The Cuckoo Colloquium

29 - Puso

He was a leader of men, and no slouch when it came to women.

Puso coaxed Nini laterally along the bank, considering an agreeable place at which to ford the river, one that gave them the greatest chances of not drowning in the crossing.

Their salvation-an airplane-had beckoned them, spangling under the setting sun like a compassionate star ... An airplane!

But a ghostlike, rolling spray of white cloud moved in quickly as he led her a hundred yards north, where the water seemed shallowest-Though they wouldn't know, really, if it was shallow or not until they were in the middle, and then, of course, it'd be too late ...

The river seemed about thirty meters in width, though it didn't seem particularly deep or swift, and all he could think of was that runway in the brush-their liberation, their godsend. Puso could barely contain himself from leaping in with a fat splash and dog paddling across, but he knew poor Nini wouldn't go for that at all.

"I see our adventure as seasoning," he said, leading the way, "something that will develop us, in various ways, and in no uncertain terms." He'd been saving up this inspirational line, and this was a good time to use it. Though he had no real clue what it meant, it might be something Churchill, or JFK , would've said in similar circumstances.

"That's kind of dumb," she mumbled, clawing his shoulder with one hand as the river water rose to their hips.

Nini wasn't looking too good: Her lips were cracked and bleeding, and she wrapped a black and white checked handkerchief around her head, covering her sore eye, as if this would somehow help her to cross the water; but all it did was make her look like some WW1 soldier in France-the walking wounded.

Of course, they got drenched, unable to balance against the current, and losing their footing on the sometimes-slippery bottom. But they only tumbled a few meters, and they had the good sense to hold tightly onto everything, even when somersaulting out of control in the chest-deep water. It was a tense five minutes, because Puso knew that neither of them had the vigor to battle the current for long if it had been cruel enough to sweep them off their feet for any length of time.

But when he and Nini reached the other side, he shook himself just like a dog, flushed with what they had just accomplished, and a sense of confidence set in. The bird book and the notebook inside her shoulder bag got wet, naturally, and she made a big deal out of trying to dry them, though Puso knew she was, at heart, grateful to his leadership heroics.

He guided them toward what had to be the airfield, but the jungle-as if on purpose-thickened again. Sometimes the setting sunlight found its way through the overhanging foliage, but this was actually bad news-the golden bars of brightness breaking through the canopy meant that some tree trunk with broken branches, piled up high, had fallen down, and they would have to find a way around it, or over it, or through it.

"We're getting close," he chimed, "can't you feel it?"

He hated the detours-They only presented opportunities to get even more lost; detours beckoned their decay, walking around in pathetic circles, inviting putrefaction into their weakened bodies, welcoming a gruesome jungle death for them both.

He pinched at the bottom half of his T-shirt, watching the steady drips.

Then he had to deal with the oozing, yellowish secretion again on the bottom of his feet. After that, a more urgent need erupted within him, and he pleaded with Nini like a child for candy, "Give me the golden-naped barbet-we've seen it, already."

"Where exactly?

"You want grid coordinates? - C'mon, Nini, please."

"You've used the prelude, the introductory pages, the acknowledgements, the references, and the index. Now you want the birds, too?"