Amazonia. Part 42

The group paused at the top of the chasm. A thin trail led down into the jungle. But where did it go? In the valley below, there was no sign of habitation. No wood smoke rising, no voices echoing.

Before moving forward, Kostos stood with binoculars, studying the valley. "d.a.m.n it," he mumbled.

"What's wrong?" Zane asked.

"This canyon is just a switchback of the one we were in:" He pointed to the right. "But it appears this canyon is cut off from the one below it by steep cliffs:"

Nate lifted his own binoculars and followed where the sergeant pointed. Through the jungle, he could just make out where a small stream flowed down the canyon's center. He followed its course until it vanished over a steep drop, down into the lower canyon, the one they had been marching through all night, the domain of the giant jaguars.

"We're boxed in here," Kostos said.

Nate swung his binoculars in the opposite direction. He spotted another waterfall. This one tumbled down into this canyon from a ma.s.sive cliff on the far side. In fact, the entire valley was closed in by rock walls on three sides, and the steep cliff on the fourth.

It's a totally isolated chunkofjungle, Nate realized.

The sergeant continued, "I don't like this. The only way up here is this chute:"

As Nate lowered his gla.s.ses, the edge of the sun crested the eastern skies, bathing the jungle ahead in sunlight, creating a green glow. A flock of blue-and-gold macaws took wing from a rookery near the misty cliffs and sailed past overhead. The spray from the two waterfalls at either end of the valley made the air almost sparkle in the first rays of the sun.

"Like a bit of Eden," Professor Kouwe said in a hushed voice.

With the touch of light, the jungle awoke with birdsong and the twit-ter of monkeys. b.u.t.terflies as big as dinner plates fluttered at the fringe. Something furry and quick darted back into the jungle. Isolated or not, life had found its way into this verdant valley.

But what else had made its home here? "What are we going to do?" Anna asked.

Everyone remained silent for several seconds.

Nate finally spoke. "I don't think we have much choice but to proceed:"

Kostos scowled, then nodded. "Let's see where this leads. But stay alert:"

The group cautiously descended the short slope to the jungle's edge. Kostos led once again, Nate at his side with his shotgun. They marched in a tight bunch down the path. As soon as they entered under the bower of the shadowed forest, the scents of orchids and flowering vines filled the air, so thick they could almost taste it.

Still, as sweet as the air was, the constant tension continued. What secrets lay out here? What dangers?

Every shadow was suspect.

It took Nate fifteen minutes of hiking before he noticed something strange about the forest around them.

Exhaustion must have dulled his senses. His feet slowed. His mouth dropped open.

Manny b.u.mped into him. "What's the matter?"

His brow furrowed, Nate crossed a few steps off the path.

"What are you doing, Rand?" Kostos asked.

"These trees. . :" Nate's sense of wonder overwhelmed him, cutting through his unease.

The others stopped and stared. "What about them?" Manny asked.

Nate turned in a slow circle. "As a botanist, I recognize most of the plants around here:" He pointed and named names. "Silk cotton, laurels, figs, mahogany, rosewood, palms of every variety. The usual trees you'd see in a rain forest. But. . :" Nate's voice died away.

"But what?" Kostos asked.

Nate stepped to a thin-boled tree. It stretched a hundred feet into the air and burst into a dense ma.s.s of fronds. Giant serrated cones hung from its underside. "Do you know what this is?"

"It looks like a palm," the sergeant said. "So what?"

"It's not!" Nate slapped the trunk with his palm. "It's a G.o.dd.a.m.n cycadeoid:"

"A what?"

"A species of tree thought long extinct, dating back to the Cretaceous period. I've only seen examples of it in the fossil record:"

"Are you sure?" Anna Fong asked.

Nate nodded. "I did my thesis on paleobotany." He crossed to another plant, a fernlike bush thattowered twice his height. Each frond was as tall as he was and as wide as his stretched arms. He shook one of the t.i.tanic leaves. "And this is a G.o.dd.a.m.n giant club moss. It's supposed to have gone extinct during the Carboniferous period. And that's not all. They're all around us. Glossopterids, lycopods, podocarp conifers . . :" He pointed out the strange plants. "And that's just the things I can cla.s.sify."

Nate pointed his shotgun to a tree with a coiled and spiraled trunk. "I have no idea what that thing is:" He faced the others, shedding his exhaus-tion like a second skin, and lifted his arms. "We're in a G.o.dd.a.m.n living fos-sil museum:"

"How's that possible?" Zane asked.

Kouwe answered, "This place is isolated, a pocket in time. Anything could have sheltered here for eons:"

"And geologically this region dates back to the Paleozoic era," Nate added, excited. "The Amazon basin was once a freshwater inland sea before changes in tectonics opened the sea to the greater ocean and drained it away. What we have here is a little peek at that ancient past. It's amazing!"

Kelly spoke up from beside the stretcher. 'Amazing or not, I need to get Frank somewhere safe:'

Her words drew Nate back to the present, back to their situation. He nodded, embarra.s.sed at his distraction in the face of their predicament.

Kostos cleared his throat. "Let's push on:"

The group followed his lead.

Fascinated by the forest, Nate hung back. His eyes studied the foliage around him, no longer peering at the shadows, but fixed on the jungle itself. As a trained botanist, he gaped in disbelief at the riotous flora: stalked horsetails the size of organ pipes, ferns that dwarfed modern-day palms, ma.s.sive primitive conifers with cones the size of VW bugs. The mix of the ancient and the new was simply astounding, a merged ecosystem unlike any seen before.

Professor Kouwe walked beside him now. "What do you think about all this?"

Nate shook his head. "I don't know. Other prehistoric groves have been discovered in the past. In China, a forest of dawn redwoods was dis-covered in the eighties. In Africa, a grotto of rare ferns. And most recently, in Australia, an entire stand of prehistoric trees, long thought extinct, was found in a remote rain forest:" Nate glanced to Kouwe for emphasis. "So considering how little of the Amazon has been explored, it's actually more surprising that we've not found such a grove before:"

"The jungle hides its secrets well," Kouwe said.

As they walked, the canopy overhead grew denser, the forest taller. The morning sunlight dwindled to a green glow. It was as if they were walking back into twilight.

Further conversation died as everyone watched the forest. By now, even nonbotanists could tell this jungle was unusual. The number of pre-historic plants began to outnumber the modern-day counterparts.

Trees grew huge, ferns towered, strange twisted forms wound among the mix. They pa.s.sed a spiky bromeliad as large as a small cottage. Ma.s.sive flowers, as large as pumpkins, grew from vines and scented the air thickly. It was a greenhouse of amazing proportion.

Kostos suddenly stopped ahead, freezing in place, eyes on the trail, weapon raised and ready. He then slowly motioned them to get down.

The group crouched. Nate s.h.i.+fted his shotgun. Only then did he notice what had startled the Ranger.

Nate stared off to the left, the right, even behind them. It was like one of those computerized pictures that appeared at first to be just a blur of random dots, but when stared at cross-eyed, from a certain angle, a 3-D image suddenly and startlingly appeared.

Nate suddenly and startlingly saw the jungle in a new light.

High in the trees, mounted among the thick branches, platforms had been built, with small dwellings atop them. The roofs of many were woven from the living leaves and branches, offering natural camouflage.

These half-living structures blended perfectly with their host trees.

As Nate looked closer, what had appeared to be vines and stranglers crisscrossing between the trees and draping to the ground were in fact nat-ural bridges and ladders. One of these ladders was only a few yards to Nate's right. Flowers grew along its length. It was alive, too.

As he stared around, it was hard to say where man-made structure ended and living began. Half artificial, half growing plant. The blend was so astounding, the camouflage so perfect.

Without them even knowing it, they had already entered the Ban-ali village.

Ahead, larger dwellings climbed even taller trees, multilevel with ter-races and patios. But even these were well camouflaged with bark, vine, and leaf, making them difficult to discern.

As they stared, no one in their party moved. One question was on all their faces:Where were the inhabitants of these treetop homes?

Tor-tor growled a deep warning.

Then like the village itself, Nate suddenly saw them. They had been there all along, unmoving, silent, all around. Bits of living shadow. With their bodies painted black, they had melded into the darkness between the trees and under bushes.

One of the tribesmen stepped from his concealing gloom and onto the path. He seemed undaunted by the weapons in their hands.

Nate was certain it was their earlier guide. The one who had led them here. His black hair was braided with bits of leaf and flower in it, adding to the natural camouflage. As he stepped forth, his hands were empty of any weapons. In fact, the tribesman was naked, except for a simple loincloth. He stared at the group, his face hard and unreadable.

Then without a word, he turned and walked down the path.

"He must want us to follow him again," Professor Kouwe said, climbing to his feet. The others slowly stood. In the woods, more tribesmen remained silent sentinels, bathed in shadows.

Kostos hesitated.

"If they had wanted to kill us," Professor Kouwe added, "we'd be dead already."

Kostos frowned, but the Ranger reluctantly continued on after the tribesman.

As they walked, Nate continued to study the village and its silent inhabitants. He caught occasional glimpses of smaller faces in windows, children and women. Nate glanced to the men half hidden in the forest. Tribal warriors or scouts, he guessed.

Their painted faces bore the familiar Amerindian bone structure, slightly Asiatic, a genetic tie to their ancestors who had first crossed the Bering Strait from Asia into Alaska some fifty thousandyears ago and set-tled the Americas. But who were they? How did they get here? Where did their roots trace? Despite the danger and silent threat, Nate was dying to learn more about these people and their history-especially since it was tied to his own.

He stared around the forest. Had his father walked this same path? Considering this possibility, Nate found his lungs tightening, old emotions surfacing. He was so close to discovering the truth about his father.

As they continued, it soon became apparent that the team was being led toward a sunnier clearing in the distance.

The forest around the thin track opened to either side as they reached the clearing. A ring of giant cycads and primitive conifers circled the open glade. A shallow-banked stream meandered through the sunny s.p.a.ce, sparkling and gurgling.

Their guide continued ahead, but the team stopped at the threshold, shocked.

In the center of the clearing, practically filling the entire s.p.a.ce, stood a ma.s.sive tree, a specimen Nate had never seen before. It had to tower at least thirty stories high, its white-barked trunk ten yards in diameter. Thick roots k.n.o.bbed out of the dark soil like pale knees. A few even spanned the stream beside it before disappearing back into the loam.

Overhead, the tree's branches spread in distinct terraces, not unlike giant redwoods. But instead of needles, this specimen sported wide palmate green leaves, fluttering gently to reveal silver undersides and clus-ters of husked seed pods, similar to coconuts.

Nate stared, dumbstruck. He didn't even know where to begin cla.s.sify-ing this specimen. Maybe a new species of primitive gymnospore, but he was far from sure. The nuts did look a bit like those found on a modern cat's claw plant, but this was a much more ancient specimen.

As he studied the giant, he realized one other thing about the tree. Even this towering hardwood bore signs of habitation. Small cl.u.s.ters of Nutlike dwellings rested atop thicker branches or nestled against the trunk.Constructed to mimic the tree's seed pods, Nate realized, amazed.

Across the way, their tribal guide slipped between two gnarled roots and disappeared into shadow.

Stepping to the side for a better look, Nate realized the shadow was in fact an arched opening into the tree's base, a doorway. Nate stared up at the cl.u.s.tered dwellings. There were no vine lad-ders here. Sohow did one reach the dwellings? Was there a tunnel winding through the trunk? Nate began to step forward to investigate.

But Manny grabbed his arm. "Look:" The biologist pointed off to the side.

Nate glanced over. Distracted by the white-barked giant, he had failed to notice a squat log cabin across the clearing. It was boxy, but st.u.r.dily constructed of logs and a thatched roof. It seemed out of place here, the only structure built on the ground.

"Are those solar cells on its roof?" Manny asked.

Nate squinted and raised his binoculars. Atop the cabin, two small flat black panels glinted in the morning suns.h.i.+ne. They indeed appeared to be solar panels. Intrigued, Nate examined the cabin more thoroughly through his binoculars. The structure was windowless, its door just a flap of woven palm leaves.

Nate's attention caught on something beside the door, a familiar object, bright in the suns.h.i.+ne. It was a tall snakewood staff, polished from years of hard use, crowned byhoko feathers.

Nate felt the ground s.h.i.+ft under his feet.

It was his father's walking stick.

Dropping his binoculars, Nate stumbled toward the cabin.

"Rand!" Kostos barked at him.

But he was beyond listening. His feet began to run. The others fol-lowed him, keeping the group together. Zane and Olin grunted as they struggled with the stretcher.

Nate hurried to the cabin and then skidded to a stop, his breath caught. His mouth grew dry as he stared at the walking stick. Initials were carved in the wood: C.R.

Carl Rand.

Tears rose in Nate's eyes. At the time of his father's disappearance, Nate had refused to fathom the man could be dead. He had needed to cling to hope, lest despair cripple him, leaving him unable to pursue the yearlong search. Even when his financial resources had run dry and he was forced to concede his father was gone, he hadn't cried. Over such a prolonged time, sorrow had devolved into a black depression, a pit that consumed his life these past four years.

But now, with a tangible bit of evidence that his father had been here, tears flowed freely down his cheeks.

Nate did not entertain the possibility that his father was still alive. Such miracles were relegated to novels. The structure here bore evidence of long disuse. Dead leaves, blown from the forest, lay windswept into a pile against the cabin's front, undisturbed by any footprints.

Nate stepped forward and pushed open the woven flap. It was dark inside. Grabbing the flashlight fromhis field jacket, Nate clicked it on. A tailless rat, apaca, skittered from a hiding place and dashed through a crack in the far wall. Dust lay thick, tracked with little paw prints, along with rodent droppings.