The Thirty Gang/Chapter 7

S SOON as I studied those brass tubes I thought of Black White. So far as I knew, his was the only rifle of that size in all our Guayana country. The "white-man house" described by the Maquiritares, too, seemed likely to be his. The woman who shared it with him would be Juana, his Indian shadow. But that he should be down here in the Maco country, so far from the Parima highlands of the Caura and the Caroní where he usually wandered, looked queer.

Yet, as I thought about it, it did not appear so puzzling; for El Blanco Negro was restless as a tigre, and if he decided to tramp down into this region there was no good reason why he should not. Certainly it was nothing to cause any concern to us. If the shells had been .44, and the camp had not looked to be that of Indians, we might have had cause to look sharply about us.

Whether Yaracuma, who had lived so far from other Maquiritares, knew anything of Black White I was not sure; but I found that he did.

"El Blanco Negro," I said, holding up the shells.

"Si," he answered quietly. His face did not change, but I felt that he was relieved. I asked him then if he had ever seen Black White; and he gave me no reply at all. This did not annoy me, for I had long been used to this silence of all Maquiritares concerning the white man who had been changed into an unwilling member of their nation. It was quite clear that the Cunucunuma men knew of him, and that was answer enough.

I though it as well, however, to tell Yaracuma that I too knew that man; that I had been with him when his skin was changed, and that sometimes since then he had visited me. The capitán and the others who understood Spanish listened with interest, and later I saw them talking with the rest in their own language, looking now and then at me.

Then we sent away our messengers to Quencua. With a small map which I carefully explained, and with my león ring and orders to my Quencua men, eight young fellows set out at sunrise, carrying only their weapons, hammocks, and some roasted quarters of baquido. Yaracuma gave them strict commands to let nothing delay them. We watched them swing away northeastward and disappear among the rolling knolls. And then we, too, moved.

Down the Iurebe we traveled, walking in the sabana beyond the tree-line of the stream, and taking our time—for the canoes could not reach this water for more than a week. In this easy journeying along through the open, where I had a chance to look at other things than what was just ahead, I noticed that the girl Nama sometimes walked and talked with a well-built young fellow near her own age; and I was glad of it. She had seen her mistake, I thought—although she still stayed near me at the stopping-places. She would mate with this young man, probably, when the new paragua had been built. So I gave no more thought to her.

At the deserted camp reported by our scouts we stopped for a night, finding nothing new. It was just as they had described it, and we saw no sign to show why its makers had come or where they had gone. The next day we left it and journeyed on. When we reached a place which we judged to be half a day from the Ventuari we baited and made a camp where we could wait for canoes to come to us.

In this lazy walk we had used up as much time as it had taken our scouts to travel all the way to the Ventuari and return with their report—three days. The canoes from Quencua could not reach us for several more days. I grew restless, and decided to go on a tramp. Off to the northeast, perhaps a day's march away across the sabana, I had noticed a rugged cerro shaped somewhat like a man's fist, standing up boldly against the sky; and near it, I knew, must flow the little Caño Paró, where hunting should be good. So, warning Yaracuma to keep on using only the driest wood for cooking, in order to avoid smoke, I set out with several of the younger Maquiritares who felt as restless as I.

We moved about for four days, finding the hunting no better than on the Iurebe. Indeed, we did not care so much about killing animals as about killing time. So we gave less attention to the caño than to the hill near it. And, in rambling around that cerro, we found at its base another camp like that on our own stream.

No cartridge-shells were there, and the camp was not so good as the other. Yet the Maquiritares, after looking it all over very carefully, said it had been used by the same people, and that it was at least as old as the first one we had found; probably a little older. Black White and his little party—if they were the camp-makers—seemed to have made these places while heading southwest; and they had not yet come back.

It gave us something to talk about, and that was all. But on the morning of the fifth day something new made us not only talk but act. In the southwestern sky, rising from the point where we had left Yaracuma and the rest of his tribe, rose a tower of black smoke.

The Maquiritares stared and muttered, and I scowled and swore. Had Yaracuma become a fool? Or had the Butcher found them, slaughtered them, burned their camp? Or, perhaps, had the canoes arrived, and was this a signal for us to come in? We did not know. But we started at once for the Iurebe.

I told the fastest man in the little party to push ahead as swiftly as possible, leaving with us everything but his bow and a few arrows, and learn what was taking place. The rest of us held to a steady, rapid walk.

The smoke kept rising hour after hour, too steadily to be that of a destroyed camp. I concluded that Yaracuma either had decided to call us in or had tired of waiting for the Quencua boats and was burning out logs to make dugouts of his own. In either case, I cursed him for an idiot. Yet I had to scold myself as well; for I had given him no good reason to suppose that any enemy was near.

About mid-day the smudge died away. We were traveling faster on this day than when we had left the Iurebe, and already we had put behind us much more than half of the return journey. By this time, perhaps, our runner had reached the caño. We kept on without a pause to eat, gnawing at chunks of cooked meat as we walked. And about the middle of the afternoon we approached the camp.

The runner had not come back. But now, as we slowed and spread out in order to come upon the little settlement quietly, several men of Yaracuma's emerged from the edge of the bush and walked toward us as if they had been waiting. They showed no hurry or concern, and when they came near they grinned.

"What is wrong?" I demanded.

"Nothing. All is well," one answered.

"Then why was all the smoke?"

"El capitán said to make it."

"But why?"

They only grinned again. I bit my tongue to keep from swearing. I knew that the more I might rave the more they would grin and the hotter I should grow; and after that long fast walk I was hot enough. I saved my remarks for Yaracuma.

But, though the men who had met us would give me no satisfaction, they told something in their own tongue to the Maquiritares with me. My companions grunted, and all looked up-stream. I looked also, of course, but saw nothing new. And then we entered the trees.

At the camp I found Yaracuma and the rest. All looked a little amused when I demanded why that smoke had been sent up.

"It is nearly time for the boats," Yaracuma answered calmly.

"Diablo! Do I not know it?" I snapped. "But they are not yet here, and why in el infierno do you blacken the sky?"

"It is time for my men to be here."

"Porqué? For what? There is nothing to do. Do you tell all the world you are here because you want these men to squat and look at you?"

"They are men of Yaracuma. Yaracuma wants them here."

I was angry enough to choke him. But it was true that they were his men, not mine. And he seemed to be enjoying my rage. The others, too, looked as if they saw a joke in the matter. So I shut my mouth, turned my back on them all, and went to my usual sleeping-place; hung my hammock there, and took a cooling bath at the edge of the water. Then I lay and rested for an hour, watching them and listening to talk which I could not understand.

They were speaking of something which seemed to concern me, for they looked my way at times. But, whatever it was, it was nothing about which they were worried. And I was quite sure that if they knew of any danger to me they would tell me of it at once.

It seemed, though, that something or some one was missing. The place looked unchanged, so I glanced at the faces of men and women—and then I knew what was lacking. The girl Nama was nowhere in sight, and she had not been near me since my return. I had become so used to seeing her standing about and watching me that now I missed her, just as I should miss a tree or a stone or any other thing which usually stood in a certain place. The young man with whom I had seen her talking at times also was gone.

"Perhaps they have mated already," I thought, "and made a little hut in the bush where they can be away from the rest a few days. Bueno! May their first-born be a strong boy!"

And I laughed and forgot them in speculation about where my canoes now were.

Then came the evening meal, and the usual noises of birds and beasts of the bush at the end of the day; and night and a half-moon. Little fires burned here and there to keep off tigres, and it was time for all to swing in their hammocks and sleep. But, though many lay down, none slept yet. There was talking, and some of the men squatted by the fires, as if all were expecting something.

I wondered, of course, what this meant. But I would not ask questions. I had a fire of my own, which had been made by some of the Maquiritare boys, and it seemed larger than usual and too bright. I let it burn, though, and lay drowsily looking at it and thinking of various things. One of those things was Black White, marching across this down-river country and heading southwest. Possibly, I thought, he might stop at my sitio below Quencua when he came back, and there we should have another of those queer talks in which I never saw him.

And while I was thinking of this, some one moved among the trees behind me. I gave little attention to the movement; it was only some Cunucunuma man, I thought. But the soft footsteps came nearer, then stopped. I turned then, for I always like to know who stands at my back.

There, quite clear in the light of the fire, was Nama.

She stood looking at me, and on her face was a little smile. I started to speak; but I remembered that she knew no Spanish, so I said nothing. Then from behind her sounded the voice of another woman, speaking my own language.

"Buen' noche', Loco León" it said.

"Quién es?" I asked, squinting past Nama but seeing nobody.

"Juana de Uaunana," answered the voice.

"Juana!" I echoed. "The woman of Black White! Buen' noche', Juana! Donde esté El Blanco? Where is White?"

"Est' aquí," she replied. "He is here."

And from a dark place a few feet to the right broke a harsh voice which I knew well.

"Evening, Loco! Talk English to me.