01 Amazon Adventure (9 page)

‘Gently, gently,’ warned their father. ‘No zoo will take him without a tail. If you startle him, he’ll lose it.’

Roger stared. ‘Lose his tail? Just the way those little lizards do at home?’

‘Just the same. All right Hal, I think he’s ready for the noose. Let me tie it to the end of your stick.’

Hunt fastened the noose to the stick, then very warily lowered it before the iguana’s nose. Every time there was the slightest movement he stopped and waited. Then, as softly as a caress, the noose was passed over the animal’s head and slowly drawn tight.

‘Got him!’ yelled Roger.

‘Quiet. Remember the tail.’

Very gently Hunt began to pull. At first there was no response. Then the iguana slowly got under way, let itself sluggishly down to the ground, and allowed its captor to lead it into camp. Once it made a rush at Hal’s heels, champing its jaws in terrifying fashion. It was half led, half lifted on to the raft.

‘Now I suppose I have to get food for it.’ guessed Roger. ‘What does it eat?’

‘Almost anything. Tender leaves and fruits, small birds, little animals.’

And Roger went foraging.

The other new passenger was no less unique. It also was six feet long — but up and down rather than horizontally. A jabiru stork like the one they had seen upon approaching the camp site was attracted by some freshly caught fish that Hal had left in a pail on the beach. From the shadow of the big tree Hal watched quietly.

The great bird, high up on its thin legs like tall stilts, looked down gravely into the pail. Jabirus always look as if they are meditating deeply in spite of the fact that they have nothing on their minds but fish. Their shoulders are hunched and their heads bowed.

This solemn visitor seemed to think it all over and to decide that scooping up fish out of a pail was easier than hunting them in the river.

He was truly a majestic bird. His great body was covered with pure white feathers. His head was a glossy black, and there was a handsome red ring around his throat. He raised his wings slightly and Hal estimated that when they were fully spread they would measure seven feet from tip to tip. He could already see this greatest of all the world’s storks walking through some zoological garden to the wonder and admiration of thousands of visitors.

Solemnly the great body teetered on its two slender supports and the foot-long bill darted into the pail. It was odd to see a bird that looked so wise and old make such a sudden movement. The fish disposed of, the stork resumed its air of great wisdom and stalked slowly down the beach.

Hal was helpless. He thought of lassoing the bird but despaired of getting close enough before the great feathered aeroplane would take to flight. He would have to let it go.

But he believed the tall visitor would come back, having learned how easy it is to get dinner out of a pail.

He replenished the pail with more live fish and left it exactly where it had been. He drove in four stakes and to the tops of them fastened the four corners of a net so that it spread like a roof about eight feet above the pail. He triggered the net with

a slip cord that ran along the ground back to his retreat under the tree.

He had almost given up hope that day when, in the long light of the setting sun, the not-so-wise old stork came slowly stalking along the beach. He stopped twenty feet away to examine the pail and the net above it. This required thought. He stood on one leg — miraculously keeping his balance — tucked the end of the beak into the feathers on his breast, and meditated.

Finally reassured by the fact that neither the pail nor the net moved, he walked slowly under the canopy, eyed the contents of the pail for a moment, and then plunged.

At the same instant Hal jerked the slip cord and the net fell. Alarmed, the bird flew up. This action was not a bit wise for it only served to entangle him more securely in the net. In its meshes his toes, wing tips, and beak were all caught. He continued to thrash about. White feathers flew like snow-flakes.

Before long those powerful wings would break the net. Roger and dad were also witnesses to this experiment, and John Hunt now suggested, ‘Better get in there fast with the foot rope.’

Hal ran up with the rope. Roger was not one to be left out of a game like this and he succeeded in getting in a spot where he was given a hard clout in the stomach by one of the bird’s feet.

But during the instant while the foot was extended, Hal succeeded in getting a noose over it.

‘The net is tearing! Hang on!’ he yelled, as the stork burst through the net and soared up into the air. For a moment it looked as if both Hal and Roger would be carried away in the fashion of Sinbad the Sailor borne aloft by the roc. But their combined weight was too much even for the great aviator. They managed to get their end of the rope to the raft and tie it to a log.

The bird rose fifty feet until it was checked by the taut rope. Then it flew round and round in tight circles. The boys retreated from sight in order to give their captive a chance to recover from his surprise and fright.

But a jabiru stork has too much dignity to remain frightened long. Gradually the bird circled lower and finally lit on the raft. After wagging his great bill from side to side as if to say, ‘Well, I never!’ he seemed to reflect, ‘I must remember that I am a philosopher and little things like this can’t disturb me.’

He collected himself, preened his ruffled feathers, shifted his weight to one foot and tucked the other away, hunched his shoulders, poked his beak into his beard, and mused on the silly ways of men.

The banks of the Amazon would have been lined with astonished people if there had been any people to line them, as Noah’s Ark sailed seawards with its extraordinary passenger list: tapir, vampire, marmoset, iguana, jabiru, three specimens of homo sapiens and a mummy. But this was only a beginning.

John Hunt was captain, Hal was first mate, and Roger was steward. It was Roger’s business to feed the menagerie. That would have been simpler if

they had all been willing to eat the same things. But he had a lot of fussy diners. Nosey preferred milk, but was beginning to accept leaves and shoots, Vamp wanted fresh blood, Specs was not content to eat vegetable matter like other monkeys but demanded insects, the giant iguana loved bulbs and blossoms, and for fish-eating Stilts, every day was Friday.

The crew usually spent the night on board, moored to some island. The hut made a good bedroom. The hammocks were strung diagonally from corner to corner. They crisscrossed. Roger’s was nearest to the roof, Hal’s just below it, and their father’s near the floor.

When Roger wished to descend, he stepped upon his brother and then his father. This amused him and he found reason for coming down frequently during the night with the excuse that he heard something strange and wanted to investigate.

Hal grew weary of being a stepping-stone, and plotted revenge. One night when his brother was sound asleep Hal unhooked one end of the boy’s hammock, carried it out the side of the hut which had been left open, and lashed it to a tree on the bank. Roger was suspended over the water. In due time Roger awoke and prepared to torment his companions as usual. But this time he thought he would pretend to fall out of his hammock. He would come down on Hal with a terrific plop and scare the wits out of him. Hal would think that a jaguar had landed on him.

He eased himself to the edge of his hammock, balanced a moment, then let himself go.

There was a terrific plop, but not on Hal’s chest. And the yell that rent the night was not Hal’s but Roger’s. It was muffled by a bubbling sound as he went below the surface of the Amazon.

Hal lay chuckling. Dad, awakened by the yell, leaped out of his hammock.

‘Roger, is that you? Hal, I thought I heard Roger.’

‘Yes, I heard him too,’ said Hal, choking. ‘I think he went out.’

Another burbling yell informed them of Roger’s position and dad was out in a flash to help him.

‘A crocodile’s got me,’ wailed Roger.

Hal stopped chuckling and tumbled out in a hurry. It was his turn to be scared. What fool thing had he done? This river was full of crocodiles as well as razor-toothed cannibal fish which could strip off all the flesh from a bather in a few moments. You might go in fifty times and not be attacked — but there was always the chance.

He pulled his hunting knife from its sheath as he ran outside. ‘Ill show that croc what’s what!’ He remembered what he had been told to do in case of a hand-to-hand encounter with a crocodile — gouge out its eyes.

He could dimly make out Roger in the water. He dived in and clutched Roger’s legs, expecting to find them in the jaws of the crocodile. He found no monster but only a half-submerged log.

Roger had never really thought it was a crocodile. But now that he felt his legs gripped he was sure that a crocodile or perhaps even an anaconda had him in its toils. His terrified yells

brought his father diving to the rescue and the three Hunts grappled madly with each other while the marmoset chirped, the bat squeaked, but the great stork was too far gone in wisdom and slumber even to open one eye or to put down his tucked-up foot.

To warm chilled bodies, a fire had to be built on the six-inch-deep bed of dirt that served as a fireplace in one corner of the hut. Then the crew retired once more, each grumbling that the whole business was the fault of the others.

Even solemn Stilts was disturbed the next day as the raft went in wild career down a series of rapids. Probably if a prize were given to the worst vessel in which to shoot rapids it would be awarded to the raft.

Noah’s Ark was a bedlam of animal and human noises as it plunged into terrifying white waves among black rocks. It was impossible for three men to watch all four corners and every few seconds one corner or another was stuck on a boulder. Then the raft spun around as if a giant hand were twirling it. Somebody had to jump overboard to lift the logs free.

‘Rock dead ahead!’ cried Roger. There was no chance of avoiding it since there was another rock to the left and one to the right. The Hunts tried to delay their rush with poles and paddles, but it was no use. Hal’s pole snapped in two.

The raft seemed doomed. It would surely be broken to pieces. The animals would be scattered and lost.

The rock struck the raft square in the middle of the forward deck. It was fortunate that the raft builders had not had nails or bolts with which to make a rigid vessel. The bamboo logs were only lashed together with lianas. The centre logs yielded, slid up over the rock, and something like a camel’s hump passed along the raft and came out at the stern end.

For once, the stork had to put both feet down to keep his balance. The raft hung together but the strain on the hut was too much, and the thatch roof parted. No one minded that. None of the valuable animals had been lost.

Then the raft was teetered wildly this way and that until the disgusted stork took to flight. Forward he flew to the full length of his fifty-foot line and it looked exactly as if the great bird that is supposed to bring babies had decided that all the other passengers on the raft were innocents whom he must guide to safety.

When still water was reached he returned to the raft, looked from one to another of his companions, and made sarcastic little remarks deep in his throat.

Only one or two rafts were seen each day and there were rarely any Indian villages along the banks.

And then, one morning, a city!

After they had been seeing nothing but jungle for days, it seemed as big and as lively as New York. It was Iquitos (pronounced ee-kee-tose).

It was their last outpost before plunging into the deeper jungle of the Amazon. They tied the raft up to a pier. Hundreds of river boats were loading or unloading rubber, tobacco, cotton, timber, ivory nuts and Brazil nuts.

John Hunt stayed on board to guard their property while Hal and Roger eagerly set out to explore the streets. It was a frontier town with sawmills, shipyards, cotton gins, machine shops, and distilleries that produced rum from sugar cane juice. They passed a custom house, municipal palace, and a motion picture theatre showing pictures that they had seen years before on Long Island.

Following their father’s instructions, they went in to call on the United States Consul. He had a cablegram for John Hunt.

Hal took it with a sense of foreboding. They almost ran back to the raft.

Dad opened the envelope and unfolded the message. Hal thought of the cablegram received in Quito — would this also be a threat from some mysterious enemy?

When dad looked up, Hal knew that something was seriously wrong.

‘Boys,’ dad said, ‘we’ve got to go home!’

Hal took the radiogram. He saw that it was from his mother.

ALL BUILDINGS EXCEPT HOUSE DESTROYED BY FIRE ANIMALS BURNED TO DEATH ENTIRE COLLECTION LOST MUST BE WORK OF INCENDIARIES POLICE BAFFLED ANONYMOUS THREAT TO BURN HOUSE ALSO WHAT SHALL I DO

So this was the sequel to the warning in the first message:

AFFAIRS AT HOME WILL REQUIRE YOUR ATTENTION

‘There’s nothing we can do but get back there as fast as we can,’ said dad.

He looked beaten. Nearly everything he owned had been wiped out. His animal collection was his livelihood. And to a man who loved animals, it was painful to think of them trapped in naming buildings and burned to death. And now, this menace to their own home — perhaps to his wife as well.

Hal’s thoughts were following a slightly different line.

‘Who could have done it?’ he wondered, and his thoughts went back to a face illuminated by a flashlight. ‘Dad, I told you about the man who followed me in Quito. You didn’t take it very seriously — neither did I, then. But … do you think… ?’

‘It’s hard to see any connection between a tourist in Quito and a fire in Long Island.’

‘Yes, I guess you’re right. But who could have it in for us?’ Hal’s analytical brain was working hard. ‘It can’t be a personal grudge. You get along with everybody. You haven’t any personal enemies. It can’t be political — you don’t mix in politics. There are lots of revolutionaries in these Latin American countries with axes to grind, but you’ve never had anything to do with that sort of thing. So it must be economic.’