Puerto Diablo: A Tale of Good and Evil

By Irving Karchmar

Between the two great wars in the river town of Puerto Diablo, somewhere at the bottom of South America, a tall, menacing stranger arrives to threaten the villagers, the native tribe of fierce warriors deep in the jungle, the local outlaw band, and Father Joseph Black, a powerful man of God known as the Black Priest. Like the lean stories of Hemingway and Peter Matthiessen, it is a tale of choices made and the ends they lead to, for good and evil.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Irving Karchmar
• Release date: Oct 21, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310253027

Irving Karchmar

Irving Karchmar has been a writer and editor for many years, and a darvish of the Nimatullahi Sufi Order since 1992. He lives near New York City.

Book preview

Puerto Diablo

A Tale of Good and Evil

by

Irving Karchmar

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2014 by Irving Karchmar.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

For information, contact the author at: [e-mail]

For Matthew and Rebecca

and

Jack, Hayley, Sophia and Dylan

When the sun is highest on any day in the season of the rains, the moisture rises slowly from the parched jungle; rising as vapor and converging with the mists of the river beyond the village, hazing the sky with a layer of heavy air that hangs above the treetops until the rains come in the late afternoon. Then the hours of heavy rain returns the life force to the vegetation and the river fills once more, while the cracked, grey land turns to mud, pulling all things imperceptibly further into the reclaiming earth.

Then night and mud and insects, until the sun returns and the cycle begins again, day by day by day in the season of the rains.

Chapter I

And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it.

- Luke 4:6

One travels slowly in the great heat, crawling at half speed down the wide, gentle arc of the river. There is no wind, and the daylight animals are quiet in their shade. Only the monkeys exert themselves with endless chatter. The water is shallow and muddy brown, shimmering darkly in light reflected through the steaming vapor. The old white paddle wheeler’s churning causes the water’s only movement.

After the first bend the river becomes very narrow. Ancient trees arching high over the water from either shore make the upper terraces a green-latticed roof of tangled palms and vines and interlocking branches. And the underbrush on either side has meshed thick and high, reaching to the branches of the trees, forming an impenetrable wall of vegetation; a mile-long tunnel grown by nature, without sun, the light that reaches from either end reflected, diffused, a glow of twilight darkness that seems to come from the dark green and brown of the land itself, as if the earth has its own source of light.

As the steamer entered the mouth of the cavern the man on deck looks up, turning a slow circle on the spot where he stands. There are small monkeys jabbering overhead, and a few birds whose plumage blended so well into these walls of the river that he could see them only when they moved. If a pistol was fired he knew he would see what he thought were a thousand leaves take flight. Behind him a few workers sat lazily among the crates, glancing at him every so often and wondering at this tall man in the white suit, and why in the world he would be going to Puerto Diablo.

Pablo was up early. He had heard the steamer whistle and groggily tried to remember what day it was. He heard the whistle again and reached for his clothes. Once dressed, he went to the window that faces the river and the pier. It was there, already docked. Pablo scratched his beard and grunted and was about to turn away when the man walked down the gangplank. He was tall and thin, with a beardless face and the type of tropical suit worn by visitors to the Capitol. Pablo watched him curiously as he walked from