"Leinster, Murray - Doomsday Deferred UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leinster Murray)

DOOMSDAY DEFERRED BY WILL F. JENKINS

If I were sensible, I'd say that somebody else told me this story, and then cast doubts on his veracity. But I saw it all. I was part of it. I have an invoice of a shipment I made from Brazil, with a notation on it, "Jose Ribiera's stuff." The shipment went through- The invoice, I noticed only today, has a mashed soldado ant sticking to the page. There is nothing unusual about it as a specimen. On the face of things, every element is irritatingly commonplace. But if I were sensible, I wouldn't tell it this way.

It began in Milhao, where Jose Ribiera came to me. Milhao is hi Brazil, but from it the Andes can be seen against the sky at sunset. It is a town the jungle

unfortunately did not finish burying when the rubber boom collapsed. It is so far up the Amazon basin that its principal contacts with the outer world are smugglers and fugitives from Peruvian justice who come across the mountains, and nobody at all goes there except for his sins. I don't know what took Jose Ribiera there. I went because one of the three known specimens of Morpho andiensis was captured nearby by Bohler in 1911, and a lunatic millionaire in Chicago was willing to pay for a try at a fourth for his collection.

I got there after a river steamer refused to go any farther, and after four days more in a canoe with paddlers who had lived on or near river water all their lives without once taking a bath in it. When I got to Milhao, I wished myself back hi the canoe. It's that sort of place.

But that's where Jose" Ribiera was, and in back-country Brazil there is a remarkable superstition that os Senhores Norteamericanos are honest men. I do not explain it. I simply record it. And just as I was getting settled in a particularly noisome inn, Jose knocked on my door and came in. He was a small brown man, and he was scared all the way down deep inside. He tried lo hide that. The things I noticed first was that he was clean. He was barefoot, but his tattered duck garments were immaculate, and the rest of him had been washed, and recently. In a town like Milhao, that was startling.

"Senhor," said Jose in a sort of apologetic desperation, "you are a Senhor Norteamericano. IЧI beg your aid."

I grunted. Being an American is embarrassing, sometimes and in some places. Josг closed the door behind him and fumbled inside his garments. His eyes anxious, he pulled out a small cloth bundle. He opened it with shaking fingers. And I blinked. The lamplight glittered and glinted on the most amazing mass of tiny gold nuggets I'd ever seen. I hadn't a doubt it was gold, but even at first glance I wondered how on earth it had been gathered. There was no flour gold at allЧthat fine powder which is the largest part of any placer yield. Most of it was gravelly particles of pinhead size. There was no nugget larger than a half pea. There must have been five pounds of it altogether, though,

and it was a rather remarkable spectacle.

"Senhor, said Jose tensely, "I beg that you will help me turn this into cattle! It is a matter of life or death."

I hardened my expression. Of course, in thick jungle like that around Milhao, a cow or a bull would be as much out of place as an Eskimo, but that wasn't the point. I had business of my own hi Milhao. If I started gold buying or cattle dealing out of amiability, my own affairs would suffer. So I said in polite regret, "I am not a businessman, Senhor, do not deal in gold or cattle either. To buy cattle, you should go down to Sao Pedro"Чthat was four days' paddle downstream, or considering the current perhaps threeЧ"and take this gold to a banker. He will give you money for it if you can prove that it is yours. You can then buy cattle if "you wish."

Jose looked at me desperately. Certainly half the population of MilhaoЧ-and positively the Peruvian-refugee halfЧwould have cut his throat for a fraction of his hoard. He almost panted: "But, senhor! This would-be enough to buy cattle in Sao Pedro and send them here, would it not?" I agreed that at a guess it should buy all the cattle in Sao Pedro, twice over, and hire the town's wheezy steam launch to tow them up river besides. Jos6 looked sick with relief. But, I said, one should buy his livestock himself, so he ought to go to Sao Pedro in person. And I could not see what good cattle would be in the jungle anyhow.

"YetЧit would buy cattle!" said Jose, gulping. "That is what I toldЧmy friends. But I cannot go farther than Milhao, senhor. I cannot go to Sao Pedro. Yet I mustЧI need to buy cattle forЧmy friends! It is life and death! How can I do this, senhor?"

Naturally, I considered that he exaggerated the emergency.

"I am not a businessman," I repeated. "I would not be able to help you." Then at the terrified look in his eyes I explained, "I am here after butterflies."

He couldn't understand that. He began to stammer, pleading. So I explained.

"There is a rich man," I said wryly, "who wishes to possess a certain butterfly. I have pictures of it. I' am sent

to find it. I can pay one thousand milreis for one butterfly of a certain sort. But I have no authority to do other business, such as the purchase of gold or cattle."

Jose looked extraordinarily despairing. He looked numbed by the loss of hope. So, merely to say or do something, I showed him a color photograph of the specimen of Morpho andiensis which is in the Goriot collection in Paris. Bug collettors were in despair about it during the war. They were sure the Nazis would manage to seize it. Then Jose's eyes lighted hopefully.

"Senhor!" he said urgently. "Perhaps myЧfriends can find you such a butterfly! Will you pay for such a butterfly in cattle sent here from Sao Pedro, senhor?"

I said rather blankly that I would, butЧthen I was talking to myself. Jose had bolted out of my room, leaving maybe five pounds of gravelly gold nuggets in my hands. That was not usual.

I went after him, but he'd disappeared. So I hid his small fortune in the bottom of my collection kit. A few drops of formaldehyde, spilled before closing up a kit of collection bottles and insects, is very effective in chasing away piferers. I make use of it regularly.

Next morning I asked about Jose'. My queries were greeted with shrugs. He was a very low person. He did not live in Milhao, but had a clearing, a homestead, some miles upstream, where he lived with his wife. They had one child. He was suspected of much evil. He had bought pigs, and taken them to his clearing and behold he had no pigs there! His wife was very pretty, and a Peruvian had gone swaggering to pay court to her, and he had never come back. It is notable, as I think of it, that up to this time no ant of any sort had come into my story. Butterflies, but no ants. Especially not soldadosЧarmy ants. It is queer.

I learned nothing useful about Jose, but I had come to Milhao on business, so I stated it publicly. I wished a certain butterfly, I said. I would pay one thousand milreis for a perfect specimen. I would show a picture of what I wanted to any interested person, and I would show how to make a butterfly net and how to use it, and how to handle butterflies without injuring them. But I wanted only one

kind, and it must not be squashed.