Little Tiny Teeth (17 page)

They were both collapsed with laughter now, unable to carry on, but Phil picked up the baton. “Never mind the biological aspects,” he said to John. “You know what water’s composed of, don’t you? Hydrogen and oxygen. And what do they make rocket fuel out of? Hydrogen and oxygen. I’m telling you, the stuff is too volatile to go anywhere near it, let alone drink it.”

Gideon smiled but John, pained, bared his teeth. “Phil, I wish, I wish you wouldn’t do that. What do you want to say things like that for?”

“Hard to say, exactly,” Phil said. “It might be because I love to see the veins stand out in your neck like that.”

As it turned out, none of them were right about how Scofield would behave the next day, although Gideon came closest. Scofield didn’t merely laugh off the incident of the lance, he acted as if nothing at all had happened. Appearing in the morning looking ruddy, bright, and well rested, he greeted everyone cordially and went enthusiastically at the buffet of cheese omelets, fried bananas, rice, salsa, and toast. When Maggie mentioned that they thought that it was a good idea to move their excursions that day to the north side of the river, he merely said, quite mildly, as if it were no concern of his, that that was just fine. It was obvious that he didn’t want to talk about the previous day, and his wishes were observed.

After breakfast, the Adelita moored at a narrow beach topped by a thirty-foot bluff. Cisco scrambled up it and went to see about arranging a meeting with the shaman of an Ocaona settlement about two miles to the northwest, on the banks of the Punte, another of the Amazon’s hundreds of tributaries. He returned two hours later with the news that the celebrated curandero Yaminahua would be pleased to grant them an audience. He – Cisco – suggested that they each bring along at least a liter of water. For people who weren’t used to it, a four-mile round-trip jungle hike in the midday heat was going to make for a long, exhausting day.

And don’t forget insect repellent, he added.

Say Amazon jungle to the average person, and a picture pops into the mind of intrepid nineteenth-century explorers in pith helmets, of giant leaves, thick, tangled vines, and hostile underbrush that has to be hacked through with a machete at every step. But except for the giant leaves, most of the virgin rain forest is far different. There are thick liana vines that hang from the tree limbs, yes – some sturdy enough to swing on, Tarzan-like – but they aren’t very tangled or really very prolific, and while a machete is sometimes useful, it’s hardly a necessity, because the canopy high overhead shuts out so much sun that there isn’t much undergrowth to contend with.

This is also the reason that what little is there is so huge-leaved; it’s their way of sucking in every possible mote of sunlight that does manage to filter through. Even the water lilies are as big as wagon wheels, five feet in diameter and able to support a small child, or more likely, a capybara or a python. The canopy effectively shuts out wind too, and the birds and insects are quiet during the day, so that there is a prickly sense of hushed expectancy, of something terribly important about to happen, although of course nothing does, aside from when a howler monkey occasionally lets loose one of its deafening hoots and every previously invisible bird within range flutters and screams in response before settling down again. Ninety-five percent of the time, though, walking in such a forest is like traveling through some surreal, silent, dimly remembered dreamscape.

“These big leaves and stuff,” Phil said, as the group made its way toward the Ocaona village, “and how still it is – it reminds me of this painter, what’s his name…”

“Henri Rousseau,” said Gideon, to whom the same thought had occurred. Still figures, giant, meticulously detailed jungle foliage, unseen mystery.

“Right, that’s the guy,” Phil said. “Fantastic, isn’t it?”

Gideon nodded. Fantastic it was. Beautiful. Cathedral-like, to use a well-worn metaphor that he truly appreciated for the first time. And the creatures! Jewel-like poison-dart frogs, no bigger than a thumbnail, that secrete a curare-like neurotoxin used by the Indians for their blowgun darts; three-inch-long millipedes; giant snails (giant even by the generous standards of western Washington State) – an amazing place, from every angle. But, God, was it hot in there! And humid – unbelievably, mind-deadeningly humid. After a few hours of it, Gideon’s shirt and shorts were as wet as if he’d been in a downpour. Even his bones felt soggy. The liter of water he’d brought was long gone, and all he could think of was getting back to his cabin, downing another quart or so, then climbing into the shower and standing for half an hour in the cool – relatively cool – green-brown stream of Amazon water.

The humidity in particular had been like nothing he’d ever encountered. Mel, trying to take notes for his article, had had to give it up. First, the ink from his gel pen wouldn’t dry on the page, but ran down it in streaks instead. Then, when he’d borrowed a pencil from Scofield, the point tore through the limp sheets. And as the last straw, by the end of the first hour, the glue in the binding of his notepad had liquefied and the pages had come apart in his hand. Mel, in a laid-back mood – like John, he had no trouble with hot weather – just laughed, gave Scofield back his pencil, and squeezed the notebook into a soggy wad the size of a Ping-Pong ball, which he then stuffed into a pocket.

Unpleasant climate notwithstanding, it had been a fascinating and enjoyable afternoon. Cisco, although no less spacey than usual, had proven botanically knowledgeable and articulate on the walks to and from the village, speaking confidently of epiphytes and chamaephytes and phanerophytes, so that one could see the ethnobotanists in the group rethinking their impressions of him.

The Ocaona village was a grouping of ten thatch-and-pole houses that were set up on two-foot stilts beside a marshy pond in which four exhausted-looking water buffalo lounged in water up to their nostrils while egrets strolled around on their backs. There they’d been surrounded by curious, enchanted brown children. Mostly naked, but some in T-shirts (and nothing else), they laughingly reached out to touch the newcomers and dash away, like Indians counting coup, as if to make sure they were real. They seemed to know but one Spanish word – caramelo – but they accepted with eye-popping delight whatever treats the visitors could find to give them: sticks of spearmint gum, Tic Tacs, and especially the cellophane-wrapped hard fruit candies that Mel had happened to have in his pocket. The only offerings that failed to be a hit were the minty breath-strips that Duayne peeled from a little dispenser and placed on their tongues. These elicited gasps, hacking, pretend-vomiting, and other evidences of extreme disgust, but even so, each child had to have a second one, as if to see if it was really as horrible as they remembered.

The curandero Yaminahua, a wrinkled, waspish old man in a sleeveless undershirt, clean, white Jockey shorts, and calf-length rubber wading boots, was waiting for them, smoking a cigar and sitting on the plank steps of his open-sided house, which was about twenty feet on a side, clean and spare, strung with four net hammocks across the center, and with a few open shelves along one side, on which were some old iron pots and utensils, and a few bowls. The entire structure was set on two-foot stilts. Two middle-aged women and a girl in her teens, all wearing only simple bark aprons, lay in the hammocks watching, but with no real signs of interest. The girl had a naked little boy sleeping on her abdomen. On one of the shelves, also watching, was a grumpy-looking squirrel monkey tied to a pole by a string around its waist.

On the step next to Yaminahua, who looked as if he had other things on his mind that were a lot more urgent than these pesky newcomers, were three lidless plastic containers of the sort used for fishing gear, filled with leaves and twigs. Using their contents as props, with no preliminaries whatever, aside from removing the cigar from his mouth and placing it on the step beside him, he launched into a monotone presentation that he appeared to be reciting from memory, to no one in particular, while his mind was off somewhere else, doing more important things. Cisco translated as he went along.

“This is charcosacha. You mash it with cow fat to cure inflammations of the throat. This is pono palm. You use it to cure foot fungus. Also, it makes good roofs. This is mashunaste, for broken bones. You mix it with juice from a rubber tree, put it on a cloth, and wrap it around the broken arm or leg. The bone will heal in eight days. This is chuchuwasi. You use it for headaches…”

This went on for a solid hour, during which Yaminahua’s gaze remained fixed on the middle distance somewhere above their heads and the listeners, one by one, took seats on the ground in front of him. Questions were entirely ignored, so much so that Gideon wondered if the man might be deaf. Note-taking was impossible because of the dampness, but Mel had a small tape recorder that he turned on, promising to have the tapes transcribed for the others who wanted them. The tape, swollen with moisture, stopped turning after a few seconds.

The conclusion of the lecture was as abrupt as the beginning. Yaminahua just stopped talking, shoved the now-dead cigar back in his mouth, and sat there looking at them, or rather through them. The women in the hammocks had never moved a muscle, except for the few that were necessary to keep the hammocks gently swaying. The monkey had disgustedly turned its back on them and gone to sleep on its perch.

Cisco took another moment to finish translating. “… for toothache, but it might give you convulsions for a few days. Thank you. And now somebody should give him a gift.”

“But he hasn’t said a single word about insects,” Duayne protested. “Aren’t insects a part of their pharmacopoeia?”

But Cisco shook his head. “Nah, show’s over. Th-th-th-that’s all, folks. Gift time.”

“What do we give him, money?” Tim asked.

“No, certainly not money,” Scofield said, scolding him. “It would shame him. I brought something more appropriate.” He pulled from his pocket a Ziploc bag with some shiny metal objects in it and offered it to the shaman with a bright smile. “A dozen fishhooks,” he said confidently. “That’ll take care of it.”

Yaminahua looked at them with disdain. He shook his head and said something to Cisco.

Cisco translated. “He already has fishhooks. He says he’d rather have a hat with a picture on it. Anybody got one to spare?”

“A hat with a picture on it…?” an incredulous, seemingly offended Scofield echoed.

Gideon had one in his day pack, a white baseball cap with two smiling green alligators on it and the words Woodland Park Zoo. He pulled it out and offered it to Yaminahua, who grabbed for it eagerly. He examined it with care, turning it round and round in his hands, obviously coveting it, and yet somehow not entirely satisfied. He surprised Gideon by seizing him by the shoulder and turning him around so that, by standing on the first wooden step Yaminahua was tall enough to pull up the flap of Gideon’s backpack and root around inside, right up to his skinny elbow, in hopes of finding something else, all the while querulously chattering at Cisco.

“Is there a problem?” Gideon asked Cisco.

“He says the hat’s okay, but don’t you have any other colors?”

The rooftop stargazing that Gideon, Phil, and John had found so enjoyable the previous night wasn’t quite as relaxing tonight. The problem was that everyone else had discovered the cool, pleasant locale as well and carried up chairs to enjoy it, so that it had gotten crowded up there. Mel, and then Duayne, had come wandering up and had decided to join Gideon, Phil, and John, so that Gideon, who was really interested in getting himself as close to horizontal as his chair would allow, turning his face up to the stars, and letting the refreshingly cool night air wash over him, was forced to participate in a coherent conversation, or at least pretend to listen to the one going on around him.

Maggie was the last to come upstairs. For the first few hours after dinner, she had been in the lower deck salon, working with a portable plant dryer that she’d set up there, processing the considerable haul of medicinal, toxic, and hallucinogenic plants that she’d collected during the hike. But at about nine, she had come up and, somewhat to Gideon’s surprise, had set down her chair next to Tim’s and Cisco’s. He could hear the three of them comparing observations on the various exotic botanicals they had encountered. Beyond them, Scofield, who, much to Gideon’s envy, had discovered an ancient, full-length, folding beach chair somewhere, lay quietly, with a pot of tea on the deck beside him. His choice of a spot at the very rear, between the guy wires that supported the smokestack and well away from the others, had made it clear that he preferred to be left alone, and he was left alone. For a while the smell of his too-sweet tobacco hung in the air but now he was sound asleep, his pipe having fallen from his hand some time before. An occasional soft, snuffling snore could be heard.

“You know what that stuff is he’s drinking?” Mel was saying, looking rather unkindly in Scofield’s direction. Mel had ordered a bottle of Merlot for dinner, and although he had offered it freely around, nobody had had much appetite for red wine in that kind of weather. He had consumed almost all of it himself and he was showing the effects.

“It’s not tea?” asked Duayne.

“Oh, yeah, I guess you could call it tea, but your mother’s orange pekoe it’s not. It’s made from coca leaves.”

“You mean mate?” said Phil.

“That’s what he says, but regular mate has the watchamacallit removed-”

“The cocaine alkaloids,” contributed Gideon, marginally awake.

“Right, whatever. Well, this stuff has something in it, I can tell you that. I had some after-dinner sessions with him at his house a couple of times while we were working on the book. And both times, come eight o’clock or so, he gets all wiggly and jumpy and then makes himself this tea – it’s supposed to be for some stomach problem or something, yada yada yada-”