Chapter 12: Jungle Night
As Frederick left the crash site the night gradually came down. The tropical storm, although moving off to the west, left massive cloud banks ripening to drop their loads, but for a while the rain held off. Slowly, forms began to struggle softly in the drenched soil, monkey tirades struck up high in the tree tops and huge, glistening constrictors played out their coils in anticipation of the hunt.
Unknown legions began to prowl and creep along the jungle’s back, called to action by the slivered moon that just barely managed to break through the racing clouds. It prodded snails out of their musky holes. A faint 'chee-chee-chee' sounded in the rain, thrown about randomly by the uneasy winds, but originating in a freshly skimmed puddle overhung with deeply-veined fronds splayed across the black water. Tiny bodies writhed in its depths, poisonous Kokoa frogs deadly enough to instigate paralysis, convulsions, and agonizing death in a matter of minutes. Above the teaming water dozens of flies skirted about frantically. Huge paramos worms, thick and long as desert rattlesnakes, burrowed in the hardwood forests' grasslands, sucking up nutrients from the spongy soil along the slopes. And then there were the Indians, the Cholo, a deathly subdued tribe now sitting around their soggy village encampment chewing on hallucinatory roots. The legendary sapo de loma, or toad of the hills, snapped out of its hiding place to devour a snoozing parrot in one vile-mouthed bite.
The jungle hummed with the heat of blood.
A roving band of army ants poured along the floor and up and around the trees. A tiny tree sloth fell easy victim as part of the silent procession encircled it and set in. The rest continued on.
They bore on through the dark night, their multitudinous legs moving in perfect synchronicity across the jungle waste while the fragmented moon winked down from above.
Nearing the battered Cherokee (the moonlight a mere whisper on the dented and broken hull), they came on quicker, an insatiable hunger driving them on. A fury of energy passed through their collective mass as they poured into the ragged clearing the plane had broken into the jungle, and they began branching out, scouring the area, leaving no crease unchecked.
Hours ticked by.
And their domain was complete. Thousands crept slowly among the scattered wreckage, pilfering out every available morsel. A chewed potato chips bag ebbed and flowed with arriving and departing bodies. The smell of drying blood also hurried them along, and they entered the wreckage, engulfing the broken fuselage where Paul Fontaino's rigor-mortised body tightened in darkness.
Outside the rain eased, leaving a heavy fog draped in the trees. An unfortunate milieu of ants chewed into a battery casing, attempting to satisfy themselves on the acidic poison.
Near Samuel Franklin’s still body nothing moved. A clear perimeter defined itself around the corpse with only a thin trail of mysteriously-drawn ants venturing in a line up one swelling arm to the chest. This line continued to Samuel's rain-pooled eyes before setting to work.
And as the moon climbed higher into the troubled night, the dead fingers on the corpse's left hand slowly began to coalesce into a fist.
Underneath a huge acacia tree, Frederick laid down in the small nest he'd made. Rough calculations figured he'd trekked close to four miles from the crash site, allowing himself forty-five minutes for every mile. Whether this would be far enough only time would tell, but he could go no farther. And of course he could not start a fire.
Worry had him in a vice. Vietnam was years in the past, but right now, it seemed to be staring him directly in the eye. The wet night and flitting shadows brought back all the old ghosts, happy to breathe their putrid breath again after festering so long in oblivion. He could almost hear the familiar wind-whipping scream of the rotors; the crouching human shadows seemingly huddled under every bush; small footprints helter skelter in rice paddies, tiny bodies; and the strung tripwires of booby traps lying spider-like and lethal on the jungle floor.
Because in the dark all jungles were the same. Whatever horrors one could hold, any of the others could just as well.
In a half-dream the village drifted slowly into being. Most had been virtually identical. The thatched huts lining paths where skinny pigs and chickens ran amok; the tiny, seemingly fragile people, many snaggle-toothed and pleading in their rapid fire dialect for the newcomers to leave...to just go. All this had gotten to be pretty damn familiar.
But that one village had been different.
They'd thought they'd been close to Charley, virtually nipping at his heels as they hot-footed through the jungle in pursuit. Frederick recalled running amid shouts and curses, but when the platoon had finally broken through the brush, spilling out into a clearing which skirted the village, the burning had already been well underway. And thinking back (it was so hard to be sure, now; he'd fought it for years), perhaps it had been the burning itself that initiated the wild rampage through the undergrowth. The roar of the burn.
When he'd broken free from the jungle most of the huts were already on fire. At first they'd thought the villagers had set the fires themselves to keep their grain stores and Communist ammunition out of American hands, but it didn't take long for that hypothesis to change.
The pile of burning children had changed all that.
That and the charnel smell billowing up into the sky. Charley had been there all right, and not long before, killing the village of South Vietnamese peasants like dogs in the attempt to stop the pursuing American G.I.’s. And he also remembered thinking, Christ, they're doing this to their own people! He'd walked down the dusty, narrow row looking at the dead, black and smoking. Farmers, wives, children. The smoke curled everywhere.
But even that had not been the worst. Several huts had not been engulfed. He'd looked inside the one near the end of the row partly out of curiosity, merely poking his nose inside to discover why it still stood. The first glance made it clear the hut was, in fact, on fire, only this one burned from the back where the thatched roof was just catching. The entrance-flap had been ripped away and everything inside was smashed to pieces. A severed foot lay nearby on the sandy floor and when Frederick looked inside he'd seen the little girl.
She’d been naked, defenseless.
Grimed and hysterical, rocking back and forth, holding something in her lap, all the while jabbering rapidly in Vietnamese. It hadn’t taken him long to figure out what she had. Long white hair hung from the head and there was blood everywhere. The little girl swayed in her frantic litany until he could bear to look no more.
Frederick jerked awake with a sickening start, his body rigid. "Oh my God," he prayed into the hot jungle darkness. He could feel things creeping up on him even now, small naked children carrying heads, mouthing unintelligible words as they inched ever closer. He had the 9mm in his hand before he realized it and almost pulled the trigger, only managing to hold back at the last possible moment. His breath came fast and hard.
He sat there a long while, lost in this terrible shadow of human darkness, minutes and seconds meaningless. But finally his heart did slow and he found himself in better control. He cradled his head in his hands. What had happened to the little girl? He shook his head; it was no use. It was gone, racing back to its filthy hiding place where it would wait again until Frederick thought it no longer existed. Then it would raise its severed head again.
He sat quietly, unmoving. The moon had come full into the trees, the quietest hour before the dawn. He checked his watch and found it was 5:37. The sun would be up soon, and even with the clouds it would be better. Looking up through the tree tops he couldn't make out any stars; the clouds must still be thick overhead, and that would undoubtedly mean more rain. He already knew the annual Colombian rainfall to be astronomical. And on top of that of course, there was always the usual hot and muggy. He figured he wouldn't be fully dry again until he set foot in Thibodaux, and that could very well turn out to be a crap-shoot.
The shadows began condensing down into sharper outlines, forming around clustered groups of tre
es and vines, the dripping rocks that were pressed into the ground. The night was finally done. "Okay," he whispered. He stumbled to his feet and walked a short distance away from the uncomfortable, bullshit campsite. Pissed long and hard, the steam rising up with a biting, acrid aroma so much that he had to turn his head. Then he backed away and shook the tightness from his limbs. No doubt, it was getting lighter.
And he was hungry as hell.
He tried to think about the last thing he'd eaten. His legs cramped and there was a terrible pulling in his back. His neck felt like a wrestler had used it to practice holds on.
He walked back to the campsite and gathered everything together. Sore, hungry or not, he had to move or something would have him for dinner and his scattered bones would lay out in the desolation of the Colombian jungles. He couldn't be sure if the drug-runners would try to track him, or just leave him to his own devices, but he had to assume the worst. Better paranoid and safe than unsuspecting and dead. There were two back at the plane right now who were doing a lot worse than him.
He sighed harshly, shouldering the pack. "Always fucking something," he said.