Unfortunately, there was not one decent harbor in this part of the river. On both banks the grasslands stretched as far as the eye could see, vast prairies stripped bare of trees, which storms could sweep across without encountering a single obstacle.
M. Miguel, questioning Martos about his next move, asked the skipper if he would be forced to drop anchor in midriver until the next day.
“Too risky,” Martos answered. “There’s no place where our anchor will catch hold. The storm would toss us ashore, tip us over, and smash us to bits.”
“Then what can we do?”
The sky was threatening.
“Try getting to the next village upstream. Or if that won’t work, we’ll backtrack to Casimirito Island where we were last night.”
“And what’s the next village?”
“Buena Vista, on the left bank.”
In fact, this move was so clearly indicated that Valdez felt no need to confer with Martos and was already making for that village.
The deflated sails hung from the masts. The crewmen lowered them into the boat so the wind would not catch them. It was possible that the storm would be an hour or two in coming; the ash-colored clouds seemed to be stalled over the southern horizon.
“Bad weather?” Sergeant Martial asked the Gallinetta’s skipper.
“Very bad,” Valdez replied, “but we’ll try to outrun it.”
By this point the two boats were abreast of each other, no more than fifty feet apart. Their crewmen used long, forked poles as boat hooks, pulling themselves along the shoals. In all, it was a lot of work to little avail, because they barely made any headway against the current. But it was the only thing they could do. They had to get close to the left bank, where they could haul themselves along using the espilla.
This crossing took them a solid hour. Since they were determined not to drop anchor, the falcas were in constant danger of being swept downstream and possibly dashed against the rocks. But, thanks to the skill of their skippers and the effort of their crews, seconded by MM. Miguel, Felipe, and Varinas on one hand and by Sergeant Martial and Jean on the other, the two boats finally succeeded in arriving alongside the left bank without losing too much ground while going diagonally across the river.
Then they made use of their espillas. By expending much energy, they could at least be certain of not being carried downstream.
At Valdez’s suggestion, the boats were roped together one behind the other, and their two crews teamed up to haul them along. When the shoreline permitted, they went ashore and towed the boats while the skippers steered with their paddles. When the shoreline became impassable, they took the espilla some forty meters ahead and looped it around a rock or stump. Then the boatmen went back on board the Maripare and tugged on the espilla all together.
In this manner they passed the islands of Seiba, Cururuparo, and Estillero off the port side. A little later they went by Posso Redondo Island, nearer to the right bank.
Meanwhile the storm was growing stronger. Streaks of lightning shot across the southern horizon with extraordinary frequency, and the blinding flashes were accompanied by endless peals of thunder. Luckily, by about eight o’clock in the evening, while the skies were unleashing a violent hailstorm over the Orinoco’s left bank, the two falcas had made it safely to the village of Buena Vista.10
CHAPTER VII
Buena Vista to La Urbana
Disasters were in good supply that night. In its fury, the storm laid waste to a fifteen-kilometer area that extended as far as the mouth of the Arauca River. This was abundantly clear the next day, August 26,1 from the wide variety of debris drifting down the river—whose water, normally so crystalline, had turned the color of mud. If the two boats had not taken refuge in this little harbor, if they had been caught out in the middle of the Orinoco, there would be nothing left of them but shapeless wreckage. Their crews and passengers would no doubt have been lost.
Luckily Buena Vista had been spared because the storm followed a diagonal path that lay more to the west.
Buena Vista sits on the side of an island that becomes wider in the dry season as the water recedes past the sandbars, then shrinks correspondingly in the rainy season when the water returns. This latter circumstance allowed the Gallinetta and the Maripare to cruise right up to the village’s doorstep.
Village? It was nothing more than a small cluster of huts that could lodge 150 to 200 Indians. They come here only to gather turtle eggs, from which they extract an oil that is popular in the Venezuelan marketplace. Consequently during the month of August this village is practically a ghost town, because the nesting season ends around mid-May. In Buena Vista there were barely half a dozen Indian families, who lived by hunting and fishing, so if the boats had been in need of provisions the natives would have been no help. But the travelers had ample supplies, enough to last them till they reached the town of La Urbana, where they could easily stock up again.
In any case, the falcas had not been damaged by the fierce high winds, and that was the important thing.
Furthermore, their passengers took the advice of the boatmen and decided to spend the night ashore. One local family lived in a fairly decent hut and offered to put them up. These Indians belonged to the Yaruro tribe, who used to be among the most common in this region; unlike their relatives, they had stayed on in Buena Vista even after the nesting season.
This family consisted of the husband, a vigorous man sporting the traditional guaiacum leaves2 and loin cloth, his young wife, petite and well-built, wearing a long Indian gown, and a girl of twelve, as uncultivated as her mother. But these Indians were amenable to the gifts their guests offered—rum and cigars for the man, necklaces of glass beads and a little mirror for the mother and daughter. Cheap trinkets are held in the highest esteem by Venezuelan natives.3
By way of furnishings, their hut contained only some hammocks hanging from bamboo rafters and three or four baskets, locally known as canastos, in which Indians store their clothes and their most prized implements.
Despite Sergeant Martial’s consternation, the three colleagues from the Maripare were obliged to share these quarters with him and his nephew, because no other hut dwellers had offered their hospitality. M. Miguel, even more than his associates, was very considerate of the two Frenchmen. So Jean de Kermor had a chance to become better acquainted with his fellow travelers—while keeping his distance, of course, as his uncle’s scowling looks warned. From the outset, Jean was captivated by the little Indian girl, who seemed attracted by his friendliness.
So they chatted away while the storm howled outside. Their conversation was frequently interrupted. The peals of thunder echoed so noisily that they could not hear their own voices. Neither the little Indian girl nor her mother seemed at all alarmed, not even when thunder clapped and lightning flashed at the same instant. And more than once, as they would verify the following day, bolts of lightning shattered trees near the hut, making the appalling racket they had heard.
Such storms are commonplace along the Orinoco, so the Indians were used to them and did not feel the fear that even animals experience. They remained perfectly calm throughout this physical and emotional disturbance. Not so with Jean—like any strong-minded person, he had no deep-seated dread of thunder, but it still made him jumpy.
Inside the Indian hut, they continued to talk until midnight, and Sergeant Martial would have been a more active participant if his Spanish had been