Shadowline Drift: A Metaphysical Thriller Read Free

stop. They ’d come in a circle. The camp lay a few yards ahead.
    “ I will think on this,” Mawgis said, and moved off faster than Jake could follow, leaving him standing alone in the forest among the oppressive trees.
     
     
    Jake slept surprising ly well, considering how loud the forest rang at night. Maybe he was getting used to it. Or maybe it was relief at having finally met with Mawgis the day before. He sensed that things would proceed quickly with the Tabna chief. Mawgis didn’t strike him as a patient man—more the type who knew what he wanted and wanted it now. It was a matter of digging through the rhetoric. There was always rhetoric and bombast, people trying to seem more noble or concerned or hesitant or even greedy than they were. Just once, Jake thought, he’d like to deal with someone who said it straight out: This is what I want, no more, no less. Give it to me and you can have what you came for.
    Near the cooking area, several women and young girls sat cross-legged, chattering low and sharpening digging sticks. Two women wearing short banana-leaf skirts were mending small woven sacks. The Brits sat by a dying fire, finishing breakfast, tin plates in their laps, blue-speckled enamel mugs in their hands or sitting near them on the ground. Jake glanced around the camp, unease churning in his stomach as he walked toward the film crew. Where were the Tabna men?
    “ I fuckin’ hate these fuckin’ bugs,” Kevin said by way of a greeting. He was sitting and Jake standing, which put their heads at the same height.
    “ Damn BBC,” Kevin said, warming to his complaints. “‘Wanna take a crew to the Amazon?’ they said. ‘Have a grand adventure, Kevin,’ they said. ‘Be the one to record this unknown, untainted tribe on film.’ Bloody hell.”
    His crewmates laughed. All except Ian, who never seemed comfortable when Jake was around. Jake noticed Ian now, how he looked at the ground or into the trees beyond the camp, anywhere but at him. On the river journey, when they’d settled into the habit of riding with the same people every day, Ian had asked Kevin to switch with him—taking the cameraman out of the canoe Jake rode in.
    He ’d been around plenty of Ians in his life—people who didn’t know what to make of his stature, people uncomfortable with his small size, the seeming wrongness of it, as though it were a malady that might be catching. It stung him every time, though he’d gotten very good at not letting it show.
    But here in this world, the Brits were the freaks, giants in a place where he and the Tabna were the norm. Even Joaquin, who wasn’t more than five foot six, was oversize. It felt good to Jake, being right-sized and comfortable in this world. He wasn’t surprised by how much he liked it, or by the twinge in his stomach—knowing that this wouldn’t last, that he’d soon return to the regular world.
    “Kevin figured the Tabna were goona be his Ishi,” Derek, the only Scotsman of the crew, was saying. “Goona make him fooking famous. Goona get him a cushy lecture job at some fooking university.”
    “ Might do at that.” Jake ran his hands over his head, wiping salty sweat over hair already stiff with it. He’d been lured by the promise of a grand adventure too, of traveling where few white men had gone. Lured by the challenge of negotiating with a tribe that didn’t conduct trade.
    But most of all, he’d been lured by what he’d be negotiating for, the benesha, and the promise of an end to severe hunger.
    A woman ambled out of a hut and joined the sack menders. A little girl toddled behind. Still no men.
    Jake looked around the camp. “Have you seen Mawgis this morning?”
    Kevin shrugged and pulled himself to his feet. He wasn ’t a tall man, but he towered over Jake. “Don’t know. They were gone when we got up this morning. We ate breakfast with the ladies.”
    “ Where’s Joaquin?” Jake asked.
    “ Gone off to some emergency upriver. Left right after