Blood Forest Part 20

Brandon watched in dismay as Temba sprinted into the forest after the gray pygmy.

You're kidding me, right? Ike saw the size of the tiny arrow in Kuntolo's arm. Surely it stung, but Ike was holding an a.s.sault rifle. Who would dare attack the group with a tiny child's toy? He wondered if the weapon belonged to Temba. But the expression on Kuntolo's face was one of fear.

A spear burst from the forest in flight. Ike ducked and the shaft narrowly missed his shoulder. Two more arrows and one spear sailed toward the group. Gilles fell back, barely dodging one arrow. And to Ike's right, Nessa cried out in pain.

Ike spun toward her. She fell to her knees, a thick spear shaft extending from the side of her calf. Her hand fell to her leg. His eyes flashed back to the forest and he suddenly understood the advantage of such weapons. No flash. No retort, nothing that gave away their positions.

Well, almost nothing. The spears couldn't come from far and they all flew from the same general direction. Their attackers didn't have the craft to surround their opponents.

Ike fell to one knee beside Nessa. Without asking and without caution, he gripped the shaft of the spear and tore it out of her calf. Her scream chilled his bones and she nearly collapsed from the pain. He grabbed her arm and lifted her to her feet. As he stood, he saw Delani standing, gun raised and pointed into the forest.

Raoul, Kuntolo, and Gilles moved behind the mercenary boss for protection.

"Fall back," Ike yelled. "Put the fire between us and them. Make them come into the light."

The a.s.sault continued one arrow at a time. Ike dragged Nessa along with him, although she resisted, hopping painfully on one leg. He kept his eyes on the jungle, hoping for the smallest glimpse of his attackers.

Delani and the others came around the other side of the blazing campfire and moved further back, past the tents. Soon, a wide stretch of lighted jungle lay between them and the ambushers.

Ike furrowed his brow. Nothing made sense. Although skilled hunters, the pygmies were not warriors. When they had disputes to settle they usually did so the easiest way possible: by leaving the area and moving somewhere else. Ike pushed Nessa behind a fallen log. She slumped to the ground, her hands clasping her knee. Blood soaked her pants.

Raoul, Gilles, and Kuntolo took cover there as well, Kuntolo leaning heavily against Raoul. He had pulled the arrow out of his arm and clenched it in his fist. His face sagged, his body weak. Ike and Delani perched against the log, gun barrels pointed across the campfire. A slight sound drew Ike's attention behind them. As he turned, he saw a wall of foliage, close to the river, at their backs.

A terrible thought occurred to him. Perhaps the ambushers had surrounded them. Ike spun and opened fire. The rifle rattled thunderously and the undergrowth crackled and split under the hail of bullets. Shadows moved in the darkness, fleeing the a.s.sault. They floated off the ground in silence, like ghosts.

Kuntolo said something to Raoul that caused the Frenchman to pale. Raoul cried in despair even as Kuntolo began to falter. His head tilted to one side, his breathing strained. Confused, Ike looked over at Kuntolo in search of a second wound. How could such a tiny arrow do this much damage?

Raoul burst into tears. Overwhelmed with grief, he pulled the pygmy close to his body, his thick arms wrapped around the muscled torso. His forehead touched Kuntolo's cheek. He cried out in French, his words too fast and too filled with emotion for Ike to translate.

And then Ike knew. "Poison. s.h.i.t."

Delani's eyes met his. The mercenary boss aimed over the log. Fire blazed from the end of his pistol barrel as he fired blindly into the foliage. With Delani's attention across the campfire, Ike faced the opposite direction, rifle raised, just in case more tried surrounding them.

When Delani's clip ran out, he carefully fitted a new one. For several moments, the forest fell silent, aside from Nessa's quiet groans and Raoul's sobs. Not a single footstep. Not a single animal call.

Brandon ran through the jungle. He collided with every bush and log imaginable, nearly tripping several times in the darkness. His eyes focused on a small flicker of light up ahead. The white beam shone across the ground, lighting mud and twigs; his flashlight, where he had left it.

His legs kicked through a row of ferns as he came to the top of the hill. To his right, the ground sloped down, the depression Temba had mentioned. To his left, the forest was empty. He heard distant gunshots and, for a moment, he paused, staring off in their direction, back to camp. Finally, he retrieved the flashlight and whipped it around in search of any sign of his wife or Alfred. He saw n.o.body.

Then something reflected the light back to him. He stepped closer, bending to inspect the ground. A pair of broken gla.s.ses flashed and, not far away, he spotted a hooked prosthesis. He spun around, searching for more clues. An empty sandal lay on its side against a sprig. It was Sam's.

He cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled for Sam, disregarding stealth and his own safety. The silence ate at his nerves.

And then, far in the distance, he heard a scream: "Brandon!"

He yelled again, but this time heard no response. In a frenzied state, he headed off in that direction.

Temba's feet weaved between puddles and patches of mud. A Bantu or a European would have slipped by now. But the forest was Temba's home, despite his time spent in Bantu villages. He didn't fear the darkness, and he knew just where to place his feet so that he didn't have to slow his pursuit.

Kitu had gotten ahead of him and Temba couldn't be sure if he was headed in the right direction. But he still ran. Anger burned in his heart. It fueled his limbs even as it blurred his reasoning. Why would they do this? Since when did BaMbuti hunt people?

He heard the distant gunshots and knew that they came from the mercenaries. Although he disliked those men and knew that they were firing at other Mbuti, he couldn't help but feel that these particular pygmies had gotten what they'd asked for.

Let them learn their lesson, he thought bitterly. Kitu had almost killed Brandon, something completely unreasonable. Temba could see no purpose for it. They were acting like the militias he hated.

Temba slowed his pace, suddenly realizing he had lost Kitu. Instead he listened carefully to the forest, hoping that Mbogo's cousin would slip up and give himself away.

Temba . . .

He froze in mid-step. His foot hovered just above the ground, every muscle rigid. Something had just whispered his name. He listened hard for any other sign. But none came. A small breeze stirred the trees.

Temba . . .

Temba blinked and wiped his forehead. He let his foot settle in the mud. He spun slowly taking in the forest, sure someone was nearby.

"This is nonsense," he said aloud in his own tongue. "The forest is talking to me?"

He felt a vibration deep within. His thoughts flowed from his mind into the air and others flowed in just as easily. As if his mind merged with the forest. The strange sensation put him on edge.

"Sam?" The cry echoed through the forest. It originated from the top of the hill.

And then the reply: "Brandon!"

This voice was closer-and in the wrong direction. Temba spun toward the sound. Why was Sam moving away from the river? And why did she sound so terrified? Maybe she fled in that direction foolishly. Or maybe Mbogo's family had her.

But why? He knew that some wanted revenge for what the militias had done to their elders and women. Maybe they meant to take out that revenge. But on Sam? Not her. Temba's fists clenched. Surely they knew that Sam wasn't like the militias. She would never hurt an Mbuti.

I have to stop this.

Stop this . . .

"Yes," he agreed.

Temba ran in the direction of Sam's voice. He hoped he wasn't too late.

A vine whipped Brandon's face. He batted it away. The flashlight beam bounced before him, flashing on green, brown, and black. Although he started heading in the direction of Sam's voice, he lost all sense of it as he ran through the forest. He had to weave between trees and without even the stars overhead to guide him, he became less and less sure he knew where he was going.

He had started going down a hill and now he felt like the ground was sloping up. But had he turned around or simply reached the other side of the depression? He called for Sam a few more times, but as he got deeper and deeper into the forest, his confidence waned. The sounds of the forest animals returned and soon every cough, hoot, or howl sounded like it came from around the next tree.

The forest closed in on him.

A root coiled around his ankle, and he fell forward. He caught himself in the mud.

G.o.dd.a.m.n jungle!

As he rose to his feet, the nearby shadows leered at him with sinister faces. The ghosts felt nearby, although he saw nothing. He tried to control that feeling of paranoia as it crept into his consciousness. Most of what he heard and saw was his imagination, but it became increasingly difficult to tell what was and what wasn't.

Every direction looked the same. Which direction had he just been running in? His flashlight scanned the nearby ground, searching for any clue to overcome his disorientation. Hopeless, he picked a direction and walked that way. He didn't run any longer. The chances of running into Sam had just dropped to nothing. And now, he didn't know which direction danger lay in. Why run from one imagined threat only to stumble right into a very real one?

He continued onward, certain that a pack of demonic baboons stalked behind him. After a few panicked minutes, he saw light up ahead. A white glow shone through the foliage. Although he couldn't tell its source, the light was a welcome sight. He rushed forward. Too bright to be a fire, it had to be artificial. A flashlight or something. It didn't matter to him.

The undergrowth grew dense. Branches pulled at his shirt. Leaves pressed into his face. He hurried faster, fighting against the enclosing vegetation. The foliage got so thick he had to push with all his strength just to break through. Thorns sliced his exposed skin, and he felt hot blood on his neck.

The light stretched out in front of him. It moved like a mist, but as its own source of light. The cloud spread, bright white, incorporeal. It flickered and danced a short distance away. The mist formed a ghostly shape, distantly human but unmistakable. Giant black eyes stared at him, a bulbous head. Long arms moved more like tentacles, twisting on the breeze.

Get out of the forest.

It spoke in his own voice, inside his own head. In that moment, Brandon wanted nothing more than to obey the specter's wishes. d.a.m.n his plane. d.a.m.n the stupid flower. Find Sam and get out.

His ears detected another sound. Water trickled nearby, just ahead.

I'm at the river.

Brandon forced his eyes to focus. He recognized black ripples, glistening white in the moonlight. The ghost was nothing more than the moon's reflection on trickling water. He slumped to his knees, defeated. Somehow he had turned himself around and had walked in a giant circle straight back to the river. The campsite was likely downstream from where he stood.

For the time being, he was alone in the forest, armed with only his flashlight. He had no weapons and no supplies. He could only pray to find the original campsite and hope that the gunshots he heard earlier had not resulted in their deaths.

Something cackled nearby. He remembered the crocodile, lying still like a log. The baboons. The okapi. Every creature was his enemy.

I won't survive the night.

Bwana La Msitu.

(Master of the Forest).

"I point out to you the stars, yet all you see is my fingertip."

-African proverb.

18.

The gray pygmies slipped through the trees in near silence. Occasionally, they whispered to one another in their own language or spoke grave warnings to their captives.

Sam feared they might wrench her arms from their sockets. One gripped both of her wrists, another gripped her ankles, and she felt the strain in her shoulders and thighs. She had earned such a position when one, at first, tried to carry her over his shoulder. She had kicked and flailed in an attempt to escape.

Gray ash covered her wrists and face wherever their skin touched hers. Although mixed with some wet substance, it wiped off their skin quite easily.

The position proved uncomfortable, and Sam squirmed. Thickly muscled and much stronger than her, the pygmy holding her legs resisted and she only succeeded in kicking off her remaining sandal. It fell to the mud, out of view.

"Where are you taking us?" Sam demanded.

"I don't believe they speak English."

"Alfred?

She twisted her head to her left. Alfred marched, head hung low, with a pygmy on either side of him. His arm ended in a stub, his prosthesis missing, and he looked strange without his gla.s.ses.

He was bruised about the face, and Sam remembered her own b.l.o.o.d.y nose. It still stung, her face hot and puffy. Her hair hung in her face, stuck by moisture and blood.

"What do they want with us?"

"I don't know," Alfred admitted. "But I think we should keep our conversation to a minimum." Even as he said those words, one of the closest pygmies stuck a threatening finger in his face.

Sam looked up at the pygmy holding her wrists. He glanced down, his eyes scanning her briefly. She sensed something in them that surprised her.

Guilt.

"Please, my arms hurt," she pleaded. "I'll walk. I won't run away."

He didn't seem to understand.

"Je marcherai," she tried. "S'il vous plait?"

Two of the men exchanged glances and a short conversation ensued. They spoke in quiet tones, so unlike the BaMbuti Sam met in Raoul's village. The one holding her feet released them gently. Sam's lower half dropped to the mud, and she climbed to her feet. One stood on either side of her each holding an arm. The pygmy who had held her wrists warned her in lilting French not to run.

"Naturellement pas." Of course not.

They let her lift a hand to her face, but when she wiped at the blood the contact stung too much and she pulled her hand away.

Sam tried asking her previous question in French, but apparently their fluency was very limited. The lead pygmy looked very tall and muscular for the BaMbuti, nearly reaching Sam's height. He turned toward her, a finger over his lips.

They marched until fatigue caught up to Sam, made worse by her injuries, and her throat got dry and sticky. Alfred let out an occasional groan. Sam wondered where they were being taken.

An eerie bellow cut through the night. It arose from nearby and somewhere ahead, but it sounded animalistic and inhuman. The pygmies didn't startle at the noise as she expected, but instead began to sing. Each one knew the song and they started as one and continued to harmonize.

The bellow became a caw, as if the animal had shifted into another type entirely. But by then she had caught on.

This was the molimo song.

The caw became an elephant's trumpet, this time so close that she jumped back. The pygmy to her right caught her with his gritty arms, and she saw a flash of white teeth when he grinned.

Sam looked into the forest, searching for the source of the noise. Alfred looked as frightened and exhausted as she felt. If she had heard these songs on a radio she might have thought them beautiful, but here in the dark forest, surrounded by her mysterious captors, it sounded eerie. Near perfect animal calls, but somehow hollow and warped.

Soon the forest canopy opened above them. She stared up at the starlit sky, grateful to see it after so long under the trees. Dark lines pa.s.sed overhead, running parallel to each other. Something she wouldn't expect to see in the middle of the Ituri forest. They looked like power lines.

Another root sliced into the bottom of her bare foot. She couldn't even feel it anymore, so numb with pain and sore from walking. The stars began to fade overhead, drowned out by a coming light too distant to be seen. Dawn approached and still they hadn't stopped to rest.