Free Forest of the Pygmies by Isabel Allende Page A

doesn’t pull it tight. You’ll see, everything we need will be provided,” Brother Fernando replied.
    Angie seized the missionary’s arms and hoisted him a few inches off the ground, until they were eye to eye.
    â€œIf you had listened to me, we wouldn’t be in this pickle!” she spit out, shooting sparks.
    Kate intervened. “It was my decision to come here, Angie.”
    The group scattered across the beach, each occupied in his own project. With the help of Alexander and Nadia, Angie had managed to remove the propeller. After carefully examining it, she confirmed what she had suspected: They would not be able to repair it with the tools at hand. They were trapped.
    Joel hadn’t really believed that anything would strike at his primitive fishhook, so he nearly fell backward with surprise when he felt a tug on the line. Everyone came running to help him, and finally, after a long struggle, they hauled a good-sized carp from the water. The fish thrashed on the sand for some minutes, which was acute torture for Nadia, who couldn’t bear to see animals suffer.
    â€œIt’s the way of nature, child. Some die so others can live,” Brother Fernando consoled her.
    He didn’t add that God had sent them the carp, which was what he truly believed, because he didn’t want to provoke Angie’s wrath anew. They cleaned the fish, wrapped it in leaves, and roasted it: Nothing had ever tasted so delicious. By then the clearing was blazing like an inferno. They improvised some shade, rigging canvas on long poles, and lay down to rest, observed by the monkeys and the large green lizards that had come out to soak in the sun.
    They were all drowsing, sweating beneath the insufficient shade of the canvas, when a veritable whirlwind blew in from the forest at the far end of the beach, raising clouds of sand. The furor of its arrival was so stupefying that at first they all thought it must be a rhinoceros. At closer view, however, they saw it was a huge boar, with bristly hair and menacing tusks. The beast was blindly charging the camp, giving them no time to grab the weapons they had laid aside during siesta. They barely had time to scramble away before it reached them, crashing against the poles that held up the canvas and sending everything to the ground. From the ruins of the tent, it observed them with malevolent eyes, huffing and snorting.
    As Angie ran to find her revolver, her movement caught the attention of the animal, which readied a new attack. Its front hooves raked the sand; it lowered its head and headed straight for Angie, whose considerable flesh presented a perfect target.
    Just as Angie’s fate seemed inevitable, Brother Fernando stepped between her and the boar, waggling a piece of canvas. The beast stopped short, swerved, and threw itself at the missionary, but at the instant of contact he sidestepped gracefully. The boar lunged past, furious, and charged anew, but once again its only victim was the canvas; it didn’t even graze its true target. In the interim Angie had retrieved her revolver, but she didn’t dare shoot because the animal was circling around Brother Fernando, so close that the two were a single swirl of movement.
    The travelers realized that they were witnessing the most original “bull” fight ever. The missionary was flourishing the canvas as he would a scarlet cape, provoking the beast and goading it with shouts of “Olé!” and “Toro! Toro!” He was bamboozling it, he was dancing before it, he was maddening it. In ashort time, he had exhausted the boar; it was drooling, near collapse, its legs trembling. At that point Brother Fernando turned his back and, with the supreme arrogance of a torero, walked a few steps away, dragging his cape, as the boar tottered on its feet. Angie seized the instant to kill it with two shots to the head. A loud chorus of applause and cheers greeted Brother Fernando’s daring