Jungle Mission
by Oscar Schisgall
WE WERE flying at 3,000 feet when Red Worden banked the plane down toward the strip of savannah. The small green clearing, edged by palms, lay beside a river. Beyond the river the awesome black mesa called Yanqui Pui bulged a stark 7,000 feet above the Venezuelan jungle.
I was in the back seat, behind Red. Next to him sat our oil camp's physician, Dr. Harris, a thin, hard man with a blunt manner. A good doctor, but cold, wasting no time on "foolish sentiment."
"How far are they?" he asked Red.
Red Worden jerked his head in the direction of Yanqui Pui. "Ten or twelve miles up yonder. We can reach them in a couple of hours by the trail we hacked."
We were going down fast, and I began to see that the river was swollen. On the far shore it had climbed so high that it splashed among trees, throwing up thousands of fountains of spume.
We skimmed over palm fronds and landed smoothly. Several of our men were licensed pilots, and I had always regarded Red Worden as the best flier among us. That was why I had assigned him in recent weeks to pilot the company's chief geologist, Philip Daniels, and his daughter over the jungles. Red was always calm and precise; the kind of man who never rnade a rash move or took an unnecessary risk.
Moreover, lie was virtually the only one I could trust not to be a nuisance to Ella Daniels. She was twentyone, blond, by all odds the best-looking girl within five hundred mites, and her effect on the other unmarried men had been explosive. She had the good sense to take their excitement with a laugh, but sometimes-especially after she began to be harassed by the recurrent feverthe hounding of a hundred and seventeen eager young males must have been hard to take. She probably found relief in the aloofness of a man like Red Worden.
I had kidded him about being blind to Ella's looks, but he had said, simply, "Any time I go after a girl like her, Jim, it'll be because I want to marry. And I'm not interested in getting married. I've got a long way to go, and I won’t take the risk that a family might hold me back."
I believed it. I had long known that this big, redheaded man was concerned primarily with himself and his career. Until it suited him, he wouldn't bother about Ella Daniels or any other girl.
AS I got out of the plane I saw, with a shock, that the river was actually a torrent. Racing along at wild speed, it swept logs and uprooted trees toward the thundering falls. Doc Harris climbed out behind me, with his waterproof medicine box slung from his shoulders. It contained cans of leche hegeron, a derivative of tropical herbs with which he had been able to control Ella Daniels' fevers.
"We can't cross that," Doc said angrily.
Red Worden looked up and down the river with a scowl. "Wasn't like this when I crossed this morning."
"Flash floods," I said. "Cloudbursts up on Yanqui Pui, and the canyons are pouring it all out. Should ease off in a few hours."
"We can't wait hours,"' Red said. " Ella was running a fever of maybe 104 when I left them." fie looked at the medicine box. "If you strap that thing on me, Doc, I can get over."
"So we can lose you and the medicine and the girl", Doc said. "No," he finished with decision, “'we'll wait."
Rubbing his jaw, Red peered up the river. Presently he started off downstream, looking for rocks or shallows that could be crossed.
After Red disappeared beyond the palms at a bend I joined Doc, who had gone to find a cool spot for his medicine. He stood in the shade of a tree, the medicine box in the grass beside him. "What the devil is Daniels up to on Yanqui Pui?' he asked. "That's no place to prospect for oil."
" He wasn't prospecting," I said. "I urged him to go. Wanted him to see how the world's highest waterfall comes gushing down a plateau where there's no river."
Actually, of course, Angel Falls gushes from a cave
in the cliffs just below the high plateau, pushed by terrific subterranean water pressures. I knew Daniels, with the fascination of a geologist, would want to get close to the 2,500-foot fall. He had taken Ella along, as usual, and of course he couldn't have known that she would slip on wet rocks and that all her equipment, including a thermos-packed supply of leche hegeran, would go tumbling to eternal oblivion in a ravine.
With her leg broken, Ella had lain in agony while her father and Red did what they could. When her fever had begun to flare, Red had rushed back ten miles to the plane and had flown in to the camp for help.
Now we stood on the banks of the swollen river until Red returned from his search. We could tell from his expression that he had found neither rocks nor shallows. "There's no better spot than this," he said. "If you'll tie that box on me, I'll take it across."
"Nothing doing," Doc said.
Red's eyes narrowed. "Ella may be dying."
"That's no reason for you to die first."
" Doc-this is one thing I've got to do!"
Before I realized what Red had in mind he shoved Doc sprawling in the grass and snatched up the medicine box. As he ran toward the water he slung it over his shoulders. I started after him, yelling, "Don't! You can't make it!"
It did no good. He hit the water in a long, shallow dive and started across with hard strokes. Ten feet from the shore the full force of the torrent caught him. It swept him downstream like a log. He shouted and thrashed and tried wildly to turn back, but he was helpless in the rushing water.
Doc was on his feet now. We raced along the banks, screaming to Red, seeing his bobbing head carried off to midstream, down toward the falls. We ran as far as we could, to a great mass of rocks, and there we stood stricken till we could see no more of Red Worden, knowing there was nothing we could do.
I turned away, sick.
Doc was saying hoarsely, "The fool! The crazy fool!"
I went back to the plane. A dozen times that afternoon I flew up and down the river, low, hunting for Red's body. It was useless. A lot of trees had jammed up in the rocks above the falls, and there was a chance he had been swept into them, but even that could have killed him. He must have been sucked under the jam by the raging white water. There was no trace of him.
By twilight I gave up. Standing at the spot where Red had dived, I said to Doc in a dead voice, fly you to camp for more drugs."
"No need," he answered. When I stared at him, not understanding, he nodded toward a rock. At its base lay a pool perhaps eight inches wide, water sloshing in and out of it. "The medicine box couldn't fit in there," he said. " So I put in the two cans of leche hegeron to keep them cool. The box Red grabbed was empty."
That night I couldn't sleep. I kept seeing Red's head swept down in the torrent and thinking about the terrible futility of his death.
Why would a calm, cautious man like Red take such a reckless chance? I could think of only one answer. Whether he had admitted it to himself or not, he had loved Ella Daniels-loved her enough to risk his life in
an effort to save hers.
I didn't speak of this to Doc Harris. It would only have made him more bitter, supporting his contempt for all sentimental behavior. He would argue that if Red hadn't been so emotional he would be alive now. . . .
By dawn the water was hardly more than waist-high, and we crossed without trouble. Doc carried the drug cans inside his shirt.
Following the trail was like pushing along a dark, narrow tunnel. We went on and on, mile after mile, for almost two hours. Finally we started climbing along the edge of a deep, black gash in the earth. The climb was difficult alone; carrying a girl with a broken leg would have been impossible. Suddenly Doc stopped in front of me and gasped.
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