Chapter Twenty-Three

 

 

They were back at the village well before noon.

 

Ryan stopped and turned around, looking eastward at the dark finger of smoke that still pointed toward the sky, ragged at the top where the easterly wind was tugging at it.

 

"Good one, Doc," he said.

 

The old man put a finger to his chin and simpered prettily, like a vaudeville soubrette. "Why, thank you, kind sir. Thank you kindly."

 

"Sure it got all of them, Dad?"

 

"I told you before that I thought that it wouldn't possibly burn every single ant. But we took out way over ninety percent of them. There haven't been many massacres in history that didn't leave a single survivor."

 

"The Alamo," J.B. said.

 

"And the Little Bighorn," Mildred suggested. "Unless you count the horse, Comanche."

 

 

 

THERE WAS A CELEBRATION, though it was short on meat, virtually all of the village's supply having gone to lure the ants to their fiery deaths.

 

But there was ample fish and great vats filled with atolli , the spiced gruel of maize, honey and chili. Everyone sat on the floor at the tables, helping themselves with their fingers. Pitchers of octli were passed from hand to hand, drained by the men and refilled by the women.

 

Mildred and Krysty were the only two females allowed to sit at the table, presumably because of their friendship with the god, Jak Lauren.

 

"The danger is now gone and the god light shines upon us again," Itzcoatl proclaimed, looking pointedly at the white-haired teenager.

 

"Don't want to be a spoiler, Chief, but you've got two other dangers." Ryan ticked them off on his fingers. "The Jaguar people and the slavers. Both of them could mean the end of your village, as sure as if it was being overrun by the ants."

 

The native's smile vanished like ice off a river at the spring greening.

 

"Those are words with the color of blood," he said. "We must think on them."

 

"Sure."

 

The meal was virtually over, several of the natives lying in the dirt, hopelessly drunk. Doc was sitting across from Ryan, and the old man's speech was more than a little slurred. He had embarked on a long and bizarre anecdote about a young friend of his from the long-ago past, someone who had survived quite extraordinary adventures. The last part that Ryan heard was about how the friend had begun to run a paper down at the end of the Florida Keys. But nobody appeared to be listening to the endless story.

 

Some of the younger warriors had begun to play a strange game in the open square of the village.

 

They had a sort of ball made from a tightly knotted length of leather cord, and the object of the game was to keep this ball aloft without the use of hands at all, just feet, legs, heads, hips and shoulders.

 

Ryan watched, fascinated by the skill and cunning displayed by the young men as they threw themselves around the dusty patch of flat ground.

 

Jak had also been watching.

 

"I'd like try that, Chief," he said.

 

Itzcoatl gaped at the idea of a visiting god wishing to demean himself in a childish game. But because Jak was clearly the visiting god of salvation of their legends, he could do nothing but give a nod of permission.

 

Ryan felt exhausted after the labor of the previous night, when nobody had any sleep. He watched as Jak walked, as light as air, to join the young men of the tribe.

 

Then he had to have dozed off as he jerked awake to find Krysty nudging him.

 

"Look, lover."

 

The whole village seemed to be standing around the square, silently watching Jak.

 

The teenager had the finest coordination of anyone Ryan had ever seen, making him a lethal opponent at any form of hand-to-hand combat. Now, relaxing after the tension of the night and the dawning, he was dazzlingly unstoppable.

 

"He's kept that ball going for at least five minutes," Krysty said.

 

Jak stood on one foot, perfectly balanced, keeping the leather ball in the air with his other foot. Occasionally, for variety, he flicked it onto his left shoulder, then the right, up to his head where he kept it balanced, almost hidden among the sweeping flood of white hair.

 

As Ryan watched, the teenager kicked the little ball high in the air, diving into a double forward roll and catching it perfectly at the nape of his neck, snapping his head back to send it soaring again, while he did a standing back somersault and caught the ball on his chin, balancing it there.

 

Everyone gave a great roar of approval, applauding his brilliance, the cheers led by Itzcoatl and the adoring figure of Rain Flower.

 

Mildred leaned across the table to whisper to the others. "Now nothing's going to convince them that our Jak's not a true-born god."

 

Krysty smiled at yet another acrobatic leap from the young albino. "Least them worshiping him doesn't seem to have any downside."

 

"So far," Doc grunted.

 

 

 

AFTER THE MEAL, almost the entire population of the village crashed out, trying to make up for some of the lost sleep. Itzcoatl posted sentries on a rotating basis. Other than them, the settlement was quiet.

 

Ryan hardly needed to suggest to his companions that they should follow suit. Dean was visibly out on his feet, and Doc had to be helped to his bed.

 

Two hours later Ryan woke up, feeling pressure on his bladder. He rolled out of the sack and went to piss against the fence behind the hut, returning past his sleeping son to find that Krysty was also awake.

 

"Wrong time of day for shut-eye, lover," she said. "I can't work out whether it's too early or too late. Definitely one or the other."

 

"Agreed. Want to come for a walk?"

 

"Why not?"

 

It took only a few moments for her to pull on the Western boots. Afternoon sunlight chinked through the beaded curtain, bouncing off the chiseled silver toes.

 

"Taking the rifle?"

 

Ryan considered it. "No. Won't go far. Anything comes at you out of the deep forest is likely to be a target for close-range shooting."

 

They walked out of the hut and across the deserted square. One of the priests, his hair matted with fresh blood, was standing by the gates to the village. "Go with open eyes," he warned. "Everything is danger and death."

 

"Sure." Ryan half waved at the black-cloaked figure. "We'll take care. Everyone still sleeping?"

 

The dark eyes narrowed as the man struggled to understand. "Ah, sleeping. Some women in fields, working. Most men sleeping. Sleeping is good."

 

As they passed through the gates, Krysty touched Ryan on the arm. "There you are," she said. "Story of woman's lot throughout history."

 

"I don't know nothing about history, lover."

 

"It's anything , lover. Not nothing . You don't know anything about history. I can't argue with that. Mebbe you need more book learning than you already have."

 

"That'll be the day, pilgrim. That'll be the day."

 

 

 

THIS TIME THEY WALKED SOUTH from the village, along one of the network of wide trails and narrow pathways that mazed all around the area.

 

The sky was still virtually clear, and the column of smoke had vanished from the eastern horizon. There was a cluster of thunderheads building to the north, away toward the silver mine that used the native slaves. Ryan and Krysty passed a few of the local women, who giggled, smiled and hid their faces as they walked by. They were carrying reed baskets of fruit and vegetables.

 

Behind them, there came the distant, muted sound of a shrill trumpet from the village, marking a change of shift for the field-workers.

 

"If it wasn't for being permanently at war and being threatened by the slavers, these people have a real good life," Krysty said. "Everything they need at hand."

 

"Including a swarm of red fire ants." Ryan grinned. "But I know what you mean. Only thing I find hard to handle is their human sacrifices."

 

"That's true. Mebbe it isn't paradise. Mebbe nowhere's paradise."

 

 

 

THEY CAME TO THE tilled fields, about a half mile from the heart of the village, surrounded by a stout fence against animal predators, with its own water supply in a small stream that ran through.

 

"Maize, beans and sweet potatoes," Krysty said, looking along the neat rows.

 

The women had stopped at their arrival, looking uncomfortable in the presence of the white friends of their new god. One of them they knew already. Middle-aged with rings in her ears that had stretched the lobes to her shoulders, her name was Ibis, Atototl in their language.

 

She came toward them, smiling, her lips moving as she rehearsed her little speech.

 

"Welcome, Ryan and Krysty," she said. "This is where we grow much of our food."

 

"Isn't there a risk that the Jaguar people might come and steal it?" Krysty asked.

 

Ibis looked shocked. "No! They are bad but not too bad to steal food. Only" She struggled for the word she wanted, finding it. "Witchcraft. That is baddest. Throw stones to death for witchcraft. But steal food is also badder."

 

"But you are at war. You kill each other when you can," Ryan said.

 

"That is blood for gods. Different." She shook her head pityingly. "You from outside do not see well."

 

"Guess we don't," Krysty admitted. "Are there other places where you work?"

 

"That way." She pointed past the stream. "River where some women catching fish."

 

"Mebbe we'll go take a look," Ryan said.

 

Ibis looked worried, again fighting for the words she wanted to express herself. "A girl says she had gone after deer with snapped leg. Before sun was past the top of the sky. Her only. Heard noise and hid in bush. Says she saw many men with whips and many Jaguar people. More than fingers. Much more."

 

"Slavers raiding the Jaguar village?" Ryan asked. "Is she sure about that?"

 

"Say so. Says she is not seen so much of the slavers before."

 

Ryan looked at Krysty. "Mebbe we ought to go check this out. If there's a sudden increase in the number of the slaves that they need for their silver mine, they could easily come calling on our village. Let's check it out."

 

Krysty nodded, touching the woman on the arm, by her coiled silver bracelets, making her jump. "Best you get all the women together and go back to the village. Tell Itzcoatl what you told us and also tell Jak. The god should know of this. Tell the god, Jak, that we're going to recce."

 

"To wreck?"

 

"No. Say we're going to take a look. That's all. You understand?"

 

"Yes. We go back village and tell of slavers. You will be follow them?"

 

"Right." Krysty turned to Ryan. "Let's go, lover."

 

 

 

"LOOKS LIKE WE COULD BE in for rain," Krysty said, gesturing toward the thunderheads that were gathering height and strength toward the north.

 

"Reckon that when it really rains in a jungle like this, you need to keep your mouth closed to stop from drowning. Coming our way, too."

 

"I can hear the river. Must be where they're doing the fishing. We can warn them and send them all back safe to the village. Away from any slaver patrols."

 

"Sure."

 

"Just so long as they understand American."

 

Ryan grinned as they reached a point in the trail where it zigged and zagged steeply downhill, with flowering bushes on either side, their scent like fresh grapes.

 

"If they don't, we just point toward the village and look fierce and angry and shout a lot."

 

Krysty was in the lead, pausing at a sharp bend where they could look down, two or three hundred feet of sheer drop, to a fast-flowing river that ran from a feathery waterfall a little way up the valley. There were a number of brown-skinned women, some of them naked, throwing thin nets into the frothing pools. Even from that height, it was possible to hear the sound of their unrestrained laughter.

 

"Slavers come by here and they'll think it's Christmas and Thanksgiving all rolled into one," Krysty said. "Sooner they leave for the village, the better."

 

Ryan nodded. "Paradise in the Bible had its snake, didn't it? This place has all kinds of snakes, and not many of them crawl on the ground."

 

They were three-quarters of the way down the narrow track before any of the women saw them. At first there was a moment of hysterical panic as they ran in all directions, screaming and dropping their nets, until one of them recognized Krysty's flaming red hair, and the tall man with the patch over his eye, and calm was restored.

 

Most of them made an effort to grab at their loose cotton dresses, while others, mainly the younger ones, made no effort to hide their nakedness.

 

Several actually flaunted their bodies, smiling at Ryan and touching their own breasts, allowing their wet fingers to wander down across their bellies to the dark curling hair at the junction of their thighs.

 

"Think you could strike it lucky here, lover, if you play your cards right," Krysty whispered.

 

"Sure, sure." He clapped his hands and beckoned for the women to gather around. They did so, some of them so close that their wet bodies left damp patches on his clothes. Some had collected the nets and others had picked up the willow baskets filled with silver-scaled fish.

 

"Anyone speak good American?"

 

Several hands went up, and he selected an older woman who'd had the grace to dress herself in her cotton shift. She wore a necklace of tiny pieces of pink quartz and had a single silver stud through her nose.

 

"There are slavers, men with whipsclose. Understand?" She nodded, eyes widening with fear. "You must all go back to the village very quickly."

 

"Where they?"

 

"Close."

 

The woman turned to the others and spoke a string of rapid words, pointing first to the surrounding forest and then back to the village.

 

"Quickly," Krysty urged.

 

Most of them were ready to go, but some went around the riverbanks to retrieve clothes, creels and nets.

 

Ryan was just thinking that it had gone safely and well when the bushes across the river parted and out stalked death.