strapped to these spikes, and one by one they have been kicked away when the murderers came with another victim. This man here is the eighth. Perhaps if we were found here we might be the ninth and tenth."
"Not without sending a few men howling to hell ahead of us,” he answered grimly.
"And what is more, I have a great mind to send a few there anyway."
Looking at that mute body, I growled assent.
"Rubber-hunting will have to wait until we have settled this matter,” I said. “Now let us give this poor fellow a decent bed to lie in if we can. After that we shall see.
So we went back on our trail a little way, found the best spot we could, and labored there at a grave. When it was done we returned with a pole bed to the spike-studded tree of death and, working carefully, cut the murdered man free without scratching ourselves against the bark behind him. And a little later he lay straight and still in the hole we had made for him.
We stood looking down at his poor tortured face for a time before packing the earth upon him. And then Pedro knelt, lifted the head, and drew off over it the heavy gold cross and chain.
"Friend,” he said soberly, “this will do you no good now. It may be that the cross will lead us to those who gave you so foul a fate. And if it does and the good God fights with us, I promise you that those who did this thing shall pay!"
* * * *
V
BACK IN the bush, well away from the ygarapé and that cursed tree, we made a poor camp. The ground was soggy and slimy, the only moving water we found was a stream less than a foot wide, and huge mosquitoes came by hundreds to attack us; but the day was so far gone that we must make some place to sling our hammocks, and we were faint from hunger. So we did the best we could, knowing we could endure the place for one night and glad we were not near that snaky assacu.
Between our hammocks we hung the cross of gold. And when we had eaten and lain down we stared at it and puzzled about it.
"Only savages could have given that poor fellow such a death,” Pedro declared. “Yet where would savages get such a cross? And why would they leave it on him? There are barbaros who do not know what the cross means; there are some who do not know the value of gold; but even such brutes would keep this fine cross as an ornament, if for nothing more."
"If it is not his own cross, and if it was not put on him by those who murdered him, I can see only one way for him to get it,” I said. “And that way is almost impossible."
"And what is that?"
"That some man of the church reached him before us and left it there."
"No. That is not at all possible. No priest travels this lonely bush, and no priest hangs gold crosses on dead men. I never saw a priest who even owned so good a cross as this. How it came here we can not know—at least not yet. But we can be sure that the men who did this thing are brutes as cruel as the jararaca. And tomorrow, before we go on, I am going to prepare for them some of their own medicine."
"How?"
"Wait and see."
And no more would he tell me.
In the morning, while the coffee was boiling, he said:
"There are two ugly things I want: a small jacar
é, about five or six feet long, and some snakes. I will hunt the snakes if you will find the alligator. Remember, no shooting! You must get him with the knife."
"Why waste time hunting such things?” I demanded.
"It is not a waste of time. When we have them I will show you."
So, knowing his habit of keeping his plans to himself until it pleased him to reveal them, and remembering more than one time when those plans had seemed foolish but had proved good, I went out that morning to kill an alligator.
On our way along the banks yesterday we had seen several of the brutes, and though it is not easy to kill a jacaré by the knife—for he is a tough, cunning, and wary beast—still it can be done. Out to the ygarapé I went, and there I crept stealthily along near the water, watching for a log-like form lurking in the weeds on shore.
It was a long hunt. Twice I found jacarés hidden in the rank growth, waiting for some animal to come from the jungle to drink; but both saw me too soon and clawed their way into the water. Two or three others were floating in the water itself, but these were beyond my reach. At length, when I had gone a long way from camp without success, I gave it up and started back. And I had nearly reached the place whence I started, when luck favored me.
Perhaps the creature was asleep. Perhaps he saw me but thought I did not see him—for, having nearly given up the search, I was walking along carelessly instead of sneaking on as before. At any rate, he lay motionless on the bank, and I was almost upon him before I spied him. Then, without an instant's pause, I attacked.
My machete was in my hand, and I dropped on the other hand and one knee and stabbed low and hard at his side. The blade sank into him nearly to the hilt. Instantly I jumped forward, straddled his back, grabbed his forelegs, and wrenched them up off the ground.
His struggle was short. He heaved, rolled, struck with his tail, tried to shove himself into the water. But the tail did not reach me, my weight and my grip on his forelegs kept him on land, and the long knife in his heart killed him.
When I was sure he was dead I released his legs, got up, and wiped my machete. He was a little longer than Pedro had asked, and heavy. But I rolled him over a few times until he was well away from the water's edge, and then returned to camp.
Pedro was in his hammock, chewing some beef. The sight made me hungry, and I took another strip of meat from our supplies and joined him. His mouth was so full and the meat so tough that at first he could not speak.
"Where is your jacaré?” he demanded after he got the chunk down his throat.
"In my hip pocket. Where are your snakes?"
"In my hat."
I laughed, thinking he had failed. But when we were through eating I found that he spoke truth. His hat lay in a corner of the little tambo, and, lifting it carefully, he brought it over and showed it to me. The crown was partly filled with earth, and on the earth lay the heads of eight jararacas and one surucucu.
"Por Deus!" I muttered. “This place must be alive with snakes."
"These were all I could find, but they will be enough,” he said. “One jararaca head for each of the men who has died at that tree, and the surucucu for luck. Did you find a jacaré?"
"He awaits your pleasure back yonder."
"Good! Now we can get to work."
With his rifle in one hand and the hat dangling from the other, he followed me through the bush to the spot where the alligator lay.
"Good!” he repeated as he looked at the reptile. “Only one cut, and that one so small that we can easily hide it. Wait here until I come back. I must put this hat in a safe place."
So I squatted and smoked until he returned. Then he told me his plan. And after I thought it over I agreed that it was good, though I believed we could have done without the alligator.
We took the alligator to the tree. It was hard work, but the labor at the tree was harder. There, after mending the bark bands which we had cut yesterday in freeing the dead man, we hoisted the clumsy brute upright against the assacu thorns and managed to lash him firmly where the last victim had stood. And when this was done Pedro made a crude wooden cross with sticks and bush-cord and slung it over the reptile's neck.
Then he stepped to the bush and picked up his hat. Down the little hill he went to the spot where the canoes had left their marks. And from that point to the tree he laid a grim trail.
One by one, in little pockets scooped out with his machete, he buried those deadly snake-heads: buried them upside down, with the lower jaws cut away and the fangs pointing upward: covered them thinly with earth, so that they lurked just under the surface, a doom to the man whose bare feet trod on them. The largest and last head—that of the surucucu—he planted in front of the alligator.
Then he went to the water on the safe side of the hill, washed his hands, pounded his hat thoroughly on one knee, came back and made a cigarette. We stood as we had stood yesterday, smoking and looking up at the poison-tree. But different thoughts were in our minds.
"A dose of their own medicine,” my partner said again. “Such fiends deserve nothing better. And no honest man ever will walk on that trap, for all men except these murderers avoid an assacu wherever found. Now let us look further and see what we can find."
Making sure that we had covered all signs of our visit here, we walked down to the edge of the bush. There we paused and looked back. All seemed the same, yet was not the same.
The monstrous assacu towered overhead, the ghastly bunch of bones lay at the edge of the bush, the bare dirt of the hill showed no new marks. But in place of a dead man and a gold cross now stood a dead alligator and a cross of wood. And from the water to the tree of poison led a trail of death.
* * * *
VI
WITH THE packs once more slung from our shoulders and machetes swinging at the bush-tangles, we left our camp behind us and worked to the shore below the hill of death. There we again started southward, determined to follow the ygarapé until we found its end or something to turn us from it.
For some time we slugged on through mud and thickets, finding no path, no footprints but those of birds or beasts. Beside us the water wound along in the same aimless way, now veering westward, now swinging back to the east. Except for the creeping rustle of unseen life, the constant buzz of mosquitoes, and the noises of our own progress, there was no sound. The stillness of the hot hours of afternoon was on the forest.
Our advance was slow—far slower than if we had been in our canoe—and the ygarapé seemed to have no end. Another night of camping in swamp land with nothing new to think about seemed to be approaching. But the sun was still a couple of hours above the western land-line when the wandering water suddenly quit looping and began to go somewhere.
And at the same time the air brought to us a strange noise.
It swung to the east, that water, and broadened out into a good-sized lagoa. On a little point at the turn we stood amid shoulder-high grass and looked down its length. More than two miles of water lay open before us, and nowhere on it was any sign of men. But on the breeze, which blew straight from the east and stirred the surface into tiny waves, came the notes of an odd music.
Mellow, resonant, far away, those sounds rose and fell in a regular beat of four different tones: the notes of beaten wooden bars. Over and over they hammered in the same order—as if the music were trying to say something. Then they stopped as if waiting.
After a pause they started again in just the same way as before. But this time they ended differently: the last note was beaten repeatedly and rapidly. It sounded like a demand for an answer.
And the answer came. Nearer to us, louder and deeper, out boomed a reply from the same kind of wooden bars. Only two notes were in this message—if it was a message—one high and one low, following each other slowly and regularly until each had been struck half a dozen times.
At once the far-off sounds started anew. This time they came in a regular order, and the series was not repeated as before. And in spite of their mellowness t
hey did not make music. They thumped through the air like words of something talking, telling some news to the other thing nearer to the place where we stood.
When they grew silent, that other thing again replied: a few deep, curt notes like an order. That was all.
Though we listened hard for further talk between those wooden tongues, none came. And though we watched the lagoon for canoes, we saw none. As before, the water was empty and the air still. Yet we knew that somewhere east of us men had talked across miles of distance, and that the deep-toned messages had started at a place not more than two or three long gunshots from the place where we stood.
We unslung our packs and squatted beside them in the tall grass, hidden from any eye which might watch from the east.
"Cannibals?” Pedro suggested, rubbing a shoulder worn tender by a pack-thong.
"Perhaps. You are thinking of that light-skinned tribe of Javary barbaros who send messages by beating wood?"
He nodded.
"I have heard sounds go through the air which were much like what we have just heard,” he said. “That was when I was working on the western edge of the coronel's seringal, two years ago, in the gang of Alves Feijo. The noises were very faint, and we never saw any Indians while we worked there, so I believed the sounds were made by birds. But old Nabuco Magalhaes, who worked in our gang, vowed they were messages beaten out on wood by those eaters of men."
"Nabuco was right,” I told him. “Those cannibals do send messages in that way. I have been among them and heard the messages sent, but they never allowed me to see how it was done. But that was very far from here, and I do not believe any of those people live in this place."
"Perhaps they have moved here."
"No. Their country is far better than this—a land of hills, above the floods; and they never would leave it for this swamp-hole. What is more, I doubt if these men here are cannibals. If they were they would not lash a man to the assacu tree—they could find a better use for him."
"True."
After a few minutes of listening and thinking I added:
"We shall learn nothing by squatting here. I doubt if we shall learn much more today anywhere, for night is not far off. Our wisest plan is to make a secret camp and then scout without these infernal packs to hinder us."
Amazon Nights: Classic Adventure Tales from the Pulps Page 28
