Ghost Flight (29 page)

‘So tell me – you do have my knife?’

Jaeger felt rooted to the spot. That voice was one he’d told himself he would never hear again; it seemed to be speaking to him from way beyond the grave.

As his eyesight adjusted, he caught sight of an unmistakable figure seated on the ground. Jaeger’s mind reeled as he tried to figure out how she could have got there, not to mention how she could still be alive.

That figure was the woman he’d long presumed dead: Irina Narov.

51

Narov was seated with two others. One was Leticia Santos, their Brazilian team member, the other the giant figure of Joe James. Jaeger was rendered speechless, and his raw confusion wasn’t lost on the Indian chief. In fact, he could feel the aged tribal leader watching him closely, and studying his every move.

He approached the three of them. ‘But how . . .’ He glanced from one to another, his face breaking into a slow smile. If anything, Joe James’s Osama Bin Laden beard looked even bushier than ever.

Jaeger held out a hand. ‘You big Kiwi bastard! Could have done without seeing you again.’

James ignored the proffered hand, enveloping Jaeger in a crushing bear hug. ‘Dude, one thing you gotta learn: real men hug.’

Leticia Santos was next, throwing her arms around him in a typical show of unrestrained Latino warmth. ‘So! Like I promised – you do get to meet my Indians!’

Narov was last.

She stood before Jaeger, an inch or so shorter than him, her eyes as expressionless as ever, her gaze avoiding his. Jaeger gave her the once-over. Whatever she had suffered since he’d lost her on the river – pain-racked from the
Phoneutria
bite and curled up on his makeshift raft – she didn’t seem much the worse for wear.

She held out one hand. ‘Knife.’

For an instant Jaeger checked that hand. It was her left, and the horrible swelling and bite marks seemed to have almost disappeared.

He bent slightly so that he could whisper in her ear. ‘I gave it to the chief. Had to. It was the only thing I could do to bargain for our lives.’

‘
Schwachkopf.
’ Was there the barest hint of a smile? ‘You have my knife. You’d better have my knife. Or the chief will be the least of your worries.’

The chief gestured at Jaeger. ‘You have friends here. Spend time with them. Food and drink will come.’

‘Thank you, I’m grateful.’

The chief nodded at the translator. ‘Puruwehua will stay with you, at least until you feel at home.’

With that he was gone, wandering off amongst his people.

Jaeger took a seat with the others. James and Santos were the first to tell their story. They’d set camp in the forest maybe an hour’s walk from the sandbar, on the same day they’d parachuted into the jungle. They’d hung offerings in the trees – a scattering of presents – and waited.

Sure enough, the Indians had come – but not quite in the way they had hoped. Overnight, both of them had been taken captive and marched to the village, the Indians knowing the forest’s secret pathways and being able to move silent and fast. There they were questioned by the chief along similar lines to Jaeger’s interrogation: whether they came in anger or in peace, and the nature of their mission.

When they had told the chief all they could, they felt as if they had passed some kind of unwritten test. It was then that the chief had allowed them to be reunited with Irina Narov. He’d kept them apart so as to ensure their stories matched.

And in Jaeger’s questioning there lay a third layer of scrutiny. The chief had kept his missing team members hidden to check if their stories married up. Clearly he was no pushover.

In fact he’d played Jaeger – he’d played them all – like an old hand.

‘So what about Krakow and Clermont?’ Jaeger asked. He peered around the shadows of the spirit house. ‘They somewhere here too?’

It was the translator, Puruwehua, who answered. ‘There is much to talk about. But it is best you let the chief tell you about your two missing friends.’

Jaeger glanced at the others. James, Santos and Narov nodded solemnly. Whatever fate had befallen Krakow and Clermont, he didn’t figure it could be good news.

‘And you?’ He eyed Narov. ‘Tell me – how on earth did you make it back from the dead?’

Narov shrugged. ‘Clearly you underestimated my capacity to survive. Wishful thinking on your part, maybe.’

Her words stung Jaeger. Maybe she was right. Maybe he could have done more to save her. But as he cast his mind back to his exhaustive efforts, and the subsequent search of that river, he couldn’t for the life of him imagine how.

It was Puruwehua, the translator, who filled the silence. ‘This one – this
ja-gwara
– we found her on the river clinging to some bamboo. At first we thought she had drowned; that she was
ahegwera
– a ghost. But then we saw she had been stung by the
kajavuria
– the spider that eats people’s souls.

‘We know what plant can cure this one,’ he continued. ‘So we nursed her. And we carried her through the jungle to here. There came a moment when we knew she would not die. It was the moment of her
ma’e-ma’e
– her awakening.’

Puruwehua turned his dark eyes on Jaeger. There was something in the translator’s gaze that reminded him of the Indian warrior leader’s look: a watching cat; the flat, blank eyes of the jaguar, scrutinising its prey. In fact there was something in his gaze that reminded Jaeger somehow of . . . of Narov.

‘She seems angry at you,’ Puruwehua continued. ‘But we believe she is one of the spirit children. She survived what no one should ever survive. She has a very strong
a’aga
– spirit.’ He paused. ‘Keep her close. You must cherish this one – this
ja-gwara
. This jaguar.’

Jaeger felt a flush of embarrassment. He’d come across this tendency before with remote peoples. With them, most thoughts and experiences were communal. They tended to recognise few boundaries between the personal and the private; between what should be discussed publicly and what it was best to keep one-on-one.

‘I’ll do my best,’ Jaeger remarked quietly. ‘Not that my best seemed good enough . . . But tell me something, Puruwehua, how does an “uncontacted” tribe come to include a young man who speaks English?’

‘We are the Amahuaca – the cousins of a neighbouring tribe, the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau,’ Puruwehua replied. ‘We and the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau speak the same Tupi-Guarani language. Two decades ago the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau decided to make contact with the outside. Over time, they told us what they had learned. They told us that we live in a country called Brazil. They said we needed to learn the language of the outsiders, for inevitably they would come.

‘They told us we would need to learn Portuguese, and also English – one the language of Brazil; the other the language of the world. I am the chief’s youngest son. His eldest – one of our prized warriors – you met on the riverbank. My father believed that my qualities lay in the strength of my head, not of my spear arm. I would be a warrior of the mind.

‘With the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau, he sent me to be educated,’ Puruwehua rounded off his story. ‘I spent ten years in the outside, learning languages. And then I returned. And now I am my tribe’s window on to the world.’

‘I’m glad you are,’ Jaeger told him. ‘I think maybe today you saved our lives . . .’

The eating and drinking lasted long into the evening. At intervals, both the men and the women of the tribe danced in the open centre of the spirit house, strings of moon-shaped seeds from a forest fruit – the
pequia
– worn around upper arms and legs. As they stamped their feet and swung their arms in unison, the seeds clashed together, beating out a rhythm that pulsated through the gathering darkness.

Jaeger found himself being offered a gourd full of a strange red paste. For a moment he didn’t know what he was supposed to do with it. It was Leticia Santos who showed him. The paste was made from the bark of a certain tree, she explained. Smeared on the skin, it acted as a powerful insect repellent.

Jaeger figured he’d better have some. He allowed Santos to rub the paste on his face and hands, enjoying the flare of discomfort –
was it jealousy?
– that flashed through Narov’s eyes. A larger bowl was passed around, full of a grey, frothy liquid with a pungent smell. It was
masata
, Santos explained – an alcoholic drink common amongst native Amazonian tribes. It would be seen as an insult to reject it.

It was only when Jaeger had taken a good few glugs of the thick, warm, chewy liquid that Santos revealed exactly how it was made. She was speaking Portuguese, which effectively froze out the others from the conversation – Narov included. It left her and Jaeger in a bubble of intimacy, as they laughed in disgust at what he’d just been drinking.

To make the brew, the women of the tribe took raw manioc – a potato-like starch-rich root – and chewed it up. They spat the resulting gunk into a bowl, added water, and left it to ferment for a few days. The resulting mixture was what Jaeger had just consumed.

Nice.

The highlight of the feasting was the roast, the rich smell of which filled the spirit house. Three large monkeys were being turned over a central fire pit, and Jaeger couldn’t help but admit the smell was enticing, even if roast monkey wasn’t high on his fantasy food list. After a week on dry rations, he felt hungry as hell.

A cry went up from the gathering. Jaeger didn’t have a clue what it meant, but Narov for one seemed to understand.

She held out a hand to Jaeger. ‘For the third and final time:
knife
.’

He threw up his arms in mock surrender, reached into his backpack and retrieved Narov’s Fairbairn–Sykes fighting knife. ‘More than my life’s worth to lose this.’

Narov took it. She unsheathed the blade reverentially, spending a long moment checking it over.

‘I lost the other in the Rio de los Dios,’ she remarked quietly. ‘And with it I lost a thousand memories.’ She got to her feet. ‘Thanks for returning it.’ Her eyes were averted from Jaeger’s, but the words sounded genuine. ‘I consider it your first success of this expedition.’

She turned and moved into the centre of the spirit house, Jaeger kept his eyes on her. She bent over the fire pit, seven-inch blade clasped in hand, and began to cut off hunks of steaming flesh. For whatever reason the Amahuaca were giving this outsider, this woman, this
ja-gwara,
the right to cut the first of the meat.

Thick chunks were passed around, and soon Jaeger could feel the hot, greasy juices running down his chin. He lay back, resting on his pack, relishing the feeling of a full belly. But there was something else that he was enjoying here – something far more valuable and replenishing than any meal. It was the knowledge that for once he didn’t have to be alert and watchful; for once he and his team weren’t being menaced by a mystery enemy lurking in the shadows.

For a brief moment, Will Jaeger could allow himself to relax and feel contented.

52

The food and the sense of security must have lulled him to sleep. He awoke to find the fire pit glowing a dull red and the feasting long done. The odd star glinted in the heavens high above, and a warm stillness seemed to have settled over the hut, mixed with an undercurrent of expectancy; of anticipation.

Jaeger noticed that the same thin and gnarled old man who had stared deep into his eyes was now the centre of attention. He bent over something, busy with his hands. It looked like a shorter, thinner version of one of the Amahuaca’s blowpipes, and Jaeger could see him stuffing something into one end.

He glanced at Puruwehua enquiringly.

‘Our shaman,’ Puruwehua explained. ‘He prepares
nyakwana
. You would call it I think “snuff”. It is . . . I forget the exact word. It makes you see visions.’

‘Hallucinogenic,’ Jaeger volunteered.

‘Hallucinogenic,’ Puruwehua confirmed. ‘It is made of the seed of the
cebil
tree, roasted and ground into a fine powder, and mixed with the dried shells of a giant forest snail. It sends the taker into a trance state, so he can visit the spirit world. When you take it, you can fly as high as the
topena
– the
white hawk that is big enough to steal a chicken from the village. It can take you to far distant places, and maybe even out of this world.

‘We sniff maybe half a gram at a time.’ Puruwehua smiled. ‘You – you should try no more than a fraction of that amount.’

Jaeger started. ‘Me?’

‘Yes, of course. When it reaches here, one of your party will need to accept the pipe. Not to do so – it would undo much of the good achieved tonight.’

‘Me and drugs . . .’ Jaeger tried a smile. ‘I’ve got enough on my hands without a monged-out head. I’m good, thanks.’

‘You are the leader of your group,’ Puruwehua countered, quietly. ‘You can let another take the honour. But it would be . . . unusual.’

Jaeger shrugged. ‘I can do unusual. Unusual is okay.’

He watched the pipe do the rounds of the spirit house. With each stop, a figure placed one end to his nostril, while the shaman blew the snuff deep into his nose. Minutes later, the taker would get to his feet, chanting and dancing, his mind clearly far away in another world.

‘Via the
nyakwana
we commune with our ancestors and our spirits,’ Puruwehua explained. ‘Those anchored in the world of the jungle – the animals, birds, trees, rivers, fish and mountains.’

He pointed out one of the entranced sniffers. ‘So this man – he relates a spirit story. “Once there was an Amahuaca woman who turned into the moon. She had climbed a tree, but decided to stay in the sky, because her boyfriend had found a rival love, and so became the moon . . .”’

As Puruwehua talked, the pipe drew ever closer. Jaeger noticed that the chief was keeping a careful eye out for what would happen when it reached him. The shaman stopped. He crouched low, the snuff piled on a length of smooth wood, the long, ornately carved pipe clutched in his hand.