The question caught Phil in the middle of a vast yawn. “What do I think?” he said before it had quite finished. “I think I need a nap. I’m going back to the ship. See you guys later.”
“Why don’t you have a talk with Vargas, Doc?” John suggested. “Maybe you can get something out of him about what’s going on.”
“Me?” cried Gideon, who had no taste, and not much talent, for the guileful subtleties of interrogation. “Why me—why not you? You’re the cop.”
“That’s why; I’m a cop. I’ll scare him. And this isn’t my jurisdiction, you’re right about that. But you, you’re just a private citizen being friendly. Besides, he likes you.”
“He likes you too,” Gideon said lamely.
“No, he doesn’t. I make him nervous. Come on, look at the poor guy.” He tilted his chin toward the house, where Vargas was sitting forlornly on the steps, his elbows on his knees. “Aside from everything else, he looks like he can use a friendly ear to talk into. I mean, I’m not saying he’s guilty of anything, but something’s going on, and he knows more about it than he’s been telling us.”
“Okay,” Gideon said with a sigh, “I’ll give it a try. Um, how do I start?”
John shrugged. “Any way you want. Ask him when he expects us to leave. After that, just play it by ear.”
“Oh, thanks, that’s a huge help. They must teach you that stuff at the academy.”
“See you back on the boat, Doc.”
“Captain Vargas,” Gideon said, approaching the house, “I was wondering when you think we might be getting the
Vargas raised his head and made an attempt to smile. “Very soon, professor. I was hoping that the workmen who live here would come back. Surely they will, soon? Perhaps I give them one more half hour, no more.” He brightened at a rustling at the edge of the jungle a few yards away. “Ah, you see? Here they . . .” He leaped to his feet, eyes practically popping from his head as the newcomers emerged from the bush.
SEVENTEEN
THEREwere three of them, the kind of beings for whom there is no longer a polite term: savages, primitives. Wild men. You could sense that, instinctively and at once, from their veiled eyes, from the way those dark, impassive eyes looked at you but didn’t look at you, focusing on nothing, as if the consciousness that lay behind them was in some other place and time. The men seemed to hold their bodies apart as well, standing tall (or as tall as they could; the biggest was perhaps five-foot-four) and poised and aloof. Their foreheads and cheeks were tattooed with complex designs of undulating lines and dots in orange, blue, and black. Their lips were dyed blue and their eyebrows plucked and replaced with thin, painted, blue crescents. Their thick black hair hung loose in back and was chopped into bangs in front. Quills or small, thin bones ran horizontally through their nasal septa. Although they wore no earrings, the holes in their ears showed they often did. Their earlobes had been dragged and stretched by heavy ornaments into two-inch long flaps. Their smooth
chests were daubed with more dots and waving lines, this time in white. Their clothing consisted of short bark kilts—aprons, really. All were barefoot, all had yellow-gray teeth in terrible condition.
Vargas couldn’t stop staring at them. “Chayacuro?” Gideon whispered, about equally scared and enchanted.
“No, Arimaguas!” Vargas whispered agitatedly. “God help us, real tree climbers! Be careful.” He grinned at them, bobbing his head.
The nearest one took it from him, a casual flick of the hand without any change in his stone-faced expression, more or less without looking either at Vargas or the watch, then gestured at Gideon’s wrist.
“Give him your watch,” Vargas said.
“Wait a minute, why—”
“
Gideon unclasped the watch and handed it to the Indian.
The second watch was handed to another man, and both objects disappeared under their aprons. That they had some contact with modern life was shown by the shotguns that all three carried on their shoulders with the grace and ease of long custom. Also by the fact
that at least one of them, the one who’d taken the watches, spoke a primitive Spanish.
“You come,” he said, not particularly threateningly. Not particularly friendly, either. Not anything. Just an announcement.
