They hit the rough water hard and Stone felt the raft suddenly tear ahead as if supercharged. They were shaken violently, every bone in their bodies vibrating around as if trying to throw the muscles and flesh right off. Then they were accelerating faster as if on a bobsled course hurtling down a hill at 200 mph. The rock walls reached out from both sides, jagged fingers hoping to squeeze their skulls against its hardness.
Suddenly the tire raft slammed right into a boulder and the occupants of the vessel were tossed straight up in the air, all ripped from their holding places. Yet as the currents had it, the raft dropped straight down and stayed absolutely motionless for about three seconds as it just turned around like a slow record turntable. The three of them plopped back down on the rubber and frantically searched for their little holding niches. The funnel effect of the pressing walls seemed to get tighter, making the waters bubble violently as if they were being superheated from below. Just when Stone thought he couldn’t hang on another second, just as his grip was slipping away from the wet tire surface, they were suddenly ejected out from between two high rock walls with the striations of ten thousand generations of life cemented inside. The raft dropped about twenty feet and suddenly they were back on a much wider river, the currents instantly dropping to an almost tropical lull.
The raft twisted around like a leaf on a pond as two of the tires broke free and headed their own way. The Titanic was going down. They were pushed in close to one shore by a current from the opposite side. Within a minute they were about twenty yards off a sandy shore.
“We’re abandoning ship here,” the brave shouted from the other end of the raft, cupping his hands over his mouth so he could be heard over the roar of the blasting funnel of white water just a hundred yards behind them.
“But what about the Atsana?” Stone screamed back, not wanting to end up in the hands of the chief, not after he’d seen what the man could do to a buffalo’s head. It gave his own skull a headache just to think about it.
“They won’t go beyond those narrow canyon walls back there,” Cracking Elk reassured him. “It’s sacred ground. They think anyone who comes here will die. They won’t follow, I’m sure of it.” The brave didn’t try to explain it all any further but suddenly stood up, dove off into the calm waters, and began swimming over to the sand bank. Stone turned himself over and motioned for the dog to follow him. Which was all well and good, except when he pushed himself off and started trying to swim, Stone found himself sinking like a rock. The splinted leg acted like an anchor on him and even in the slow-moving waters it was too much. The Indian, who had just been pulling himself up on shore, turned and saw Stone disappearing beneath the surface only about twenty-five feet out.
He dove straight back into the water, and paddling like an Olympic prospect was at the drowning man’s side in seconds. Stone felt a hand around his collar and suddenly he was being pulled backwards on the surface of the river. He took a few deep sputtering breaths and felt himself being dragged up onto the sand. Cracking Elk collapsed on the shore beside him, gasping for breath himself from the exertions. Stone, after coughing up, sat up and caught sight of the dog, bedraggled and pissed-off as hell, crawling up onto the sand about fifty feet down. It looked like a sewer rat, with its fur all slicked down, ears back in defensive mode. Life with the Chow Boy was daily taking a turn for the worse.
“Thanks,” Stone managed to sputter to the brave. The Indian wouldn’t utter a word or make the slightest expression as Stone turned to him to express his gratitude. If anything the brave didn’t seem to like the idea that he had just saved Stone. Yet he was his slave, bound to serve the man at every turn, a man whom he would just as soon have seen a moldering corpse in the dirt. But then Stone wasn’t particular about who saved his ass. He’d already been rescued from the great beyond by whores, prospectors, paraplegics, deaf mutes. A stonefaced Indian was just one addition to the club.
CHAPTER
Thirteen
STONE’S splint arrangement had come completely undone in all the goings-on, and he spent about five minutes retying everything, getting the sticks back in place. It seemed infected all around the break, though it was hard to tell for sure. Still he could feel it mending, knitting together inside of him, strength slowly seeping back into the limb. But it would be weeks, maybe months before it was fully functional. That was all he needed out here in the jungles of America, where the slightest indication of weakness was usually rewarded by something snapping out from behind a bush to kill and/or eat the wounded thing which was showing itself to be vulnerable. Stone wished he were carrying a fucking bazooka, instead of a piece of wood six feet long.
He wanted to rest up for a few more minutes but Cracking Elk was on his feet, walking impatiently in a tight circle in the sand.
“Come on, come on, got to go. Go now!” He looked at Stone somewhat contemptuously, pulling his lips back as if it were difficult for the Indian to even talk to the white man.
“I thought you said the rest of the tribe wouldn’t come in here because of bad medicine,” Stone said wearily, not wanting to rise for at least a hundred years.
“Not tribe—other things. Very dangerous all through here. Other braves never return, all die.”
“Oh, it’s just superstition,” Stone said, trying to gain a few more minutes by moving his lips instead of his feet. “Just propaganda to keep you all locked up there on that two-mile-long stretch of shoreline called home.”
“No, it’s more than that,” Cracking Elk said, not able to meet Stone’s eyes. “There is darkness, evil in these parts. We must be careful. And we must”—he looked up at the heavens, judging the time from the color of the now misted and luminous sky—“make good time. I want to be on higher ground downriver before dark. There are places we shouldn’t be caught out at night.” But suddenly as if he’d already said too much Cracking Elk stopped talking, turned, and began walking slowly through the sand along the river’s edge. There was a dark fire in his eyes—hate, murder. The brave’s whole life had been turned upsidedown in twenty-four hours: from the top of the heap to a piece of useless garbage with not even a home or a people anymore. He hated Stone more than he’d ever hated any man in his life. Yet the brave was bound to the laws of the Atsana that had been laid down by the very animal gods themselves. He was Stone’s slave until he or the white man died. He would serve him, but he would hate him every second of his servitude.
“Oh for Christ’s sake,” Stone mumbled, hobbling up onto one foot as he got his balance with a new makeshift crutch, a not very straight piece of branch that had been washed up on the shore next to him in the sand. “I’m coming, I’m coming.” He stumbled along like Tiny Tim in A Christmas Carol as the pit bull took up a miserable third place, just hoping a squirrel or some damn thing came scampering by so it could take a nice bite and get rid of its foul mood. The animal wasn’t into diets.
The going was fairly easy at first, just sandy shoreline about twenty feet wide, almost white, clean looking, like something you’d find at Miami Beach. Stone kept glancing over at the river, which roared alongside them, now stretched back out to a width about a hundred feet of raging brown. The remains of whatever had gone through the rapids and rocks back there came bobbing along—mostly animal and fish carcasses, all bloated with heads smashed in as their skulls had been pounded against the rocks. Stone had just been close as a hair on an ant’s balls to that very fate himself.
But after about two miles the going got harder, with sharp little rocks like punji sticks all over the place. It was difficult for all of them—the Indian in his moccassins, Stone with the crutch unable to get a good grip on the slippery stones, and the pit bull with its slipping and sliding paws suited for many things but not clambering along on ten million wet and pointy rocks. But soon Stone wished the rocks were back again as they came to bogs, soft mud that the feet sank into the moment they were placed down. They sludged along keeping within grasp of each other just in case someone started actually going under
. And the legs of a goat poking up from the scum-covered mud off to one side as if the thing was frozen in an eternal kick of rigor mortis were an indication that their concerns were justified.
But it was the dog who found the soft spot first. They both suddenly heard a terrible squealing behind them and turned to see the pit bull going under fast. It had strayed too close to the departed goat and looked about to join it. Already the animal was down to its chest, all four legs disappearing beneath the white sucking sand. The dog looked terrified, its ears pointing straight up. And the sound it made was truly horrific.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Stone snarled as he started backtracking as fast as he could. But at the rate the damned dog was slipping under, it would just be a memory within a minute.
“Hold on,” Cracking Elk shouted as he put his arm up to stop Stone from venturing out onto the dog-eating sand. “Lie down, reach out for it like on ice—I’ll hold your legs.” The idea of getting his face down into the muck was unappealing to say the least. But Stone lay down and squirmed ahead through the sand as Cracking Elk dropped flat and grabbed hold around his ankles. Within seconds Stone was just within reach of the dog, which was looking at him with a most pitiful expression, only its head now above the sand. It knew it had fucked up bad.
“Hang on, dog, just hang on,” Stone screamed as he reached into the muck trying to find some part of it to grab. Just as the hapless animal’s head completely vanished beneath the sucking sands Stone grabbed something—the dog’s right leg—and pulled back with all his might. Stone gripped with everything he had and yanked his arm back toward him. It was incredibly hard going, like ripping something out of setting concrete.
“Pull,” Stone screamed out to Cracking Elk, lying on his stomach right behind him. “I’ve got it—pull me, man, fast. I think I’m starting to slide into this shit myself.” It seemed at first as if the dog wasn’t going to budge even with both men exerting all their energy. But suddenly the pit bull popped right up onto the surface, coughing and spitting a storm of mud from its mouth. Stone pulled back hard at the same time the Indian wriggled backwards dragging Stone by his ankles. Within twenty seconds they were all deposited on less shifting sands, covered with the slimy muck. The dog shook itself violently, spraying most of the dirt onto them, and looked at the two men who had just rescued it and let out with an ear-cracking little whine, as if it knew how fucking close it had just been—and well, thanks guys… I know I can be an asshole but…
“No rest,” Cracking Elk said after about sixty seconds. “It will be this way all the way downriver. Every mile holds danger. We’ve got to keep on, never stop except when we drop. To slow here is to die.” Stone was starting to believe the bastard. The whole river valley had an eerie, dangerous quality about it as if it existed only to destroy living things—take them down in its watery grasp, smash them against its rocks, grip them in sandy jaws and take them to asphyxiating deaths. The Indian was right. They’d better get through here as fast as they could travel. Stone had no illusions: he was the one slowing the whole fucking game down.
But it was Cracking Elk who ran into the next bit of trouble. And when it came, it came like a rocket blasted from a hidden silo. He had just walked over to a tree about thirty feet from shoreline, thinking he saw the carcass of a small animal, when a shape launched itself from a bush nearby and came right at the Indian like a mini tank: a warthog, only slightly larger than Excaliber, but a solid sheath of muscle and tusks a good twelve inches long, which looked as sharp as assault bayonets. The brave jumped straight up in the air, driven by sheer fear to leap a good four feet off the ground and right over the thing’s charging tusks and back.
The creature was ugly as sin, Stone could see as it slowed itself fast and turned for the second charge. Its face was a huge snout with great teeth bigger than the pit bull’s, and immense tusks that looked like they could cut through steel, all set atop a small but extremely powerful body covered with a coarse layer of dark matted fur. The creature stank to high heaven, a walking musk factory, as it wheeled around seeking the man it had just missed. But Excaliber was just as fast. With a growl, the pit bull caught the warthog’s attention and the wild animal froze. As all porkers are, it was smart as shit, and this hog was more clever than most. And mean too. It snarled back and decided that the pit bull was more of a danger than the man it had started after. Jumping straight off the dirt and wheeling around in midair with amazing grace and speed for such an ugly little fucker, the warthog made a ninety-degree turn and charged toward the pit bull.
But the distraction that the terrier had created was all that Stone needed. For as the wild pig ran by him hardly noticing him standing there almost motionless Stone brought the branch crutch down with all his might. The stick slammed into the warthog’s head with a sickening crack and the animal stopped in its tracks as if it had just run into a brick wall. Its whole body shook all over with rapid, violent quivers. But Stone wasn’t going to give it a chance to get a second wind. He raised the stick again and brought it down even harder. This time a huge crack appeared in the side of the animal’s skull and red shot out like maple syrup from a tree. Still the warthog wouldn’t go down and even as Excaliber started toward it, his jaws stretched wide, the hog stomped its front hoof in the dirt and prepared to charge again.
Stone raised the stick one more time and brought it down with every ounce of strength left in his racked body. This time the stick crashed right into the top of the skull and the warthog dropped, all four knees giving out at once. It lay there unquestionably finished, what with brain spurting out of a huge crack in the head like yolk from a broken egg. The body shook as if an electric current was going through it. The Indian went down on one knee and quickly sliced out a whole section of the tenderest and most nutritious meat from the side of the beast and wrapped it in leaves. Then not even looking back as the creature went into its final death spasms, the two men and a dog headed down the river, wondering just what the hell was going to come after them next.
They walked until it started growing dark. At last as the sun fell like a wounded bird from a sky all blood red and oozing, Cracking Elk said, “It’s time to stop. We must build a fire to keep the night stalkers away. There are many here.”
“You don’t have to convince me,” Stone replied, dropping down to his good knee as he huffed away madly. “That Night of the Living Porkchop back there convinced me of anything bad you want to say about this cursed place.” The Indian turned his back on Stone as if he didn’t want him to see what he was doing. The brave fiddled around with his hands and presto, within a couple of minutes he had a small fire built up of dry weeds and twigs.
“So Indians really can make fire from rubbing two sticks together?” Stone asked in friendly fashion as he walked over and sat down in front of the warming rays of the fire. It was the first warm thing he had felt all day except for the stinking hot breath of the charging hog.
“We have our ways,” Cracking Elk replied, as pokerfaced as ever, not even looking at Stone’s face. He never seemed to look right into the white man’s face—as if it was too painful to confront the man who had destroyed his rep—as if Stone might see the lust for murder that burned just beneath the surface like a raging storm in the brave’s heart. He took out the strips of pork steak he had carved from the recently deceased and within minutes the delicious scent of roast pig was wafting over them all. They ate the mass of meat, the dog, needless to say, slurping up everything that wasn’t tied down.
Stone swore that even the pit bull would be filled up after the feast of charcooked pig, but as they prepared to go off to sleep, lying in the dirt on little leaf and twig beds they had quickly built, the dog somehow caught a bat flying in wild circles above the fire. It crunched the little black mammal between its teeth, killing it in a single bite. Then the two men had the supreme pleasure of listening to the animal gnaw on the bat for hours, crunching each wing, each bone, chewing on the thing lustily as if it might never eat again.
CHAPTER
Fourteen
STONE hadn’t the foggiest idea what time it was when he was awakened. But it was late. The hour of the doomed, somewhere between the end of the night and sunrise. A limbo of time in which the vilest of creatures walk the face of the earth and claim it for their own. Suddenly Stone heard again the sound which had awakened him. A joining together of numerous voices? Howls? Stone didn’t know what the hell they were. But he knew he didn’t like them. There was something dark in them. Something that promised blood.
“What the hell is that?” Stone asked through the darkness as he saw that Cracking Elk was awake, his eyes wide open, sitting up and listening.
“I—I don’t know,” the Indian answered. And even in the darkness Stone could see that the brave was scared. “We’ve heard the sounds far away sometimes when out hunting early in the morning. But never this close. They can’t be more than a mile from here.”
“They? What are they?” Stone asked, feeling that the Indian was reluctant to say more but in fact knew a hell of a lot more.
“Demons,” Cracking Elk answered with a look of supernatural awe. “Ntani—the clawed ones.” He made a sign over his chest with both hands, not dissimilar to a Catholic crossing himself, only this was two circles in opposite directions.
The Cutthroat Cannibals Page 11