Quickly, he put our boat in gear, somehow avoiding getting hit. I didn't know if these guys were just poor shots, or if the movies made it all look a lot easier than it was to shoot moving targets. Judging by the fact that some of my shots weren't even hitting their boat, I'd say it was the latter.

A minute later, we were out of range, leaving our attackers standing in their disabled boat and looking around at the desolation. No AAA out there.

It would take them a few hours at least to fix their boat or commandeer another, but I had no doubt about one thing: We were going to see them again, and it was going to be ugly.

Chapter 31

The dock at Fordlandia was old, but still usable. It had never been updated. There was no reason to. After all, the town had been abandoned for over seventy years. But boats still came on occasion and I could see spots in the dock that had been haphazardly patched. Beyond the dock, a large statue of Henry Ford welcomed us. It was almost eerie. He must have had high hopes for the place. What did he feel when it failed? Was there a sense of loss … of mourning? Or was it all business and he just moved onto the next scheme? After all, he never actually visited the place.

Many of the buildings still stood, but they were in a bad way, overgrown and sagging. From my reading I knew that some of the larger ones were the factory buildings and one or two were used as dining halls and for social gatherings.

It may have been a ghost town, but there were enough squatters to erase the "ghost" part from the equation. We didn't know what kind of reception we were going to get from the residents, so we were pleasantly surprised when we saw smiles on most of the faces of those who met us at the dock.

A man approached us even before we got off the boat and said something in Portuguese. Paulo answered him and then said, "He say welcome. Ask if you are tourists."

"Please tell him we are looking for something," said Sabrina. Of course, asking Paulo to interpret for us was just marginally above useless.

"Could you ask if anyone here speaks English?"

Paulo put out the request. Secretly I think he was relieved. He liked to think his English was better than it was, and to have to interpret would only show off his deficiencies.

"Come," motioned the man. Probably his one word of English. "Follow." Okay, two words.

He brought us up a road that was once paved in brick to a small cottage that wasn't showing the ravages of time. In fact, it had been recently painted and the yard was nicely kept. He knocked on the door, which was answered by a man about Sabrina's age—maybe even younger. He was a handsome man of indeterminate heritage. He definitely had some South American blood in him, but there was something else, too. Our guide said something to him—I was pretty sure I caught the word English—then turned around, gave us a wave, and walked away.