Temple of the Jaguar God (7 page)

Gerald
Day appeared.

“
No guns, a couple of machetes.” He threw them down on the
ground. “You were right. The cash box and all the natives are
gone.”

“
That’s all right. I have a pistol in my tent. It’s under the
pillow.”

With a
brief grin, Gerald pulled a small automatic pistol out of his own
pocket.

“
Me, too—I never made a big thing out of it, but the thoughts
of being eaten alive don’t exactly agree with me.” He put it away.
“Mind you, it’s not much for hunting.”

“
Don’t worry. We’ll be out of here in three days.” They had
some food, and only four mouths to feed.

They had
a boat and a river and probably some hooks and line.

There
were roots and shoots, fruits and berries if one knew where to
look—

In spite
of recent events, Uncle Harry seemed oddly happy as their eyes
met.

Weird Uncle Harry—

He gave
Jeremy a firm nod.

“
Let us hope it is enough.”

***

It was a
big, heavy boat for four people.

Mrs.
O’Dell sat in the back, the motor removed and a lashed-up,
home-made oar for steering.

Using
rope, they had improvised a pair of oar locks up front, with Gerald
and Jeremy taking the first shift.

Uncle
Harry had decreed that they would all rotate through the positions,
and that way no one would have to do more than an hour of rowing in
a shift. He managed this by rotating on the half hour, at which
time Jeremy took over the rudder and Mrs. O’Dell rested in the
prow, with the secondary job of looking for submerged rocks and
logs that would hang them up if they rode up on top of
them.

The
current in the Cuao was sluggish, but it was there, and they seemed
to be making fairly good time. The trouble was that the river went
on forever…hot and silent once they were out of the actual
brush.

They
hadn’t heard anything from the other boat. No motor, no gunshots,
no voices.

There
was a certain logic in taking their time and not accidentally
running into Syrmes and his party.

Other
than that, Jeremy tried to keep the boat straight up the middle of
the channel and follow whatever directions he was given.

He’d
gotten Melody to come back to the rear of the boat, and she was
bailing out a few buckets of water that had accumulated in the rear
of the boat, riding low in the water as compared to the bow. The
Evinrude motor, evidence of a kind according to his uncle, was
coming along for the ride but lashed down amidships roughly
speaking.

“
I’m terribly sorry about your husband.”

She
chucked a bucket over the side. The plugs would swell after a
while, but in the meantime, there was still water coming
in.

“
Yes. Well.” She looked up and sighed.

She
thought about something, coming to a decision.

“
I have a gun too, you know. Mister Syrmes might have guessed
that, but he didn’t. If we catch him—which we probably
won’t…”

“
Hmn. All these guns. Honestly. It’s not worth it, Melody.
Besides, I’m sort of hoping that we don’t catch him. I hope never
to see him again. Kevin was a good bloke. And I’m sure you feel the
same way about Mister O’Dell—Peter.” He’d disappeared on Jeremy’s
watch, so to speak.

“
Oh, I don’t know.” Her face fell.

Oh, I don’t know
—this was
some
kind of a
revelation.

She sat
on the bench across from him, her mind far away.

“
Anyhow, if I get the chance…if I get the chance, I’m going to
kill him.”

Her eyes
defiantly met his.

It was
enough to shrug and keep steering.

Her hair
hung down bedraggled. She was as wet and dirty as the rest of
them.

They
must have come five or six miles by this point. The sun was
directly overhead, and sooner or later they had to do something
about lunch, or dinner or breakfast or whatever it was.

***

The air
was dense with the humidity, and having slowed down, the biting
insects descended in clouds.

“
Argh.”
Slap.

They
were all at it.

“
Well, well, well.”

“
I must say, Doctor Fawcett. That man is always thinking—”
Mister Day was right.

Syrmes
had obviously planned this all out—and he wasn’t taking too many
chances.

They
hadn’t heard anything. There was this breathless feeling that if
not careful, they might stumble onto the other party—in the event
of motor troubles, or something like that. Even then, Syrmes had a
lot more people to fetch and paddle, so that might have just been
nervousness.

They’d
also seen what he could do.

A huge
tree had been felled, at a point just before the Cuao widened out
into a broader stream.

The
trunk had to be five feet thick. On the right bank, there was a bit
of space underneath, but not enough to get their boat through. On
the left side, a large number of hefty limbs poked up from glassy
black water, still green with leaves.

By Uncle
Harry’s estimation, halfway through the third day, they were less
than fourteen miles from Buena Vista. It was possible that Syrmes
had been doing some thinking about the second boat. Even if he’d
chopped a bigger hole in it, surely he must have foreseen the
possibility of repair.

He was
just being thorough.

It
wouldn’t take too long before his victims would either start
paddling, or start walking.

“
The thing is, he’s got a lot more people than us. I doubt if
it took two, maybe three hours for them.” Up on the right bank, the
white top of the stump and the scattered chips told their own
story.

As their
resident axe expert, Jeremy spoke up.

“
There’s just no way to cut the trunk, not with half of it
underwater like that. That’s like pounding sand. As for the other
end, God. I think that might take a day or two, even with all of us
taking turns.” For much of the work, they’d be standing on the
boat.

Clambering around on the branches was fraught with peril.
Sooner or later, you were going to fall off in the middle of a good
swing. If nothing else, they’d lose their only axe.

With
just the four of them, there was no way they could ever drag and
lift the boat over it. The thoughts of sinking the boat and trying
to work it under in five feet of water weren’t very appealing. They
were all agreed on that. The trunk was a good six feet thick at the
base…they’d picked the perfect tree and the perfect place to do
it.

The
right bank was steep, albeit only about three or four feet high.
The bank on the other side was lost in mangroves and other swamp
trees and the right side looked like a better bet.

“
What do we do now, Professor?” Melody sat patiently in the
back of the boat, although the rudder was useless at this
point.

Drifting
still, oars shipped, the bow hit the log with a soft thump. Mister
Day began fending her off, holding onto the bark, taking the nose
of the boat over to the right so that they could get out and have a
better look.

Fourteen
miles—fourteen long miles, overland, on an equatorial flood-plain
and with thunderstorms hovering all along the western horizon.
Assuming their map was relatively accurate. Assuming his guesses
were accurate.

Uncle
Harry was in the bow as it pushed low branches out the way, finally
hanging up a few feet from shore.

“
Right. How in the hell am I going to get up there.”

“
Hold on, Uncle.” Going to the back of the boat, Jeremy found a
spare piece of rope.

Mrs.
O’Dell and Mister Day clutched at the bark with their
fingers.

“
Okay, hang on.”

Carefully climbing up and onto the dead tree, Jeremy walked
up the gentle slope, grateful for the rough bark and the sheer size
of the thing. He dropped lightly down to the ground when he came to
land.

He swung
the end of the rope out to Uncle Harry and then fed out some
more.

They had
a good grip.

“
Right. Heave,
ho,
Mister Day.”

***

They
were extremely fortunate to find the trace of an old trail, and
within a hundred yards there were signs of habitation, overgrown
clearings, rotting shacks and bits of modern trash including empty
tins and bottles scattered around old and cold fire
rings.

The
trail got better as they went along.

Half a
mile after that, they came to the first encampment.

There
was an old man, a middle-aged couple, a couple of younger adults
and a gaggle of children wearing shirts, boys and girls alike, but
nothing else. Only the males had shorts, and the old woman, old
before her time perhaps, a proper if rather shapeless dress. They
were all barefoot and utterly fascinated by their
visitors.

Unfortunately, none of them spoke the language although Uncle
Harry knew a handful of words, having picked it up by sheer
osmosis. The most important word was boat, and the second most
important word was money—good pay for a short paddle to Buena
Vista, a name they obviously recognized. The trouble was that they
didn’t have much money on them, but there was a bank in town—a very
small one, but a bank nevertheless.

Every
coin that they had was given up, with Mrs. O’Dell digging around in
the bottom her purse.

Right
about then the ocelot came racing up out of the bushes. There was
quite the free-for-all, with half a dozen people trying to help
Jeremy catch the beast, one or two young men running to get their
spears and one or two of the women screaming.

With
some urging from the old man, who was remaining behind, the people
eventually dragged their biggest canoe, a hollowed-out log, down
into the water. A few minutes later, they were moving down the
river again.

Uncle
Harry had his concerns.

“
I wonder how far ahead of us he is.”

There
was only one way to find out.

The cat
was all over the place, and that was just one more
complication.

***

When they got to the docks at Buena Vista, Senior Hernandez,
Paolo and
Paloma
were gone.

Luckily,
Uncle Harry’s Spanish was better than his native language skills.
With their new native friends trooping along, he headed up the main
street from the dock. The bank was just up the road, and hopefully
he could convince them to take a cheque. The other three waited on
benches just outside the door and under the wide veranda. Directly
across the street was a cantina, and the smell of home-cooked food
was enough to drive one mad.

Jeremy
struggled to keep control of the animal.

What in
the blazes was he supposed to do with the poor thing? The cat was
totally smitten.

Uncle
Harry came out and began distributing silver coins to the natives.
When they seemed satisfied, he stopped. They turned away,
chattering, heading to the river and the market square where they
would no doubt pick up a few things and then go home.

“
What’s next? The police station?” Jeremy stood, eyeing his
uncle and wondering how to bring up the subject of lunch. “For
crying out loud, Ozzie.”

Another
scratch, more blood. One had to wonder just how much was left in
him—

“
I’m afraid there’s not much point in that.”

Gerald
Day had been sitting with his head hanging, wrung right out by the
last couple of days.

His head
came up.

“
And why is that, Doctor?”

“
Because I have it on pretty good authority, that Mister Syrmes
is dead.”

“
What?” They all spoke at once.

Uncle
Harry nodded towards the place across the street.

“
Let’s have some lunch. Oh, the cashbox is gone—and our native
friends have melted back into the bush.”

They
wouldn’t come out again until they were ready, and the truth was,
they all looked the same anyways.

According to Uncle Harry, with Señor Hernandez not knowing
just how long they would be gone, he had seized the opportunity to
make a quick cargo run a little further upriver. Syrmes would have
missed the boat anyways. In which case he would have probably just
stolen another small boat and run for it.

That had
always been the weakness of Syrmes’ plan, he said. Once you get the
gold, how in the hell would you ever get away with it…it was a
quiet and subdued little group listening to that sort of
news.