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Culhane grabbed Mulrooney's other paddle. "Do what I do but from your side of
the canoe and pray a lot!"
Culhane started shoving the butt of the paddle shaft against the rocks, trying
to free the boat. One of the Uruentes had made it out along the rocks.
Culhane drew his empty gun and stabbed it toward the Indian. "Bang-bang, you
bastard!" The Indian leaped into the water. Culhane guessed the Uruente
preferred gators and piranha to a bullet. But the trick wouldn't work again.
The canoe lurched, and Culhane nearly lost his balance. "Paddle fast this
way!"
He didn't look at Mulrooney, only heard her grunted agreement.
Gunfire blasted from Sebastiao's canoe, and more arrows sang from the nearly
naked girl with him. Sebastiao and the girl had crossed to the far side of the
river, and they were beginning now to pole their canoe along the opposite
riverbank with their paddles to escape the power of the downstream current.
Culhane was hoping to do the same. "Paddle faster, Fanny!"
"I'm paddling as fast as I can!"
And then they were out of the strongest part of it, Culhane feeling the
resistance change against his paddle, against the dugout itself, the water
quieter. They were nearing the opposite bank. And they were out of range of
the Uruentes.
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Sebastiao and the Greek girl were moving out from the riverbank now, paddling
upstream.
Culhane reached the far bank and dug his paddle into the mud, the dugout
holding.
"You all right?"
"I think so. You're gonna get yourself killed someday and make me a widow
before I'm a bride."
"Yeah, well..."
"Yeah, I know, Sean Dodge does this stuff before breakfast."
Culhane laughed, and grabbed her face with his right hand. He kissed her hard
on the mouth, and then she buried her head against his chest. "I thought those
Uruente guys had me had us."
Culhane only nodded, still a little out of breath. "Let's go and catch up with
Sebastiao and Fred." He shrugged out of his backpack and started to rifle
through it, finally finding Mulrooney's blue canvas purse. "Thought you might
like this back."
"They pulled all the stuff out."
"I found some of it. Hairbrush, lipstick "
"Lipstick! Let me at it!" She started rifling through the bag. "Ha!" She
opened it and pursed her lips.
"You realize how ridiculous this looks you're a strange broad." But meanwhile
he had found the spare box of ammo that was in the bottom of the pack.
Closing the pack, he started poling them upriver against the current, telling
Mulrooney, "When you get through getting gorgeous, load my revolver and my
Speedloaders, okay?"
"I can load the rifle, too. Is this water safe to wash my face with?"
"Watch out that nothing nips off the ends of your fingers. Better still, take
the canteen off my pack and use some of that."
"Gotcha."
"And pass over the canteen when you're through. There's plenty of fresh water
on the boat."
But he heard something as he poled them away from the bank and back into the
deeper water. He heard gunfire, and as the roar of the rapids decreased, the
sound of the gunfire became even louder.
The gunfire was ahead, beyond the bend in the river perhaps a mile away.
He closed his eyes for a moment, telling Mulrooney, "You might try and hurry
up on those guns. And thanks for the rifle. So far, the field testing's going
just great." And the gunfire ahead grew louder. It sounded like automatic
weapons. The river bandits?
As they drew closer to the bend, Culhane could see the color of the water. It
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was the Negro, the river's color darker than the water in which they now
traveled. He kept paddling. Sebastiao and the Greek girl's canoe slowed, and
Culhane was nearly beside it now.
"The pirates, senhor?"
"Yes I think so," Culhane called back.
"What do we do?"
"Tin aftoh?" asked the Greek girl.
Culhane looked at her. He couldn't think of the word for bandits. Then he
looked at Mulrooney. She was doing some sign language, something like a gun
being shot. A frown on her face. Her hands to her neck as though she were
being strangled. Snatching her purse as though it were stolen.
The Greek girl smiled. "Kleftiss!"
"Charades," Culhane muttered.
Culhane looked downstream. The Uruentes had lit fires near the riverbank
opposite them.
"What are they doing?" Mulrooney asked him.
Culhane took a pull from the canteen, then answered her. "Burning down trees.
They can use vines to lash the trees together. The trees are small enough to
burn quickly. Five or six together make a decent raft. They'll be following us
as soon as they can."
"How long, senhor?"
"I don't know. I've never built a raft that way." But as if punctuating his
words, there was a sudden snapping sound that could be heard above the
gunfire. A tree was falling. "This is what they call the horns of a dilemma."
The Greek girl looked worried. He told her not to be. And Culhane smiled. He
was worrying enough for everybody.
They began to paddle, this time to make headway rather than merely to counter
the current.
The bend in the river was growing in the distance, the gunfire more sporadic
now. Culhane looked to the other canoe. Sebastiao was checking his rifle. He
and Mulrooney paddled hard in silence.
They were nearly at the bend now, the darker waters of the Negro forming a
downstream current. He was still trying to figure how they had gotten so far
off position. He remembered fording a stream with the Bronco. Was that it... ?
Culhane stopped his musing. He saw ahead of them a camouflage-painted
riverboat about the size of their own riverboat, gunmen hanging over the
gunwales, firing, then diving down to cover. Parallel with them, off the
nearer bank, was their own riverboat, guns popping up and firing, the white
Ford Bronco parked by the bank.
It was no longer necessary to paddle except to steer as they turned into the
bend, the current snatching the canoes like the claws of a ravenous animal.
Culhane drew the six-inch, ready.
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Behind him, he heard Mulrooney working the lever of the Browning rifle.
Almost beside them and a little behind, he heard the bolt of Sebastiao's rifle
being worked.
He glanced toward the second canoe. Sebastiao's face was set, grim. Behind
him, poised on her knees with one of the Uruente spears in an upraised arm,
was the Greek girl, the modern-day Amazon.
There was a novel in her, Culhane thought. Maybe he could get Fanny away from
her crazy occult books to do some serious fiction. He thought about his own
books: he was a fine one to lecture somebody about doing some serious writing.
"All right, Sean Dodge, let's see you top this!" Culhane rasped under his
breath.
Behind him he heard Mulrooney's voice. "Hey if we die or something, I love
you."
"I love you, too, but we won't die. We're too tough."
"Sure we are." He heard her force a laugh.
The bandits' boat was anchored slightly upstream of the second riverboat. It
meant that until Culhane and the others were very close, their canoes would
not be seen. He judged the speed of the current. They would be sitting ducks
for approximately three minutes maybe four.
The current pulled them along. Two small motorized skiffs pulled away from the
camouflaged riverboat, armed men firing from them as they made wide arcs,
coming up on Santini and Helene Chavez and the others from both sides. Someone
from Santini's boat fired, and one of the river bandits went down into the
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