Blue Gold (NUMA Files 2)

“Why would they be afraid of this . . . ghost-spirit?” Gamay asked.

The doctor tweaked the end of his bushy gray mustache. “The Chulo, which is the local name for the tribe this gentleman belongs to, are said to live beyond the Great Falls. The natives say they are ghosts who were born of the mists. People who have gone into their territory have never come out.” He gestured toward the canoe. “As you can see, this gentleman is flesh and blood like the rest of us.” He reached into the canoe and pulled out a bag made of flayed animal skin that was lying next to the corpse. The village natives backed away as if he were brandishing a sack full of black plague. He spoke in Spanish to one of the Indians, who became more animated the longer they talked.

Ramirez abruptly ended the conversation and turned to the Trouts. “They are afraid of him,” he said, and indeed, the village men were drifting back to their families. “If you would be so kind, we will haul the boat onto shore. I persuaded them to dig a hole, but not in their own cemetery. Over there, on the other side of the river, where nobody goes anyhow. The shaman has assured them that he can place enough totems on the grave to keep the dead man from wandering.” He smiled. “Having the body so near will give the shaman more power. When something goes wrong with his spells he can always say the dead man’s spirit has returned. We will send the boat off by itself down the river, and the spirit will be allowed to follow it.”

Paul eyed the canoe’s fine workmanship. “Seems a shame to waste such a beautiful example of boatbuilding. Anything to keep the peace.” He grabbed one end of the canoe. With the three people pulling and pushing, they soon had it up on the shore away from the river. Ramirez covered the body with a woven blanket from the canoe. Then he retrieved the sack, which was about the size of a golf bag and tied with thongs at the open end.

“Perhaps this will tell us more about our ghost,” he said, leading the way back to the house. They went into the study and placed the bag on a long library table. He untied the thongs, opened the bag gingerly, and peered inside. “We must be careful. Some of the tribes use poisoned arrows or blowgun darts.” He lifted the bottom of the sack, and several smaller bags slid out onto the desk. He opened one and extracted a shiny metal disk that he handed to Gamay. “I understand you studied archaeology before you became a biologist. Perhaps you know what this is.”

Gamay furrowed her brow as she examined the flat, round object. “A mirror? It appears that vanity is not confined to women.”

Paul took the mirror from her hand and turned it over to examine the markings on the back. A smile crossed his face. “I had one of these when I was a kid. It’s a signal mirror. Look, these are dots and dashes. This isn’t like any Morse code I know, but it’s not bad. See these little stick figures? A basic code. Guy running one way means come, facing the other direction is go, I’d guess. Here’s someone lying down.”

“Stay where you are,” Gamay ventured.

“My guess, too. These two fellows with spears might mean join me to fight. Little guy and the animal could stand for hunt.” He chuckled. “Almost as good as a cell phone.”

“Better,” Gamay said. “It doesn’t use batteries or cost you per minute.”

Paul asked Ramirez if he could open another bag, and the Spaniard gladly assented.

“Fishing kit,” Trout said. “Metal hooks, fiber line. Hey,” he said, examining a crude pair of metal pincers. “Bet this is a pair of pliers for pulling hooks out.”

“I’ve got you beat,” Gamay said, emptying another bag and pulling out a connected pair of small wooden circles with dark transparent surfaces filling their openings. She attached the apparatus to her ears with fiber hoops. “Sunglasses.”

Not to be outdone, Ramirez also had been poking through bags. He held a gourd about six inches long, unplugged the wooden top, and sniffed. “Medicine perhaps? It smells like alcohol.”

Hanging from the bottom was a miniature bowl and a wooden handle with a flat piece of stone and an irregular wheel on a rotating axis. Paul stared thoughtfully at the gourd, then took it from the other man. He filled the dish with the liquid, brought the wooden device near, and flicked the wheel. It scraped across the stone and emitted sparks. The liquid ignited with a poof.

“Voilà,” he said with obvious satisfaction. “The very first Bic cigarette lighter. Handy for starting a campfire, too.”

More interesting discoveries followed. One bag held herbs Ramirez identified as medicinal plants including some he had never seen. In another was a slim, flat piece of metal, pointed at both ends. When they placed it on a glass of water it swung around until one end pointed toward the magnetic north. They found a bamboo cylinder. When held to the eye the glass lenses embedded inside offered about an eight-power telescopic magnification. There was a knife that folded into a slim wooden case. Their last find was a short bow made from overlapping strips of metal like a car spring and curved to provide maximum pull for an arrow. The bowstring was of thin metal cable. It was hardly the primitive design one would expect to find in the rain forest. Ramirez ran his hand over the polished metal.

“Amazing,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like this. The bows the villagers use are simple dowels pulled back and tied with a crude bowstring.”

“How did he learn how to make these things?” Paul said, scratching his head.

Gamay said, “It’s not just the objects themselves but the material they are made of. Where did it come from?”

They stood around the table in silence.

“There is a more important question,” Ramirez said somberly. “Who killed him?”

“Of course,” Gamay said. “We were so overwhelmed by his technical accomplishments that we forgot that these objects belong to a dead human being.”

“Do you have any idea who might have murdered him?” Paul asked.

A dark cloud descended on Ramirez’s brow. “Poachers. Wood cutters and burners. The latest are men who collect valuable plants for medicine. They would kill anyone who got in their way.”

“How could a lone Indian be a threat?” Gamay asked.

Ramirez shrugged.

Gamay said, “I think that in a murder investigation you are supposed to start with the corpse.”

“Where did you hear that?” Paul said.