“We’ve verified those apocryphal stories of dolphins coming on call. I can imagine them helping the locals with their fishing as we’ve heard.”
“You’ve also proven that Cyrano has done a good job of training you to give him a snack.”
“True, but these creatures are supposed to be unfinished versions of the saltwater type, so it’s of interest to me that their brains have advanced faster than their physical appearance.”
They watched the circling dolphin with amusement for a few minutes, then, aware that the light was waning, decided to head back.
While Gamay arranged her gear, Paul started the outboard motor and headed them out of the lagoon onto the slow-moving river. The inky water changed to a strained-pea green. The dolphin kept pace, but when he saw there would be no more treats, he peeled off like a fighter plane. Before long the thick jungle along the river gave way to a clearing. A handful of thatched huts were grouped around a white stucco house with a red tile roof and arcade façade in the Spanish colonial style.
They tied up at a small pier, hauled their gear from the boat, and walked to the stucco building, trailing a chattering gang of half-naked Indian children. The youngsters were shooed away by the housekeeper, a formidable Spanish-Indian woman who wielded a broom like a battle-ax. Paul and Gamay went inside. A silver-haired man in his sixties, wearing a white shirt with an embroidered front, cotton slacks, and handmade sandals, rose from his desk in the coolness of the study where he had been working on a pile of papers. He strode over to greet them with obvious pleasure.
“Señor and Señora Trout. Good to see you. Your work went well, I trust.”
“Very well, Dr. Ramirez. Thank you,” Gamay said. “I had the chance to catalog more dolphin behavior, and Paul wrapped up his compute
r modeling of the river.”
“I had very little to do with it, actually,” Paul said. “It was mostly a question of alerting researchers at the Amazon Basin project of Gamay’s work here and asking them to point the LandSat satellite in this direction. I can finish the computer modeling when we get home, and Gamay will use it as part of her habitat analysis.”
“I’ll be very sorry to see you go. It was kind of the National Underwater & Marine Agency to lend its experts for a small research project.”
Gamay said, “Without these rivers and the flora and fauna that grow here, there would be no ocean life.”
“Thank you, Señora Gamay. As a way of appreciation I have prepared a special dinner for your last night here.”
“That’s very nice of you,” Paul said. “We’ll pack early so we’ll be ready for the supply boat.”
“I wouldn’t be too concerned,” he said. “The boat is always late.”
“Fine with us,” Paul replied. “We’ll have time to talk some more about your work.”
Ramirez chuckled. “I feel like a troglodyte. I still practice my science of botany the old way, cutting plants, preserving and comparing them, and writing reports nobody reads.” He beamed. “Our little river creatures have never had better friends than you.”
Gamay said, “Perhaps our work will show where the dolphins’ habitat is under environmental threat. Then something can be done about it.”
He shook his head sadly. “In Latin America, government tends to move slowly unless there is someone’s pocket to be filled. Worthwhile projects sink into the morass.”
“Sounds like home. Our bottomless swamp is named Washington, D.C.”
They were laughing at their shared joke when the housekeeper herded a native into the study. He was short and muscular, wore a loincloth, and had large copper loops in his ears. His jet-black hair was cut in bangs, and his eyebrows had been shaved off. He spoke in respectful tones to the doctor, but his excited speech and darting eyes made it clear something had set him off. He kept pointing toward the river. Dr. Ramirez grabbed a broad-brimmed Panama hat from a hook.
“There is apparently a dead man in a canoe,” he said. “My apologies, but as the only government representative of any kind within a hundred miles, I must investigate.”
“May we come?” Gamay said.
“Of course. I am hardly a Sherlock Holmes and would welcome other trained scientific eyes. You may find this of interest. This gentleman says the dead man is a ghost-spirit.” Noting the puzzled reaction of his guests, he said, “I’ll explain later.”
They hustled from the house and walked quickly past the huts to the edge of the river. The men of the village were gathered silently near the water. Children were trying to peek through their legs. The women stayed back. The gathering parted as Dr. Ramirez approached. Tied up to the dock was an ornately carved dugout canoe. The dugout was painted white except for the bow, which was blue, and a blue stripe that extended from the front to the back.
The body of a young Indian man lay on his back inside the canoe. Like the village Indians, he had black hair cut in bangs and he wore only a loincloth. The resemblance ended there. The village men tattooed their bodies or dabbed crimson paint on their high cheekbones to protect them from evil spirits who supposedly cannot see the color red. The dead man’s nose and chin were painted in a pale blue that extended down his arms. The rest of his body was a stark white. When Dr. Ramirez leaned into the canoe his shadow startled the green-bottle flies clustered on the dead man’s chest, and they buzzed off to reveal a gaping circular hole.
Paul sucked his breath in. “That looks like a gunshot wound.”
“I think you’re right,” Dr. Ramirez said, a serious look in his deep-set eyes. “It doesn’t resemble any spear or arrow wound I’ve ever seen.”
He turned to the villagers and after a few minutes of conversation translated for the Trouts.
“They say they were out fishing when the canoe came floating on the river. They recognized it from the color as a ghost-spirit boat and were afraid. It appeared to be empty so they came alongside. They saw the dead man in the canoe and thought they would simply let the boat go on its way. Then they thought better of it, because his spirit might come back to haunt them for not giving him a decent burial. So they brought him here and made him my problem.”