by John Grisham
spray his head. He was contemplating a nap when the motor sputtered. The boat lurched and slowed. He kept his eyes on the river, afraid to turn around and look at Jevy.
Engine trouble was not something he had spent time worrying about, yet. Their journey had enough little perils already. It would take days of backbreaking labor to paddle back to Welly. They would be forced to sleep in the boat, eat what they’d brought until the food ran out, dip water from it during the rains, and hope like hell they could find their little fishing buddy to point them to safety.
Suddenly Nate was terrified.
Then they were off again, the motor howling as if nothing had happened. It became a routine; every twenty minutes or so, just as Nate was about to doze off, the steady strain of the motor would break. The bow would dip. Nate would quickly look at the edges of the river to inspect the wildlife. Jevy would curse in Portuguese, fiddle with the choke and the throttle, and then things would be fine for another twenty minutes or so.
They had lunch—cheese, saltines, and cookies—under a tree in a small fork as rain fell around them.
“That little fisherman back there,” Nate said. “Does he know the Indians?”
“Yes. About once a month they go to the Paraguay to trade with a boat. He sees them.”
“Did you ask him if he’d ever seen a female missionary?”
“I did. He has not. You are the first American he’s ever seen.”
“Lucky guy.”
________
THE FIRST sign of the settlement came at almost seven hours. Nate saw a thin line of blue smoke rising above the trees, near the foot of a hill. Jevy was certain they were in Bolivia. The ground was higher and they were close to the mountains. The flooded areas were behind them.
They came to a gap in the trees and in a clearing were two canoes. Jevy guided the johnboat to the clearing. Nate quickly jumped ashore, anxious to stretch his legs and feel the earth.
“Stay close,” Jevy warned as he switched gas tanks in the boat. Nate looked at him. Their eyes met, and Jevy nodded to the trees.
An Indian was watching them. A male, brown-skinned, bare-chested, with a straw skirt of some sort hanging from his waist, no visible weapon. The fact that he was unarmed helped immensely because Nate was at first terrified of him. The Indian had long black hair and red stripes on his forehead, and if he’d been holding a spear Nate would’ve surrendered without a word.
“Is he friendly?” he asked without taking his eyes off the man.
“I think so.”
“Does he speak Portuguese?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why don’t you go find out?”
“Relax.”
Jevy stepped from the boat. “He looks like a cannibal,” he whispered. The attempt at humor didn’t work.
They took a few steps toward the Indian, and he took a few steps toward them. All three stopped with a nice gap in the center. Nate was tempted to raise the palm of his hand and say, “Howdy.”
“Fala português?” Jevy said with a nice smile.
The Indian pondered the question for a long time, and it became painfully obvious that he did not speak Portuguese. He looked young, probably not yet twenty, and just happened to be near the river when he heard their outboard.
They examined each other from twenty feet as Jevy considered his options. There was a movement in the brush behind the Indian. Along the tree line, three of his tribesmen emerged, all mercifully weaponless. Outnumbered and trespassing, Nate was ready to bolt. They weren’t particularly large, but they had the home-field advantage. And they weren’t friendly folks, no smiles or hellos.
A young female suddenly appeared from the trees and stood next to the first Indian. She too was brown and bare-chested, and Nate tried not to stare. “Falo,” she said.
Speaking slowly, Jevy explained what they were up to, and asked to see their tribal leader. She translated his words and relayed them to the men, who huddled and talked grimly among themselves.
“Some want to eat us now,” Jevy said under his breath. “Some want to wait until tomorrow.”
“Very funny.”
When the men finished their deliberations they reported to the woman. She then told the intruders that they must wait, by the river, while news of their arrival was duly reported to the higher-ups. This suited Nate just fine, but Jevy was a bit perturbed by it. He asked if a woman missionary lived with them.
You must wait, she said.
The Indians vanished into the woods.
“What do you think?” Nate asked when they were gone. Neither he nor Jevy had moved an inch. They stood in grass ankle-high and looked at the trees, thick woods from which Nate was certain they were being watched.
“They catch diseases from outsiders,” Jevy explained. “That’s why they are careful.”
“I’m not touching anybody.”
They retreated to the boat, where Jevy busied himself by cleaning the spark plugs. Nate removed both of his shirts and inspected the contents of his makeshift waterproof pouch. The papers were still dry.
“Those papers are for the woman?” Jevy asked.
“Yes.”
“Why? What has happened to her?”
The rigid rules governing client confidentiality seemed less constricting at that moment. They were life and death in practice, but sitting in a boat deep in the Pantanal, with no other American even remotely near, the rules could be bent. And why not? Who could Jevy tell? What harm could come from a little gossip?
Per Josh’s strict instructions to Valdir, Jevy had been told only that there was an important legal matter back home that required them to find Rachel Lane.
“Her father died a few weeks ago. He left her a lot of money.”
“How much?”
“Several billion.”
“Billion?”
“That’s right.”
“He was very wealthy.”
“Yes, he was.”
“Did he have other children?”
“Six, I think.”
“Did he give them several billion?”
“No. He gave them very little.”
“Why did he give her so much?”
“No one knows. It was a surprise.”
“Does she know her father is dead?”
“No.”
“Did she love her father?”
“I doubt it. She was illegitimate. It looks as though she tried to run away from him, and from everything else. Wouldn’t you say so?” Nate waved his arm at the Pantanal as he said this.
“Yes. It’s a very good place to hide. Did he know where she was when he died?”
“Not exactly. He knew she was a missionary working with the Indians somewhere around here.”
Jevy ignored the spark plug in his hand and absorbed the news. He had many questions. The lawyer’s breach of confidentiality was growing wider.
“Why would he leave such a fortune to a child who didn’t love him?”
“Maybe he was crazy. He jumped out of a window.”
This was more than Jevy could handle at one moment. He squinted his eyes and looked at the river, deep in thought.
TWENTY-FOUR
_____________
THE INDIANS were Guató, longtime residents who lived like their ancestors and preferred no contact with outsiders. They grew their food in small patches, fished the rivers, and hunted with bows and arrows.
Evidently, they were a deliberate people. After an hour, Jevy smelled smoke. He climbed a tree near the boat, and when he was forty feet up he saw the roofs of their huts. He asked Nate to join him.
Nate had not been in a tree in forty years, but at the moment there was nothing else to do. He made the climb with less ease than Jevy, and finally came to rest on a frail branch. He hugged the trunk with one arm.
They could see the tops of three huts—thick straw laid in neat rows. The blue smoke rose between two of the huts, from a point they couldn’t see.
Could he be that cl
ose to Rachel Lane? Was she there now, listening to her people and deciding what to do? Would she send a warrior to fetch them, or would she herself simply walk through the woods and say hello?
“It’s a small settlement,” Nate said, trying not to move.
“There could be more huts.”
“What do you think they’re doing?”
“Talking. Just talking.”
“Well, I hate to bring this up, but we need to make a move. We left the boat eight and a half hours ago. I’d like to see Welly before dark.”
“No problem. We’ll go back with the current. Plus I know the way. It will be much faster.”
“You’re not worried?”
Jevy shook his head as if he hadn’t given a thought to shooting down the Cabixa in the dark. Nate certainly had. Of particular concern were the two large lakes they had encountered, each with various tributaries, all of which appeared identical in the daylight.
His plan was to simply say hello to Ms. Lane, give her a bit of history, cover the required legalities, show her the paperwork, answer the basic questions, get her signature, thank her, and complete the meeting as soon as possible. He was worried about the time of day, and the sputtering motor, and the trip back to the Santa Loura. She would probably want to talk, or maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe she would say very little and want them to leave and never come back.
Back on the ground, he had settled into the boat for a nap when Jevy saw the Indians. He said something and pointed, and Nate looked at the woods.
They slowly approached the river, in a line behind their leader, the oldest Guató they’d seen so far. He was stocky with an ample belly, and he carried a long stick of some sort. It didn’t appear to be sharp or dangerous. It had pretty feathers near the tip, and Nate surmised that it was probably just a ceremonial spear.
The leader quickly sized up the two intruders, and directed his comments at Jevy.
Why are you here? he asked in Portuguese. His face wasn’t friendly, but there was no aggression in his presence. Nate studied the spear.
We are looking for an American missionary, a woman, Jevy explained.
Where are you from? The chief asked this while glancing at Nate.
Corumbá.
And him? All eyes were on Nate.
He’s an American. He needs to find the woman.
Why does he need to find the woman?
It was the first hint that the Indians might know of Rachel Lane. Was she hiding back there somewhere, in the village or maybe in the woods, listening?
Jevy went through a windy narrative explaining how Nate had traveled great distances and almost lost his life. It was an important matter among the Americans, nothing he, Jevy, or the Indians would ever understand.
Is she in danger?
No. None.
She is not here.
“He says she’s not here,” Jevy said to Nate.
“Tell him I think he’s a lying bastard,” Nate said softly.
“I don’t think so.”
Have you ever seen a woman missionary around here? Jevy asked.
The leader shook his head. No.
Have you ever heard of one?
At first, there was no response. His eyes narrowed as he stared at Jevy, sizing him up, as if to say, Can this man be trusted? Then, a slight nod.
Where is she? Jevy asked.
With another tribe.
Where?
He said he wasn’t sure, but he began pointing anyway. Somewhere off to the north and west, he said, with his spear waving across half the Pantanal.
“Guató?” Jevy asked.
He frowned and shook his head, as if she lived among undesirables. “Ipicas,” he said with scorn.
How far away?
A day.
Jevy attempted to pin him down on the time, but soon learned that hours meant nothing to the Indians. A day wasn’t twenty-four hours and it wasn’t twelve. It was simply a day. He tried the concept of half a day, and made progress.
“Twelve to fifteen hours,” he said to Nate.
“But that’s in one of those little canoes, right?” Nate whispered.
“Yes.”
“So how fast can we get there?”
“Three or four hours. If we can find it.”
Jevy retrieved two maps and spread them on the grass. The Indians were very curious. They squatted close to their leader.
To find out where they were going, they first had to determine where they were. And this took a bad turn when the leader informed Jevy that the river that brought them in was not, in fact, the Cabixa. They had taken a wrong turn at some point after meeting the fisherman, and stumbled onto the Guató. Jevy took the news hard, and whispered it to Nate.
Nate took it even harder. He was trusting Jevy with his life.
Fancy-colored navigational maps meant little to the Indians. They were soon ignored as Jevy began drawing his own. He started with the unnamed river lying before them, and, chatting constantly with the chief, slowly made his way to the north. The chief received input from two young men. The two, he explained to Jevy, were excellent fishermen and traveled occasionally to the Paraguay.
“Hire them,” Nate whispered.
Jevy tried, but in the course of negotiations learned that the two had never seen the Ipicas, didn’t particularly want to, didn’t know exactly where they were, and didn’t understand the concept of working and getting paid for it. Plus the chief didn’t want them to leave.
The route went from one river to the next, twisting northward, until the chief and his fishermen could no longer agree on where to go next. Jevy compared his drawing to his maps.
“We’ve found her,” he said to Nate.
“Where?”
“There is a settlement of Ipicas here,” he said, pointing to a map. “South of Porto Indio, at the edge of the mountains. Their directions take us close to it.”
Nate leaned lower and examined the markings. “How do we get there?”
“I think we go back to the boat, and go north a half a day on the Paraguay. Then we use the little boat again to get to the settlement.”
The Paraguay looped relatively close to their target, and traveling to it on the Santa Loura struck Nate as a splendid idea. “How many hours in the little boat?” Nate asked.
“Four, more or less.”
“More or less” covered everything in Brazil. The distance, though, looked less than what they had covered since early morning.
“Then what are we waiting for?” Nate asked, standing and smiling at the Indians.
Jevy began saying thanks to their hosts, while folding his maps. Now that they were leaving, the Indians loosened up and wanted to be hospitable. They offered food, which Jevy declined. He explained that they were suddenly in a hurry, since they planned to return to the big river before dark.
Nate grinned at them as he backtracked to the river. They wanted to see the boat. They stood at the edge of the water, watching with great curiosity as Jevy adjusted the motor. When he started it, they took a step back.
The river, whatever it was named, looked entirely different going in the other direction. As they approached the first bend, Nate glanced over his shoulder and saw the Guató, still standing in the water.
The time was almost 4 P.M. With luck, they could make it past the large lakes before dark, then onto the Cabixa. Welly would be waiting, with beans and rice. As Nate did these quick calculations, he felt the first raindrops.
________
THE FLAW in the motor was not dirty spark plugs. It shut down completely fifty minutes into the return leg. The boat drifted with the current while Jevy removed the cover and attacked the carburetor with a screwdriver. Nate asked if he could help, and was quickly informed that he could not. At least not with the engine. He could, however, take a bucket and begin dipping out the rainwater. And he could take a paddle and keep them in the center of the river, whatever it was named.
He did both. The current kept them moving, although at a
much slower pace than Nate preferred. The rain was intermittent. The river grew shallow as they approached a sharp curve, but Jevy was too busy to notice. The boat gained speed, and the rapids shoved it toward a thicket of dense brush.
“I need some help here,” Nate said.
Jevy grabbed a paddle. He turned the boat so the bow would hit and it wouldn’t flip. “Hold on!” he said as they rammed into the thicket. Vines and branches flew around Nate and he fought them with his paddle.
A small snake dropped into the boat just over Nate’s shoulder. He didn’t see it. Jevy scooped it up with his paddle and flung it into the river. It was best not to mention it.
They battled the current for a few minutes, as well as battling each other. Nate somehow managed to push water in all the wrong directions. His enthusiasm for paddling kept the boat precariously close to rolling.
When they were free again, away from the brush and the wildlife, Jevy confiscated both paddles and found a new job for Nate. He asked him to stand over the motor, holding his poncho wide to keep the rain off the carburetor. So Nate hovered, sort of like an angel with his arms spread, one foot on a gas tank, one foot on the side of the boat, frozen with fear.
Twenty minutes dragged by, as they drifted aimlessly down the narrow river. The Phelan estate could purchase every shiny new outboard motor in Brazil, and here Nate was watching an amateur mechanic try to patch one that was older than he was.
Jevy bolted the top on it, then worked with the throttle for an eternity. He yanked the starter rope, as Nate found himself saying a prayer. On the fourth pull, the miracle happened. The engine howled, though not as smoothly as before. It missed and sputtered, and Jevy adjusted throttle cables without much luck.
“We’ll have to go slower,” he reported, without looking at Nate.
“Fine. As long as we know where we are.”
“No problem.”
