Little Tiny Teeth

FOURTEEN

The main dish that night was something a little different: freshly caught piranha. While the Adelita had been tied up at the checkpoint, the crew had passed the time fishing from the deck. Using bloody gobbets of lizard as bait (according to Vargas, the bait, if untaken, had to be changed every couple of minutes; as soon as the blood drained away, it was of no interest to the piranha), they’d hauled them in by the dozen. The piranhas were served up from the buffet table in filets of firm, white meat, much like halibut in taste and texture. In addition, a sort of centerpiece for the dining table had been made up of four whole ones arranged in a circle, with their tails together in the center, and their ferocious little sharp-toothed mouths facing out.

Gideon had seen photos of them, and some dried specimens as well. Still, he was surprised at how small the celebrated “cannibal fish of the Amazon” were: six or seven inches long, chubby and pink, and almost cute when looked at from the side. But seen head-on, there was nothing cute about that open mouth crammed full of those justly famous little teeth, as sharp and pointed and vicious-looking as a shark’s.

Because Scofield was the only one at the table who had any personal knowledge of piranhas, they were naturally a subject of curiosity to the others. Scofield, feeling his oats – he was almost manic – was regaling them with scientific and not-so-scientific piranha lore. These particular specimens were Pygocentrus natterreri, the infamous red-bellied piranha, that could strip an unlucky live cow or human down to a bare, white skeleton in thirty minutes or less. As far as Gideon knew, this was an exaggerated account. He was fairly certain that there were no verified accounts of human beings having actually been killed by piranhas, although many a barefoot native fisherman had less than his full complement of toes as a result of standing in a dugout and continuing to fish while freshly caught, still-living piranhas flopped about on the floor. And there was no doubt about their ability as scavengers to peel the flesh off an already dead creature in short order (even if thirty minutes was pushing it a bit). But tonight it was not an issue. The piranhas were the eatees, not the eaters, and it was they who were being made short order of.

Cisco showed up late for dinner, as he did now for most meals – when he bothered to show up at all. As usual, he was weaving a little, as if the boat were on the high seas and not on a slow, brown, jungle river. Also as usual, he ignored the main dishes and went straight for the dessert, which was local finger-length bananas sliced up in honey. He loaded up a good four servings’ worth in a soup bowl, the tip of his tongue sticking out with the effort at eye-hand coordination that was required. Holding the bowl carefully in both hands, he wandered unevenly back to the others, where he took his usual place as not quite part of the group, his chair pushed back from the table, so that he had to hold the bowl in his lap, where it claimed his whole attention while Scofield continued regaling the others.

“What’s more…” Scofield continued, “this is known to be the only species-”

Cisco laughed abruptly. “Hey, piranhas,” he mumbled, apparently his first notice of them. “Whoa. How you doing, little guys?” He put his emptied bowl aside and leaned forward to run his fingers over the razor-sharp teeth.

“Little… tiny… teeth,” he said dreamily, moving from tooth to tooth with each word. And once again, as if he were reciting something: “Little… tiny… teeth.”

The helper behind the buffet table tonight was the cook, Meneo, a wizened, five-foot-tall Huitoto Indian who spoke no English and only a few words of Spanish, but who seemed to find everything the passengers said sidesplittingly funny. Cisco’s crooning was no exception. Narrow shoulders jiggling, tears of glee streaming from his eyes, small, brown hands keeping time, he sang along with Cisco.

“Widdoo… ty’ee… teet’. Widdoo… ty’ee… teet’…”

Meneo’s hilarity was hard to resist, and pretty soon everybody was doing it, hooting with laughter and beating time on the table. “Widdoo… ty’ee… teet’…”

Gideon, chortling and beating away with the rest of them, shook his head in self-amazement. “Somebody send for a doctor,” he said to Phil. “I think we’re all getting jungle fever.”

On Wednesday afternoon, twenty minutes into their trek to meet with the famous Orejon curandero Tahuyao (celebrated for his plant cure for inflammation of the kidneys, reputed to be highly effective and entirely risk-free – other than its propensity to turn the skin iguana-green for four to six months), the outing was called off. Cisco was not feeling well. According to what he told Scofield, his headaches had flared up. According to what he told Phil, an old knee injury was bothering him. To Tim he explained that his back just wasn’t up to a long hike that day.

Whatever the cause, he disappeared back toward the ship, sighing and groaning piteously. The passengers had to content themselves with a self-guided botanical exploration of the jungle within easy range of the Adelita, a disappointment to most, but not to Duayne. Before he left, Cisco had pointed to some pendulous, bulbous birds’ nests hanging from low branches over the river. “Oropendela nests,” he’d told Duayne. “There ought to be some cockroaches in there. They love the birdshit.”

Ten minutes later, an overjoyed Duayne had come back cradling a trembling, monstrous, black, gold, and brown cockroach that completely covered the palm of his hand. “ Blaberus giganteus,” he’d proudly told anybody who would listen. “I admit, it may not be the most massive cockroach in the world – that’d be the Australian burrowing cockroach – but it’s every bit as long or even longer. This particular beauty measures more than four inches in length, and that’s not counting the antennae! And I’m betting the wingspread is a good twelve inches, maybe even more! And they can actually fly, you know – really fly – unlike our earthbound homegrown variety. They say they do it in great hordes. Wouldn’t that be something to see? Ten thousand of these on the wing, flapping away?” His eyes turned dreamy at the thought; a small, blissful smile played about his lips.

Gideon too enjoyed the outing, but for a different reason. Not long after Duayne had returned to his cabin to carry out the regrettable but necessary execution of his Blaberus, Gideon noticed that the already dim rain forest was growing rapidly darker. Then came a sound he couldn’t place at first, a deep, resonant thrumming from above, like thousands – millions – of wingbeats, that made him look up apprehensively, with thoughts of giant flying cockroaches. But after a moment he realized it was the sound of heavy rain hitting the canopy. Despite the volume, it seemed a mere sprinkling at first, barely getting him wet, but that was only because it was working its way down through the foliage. When it finally hit with all its force, it pelted him in huge, warm drops, and then in streams, as if a thousand faucets had been turned on, and then in choking sheets. Most of the others ran for the boat, but Gideon just stood there, arms and face held up to the sky, coughing as the clean, fresh water filled his mouth and nose, but letting it soak him through. It was like a baptism, a wonderful break from the unrelenting closeness and humidity of the jungle.

After dinner, Gideon found his mood depressed. Unlike John and Phil, he still hadn’t adjusted to the temperature, and especially not to the strangling humidity. He’d been in climates with 100 percent relative humidity before, so, technically speaking, it was impossible for this to be any worse. Except that it was. The air was more like damp wool than air, lying heavy and hot on the skin and making breathing a struggle. He was listless and restless at the same time. And Lord, he missed Julie. Not feeling very social, he lasted only a few minutes at the by-now de rigueur night session on the roof, before saying good night. Back in his cabin, although he’d been told his cell phone wouldn’t work, he tried calling her. Nothing, not even static.

At nine o’clock he slid open his window to let in the river’s night breeze – after dark, it made things cooler than the air-conditioner did – and went to bed, hoping that a long night’s sleep would pep him up. It had been a mistake not to bring any work with him. The idea had been that this was to be a genuine vacation for a change, an opportunity to relax in an interesting locale with nothing pressing on his mind to interfere with the enjoyment of the experience. It had worked for a little while, but now he had gotten fidgety. How many days were left? Two? It seemed like a long time still to go.

He needed something to do.

His opportunity wasn’t long in coming.

It was the stifled, piercing cry – “ Ai!” – that broke through to his webbed, sleeping mind, but even as he swam unwillingly to the surface, he thought he remembered that it had been preceded by some kind of distant thumping or scraping. (He’d incorporated it into a nonsensical dream, something to do with a dying horse trying to stomp its way into its locked stall.) With his head still on the pillow, he looked at the softly glowing dial of his watch: 1:45. It was perfectly quiet now, with no sound but the hissing of the water along the side of the ship below his cabin window. Had there really been a cry, or had he been – The hollow, ponderous pa-loosh of something substantial plunging into the river dissolved the last shreds of sleep.

“Somebody’s overboard! Stop the ship!” he yelled instinctively, jumping out of bed and springing for the cabin door. Before he reached it there was another cry, this one shrill with panic: “Help me, somebody! I can’t swim! I can’t swim!”

Maggie?

Then, with his hand on the door handle, there was yet another resounding pa-loosh. Two people overboard? Good God In another second he had yanked the door open and was on the deck, leaning over the railing and peering into the darkness. After a moment he was able to make out Maggie, thrashing and gasping in the black water about twenty yards behind the slowing Adelita.

“Hang on!” he called. “I’m coming!” He jerked an orange M/V Adelita life preserver from its clasp, hooked it over his arm, and vaulted feet-first over the railing, trying not to think about the fact that the last lifesaving instruction he’d had had been in junior high school. Or about little tiny teeth and the fact that his toes were bare.

He panicked slightly himself as the warm, rank-smelling water closed over his head – Gideon had never been altogether at home in the water and especially not under it – pulled himself to the surface, grabbed the life preserver, which had been plucked from his grasp by the impact, and sidestroked toward the struggling Maggie, who was beating her arms against the surface to keep from going down. When he reached her and touched her shoulder she fought him blindly, catching him painfully in the mouth with her fist, but then she saw who it was and calmed down enough for him to get the ring over her head and under one of her arms.

“Thank you!” she gasped. “I thought it was – Thank you!” He hardly recognized this wild-eyed woman as the formidable person of the last few days. Her face was bunchy with distress, and her hair, ordinarily so neatly arranged, was plastered over her face in limp, black strands that looked like seaweed. And she was weeping frenziedly, a sloppy, snuffly, child’s sobbing that convulsed her body, or at least the little of it that Gideon could see.

“You’re okay, Maggie,” he said, his hand comfortingly on her shoulder. “I’ve got you, you’re safe. Are you hurt?”

“No, I’m – I don’t think so, no.”

“What happened?” he asked. “Is there someone else in the water? I heard two splashes.”

“Yes – uck -” Choking on swallowed water, unable to speak, she turned her head away from him, coughing and spluttering.

The Adelita had swung around now and was turning to get back to them. Some of the others were out on deck in their underwear or pajamas, gesticulating and calling encouragement. Maggie, held by Gideon and supported by the life preserver, had sighed shakily a couple of times and begun to relax, when suddenly she went rigid. Her hand clamped on his forearm. “You have to get him!” she shouted, her face only inches from his. “He’s going to get away!”

“Who’s going to get away? Maggie, what happened?”

“No, you have to get him! He grabbed me! He threw me over!” She was crying again, and shoving against him.

“Catch hold now.” John’s reassuring voice came from above. “We’ll pull you up.”

The ship had come up alongside them, and the gate in the railing had been opened. John, dressed in T-shirt and boxers, as was Gideon, was kneeling in the opening, holding out a boat hook with a ten-foot-long shaft.

“You have to get him!” she said to Gideon again, even more urgently. “Don’t you understand what I’m telling you? He tried to kill me! He… he…”

“We’ll talk about it when we’re aboard,” Gideon told her firmly. “Let’s get ourselves up there first.”

“No, but…!” She stopped herself and nodded. “All right, yes.”

She caught hold of the proffered pole, and with Gideon steadying her from below and John pulling from above, she more or less climbed up the side of the boat to the deck, a distance of perhaps five feet. Gideon quickly followed. They both stood dripping on the deck while questions came at Maggie from all sides: “Are you all right? Are you hurt?”

Still wracked with coughing, she shook her head at them. “Not hurt.”

“What happened? Who tried to kill you?”

In frustration, she shook her head again. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you-” She held her hand up while she went through another bout of deep, painful coughing. When it had run its course, she took in a slow, steadying breath, and let it out, cheeks inflated. Then she raised her head, feeble but very much more in control of herself.

“Cisco,” she said.