Chapter 17: The Snake
Frederick was up well before the sun rose the next morning. Initially it was the slow-falling rain, back now, and pouring through the tops of the jungle canopy that woke him, and soon it was organized streams that roared through deep clefts in the malapa trees and splattered among the leaves that left him soaked. And the rain only made the insects more voracious. They pestered the huddled figure in the worn, oak fissure until he was forced to his feet, standing up to the might of the barrage. With his first glance at the blurred, misty surroundings, the other pains came on in earnest.
He could barely move his right arm. When he focused on the source of one amazing ache he noticed the ragged drift of sleeve that was left from the shoulder down, as if he'd tangled with a paper shredder during the witching hour. He tried to flex his hand, amazed at how stiff and swollen it was. Dry sandpaper at the back of his throat stifled any complaint he might have uttered. And even worse, the only presence the morning sun allowed were the trails of night ghosts, filmy, slowly drifting back to their fetid holes and other dank sanctuaries.
He attempted to stretch his legs, found his muscles had turned into frozen, rusty cables overnight. He grimaced and dug his heels into a muddy rut in the ground. His pants were ripped at both knees and he had an angry cut along the backside of his left hamstring. The goddamn thorns had nearly torn him to ribbons!
Man, fuck that shit. Don’t you remember the face?
"No...oh, no," he said, shaking his head. "I didn't see a fucking thing at all last night. Maybe it was some fucking animal was all, maybe even an Indian. It could have been anything...anything in the world except--" what it was, his mind inserted when his voice failed him. But that was madness. Still, the image flashed in his head of the horrible face and rotting body, coming for him, right on his tail until he'd tumbled down the ravine and slipped off into the darkness. He spit in the ground, checked to make sure his pack was still there; yes, right there near the fungus-coated rocks where the brilliant orange ants crossed in file, some bits of leaves held in their jaws as banners. It was hard to think clearly.
Hallucination? Maybe, there were countless strains of malaria, and of course, that did make you see shit but it just didn't jive. He hadn’t been on foot that long. Besides, he'd had a brush with the bug once in 'Nam and it had never been anything like last night. It just didn't add up.
And Christ, the clothes...even in the darkness they’d been recognizable. Bullshit! the voice in his head railed. Are you trying to convince yourself that Samuel Franklin is back from the fucking dead? I mean really, is that what you’re thinking? You saw him dead in the plane, just as dead as dead gets. And you should know. Get your fucking head right. Fucking zombies are the least of your problems here. Let’s just look at the real picture: miles from nowhere, cut and scratched to hell and back, running short on supplies unless you fully intend to function off cocaine, eaten by bugs and leeches, possibly in the midst of cannibalistic pygmies, just for a small sample. And you're worried about fucking zombies? Shit...you’d probably be better off with malaria.
Frederick closed his eyes and put both hands to his forehead. No doubt, he told himself. No doubting fuck about it. You’re losing it and make no mistake! Fuck up now and you're meat for the worms. Time to check the old sack and see how heavy the balls are hanging, pad'na. Whatever it was last night, call it nightmare, hallucination, trick of the light, or a visit by the fucking Easter bunny, and it still doesn't stack up to a hill of shit. His hands were shaking.
"I gotta get a move on," he said very slowly, concentrating on each word. He stood up, leaned heavily on the thick lichen that grew in patches on this side of the tree. Both knees popped angrily and he teetered, starbursts going off before his eyes. The long, nasty rips in his forearms were matted with blood.
He tried to shake away the cobwebs and glanced down at his hand. He’d cut it on something and it hurt like hell. “Motherfuckingshit,” he said, and breathed with studied intent for the better part of a minute, trying to get the oxygen circulating in his bloodstream. It still wasn’t much good. He felt woozy, capable of collapsing at any moment. And he would, too, if he didn’t get some food in his belly.
And Christ sakes, that'd mean a hunt.
Man, he was already so t--
Wake up you worthless Fuck! the mental voice bellowed. This ain't no goddamn picnic! Either get off your ass and start moving lay the fuck down and die! Nobody gives a fuck, have no doubt! He blinked his eyes and stared into the morning gloom. He could hear the gigantic drops of rain splattering above his head, all around him, but a dull heat rose up from the jungle floor. It was going to get worse before it got any better.
He squatted and started to rifle through the pack. He found the solid brick of cocaine after a short search and he pulled it free. He needed something to get him going. Any port in a storm. His lips were tight against his teeth as he ripped a square of cellophane back. A tiny sprinkle of white powder feathered out on the stone's surface, the moisture quickly soaking it into oblivion. He pinched off a corner and ground the coke softly between his thumb and forefinger, holding his other hand underneath. When he had a small pile in the center of his palm he ducked his head and snorted the release into his brain.
His breath was stolen in the initial onslaught. His heart raced and the vast, burlap sack that had been draped over his senses suddenly ripped free; his ears rang with a piercing trill, blood running hard and fast. A rush of air escaped between his teeth, and he was vaguely aware of a violent ticking below his left eye again. He fought to hold down the approaching sneeze, his face pulled into a tight knot as the drug ripped through his system.
Then the moment leveled out.
His breathing became more voluntary and a kind of musical presence fitted itself neatly into place. He put the rest of the wrapped up cocaine carefully into the folds of his jacket pocket, all the while clenching and unclenching his free hand. The pain was suddenly gone. Only a consuming numbness touched him, defied in the inner regions of his body by a dull ache that in no way rivaled his previous discomfort. The saving grace was his mind. He suddenly felt strong, revitalized and awake, shaken free of his death-chasing stupor. Hunger had taken a quiet backseat to the muted calculations in his brain, but even so, he felt he could better manage a hunt in this enlightened condition. His eyes set into solid diamonds and his face came together as surely and snuggly as continental plates, sealing away the interior. Rain evaporated on his brow and any breeze died before his presence.
He looked around with a certain stiffness, mechanically getting a complete lay of the land. He'd kicked his boots off somehow in the night and his toes kneaded the muddy ground. His pack was unzipped where he'd left it by the rock, stuffed at a slight angle between it and a knobbed tree root Frederick had subconsciously used in the night to prop his head out of the mud. There they were.
He padded over quickly and got the boots, kicking one out of the puddle where it lay and picking the other up from close by while the water drained from the first. The panic was over, diluted, replaced by a steel resolve to push on northwest. Frederick sat down on a decomposing length of fallen sycamore and felt inside the boots. Even the one he’d found in the puddle wasn’t so bad. He flung off his soaked and blackened socks, dug in the pocket of his cammos for the last fresh pair, and within the minute had his feet conditionally ready for a day's treacherous hike. He secured the pack to his back, after placing his jacket with the cocaine safely inside a waterproof pouch. The weight was miniscule. He flipped back the compass lid and checked it against the persistent ringing in his ears and the direction of the light edging down from the treetops.
Northwest would be neither harder nor easier than any other direction from as much as he could tell. His "clearing" was really no more than a slight hole in the area. It was no different ten or fifteen yards in a wide circle, and he moved his head, owl-like, trying to decipher the easiest path. Nothing looked easy. The ground was an eternal, muddy slop f
or probably miles around. The thought rolled through his mind of the many predators that'd passed him by in the darkness: his strange, cloying scent on the end of a forking, trembling tongue, or the warbling essence of a breeding sickness dwelling deep down and unknown. Maybe the power he possessed had been a deterrent too; Frederick felt it now, bouncing around somewhere between his body and mind, teased into activity by the drug. "Fuck it till it works," he mumbled, bending over and peering underneath the lichen-choked arm of the sweating, naked jungle before him.
He made out a trickle of water running gently around the base of a tree farther back in the cloudy background, and shaking a nest of flies from his face and forehead, he carefully started his way forward. He ducked underneath a huge, hanging branch and checked his coordinates on the compass again. He figured his position in the Lower Andes plateau, an unknown (although surely not exceeding thirty miles plus or minus) distance southwest of Bogota. Frederick felt sure the Magdalena River ran away on his left, facing north, but either way it wouldn’t make much difference. The river ran practically north/south between Luzselva and the Pan American Highway which came together near Tadosito.
The river was the solution.
If he could only make it to the fucking river he should be alright. Or at least he might live. If things unfolded as intended (mindful that nothing had as yet, of course), he would skirt the bank of the Magdalena until it dog-legged left. From there he planned on staying along the edge of the highway. Hopefully he would waltz into Bogota, preferably sometime in the early morning hours, get a fresh set of clothes, and then begin working on the larger problem of getting home and out of this shitstorm. And he couldn't forget that his picture of sanctuary was still bordered by the remaining Franklin and his hoods, plus the far more intimate problem of Paul's absence to Jelly. He almost laughed then, thinking about how lucky he was to be stranded alone in the Andes region of Columbia.
"Ah, come off the fucking pessimism," he said. The edge was already starting to wear off, so he started toward the tree with the water swirling around the base. He'd follow the stream for a while; maybe he'd get lucky and end up at the river. But his fourth step brought him over-the-boot high in the sucking mud and he cursed a mouth-full at the jungle. It didn’t seem to care.
By noon the rain had stopped but the humidity was still relentless. Blood-sucking flies kept pace alongside him, relentlessly tapping his veins. Twice he stopped and dug in the folds of the backpack for the cocaine. His nose felt like the only dry spot in the universe, despite the cloud of moisture in the air, and after the second blow it bled for a while, bringing on a whole new gang of flies and gnats. At this point he warned himself away from the drug if only because the religious fervor the insects bestowed on his face. Until the blood finally stopped he was forced to wrap his head completely with a water-soaked bandana. His mind pictured many tiny pests trailing up his nose, hungry for the taste of blood and the warm, dark places in the nasal passages. He saw them hunkered down in the cartilaginous spaces, laying eggs to fester and grow among the mucus-lined beds there.
He fought back these thoughts and tried to concentrate. His stomach twisted with hunger. He stopped alongside the edge of the creek and rummaged around until he found the last bag of potato chips he'd picked from the Cherokee. He engulfed them like a dog, and it helped, but only a little. He brought out the 9 and held it fast in his hand.
He had to kill something.
He made a silent vow to blast the very next thing that moved, flicked an ear, anything. And the cooking? That would have to wait until…until he had whatever it would be. After all, some things were not so bad raw.
He crouched lower as he moved along, more animal-like. His eyes sharpened as his gun-hand brushed through the thick vines and other foliage with a steadiness that surprised and invigorated him.
There was a large, tangled mess ahead. It completely blocked out the bank of the deeper creek bed down below, and he could hear the water running swifter even from here. When he got closer and looked, it was perhaps four and a half feet across near the entanglement. He would have to peel off into the water. There was no other way around if he wanted to continue in his present direction. He tested the bank with his boot, wrinkling his mouth into a scowl when it started to slide away toward the swirling water. He quickly reached into the nearby cluster of vines and leaves the size of sheets of paper and grabbed hold before he fell out altogether. He was steady only a moment before his other foot also lost traction and he realized that time was fast playing out; the bank was much looser close up than he'd expected. But before he went completely off balance he thrust his right hand deeper into another thick tangle of vines while holding his gun-hand as high above his head as possible. Shit was fixing to get hectic.
He knew his purchase was suspect from the moment his hand closed on it, but he had no choice. His left leg was nicely stuck in mud sucking past the ankle and crooked at such an angle as to easily cause a break. He dangled perilously out above the swiftly moving creek. The vine gave a few inches under his weight but it was the texture of the thing that caused goosebumps to sprout like weeds along his backbone. For a minute he almost let go. But didn't. A broken ankle here was sure death.
He looked down for a moment, trying to decide how to kick his leg free without getting soaking wet in the process, and by the time he brought his attention around again he was not alone.
A long, cylindrical head almost eight inches around hung down from above. Dead, glassy eyes fixed Frederick with a disconcerted stare and the thin tongue of the monster flicked out once, quickly, and then straight back. He felt an electrical tremor race underneath his hand when he realized he had a hold of a fucking snake. And a motherfucker by the look of it.
Instinctively he wrenched his stuck leg free, pulling a three-foot section of the enormous python into view as he did. It was the color of the jungle but gleamed faintly as if it'd been misted with a spray bottle full of oil. Spots along its surface were as black as death in a graveyard.
Frederick shouted, his eyes the size of hot-rod hubcaps as he brought the 9 around from his side. His other foot slipped at the same moment and began forcing his body out at a slow angle down. The gigantic head leered closer and stapled into Frederick with pupils sliced vertically like a cat's. A branch, somewhere above, groaned and a trickle of leaves swirled down as Frederick let go of the slick body.
When he hit the water he was halfway around, the hand that'd had hold of the snake pinwheeling to make purchase before he went completely under. His other hand, the one with the gun, was straight up in the air.
His head went under and the backpack snagged on a broken limb. An icy blade of water punched up his nose, knocking into his brain like a cheap right in a barroom brawl. His legs scrabbled at the sloughing bank. He kicked against a submerged root and pushed himself farther back, hoping to slip the pack free. He had his eyes open but couldn't see anything except a brilliant gush of blinding light that was somehow much brighter here than it'd been above. He did not see how that was possible, but the irony did not have time to sink in.
His breath was almost gone when he felt whatever the backpack had snagged on let go. He broke for the surface and took in great, rushing gouts of air. The pack seemed to weigh as much as a truck and his head was under again as he tumbled down the length of fast running creek completely out of control. He noticed offhandedly that the water tasted of iron and rot.
Then his ass began dragging bottom. He managed to slow down and eventually stop in a still strong current running just below his chest. He still had to fight to keep his head out of the water but it wasn’t so bad considering, and he managed to balance himself more or less into a sitting position by grabbing the gnarled end of another root just behind him and splaying out his legs in the rocky creek bed. He spit out the water he’d inhaled and wiped his free hand across his eyes. He noticed with relief he was still holding onto the 9.
Pulling as hard as he could on the root he managed to work hims
elf up to one knee. It was a fight every inch of the way between the current and the weight of the backpack. He prayed the root would hold, another submersion and he was gone. He was all the way up to a half-squat when he heard a gigantic splash behind and off to his left. So close, in fact, he felt water spray his gun hand.
He knew the python would be much more agile in the water than in the tree.
He lurched backward, away from the sound. The bank wasn’t far and thankfully the water level fell as he bulled closer. However, he soon realized the folly of this route when he felt a hard length of muscle close around his ankle. He turned from his escape and spun around to meet the creature.
The water was about three and a half feet deep. He could see a bit of the snake from here, but what concerned him the most was the violent churning just underneath the water directly in front of him. This wasn’t caused by any current. Then a curled knot of flesh broke the surface momentarily almost fifteen feet away like a goddamn whale sounding. “Oh, motherfuck,” he said.
He felt a tug from below and almost lost his balance. There was no way to fight this motherfucker in the water. He jerked his head back and quickly scanned the bank. It wasn’t that far, he’d have to make a leap for it. Straining, he pulled closer into water that was no more than two feet now, and desperately reached into the thick, overhanging vines that were within grabbing distance. He had just squeezed his hand around one of the few dry, thick ones when he felt the coil of muscle tighten around his right ankle. “Oh Jesus!” he whispered desperately, his hand white against the vine as it arched down with a great creaking from above. “No…”
Then, incredibly, the reptile made a fatal mistake. Instead of staying underwater and pulling its victim into the creek to be drowned, the python pushed its head above the surface to get a look as it continued to pull from below. Just before Frederick was torn away from the vine he spotted the sleek, cylindrical head and unloaded all twelve rounds in its direction. Water spurted up from the misses, but the head did jerk back violently several times before plunging back into the creek.
Frederick pitched the 9 onto the bank. Then he grabbed hold of the vine with both hands and tried dragging the huge weight of the backpack and snake to drier ground. It was slow going and his strength was almost at its end, but the water was soon below his knee and luckily the bank here wasn’t as slippery as the spot where he’d fallen in.
Even so, it took him the better part of twenty minutes to finally extract himself from the creek and its bed of muck, and only the grumbling in his stomach mixed with an equal dash of morbid curiosity allowed him to pull and tug at the python until he had beached a large portion of the monster. It wasn’t the size of a horse, as he’d first expected, but such a comparison was simply splitting hairs. The damn thing was over fifteen feet long and weighed at least two hundred fifty pounds. He simply could not pull the whole thing out of the water, didn’t want to either. He did have the head, and he took special pains to examine the area he’d laid down on. Incredibly, he counted seven bullet holes. Of course, some could have been made by the same bullet, but even so, that was some hellacious shooting. Maybe, indeed there is a God, he thought. But then, equally disconcerting, he also asked himself: Why the hell would He be helping me?
His body was almost drained, but not so much that he couldn’t pull his knife out of his soaked pack and set to work on the snake. He cut off several nice size strips, roughly a foot long each and a couple of inches thick. Then he scaled off the tough, outer skin to get at the tender meat below, rolling it into tight balls that he stuffed into his wet pockets.
Luckily, the fire didn’t take very long to get started even though a fine mist still hung near the ground. The clouds were fleecing the trees. He had several cans of Sterno and once he’d built a small teepee of twigs around the jar he lit the wick that worked only after he’d blown on it for five minutes. He continued piling the driest leaves he could find around the jar and twigs until he had a fledgling fire. Within twenty minutes, the thin droplets of moisture, rolling on from the mists were no match for the flame licking out of the Sterno can and around the cluster of kindling. He held each strip of meat across the flames, trying not to burn his fingers, and when the flesh was sufficiently blackened he popped it into his mouth.
“Just like fucking chicken,” he muttered between bites, and the thought struck him with such force that he suddenly fell back on his heels in a spasm of laughter.
He didn’t know he’d fallen asleep until the ache in his neck brought him around. When he opened his eyes they were staring directly down the line of his outstretched legs. His listless boots pointing into the air gave him a shudder as his mind likened them to dead legs he’d seen in westerns. He kicked his right leg just to jar the image, and thankfully, it responded. He wasn’t dead yet it seemed.
He attempted to roll over onto his side and felt something slide off his chest. He pulled himself into a sitting position and looked down to see what it was. The skinning knife glimmered dully from its place in the mud at his side. He grabbed it and cleaned it across his shirt. A faint wisp of smoky fog hung in the air.
He cleared the sleep from his eyes and looked around. It was still oppressively hot, and what he could make out of the sun (little as it was) told him it was late afternoon. He sat up. His mouth tasted funny and he remembered the snake, its taste, the fight. It had begun to seem more dream than real.
Anyway, the two-foot section of skinned python served as a reminder it wasn’t. There were no clear-cut explanations regarding the hallucination of Samuel Franklin, but the ragged spinal cord trailing away to the water was plenty proof the snake had been flesh and blood.
Damn he felt like shit. Nothing as bad as this morning but enough to still keep the good thoughts away. If there were any left, that is. He slowly got to his feet and shouldered the burdensome pack, noticing how a crusty patch of mildew had already taken anchor within a fold of the waterproof canvass. He ran a track through it with his finger. He looked at the yellow stain momentarily as if it could somehow reveal something he’d need later, and wiped it carelessly on his pants. He checked his location with the compass and hunched the pack tighter on his shoulders. Before he walked off he kicked the rest of the sodden, snake’s corpse into the muddy creek water.
He trekked on through the terrarium world for the better part of the next two hours. His feet became leaden, his eyes hardly focusing through the rising steam. He found himself consciously willing himself to attention so that he did nothing as foolish as walk headlong into a tree, or plunge down a steep ravine, and each step seemed to bring him no further ahead than the ones that had gone before.