Before they had traveled a quarter of a mile, Hooker’s khaki shirt was soaked through. Alita, at the rear of the party, followed easily, sweating almost as freely as Hooker. Walking between them, Connie Braithwaite kept pace with him. She did not perspire much, but she was breathing hard and growing flushed. Hooker started to say something, but her expression warned him off.
Up in front, the two chicleros picked their way through the rain forest with easy familiarity. Occasionally, their path was blocked by brush or a fallen branch, and one or the other would dispose of the obstruction with a swipe of his machete. But for the most part, the trail was clear.
“Must be a lot of traffic through here,” Hooker observed.
“The woods are full of Mayas,” Alita told him. “You won’t see them, but they are there.”
“If they want to keep out of sight, that’s fine with me,” he said.
In addition to the soggy heat, there was the strange diffused light at ground level in the jungle. Much of the time, the tall mahogany trees blotted out the sun. Always there was the rippling, dappled effect of being underwater. When they crossed the rare patches of bare ground, Hooker was grateful for a glimpse of blue sky. It was reassuring to find it still there. In one of the clearings, he called the party to a halt.
“The mosquitoes are getting thicker,” he said. “We’d better rub on some of this stuff before it starts getting dark.”
He opened a tin and scooped out two fingers of a gooey yellow substance, which he began rubbing on the exposed skin of his hands, face, and neck. Alita took the tin from him and followed suit. She handed it to Connie.
Connie sniffed at the contents of the tin and made a face. “Ugh, what is it?”
“Turtle fat,” said Hooker. “The local Indians swear it’s the only thing that will keep the Yucatan mosquitoes off you.”
“I’m not surprised. It smells like shit.”
“It’s got to be well seasoned or it won’t work.”
“What a quaint idea.”
“It’s also said to be good for healing open wounds and curing rheumatism.”
“I think I’ll pass,” Connie said. “The mosquitoes aren’t that bad.”
“Suit yourself,” Hooker said, “but I promise you they’ll get worse.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
He offered the tin to Chaco and Manuel, but they ignored it, rubbing on instead an ointment of their own that smelled even worse than the stale turtle fat.
They started moving again, single file.
“The mosquitoes aren’t the worst of the bugs,” Alita said from the end of the line. “There’s ticks you got to burn out of you sometimes. And chicle flies. They’re the worst of all. When they bite you, it makes a sore that keeps getting bigger until it rots away your ears and your nose. Look close at some of the Indians down here and you’ll see what the chicle fly can do to you.”
Connie sucked in her breath. Hooker turned and looked past her. “Cut it out, Alita. We’ve got enough problems without stories like that.”
She made her eyes big and innocent. “Oh, ‘scuse me. I didn’t mean to scare nobody.”
Connie forced a smile and batted her eyes at the Mexican girl.
As they pushed deeper into the jungle, Hooker was surprised at the number of well-defined trails that intersected theirs and angled off in other directions. Whenever they reached a fork, Chaco would pause, sniff the air, glance at the sky, and choose one of the branches. Hooker checked him as closely as he could against the compass and the map. As nearly as he could tell, the Indian was leading them in the right direction.
At one good-sized clearing, Hooker called them to a halt for rest and food. He brought out tortillas and dried beef.
“This is it?” Connie said.
“When we camp for the night, we’ll have something hot,” Hooker said. “This will keep us going for now.”
“How far do you think we’ve come?” Connie said.
“Five miles,” Hooker estimated. “Maybe six.”
“Jesus, it feels like twenty.”
“More important is how much farther we have to go.” He turned to Alita. “Ask the skinny one.”
Alita walked up and talked with Chaco. In a few minutes, she returned.
“He says if we make good time the rest of today, then go all day tomorrow, by the morning after we should be there.”
“That’s not too bad,” Hooker said. “About what I figured.”
“God, another day and a half of this,” Connie said with feeling.
“Hey, you insisted on coming along,” Hooker reminded her.
“I know it, but I didn’t give up bitching rights.”
Hooker couldn’t hold back a smile. “Fair enough,” he said.
• • •
They started forward again. As the trail narrowed, the chicleros put their machetes to work. Hooker had to admire the way they swung the two-foot knives with a beautiful economy of motion. They sliced through vines and branches as thick as a man’s arm with no apparent effort.
As the shadows grew heavier and the sun slanted in low from their right, Hooker watched for the next clearing of any size. When they reached it, he whistled them to a stop.
“We’ll camp here. We don’t want to fight the jungle at night.”
Connie dropped her backpack with a sigh. “That’s the best news I’ve heard since we left civilization.” She swatted at the back of her neck. “Damn!”
Hooker questioned her with a look. She ignored him.
They dug a fire pit in the center of the clearing and propped a pole above it on two forked sticks. While Alita gathered dry wood for the fire, Hooker and the chicleros hung the hammocks from trees at the edge of the clearing. Connie watched.
“It’s probably a foolish question,” she said, “but why are we building a fire? It’s already like an oven.”
“It isn’t for heat,” Hooker said. “A fire will keep the animals away.”
“Animals?”
“I told you about them back in Veracruz. Jaguars, mostly. They won’t attack a man in the daylight, but at night, if the man’s sleeping, that’s another story. The wild pigs can hurt you, too.”
Connie looked around at the darkening trees. “It sounds a lot more dangerous out here than it did in my hotel room.”
She swatted at her arms, her face, the back of her neck. “All right, Hooker, give me some of that stinking turtle fat. And no wisecracks, please.”
Hooker rolled his eyes innocently and handed her the tin. Connie rubbed the stuff in vigorously, glaring at Hooker until he erased his grin.
“What’s for dinner?” she demanded.
“Tortillas, beans, cheese, coffee.”
“No meat?”
“Dried beef.”
“Jesus.”
Alita took charge of the cooking, hanging a pot over the fire for the beans and setting water to boil to make coffee. Hooker lit a cigarette. Connie busied herself trying to brush the dust out of her clothes. Chaco sat with his arms wrapped around his knees, tiny eyes narrowed to slits.
Manuel, who had been sitting next to his companion, rose suddenly and stood with his head cocked in a listening attitude. He lunged off into the dark jungle and was immediately out of sight.
“Hey!” Hooker called, standing up.
There was a crashing off among the trees, and in a moment Manuel returned. He was holding by the tail what looked like a three-foot dragon. The beast thrashed in his grasp, trying to twist its head back up to bite his hand.
“Oh, my God, what is that?” Connie said.
“Iguana,” Hooker told her. “Very tasty when it’s cooked right.”
“I’ll bet.”
“Like chicken,” Alita said.
“That’s what they always say about something you wouldn’t normally put in your mouth.”
“You were asking about meat,” Hooker reminded her.
Manuel stood holding the lizard, his broad, flat face turned toward Hooke
r.
“He offers to share with us,” Alita said.
“Tell him thanks, we accept.”
Alita spoke a single sharp syllable. Moving with a startling swiftness, the big man pulled out a thin-bladed knife and slit the iguana from throat to anus. Connie turned away, squeezing her eyes shut as the intestines spilled out over the ground.
Alita cut the meat into strips, which they roasted on sticks held over the fire. Connie sat by herself, chewing on a piece of dried beef, while the others ate iguana.
“Change your mind?” Hooker said.
“Well …”
He used his hunting knife to slice off a piece from the end of his stick. Connie took it carefully from the knife blade. She sniffed at it, tasted it, finally took a bite. She looked around at the others watching her.
“Okay,” she said. “It’s not bad. It’s not chicken, but it’s not bad.”
For dessert, Hooker brought out squares of chocolate and handed them around. Only Chaco refused to take one.
When they had finished eating and the coffeepot was empty, Alita began to gather the utensils.
“Let me clean up,” Connie said. “You did the cooking.”
Alita looked at her curiously. “I don’t mind. You’ll just get your hands all dirty.” She glanced over at Hooker.
“Let her,” he said.
Alita moved out of the way, and Connie began gathering things together. Hooker watched her without comment.
When she had finished, Connie stood up and yawned. “All of a sudden I’m dead tired. What time is it, anyway?”
Hooker consulted his Bulova. “Eight o’clock.”
“Jesus, at home I’d just be dressing to go out.”
“Time and distance are deceptive in the jungle. Come on; I’ll show you how to get into your hammock.”
He helped her in and attached the cocoonlike mosquito netting to the sides.
“You know, this thing is really comfortable,” she said, looking up at him. “Or else I’m more tired than I thought.”
“They’re woven mesh with no knots,” he said. “They give with the body. Not like the hard canvas slings the navy uses.”
“Were you in the navy?”
Hooker’s eyes clouded. “I’ve been on some boats,” he said. “Good night.”
“Hey, I didn’t mean to pry into your past.”
“It’s okay. Maybe someday I’ll tell you all about me.”
“I think I’d like that.”
“Don’t count on it.”
As he started to turn away, she reached out from under the netting and took his hand. “How am I doing, Hooker?”
“You’re doing fine. Just fine.”
“If I start being a pain in the ass, you’ll tell me, won’t you?”
“Sure.”
She made a kiss at him through the mosquito netting. “Good night.”
He moved in toward the fire and sat down again. Chaco and Manuel sat silently on the opposite side of the clearing. Alita came over next to Hooker.
“You never said you were glad to see me, Johnny.”
“Surprised would be more like it.”
“But you’re not mad, now that I’m here?”
“I’m not mad.”
Alita sighed and laid her head on his shoulder. Then, suddenly, she drew back and looked at him. “Did you go to bed with her, Johnny?”
“What?”
“The blonde lady. Did you go to bed with her?”
“You can call her by name,” he said.
“Connie. Did you go to bed with her.”
“If I did, do you think I’d be sap enough to tell you about it?”
“No, I s’pose not.”
“Then what do you say we drop it.”
Alita was quiet for several minutes. Hooker lit a cigarette.
“Are you in love with her, Johnny?”
“Oh, for Chrissake.”
“Are you?”
“I am not in love with her. And that is the last question I am going to answer on the subject. Now or ever. Comprende?”
“Comprendo,” Alita said quietly. “I am a woman, Johnny. Women ask these things. I can’t help it.”
He put an arm around her. “I know you’re a woman, chiquita. More woman than a man deserves.”
“Not you, Johnny. You deserve me.”
He laughed and gave her a squeeze.
Across from them, Chaco got to his feet. He belched and started off into the trees.
“Where’s he going?” Hooker said.
Alita spoke to the chiclero in the rattling dialect. Chaco answered her with a sneer on his lips.
“He is going to relieve himself,” Alita said.
Chaco said something else, finishing with a short, barking laugh.
“Unless you want him to put out the fire, he says.”
Hooker stared at the small man until the sneer faded. Chaco shrugged and continued into the trees.
“I don’t like that Indian,” Hooker said to nobody in particular.
He got up, leaving Alita sitting by the tree, and walked around to poke at the fire. He could hear Chaco pissing in the woods. Manuel dozed in a sitting position.
A movement on the ground caught Hooker’s eye. He focused on a spot at the edge of the clearing near where Manuel’s hand lay, and his throat dried up. Sliding in an S-curve out of a clump of palm leaves came a snake, fifteen inches long, big around as a good cigar. In the darkness there was no way to tell what kind it was. In the dark, all snakes are deadly.
Hooker’s .45 boomed. The muzzle flash caught the others in a variety of startled attitudes. Manuel leaped to his feet, big hands balled into fists. Connie cried out, tangling herself in the mosquito netting as she tried to get out of the hammock. Alita ran to Hooker’s side. Chaco came crashing in from the jungle, his pants open in front. They all stared at Hooker. He pointed with the pistol at the twitching body of the snake. Where the head had been, a stringy mass oozed blood. All eyes followed his gesture.
Manuel bent down and grasped the mutilated snake by the tail. He held it up in the firelight.
Alita gasped. “Barba amarilla!”
“What is it?” Connie said.
“A kind of coral snake,” Hooker said.
“Its bite kills you in fifteen minutes,” Alita said. “With very much pain. The name means ‘yellow beard.’ Maybe you can guess why.”
Connie shuddered.
Manuel stood holding the remains of the snake. He looked down at the blood-spattered patch of ground so close to where he had been sitting; then he looked across at Hooker. Their eyes met and held. The big man’s head bobbed once. Hooker raised the pistol to acknowledge the thanks, then holstered it.
Manuel tossed the snake’s body into the fire, where it sizzled and twisted into a blackened cinder.
“I think we all better try to get some sleep,” Hooker said. “I want to be moving with the first light.”
Connie stared at the charred snake. “Jesus, who can sleep with those things crawling around. Yellow beard. Ugh!”
“You’ll be safe enough in your hammock,” Hooker said. “They can’t climb trees.”
“Do the snakes know that?”
“You’re not going to be a pain in the ass, are you?”
“Good night, Hooker.”
Connie went back to her hammock and managed to get into it without assistance. After the others had retired, Hooker banked the fire and climbed into his own hammock. He lay awake for a long time, listening to the squeaks and cries and the hundred other sounds of the jungle at night.
Much later, while Hooker and the others slept, a silent, blank-eyed figure watched them from the jungle. Alita awoke and stared at the spot where something had been, but she saw only the darkness.
CHAPTER 18
“Somebody was looking at us last night, Johnny,” Alita said. “Or something. Looking at us from the jungle.”
“There must have been hundreds of things out there looking at us,” Hooke
r said wearily. “The jungle is full of eyes.” He was not in a mood to listen to Alita’s fantasies. His body ached. The hammock was comfortable enough when he first got in, but he soon learned it did not allow for easy changing of your position. After spending the whole night on his back, he was sore from the base of his skull all the way to his butt. And his mouth tasted like last week’s laundry. And he had mosquito bites in spite of the netting and the foul-smelling turtle-fat ointment. He was not a happy man.
“This was different, Johnny,” Alita persisted. “Something evil was out there looking at us.”
“Cut it out.” He put a bite into his voice that discouraged further discussion. “We’ve got enough problems without worrying about phantom watchers in the night.”
One of the problems they had was Chaco. He was surlier than ever as they drank coffee and repacked the equipment at dawn. His answers to Alita’s questions were single mumbled syllables. Once he backhanded Manuel across the face when the big man did not move fast enough in following one of Chaco’s orders. Hooker kept a wary eye on him. Little men with a chip on their shoulder could be dangerous as snakes.
As they were ready to move out, Connie shrieked.
Hooker’s hand jumped to the butt of his pistol. “What’s the matter?”
“There’s something in my hair.”
Slowly, his muscles untensed. “Calm down,” he said. “Let me take a look.”
He sat her down on a log and stood over her, carefully parting the wavy blonde hair. Blonde all the way to the roots, he noticed.
“Something was itching,” she said. “I started to scratch; then I felt this thing way deep in my scalp. A sort of hot and squishy lump.”
He found it. A tick had burrowed into the scalp at the crown of her head. The body, now swollen to the size of a bean, was dark and shiny with her blood.
“All right,” he said. “I’ve got it.”
“What is it, for God’s sake?” Connie’s voice rose with a touch of hysteria.
“Just a tick. I’ll have it out in a minute.”
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