Jungle Of Steel And Stone

by George C. Chesbro

  Breathing a prayer of thanks to the Nal-toon for making him aware of his pursuer, Veil had hobbled as fast as he could down the street, then cried inwardly with joy when he had seen a gap in the stone wall to his right, which led into a jungle. He'd darted into the jungle, then ducked behind a tree and waited.

  Veil had been surprised to find that his pursuer was the same young warrior who had confronted, then run away from him earlier. The boy had no weapons, and so Veil had merely put the tip of an arrow against the boy's throat.

  "Holy shit!"

  "Go away. I do not want to kill you. Just go away."

  Although his entire body trembled with terror, the young warrior had stood his ground.

  "Man, I can't understand a word you're saying, but I can see that you're hurt. I want to help you, and I promise I won't tell anyone where you are. Come home with me. My mom thinks you're like Jesus, and maybe I do too. She'll fix you up, and then you'll have a good place to hide."

  "Go!" Veil had commanded, removing the arrow tip from the boy's throat and pointing toward the street. And the boy had run away.

  Perhaps he should have killed the boy, Veil thinks—but the boy had not killed him when he'd had the chance. Veil finds everything confusing; life is clean and simple in the desert, and it is usually easy to tell friends from enemies. Not in Newyorkcity, this is a place that clouds a warrior's mind and drains his will.

  He sniffs a large amount of the Nal-toon's blood-shilluk. Then, impatient with the increasing slowness of the effect, he sniffs still more. Finally, his head spinning, Veil passes out.

  * * *

  Night-chill awakens Veil-in-Toby. He lies still, listening, trying to probe the darkness with his hunter-warrior's senses in order to evaluate the surrounding area. When he is satisfied that there is no one near, he pushes aside the brush that covers him and sits up. The pain that shoots through his skull almost makes him keel over, and he quickly sniffs some blood-shilluk. It takes a long time for the blood-shilluk to take effect, but Veil waits, unwilling to risk passing out if he takes more. He must move on.

  It occurs to him that he should eat, although he has not been hungry for a long time. He has no food but resolves to find the strength to hunt at the earliest opportunity. He drinks at a nearby stream, then moves on to the southeast.

  A full moon lights the open ground. Under other circumstances he might not travel so quickly after the incident in the open building, but he feels that the Nal-toon now wants him to hurry. No matter how much he rests, Veil thinks, he seems to grow progressively weaker. He must get to the airplane fields soon. He is terribly lonely and he wants to go home.

  He moves through the trees around the perimeter of a meadow. As he approaches the far end Veil stops and gazes suspiciously at an area where the meadow narrows. The whole jungle is growing smaller, he thinks, narrowing. Although he has been walking in a straight line through trees, he now finds that there is a stone wall close to his right, and beyond that a street. He is in danger.

  His head pulses with pain, but he resists the impulse to take more blood-shilluk; while the God-medicine at one time cleared his senses and eased his pain, it now tends to confuse and disorient him even further. He is no longer sure of the proper amount to take, and so he decides to try to take none—at least not while he is traveling.

  Veil slumps down, braces his back against a tree, and checks his weapons. He has lost his throwing stick, but he still has his bow, six poisoned arrows, and a hastily constructed spear with a sharp stone head, lashed to the shaft with vines. He considers these adequate replacements for the spear and knife lost in the place of the rolling wooden objects.

  He is so very, very tired, Veil thinks—yet he must make a decision. He does not wish to go out into the lighted street while there is still cover, but the narrowing of the jungle before him makes him nervous; it is an area where man-snares could be set, or where Newyorkcities could be waiting to ambush him.

  To go out into the street where he can be seen, Veil thinks, or go on into the narrow jungle where he can be trapped?

  He knows he must make the decision, and it looms as an unbearable, momentous hurdle. Suddenly he begins to weep.

  "Great Nal-toon, please help me," Veil whispers, ashamed of his sobbing but unable any longer to control his depthless sorrow and loneliness. "My will is leaving me, and I do not think I can go on without strength, which You must give me. When will I be judged to have passed Your trial, great Nal-toon? Please have mercy on and forgive me, Nal-toon, for this warrior is finished."

  Chapter Fifteen

  Veil rose to his feet and glanced around them, while Reyna continued crawling on her hands and knees along a bare patch of ground where there were many footprints. Throughout the day, mourners had cast hostile glances at the man and woman who acted strange and carried a noisy tape recorder. However, it was not annoyed mourners that concerned Veil; once, just before noon, he'd caught the glint of metal where the bright sunlight had shafted down through a gap in a heavily wooded area with no graves. He had the strong feeling that they were being watched, and it did not surprise him. After the incident at the construction site he knew that anyone with a map, ruler, and a modicum of intelligence could at least guess that the K'ung prince was heading southeast, even if his destination was unclear. Veil expected any number of hunters in the field before nightfall.

  "Who were you talking with on the phone last night?" Reyna asked without looking up from the ground.

  "Victor Raskolnikov and a couple of other friends," Veil answered absently as he continued to study the surrounding woods and the small field of grave markers, which they were now searching. "One's a doctor, and the other's a pilot and a mercenary. They're going to deliver Toby and the Nal-toon back to the Kalahari. Victor's financing the operation."

  "Oh, Veil," Reyna said, glancing up at him. She was crying but with joy. "Why didn't you tell me before?"

  Veil shrugged. "We can't take Toby anywhere unless we find him."

  "How will they do it?"

  "In stages. First he'll be flown over the border into either Canada or Mexico—it hasn't been decided which yet, and that decision rests on a couple of other factors. If the doctor can patch him up, he'll be given false travel documents and put on a plane to Botswana. Otherwise, Walrus—the pilot—will deliver Toby himself. Your missionary friends have already been contacted, and they're taking care of business at the other end."

  Reyna got to her feet, walked over to Veil, and hugged him. "Thank you," she said simply.

  "Don't thank me yet. We have to get Toby to Flushing Airport. Right now that fifteen miles might as well be fifteen thousand. Have you found anything?"

  "Not here. I'm pretty sure he's behind us."

  "If you do find spoor, don't react. I think we've got company."

  "I know. I saw a couple of them. They're waiting for us to deliver the goods, aren't they?"

  "Of course. How did you read them? Cops or crooks?"

  "I think crooks."

  "Agreed. Cops would handle it differently." Veil held Reyna out at arm's length and smiled. "You're holding up beautifully."

  Reyna grinned shyly. "What else is there to do?"

  "Nothing. I'm just telling you that you're special."

  "Thanks. My biggest concern right now is that Toby will try to circle around through the streets tonight."

  "Because he'll see that this is a bottleneck?"

  "Yes. And he'll sense the presence of the men—if they're still here tonight."

  Veil glanced at his watch. "It will be dark in a couple of hours, so it's time for us to lose our observers. We'll walk back up to the other end of the cemetery, then go out and get something to eat. Keep talking to him. Lay it on the line, Reyna. Make it short and sweet. If he doesn't come to us tonight, it's all over."

  * * *

  Veil worked quickly in the darkness, stooping and opening the canvas sack he had brought back with him. Inside was a three-hundred-yard length of strong twine to
which tiny bells had been attached at twenty-yard intervals. Twine and bells had been stained black.

  Both Veil and Reyna had covered their exposed flesh with mud.

  Avoiding the patches of bright moonlight that fell through the trees, Veil went to the far edge of the cemetery. He tied one end of the twine around a tree trunk, then worked his way back. Within twenty minutes he had strung the entire width of the bottleneck.

  Veil took both of Reyna's hands in his. "Assuming Toby finally decides to do things the easy way, do you think he can find us?"

  "I don't know, Veil."

  "Well, we can't use the recorder or have you call out anymore, because we don't know who else might be listening. So we'll have to do it the hard way, if necessary. You stay here, and I'll go out along the line about a hundred yards. When and if he does come through here, he should hit that string. He's sick and weak, so I should be able to sit on him before he can stick me with anything."

  "Veil, you have to be so careful. If he even nicks you with one of those arrows . . ."

  "You let me worry about it. And I'm in charge now, so you'll do exactly as I say. No matter what you hear, you stay put. I'm the only one who reacts to anything. For one thing, somebody other than Toby might trip the line. I don't want you shot. And speaking of shots, if you hear any gunfire, you get the hell out of here. There'll be nothing more you can do, and I'll meet you at the car. You understand?"

  "Veil, I can't just—"

  "You'll do as I say, Reyna. End of discussion."

  * * *

  Veil knelt beside a tree and stared out over a moonlit expanse of grave markers, listening for the tinkle of bells and thinking of the other men who were undoubtedly close by, also watching and listening. He was going to have to be fast, Veil thought. And lucky.

  Suddenly the line shook, and there was the sound of bells. To his left.

  "Hey!" a man shouted. "There's some kind of line strung across here!"

  Veil sprinted silently through the trees. He had gone fifty yards when a figure lurched out at him from behind a tree, to his right.

  "I've got—" the man managed to shout before Veil broke his neck. The revolver in the man's hand went off, shattering the stillness.

  "Reyna, it's over!" Veil shouted as he picked up the dead man's gun and shoved it into the waistband of his jeans. "They're all over the place! Get out of here!"

  He was answered by a fusillade of bullets that ripped through the leaves and branches around him and thudded into the tree trunks.

  "Veil? Are you all right?"

  "Be quiet! Get out of here! Run!"

  There were more shots. Veil ducked and cursed when he heard Reyna call out what he assumed was a warning in K'ung.

  There was an answering cry—a distant, ululating, banshee howl that filled the void of night like a physical presence and seemed to come from all directions at once; it began as a low, quavering moan, then abruptly climbed the scale to a warbling, high-pitched scream broken by clicks.

  The strange, chilling cry was repeated once, and in the

  deep, prolonged silence that followed, it was as if time had been stopped.

  That silence was broken by Reyna's startled scream of terror.

  "Don't hurt her!" Veil shouted as he ran toward the sound of Reyna's voice. "I'm coming out!"

  "Veil, stay away!"

  Guns barked in the darkness, and bullets slapped through the leaves just above Veil's head, but he kept running. He shifted the gun in his waistband back against his spine, then slowed as he approached the open, moonlit area in front of the trees where he had left Reyna. He sucked in a deep breath, then slowly walked out into the cold, pale moonlight. He stepped up on a grave marker and raised his hands in the air.

  "Here I am," Veil announced, tensing his stomach muscles in anticipation of a bullet he was certain was about to slam into him. "Don't hurt the woman."

  A disembodied voice came from somewhere inside the wooded area. "Right this way, pal."

  Veil, keeping his arms raised, stepped down from the grave marker and walked toward the sound of the voice. He sighted Reyna the moment he passed into the trees. She was standing in front of a large oak tree, flanked by two men with guns. The man to her left had the fingers of one hand wrapped in her hair and was holding Reyna's head back at a sharp angle. The second man had his gun pointed at Veil's chest.

  "That's it," the short, swarthy man holding Reyna said as Veil came within a few paces of them. Veil stopped. The man turned his head slightly, shouted, "I've got Kendry and the woman! Any sign of the African?"

  "No!" a man's voice called back. "Hey, that son of a bitch killed Richie!"

  "What do we do with them now?" the swarthy man asked his partner.

  "We know the nigger's out there; that had to be him doing the screeching. We gotta go out and get him."

  "Maybe he'll come to us if he knows we're going to kill his friends."

  "Nah. The guy's a fucking savage. He won't give a shit. We're wasting our time with these two. Let's kill 'em like Nagle said we should do in the first place, then we'll go help the other guys look."

  "Right," the swarthy man said perfunctorily, tightening his grip on Reyna's hair as he leveled his gun at Veil's head.

  Veil watched the man's finger begin to tighten on the trigger. He was about to dive and roll to the side when a dark, silent shape literally seemed to rise from the night behind the man holding Reyna. There was a strangled scream, and suddenly there was an arrow protruding from the man's neck. The dead man's finger twitched on the trigger, sending a bullet whining past Veil's left ear.

  Startled, the second man had jumped, then started to turn around as his partner had screamed. What he saw was a black wraith hurtling through the air toward him. The gunman shrieked and fired wildly as a spear narrowly missed his head. Then the bushman was on him. The man pounded at Toby's shoulders with the butt of his gun. Finally Toby's body went limp, and his fingers slipped from the man's throat as he slumped to the ground and lay still.

  There was no time for Veil to pull his gun from his belt, and no way to fire past Reyna if he could. He leapt forward and swung. The gunman, taking aim at Toby, caught Veil's movement out of the corner of his eye and turned just enough to take the full force of the blow over his left ear. Veil's fist smashed into the man's temple, crushing the thin layer of bone and the brain beneath.

  Reyna dropped down beside the fallen Toby as Veil grabbed his gun, crouched and turned, ready to fire at any sound or movement.

  "Hey!" a voice shouted somewhere out in the night. "What the hell's going on over there?"

  Veil knelt down beside the sobbing Reyna and felt for Toby's pulse. "He's alive," Veil said, relieved to feel the faint but steady beat of the bushman's heart, "but barely. The wound on his head looks as if it may be infected, and I wouldn't be surprised if he has a concussion."

  "Hey, Jimmy!" the voice called. "You guys still over there?" There was a pause, then a tense, "Okay, I'm going to get some help!"

  "Let's go," Veil said, lifting Toby in his arms. "You take the Nal-toon."

  "Go where?"

  "Straight ahead, through the bottleneck and into the other section. We need a place to hide, and this certainly isn't it."

  "I'm going ahead," Reyna said, picking up the Nal-toon and darting away, gliding over the ground like some huge moth in the moonlight.

  Cradling Toby high on his chest, Veil trotted at a steady pace and, after a time, emerged from the bottleneck into a field of older graves marked by towering tombstones and an occasional mausoleum.

  Suddenly Reyna, out of breath from the exertion of running with the Nal-toon, appeared beside him. "There's an old mausoleum off to the left," she said, panting. "A big one. It's hard to be certain with all the shadow, but it looks as if the seal might be broken and the door slightly open. The problem is that there's a high fence around the whole thing, and it's padlocked."

  "Go," Veil said curtly.

  For the past few minutes the
night had been filled with the sound of sirens as the police, alerted by the gunfire, had converged on the cemetery from all directions. Now, as Veil jogged after Reyna, beams of light began carving the darkness around them, and the static-broken voices of men speaking through walkie-talkies could be heard.

  Veil rounded a sculpted angel and found himself before a huge, fenced-in mausoleum. Reyna, shaking with panic, was punching at the ancient, rusted padlock on the gate.

  "Get away from there," Veil said evenly as he gently lay Toby down on the ground.

  Veil stood with his legs slightly apart before the lock, staring down at it, emptying his mind of all concern about the strength of the metal and the approaching police. He waited until he felt power manifest itself as a small, warm ball just behind his navel, then abruptly raised his right arm and chopped with the heel of his palm against the upper part of the lock. Nothing happened. Calmly, ignoring the walkie-talkie voices that now seemed to be all around them, Veil relaxed his muscles, then squared off again. He waited for his power to focus, then snapped his hand at the lock again. The lock snapped apart.

  Reyna removed the lock and pushed the gate open. Veil lifted Toby in his arms, stepped into the mausoleum courtyard, turned, and waited. Reyna stepped through with the Nal-toon, then closed the gate behind her, wincing as it squeaked on its rusty hinges. She reached through the bars, put the lock back in place, and squeezed it shut. Rust and friction held it in place.

  "You go ahead!" Reyna whispered urgently, placing the Nal-toon on top of Toby's still body. "I have to clean up behind us!"

  Veil crossed the courtyard and squeezed through the narrow opening where the door was ajar and into the utter darkness of the crypt. He eased Toby and the Nal-toon to the floor, then turned and watched as Reyna, crabbing backward on her hands and knees, attempted to erase the evidence of their passage. Her hands flew as she straightened the tall grass and clumps of weeds that had been bent or crushed. She made it to the crypt and slipped through the opening just as two uniformed policemen appeared from behind the stone angel.