Dinosaur Summer (15 page)

"Diamonds," Billie said from behind the wheel. "One or two diamonds a day, little ones, for industry. Not for ladies' rings. They are slim pickings around here. But everybody is hopeful . . . diamonds, or maybe gold." "They look pretty wild," Ray said.

"And hungry," OBie added. "They might be interested in our food."

The jungle gave way to a broad stretch of grassland and Anthony took out his camera, giving Peter a poke in the ribs. Peter, who had been dozing, lifted his head. "Huh?"

Anthony pointed. "Thar she blows," he said.

The northwestern escarpment of El Grande rose in the distance, an immense black mass with a projecting silhouette like the prow of an ancient galleon. Gray and white billows capped the prow, and the rest of the massive tepui fell back in the shadows of rank after rank of thick dark clouds, filling the horizon. The sun gleaming against the brilliant green and yellow grassland and the gloom of El Grande beyond made a striking contrast--cheer and tropical splendor against mystery and danger.

Ray Harryhausen

"Eighty-five miles from end to end," OBie said reverently. "Eight thousand feet high at this end, the highest point. With six big lakes and who knows how many little lakes and swamps."

"Fabulous," Ray said. He grinned at OBie and Peter. The thrill was returning--a real sense of adventure that had been damped by the soldiers and the fire. "Lord, it'shuge."

"Wait'll we get closer." OBie stuck his thumbs in his pockets like a proud papa and winked at Peter. "Takes me back to when I was young."

"It looks like a monster all by itself," Anthony said. Peter looked at him to see what he was thinking, whether he was seriously considering sending Peter back now.

"The ship's gone, Dad," Peter said softly, squinting at his father.

"There's an airstrip up ahead," Anthony said, but with a slight smile. He put his hand on Peter's shoulder and squeezed. "Impressed?"

Peter nodded and turned the binoculars on El Grande. He could see a long, thin waterfall descending in a bright silver thread from a shelf of clouds hiding the upper third of the galleon's prow. "Will you look at that!" he said, and handed the glasses to Anthony.

Anthony peered through them. "It's falling from about five thousand feet," he said. "Straight down."

"That's Raleigh Falls," OBie said. "The folks here call it Bol�r. There's a higher one in Challenger Canyon. Jimmie Angel saw that one first. He called it Jorge Washington Falls. He picked a smaller one on Auyan Tepui to name after himself."

Peter looked at the five boats with their precariously balanced cages. Despite thejejenes and the mosquitoes, he was really enjoying himself. He doubted that any otherNorteamericano boy had seen what he was seeing--at least not since the 1920s.

"Ten kilometers to San Pedro de las Bocas," Billie said. Tall trees and jungle rose on the left bank again, blocking much of their view of El Grande. More of the big flame-winged water birds clustered in shallows on the southern bank, and the river took a gradual turn to the northeast, toward the highlands. Peter went to the cabin.

"Shouldn't there be falls or rapids or something?" he asked Billie.

Billie nodded. "Farther up. Little ones we will climb, but the big ones, they are beyond San Pedro. Big rapids, many falls."

"Have you been up here a lot?" Peter asked. He felt like talking and was afraid Ray and OBie would get tired of him if he chattered.

"Not a lot," Billie said. "Only by canoe above San Pedro. A few miles up the rapids--then the flies and the mosquitoes, they are too much. You will be glad to take a train."

"Yeah," Peter said. "Do you know anybody who went to El Grande?"

"Yes," Billie said, his smile suddenly vanishing. "My father. He was full-blooded Makritare. We have been going up there for thousands of years. We climb up the old trail on Pico Poco, and sling a rope, and climb across . . ." Billie raised his arms and made hand-over-hand motions, then got a distant look in his eye. "Especially if we want to be chief, or to have many beautiful wives and become great warriors."

Peter nodded.

"My father went there two months before I was born. He did not come back."

"Oh," Peter said. "I'm sorry."

Billie shrugged. "I am proud of him."

Peter wondered how much Billie had really wanted to go, if he had been stopped by just the flies.Maybe I just don't know how bad the flies can get, Peter thought. Then he remembered that the Army had restricted access to the tepui, especially to Indians.

Billie saw the look in Peter's eyes and turned away to examine the river, jaws clenched. "In my father's day, there were no prospectors and diamond hunters and not so many thieves on the river. He had to worry about other tribes--the Arecuna, perhaps, or the Camaracotas. But they did not have guns. The soldiers have guns."

***

They anchored in a stretch of still water and fed the animals as darkness approached. They had seen more dugouts, but so far, no one had offered any resistance, or even harsh words, to the strange barges moving steadily upriver. Billie thought that by now, nearly everybody on the river knew about the dinosaurs. OBie asked Billie to join their group around the cookstove. "If you don't mind beans," he said.

They were about to eat when the venator decided once again to protest. He did not move enough to rock the barge on which his cage rested, but he let out a peevish, ear-splitting shriek nevertheless.

Howler monkeys in the jungle began a ragged chorus of angry whoops. "He is the Challenger," Billie said.

OBie, Ray, and Anthony traded looks and OBie stirred the pot, then ladled up black beans for each. "You mean like the professor," he said.

"No." Billie gave them a quizzical look. "The one who challenges. He asks questions only ghosts can answer."

Ray lifted his eyebrows and grinned. "True enough," he said.

Billie stared across the dark waters to the other boats and their cages. "Perhaps a Challenger like him ate my father," he said, as if this were a matter of merely casual discussion.

"He damn near ate Shellabarger, before he was captured," OBie said. "He was just a youngster then. Less than eight feet high. In his gangly youth."

"I am proud to be near them," Billie said. "More Indians will come to see them."

Quietly, they ate their beans.

Chapter Ten

San Pedro de las Bocas was a bigger town than Peter had expected. With many whitewashed stone and brick buildings, an imposing railway station made of local granite and sandstone, and a wharf with a big if somewhat rusted steel crane, it had been built ten years before to accommodate the miners and oil explorers on the north side of the river. OBie, Keller, and Shellabarger inspected the crane, which had been built to lift heavy mining equipment from boats on the river and transfer them to the railway cars. Within an hour of their arrival, the cages were lifted from the barges and loaded on a train with twelve flatbed cars. By three o'clock, the barges themselves were hoisted from the river. Anthony and Ray recorded the transfer, which went smoothly enough.

The stationmaster, a tall, lean man with leathery skin and deepset eyes, wore an ancient ragged leather hat and a threadbare white pinstripe suit. He told them that the advance crew had arrived three weeks before with five trucks. He spoke very good English. His family, he said, was descended from English settlers in British Guiana.

"I think your man, who is supposed to greet you, he is in town now drinking. He will be here soon. I come to welcome you personally." He smiled at all this activity--and all the money he was doubtless being paid. "The oil, it is slow up here now, only a trickle. The engineers say El Grande is too heavy, it squeezes everything south."

"They only left one man?" Shellabarger asked.

"They needed every able-bodied fellow at the railhead. So they told me . . ." He smiled slyly, then stared at the cages in concern.

The animals were putting up a great fuss. Sammy in particular seemed out of sorts and gave out bugle-like bellows every few minutes, startling the railroad workers. They laughed and shook their heads, vowing not to be frightened again, but each time, Sammy made them jump.

"It'll be a six-hour ride or more, but we won't leave today," OBie said, wiping sweat from his reddened forehead.

By late afternoon, the barges were lashed down, one to each car. As OBie had suspected, the train's engineer refused to set out with dusk so close, and so they pitched their tents beside the train. Shellabarger did not want them to go into town. He did not trust the prospectors and diamond miners and all their associated hangers-on to leave the train alone. "We'll need to stand watch all night," he said wearily.

Wetherford, the representative of the advance party, showed up just before nightfall: a short young Englishman in slacks and a baggy white shirt stained with food and jungle green. He seemed a little under the weather.

"The beer here is terrible" was the first thing he said to Shellabarger, before they shook hands. "Made from tree sap, of all the bloody things. Anteater piss, I call it. James Wetherford." He extended his hand and Shellabarger gave it a perfunctory shake.

The trainer looked him over angrily. "You're the only one here?" he asked.

"Yes. I've been down with some fever." He leaned to one side to see around Shellabarger. "Also, I got in an argument with some soldiers, with a bloody colonel no less, and the Mendez woman,Do�Catalina, decided it would be better for me to stay here to meet you. They're here representing Caracas--Betancourt and Gallegos. I see the cars are loaded. Everything's ready to go?"

"You're drunk. You've been drunk for days," Shellabarger said. "Who's paying you?"

"Mr. Schoedsack. Why?"

"Because if Lotto Gluck were paying you, I'd fire you right here and now."

"Well," Wetherford said owlishly. "I'm spared that, aren't I?"

Peter kept the irony of this remonstration to himself.

OBie and Ray took advantage of the golden light of late afternoon, shooting views of the train and the town. They also filmed Shellabarger inspecting the cars. He had done this job to his satisfaction earlier, but OBie asked him to do it again. The trainer's demeanor before the whirring camera was a little wooden.

"Vince, for a man who's been in showbiz so long, you're stiff as a board," OBie said.

Shellabarger shrugged. "I'm not going to be in showbiz much longer."

Wetherford stood to one side, a crooked smile on his face. "If anybody needs me," he said, "I'm right here."

***

Peter's main memory of that night was that ants were everywhere. Small red ants and large black ants crawled in lines along the dirt and up the walls of the buildings. They crawled into his sleeping bag, where he found them waggling their antennae and lifting their fierce mandibles. Billie reassured him that these were just town ants, notveintecuatros, but they still nipped him pretty good. He used this opportunity to write in his journal, something he had been neglecting. He recorded the important events of the day, but not his thoughts about men and alcohol. He did not think thatNational Geographic would be very interested.

***

At four in the morning, Anthony roused him for his share of the watch and they got up in the warm stillness beneath an unblinking haze of stars. Ray had preceded them and he showed them how to use rush brooms to brush ant trails away from the tracks and the train cars. "Wouldn't want Dagger to get swarmed, would we?" Ray asked with a big yawn.

With first light, Shellabarger joined Anthony and Peter and the others awoke to the smell of coffee brewed in a big steel jug by the stationmaster. The roustabouts and film crew gathered around. Billie and the four other pilots joined them with seven large, fresh catfish, which were soon gutted and fried for breakfast. The strong black coffee, syrupy with sugar, made Peter buzz with happy anxiousness to get going, to get to work, and the catfish, served with cassava bread broken from large flat wheels, tasted better than any breakfast he remembered eating in years.

They boarded the train and everybody swung their hats and cheered as they pulled out of the station of San Pedro de las Bocas. The engineer tugged a raucous squeal from the engine's steam whistle. The animals in their tied-down cages replied with a chorus of bellows and screams and the monkeys in the jungle howled in turn. It sounded energetic and chaotic and cheerful. The strong coffee made everything seem cheery to Peter.

They all sat on old wooden seats in one dusty passenger car, jostled back and forth on the irregular tracks. At times the train seemed to crawl, especially around curves; OBie said you never knew when a tree might have gone down and blocked the tracks. He leaned back over his seat to where the roustabouts were playing poker and said, "You boys good with axes?"

Kasem hid his hand, rolled his eyes, and jerked his thumb at Shellabarger. "He's the boss man. If you want us to build a bridge, tell him, and he'll tell us."

Shawmut and Osborne laughed. "We'll do the bridge building," said Shawmut. "You guys just cut the logs."

The jungle presented an unbroken wall on either side of the tracks, comprised of all manner of palms, some standing on tall stilts rooted in the floor, and kapok trees, rising above the forest with thick round green crowns. Giant ferns pushed out fronds to brush the windows of the passenger car. Peter saw many other trees he could not identify, and Anthony, looking quickly through a guidebook, shook his head and grinned. "The leaf shapes change depending on whether a tree is old or young . . . We need a botanist!"

He did manage to identify a huge saman tree, spreading over its section of forest like a giant's umbrella.

"Grandfather of the forest," OBie said. "Glad to see vigor in old age. There's hope for us fogies yet."

The train's passage disturbed hordes of squirrel monkeys, which rushed off through the canopy, and Peter saw several green parrots and one macaw, bright red with blue markings.

Shellabarger sat slumped in his seat, snoring after his vigil during the night. He had kept watch the longest. Behind him, face pale in the green light from the jungle, Wetherford stared out the windows at nothing in particular, lips puckered as if about to whistle. The train began its long climb. With frequent tenor blasts on the steam whistle, it dragged its line of cars along the rock edge of the Caron�past a broad, foaming set of falls. Mist rose in clouds and drifted across the tracks and forest, wetting the glass and swirling in through the open windows.