Orinoco

By William Thacker

Now comes the continuation of The Chronicles of An Exotic Animal Cowboy, the daring journeys of herpetologist Will Thacker and Dr. Joann McVay, his beloved British biologist companion.

 

Packed with action and intrigue, Orinoco is the sequel to Otters on a Plane: The India/Africa Expedition. Join the pair on their grand adventures as they study and collect fascinating wildlife and attempt to preserve endangered species. As usual, danger follows them wherever they travel. They must escape many dicey predicaments using only their wits and the help of the many friends they meet along the way.

 

Don't miss any of William Thacker's adventures: Otters on a Plane • An Untamed Land • The Pearl Islands • The Gainesville Tales • Adventure  Road

• Language: English
• Publisher: William Thacker
• Release date: May 7, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224494644

William Thacker

Ever since four-year-old William Thacker got to hold a black rat snake, he has been fascinated by animals. As a child, he kept a menagerie in his family’s back yard in Florida, then moved his collection to Clermont’s Citrus Tower where, at the age of fifteen, he was giving guided tours and “milking” rattlesnakes for the public at The Wildlife Arena. Throughout his life, William has involved himself in traveling, collecting, and teaching about wildlife. He has been a youth camp nature director, a teacher, and a television host. He has operated an import company, an exotic animal shop, and has worked as a zoo educator. In 2019 William returned to Florida and began writing Thacker Tales. He now resides in the Black Hammock Wilderness Area where he continues to pen the stories of his incredible life with animals.

Book preview

Table of Contents

Orinoco

Come On Pretty Mama

Yopo

The Treehouse

Ghosts of the Jungle

The Ambush

Lightshine

The Intruders

Head of the Spear

The Place Where We Paddle

Sun Shadow

Together

The Urban Campfire

Back in the USA

Homeward Bound

Hogtown

Sunburn

The Museum

The Escape

The Golden Cobra

Hoppin’ Gator

Hashknife

Vandy

The Mythical Beast

The Departure

All We Are Saying

Hook Shy

The Telegram

Genesis

MAYDAY!

The Pink Flamingo

White Horses

The Rogue

The Coronation

Council of War

Emerald Ocean

The Rodeo

The Rampagers

The Wedding

Conservation Message

About the Author

Orinoco

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William Thacker

A black snake drawn on a black background Description automatically generated

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four tales from

The Chronicles of An Exotic Animal Cowboy

The author owes a huge debt of gratitude to Joanne Lawlor, Valerie Proctor, and Steve Duncan for their help and inspiration in the preparation of this book:

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This book is a work of creative nonfiction. Some of the names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, actual business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Copyright © 2023 by William Thacker

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording without prior written permission from the author.

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Cover design by Steve Duncan

In the end, we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught.

-Baba Dioum, Senegalese conservationist

Part One

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Into the Orinoco Basin

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We had come across a deadly fer-de-lance! ... This specimen was over five feet long and could deliver twice the amount of venom lethal to a human.

Come On Pretty Mama

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April 1st, 1970

Gainesville, Florida

I was in my garage shop testing a cable noose I’d made with an Orinoco croc in mind. The business phone rang. I went over to the wall and picked it up.

Living Reptiles, good morning. I took a quiet sip of my morning coffee and looked at my watch – 8:15.

Hey, Cowboy. It was Joann McVay. I’m sorry but I can’t go with you. I found someone else. I sat down hard in an old wooden chair. Then she said, "I’m so in love ... with you! April Fools!"

If you were here, I just might spank you.

And I just might like it.

Out my garage door, I saw the postman putting mail in my box. I thought about spanking her and smiled. A little kinky, maybe.

Your ticket’s waiting for you at the TWA check-in desk at Heathrow, Babe. My birthday was coming up on April 3rd.

Don’t think you are going to get lucky on your birthday, William. I’m not that kind of girl.

Just bring your yoga mat, some romantic music, and candles and we’ll see what happens. Ever hear of the Mile High Club? She laughed.

We talked a while longer and then said goodbye for now.

I continued packing the considerable amount of equipment into aluminum cases, checking items off my list as I went, putting on the tops, and cinching the black nylon straps around them. I looked at the name plate sitting atop my office desk that Joann had left for me in West Bengal.

A car pulled into my driveway, an old Chevy Corvair, light blue. It was my assistant manager, Stan Redding. He ran to the mailbox and got the mail, a Krispy Kreme box in his hand – right on time. We talked awhile as he drank the coffee I’d poured him from the electric percolator. In an enclosure behind him, a Mozambique red spitting cobra was eating the mouse I’d tossed in earlier. The walls were lined with reptiles from around the world. Stan took great care of them. He’d be running things while I was away. I opened the mail with my oversized hunting knife. I had begun calling it The Whisperer because it whispered through the air when I threw it at targets in the back yard. This would be a four-country expedition: Grenada, Aruba, Guyana, and Venezuela. On a little transistor radio, Ricky Nelson sang Traveling Man.

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April 2nd, 1970

Miami, Florida

I’d caught United’s Flight 108 out of Jacksonville. The Boeing 727 touched down at Miami International Airport at 6:05 a.m.  I went into the terminal and, as usual, bought life insurance from a vending machine. I put it in a stamped envelope and mailed it to my parents. One never knows.

I arranged with the agent to pick up my air freight and baggage a little later. I was dressed in a sports coat and tie over jeans, my typical flying garb. It was my attempt to look at least halfway respectable.

I took a ground shuttle over to the Sky Castles private hangar. Tom McClimon was a bush pilot of great renown. I’d learned of his services in Aviation Today. I found him standing on a ladder in front of the single engine of a de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver. The round cowling lay on a grease-spotted piece of canvas on the floor. The pontoons gleamed in the sunlight streaming through the skylight. He was clad in a zip-up set of blue coveralls. He wore his long brown hair in a Chinese queue. It matched his Fu Manchu mustache.

A wide grin spread across his face as I approached him and shook his hand. He was proud of his plane and explained its ability to takeoff and land on both runways and water. It was perfect for getting into that remote Piaroa village in the Orinoco Basin. Over a cup of Cuban coffee in his small office, we took care of the financials. The flight thus secured, I borrowed Tom’s Ford pickup truck and returned to United, got all the equipment, and came back. We spent the next hour distributing the weight across the cargo hold.

Later, I drove his truck, with its yellow roof light spinning, to TWA’s Gate 212 where Joann’s flight from London was just taxiing to a stop. She came down the steps in a sun dress, seemingly in slow motion, that familiar camera bag over her shoulder. I waved and smiled. She ran to me. I embraced her, picked her up, and spun her around.  Deplaning passengers slowed and stared.

An elderly lady said, How romantic.

A man in Bermuda shorts and a flowered shirt queried, Are you famous?

You’ve not heard of the Exotic Animal Cowboy? To shame, Joann joked.

The man snapped a picture with a yellow cardboard camera. He winked at me and shot me an OK sign.

We plucked her baggage from the inbound motorized cart, threw it in the back of the truck, and drove back to Sky Castles. WMJX was playing Paul McCartney’s Maybe I’m Amazed. And I was. Joann slid across the seat and kissed me on the cheek. It’s good to see you again, my cowboy. I stopped and turned toward her. I took her in my arms and kissed her. She declared that no one else had ever kissed her like that.

Back in the hangar, we added her suitcases to the other luggage. One of Tom’s mechanics had arrived and put the cowling back on the engine. We stepped up onto the strut under the wing and climbed into the snug cockpit. We buckled our lap belts. Tom donned his headset. It was a four-placer and had no bathroom, so the Mile High Club was out of the question – for now.

Tom was flipping switches and watching the gauges as the engine roared to life. The propeller caught, then seemed to disappear as he revved it up. We rolled through a huge set of sliding hangar doors into the South Florida sun, then sped down the runway. The flaps were set for takeoff, and we got that little queasy feeling when we lifted off. Joann and I also put on headsets and heard the Doors doing Light My Fire as the plane climbed higher and my passion for this British biologist burned even more strongly.

We landed on North Caicos, in the Turks and Caicos Islands. While Tom supervised the taking on of aviation fuel, Joann and I sat and observed the interesting little curly-tailed lizards running around. They held their tails aloft in a question mark, maybe asking, How are you today? She snapped a few pictures as we ate two of the sandwiches Tom had brought along for the trip.

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Curly-tailed lizard

Still on a southerly heading, we watched the vast expanse of the Atlantic Ocean below us shading into a sparkling aquamarine as it became the Caribbean Sea. In San Juan, Puerto Rico, we again topped off the fuel tanks.

We had made good time covering the 1529 miles from Miami. We were on approach to the Saint George’s Airport in Grenada. Tom was talking to the tower. They cleared us to land just as it was getting dark. The western horizon was a streak of rose red. The lights of the capital shown below us like sparkling diamonds. St. George’s was located in a volcanic crater on a horseshoe-shaped harbor.

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April 2nd, 1970

St. George’s, Grenada

We were met at the private aircraft ramp by an officer from Grenada Customs. With him was Julius Graves, a friend of Dr. Richard Ross. Julius was holding up a white posterboard, lettered in red that said, Welcome, Exotic Animal Cowboy. This was clearly the result of Doc’s weird sense of humor. It was he who had given me the moniker when we had lassoed the king cobra in the grain storage room in Ampur, India.

We put our gear into his yellow Ford Fairlane station wagon and took a slow ride up the steep and winding road to the home of his grandmother, the Mistress Graves. She welcomed us eloquently. The aroma of cooked lamb filled the air inside her cottage.

She soon invited us to take our places around the lavishly set long trestle table. As we dined, I watched as Joann put mint jelly on her lamb and smiled at her endearing British ways. After an exquisite meal, Joann and I went out onto the balcony. Huge yellow blossoms of a trumpet vine hung like fragrant bells. We slow-danced to songs in our heads. Strings of white lights cascaded down from the masts of schooners and trawlers standing at anchor below us in the bay. A sea breeze played over glass wind chimes and brought with it the aroma of salt water and seaweed. We sat side by side on a glider. I took her hand in mine and gazed upon her lovely face. In her eyes, I saw the boundless love that waited there, and I answered in kind with a kiss that promised a future with limits set only by our imaginations.

By the time we came back in, everyone was asleep. Earlier, the kind but somewhat strange Mistress Graves had shown us to our rooms. Tom and I had two mattresses on the floor. Our hostess had told us they were stuffed with straw, and I had joked that I would be hitting the hay soon.

Joann and I quietly slipped into the room she had been given. The windows were open, and a warm wind blew gently over our bodies as we lay across her bed. She lit two candles. Shadows of the twin flames danced across the ceiling as our hearts touched and the Fleetwoods sang Come Softly to Me. We were alone together for the first time since that night in West Bengal, India, when we had lain side by side and named the stars in the firmament.

After she fell asleep, I rested my head on my left hand and drank in her beauty. With my fingertip, I traced her profile – her eyebrows, her Cupid’s bow, and the fullness of her lips. Her naturally sweet and musky fragrance staggered me.

As the first incandescence of the Caribbean dawn graced the low sky, I kissed her forehead and padded back to my room.

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April 3rd, 1970

St. George’s, Grenada

We had rich hot chocolate, poached eggs, melon salad, and muffins. Tom had brought an insect net. He had a thing for butterflies so off he went. Joann and I headed down the hill to the end of Young Street to enjoy the St. George’s Market. The stalls were painted in bright yellows, greens, blues, and pinks. Vendors were hawking their wares like carnival barkers with lilting island accents. Bins of ice held newly caught fish, whose frozen eyes stared at us reproachfully.

In the other stalls, there were fresh fruits – mangoes, papayas, guavas, star fruits, breadfruits, coconuts, cashews, and pineapples.

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St. George's Harbor

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Yet other stalls were devoted to spices. Round, shallow baskets contained ginger, cinnamon, cloves, vanilla, and nutmeg. Their scent was intoxicating.

At a café, we took a glass-topped table beneath a rain tree. We ordered Mai Tais. From a vase in the center, I took a calla lily and gave it to Joann. She slid it behind her ear. I leaned in and inhaled its rich bouquet and caressed her cheek with the tip of my finger. Around us, white stucco houses with red-tiled roofs dotted the green hillsides, rising toward the azure sky.

The bright Caribbean sun danced in her golden-brown hair. There was a little scar in the corner of her right eye. She told me she had gotten it when she’d fallen off her parents’ coffee table while dancing to a song from The Hit Parade. For the first time, I noticed a little heart tattoo near the end of her ring finger. Around her neck, she wore a crystal that sprayed a rainbow across her white halter top. She looked troubled.

What’s wrong, Babe?

I’m pregnant.

West Bengal?

Uh-huh. I saw no need to bring birth control pills. How was I to know I’d meet that one special person? I’m sorry, Will.

This is wonderful news. What a birthday present!

She brightened. You are happy?

I’m delighted.

Then I understood why she never picked up the Mai Tai, though she did keep the little paper umbrella.

Our eavesdropping waiter returned with a complimentary cigar. I removed the cellophane and transferred the paper band to her left ring finger, the one with the little heart. I could barely contain my joy. A steel band struck up.

May I have this dance?

Like two kids at a sock hop, we jitterbugged in shades of American Bandstand. When the crowd applauded, we bowed theatrically.

We sat on a wooden dock, our legs dangling over the side, and fed the seagulls that spun above us, screaming in the blue tropical sky. Sparkling water from the wet nets of shrimp boats dazzled our eyes. Conch divers surfaced with spiral pink shells. Their meat was sweet and chewy. I picked up an empty shell and listened. It’s for you, I said and handed it to her. She took it and put it to her ear.

Wrong number.

The brightness of her smile put the sun to shame. Hand in hand, heart in heart, souls entwined, we walked to the zoo and passed through its arched entryway. We saw tigers and thought of the star-crossed lovers at Sundarbans, both the tigers and us. I was taken aback by the mona monkeys. The colorful West African primates were brought over by the vile slave traders. I can take these back and sell them to zoos, I thought.

It turned out that Joann knew the zoo director, one Samuel Isaacson.  He was a fellow graduate of her alma mater, University College in London.  We were well received in his office, she somewhat more so than me.  I wondered if an old flame still burned. He was agreeable to my idea of trading Florida animals for mona monkeys. And so began a plan to fly down here and swap critters, a plan that very nearly cost me my life.

I asked Joann if she had once had a thing for Samuel. She lightly slapped my shoulder with the back of her hand and said, Don’t be a nut head, William.

At the beach, we rented poles and cast our lines out beyond the surf, then released our catch back into the water. In a cabana, we changed into swim gear and swam until the sun turned red and sank into the ocean. I could almost hear it sizzle. We ate blackened grouper and lobster, then danced beneath strings of Chinese lanterns. I smelled the salt in her hair as her head rested against my shoulder. It seemed that my dreams had come true. I felt complete and at peace with myself at long last.

A taxi dropped us off at the house. Julius was waiting. I gathered my tongs and hook, snake bags, and headlamps. We set off down the hill with Tom in tow. There were Cook’s tree boas to be found.

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Cook's Tree Boa (Corallus cookii)

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Those serpents have muscular heads and long curved teeth for penetrating the feathers of the day birds they find sleeping as they glide along the branches as quietly as quicksilver. Heat-sensing organs along their lips assist them in targeting prey. They were dripping from the branches in numbers in shades of rusty orange, lemon yellow, and lichen green. Our light beams played like spotlights at a Hollywood premiere on those sinuous forms hanging among the waxy green leaves above us. We collected but a few then went home.

We had hot chocolate and played rummy and Joann made my birthday oh-so-special on that wonderful night on the Isle of Spice. I was twenty-four and there was so much more.

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April 4th, 1970

We bid the Mistress Graves a fond and grateful farewell. Julius drove us to the airport.

We roared into the sky in our little blue and yellow bird and flew west toward Oranjestad, Aruba. We all wore headsets and had to laugh when a local station played Eight Miles High by the Byrds.

Aruba is a tiny island, born of fire and rock. Originally inhabited by the Arawak, it lies in the Caribbean, a mere fifteen miles off the coast of the Venezuelan peninsula of Paraguaná. The flight from Grenada had taken a little over four hours. We had hit some turbulence enroute, but Tom had gotten us through it, barely ruffled.

The three of us took a taxi from Queen Beatrix Airport to the city’s center. It was 10:45 a.m. Tom was to be the keynote speaker at an aviation symposium this afternoon. That was one of the reasons we were here.

The architecture was in the Dutch colonial motif. Most of the buildings were painted in bright colors that splashed across the boulevards and byways of this bustling city. The Aruban culture reflects the roots of its rulers and is a blend of Spanish, Dutch, and French, as is the language known as Papiemento. The currency is the florin. We spoke English and paid in US dollars. There seemed to be a festive happiness in the air as if a party were in progress. Oranjestad sits on the southwestern shore. The capital is a seaport that handles cargo, including oil.

Our driver skillfully avoided a horse-drawn carriage as he navigated the narrow streets filled with tourists, eventually dropping us at the Hotel Wilhelmina on Prince of Orange Avenue on the outskirts of Old Town.

As we got out of the taxi, Tom said he’d be touring the local watering holes with his aviator friends after their meeting. He threw his kit over his shoulder and went upstairs to get ready to join them.

Joann and I enjoyed an early lunch in the hotel’s courtyard as a band played a lively calypso number on instruments that looked to be homemade. A conga drum provided the percussion, and one musician played a triton shell. We dined on a local stew, or kabritu stoba, made of succulent goat meat, onions, garlic, tomatoes, and jalapeno, finished off with a squeeze of lime juice. It was scrumptious.

We had brought only a few items we would need for this overnight stop. We put our backpacks in our room and left the hotel with our collecting gear.

The sun hung white in the sky. The glare of the hardpan limestone was nearly blinding. It was overblown with powdery sand. Aruba was below the hurricane belt and was therefore as dry as a bleached bone. We walked among large rocks of