Near the shores, the waters were clear enough to see the muddy, rocky riverbed, but within a few feet visibility vanished.
Anything could be lurking under the water: snakes, caimans, piranhas. There were even catfish so large that they were known to bite the feet off unsuspecting swimmers.
Captain Waxman shoved forward. 'So where do we go from here? We can airlift boats to our position, but then what?'
Anna Fong raised a hand. 'I think I might be able to answer that.' She shoved off more of the palm fronds. Her small fingers ran along the inside of the canoe. 'From the pattern in which this canoe was chopped, and from the painted red edges, this had to come from a Yanomamo tribe. They're the only ones who construct canoes in such a manner.'
Nate knelt down and ran his own hands along the interior of the canoe. 'She's right. Gerald Clark must have obtained or perhaps stolen this canoe from the tribe. If we travel upriver, we can ask any of the Yanomamo Indians if they've seen a white man pass through or if any of their canes have gone missing:' He turned to Frank and Kelly. 'From there, we can
begin tracking again:'
He nodded sharply. 'I'll radio in our position and have the Hueys airlift in the pontoons. It'll eat up the remaining daylight, so we might as well set up an early camp for today.'
With a plan in place, everyone began to busy themselves setting up their homestead a short distance from the river. A fire was started. Kouwe collected a few hogplums and sawari nuts from the nearby forest, while Manny, after sending Tor-tor into the jungle to hunt, used a pole and net to catch a few jungle trout.
Within the course of the next hour, the roar of helicopters rattled the forest, causing birds and monkeys to screech and holler, flitting and leaping through the canopy. Three large crates were lowered into the water and pulled to shore by ropes. Packed inside were self-inflating pontoons with small outboard motors, what the Rangers called 'rubber raiders:' By the time the sun had begun to set, the three black boats were tethered to shoreside trees, ready for tomorrow's travel.
As the Rangers worked, Nathan had set up his own hammock and was now skillfully stretching his mosquito netting around it. He saw Kelly having trouble and went to her aid.
'You want to make sure the netting is spread so that none of it touches the hammock, or the night feeders will attack you right through the fabric.'
'I can manage,' she said, but her brow was furrowed in frustration.
'Let me show you:' He used small stones and bits of forest flotsam to pin her netting away from her hammock, creating a silky canopy around her bed.
Off to the side, Frank was fighting his own netting. 'I don't know why we can't just use sleeping bags. They were fine whenever I went camping.'
'This is the jungle,' Nate answered. 'If you sleep on the ground, you'll find all sorts of nasty creatures sharing your bed by morning. Snakes, lizards, scorpions, spiders. But be my guest:'
Frank grumbled but continued to wrestle with his own bed site. 'Fine, I'll sleep in the damn hammock. But what's so important about the netting anyway? We've been plagued by mosquitoes all day.'
'At night, they're a thousand times worse. And if the bugs don't bleed you dry, the vampire bats will.'
'Good:'
She glanced over the bed he had helped make, then turned to him, her face only inches from his as he straightened from his crouch. 'Thanks:'
Nathan was again struck by her eyes, an emerald green with a hint of gold. 'Y . . . You're welcome:' He turned to the fire and saw that others were gathering for an early evening meal. 'Let's see what's for dinner.'
Around the campfire, the flames were not the only thing heating up. Nathan found Manny and Richard Zane in midargument.
'How could you possibly be against placing constraints on the logging industry?' Manny said, stirring his filleted fish in the frying pan. 'Commercial logging is the single largest destroyer of rain forests worldwide. Here in the Amazon we're losing one acre of forest every second.'
Richard Zane sat on a log, no longer wearing his khaki jacket. His sleeves were rolled up, seemingly ready to fight. 'Those statistics are greatly exaggerated by environmentalists. They're based on bad science and generated more by a desire to scare than to educate. More realistic evidence from satellite photography shows that ninety percent of the Brazilian rain forest is still intact:'
Manny was near to blustering now. 'Even if the rate of deforestation is exaggerated as you claim, whatever is lost is xxxxxxxxxxlost forever. We're lo'They're all over the place here. At night, you want to be careful even sneaking off to the latrine. They'll attack anything warm-blooded:'
Kelly's eyes grew wide.
'You're vaccinated against rabies, right?' he asked.
She nodded slowly.
sing over a hundred species of plants and animals every single day. Lost forever.'
'So you say,' Richard Zane said calmly. 'The idea that a cleared rain forest can't grow back is an outdated myth. After eight years of commercial logging in the rain forests of Indonesia, the rate of recovery of both native plants and animals far exceeded expectations. And here in your own forests, the same is true. In 1982, miners cleared a large tract of forest in western Brazil. Fifteen years later, scientists returned to find that the rejuvenated forest is virtually indistinguishable from the surrounding forest. Such cases suggest that sustainable logging is possible, and that man and nature can coexist here:'
Nate found himself drawn into the discussion. How can the
actually advocate rain forest destruction? 'What about peasants burning forestland for grazing and agriculture? I suppose you support that, too:'
'Of course,' Zane said. 'In the forests of western America, we think it's healthy for fires to burn periodically through a mature forest. It shakes things up. Why is it any different here? When dominant species are removed by either logging or burning, it allows for the growth of what are termed `suppressed species,' the smaller shrubs and plants. And it is in fact these very plants that are of the most medicinal value. So why not allow a little burning and logging? It's good for all concerned.'
Kelly spoke into the stunned silence. 'But you're ignoring the global implications. Like the greenhouse effect. Aren't the rain forests the proverbial `lungs of the planet,' a major source of oxygen?'
' `Proverbial' is the key word, I'm afraid,' Zane said sadly. 'Newest research from weather satellites shows that the forests contribute little if any to the world's oxygen supply. It's a closed system. While the greenery of the canopy produces abundant oxygen, the supply is totally consumed by the fire of decomposition below, resulting in no net oxygen production. Again, the only real areas of positive production are in those regions of secondary forest growth, where new young trees are producing abundant oxygen. So in fact, controlled deforestation is beneficial to the world's atmosphere:'
Nathan listened, balanced between disbelief and anger. 'And what of those who live in the forest? In the past five hundred years, the number of indigenous tribes has dwindled from over ten million to under two hundred thousand. I suppose that's good, too:'
Richard Zane shook his head. 'Of course not. That's the true tragedy When a medicine man dies without passing on his experience, then
world loses great volumes of irreplaceable knowledge. It's one of the
reasons I kept pushing for funds to finance your own research among the
fading tribes. It's invaluable work:'
Nathan narrowed his eyes with suspicion. 'But the forest and its people are intertwined. Even if what you say is true, deforestation does destroy some species. You can't argue against that:'
'Sure but the green movement exaggerates the true number lost.'
'Still, even a single species can be significant. Such as the Madagascan
periwinkle.'
Zane's face reddened. 'Well, that surely is a rare exception. You can hardly think that such a discovery is common.'
'The Madagascan periwinkle?' Kelly asked, confusion in her eyes.
'The rosy periwinkle of Madagascar is the source of two potent anticancer drugs-vinblastine and
