Quintspinner

by Dianne Greenlay

  “Erzulie?” the woman asked again, impatience creeping into her voice.

  Tess frowned and pulled the woman’s hand away from her neck where it had rested on her birthmark. Now it was the strange woman’s turn to gasp as daybreak’s climbing light glinted off the blue tourmalines in Tess’s ring. Her eyes narrowed and she stared at Tess.

  “Come.”

  The command from the woman, in English, startled Tess and she raised a questioning brow at William, who still stood at her side, both pistols raised. He looked around warily but then simply shrugged. His eyes met Tess’s and then regarded the woman’s as he nodded.

  “Lead on then,” he consented.

  In single file, they walked back into the jungle, retracing one set of foot prints in the sand. Even these were whisked away with a palm frond by the last man in the procession. To the casual eye there were no remaining signs of a human presence upon the beach. It took only several steps past the vegetation’s edge for them to be swallowed up by the dense rain forest.

  One of the men led the way, his steps quick and surely placed, yet nearly soundless upon the forest’s floor. Underfoot, a thick, wet carpet of leaves dampened their footfalls.

  They trudged through the undergrowth, dodging curtains of ropey vines and pushing through sun-flecked walls of enormous heart-shaped leaves and spiky fronds. Moss coated tree trunks sprouted webs of twisted roots, anchoring them down to the jungle floor, while their leafy crowns stretched overhead and blended into a lacey canopy. A thick green wrap of living velvet coated everything around them–rocks, tree trunks, and the entwining strands which fell from dizzying heights overhead.

  All around there was a discordant orchestra of sounds–twitters and shrieks, whistles and clucks–and from time to time there were flashes of brilliant yellows, oranges, and reds, but mostly this strange world was a quilt of endless shades of greens, soft and dappled with thin shafts of tropical sunlight.

  The increasing burn in their leg muscles indicated that they were climbing all the while. William’s stiff knee caused him to struggle as the ground underfoot became steeper. At one point, he lost his footing and began to pitch backwards but Tess struck out with her hand, barely grasping the front of his threadbare tunic, as she counterbalanced his sprawl. Sheepishly he regained his balance, remarking, “Thanks for that.”

  Pulling him close to her, Tess responded, whispering into his ear in a way that raised gooseflesh on his arms, “Were you falling for me?” Besides being embarrassed at tripping and being rescued by Tess, her attempt at humor under the circumstances left William annoyed. He grunted and continued on past her.

  In fact, William had been concentrating on the body language of those around them, rather than watching his footing. He noted the way they walked in a semi-crouch, their eyes never still, constantly scanning as their heads slowly swiveled from side to side. They stepped silently, moved silently, with no conversation between them.

  He recognized the signs.

  They are afraid of something, William thought. But what? There could be all kinds of predators in this place, but surely we would be smelled by them no matter how silently we traveled … what are they afraid of?

  The hairs on William’s neck bristled as he felt the imaginary eyes of unseen watchers on his back. He, too, began to glance furtively around him as they traveled. The tension in their small group was palpable. Surveying the jungle to his side, William miscalculated a step and caught his toes on a fallen branch, which sent him sprawling face first. The others recoiled at the unexpected movement as if he had discharged his gun among them.

  William lay shame-faced in the jungle mulch for only a few seconds but it was long enough. His nostrils were filled with a scent that was completely out of place and set off alarm bells in his head. The odor was familiar yet screamed of danger.

  It was a pungent mixture of horse shit and blood and … the odor of wet dog.

  A fraction of intense homesickness stabbed through William as he tried to decipher the scents. The heme scent was faint, older, but still metallic. The manure was relatively fresh, and the dog ….

  Jacko had reached down and was pulling William to his feet when William spotted the slight impression in the leafy trail bed. Someone with boots on had stepped in this very spot. Recently. Someone with a dog.

  A tracker. Most likely a fierce and skilled hunter whose tracking abilities would be rivaled only by the amount of cruelty and violence that such a job required to be successful.

  His discovery did not escape his captor’s notice. Instantly crouching beside William, Jacko squinted at the impression and then back at William, as if trying to anticipate William’s next reaction.

  William, too, was making an instantaneous decision. To cry out for help and bolt now into the care of this unknown hunter, or to stay with known opponents. Which was going to be the lesser danger? Leaving Tess behind was out of the question–even if he were to manage to escape, Tess would be killed. That was a certainty. William could sense their new captors’ strong drive for self-preservation; it was deeply steeped in primal fear and fueled by their instinct to survive at all costs. Any hint of escape by either William or Tess would be construed as a fatal threat. As well, the open hostility shown towards them upon their discovery on the beach had left little hope that this was a sympathetic search party. Yet he and Tess had not been harmed so far …. Maroons! These people have to be Maroons!

  He had often heard the sailors talk about bounty money there for the taking, by rounding up ex-slaves on the islands and returning them to their owners. Resulting riches or not, the sale of human flesh was repugnant to him.

  William quickly made his decision.

  “Horseman,” William whispered to Jacko who had remained crouched beside him. “And blood. With a dog.” He saw the man’s eyes widen in understanding and momentarily flash with fear, and then, just as quickly, Jacko issued a short bird-like warble. Simultaneously, his companions dropped to the ground, pulling Tess down with them and disappearing from sight. For long moments no one moved while the rhythm of the jungle filled in the silence around them. William’s back and legs ached with the tension of lying so still when every cell in his body screamed for him to get up and run. His level of anxiety was magnified with the mounting fear of their discovery. He lay face down for what seemed like several minutes and began to wonder if the danger had somehow passed them by.

  And then he noticed it.

  An audibly steady rhythm. Mouth-breathing. By one who was perhaps overdressed, laboring to breathe in this humidity and heat. By one who wore boots.

  Nodding his head ever so slightly in the direction of the sound, William squared his gaze on Jacko lying beside him. Acknowledging the intent of William’s message with a head nod of his own, the man suddenly slithered backwards on his stomach, disappearing into the foliage.

  What the hell? Where is he going? Oh my God, he thought bitterly, he’s gone. The bastard is saving his own skin and leaving us here to be slaughtered!

  A wash of terror swept over William and he could hear the quickening pulse of his blood as it coursed through his veins. He fought to keep his own breathing quiet and under control but survival instincts kicked in and he rolled off the path, slight as it was, and under the fronds of a giant fern. The faint tremor of footfalls reverberated against his cheek as he lay pressed against the ground. He lifted his head as high as he dared, scanning the area where he had lain just moments before.

  A harsh sniffing sound filled his ears. The excited huffing rhythm brought back a flash of memory of a time when Lucas had hunted alongside William. The intense snuffling pattern was the same. The dog! It’s hunting us!

  A low menacing growl rumbled close to the ground. William froze as his eyes stared into the animal’s. It was close enough that

  William could smell the carnivore’s hot, foul breath. Its lips were pulled back over slavering fangs in a menacing snarl and the dog sank into a low crouch–a familiar posture that screamed of an
imminent attack. William’s heart thudded painfully; he could smell his own fear. He hoped the end would come quickly. The animal looked savage and strong enough to make that happen.

  A pair of khaki trousers materialized on the trail behind the dog. The hunter advanced another step forward and then slowly sank down onto one knee beside his hound, sighting down the barrel of his musket which he held ready.

  A flicker of surprise flashed across the man’s face as his eyes locked onto William’s. William was only partially camouflaged by the fern fronds, and for a moment the man seemed uncertain of what he saw. The tracker’s hound had no such misgivings however, and with a rumbling snarl, launched itself, leaping onto William, fangs bared, aiming for a throat hold. Reflexively, the dagger handles were in William’s hands before he could even think about saving himself and the jungle’s clamor was split by one long howl, as the dog slammed into William’s chest, the force of the attack driving the knives’ lengths into its neck and chest. The dog quivered, and was still.

  With his gun still aimed directly at William, the tracker hesitated, not immediately comprehending his animal’s demise. The moment of hesitation proved to be fatal. A hand shot out from behind, covering the man’s mouth and a rusty blade sliced across his throat, unleashing a spray of blood. The hunter’s eyes rolled back in his head, and with no more than a single gurgle, he collapsed, revealing Jacko standing behind.

  Rolling out from beneath the dog’s body, William watched as Jacko quickly stripped the body of every piece of clothing as well as the weapons before bending over and pulling the man’s stained boots off. There, stuck between the heel and sole of one, was a wedge of horse manure.

  “Slave catcher!” Jacko’s eyes narrowed and his voice trembled as he spat out the hated words. He landed a vicious kick to the corpse’s face, and then, tying the boots’ laces together before slinging them over his shoulder, he called to the only woman in their group. “Mambo!” He handed the machete to her as he picked up the hunter’s long barreled shotgun. Holding the heavy blunderbuss to his chest, he simply pointed uphill.

  “We go.”

  They had stopped for a brief drink from a stream whose edge they appeared to have been following. Tess sat quietly, her back resting against a mossy tree trunk. Her mind spun with an increasing sense of dread. Where were they being taken to? What were they being taken to? Spinning the fine tourmaline gold and silver braid around her finger, she begged her frantic thoughts to settle into some semblance of order.

  She inhaled the tropical fragrances hanging in the humid air and closed her eyes, willing herself to relax. The scent here was captivating–moist and earthy mulch mixed with heavy floral tones–and she could almost taste the air’s sweetness on her tongue. The slow slide into meditation was momentarily intoxicating and she was caught off guard by the intensity of an unexpected vision. Its content caused her to startle and she choked on a panicked cry of surprise in her throat.

  “What is it?” William’s worried eyes were drawn tightly with renewed tension.

  Tess blinked, confused as what had seemed so real inside her head only a heartbeat ago.

  “I had thoughts of–a battle of sorts ….” The idea sounded so stupid out loud that she let her words die away. “Just starting to dream, I guess.” She looked up at William and saw that her words had not been convincing.

  “A battle?” His forehead creased in further worry and his nostrils flared slightly, as though he were picking up on the scent of her building anxiety.

  The image had been only a fragment but there had been flickers of fighting. Of blood. Screams of pain. Most frightening of all, she thought that the screams had been hers.

  Tess shook her head as though clearing her mind of the thoughts. “Just too tired, I guess.” She smiled wanly at William. “I must have started to doze off. It was just a bad dream.” More like a waking nightmare, she told herself.

  Jacko and Mambo openly stared at her and then, glancing at each other and sharing an unspoken thought, jumped to their feet.

  “We go! Now!” Jacko hissed the order through clenched teeth and he spun around, sending Mambo vaulting past him up the streamside trail with an urgent shove to her back.

  The attack happened without further warning.

  Before the rest of their small group could stumble to their feet, the air around them roared with the deafening blasts of musket fire. Giant philodendron leaves exploded, then shuddered and fluttered to the ground, shredded to pieces. Clouds of gunpowder smoke billowed through ragged holes that had been blasted in the thick leafy curtains.

  Through her confusion and fear, Tess had not quite risen from her seat at the base of the tree, and panic-stricken, she dove under the thick foliage at her feet, scrambling to tuck her legs under the low boughs. Her own scream was lost among those filling her ears–the howls of the maroons as the musket balls hit, tearing away flesh and shattering bones. Their vocal misery was punctuated with the cheers of the slave hunters as their ammunition felled their quarry.

  Dear God! The vision–the nightmare–it’s coming to life! Curled into a tight ball, Tess watched, paralyzed, as Jacko pivoted and leapt after Mambo, following her fleeing form into the jungle’s thick cover. Before he could take a second stride, however, he seemed to rise straight up in the air, his body stiffening as his left buttock burst open with a spray of blood and muscle. He fell with a sickening thud and did not move from where he lay.

  The bloody onslaught was over in mere minutes. Tess remained frozen in her spot, hidden from the attackers for the moment, praying that they did not have another tracking dog along.

  William! Silently she shrieked his name. Was he alive or not? Please, please, she begged silently, let him be alive! She hadn’t seen him since the first volley of musket balls had sent everyone sprawling.

  “Fer Chrissakes, ya’ buggerin’ bloodthirsty idiots!” a voice snarled. “Ya’ was supposed to capture them, not kill them! How the hell is a dead one gonna’ lead us to their goddamn camp? Hmm? Ya’ tell me that!” A small wiry man stepped into view and kicked at the body lying at his feet. “See if any of these sonsabitches still lives!” he ordered, and from where she lay, Tess counted three more pairs of legs stepping past her. A remaining hunting party of four.

  That’s why they’d been able to surround us!

  The men moved noisily around, slicing into the flesh of the downed bodies with heavy cutlasses, waiting to see if the pain of fresh wounds roused any of them. It did not. When they came to Jacko’s body, Wiry Man himself plunged his blade into Jacko’s uninjured thigh. A strangled wail made them all jump.

  “Ah ha!” Wiry Man snorted with glee. “We have a live one!” and as if to convince himself, or perhaps just for the cruelty of it, twisted his knife blade a half turn in the new wound. Jacko screamed in agony.

  Suddenly Wiry Man toppled forward, falling with all of his weight upon Jacko, who shrieked again with renewed pain from the pressure on his injuries. The three other slave catchers gawked at their boss lying crumpled on top of the wounded slave. For a moment they stood dumbly, not comprehending, and then with a strangled gurgle, one of them staggered forward, falling heavily face first into the jungle matting at his feet.

  “Fer Chrissakes! What the hell–?” one of the two still standing on his feet blurted out before stumbling back from his fallen companion’s body. “Oh shit!” he bellowed, pointing alternatively at a dark object protruding from the back of each of the fallen men’s necks. From behind the thin veil of foliage, Tess squinted at the bodies. Even from where she was, she recognized the blade handles of William’s daggers.

  He’s alive! Oh my God–he’s alive! For a split second Tess felt an immense jolt of relief before she slid back down into her cold pool of terror. The two remaining hunters dropped instinctively into a protective crouch and their heads swiveled wildly as they searched for the source of the weapons.

  Use the guns you have, William! Use them now! Tess sent out a silent plea of desperation.
These men were trackers–trained to spot even the most insignificant signs of their prey–and she knew her ragged breathing was going to give her away at any moment. She had no sooner registered that thought when one of the men suddenly twisted and sprang out of his crouch, smashing into her with a heavy crash. A calloused hand muffled her scream and at the same time forced her head back. She felt the burn of the sharp edge of his hunting knife as it sliced into her skin just below the corner of her jaw. Her world spinning in terror, Tess’s vision clouded and she felt herself blacking out. She prayed the faint would overtake her before he cut any further.

  Surprise slowed the slave catcher’s hand. The only thing dark about his victim’s skin was a strange mark trailing down the side of her neck. The rest of her skin was a creamy tan. Shock crackled though him as he realized that he had nearly killed a white woman. And with all of the runaways dead or dying, how could he have blamed it on anyone else?

  “Stop right now, you bastard, or I swear it’ll be the last thing you do in this life. Drop. The. Knife.” William’s voice seemed so far away, yet it was clearly his. Tess blinked and tried to clear her pounding head. She focused on his voice. It was calm. Commanding. And coldly threatening. As the blade at her neck was withdrawn, Tess clasped at the slash in her skin with her own hands, trying to staunch the bleeding.

  “You. Slowly stand up and step away from the lady. And you–don’t even so much as twitch or I’ll blow you both away.”

  Tess peered at the scene before her. Her attacker was kneeling on the ground in front of William; the other hunter stood a few feet away, his hands raised shoulder high in submission. William held a pistol in each hand. One set of barrels was pressed firmly against the back of the kneeling man’s head, the other gun pointed squarely at the standing hunter’s chest.