Читать книгу Tiger River - Arthur Olney Friel - Страница 9

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Out into the turbid flood of the continental stream plowed the long boat. There the paddlers settled themselves for their regular long-distance stroke. Hardly had they begun to sweat, however, when their tall captain ordered them to swerve toward a cleared space on the high left bank, where the peaked roofs of a few dingy clay houses showed against the encompassing wall of the jungle.

Bewilderment showed in their brown faces as they glanced back toward the cabin, but they obeyed without hesitation. Once more on the broad Marañon, with the demon water of the Tigre left behind, whatever the white men said was right.

Into a sizable cove below the village they floated. Up ahead, sheltered by the land from the power of the giant of waters, a number of canoes lay at the shore; and from them a crude footpath—hardly more than a gully in the clay—rose to the village. Down that path were coming a couple of wooden-faced Indians, shirt-less but wearing tattered breeches; and as the garretea slowed to a stop they also stopped, staring.

"Umph. We don't git no four-man boat here," declared Tim, after a glance along the meager stock of canoes.

"A couple of three-man dugouts will do," said Knowlton. "Put two men in each and split the outfit. There's one three-man boat over yonder. Looks good, too. Find another and we're fixed."

But finding the other was not so easily done. The others all were too small—all, that is, except one hulking craft at the end of the line, which bore a striking resemblance in size and shape to the garretea of the adventurers. At this José scowled.

"We come at a bad time," he muttered. "Traders are here. Ho, Indies! Whose boat is that?"

The staring pair on the footpath did not answer. One mumbled growlingly to the other, and they resumed their downward way, turning, at the bottom, toward the long boat.

"Sangre de Cristo!" snarled the Peruvian, his eyes snapping. "Put me ashore! I will put tongues in the heads of the surly dogs!"

McKay, unspeaking, motioned shoreward. The popero grunted, and the paddlers sank their blades.

"Go easy, José," Knowlton cautioned. "We come here to trade, not to fight."

"Es verdad. But let those Indians escape with their insolence, and what trade should we make?"

Without awaiting a reply, he made a flying leap to the stern of a dugout near at hand; landed cat-footed, and in three more bounds was ashore. Fierce face shoved forward, red kerchief flaring sinister in the sun, he strode at the two Indians.

One of them, cowed by the truculence of the outlaw's eye, gave back. The other stood his ground and dropped a hand to the hilt of a machete. The menace of his attitude was plain. But José did not honor him by drawing his own steel.

His open hand shot out, the heel of it smacking sharply on the coppery jaw. The Indian went down as if slugged by a clenched fist.

"Whose boat is that?" rasped the son of the Conquistadores.

The second Indian, cringing, answered promptly this time.

"Maldonado, from Moyobamba, señor."

"Moyobamba!" José spat the name as if it were a curse. "You are his man? Why in ten devils did you not answer when I called? Where is that accursed Moyobambino master of yours?"

The man retreated another step, blinking with fear, and pointed a hand up the bank.

"So. He shall soon see me. And you, you dog—when next a white man speaks to you, answer at once and civilly. If you do not——Ho! you on the ground, who said you could get up? Down, you misborn whelp!"

With which he lifted one bare foot, jammed it into the face of the rising man, and slammed him down again. Whereafter he gave him a tongue-lashing lurid with oaths and picturesque threats, the last of which was that if he moved before he was whistled to he would have his entrails cut out and tied around his neck. With a final glare at both of them, José spun about and stalked back to the Americans, who now had landed.

"Their master is a sneaking Moyobambino trader, one Maldonado," he announced. "If you know not the Moyobambinos, learn now that they are cheating, lying, thieving dogs, known from Lima to Para for their rascally tricks. Their one thought is money. If one of them heard that a dead man with three pesetas in his pocket lay on the shore, he would not rest until he had smelled out the corpse and torn the money from it. Such is the Moyobambino."

"Seems to me I've heard of those fellows," said Knowlton. "They're called 'the Jews of the Andes.'"

"Just so, teniente. And the name is a compliment to them and an insult to the Jews. A Jew can sometimes be trusted—a Moyobambino never.

"One of the worst massacres on this Marañon was caused by one of those curs. It was at Santa Teresa, between the rivers Santiago and Morona—a town which exists no more.

"A party of bold young men from the Rio Mayo determined to seek gold on the Santiago, though that is the country of the fierce Huambisas. They started up the Marañon to carry out their plan. But there was a dirty dog of a Moyobambino trader, one Canuto Acosta, to whom some of the Santa Teresans owed a little gold dust; and he was worried lest the coming of the gold hunters might spoil his chance of collecting his paltry debt. So he scurried up the river ahead of them and reached the little town just as a big party of Huambisas came in from the Santiago to trade.

"To these bloody savages he said that a great army of white men was coming up the river to crush their tribe and make them slaves. The Huambisas at once killed every man in the town—forty and seven of them—and carried away sixty women as their slaves. They left alive only two boys, whom they put on a raft and sent down the river to tell the gold-hunters they would kill them also if they came on. So, señores, one hundred and seven people went to death or misery because of one lying Moyobambino."

"Huh! And I s'pose the mutt that done it got away with a whole hide," growled Tim.

"No. He was the first man killed."

"Yeah? Good!"

"Good indeed, comrade. If only the Huambisas had stopped with killing him—but that is not their way. Nor is it the way of Moyobambinos to let other men get money if they also can smell it. What that Acosta did, this Maldonado would do if he suspected where we go and why. He would try to betray us in some way, if only to keep us from finding treasure he could not have. Capitán, if the misbegotten cur seeks to know our business, let me handle him."

McKay's set lips twitched slightly.

"He's your meat," he agreed. "I'll handle the trade, though. Tim, stick here on guard."

"Right, cap." The red-haired man swung his left hand carelessly to his gun barrel in rifle salute. "Whistle to yer dog, Hozy. He's gittin' restless."

José, glancing back at the forgotten Indian whom he had downed, chuckled harshly as he found the man still on the ground. He gave a sharp whistle and lifted a finger. The Indian lurched to his feet and slunk away toward the farther end of his master's boat.

Up the slope clambered the four, each carrying his rifle. Tim got back on board and leaned against the cabin, where he could watch everything without effort. The crew lounged at ease, incurious, unaware that their voyage down the river was likely to end here. The two men of the Moyobambino effaced themselves by entering their own craft and squatting in the bow.

At the top of the bank the northerners threw one glance around the weedy, slovenly little village, wrinkled their noses at the odor of decaying offal, and headed for a damp-looking mud-walled house around which clustered a knot of sluggish men and frowsy women—Indians and mestizos. A boy, spying the approach of the newcomers, let out a shrill yell. The adults turned with a suddenness that sent a small cloud of flies buzzing up off their unclean skins.

"Estranjeros!" shrieked a number of the women. Then, perceiving that these strangers were white señores, they began simpering with affected shyness and furtively attempted to pat their hair into something approaching tidiness. The men simply stood and gaped.

With the aggressive stride of the dominant race, the four tramped straight up to the mongrel pack before speaking. The townspeople, scanning the bleak face of McKay, and meeting the hard eye of José, involuntarily shrank together, presenting a compact front.

"Buenas tardes, amigos," spoke McKay. "Where is your head man?"

"Within, señor," answered a fat, pompous-looking mestizo. "The Jefe Pablo Arredondo. But he is engaged in affairs of business."

"So. We bring him further affairs. Have the goodness to step aside."

"But the Señor Torribio Maldonado——" began the important one.

"Can step aside also," McKay broke in. "We have haste."

"And we dislike the smell of your flyblown town too much to wait," José added with a hard grin.

The fat yellow man swelled as if mortally insulted. Then, catching the glimmer under the black brows of the outlaw, he suddenly began laughing in a scared way and backed a step.

"Enter, amigos!" he squeaked. "Ha, ha, ha! A rich joke! He, he, he!"

With a contemptuous glance José forthwith began shouldering his arrogant way through to the door. The three northerners, with less violence but no less firmness, pressed the townsmen aside and forced a path which otherwise might not have opened to them for an hour. A moment later they were inside the musty house.

The "affairs of business" were in plain sight on a rickety table. They comprised the contents of a large bottle, which the Señor Torribio Maldonado and the civic authority evidently had already discussed to some extent; for the bottle was far from full, while the head man showed slight signs of being on the way to becoming so. His greasy face was heavy with liquor and displeasure at being disturbed. One direct look at him told the newcomers that trading might be a protracted affair involving much patience and diplomacy—unless a shrewd stroke could be delivered at the outset. McKay instantly decided on the nature of that stroke.

But first he and his companions studied the other man, whose predatory face hung over the table like that of a vulture. Hook-beaked, slit-mouthed, beady-eyed, scrawny of neck and humpy of shoulder, with one skinny hand lying like a curved talon on the table—there was no need to ask if he was a Moyobambino. Already his cunning eyes were agleam with speculation as to whether he could make anything out of these travelers.

McKay turned his gaze back to the frowning visage of the big man of the village. Without speaking, he casually drew from a pocket a gold coin and flipped it whirling into the air. In a shaft of sunlight shining in at a small side window the spinning gold flashed yellow darts at the two men beyond the table. Into the sodden face of Arredondo leaped an answering flash of life.

Gold! Gold money! Here where money was so scarce that canoemen were paid with stingy yards of cloth and business was done by primitive barter, where a paltry peseta was something to be proudly exhibited and a silver sol was to be hoarded—gold money, tossed carelessly into the air! The glittering rise and fall of that coin accomplished more than half an hour of patient talk would have done. Hardly had it thudded softly back into McKay's palm when the greasy one was leaning forward, his loose lips writhing in an ingratiating grimace. The Moyobambino—his hand had clenched like the claws of a swooping hawk.

"Señores!" gurgled Jefe Pablo. "What is your pleasure?"

"Canoes," laconically answered the captain, closing his hand but allowing the rim of the yellow disk to peep out between his fingers. "Two three-man canoes. For them we will trade a fine large garretea."

"A garretea!" The other's face fell. "What should we of San Regis do with so big a boat? And two canoes of that sort—no hay."

"There is one in the port," disputed McKay. "Think hard, my friend. There must be another."

"No hay," was the doleful answer.

Then the Señor Torribio Maldonado intruded himself.

"Amigo mio—querido amigo mio," he began.

"Liar!" spat José. "No man is your 'dear friend.' No man wishes to be. Hold your tongue!"

The man of Moyobamba, after one look, obeyed. Meanwhile McKay took another tack.

"Then we must keep our garretea. Also we keep our gold. If there were canoes—but there are none. Good day."

Dropping the coin back into a pocket, he turned doorward.

"Wait!" blurted the pride of San Regis. "If there were canoes, you would buy them—with gold?"

"Yes. But—no hay." McKay took a step outward.

"Señor! Have the goodness to wait—one little moment. One canoe there is, sí. And——"

"That canoe is mine, Pablo!" yelled Maldonado. "Before these strangers came you agreed to let me have it, and also to give me a new crew for my big boat——"

"——And now it comes to my mind that there is another," pursued the greasy one, ignoring the trader. "I had forgotten—it is just finished—it will be put into the water immediately, caballero mio! Mariano—Juan—Mauricio—you others! Put beside the garretea of these gentlemen the new canoe! At once!"

"But it is mine—they are mine!" screeched the Moyobambino. "I will sell them to you, señores——"

"You have not paid for them," Arredondo harshly retorted. "So they are not yours. Señor—Capitán—that is real gold in your hand? You will give it me now? How much?"

"Twenty gold dollars of the United States of America," McKay solemnly answered, opening his hand halfway. "Gold. Gold of the finest. You shall have it when we have the canoes."

"Santo Domingo! San Pedro! Madre de Dios! The canoes are mine!" roared Maldonado. "He has no right to sell them. Give the gold to me!"

José burst into a roar of mirth. The others grinned.

"Oho-ho-ho!" yelped the outlaw. "A Moyobambino beaten in a trade! Twenty golden dollars, Torribio, which go not into your claws! Yah-hah-ha! It is too good!"

The trader, beside himself, sprang up, knocking over the flimsy table. Like a flash José's face froze.

"Sit, señor!" he said softly, a sinister sibilance in his tone. For one instant the other glared—for one instant only. Then, his face that of a man who had just looked Death in the eye, he slowly, very carefully, sank back. He still sat there when the adventurers and the greedy-mouthed Arredondo had passed outside.

But, a little later, when the two new canoes were hitched to the garretea and all San Regis stood clustered on the bank, the man of Moyobamba appeared and bent a long look on the gold-piece now reposing in the dirty palm of the double-dealing Pablo, who gloated down at its yellow luster as if hypnotized. Then his sly glance lifted to Pablo's fascinated face, and he grinned a cunning grin.

To the white men out on the water, already outward bound, he yelled boldly: "Where do you go with all those boats?"

Rand, lounging against the cabin, spoke his first words since leaving the Tigre Yacu.

"To the devil!" he snapped.

"A quick voyage to you!" came the jeering retort.

"Faith," muttered Tim Ryan, "mebbe ye spoke a true word, feller, at that."