Temple of the Jaguar God (2 page)

Unfamiliar birds and possibly monkeys screeched unseen in the
trees overhead. Insects buzzed and hummed. Sweat trickled
down.

It never
seemed to stop and after a while one stopped worrying about it.
Your socks and your underwear were never completely dry.

The
village of Buena Vista, population maybe fifteen hundred, wasn’t
much to look at. Now, they were going up the Rio Cuao, by
motor-canoe, and after that, overland to the area where the temple
of the Jaguar god was said to exist, at least in those legends that
the doctor had heard and so had Mister Smith.

And it
really was another world, where you could hire native bearers and
boatmen for what seemed like pennies for a day’s work. It was
brutally hard work, from dawn until dusk. They seemed cheerful
enough for all of that.

Mister
Smith was now satisfied with the loading and that they hadn’t
missed anything. There was nothing where they were going—nothing.
They would have to make do with what they had, which seemed pretty
extensive in Jeremy’s observation. All of the dockside piles were
aboard.

The
labour had been paid, but they seemed in no hurry to
leave.

They
were all standing there watching.

“
All right, lady and gentlemen—all aboard who’s coming
along.”

With
that, Smith stepped off the primitive wooden dock and carefully
made his way to a place by the motor and the chief or whatever, the
man in charge of this boat and their small native party.

They
jibber-jabbered back and forth as Mister Smith pulled out his pipe
and idly began filling it.

Someone
pulled hard on a rope and the motor sputtered into life.

***

With his
uncle in the second boat, for whatever reason Jeremy preferred to
ride in the first boat, right up front in the prow. There was a
brief estuary and then they wound their way upriver. It was
fascinating to watch Mister Smith, totally confident in his
abilities and in those of the natives, to whom he seemed like an
uncle or something. He was that good, putting an arm around the
shoulders of someone he was talking to, and handling the language
like a native himself.

Other
than Paolo, he was the only one of the party that could speak it.
The natives didn’t seem to know what personal space was, and Smith
was pretty good with hugs, and pats on the shoulder, even holding
hands with the more affectionate. There was something charming in
the innocence of the local tribesmen. They were like very dangerous
children, according to Smith.

Whatever
it took to get the job done. He was the only one other than Paolo
to speak the native language, derived from Carib presumably. It was
impressive, to see how dark, narrow and overgrown the Cuao was
compared to the Orinoco. The Orinoco was a great river in every
sense of the word, miles wide in some places. This little creek
closed in rapidly, in a most oppressive fashion, yet there was said
to be eighty or a hundred miles of this.

It was
hard to believe they could keep going. Going by their rather skimpy
maps, showing little more than a couple of prominent elevations and
the winding blue line of the river itself, it appeared to go east,
and then turn north again, with a line of big hills eventually
appearing on the right. Everything else was a sea of green, on the
map and in present reality both. This is where it would get really
challenging, according to Smith. They had to find the correct
fork.

After
that, it was all over land, all uphill, and all unknown tribes and
perhaps other hazards as well. The jungle was anything but
friendly, according to him, something Jeremy had already figured
out for himself. Within the first five miles, they had to stop
twice to cut dead trees blocking the channel. The river only got
narrower. What looked simple on a map was not going to be
easy.

Knowing
there were piranhas in there, it was a bit of a revelation to see
the native men leap out with axe and saw and begin cutting. They
were always laughing and chewing on something mysterious. With
enough hands and strong, willing backs, the boats were dragged over
every obstacle.

You only
needed to see one big set of cat-tracks. Or see one big croc, going
up to twenty-two feet. It was no joke. You wouldn’t sleep in a tent
very well for a long, long time after.

Another
complication was the need to take the left fork at exactly the
right place. With sluggish sloughs and dark tunnels of water coming
in regularly on each side, and a few small islands in the channel,
this would be a bit of a headache. It was difficult to get good
navigational fixes with the sun, the stars and the moon pretty much
obscured at all times by triple-canopy rain forest growing hundreds
of feet straight up on banks that were but a few yards
away.

A small
patch of blue sky was a rarity and the light was going
anyways.

Sooner
or later they would have to stop for the night.

His guts
churned at the thought. Sleeping, their first night in the
jungle…

There
was nowhere else to be.

He was
committed.

***

They had
all agreed, those who had an opinion. They had hit their fork and
this was the correct branch of the river.

At
times, the boat scraped the sides.

The air
was very hot and very still.

They
could go no further, the river was just too small.

Thirty
or forty yards inland, they found a nice level spot and the natives
began the process of unloading.

This
would be their first base camp.

If the ocean crossing had been boring, if the trip upriver had
been hot and interminable, if the Rio Cuao had been one big knot of
tension in the gut for a full three days, then hacking their way
overland was going to be something out of Dante’s
Inferno.

According to Uncle Harry, one had to start
somewhere.

It was
morning.

It was
already insufferably hot. It wasn’t even seven a.m. The buzz of
insects never left them.

Things
were always biting.

There
was a rustle as tent-flaps were undone.

“
Good lord.”

“
Ah. Good morning, Uncle.”

With hot
water brought in and a private tent, Uncle Harry was freshly shaved
and scrubbed.

Jeremy
bit his lip in amusement. Mrs. O’Dell, wearing about the smallest
bathing suit that could legally be sold outside of a Hollywood
glamour catalogue, was sensually draped across a thick blanket laid
out in the only patch of sun that managed to make it in down from
above.

With
face reddening, blinking rapidly and trying not to stare, Uncle
Harry turned for the breakfast table. This was set up in a shady
corner where their native friends had hacked and cut and taken out
some big roots to level the ground.

According to all calculations, they were within five or ten
miles of their supposed temple. If so, this was about as good a
camp as they were likely to find. There was good water coming down
in a foaming white cataract from the highlands above them to the
northeast.

So far,
it was all speculation.

“
Good morning, sir.” Mister Day was already at it, stuffing
tinned steak-and-kidney pie into a maw that was looking
particularly voracious this morning.

It would
be fairer to say that hacking away at virgin growth with machete
and axe was hard work and it certainly built an
appetite.

Kevin
was there and Mister Syrmes. Mister O’Dell had gone off for a walk,
as he put it, after giving his oblivious wife a rather dark look
and some cryptically-snippy remarks. He might be gone for a while,
but they never seemed to get moving much before nine-thirty or ten
anyways.

He might
have just been tired of sitting in a boat.

If they
were fighting, they must have been doing it in low tones. The thin
walls of a tent didn’t hold too many secrets. Jeremy and the other
bachelors were in the tent right next to them.

Jeremy
eased himself out of his own wood and canvas deck chair, where he
had been enjoying the view of Mrs. O’Dell. There was no harm in
looking after all, and he took his place at the table, looking very
crisp and fresh in its white linen.

Paolo
had turned out to be an excellent cook, unfamiliar as he had
initially been with the portable stove hauled along aboard the boat
and ultimately, on people’s backs. Up the hill and down the dale,
over the hills and through the woods—losing blood every step of the
way.

Their native party had their own tents and cooking fire, built
on the ground in the more usual fashion. They seemed to cook in two
ways, one was a big iron pot hung on a tripod. The other way was
either in or under the coals. It was very quiet from over there.
They were prone to siestas in the hottest part of the day and a
good expedition leader took that into account. Also, there wasn’t
very much for them to do. The tents had been pitched, the shelters
had been built and the latrines had been dug. They were probably
just sleeping-in. Jeremy was learning a lot, how much
good
it might do him in
the long run was another question.

It was
all right, he supposed, and yet he had to admit that the sort of
scientific curiosity exhibited by his Uncle and one or two of the
others—Mister Day and Mister O’Dell for example, was somehow
lacking.

Mister Smith didn’t seem to care one way or another, and
neither did Mrs. O’Dell. Mr. Syrmes was positively delighted to
collect specimens and photographs
on the
side,
as he said.

It had
nothing to do with the expedition, but he didn’t seem to be able to
quit.

Half the
species they’d seen so far, plant, animal, fungus, were completely
unknown. Jeremy supposed that was remarkable. No one could say they
weren’t educated and they had all the books and catalogues. Mister
Syrmes’ drawings were beautiful, and yet still scientifically
meticulous. There was real talent there, in Jeremy’s
opinion.

The
insect life, bird-eating spiders, giant butterflies, big walking
sticks and such, was fascinating, the monkeys and the birds were
all right—insofar as that went. Jeremy had been putting some
thought into his future. In that sense, perhaps something had been
sparked into life within him.

It really
was
that kind of a world—a lost world, full of secrets waiting to
be unraveled and exciting mysteries yet to be revealed.

His own
ignorance had been revealed to him.

And now
he wanted to know more—

Perhaps
that was it.

It was
just a weird kind of feeling he’d had.

***

They
were doing compass marches, watching time, keeping notes, making
drawings when applicable and just trying to map their way around
what had to be a pretty small patch of jungle. Working in pairs,
Jeremy had been teamed up with Mister O’Dell. The gentleman knew
what he was doing, at least to hear him tell it. There were two
other parties of two men each. Theoretically, they were separated
by about two hundred metres, running on parallel tracks. How long
that might have lasted, was anybody’s guess. They hadn’t heard a
thing from the other parties all day.

While
they all knew what they were supposed to do, the maps were useless
this far upriver.

After a
while, the arms ached from chopping brush…every so often the jungle
thinned out and it was pure, heavenly relief that never lasted
quite long enough.

Jeremy
and Mister O’Dell had gone a hundred yards south of camp and then
turned east. Smith and Paolo had done the opposite. Two hundred
yards north, and then turn east. They were due north, and his Uncle
and Mister Day were supposed to be two hundred yards further
north…theoretically.

Setting
off shortly after breakfast, that was hours ago now. They’d sat
down on a log about noon and had their sandwiches, bully beef and
mustard. A pickle, a piece of cheese and one bottle of beer
each.

It was
like if you ate it, you didn’t have to carry it.

The real
problem was when they became separated. It was hard to say just how
that had happened. O’Dell had been right there only a moment
before. Jeremy had stepped into the bushes to relieve his bowels,
something hard to get used to and always a vulnerable feeling. He
couldn’t have gotten too far, and yet the man didn’t answer when
Jeremey called. He was shouting at the top of his lungs and
straining his voice in the ever-deepening gloom.

It
seemed like he’d been thrashing around in the underbrush for hours,
yet it was probably no more than half an hour.

Night
was falling and he was hungry and it was time to go home, hence his
rapidly-increasing impatience.

There
may have been some element of panic in there as well. When he cast
his mind back, they had followed a more-or-less straight course,
crossing several clear, shallow streams and what they thought was
the Cuao again, deep, black and winding through the gloomy dark
trees.