Tupahn--the Thunderstorm/Chapter 7
VII.
WORDLESS, we passed along the a beaten path of the people of Andirah to the point where it was joined by the trail we had followed from the creek. Still silent, we turned off there and trod again on our own footprints, heading back toward the canoes which we had lost and found again. But when well away from the Indian path, we halted.
“I do not believe it,” Pedro asserted.
I looked at him. His face, usually ready to break into a smile, now was hard. His warm brown eyes had turned cold, and his jaws were shut like a trap. Through his teeth he repeated—
“I do not believe it.”
“Believe what?” Senhor Tom asked dully. `
“That the senhorita is dead, or even lost. I believe she is there in that maloca. Something tells me that we have been very near her, and that now we are going farther away from her at every step.”
“I wish to God I could believe that too,” muttered the blind man. “But that old Andirah's voice sure was that of a man talking straight.”
“And so was his face,” I added. “I watched him like a hawk, and I can tell when a man lies to me. Besides, why should he lie to us? We were three men, poorly armed, surrounded and badly outnumbered. He was not in the least afraid of us, and he did not want to be rid of us. He asked us to stay to a feast, gave us back all our goods, made us a present of this gun, and was more than fair to us throughout. If he is a liar I am a fool.”
Pedro nodded slowly.
“I too believe him to be honest,” he admitted. 'Yet I can not believe that the senhorita is not in that maloca. I think there is trickery somewhere, and that the pajé is at the bottom of it.”
Then he grinned faintly.
“Senhor Tom, you kicked that dog hard,” he went on. “He showed his teeth like a savage brute when you made the chief humble him before all the tribe. He will bite you if his chance ever comes.”
“He'll find me tough chewing,” was the explorer's reply. “But let's thrash this matter out right here. God knows I want to believe you're right about Marion, but I've got to have some reason for that belief. What do you base your hope on?”
His haggard face was so eager that I looked elsewhere; for I believed the girl was dead. Pedro, before answering, drew him down on a fallen tree which happened to be beside us and made two cigarets—one for Senhor Tom and one for himself. I sat down beside them and made a smoke of my own.
“If you ask for cold, hard reasons, comrade,” my partner said then, “I can give you almost none. For one thing, we have seen nothing to prove that two men were in this affair. True, the heel-tracks of the prisoner taken to the maloca were those of a man's boots; but we know that the senhorita was wearing your extra boots, and I believe the tracks are hers.”
That was true enough. As the time when the girl was saved from Black Hawk she had had no clothing except a long shapeless garment given her by an old Indian woman, and Senhor Tom had given her his spare kit to wear until she could reach a place where she could get something more suitable. She had had to stuff leaves into the boots to make them small enough for her feet, but she had worn them.
“If they are not hers, whose are they?” Pedro went on. “Boots are scarce in this bush. Lourenço and I wear none. Indians wear none. The two dead men we have found since leaving the camp of Black Hawk had none. I do not believe there are more than two pairs of boots within many miles of this spot; and both of those pairs are your own.”
“But,” I objected, too if those boots which went to the maloca were Senhor Tom's the feet of the senhorita may not have been in them.”
I meant, of course, though I did not say so, that after being murdered she had also been stripped of the boots by her killers. Such low brutes would not be likely to throw away new, stout footwear.
Pedro scowled as if he had not thought of that. After a few puffs at his cigaret, though, he said:
“Perhaps. But Senhor Tom's feet are rather small. The feet of such men as that one back on the creek are big and flat. I do not believe his partner—if he had one—would be able to wear Senhor Tom's boots. Yet the chief reasons why I believe the senhorita lives are because we were not allowed to see the prisoner, and because—I feel in my bones that she is in that maloca.”
As he had said at first, they were not good reasons. Yet both of them made us think before answering. To Senhor Tom, the fact that the captives had been kept out of our sight was the important thing. But I, who had known Pedro to uncover strange matters simply because he “felt in his bones” that certain things were so, was thoughtful because of the memories of those times.
“It sure looks mighty queer that the Bat kept his prisoner out of sight,” the explorer grumbled. “No reason why he couldn't have given us a look at him.”
“I think there were two reasons,” said I. “One was that he thought we would kill the brute. The other was that the pajé stopped him from granting our demands.”
Pedro nodded quickly.
“And that pajé, as I have said, is at the bottom of it,” he insisted. “He opposed us from the first. He sent those spearmen to block us before he even knew who we were. I heard his orders.”
“What were they?”
“You did not hear? I remember now—you were trying to knock down a roof-pole. He said, 'More enemies come. Stop them. Take this one away. Be quick.'”
“Then he called the captive an enemy?” asked Senhor Tom. 'Why should he call a helpless white girl that? I'm afraid, old man, that you're all wrong.”
“Perhaps,” Pedro said doggedly. “But, right or wrong, senhor, I am going to see that prisoner with my own eyes before I go on to the great river.
“By thunder, you're right that time!” Senhor Tom approved. “We've got to know who and what he—or she—is before we give up. And we've got to be up and doing, not sitting here like three bumps on a log. We'd better go on back to our canoe, get aboard, and pull out down-stream as if continuing our search; then land again at a good place and sneak up on the maloca. The Bat—or, more likely, that lousy priest—will send men after us to be sure we're gone, of course. So let's go.”
There was more snap in his tones than at any time since we left the tribal house. Hope was alive in him again, even if it lived on very scant food.
He flipped away his cigaret-butt and arose. We too stood up. As we got into line again I happened to glance back, and as I did so a head faded out of sight behind a big tree-trunk near by. True enough, we were being trailed and watched by the Bat's men.
Giving the spies no sign that I knew of this, I set my face toward the creek and passed on with my friends. Speaking low, I told them we were under watch, so that they would walk and act in the right manner. Not once on our return trip did we look back—not once did we hear a sound from the silent shapes stealing along behind; but we knew they were there, all the way.
At the creek we pretended to argue whether we should now go up or down-stream, pointing first one way and then the other. And then, as an excuse for taking both canoes, we feigned to disagree and separate. Senhor Tom and Pedro, in the bow and stern of one, shoved off in angry fashion and, at the mouth of the inlet, turned down-stream. In the other I went up the creek from some distance, then hesitated, looked back, scratched my head, appeared to change my mind, turned, and paddled fast to overtake my mates.
If the spies waited long enough to see me return they probably told their pajé later that I was a fool who did not know his own mind. But we had the canoes.
AFTER journeying around several a loops in the wandering creek we left the flat land behind and once more entered a stretch of steep sloping banks. A little farther on we found a break in them where we could slip out of sight. This we promptly did. And when we had scouted a little in the forest above we made a camp.
“Now, senhor,” Pedro said when we had eaten, “we leave you for a time. This morning we would not do so. But things have changed. You now have food and cartridges, your gun and your hammock and tobacco, and”
“All the comforts of home,” Senhor Tom interrupted. “Go ahead, fellows. I'll be here when you get back. Only—bring back our lady.”
“We shall try,” I told him. “Be of good heart, comrade.”
And we left him; left him in a safe secret camp, but alone and in pain of head and pain of heart; left him to dreary hours of blackness. Yet it was the only way. We knew he was sick from headache and strain, and that he must rest. He knew we could move much more freely without him, and that on this spying trip of ours he would be worse than useless. So, with no adeos, we slipped away into the wilderness.
With us we carried the rifle given us by Andirah. It was a battered, dirty old weapon, badly in need of a thorough cleaning; but we had not taken time to do more than oil it a little and test the lever action. As long as it would throw a bullet it was good enough for our present use. We hoped we should not have to use it at all, but if we did we should undoubtedly shoot at such close quarters that we could not miss, no matter how worn and foul its barrel was. With it and our machetes we were well armed against anything likely to oppose us.
“A miserable old gun,” I said as we started. “Yet, from a chief, a princely gift. It is the first time I have ever known an Indian to give away a rifle. I wonder if the old fellow suspected that we had none?”
“Possibly,” Pedro granted. “If so, he is all the more a gentleman. Or it may be only that he felt it was fitting to give Senhor Tom the gun that had struck him down. An Indian has queer ideas sometimes.”
With that we stopped talking and gave all our attention to the task of finding the maloca again without being seen.
Though we now were hunting the tribal house from a new direction and had no trail to follow, we worked onward with good speed and confidence; for both of us had ranged the jungle too much to be easily confused in finding a place where we once had been. The slant of the shadows and of the scattered sun-rays boring through the leafy top overhead was all we needed to guide our course. And though we had traveled some distance down-stream after leaving the inlet where the dead man lay, we were little farther from the tribal house than before.
After threading the forest for awhile, hearing only a few scattered bird-calls, we almost jumped when a sudden outbreak of noise ahead struck sharply on our ears. Then we recognized it as the yapping of that cur which we had heard before. It seemed so close that I feared the brute was prowling the bush and that he now would run back to the house, barking so hard as to alarm the Indians. But a little more cautious advancing brought us to a point where we saw light beyond the trees, and we realized that the dog was only fussing around in the clearing. We had almost reached the maloca.
A few minutes more, and we were crouching at the edge of the open space. But now that we had arrived, we saw nothing worth looking at. One side of the building was toward us, the door was around the corner and out of sight, and all we observed was the noisy dog—a yellow pup—and some small children chasing him about.
Yet the fact that only a few children were outside was in itself worth noticing. Usually some women would be at work near a tribal house and men would be moving about; but no grown person was in sight here. That could mean only one of two things; either every one had left the place, or something inside the house was so interesting that the usual tasks of the tribe were being neglected. Since the children were here, their elders also must be here. So we began trying to find a way to look into the maloca without being seen by the children or the dog.
The best plan, we decided, would be to work around to the rear, creep along the ground to the thatch wall, and cut our way into it until we could see. Retreating a few steps, we slipped along just inside the edge of the trees until we found the back of the house facing us. The children and the dog were out of our sight now, though we still heard their cries beyond the house. We dropped to hands and knees and began crawling out into the clearing.
But our advance ended almost as soon as it began. Before we had gone a dozen feet we stopped short, listened, looked, and went swiftly creeping back to cover.
Around the maloca came the whole tribe of the people of the Bat. At their head marched the medicine-man. And they were coming straight toward us.