Limekiller!

The river today was at middle strength: shallow-draft vessels could and still did navigate, but much dry shingle was visible near town. Impressions rushed in swiftly. The day was neither too warm nor too wet, the water so clear that Limekiller was convinced that he could walk across it. Felix lifted her hand, pointed in wordless wonder. There, on a far-outlying branch of a tree over the river was an absolutely monstrous lizard of a beautiful buff color; it could not have been less then five full feet from snout to end of tail, and the buff shaded into orange and into red along the spiky crenelations on the spiny back ridge. He had seen it before. Had he seen it before? He had seen it before.

“Iguana!” he cried.

Correction was polite but firm. “No, sir, Juanito. Iguana is embra, female. Dat wan be macho. Male. Se llama ’ garobo.’. ”

Something flickered in Limekiller’s mind. „¡Mira! ¡Mira! Dat wan dere, she be iguana!” And that one there, smaller than the buff dragon, was of a beautiful blue-green-slate-grey color. “Usual,” said Filiberto, “residen en de bomboo t’icket, which is why de reason is call in English, ‘Bomboo chicken.’. ”

“You eat it?” — Felix.

“Exotic food, exotic food!.” — May.

“ Generalmente, only de hine leg ahn de tail. But is very good to eat de she of dem when she have egg, because de egg so very nice eating, in May, June; but even noew, de she of dem have red egg, nice and hard. Muy sabroso.”

Jack turned and watched till the next bend hid the place from sight. After that he watched for them — he did not know why he watched for them, were they watching for him? — and he saw them at regular intervals, always in the topmost branches: immense. Why so high? Did they eat insects? And were there more insect to be taken, way up there? They surely did not eat birds? Some said, he now recalled in a vague way, that they ate only leaves; but were the top leaves so much more succulent? Besides, they seemed not to be eating anything at all, not a jaw moved. Questions perhaps not unanswerable, but, certainly, at the moment unanswered. Perhaps they had climbed so high only for the view: absurd.

“Didn’t use to be so many of them, time was. - Eh, Fil?” asked Captain Sneed. (“Correct, Copitan. Not.”) “Only in the pahst five, six years… it seems. Don’t know why. ”

But whatever, it made the river even more like a scene in a baroque faery tale, with dragons, or, at least, dragonets, looking and lurking in the gigant trees.

The bed of the river seemed predominantly rocky, with some stretches of sand. The river ran very sinuously, with banks tending towards the precipitate, and the east bank was generally the higher. “When river get high,” explained Don Fili, “she get white, ahn come up to de crutch of dem tree — ” he pointed to a fork high up. “It can rise in wan hour. Ahn if she rise in de night, we people cahn loose we boat. Very. peligroso. dangerous — ¡Jesus Maria!. Many stick tear loose wid roots ahn ahl, even big stick like dot wan,” he pointed to another massy trunk.

Here and there was open land, limpiado, “cleaned,” they said hereabouts, for “cleared.” “Clear. ” Something flickered in Limekiller’s mind as he recollected this. Then it flickered away. There seemed, he realized, feeling odd about it, that quite a lot of flickering was and had been going on his mind. Nothing that would come into focus, though. The scenes of this Right Branch, now: why did they persist in seeming. almost. familiar?. when he had never been here before?

“What did you say just then, Don Fili?” he demanded, abruptly, not even knowing why he asked.

The monumental face half turned, “¿Que? What I just say, Juanito? Why… I say, too bod I forget bring ahlong my fisga, my pike. take some of dem iguana, garobo, cook dem fah you. - Fah we," he amended, as one of the women said, Gik.

“We would say, ‘harpoon’ Captain Sneed, judiciously. “Local term: ‘pike.’ ”

The penny dropped. “Pike! Pike! It was a pike!” cried Limekiller. His body shook, suddenly, briefly. Not a lance or a spear. A pike!

They turned to look at him. Abashed, low-voiced, he muttered, “Sorry. Nothing. Something in a dream. ” Shock was succeeded by embarrassment.

Felix, also low-voiced, asked, “Are you feverish again?” He shook his head. Then he felt her hand take his. His heart bounced. Then — Oh. She was only feeling his pulse. Evidently it felt all right. She started to release the hand. He took hers. She let it stay.