Chapter IV: The German

The door of the German’s room opened. The German came out and marched to the table. Two paces away he halted and faced the Americans, ready to speak if spoken to, equally ready to sit and ignore them if not greeted. McKay and Knowlton rose.

“Herr von Schwandorf?” inquired Knowlton.

“Schwandorf. Neither Herr nor von. Plain Schwandorf.”

The reply came in excellent English, though with a slight throaty accent.

“Knowlton is my name. Mr. McKay. The third member of our party, Mr. Ryan, has just left.”

Schwandorf bowed stiffly from the waist.

“It is a pleasure to meet you. White men are all too few here.”

Seating himself at a place beyond that just vacated by Tim, he continued, “You stay here for a time?”

“Not long.” They reseated themselves. “We go up the river as soon as we can arrange transportation.”

The black brows lifted slightly.

“It is a dangerous river. You would do well to travel elsewhere unless you have some pressing reason to explore this stream.”

With an accustomed sweep of the hand he shooed the flies from the bean dish and helped himself to a big portion. Over the legumes he poured farinha in the Brazilian fashion.

“We have. We are seeking a tribe of people who paint their bones red.”

Schwandorf’s hand, conveying the first mouthful of beans upward, stopped in air. His black eyes fixed the Americans with an astounded stare. He lowered the beans, stabbed absently at a chunk of beef, sawed it apart, popped a piece of it into his mouth, and sat for a time chewing. When the meat was down he spoke bluntly:

“Are there not ways enough to kill yourselves at home instead of traveling to this place to do it?”

McKay smiled. The directness of the man amused him.

“As bad as that?” asked Knowlton.

“As bad as that. Blow your head off if you like. Cut your throat. Take poison. Jump into the river among the alligators. Step on a snake. But keep away from the Red Bones.”

“Why?” shot McKay.

“Cannibals--and worse.”

“Worse?”

“Truly. Most of the Brazilian savages do not torture. The Red Bones do.”

“Pleasant prospect.”

“Very. Nothing to be gained among them, either. If you’re hunting gold, try the hills over west of the Huallaga. None here.”

Knowlton filled and lit a pipe. McKay slowly drank the last of his syrupy coffee and rolled a cigarette. Schwandorf continued shoveling food into his capacious mouth.

“Know anything about the Raposa?” Knowlton asked.

The Teuton’s eyelashes flickered. He ground another chunk of meat between his jaws before answering.

“Of course,” he said then. “Wild dog. Sharp snout, gray hair, bushy tail. I’ve shot a couple of them.”

“This one is a man. Green eyes, streak of white hair over the left ear. Paints himself like the Red Bones, as you call them, but is a white man.”

“Oh! That one? Heard of him, yes. Wild man of the jungle. Want to catch him and put him in a circus?”

“Maybe. We’d like to see him, anyhow. Heard about him awhile ago. Any way to get him that you know of?”

“Might try a steel trap,” the German suggested, callously. “But I don’t know where you’d set it. Best way to get a wild dog is to shoot him, and he isn’t much good dead. Or would this one be worth something--dead?” A swift sidelong glance accompanied the question.

“Not a cent!” snapped McKay.

“And perhaps he’d be worth nothing alive,” added Knowlton. “But we have a healthy curiosity to look him over. Guess the Red Bone country would be the likeliest place. How far is it from here?”

“Keep out of it,” was the stubborn reply.

The Americans rose.

“We are not going to keep out of it,” Knowlton declared, coldly. “We are going straight into it. Thank you for your assistance.”

“Not so fast,” Schwandorf protested. “If you are determined to go I will help you if I can. Shall we sit on the piazza with a small bottle to aid digestion? So! Thomaz! Bring from my stock the kümmel. Or would you prefer whisky, gentlemen?”

“Ginger-ale highballs are my favorite fruit,” admitted Knowlton. “Can ginger ale be bought here?”

“Indeed yes. At one milrei a bottle.”

“Cheap enough. Thomaz, three bottles of ginger ale and one of North American whisky--the best. Cigars also. Out on the piazza.”

“Si, senhores.”

Schwandorf got up.

“If you will pardon me, I will drink my kümmel. Frankly, I do not like whisky.”

“And frankly, we do not like kümmel. All a matter of taste.”

“Truly. So let each of us drink his own preference. I will join you in a moment.”

The Americans sauntered to the door, while the German strode into his room.

“Blunt sort of cuss,” Knowlton commented.

“Ay, blunt. But not candid. Knows more than he’s telling.”

Disposing themselves comfortably, they sat watching the lights of the town and the jungle--the first pouring from windows and open doors, the latter streaking across the darkness where the big fire beetles of the tropics winged their way. As Knowlton had predicted, the night noise of forest and stream had diminished; but now from the village itself rose a new discord--a babel of vocal and instrumental efforts at music emanating from the badly worn records of dozens of cheap phonographs grinding away in the stilt-poled huts.

“Good Lord!” groaned McKay. “Even here at the end of the world one can’t get away from those beastly instruments.”

A throaty chuckle from the doorway followed the words. Schwandorf emerged, carrying a big bottle.

“Yet there is one thing to be thankful for, gentlemen,” he said. “In all this town there is not one man who attempts to play a trombone.”

The others laughed. Thomaz appeared with bottles and thick cups. Corks were drawn, liquids gurgled, matches flared, cigars glowed. Without warning Schwandorf shot a question through the gloom:

“Have you seen Cabral--the superintendent?”

“Yes.”

“Ask him about the wild man?”

“Yes.”

“Get any information?”

“Nothing definite. He suggested that we see you.”

“So.”

A pause, while Schwandorf’s cigar end glowed like a flaming eye.

“The Red Bones live well up the river,” he began, abruptly. “Twenty-four days by canoe, five days through the bush on the east shore. That would bring you to their main settlement--if you were not wiped out before then. They’re a big tribe, as tribes go. Ever been here before?”

“No. Not here,” Knowlton told him. “I’ve been in Rio, and McKay here has knocked around in--”

A stealthy kick from McKay halted him an instant. Then, deftly shifting the sentence, he concluded, “--in a number of places.”

“So.” Another pause. “Then I should explain about tribes. Tribes here generally consist of from fifty to five hundred or more persons living in big houses called ‘malocas.’ Unless the tribe is very big, one house holds them all. There may be any number of malocas, the inhabitants of which are all of the same racial stock; yet each maloca is, as far as government is concerned, a tribe to itself, controlled by a chief. No maloca owes any duty to any other maloca. There is no supreme ruler over all, nor even a federation among them. They live merely as neighbors--distant neighbors. At times they fight like neighbors. You understand.”