The Thirty Gang/Chapter 3

HE delta of the Ventuari, señores, is a puzzling place. There, two powerful rivers, the Orinoco and the Ventuari, both born in the eastern mountains, meet each other head-on, like a pair of bulls locking boras. Since neither can push the other back into its own mountains, and both must go somewhere, they stagger off westward together until they meet the Atabapo and the Guaviare, which help the Orinoco to go northward again.

I suppose it is this everlasting fight between the two rivers which has gouged out the land all around their meeting-place and made the great Raudal de Santa Barbara. At any rate, the raudal is there, and it is a huge bay full of islands, big and little. And among these islands an experienced riverman can pick quite a number of channels if he will. And I, who had worked rubber for years on the Alto Orinoco before moving to the Ventuari, knew most of the ways through that labyrinth. So, if I had known just where Paco waited to kill me, I could have dodged around his gang with little trouble. That is, I could have done so if he had been among the islands of the delta.

But Paco, too, knew his Orinoco. And, since he was there for the purpose of getting me, he would hardly wait at any place where there was any chance for me to slip past him. He would go far enough up the Ventuari to be clear of the islands, and make camp at some point where he could not fail to see me. He would be a fool to do otherwise.

Yet there was still a way of getting around him. It was a long way and a hard way, and a way open to only one white man in the world—to me, Loco León, rover of the wilds and friend of the Maquiritares. And, rough though that way was, the thought of it was what had made me laugh there on the dark Orinoco; for no road is too hard for the man who would cheat his foes and save his life.

Besides, I had plenty of time and little to do, and I could see a bit of new country by taking this long swing. And so far as my San Fernando friends were concerned, I could disappear completely. Not even the mestizos who now peddled my canoe would be able to tell of my trail.

So I lay back in the carroza and chuckled, and the paddlers thumped on through the darkness with never a word. I knew they had heard that loud voice and what it said, but I did not believe they knew anything more than that; for they had been my crew on the journey to Bolívar and back, and so their recent stop in San Fernando had been no longer than my own; and the plan of having me killed by the Butcher probably was not generally known in the town, since it was made without the knowledge of Funes himself. At the same time, I did not trust them any too much.

When we had gone far enough up the Orinoco to be well beyond the town, I made them work to the north shore and paddle on until the lantern, now burning again, showed us a bare rock. There we tied up.

"You will sleep on the stone," I told them. "And do not come aboard before dawn."

They made no objection. They only asked that I give them the lantern, so that no tigre might pounce on them in the night. Since it is customary to burn a lantern in that way when sleeping so, I let them have it. They picked their places and lay down, and I stretched out inside the little cabin. But I did not sleep at once. They were talking low among themselves, and I knew that presently they would speak a little louder, as they always did when discussing something.

Soon I caught the name "el Carnicero." And before long one argued:

"But no, Tito, why should he spare us? He drinks blood like a murciélago—a vampire bat. Do you think he will let us go to tell of what he did to el capitán? You are simple."

That was what I had listened for. It told me that these men had not been bribed to kill me, and that they worried for fear Paco would murder them as well as me—which was not at all unlikely. So I knew I could sleep peacefully that night.

"Oh, be quiet!" I growled, as if disturbed by their voices. "The Butcher is a fool, and I will make a monkey of him. He will not even see you."

"Como, capitán?" somebody asked eagerly. "How?"

"I will show you. Now be still."

They hushed, and I went to sleep.

At dawn we were up, and at sunrise we were away. And all that day, and all the next, we crawled on up the river undisturbed. Two or three dugouts and one piragua passed us, but all were going down-stream. From San Fernando came no boat.

My men had traveled with' me before, and they knew I had the habit of getting the better of any one who attacked me. They also knew I would pay them well for their work, and that it was best for them not to desert me.

Still, the thought of the Butcher worked on their minds, as was only natural. So did the fact that I, who had not the reputation of running away from anybody, had left the town in such a hurry. And on the second day, as we neared the big raudal, one of them made bold to ask me why Paco wanted me.

I told them I did not know, unless he was hired for the job. I also told them just what had come about at San Fernando, and they laughed about it for half an hour afterward, for none of them liked the Argels. And then, deciding that it was time to hearten them and to tell them what they must know in a few hours, I added:

"Paco waits for us in the Ventuari. Let us wish him a pleasant time there. He thinks himself very clever, but there are many things he does not know. One of them is that on this trip I do not go up the Ventuari, but up the Orinoco."

They stared.

"Como? You are quitting your Ventuari grounds?" one asked.

"The grounds on the lower Ventuari are worked out, and the upper river is so dangerous that it would be very hard to bring out the crop next year," I answered. This was true. "So I shall look at another river."

But the other rivers where balata grows are the grounds of other men," the man said.

"That is their affair and mine, not yours," I reminded him. "We go up the Orinoco, and Paco waits up the Ventuari and swears."

They laughed again, much relieved. If I wanted to steal some other man's ground, that was nothing to them; indeed, it would be another joke for them to tell when they returned to San Fernando.

They wondered, of course, what river I had in mind, but I did not tell them. Their job was to do my paddling, not my planning. And now, with three jokes to think about—Otón killed in his own trap,—Paco fooled, and somebody's balata grounds jumped by Loco León—they paddled right merrily.

In the next few days we worked through Santa Barbara, seeing nothing of the Butcher's gang; swung southward, and then eastward, up the Orinoco; and passed river after river flowing in from the mountains at the north. At each of these rivers my men looked at me, and the steersman called forward:

"Aquí, capitán? Here?"

"No," I answered.

And we kept on.

After I had said this at half a dozen river-mouths, it became a sort of joke with them, and even at little caños where they knew I would not turn they asked—

"Aquí?"

They did not care how far we went, for the longer we traveled the more pesos they earned. And when, about forty leagues from the great raudal, I suddenly answered, "Si," to their question, they seemed astonished.

We had reached the mouth of the Cunucunuma: a wild, rough river dashing straight south from high mountains, and very hard to travel because it is full of raudales. In the country up this river grows the balata, and some of this balata had been worked during the previous wet season by Pascual Rivero of San Fernando.

But the balata of Rivero did not interest me. What had brought me there was the fact that on the Cunucunuma lived a tribe of Maquiritares.

YEARS before, while I was on the river Padamo, near the head of the Orinoco, some of those Maquiritares of the Cunucunuma had worked for me. So, though I never had been up their stream, I was known to those Indians. And, though the Maquiritares change their homes at times, moving from river to river for reasons known only to themselves, the Cunucunuma men had been in their old place during the season just past, and some of them had worked for Rivero. So they probably were there now; and I had use for them.

When I told my crew to enter the Cunucunuma they were a little slow in obeying, and their faces showed that they were thinking about something. But they made no objection, and I would not ask them what was on their minds. They probably would tell me when they had thought about it long enough.

Up into the northern river we turned, and after a little hard paddling against its stiff current we halted to cut poles; for the water was only a yard or two deep, so that poling would be easier than swinging the paddle.

While the men chopped their poles and trimmed the bark from them I heard low-toned talking, and I looked up the dark, clear water, wondering what bothered them now. Nobody would be on that stream at that time of year except the Maquiritares, I thought, and my men surely must know that all Maquiritares were my friends. When they came back, though, I learned something.

"Capitân," said the steersman, "do you know that Ramón Rodriguez is on this river?"

I stared, then scowled. Ramón Rodriguez was the foreman of Rivero. He kept the balata work moving in its season and had much more to do with the workmen than Rivero himself; and he was somewhat more aggressive than his chief.

Rivero was sly; he was as bad as Rodriguez, or worse, but he was the sort of man who gets what he wants by lying, cheating, and letting others stand in his place if any danger has to be faced.

Rodriguez had more courage, though none too much; he could bluster and drive men who seemed unlikely to turn on him, but if he had to meet an enemy he would rather shoot him from behind than fight him face to face. He and his chief had gotten along with the Maquiritares of this river because the Indians were paid something, though very little, in trade goods by Rivero, and because they cared nothing for Ramón's loud talk so long as he did nothing worse than talk.

But a loud mouth deceives some people into thinking a man far more bold and reckless than he is; and these mestizos of mine were a little troubled about carrying me up to seize Rivera's grounds when they knew Rodriguez was likely to see them do it. To tell all San Fernando about it afterward would be one thing, but to face Rodriguez on the Cunucunuma was another.

I snorted at the idea of any one fearing that man, but I was none too well pleased to find him or any other outsider here; for I had amused myself so much with the thought of fooling every one that I hated to see my joke spoiled.

"How is that?" I demanded. "This is not the rubber season."

"He is here," was the answer. "We heard he had a woman here, and he came up a week before us."

"A woman! On the Cunucunuma? What sort of woman?"

"A young one. A light Indian. He told about her when he was drunk at San Fernando. He has come back to her."

"A Maquiritare?"

"Si."

"If that is so," I laughed. "I will take her away from him. Vamos!"

So we went on. And as we went, I chuckled and scowled by turns. Rodriguez was a drunken liar and the San Fernando rum-drinkers believed him, I would tell myself.

But then again, I was not so sure. If Rodriguez really was up there and making bold with some Maquiritare woman, trouble was likely to be in the air; and when it came it would break like one of those up- Orinoco thunderstorms, sudden and dangerous. I had not lived so long among the Maquiritares without knowing how they felt about their women.

Two days up the river I suddenly became sure that Rodriguez was on the Cunucunuma. It was nearly noon, and we had passed through a bad raudal and were poling quietly along smooth water, when we smelt smoke. Then, rounding a big rock, we came on several men just beyond, clustered around a small cooking-fire on the sandy shore. One of them jumped up with a startled curse. He was Rodriguez.

And among the cotton-shirted figures which remained squatting and staring at us was one without a shirt. It was a woman.