Aaron Elkins - Little Tiny Teeth

He was interrupted by a crash from the buffet table. “Sorry, sorry,” croaked Vargas, bending to pick up the plates he’d knocked onto the floor.

“Into Colombia,” Duayne continued. “There are drug lords out there, and they have all kinds of weapons. Isn’t it possible that we’ve accidentally gotten in the middle of some kind of drug war? That they’re warning us… that they think… well, I don’t know what they think, but-”

“Not likely, Duayne,” John said. “If some drug lord wanted to send us a message, trust me, he wouldn’t get some Indian to do it with a spear. Besides, when those types give you a warning, they don’t want you guessing as to where it came from or what it means. They want you to know.”

“All right then, John, you tell us: what was it all about?” Duayne said.

John, sipping on his Nescafe and powdered milk, shrugged. “Beats the hell out of me.”

“We may be reading way too much into this,” Gideon said. “For all we know, some crazy kid might have done it, maybe not an Indian at all, just some teenager out for a thrill.”

This feeble try at an explanation was received with the dubious expressions it deserved, not that anybody could come up with anything better. After a moment, Duayne spoke up again, more mildly than before:

“Anyway, it’s not just the cruising part we have to worry about. What about when we’re out there in the jungle, botanizing and so forth? How do we know who might be watching us, waiting for us, following us? How do we know-”

“Okay, I got a suggestion,” said Mel, who hadn’t participated thus far. He twisted around to see Cisco, who was sitting apart from the others, his chair pushed so far away that it was backed up against another table. He had passed on the main courses, eating nothing but the bread pudding, a second large helping of which was being spooned from the soup bowl he held on his lap. “Cisco, if I remember right, you said our treks the next couple of days would be on the south side of the river, is that right?”

Cisco, working hard on the pudding, looked reluctantly up from it. “What?”

“These hikes and things, we’re supposed to be taking them on the south bank, right?”

It was dishearteningly obvious that Cisco had no idea what Mel was talking about, no memory of what he himself had told them a few hours ago. “Yeah, that’s the plan, you got it,” he said.

“Well, what’s so special about the south side? I mean, aren’t the plants and things pretty much the same on either side?”

A shrug. “Pretty much. Same microclimate.”

“Okay, so why don’t we just stay away from the south side? That’s where the damn spear came from, and if people are really worried that somebody else might be waiting further down, we can do our treks on the other side. That’d put seven miles of open water between us and them.”

“I guess we could do that,” Cisco agreed. “Hell, I don’t care. Whatever you want.”

“Are there any Chayacuro on that side?” Tim asked.

Cisco, seeing that he wasn’t going to be able to devote his full attention to the pudding for a while, sighed and put it on the table behind him. “No one knows where the Chayacuro are, buddy. See, they’re not a tribe, like you’re thinking of a tribe, with a chief and a village and everything. They’re a bunch of small bands, maybe three or four families in each one, and they don’t stay any one place more than a couple of seasons. They say there used to be bands on both sides fifty years ago, but who knows anymore? My guess is no.”

“What about other groups?” Maggie asked. “Friendly groups, I mean. Remember, we want to meet with some curanderos. Do you have any contacts on that side?”

“Lady, I got them everywhere. The Orejon, the Boruna. I can dig you up a couple of old-school shamans, the real thing, pals of mine.”

“Good. Captain, would you have any problem with the change in route?”

Vargas, still at his station behind the buffet table, shook his head. “No, no trouble. It would only be for tomorrow anyway. The following day we will divert to the Javaro, which will take us into different country.”

“Okay, then,” Mel said, “ no problemo. Let’s do it.”

“Shouldn’t we clear it with Dr. Scofield first?” Tim asked.

Mel shrugged. “So we’ll clear it with him.” He laughed. “You think he’s going to object to putting the whole Amazon River between us and the Chayacuro?”

“Well, but…” Tim was frowning. “Cisco said he was guessing. What if there are Chayacuro on both sides? How do we know that the ones on the south side won’t warn the other ones that we’re coming?” Tim, it appeared, was not as ready as some of the others to consign the Chayacuro revenge idea to the trash basket.

Cisco responded with a derisive snicker. “How the hell would they know what we’re going to do? And what would they warn them with? Cell phones? E-mail?”

Tim took offense. “Hey, you’re the one who said they had all these” – He put his hands up beside his ears and waggled his long fingers – “all these woo-hoo powers that us poor norteamericanos can’t understand. What, they can’t use them to communicate with each other?”

Cisco looked pityingly at him. “Not across seven miles of open water,” he mumbled to his bread pudding and went back to eating it.

When dinner was finished and most of the passengers had gone back to their cabins to rest, or shower, or read, Gideon remained on the lower deck. The smashed side window of the bar had been boarded up with a trelliswork of one-by-three lumber, and he was peering through it at the substantial gouge that the lance had left at the junction of floor and baseboard.

“Hmm,” he said. He backed slowly away from the bar until he reached the starboard railing – three and a half paces – walked back to stand in front of the bar, turned to look behind him toward the distant, darkening shore, turned again to look down the deck toward the front of the boat, looked laterally across the breadth of the Adelita, and folded his arms.

“Huh,” he said.

Mel, who had gone into the dining room with an empty plastic water bottle a few moments earlier, came out with a filled one and a handful of miniature bananas.

He stopped near Gideon. “Trying to figure out if you can get a bottle out between the boards?”

Gideon smiled. “I figured it was worth a shot.”

“Well, forget it. I already tried. Can’t be done.” He continued on his way to the forward stairs.

Gideon went through his pacing and gazing and arm-folding a little longer, then climbed the stairs himself, hoping to find Vargas in the wheelhouse, which was located at the front of the upper deck, forward of the cabins. He spotted the captain through the open window, looking very nautical, smoking a thin cigar and leaning over a navigational chart with a pencil while one of the crewmen steered.

Vargas looked up, smiling. “Yes, Professor Oliver? How can I help you?”

“Captain, I’d like very much to have a look at that lance again. Where’d you put it?”

“But it’s at the bottom of the Amazon. I threw it overboard. Do you think I would have a thing like that on my boat?” He caught himself as he began to cross himself and turned it into a scratch of his throat instead. “Some of my crew, you know,” he said in a confidential, man-to-man tone, “they’re very backward, very superstitious.” With a meaningful roll of his eyes, he cocked his head toward the steersman. “They think such a thing would bring us bad luck.” He laughed at the silliness of it.

“Ah, I understand,” said Gideon. “Well, too bad.” He smiled. “Save the next one for me, will you?”