Yaquita took the radio-guitar from him and stowed it on the curved bottom of the dugout. She grabbed a paddle. "Maybe if we paddle fast enough, they won't overtake us."
Bole and the natives dug in their paddles and surged upstream, quietly singing a rowing song to keep them in time.
Thinking of his hero, Admiral Nelson, Smith wished he could have at least been standing in the bow of the canoe, but he wasn't sure his balance was sufficient to the task.
On the patrol boat, Captain Morales continued to scan the river with his binoculars. Sweat beaded on his brow. They should have seen something by now. O'Halloran's warning couldn't be wrong.
"The moon is going down and we're losing whatever light we had, sir," the chief officer said, standing nervously at the captain's side. "Shouldn't we tie up to the bank and continue the search at dawn?"
Morales whirled on him. "And miss half a million dollars? You must be crazy. Where's your patriotism?"
The last shreds of moonlight spilled across the riverbank, but the dugouts and passengers hid in the overhanging foliage. Accompanied by the chug of a gunboat engine, a searchlight swept the water, dragging a pool of illumination from one side of the brownish river to the other.
Yaquita crouched beside her canoe and peered anxiously through the leaves. The searchlight swept by again, intent and relentless. "The patrol is going to spot us!" she said in a hoarse whisper.
The disguised Bolo huddled next to Smith, whispering insidiously to the wide-eyed Navy lieutenant. "If you just stand up so they can see who it is, they'll go away." His voice sounded eminently reasonable.
"You're joking!" Smith said, incredulous.
"No, everyone knows Pedrito Miraflores. He's a famous hero in these parts. You've seen that yourself."
"Really?"
"Absolutely! They've got to be looking for someone else. Once they know it's Pedrito, they'll just go home."
With a shrug, Smith stood up, still dressed in his fresh white clothes. The gunboat's searchlight swung and hit him.
In the bridge house, Morales held the binoculars to his eyes. "That's him!" he cried, grabbing the loud hailer around his neck. He put the bullhorn to his lips. "Pedrito Miraflores, make one move and you're a dead man."
Smith stood with the dazzling searchlight in his face, blinking furiously. He heard the big bow cannon swivel into position, taking aim at him and all the hidden canoes. Yaquita and the native paddlers groaned in dismay.
"But I'm not Pedrito," he said to himself, then sighed. He wondered what Nelson would have done now.
The gunboat approached, ablaze with flashing lights. Other sailors crowded the decks, carrying their weapons at the ready.
Smith decided that in a desperate situation such as this, Nelson would have led a boarding party. The gunboat crew would never expect him to run out to them. It would take them completely by surprise. He pulled off his tennis shoes, hopping on one foot in the rocking canoe as he struggled to get off the other shoe.
"No, no, no!" Yaquita said in terror, grabbing for Smith. "Remember the crocodiles!"
The lieutenant didn't hear her as he dived into the black water. Yaquita's hand clutched empty air, and the canoe paddlers grabbed branches to keep from tumbling face-first into the river themselves.
In the front canoe, the natives shoved their dugouts back into the current, attempting to catch the young redhead as he swam toward the patrol boat.
Hearing the splash as Smith jumped into the water, a line of crocodiles leaped off the muddy bank in a hungry avalanche up and down the river. They fought with each other to be the first to reach the fresh meat.
Bolo smiled, watching the events unfold, confident that Smith could get out of the fix. Yaquita stood in the dugout, leaning forward with a boathook, madly trying to snag Smith as he swam toward the gunboat. The other vessel was still two hundred yards away, its lights blazing into the night.
On deck. Captain Morales bellowed through his loudspeaker. "What is he doing? Men, we are under attack! Turn! Turn, hard to port! Get out of here!"
The river boiled with crocodiles gliding toward the dugouts, snapping their jaws. Yaquita looked over the side of the canoe, snarled, threw down the boathook and used an oar to bash one of the crocodiles in the snout.
Bolo grabbed the boathook and snagged Smith's belt, then pulled him to the gunwale, though Smith continued to splash and stroke. One of the paddlers yelled, gesturing toward the water. A crocodile's jaws gaped for Smith's legs, but Yaquita helped yank the lieutenant into the boat. The tooth-filled jaws snapped shut, empty....
On the gunboat the chief officer shone his searchlight back at the dugouts as the gunboat veered sharply. The river was full of black and writhing reptiles. Rows of white fangs flashed.
Suddenly, he looked down and saw an enormous log thrusting up from the muddy river. With the new course, he was heading straight for it.
"Aagh!" he shouted in dismay.
With a mighty jolt, the patrol boat ran aground on the log, twisting the boat upward.
The bow flew up, pointing the huge cannon at the stars. The cannon discharged, knocking an unlucky bat from the air.
"I think we struck a mine," the pilot shouted.
Morales gripped the lurching deck rail with white-knuckled hands. "We're sinking!" he shouted. "Head for shore! All hands, abandon ship."
Morales jumped overboard along with the rest of his crew— right into the waiting jaws of the massed crocodiles.
One of his crewmen, struggling to keep the teeth of a crocodile from closing on him, cried out, "Sir, what do we do about these crocodiles?"
"Swim!" Morales shouted as he turned in an attempt to regain the gunboat. He grabbed the gunwale and was pulling himself from the water when a croc grabbed his shirttail.
"Wait, get this crocodile off of me!" Morales ordered the crewman.
The crocodile rolled, tearing Morales from the side of the boat, and dragged him beneath the boiling waves.
With all of the screaming and thrashing and the scent of blood in the water, the crocodiles around the dugouts quickly turned aside, looking for easier meals.
The native dugouts headed upstream. Smith, sopping wet now and taking his turn at paddling the canoe, said to Bolo behind him, "What did they go aground on? A reef? Must be treacherous waters hereabouts."
Bolo stopped paddling and raised his eyes to heaven and let out an incredulous sigh. Still, Smith had survived, and his brash and unexpected action had been successful... somehow.
Behind them, the crocodiles made loud splashing sounds in the water as they set to an enormous feast.
Chapter 30
BY THE TIME they reached the high Andes, Smith felt extremely saddle sore. His bony-backed burro was even worse than the wild buckskin stallion back at the Miraflores hacienda. The creature's fur bristled out like a scrubbing brush, and the alpaca blanket underneath did little to pad the thin saddle.
Smith and Yaquita made their way up a steep mountainside trail on flat, rocky pavement laid down by slaves of the Incan Empire several centuries before. Sheep and llamas had passed this way many times on their way up to the high pastures, led by Indian shepherds and their dogs.
Finally, the trail became steep enough and treacherous enough that they were forced to dismount and lead the burros; Smith was relieved to give his hindquarters a rest. He hobbled along bowlegged and sore, as he guided the first two burros wearing saddles. Behind him, Yaquita led two other burros laden with packs. She seemed bright and cheerful, as if the thin mountain air had done her good.
"Our patsy looks pretty tired," Colonel Ivan remarked from a ridge high above.
"He hasn't had much sleep," Enrique said, taking the binoculars and adjusting the focus. "He'll be more gullible then."
"More gullible?" Ivan laughed at the thought. "I can't believe he has survived this long. Maybe he has a bit of Pedrito in him after all."
The skyline was a background of barren peaks of bleak, wind-swept stone. Giant Andean c
ondors rode the thermals, circling for carrion they could snatch from the mountain slopes.
The Cuban colonel scratched his voluminous beard, then clutched his wool blanket around him against the chill. The Russian didn't seem to notice the cold at all.
Through his binoculars, Enrique could see that Smith had retreated to the tail end of the procession, slumped across the last burro. Yaquita led the other three animals up front, picking up the pace.
"I feel sorry for Smith, in a way, even if he is an enemy," Ivan said. "That Yaquita would wear any man out." He mopped his brow. "I am still tired."
"I didn't know you'd had an affair with Yaquita, too!" Enrique said.
"Hasn't everybody?" Ivan answered, genuinely surprised. "She feels it's her duty to the revolution."
"Well, I certainly haven't had an affair with her!" Enrique said. "You think I'm crazy? All she ever has in mind is marriage."
The trail became steeper. Smith physically lifted a burro over a broken boulder that had crashed down the mountainside in front of them. He tugged the beast's front legs over the obstacle, then the hind legs. He shoved with his shoulder, hoping he wouldn't receive a swift kick in the head.
Yaquita and the three remaining burros waited, amused.
Before long a blizzard was blowing. White snow plastered the burros, their packs, their saddles and Smith himself. He trudged along, head down and blinking in the blinding wind. He tugged the burros' lead ropes, hoping he wouldn't stumble off the edge of a cliff.
Yaquita used the battered guitar case to shield herself from the worst of the snow.
"When our Lieutenant Smith refuses to marry her—and he will, you mark my words—she'll cut his throat from ear to ear!" Enrique said. He swiped his finger across his jugular. "Even if she does think he's her Pedrito."
Snow covered Enrique's wool blanket, and he shivered, cold and wet. The Russian colonel ignored the weather, paying attention only to the tiny procession on the mountain trail far below.
As Smith had feared, the narrow path ended abruptly at a precipice, and he barely managed to stop himself in time. Chunks of snow and rock fell down into the gorge below. He heard the cold wind whistling around him.
One of the burros stumbled half over the edge, braying in panic. Smith grabbed the lead rope, fighting the beast back onto the trail, but the burro seemed more interested in bucking and kicking than in saving itself.
Yaquita and the rest of the procession were strung out on the cliffside trail. She watched Smith's heroic efforts with a confident smile.
Before long, he had wrestled the burro back onto the path, panting and sweating from the effort. Safe again, the beast looked at him with an expression as bland as Bolo's. They continued along the perilous path, making progress.
Smith had no idea where they were going.
"Oh, I'm not worried about Yaquita killing him," Ivan said, brushing snow from his shoulder boards. "She might cut off his cojones, but she won't kill him." He reached into his pocket to withdraw a Cuban cigar Enrique had sold him. He sniffed it with a cold-reddened nose, then lit its end, shielding the flame of his lighter from the mountain winds.
"Then why are you so worried. Comrade?" Enrique asked.
"It's Commander Jose I'm thinking of," the Russian continued. "Even Yaquita could take jealousy lessons from that man."
Riding the ungrateful burro he had rescued, Smith flapped his arms, trying to keep his balance as the beast stumbled down a long rock slide, wet with snow, slick with ice and totally unstable. As the beast picked its way along, boulders shifted, stone slabs ground together, and the entire treacherous slope swayed, readjusting itself, threatening an avalanche.
Seated on her own burro, Yaquita covered her mouth to hide her laughter.
"Oh, yes," Enrique said. "I forgot Commander Jose was in that camp. Didn't the real Pedrito utterly humiliate him during their last duel? Could be trouble for us."
"You should think ahead of such things, Comrade," Ivan said. "This is a delicate mission, requiring careful planning. Ever since their duel, Jose has been brewing a blood feud. He would do anything to kill Pedrito."
With weak knees and a tight stomach, Smith led the first burro across a perilously swinging rope bridge that spanned a sheer-walled gorge. A small toll-booth shack on the cliff's edge appeared to have been abandoned long ago. The side ropes looked frayed and soft, the planks rotted and weak. Each heavy footstep set the bridge vibrating.
Yaquita and the other burros followed across the chasm. She had taken out her guitar and began to play a grim love song about passionate embraces and plunges to tragic deaths. Smith could not stop himself from looking down to study the mind-boggUng drop to the gullet of the Andes.
"I suppose there'll be a killing, then, once they reach the camp," Enrique said, indifferently. He still watched through his binoculars. "Maybe this will be the last one for Smith."
"I suppose so," Ivan said, just as indifferently. "I don't understand why Yaquita didn't just take the main paved road to the camp. It's much shorter."
The Russian sighed, then put down his field glasses. "More vodka, Enrique? I'll trade you my flask for another one of those cigars."
Chapter 31
SMALL TENTS WERE STREWN about the edge of a sparse tree-line forest of stunted pines and scraggly eucalyptus. About fifty men sat in camouflage jungle uniforms, sporting red stars on their helmets and caps. They rubbed their hands together briskly, not clothed for the high-altitude chill.
They busied themselves cleaning weapons, gambling and drinking. A skinned guinea pig roasted on a spit above a small cookfire, tended by a lanky man who looked as if he had no intention of eating the rodent meat, no matter how hungry he got. Others cooked armadillos, iguanas, and even canned Spam as a last resort.
As Yaquita and Smith approached the rebel camp with their weary burros, the men grabbed their weapons and came running. "We're under attack!"
"It's the cavalry! Mounted soldiers!" another sentry yelled.
When the four shaggy and weary burros plodded into sight, the other troops laughed at the sentries, cuffing them and sending them running into the tents.
As the redheaded lieutenant came closer, the men raised their rifles in the air, waving in wild greeting. They set up a cheer that rang from mountaintop to mountaintop. "Ai! Pedrito!"
Stormy-faced Commander Jose strode out of the headquarters tent, crossing his arms over his broad chest. He was an evil-looking brute with a pockmarked face and a Cuban officer's uniform. The commander pushed his way through to the front of the cheering crowd. He chopped his hand down like an axe in a signal to be quiet. "Shut up!"
Slumping on the burro's bony back. Smith felt sore and trail-worn. He saw the troops, witnessed the welcome and waved. He was just glad no one was shooting at him, for once. It was a good thing these people thought he was Pedrito.
Jose glared at Smith. "You are no longer in command here, Pedrito! I rule these men. They owe their blood allegiance to me!
Smith was taken aback by the man's vehemence. He had no idea who this commander was, but the guy didn't seem willing to extend a warm greeting. "Uh, look—"
"No! No looks, Pedrito! These men have to attack the government garrison at Bellanova in two days, and you would just make some grandstand play out of it!"
"Attack a garrison?" Smith said. "Why would we want to do that? I can't even get a map of this damned country."
"Shut up!" Jose said with mounting rage, "I am going to lead the attack. Not you. Your time with these troops is finished."
Among the rebels, with a red-star cap slouched as low as possible over his exotic features, Bolo stood dressed as a sergeant. He watched Jose's display of bravado with confident anticipation. So far Smith had performed admirably in his unwitting role.
"But you can't just attack a government installation," Smith said in horror. "That would be ... that would be an act of revolution! And against the law, too."
The rebel troops broke into loud guffaws as Sm
ith looked at them, bewildered.
"Challenge him to another duel, Jose!" Bolo shouted. "That way you can settle who's in command once and for all."
"Yes!" someone else agreed. "It's been a week since we've seen anyone killed in a duel!"
"That's a good idea!" Jose said with an evil grin as he eyed Smith's bedraggled form. "Shall we say bayonets at dawn?"
"Couldn't we just flip a coin to settle this?" Smith muttered.
Yaquita came up and proudly slipped her arm around him. "I know you will win, my darling. The blood flows hot in you. Just pretend you are fighting for me!"
The news of the upcoming duel filled the camp with enthusiasm. They raised their rifles and caps over their heads, waving, shouting and shooting.
That night Smith and Yaquita sat by a small fire, eating out of stolen Colodoran-issue mess kits. They had an alpaca wool blanket wrapped around their shoulders. Between bites, Yaquita put her mouth close to Smith's ear, talking very quietly. Her breath was warm against his cheek.
"I don't know who you really are, and you mustn't tell me— some mercenary, no doubt, who volunteered to play this double role."
"You actually believe me then?" Smith asked. "You don't think it's just memory loss or delusions?"
"I don't know," she answered. "But I know this for sure: if these men found out you're not truly Pedrito Miraflores, they would kill you for impersonating him."
"That's a switch," Smith said with a sigh. "Up until now, everyone's been trying to kill me because they think I am Pedrito."
On his knees. Smith unrolled a double sleeping bag under a wind-bent mesquite bush, hoping the fabric was as warm as it looked. Yaquita smoothed the fabric. "Sleep well, my darling. Everything will be settled tomorrow. You will defeat Jose, then we can begin our assault on the fortress of Bellanova."
In the firelight, Smith pulled off his boots. "But I don't want to fight Jose or attack a friendly country."