by Ted Bell
Creepers reached out for his bare and bloodied feet, thorny vines lacerated his face and shoulders and arms. His mouth was a ragged hole from which no sound issued but hoarse breathing and an occasional curse when he stumbled.
Hawke knew he was already a dead man, down to pure instinct alone. He was running now simply to stave off the inevitable; he was running blindly and without hope, running to gain a few more moments of his short precious life before he would trip and fall and the dogs would be upon him, ripping the flesh from his bones.
This was no way for a man with a future to die.
Suddenly drenched in sunshine, he splashed through a clearing bisected by a small stream that meandered toward the river. Slipping on the mossy rocks, he steadied himself, trying desperately to get reoriented. Then, he hurtled forward once more, racing back into the dark world beneath the canopy that towered overhead.
He could hear the Xucuru warriors chanting behind him, ever closer; and yet closer, the vicious snapping and growling wild dogs that were leading them to their quarry. They were gaining, getting closer now. They were well fed, well rested, and strong. They were relentless trackers who knew the ways of the jungle. Hawke was lost, hungry, and afraid.
The Xucuru wanted blood: his blood, the poor diminished feverish stuff now coursing through his veins; and he knew they wanted to see it flow almost as desperately as he wanted to keep it flowing.
Running, he burst into yet another patch of sunshine. This sunshine had wings, diaphanous wings, brushing his cheeks ever so lightly, like cobwebs. Another illusion? Light with wings? He imagined the fever had finally sent his mind reeling, that he’d slipped over into spiralling madness. A second later he snapped back. He realized the circular clearing was filled with countless swirling yellow butterflies lit by the sun above.
He raised his hands and cupped a few of the shimmering mariposas, bringing them right up to his eyes. He wanted to inspect these tiny diaphanous creatures more carefully, each one an individual miracle of nature. He looked up. A swarming tower of these yellow beings rose all the way to the sky above. It was a miracle. He waded into dense but yielding clouds, walking as if in a dream. And stumbling into a sinkhole that sucked at his feet.
Cursing and finally freeing himself from the sucking muck of the muddy hole, he again plunged forward through the gossamer yellow insects, batting their delicate bodies and filmy wings away from his eyes, searching for the far side of the clearing.
He could only hope this mirage of yellow and the quicksand underfoot might slow the dogs and he used this hope to keep moving. He ran hard for a few more minutes. And then, he slammed into an immovable wall and all hope vanished from his mind.
It was a canebrake that finally spelt the end.
The towering wall of green bamboo rose sixty feet above his head. The profusion of stalks grew so closely as to appear almost solid. He sprinted along the wall in both directions, looking and feeling for some kind of a crack or narrow opening. Nothing. No prayer of an opening anywhere, no way to shinny upward either. He slammed against the barrier again and again in a rage of frustration but it was useless. The stalks were thick, every bit as thick as a man’s wrist and the bamboo curtain would not yield.
There would be no escape.
It was over.
No admittance, Mr. Hawke.
You’re dead.
3
H awke clung to the bamboo stalks, waiting for the inevitable. Letting his arms take his full weight, he hung his head, looking like a beaten man. His lungs were afire, his legs trembling and shaking uncontrollably. He had no idea how long he let himself hang there, but he knew that any second he would feel the sharp punch of an arrow or a spear between his shoulder blades.
Thunk.
The steel tip of a spear embedded itself deeply in the bamboo a few centimeters above his head.
It parted my bloody hair, he thought, with a mixture of dread and admiration for the chucker’s skills. He could feel the spear’s impact thrumming in his bones, the vibrations traveling down to his forearms to his hands. So this is how it would end.
Like a man before a firing squad disdaining the blindfold, he wanted to see. He lifted his head, craned it round, and saw another spear and then a third flying toward him. He was not prepared to die with a spear in his back and so he completely about-faced to witness the onslaught of whistling shafts, instantly calculating the angles, deciding which spear would strike where and how he must dodge them.
But they all fell short. A quick flurry of spears hit the ground, all striking at a forty-five-degree angle and forming a semicircle around him. The delicate precision of this instant cage, even in his cornered and desperate state, demanded some appreciation. It had to be deliberate, but why trap rather than kill? Then came the dogs. He saw the loopy saliva of the animals flying as they sprung toward him out of the undergrowth, racing toward him with their snapping jaws wide.
Another spear, then more, at first only a few, but then many, arced toward him. To his complete amazement the upright shafts began to form a more complete circle around him. Hawke braced for the dogs. But, upon reaching this strange and newly formed perimeter, they slowed, then stopped. Howling in frustration, they looked back to their masters, the Indians still in hiding.
Hawke saw that the dogs might easily go around the cage of spears and kill him, or, in some cases, even slip between them. But they did not. The dogs stood rock-still, eyes blazing and tongues lolling, and waited. Hawke, finished, released his grip on the canes and fell to the ground.
He heard a man grunt and looked up.
A tall Indian warrior, a Xucuru whom Hawke recognized from the camps, had stepped into the tiny clearing. It was Wajari, the brutal chief who had been assigned to guard Hawke’s construction site. The man was wearing an old itip, a ceremonial loincloth with vertical stripes of black and yellow and red, the same regalia he wore every day.
Wajari, who normally carried a rifle on the job, now wore a machete, stuck inside the cinched waist of his loincloth. He approached Hawke, withdrawing the blade. It was almost over. A swift blow from the machete would put an end to his suffering. But there was something very odd about his eyes. Gone was the fierce expression, replaced by something new and terribly strange.
It wasn’t fear, exactly. No, it was worry.
Seeing those troubled black eyes, Hawke knew his life had taken a sudden turn for the better. His head might actually remain attached for a few days longer.
“Hawke,” Wajari said, making it sound like “Hoke.” Then he was gently taking Hawke’s arm and helping him get to his feet.
“Wajari,” Hawke said, letting himself be taken. The running was truly over. He felt a sense of relief flood through his body.
“Lord Hawke,” Wajari said, seeming to like the sound of it.
“So glad you could make it,” Hawke murmured as he was led toward the trees. “One doesn’t receive an invitation to a beheading every day.”
Wajari ignored his ramblings. Hawke collapsed at the feet of a fierce looking group of savages whose faces were painted in bright yellow and red. All held machetes above their heads.
To his enormous surprise, the blades did not fall.
Not only did these ferocious cannibals not behead him, but they treated him gently, with a strange blend of caution and respect. They gave him a bowl of manioc beer, which he drank in great gulping draughts. Wajari, who seemed to be presiding over this ceremony, ordered him wrapped in a blanket and placed carefully on a grassy mound.
They moved away, leaving him in the care of a single warrior with a spear. It occurred to Hawke that for some strange reason he was now worth more alive than dead.
Hawke lay under the shade of the trees, watching as the Indians hacked at the canebrake with their machetes. For an hour or more, they were busy cutting sections of four-inch-thick green cane, some about ten feet in length, some shorter. A female member of the war party came forward and presented him with a gourd of water followed by a sma
ll bowl of manioc bread.
He ate greedily and, after a time, feeling much revived, Hawke understood what it was the Indians were building.
They were using the bamboo poles and lengths of ropy vines to construct a cage. Ten feet long by four feet wide and approximately five feet in height. The bottom of the cage was filled with a bed of fronds.
It was to be home for the next five days, the large green cage borne upon the shoulders of four trotting savages as they raced through the jungle. These Xucuru, whom he now thought of as his saviors, would rest for short periods and when they moved, they moved very quickly. There was a sense of great urgency about his captors he found puzzling. When they slowed their pace, or spent too long at rest, Wajari would chastise them with his stick, prodding them along.
After three days of this they came to the brown swirling waters of another wide river. It was not the swiftly running Xingu, which he would put behind them many miles to the west. Hawke thought that perhaps this water was the great tributary called Tapajos, a river basin much ravaged by gold miners for the last few decades.
At the river’s edge, Wajari ordered a rest for his weary men. After some hours, after much bathing and drinking of manioc beer, his cage was lifted again and carried to the river. There, it was mounted atop a long dugout catamaran which had the skull of a jaguar mounted on the long snout of each slender prow. This large craft was one of many hidden in a small inlet in the bank. The secret flotilla had been covered with palm fronds.
With great alacrity, Wajari organized their immediate departure, and soon the long prows of the dugout canoes were gliding over the waters, headed upriver, even deeper into the green maze. Wajari, helmsman of the sole catamaran, brought up the rear and Hawke was reminded of an old joke. “If you’re not the lead dog, the view is always the same.”
The days were spent under an unrelenting sun. To amuse himself, in the midst of such stunning monotony, Hawke had used a needlelike sliver of bamboo to decorate himself. Using the dark juice of the chi-chi root, he tattooed “HOLD FAST” on the knuckles of each hand. It wasn’t much comfort, but he’d always believed they were good words to remember in times of trouble.
DEAD ASLEEP one night following yet another endless day on the river, Hawke was awakened by the crash of violent thunder. Jagged spears of lightning crisscrossed the sky and fat raindrops hissed on the water’s surface. A second later, hard rain hammered the river and everyone on it. Wajari, who manned the stern of Hawke’s flagship, was poling hard for the shore as they rounded a soft bend in the river.
Hawke sat up and rubbed his eyes, not quite believing what he was seeing. Through the undulating curtains of rain, long shafts of artificial light striped the black water and river bank. Such light on the shore could only mean one thing. Civilization! Indeed, as they drew nearer to the shore, a small village of traditional huts stood along the riverbanks. The settlement was lit by hissing arc lights mounted on wooden towers.
Artificial light was unheard of this deep in the wilderness, and Hawke was mystified. Then he heard the deep thrum of generators as they neared the riverbank. Civilization, or what passed for it, was at hand.
It was some kind of hastily built trading port, an unlovely facility, but still a welcome sight. The lights now revealed a long row of brown-thatched buildings perched along the shore. There was a long steel dock, perhaps two hundred feet in length, and upon it were stout wooden crates stacked as high as the rooftops of the riverfront storehouses. Men worked frantically with hand dollies, moving the heavy crates inside. It was a recently arrived shipment, Hawke thought, and they were hurriedly getting the crates sheltered before the impending thunderstorm.
No one took much notice of Wajari and the new arrivals from upriver. Not even the heavily armed men who were guarding the crates glanced toward them. Wajari stood on the prow, one hand resting on the polished jaguar skull that decorated and protected his vessel. He raised his hand in greeting to a tall man wearing some kind of ragged uniform as the catamaran bumped up against the dock.
The man uttered an incomprehensible greeting and had one of his dockhands throw the Xucuru chieftain a line.
Hawke’s cage was unloaded by the Xucuru and placed at the far end of the dock away from the crates. Except for Wajari, the Indian war party returned immediately to their dugouts. The rain had let up, so Hawke was content to sit in his bamboo cage under the dripping palms, eat from his bowl of manioc bread, and contemplate his fate. He saw Wajari go inside a smaller corrugated tin building, its windows lit from within. An office perhaps.
He understood without being told that he was being turned over to some new authority. Wajari’s concern now made sense. The chief had feared his captive might not survive long enough to complete this transaction.
But, nonetheless, Hawke’s spirits rose. He felt better than he had in months. He’d slept on the river, the deep sleep of a man no longer on the run. There had been plenty of water and bread. He had begun a program of strenuous exercise, using the bars of the cage to lift himself with his upper arms, pushing at the sides with his legs. Pilates, he believed the ladies of London called this kind of thing.
Even the fevers came less frequently now. Perhaps the malaria was subsiding. Wajari had fed him a foul, whitish herbal concoction every day. It wasn’t the milk of human kindness, he knew now. The man was simply trying to keep Hawke healthy long enough to collect the bounty that was surely on his head. He was in that small building even now, getting his thirty pieces of silver.
Hawke used this rare moment of lucidity and made a decision. He was not going back to the camps. No matter what his new captor planned for him, when Wajari returned and opened his cage he would kill him. Take the machete and use his own blade on him. He’d kill anyone who got in his way.
Then he’d see what he could learn in the small dock office. There were sure to be papers there, documents of some kind that he could use to support his story of the camps. And if he was really lucky, maybe even a vehicle parked on the other side of the warehouses. He’d heard the sound of a motor revving and then being silenced.
He waited patiently in his bamboo cage and plotted his escape. He knew in his bones he was still too weak to run far. But, if he could somehow steal a boat, even a dugout and summon the strength to paddle, make his way back upriver, maybe he could get to a wireless radio, or even a telephone. He would only get one chance to survive this ordeal.
Who would he contact first? There was a man he knew, who now lived up in Miami. A true friend of many years. A man who sometimes worked with a Martinique outfit called Thunder and Lightning. They were the best freelance Hostage Rescue team in the world. He had U.S. Navy connections, too, maybe good enough to get a search and rescue plane in the air.
His friend’s name was Stokely Jones.
Somehow, he would contact Stokely. The man was the most reliable soul he knew; the toughest human being Hawke had ever encountered. Stoke had survived and even thrived in the jungles of Vietnam and New York City. He was a true friend, one of Hawke’s closest. Over the years, he had helped Hawke out of far worse scrapes than this one. Hell, this rescue would be child’s play to the human mountain named Stokely Jones Jr.
Hawke felt tiny sparks of hope-neurons firing somewhere inside his brain. For the first time in months, he began to think he might actually survive this bloody adventure. If he could just hold fast a bit longer, Stoke would think of some way to get him out. That was the ticket. Somehow, he had to live long enough to get to a bloody telephone.
Is that you, Mrs. Crusoe? Hold on a tick, will you, I’ve got young Robinson on the line.
4
MIAMI
S o how much you want for the trade?” the used car guy said to Stokely, eyeing the silver Lincoln Town Car rental. Man had his pink hanky plastered on top of his balding pink head to soak up the sweat pouring off of him. His clothes were plastered to the skin, like he’d just come in out of the rain. It wasn’t a good look. It was eighty-eight degrees, according to t
he radio. Which was warm for early December in most places and just a tad hot for the Miami-Dade metropolitan area.
Even the salesman’s little ponytail was limp.
Stokely Jones Jr., who had just recently packed up and moved lock, stock, and barrel to South Florida, didn’t mind the heat one iota. In fact, he enjoyed it. It was part of the reason he’d moved down here from New York City in the first place. Heat, humidity, and lots of sunshine. Big blue ocean to play in. Palm trees, swaying in the breezes, lift all the girls’ dresses above their kneeses. Paradise, man, no doubt about it. He absolutely loved it.
Stoke was keeping John Greevy, the Auto Toy Store salesperson out in the sun as part of his negotiation technique. Make him sweat. Somewhere on this vast lot full of heavy metal was an automobile he’d give his eyeteeth for. Not one of the fancy Italian F-cars or Lambos John was pushing, they were way out of his league. No, much better. And he was damned if he’d let this slippery pink rascal get the best of him.
South Florida car lots were notoriously dangerous places to begin with. The tricky thing now was, how to handle this negotiation. Stoke wasn’t sure all the wiring in the guy’s attic had been properly soldered on the day of installation. He had a bad habit of talking down to the customers. And, he wanted to take Stoke’s rental in trade on a new car.
“Let me take you through this one more time, John,” Stoke said, smiling at the little guy in the purple linen shirt. Johnny took pains to dress native, creamy slacks with no socks, and tiny little tasseled loafers, but the accent, the mannerisms, were unmistakable. Pure Brooklyn. Park Slope, maybe, but Brooklyn for sure.
“Can we do that, little buddy?”
“Please, Mr. Jones,” John Greevy said. “Be my guest.”
“This Lincoln right here? It’s not mine, okay? What I’m trying to tell you. It’s a rental. It belongs to Mr. Hertz. You can’t trade in a rental car to buy another car.”