Amazon Nights: Classic Adventure Tales from the Pulps

by Arthur O. Friel

  Another barbaro did the same thing. A third, though he did not jump like the other two, stopped a moment, leaned on a spear, lifted a foot, glanced at it, rubbed it with one finger as if something had hurt him, then resumed his stride.

  By that time the first pair, clutching the captive, rounded the butt of the tree and saw what was bound there. They stopped short and stared. The others, following, pressed around them and also halted. Swiftly I counted them. Seven Indians and one white. And no more were coming.

  A sudden grunting started among them. The sight of that beast of the mud with its crude cross, where they had expected the corpse of a man weighted down with a crucifix of gold, had astounded them so that they could not think. Even the white man stood motionless, staring like the rest, and perhaps wondering what it all meant. And we stayed where we were, making no move; for we knew that death already was creeping upward along the veins of three of them, and we wanted it to creep as far as it could before we made our presence known.

  Then a fourth, moving closer to the jacaré grunted sharply and drew up a foot. The buried head of the surucucu also had gotten its man.

  But the man did not know it. He peered down at the ground, moved over a little, and turned toward the prisoner. The others remembered what they had come for. They too looked toward the white man and spoke growlingly among themselves. At the same moment the white made a desperate break for life.

  With a heaving, twisting plunge he wrenched himself away from one of the men holding him and knocked the other staggering. In the same movement he whirled, bent low, and threw himself head-first at the two barbaros behind him. So swift and hard was his charge that he broke through between them and was clear of them before they could grasp him. And when he had passed them no man was in his way.

  Straight for the bush he dashed—straight toward the spot where we crouched. Snarling, the nearest savages jumped after him. But in the next instant two of them died. We hurled our machadinhas.

  In the last rays of the sun those hatchets whirled from our hands like streaks of lightning. And as if stricken down by thunderbolts, those two Indians plunged forward and down on their faces, our steel buried in their brains. Instantly we were out of the bush, charging with our machetes.

  As we left the tangle the prisoner crashed headlong into it. Two more cannibals, leaping downhill after him, tried to stop themselves at sight of us, but could not. Slipping on the clay, they slid into our down-chopping blades.

  I struck my man so fiercely that I too went down. The keen weapon, cutting into him at the base of the neck, sank into the chest-bones and stuck there as firmly as if driven into wood. As he fell, the downward yank of the fixed machete threw me off balance, and I tumbled on his body.

  I was up in a second, straining to free the knife and watching the three remaining barbaros. If they had attacked me then they surely would have killed me. But they did not attack.

  They had not come far from the tree, and they stood staring as if dazed. Not until I had put a foot on the dead man under me and worked the blade loose did one of them move. And his movement was clumsy—a sluggish sort of step like that of a man numb or sick. The other two did not move at all.

  Then Pedro, standing beside me with red machete ready to meet any rush, spoke in Tupi.

  "You are dead men. Even though we touch you not, death crawls through you. You are struck by the snake which is under the earth. Its bite is in your feet."

  Silent they stood. In their faces grew fear. And every one of them looked suddenly back at the way they had come from the water, then down at his feet.

  The sun dropped and was gone. Swift night deepened under the great assacu. The dead Indians on the ground, the three above still living but dying, blurred into dim shadows. The growing noise of the jungle swelled into a hammering, cracking, screaming roar of life.

  "Senhor! Norte Americano!" shouted Pedro.

  "Here!” came the answer from the bush behind us. And the white man strode out beside me.

  Quickly I felt down his arms, found the thick bush-rope binding them, and cut it.

  "Get to the canoes!” I ordered. “Shove them out. Work down the shore and wait for us. Hurry!"

  Without a word he strode away through the dark.

  "Get the rifles!” I told Pedro.

  With the words I followed the American, watching for any sign of a rush by those three above us. I went only as far as I thought the ground safe, and there I stood on guard. But no rush came. Straining my eyes, I made out that two of the three Indians had sunk down on the ground, where they sat hunched over with heads hanging. The third still stood bolt upright staring down at his legs.

  "All right, you men!” came the blond man's call from the ygarapé.

  Down the hill I stole to the bones, whose white glimmer showed faint at the bushline. There Pedro stood with the guns. Silently we worked along until we felt we were at the right point, when we began groping our way southward. And no man followed.

  * * * *

  IX

  FOR SOME distance we labored along the shore, advancing more by instinct and touch than by the use of our eyes. Then we halted and listened.

  Only the night din came to our ears, and if any of the doomed three was trying to follow us we could not hear him. But we were sure they had not left the knoll. Not only were their hopeless attitudes those of men convinced they were about to die, but the loss of their boats would go far toward keeping them there. With their canoes they might have reached the Jararaca with their tale before they died, but to traverse the black, pathless jungle was another matter.

  So we called to the blond man. From the gloomy water came an answering hail. A blurred shape glided into sight, and after one or two more calls to show where we were it floated within reach. We entered the canoe, found paddles, and shoved out and away from the shore tangle.

  "Was there only one canoe?” I asked.

  "That's all,” the American answered. “Nobody wanted to come on this trip. Only one boatload did come, and they were ugly about it. Growled all the way over."

  I said no more. Pedro and I began paddling quietly along the ygarapé. The American took a few strokes, but soon stopped.

  "Guess I'll let you boys do the paddling,” he said. “My hands are bad. That rope damaged my wrists some."

  Not another word was spoken until we reached the point where that afternoon we had heard the talking wood. There we landed and argued briefly about hiding the canoe. But it was a long craft—made for eight men—and too big to be easily concealed. So we decided merely to lift its bow on shore and leave it there for the time.

  "We shall need it again at dawn,” Pedro said. “I am going back to the assacu then and get our machadinhas. They are too good to be left to rust in the brains of barbaros. And we need them in our work."

  The American still said nothing, standing quiet while we talked. And when we entered the bush and started for our camp he trailed us closely but silently. Not until we were in our tambo did he speak, and then it was in answer to a question.

  "Senhor," I said, “you have been through a bad experience. Will you have a little drink of rum?"

  "I sure will!” was his instant response. “Now that things have quieted down I feel a little off color. Got a nasty rap on the head before I was captured."

  I felt about until I found the jug, and when its plug was out I put it into his hands. A gurgle followed, and then a cough.

  "Woof!” he sputtered. “Boy, oh boy! This is pure essence of hellfire! Got a recoil like a six-inch gun, I'll bet."

  "In about two minutes you will know you have had a drink, senhor,” Pedro laughed. “Could you eat something too?"

  "Nope. Not just yet. Later, maybe, when my nerves loosen up. But I could smoke, if I had anything that would burn."

  "You shall have it,” I promised, taking back the jug and swallowing a mouthful from it, then passing it to Pedro.

  When I stopped coughing I made two cigarettes, one for the stranger and
one for myself, and held the match. He gave me a swift, straight look in the eyes as the light held, and when Pedro lit a smoke of his own he studied my partner, in the same rapid way. Then we sat down in the hammocks.

  "We sleep with no fire tonight,” I said, “but a cigarette or two will do no harm. It is time we became acquainted. I am Lourenço Moraes and this is my comrade Pedro Andrada—seringueiros of Coronel Nunes of the Javary, now scouting for new rubber. We are in this spot because two nights ago we heard a scream from the south and came this way to learn what made it. And then, having learned that, we kept on to find who was responsible. Now we know."

  "That yellow snake who calls himself Jararaca?"

  "The Jararaca. The man who told you that ‘who lives by the cross dies by the snake.’”

  His cigarette hung motionless a moment. Then he asked—

  "How do you know he said that?"

  "Because we were there, hidden behind a tree and spying. If we had not been there—"

  "I would not be here,” he finished. “I get you. And I hope I don't have to tell you chaps how eternally grateful I am for—"

  "Say no more of that,” Pedro cut in.

  "All right. Just as you say. But I want to add that though I've seen some beautiful sights now and then, I never saw anything half as glorious as you two fellows rising up out of the bush and heaving tomahawks into those scuts behind me. Believe me, that's something that will stay with me until I reach the end of the long trail.

  "It takes out a little of the rankle of seeing my men butchered for a cannibal holiday, too—a little, though not much. I'm going to do some slaughtering on my own hook before the score is even. And unless something bad happens to me right soon, that Jararaca is going to squirm around and bite himself for bucking up against Tom Mack.

  "That's me. Thomas Gordon Mack of the U. S. A. Sort of a foot-loose cuss with some scientific knowledge and a constant urge to ramble into unknown places. I'm known to the Brazilian government, and while I was hanging around Rio a while ago and wondering what to do next they offered me a job nosing around this end of the country and looking things over, after which I'm supposed to write a weighty report of everything seen and done. So here I am.

  "They'd have given me a young army, and maybe a brass band and a uniform, but that isn't my way of doing things. A few good men—the fewer the better—are what you want for bush work. And the boys I picked out were just built for the job. All caboclos except Joao, my tenente, who was a mameluco. Born bushmen. Good boys. Not a drop of yellow in the whole outfit. And now they're roasting on the hill over yonder to feed that nest of snakes."

  He slammed his cigarette savagely down on the dirt.

  "I was off in a canoe with one of the boys when it happened,” he went on. “Heard shots and yells. Beat it back as fast as we could paddle. By the time I got there it was about over. The boys never had a chance. Surrounded, jumped, butchered.

  "I got some of the raiders before my gun was empty. Then they got me. Must have thrown a club. The light went out, and I woke up disarmed and tied.

  "By that time they had set up some sort of arrangement of slats, and one of them who looked more brainy than the rest was pounding out some message on it. Sounded like a big xylophone. After a while an answer came back, and when another message had gone and a reply came they took the thing down and threw me into a canoe. Guess they must have been telling their boss they had a live white man and wanted to know whether to chop me up or bring me in all in one piece.

  "The rest of the boys they cut up—took their arms and legs—Ugh! But they'll pay, by Judas! They'll pay!"

  "What will you do now, Senhor Mack?” asked Pedro. “Have the government send in an army, as you threatened?"

  "Government? Hell, no! Governments are too slow, all of them. This is my own war. I'm going to get that Jararaca and get him good. Don't know just how; but I'm camping on his trail until one of us cashes in. You fellows haven't a gun to spare, have you?"

  We hesitated. Then I said:

  "We have no extra gun, senhor, and we do not like to part with our own."

  "Of course. I wouldn't do it myself. Well, I'll dope out some way to get that bird or I'm not Tom Mack. And I'll clean up as many more as I can. Say, that rum of yours sure has a punch. Awhile ago my tongue was stuck at both ends, and now I can't stop it. Can you spare another smoke?"

  With a new cigarette between his lips he was quiet a moment. Then he said:

  "I hope you cleaned up those other three Indians after I boarded the canoe."

  "They are dead by now,” I judged.

  "Huh? You left them alive?"

  "Alive but not alive. There are some things you have not heard."

  And I told him of the man whose body we had found and of the trap we had made.

  "Ha! Good stuff!” he approved. “Turn about is fair play. And that alligator idea of yours helped me a lot in breaking loose, Pedro. But are you sure those three you left there all had stepped on snakes?"

  "Quite, sure, senhor. Every one of them looked back when I told them they were snake-bitten, and I saw they thought of the stings they had felt as they came up."

  "Uh-huh. We'll make sure in the morning. But now listen here; while we have a canoe I want to use it to get back to my camp tonight. Those mutts wrecked things pretty well, but I'm quite sure I can salvage some of my stuff, and I want all there is left. There'll be a moon tonight, probably in about an hour—enough light to get around with. If you chaps care to go with me—"

  "Certainly, senhor,” we said.

  "Good! Let's start now. We can work down the lake all right in the dark and be so much nearer camp by moonrise. Say, do you mind if I waste a little rum on my wrists? They're cut up pretty bad, and the bush-rope they used on me may have been poisonous. If you'll just sop a little into the cuts I'll be much obliged."

  While Pedro held matches I did as he asked. His jaws clicked together as the fiery liquor bit into the raw flesh, but he gave no other sound. When I corked the jug he spoke one word through his teeth.

  "Thanks!"

  Then we struck out through the bush to the point. The canoe lay as we had left it. I crawled into the stern, Mack took a place in the middle, and Pedro shoved the long boat out and jumped in over the bow. A moment later we were sliding quietly eastward on a lake of ink.

  * * * *

  X

  AN EIGHT-MAN ubá, or war-canoe, is a clumsy craft for three men to handle, and in darkness, on unknown waters where snags may lurk and noise may mean death, no speed can be made in such a boat. We three did not try to hasten on our way. We only crept along, our eyes and ears wide open and our paddles dipping silently, with rifles beside us ready for instant use. At any moment we might meet other canoes bound for the poison-tree to learn why this one did not return.

  But we met none. Time after time we halted our paddles and reached swiftly for our guns as some splash or swashing sound came suddenly to us; but each time, after listening and peering around, we decided that the noise was made by alligator or fish, and began our quiet strokes again. And so, working, pausing, drifting, we journeyed on past the entrance of the bay at whose end lay the cannibal camp.

  There we saw the glow of firelight shining in the black mass of jungle, though the fires which made it were out of our sight. Through the night noise also came the throb of drums beating at that place, and once we heard the voices of men yelling in savage celebration. At the thought of what was going on beside those fires I shut my teeth, and up ahead the blond man growled fierce curses. We put more power into our paddling than was wise, and slowed again only when the shouts and the light had died out behind us. Then we felt out way onward as before.

  Moonrise found us rounding the turn at the far end of the lagoon. The first light dropping from the sky was very faint, but by it we could see the water ahead more clearly, and for the time that was enough. Here the broad water narrowed again into another winding ygarapé, along which we journeyed with fair speed but the
same silence. The jungle noise had quieted somewhat, and the loudest sound we heard was the roar of some bad-tempered jaguar prowling the bush not far off. Nowhere was any sound of human life.

  After a time the looping water widened once more, and now the light of the rising moon fell fair on it from our left.

  Seeing nothing on the glittering surface, we put our shoulders into our strokes and surged along at far better speed. Before long Senhor Mack told us to swing in toward the right-hand shore. And after coasting along the edge of the jungle for a little way we turned into a small cove and found several small canoes floating at a landing.

  On the sloping shore above was a clearing. In the clearing a big tambo stood out in the moonlight. As we stepped ashore and climbed into the open space beside that tambo we found only death and that life which preys on death.

  Two big alligators crawled toward the water, opening their fearful jaws at us in menace and disappointment as they went. They had come too late, for the black birds of the sky had dropped on that spot long before they arrived. Now there remained only raw bones and skulls.

  Senhor Mack made a choking sound as he looked down on those things which a few hours ago had been his men, And I too, though I had seen fleshless bodies more than once during my years in the Javary jungle, felt hot hate of the Jararaca and his crew boil up in my brain as I saw that no arm or leg bones were among those scattered remnants. Pedro, gazing about him, growled in his throat.

  "Good-by, boys,” the blond man said hoarsely. “You went out like men. And you went out quick—thank God for that! A damn right quicker than that yellow devil will go if I get him as I want him!"

  He choked again and turned into the tambo. We stood silent and waited.

  We saw him go slowly about inside the place, stooping now and then to pick up something, then dropping it. By and by he came out, bringing only a rolled-up hammock.

  "Cleaned!” he said. “They carried away or ruined everything. Not a gun, knife, or cartridge left. Not a bite of grub. Even this hammock is cut, but it can be mended. Not another thing here worth taking. But I'm betting they missed my cache."