Chapter 13
Danielle watched the approaching canoes. Six men in small boats were not much of a threat. But they were incensed, and caution dictated that she be prepared. “Start the engine,” she said.
“Should I get us away?” the boat captain asked.
“No. I want to talk to them, but be ready.” She looked to Verhoven, who was still holding the body to the side of the Ocana. “Let it go.”
Verhoven gave the body a shove and it carried slowly out behind the stern of the boat and then on downstream with the peaceful flow of the current. Ahead of them, the canoes were closing in, and neither the intensity of the shouting nor their paddling had diminished.
“Make sure your weapons are handy,” Danielle said.
Verhoven grinned. “They’re always handy.”
She turned to Devers. “Are they Chollokwan?”
Devers hesitated for only a moment. “I don’t think so,” he said. “Some of the words are Portuguese. The Chollokwan only speak Chokawa. Plus, this is Nuree territory.”
Danielle relaxed a bit. The Nuree were not a threat like the Chollokwan could be. They were a tribe in transition, caught halfway between the old world and the new. They still hunted with blow guns and spears, yet at times they would paddle downriver to trade, selling pelts and buying clothing, fish hooks and cigarettes. They weren’t known to be violent. And with the right form of persuasion they might even be helpful.
The canoes slowed as they approached and the shouting ceased, perhaps because the floating body had been released, or more likely because the natives had spotted Verhoven and his men holding rifles.
“Find out what they want,” Danielle said.
Devers stepped to the prow of the boat and addressed the men in the Nuree language. They shouted back, a menagerie of voices.
“They ask why we touch the dead,” Devers translated. “They say this one is cursed, and he is to be left alone.”
“Ask them who he is.” Danielle said. “Why was he killed?”
Devers translated the question, and as one of the Nuree men responded, he explained the answer. “He says they did not kill him.”
“Why is he in the river, then?” Danielle asked. “Why is he tied up like that?”
This time a different tribesman spoke.
“The man is a relative of some kind,” Devers said, translating, “a nephew, I think. They went upriver ten days ago on a hunt. He says they found no game, so they continued until they reached the place they should not have gone. A forbidden place. The uncle warned his nephew, but the boy wouldn’t listen and he continued on while the uncle came back.”
Another of the tribesmen spoke.
“It is the forsaken place,” Devers said. “Forsaken by life. To go there is to invite death. Most who are foolish in such a way do not return. Some have come back like this—floating in the river, their spirits ripped out.” The native man clutched his chest where the two great holes had been seen in the dead man. “They drag the stones to keep them from the shore. They hold the reed to show their punishment. We have even seen animals this way. It is the spirits that send them back. Cursed and abhorred. Even the birds and piranha will not eat them.”
As she listened to the translation, it occurred to Danielle that the body had not been touched by the scavengers of the forest or river. A strange thought, because there was so much competition for food in the rainforest. Odder still, because if the man was telling the truth the body had been in the water for several days, not less than twenty-four hours as she’d guessed.
Beside her, Verhoven laughed. “Right, then. The spirits are using twine these days, ay?”
Danielle ignored him. “What else?”
Devers replied, “He says only the Shadow Men go to this land. I think he might mean the Chollokwan. He says that they kill all who go there, or that they make the animals do it for them. Something like that. Either way, he says, once they parted, he knew his nephew would not come back alive. He went looking for him every day. This morning, one of the boys from the village spotted the body floating down the river. No one is to touch it.”
Danielle considered the situation. They had to be close to the right area. She took a chance. “Ask him if he can take us to where he left his nephew. Tell him we are looking for the place of these spirits.”
Through Devers’ translation, the tribesmen continued to speak. “Death lingers there,” one of them insisted. “Accursed things come out from the shadows of that place. They should be left undisturbed.”
Another, older tribesman added, “If you go there you will be taken. You will not return, except as a warning, punished like this one. This is why the body appears today,” he added, pointing accusingly at the NRI group. “It is a warning. Sent for you. To choose another way.”
With that the natives began talking among themselves. Excited words flashing back and forth between the small canoes, all of it too quick and overlapping for Devers to intercept, but after a moment the result was clear: the Nuree were moving on. They dug in with their paddles, powerful strokes that swirled the water into deep eddies. They moved around the Ocana and headed downstream in the direction of the floating body.
Danielle asked for an explanation.
“It seems that we’re already cursed,” Devers said. “Or maybe just too foolish to waste any more time on.”
Behind them one of the porters laughed. He’d heard it all before. “To the Nuree, everything is cursed,” he said. “The trees, the foam on the water, a log that floats with the wrong end down—all deadly, all cursed.”
Danielle turned back to her interpreter. “What do you think really happened?”
Devers shrugged. “The place we’re looking for is somewhere upriver from here. That’s where Blackjack Martin ran into the Chollokwan. I told you they were violent. It’s probably their territory that these guys are afraid of. Truth be told, I’d think the place was cursed too, if every time one of my people went up there they came back looking like this.”
“The Chollokwan,” Danielle repeated. She looked upriver. Somewhere ahead they would enter their territory.
“As the man said, it’s a warning,” Devers added. “And as strange as it sounds, I think we should take it that way.”
“I didn’t come here to worry about native superstitions.” She gave the order, “Let’s get moving.”
A moment later, as the engine began to rumble beneath the deck, McCarter came up beside her. “It seems like the day for warnings, apparently.”
“What do you mean?”
“Susan and I have been studying the stone you gave us, the one that the logger brought back from out here. And we think we know what the other glyph represents. It’s a one-legged owl, a great deformed bird that struck terror into the Mayan hearts.”
“Why would they be afraid of an owl?” Danielle asked. “What does it mean?”
“It’s the herald of the underworld,” McCarter said. “The messenger of destruction.”