They dropped through the clouds at eighty feet, in a blinding rain, and flew directly over the red roof of a house. Jevy yelled again, and pointed to something on his side of the plane. The airstrip looked to be the length of a nice suburban driveway, dangerous even in good weather. It didn't matter. They had no choice. If they crashed, at least there were people nearby.
They had spotted the strip too late to land with the wind, so Milton muscled the plane around for a landing into the face of the storm. The wind slapped the Cessna around and practically stalled it. The rain reduced visibility to almost nothing. Nate leaned over for a look at the runway, and saw only the water drenching the windshield.
At fifty feet, the Cessna was blown sideways. Milton fought it back into position. Jevy yelled, "Vaca! Vaca!" Nate immediately understood that vaca meant cow. Nate saw it too. They missed the first one.
In the flash of images before they hit, Nate saw a boy with a stick running through tall grass, soaking wet and frightened. And he saw a cow running away from the airstrip. He saw Jevy brace himself while staring through the windshield, eyes wild, mouth open but no words coming out.
They slammed into the grass, but kept moving for - ward. It was a landing, not a crash, and in that split second Nate hoped they would not die. Another gust lifted them ten feet into the air, then they hit again.
"Vaca! Vaca!"
The propeller ripped into a large, curious, stationary cow. The plane flipped violently, all windows bursting outward, all three men screaming their last words.
NATE WOKE UP sideways, covered in blood, scared beyond words, but very much alive and suddenly aware that it was still raining. The wind howled through the plane. Milton and Jevy were tangled on top of each other, but moving too and trying to get themselves unbuckled.
Nate found a window and stuck his head out. The Cessna was on its side, with a wing cracked and folded under the cabin. Blood was everywhere, but it was from the cow, not the passengers. The rain, still coming down in sheets, was quickly washing it away.
The boy with the stick led them to a small stable near the airstrip. Out of the storm, Milton dropped to his knees and mumbled an earnest little prayer to the Virgin Mary. Nate watched, and sort of prayed along with him.
There were no serious injuries. Milton had a slight cut on his forehead. Jevy's right wrist was swelling. More soreness would come later.
They sat in the dirt for a long time, watching the rain, hearing the wind, thinking of what could've been, saying nothing.
Chapter Thirteen
I HE OWNER of the cow appeared an hour or so later, I as the storm began to subside and the rain stopped for a moment. He was barefoot, clad in faded denim shorts and a threadbare Chicago Bulls tee shirt. Marco was his name, and Marco was not filled with holiday cheer.
He sent the boy away, then began a heated discussion with Jevy and Milton about the value of the cow. Milton was more concerned about his airplane, Jevy with his swollen wrist. Nate stood by the window and wondered exactly how it came to be that he was presently in the middle of the Brazilian outback on Christmas Eve in a smelly manger, sore and bruised, covered with the blood of a cow, listening to three men argue in a foreign tongue, and lucky to be alive. There were no clear answers.
Judging by the other cows grazing nearby, they couldn't be worth much. "I'll pay for the damned thing," Nate said to Jevy.
Jevy asked the man how much, then said, "A hundred reals."
"Does he take American Express?" Nate asked, but the humor missed its mark. "I'll pay it." A hundred bucks. He'd pay that much just for Marco to stop griping.
The deal was sealed, and the man became their host. He led them to his house, where lunch was being prepared by a short barefoot woman who smiled and welcomed them profusely. For obvious reasons, guests were unheard of in the Pantanal, and when they realized Nate was from the States they sent for the kids. The boy with the stick had two brothers, and their mother told them to examine Nate because he was an American.
She took the men's shirts and soaked them in a basin filled with soap and rainwater. They ate rice and black beans around a small table, bare-chested and unconcerned about it. Nate was proud of his toned biceps and flat stomach. Jevy had the cut look of a serious weight-lifter. Poor Milton showed the signs of rapidly approaching middle age, but clearly didn't care.
The three said little over lunch. The horror of the crash was still fresh. The children sat on the floor beside the table, eating flat bread and rice, watching every move Nate made.
There was a small river a quarter of a mile down the trail, and Marco had a boat with a motor. The Paraguay River was five hours away. Maybe he had enough gasoline, maybe he didn't. But it would be impossible with all three men in the boat.
When the sky cleared, Nate and the children walked to the wrecked plane and removed his briefcase. Along the way he taught them to count to ten in English. And they taught him in Portuguese. They were sweet boys, terribly shy at first but warming to Nate by the minute. It was Christmas Eve, he reminded himself. Did Santa visit the Pantanal? No one seemed to be expecting him.
On a smooth flat stump in the front yard, Nate carefully unpacked and arranged the satellite phone. The receiving dish was a square foot in size, and the phone itself was no larger than a compact laptop. A cord connected the two. Nate turned on the power, punched in his ID and PEST numbers, then slowly turned the dish until it picked up the signal from the Astar-East Satellite, a hundred miles above the Atlantic, hovering somewhere near the equator. The signal was strong, a steady beep confirmed it, and Marco and the rest of his family huddled even closer around Nate. He wondered if they'd ever seen a phone.
Jevy called out the numbers to Milton's home in Corumba. Nate pressed them slowly, then held his breath and waited. If the call did not work, they were simply stuck with Marco and family for Christmas. The house was small; Nate was assuming he'd sleep in the stable. Perfect.
Plan B was to send Jevy and Marco in the boat. It was almost 1 P.M. Five hours to the Paraguay would put them there just before dark, assuming there was enough gas. Once on the big river, they would then be faced with the task of finding help, and this could take hours. If there wasn't enough gas, they would be stranded deep in the Pantanal. Jevy had not vetoed this plan outright, but no one was pushing it.
There were other factors. Marco was reluctant to leave this late in the day. Normally, when he went to the Paraguay to trade, he left at sunrise. And while there was a chance he could find extra gas from a neighbor an hour away, this was far from certain.
"Oi," came a female voice over the speaker, and everyone smiled. Nate handed the phone to Milton, who said hello to his wife, then slid into a sad narrative about their plight. Jevy whispered a translation to Nate. The children marveled at the English.
The conversation grew tense, then suddenly stopped. "She's looking for a phone number," Jevy explained. The number came across, that of a pilot Milton knew. He promised to be home for dinner and hung up.
The pilot wasn't home. His wife said he was in Campo Grande on business, and should return by dark. Milton explained where he was, and she found more phone numbers where her husband might be reached.
"Ask him to talk fast," Nate said as he punched in another number. "This battery doesn't last forever."
No answer to the next number. To the next, the pilot came to the phone and was explaining that his airplane was being repaired when the signal was interrupted.
The clouds were back.
Nate looked at the darkening sky in disbelief. Milton was on the verge of tears.