Predators I Have Known - Alan Dean Foster [84]
We had been sitting in silence and delighting in their antics for maybe ten minutes when Gil, who had been chatting as softly as possible with the fishermen, whispered to me, “They say this group will take fish from them, but only if it’s really fresh. Will you buy a piranha?”
My expression must have been glowing. I replied positively.
By tossing bits of fresh-cut piranha into the water in our direction, the fishermen managed to coax several of the otters closer to our boat. One especially bold individual came right up alongside, rearing a foot or more of its muscular body up above the surface and chirping at us for all the world like a puppy begging for a biscuit. Once when it came particularly close, I cautiously reached out toward the giant otter. It drew back about a foot before lurching sharply up and forward again. Having over the years grown more than a little fond of my fingers, and needing all of them in order to type efficiently, I quickly pulled my hand back.
Below the surface in a tannin-obscured river, what would wriggling human fingers look like to a giant otter? Alien primate digits—or tempting small fish? I resolved to keep my fingers pressed together as much as possible while I was treading water. Because I had every intention of going in.
I turned to Gil. “Ask them if any of them have ever tried to go swimming with the otters.”
The response to my inquiry was immediate and succinct. “They say they don’t know of anybody who has tried it.”
I debated with myself. “What do they think of the idea?”
Once more, Gil queried the fishermen. I saw one of them smile and shrug. “They say you can do whatever you want.”
Not much help there. But nothing especially discouraging, either. Nothing along the lines of, “You can do whatever you want, but last week the otters ate my cousin’s sister.”
At such decisive moments in life, one often finds oneself not only isolated in intention, but in information. I had nothing to guide me; there was little in the available literature about the pros and cons of actually swimming with Pteronura brasiliensis. Now, confronted with the actual opportunity to do so, there was even less. I knew that people had interacted safely with giant otters they had rescued, and Cousteau père infamously had one aboard his ship during the filming of his Amazon adventure. But these were wild otters. They were not orphaned cubs that had been raised by surrogate human parents, and they were not injured animals that had been devotedly nursed back to health. They were entirely undomesticated.
But this family group had become at least partially habituated to a human presence due to being fed by the local fishermen. As long as they didn’t mistake any wavering parts of me for a choice bit of filleted piranha, I should be all right. At least, that was what I told myself. Repeatedly. My concern at the prospect of being bitten was not the damage that might result from a bite itself, but the possible reaction of other hungry dwellers in the depths of the Pixaim that might be attracted to any such inadvertent bloody offering.
Do this, I told myself, or go home and forever wonder what might have been.
I started to slip out of my shirt and shorts. Underneath, I had worn a swimsuit in anticipation and in hope of being able to fulfill my long-held dream. Now that I was confronted with the reality, however, I found myself moving much more slowly. It wasn’t the prospect of possible hostility on the part of the otters that held me back. It was not even the undeniable presence of piranhas in the river as confirmed by the fishermen’s catch. It was the river itself. Because of the tannins, I would be lucky to be able to see my submerged hand in front of me once I was immersed in the shadowy water.
Gil was watching