Highway by Donald O'Donovan

Author:Donald O'Donovan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9781452463827
Publisher: Open Books
Published: 2011-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

8

“The jungle is dark but full of diamonds, Willy,” Doyle Junghammer proclaimed as we hoisted beers at the Angels Camp Tavern one night after our workout. “Remember? You remember what Ben said in Death of a Salesman? When I was seventeen I walked into the jungle, and when I was twenty-one I walked out. And by God I was rich!”

Before we left for South America Doyle gave me his estranged wife’s address and phone number—just in case “something happened”—and I gave Doyle Aunt Mizpah’s number in Brandon. We drove to Key West, sold Doyle's car, caught a Colombian freighter to Rio and a plane to our jumping-off point, Brasilia, a city of fizzing potassium street lights. Quickly, we found a cheap hotel and set about the task of buying the necessary gear, machetes, an ax, hammocks, mosquito netting, shovels, picks, a two-man sluice-box and other mining equipment. In less than a day we had everything we needed, according to Doyle's calculations, and at an excellent price. It had all gone swimmingly. Flushed with confidence, we decided to take a week to get our bearings, study the maps, and have a little fun.

There was another reason for our stopover in Brasilia which I won't dwell on but I mention it because it’s significant in the light of what later developed. Doyle, since our two-week voyage on the Colombian freighter, had been having stomach problems, and he wanted to take time out to see a doctor, and also to “get adjusted to the climate and the food.” All in all we were two weeks in the bars and brothels of Brasilia. I should have taken this stomach business of Doyle's as an early omen that our venture was shot in the ass but I was caught up in the excitement of it and also I was perhaps too young to believe in omens.

We made the next leg of our journey on a riverboat carrying a cargo of kapok, tapir skulls, black balls of smoked rubber and half-cured caiman skins. Loaded with Indians, smiling children, dogs, pigs, pink orchids and mountains of mangoes, papayas and green bananas, the craft looked like a floating fruit salad. For a hundred miles we sailed the Araguaia River, a tributary of the Amazon, hugging the edge of the Mato Grosso, while flying fish vaulted out of the swirling chocolate water and flopped on deck.

In Maraba we found a guide, Lucien, a personable young Indian with a bataloa, a thirty-foot boat, and we were off again without delay, navigating the Xingu, the Tapajos, the Madeira, the Purus, and then the great Amazon itself.

We reached another stopping point some three weeks later near the confluence of the Rio Branco, the Rio Diablo and the Rio Negro, about 150 miles west of Manaus. There was a clearing in the jungle and a savoropanco, a thatched hut built by Indians that served as a shelter for fishermen and travelers. The gold fields, Lucien informed us, were now only a few miles distant.

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