Curds and Whey Box Set

by G M Eppers

  “We need water, Leotu. We’re not used to this heat.”

  Without any objection, he stopped again and removed the large pack from his back. He unzipped it and tossed each of us a bottle of water. “Slowly,” he told us as we each opened our bottle and drank. “We can fill them again, but the pond is four or five hours away.” Bullfrogs croaked and I heard splashing as they hopped into the river’s edge.

  I looked back in the direction of the river. It wasn’t THAT dirty, was it? I answered my own question. Yes. Yes, it was. I sipped the clean, though lukewarm water from the bottle and recapped it. Roxy dabbed some on the sides of her neck as if it were perfume. I saw Dinny take a swallow and savor it as long as possible. I was glad she was with us, but I wondered how she would hold up. Her jobs on the plane were mentally strenuous, but she wasn’t used to physical demands like this. She wiped sweat from her forehead and saw me watching, gave me a thumbs up.

  As we resumed walking I found myself once again at the end of the line. That was okay. I shrugged and followed the shirt in front of me, Badger. He called up to Nitro, “Okay, let’s do rivers. I’ll go first. Let the River Run.” Somewhere, a monkey screeched its opinion on the topic.

  Nitro turned his head and gave Badger an annoyed look. It was far too easy. “Carly Simon.”

  According to the rules of the game, as I understand them, it was Nitro’s turn to suggest a reference. But Billings stole the turn. “A River Runs Through It,” he said.

  “Book or movie?” asked Dinny. I gave Dinny points for remembering there had been a book.

  Billings smiled evilly. “Book.”

  “Damn. Not a clue,” she admitted. “Anyone else?”

  I heard a booming laugh drift through the trees. “Norman Maclean.” Leotu laughed some more, as if he could see all the stunned faces behind him. “We have books in Kinshasa.”

  With Leotu slashing a path through tangled vines and branches, we continued the slow slog through the jungle. Most of us were sporting scratches and scrapes on our arms within an hour. I noticed Sir Haughty’s hair grow into tighter and tighter curls while mine dripped down the sides of my head like melty guy in the finale of Raiders of the Lost Ark. We drank sparingly, hoping that Leotu’s estimate of four hours to clean water was accurate. Nitro kept his eye on everyone, on the lookout for signs of heat exhaustion or the more dangerous heat stroke, his field kit slung comfortingly over his shoulder. We stopped and rested for five minutes here and five minutes there, slapping at intrusive flying insects and trying to control our annoyance. Around us, I kept getting glimpses of various unidentifiable animal life, rushing through the underbrush or swinging through the branches high overhead, always moving too quickly for any of us to get a clear look. We came to a large fallen tree which Leotu climbed over almost without thought, bypassing a lizard which scampered away down the length of the trunk. Sylvia went back for a running start and leaped over the trunk, while the twins, apparently bored, mounted it and performed a joint back flip. The rest of us climbed over with varying degrees of dignity. As one would expect, Dinny had the most difficulty, but with Billings pulling and Sir Haughty pushing, she made it over just fine.

  By the time we reached the small lagoon where we could replenish our water bottles, the jungle was already growing dark. Leotu announced that we would camp there for the night. “I think we should keep going.” I knew we were all tired, but I was anxious to find the crash site.

  He surveyed the area. “Camp here. We have water, we have food. It is not good to travel at night. We can start again at sunrise.” He set about gathering twigs and rocks to create a fire pit. “And we must eat.” He pulled off his large backpack. “One of you may distribute the food. Kiki packed many things.”

  Sir Haughty was closest to the pack and jumped at the invitation. He unzipped it and reached inside, pulling out several wrapped sandwiches, which he tossed to the rest of us one at a time. I unwrapped mine and bit into it, too ravenous to care what it was. It tasted fine to me, but in my experience severe hunger makes most things taste much better than they normally would. Roxy looked at hers and smelled it. “What is it?”

  “It doesn’t matter what it is,” I said. “Eat it.”

  “Aren’t you hungry?” asked Sir Haughty.

  “Of course, I’m hungry. It’s just . . . Leotu, what is it?”

  Leotu paused in his assembly of the fire pit. “It is a sandwich.”

  I stopped chewing to investigate the contents of mine. It looked like meat. But if Leotu was avoiding specifics, I didn’t want to think about what kind of meat it actually was. Really, it’s smarter not to ask. “Eat it,” I told her again.

  “I got a D in culinary survival.” Finally, she nibbled at one end, swallowing with a sound like a dog’s squeaky toy. Then she found it acceptable, shrugged, and took a normal bite.

  Nitro slipped off his field kit for the time being, letting it lean against his leg. He handed his sandwich back unopened. “Anything in there that’s not meat?”

  Sir Haughty found a plastic container and popped it open, looking inside. “Grapes.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  We ate quickly, then used our bottles to get generous drinks of water before a final fill up, storing the full bottles back in the pack.

  In short order, Leotu had started a blazing fire in the pit. It was still sweltering hot. “Do we really need a fire? We’re not cooking anything, and it’s apparently not going to get cold here, ever. We should just eat and turn in for the night. What do we do, build a big pile of leaves?”

  “As you wish.” Trying to be helpful, he went about gathering handfuls of leaves. He brought some to me, shaking them off to one side before piling them up. “To get rid of the bugs,” he explained.

  “Bugs?”

  “Ants. Spiders. Beetles.”

  I ignored the small pile of leaves and picked out a low but solid branch to recline on, trying it on for size and comfort. The others found more low branches, or cleared spaces of bare ground to lie down on near the fire. Leotu crouched by the fire to tend it. “It will keep the animals away while we sleep.”

  I felt uneasy and helped Leotu tend the fire while everyone gradually dozed off, their breathing becoming shallow except for the occasional snore. I sat cross-legged, my crouching muscles already aching, using a stick to poke at the fire. “How did you get to know the jungle so well? Didn’t you say your village was north of the river?” I whispered.

  “It is,” he confirmed. His booming voice sounded very odd to me in a whisper. As if he’d breathed helium. “Our villages move around. Our people try not to hurt the forest. We settle for a while but make only simple shelters. When we leave, the jungle takes the land again quickly. In this way, I learned the north jungle. My parents moved to Kinshasa so I could go to school. When I finished university, I learned of a leopard that was attacking many villages in the south jungle. Dozens of our people were killed in only one month. We called it Nane, eight, because it had spots in the shape of the number on its breast.”

  “How awful.”

  “Yes. It was a very scary time. You see, to most of my people, I am very tall. You are very tall. The people of the villages are small, like children. It was hard for them to fight the leopard. I got my friends from university to help me and we hunted Nane for many weeks. Two of them were killed before we were through.” He finally sat back, but only to lift the edge of his caftan. Down the full length of his right calf was a deep jagged scar. “This is from Nane.” He dropped the hem and reached inside his neckline, pulling out a leather loop on which hung a single fang. “And this is from Nane.” He tucked it back inside. “We followed Nane all through the southern jungle here. We trapped him in a pit where we put sharpened sticks in the ground. We thought he was dead when we brought out his body, but he had one more bite. I almost got away, but his tooth caught near my knee. I should have waited, he was nearly dead, but I pulled away. He died with my blood in his mouth. But I remember the hunt. I learned
the jungle in those weeks.”

  “I haven’t seen any villages.”

  “They stay near the river. We are moving away from the river now.” He poked some more at the fire. “You should sleep. I will watch.”

  “When will you sleep?”

  He stretched out next to the fire, leaning on one elbow. “Later.”

  I went to the low branch I had picked out and settled in. Billings was stretched out on a longer branch above me. I noticed the twins sitting on the ground with their backs against a tree, settling in to sleep. “You’re not with Avis for the night?”

  His voice floated down. “Nah. Can’t risk it. Nothing solves that problem like sleeping above your mother.” He wasn’t wrong. I’d done it, too. He sighed. “It seems early. I wish I’d brought my deck of cards. We could play Naked Crazy 8’s or something.”

  “Are all your games Naked?” I asked, marveling at his contradictory nature. It was okay getting naked to play a game, but he couldn’t be near the twins to sleep.

  “Nah,” he said again. “Some of them are Nude.”

  I groaned and rolled to one side to sleep. That was one hell of a bedtime story, and I thought I would have bad dreams, but I don’t remember any dreams. I fell asleep to a chorus of crickets and hoots. I didn’t expect to sleep well, and I didn’t. Punctuating the crickets and hoots was the occasional growl or roar that was less like a lullaby and more like a call to arms. I put my left hand on my stun gun and my right hand on my Glock and wrapped my legs around a bend in the branch.

  Growing light woke me and I rolled over, still half asleep, and fell about three feet to the ground. The greenery of the jungle had an orange tint in the early morning light, and the muggy heat brought me to full awake at least as well as the fall did. “Ow!” My body was stiff and sore but there’s nothing like a sudden impact to knock everything back into place. I stood and surveyed the campsite. The fire was nothing but a pile of smoking ash. As everyone woke we gathered around the pit. Leotu was already putting dirt on top until even the smoke couldn’t escape. “Good morning. There should be more grapes and berries in the pack for breakfast.” He pointed.

  But there was nothing there. We all looked around, but the backpack had vanished.

  Nitro, sitting up from the patch of ground he had chosen, felt around, relaxing visibly when he found his field kit. He opened it, examining the contents, then secured it and put it over his neck, letting the strap cross his body.

  Sir Haughty had his water bottle in hand. “It was there a minute ago. I just got this out.” He lifted the bottle as if he were reciting a toast.

  “There!” Sylvia shouted, pointing up into the trees. We saw the pack bouncing from branch to branch. She followed its movements, stepping forward, prepared to follow it wherever it went. It finally settled into a tree branch about thirty or forty feet high and we got a glimpse of the animal carrying it. “It’s a chimp.”

  Leotu, his head tilted far back, squinted. “No. No chimps here.”

  I sighed. “Let me guess. They live on the other side of the river.”

  His eyes came down to look at me. “Yes. Chimps, gorillas. All live on the north side of the Congo River.”

  Sylvia argued, “I can see it. It’s a freaking chimp.”

  Squinting up again, Leotu said, “Bonobo.”

  “What’s the difference?” Sylvia replied.

  Badger, who was sitting cross-legged near the fire pit, also squinted up into the trees. “Chimps are a little bigger, and have a patriarchal society. Bonobos are matriarchal. They aren’t as aggressive as chimps, either, though they are just as strong. The pack is heavy.”

  All Sylvia heard was “not as aggressive.” Keeping an eye on the pack, she found the trunk of the tree and jumped at a low branch. It wasn’t as low as the branches we’d been sleeping in, and she had to swing her legs a few times before she had the momentum to climb onto it. The next one up was a little easier. “Sylvia, wait!” I called.

  “Wait, shmait. I’m getting our pack back.” She was out of my reach, and I wasn’t about to climb after her.

  Tensely, we watched her climb, jumping and swinging so well the bonobo probably thought she was an unknown member of their own species. She was even dressed in the black outfit, though the chains would be unfamiliar. Maybe the bonobo would be curious about them and get close enough to allow her to grab the pack. Meanwhile, the bonobo had been able to open it. It probably hadn’t been zippered all the way. The animal threw the water bottles out. They crashed down to the ground stirring up leaves and debris to mark their landing sites. Leotu walked over to find them, gathering the bottles in one arm. The bonobo probably smelled the food underneath. The monkey pulled out a sandwich, which came out of its loose paper wrapping easily. The wrapping floated down to earth with barely a sound and the sandwich disappeared in two bites. The bonobo dug in the pack for more.

  Another bonobo approached shyly, settled nearby and waited. “She’s a female. The one with the pack. Females are dominant,” said Badger.

  “How is it you know so much about bonobos?” asked Billings, dividing his attention between Badger, the bonobo, and Sylvia. Avis and Agnes were watching Sylvia, Avis squeezing Billings’ hand anxiously as her teammate progressed closer to the bonobo.

  “I read up on Congo wildlife on the plane. Didn’t you research at all? I always research where we’re going.” It was bothering him, though, that his cell phone was currently useless. I saw him touch it inside its pocket on his HEP belt, resisting the urge to search further. “I don’t remember all the wildlife, of course. There are thousands of species in the Congo. Tens of thousands if you count insects. I thought bonobos were interesting because they are so like chimps, which are, in turn, so like us. She’s almost there.”

  The dominant female froze in her examination of the backpack, looking down at the strange human heading her way. Sylvia had reached a plateau, however, as she stopped for breath. Her next move was going to require a jump, which would probably startle the bonobo and cause her to flee. Sylvia crouched on the branch below, respectfully, and waited, like the other bonobo was doing on the nearby branch of the next tree. After a minute, the female began pulling things out of the backpack. If it smelled like food, she clawed at it. She found a plastic container of berries, sniffed it, and pulled off the lid. It wasn’t Tupperware, but something much less air tight. Scooping berries out of the container and into her mouth, she squawked in triumph. Even from the ground I could see her thick fangs.

  The other bonobo crept closer, interested in the berries. She allowed it to join her on the branch, and it reached out and grabbed some berries. It must have been a family member or something because she barely objected. Between the two of them, they emptied the pack while Sylvia watched. The bonobo screeched, tossing the empty pack down and racing away into the tree tops. Sylvia watched as the monkey disappeared, then looked down at the ground, where Badger had the empty pack. She started down.

  She was still about twenty feet up when a bonobo sped by her, screeching and laughing. Startled, she lost her balance and fell, landing in a puff of leaves and twigs.

  I ran over to meet her, praying she wasn’t seriously hurt, the others close behind, but a second later she was on her feet, holding one hand over her left eye. “Oh my God, my eye popped out!” With her one good eye, she looked down, spinning her head from side to side trying to spot it. “Help me find it!”

  Badger began pawing through the ground cover. “What does it look like?” When he didn’t get an answer, he looked up at Sylvia to find her glaring at him. “Hey, it’s a legitimate question,” he defended himself. “I mean, it doesn’t look like an eyeball, right?”

  Nitro, hitching his field kit to a more comfortable position on his shoulder, put a supportive hand on Badger’s shoulder. “You’re right. It’s about an inch wide, and curved, kind of like a Frito. If it’s upside down it will be white. The other way it looks just like Sylvia’s other eye.”

  Sylvia was sti
ll glaring at Badger as the rest of us each picked a nearby spot and dug around trying to find it. I came up with a few pebbles that nearly fit the description, and Dinny found something that ran away, but no one could find the artificial eye. “I’m sorry, Sylvia.”

  Slowly, Sylvia’s hand came away from her empty socket. She hadn’t packed an eye patch. With nothing to hold them open, the lids mostly closed over the cavity, showing a little crescent of milky white. Nitro said, “We can get another one when we get back, Sylvia. In fact, as soon as we have a connection, I can email the lab to make another one. You okay?”

  She took another look around. “Yeah, I guess so. Disappointed.”

  “I mean from the fall, too.” Nitro tried to palpate her arms and check for fractures, but she shook him off.

  “I’m okay, thanks. We’ll have to do something about the popping out problem. I can’t be worried about losing it every time I get in a fight. I’d rather go back to the patch than have to treat myself with kid gloves. The bigger question now is what do we eat for breakfast?” She picked up the empty pack that Badger had dropped when he rushed over. She noticed Leotu’s armful of water bottles and handed him the pack. “We can’t do this on nothing but water.”

  Leotu stored the bottles in the pack. “I can find breakfast. Stay here. We will need a fire.” He picked up an empty container that the bonobo had tossed and carried it into the jungle.

  Like the night before, we gathered dry twigs and moss, piling it on the fire pit. Sir Haughty crouched down, rubbed the sticks together over the moss, blowing gently until he had resurrected the fire. We tossed on more twigs, letting the fire grow as we all waited, uncomfortably conscious of how lost we would be if Leotu failed to return. Around us, the jungle seemed to grow thicker as we watched. We were still near the pond; we had water. We had weapons and could kill for food if we had to. Nitro could forage, using his knowledge of medicinal plants. But we were out of range of the nearest cell tower and couldn’t communicate.

  Orienteering was a course at the Academy and we knew the basics, but it was hardly a well-used skill, at least on our team. We weren’t often required to wander through wilderness in Europe. I considered how different we were from the other teams. Team B had the Amazon to contend with from time to time, and the Australian Outback, and there were jungles all over Africa for Team C to deal with. But our regular haunts were mostly cities. Eventually, we might find our way back to Kinshasa, but even that was far from certain. We slapped at insects intermittently, and waited, listening to our stomachs rumble. The small ration from the night before was not sufficient. The day before had been arduous, and though we expected to find the plane today there was still more strenuous trekking ahead of us.. I wasn’t sure how long we should wait before taking the matter into our own hands, but I kept looking at my watch, the time never really registering with me at all.