Orinoco by Dan Pollock

Author:Dan Pollock [Pollock, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Tusitala Press
Published: 2013-12-02T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Jacqueline waited in the truck beside Bernardo, sipping her Pepsi and watching the media vans drive away and the crowd around Dr. Laya dwindle and disperse. Eventually, the archaeologist made his way wearily across the road toward her. She stepped out, offering him a cold soda.

He declined. “Thanks, I just had a beer. It’s been a long morning, hasn’t it?”

“Uh-huh. I just want to tell you, you were quite wonderful, Dr. Laya.” She had tried for a hopeful tone, but his bitter smile made it difficult.

“How kind. And, unfortunately, how irrelevant.” He sighed. “And did you capture it all for posterity?”

“Everything I could.”

“I’m sure you will make an excellent film, Jacqueline, one that will, how do you say, raise consciousness? But it will be too late to save Cerro Calvario. To have any hope of that, we desperately needed CNN here today. And, well, you saw what we got. Our Minister of Mines and your father should both get down on their knees and give thanks to Señorita Jessica.”

Dr. Laya was referring to Hurricane Jessica, which had laid waste the coast of Belize the day before, then swerved northwest across the Yucatán Peninsula, uprooting palms and leveling villages, leaving scores dead and thousands homeless. Jessica was now spinning capriciously over the Gulf. But, by nightfall, she was expected to plow ashore again, somewhere along a five-hundred-mile arc from Tampico to Galveston. CNN bureaus and other news facilities around the Caribbean basin were all on twenty-four-hour storm watch, as wind-driven waves lashed shores and seawalls. On a slow or average news day, this political confrontation at Cerro Calvario might have elicited a couple of international camera crews. But on this day, with the eyes of the world riveted just to the north, only three Venezuelan video crews had shown up, not counting Jacqueline and her Sony Handycam.

“Dr. Laya, you’re not giving up the fight?”

“No, Jacqueline. I will never do that. But I do feel a bit like the shepherd boy, David, seeing all his carefully aimed pebbles bounce off of Goliath’s helmet, then having the giant trample him beneath his sandals and keep on going—and laughing, you see. But no, I will get up now and look for another little stone to fling.”

“But so many people are rallying behind you—all the universities, the environmental groups, the anthropological society. And what about all your equipment?”

“It’s all still inside. I only came out with a few boxes of personal possessions and, thank God, a complete streaming-tape backup of my hard disk.”

“Well, I’m going to call my father about it. I mean, in addition to every other atrocity he’s helping to commit down here, how dare he confiscate scientific equipment!”

“Thank you, Jacqueline, but I advise you to save your outrage for something of larger import. It’s not the equipment I want out, it’s the accursed bulldozers. Until I abandon that possibility, the generators and resistivity meters and magnetometers may as well stay where they are, as long as Félix keeps them properly protected. Heaven knows, he won’t be needing them.

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