Jack stayed completely quiet, waiting for some kind of reaction. But nothing happened. There was no one there besides him, he thought certainly.
With the bow ropes cut, the boat started to drift toward the starboard side, pushed by the current, so without wasting any time he climbed the stairs to the second deck, opened the door, and entered the wheelhouse.
The Roi des Boers was carried lazily downriver, and now it was the port side that faced the current.
Jack knew it was a matter of seconds before the force of the water turned the boat completely sideways. It was up to him to turn it around and keep it from hitting the bank.
Jack gripped the wheel tightly, turning in clockwise in hopes that the giant, inert piece of wood would respond quickly enough. If he couldn’t take advantage of that initial push to turn around, the boat would end up offering its side to the current, with no chance of controlling it until it ran into the shore or into a submerged sandbank.
In other words, their only chance of escape from that hell would be ruined, effectively sentencing them all to death.
“Let’s go!” he groaned, clenching his teeth. “Turn. Turn, you piece of junk.”
The keel hit the bottom with an ominous wooden crunch, shaking the whole ship and dangerously slowing its rotation.
Jack looked at the sky with a frown. “What?” he asked whoever could hear him. “You going to keep fucking me or is this enough yet?”
The answer didn’t come from on high.
It came from behind. A sharp object was suddenly pressed against his throat as a hoarse voice whispered in a threatening tone.
“Na da mbele . . . mzungu.”
Hudgens had gone in the opposite direction from Jack, away from the river to the huts farthest from the big fire and the demented spectacle going on there.
A couple of times he had to huddle amid the vegetation to avoid being seen by groups of natives coming back from the raid.
Good thing they’re not worrying about stealth since they’re not looking for us, Hudgens thought, ’cause if they were, I’d already have had a nasty run-in.
Another problem—a huge problem, rather—was being barefoot. The treacherous attack had taken him by surprise like everyone else, and he’d been forced to choose between putting on his weapon belt or his boots. Of course he’d made the only possible choice, but now that he was walking blindly on muddy ground lined with roots and countless little insects that crunched when he stepped on them—or ran up his legs—his choice no longer seemed so wise.
After fifteen minutes the ONI commander reached what seemed to be a good spot, near the edge of the town, far from the hubbub where men were slowly gathering as they returned.
He stayed hidden a minute longer behind the adobe wall of one of the huts, with his senses alert to confirm there was no one inside or nearby.
When he was satisfied, he took the Zippo Riley had given him, and after lighting it with his other hand as cover, he brought it to the dry palm leaves that made up the hut’s roof. The first leaf caught, and after blowing a couple of times to make sure the fire wouldn’t go out on its own, he went quickly to the next hut and did the same thing, and then he did it once more.
The palm roofs lit like tinder, and after a few seconds fire had spread throughout them and began to threaten the neighboring roofs.
Hudgens stepped back and stared for a moment, mesmerized by the unexpected rush of the fire, but then a plump woman ran from one of the cabins, screaming and shouting for help.
Hudgens put the Zippo away and smiled to himself. “That’s my cue.”
52
Of course, Jack didn’t have the slightest idea what the man had said, but it didn’t take much to guess it hadn’t been a polite greeting.
It was a mystery where he’d come from, though given when he had, he was probably sleeping in some corner of the boat, and when Jack had cut the moorings, he’d woken up from the movement.
Anyway, he thought, it doesn’t matter. If I let go of the wheel, the Roi des Boers will be taken by the current and lurch until it runs aground.
“Sorry, friend,” the Galician mused without any hope of being understood. “But I can’t let go.”
“Na da mbele, mzungu!” he repeated demandingly. “Na masuwa!”
The sharp blade ran along Jack’s throat, and he felt blood start to run down his neck. “Okay, okay,” he said immediately, raising his hands in surrender. “Let’s not lose our cool.”
“Na alewe mbé, mzungu!” the native said with the same intensity, though he slightly decreased the weapon’s pressure.
Then the boat started to toss one way and the other according to the whims of the current.
Hands in the air, Jack started to turn to face the man with the knife, but halfway through the movement the Roi des Boers’s stern smashed against what may have been a submerged rock.
In a clatter of broken wood, the boat reared as if trying to rid itself of the two stowaways. They lost their balance and fell, tangled, to the floor of the small helm.
As soon as Jack recovered, he found himself nearly hugging the cannibal in the darkness. The white soot on his skin allowed Jack to make out his silhouette, but not the knife.
Without hesitation, Jack scrambled in search of the arm that should be holding the weapon. He managed to immobilize his attacker’s body by simply pouncing on him, overwhelming him with his almost 275 pounds, but the native struggled furiously to pull away.
The only sounds coming from them as they fought on the floor were of heavy breathing and angry grunts. There was no room for threats or bravado, only survival.
Jack managed to sit astride his enemy, reaching and holding his right arm below the wrist while trying to do the same with the left.
“Be quiet, you son of a bitch,” the Galician spat.
The Pingarrón’s second struggled hard to get control of the other wrist, while the native fought furiously underneath him, managing to get his arm free with a strong pull.
Jack knew that if that was the hand that held the knife, the next thing he’d feel was a sharp blade digging into his flesh.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw the stranger’s right hand driving toward him. Knowing he’d be unable to stop it, he clenched his teeth, preparing himself for the sting of the stab.
Hidden in vegetation, Alex Riley heard the cries for help and then saw the light of the fire coming from the other side of the village.
Good one, Commander, he thought. I hope it accomplishes something.
He didn’t have to wait much longer to find out, since the two guards immediately realized something was happening in the town and that those flames that grew ever stronger and higher weren’t part of the ritual being carried out in the center.
Riley heard the two natives argue with each other, first anxiously and then with growing concern, certainly deciding what they should do. From their tone of voice Riley guessed they were debating whether to run and help put out the fire in the village or stay there, standing like two idiots as Klein probably ordered.
Finally, after a heated debate, they made a decision fit for King Solomon: one rushed to town while the other stayed to stand guard.
Riley watched the departing native until he was lost in the darkness and then grimaced, upset. One was better than two, but that was still a serious problem since, apart from the fact that facing a guy with a spear unarmed was bad business, as soon he shouted for help, half the town would come running.
“Now what the hell do I do?” he asked himself quietly.
He examined his bare, mud-covered hands as if there was some chance that his Colt would magically appear in one of them. The fire wouldn’t take too long to put out, and sooner or later someone would realize it might be nothing more than a distraction. Either way, his window of opportunity was closing, and every second that passed could mean the difference between success and failure.
Then he heard a disturbing hiss close by, to his left, in the leaves.
He looked toward where it’d come from, but there wasn’t anything he could make out in the darkness. A monkey in a bellboy uniform playing the cymbals would have been just as invisible.
He stayed completely quiet, listening carefully and holding his breath as he tried to hear something. It wasn’t sound he perceived next but touch, the touch of something crawling sinuously on his left boot.
Riley nearly jumped and only with an incredible act of self-control was he able to stay quiet while what must have been a snake, and not a small one at that, slid unhurriedly between his legs.
If there was an animal in the world that was capable of standing Riley’s hair on end, it was a snake. And in that jungle the chance that it was poisonous was close to a hundred percent.
The captain of the Pingarrón clenched his teeth, distressed by the intimate contact with the dangerous reptile as he prayed it went away soon.
But next, and how could it not, the snake, perhaps attracted by the heat of the human body, decided to curl up next to Riley’s right foot and hiss threateningly as it coiled its upper body around his calf.
Riley understood that no matter what he did he was fucked—as trapped as if he’d stepped on a mine.
If he moved and the snake bit him, he would almost certainly die.
If he didn’t, it would be Carmen.
Alexander M. Riley looked at the sky and frowned. “Great,” he grumbled. “Thank you very much.”
Jack’s left side lit up in pain when the blade stuck in his flesh.
In the last moment he managed to move to the right and prevent the dagger from going all the way in, but he still felt perfectly well how it penetrated between his ribs, and a rending shout of pain sounded in his throat.
Then, driven more by instinct and rage than any rational thought, Jack flung his knee forward as hard as he could, striking the native’s crotch with anatomical precision, causing him to gasp in agony.
The adrenaline in his veins was the only thing keeping Jack from fainting. And it kept his mind clear enough to realize another knife wound would be the end of him. He took advantage of the native’s momentary paralysis and rushed the arm holding the weapon, holding it by the wrist and elbow and slamming it furiously against the floor.
The Mangbetu, recovering from the knee to his genitals, started to use his free hand to hit Jack as hard as he could while he arched his body and struggled furiously with his legs to shake Jack off.
Jack fought to withstand the rain of blows, focusing only on banging the arm again and again against the floor until he finally felt it relax and heard the noise of metal on wood as the weapon fell to the floor.
Then the native squirmed under Jack’s body, trying to get the knife back. Jack took advantage of the opportunity to put his hands on his throat and lean all his weight into him, pressing his thumbs on his windpipe.
The native tried to pull away. He thrashed madly, grabbing with his hands and groping with his right hand for the lost knife, but nothing he did could ease the pressure on his throat. His breathing begin to fail, and the world vanished around him.
Jack felt the man’s strength waver. He pressed mercilessly with all the weight of his body until something in the native’s neck cracked. The man brought his hands to his throat and bid good-bye to life with an anguished whimper.
Jack continued to press the limp man’s neck for a few seconds, until he was convinced he couldn’t get up again.
Only then, exhausted and out of breath, did Jack collapse next to the man he’d just killed, gasping like a fish to catch his breath while his lungs burned.
As he panted, he thought that unlike in the movies, fights to the death were never filled with witty remarks, challenges, or bravado. They were always like that: dark, confused, and silent. There was no spare energy or time to waste on silliness. It was kill or be killed, that simple, and when those were the only two options, even the slightest breath of air could mean the difference between one or the other.
Then the pain in his side returned with a vengeance. Jack instinctively brought his right hand to his ribs and felt the wound. It was a nasty cut, about an inch long, from which an abundance of thick, hot blood flowed, forming a puddle beneath him.
Gritting his teeth, Jack pressed the wound with his palm to try to stop the bleeding, but he barely managed to contain it and soon realized that if this continued, he’d end up bleeding to death, alone in the darkness of the helm, his only company the native he’d just killed with his own hands.
Feeling himself grow weak and his eyes slowly close, he barely managed to whisper, “What a shitty vacation.”
53
The Mangbetu warrior Ngue looked at the fire as it devoured one hut after another and threatened to spread over the majority of the village. Lucky, he thought, that his family’s house, where his mother and three little brothers lived, was on the other side of town and was in no danger at all.
Regardless, staying there in front of Muntu Sese Klein’s house while the rest of the people fought the fire was making him agitated. He was the warrior son of a warrior, and he’d cut off the heads of many mzungu and enemies that had tried to come upriver to their lands in accord with the words of Muntu Sese Klein, emissary of the great spirit to protect the Mangbetu.
The ire of the spirits would fall on him if the fire reached his house and destroyed the mask of Chitauri inherited from his father. If that happened, the shaming of the clan would be complete.
Ngue was wondering whether or not he should stay at his post when a commotion broke out in the bushes in front of him, less than twenty paces away.
He instinctively gripped his spear with both hands and assumed a defensive posture, ready to attack whatever may appear.
For a moment he thought about calling for help in case it turned out to be one of the wicked mzungu that wanted to rob Muntu Sese Klein. But he immediately gave up the idea. He was a warrior of the Ngwé clan, and he should stay brave and defiant. If he called the other warriors for help and it turned out the sound was from a ngulu looking for fruit on the ground, they’d joke about him until the next rains.
No, it would be better to wait and see what happened, and if it did end up being the mzungu and he was able to handle all three of them himself, his bravery and strength would be praised by all the tribe. Even the beautiful Maloka, daughter of Mwé, who resisted him so, would end up falling to his feet.
Another noise in the bushes interrupted his thoughts. It seemed he could even make out a few branches shaking vigorously as if someone shook them on purpose.
Then an unequivocally human voice let out a groan of pain followed by shouts in a strange language that sounded like fuckingbitchsnake.
Maybe, he thought, some kind of mzungu prayer to the spirits.
There was no doubt now that it was at least one of the fugitives, so he gripped his spear tightly and took two steps in that direction.
Before he could take a third, the bush came back to life and something like a thick branch flew through the air, a pathetic attempt by the fugitive wazungu to scare him.
It only took a moment for him to realize his mistake when at his feet, instead of the beautiful Maloka, he found a snake starting to shudder in anger.
Like a spring he took a step back to gain distance from what he immediately identified as a nocturnal viper, unmistakable for its V-shaped spots and flat, triangular head. It wasn’t the most dangerous or aggressive snake in the jungle, but a single bite would be enough to kill him by morning.
He immediately turned his spear around and, keeping his distance, tried to hit the snake on the head. Fortunately, it wasn’t the fast black mamba, so he didn’t have much trouble hitting it again and again until it was dazed. He took advantage of the opportunity by turning the spear around again and cutting it precisely behind its head, decapitating it in one stroke and leaving its nearly six-foot-long body writhing spasmodically in the grass.
Satisfied, he smiled at his small feat, already thinking about how to c
ook his prey, when out of the corner of his eye he saw motion to his right. When he turned to see what it was, a mud-smeared face with bloodshot eyes met his gaze, followed by a fist headed straight for his face.
Grabbing him by the feet, Riley dragged the unconscious native’s body to the house. He pulled him unceremoniously, not worrying about his lifeless head hitting the steps repeatedly on the way in.
After leaving him senseless, he seriously thought about sticking the man’s spear in his heart and saving himself problems, knowing that if it had been the other way around, the native wouldn’t have hesitated to stab him full of holes with his spear and eat his liver with garnish.
But he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t kill an unconscious man who hadn’t really done anything to him. So, cursing himself for his excessive scruples, he pulled the body into the house.
Riley closed the door behind him, and after immobilizing the man with the cord from one of the curtains, he took the ivory-handled knife that hung from his loincloth and left him lying in the middle of the living room floor.
Leaning on the wall was Verhoeven’s Martini-Henry. He picked it up but saw there were no bullets in the chamber.
“Of course,” he muttered.
Disappointed, he left the gun where it was and walked to the light of the oil lamp burning on the table, bringing his left hand close so he could examine it.
That damn snake hadn’t managed to bite him, but it had certainly tried. The result was that at some point during the struggle, one of its fangs grazed his finger, causing a small pinkish cut right on the tip, and some venom ended up going in.
The wound was ridiculously small, but the finger burned as if it’d been dipped in boiling oil. The pain was worse than a gunshot or anything else he’d experienced before. And if that wasn’t enough, the part of the skin he could see through an opening in the dry mud was turning red and growing inflamed before his eyes.
He’d heard stories, like any other sailor, about snakes hidden in cargo that bit sailors far from any kind of medical attention, and to save their lives they had to quickly amputate the body part before the venom spread. Those who didn’t, he remembered well, died after a few hours almost every time.
Darkness: Captain Riley II (The Captain Riley Adventures Book 2) Page 39