McCally raided the boat’s stores, which were in a long box under the driver’s seat, and got a pot of coffee brewing on a tiny camp stove while he handed out some tough, dried fish. He held up a battered, almost full, pack of the black cigarettes.
“And I found his stash,” he said, gleefully. “Who needs a fag?”
Banks took control of the wheel. The rest of the squad smoked, drank coffee, and chewed fish jerky and all in all, Banks was starting to feel a lot better about life in general; they’d got their man, although he was indeed a wanker, and they were managing to beat a retreat in some comfort. All that was needed now was to get to the dredger, secure the place, and call in somebody to evacuate them post-haste.
The only source of worry for him was the fate of their guide.
“Wiggo?” The private looked up. “Spell me for a couple of minutes. I want to check on your pal on the cot.”
“Remind him he promised to get me tickets to Brazil’s next match, so he’d better not fucking die on me.”
Banks went to check on Giraldo, leaving Wiggins at the wheel. The bit man still stared, unseeing, at the tent above him. The gray skin around the bites had spread, tendrils, almost black, snaking up and around his upper arm toward his shoulder. His temperature was up, and heat came off him in waves, accompanied by an acrid odor and vinegary tang that was far too close to the snake smells Banks had encountered earlier.
“Can we get any more speed out of this jalopy?” he asked Wiggins.
“Not from the engine, Cap,” the private said. “But we can head farther out into the river and try to catch the main current? That would get the speed up.”
“Make it so,” Banks said. He brushed a pair of black flies from in front of his nose, but others replaced them almost immediately. He gave in to the inevitable and helped himself to one of the cigarettes. Now seemed as good a time as any to return to bad habits.
Wiggins was as good as his word, and found the fast current in the center of the river, after which they made much quicker progress. After 10 minutes or so, Buller realized the futility of sulking up front in the baking sun and moved to join the rest under the canopy of canvas, although he still would not look any of them in the eye.
Banks chewed on a second smoke as he sipped at the too strong, too bitter coffee McCally had brewed up. The cigarettes were unfiltered, and rough but strangely familiar to Banks, reminding his of the smell and taste of the full-tar, full-strength ones his granddad had smoked in the greenhouse while Banks helped with the growing of his tomatoes in the summers of childhood. The heat here was more brutal than those long ago days in Scotland, but he held tight to the memory, a guide to see him on his way home from this river.
He’d had enough of the coffee though. He poured the dregs from the tin cup over the side, and was about to flick the butt of the cigarette away when a hot hand gripped his wrist. He looked to his left, to see Giraldo trying to push himself off the cot.
Banks moved quickly to force the man back down, then fetched some water, which the guide swallowed down in two huge gulps.
“Smoke,” Giraldo said. Banks felt obliged to refuse, but the guide was insistent, so he lit another, and passed it over, placing it gently between the man’s lips.
“Obrigado,” the guide said quietly and sucked in a prodigious draw that would have had Banks choking.
“Try to rest,” Banks said. “I reckon we’ll be back at the dredger in a couple of hours, then we’ll get a chopper to lift you out.”
“You are a good man, Captain,” the guide said. “It is a pity your effort will be in vain. The black venom leaves no survivors — we all know that here on the river. I will go with the sun.”
“Don’t talk pish, man. Besides, you can’t go yet. Wiggo’s got a date at the next Brazil game, and you said you had a story to tell me.”
Giraldo laughed, then coughed so hard Banks thought he might expire on the spot, before recovering and smiling thinly.
“Ask Private Wiggins to take my boy to the match. And as for the story, I had best tell you,” he said. “For it is a tale you ought to know. But first, I must speak more of last night.”
“You don’t need to speak at all…” Banks started, but Giraldo stopped him.
“But I do. Mr. Wilkes deserves it from me, for I see he is not here, and that only means one thing. The Children of Boitata took him.”
It wasn’t a question, and Banks did not need to answer. He sat beside the man, passing him frequent sips of water, and let him speak.
- 13 -
“Mr. Wilkes was most fretful, almost immediately after you and your men walked into the jungle,” he began. “Several times I had to dissuade him from stomping off after you, and even almost half a bottle of my rum did not settle him — indeed, I believe it made things worse. Emboldened by the drink, he started to berate me, you, the company he worked for, everybody under the sun. Then he loudly proclaimed that he would ‘sort this shit out once and for all’ and before I could stop him, he took out his pistol and jumped up onto the quay. He ran off onto the trail before I even got off the boat. I knew it was madness to try and follow him, and I thought to warn you. I readied a flare, and fired. It had only just gone up, lighting the sky, when I heard shooting. Then, before I could give any thought to going to Mr. Wilkes’ aid, it came for me, out of the jungle, one of Boitata’s children, slithering so fast I did not see it until it was on me.
“I want you to know, my friend, that my first thought was of you, and your safety. I was glad that I had fired the flare. Although it alerted the snake to my presence and cost me this bite that will soon take me to the dark, I regret nothing. Although I did not wait there in the dark for you, you are here now, and safe, and I can go to the darkness with my honor intact.”
The effort of talking had taken what little strength the man had left, and he slumped down on the cot, his eyes sunk in deep black shadows. Banks saw that the black tracery of venom was now creeping toward his neck and across his chest. It would be all over when it reached his heart or his brain; it was only a matter of which went first.
“You did more than any man should be asked to do,” Banks said. “I owe you a debt, so you had better stay with us, for I intend to pay it.”
Giraldo tried to laugh, but all that come out was a dry rasp that turned into a coughing fit. Banks held the man’s head up while he gave him more water. The guide’s skin felt like a hot skillet, and there were flecks of black at his lips when Banks took the cup of water away.
“Thank you, my friend,” the man said. “If you really wish to repay a debt, then I have only one last thing to tell you. Listen to my tale. Perhaps there is something in it that will save you and your men from meeting the darkness yourselves.”
Banks thought the man was too spent for further talk, but Giraldo seemed determined, although Banks had to lean close to hear, for the guide’s voice was close to failing completely now.
“I have been on this river every day of my life,” he said, “but I only ever saw Boitata the one time. No one has ever believed me, but I ask you, in honor of our debt, to believe me now, my friend.
“I was no more than a boy, no older than my own lad is now, and it was a day much like this one. The fish were staying down, and I was hot and tired after a long day’s effort for little reward. The lack of fish had forced me farther upstream than usual, and I was in waters previously unknown to me, in parts I had been warned from even approaching. But hungry bellies needed filling, and drove me even farther from home. So it was, as night fell, I found myself under the very same high tower we have so recently left behind.