“It’s okay, I got it,” Ben said. “Then ask, no, tell him to leave two of the canoes.”
Jenny nodded and then straightened. She spoke forcefully.
The bickering went on for several moments, with Ataca leaning closer to her and raising a single figure in the air. Jenny shook her head, pleading, cajoling, and then demanding. Finally, she tilted her head and spoke softly. Ipetu looked from Ataca then to Mukmet; both men nodded.
Ben grinned. “You got both canoes?”
“Yes, not easy, and I had to trade.” She shrugged. “Two bush knives, a machete, and… one of the spare revolvers.”
Ben didn’t even have to think about it. “Done; trekking back would take us weeks… if we made it at all.” He looked around. “Let’s pull into the bank and unload.”
In another moment, they were all on the bank, gear beside them. The three Pemon were now in a single canoe and paddled back down the clear river. The other two canoes had been pulled up, safe and dry.
Ben had a strange sinking feeling as he watched them depart — the natives knew something they didn’t, and he hoped it was only superstition. He turned to the group.
“Okay, we’ve gone far enough for today, so let’s camp here, rest, and make an early start.”
Palm fronds lashed his face and sticky vines tried to rope his arms, legs and torso. In firefights in the deserts of the Middle East, Congolese jungles, or urban labyrinths, Ben had feared nothing and no one.
But now, big Ben Cartwright whimpered as he ran — the thing was gaining on him, flattening undergrowth and knocking down trees as if they were kindling.
Where was everyone else? he wondered, trying to remember. Then he did — all dead, massacred, eaten alive, a small voice jeered back at him.
The jungle suddenly opened out onto a cloud-filled vista, and he braked hard, his feet skidding on loose gravel right to the cliff edge. Below, the jungle looked like the tops of broccoli, over a thousand feet below him.
Behind him, a blood-freezing noise made the hair rise on his head and neck, and he turned, eyes wide and teeth showing in a grimace of fear.
Instinctively, Ben’s hand slapped down on his holster — it was empty. The thing burst from the jungle.
“Jesus!”
Ben jerked upright from his bed roll.
“Hey? You okay?” Emma sat up, rubbing her face, and then turned to stare into his. “It sounded like you were, crying.”
“Nah.” He snorted the thought away. “I’m okay, just…” He also rubbed his face and felt his eyes were wet. “Nah, it’s nothing.”
“Nino,” he called.
“Si?” Their Venezuelan guide was already up and fastening away his bedroll.
“Gather some firewood; I’ll try and catch us some of those fish for breakfast.” Ben got to his feet, and then also rolled up his mat. He reached into his pack, took out his mosquito netting, and tucked it under his arm.
“Want some help?” Emma asked.
Ben smiled. “An outdoor woman like you can help kick-start that fire. That’ll help. Also, get everyone up and ready — going to be a long day.”
She scoffed but agreed.
Ben walked up along the bank for a few hundred feet, noticing that the sandy bottom was starting to discolor the further up he went. Also, it began to shallow out even more, and would have made traversing it by canoe impossible anyway. In amongst the shallows, there were still a few pools where brightly colored fish, tiger-striped in red and blue, darted about, all the size of a medium trout.
He laid the netting on the downstream side of one of the pools, allowing a belly to be created in the mesh. He then moved upstream and used a long stick to chase some of the fish towards his trap. In just a few minutes, he had a good haul and dragged them out. He grinned at his luck; if only it was this easy back home, he thought.
Ben started to head back, but then paused, his brows knitting — on the riverbank, there were strange tracks. Almost like from a weird truck tire that had rolled over the sand. They were nearly a foot wide and continued on for a while before disappearing into the water. He crouched, looking at the impressions — they weren’t old, maybe only days.
Rain started to patter heavily about him, filling the tracks. He put two fingers into one, feeling their depth. What the hell made them? he wondered.
Ben looked over his shoulder into the jungle, wary now. When he turned back, he saw Jenny wandering about and raised an arm to call her over. He looked back down at the tracks; the Pemon had said that in the past some foolish natives had come here, but they never come back. He lifted his fingers to his nose and rubbed them together, but there was no scent on them.
“What have you got?” Jenny asked and crouched beside him.
“Tracks, I think.”
She smiled down at the markings in the dirt. “Big fella.” She turned to him. “Probably Eunectes murinus — green anaconda.”
“Jesus, these tracks are from a snake?” Ben blew air through his lips.
“Yeah, they can grow to 18 feet and weigh in at 250 pounds.” She looked around, and then into the tree canopy overhead. “And they lo-ooove water.”
“Dangerous?” Ben got to his feet.
Jenny followed him up. “Not to us, here and now. But if you were weak or sick, and they came across you when you were sleeping, they might try and swallow you… after pulverizing you down to mush.”
“Nice; so not a total paradise here after all.” He gave her a lopsided grin.
“Don’t you read your Bible? There’s a snake in every Garden of Eden, remember?” She winked.
Ben chuckled. “Let’s hope there’s only one then. Let’s go.”
By the time they returned, everyone was gathered around the morning fire. Coffee was being brewed, so he used his knife to clean the fish and thread them onto poles. He handed one to each.
“No silver service, I’m afraid.”
The cooked meat was delicious, if not a little blackened on the outside. They still had some rations left, but this was the first live game they’d caught and eaten. From now on, Ben would try and have them live off the land and preserve what they had left.
In another 30 minutes, they were on their way again following the stream, the bank being a natural pathway. For hours, they watched the stream first shallow, with some grasses threading their way to the surface, and then islands of sand rising in its center. In only a little more time, the stream bottom broke the surface and turned from sand to mud, and then to sludge.
There were no more fish, no more darting rainbow birds, or even iridescent winged dragonflies. The abundant life forms now only seemed to be swarming gnats. Underfoot, the sandy ground had also changed — the bank had vanished and their feet squelched in mud and slid on oily mosses. The air began to steam up with the smell of methane and corruption.
It seemed paradise had come to an end, Ben thought. But it was when the mud became bog that Ben began to worry.
Gas bubbles popped to the surface with an eggy-sulphurous smell, and the humidity made the perspiration run from them in dripping streams that never dried. Added to that, the mud got deeper, and the snake gaiters became traps for pounds of sticky mud that made every step an energy-draining experience.
Dan stumbled and reached out a hand to some vines but immediately yelled his agony. “Jesus.” He went to pull his hand back, but the vine came with him. “Fucking thorns.”
He pulled out his knife and hacked away at it, then had to carefully pick the woody stem from his gloves. Jenny squelched her way towards him and took it from him. She held it up.