Tuscany

by Matthew Thayer

  Except for several rants on how bad the “cross” people are for business, Kolettelena would not yet say what happened during the raid on the village. She was saving the topic for after dinner. Jones and I were happy to hear we were invited to eat some of that pie. Even down at the lake, its smell made our stomachs growl like badgers.

  We used handfuls of sand and fine gravel to scrub the grime off our bodies, and cedar branches to brush our teeth. While we were finishing up, a shooting star flashed overhead. Its bright tail outshined the moon as its reflection streaked across the surface of the lake. “Make a wish,” Maria said as she slipped her arms around my neck.

  “Later,” I whispered. Jones was staring again.

  There were a few customers sitting at stone and log tables when Gray Beard led us back to the tent. They all turned their heads as we walked in. The old man had insisted Maria wear his wife’s fancy clothes, and she was quick to agree. I think she noticed me sizing up the local talent. Even with her short, chopped-up hair, my true love has nothing to worry about. She puts them all to shame.

  Gray Beard wanted to show his boys off too, or be ready for trouble. The great weapons of the Green Turtle clan, his gifts to us, were prominently displayed. Jones carried the ivory-headed atlatl in his hand and a quiver of bolts slung over his shoulder. The legendary meteorite club was tucked into a cord around my waist. That shaft of sturdy oak topped by a skull-cracking wedge of melted nickel attracts so much attention wherever we go, I usually keep a wrap of leather tied over the head to ward off the curious. Our leader studied the patrons, not arrogantly or in a challenging way, but silently letting them know he would brook trouble from no one.

  Though stooped a bit, the old man is still tall for a Cro-Magnon. About 5-foot-10. Maria has him by an inch, while Jones and I are giants at 6-foot-3 and 6-foot-2, respectively. The locals had no interest in a scrap. We were the special guests of Kolettelena.

  She called us outside to watch as the golden-brown pie was carefully pulled from the oven and left on the ground to cool. Kolettelena had changed into a leather tunic fringed with fox fur. So much jewelry dangled from her wrists and neck I wondered how she supported it all. Ivory, jade, amber, feathers, polished shells and wooden beads. Venus fertility statuettes hung at the center of nearly every necklace and bracelet. She took Gray Beard by the hand and led him back inside to the center table where she shooed away a pair of wary-looking men and three of her girls. I didn’t understand her words, but the tone was clear, “Either pay up and fuck, or go away!”

  A pair of torches were brought over to light the table as our first course was served–fruit juice and honey poured over balls of snow. Kolettelena proudly explained how she trades a go with one of her girls to a boy who runs the snow down from the mountain.

  Her goose pie was the second course. Girls placed turtle shell bowls in front of us, and Kolettelena mimed we were to carry them as she led the way to the wonderful dish.

  Steam poured out as she broke through the crust with a wooden ladle and served up portions for herself and Gray Beard. Once the guest of honor was squared away, we were all invited to dig in. Before the night was done, I helped myself to seconds, thirds and fourths. The dark brown sauce tasted of garlic and onions, salt and herbs. Her crust was flaky. The vegetables still had enough crispness to add texture and individual tastes to the mix. An aroma of smoke and wood fire made it perfect.

  Dessert and after-dinner drinks have not yet found their way to Kolettelena’s kitchen, but post-meal conversation has. As the girls cleared the table, our hostess began her account of the Tattoo Clan’s attack. Though she was on her way to her mountain retreat when it happened, she insisted she had heard the story from enough survivors to tell it accurately. Maria backed her up later, said her version was close to what we heard along the trail.

  Two days after the warning, and one day after Kolettelena and her girls split, the camp’s main storyteller was struck down in mid-sentence. The shaman had been entertaining a group of children, sharing one of the old stories, when she toppled over dead. Though her head was caved in, the children swore no person had been near the storyteller. As the various clan leaders gathered around the body, they too were struck down as if by lightning. Loud claps of thunder and bloody wounds. As the sound of the last thunderclap faded, tattooed warriors rushed from the trees to surround the camp.

  “Zulu tactics,” Jones whispered as he leaned toward Maria and me. “Italians have taken a page out of General Shaka’s playbook.”

  “The African guy?” I asked.

  “That’s him,” Jones said. “One of the great villains of all time. Killed two million people in the early 19th century. Shaka Zulu developed a strategy that allowed him to take over entire tribes with barely a fight. Assassinated the storytellers. They were the most revered of all the tribe’s people. Each one held the history and traditions of the people, knew the proper ceremonies and protocols. Without them, the villages fell apart.”

  Kolettelena stopped talking to glare at Jones. The woman didn’t like information passing her by in a language she didn’t understand. With a sigh, when all eyes were back on her, she admitted she felt no shame for not alerting the campers. Bolzano’s warning had been specific. “Save yourself and the girls, but do not spook the clans.” She had no choice, she said. Besides, she said, at the time, there were only a bunch of cheap, dirty tribes passing through.

  Family by family, tent by tent, the tattoo warriors searched for booty. Amber, jade and other hard, rare materials were prized. When one of those things was found, they were taken to a young tattooed woman. It was the woman who seemed to be in charge. Some observant folks reported seeing a wavering glow, a ripple in the air, striding back and forth near the woman named Wallunda.

  A team of warriors carried a pair of long mammoth tusks which had been straightened, notched and lashed together to form an X or cross. A hole was dug, and the cross was placed into it to stand tall behind the woman as she inspected the goods. Designs had been carved in the cross. The searching, questioning and torturing took most of an afternoon. That night, the Tattoos participated in a fireside ritual. Once that was finished, the camp was left to their enjoyment. Tents and lean-tos were burned, women and children raped, men slaughtered. Witnesses claimed the old man’s nephew and clan hid in the trees and did not take part.

  As an unexpected favor, Kolettelena’s tent was spared the torch. She stayed in the hills for two weeks waiting for news the terror had moved off to the east. When she and the girls returned, three hands (15 days) ago, they found the camp wiped out, deserted. Slowly, new clans arrive to trade.

  As she was packing to leave, Bolzano asked for one favor. He said he had friends who may arrive someday and ask his name. Kolettelena was to extend her hospitality and respect, while sending a messenger to alert Bolzano the moment they arrived. She assigned one of her fastest runners, and estimated the girl was already halfway to his seaside camp.

  Kolettelena loves to gossip. She knew where Cpl. Bolzano and Sgt. Martinelli pitched their tents, and with whom. She said each had shacked up with a native woman. According to many accounts, Cpl. Amacapane no longer walks the earth. He rests at the bottom of a lake filled with Green Turtle tears. None of us are sure what that means.

  Maria tried to pump her for details, but the trader prefers the conversation focused on herself and her troubles. In what should be her busy time of year, she says the raiding has forced most travelers to avoid the region. Trade has dried up. She complained she was going broke keeping her girls fed, and fretted she would need to marry most of them off soon.

  Gray Beard assured her none of us were interested in marrying, but Jones could use some company for the night. He pointed to us and said we would like a soft bed in a quiet place.

  “What do you have to trade?” Kolettelena asked with a new firmness in her voice. At Gray Beard’s wink she scoffed, “You can do better than that.”

  Gray Beard whistled for his dog and the bitch trotte
d up with her twin packs still strapped in place. Bending low, slipping a bowl of goose stew under her snout, he unlashed one of the packs to pull out a rolled scrip of leather. Placing the package on the table, he took his time unrolling it to reveal a handful of Venus statuettes carved from a hard, dark wood. Big hips and boobs. I had seen Karloon carving the two-inch-tall pieces at Valley Camp. Back in the high valley all the women wore at least one of his carvings strung around their necks. The old man pulled out two and set them in front of Kolettelena. She studied the pieces for awhile and then pushed them away.

  “All of them,” she motioned. Gray Beard rolled up the three remaining statues and put them back in the dog’s backpack.

  “I will give you those two, plus a story. And, if you are lucky, I won’t be too sleepy to give you what you really want.”

  “What I want is a good story,” she said with glee. “And not one about snakes. Remember the tale about the mountain woman who loved the sky? One like that, but not too sad. You’ll make my girls cry for a week, and then nobody will trade with me to lay with them.”

  She tucked the two statues into her tunic and ran to the door of the tent. “A story! He’ll tell us a story!”

  Word spread fast. Soon the place was so packed with listeners they spilled out into the dark, everyone jammed in close and quiet, waiting for the great man to tell his tale.

  TRANSMISSION:

  Duarte: “You’re shivering.”

  Kaikane: “A little fever, that’s all.”

  Duarte: “Is that why you were so quiet today?”

  Kaikane: “It’s a cold or something.”

  Duarte: “I thought you were angry with me.”

  Kaikane: “Angry with you? Why?”

  Duarte: “I don’t know, sometimes I worry. What if I lose you?”

  Kaikane: “Just try. You’re stuck with me, babe.”

  Duarte: “Hold me close.”

  Kaikane: “Might catch my cold.”

  Duarte: “I don’t care.”

  From the log of Maria Duarte

  Chief Botanist

  We’re camped in a den of toppled trees and mud on the slopes of the Maritime Alps. I estimate we are one long day’s walk from the Cote d’Azur coastline.

  The dog has assumed guard duty at the entrance to our hideout, so I’ve been free to knock out six reports and now take time for my personal notes. Each night, I wait for Gray Beard to drift off to sleep, usually a minute after he lays his head down, and then pull my computer out of the pack and go to work.

  His curiosity about our history and strange belongings has waned. I’m not sure if he’s grown disinterested, or just tired of our reticence to share details. He still asks to use my magnifying lenses, especially since he learned how to focus sunlight to start fires. The boys swear he figured it out on his own.

  Our observation post is situated uphill from the lake where his friend Kolettelena runs a whorehouse, rough kitchen and trading post along the main east-west inland trail.

  The woman trades sex for all manner of goods, including food to feed her stable of girls whose ages range between 13 and 20. Kolettelena claims she received advance warning of the Italians’ attack three weeks ago and was able to flee with her girls and geese to a mountain hideaway. She left her friends and customers behind to be raped and slaughtered.

  Though the woman fancies herself a cook, our meal was dry and full of ashes from the fire. She operates from a tent which is moved seasonally to campgrounds around the lake. She has four such permanent support structures made from mammoth tusks sunk butt-first into the ground. They are situated on four sides of the lake. (See report PV-1927 for a schematic of the mammoth tusk tent structure.) The oldest camp site, along the northeastern bank, is located near a warren of at least a dozen habitable caves. This is Kolettelena’s winter headquarters. The area surrounding that camp has been recently burned by a controlled brushfire.

  Trading spots tend to become muddy bogs, she said, or infested with fleas and overgrown with saplings. Kolettelena has her leather tent and other belongings slid across the lake each spring while the ice is still thick. She picks a site which has grown back with lush grass after being burned off a year or two prior. Migrating campers end up stopping wherever she puts down roots. Business is slow this year. She says it is not uncommon to have 20 or more clans camped along the lake for the fall gathering. With the raids frightening people away, Kolettelena says she may see less than a fifth of her usual trade. There has not been enough manpower to carry her tent to the caves for winter, so she has stayed put, hoping for the best.

  In addition to confirming prostitution is indeed the oldest profession, Kolettelena provided me with another example of how our modern axioms are truly ancient. This morning, when I asked Gray Beard if he trusted her, he replied, “I trust Kolettelena as far as I can throw Kolettelena.”

  I choked on that one. Literally. Paul had to slap me on the back a few times.

  Gray Beard says that along with peddling girls and food, Kolettelena loves to trade. She makes deals for everything from trinkets to information. I wonder what she gave Bolzano for tipping her off.

  Last night’s story at the outdoor dining area had folks so fired up we could have left with the beginnings of an army. Today, when I asked Gray Beard what his big plan was, he pretended to not understand me. Old bugger.

  Unlike his previous tales, which always seem to wind traditions and fabrications into a sort of morality play, this one dealt mostly in facts. It was a chronology, starting from when the Italians killed his wife on the beach back in Bordeaux, to when we arrived at Kolettelena’s lodge. Gray Beard told them how they use tricks to hide in plain sight. Each time he said Martinelli or Bolzano’s name, he added the mocking masturbation gesture which Jones taught him. That brought down the house, and more importantly put a human touch on men who approach God status on the natives’ fear meters.

  He explained how the rampaging jack-off kings are weak and evil, men who are greedy and power hungry. The kings have enlisted the help of the Tattoo Clan, and that says a lot right there. How many people have suffered at the hands of tattooed warriors at one time or another? Everyone hooted and stamped, even two-faced Kolettelena.

  Before he finished, every man, woman and child within running distance was present to hear his clear, baritone voice. He took pains to detail our accomplishments, the mammoth hunt, the battle at Deer Camp and my efforts to nurse his daughter’s clan back to health.

  As a recruiting speech, it was a dandy. Gray Beard declined all offers to join our ranks, challenging them to instead go out and spread the word against the evil men who call themselves gods. “Help the survivors as you pass through their ruined camps, help each other,” he said.

  “It wasn’t the kind of story I was looking for,” Kolettelena pouted when he was through.

  Among the campers straggling back to their tents, I saw Jones slip off into the darkness with a red-haired girl, one of the madam’s favorites. Kolettelena huffed to Gray Beard as she watched Jones and her protégé go. “I’ll need those other three statues before you’ll play in my bed.”

  “I’m tired, let us discuss it lying down,” he said, grasping her by the hand and leading her through a curtain.

  TRANSMISSION:

  Duarte: “It’s Puccini all right, I’m sure of it now.”

  Kaikane: “If you say so, babe, but it sounds like Corporal Bolzano to me.”

  Duarte: “Of course it’s Bolzano. I meant the aria, you goof. He’s singing from Puccini’s “La Boheme’.”

  Kaikane: “At least he’s not trying to sneak up on us.”

  Duarte: “Not much chance of that. Look at the old man sleep. Must have been a long night. You see Jones yet?”

  Kaikane: “Still in the trees over there, down by the lake. Hey, there’s Sal! Wonder why he’s limping.”

  Duarte: “He looks bigger. You know, his voice is really pretty good.”

  Kaikane: “He used to sing that crap during traini
ng. Sal always had a fairly high opinion of his talents.”

  Duarte: “Talents?”

  Kaikane: “Singing, playing the piano, taking guys’ money in cards. He was a bright guy. Educated. Sal recited poetry, loved to talk history. Here’s Jones, ask him.”

  Jones: “Anything to eat? Starving.”

  Kaikane: “What’s up?”

  Jones: “Old man and I picked ’em up last night. Had a regular party going on. Camped right by the trail. Watched ’em all night, shadowed ’em today.”

  Duarte: “Here you go, Jones, muesli.”

  Kaikane: “Before the old guy passed out, he said there were five escorts. One woman and four Tattoo warriors. That right?”

  Jones: “Affirmative. What you see on the trail down there. How about you?”

  Kaikane: “No Tattoos to the west, north or south. Looks like they’re alone.”

  Jones: “Guess so.”

  Duarte: “What do you think, Jones? What should we do?”

  Jones: “Let ’em wait. Need an hour or two of sleep. He’ll make the first move.”

  From the log of Maria Duarte

  Chief Botanist

  The smell of pine fills the air along with several persistent mosquitoes as we sit in the shade of our observation post 1.2 kilometers above Kolettelena’s lake. Soldier Jones discovered the comfortable lair amongst a clump of trees toppled by a recent landslide.

  Our hiding spot affords a clear view of the woman’s lakeside camp, where Team member Cpl. Salvatore Bolzano is now ensconced out of view. He arrived four hours ago, limping and walking with a staff while belting out Italian opera. His entourage includes four well-armed warriors of the Tattoo clan, and one woman dressed in a blue feather cape.

  The sight of Bolzano’s Tattoo warriors sent the jittery encampment into full retreat. A few natives stopped to gather up children, dogs and belongings before running for the trees. Others were too frightened to bother. Amid the chaos, Kolettelena ducked from under the folds of her tent to stand with hands on generous hips. She watched Cpl. Bolzano’s advance without fear. Four girls wandered out to join her, bodies lean and straight next to the worn madam’s bent frame.