Clearly, the huge, muscular, near-prehensile appendages would permit their owners to easily clasp two-or-three-inch-thick branches between their toes and give them a far more secure grip on branches that were larger. “Real tree climbers,” in Vargas’s words, these people were what the old explorers called “arboreal dwellers,” thinking that they pretty much lived in the trees. Whether the condition was genetic in these cases, or rather the result of behavioral adaptation, was unknown then and unknown now. There had been argument, in fact, among the learned professors of the nineteenth century, as to whether they were humans at all, or some kind of tree apes. Well, they were indisputably human, all right, and here they were, alive and well, in the middle of the Amazon, in the twenty-first century!
For a very little while, his extreme gratification at seeing them for himself and his similarly extreme regret at not having a camera with him were his uppermost thoughts, but others soon enough intruded. Where were they going, and why? How would they possibly get back? Would they be permitted to come back? But within an hour – it seemed like five, but the sun had barely moved and wasn’t yet directly overhead – even those concerns about the future had been driven from his mind by the present, by the nightmarish immediacy of the trek itself. The jungle they were slogging through – the Indians so effortlessly, so sweatlessly, the two white men stumbling and cursing at the thorns and bugs – was nothing like what they’d been in during the last two days. This was not Scofield’s “awe-inspiring” virgin rain forest, but second- or third-growth, scrabbly and wretched in the extreme, not mature enough yet to have created its own high, protective canopy. It was all thorns, mud, brambles, ankle-grabbing ground vines, mosquitoes, and terribly persistent clouds of vicious, biting, black flies. And except for the occasional blessed patch of shade from a quick-growing ceiba tree or banana bush, all of it in the roasting, shriveling heat of the sun.
Once they had to cross a small, fast-running green river on a “bridge” consisting of a section of an old, rotting tree trunk, twenty feet long and slimy with algae. The first Arimagua trotted easily across – those toes were prehensile, a marveling Gideon observed; he could see how they clutched the curving, slippery surface and pushed off from it – and turned, beckoning with his shotgun. A motion from Split-nose’s gun encouraged Vargas onto the log, on which he managed two wavering steps before losing his balance and tipping over, arms swinging, to plunge backside first into the river, which was fortunately only about four feet deep.
The rest of his crossing was accomplished in the water alongside the log, with a muttering Vargas holding on to it for balance, to the indescribable mirth of the three Indians, who were clutching their sides with laughter. There was nothing particularly mean about it, it seemed to Gideon; nothing contemptuous or cruel. They just plain found it absolutely hilarious. Vargas, still grumbling, climbed onto the opposite shore and shook himself like a dog.
Gideon’s turn. The Indians looked at him with the obvious anticipation of more good fun. Well, I’m going to disappoint you, he vowed. I am not going to fall in. But in his heart he knew he would. And did, although he managed four whole steps before it happened. Only whereas Vargas had keeled over in a slow, relatively stately manner, like a toppling tree, Gideon’s feet went out from under him on the slick log, setting them into a frantic pedaling while he fought to keep his balance. It was like something out of a Charlie Chaplin movie, and the Arimaguas were convulsed even before he hit the water, flat on his back and hard. Like Vargas, he had to go the rest of the way up to his armpits in the river, with the remaining two Indians jogging easily across the log to beat him to the other side, still chuckling.
“If I had toes like yours, I could do it too,” he griped up at them in English, bringing more gales of merriment, so artless and happy that they even forced a smile from Gideon. Well, anyway, it’s cooled me off, he thought.
But a few minutes later, all five of them were wriggling and slapping at themselves like a whole crowd of Charlie Chaplins that had blundered into a hornet’s nest, and nobody was laughing. They had apparently disturbed a colony of fire ants, and with astonishing speed thousands of the ferocious, minuscule insects had charged out of their mound a few yards away. These were tiny creatures, half the size of the fire ants of the American South, and their sting, Gideon quickly learned, was more itch than pain, but itch of a truly excruciating intensity. Back to the river they ran to plunge in and get rid of the things.
“Don’t worry,” a grimacing, panting Vargas told him as they vigorously scrubbed themselves. “The itch, it doesn’t last long if you don’t have too many bites.”
“No talk,” growled Split-nose, who had never let go of his gun, and whose cool good humor had been severely strained by the ants. “ Vamonos.” Let’s go.
In what Gideon estimated was another hour’s tough trekking they reached a second, larger river and turned left along it. They were back in virgin jungle here, with a welcome green canopy overhead to shield them from the sun. There was even a recognizable path, with no brambles to tear at their bloodied legs (the Indians’ legs showed plenty of old scars, but not a single fresh wound), and the Arimaguas speeded up the pace. With the increase in humidity, Vargas’s glasses immediately steamed up so much that he had to take them off.
After a while they came to a squalid riverside settlement of tarpaper, tin-roofed shacks, ugly, concrete-block houses, and mud streets “paved” with planks here and there over the worst of the potholes. An occasional swaybacked, dejected horse stood tethered to a wooden post, its head hanging. The few surly, furtive, unshaven men they passed didn’t bother to look twice at them. Apparently, there was nothing unusual about the sight of two filthy, bloody white men being practically frog-marched down the street by a gang of gun-toting Arimaguas.
At the riverfront there was a small, primitive pier, and at the head of it was a wooden shanty, a jungle cantina, into which Vargas and Gideon were marched. Inside there was a plank counter, behind which were a few crooked shelves holding bottles, cans, and glasses, an ancient refrigerator with a clanking old generator, and an even more ancient woman, milky-eyed and toothless, chewing on her gums, who watched them come with no sign of interest. The Arimaguas immediately went to her, asked for and got Inca Kolas, and retreated with them to a wall, at the base of which they squatted, their shotguns propped upright between their knees. Gideon and Vargas were left standing in the middle of the room.
There were three rectangular, battered, extremely dirty tables – stains, crumbs, empty, toppled beer bottles, used glasses – with five or six old cane chairs around each. The nearer tables were unoccupied. At the farthest one sat four decidedly rough-looking men, the sole occupants of the bar other than the old lady. All of them were smoking cigarettes. Two of the three had rifles leaning up against the table at their sides. Another had a revolver in a shoulder holster, and the fourth appeared to be unarmed. The table held three brown bottles of beer, a clear, half-empty bottle of what looked like aguardiente – there was no label – a crumpled blue pack of cigarettes, and four stubby, thick-bottomed tumblers. All the place needed to look like the bandido’s hideaway to end all bandido’s hideaways were some cartridge belts slung over the chair backs.
Three of the men raised their heads to look speculatively – amusedly? – at the newcomers. The fourth didn’t turn, remaining as he sat partially facing away from them – purposely facing away, it seemed – very relaxed in his tipped-back chair, one hand loosely hanging, a cigarette between his fingers, and the other hand apparently tapping his knee under the table, slowly, appraisingly, as if he were considering the pros and cons of some difficult issue.