Читать книгу Tiger River - Arthur Olney Friel - Страница 5

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For a moment the jungle and the river were still. No man moved; and the rustle of small things in bush and branches was hushed as if all life held its breath. Then, calmly, tall Captain McKay spoke.

"Sounds hungry. A hungry jaguar is bad medicine. Get aboard, men, and we'll shove out a little. Come along, José. Want to talk to you."

José glowered into the tangle as if half minded to go seeking the tigre. But when Knowlton seconded the invitation he shrugged and nodded.

"Climb in," said the blond man. "Nothing to stay here for. The Indians won't come ashore, your meat is cooked, and we can talk better where that brute won't drop on somebody's back. Besides," with a laugh, "we have to dig up that bottle I spoke of."

"Your last reason is much the best one, señor," José grinned. "Now that I think of it, my throat is most dry."

Back into the garretea the white men clambered, and at once the paddlers shoved off. But for McKay's sharp commands, they would have driven the boat back to the Amazon. As it was, they reluctantly stopped work after a few strokes, and a moment later a sixty-pound weight plunged over the bow. Fifteen yards out, the boat swung at anchor.

Four of the whites went aft to the shelter of the shady hoop-roofed cabin, which rose importantly from a ten-foot palm-bark deck. Tim, the fifth, halted amidships and sought something among the supplies, straightening up presently with a quart bottle on which the Indians fixed a longing gaze. Not until the red-bearded man entered the cabin did the aborigines take their eyes from his liquid treasure. Then they silently moved forward and made a fire in a big clay pot in the bow—the "galley" of their crude ship.

"Wal, Hozy, ol'-timer, here's how!" proclaimed Tim, flourishing the bottle. "Reg'lar stuff, this is—some o' that there, now, Annie Sadder, double distilled and a hundred proof. Take a husky gargle of it before ye eat. Ye git more of a jolt on an empty stummick. Shoot!"

José shot. The anisadoo gurgled down his throat like water. When he handed back the bottle his eyes glistened and a fourth of the liquor had disappeared from mortal view.

"Gosh!" muttered Tim. "Half a pint to one swaller! Ye got me beat. But I'll do me best."

Measuring off another half pint with a thumb-nail, he opened his capacious mouth, nipped his nose between his free thumb and forefinger, and let the bottle gurgle. Presently he gasped, shot the bottle to McKay, seized a gourd, and seemed to dive overboard; but his legs and body remained on the deck, and the gourd came up full of river water. Several gulps, and he arose, breathing hard.

"That's what we come up here for, anyways—clean water," he alibied. "So I'm gittin' mine now. That Ammyzon water is awright if ye let it settle, but she sure needs some settlin'. Don't ye want a chaser, too, Hozy? No? Then eat somethin' quick, before ye git vi'lent. We don't want to have to fight ye."

But José only grinned and licked his mustache, bowing to Knowlton as the latter saluted him with the bottle and took a short pull. McKay drank without a quiver. Rand barely touched the glass to his lips, then replaced the cork.

"Hard case, this feller Rand," winked Tim. "Last time he got holt of a bottle he swallered the whole dang thing and then chewed up the cork for a chaser. Right after that he sat down hard and the bottle busted inside him, so he has to go easy a few days. If ye don't believe me, kick him, and ye'll hear the glass jingle."

"You'll be more likely to hear the angels singing," countered the green-eyed man, with a tight smile. "Fact is, José, I'm not drinking any more. Drink got me into hell once. Maybe you remember."

The Peruvian nodded.

"Sí. It was drinking which got you into a fight at Manaos some years ago when you were traveling up the Amazon. You struck down a man—a German—so hard that you believed him killed, and you hid on a steamer and fled up the river. Then you went into the wild cannibal country on the Rio Javary, fought another German—Schwandorf—who tried to make you steal Indian women for his slave trade, and were shot in the head by that man. The bullet crazed you, and for years you wandered among the cannibals, who let you live only because they feared you. The Raposa—the Wild Dog of the jungle! I heard of you long before I ever saw you."

"And if it hadn't been for Mac and Merry Knowlton and Tim, who came hunting me and knocked sense back into my head with a gun butt, I'd be there yet," Rand acquiesced grimly.

José nodded again.

"Es verdad. But that time is past, and you are a strong man once more. Yet I am much astonished to see you again in the jungle. If I have it right, these señores came seeking you because you were heir to a great estate and they were commissioned to find you. A North American millionaire is the last kind of man I should expect to see here, even if he had not suffered here as you have."

Rand smiled wryly.

"But I don't happen to be a millionaire. I haven't even a million cents, not to mention dollars."

"Por Dios! There were two million dollars—did you not say so, capitán? And that was hardly a year ago! How have you spent so much money in so short a time?"

"Didn't spend a cent of it. Never had it to spend. It's this way:

"My uncle, Philip Dawson, died. His son, Paul, who fought in the great war, was supposed to have been killed in action in the Argonne Forest. So the Dawson estate was legally mine—for a while.

"But Paul wasn't killed. He was badly wounded, captured, and treated none too well; and he got aphasia—forgot who he was. The War Department mixed up things, recorded him as dead, and shipped home the body of some other soldier as his. A lot of those blunders happened in the war.

"Just about the time these chaps were finding me down here, a friend of Paul's found him over there. He was working as a field hand, and even thought he was a German—he had traveled a lot as a boy and could talk German as easily as English; so when he found himself among German people and didn't know who he was or how he came there, he thought he belonged there. Of course his friend got him back to the States at once, and by the time I showed up he was there in the hands of specialists who were bringing his memory back to him. So that let me out."

José carved a section of monkey haunch. Slicing it with careful exactness, he passed portions to his companions. All fell to chewing.

"But I thtill do not thee, theñor," lisped José then, his mouth nearly full, "why you return to thith plathe."

"We're partners, chasing the rainbow," Knowlton vouchsafed after swallowing his morsel. "We three were well rewarded for getting Dave back, even though he wasn't the heir; the estate had to make good its contract with us. Dave wasn't broke, either—he had some money of his own in a couple of banks. So we got restless, pooled our money, and came down to the Andes to make ourselves billionaires by finding the treasures of the Incas or anything else lying around loose.

"But we were out of luck. We poked around the upper Marañon awhile and tried a couple of other prospects, but got nothing but hard knocks. So we got this boat and came along down. Thought we'd take a whirl at the Napo country, just below here. Loads of gold in the Napo, we hear; Indians pick it out of the river bed, and so on. Want to join us and try your luck?"

José did not answer at once. His black eyes searched the face of each man as if seeking some sign of derision or amusement. He found none.

"You jest, señor," he said presently.

"Not a bit of it. What do you say, Rod—Tim—Dave? Is José a welcome member of this gang?"

"I'll say he is!" rumbled Tim. The other two nodded decisively.

The Peruvian's face glowed. But he shook his head.

"I thank you, señores, but I cannot. I have no such outfit as you, I have no money, I am not one of you but José Martinez—outlaw. I could not be on an equal footing——"

"That's rot, José," McKay cut in. "If we didn't want you we wouldn't ask you. Money and outfit are immaterial. You have something we lack—intimate knowledge of this region. Put your knowledge in the pot with our outfit, and you owe nothing. Coming in?"

Again José held his tongue before answering. Pride gleamed in his eyes, but those eyes went up the Tiger River as if visioning something the others could not see. Absently he rolled and smoked a cigarette. Not until he snapped the charred butt overboard did he speak.

"Señores," he said abruptly, "the tale of gold in the Napo is old. Too old. Everybody knows it. True, gold is there: gold dust washed from the Llanganati mountains of Ecuador. But men have known of it for hundreds of years. Many expeditions have gone in after it. Some have come out, some have not. Savages—accidents—fever—there are many white men's bones in the Napo jungle. There will be many more.

"Gold is there, yes. But why journey to the Napo, and hundreds of miles up the Napo—it is eight hundred miles long, amigos—to seek a thing which is nearer at hand? Why poke about a river where the workings are known and covered by fighting men, when before you opens a stream where you can take anything you find?"

The Americans started. Their glances darted up the Tigre Yacu.

"You mean——" Knowlton began.

"Sssst!" José hissed warningly.

Two of the crew were approaching, bearing salt fish and hot coffee to their patrones. The Peruvian eyed them narrowly, but none gave sign of having heard or understood the talk. Stolidly they placed the food on the raised deck, turned, and went back to the bow.

"Speak on," said McKay. "They know no English except a few words like 'paddle,' and so on."

"Bueno. You guess it—I mean this Tigre Yacu.

"Behold, compañeros. It is but a little brook, yes, if one thinks of the great Marañon or the Napo. Yet it runs a long way up—one hundred fifty miles or more—and it is deep; canoes can travel far on it. And it heads between two long mountain spurs, which form the split end of the Cordillera del Pastassa. And that cordillera, amigos, is itself a spur from those same Llanganati mountains whence comes the gold of the Napo and its tributary river, the Curaray!

"See. It is thus."

Dipping a finger into his coffee, he drew on the bark deck a figure somewhat like a crude, elongated letter "h." Between the legs of this symbol he traced another line running southeast.

"The long line is the Cordillera del Pastassa, the curved one its spur," he explained. "And the third line is this Tigre Yacu. North of this Cordillera runs the Curaray, which, as I say, bears gold. Some of its tributaries flow from this cordillera. Who shall say that the cordillera, an offshoot of the Llanganati, is not bursting with gold? Who shall say that much—or all—of the gold of the Curaray does not come from this cordillera instead of the Llanganati? Madre de Dios! Quien sabe?"

His face was flaming now. And, looking into his hot black eyes, the blue and the gray and the green eyes of the northerners suddenly flared with the reckless light of the gold lure. Rainbow-chasers all, hardy, venturesome, fearless, they were of that red-blooded breed which plunges straight into the jaws of death if within those jaws lies a prize worth the daring. In one flashing instant the projected journey to the Napo vanished from their minds like wind-blown mist. The Napo was old. The Tigre Yacu, unknown, mysterious, had caught them in a spell.

It was McKay, canny and controlled, who spoke first.

"If there's gold here, why has it been passed by?"

One laconic word answered him.

"Jiveros."

"Hm. The head-hunters! Thought we were past their country."

"Oof! The Jiveros?" blurted Tim. "The fellers that shrink yer head to the size of an orange? Them guys?"

"Them guys," José echoed, with a slight smile. "Their country is farther west, as el capitán says: the rivers Pastassa, Morona, Santiago; but they know no boundaries and they roam far. It is more than possible that even now some of them lurk yonder in the bush, watching us. Wise men do not go up these rivers west of the Napo—only fools like José.

"That was why I hesitated so long before telling you of the treasure that may be up this stream. To risk my own life is nothing; to lure my friends into a death trap with me is much. But—we were together among the southern cannibals not long ago. So I tell you."

He gulped some coffee. At once he went on:

"Nor is that all. Somewhere up this stream is something—I know not what—which makes men mad. I am not the first fool who has thought of gold up here and gone after it. How many men have gone in here I know not. But until recently no man has come out.

"Two weeks ago came one Rafael Pardo down to Iquitos. A hard, reckless man he was; a killer and other things. I say he was. He no longer is.

"Months ago he went up this Tigre Yacu, boasting that he feared no man, beast, God or devil. Days ago he came back, naked, bearded, filthy, raving. But with him he brought gold. A hide bag he had, and it was heavy with nuggets. Yes, nuggets, not dust. His skin was seamed with scars like those of a whip. His toes were gone—every one cut off. How he walked through the jungle, how he lived without weapons, I do not know. But he came—and he brought gold."

"Did anyone learn what he had been through?" asked Rand.

"No. He was utterly mad. He screamed frightful things, but such as made no sense. Then some one stole his gold. When he found it gone he ran about yelling, fell down frothing, and died."

For a long minute there was silence. All peered up the stream. The flush of excitement had died from their faces, but no indecision or fear showed in them. Their jaws were set and their eyes narrowed as if they were sizing up an enemy. And they were. In each man's mind flamed a challenge to the river of missing men.

Then, all at once, their heads jerked to the right. The Indians in the bow had risen from their squat and were facing toward the spot where the Peruvian's little fire had smoked, and where his canoe still lay. The blaze now had died. And through the waist-high grass something large, something stealthy, was creeping from the jungle.