The patient didn’t attempt to argue the point; he was staring at the bright patch of sunlight beyond the door without actually seeing it, thinking. He looked up. “You think I’ll be able to travel in a week?”
Anton shrugged. “I should think so. We’ll have another look at that shoulder of yours in a minute, but I should think so.”
“I see... And the bridge — the place where you found me — is that near here?”
The large hunter smiled. “It’s near here as they measure distances in the Mato Grosso. It’s near here as a bird flies, but not as a man walks. Not in that jungle. It took a full two days to get you back here, but that was carrying you. It would be less, of course, if you could walk, but not really too much less.”
“Two days? You carried me?” The patient stared at Anton a moment in amazement and then brought his mind back to the plan he was forming. There would be plenty of time for both conversation and gratitude once he had arranged to get back to civilization. “Then if someone could send a telegram for me, from this — this Pôrto whatever — a plane could come into that airstrip near the bridge and pick me up? In a week — or ten days, to be sure?”
Anton considered a moment and then nodded. “It could be done. Two weeks would be better.”
“We’ll make it ten days. If worse comes to worse, I’ll wait up there at the airstrip. The important thing is to get to a telegraph line. Could you—”
“Go to Pôrto Itapurá?” The big blond head shook. “No. To begin with, it would interfere with my schedule. As I said, I’m a professional hunter, and animals have habits the same as people. You might say there’s a season for animals to be in certain places, the same as there’s a season to go to Mar de Plata or the Riviera. For people, that is. I couldn’t afford the two weeks or more that it would take. And even more important, you’ll need me to get you to that airstrip.” He smiled at the disappointed face. “However, we have a man in the village who would be very glad to go, and he’s much more familiar with canoes than I am. In all my years here, I never did get to master the tricky things; my carriers handle that whenever I go downriver. But this man will send your telegram for you.”
“Telegrams,” the other said absently, adding the plural, and then glanced down at the rough gown he was wearing. “My clothes?”
“They’re safe. And also your wallet,” Anton added, and smiled apologetically. “I went through it, of course, but I didn’t learn much from it. And your money, I’m afraid, wouldn’t mean anything to the people here in the village.” He saw the sudden frown that crossed the other’s face and properly interpreted it. “Don’t worry. Pôrto Itapurá has a bank. They’ll change your money into cruzeiros for the cables.”
“Fine.” The patient visibly relaxed, his hands smoothing the sheet that covered him. He glanced about the room and then back to the man beside him, smiling. It was a friendly smile that lit up his face, but it was also a bit apologetic. “There are a million questions I’d like to ask, such as what a man like you is doing here in the jungle — and I’m sure you have your questions, too. Like what I’m doing here in the jungle. And of course, I can’t thank you enough for everything you’re doing for me. But—”
Anton understood; he came to his feet easily. “I know. You want me to get Carlos and get him started.” He smiled. “Fortunately, Carlos is one man who’s easy to find — his wife never lets him get too far from home. But for me, I’m sure she’ll let him make this trip.” He moved to the doorway, raising his hand in a small farewell salute. “I’ll be right back.”
The man on the bed smiled up at him.
“I’ll still be here,” he promised, and watched the other’s shadow unblock the doorway, allowing the yellow sunlight to stream in once again. And then he put everything else out of his mind to compose the telegrams he wanted to send.
To Carlos Renaldo Ribeiro, life was a very frustrating thing. How could he ever have known that marriage to that lovely, meek, mild girl five years before could possibly have resulted in being handcuffed to that hard-eyed, imperious woman five years later? And with four children to compound the responsibility, a fact his wife seldom allowed him to forget? It really wasn’t just! Other than Anton — who didn’t count, since he was a foreigner and for some odd reason seemed to love the jungle — Carlos had traveled more than any man in the village, having been downriver in his single days to places as far away as Buenos Aires and even Montevideo. For a person of his worldly experience, therefore, it was patently ridiculous to be treated as the fifth of his wife’s children, and not a particularly bright or trustworthy one at that.
One of the problems, he realized, was that his wife’s suspicions of his philandering were all too true. Still, in a town the size of Santa Isabel, set in a jungle with the nearest settlement almost a day’s journey toward the Paraná, how much philandering could one do? And considering his wife, shouldn’t this little bit be overlooked and, if not actually forgiven, at least understood? Other men in the village did not seem to suffer this problem, although it was true that other men occasionally took a stick to their wives; this might have accounted for the difference. Such action Carlos never considered for a moment. To begin with, he could never overcome the feeling he had had since youth, that women were too precious to damage, and in the next place, his wife was larger than he was and stronger than he was, and he was more than willing to compromise on a truce as far as marital beatings were concerned.
But while his wife did not trust him, it was nice to know that someone did, and as he trailed Anton back to the foreigner’s hut, he swore he would prove worthy of that trust. Possibly, even, this might prove a turning point. Possibly, even, his wife would realize he could be trusted once he had demonstrated his reliability. Possibly, even, she might then relax her vigilance.
As for the exact details of the task, Anton had not been too specific, but it appeared he wanted Carlos to go somewhere and do something, obviously important, and doubtless in connection with the stranger Anton had brought back from the jungle the week before, the one who couldn’t speak at all except to make strange sounds and whose hair was that weird, reddish color.
He followed the large blond man into the hut, removing his hat as was the custom, unconsciously stroking his straggling mustache with his thumb, and then squatting down just inside the doorway, watching the other two with solemn black eyes. They were speaking in a foreign tongue which Carlos did not understand, but at least it sounded like a language, which was better than the odd noises the injured man had made when Carlos had looked in on him during the week.
The squatting man watched Anton rummage in a drawer of the one dresser the room boasted and bring forth a bundle of clothing; the man on the bed accepted it and fumbled through the pockets, extracting paper and a pen, and then began slowly printing words on the paper. One sheet was completed, studied, and then folded, after which a second sheet was tackled. When it, too, was finished, the man in the bed removed a wallet from the jacket and withdrew what seemed to be money, although it was not like any money Carlos had ever seen. Anton and the man in the bed then began a further conversation while Carlos waited impassively. At last Anton swung around, looking at him.
Carlos instantly came to his feet, holding his hat across his stomach. “Senhor?”
“Your wife is preparing one of my canoes,” Anton said in Portuguese, looking at him squarely and speaking slowly and distinctly. “My wife is helping her. They will put everything in it that you will need for a trip downriver and back. It is my best canoe, and you will take good care of it.” His hand came up, extended. “I have here two papers and some foreign money. These papers are to be given to the man in the telegraph office in Pôrto Itapurá. He is to send them as cables. Do you know where Pôrto Itapurá is?”
“I know where Pôrto Itapurá is. I will find the telegraph office.”
“Good. But first you will find a câmbio and exchange the foreign money for cruzeiros. With the cruzeiros you will pay the man to send the telegrams. The cables are in a foreign language — the language of the Americans — but they will send them, letter by letter, whether they can read them or not. And you will sit there in the office while the man sends them. Is that understood?”
The small brown head bobbed. Anton’s voice hardened subtly.
“It is extremely important that these cables be sent. I am trusting you to see that they are. I am also trusting you not to lose the money and not to spend it on anything else. Whatever is left over when the cables have been sent, you may keep. Do you understand?”
Carlos nodded and then cleared his throat. “Does my wife—”
Anton kept his face straight. “Your wife will not know about the money. But if you do not do exactly what I have just told you to do, then she will be told.”
Carlos straightened up to his full height of five foot six; his black eyes flashed. “Senhor, you have my word!”
“Good. Then take these papers and keep them safe. And boa viagem.”
Carlos tucked the papers into his short pocket and buttoned it down; he turned to the man in the bed. Even though it was obvious that the stranger would not understand, there were still the courtesies to be observed.
“Your cables will be sent, Senhor. You may depend on it,” he said with simple dignity, and turned smartly, putting on his hat with a slight flourish, marching proudly through the door into the sunlight.
Half the village — at least twenty people, including his wife and the two eldest of his children — were at the river’s edge to watch him depart. His exact mission was still not clearly understood, but there could be no doubt that it was highly important. Even his wife was looking at him with a semblance of pride for the first time in years, while his children, eyeing him owlishly, seemed abashed by his sudden rise in the eyes of the village. Carlos studied the contents of the canoe a moment and then, satisfied, stepped in. Willing hands instantly pushed him from the narrow sandy beach; he reached for a paddle and expertly corrected the swaying induced by the eager hands. Above him a hot sun burned in a cloudless sky; he took a deep breath and dipped his paddle, sending the light canoe shooting for the more rapid water in the center of the stream.
They had been wise to choose him — Carlos — for the mission! Nobody in the village, least of all Anton, could handle a canoe as well as he, nor was anyone in the village as conversant with the river as he! And no one — but no one — was more honorable! The cables would be delivered into the proper hands in Pôrto Itapurá, and he, Carlos, would personally stand over the man as he tapped them out!
Of course, his trip would take him past Cachimbo de Fuma on the Paraná, and he would spend three or four days with his cousin there, because Plínio knew every feminine possibility within a radius of twenty kilometers. And if that little brown girl from five years before was still working at that botequim in Queimadura, there could be little harm in spending a few days there, as well. But once these essentials were attended to, on to Pôrto Itapurá!
Satisfied with his schedule, and pleased that his integrity was properly appreciated by others, and even more respected by himself, Carlos bent over his paddle. From the riverbank, Anton Sverdlik watched the diminishing figure with speculative eyes.