Evidently, they were a deliberate people. After an hour, Jevy smelled smoke. He climbed a tree near the boat, and when he was forty feet up he saw the roofs of their huts. He asked Nate to join him.
Nate had not been in a tree in forty years, but at the moment there was nothing else to do. He made the climb with less ease than Jevy, and finally came to rest on a frail branch. He hugged the trunk with one arm.
They could see the tops of three huts-thick straw laid in neat rows. The blue smoke rose between two of the huts, from a point they couldn't see.
Could he be that close to Rachel Lane? Was she there now, listening to her people and deciding what to do? Would she send a warrior to fetch them, or would she herself simply walk through the woods and say hello?
"It's a small settlement," Nate said, trying not to move.
"There could be more huts."
"What do you think they're doing?"
"Talking. Just talking."
"Well I hate to bring this up, but we need to make a move. We left the boat eight and a half hours ago. I'd like to see Welly before dark."
"No problem. We'll go back with the current. Plus I know the way. It will be much faster."
"You're not worried?"
Jevy shook his head as if he hadn't given a thought to shooting down the Cabixa in the dark. Nate certainly had. Of particular concern were the two large lakes they had encountered, each with various tributaries, all of which appeared identical in the daylight.
His plan was to simply say hello to Ms. Lane, give her a bit of history, cover the required legalities, show her the paperwork, answer the basic questions, get her signature, thank her, and complete the meeting as soon as possible. He was worried about the time of day, and the sputtering motor, and the trip back to the Santa Loura. She would probably want to talk, or maybe she wouldn't. Maybe she would say very little and want them to leave and never come back.
Back on the ground, he had settled into the boat for a nap when Jevy saw the Indians. He said something and pointed, and Nate looked at the woods.
They slowly approached the river, in a line behind their leader, the oldest Guato they'd seen so far. He was stocky with an ample belly, and he carried a long stick of some sort. It didn't appear to be sharp or dangerous. It had pretty feathers near the tip, and Nate surmised that it was probably just a ceremonial spear.
The leader quickly sized up the two intruders, and directed his comments at Jevy.
Why are you here? he asked in Portuguese. His face wasn't friendly, but there was no aggression in his presence. Nate studied the spear.
We are looking for an American missionary, a woman, Jevy explained.
Where are you from? The chief asked this while glancing at Nate.
Corumba.
And him? All eyes were on Nate.
He's an American. He needs to find the woman.
Why does he need to find the woman?
It was the first hint that the Indians might know of Rachel Lane. Was she hiding back there somewhere, in the village or maybe in the woods, listening?
Jevy went through a windy narrative explaining how Nate had traveled great distances and almost lost his life. It was an important matter among the Americans, nothing he, Jevy, or the Indians would ever understand.
Is she in danger?
No. None.
She is not here.
"He says she's not here," Jevy said to Nate.
"Tell him I think he's a lying bastard," Nate said, softly.
"I don't think so."
Have you ever seen a woman missionary around here? Jevy asked.
The leader shook his head. No.
Have you ever heard of one?
At first, there was no response. His eyes narrowed as he stared at Jevy, sizing him up, as if to say, Can this man be trusted? Then, a slight nod.
Where is she? Jevy asked.
With another tribe.
Where?
He said he wasn't sure, but he began pointing anyway. Somewhere off to the north and west, he said, with his spear waving across half the Pantanal.
"Guato?" Jevy asked.
He frowned and shook his head, as if she lived among undesirables. "Ipicas," he said with scorn.
How far away?
A day.
Jevy attempted to pin him down on the time, but soon learned that hours meant nothing to the Indians. A day wasn't twenty-four hours and it wasn't twelve. It was simply a day. He tried the concept of half a day, and made progress.
"Twelve to fifteen hours," he said to Nate.
"But that's in one of those little canoes, right?" Nate whispered.
"Yes."
"So how fast can we get there?"
"Three or four hours. If we can find it."
Jevy retrieved two maps and spread them on the grass. The Indians were very curious. They squatted close to their leader.
To find out where they were going, they first had to determine where they were. And this took a bad turn when the leader informed Jevy that the river that brought them in was not, in fact, the Cabixa. They had taken a wrong turn at some point after meeting the fisherman, and stumbled onto the Guato. Jevy took the news hard, and whispered it to Nate.
Nate took it even harder. He was trusting Jevy with his life.
Fancy - colored navigational maps meant little to the Indians. They were soon ignored as Jevy began drawing his own. He started with the unnamed river lying before them, and, chatting constantly with the chief, slowly made his way to the north. The chief received input from two young men. The two, he explained to Jevy, were excellent fishermen and traveled occasionally to the Paraguay.
"Hire them," Nate whispered.
Jevy tried, but in the course of negotiations learned that the two had never seen the Ipicas, didn't particularly want to, didn't know exactly where they were, and didn't understand the concept of working and getting paid for it. Plus the chief didn't want them to leave.
The route went from one river to the next, twisting northward, until the chief and his fishermen could no longer agree on where to go next. Jevy compared his drawing to his maps.
"We've found her," he said to Nate.
"Where?"
"There is a settlement of Ipicas here," he said, pointing to a map. "South of Porto Indio, at the edge of the mountains. Their directions take us close to it."
Nate leaned lower and examined the markings. "How do we get there?"
"I think we go back to the boat, and go north a half a day on the Paraguay. Then we use the little boat again to get to the settlement."
The Paraguay looped relatively close to their target, and traveling to it on the Santa Loura struck Nate as a splendid idea. "How many hours in the little boat?" Nate asked.
"Four, more or less."
"More or less" covered everything in Brazil. The distance, though, looked less than what they had covered since early morning.
"Then what are we waiting for?" Nate asked, standing and smiling at the Indians.
Jevy began saying thanks to their hosts, while folding his maps. Now that they were leaving, the Indians loosened up and wanted to be hospitable. They offered food, which Jevy declined. He explained that they were suddenly in a hurry, since they planned to return to the big river before dark.
Nate grinned at them as he backtracked to the river. They wanted to see the boat. They stood at the edge of the water, watching with great curiosity as Jevy adjusted the motor. When he started it, they took a step back.
The river, whatever it was named, looked entirely different going in the other direction. As they approached the first bend, Nate glanced over his shoulder and saw the Guato, still standing in the water.
The time was almost 4 P.M. With luck, they could make it past the large lakes before dark, then onto the Cabixa. Welly would be waiting, with beans and rice. As Nate did these quick calculations, he felt the first raindrops.