The Safari Starts
_Thrumm—thrumm—thrumm—thrumm—_
As Biff awakened, the steady sound made him think that he was back on
the plane above the Amazon. He opened his eyes expecting to see the
yellow sea far below.
Instead, he saw black water streaming past the side of a boat, churning
white as it scudded back into the distance. When he turned his head, he
saw his father beside him.
They were propped against some boxes near the front of a long cabin
cruiser, which had a permanent top stretched like a canopy over its
large, open cockpit, making it ideal for tropical travel. But there was
nothing ideal about Biff’s present plight.
Biff’s hands were bound in back of him by a rough cord that chafed his
wrists. His ankles, too, were tightly tied. At a glance, Biff saw that
his father was in a similar situation. The thin, tough rope around Mr.
Brewster’s ankles looked like a tropical vine.
Biff tried to speak, but he found his lips too dry, his throat too
parched. He caught a warning headshake from his father, and following
the direction of Mr. Brewster’s gaze, Biff saw two chunky men, clad in
baggy, sleeveless shirts and old khaki trousers cut off at the knees.
The pair were standing guard like patient watchdogs, looking for any
move from the captives. They had black, straight hair and coppery skin;
those features, plus their stony, immobile expressions marked them as
Indians from the headwaters of the river, which, from its blackish
color, could only be the Rio Negro.
One Indian spoke in a guttural dialect, and a shrill voice responded
from up ahead:
“So they’re awake now? Good! Igo, you take the wheel.”
One Indian moved forward. Moments later, a scrawny man with a crafty,
wizened face beneath a shock of whitish hair, stepped into sight. To the
other Indian, he piped:
“Ubi, you stay here. You help me watch.”
Then, tilting his head in birdlike fashion, the white-haired man studied
the prisoners and demanded:
“What were you two doing around that boathouse?”
Mr. Brewster kept his lips tightly closed, his eyes staring straight
back toward the frothy wake from the cruiser’s propeller. Biff, too,
ignored the question.
“Maybe you’d talk if I gave you a drink of water,” the scrawny man
suggested, “and maybe I ought to toss you in that big drink out
there”—he gestured toward the river—“and let you try to swim ashore. You
wouldn’t get far, tied like that.”
The stolid silence of the Brewsters annoyed the white-haired man. His
voice rose to a still higher pitch:
“I mean it, every word of it! I’ll find a way to make you talk, as sure
as my name is Joe Nara!”
Biff almost gulped the name, “Joe Nara!” before he caught himself. Then
he heard his father speak calmly in reply.
“If you are really Joe Nara,” stated Mr. Brewster, “I’ll tell you all
you want to know. Only I don’t believe that you are Joe Nara.”
Oddly, the wizened man’s anger faded. His own tone became even as he
asked, “And why wouldn’t I be Joe Nara?”
“Joe Nara is a husky chap,” returned Mr. Brewster, “with dark hair, a
bit gray, but not white. He’s tough, but he doesn’t get angry and
excited. He has too good a sense of humor.”
Biff saw a twinkle in the wizened man’s eyes. The scrawny face relaxed
in a genuine smile. In a soft, faraway tone, he asked, “And who told you
all that?”
“Joe Nara’s partner, Lew Kirby, before he died.”
“So Lew is dead. I was afraid of that.”
As he spoke, the wizened man’s expression became very sorrowful. He
gestured to Ubi, and the Indian cut the crude ropes that bound the
prisoners.
“I _am_ Joe Nara,” the white-haired man said. “I’ve grown a lot older in
the years since I saw Lew Kirby last. Kind of lost my sense of humor,
too, living upriver with nobody but Indians to talk to. What’s your
name?”
“Tom Brewster. And this is my son Biff.”
Mr. Brewster extended his own hand, palm up. Old Joe Nara slapped his
own hand palm downward, meeting Mr. Brewster’s with a solid whack,
followed by a tight grip to which Mr. Brewster responded firmly.
“That’s how Lew and I always shook hands,” declared Nara. “I guess you
and Lew were friends all right, or he wouldn’t have shown you that
grip.”
Ubi was bringing gourds of water. Nara waited until Biff and his father
had slaked their thirst. Then, with a chuckle, the white-haired man
remarked:
“I guess Lew must have told you about the time he and I went to Lake
Titicaca down in Peru to look for Inca gold?”
“No, Kirby never told me that,” returned Mr. Brewster, “because you
never went there. He said you planned the trip but gave it up. You came
up this way instead.”
“And where would we have found gold near the headwaters of the Rio
Negro?”
“I can tell you in two words: El Dorado.”
That convinced Joe Nara. He opened a door beneath the short forward deck
and revealed a compact kitchen galley. He heated up a pot of _feijoada_,
a Brazilian dish of black beans cooked with dried meat. With it he
served bowls of _mandioca_, a mush made from the pulp of the _cassava_.
Simple though the fare was, it tasted so good that Biff eagerly accepted
the second helping that Nara offered him.
“I was really hungry,” said Biff. “I feel as though I had been asleep
for hours.”
“You were,” returned Nara. “That stuff you inhaled is a secret Indian
brew that acts like chloroform. Gives you an appetite, though, when you
do wake up.”
“And just why,” asked Mr. Brewster dryly, “did you happen to try the
stuff out on us?”
“I’ll tell you why,” asserted Nara. “Every now and then, I come down
from the mine with Igo and Ubi to buy supplies. Whatever I buy, I pay
for with these.”
From his pocket, Nara brought some small nuggets of pure gold which
clinked heavily when he trickled them from one hand to the other.
“People have been trying to trail me back up to the mine,” continued
Nara, “so I bought this boat, the _Xanadu_, from a rubber outfit that
had gone broke. I decided to come downriver to see who was spying on me.
Before I even got to Santa Isabel, I saw a crew unloading supplies at an
old abandoned camp.”
“Whitman’s crew!” exclaimed Mr. Brewster. “I sent them up the Rio Negro
to wait for me, so I could start on a safari to find your mine.”
Nara gave an understanding chuckle.
“I had Igo and Ubi talk to the natives,” Nara said. “They learned that
the expedition had started from a boathouse outside of Manaus. So I came
all the way down the river to look into it. We were watching the
boathouse when you came along.”
“So you thought we were enemies—”
“Not exactly enemies,” corrected Nara. “Just suspicious characters.
After Igo and Ubi grabbed you, I decided to bring you along. Now that
you’ve explained yourselves, I’ll turn around and take you back down to
Manaus if you want.”
“Now that we’ve started upriver,” decided Mr. Brewster, “there is no
need to go back. We sent our luggage on to Santa Isabel by air, and we
intended to take a plane ourselves. But now we may as well keep on with
you.”
All that day, the _Xanadu_ sped swiftly up the Rio Negro. Biff took his
turn at the wheel and was pleased by the way the cruiser handled. At
intervals, the river became so thick with islands that it reminded Biff
of the famous Narrows that he had seen from the air above the lower
Amazon. But here on the Rio Negro, the channels were shallow as well as
twisty. Still, Biff found no difficulty in guiding the sleek craft
through the maze.
“The _Xanadu_ was built to order for this river,” Nara told Biff.
“That’s why I bought her. Be careful, though, when we reach that island
dead ahead. The channel appears to split there—”
[Illustration: _The_ Xanadu _thrummed upriver_]
As Nara spoke, the palm-fringed island vanished. The whole sky had
opened in one tremendous downpour. Biff couldn’t believe that it was
only rain. He thought for the moment that the _Xanadu_ had come beneath
a tremendous waterfall. Adding to the illusion was the sudden rise of
steam from the heated jungle that flanked the channel. Instantly, the
speeding cruiser was shrouded in a mist that swelled above it.
“Swing her about!” shrilled Nara. “Our only chance is to turn downstream
before the flood hits us!”
Mr. Brewster stepped up and took the wheel. Instead of taking Nara’s
advice, he sped the boat straight upstream, picking his course in an
amazing fashion. Somehow, he must have gauged the exact position of the
threatening island, for he veered past it. New channels seemed to open
with each swerve of the cruiser’s bow.
Biff’s father had seen Navy service in the South Pacific and was
familiar with jungle waterways as well as tropical storms. As a
Lieutenant, Junior Grade, he had been trained specially for jungle
fighting and had won medals for bravery, finally leaving the service as
a Lieutenant Commander.
“It’s better to buck the current,” Mr. Brewster declared, “than to let
it carry us into something we can’t avoid.”
Igo and Ubi were releasing curtains from beneath the permanent top,
giving the cruiser’s interior the effect of a long, narrow tent,
completely sheltered from the terrific downpour, which like many
tropical rains, was coming straight downward.
Some of the narrow channels were flooding rapidly, and there, big logs
and branches occasionally met the cruiser’s rounded prow, only to glance
aside as Mr. Brewster deftly turned the wheel. They reached a wider
channel where a headland bulked suddenly in midstream; but it proved to
be a small floating island, composed of small palm trees sprouting from
a mass of soil and undergrowth that had come loose from an overhanging
bank.
Biff could hear the chatter of monkeys and the screech of birds as the
passing branches scraped the hanging canvas on the cruiser’s side. Then
the tiny islet and its excited living freight had drifted far
downstream. Still Mr. Brewster kept steadily to his course, staring
upstream through the cruiser’s rainswept windshield.
Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the rain ended, revealing a new maze
of channels that could be found only by looking for gaps among the tree
branches, so high had the water risen in this sunken area. Cutting the
speed, Mr. Brewster navigated the openings gingerly. That brought a
chuckle from Joe Nara.
“Kind of lucky, weren’t you?” he remarked.
“Yes, I was rather lucky,” acknowledged Mr. Brewster. “Like you and Lew
Kirby, when you stumbled onto that mine of yours.”
“We were more than lucky,” retorted Nara. “We were smart. Didn’t Lew
tell you how we doped it out?”
“He said you ran into a tribe of Indians who were guarding a mountain
that they claimed was sacred.”
“That’s right. Wai Wai Indians. Igo and Ubi are members of the tribe.”
Nara gestured toward the stolid pair who now were rolling up the canvas
curtains. “What else did Lew say?”
“He said you convinced the Indians that you were a powerful witch
doctor, so they led you to the lost mine.”
“From the tricks I showed them,” chuckled Nara, “they thought I was El
Dorado the Original, and that the mine belonged to me and Lew. You know
the story of the man who turned all golden? Well, I proved it could be
done.”
Biff was hoping that Nara would give more details on that subject, when
suddenly, the white-haired man demanded:
“Did Lew give you a map to locate the mine?”
“Not exactly,” replied Mr. Brewster. “He gave me one showing a route
from the mine to some waterways which he said led to the Orinoco River.
That was all.”
“That was enough. It proved there was a short way out.”
“Yes, but I still have to go over the actual route to make sure that
gold ore could be transported by it, down the Orinoco.”
“Do you have the map with you now?”
“Only part of it.”
From deep in his pocket, Mr. Brewster produced the torn corner from
Kirby’s map.
“A prowler stole the rest from my hotel room,” he explained. “I managed
to hold on to the part that shows the mine.”
Joe Nara stroked his chin in worried fashion.
“If somebody showed me the rest of the map,” he commented, “I might have
to believe them if they said they knew Lew Kirby, too.”
“I thought of that,” returned Mr. Brewster calmly, “and I would be glad
if such a person should appear. It would be a case of a thief trapping
himself.”
Joe Nara nodded as though he agreed; but he immediately dropped the
subject of the map and the mine as well.
During the next few days, the _Xanadu_ thrummed upriver, keeping to
broad channels instead of short-cuts between islands. This simplified
the handling of the cruiser during brief but heavy rainstorms. Biff
noted that after each rain the air soon became as humid as before. It
was hot at night as well as in the daytime, and while one member of the
group piloted the cruiser under the bright tropical moon, the others
slept in the ample cockpit; never in the tiny forward cabin.
One evening when Nara was at the wheel, Biff and his father were seated
near the stern, far enough away for Biff to ask:
“Do you think Joe Nara doubts your story, Dad?”
“About the map being stolen?” returned Mr. Brewster. “He might be
wondering about it. After all, I could have torn the corner from a map
that belonged to someone else.”
“But you gave him Kirby’s hand grip and when you mentioned ‘El Dorado’
it was like a password.”
“I could have learned those from some other person. Nara has to be
cautious, with a gold mine at stake. I think he trusts me but wants to
sound me out. Watch him, and you’ll see he is suspicious of everything.”
Biff noted that as the trip continued, Nara insisted upon giving other
river craft a wide berth. When occasional airplanes flew high above,
Nara always leaned out from beneath the canopy to study them
suspiciously, but the planes apparently took no notice of the boat
below.
After the cruiser had passed Santa Isabel, Biff was taking his turn at
the wheel when Nara approached and remarked:
“Pretty soon we’ll drop you and your dad at the old rubber camp where
your friend Whitman is waiting for you.”
“Aren’t you going to join us on the safari?”
“Not there,” returned Nara. “I’m taking the _Xanadu_ on to Sao Gabriel,
to see if we can buck the rapids and reach the upper river.”
Mr. Brewster had been close enough to hear Nara’s comment. Now, he put
the query:
“Then where will we meet you, Joe?”
“At Piedra Del Cucuy,” Nara replied. “You can see it for miles, a big
rock rising from the forest, where Brazil, Venezuela, and Colombia all
meet up. By the time you arrive there, we will know if it is safe to go
on.”
“Why wouldn’t it be safe?” asked Biff.
“Because of the Macus, the head-hunters who raid the river settlements.”
Nara turned to his two Indians and said: “Tell them about the Macus.”
“Macu very bad,” stated Igo.
“Macu kill for head,” added Ubi.
At last the _Xanadu_ reached an old, dilapidated landing, where half a
dozen men stood beside some huts on the high bank. Mr. Brewster
indicated one man who was wearing khaki shorts, white shirt, and pith
helmet.
“That’s Whitman,” said Mr. Brewster. “He’s too far away to hail him.” He
brought out a leather case containing a flat metal mirror and handed it
to Biff.
“Whitman understands Morse,” Mr. Brewster said. “Signal him to send out
a boat for us, Biff.”
Biff turned the mirror toward the sun, then slanted it in Whitman’s
direction. Covering the mirror with his hand, he flashed the message in
dots and dashes: S-E-N-D B-O-A-T.
Whitman pointed to a canoe on the shore. Biff watched two figures hurry
down and clamber into the craft, a small figure at the bow, a big one in
the stern. They paddled out to the waiting cruiser and swung alongside.
The man in the stern, a husky, barrel-chested native, furnished a broad,
friendly smile.
“Me Jacome,” he announced.
The bow paddler was an Indian boy about Biff’s age and size. He was
wearing faded blue denim trousers, ragged at the knees, and a shirt that
matched it in color and tattered sleeves. He reached up to grab the
cruiser’s side, adding, “I’m Kamuka.”
Biff extended his own hand and responded, “I’m Biff.” In that unexpected
handshake, the two boys established an immediate friendship. They
grinned at each other as Biff helped Kamuka swing the canoe about so
that Jacome could hold the stern alongside.
As soon as Biff and his father stepped into the canoe the _Xanadu_ sped
off like a startled creature. Joe Nara at the wheel, waved good-by,
while Igo and Ubi simply stared back like a pair of reversed
figureheads. Jacome and Kamuka did fast work with their paddles to
prevent the canoe from tipping in the cruiser’s swell. Then they headed
toward the dock.
Kamuka looked over his shoulder and said to Biff, “I like the way you
send message. You show me how?”
Biff nodded. “I’ll show you how.”
During the short paddle, Mr. Brewster talked to Jacome in Portuguese and
Biff, listening closely, understood most of what was said. Mr. Brewster
asked about the luggage and was told that it had arrived by air. Also,
he wanted to know if the safari was ready to start. Jacome told him yes,
that they had been waiting for him to arrive.
When they reached the shore, Hal Whitman was still up by the huts
engaged with the natives in an excited conversation. Mr. Brewster
started in that direction, and Biff was about to follow when a hand
plucked his sleeve. It was Kamuka, with the request:
“You spell message now?”
“All right,” agreed Biff. He produced the mirror, caught the sun’s
glint, and focused it on the wall of a hut perhaps a hundred feet away.
“Now, watch—”
Biff halted abruptly. A burly native, wearing baggy white shirt and
trousers, with a red bandanna tied about his head, had joined the
argument and was pushing Mr. Whitman back into the hut.
“Urubu!” exclaimed Kamuka. “He make trouble!”
Whitman came from the hut with a shotgun and gestured for the native,
Urubu, to be on his way. Instead, Urubu grabbed for the gun and snatched
it from Whitman’s grasp, tripping him at the same time. Mr. Brewster was
starting forward on the run, but he was too far away to help Whitman.
Urubu raised the gun butt to drive it down on Whitman’s head. Biff could
see the savage look on Urubu’s face. Kamuka gripped Biff’s arm. The
native boy’s voice was breathless:
“Somebody must help Mr. Whitman! Quick!”