# 20 Gustavo

The cabin swayed and trees cracked throughout the night. Nina and Dory slept together in one bed and Nate and Dolores in Nate's room also slept embraced. Dolores' choke hold on his throat awakened him from his drunken stupor just before dawn. The after shocks continued but at greater intervals and with less intensity.

They ate breakfast quickly, Dolores packed a Lunch and Nate had the instinct to take a photograph of the bedraggled foursome including himself with the camera on a timer. Years later the picture was one of the few records of this time and it showed a motley, veteran team whose full purpose was not yet realized or clear.

They set off to see about pulling the last canoe, the last fluvial transportation of any kind, out of the canal which led to the hyacinth lake.

Nate cut thick sections of bamboo with his machete, sliding them as the canoe progressed across the land again and again underneath it to produce a rolling effect.With Nate and Dory pulling from the rope used to moor the canoe and Nina and Dolores pushing, they established a fairly steady rhythm with the girls in the rear retrieving the passed bamboo "wheels" and placing them again in the forward path of the canoe.

They launched it into the lake. Nate paddled in the rear and Dolores paddled in front. The scene on the lake was idyllic. No unnatural signs of damage could be seen in the forest all around them and the birds, monkeys, even a sloth ever so slowly, seemed to be acting as if nothing unusual had happened.

They grounded the canoe , not more than 5 minutes down the stream,next to Gustavo's canoe.

"It's much shorter on foot," said Nate, and they took a path which must have been Gustavo's. The path ran right along the stream in places and they came up behind traditional hunters blinds that Gustavo had woven here and there along the path at well chosen points , where the motorized canoe would be making a particularly serpentine turn- to make an assault on Benecio.

They walked on and Nate continually checked the stream which had a downriver facing entrance from the Napo River and therefore a less likely chance of damage unless the Napo had flooded tremendously (Garzacocha, the lake was spring fed and rainfall caused most of its rising and falling but once or twice a year waters from the Napo, especially when it overflowed its banks entered the lake for a day or two and then would drain.) which all indications so far were that it had not.

They found him, a body face down in the damp Amazonian soil, a large tree limb resting on his back.

Nina screamed.

Which produced a loud grown from Gustavo.

Together they removed the the heavy tree branch and in three languages simultaneously asked him if he thought it was all right to turn him over. He hesitated in an effort to assimilate the information. Then turned himself over.
"Chupcababra." said Gustavo after drinking some water from the canteen Nate found in his disheveled campsite.
"Yeah," said Nate "Chupacabra, a million of them. Hell hath no fury like the chupacabra."

There was dried blood on Gustavos scalp and forehead and Nate surmised that he might have a slight concussion. He explained to him about the earthquake and that Benicio was no longer a threat and without overwhelming the man gave him the huge emerald to hold which made Gustavo's eyes bulge more than any chupacabra could, Nate was sure of that.Overwhelmed, he had the need to lie down flat again.

They left him with Nina and headed towards the Napo River another 20 minutes on foot. What they saw when Nate's machete quickly laid clear an opening in the brush was incomprehensible. Everything was coated with glopping crude oil from bank to bank and the river itself was so jammed with logs that one could walk across it if it were not so slippery with the black goo. The river flowed no more than the stream of their emerald mine.

Nate, Dory and Dolores sat down on the bank to ponder this natural holocaust smothered with petroleum as if to seal in and obscure all record of past life and grief, watching small crabs, the only living thing that they could discern, go in and out of little holes in the sides of the riverbanks as if it were the last shopping day before Christmas.Soon a noise that to Nate sounded like a distant crash of bowling pins, came again much closer and then finally was upon them with water in waves equal to great ocean waves which held in them the crashing of logs against logs and other debris. Human debris. Cows. Horses. Buildings.

Ultimately it slowed like an outgoing tide and left the trickling stream of water and oil amid the logs once more. Their were several Dorado bagre the giant catfish of the Napo river sobbing with difficulty through their gills in a shallow pool of water just beneath them. Nate jumped down quickly and threw the fish, each weighing fifty pounds or more up on the bank, and taking no more than a quick glance up river hurried back up the 8 feet or so he needed to clamber to reach safety again.

"If you've never had a ceviche of bagre, he told Dory, its to die for..."
"I was expecting some analysis..."
"What the fuck do I know. I don't think anybody knows. But I can guess that there is half a forest blocking the flow of the waters that normally run into this one and every now and then there is a break in the logjam and what we just saw happens. I figure when there is more water than trees, that's when this river will start flowing again and that's when we'll start to think about getting out of here."
"And when will that be?"
"Hopefully before we run out of beer. But then again, I bet Gustavo knows how to build a still."

He cut a tree limb with his machete and strung the three bagre through it.They barely flopped in protest. He lead the way with one end of the limb and Dory and Dolores held the rear with great effort.

They arrived back to find Nina kneeling close to Gustavo who now sat with his feet outstretched and she was combing his hair. It was a a fairly good likeness of Gustavo's own "doo" and he felt the waves she had created with his comb and smiled his approval.
They kissed and she helped him to his feet.They kissed again.

Dory could not bare to watch this show of affection and turned her attention to a woodpecker, its red crest exaggerating each head thrust ,work on an ailing palm tree in the distance.They were still kissing when she turned back and recognized the tenderness in Gustavo and the genuine happiness in her friend she knew so well.She was happy for her friend, she decided then and there, come what may.

"Entonces," said Gustavo, holding perhaps one of the most valuable emeralds in the world,but the idea of it just beginning to register, " somos ricos."
"We are not just rich," yelled Nate, and the forest shook. Another aftershock. He lowered his voice: "We are endowed."
Nate and Gustavo each took an end of the pole with the bagre and Nate described the river to Gustavo who said he would take a look the next day. Not even his lifetime in the rainforest, Nate knew, would prepare him for what he would see.But one thing was for sure if the road hadn't swamped Benecio, this river of of logs and tar would keep him out for a long time to come .

They began to paddle back across the lake with Nate and Dolores doing the work and at the waters edge nearly everywhere they looked was the green heron, the Garza, that Garzacococha, the lake, was named after and the moment was not lost on Gustavo who fondled their giant emerald. "We should call it the Garza Emerald,"he said.
"Couldn't think of a better name,"replied Nate, transfixed on the the multide of herons.
"The Garza Emerald," said Nina softly,"yes".
"I like it," said Dory.
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