The Testament (27 page)

She laced her leather boots and left with her bag. Lako and two other boys from her village joined her as she jogged away, through the tall weeds and into the woods.

According to Rachel’s statistics, there were eighty-six adult females, eighty-one adult males, and seventy-two children in the four settlements, a total of 239 Ipicas. When she began working with the Ipicas eleven years earlier, there had been 280. Malaria took the weak ones every few years. An outbreak of cholera killed twenty in one village in 1991. If Rachel hadn’t insisted on a quarantine, most of the Ipicas would’ve been wiped out.

With the diligence of an anthropologist, she kept records of births, deaths, weddings, family trees, illnesses, and treatments. Most of the time she knew who was having an extramarital affair, and with whom. She knew every name in every village. She had baptized Ayesh’s parents in the river where they bathed.

Ayesh was small and thin, and she would probably die because there was no medicine. The antivenin was readily available in the States and in the larger cities of Brazil, and not terribly expensive. Her small budget from World Tribes would cover it. Three
injections in six hours and death could be prevented. Without it, the child would become violently ill with nausea, then a fever would hit, followed by a coma, then death.

It had been three years since the Ipicas had seen a death by snakebite. And for the first time in two years, Rachel had no antivenin.

Ayesh’s parents were Christians, new saints struggling with a new religion. About a third of the Ipicas had been converted. Because of the work of Rachel and her predecessors, half of them could read and write.

She prayed as she trotted behind the boys. She was lean and tough. She walked several miles a day and ate little. The Indians admired her stamina.

________

JEVY WAS washing himself in the river when Nate unzipped the mosquito fly and extricated himself from the tent. He still carried bruises from the plane crash. Sleeping in the boat and on the ground did little to ease the soreness. He stretched his back and legs, aching all over, feeling every one of his forty-eight years. He could see Jevy, waist-deep in water that looked much clearer than the rest of the Pantanal.

I’m lost, Nate whispered to himself. I’m hungry. I have no toilet paper. He gingerly touched his toes as he summed up his sad inventory.

It was an adventure, dammit! It was time for all lawyers to charge into the new year with resolutions to bill more hours, win bigger verdicts, cut more overhead, take home more money. He’d made those vows for years, and now they seemed silly.

With a little luck, he’d sleep in his hammock tonight, swinging in the breeze, sipping coffee. To the best of his recollection, Nate had never before longed for black beans and rice.

Jevy returned as a patrol of Indians arrived from the village.
The chief wanted to see them. “He wants to have bread,” Jevy said as they walked away.

“Bread’s fine. Ask if they have bacon and eggs.”

“They eat a lot of monkey.”

He didn’t appear to be kidding. At the edge of the village, a group of children stood waiting for a look at the strangers. Nate offered them all a frozen smile. He’d never felt so white in his life, and he wanted to be liked. Some naked mothers gawked from the first hut. When he and Jevy entered the wide common area, everyone stopped and stared.

Small fires were burning out; breakfast was over. The smoke hung like fog over the roofs, and made the humid air even stickier. It was a few minutes after seven, and already very hot.

The village architect had done a fine job. Each dwelling was perfectly square with a thatched roof angled steeply, almost to the ground. Some were larger than others, but the design never varied. They circled the settlement in an oval-shaped ring, all facing a large flat area—the town square. In the center were four large structures—two circular and two rectangular—and all had the same thick straw roofs.

The chief was waiting for them. Not surprisingly, his home was the largest hut in the village. And he was the largest Indian of the lot. He was young, and lacked the heavy wrinkles across the forehead and the thick belly the older men carried with pride. He stood and gave Nate a look that would have horrified John Wayne. An older warrior did the interpreting, and within minutes Nate and Jevy were asked to sit near the fire, where the chief’s naked wife was preparing breakfast.

When she bent over, her breasts swung about, and poor Nate couldn’t help but stare, if only for a long second. There was nothing particularly sexy about the naked woman or her breasts. It was just the fact that she could be so naked and so unconcerned about it.

Where was his camera? The boys around the office would never believe it without proof.

She handed Nate a wooden plate covered with a serving of what appeared to be boiled potatoes. He glanced at Jevy, who gave a quick nod as if he knew everything about Indian cuisine. She served the chief last, and when he began eating with his fingers, so did Nate. It was a cross between a turnip and a redskin potato, with very little taste.

Jevy talked while he ate, and the chief enjoyed the conversation. After a few sentences, Jevy would translate things into English and pass them along.

The village never flooded. They had been there for more than twenty years. The soil was good. They preferred not to move, but sometimes the soil forced them to. His father had been a chief too. The chief, according to the chief, was the wisest, smartest, and fairest of them all, and he could not engage in extramarital affairs. Most of the other men did, but not the chief.

Nate suspected there was little else to do but fool around.

The chief had never seen the Paraguay River. He preferred hunting over fishing, thus spent more time in the woods than on the rivers. He’d learned basic Portuguese from his father and from the white missionaries.

Nate ate, listened, and watched the village for any sign of Rachel.

She wasn’t there, the chief explained. She was in the next village tending to a child who’d been bitten by a snake. He wasn’t sure when she would return.

Just wonderful, thought Nate.

“He wants us to stay here tonight, in the village,” Jevy said. The wife was refilling their plates.

“Didn’t know we were staying,” Nate said.

“He says we are.”

“Tell him I’ll think about it.”

“You tell him.”

Nate cursed himself for not bringing the SatFone. Josh was surely pacing the floor of his office right now, worried sick. They had not talked in almost a week.

Jevy said something slightly humorous that upon translation became downright funny. The chief roared with laughter, and soon everyone else was laughing too. Including Nate, who laughed at himself for laughing with the Indians.

They declined an invitation to go hunting. A patrol of young men led them back to the first village, to their boat. Jevy wanted to clean the spark plugs again and fiddle with the carburetor. Nate had nothing else to do.

________

LAWYER VALDIR took the early call from Mr. Stafford. The pleasantries took only seconds.

“I haven’t heard from Nate O’Riley in days,” Stafford said.

“But he has one of those phones,” Valdir said, on the defensive, as if it was his duty to protect Mr. O’Riley.

“Yes, he does. That’s what worries me. He can call anytime, from anywhere.”

“Can he use the phone in bad weather?”

“No. I suppose not.”

“We’ve had many storms down here. It is, after all, the rainy season.”

“You haven’t heard from your boy?”

“No. They are together. The guide is very good. The boat is very good. I’m sure they are well.”

“Then why hasn’t he called?”

“I can’t answer. But the skies have not been clear. Perhaps he cannot use his phone.”

They agreed that Valdir would call at once if something was heard from the boat. Valdir walked to his open window and looked at the busy streets of Corumbá. The Paraguay River was just down the hill. Stories were legion of people who entered
the Pantanal and never came back. It was part of the lore, and the lure.

Jevy’s father had piloted the rivers for thirty years, and his body was never recovered.

________

WELLY FOUND the law office an hour later. He had not met Mr. Valdir, but he knew from Jevy that the lawyer was paying for the expedition.

“It’s very important,” he told the secretary. “It is urgent.”

Valdir heard the ruckus and appeared from his office. “Who are you?” he demanded.

“My name is Welly. Jevy hired me as a deckhand on the
Santa Loura.
”

“The
Santa Loura
!”

“Yes.”

“Where is Jevy?”

“He’s still in the Pantanal.”

“Where is the boat?”

“It sank.”

Valdir realized the boy was tired and frightened. “Sit down,” he said, and the secretary ran to get water. “Tell me everything.”

Welly clutched the arms of his chair, and spoke rapidly. “They left in the johnboat to find the Indians, Jevy and Mr. O’Riley.”

“When?”

“I don’t know. A few days ago. I was to stay with the
Santa Loura
. A storm hit, the biggest storm ever. It blew the boat free in the middle of the night, then rolled it over. I was thrown into the water and picked up later by a cattle boat.”

“When did you arrive here?”

“Only a half hour ago.”

The secretary brought a glass of water. Welly thanked her and asked for coffee. Valdir leaned on her desk and watched the poor kid. He was dirty and smelled like cow manure.

“So the boat is gone?” Valdir said.

“Yes. I’m sorry. There was nothing I could do. I have never seen such a storm.”

“Where was Jevy during the storm?”

“Somewhere on the Cabixa River. I fear for him.”

Valdir walked to his office, where he closed the door and returned to his window. Mr. Stafford was three thousand miles away. Jevy could survive in a small boat. No sense jumping to conclusions.

He decided not to call for a few days. Give Jevy time, and surely he would return to Corumbá.

________

THE INDIAN stood in the boat and braced himself by clutching Nate’s shoulder. There was no noticeable improvement in the motor’s performance. It continued to sputter and miss, and at full throttle had less than half the power it had when they left the
Santa Loura.

They passed the first settlement, and the river bent and looped almost to the point of going in circles. Then it forked, and the Indian pointed. Twenty minutes later, their little tent came into view. They docked where Jevy had bathed earlier in the day. They broke camp and moved their belongings into the village, where the chief wanted them.

Rachel had not returned.

Because she was not one of them, her hut was not in the oval. It was a hundred feet away, nearer to the edge of the forest, alone. It appeared to be smaller than any of the others, and when Jevy inquired about this, the Indian who’d been assigned to them explained that it was because she had no family. The three of them—Nate, Jevy, and their Indian—spent two hours under a tree at the edge of the village, watching the daily routine while waiting for Rachel.

The Indian had learned Portuguese from the Coopers, the
missionary couple who had come before Rachel. And he had a few words of English he intermittently tried on Nate. The Coopers had been the first white people any of the Ipicas had ever seen. Mrs. Cooper died of malaria and Mr. Cooper went back to wherever he came from.

The men were hunting and fishing, he explained to his guests, and the younger ones were no doubt sneaking around seeing their girlfriends. The women had the hard work—cooking, baking, cleaning, watching the children. But labor was at a languid pace. If time moved slower south of the equator, then there was no clock at all among the Ipicas.

The doors to the huts remained open, and children ran from one to the other. Young girls braided their hair in the shade, while their mothers worked over the fires.

Cleanliness was an obsession. The dirt of the common areas was swept with straw brooms. The exteriors of the huts were tidy and neat. The women and children bathed three times a day in the river; twice for the men, and never with the women. Everybody was naked but some things were private.

Late in the afternoon, the men gathered outside the men’s house, the larger of the two rectangular buildings in the center. They worked on their hair for a while—cutting and cleaning—then began to wrestle. The matchups were one on one and toe to toe, with the object being to throw the opponent to the ground. It was a rough game, but with strict rules and smiles afterward. The chief settled any disputes. The women watched from their doorways with only a passing interest, as if they were expected to. Little boys imitated their fathers.

And Nate sat on a block of wood, under a tree, watching a drama from another age, and wondering, not for the first time, where he was.

TWENTY-NINE
_____________

F
ew of the Indians around Nate knew the girl’s name was Ayesh. She was only a child and she lived in another village. They all knew, though, that a girl had been bitten. They gossiped about it throughout the day while they kept their own children closer at hand.

Word came during dinner that the girl had died. A messenger arrived in a rush and delivered the news to the chief, and it swept through the huts in a matter of minutes. Mothers gathered their little ones even closer.

Dinner resumed until there was movement along the main trail. Rachel was returning with Lako and the other men who’d been with her all day. As she entered the village, the eating and the chatting stopped as everyone stood and stared. They lowered their heads as she walked by their huts. She smiled at some, whispered to others, paused long enough to say something to the chief, then continued to her hut, followed by Lako, whose limp was worse.

She passed near the tree where Nate and Jevy and their Indian had spent most of the afternoon, but she didn’t see them. She wasn’t looking. She was tired and suffering and seemed anxious to get home.