Whirlwind

by David Klass

  According to Eko, he can perform miracles with his magical mind, but he doesn’t choose to impress them that way. Instead, he picks a far more mundane way of helping them.

  They are having a problem with architecture. Their medicine lodge, twice the size of the biggest hut of the People of the Forest, is built on muddy ground and has nearly buckled. Kidah surveys the site and finds three poles that have rotted through and need to be replaced.

  In a few hours the work is finished and the home of their spirits is as good as new. The repair job wasn’t difficult, but apparently it made just the right impression. Six of their warriors agree to come along with us in two dugout canoes.

  This scenario, with minor variations, unfolds again and again as we make our slow way toward a showdown with Colonel Aranha. Each time we encounter a suspicious tribe, Kidah finds a simple way to win their trust. He cures a sick elder or he removes an infestation of giant rats. The grateful tribe listens to his explanation of our mission, and decides to contribute manpower.

  From a dozen men our ranks soon swell to more than a hundred. I notice that while the tribesmen are fascinated by each other, they travel with their own clans. I wonder how long this quickly assembled ragtag army can hang together, and how well we’ll fight when the time comes.

  It gradually dawns on me that Kidah is not merely recruiting warriors. Majestic birds of prey fly spirals over our convoy—I see eagles and hawks and condors with wingspans like jumbo jets. Jaguars follow our progress on treetop highways. On the opposite bank a squadron of simians swing along in a chattering group that literally makes a monkey out of military discipline.

  We soon start to encounter tribes who wear more clothing, and who have guns and even motorboats. We are now too numerous to all descend on a village, so Kidah, Eko, and I take a small delegation of tribesmen with us for the initial parley. On one such trip, when we swim to shore, we are confronted with a dozen rifles poking out of the underbrush, aimed at our chests.

  Kidah looks a little dismayed and raises his arms. He shouts at them in their own language, and someone shouts back angrily from the foliage.

  “What is it?” I ask. “Don’t they want to join us?”

  Kidah shrugs. “No, they’re a very tough and solitary tribe. They say they don’t need friends. They’re especially eager to get rid of some friends of yours who are eating them out of house and home.”

  I look back at him in shock. “What?”

  Just then a familiar telepathic voice says: Well, if it isn’t the beacon of hope! I hope you’ve brought some food with you, because the rain forest cuisine, while providing ample sustenance in the nut and fruit areas, is not exactly what the Italians would call la gastronomia maxima.

  Gisco! I shout, and run right for the rifle barrels. Eko tries to hold me back, but I pull free and charge ahead all by myself.

  I burst through the branches and see a dozen tough-looking tribesmen expertly aiming guns at me, their fingers on the triggers.

  But I barely give them a glance. I dive at the rotund dog and wrap him in a bear hug, or at least a fat-dog hug. I think I even kiss him on his hairy jowls, and I believe Gisco licks my cheek twice. Then I see Mudinho sprinting toward us and he jumps on Gisco’s back and grabs hold of my neck. Soon we’re rolling on the ground in a joyful three-way embrace that even a highly suspicious squadron of Amazon warriors can’t help grinning at.

  82

  How did you recover? I demand from Gisco when we finally break the hug. The last time I saw you, the colonel had turned your mind into mashed potatoes.

  This paragon of boyhood nursed me back to health, Gisco replies, indicating Mudinho with an enthusiastic flick of the snout. He took care of me with the love and compassion that only a devoted lad can shower on a sick dog, and after a while the fog began to lift. I’m so glad I convinced you to bring him along with us.

  That’s not exactly what happened … I start to object.

  Hideous to think of a fine young fellow like this left to the mercies of criminals and brutes in the Andes. Of course we had to save him! And he’s repaid the favor with interest. He fed me, he looked after me, he somehow got us away when the colonel’s men tracked us down and attacked us from helicopter gunships …

  Gisco stops in mid-thought when he sees the horrified look on my face.

  I force myself to ask him: Was P.J. with you when you were attacked?

  The dog nods. She was in a canoe behind us.

  What happened to her?

  It was chaos, Jack, so it’s hard to say for sure. I wasn’t in my proper mind yet, but even if I had been, there was nothing to be done. They shot her canoe apart.

  I feel mounting dread, and can barely bring myself to whisper telepathically, Gisco, is she dead?

  I don’t know, he admits. The chief was with her. They shot him in the back. He made it to shore and lived long enough to lead us to this tribe and convince them to take us in. None of us saw what happened to P.J. Sorry, old fellow. They may have captured her …

  Or they may have blown her away! For a second I’m flooded with rage. How could you leave her like that?

  Dear boy, I hate to point out that you left her under rather similar circumstances.

  I was washed away down a waterfall!

  And we were trying to survive a helicopter attack.

  I look back at him and see great sympathy in his big dog eyes. Okay. You’re right. I can’t blame you.

  Your feelings are quite understandable. But there’s only one person to blame and we’re headed in his direction. She’s a survivor, Jack. Maybe we’ll find her there.

  Maybe we will, I agree, and walk off. I stand alone for several minutes, watching the river flow by. Gisco, Mudinho, and Eko throw glances at me but don’t disturb me.

  I can’t stop picturing P.J. being gunned down from above. She’s a strong swimmer and I’m sure she would have made it to shore if given the chance. But they killed the chief, who was in her canoe, and was good at surviving, too. I force myself to confront a bitter reality: now, when I’m finally in a position to fight the colonel, P.J.’s probably lying at the bottom of a muddy Amazon river.

  A gentle hand taps me on the shoulder. I turn, expecting Eko or Mudinho, but it’s Kidah. He reaches out and touches my cheek, and for a second it’s like a small door has opened and I’m inside his mind.

  I see images of a brutal future world: children trying to breathe impossibly thin air, old people roasting alive in unfiltered solar glare, and a lethal sandstorm.

  And then I’m looking back into Kidah’s face, and the wizard’s eyes are no longer twinkling and childlike. For a second they’re overflowing with anger and determination to avenge innocent lives brutally cut short. “He’s a monster,” he whispers. “He brings agony and loss with him. Now you understand the pain of my world. Shall we go?”

  I give him a slight nod. “Let’s find this guy.”

  Members of our group glance at my face as we walk up, and they must see something frightening there, because no one dares to say another word to me.

  83

  They must know we’re coming. We’re in a flotilla of two hundred canoes, fully exposed as we move up the winding river, ever closer to the colonel and his troops.

  What those soldiers fail to realize is that not only are we being led by a wizard, but we’ve also got several hundred native warriors who have more combined rain forest savvy than has ever been assembled on one muddy river before. These Indian fighters could sniff out a three-toed Amazon rat at a distance of five miles. So it’s not surprising that dozens of them suddenly prick up their ears and pull their canoes over to the bank at just about the same moment. They inform the city slicker from Hadley-by-Hudson that a mile upriver, the colonel has set a trap.

  Kidah responds with a stratagem of his own. His plan is simple. Our canoes will continue forward on the river, as if oblivious to any danger ahead. At the same time, a small group of picked warriors will crawl through the brush and try to surpris
e the colonel’s men. As soon as I hear the plan I volunteer to join the sneak attack.

  Eko and Gisco try to talk me out of it. “You weren’t raised in the forest,” Eko reminds me. “If you step on a stick or spook a bird, your fellow warriors may die.”

  She’s got a point, old fellow, Gisco adds. There are times to fight and there are times to stay in the canoe.

  But Kidah taps me on the shoulder, signifying that I’m now part of the advance brigade.

  Minutes later I’m crawling through thick brush with a dozen of the toughest young warriors in the Amazon. I’ve got a knife in my teeth, freeing my hands to push thorny branches out of the way. I use all the skills Eko taught me on the Outer Banks, and everything I’ve learned from watching the People of the Forest.

  Even so, I make more noise than the forest ninjas on either side of me. They slither between trees and over ferns as silently as serpents, and when I make a tiny noise they all freeze and throw me cautionary glances.

  We are moving parallel to the river. Every so often through a gap in the foliage I can see green water and the canoes that are trailing a few hundred feet behind us. I spot Eko in one of the lead canoes, looking very anxious.

  Gisco and Mudinho are a little way back, and the devious dog is a much better actor than the High Priestess. I’m sure he’s also worried about me, but he’s slouched down in the canoe with a nonchalant, tired expression as his droopy ears flick flies off his face. He looks like a bored tourist.

  A hand touches my shoulder. It’s the warrior leading our attack. He brings us all to a halt and points. There’s a clearing up ahead, and thickets of what look like the nastiest thorn bushes in the world.

  Then I see something move inside one of them, and realize that they’re not briars but rather camouflaged fortifications. This is the ambush the colonel has set. He’s hidden big guns facing the river, manned by soldiers ready to kill everyone in our flotilla. Our leader waves his hand and our platoon creeps forward.

  I can taste the metal knife in my mouth. I’m thinking of P.J. and what she must have felt when the first bullet struck her from above. As we near the gun emplacements I remind myself that one of these soldiers could have been in the helicopters that attacked P.J.

  There’s no way to keep behind cover when you have to cross a clearing, so for the last twenty yards we break out of the brush and run.

  Sprinting through low grass. Expecting to hear someone shout out an alarm at every step. Shots will ring out. I’ll feel the sting of bullets in my neck or my chest, and stumble down to my final resting place.

  But there’s no alarm. The low grass softens our footsteps, and no one hears us coming.

  I’ve always been a fast runner. The same legs that once carried me more than three hundred yards in a high school football game now drive me first across the clearing. I spot a leafy door built into the wall of a hut, and I push in as quickly and silently as I can.

  Two soldiers are inside. One is sleeping. The other stands next to a machine gun, sipping from a cup as he peers out a narrow slit of window at the river.

  I think he’s just sighted the canoes. He turns to wake his sleeping comrade, and sees me. He opens his mouth and at the same time hurls the cup out of his right hand as he raises his arm to ward off my knife thrust.

  I step inside his guard and stab him in the throat. I feel the blade sink an inch deep into soft tissue. I must have sliced the carotid artery, because blood spurts. The soldier gapes at me in surprise, and his hands go up to his neck, as if he wants to take the knife out and cap the bleeding.

  Our eyes meet. He’s as young as I am. He reaches a bloody hand toward me. Then he reels two steps sideways and collapses on the floor, making low gurgling sounds.

  His comrade jumps up, but an Indian warrior has followed me into the hut and makes short work of him.

  I stagger outside, sink to my knees, and vomit. My whole body begins shaking, and I suddenly feel weak.

  I’ve killed before, but it was never like this. Dargon was an archfiend. The bat creatures were trying to rip out my jugular. But this was a fellow human being, just about my age, and his warm blood is all over me.

  As I kneel in the grass, dizzy and weak, I remind myself that the guy I just killed was fighting for the colonel. He was aiming machine guns at people I love.

  But even so, I can’t seem to stand up.

  Luckily, the Indian warriors quickly finish what I started. Within seconds, and without a shot being fired, the colonel’s men are all blowgunned, knifed, or garroted.

  Two of the warriors come over to check on me. When they see that I’m okay, they gently help me to my feet. They seem to understand what I’m going through. Perhaps they had similar reactions after their own first kills.

  The other warriors are standing together, facing out toward the river and the oncoming canoes. They’re waving to the canoes, signaling that it’s now safe to come on. And Kidah is waving back from the second canoe.

  I spot Eko paddling quickly, scanning the bank for me.

  Mudinho spots me and raises a paddle in salute, and Gisco waves a proud paw.

  And that’s when the guns open up at us, and the colonel’s real ambush begins.

  84

  They’re on the opposite bank, spaced well apart, and expertly hidden. Our own Indian warriors could not have concealed themselves any better. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if many of the men now attacking us turned out to be Indians from other parts of the Amazon. I’m sure for a fistful of money the colonel could buy himself some native manpower.

  I see in a flash that there was a reason that the gun emplacements in the clearing were only crudely concealed. The colonel meant for us to see them and concentrate on them. They were a decoy to distract us from the true hidden threat. And now that trap closes around us with deadly precision.

  Semiautomatic weapons, howitzers, and rocket launchers rake the river with a lethal hail of lead and metal. Canoes split apart and burst into flame. Proud warriors scream and leap into the river. I spot Eko diving off her canoe, and Gisco dog-paddling for the closest bank, with Mudinho clinging to his back.

  But there’s no place to go. The colonel’s men waited to attack till the canoes entered a stretch of river with nearly impenetrable thorn bushes on either bank.

  I get the idea of turning one of the machine guns in the gun emplacement on the colonel’s men, so I duck back into a hut. I run to the large gun, which is pointed out at the river, and see that it has no bullets. As always, the colonel is one big step ahead of me.

  The narrow window of the hut gives me a perfect vantage point to view the unfolding ambush. The canoes are now empty on the river. Many of them have been shattered or even splintered by bullets. Hundreds of Indians are swimming or wading to shore. They’re screaming as bullets shred them alive. Our rain forest crusade to stop the colonel has utterly failed. In minutes, our war-painted army will be decimated.

  Then I realize that the hail of bullets is lessening. And the bullets and rockets that are being fired are wildly missing their targets. Screams still ring out, but they’re coming from the thickets along the shore where the colonel’s men lie concealed.

  I see one of the soldiers burst from beneath a bush, ripping off his camouflage outfit, screaming as if he’s on fire. A heartbeat later, a second soldier bolts from hiding, his gun still in his hands. He screams and fires wildly into the ferns at his feet, and then turns his gun on himself and blows his own head off his shoulders.

  I peer across the river at the thick foliage on the opposite bank, trying to guess what he was firing at. Are monkeys swinging down from the trees and attacking, or jaguars bounding out of the bush?

  I scan the foliage carefully, but I can’t spot any large rain forest predators on the attack. But I do notice that the colonel’s men aren’t alone in giving up their leafy hiding places and fleeing toward the river. The ground itself seems to be moving, driving all manner of wildlife before it.

  Insects are
fleeing. Rodents are evacuating, rats and mice and capybaras as big as goats are leaping into the river like lemmings. Ground birds take wing and rise in riotous throngs. Traumatized monkeys climb skyward, seeking the security of the very highest branches.

  A slow tide of red-brown mud is oozing out of the jungle, squeezing and shifting, and slowly covering everything in its path. Except that mud doesn’t change course willfully. Mud can’t flow uphill, or use tactical skill to find hidden soldiers and then chase them down.

  Ants! Millions of them. Marching in columns in their own highly disciplined army. Eating leaves. Scattering rodents. Putting to flight birds and beetles. And surrounding and devouring the colonel’s soldiers.

  I see one man directly across the river jump from his concealed lair in a tree, shrieking pitifully. He manages to rip off all his clothes, and runs for the river stark naked, swatting at his body. But he is cut off by a moving carpet of ants. They crawl up his legs and swarm over his genitals. They reach his face and cover his eyes. Blinded, he trips and falls, and instantly disappears beneath the swarm, as if drowning in a low tide.

  His shrieks continue for a few moments, and then stop.

  The whole rain forest is silent again. The colonel’s men who lay in ambush now lie dead on the bank. The ants pull back, receding like an outgoing tide. I can’t bear to even look at some of their victims, almost completely stripped of flesh.

  Kidah waves from a rock on the bank, and a hundred or so canoes come into view. I realize that most of our flotilla stayed back, out of reach of the enemy guns. Kidah anticipated that the gun emplacements were a ruse, and that the real attack would come from the opposite bank.

  Did he play along, using a calculated risk to set an even cleverer and more deadly trap? Check and mate.

  The hundred or so surviving canoes don’t continue upriver. They pull over to the bank near Kidah, and the Indians get out.

  The warriors I’m with join them, and I follow along. I guess we were too exposed on the river, so Kidah has decided to press on overland. We start hiking through the thick brush, forging our own trail through the green wilderness. It’s late afternoon, and we’re soon deep in the dark rain forest, safely beneath the seamless canopy. The colonel may know we’re coming, but he’ll never be able to track us, even with air surveillance.