Although his tenacity could not have been more obvious Gustavo's stupor repeatedly inhibited his efforts to sit upright and he swayed heavily back just catch his head with his arms as it smacked back down into the table.Nina was drooling a bit as she took "just a quick nap" which was her third such endeavor in the past half hour. But Nate had managed to get himself a beer and sipped it quickly trying not to show his consternation as Dory held the six-sided, jagged -ended emerald in her hands, marveling at its beauty and size. Dolores hovered over her nosily. Dory began to sniff the stone.
"Cedar oil," said Nate in a deep strained voice as if having a bowel movement, "it's an accepted practice in the industry for smoothing out minor flaws and it adds a little brilliance. The smell is long gone by the time it gets to the consumer and they usually cut the stones first but in this case-'
'In this case what?"
"In this case I can't tell you . What I can tell you is that emeralds are a variety of the mineral beryl colored green by a trace of chromium and sometimes vanadium. There is a camp that believes it is organic matter of some sort that causes the color. Emeralds are brittle and their resistance to breakage is generally poor. The word "emerald"comes from the latin smaragdus-
It is almost the same word in Dutch, smaragados" shouted Nina from her nap.
"Thank you for that Nina, "said Nate like a Professor, anxious to continue his monologue,"at any rate most Emeralds tend to have numerous inclusions and surface breaking fissures and can not be graded as scientifically as diamonds. Thus the emerald is graded by eyeballing it and if it has no visible inclusions and if the person eyeballing it has 20-20 vision it is considered flawless. But stones that lack surface breaking fissures are extremely rare and therefore almost all emeralds, the most valuable beryls are oiled to enhance their apparent clarity. Eye clean stones of a vivid primary green hue like the one you are holding with no more than 15% of any secondary hue either blue or yellow command the highest prices. And most emeralds are oiled as part of the post lapidary process, but that one was found like that so it has become Dolores' amulet- especially when Benecio is not here."
Dory rotated the stone in her hands even more fascinated after Nate's discourse and then looked closely at the stone as if she could not believe her eyes.She blinked to try to clear them. Then again. Then pulled the green beryl as close to her eyes as she could and still have them focus. She began to read slowly what was apparently etched in tiny letters on one facet of the stone:" Inter...Natos...Mulierum...non...sur-rexit...mayor"
She looked at Nate."un-hunh,"she said.
'C'mon you told me you knew latin ! Out with it!"
"From the woman...not a greater man has come...Something like that. I have never translated Latin to English."
"Not bad at all. Exactly in English it says:Among them borne of woman there hath not arisen a greater man." The Conquistador Cortez put it on one of his most famous emeralds that he brought back from the New World. Some say he was referring to John the Baptist, and some say that this sacrilege or vanity brought him and Spain bad luck and trouble for a long time to come."
"So what do you think about it?"
"I don't think about it. I didn't put it there."
"Ah, so this is the vanity of your partner."
"Yes the vanity of my partner who if he finds out that you know of this stone's existence- which he will upon his return in a week or so- he will gut you both and feed you to the caiman crocodiles right here in the lake without a second's thought. The man has been humping through these jungles for 40 years and if we try to run, Gustavo and Fernando will track us like wild pigs. Might we be able to overpower Gustavo now and be ready for Benecio with the shotgun I've got in my room? We could do that if I did not want to be fabulously rich. This ...spot we have found is potentially richer than the Chivor Mine in Columbia. Emeralds have never been found in Ecuador to give you a quick history lesson but Pizarro brought back gobs of them from Peru saying that Pre- Inca high priests used them in their ceremonies and had one the size of an osterich egg that was called the ' mother stone' and that the mother stone liked to have all of her daughters near her and so when it was time to pray all the supplicates brought in the smaller "daughter stones" to make the mother and the greedy priests happy and ultimately made Pizarro very happy who added the 'mother' and her daughters' to all the gold he sacked from Atahualpa in his monument to greed only matched today by corporate oil rapists .And guess what? Emeralds have never been found in Peru ! Nor in Mexico where Cortes brought back his great emerald. No mines ,no nothing...But I'll come clean now I didn't get here, I mean to this area by chance I have research that has led me here . Hell, I knew before Beni-- But enough History... Now lets talk about life and death.
So what are your options ? We can try to hide the truth from Gustavo who you can see is still half out of his mind. We can try to convince Gustavo who, although Benecio is his Padrino,his godfather, can't stand the bastard. Will he betray the bastard who worked his father into the ground never giving him an even split on the oil camps they built together? We can try to convince me who knows Benecio fairly well to let me lie your way out of here but you know I don't really trust the bastard either. He has taught me everything I know about the forest which doesn't count for a rat's ass when measured against maybe 50 or a hundred million dollars or more and I see that quotation on the stone as well... something ominous ...something tells me he may not be happy with half since all I did was come up with twenty thousand dollars in his hour of need for something that is worth millions.So he might just gut me regardless of the good times we've had in the forest setting up for this thing,getting Columbian buyers who will keep their mouths shut and have the worldwide resources to get the emeralds popping up all over the globe so nobody can trace them back to a single buyer(By the way I've made some arrangements of my own in that department with a fellow in Jaipur, India, the Emerald capital of India not usually for this quality of stone, but I've sent him samples and he is anxious to get in the game-this is something that Benecio knows nothing about, Don't you think I know he walked out of here with a nice sized leather pouch of emeralds ? And besides everything I don't like the way he treats Dolores and there are some nasty undertones going on there. He encourages her to go topless and tells me he doesn't want her to lose her nativa roots. I think there's nasty dirty old man mojo going on there.. Hell then the next thing I know he wants me to marry Dolores because I can communicate with her- and probably keep all the money in the family so to speak if I did- and one night nipping sinchicara he said he would make us each crowns of ' stones of the finest water' - thats a slighly old school term for stones of the finest color and crystal that we would wear along with neclaces of placer gold with no nugget less than 3 ounces. Not a bad welcome to the family don't you think ?
Anyway , it may be a drunkards dream as the poet once said but what else is there. You can try to run on your own and either Gustavo will track you in about a half an hour or you'll be dead in three days. This jungle which is so wide open and vast has become your prison. It could be mine as well...
Nina started sobbing and Dory hugged her trembling herself.
"Well this whole thing is my fault. I'm no saint but I was a fool to bring you down here and I see only one solution. Tomorrow , I will talk to Gustavo as the first step and since you already know too much, Nina, lets hope he thinks just a little bit with his dick.His attraction to you...and Gustavo may not mind doublecrossing Benecio if I put the package together properly for him. ...And since you already know too much and Dory has such a keen sense of curiosity,,,do they have that expression in Dutch: Curiosity Killed the Cat...Well you get what I mean...Oh Yeah, I remember a Dutch expression...let me see ...how did that go ? ah: Those that don't honor the little don't deserve the big. On the face of it a VERY quaint expression but look I got it all figured out see I'm honoring the little in fact I bow down to Dolores' little stone I kiss it every chance I get.Because It represents one motherfucking lode of the big that even Cortez and Pizzaro couldn't imagine. You get me. Kleine Beetje?Tomorrow I will show you everything (if Gustavo doesn't kill me first)."
"No don't tell us anymore,"cried Nina thoroughly alert now and terrified.
"I would like to see," said Dory,flatly."I am like that cat of yours."
Nate rolled his eyes.
"Okay, Dory I suggest you give the stone back to Dolores and I will direct her to keep quiet about the stone. If Gustavo mentions it to you, act Dumb."He made a face like Dolores might make.
"Now lets have some breakfast, if you ladies don't mind," and he plucked the stone away from Dory before she even had a chance to give it to Dolores and with Dolores following close behind him and squealing they headed out the back door of the cabin.
They ate breakfast virtually in silence ,with Dolores, now fitted again with her red bra top and joining them at the table. The girls had fried some kind of fish they found looking surprisngly fresh in the propane powered refrigerator, and Dolores had showed them how to smash plaintain slices into patacones for frying and with this she made a quick tour of the garden and snipped an assortment of vegetables which were so young and tender they needed perhaps three minutes in the steamer and then were dabbed with some sort of butter like substance just barely.The rice and the patacones Nina saw were in honor of the riverborn member of the group who did not take even one scoop of the succulent vegetables.
Then the girls retired to their room for a siesta which suprised Gustavo who only shrugged at Nate who shrugged back and he rolled into his bunk in the kitchen.
Nate sat on the edge of his bed straining to hear Viva the Macaw chatting it up with a pair of macaws crossing the lake.His hearing was beginning to fail him brought on by a vicious case of measles he had contracted six weeks earlier. It was useless to try to clear his ears anymore, the phlegm had subsided and anyway he had no doubt that Viva was telling them every detail of the drammatic recent events down to the last detail.
VISIT http://www.laselvajunglelodge.com/
