Carats and Coconuts (19 page)

I’d much rather have been chasing
butterflies. Not the lizards. But definitely the
butterflies.

The arrows being made were long wooden
shafts without a blade. It was January and the rivers had risen
again causing the fish to ascend with ‘em. Boripey – or fishing –
was sure to be excellent here in this section of pools and rapids
using these deadly-sharp sticks.

As the water in the main river channel
rushed downstream, we sat near a tiny pool that The Chief said had
the best fishing around.

“
I feel so at home here,” he
said, looking back toward the camp he’d set up for a several day
event of nothing but fishing. “To sleep in the woods is
good.”

We were about a three hour walk from
the village. The Chief and his family would stay here about a week,
loading up with manioc and yams along with their catches before
going back to the village and preparing to head out again to
another of his favorite spots.

In this area replete with large pools,
still waters and ample fish, Chief Valente would put his timbo –
plant poison – in the water and let the fish come to
him.

“
This is fascinating,” R
said, taking in the way The Chief’s fellow fishermen prepared the
timbo.

“
I’m betting you’ll take
away a plethora of new gimmicks from this experience,” I said to R,
noticing how completely absorbed in The Chief’s lessons he
was.

He nodded but was too engrossed to
answer me.

I sat down next to Chief Valente and
watched his men work.

While some cut the vines they’d chosen
and tied them into bundles, others used the bark of certain trees
packed in baskets of palm leaves. The men beat on the water with
their bundles and baskets, sending the fish upstream. As the fish
swam back, they were either shot with arrows like The Chief was
preparing or caught by hand.

“
So when does the timbo kick
in?” I asked, not sure why they’d even needed the poison, seeing
how adept they were with their arrows and bare hands.

“
Ahhh, my dear. When we wake
up tomorrow, this patch of river and the banks will be full of dead
fish from beating all the poison into the water.”

“
I’m definitely trying this
in the lab when we get home,” R said, while he and Roman took up
seats next to me and The Chief.

Roman and I just smiled at each other.
He was probably thinking the same thing I was, that it wouldn’t be
long before timbo was a top secret-op weapon.

Watching Grams beat the water with her
palm basket, I laughed out loud. Hell, she was making so much damn
noise, it was no wonder the fish were terrified and swimming
upstream at an amazing, race-worthy rate. They’d “drink the juice”,
so to speak, just to get outta’ her way.

The men, women and even children began
stringing up fish on lines. I knew that meant they’d soon be
roasted on the jiraus. The smaller fish would be cooked in packets
made of fresh babacu leaves.

We were all in for a wonderful
meal.

But first, while the tribesmen
constructed the jiraus roasting platforms out of the twigs the
women and children had gathered, we had business to attend
to.

“
I’ve found the perfect
digit for our rendezvous with Fosito,” Chief Valente said, a
coldness coating his normally warm and jovial tone.

“
A digit is a hiding place,
right?” Roman asked.

He was all ears to hear Chief
Valente’s plan. And so was I.

No one knew this forest like he did.
That’s why Roman and R had enlisted his help in finding the perfect
spot for our gem smuggling showdown.

“
Indeed. Yes. I found the
perfect place while on one of my favorite hunting trails. Then,
with R’s help, built it to fit our needs.”

“
Excellent. So it’s ready to
go then?” Roman asked, chewing on a blade of grass he’d found along
the bank. “When can we see it?”

“
I’ll take you there
tonight, following our meal.”

I knew Roman and R liked that
answer.

Me, on the other hand?

I was scared out of my already very
disturbed mind.

N
ight hunting wasn’t traditionally practiced here in this part
of the Amazon Rainforest, but with the introduction of firearms and
lanterns came an all new thrill-of-the-hunt for the Sol
Larga.

Following the best fish
fry-slash-roast I’d ever been to, we set out in a typical Sol Larga
formation so that Roman and R could inspect Chief Valente’s hiding
place.

I’d have given anything to just stay
back in our camp and hide, but I was not about to let my men know I
was scared shitless.

In these types of expeditions, the men
walk out in front carrying their arms, staying ever vigilant for
sounds, signs or movements that would indicate the nearness of game
animals, or, in our current situation, human animals playing games
too.

A little behind come the women and
babies, and yes, for this expedition, it could be argued I was both
a woman and a baby too.

Hell, my knees were shaking so bad I
could hardly keep up with the guys.

Each time we stopped to rest at safe
spots designated by special leaves The Chief had turned over to
mark his trail, we continued on in the same exact order. This was
both for our safety and followed protocol in the Sol Larga world,
showing our respect for The Chief and his village
elders.

Grams followed close behind me. I
still couldn’t believe Chief Valente had allowed her to accompany
us.

Something about her fearlessness made
men respect her, while we level-headed women were both in awe as
well as worried what kind of pickle her bravado and bluster would
get us into.

“
I can’t believe you don’t
want one of these bracelets for your fashion empire,” Grams said,
admiring her new accessory beneath her lantern’s small stream of
light.

I simply shook my head and kept
walking.

I highly doubted my high-class
clientele would be interested in a bracelet made out of tucum
string from the leaves of a Brazilian palm fiber and monkey
teeth.

With her monkey teeth bracelet,
feather ornaments on her head and arms, jaguar skin adornments and
some kind of vile resin bead now pierced through her lip, Grams was
one Maxine wanna-be who’d gone crazier than the loons in this
forest.

“
Did I tell you that I might
just stay here with the Sol Larga for a while after all this crap
is over?” She asked, her voice sounding rather odd, as if she’d had
some dental procedure done.

Her lip was still so swollen from the
piercing that I was surprised she could even talk, period. But
yeah, I wasn’t that lucky.

“
Why would you want to do
that?”

“
Marriages of young men to
women of my age are common in the Sol Larga way of life. Hell,
Cougars rule here!”

I really hoped we got to our site
soon. I couldn’t take much more of this.

H
unting is the activity that most interests the Sol Larga. And
it doesn’t seem to matter whether they’re hunting their normal prey
– birds, mammals, fish and reptiles, monkeys or wild pigs – or
humans.

They’re very-very adept, and stop
right there with all the PETA screaming. I’m a huge PETA peep too,
but this isn’t cruelty to animals and hunting for sport here, this
is food for the table and millennia old spiritual beliefs in
practice.

The Sol Larga use habitual trails,
with each hunter exploiting his own trail. By exploiting, I mean
they get to know every square inch of it and use that knowledge to
their advantage.

They are as expert at building unique
hiding places along these trails as they are at imitating the
whistles or cries of the animals they’re hunting to lure them
toward their hiding spot.

One way they hunt is to track down
their prey in their holes – especially armadillos. When they find
one, they fan smoke into the hole and asphyxiate ‘em.

The Sol Larga believe in assimilating
themselves into the environment of the game they’re
hunting.

But how do you assimilate yourself
into the culture and mindset of the gem smuggling thugs we’re
hunting?

I had a feeling I was about to find
out.

No one does as much preparation for a
hunt as the Sol Larga. It’s their detailed preparations that
attract their targets.

Whether it was our next meal or
Stanley and The Foz, tonight’s hunt would play out the same
way.

“
You’ve got to speak the
language of your intended prey,” Chief Valente said, while pulling
apart a couple of bushes lining the path we were
following.

“
Stanley and Fosito only
speak in stones and cash,” I said, not understanding how we were
ever going to lure them into this tropical hideaway.

“
Exactly,” Chief Valente
said. “And we’ve got both to bait them.”

“
When is all this going to
take place?” I asked, bracing myself for the worry-warting I’d be
doing between now and then.

R looked at his watch, which, of
course, had some kind of night vision glow to it.

“
In about twenty minutes.
Let’s get in our places, shall we?” He asked.

The grin he always got when he was
about to put one of his plans into action was already taking over
his countenance.

I looked at The Chief, who had his own
silly grin.

R stretched to the top of his toes to
center his right eyeball in front of some sort of retina reader he
must have attached to the trunk of the tree next to the bushes The
Chief still had pulled apart.

I shook my head.

Not even the Amazon Rainforest was
beyond R’s reach.

Within a few more seconds, the moss I
thought I’d seen at the base of the bushes rose up from the
forest’s floor, and underneath it was an elevator door that soon
opened and stayed so until we were all tucked inside its warmly lit
platform.

The door closed, with two of The
Chief’s best men keeping guard outside.

“
So I take it your men will
be waiting for Stanley and Fosito to join us?”

“
Good guess, my dear,” R
said, looking as if there were no place he’d rather be.

“
We could use a guy like you
around here permanently,” Chief Valente said, looking every bit the
mighty warrior on our descent below the jungle’s floor.

“
I hear you, Chief, but R’s
all ours,” Roman said, putting his arm around me and pulling me
just a wee bit closer to his side.

R smiled, the loyalty in him shining
through.

“
You can have me instead,”
Grams said.

And with that offer, Chief Valente
choked, and I doubted it was from something caught in his
throat.

“
I’m going to take that as
you’ll think about it,” Grams said, on her tiptoes, trying her best
to stare him down.

As uncomfortable as The Chief looked,
I actually thought the tiny wisp of a woman may have actually made
an impact on one of the mightiest warriors this land had ever
known.

Grams had that effect on
people.

The elevator then stopped, and the
door slid open to reveal another lantern-lit tunnel.

“
What is it with you and all
these underground passageways?” I asked R, mentally trying to count
how many I’d ended up in since taking up with Roman and his
ever-faithful Quarter Master.

“
It’s his favorite M.O.,”
Roman said, removing one of the torches from its holder and
lighting it off a nearby lamp.

“
We need to hustle,” R said,
basically ignoring me in favor of getting on with the next stage in
his plan.

We ended up in the same formation we’d
used walking The Chief’s trail, the men in front and Grams and I
bringing up the rear.

“
I wonder if we’ll end up in
some Indiana Jones kinda’ secret chamber?” Grams asked, and not in
a dainty whisper either.

“
I have to give ya that one,
Grams. You’re not too far off from my own your
expectations.”

We kept walking, almost having to jog
to keep up with the men.

After several turns, we finally wound
our way to a large metal door.

This time, R had Roman place his hands
on the screen mounted on a panel running alongside the
door.

“
Hmmmm. Looks like someone
hasn’t told me everything either,” I said, narrowing my eyes at my
prince.

“
You didn’t ask me if I was
hiding anything. I asked you,” Roman said kissing my
nose.

“
Get a room,” Grams
said.

Before we could respond to her, the
door opened. And although I shouldn’t have been surprised, I was
when I saw my parents waiting inside yet another one of their gem
vaults I’d never known existed.