“So, do I pray, too?” Maurício asked.
“Sure.”
“I don’t know. Is it a good idea for me to call God’s attention to us? You’re a heretic, after all.”
“Maurício . . .”
“He might send an angel to tell those idiot soldiers where to find us.”
“Maurício . . .”
“Or perhaps he’ll just hurl down a lightning bolt.” Maurício darted a quick look at the threatening sky.
“Or—”
Maurício’s mouth was open, and Henrique deftly thrust a tortilha where it would do the most good.
* * *
“Just a little farther,” Henrique said.
“Are you sure you know where we’re going?”
“Of course I’m sure.”
“That’s what you said about the ‘shortcut’ through the várzea.”
“This is different.” Near the mouth of the Maicuru, they had made a detour north, to find a small hill overlooking the Amazon. There, in a patch of upland forest, Henrique had prudently secreted a cache of trade goods and other useful items. Just in case he ever had to make a run for it.
“I wonder if this hill of yours should be considered an outlier of the Serra de Tumucumaque. According to that fabulous map of yours, the source of the Maicuru is there, about one hundred miles to our north.
“You know, perhaps we should backtrack to the Paru. We could cross the mountains over to the Litani, and the Maroni, and end up in what the map called French Guiana. Not that the French are there yet.”
Henrique grunted. “Keep walking, I want to reach the cache by nightfall.” The sun was just setting. And night came quickly in the tropics.
“Or perhaps,” Maurício continued, “we should head up the Trombetas and the Mapuera, cross the Serra do Acarai to the Essequibo, to Dutch territory.”
“Serra up, serra down,” Henrique muttered. He stopped for a moment to adjust his warishi, his backpack. Maurício walked past him; they were on a well-defined game trail.
“According to the maps,” Maurício said, “they can’t be much more than three thousand feet high. That can’t be hard, can it? Hannibal took elephants across the Alps, after all.
“Not that I’ve ever climbed a mountain, mind you. Unless this hill counts. Have you, Henrique? Climbed a mountain, I mean?” Henrique didn’t respond.
“Henrique? Did you hear—”
“Freeze!” Henrique shouted.
Maurício froze.
“Don’t move your arms, or your head. Not even a muscle. You can move your eyes . . . slowly. Look a little above, and slightly to your left.”
Maurício scanned the foreground. Then he saw it, a jararaca verde, a leaf-green-colored viper, perhaps two feet long, hanging from a branch nearby. Close enough to grab. Not that grabbing a fer-de-lance of any kind was one of the options Maurício was considering.
“Very slowly, put your left toe back . . . not so far . . . now slowly, bring your heel down, without bobbing your head. Good, now, same with the right. Keep your eyes on the snake at all times.”
The fer-de-lance, untimely awakened by Maurício, was eyeing him suspiciously.
“Can’t you kill the snake?” The words were mumbled; Maurício was trying not to move his jaw as he spoke.
“With a machete? While it’s hanging on a tree? Not a chance. Need to club it on the neck, while it’s on the ground. With a long club, mind you.
“Keep up your little dance backward, please.”
Gradually, Maurício inched away from the serpent.
“Okay, you can relax.”
Maurício fainted. Henrique poured a bit of water on his lips and forehead. After a few minutes, Maurício revived. “How did I miss it?”
“In the rainforest, you can see perhaps fifteen feet ahead. But you can cover that distance in ten seconds, even at a walk. You can’t afford to relax your vigilance, even for a moment.”
Maurício, his spirits somewhat restored, harrumphed. “You’re just looking for an excuse to keep me from talking.”
* * *
Bento grinned. “So dear Henrique is a pig-loving Jew. Well, it is my duty, my sacred duty as a son of the Church, to bring him home and teach him the error of his ways. Or perhaps the other way around, yes?”
His fellow thugs laughed. Bento had just returned to Belém from a slaving run down the Tocantins, and in town there was much gossip about Henrique’s disappearance, and the stymied search for him.
“We’ll take three boats, I think. Might as well do a little enlistment of native labor, while we’re up the Amazon. Be ready to leave at the crack of dawn tomorrow.”