Tuscany

by Matthew Thayer

  Leaned thin by the trail, Esther took no pains to hide her skeletal, middle-aged body as two witches helped her slip off the blue cape and then don a fine tunic and matching cape manufactured from soft, hand-tooled leather. Across the back of her cape, a pair of mammoth faced one another, raising their trunks to the sky. The tunic and front of the cape were decorated with randomly spaced, and sized, triangles. Sewn along the fringes of the garments were ivory beads, shells, lion’s teeth and other fine items. I had yet to see clothing that compared. Even my long-drowned fox fur coat did not measure up to the craftsmanship and styling.

  The fine couture gave Esther an air of royalty. Though she takes pains to defer command to Kloick, it is no wonder the survivors remember her as leader of this clan. She walked behind Kloick on her way to dinner, and waited for him to eat his fill before seeking food for herself. Wading through the crowd, bellying up to a most thoroughly cooked horse, she sampled several scraps before locating a section of leg that was to her liking. Grunting and pointing, Esther cajoled one of the boys to use his flint knife to carve her a gray slab from the femur. Holding it securely with both hands, she ensured it did not fall into the ashes despite the young butcher’s roughshod technique.

  I expected her to return to the muted conversation between Kloick and his warriors, but she carried the dripping meat out of the firelight. Skirting around the camp to follow her to the river’s edge, I watched her set the roast down between the two women who sat shivering with their feet in the chill waters.

  Esther bid the women to join her as she untied her kit and found a seat on a flat rock. Extracting a sharp flint blade from her bag, she sliced away the fat and set it aside. She then sectioned the horsemeat into thin strips which the women fell upon as if they had not eaten in days. Perhaps they had not.

  Once she had consumed her fill, Esther demonstrated how the women could rub the chunks of fat upon their blistered feet to treat their burns. She gave them each a pat on the head and left them to survive the dank night alone. Every curious bone in my body insisted I scamper over and ask what they had done to deserve such treatment. Initiation or punishment? In the end, your guess is as good as mine.

  From the log of Cpl. Salvatore Bolzano

  Firefighter II

  (English translation)

  The Tattoo scouts named Hajj and Toroka emerged from a thicket of dense laurel to surprise Leonglauix and me as we knelt in a sunlit meadow searching for strawberries amidst the wildflowers. Scooping up his spears in one hand and dog leash in the other, the old storyteller beckoned me to grab my gear and run.

  My pack was so heavy I nearly toppled over. It was a struggle to put my arms through its straps. Using my spear as a walking stick, I limped after the old man as he shuffled toward the trees, yanking the barking bitch behind him. Hajj and Toroka had closed to within 10 meters when we turned to face them.

  “Tattoos are like dogs,” Leonglauix had explained while setting forth his battle plan. “Once their prey runs, shows fear, they rush forward without thinking. It is their nature.”

  And that is why the old man had seen fit to lay Jok, his two sons, and seven other young fighters recently recruited to our cause in the deep grass on either side of the trail. It was a perfect trick, one which caught the shocked Tattoos in an enfilade of flying spears. Gray Beard briefly obscured my view as he cast his light birch javelin in a lazy arc to puncture Hajj’s right shoulder.

  By the time I thought to slough off my pack and add a spear to the storm, the two men were rolling in the weeds screaming. Pulling a yew club from his belt, Jok administered the coup de grace with well-placed blows to the backs of the men’s heads. He hopes to preserve the tattooed faces for the trip back to his wife.

  We gathered around them, mesmerized, as Jok and his boys used sharp flints to quickly fillet the flesh from their skulls. For purely clinical purposes, I secured a front row seat. Starting with deep incisions at the center of the throat, the cuts continued up behind the ears to the back of the skull. Working together, Jok pulled the leathery skin forward, as his boys scratched with their flints to surgically to loosen the hair, forehead, eyelids, lips, ears, mouth and chin.

  They were left holding ghoulish masks backed by a fatty, gelatinous goo. I was intently examining the muscle structure of Toroka’s face when Jok drew laughs from our young associates by doing a primitive ventriloquist act with the man’s skin. Using his fingers to manipulate the lips, he soon had Toroka singing a native song about warm women on cold winter nights. Not to be outdone, the elder son pulled Hajj’s bloody facial skin firmly over his head, fussing with it until he could peer out from the eye holes.

  “Take it off,” Jok growled. “You’ll rip him.”

  A boy we had found starving in the middle of a wiped-out camp spoke up with a squeak in his voice. “Rip him. Rip him. He killed my mother.”

  Jok grabbed the boy none-too-gently by the arm and spun him around. “No rip. I, too, recognize these men. They killed my nephews and violated my wife. The man who killed your mother, his body is right there. Stab him with your spear until you feel free.”

  The orphan just plopped down in the dirt and cried.

  Hajj and Toroka were faceless less than five minutes before the first vultures began to float down from the sky. Leonglauix ordered four boys to drag the bodies into the woods.

  “Hurry back, there will be more next time.”

  We did our best to prop up the bent weeds, hide the signs of skirmish, then reprised our roles as bait by reclining on furs spread at the end of the narrow meadow. Two lazy loafers enjoying the sunshine while the sides of their eyes forever scan the path and tree line. We pretended to watch the birds circle overhead and ate strawberries slowly to make them last. After several hours, even I, a man who has lifted the art of lollygagging to new heights, became restless. Leaning close, I broke the mandated silence by asking a question. How could the great storyteller be certain more Tattoos would follow their mates down the same trail?

  He pondered so long, I chalked it up as one of those questions which does not receive an answer. It certainly wouldn’t be the first. Finally, however, he cleared his throat to begin.

  “They will come. They always do. That side of the valley, it faces the sun and is covered in stinging nettles. The Tattoos will never go through there. The valley on this side is steep with loose rocks, they will not go there. Those two men were scouting game. A hunting party with three or four men and the same number of women will soon follow. The vultures will quicken their steps.”

  When he fell silent, I posed another query.

  “Why will they fall for the same trick?”

  “I have done battle with the Tattoos for many years. They are like snakes. You can’t seem to kill them all. The Tattoos will run to our trap, because it is what they have always done.”

  “If your hate for the Tattoos is so strong, what were they doing in your camp the first night? They appeared to be your guests.”

  “Big Ears was my wife’s youngest brother. He caused much trouble as a boy. His parents traded him to the Tattoos for two dogs. My wife cried and cried. I thought her parents made a good deal. I was smart enough not to say so to my wife. Big Ears was mean, but also clever and strong. When he became chief of the Tattoo Clan, relations improved with the Green Turtles. We still fought, of course, but less, and not as hard. His clan was hunting in near territory when he learned of his sister’s death. He came to see her placed in the ground.

  “Now, Baldzwano, I have a question for you. Why do you not wear your magic tunic? With it you could kill them all by yourself, or hide safely while we do it.”

  “Honor” is a rather abstract term to the Cro-Magnon mind. The closest Green Turtle word would be “logsda,” which roughly describes the good feeling one gets from helping someone else.

  “If I am to kill a man this day, let him see my face, let him see the whites of my eyes as I do it. Have you told the others about my special clothes?”

  �
�No. Doo-Art says no.”

  “Good. Did you hear that sound?”

  “They come.”

  The second battle was not nearly as neat and tidy as the first. Displaying a discipline Leonglauix had not yet seen from Tattoos, the hunting party swiftly separated into three groups. Two pairs of warriors split off to circle wide around opposite edges of the meadow. The two remaining men and four women gave them time to cover ground before charging us in double-file lines.

  We had retreated all the way to the tree line when the central body of attackers pulled up well short of the trap. Though our boys remained well-hidden, the Tattoo sub-commander Plonox sensed danger. With hand signals, he motioned his flankers to halt.

  Perhaps he smelled his scouts’ blood, or recognized the trampled state of the meadow for what it was, a battle scene. Turning his head in the manner of a wary deer, standing on tip-toes, sniffing the air, scanning the trees, studying the meadow’s tall grass, he turned to confer with his fellow soldier.

  “Plonox, I see your nose remains flat as the bill of duck!” Leonglauix’s voice echoed across the meadow. “Your mother’s nose was the same shape. What an ugly woman.”

  Cackling like a naughty schoolboy being chased by a fat cop, the storyteller led me on a sprint into the trees. His taunts, coupled with this show of weakness, proved more enticement than Plonox and his hunters could resist. Our fighters waited for the hunters to enter the kill zone before rising to cut them down with several, hard-thrown volleys.

  One pair of flankers was caught in a no-man’s land along the edge of the meadow. Jok and his sons scampered forth to pepper them with flint-tipped spears. The second set of Tattoo warriors made a beeline for the trees at our end of the meadow. Black whorls on puffed cheeks, red dots around hard-set eyes, the two muscular youth passed just out of spear range.

  “Come with me,” Leonglauix said as he set off down the trail at a slow walk. Armed with three light throwing spears each carried low in our hands, and stone-headed maces which tugged at the belts of our tunics, we began our hunt.

  We moved in fits and stops as we followed a primary game trail down the center of the valley as “quietly as the wind.” The old man’s eyes rarely stopped moving. He studied the movement of animals and flights of birds while the bitch kept to his heels, ears alert, cognizant this was an important hunt.

  The Americans claimed traveling with Leonglauix was akin to taking a master’s course in woodcraft. It is true, I have learned much about the ways of the forest on our journey together. That is why I was surprised when he seemed to misread the location of our quarry. Ignoring cracking sticks and flushed owls, we continued to a line of low, dark green-leaved trees.

  Dock trees. Pointing to a hiding spot behind a fallen log covered thickly in a hanging, blue-gray moss, he called a halt. “We wait.”

  A short time later, two warriors burst from the brush to throw down their weapons and begin tearing off their clothes. They plucked handfuls of leaves from the trees and pressed them against patchworks of angry welts covering their legs, arms and torsos. Having endured my own run-ins with nettles, I knew their pain. Each sting is a tiny hot coal injected under your skin.

  So attuned to their sufferings were they, our approach was not registered until we were practically standing beside them. With hand signals, Leonglauix made clear he would dispatch the warrior on the right while I was assigned the one on the left. At the “thwok” sound of the storyteller’s spear taking his friend through the back, my victim looked up to find me two meters away, taking aim upon his chest. His eyes went wide and his mouth made the shape of an O as I cast.

  My training had taught me a downward angle would cause me to throw high, so I aimed for his groin as I let fly. The spear pierced his chest directly below the sternum. Though it was a killing stroke, the warrior was slow in dying. Keening his death call, he laid on his side and attempted to extract the spear from his chest as his desperate, green eyes tracked our movements.

  He was still alive when we began our attempts to retrieve the weapon. Its barbed head would not permit it to be pulled from his chest. In the end, I held the shaft steady, tried to ignore the man’s cries and moans, as Leonglauix used a rock to hammer it through his back. Once the gore and blood-covered spear was free, I looked down to see the warrior laying dead. His mouth was once again shaped in an O.

  My head spun when the old man patted me on the back and called me “Man Killer.” I stood on noodle legs and watched as he smashed their short spears against the trunk of a dock tree and scrounged through their meager belongings in search of items of value, as well as those of an inappropriate nature. Each man had a cross tattooed on his forehead, and another dangling from a string around his neck. And not much else.

  Returning to the meadow, we encountered a far more somber scene than expected. Jok knelt weeping over the bloody body of his oldest son. A bewildered group of fighters milled around the stiffening bodies of three of their brethren. A few of the survivors bore wounds which would require stitching.

  All were stunned speechless. They evaded our questions until one of the women, a buxom lass with startling blue eyes and absolutely no interest in men, reported not all of the Tattoos had been killed in our initial attack. Apparently, Plonox and a brutal female named Tregs feigned death. She said the “evil ones” waited for our hunters to draw close to retrieve their spears.

  Jok’s son had been leaning over Plonox, admiring his fine necklace, when the man opened his eyes and jabbed his short spear straight upward. In unnerving silence, he and the woman erupted from the carnage to wield their short stabbing spears with deadly accuracy. Jabbing and hacking, they were on their way to decimating our entire crew when Jok found a spear in the grass and ran it straight through Plonox’s kidney. Seeing the Tattoo leader felled gave the rest of our bunch the courage to rally a counterattack which reduced the woman Tregs to a bloody pulp.

  We buried the son and left the rest of the dead, both theirs and ours, where they lay. They were easily distinguishable. The Tattoos and their women no longer wore faces.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  TRANSMISSION:

  Duarte: “I told you I could do it.”

  Kaikane: “I know you did, but I never thought you would. Does it feel like your brain is about to burst?”

  Duarte: “Not really. There are sure to be a few details I will miss. All in all, it felt good. Liberating.”

  From the log of Paul Kaikane

  Recreation Specialist

  I didn’t think Maria could do it, but she did. Today marks the first time we have logged on to our computers in 21 days. She’s hunched over her flat, white unit, pecking like mad. I have been asked, firmly, not to bother her for the next four hours. She says she may not even stop to eat.

  We’re holed up under the shade of a thick grove of hazel nut trees. Maria sits cross-legged on a wolf pelt. Her computer’s balanced in front of her on top of my pack. We stashed our kayaks on the beach of a protected little cove this morning, and then followed a clear-running stream a few hundred yards inland to find this spot. A waterfall drops into a deep green pool perfect for swimming. Water’s cold, but you get used to it.

  Twenty-one days. I’m so proud of her. It was on the beach near the Arno’s mouth when I threw down my challenge. All of our stuff was spread out in the sun, drying after being soaked in the river and the two days of rain that followed. Maria was curled up with her computer, while I ran around trying to figure out how to cram everything back in the kayaks.

  “You spend too much time staring into that computer screen,” I said. “Working. Working for the sorry sons-o’-bitches who sent us back here with a bunch of crappy equipment. I think you deserve a month-long vacation.”

  She nibbled the bait.

  “A vacation sounds nice,” she said. “But a month is too long.”

  “You don’t think you can go a whole month without your computer, do you? You’re addicted.”

  “I went without on the raf
t. I know I can do it.”

  “Let’s see you.”

  “I could do three weeks, if I wanted to. What have you got to bet, big boy?”

  “Nightly foot rubs for a month if you last 21 days. That should put us around Nice.”

  “And how about you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If I can’t, you can’t. It means you don’t use your computer to listen to music, read books or anything for 21 days. Just like me.”

  “Do I get a month of foot rubs?”

  “No. You get me to yourself for 21 days. That’s what this is about, isn’t it? Someone feels neglected? Feels like they need help stowing this equipment?”

  We hooked pinkies to seal the bet, then went on to have three great weeks exploring the coast without worrying about taking notes, naming plants and collecting leaf samples. We would have been too busy to do much anyway. Every time we spotted a human, Maria insisted we swing close and take a look. At least once a day, we had to beach the boats and track some unsuspecting soul or clan til we were sure they weren’t contaminated by Martinelli. Hard to tell, really. Crosses are what I was looking for.

  Mostly, it was a lot of sneaking around spying on innocent natives. Wearing suits, it’s not hard to be a spy. A few times, we changed back into our native clothes and met the people face to face. Maria usually could find a way to speak with them. She’d ask a bunch of questions, tell them a couple stories.

  We only ran into trouble once. A big clan camped along the coast with a tall cross stuck in the sand. We watched them for two days. Second night, they had a really awful church service with torture and sacrifice. The two young men who they killed looked like captured warriors.

  It took a couple days to find Jones, but when we did we told him the deal. He planned an attack and we carried it out. I’ll let Maria write about it. Nothing happened I am proud of. Let’s just say I hope I never wear that suit again. It makes killing way too easy.