Sample Chapter 

Chapter 24

Mato Grosso, Brazil: May 1928

It was proving the longest, most perilous train ride of her life, and Alexandra Bathenbrook now knew why the Portuguese had never come to rule the world. Sure, at one point, they had boasted a mighty flotilla, laid discovery too much of the unmapped earth, and could still whir a tearful fado. Their railway building skills, however, were lacking. Details such as well-pillared bridges, smooth track beds, and firm ties seemed of minor priority.
    “We approach the ‘Descent into Hell.’ Then, the ‘Devil’s Bridge’ into the ‘Tunnel of Fire.’”
    “Adescida ao Inferno. Então a Ponte do Diabo no Túnel de Fogo,” Alexandra confirmed.
    “Your Portuguese has improved,” Capitão Agostinho Falcoa said, as everyone in the carriage prepared.
    She smiled at him, thinking the Brazil Railway Company needed to upgrade its marketing team.
    The trek from the coastline to the Paraguay River stretched for nine hundred miles. The train was prone to derailments and wobblier than a tightrope walker in a second-rate circus performing during an earthquake… while somewhat inebriated. This was her last day aboard, and Alexandra now understood why the conductor ended each stop by shouting, “O Trem da Morte está partindo!”
    Alexandra had boarded six days ago in São Paulo. Ricardo, her contact with the North American Newspaper Association, had given her the lowdown. NANA had bankrolled the Fawcett Relief Expedition to provide millions of riveted readers across the globe with a stirring resolution to the feted mystery of the lost explorer. The chief concern was that after seeing Dyott’s party off—whom the local media deemed “The Suicide Club”—they would never be heard from again. Without her participation, there would be little news to keep public interest piqued. Ricardo would travel to the city of Corumbá in a month to await her reemergence from the jungle and get her photographs to the press. 
    He had handed her a train ticket, vials of snakebite serum, and attained information about her next of kin.
    Alexandra was thankful she’d met Capitão Agostinho Falcoa. He had boarded in Boituva, juggling three oranges. In noting the 38 Winchester rifle strapped across her frock and the Colt revolver resting in her holster, he had teased, “A invasão foi cancelada.”
    She had rebutted, “Pity. My only plan was to invade your heart,” and a friendship was born. They had taken meals together, played cribbage, and to the nightly contributions of traveling musicians playing for tips he taught her to samba. A more superficial woman might think him unremarkable with his pockmarked face and gray fringes to his mustache, but Alexandra detected forlorn wisdom in his grin and gaze. She took girlish pleasure in his sanguine acts, his bravado, and it rendered consideration that she preferred older men. He was escorting four recruits to a remote outpost for the harshest year of their lives. An overt sense of doom cloaked their faces, even in slumber.
    The highland terrain the train rumbled through was rugged and leafy. Alexandra removed her slouch hat and stuck her head out of a window, allowing a warm breeze to cool her skin. The wanton decision to cut her hair to shoulder length inspired self-ridicule, but it would require less fuss over the coming hard months. If she survived to Corumbá, a week-long trip on a river barge would see her to a disrepute frontier town called Cuiabá. All that lay beyond it was the great unknown of inner Amazonia, where men as stout as oxen were felled by snakebite, disease, or whistling arrow.
    It sounded like interesting country, and she was eager to arrive.
    Falcoa joined her. “In two hours, we detrain in Porto Esperança.”
    She nodded, catching sight of a distant rainbow. “Will you stay in the army, Agostinho, or does some other life ever call out to you?”
    “I am often lost in that other life, but such was long ago.” He lifted his peaked forage cap and pushed back his graying hair. “I see you still chase rainbows. Always do so!”
    Alexandra had yet to pass through that gate separating one’s envisioned life from its unavoidable path; indeed so naïve, she did not even know it existed. She gripped the window frame. The engineer was operating with a heavy foot, lending the carriage to sway violently. She said, “Tell me of the life you lost.”
    “I married while at university. We had a daughter. She would have been your age.” Falcoa’s eyes creased at these recollections. “A horse coachman, drunk on caninha, ran them over in the thoroughfare. My daughter died quickly. My wife suffered far too long. The man knew a politico. He did not go to prison, so I shot him. The judge offered me life in the army… so dressed accordingly, I shall remain.”
    Those sharing the carriage were abandoning their hammocks or seats to kneel in a prayer line. The only passenger that remained standing was an adherent to Candomblé, who traveled with a rooster. Falcoa closed the window as they began a swift plummet.
    The train whistle sounded like a banshee. Everything started shaking.
    “Would you mind holding me?”
    Falcoa took Alexandra into his arms. He gently stroked her hair.
    Eyes closed, head resting on his shoulder, Alexandra prayed as the train thudded across a rickety bridge that spanned a deep gorge. She could feel its wheelsets rise off the tracks before crackling back down.
    Darkness filled the windows and smoke infiltrated the carriage. The Catholics were in full panic. They called out, “Matáro o galo!” to the Candomblé worshiper, imploring him to cut the throat of his rooster in sacrifice. Before a knife was put into play, sunlight filtered back into the carriage. Several passengers had passed out, and others were using hand fans to revive them. 
    Falcoa released her and opened the window to allow in air. A tear ran his cheek.
    Alexandra brushed it free and kissed him.
    He backed off, lending a tender smile to soften her look of confusion.
    While she was at the moment seeking the comfort of a father figure, he had forever lost a daughter, and such was the way it would always be. 

“Good day, Commander. Apologies for my delay.” Alexandra slung her rifle over a shoulder and shut the car door. “I’ve just come from northern Amazonia and was fortunate to find sea passage to spare me any need to hike straight through to you.”
    “Hmmm.” It was likely the inanest comment George Dyott had ever heard.
    “Hello, fellas!” Alexandra waved to the others, who had stopped loading supplies onto a Chevy flatbed truck upon her arrival. “Do we still depart tomorrow, right on shed-ule?”
    “Hmmm.” Dyott looked her over. He understood the boots, khaki safari shirt, and breeches. He even grasped her neckerchief, leather gloves, and slouch hat. It was the goggles that befuddled him. He said, “There is no aviation associated with the mission.”
    “Affirmative, Commander.” She placed them in her satchel.
    Dyott peered into her bag. It was full of lemons. “You may die of many things over the coming weeks, but we can safely assume it won’t be from scurvy.”
    With that, he walked away.
    Alexandra’s driver departed, pleased with his tip. She shed her gear, all on which her initials were written. Her rucksack, camera bag, satchel, mosquito netting, and tied hammock formed a hefty pile. She took in a better assessment of things. Dyott was showing canny leadership by staging the expedition elsewhere than Cuiabá. While the town held many churches, it was filled with bandits, as wherever prospectors convened to drink and gamble away their gold scoundrels soon followed. It brought to her mind an image of Tombstone before Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday cleaned it out.
   A missionary school in Buriti, thirty miles to the northeast, served as the point of kickoff. Of the other men present, four were Anglos, and five were of mixed Brazilian ancestry. She went about introducing herself. Gerard and Bill were wireless specialists and busying themselves with a Silver Marshall field transmitter for a final communique before departure. Samuel and Jack were film men who would record the mission via motion picture camera. They all seemed like decent, everyday guys. 
    Alexandra took a shine that she might grace the big screen, but Samuel whispered they were under orders to keep her out of the documentary. The five local camaradas were pleasant in their greeting. Kalin, Joao, Vincente, and Verisimo were jack-of-all-trade types, while José was the cook. Alexandra felt relief that it was a small group, wanting to move swiftly through the wilds. It seemed odd that all of them admitted being novices with firearms and unfamiliar with the jungle, though the camaradas were likely handy with their machetes. It was likewise strange that no pack mules or horses grazed the dry grasslands of the abandoned fazenda.
    She did not want to overburden anyone with questions, except for Dyott. “Hello again, Commander. Might we compare notes?”
    He grimaced and set down a bag. “Our notes should be of perfect synchronicity and read ‘You are an employee of NANA and not a representative of this team.’ Notas completas.”
    “Notas incompletas.” It was so very British to sport a tie with khaki field dress, but if one were to pull it off, it could not dangle loosely. Alexandra reached out and fixed it, taking kindly to his look of shocked appreciation. She slyly whispered, “Don’t worry. If anything happens to you, I’ll see the men home.”
    “Have you traveled thousands of miles simply to torment me?”
    Though donning a pith helmet, Dyott remained several inches shorter than her, even in Brazil. She said, “I would have preferred if you’d invited me. At least a letter of rejection would have sufficed.”
    He took pause to facepalm. “I explicitly advertised for men of short stature. They move through the jungle efficiently and do not consume as much food.”
    Having witnessed Big Jim Gustin devour half an antelope, Alexandra could understand that, but she was not that tall nor of hearty appetite. She said, “I’m prepared to accept your apology so we can move on.”
    Dyott was turning red. “Thousands of applicants across the globe reached out to be part of this expedition. One pitched he worked in a Turkish bath, thus could tolerate heat, with most stating that after years of marriage, they were seasoned to endure any hardship. As one recently married, I cannot attest to that sentiment, but you’re helping me to understand it better!”
    “Ah, that reminds me.” Dyott had honeymooned upon his ship to Rio. Alexandra dug through the lemons filling her satchel and produced a small box. “Many happy years to you both.”   Dyott opened the gift. He looked at the gold tie pin favorably. “A small biplane,” she noted. “I thought it an appropriate tribute to your war service.”
    “Indeed, quite thoughtful.” He sighed. “A letter would have been apropos. You should take time to wash up in the schoolhouse and then we shall reconvene for dinner.”
    So, we will be allies she bargained. “Do you have interest in hearing about my adventures in British Guiana?”
    “Not in the slightest.” With that, Dyott walked away. 

It was clear: male body odor was going to be an issue.
    Grand expeditions into the unknown do not commence in the middle of nowhere, but at its edge. The arid, scrub-filled upper plateau of the Chapada dos Guimarães spread itself forever. It was pockmarked with evasive valleys segregated by dramatic cliffs, which teased one to misstep toward unreachable horizons. The truck made excellent progress until a tire blew out. Morale sunk low once evening fell and a driving rain left everyone wet, cold, and without dinner. A lean-to canopy was hastily erected, and they piled under seeking refuge: Alexandra, ten men, and ubiquitous male body odor.
    One day in and it was already repugnant. It failed to help that the camaradas were barefoot and beans were served for breakfast.
    The thunderstorm lent a need for Alexandra to place aside reading Dyott’s research journal, which contained valuable insight into Fawcett’s previous forays.
    At daybreak, the tarp was lifted, the tire fixed, and the truck was again rolling across the plateau. Alexandra took a seat upon sacks of rice and returned to her studies. She sighed, as the rankness that had ravaged her all night still clung to her.
    At least for now she had escaped the farting.
    Percy Fawcett had first visited South America in 1906 at the behest of the Royal Geographical Society to chart out the contested border between Brazil and Bolivia. He had often returned before the war to build upon his theory that a great civilization once existed in the Amazon—the proof awaiting discovery. He found minor evidence, but nothing confirming the fantastic tales of a tribe of Atlanteans or fair-skinned Amazons ruling the jungle. After recovering from wounds incurred at the Somme, Fawcett had returned in 1920, needing to scuttle his outing at a camp he labeled “Dead Horse.” In his writings, he attested coordinates of 11.43º south latitude and 54.35º west longitude to this location. It was likewise the campsite in which he had dispatched his last letters in 1925 before his disappearance. The question remained if these coordinates were reliable.
    George Dyott did not believe so. An examination of the dates associated with Fawcett’s 1920 trip did not match up with the camp being so far north. Fawcett’s wife had confided that he often placed false markers to keep his intended route a secret. It was now being gambled that Dead Horse was three degrees south of the stated latitude. If Dyott were correct, they’d be on the trail, and if wrong, lost in the middle of hostile Indian country.
    “Ship-ahoy!” Samuel called out in a rascally voice.
    Alexandra shut the journal and stood next to him. They had arrived near the Rio São Manoel to find an armada gathered. She counted sixty bullocks, ten mules, and eleven men. The pile of boxed goods was mindboggling. If Napoleon had hired George Dyott as a quartermaster, no French soldier would have starved to death on the march to Moscow, though countless would have perished of old age.
    “How does one take all of that into a jungle?” she asked Samuel.
    “Slowly,” he said, “but what do I know? I’m just a cameraman!”
    She placed her forearm near his face. “Do I smell manly to you?”
    He sniffed. “A bit. More so, like beans and lemon juice.”
    The truck departed, the supplies were repacked, and Alexandra inherited a mule of her own. She had a way with animals, and it seemed content in her care. The barrier posed by the shallow river was of little consequence. The troupe proceeded onward, hopeful of finding enough grass to feed their pack animals.
    Over the coming days, guiding her mount at the slowest of paces, Alexandra felt as if she had signed up for a Texas cattle drive. Coffee and farinha biscuits served as breakfast, with rice and beans the sole listing on the dinner menu. The oxen often grunted with displeasure, flared their nostrils, and acted unruly under three tons of packed goods, despite the skillful handling of their Brazilian vaqueros. The beasts lugged a large food larder, two wireless sets, motion picture cameras, camping gear, a generator, gasoline, and cooking utensils. Four long containers shipped from New York were stamped: D.M. Dyott—Fawcett Relief Expedition.
    Outside of keeping an eye out for venomous snakes and avoiding scrub infested with garrapatas ticks, the trail was tedious. The expedition party averaged only twelve miles daily under the pounding sun. Alexandra failed to find even a puddle to rinse off residual male body odor, which still clung with the fury of a trap-jaw ant. Each afternoon, she would ride ahead singing ragtime tunes with Samuel as they sought opportune terrain to pitch camp. Dyott seemed not to mind, as music was an ingredient for good morale.
    Firepits were dug for cooking, light, and warmth.
    As they descended the plateau, the foliage became taller, greener, and thicker. The armada soon hit its first significant obstacle: the Rio Paranatinga. It was a broad stretch of water. The animals would need to be unloaded to swim across and rafts built to ferry the supplies.
    Alexandra secured her mule to a tree limb. The vaqueros were fearful of the long electric eels that inhabited wide rivers, but she did not care. It was water. She washed her face and doused her hair to cool off. “How does one take all this across such a river?”
    “Slowly,” Samuel said, “but what do I know? I grew up in a city!”
    Dyott walked through the thick brush to join them. “This will be where we cross. First thing is to secure a rope to yonder bank.”
    Everyone dispersed to unload the pack animals and clear a path to the treacherous waterway. It would be long and arduous work.
    Dyott informed Alexandra and Samuel to remain and dropped a large coil of rope on the ground. “This crossing will be an all-day affair. You’ll go first to film it. By the bye, are you bleeding?”
    Alexandra responded, “I will menstruate in one week, as I have not had sexual intercourse since October.”
    Dyott and Samuel looked at each other, neither having a clue what that was about.
    Dyott clarified, “Any open cuts? Piranha are timid fish unless they smell blood, and thereto, shred you to the bone.”
    “I’ll certainly check.” To lighten his burdens, Alexandra breezily jabbered, “I learned to swim in the Amazon at age seven. It is a rather uproarious story—” She stopped talking in noting Dyott walking away and turned to Samuel. “Are we to take the rope across?”
    “Probably,” Samuel said, “but what do I know? I can’t even swim!”
    Alexandra took off her hat and boots. She disarmed before rolling up her pant legs. Borrachudo flies were swarming, and she smacked a few trying to bite. She looped one end of the rope into a two-half hitch knot along the trunk of a thick tree and tied its free end around her waist. It would be cathartic getting wet. She walked in slowly, not as concerned with the current as with avoiding cuts to her feet from sharp rocks.
    Priority one was to scrub the man-stink from her skin.
    She then waded out until the water reached her belly button and swam. Upon reaching the far bank, she secured the rope to a Jatobá tree, refreshed and proud of her achievement. Alexandra was unsure why those across the river were engaged in raucous laughter and waving at her.
    Commander Dyott was once more shaking his head and massaging his temples.
    “Wait there!” Jack, the other cameraman, shouted.
    “They must think me an idiot,” Alexandra mumbled. They had unveiled four foldable canoes out of nowhere—no doubt shipped from New York.
    Dyott, Samuel, and Jack soon arrived with the camera gear.
    She continued swiping at borrachudos. “Rope secured, Commander!”
    “The swim was of no waste,” he commiserated. “You were foetid.”
    Alexandra’s jaw dropped. Between the nasty flies and his reference to the man-stink his gender had cast upon her, she would need to unleash her secret weapon come evening. Samuel and Jack handed over her camera and accouterments before unloading the canoe. Dyott headed back alone to gather more supplies.
    Alexandra rolled up her sleeves. It was time to be a photographer.