Tupahn--the Thunderstorm/Chapter 14

HE long shadows of another morning stretched across the clearing when we four came out through the narrow doorway of the Bat's maloca and walked around the corner on our way to the forest.

Behind us most of the Tucunas still were asleep. They had kept up their noisy festival until late at night, pausing only when they were too tired—and too drunk—to continue longer; and now the tribe-house was full of snores. The old chief, though, who had stayed in his hammock and taken little of the rum, was wide-awake and unwilling to have us go so soon. He had told us the holiday would not end for two or three days more, and protested stubbornly against our leaving today. But Senhor Tom had finally pacified him by saying he must settle with certain enemies at Viciado, and that the foes of Tupahn could not be allowed to escape. To this the Bat agreed.

He had told us, too, what Pedro and I had suspected—that the creek where our canoes lay did not run to Viciado. But he had also told us, after we explained where our camp was, that we could reach the right stream without going back to the fork. A short half-mile below our camp, he said, a very narrow but fairly deep arm of water connected this creek with the one on which we must travel. He would have aroused men and sent them to guide us, but we told him to let them lie; we needed no escort.

And now, with our farewells said and the new day bright around us, we walked across the open space and once more entered the shady path behind the maloca—the path where Pedro and I had lurked and seen the bat-mask go by on its way to the hut of the foul priest, and where we later had run through the night dragging a blind man. This time the blind man walked ahead, taking his first view of the place where he had stumbled along in blackness. The girl walked silently beside him, also looking about as if seeing the path for the first time. Pedro and I, following at a little distance, watched them

“She should be told, ” Pedro muttered. “Senhor Tom is unfair to himself and to her.”

I agreed. For she still did not know of the marriage. More, she did not know the part her blond companion had played in saving her.

Dazed for an instant by the news of what the ceremony meant, Senhor Tom then had forbidden us to tell her. He declared the marriage meant nothing, because neither of them knew what was taking place and such a proceeding would not hold in “white man's law.” She would be humiliated if she knew, he said, and she must not know. And when she asked the reason for our shouts and laughter he invented a joke which he said the chief had made, telling her that we had only wanted to pass the joke on to them. She looked as if she did not quite believe the explanation, but she asked no more questions.

And we knew that though he had told her something of our search for her, he had given all the credit to us and let her think he had been only a useless blind man who owed his life to us. We suspected—and we later learned it was true—that she thought the killing of the pajé was due to a sudden quarrel and fight which had little to do with her own position as prisoner of the tribe. Even her rescue from Black Hawk, he had told her, had come about only because we “just happened around at the right time.” She knew nothing of the many miles of hard travel and the long days of lurking in ambush which had made it possible for him and us to be there at the right time.

“He does not wish her to feel obliged to him,” I said now.

“Of course. He is so anxious to avoid gratitude that he makes himself seem a headstrong, reckless fellow who would as soon kill a man as smoke a cigaret. He cuts his own throat. Perhaps it is his right to do so, but I do not like it.”

“Nor I. It is his right to conceal his real nature if he will. But it is her right to know the truth of what has been done for her—and the truth of the Indian ceremony yesterday.”

Then I stopped talking, for the pair ahead had halted and we were near enough to be overheard.

“Why, it's burned down!” cried the girl.

“Sure enough,” was Senhor Tom's answer. “Fellows, the priest-house is gone. Maybe we accidentally set it afire when we came out.” He gave us a swift wink.

“Perhaps so, senhor,” Pedro replied coolly. “It is no loss to any one.”

And we passed on, three of us knowing the Bat's command to burn the pajé in his own house had been obeyed.

At the farther edge of the bush we found our trail, and through the forest we passed silently to the camp. Soon the canoes were loaded, and out into the stream we shoved.

“All aboard once more, and bound for Viciado,” Senhor Tom sang out. “Traveling again two by two, as the animals came from the ark. And thus endeth this chapter of our little story.”

He sunk his paddle, and the canoe moved on.

“How many more chapters are there, do you suppose?” Marion laughed back at him. “Every well-regulated story has a happy ending, at least.”

“Maybe so, up home. But here in the jungle a lot of stories aren't well regulated. The ending is just as it happens.”

Her face became very sober. She looked away again, down-stream. Her paddle began to swing. So did ours.

And as I heard this and watched them, I determined to say something myself in their story. But I did not say it then. I waited for the right time.

Soon Pedro spied the narrow water-lane of which Andirah had told us. We turned into it, and until nearly noon we worked along it. Then we came out into the other creek and pointed our bows toward Viciado and the Amazon.

It was nearly night again before my chance came. I made the chance myself. Knowing we now were not more than one day's journey from the river-town, I told Pedro, before we landed—

“Take Senhor Tom hunting and leave me to make camp.”

He gave me a shrewd look.

“Right, comrade. And while you work, tell the senhorita a tale.”

“I will,” I promised. And I did.

It was dark when Pedro brought the North American back with a fine fat mutum turkey. By that time our Lady Marion knew the whole truth. She knew how we had come to be at the camp of Black Hawk; how, after her second capture, Senhor Tom, wounded and blind, had hung doggedly to the search for her and had shamed us and heartened us when we wavered; how he had trapped the pajé in a lie, started us back through the black jungle when we would have waited until morning, broken the power of the priest and then broken the priest himself. She knew, too, that according to the unwritten laws of the Bat people she now was a wife. And she knew that Tupahn the Thunderstorm was only a hard mask concealing a very lovable Tom Mack.

“What a man!” she breathed when I was through. “And I thought him callous, hard-hearted”

There she stopped.

“A man indeed, senhorita,” I echoed. “A gentleman who does not make a show of his gentleness, but hides it. A clean-hearted man who does not wear his heart on his sleeve. A lonely man who roves deadly places because, as he himself admits, he can not find his mate. But I am speaking now of the man himself, where I meant only to tell you the bare truth of what has been done—the truth which you have every right to know. I shall say no more.”

Nor did she say more. She looked long at the forest where he and Pedro had disappeared. Then she lay down in her hammock, as if to rest; but when I passed near her again I saw that her eyes were wide.

When the two came in she pretended sleep. When I called her to the night meal she came as if drowsy and ate in silence. Then, with only a few words, she returned to the tambo. Senhor Tom looked after her as if wondering what she was displeased about. I managed to keep from grinning until I was in my hanging bed.

P AT dawn, we pushed speedily on the last miles of our journey to the big river. Still the girl gave no sign of what was in her mind. At her place in the bow of Senhor Tom's craft, she kept her eyes steadily ahead and plied her paddle as if thinking only of reaching the end of her journey. I began to wonder when and how she would let Senhor Tom know what she knew—or whether she would let him know at all.

Suddenly around a turn swept another canoe. Behind it came another, and another. Pedro snatched up our one rifle. Senhor Tom made a quick move toward his thigh.

“Alto lá!” came a sharp command from the first canoe. Rifles sprang up and covered us.

“Halt yourself!” roared Senhor Tom. “Back up, you Viciado bums!”

There was a moment's silence while we drifted and the men beyond squinted at us under their hands. Then came a voice.

“Por Deus! It is the North American explorer, Thomaz Mack—the one who is called Tupahn! Advance, comrades.”

The dugouts came on, and behind them still more appeared. In the first to reach us were Indian paddlers and several hard-faced Brazilians.

“Who are you?” Pedro demanded, his finger still on the trigger.

“River-traders, amigo. What news of Black Hawk? How come you to be alive in his land? And—Nossa Senhora! A woman! A white woman! What does this mean?”

“It means that Black Hawk is dead,” I answered. “Senhor Mack killed him days ago. His army of Tucunas is scattered.”

They stared. No man spoke.

“Do you go to trade with him?” I added.

The traders laughed harshly.

“Si! We go to trade him lead bullets in return for his robbery of many of us and murder of some of us. Since no one else would go against him, we have banded together to end him. Dead? Killed by one man? Ho-ho-ho!”

“Go on and see for yourselves. It is as I tell you. What news of Viciado?”

“Viciado has been cleaned,” was the grim answer. “You will find it safe as a church. The Hawk's tools in that town have been so well plugged with lead that they will work no more. We shall go on, friend, to make sure your tale is not a dream. We want no mistakes. But who is this woman?”

Bold eyes centered on the senhorita. They were a hard crew, those traders, and we did not like their stares at the girl. Senhor Tom arose, hand on gun.

“This woman,” he snapped in English, “is my wife. Anything else you'd like to. know?”

“Nothing,” laughed the leader. “Adeos!”

The canoes swung past. Boat after boat went by, loaded with men and guns. Each long dugout held two or three traders and perhaps a dozen Indians—savage-looking redskins whose tribe I could not guess. Later I heard that they had been brought by the traders from the north side of the Amazon, and that they were even more fierce than they looked. In all, the boats must have held a hundred men.

At length they were gone on their useless journey. Then the girl spoke out.

“Before we proceed, Captain Mack, I think we had better reach an understanding. Why have you not told me before that I am your wife?”

She tried to look very severe.

“Why—uh—er—just a figure of speech,” Senhor Tom stammered. “It doesn't mean anything.”

“No? Perhaps it does, sir. We were married by the chief, were we not? And now you have publicly acknowledged me as your wife before many witnesses. Are you in the habit of marrying girls and then telling them it means nothing? That is a dangerous game!”

His mouth fell open. He stared blankly at her. Then he turned on me.

“You, Lourenço! You told her!”

“Woof, woof!” she mocked him. “Don't bark so loud, captain! You're not scaring any one this time. We know you're just a big fraud. Now that your sin has found you out, as the story-books say, what are you going to do about it?”

“Well, what are you going to do about it?” he dared her.

“I am going to give you one choice, sir—to fight or run. If you wish to flee into your jungle and hide there for the rest of your life, I'll set you ashore now. If not, then you must marry me again as soon as we can find a clergyman, and then come home to the States with me and fight it out as to who is to be boss. Now which is it—run or fight?”

“Say! Do you mean that?”

“Mean it?” she smiled. “You poor silly, are you still blind?”

She gave him one long look. Then he sprang up

“You little devil!” he breathed. “You're in for it now!”

Their canoe did not quite upset, but it came near it. Not that she struggled—no, indeed. It was his swift stride and sudden swoop at her that set the dugout to rolling. But it soon grew steady again, for after his arms swept around her they stood very still.

We two slipped our own boat silently away, and they never saw us go. The whole band of fighting traders and Indians might have come back and surrounded them, and I doubt if they would have known it. They were blind and deaf to all the world—yes, and dumb too; for how can one talk whose lips are pressed tight against others?

Below the next bend we caught overhanging branches and waited. And Pedro said, “At last we have found a use for that money we found in the foul nest of Black Hawk.”

“How?” I asked.

“As a wedding gift, of course. To keep it will bring us no luck. It was wrung by the Hawk from his victims through murder and robbery and terror, and it did him no good. It was looted by us from the camp of the tyrant we destroyed, and it will do us no good either. But now, as a pledge of friendship to those who are starting together on a new trail, it will carry with it only good will and fond remembrance.

“Viciado is cleaned. The big river-steamers will call there again. These two will sail away. Before they sail, let us wrap this money carefully, so that they will not know what it is, and give it to them as a small token of our regard, not to be opened until they reach North America. Then we shall go back, empty-handed but light-hearted, to the Javary, where we have plenty of money earned by honest work.”

“So it shall be,” I agreed heartily. Then I grinned and added: “But which of them shall we give it to? Who is the boss?”

“There is no boss,” he laughed. “We shall give it to Senhor Tom because we have known him longer, but there will be no bossing between those two. He has found at last the partner who will meet him half way in all things and will never quit. Here they come, paddling as if they did not know what they were about. Let us go.”

But before we moved I called—

“Well, comrade, have you reached that understanding?”

“Sure have!” boomed Senhor Tom. “Senhora Mack promises that if she can't keep me contented in the States she'll send me back to the jungle. I'm giving her a wide-open chance to make good. This is my first attempt at marriage, but I'll try anything once. If it doesn't work, you'll see me turn up at your coronel's place some day. Keep an eye out for me.”

But, senhores, he has never come back.