Dinosaur Summer (14 page)

"We all agree, then," Shellabarger said, more cheerful.

"We agree," Anthony said, but his eyes were full of doubts.

The tension seemed to break. Ray closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"I'd hate to have lost those boats," OBie said, grinning broadly all around. "Jack Ford would have had a fit. And Monte would have never let me hear the end of it!"

***

They spent their last few hours on the ship. Anthony laid out their clothes and taught Peter how to make up a backpack. He rubbed his temples and scowled.

"It is the age of alcohol, Peter. Red eyes and puffy red noses and hangovers. Being drunk is just about the only time a man can convince himself he's not a fool. Stands to reason that's when he's the biggest fool of all. We were lucky. Very, very lucky."

"Could you have done anything more?" Peter asked. He hated to see his father being so hard on himself.

"My lad," Anthony said somberly, "we were sitting ducks. Drunk ducks. No excuses. No more drinking."

Peter tied his bedroll and looked around the cabin. "How dangerous is it going to get?"

Anthony finished stuffing his pack and flopped on the lower bunk. He rubbed his temples and frowned. "I didn't think it would be this dangerous when I brought you. You know what kind of danger I'm talking about?"

"Not dinosaurs."

"Right."

"Will they try to kill us?"

Anthony snorted and wiped his nose with a handkerchief. "It could be a lot rougher on the river and in the jungle than I thought, long before we get to El Grande."

Peter thought this over. "I don't want to go back," he said.

Anthony chewed his lower lip and fingered his camera where it lay on the blanket. "A father is responsible for keeping his child healthy."

"I'm not a child."

Anthony gave a short laugh. "I don't want to put you in any danger."

"But you brought me here and you knew there would besome danger." Peter's level of irritation was rising rapidly. This seemed pointless to him. He had madehis decision.

"I wanted to balance out your experience. Until now, you were never outside the United States. You need to see what the world is all about."

"The world is dangerous," Peter said. "Are you going to send me back?" He thrust out his chin and crossed his arms.

Anthony thumped his fist on the bed. He sat up and rubbed his hands on his knees. Peter thought,Five nervous gestures in just a couple of minutes.

"Do you wish you hadn't brought me?" Peter asked, his voice sharp.

"Yes," Anthony said. "But . . ."

"I haven't done anything stupid or wrong," Peter said in a rush. "I learned how to tend the dinosaurs . . . the animals. Vince--Mr. Shellabarger--thinks I'm doing well. I could learn to shoot--"

Anthony gave him a stern look. "I don't want you to ever have to learn to shoot people." "I meant animals, dangerous . . . things. Animals," Peter said. The words started to pour out of him; he was frustrated and afraid--afraid of going, but horrified at the thought of being forbidden to go, of being sent back home. "I know you want me not to have to go through what you did, in the war. But I need to grow up sometime, and that means I have to face things as they are."

Anthony regarded him through narrowed eyes. Why was it he always felt that Anthony was weighing him, judging him? Peter resented this, and stared right back at him.

"I want to stay with you and go to El Grande."

"Can you possibly conceive of how cruel human beings can be?" Anthony asked.

Peter sucked in his breath before answering, to give himself an instant to think. "I probably can't," he said.

"I can. Shellabarger can. We've both had to face bad people, or people stuck in bad situations. What I'm saying, Peter, is that I'm not sure I want you to have to grow up that much, that fast."

"Huh?"

"Never mind," Anthony said. "I won't send you back. Not yet. But I reserve the right to do so, if and when I judge . . . that things are getting too dicey. Okay?"

Peter did not answer.

Chapter Nine

The dinosaurs were unloaded by noon. It was an operation of some delicacy--lifting each cage from the hold, swinging it out over the starboard side of theLibertad, away from the dock, and then lowering it onto one of the five wooden river barges.

Shellabarger supervised the unloading, trying to be everywhere at once. Where the cages did not cover the decks of the barges, steel drums filled with diesel fuel, food, and water for the humans and the animals were arranged in rows, tied down with thick jute ropes. The motion picture cameras and film cans were loaded on the last barge, packed in great black trunks that OBie hoped were waterproof. Ray used the portable camera to record their departure.

The sun chose this day to beam down in full tropical force and the heat was intense. Everybody was soaked in sweat by ten, and by one o'clock, as the barge engines started, Peter could hardly think straight. The sun seemed to actively hate him; its brightness and heat lay on his head like a hot brick.

Peter felt as if everything he drank went directly from his stomach to his sweat glands. Rivers of sweat rolled off him. The town of Puerto Ordaz drew its water pretty nearly untreated from the Caron� Anthony had brought along water purification tablets. He thought they might be able to drink the water safely at El Grande, but certainly not where they were now. He dropped a tablet into each of their canteens.

Anthony took quick shots from the boat and the dock, then rode a motorboat with Peter out to the third barge, which carried Sammy and the avisaurs. Sammy was none too happy with this new floating platform, and let out mournful groans and grunts as the barge rocked in the river.

The best pilots on the river, Jim�z had told them, were Indians. Each barge had an Indian pilot hired by Jim�z. They sat on padded stools within small cabins at the rear of the barges. The pilot of the third boat, a short, skinny fellow only a few years older than Peter, introduced himself as Billie. He spoke English very well.

Shellabarger finished his inspection, accompanying Jim�z on his own motorboat, leaping up on each barge, examining the tie-downs and the cage chocks, peeking under the tarps to see how his beasts were doing. He shouted as he passed the third barge, "They know they're going home. They remember!"

OBie, Ray, and the roustabouts and camera crew took their own boat rides from the dock and clambered onto the barges. Ray and OBie joined Anthony and Peter on the third barge.

They began the journey to the station at San Pedro de las Bocas at two o'clock, late, but Shellabarger had expected to have to tie up at night several times during the upriver journey. The diesel motors were powerful, but they couldn't push the barges faster than ten miles an hour, and the river flowed at three miles an hour.

Anthony and Peter stood on the bow as the barges moved toward the middle of the river and the deeper water.

"No more iceboxes," Anthony said to Peter. "No more fresh food, unless we find fruit or fish on the way."

"Not much chance of that until we get up near El Grande," OBie said, making his way carefully around Sammy's big cage, "and even then, I don't think Shellabarger will take time for us to hunt for bananas. Food isn't that easy to find in these jungles."

"Tell us what it's like," Peter said.

OBie stared philosophically at the barges forming a long line up the river, their engines chugging in unison, laying intertwined trails of black diesel exhaust above the water. The air was still and the exhaust hung behind them for minutes before dissipating.

"It's been years," he said. "I haven't been there since we shot jungle footage forKong. That was after G� shut down the tepuis, and we didn't get to El Grande that time. But all the way up to the canyon and the falls, it's green and beautiful. There are bugs everywhere--butterflies, midges, no-see-ums, flies, biting bugs, and crawling bugs. It rains a lot, and I don't think it'll get any hotter than this, but on El Grande . . ."

He shook himself. "I won't spoil it by telling you ahead of time," he said. "Just believe me, you'll never forget it."

Behind them, half a mile downriver, Captain Ippolito blew the whistle on theLibertad. Peter watched the ship work itself into the deep channel and head back for the open sea.

Billie responded by blatting their barge's horn. The other barges followed suit, the Indian pilots grinning at one another. ***

Peter sat in the shade of Sammy's cage, gaze fixed on the green eastern shore of the Caron�He felt as if he had been hypnotized. Only a month ago, he had been in New York, wondering what he would be doing this summer . . .

Shellabarger yelled at them from the first boat. "Anthony! OBie! We're going to put in for the night about a mile ahead." He waved the map Jim�z had given him. "There's a little cove where we can tie up our boats out of the current. I'll want a watch set up . . . Jim�z says there are bandits even this far south, trying to steal from the diamond miners."

The cove nestled under an overhang of huge trees, just barely big enough to hold all five barges. A line of creosoted wooden piles from an old dock served to tie up the barges. Anthony and Peter and Ray jumped from the third barge to the shore and walked a few yards into the jungle, but much beyond that it was impenetrable. Peter kept looking for the deadlyveintecuatros, the twenty-four-hour ants, but saw none. He did see enough mosquitoes and flies to keep him occupied swatting and brushing at his clothes.

"How about a little yellow fever?" Ray asked testily, turning over his palm to reveal a mosquito he had just squashed. A red smear on his skin showed it had already drawn blood.

"Nature's little creatures of the air feed all the fish," Anthony said with mock piety, and crossed himself, then swatted at a cloud of gnats. "And we'll be feeding them."

"Is it true, male mosquitoes don't bite?" OBie asked from the barge as he stretched out a plank for them to climb back aboard.

"I think so," Peter said.

"The harmless male," OBie said regretfully. "He doesn't know all the finer arts."

Peter watched a small fly land on his hand. It did not look like a mosquito so he did not smash it. Then a needle-stab of pain shot up his wrist. He swatted at the fly but missed, and a small drop of blood welled from his pierced skin.

"The little black flies, they are hell," Billie said, putting on a worn jacket. "They are calledjejenes. " He pulled a netted cap down over his face and the back of his neck, tucking the net into his collar. Peter envied him; but at least they had havelocks hanging behind their hats to keep sun and insects off their necks, and mosquito nets for when they slept.

They set up a small steel cookstove on the second barge. The pilots insisted the gringos cook their meals first, and stood by their cabins, each of them wearing their netted caps.

Keller served as cook. "I used to cook in the Navy," he said. "My food never killed anybody, so I'm qualified."

Gathering around the stove, swatting atjejenes, they ate cups of soup and canned beef. The venator let out a roar just after nightfall, scaring dark fogs of birds out of the jungle all around. They rose with pumping twitters and flapping wings into the twilight and swung about in a cloud to another, less disturbing part of the river.

On the first barge, Shellabarger fed the big predator one of the five sides of beef they had left. "In a day or two, the raw meat's going to go bad," the trainer said, watching Keller and Kasem slip the beef into the venator's cage. Under the tarp, the dinosaur swung about, making the boat pitch and roll in the water. Chewing, crunching, and sucking sounds followed, and Shellabarger backed away, hands on hips. "Dagger won't mind," Keller added. "He's always liked it a little gamy."

Dark came on quickly. Shellabarger suggested they turn in early, for they would head out on the river again at dawn. The five pilots stood by the cookstoves, waiting for their beans to cook, and Billie read Spanish- and Portuguese-language newspapers to the others.

Anthony and Peter rigged their sleeping rolls and mosquito nets. Peter was exhausted. He crawled into the sleeping bag and gazed up through the netting at the dark clouds and brilliance of stars. The last things he heard were Billie's voice, saying prayers in Spanish, and Shellabarger murmuring softly to the struthios.

***

In the morning, Peter was covered with welts from thejejenes. Anthony's skin seemed tougher and his welts did not show as much, but he still itched and swore under his breath.

"Adventure," OBie said, "is nine tenths misery and one tenth disaster."

Ray suffered as badly as Peter. "I feel a little woozy," he said.

"Yellow fever," Peter suggested.

"You're a pal," Ray said, grimacing.

"Or malaria," OBie added, helping untie the barge from the piling.

"Malaria does not come on so soon," Billie said from the cabin. He smiled, showing even yellow teeth, and started the engine on number three.

Peter shared binoculars with his father and studied the forest. The forest took on more meaningful detail the longer Peter observed it. At first, it had seemed a mass of rolling green foliage and brown vines and creepers, dotted at random by white, yellow, and red flowers. The flies had kept him from paying much attention to individual plants and trees near the shore, but here, in the middle of the river, the flies were less bothersome. Now he made out trees strangled by cages of vines, trees that seemed to thrive at different altitudes and brightnesses of sunlight within the canopy. In places the river had changed course recently and undercut the banks, revealing a cutaway of the forest interior, gloomy and bare beneath an almost opaque lid of thick foliage.

OBie was chatting with Billie, and Ray sat sketching on the bow. Sammy had fallen quiet after the boats set out. When Peter lifted the tarp to let air flow through the cage, the big centrosaur, hunkered on his belly with legs half underneath, blinked at him with translucent membranes, but did not lift his head. "Soon, fella," Peter whispered.

Occasionalcuriaras --dugout canoes--slid past the barges, heading downriver, piloted by scrawny brown men with impassive faces half hidden by broad floppy hats. Piles of dirt filled the middle of the dugouts, and in the rear, one or two men sat holding big rifles, hats tilted back. They glared fiercely at anyone who dared to notice.