Them Bones

by Howard Waldrop

  I left. Splevins the CIA man passed me, heading toward Spaulding’s tent. He didn’t look happy. I dodged and crouched my way between bunkers.

  That was the last time I saw Spaulding.

  *

  I was in the command bunker when the supply chief came in to see the major this morning.

  ‘Things are missing,’ he said to Putnam. ‘Damnedest things.’

  ‘I didn’t think you kept inventory since Christmas,’ said the major.

  ‘Some things yes, some things no. We just ran a tally on Spaulding’s orders yesterday. They weren’t there today.’

  The major sighed. ‘What did he take?’

  The supply chief had a clipboard. He read off the expected things first – ammo, lurp rations, grenades, two ponchos, survival kit. Then:

  ‘Grid maps. In series. From here through Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, Pennsylvania to western New York state. Like he knows exactly where he wants to go.

  ‘Tin snips. Two three-ring clip binders. Thin tin plate we had for repairs. Cold chisels. Flashlights. A small radio beacon assembly. Tack hammer.’

  ‘What the hell’s he gonna do with that stuff?’ asked Putnam.

  The supply chief shrugged. I went over to Spaulding’s footlocker. I opened it. Most of his things were there, personal and issue.

  ‘Not even a note,’ said the major. ‘I already had a look. His Bible’s gone, though.’

  ‘How should we list him on the morning report?’ I asked.

  ‘Missing in the line of duty,’ said Putnam.

  ‘Very good, sir,’ I said, and left.

  Leake XV

  ‘The certainty of death is attended with uncertainties in time, manners, places.’

  –Browne, Urn Burial

  We fought them out of the city and into the hamlets. There were more and more of them and fewer of us. We hadn’t been that many to begin with.

  We straggled through one of the garden villages and out into its beanfields. The Huastecas were close behind; arrows and spears were coming through the beans like snakes.

  I was down to two magazines with maybe ten loose rounds left in my pockets. The carbine was holding them back, but they weren’t showing much of themselves anymore, either.

  A whole flock of arrows came down on us. We could see more Huastecas coming out of the city.

  The beak on the woodpecker costume caught an arrow. It was hot as hell inside all those feathers. A Huasteca stepped out from behind a scraggly bush to use his atl-atl. I shot him somewhere low.

  Took had picked up three spears from the ones thrown at us.

  ‘They’re going to run us in shifts,’ said Moe, pointing to where a line of Huastecas on the road were doing warm-up exercises. ‘They’re in for the long push.’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘Well, you farted off their god,’ said Took.

  ‘We’d do the same for them. They never made it to our temple.’

  The warriors on the road were stripping to their breechcloths, picking up their weapons.

  ‘I’ll hold them a while,’ I said, like in the movies.

  ‘Shit you will,’ said Moe.

  He watched them a moment. ‘First they’ll get you, then they’ll get the rest of us. We’ve got to keep running at least as long as we can.’

  Some of the moundbuilders had already taken off toward home. Their paths through the beans looked like rabbit runs.

  ‘I’ll see you back at home,’ said Moe. He put both of Took’s arms on his shoulders and hugged him, then did the same for me, avoiding the woodpecker bill. Then he was gone through the beanstalks.

  Took drew in a deep breath. ‘Let’s go!’ he said.

  *

  Fifteen kilometers later the sun dropped at our backs. My lungs were tearing out. Six months earlier I would already have been dead, half the distance we had covered. My feet had become automatons. I was taking little short steps, stumbling.

  I turned occasionally. I had only fired off a few shots, when one of the Meshicas was especially stupid. I only missed a couple of times.

  The Huastecas seemed to be in three waves. The runners were half a klick back. There was a larger body beyond that, then half the city, way back of them. That much we saw from a small rise we went over.

  I could see a few of our people, too, even with us, in flashes between the shrubs and crops. The Huastec runners were slowly closing a pincers on us. It was still two kilometers wide, but I could feel it.

  If we kept running like this, we’d smash into a tree trunk and do their work for them. We slowed a little, trying to see what was ahead.

  ‘How-long-will-they-keep-on?’ I asked.

  ‘Till-they-catch-us,’ said Took.

  An arrow bounced off a tree trunk, to keep us honest. Sometime in the night we slowed, but so did the Huastecas. They didn’t want to lose anybody either, but every time we crossed open spaces they yelled and drew closer. I couldn’t see shit, but they could.

  We heard victory whoops off to the left as somebody slowed to a walk and they caught him. I couldn’t tell if they were killing and eating him on the spot or were taking him back to the slab as a real high tone sacrifice. I didn’t have the breath to ask Took.

  I just knew that I couldn’t go much farther. I would be walking soon, and they could get me. I’d shoot myself in the head and spoil their real fun, but they would have the rest. I’d have to give Took the woodpecker suit first; I’d told Sun Man I’d bring it back.

  It was probably pretty ragged by now anyway. The bill was flopping and the sound it made rustling wasn’t as muffled as it had been.

  Took stopped and I almost ran into him.

  ‘This-way-fol-low-me.’ He pointed left. We came to some twisted old trees, thick as three men, with long low branches.

  ‘Up!’ he said. We went up the first one. I followed Took to the end of a low limb. He stepped across to the interlaced limbs of a second squat giant, then a third. I couldn’t see anything, I could only feel a half-meter-wide limb under my feet.

  We reached a fourth tree, in the center of them. Took pushed me toward a smaller limb. We must have been six meters up.

  I pulled myself up into a bunch, trying to slow my breathing. The limb swayed in the slight breeze. My throat and nose were raw. I felt like lead.

  We heard the runners go through below us, tireless, steady, probably a fresh gang. A few minutes later the second wave came through, somewhere between a trot and a fast walk. They talked among themselves. They were a long time passing under us.

  Then we waited. It seemed like an hour; it was probably only a few minutes.

  These people were having a party. They were laughing, talking, whispering; they barely moved. One leaned his spear against the tree next to ours and took a whiz. I couldn’t see much, but didn’t look down when some of them came by with torches. The largest bunch of them were singing some kind of war chant. We heard their armor clink, the padding of different feet, the creak of wood shields.

  There were hundreds of them, and they took an eternity to pass by.

  I could barely make Took out. He was holding his fingers to his lips. We waited some more. The wind swayed the limb, not a pleasant feeling. The sounds died away in the night. I could see the faint blot of the torches moving east.

  I started to say something, but Took put his hands to his lips again.

  I heard a stealthy sound below, and through the blackness I saw a Huasteca, stripped and covered with dark body paint, edging through the tree trunks below. He searched the woods, stopped, waited two or three minutes, continued on, pausing again a few dozen meters on.

  After a very long time Took said, ‘Try to sleep. Tomorrow they’ll be back with the dogs.’

  Tying the carbine around my chest, I went to sleep.

  THE BOX XV

  DA FORM 12206 Z 15 April 2003

  comp: 147(amended 1206 Z 16 Apr 2003) cws

  TOE: 148

  pres dty

  41 cwsr />
  KIA

  69 cws

  KLD

  8 cws

  MIA

  13 cws

  MLD

  2 cwsFor: Robert Putnam

  wounded, hosp.Maj, AGC

  10 cwsact. commander

  AWOLby: M. Smith

  1 cwsCWO1 RA

  Total 147act asst adj.

  THE BOX XVI

  Smith’s Diary

  *

  April 16

  I am in charge.

  Atwater was killed when they overran the work party. It was a stupid idea and I said so. Then Atwater got himself killed.

  A couple of hours later they fired a grenade that landed on top of the command bunker.

  Putnam was killed by a piece of wood the size of a little finger. It went in just below his ear. There was very little blood, but he was dead.

  Compson is out of it, and has been for weeks. That leaves me.

  We are down to fewer than fifty people who can do any good. The CIA people want their own command, which is fine with me. They refuse to accept a warrant officer as commander.

  I’ve got Hennesey making a beacon box, so maybe we’ll be found sometime. All the reports and diskettes go in, this diary too, if we have enough time. He’s got an old ammo box, some shellac and pitch. We’ll seal it all in with the beacon, and finish this thing out.

  I didn’t want it this way.

  Leake XVI

  ‘Who knows whether the best of men be known? or whether there be not more remarkable persons forgot, than any that stand remembered in the known account of time?’

  –Browne, Urn Burial

  I jerked awake and nearly fell out of the tree. The sun was up.

  The baying of the dogs was what woke us up. Took pointed east toward the rising sun. ‘Let’s go. Be careful. They’re ahead of us.’

  We shimmied down the tree, the dogs getting louder to the left. We moved right and toward the sun.

  As we made the next trees, I saw a line of Huastecas off to the north, moving slowly.

  I still had a magazine, plus a few rounds in the carbine, and the loose ones. The damn woodpecker suit was a nuisance. My muscles were cramped. The dew was still on the grass as we pushed through. The costume was soaked. But I’d told Sun Man I’d bring it back.

  My breath was already rasping in my throat, and the arrow wound from the day before was stiff and burning.

  *

  They hadn’t been after us, just making long sweeps through the ground they’d already covered, looking for strays. We knew that before we’d gone two kilometers. We slowed, became a little more cautious. Took stopped, dug around on the ground, came up with some peanut-looking things from under a dead bull nettle. They tasted like wood pulp but I ate them anyway.

  We found a deep pine wood, dark and dry, and pumped through that. The sun was a slanting whiteness through the trunks. We followed it even though it ran to the south. But they would have to be in here with us to see us.

  Then we hit a bayou full of cypress knees and rotten trees, crossing it as quietly as we could with muck up to our knees. I don’t want to think about the smell coming up from the water and black mud. It wore us all out. We crawled out onto the first dry land we came to, panting. I was lost.

  ‘We’re doing fine,’ said Took-His-Time, panting. ‘We go east until we find the River, then north or south to home. They won’t follow us closer than a day’s march out.’

  ‘They attacked the whole damn village four days ago,’ I reminded him.

  ‘That’s because they’re sneaky bastards. We’ve got plenty of warning this time. Sun Man’s madder than hell, probably got everybody east of the Mes-A-Sepa over on this side waiting for them to try it again.’ He started to sit up, then thought better of it. ‘It’s the next few hours we have to worry about.’

  ‘Great. It’s the next few hours I want to lie here,’ I said.

  From far off came the barking of dogs.

  We were up and running.

  *

  Nearly dusk. Anybody closer than a kilometer could here us breathing. Like freight train sounds. We’d seen one bunch of Huastecas going back the other way, either off shift on the chase, or with prisoners, or accompanying some noble. I didn’t have enough shots for all of them, so we kept going.

  There were probably a couple of thousand of them between us and home.

  As soon as it got dark, we stopped up another tree. It was by itself but was the only tree big enough to hold us both. The limbs weren’t wide. I didn’t like it. ‘I’ll listen first,’ said Took. ‘I’ll wake you up after a while.’

  I closed my eyes. Next thing I knew, Took was shaking me. ‘Your turn,’ he said, and went to sleep.

  I waited. I listened. I watched, although I couldn’t even see the tree we were in. The wind was cool. I shivered. It seemed like an eternity up there. I had no idea how much time passed. I tried counting, got up in the high thousands, forgot it. As soon as I started nodding, I woke Took up again.

  ‘I’m half asleep,’ I said. It sounded like he was rubbing his eyes. I lay back as well as I could on the limb.

  I jerked awake at the same instant Took grabbed my arm.

  The dogs were coming.

  *

  We ran into trees. I fell down. The dogs were louder, closer. The sun was coming up. We headed for more cypress swamps, ran through them. I grabbed a limb at the water’s edge once. It moved. I didn’t even look back as the snake fell into the water behind us.

  Now we heard yelling to both sides, and a horn blowing. They were closing in on us.

  Dry land, more water, then land again. We ran toward the dawn, pushed more to the north by the sound of the hunt.

  ‘They’re . . . trying . . . to . . . make us circle,’ said Took. ‘This way.’ He headed toward the sounds to the southeast. ‘I’d . . . rather meet men . . . than dogs.’

  I didn’t want to meet either.

  We came up onto a treed knoll, and we met both.

  The Huastecas came up from behind bushes, throwing spears with their atl-atls and siccing the dogs on us. The spears were supposed to stop us so the dogs could bite out our assholes.

  There were twenty dogs, all sizes, shapes, from ones that looked like Dobermans crossed with giant rats down to Chihuahuas. All I saw were eyes and teeth.

  I started shooting, and Took and I slammed our backs against the nearest big tree. I was on my last full magazine. Took had the spear in front of him; he got a big dog in the chest with it. I shot one or two. They came in under my fire and something clamped onto my leg. I smashed at it with the butt of the carbine. It squealed and let go.

  Arrows and spears grew out of the tree behind us. I shot the two biggest dogs. Then the magazine was empty.

  The Huastecas jumped up and ran for us, spears out, calling off the dogs.

  I pulled the pin out of a grenade, pushed Took down and threw it at the nearest Huasteca. I saw him smile and catch it as I hit the ground.

  He was turned to a fine red mist by the explosion that tore up everything in the grove.

  I slammed my last magazine with six rounds in it home, and stood.

  One guy was still standing, holding what was left of his stomach with what was left of his hands, eyes blank. Dead Huastecas and dogs lay everywhere. Some wounded of both kinds twitched.

  Dogs were barking, getting closer, from another direction.

  ‘Let’s go,’ I said. I looked at Took.

  He looked back at me. Half a meter of spear shaft, broken by the explosion, stuck out from his chest just below the clavicle.

  ‘Oh, shit!’ I eased him up, rolled him. The spear didn’t go all the way through. There was no foam on the blood yet: not a sucking chest wound. I pulled the spear shaft out slowly, twisting just a little as it grated on bone. I jerked open my first aid packet from the web beneath the costume, slapped on antiseptic and stuffed the wound bandage into the edges of the hole.

  ‘Hold that,’ I said. He raised his hand and
pressed on the dressing. His eyes were coming back to normal.

  The dogs were louder.

  ‘Those guys,’ said Took, ‘must have had a canoe.’ Then he lapsed back into silence.

  I jumped up, ran past the carnage. The Huasteca who was still standing walked out of the clearing, paying no attention to me or his wounds. He kept going.

  Over where the next water started were three dugouts. I ran back to Took and helped him up. We made it to the canoe as the first of the dogs came past the dead men.

  I was pushing out. Something hot and sharp stabbed into my calf. I screamed. Tiny growling sounds came up from my legs.

  I grabbed my carbine, turning.

  One of the Chihuahuas had me. Its teeth were like needles. I tried to kick it away. Bigger dogs were coming. The thing was back, clamped on again. It wouldn’t let go.

  I used shot number one on the Chihuahua.

  Number two on one of the big dogs.

  Number three on a medium-sized one that bit the stern of the canoe and tried to drag it back to shore while I paddled.

  Took was paddling with one hand, using the other to hold the bloody bandage.

  We put out and made it a hundred meters into the bayou, dogs swimming in long V-wakes after us.

  I used shot number four on the first Huasteca who got to the canoes. He fell dead. The rest of them stayed back in the brush until we got out of sight.

  Otherwise it was a beautiful spring morning.

  *

  We were put up in an alligator run with the bushes closed behind us. It was past noon. I’d used the other dressing on Took’s shoulder an hour ago. It was already soaked through. He lay in the bow of the dugout.

  Occasionally we heard canoes go by, the paddles dipping in unison.

  ‘I hate to tell you this,’ said Took, ‘but I don’t think this bayou leads to the River. I was here once when I was a kid, before the traders, even. Unless you can carry this dugout on your shoulders, we’re going to have to leave it a few hours’ march from here.’

  ‘At least we can use it that far,’ I said.

  Took looked at me a long time. ‘What’s keeping you going?’ he asked.