Black White/Chapter 7

LL the next day my Maco-Maquiritare combination toiled back up the Ventuari. And in all that day very little was said.

I told White that I had a little ranchería above here, and that I now was returning to it. When we reached that place, I said, we could decide on our future moves. No Yabaranos were in sight, nor was any other thing moving on the water; and there was nothing for us two to do but lie idle. He spent most of the day drowsing in the cabin. I, too, dozed and thought by turns.

The coming of the Maquiritares had made my plans more simple in a way. I knew well enough, without asking them, that they now would go back to their up-river home, whether White wished to go there or not. Even if they had to leave him without receiving any of the promised presents, they had finished their work for him. And if I, Loco León, known to them as a man of good heart, wished to go up the river also, they would gladly guide me to their people, with no thought of pay.

As I now could make no friends on the Manapiare, I must do what I had let the Macos think I meant to do—I must visit the Maquiritares. Since I had no intention of carrying my supplies farther onward as the Macos thought, I now had no real need of those Macos. But I decided to keep them with me. Then I should know where they were and what they did, and no man down the river would learn that a whole year’s pay for balata work lay unguarded on a little caño. I did not trust the Macos over-much.

But I was a little puzzled about what to do with White. His work in Venezuela was over, unless he purposed now to explore the balata resources of the Ventuari as well as those of the Caura, which I much doubted. If he did intend anything of the sort, I had a few strong sentiments of my own on that subject—I was here not to enrich any North American company, or any other company, but to look out for the interests of Loco León. But I believed he now desired only to leave Venezuela forever. The question was, how?

There were only two ways; to go to San Fernando and then down the Orinoco, or to come with me up-stream and return to the Caura. The latter plan was by far the better, both for him and for me. The Caura route was much shorter than the roundabout Orinoco way, and, though perhaps more rough, it should be less dangerous; he could make the trip with a Maquiritare guide or two and travel by a course which he already knew—at least from Salta Para down—while of the Ventuari he knew nothing, and at San Fernando he would have hard work in getting men who would not cut his throat. As for myself, I could not send him down the Ventuari unless I gave him my own curial, which probably would never come back to me if I let it go; and I did not care to have any news of my movements reach the San Fernando murder-brigade just then.

On the other hand, I was not anxious to take with me among the Maquiritares a man who seemed always to be creating trouble about women. All the Maquiritare girls are very light of skin, some are slender and graceful, and a few have pretty faces. And the Maquiritare men, good-tempered though they usually are, have been known to kill outsiders who meddled with their women. I could see that these two Maquiritares of ours, though they had not blamed the blanco in their talk with me, really did not blame the Yabaranos either for the attack on them. And I knew that as soon as they reached their people the tale of that affair would be told.

That night, as White and I hung in our hammocks in my hut, I asked him what he planned to do now.

“To get out,” he answered. “What’s the best way?”

“Up the Ventuari and down the Caura,” I told him. “That is the shortest.”

He shook his head.

“Don’t like it. What other ways have you got?”

“None, except to go down this Ventuari and then down the Orinoco.”

“Then I’ll do that. It’s bad up above here, they tell me. Going down it’ll be all smooth water, and”

“Smooth water!” I interrupted. “You have seen the Orinoco only up to the Caura, and know nothing of what is higher up. You have not seen this Ventuari at all, except today. Let me tell you of the ‘smooth water.’” And I described the raudales of the Orinoco.

“Oh, well, I can probably get a good boat and men at that town the maps show—San Fernando de Something-or-other,” he said. “It’s like Bolívar, I suppose.”

“As much like Bolívar as a caribe is like an arindajo,” I contradicted. And I told of the Funes gang.

“Uh-huh,” he drawled. “But I’ll make out all right. If you’ll sell me a little of this trade-stuff of yours to pay off my boys here with, and scare up a canoe somewhere for me to get to San Fernando in, I’ll fix the rest of it.”

“You will need all your handkerchiefs, then,” I retorted, a little vexed. “If you think you have suffered from mosquitoes here, wait until you meet those between San Fernando and Atures.”

At that he stiffened.

“Say, d’you mean that?”

“Mean it? It is the worst place on the whole river,” I declared.

And I told him about that too. I did not stretch the truth at all. When one speaks of the mosquito swarms of that part of the river, the simple truth is bad enough.

“Hm!” he muttered, lifting a hand to his zancudo sore. “How about the bugs up this river—the Ventuari? Are they any worse than here?”

“They are not even so bad. Up among the hills it is cooler, and only a few days from here there are no bugs at all—except garrapatas and such things, and not many of them. So the Maquiritares tell me; and they know.”

After a minute he said:

“Well, maybe we’d better go that way after all. As you say, it’s shorter.”

I stared, and then I turned away to hide a grin. The man-killing bad waters and bad men of the Orinoco were nothing to him, but mosquitoes which might scar his skin like mine—those were more than he wanted to face.

Then, thinking ahead, I lost my grin and became very serious. And I said:

“Very well, señor. You have chosen the best way. I shall be glad to be of assistance. You may have any of these trade goods at the same price I paid in Bolívar, and I have no doubt that my Maquiritare friends above here will carry you safely and comfortably down the Caura, if I ask them to do so. But before we go among them I must speak frankly to you about one thing.

“These Maquiritares, as you must know by now, are a fine race of men—the finest Indians in Venezuela. They are intelligent, friendly when well treated, good-tempered, and brave. In many ways they are almost white men, and in some ways they are better than many men I have known who called themselves white. But still, they are Indians, and not only Indians, but sons of the most resolute fighters known among the Indians of South America—the Caribs.”

“The you say! I never knew that,” he broke in.

“It is so,” I nodded. “They are of Carib stock; another name for them is Uayungomo. The Uayungomos of the Caura are the same people who, three hundred years ago, were called ‘Ewaipanomo,’ and fought so fiercely that other Indians spread terrible tales of them, saying that they had no heads and that their eyes were in their chests. And these Maquiritares of the Ventuari headwaters, next to the Caura, also are ‘Ewaipanomo.’ They are not afraid to meet death. Neither are they afraid to give death to men who deserve it. And one thing which makes them feel that a man deserves death is—using their women as playthings.”

I paused a minute. He said nothing. So I went on.

“Now it happens,” I said, “that you are a very handsome man, and that women come easily to you. You will remember that I was in Bolívar when you were there, and I heard and saw certain things which I need not mention, except to say that you were near death because of those things. If you had been killed there, and the killer had been caught, there would have been punishment for him. But if for the same reason you should be killed up here, there would be no punishment. In these hills the only law is Indian law—Maquiritare law—Carib law.”

There I stopped. He was silent several minutes. Then he yawned.

“Uh-huh,” he said. “I understand perfectly. Don’t worry. They’re nothing to me—any of ’em. A Spanish señorita of more-or-less high degree is mighty interesting for awhile, I’ll admit, even if she lives in a one-horse town like Bolívar; but these Indian girls who wear nothing but a little bead apron and never heard of a toothbrush—they’re not even interesting. Just show me the quickest way out of here, and you can have this country and everything that goes with it. I’m through.”

“That is very good,” I told him. “We shall start onward tomorrow.”

“Suits me.” He yawned again. “By the way, thanks for the polite bunk about my looks. You’re a mighty good-looking chap yourself, if you only knew it.”

“Then I am glad I do not know it,” I answered. “I have noticed that the men who do know it are often in trouble.”

Leaving him to think that over, I went to sleep.