“But what’s happening to us isn’t my fault.”
“I’m not saying it is, but the fact is, it’s like this too much.”
“But I . . . fuck. I love you, Carmen,” he argued like a kid. “Doesn’t that count for something?”
“Of course it counts, Alex,” she responded. “It counted enough to bring me here now, to leave Tangier, to lose my house, my life, and everything I was.”
“Would you rather be working as a whore?”
Carmen’s features hardened, and she looked away without saying anything.
“Sorry,” Riley said. “It’s just . . . I don’t know how to convince you that, together, you and I can be happy. I’m prepared to change my life too if necessary.”
She didn’t answer.
“You don’t have anything to say?” Riley asked her profile.
Carmen squinted and leaned her head forward. “What’s that?”
Riley looked to the place where she was staring. “What?”
“That,” she said, pointing. “Next to the torch. You didn’t see it?”
Riley narrowed his gaze, but there was absolutely nothing there. All he could make out was a slight shimmer in the flame of one of the torches, as if it’d been moved by a gust of wind. “Sorry, no.”
“It’s gone,” she said. “It was just there for a moment.”
“But what was it?”
“I’m not sure. It seemed . . .” She puckered her lips thoughtfully. “I don’t know, like a shadow.”
“I don’t see anything.”
Carmen shrugged. “I guess it was just that, a shadow.”
Riley turned to look at the torch a second time, but it was still.
It wasn’t until that second look that he realized a gust of wind would have moved the flames of the other torches, but they’d remained completely still.
Riley waited for something to happen, but peacefulness settled around them once more.
“You can’t,” Carmen said unexpectedly.
“What?”
“I’m saying you can’t, Alex,” she repeated. “Change your life.”
“Of course I can.”
Carmen sighed and rolled her eyes. “And what’ll you do? Work in an office from nine to five? Sell home vacuum cleaners?”
“I don’t know. I’d find something. I have two hands to earn a living with,” he said, showing them to her.
Carmen turned toward him and took one of his hands. That was the closest to sex they’d come in the last few weeks.
“No, Alex. You couldn’t,” she repeated again. “This is your life . . . or, something like this,” she said. “And I don’t want to live like this, and you would be completely unhappy trying to live a life that wasn’t this.”
“I’d manage if it meant we could be together.”
She shook her head before responding. “At first, maybe,” she said. “But over time you’d end up hating yourself and hating me for making you give up who you are. You know it’s true,” she concluded.
Riley realized that, as usual, Carmen was right. Even so, he got his courage up. “So . . . what?” he said, looking right at her. “That’s it? All over now? Or maybe you like Mutombo?” he asked, feeling unusually jealous. “I see you two together constantly, laughing and flirting.”
Carmen looked at him, perplexed, not knowing what to say.
“Yes, I saw you,” Riley insisted. “I’m not blind.”
“Are you jealous?” she asked finally, apparently amused. “Of Mutombo?”
“You find that strange? How do you want me to feel when I see you playing with him?”
To his surprise, instead of defending herself she shook her head in disbelief. “Don’t be stupid,” she said. “You haven’t seen how close he and Verhoeven are?”
Riley’s mental gears suddenly stopped.
“What do you mean?” he asked uneasily.
“They’re lovers, Alex,” Carmen said. “I can’t believe you didn’t notice.”
“Mutombo and Verhoeven?”
“Homosexuals, yes.”
Riley turned toward the cabin where they shared space. It wasn’t until then that all the understanding looks and constant physical contact between them made sense. “Oh, of course” was all he could say.
That woman who he’d reluctantly fallen in love with like an adolescent—and who he saw growing distant without there being anything he could do about it—silently stroked the scar that had brought them together years back with almost painful tenderness. “Go get some sleep,” she whispered. “You need it.”
Riley suddenly opened his eyes, waking up so fast he wasn’t sure if he was still dreaming.
He blinked hard a couple of times, running his hand over his face in a vain attempt to clear his head.
He couldn’t hear the slightest sound either. In recent weeks he’d learned that at night the jungle turned into a symphony of unnerving whistles, shouts, and clucks, but just then it seemed like he was in a cemetery.
His thoughts ran anxiously. He raised his head and looked around.
Jack’s plump outline sleeping in his hammock was all he could make out in the heavy darkness, and if he paid attention, he could discern his steady breathing bordering on snores.
All seemed quiet, so he lay back down and closed his eyes with the intention of falling back asleep until Mutombo woke him up for the three-to-five watch.
Then he suddenly opened his eyes again, aware that something was wrong.
Why was it so dark?
They’d agreed to keep the torches lit during the night, relighting them when necessary to keep the perimeter constantly illuminated. Someone had blown their job.
He groped for the lighter in the pocket of his pants, which were hanging from a nail in a pole next to the hammock. He lit it and brought it toward his wrist, an unpleasant feeling of dread coming over him.
The watch read 3:55. It was almost an hour past when he should have been woken up.
Something had gone wrong.
He suddenly jumped up, quickly putting on his pants and boots. Walking over the deck boards, he neared the port side and saw that all the torches were out. The darkest black surrounded the Roi des Boers.
At first he was tempted to light one of the lamps hanging from the ceiling, but he decided it would be better to move with stealth and find out what was happening without calling attention. “Mutombo,” he whispered. “Mutombo.”
Riley stayed completely quiet, trying to make out some response from Verhoeven’s helper. Not a murmur.
“Mutombo, fuck,” he called again, raising his voice. “Where the hell are you?”
It was Jack who answered in a sleepy voice. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” he answered, trying to contain his growing anxiety. “The torches are out, and Mutombo didn’t come wake me up for the watch.”
“Merde.”
“I’m going to the lower deck,” he announced. “You look for him here.”
Riley was approaching the stairs when Verhoeven came out of his cabin, half-dressed, with a kerosene lamp in his hand, his features tightening.
They both saw the Martini-Henry lying on the deck two yards ahead.
“Mein Gott . . .” the Boer said.
Before he got the words out, a spear tore the air between them and stuck into the cabin wall with a crack.
47
“We’re under attack!” Riley shouted, diving down and pushing Verhoeven down with him. “Hit the deck!”
The lamp in Verhoeven’s hand went flying, which allowed Riley to catch a glimpse of an avalanche of natives painted white rushing the ship, wielding spears like the one that had just nearly hit him.
Suddenly, the horde started hurling wild, bloodcurdling screams. They howled with fury and excitement in anticipation of the slaughter to come.
A barrage of projectiles sailed over Riley’s head as he crawled toward the stern, where everyone besides Verhoeven had been. Verhoeven had the Martini-Henry and was firing blin
dly at the multitude that had already began wading through the barely three yards of water between the boat and the bank.
What seconds before had been an especially calm and quiet night had suddenly transformed into a chaotic nightmare where the crazed screams of the natives clashed in an incredible cacophony.
The only light came from Verhoeven’s lamp, which had fallen to the floor on the bow, but he couldn’t make out anything but shadows and silhouettes.
“Carmen! Jack!” Riley shouted.
“Here!” Jack shouted. “Here!”
Riley ran toward him in a crouch, almost stumbling into him in the dark.
“Where’s Carmen?” he yelled.
“I think she’s in her cabin!” Jack answered over the shouts.
Just then Hudgens stood on deck and fired his Smith & Wesson .38 at a native who appeared on the stairs, coming up from the lower deck. But two others immediately appeared in the same place, going around the fallen one, wielding their spears.
Verhoeven was no longer shooting at the horde, instead aiming at that same staircase, but it was clear they weren’t going to be able to hold them. The natives didn’t stop coming, appearing like demons from the darkness.
“We have to go!” Riley ordered his second.
“Go?” Jack responded, as if he’d suggested he extend his wings and fly away. “Where?”
“In the water!” Riley said, pointing behind him. “We have to jump!”
Jack glanced back at the deep black of the river and the jungle beyond it. He was about to object when a spear flew an inch from his head and made him change his mind. “Okay!”
Just then, several natives broke through the stairwell and lunged blindly at Verhoeven. He managed to keep the first two at bay, but not the third, who flew at him and speared him to the ground.
“Oh my God,” the Boer said before letting out a heartrending cry of pain.
Two claps from Hudgens’s .38 sounded like cannons, illuminating the deck with their flashes. Each time a native was thrown backward as if being pulled by a rope. But that wasn’t enough to contain them.
Just then someone pushed Riley in the back and nearly made him fall over. He squirmed and crouched in time to see a white silhouette over him, shouting with rage, about to stab him with the spear in his hands. Still crouched, Riley gave a vicious kick to his knee, which made an unpleasant creak and was followed by a furious cry of pain.
The native dropped his spear as he lost his balance and fell to the floor. Riley snatched it and threw himself on the enemy. Leaning all his weight on the spear, he drove the sharp blade into the man’s body until it nearly passed through it.
A gush of blood spewed from the native’s open mouth. There was a thick dark line drawn on his face, and Riley remembered the face of a young man in the fascist army he’d killed the same way, years before and half a world away, but whose expression of surprise and disbelief at having a bayonet plunged into his chest was nearly identical.
“Alex!” a woman’s voice shouted, pulling him out of his reverie.
Riley turned, his heart in a knot.
In the open door of the stern cabin, three natives were dragging Carmen away.
“Let me go!” she screamed, struggling furiously.
“Carmen!” Riley yelled, standing and running for her, only to be stopped by two natives.
Riley had no choice but to stop in order to keep from being skewered, and it wasn’t until then that he realized he’d left his spear stuck in the body of the man he’d just killed.
On the other side of the men, Carmen was being whisked away by four natives holding her by her extremities.
A few yards farther toward the bow, Hudgens was fighting off several natives by using a spear like a kendo stick.
The shots from Verhoeven’s Martini-Henry had completely stopped, and Riley didn’t think the Boer was still alive.
Riley was able to dodge the two men before him, barely, by taking a step back, but that took him farther from where he wanted to go—toward Carmen.
“Carmen!” he shouted again in anger and impotence.
She shouted his name again, terrified. “Alex! Help me!”
Horrified, Riley saw one of the natives holding her raise a stone club and hit her on the head.
Her screams stopped immediately.
“No! No!” Riley screamed, beside himself. “Carmen!”
But there was no response.
Carmen was no longer moving when they carried her body downstairs.
Riley faced the two natives threatening him with spears. “You motherfuckers are gonna pay!” he barked, looking for something to defend himself with. “I’m going to kill you all!”
But despite his words and fury, Riley was nothing but an unarmed, half-naked man with only bloody fists as weapons.
The two natives, covered in a layer of white ash, stepped apart as a third one came between them.
At least, Riley thought bitterly, understanding that his already-low chance of survival was dwindling, I’ll die with my boots on.
The three natives waved their spears, and as they were about to drive them into the helpless captain of the Pingarrón, a dark shadow that could easily have been mistaken for a bull burst in and tackled Riley, pulling him ahead and throwing him overboard.
Riley felt himself fly through the air, but the brief moment of weightlessness ended when he crashed into the water and sunk into its deep darkness, still held tightly by the man who’d toppled him.
Flailing, he managed to free himself from the bear hug and make his way to the surface. He stuck his head out and took a deep breath.
Just a dozen yards away was the silhouette of the Roi de Boers, barely outlined by the pale moonlight hidden behind the trees.
Riley saw dirty white shadows move on both decks like frantic spirits, shouting exaltedly upon finding themselves in control of the ship. But there was no sign of Jack, Verhoeven, Hudgens, or Carmen. They must still be on the boat, possibly wounded, captured, or dead.
He, meanwhile, had gotten to safety by jumping overboard. Fleeing like a coward. Failing them all. Again.
In a fit of rage, he gritted his teeth and began swimming furiously toward the boat, ready to save them or die by their sides.
A native saw him immediately and pointed at him with exaggerated movements. An arrow struck the water six inches from his head.
“Jesus-fucking-Christ, Alex!” Jack’s voice shouted from somewhere behind him. “Get your damn head down!”
Riley stopped and realized that his friend had saved him by throwing him in the water.
Though the current pushed them away from the ship, several more arrows came very close.
“Get under!” the voice urged. “Down!”
The captain of the Pingarrón obeyed his survival instinct and the Galician’s urging and took a breath before diving under.
It was then, underwater again, surrounded by absolute darkness, that for the first time he had a chance to reflect on what had just happened.
It hadn’t been a random attack. There was a reason behind it, and one person alone bore all the guilt, someone who was now the sole object of his anger and desire for revenge.
48
When he couldn’t hold his breath any longer and his lungs felt like they were about to explode in his chest, Riley suddenly emerged and took a desperate breath of air.
He looked at the Roi des Boers getting farther and farther away from them and a name formed on his lips.
“Klein,” he murmured, feeling anger biting his heart.
“Alex!” Jack called from the darkness. “Where are you?”
“Here,” he answered, turning toward the voice but unable to see his friend. “Where are you?”
The current had pushed them more than a hundred yards from the boat, and they were still moving. Though it was impossible for anyone to see them, Riley still didn’t raise his voice more than needed.
“I’m here, behind you,” Jack said, panting with
the effort to stay afloat. “I think really close, but I don’t see you,” he panted. “What do we do?”
Riley took a moment to think of an answer and realized he hadn’t the slightest clue what to do.
Not five minutes ago he was sleeping peacefully in his hammock. Now he was suddenly in the middle of nowhere, driven by the current of a river infested with crocodiles, a thousand miles from civilization, after being attacked by a horde of natives.
Was there really anything he could do? he thought. Other than let himself go and fulfill the role destiny had assigned him?
What was certain was that he was tired, too tired of all that shit. Too tired to keep fighting against a destiny determined to fuck him and everyone around him. Too tired, even, to keep wrestling to stay afloat.
But then the image of Carmen being brutally struck in the head burst in his mind like an explosion, and that tiredness was replaced by uncontrollable, murderous rage.
He didn’t know how, but he swore he’d kill them for that.
All of them.
“Alex?” Jack asked after not getting a response.
“Let’s get out of the water,” Riley answered with determination, shaking off his lethargy. “Toward the bank.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to get a little farther away?” Jack suggested. “We’re still really close.”
“The farther we get the harder it’ll be to get back.”
Jack took another second to answer. “Go back?” he repeated with surprise.
Riley was about to give him an affirmative when he heard a splash upriver.
At first Riley thought it must be Hudgens who’d jumped in the water after them, but he soon realized the splashing was too regular.
“What’s that?” Jack whispered.
Riley was going to ask him to be quiet, but the rhythmic splashing was joined by several voices murmuring in a strange, guttural language.
“Merda, it’s them,” Jack cursed.
“To the bank. To the bank,” Riley hissed. “Fast.”
Though the night was as dark as a wolf’s mouth, the dim reflection of the Roi des Boers and the faded light of the stars behind a blanket of clouds provided just enough brightness to see that the first trees rising on the right riverbank were less than twenty yards away.
Darkness: Captain Riley II (The Captain Riley Adventures Book 2) Page 36