Bell hopped out of the boat with the other men to help guide it through the surf and pull it up onto dry sand.
Most of the villagers stopped what they were doing and came to see the newcomers in a bubbling, smiling mob. They were not so cut off from civilization that they hadn’t seen white people before, but it was an oddity, especially because both Bell and his wife had blond hair. The younger women and girls, in colorful dresses made by them, ran their fingers through Marion’s tresses and tittered like little birds.
The pair was eventually led to the center of the village and given water from a gourd. By this point, both were thirsty enough not to care about purity, but it appeared clean and fresh, and so they drank their fill and then each ate a barely ripe plantain. The children lingered, but the men and women went back to their tasks. An old man came out of one of the huts. His hair was coarse and white, and his mouth contained only a couple teeth. When the blanket wrapped around his shoulders slipped, they saw each of his ribs and the bony sternum where they connected in the center of his chest.
Marion greeted him in Spanish, speaking slowly and loudly, assuming his hearing was poor. The man replied in his native dialect, smiling and drooling just a little.
“Apparently,” Bell said, “this isn’t our boatman’s padre.”
Bell looked around for the paddlers and realized they weren’t there. He left his wife and returned to the beach. The boat was gone. He spotted it out on the open water, heading back the way they had come. He cursed. This was wasting time they didn’t have.
“What’s wrong?” Marion asked when she saw the look on his face as he marched back into the village.
“The men took off in the canoe. We’re stuck here until they come back, I assume with the man’s father.”
In most situations, Bell had the patience of a saint. Or a sniper. This wasn’t one of those times. The afternoon wore on. They were fed some cake, made on a cast-iron griddle, and a stew made from vegetables native to the area. At sundown, they were shown to a hut where rough blankets had been laid on the grass floor.
Sleep eluded them both. The bedding was infested with bedbugs, and, for Bell, the thought of Teddy Roosevelt dying while he was stuck in this primitive place was as galling as the bloodthirsty parasites.
He was up before dawn and strode down to the beach. The sun was a tangerine smear on the horizon, and the waves came in black but turned to cream when they broke. There was no sign of the large dugout. Bell rattled off a string of curses aloud that would have made the saltiest sailor blush.
Marion had come up behind him without him noticing. “I’m going to have to go to confession just for hearing you curse.”
He grinned, abashed. “Sorry about that.”
“No boat, I see.”
“We never should have gotten in it with them.”
They spent an idle day in the village. Bell offered to help out with chores, but no one would hear of their guests doing any physical work. He ended up spending most of his time pacing the beach like an Army sentry and watching the horizon for the returning mariners.
They finally rowed into view at three in the afternoon. Bell was so anxious that he waded out up to his chest to pull them to shore. The sixth man in the canoe was of mixed Spanish and native blood and wore a black shirt despite the heat. The white collar at his throat proclaimed his profession. It wasn’t the navigator’s father who spoke Spanish. It was his priest.
“Hola,” the man greeted Bell and made short introductory remarks.
Bell gave his standard reply afterward. “No hablo español.” He pointed to Marion, who waited on the beach. “She hablo.”
“I also speak English,” the priest said. “I am Father Marcos.”
“Isaac Bell.” They got the boat beached, and Bell shook the padre’s hand. “This is my wife, Marion. Marion, this is Father Marcos.”
“Hello.”
“How did you two end up here? Naa wasn’t sure. He just said you were stranded on the beach. Was it a shipwreck?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes. But it wasn’t an oceangoing ship. It was an airship, like a Zeppelin. Father, I don’t mean to be rude, but we need to get to Colón as fast as possible. I don’t know if you are aware, but our former President Teddy Roosevelt is visiting the canal tomorrow.”
“Oh, yes. The whole town is talking of nothing else.”
“Wait. What? Do you mean you just came from Colón?”
“Yes, that is where my church is.”
Bell groaned in frustration. “I told them that’s where we wanted to go yet they brought us to their village instead.”
“Dear me. I’m so sorry. I visit here once a month to minister to these people.”
“Doesn’t matter now.” Bell brushed aside his anger. “There’s going to be an assassination attempt on the President’s life while he’s visiting. We need to get back to Colón so I can warn him. I’m kind of a policeman.”
“Dear me,” Father Marcos repeated. “Colón is an eight-hour journey from here, and I’m afraid they won’t want to make it tonight.”
“I can pay them, once we’re back to civilization,” Bell said, not wanting to sound like he was pleading even though he was. “Anything they want.”
“It’s not that, Mr. Bell. The men need a night’s rest. Bringing you here and fetching me from Colón nearly killed them.”
“Dawn, then. We have to leave at dawn.” Leaving at sunup would put them in Colón around one. While he didn’t know what
