Aaron Elkins - Little Tiny Teeth

“Suit yourself,” Tim said.

John, Phil, and Gideon retrieved their glasses from where they’d left them on the deck, and settled back, but John was unable to let things lie.

“Hey, Tim, you really ought to know better,” he said, not unkindly. “That stuff’s terrible for your health. Believe me, I know about these things. It’ll rot your brain.” His unspoken subtext was crystal-clear: Take a good look at your buddy there. Is that the way you want to wind up?

“Yeah, like that crap you guys are drinking is good for your health?”

“It may not be good for your health,” John called back, “but it doesn’t turn you into a zombie.”

Getting no reply, the three of them returned to their stargazing. Gideon decided on another aguardiente after all and poured himself a dollop. After being away from it for twenty minutes, he found that it stung his throat more than before, and he unscrewed the top of his water bottle to dilute it a bit.

Tim saw or heard him do it. “Hey, you want to talk about something that’s bad for your health, what about that stuff? Don’t you know that water’ll kill you? Every glass is like a nail in your coffin.”

“That’s true,” Cisco chimed in, “did you know that, like, every single person that ever drank it has died? Every single one! That’s why I never touch it.”

“That’s right,” agreed Tim. “And the bad part is, it’s one of the most addictive substances in the world, worse than crack. What happens is that once you try it even once – even a tiny sip – you’re hooked, and you have to have more. And then more. And more. You steal for it or kill for it; you can’t help yourself. And if you can’t get any more you go into withdrawal and you actually die.”

They were both cackling so uproariously they could barely get the words out, but that didn’t stop them. “And even if you do get more,” Cisco managed, “it don’t make any difference. You die in the end anyway.”

They were both collapsed with laughter now, unable to carry on, but Phil picked up the baton. “Never mind the biological aspects,” he said to John. “You know what water’s composed of, don’t you? Hydrogen and oxygen. And what do they make rocket fuel out of? Hydrogen and oxygen. I’m telling you, the stuff is too volatile to go anywhere near it, let alone drink it.”

Gideon smiled but John, pained, bared his teeth. “Phil, I wish, I wish you wouldn’t do that. What do you want to say things like that for?”

“Hard to say, exactly,” Phil said. “It might be because I love to see the veins stand out in your neck like that.”

As it turned out, none of them were right about how Scofield would behave the next day, although Gideon came closest. Scofield didn’t merely laugh off the incident of the lance, he acted as if nothing at all had happened. Appearing in the morning looking ruddy, bright, and well rested, he greeted everyone cordially and went enthusiastically at the buffet of cheese omelets, fried bananas, rice, salsa, and toast. When Maggie mentioned that they thought that it was a good idea to move their excursions that day to the north side of the river, he merely said, quite mildly, as if it were no concern of his, that that was just fine. It was obvious that he didn’t want to talk about the previous day, and his wishes were observed.

After breakfast, the Adelita moored at a narrow beach topped by a thirty-foot bluff. Cisco scrambled up it and went to see about arranging a meeting with the shaman of an Ocaona settlement about two miles to the northwest, on the banks of the Punte, another of the Amazon’s hundreds of tributaries. He returned two hours later with the news that the celebrated curandero Yaminahua would be pleased to grant them an audience. He – Cisco – suggested that they each bring along at least a liter of water. For people who weren’t used to it, a four-mile round-trip jungle hike in the midday heat was going to make for a long, exhausting day.

And don’t forget insect repellent, he added.

Say Amazon jungle to the average person, and a picture pops into the mind of intrepid nineteenth-century explorers in pith helmets, of giant leaves, thick, tangled vines, and hostile underbrush that has to be hacked through with a machete at every step. But except for the giant leaves, most of the virgin rain forest is far different. There are thick liana vines that hang from the tree limbs, yes – some sturdy enough to swing on, Tarzan-like – but they aren’t very tangled or really very prolific, and while a machete is sometimes useful, it’s hardly a necessity, because the canopy high overhead shuts out so much sun that there isn’t much undergrowth to contend with.

This is also the reason that what little is there is so huge-leaved; it’s their way of sucking in every possible mote of sunlight that does manage to filter through. Even the water lilies are as big as wagon wheels, five feet in diameter and able to support a small child, or more likely, a capybara or a python. The canopy effectively shuts out wind too, and the birds and insects are quiet during the day, so that there is a prickly sense of hushed expectancy, of something terribly important about to happen, although of course nothing does, aside from when a howler monkey occasionally lets loose one of its deafening hoots and every previously invisible bird within range flutters and screams in response before settling down again. Ninety-five percent of the time, though, walking in such a forest is like traveling through some surreal, silent, dimly remembered dreamscape.

“These big leaves and stuff,” Phil said, as the group made its way toward the Ocaona village, “and how still it is – it reminds me of this painter, what’s his name…”

“Henri Rousseau,” said Gideon, to whom the same thought had occurred. Still figures, giant, meticulously detailed jungle foliage, unseen mystery.

“Right, that’s the guy,” Phil said. “Fantastic, isn’t it?”

Gideon nodded. Fantastic it was. Beautiful. Cathedral-like, to use a well-worn metaphor that he truly appreciated for the first time. And the creatures! Jewel-like poison-dart frogs, no bigger than a thumbnail, that secrete a curare-like neurotoxin used by the Indians for their blowgun darts; three-inch-long millipedes; giant snails (giant even by the generous standards of western Washington State) – an amazing place, from every angle. But, God, was it hot in there! And humid – unbelievably, mind-deadeningly humid. After a few hours of it, Gideon’s shirt and shorts were as wet as if he’d been in a downpour. Even his bones felt soggy. The liter of water he’d brought was long gone, and all he could think of was getting back to his cabin, downing another quart or so, then climbing into the shower and standing for half an hour in the cool – relatively cool – green-brown stream of Amazon water.

The humidity in particular had been like nothing he’d ever encountered. Mel, trying to take notes for his article, had had to give it up. First, the ink from his gel pen wouldn’t dry on the page, but ran down it in streaks instead. Then, when he’d borrowed a pencil from Scofield, the point tore through the limp sheets. And as the last straw, by the end of the first hour, the glue in the binding of his notepad had liquefied and the pages had come apart in his hand. Mel, in a laid-back mood – like John, he had no trouble with hot weather – just laughed, gave Scofield back his pencil, and squeezed the notebook into a soggy wad the size of a Ping-Pong ball, which he then stuffed into a pocket.

Unpleasant climate notwithstanding, it had been a fascinating and enjoyable afternoon. Cisco, although no less spacey than usual, had proven botanically knowledgeable and articulate on the walks to and from the village, speaking confidently of epiphytes and chamaephytes and phanerophytes, so that one could see the ethnobotanists in the group rethinking their impressions of him.