Curds and Whey Box Set

by G M Eppers

  “No, thank you.” I held out my hand and he shook it. “We’d like to start the search as soon as possible, please. Someone’s life may depend on it.”

  “Of course, of course. My apologies.” He waved a hand in the air. A driver from the nearest Town Car got out and opened the door behind him. And another black man stood there, dressed in a plain brown caftan and wearing hiking boots. He had no headdress and his bald head shone in the midday sun. “This is Leotu. He saw the plane go down, and can guide you through the jungle.” Leotu reached back into the car and withdrew a large canvas backpack which he swung effortlessly onto his back. “We have packed supplies you may need for a few days. Also, Leotu knows how to eat off the land, and can find you fresh water from our mighty Congo River.

  Following the glowing introduction, Leotu stepped forward and greeted us as well, shaking hands with each person. Badger, as he shook hands, asked, “Do you speak the local languages? I’d love to learn some new words.”

  Leotu nodded. “Yes.” His voice boomed like thunder, vibrating deep within his chest. “There may be small villages along the way. With open ears, you can learn much.” Badger wiggled in glee.

  “Won’t that confuse your Chinese?” asked Sir Haughty.

  “I guess I’ll find out.” I couldn’t imagine the word salad going on in his head all the time. He spoke at least a dozen languages fluently, was close to fluent in several others, with smatterings of even more. I lost track thinking in just one language.

  While they discussed communication issues, I spoke once more with Kiki. “Your Smart Car is impressive.”

  “No, it is not. I would prefer a Prius.” He noticed my quizzical expression and leaned in conspiratorially, “Smart Cars are not very smart. They use less gasoline because they are small, but they are too small. It is silly. I can do nothing with it.”

  “Then why do you use it?”

  “It helped me get elected.” Again I was confused. “My people are not well educated. I want to fix that, but I had to become president first. They like things that say Smart. Smart phone, smart TV, Smart Car. But they do not know what is smart, so I impress them to vote for me. Have you never had a leader who pretended to be stupid so they could get elected?”

  “Yes,” I said. “But it turned out he wasn’t pretending.”

  Chapter Five

  With Leotu carrying the backpack, we got into the Town Cars and were driven the few miles to the Congo jungle. They parked near the southern bank and we disembarked. The river was loud there, with violent white water crashing over massive rocks, quieting slowly as it flowed eastward toward the Atlantic, vanishing from sight inside the thick green trees of the jungle. The spray of water felt good in the heat, but I was careful not to step too close to the edge of the bank. “We can follow the river most of the way.” Leotu shouted to be heard over the rushing water. “It will take more than a day to find it. I saw it go down, but helicopters could not see it. The trees are too thick. Come, we must begin.” He pulled a machete out of a hidden sheath and began hacking an entryway.

  “Keep together guys.” Billings followed Leotu and I watched, counting heads, as everyone lined up behind him. I took the rear guard position. “We don’t want anyone getting lost in there.” I was glad that Roxy had modified my top by cutting off the sleeves. The jungle is like a sauna. You know, the kind of place you aren’t supposed to stay in for more than twenty minutes or you die?

  The bright light of the equatorial sun burned down on us as we sought the shade of the jungle. The spotted shade was welcome, but it had little effect on the heat. Humidity actually increased as water condensed on the leaves and began dripping on our heads in a slow and unpredictable manner. The air was so thick it was almost like a solid object. The ground was dense with decades of decaying detritus, vines and roots of all sizes. As I placed one foot in front of the other, my steps rarely came down on flat earth. It was slow walking. We’d barely gotten into the jungle when my cell phone rang. I glanced at the readout. It was my mother. “Hi, Mom.” I bent to avoid a leafy branch, following Nitro as closely as I could.

  “Where are you?”

  I suddenly became aware of the jungle sounds that surrounded us. Exotic bird calls sprinkled over me and somewhere a monkey of some kind howled and laughed. The moisture attracted flying insects that buzzed passed my ears. In the background, the rushing water of the rapids could still be heard. Several years ago, when I was on a mission in Egypt, I made the mistake of telling my mother that I was hiding in a sarcophagus. I received a long harangue on the dangers of ancient bacteria and mummy curses. She had me so worked up I thought I saw the mummy’s eyes open as a lay there on top of it, not even knowing if it was a man or a woman. Since then, whenever Mom called, I decided I was home. I was always between missions, safe and sound in D.C. So when Mom asked me where I was after hearing all those jungle sounds I said the only thing I could. “Home, of course. Watching TV.”

  “What’s that noise? I heard rustling.”

  “Curtains, Mom. The window is open and it’s windy.” Oh what a tangled web I would weave.

  “Isn’t it too cold there for an open window? You’ll catch your death.” I winced. I’d forgotten that it was midwinter back in D.C. and was likely below freezing. I stepped gingerly over a large exposed root. “Are you having hot flashes?” Mom continued. “Are you going through the change? My Aunt Claudia went through the change about your age. Uncle Wilbur found her in a compromising position with a snowman one day. She was almost arrested for lewd behavior. It was scandalous!” Mom’s definition of scandalous was fairly broad. She once campaigned to have a member of her crochet circle removed for openly disliking Orville Redenbacher. “She was actually grateful for it, you know. After seven kids, her period was the last thing she needed. She threw a party. Was that a monkey?”

  I had to double step. Nitro had gotten a little too far ahead of me. After warning everyone to stay together, it would look really bad if I was the one who got lost. “I’m watching a nature show. Really, I’m home. Safe and sound, just like I said. You don’t have to –.“ I heard a click and the line went dead. All my bars were gone. I didn’t know why she had called. “Nitro!” I yelled forward. “Wait up!” I caught up and managed to transmit the halt to the rest of the human chain. “I’m sorry, guys. I was on a call from my mother and the line went dead. We must have gone out of range.”

  Leotu backtracked to meet me. “Is there trouble?”

  “I don’t know. I’d like to go back and complete the call. It’s not far. If the rest of you wait right here, it’ll only take a few minutes.”

  “Not alone, you don’t.” Billings offered to go with me. Leotu offered as well, but Billings turned him down. “No, thanks. You stay with the others. Make sure no one wanders off.” His eyes cut to Badger, who tended to let his curiosity get the better of him from time to time. “If Mom doesn’t call her back soon, Grandma will call in a SEAL team.”

  Billings and I retreated until my phone showed two and half bars. We were out of sight, but I could hear the mumblings of conversation. I dialed Mom, who answered right away, and apologized for the disconnect. “I dropped the phone. Where were we?”

  “Are you really at home? You sound funny.” She sounded very suspicious, and I couldn’t let that go.

  “Yes, I’m home. I might be catching a cold.”

  “How dare you lie to your mother.”

  “Okay, fine, I’m in the jungle of the Congo looking for a crashed plane. Okay?”

  There was a moment of silence. “Ooo, is jungle a code word for something? Tell me.”

  Billings was biting his bottom lip and he turned away to suppress a belly laugh.

  “I’m not telling you.” This was a tactic I didn’t often use with Mom. Telling her the truth in a way that made her disbelieve it. She was usually too sharp to fall for it and there was always a risk. But the fact that she had called me indicated there was something else on her mind that was distracting her, and
I thought I knew the source. “How’s Shirley?”

  I could hear her grinding her teeth. “Oh, she’s not speaking to me!”

  Shifting on my feet impatiently, I asked, “What happened?”

  “I was selected for jury duty this week.”

  “What, and she’s jealous?”

  “No, but she wants me tell her about the case and I can’t. The judge said so.”

  “I can’t believe she’s holding that against you. You’d be breaking the law if you talked. Maybe she’s staying away from you for your own protection.” A teeny tiny part of me was hoping she’d let something slip. I was curious, too.

  “Well, she acts like I have no self-control whatsoever. I can have lunch with my best friend and not talk about the Krochedy case.” Stupid teeny tiny part.

  “Mom!”

  “What?”

  “You weren’t supposed to tell me that. I think staying away from Shirley might be a good idea.” Actually, it wasn’t like she’d told me a huge secret. There’s almost always a Krochedy case going on. If you didn’t know you could say Krochedy and be right about 90 percent of the time. There might even be more than one going on in the same courthouse, especially in a city like Springfield.

  The Krochedy Brothers are a hugely rich family. They own hundreds of department stores, and are very politically active. They have about half of Congress in their back pocket and have underhandedly furnished dozens of offices in the Capitol Building. It’s supposedly illegal, but no one has been able to prove a thing. Every Congressperson has produced bills of sale, but no one really believed the stuff was paid for. They also often had cases going for insurance fraud and tax evasion, the occasional shoplifter, and wrongful termination on almost a daily basis somewhere in the country.

  “If it weren’t for the fact that I hate Chuck,” she said, referring to Charles Krochedy in the disrespectful familiar, “more than I hate her right now I’d delete her from my phone. If I had any idea how to do that. How do you delete people? I still have Bernice Undergood on here and she died eight months ago.”

  “Mom,” I interrupted her, “is Butte still there?”

  “He’s protesting the string cheese ban downtown.” Her voice went to a whisper. “He talked me into helping with the signs. I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t, but he –“

  “I know, Mom. He’s got a way with women. Look, I have to go. I’m going incommunicado for probably a couple of days.”

  “You’re going undercover?”

  I sighed. “Not incognito, Mom. Incommunicado. I won’t be able to talk to you.” Come to think of it, from her perspective, it was virtually the same thing. But incognito implied more danger and I didn’t want to give her the wrong idea. I mean, I wanted to give her the wrong idea. I wasn’t sure just then. How dangerous is a jungle anyway?

  “Have Butte help you clean up your contact list and I’ll talk to you as soon as I can.” I was sure Butte would not let her delete Shirley. He might rename her Josephine or something and tell Mom he did, but he wouldn’t delete her.

  Before she could object, I hung up. I sighed at Billings. “My mouth is tired and I barely got to say anything.”

  “I know.” He was going to put his arm around my shoulder, but pulled back. “Too hot for camaraderie. Let’s get back to the group.” After we’d gone a few steps, he remarked, “Jury duty. Remember when Agnes pulled jury duty?”

  “Oh, yes. Were you even on the team then?”

  “Not officially.” He’d hung around us for months at the house before he was actually assigned. Agnes had been excused from jury duty on the grounds that she was conjoined and couldn’t sequester away from Avis. A few weeks later, Badger got the letter and spent days trying to find someone to pretend to be his conjoined twin. He ended up having to serve, but it was a quick trial, a simple B & E in which the burglar had left his wallet behind.

  We caught up to find everyone sitting patiently on fallen trees and large rocks, explaining to Leotu about my relationship with my mother. I apologized for the delay and told them everything was all right. Avis welcomed back Billings with a brief hug and a purr. “Mmmm, you smell good.” Agnes nodded agreement.

  “I’m sweating like a pig,” said Billings.

  “I know. You smell like pork chops. I like pork chops.” Agnes’ nose agreed as she, too, helped herself to a sniff.

  I moved up the line and let the lovebirds take the rear, although my ears were listening. Not to substance, but just to the sound of their voices to make sure they were still there. I could also hear some of the conversations ahead of me. Badger and Nitro were at it again, taking turns naming references to jungles. “Hey, Badger,” I said, having a sudden worrisome thought. “If we’re out of cell phone range, how are they going to find us after we find Team C?”

  “You never even looked at the manual, did you?” I lowered my eyes in shame. Two months housebound and I never bothered to read the manual on our new tech. “Our STDs are multi-frequency. They are still broadcasting, even though we can’t see the signal.”

  Nitro padded his field kit. “I have one implant injection. When they see a new signal go up, they’ll know we found them and send a mass transport chopper directly to our location.” He looked up at the thick canopy of leaves. “It’ll still be a production air lifting everyone out, but it can be done.” Just ahead, Badger ducked under a branch, then Nitro and I did the same in the nearly synchronized timing of Busby Berkeley proportions.

  “Heart of Darkness.” Badger, continuing the game with Nitro, pulled some leaves off a tree in passing and played with them as he walked.

  “Joseph Conrad,” replied Nitro. “Jungle Fever,” he shot back.

  “Stevie Wonder. The Jungle.”

  “Upton Sinclair.”

  Billings, with the twins, pushed past me. “That doesn’t count. It’s not really about the jungle. It’s a metaphor.”

  The argument was attracting attention. Dinny slowed her pace to get within earshot. “I’ve read that. It was about a slaughterhouse. Slaughterhouse 451, or something like that.”

  “Oh my God, you guys,” Billings groaned. “It was Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut and Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. And The Jungle was about the Chicago stockyards. You all need to get some Ginko Biloba by IV drip.” He took Avis’ arm to help the twins over a fallen tree trunk. Not that they needed the help, of course. I watched as both Avis and Agnes shamefully feigned physical inadequacy so they could bat their eyes at Billings. “Anyone remember Gorillas in the Mist?”

  “Um…” Nitro was thinking. “Dian Fossey, right?” Billings put a finger to his nose then pointed at Nitro. “Didn’t someone write a book specifically about the Congo?”

  I took this one. “Yes. Michael Creighton. He was probably inspired by Dian Fossey. Maybe we’ll see some gorillas.”

  Leotu’s booming voice floated back. “No gorillas here. They live north of the river. We are south. And they don’t swim.”

  I trotted a bit to catch up to Leotu. “What if the plane crashed on the other side of the river? Is it hard to cross?” I was remembering the violent white water near Kinshasa as we entered the jungle.

  He stopped walking a moment. “Come.” His path diverted and we followed. In a few minutes we’d come out of the jungle and were standing on the riverbank. The unfiltered sunlight beat down on us. Everyone’s faces and bare arms were covered in a sheen of perspiration. I watched carefully to make sure no one stood too close to the edge. But the water here was calm, flowing gently toward the Atlantic Ocean. The water, still carrying stirred-up silt from the rapids, was a milky brown as it lapped over low rocks and jungle debris that had fallen in its path. “The river speaks to us,” said Leotu, holding a hand to his ear as if listening. “It holds no secrets, but you must respect it. It does not respect us.” He shook a finger. “It does not like us. Near Kinshasa, where there are millions of people, it screams and spits at us. It keeps us away. But here,” he waved a hand to indicate our immediate sur
roundings, “we are already where we don’t belong. The river looks peaceful, welcoming, doesn’t it? It would take us all just as easily as the rapids, but quietly. The animals know this. Here, the river sleeps, but with one eye open. Vigilant. As we all must be. The green eyed one. She sees more with one eye than many people do with two. In my village, she would be treated as a god.”

  “Really?” Sylvia sidled up to him along the riverbank. “How did you know I only have one eye?” She fingered her artificial eye to make sure it was still there.

  Leotu smiled, not looking at her. “Because I am vigilant, too.” He didn’t elaborate. “My village would praise you, but the next village would see only the deformity and would boil you to cleanse your spirit.”

  She backed away. “We’re not going to that village, are we?”

  “No. Both of those villages are on the other side of the river.” I was beginning to wonder if there was anything on this side of the river. Everything we talked about seemed to be to the north.

  “So you know the plane crashed in the south?” I asked again.

  “Yes. We are following the river to begin. We will turn south,” he looked up at the sky, “possibly before dark. Come. The edge is dangerous, and the trees will shelter us from the sun.” He led us back into the jungle. It was cooler, yet not cool. Discomfort is still a matter of degrees.