Within the walls our personal food crops flourish, but all my experimental plots have had it. Grasses, wheats and leguminosae are dead except those which live under controlled conditions (see journal, p. 87 & notes). So my professional work is limited to an hour a day, and the only restriction on my explorations is that I refuse to be too tired at night. She is more desirable than ever as her confidence is freed and her youth dances. She will never be a sensualist. Too loving. Her sexual excitement, which becomes more frequent, shakes her but is quiet. A profound giving rather than a desperation.
Where the devil are the rains? With reasonable luck we should have had the first storms. My prospective little laborers can be of no immediate use now. But next year?
[ April 25, Monday ]
Today I took Chucha into the forest. I shall not take her there again until I clearly understand what danger, if any, it holds.
During last week I was not able to give enough time to her riding. If we ever had to get out of here in a hurry, it would be on Tesoro and Pichón with Estrellera for a packhorse. That would be a lot safer than a canoe out of Santa Eulalia. I don’t know the shoals and rapids, nor how long it would take us to reach any sort of settlement.
She has a good seat and is getting on well. Pichón, like an old soldier, is inclined to take advantage of her gentleness. Today he nearly bucked her off just to see what would happen. What did happen was a beauty from me on his fat quarters. Chucha must learn to use the quirt herself when required.
After a few exercises we cantered straight across to the forest, entered through my first passage and then struck northwest. I had not intended to go so far from the grass, but a fearsome tangle of lianas forced us away into the big timber. As a result of her travels she was able to put a Spanish or Portuguese name to birds I did not know and to identify several small noises in the treetops. She also spotted rubber.
When we had ridden four or five miles through the darkness, the big timber opened out gradually into beautiful parkland without any definite wall of low, impenetrable growth. Here was a deep bay of the llano with what will be splendid grazing after the rains. Some small deer were over on the far side, extremely alert so that we only got a glimpse of them.
The going was safe, so I let her canter across the bay. She pulled up — or Pichón did — where the trees began to thicken again. I was tempted to show her what my intelligent Tesoro could do: gymkhana stuff which both he and I enjoy. Given his head he will go through timber, zigzagging like a startled snipe, seldom needing a touch and obeying it instantly. This time I was paid out for exhibitionism. He shied so violently that I nearly went over his withers.
What alarmed him was the carcass of a big bullock, lying half in and half out of a clump of thorn. There at last was certain evidence of jaguar. The neck was dislocated, the ribs were broken and one hindquarter had been completely torn off. The skin, where it was exposed to the sun, was dried and hard. Back and rump showed the stripes of the claws where the jaguar landed. The forepart of the beast was picked nearly clean. Rats and a largish lizard — of some species which I do not know — were worrying at the remaining flesh under the safety of the thorns.
There was still a noticeable furrow in the grass along which I assumed the jaguar had dragged the haunch. I told Chucha to wait for me well out in the open and followed up the trail with some vague hope of getting a shot, though the jaguar must have finished his meal days earlier and would now be far away looking for another.
What I actually reached was the scene of the crime, showing that I do not yet know enough to be sure which way an animal went, towards me or away from me. The bullock had charged into the thickest stuff he could find, going through it like a bulldozer in the hope of scraping the jaguar off his back. Further on, a patch of shrubby growth twenty yards across was beaten down in evidence of the fight. The jaguar must have been very hungry to tackle the bullock at all, a much heavier and more powerful beast than the peccary and deer which were his usual prey. He had at last killed it, eaten what he wanted and then dragged the whole beast into the thorns.
I returned to the kill to see what more I could discover. Since he had not left the remains of the haunch at either spot, he must have taken it with him. It looked as if he had been disturbed while in the middle of breakfast.
Unless he had taken to the open llano, which was unlikely, there was only one way he could have gone: through a marked tunnel in the forest wall, which on that side of the bay was thick. I could not tell whether he made the tunnel or merely used it. It led me on hands and knees back into the forest. And there, not more than fifty yards from the outside world, were the haunch and the jaguar.
The accident which caused his death seemed obvious. He had jumped for a branch some twenty feet above his head, using the trunk of the tree to get there as the slashes made by his hind claws revealed. The branch had broken and was hanging down. It was an odd way for any cat to die; they do not misjudge the strength of branches, and even a heavy jaguar, powerful enough to drag a bullock, would surely only be winded by a fall onto softish ground. He might have intended to store the haunch in an upstairs larder, but its position some little distance away suggested that he had dropped it before he jumped.
Birds had torn open throat and belly, but had by no means finished their job of clearing up. Curiosity compelled me to brave the stench. When I examined the back to see if it had been broken by the fall I felt a sudden revulsion as if an agile centipede had threatened my hand. It was overwhelming surprise rather than nervousness. The jaguar’s death was similar to Pedro’s, though not an exact parallel. The beast had been shot from the flank, either on the ground or in the act of springing. The bullet had pierced the spine at the top vertebra rather than the base of the skull, and there were two neat wounds. This could be meaningless coincidence. I think it was. The projectile had probably been deflected by the skull and emerged nearly opposite to the wound of entry.
Two possibilities presented themselves: (I) that the pygmies had developed a far more efficient bow than other Indians — a weapon at least equivalent to the old English longbow and war arrow — or that they had a heavy spear and spear-thrower. Alternatively they netted their game or entangled the legs with bolas, then despatching even such dangerous enemies as the jaguar and Pedro with dagger blows at the base of the skull; (2) that somebody in fear of his life from Government or guerrillas was living in the forest and competing with the other carnivores for food. He was evidently a first-class shot and would not go hungry. He may well have wanted a steak of that fresh-killed beef.
The latter hypothesis seems the more likely. Pedro mistook him for one of the llaneros, took a shot at him and was instantly killed in return. On the other hand Mario, Pedro and Joaquín have all talked of dancing dwarfs. If I reject this story entirely, I fall into the common scientific error of postulating a complicated cause when the available facts point to a more simple and elegant solution.
I went back for Tesoro and then joined Chucha on the llano. She had not been at all alarmed by the carcass of the bullock, which was as it should be. She was familiar enough with the remains of beasts stranded on the river sandbanks along with other flotsam. When I told her of the dead jaguar, she was eager to see it. There may have been a purely Indian touch of triumph over the dreaded enemy.
To avoid the labor of cutting a way for the horses we rode through the border of parkland on the south side of the bay and then made the circuit through the trees. When at last I found the animal, nose helping where eyes failed, I asked her if she thought it could have been killed by Indians — on the off chance that she might have heard how the river tribes tackled a jaguar. She did not know, but believed they would have cut out the claws for personal decoration. She made the intelligent suggestion that the holes might have been made by a vulture hammering with its beak to get at brains or marrow. Not a bad theory for the jaguar, but I won’t have it for Pedro. His wounds were too neat.
She never questioned my explanation, backed
up by the broken branch, that the jaguar had been killed by its fall. She took the episode as a mere casual curiosity. It looked as if I had cured her of any obsession with dwarfs and duendes.
On our way home I noticed that the merciless, lunar heat of yesterday and today had put end to the creek. It was a checkerboard of cracked, dried mud as hard as a brick pavement. Even the horses left no recognizable hoof-marks. I wish now that I had regularly ridden up and down the banks while there was still enough mud to show tracks. That would have been more sensible than searching the forest at random. Perhaps I have accepted too readily this won’t-cross-water stuff. One is hypnotized by the desolation of the llano in the searing sunlight. Even at night I have seen no animal life but one agouti and one puma/dog.
Early tomorrow I shall ride to Santa Eulalia, leading Pichón, and see if I can persuade Joaquín to come out. He has not been here for weeks. There are untranslatable scufflings in the dust which may mean something to him.
[ April 26, Tuesday ]
A more or less successful day — though Joaquín is firmly set against any suggestion of small, bare feet and will not discuss the unmentionable. The trees are too near to talk indiscreetly about duendes, which do not, anyway, leave visible tracks.
Chucha was far from impressed by him. Joaquín is the last ragged remnant of the shamans of primitive food-gatherers, whereas she descends from the Children of the Sun. She does not herself express the difference like that, since in fact she knows far less than I do of her Peruvian ancestors. She merely says that Joaquín is a filthy old pig who is too fond of the demon rum. He is a pig, but a most interesting one. I suppose one must be secure upon the heights of civilization before one can start stirring up the bottom levels with profit and pleasure.
As soon as Joaquín arrived I had to feed and mildly intoxicate him. What he wanted was to eat food from cans, especially the more colorful and tasteless American emergency rations. With such luxuries about, it was no use to offer him a steak of swamp deer, lovingly tended by Teresa over a charcoal fire and brushed with chili sauce from an old tobacco tin. I was compelled to wait patiently until he had stuffed himself and slept, so we had no time to go far up or down the creek.
His examination was impressively professional. He translated the scuffles in the dust as rats and a capybara — which had been lying in the rushes for some time until it finally decided to get the hell out into the damper forest. I gathered that I was a disgrace for not shooting and eating it. I have never even seen it.
No deer. No peccary. Remains of a porcupine which had been turned over on its back by somebody’s quick and daring paw and eaten out. Joaquín thought one of the smaller felines was probably responsible. He showed me a snake track which had ruffled the surface of the creek more plainly than feet, and told me how I could distinguish between the venomous snakes and the constrictors. The slow wriggles of the former made a wider path than the fast, hunting wriggles of the latter.
He also found the light imprint of a biggish clawed foot in what had been mud a few days before. Not puma, he said; it was an animal which chased its prey rather than stalked it, because it had five digits. It could be the track of the giant Brazilian otter, he thought, and the web might not show. I again talked around the question of dogs, not mentioning duendes but knowing that Joaquín would remember my inquisitiveness of two weeks earlier. He refused to be drawn, only saying sententiously that dogs could live tame or wild.
When we got back to the estancia he distinguished himself by asking if I would give him Chucha when I left. He reminded us that his wife was dead and proudly patted his pants, assuring us that he had an excellent erection as well as a house. He was prepared, he said (being now full of rum) to fertilize any of my laboratory plants which needed such intimate magic. Before Chucha’s arrival I should probably have encouraged him to go ahead and measure results, if any. But simplicity in the male is not so attractive as in the female. I may be wrong in calling it simplicity. Joaquín’s ritual mating with food plants is religious and therefore essentially complicated.
I had to get him away in good time. No estancia after dusk for Joaquín! He fell off twice on the way back, quickly remounting in case he should go to sleep where he was. Then I rode Pichón home through the early night, leading Estrellera. That’s forty-eight miles in the day, and they are only healthily tired. Mario is at his old tricks again and insists that I must not travel after sunset. He gave me the impression that there was still some part of the Manuel Cisneros story which I have not heard.
[ April 27, Wednesday ]
A statement of intention to be compared with what actually happens — generally a source of amusement and disillusion!
It is obviously useless to spend a night in the pitch blackness of the forest, and explorations by day very possibly frighten away whatever I am trying to find. If I want to catch Homo Dawnayensis going about his business, I must watch the border of forest and llano at dusk or dawn when its abounding life is active.
My choice would be the bay of parkland where Chucha and I found the dead bullock, somewhere within sight of that tunnel. But it would mean starting improbably early without any good excuse. Nearer home, just inside my first cut passage, there is a half dead caju tree choked by lianas and easy to climb. From the top I shall have a fair view of the llano and of patches of the forest floor between the trunks. Meanwhile Estrellera can graze in peace. She has no nerves and will reach up and munch any tall tuft of grass instead of shying at the rattle of the seeds like Tesoro.
I wish it was not necessary to lie, but for the time being it is. I have announced that I shall be off in the dark tomorrow morning to catch a morning flight of geese far up the marshes. Mario considers the east side safe. Actually — if one wades — it is the only dangerous place for miles. Electric eel and sting ray must be in a filthy temper, assuming they have tempers, at the shrinking level of the water.
Walking to the caju tree is too slow, so I must take Estrellera though I would rather not. There’s a risk of her fetching up in a cooking pot if hunting dwarfs exist. Alternatively, if they don’t, my hypothetical outlaw has an excellent chance of riding off to Venezuela. A corollary to that. If he wants to escape, why doesn’t he sneak over the wall and steal a horse? Or is he a tropical Herne the Hunter who enjoys living where he is? Nothing makes sense.
[ April 28, Thursday ]
What you think your eye is recording has more relation to your beliefs than to facts. I had in mind, when I wrote that, the forest duendes compounded of one half vegetable and one half fear. So I must be very careful. I think that what I have seen is conclusive, but the light was bad, the foliage thick, and my excitement was so mixed with cowardliness that I could not separate them. Probably psychic researchers feel the same, and therefore cold, material evidence is harder to come by than it need be.
I started at 3:30 A.M., taking the 16-bore, chiefly because I had to be seen carrying it when I returned to the estancia. It is also a fast and deadly weapon for self-protection at close quarters when loaded with No. 2 shot. I wanted No. 4 for geese, but could find none in Bogotá. No. 2 turns out to be right for medium-sized ground game.
A half moon was setting which made it unnecessary to use a torch until I was beneath the caju tree. There darkness was absolute, and I had to show light in order to see exactly where I was and what was inhabiting the tree. I disturbed three or four marmosets which cleared off with faint squeaks of protest. The only other sound was of Estrellera crunching dead stalks a safe hundred yards away.
It was still dark when I settled myself in a triple fork of the tree some thirty feet above ground. There was a very light breeze blowing from the forest, so that nothing could scent me or see me. I would of course have been heard — but that was as likely to attract as to repel any creature which lived by hunting. The first chorus of birds began. Before the howler monkeys drowned out all other sounds I heard the very distant call of a jaguar and again that full-volumed, tenor whistle which had puzzled me the firs
t day on the ridge.
Life was all in the treetops except for doves and finches working along the edge of the llano. There was no ground game about at all. This should be significant, but I know too little of the reasons why sometimes there should be plenty and sometimes none. From what I have read of Africa, a lion’s kill does not frighten the herds into running far; on the other hand hunting by man can clear the district. But I doubt if any parallel can be drawn. There are no herds under and just outside the trees but peccary.
Behind me to the east the gray light was growing. I could not help suffering from a compulsive instinct that I had been seen and that eyes were looking at me. I reminded myself that a dozen creatures were probably looking down at me from the roof of the forest and wondering whether the very large monkey was harmful.
I did not feel affected by loneliness as I had on the north side of the ridge, and I can rule that out as a cause of possible hallucination. If there was loneliness it was nearer to the anxiety neurosis of a man in a fairground, unamused by the racket going on around him and resentful of a crowd safe and completely unconcerned with him. Eyes were certainly unsettled by the impact on ears, so that instead of quiet, thorough observation, I was continually glancing upwards, at the same time trying not to move my head.
To my left I could see a lot of the forest floor before the tree trunks closed the view. To my right front was a nightmare of lianas, which could have passed as an abstract painter’s impression of dying forest. No one who did not know the reality would guess that the bare streaks radiating down from the top left-hand corner to fill the whole canvas were photographically exact. The lianas, black, gray and dark green against a background of grays and blacks, fell straight as storm rain, then curving away from the trees to their own roots. Seen from my height the pattern was as complicated as that of a vast rush basket.
Dance of the Dwarfs Page 10
