Whirlwind

by David Klass

  I take it in my hands and creep closer.

  Gisco, if I don’t cut through the branch in one swipe, they’ll swarm over us in a heartbeat.

  You can do it, Jack. You’re a natural machete swinger if I’ve ever seen one. I have the utmost confidence in you. I note that even while he’s encouraging me, the crafty dog has one foot over the edge of the gondola, preparing for a hasty evacuation if necessary.

  I grip the machete with both hands, raise it, take a final step forward, and bring the blade down with full force on the branch. There’s a loud CRACK as sharp steel bites into wet wood. The loud buzz rises to a furious crescendo, but by the time the wasps know what hit them their nest is in free fall, heading for the distant swamp.

  Gisco steps forward, all smiles. Well done, Jack. After all, there’s no reason to be afraid of a few overgrown backyard pests. Put it there. Shake my paw.

  But before I can accept the dog’s hearty congratulations, a tiger springs into our gondola from a nearby branch and looks at us with anticipatory relish, as if someone just rang a rain forest dinner gong.

  The boy with the braid takes one terrified look at the tiger and jumps onto my back, wrapping his arms and legs around me. I decide that it’s time to remind my canine companion of his pedigree.

  Gisco, good news. We’re no longer menaced by insects. Now we just have to deal with a tiger.

  Spots, not stripes. It’s a jaguar.

  In any case, it’s a member of the cat family, and we all know that dogs love to fight cats. So go to it.

  Gisco narrows his eyes and studies the jaguar. You’re right, he agrees, the dog was never born who feared a cat, even an overgrown feral feline like this one. I thought they were nocturnal hunters. This one must have insomnia. Or maybe it was stung by an angry wasp as the nest fell.

  Or it could be too hungry to sleep. Don’t let that stop you. Take it on, Gisco. Teach it a proper respect for dogs. But watch your jugular.

  Jaguars don’t go for the jugular, Gisco informs me, squaring his shoulders like a heavyweight boxer trying to intimidate an opponent. They crush victims’ heads in their jaws with one bite. Hence the Indian name “jaguar”—“kill in one bound.” But this won’t come to a fight. All cats are cowards. Watch what happens when I show this tabby who’s the king of the rain forest.

  Gisco steps forward, bares his teeth, and lets loose an impressive growl. It is a truly fearsome sound, which my sophisticated and cultured travel companion has somehow managed to dredge up from a secret reservoir of primitive canine behavior.

  The jaguar responds by padding forward a step, opening its toothy mouth, and screeching out the scariest howl I’ve ever heard in my life. It’s a fierce and primordial shriek, halfway between a roar and a bark.

  Gisco whirls around and dives off the gondola into the water far below.

  The jaguar shifts its hungry gaze to me. Its yellow eyes glint as it takes another step forward.

  The boy on my back clutches at me wildly. His arms reach around my head and cover my eyes.

  I stumble back, away from the jaguar, trying to pry the kid’s arms off my eyes so that I can see what’s about to crush my skull in one bite. I trip over the wall of the gondola, flail wildly for balance, and then fall over the side with the boy still clinging to me.

  Down we drop, toward the swamp below.

  35

  The water is lukewarm and smells slightly stinky, like a giant bowl of egg drop soup. I knife into it headfirst with the added weight of the boy driving me down. He’s clinging to me with such desperation that I’m pretty sure he can’t swim a stroke.

  I stop my dive, manage to flip underwater, and then my feet encounter something muddy and I kick off the bottom.

  The boy isn’t cooperating. As I claw my way toward daylight, I also have to fight a no-holds-barred wrestling match. He’s much stronger than he looks, and he’s clearly hysterical—his nails gouge my arms, and his right arm, which is wrapped around my throat, tightens like a noose.

  I remember Gisco’s warning—he’ll be a responsibility and an added danger for us now, at every turn.

  I unpeel the boy’s right arm from around my neck. As I break the surface I yank him in front of me. Gisco?

  Over here. That fat cat had a nasty attitude, so I decided to take the plunge.

  I thought you were going to show it who’s the king of the rain forest.

  Why bother? This isn’t so bad. Nice water temperature, don’t you think? Sort of like a mineral bath …

  Where are we headed? This kid is freaked out and I can’t tow him around all day.

  That island looks like our best bet, the dog suggests, indicating a mud-and-grass hump that rises from the swamp.

  Gisco, there were three huge caimans on that beach less than a minute ago.

  Well, they’re not there now.

  Right. Where do you think they’ve gone?

  The dog suddenly looks wary. Good point. He scans the water. Maybe they swam away.

  I appreciate his optimism, but I’m pretty sure he’s wrong. They’re closing in on us. That’s not just a paranoid guess—I can feel it!

  When Eko trained me on the Outer Banks, she tried to teach me how to reach out telepathically to wild animals. I couldn’t master the skill, but I did learn to sense the presence of top predators. When I ran into great white sharks, I could hear them—they gave off an electrical hum of pure evil.

  Now I’m picking up something with a similarly nasty signal, but on a different frequency. It’s not emitting a high-pitched buzz, but rather a low drone, like a thirsty ghost circling toward freshly spilled blood.

  Gisco, I can hear them coming for us!

  I don’t see anything.

  The drone comes again, closer. It exudes an unearthly patience as it closes in on us. I sense that countless eons of hunting have given the caimans this stalking maturity—they’ve been catching lunch this way since dinosaurs roamed the earth.

  Gisco, we’re being pursued by Mesozoic predators! Maybe you can’t see them, but I can sense them, and they’re getting ready for a lip-smacking dog-and-boy McSandwich!

  There they are, Jack! Gisco treads water and stares, panicked but riveted.

  I follow the direction of his fearful gaze. Three faint lines are being traced on the smooth surface of the water by large objects swimming just underneath it.

  Don’t move. Maybe they haven’t spotted us.

  As if on cue, six reddish yellow eyes slowly rise out of the swampy water and survey us.

  The boy sees the caimans and thrashes wildly. It takes all of my strength to hold him.

  Meanwhile, Gisco is also freaking out. My dear mother did not raise her favorite son to be ingested by a cold-blooded scaly-skinned overgrown handbag. We’ve got to get out of here!

  The dog starts swimming away at high speed.

  I can’t possibly keep up with him, but I see that there’s no need. The frenzied hound is paddling in a big circle, scanning the swampy miasma with wild glances, desperate to escape but baffled which way to head.

  Find us some dry land, Gisco. Our only chance is to make a run for it.

  They’re faster than we are.

  No way. Their legs are like tree stumps.

  In a short sprint, a gator’s stumpy legs allow it to accelerate and run down a peccary, a person, a horse, or even a highly evolved and extremely motivated dog.

  Then we’ll have to climb to safety, I suggest.

  The terrified dog scans the trees overhead. The rain forest is a contest for sunlight, and a low branch is not much use. The nearest limbs of the understory are at least twenty feet above us. A monkey swings by on a vine and mocks us with a hee-haa.

  It’s hopeless. Jack, we have only one option left.

  What’s that?

  Give them the boy. While they’re eating him, we can find some way to escape.

  Gisco, how can you suggest such a thing? He’s one of us now. All for one and one for all. Plus, he’s helpless. Wh
at about the famed loyalty of dogs?

  Gisco is watching the caimans swim closer. I can’t be loyal to others if I’m being eaten and digested. A dead Gisco is a worthless Gisco. So it follows that my first duty as a public-spirited and selfless dog is to save my own skin at all costs. Feed him to the gators and let’s swim for it!

  Never. Let’s try to make a stand against them. We’re a pretty formidable tag team.

  We’re also out of our element, not to mention our weight class. Do you happen to know how caimans kill?

  No, I admit, watching the reddish yellow eyes get bigger and bigger. They’re no longer distant marbles. Now they look like glowing softballs.

  They take a bite. Get a secure grip with their iron jaws. Then they drag their catch down to the bottom to drown it. Down in the mud and silt, they feed on the decaying corpse at their leisure. A feast like the three of us could last for weeks.

  I admit it doesn’t sound fun.

  Give them the kid, Jack. It’s the only moral thing to do. You tried to save him. You’ve been heroic. Now to hell with him. Our duty is to future generations.

  For a moment I’m tempted to let go of the boy. Maybe Gisco’s right. Maybe there does come a time when logic dictates sheer self-preservation.

  The boy has stopped struggling. He’s also watching the caimans come on.

  I can feel his scared heart fluttering in his chest.

  No, I tell the dog. You swim for it—you’re a faster swimmer than I am anyway. If I have to end up as caiman snacks, I’d rather not die a coward and traitor.

  Suit yourself. Gisco takes a few quick dog paddles away and then stops and circles back. Damn you for shaming me into this. But then again, I can’t outswim them either. So we’ll stand and fight, or rather drown and be eaten.

  At least we can draw some blood in return! I point out with as much bravado as I can muster.

  Cold blood, Gisco responds miserably.

  The boy seems to have sensed our decision, and he doesn’t agree with it. He’s pointing in the opposite direction, urging us to swim for it.

  I wish I could explain to him that there’s no place to go.

  He thrusts again with his arm.

  I shake my head. “Sorry I brought you here. Running away is not an option. We’re going to stand and fight.”

  He implores me with those big brown eyes. Jabs the air with his finger.

  I look back at him for a second. Recall that this is a kid who’s been surviving by his wits for years. I follow the direction of his pointing arm.

  Nothing. Silver-green water. A few lily pads.

  The caimans are thirty feet away now. They never change speed or expression. They just come on, slow and steady, as they have for millions of years.

  The boy grabs my hair and uses it to turn my head. I peer over the lily pads and see a dark shape.

  Gisco, the kid has spotted something!

  Where?

  There! A tree. Or at least a log. It’s submerged. Covered with moss. Do you see it?

  The dog doesn’t respond because he’s already swimming for the floating log at top speed, using a hysteria-driven four-pawed dog paddle that turns him into a furry Jet Ski.

  I follow as fast as I can in his wake, pulling the boy along like an overburdened tugboat on overdrive.

  36

  Gisco reaches the floating log and scrambles out of the water. I follow along ten feet behind him, expecting at any second to feel a caiman’s jaws snap closed like a bear trap on my ankles. Fear turns my kicking legs into propellers and gives my one-handed lifeguard stroke turbospeed. I make it to the log ahead of the ravenous reptiles and give the boy a shove out of the water.

  He grabs what remains of a branch and hauls himself up. I follow him, slipping and sliding onto the sludgy, slippery, mossy mound of decaying wood.

  The caimans come on implacably through the water like the three fates. If they know that we’ve clambered out, they don’t seem at all fazed.

  And why should they be? It’s their swamp and we have nowhere to go, no place to hide. Still, it feels good to be out of the murky water, standing in sunlight. Air is my element, and at least now I won’t be eaten by something that I can’t see.

  Gisco, maybe we can kick them away.

  Or wedge branches into their jaws, the dog suggests.

  Maybe we can even find branches with points, which we can use as spears!

  We search the floating log. There are no spearlike branches. Nothing that resembles a weapon of any kind. This was once a mighty tree but the massive trunk has been worn smooth by the water, and the branches and smaller limbs have been softened and stripped away.

  The caimans are now less than twenty feet away. Six reddish yellow eyes glint hungrily.

  The boy is trembling. I pick him up and hold him protectively in my arms. But of course I can’t protect him, and we both know it.

  Goodbye, Gisco. You were right, I should have left this poor fellow on the mountainside.

  Farewell, Jack. You did the best you could. We were none of us dealt lucky hands. When we die, your Amazon is condemned to stumps and sawdust, and my future will gasp its last rattling breaths. Kidah’s out there somewhere in the forest, but we’ll never find him.

  The lead caiman opens its jaws, and I see a dark, tooth-edged tunnel leading into oblivion. I pray to God that the pain ends quickly.

  And then drum music starts up! A deafening snare drum cadence. Ka-cha, ka-cha, ka-ka-cha! Wood chips fly, water sprays, and in half a second the top predators of the Amazon learn that there’s a higher rung on the ladder.

  One of the caimans turns to face the hail of bullets and snarls wildly. I watch as its scaly hide is shredded by dozens of bullets. Its two companions quickly dive down and sink out of sight.

  The drum cadence stops.

  There is total, eerie silence beneath the emerald canopy. This is a biosphere that understands bloodletting. Even the birds and the tiniest insects seem to be impressed by what has just taken place.

  Jack, we’ve got company.

  Two long, sleek outboard canoes motor toward us from either side of the log. Five soldiers in uniform stand motionless in each canoe, and it would be hard to imagine a tougher-looking group of rescuers. The men are short and muscular. I can’t see their faces clearly because they’re all wearing dark sunglasses and low-slung gray hats. Several of them carry submachine guns.

  Still, the enemy of your enemy is your friend, and these roughnecks just saved us from being eaten. I wave at the man in the front of the lead canoe, who is cradling an Uzi in his arms like it’s his favorite child.

  “Sir, I don’t know if you understand English, but thank you for saving us. Muchas gracias.”

  He takes off his dark glasses and looks back at me as his canoe pulls up alongside our log. His face is not exactly warm and friendly, but he smiles at me and I smile back. “Não é nada,” he grunts, turning his submachine gun in his hands so he’s holding it by the barrel. Then he swings it like a baseball bat at my head.

  I wasn’t expecting the attack. I start to duck away, but I’m still holding the boy in my arms and he slows me.

  It takes me just a fraction of a second to push the boy down and start to roll away from the blow. But the delay makes all the difference.

  The metal butt of the submachine gun catches me on the side of my head with a loud CRACK.

  As I black out, I feel myself slipping off the log, and the silvery swamp water closes over me like a shroud.

  37

  I awake to the tolling of church bells. Are they striking the changing hour or has someone died?

  It takes me a few seconds to realize the persistent ringing is inside my head, an excruciating metallic ache that reverberates from ear to ear each time I breathe.

  My eyes are sealed shut with my caked blood. I’m lying down, being carried swiftly along.

  I force one eye open. I’m on my side in a canoe, sailing quickly down a narrow and winding river. Tree branches re
ach across it to block out the sky overhead.

  My wrists are handcuffed behind me. I twist my body around and glimpse Gisco and the boy lying near me, similarly bound. A soldier with a gun stands over us.

  Bam, bam. The jackhammer switches on again. Gisco?

  Welcome back, Jack. You haven’t moved in three hours. I was afraid he shattered your skull.

  He sure swung for the fences. Who are these goons?

  They seem to be soldiers of the Brazilian Army, stationed in a remote regiment in the Amazon. They were the ones who shot down our balloon. Then they located us in the swamp, under orders from their commander. Now they’re taking us to their base.

  Why go to so much trouble?

  Maybe they didn’t appreciate us ballooning over their stretch of rain forest.

  I feel woozy again. Who’s their commander?

  They call him Colonel Aranha. Are you okay?

  Bam, bam, bam. It feels like my head is going to come off my shoulders. What does this colonel have against us?

  Who knows? But “aranha” is Portuguese for “spider.”

  I can feel myself slipping down, sinking away. Did I fall out of the canoe? I reach for something to cling to.

  Don’t go away again, Jack. Gisco tries to hold on to me telepathically. Stay conscious. If you go to sleep, you may never wake up.

  But darkness has me. I slip down to the bottom of the river and find a quiet spot, deep in the river mud.

  No tarantulas down here. No jackhammers allowed.

  I stay down a long time. Feel the sun moving above me. Distant voices. The pull of the current.

  No, not a current. Currents are smooth. We’re bouncing and grinding along.

  And we’re not in a canoe anymore. This is louder and faster than a canoe. A car? No, bigger. A jeep?

  Whatever it is, its engine isn’t exactly muffled. But except for that mechanical roar, all around me it is quiet.

  Dead silent. The constant buzz and chirrup of the birds and insects of the rain forest has disappeared.

  I crack my eyes open. Mistake. Blinding sunlight floods in. We’re in the open. No shade of any kind.

  What happened to the trees? I peer out through one half-closed eye. We’re in a desolate place. A wasteland.