Tuscany
Page 14
Martinelli: “So you admit it? You did do something?”
Bolzano: “I do not understand.”
Martinelli: “The new clans, most left in the night. Gone to the winds. Wallunda says you told them to do it.”
Bolzano: “From my perch, I see that you and Wallunda have worked through your differences. You once again share meals together. Hold hands. Congratulations.”
Martinelli: “What did you tell them?”
Bolzano: “I do not remember. Perhaps some water would help.”
Martinelli: “No, no water, no nothing. Let’s see how you sing tonight with a dry throat.
Bolzano: “So thirsty.”
Martinelli: “Listen Sal, this is important. You sing one word that’s not Italian or German, one word I don’t understand, I swear to God, I will put a spear through your ribs. Do you believe me?”
Bolzano: “Si.”
From the log of Paul Kaikane
Recreation Specialist
Twelve hours on land and I’m ready to head back out to sea.
Maria and Gray Beard snooze in a hammock of grape vines while I sit guard in the limbs of a mossy oak hanging so far over the edge of the sheer cliff there must be a 700-foot drop to the blue sea below. I’m so tired I can barely keep my eyes open. It’s bright and sunny this morning, but I can tell this area along the coast is no stranger to rain and fog. Ferns and lichen sprout out of the oak in every spot they can find a foothold. The whole hillside is a tangle of grape vines, woody stalks thick with tiny red shoots. Birds are everywhere, chirping up a storm as they search for grapes still hanging from last fall. I take these birds as a good sign. No green tigers to run from today. Not yet.
I guess we figured we would just jump off the raft and start walking 20 miles a day like we did before our long voyage. It took less than a mile to blow that plan out of the water. I thought it was me, maybe I was coming down with something, but then I noticed my partners were dragging their feet too. None of us had any wind. My legs felt like rubber. Every once in a while, we would get a glimpse of Neanderthal Beach and see the Flat Heads were still screwing around, cutting the raft apart.
The switchback trail was about as wide as I am tall, and so well worn, Maria said it must be one of the main routes inland from the beach for both animals and Neanderthals. Ducking in and out of afternoon shade, lungs about to burst, we scaled the steep hillside headed east.
With darkness not far off, I had my eye out for a place to bed down for the night when the old man held up his arm to signal us to stop and be quiet. The way he swiveled his head, sniffed the air, I could tell something was wrong. The hillside had grown really still, except for a swarm of finches that had been cheeping and flitting around our heads for a half hour or so. As our native guide scanned the trees, he muttered something about the little gray and white birds reminding him of red birds to the north, blood drinkers that are almost always the first scavengers to arrive at the site of a kill.
Maria flipped down her helmet’s visor to scan visually and thermally for trouble, while the old man and I did it the old fashioned way, with our eyes and ears. Not surprisingly, it was the old dude who spotted the cats. He caught a flick of movement, a green twitch of a green tail. Laid flat on overhanging limbs, blending almost perfectly with the moss and lichen, two tigers waited for us to pass underneath them. Each weighed 700 or 800 pounds, easy. Beautiful animals. They looked like the pictures of the Asian cats from history books, except these had coats that were light green with dark green stripes and a few streaks of white by the eyes. Perfect camouflage.
The cats were no more than 100 feet away as the crow flies, but there were at least three switchbacks and a lot of thick brush between us. Pushing Maria and me off the trail, the old man said in a calm voice, “Those are bad cats in the tree. Move with me away from this place. Daughter, do not make your cloths burn like fire, I need my night eyes to see.”
As we ducked down a short side trail cut by grape pickers, the cats rose up to walk out on their low-hanging limbs and watch us go. Muscles rippling, tails swishing, the cats were dipping their heads to jump to ground when the old man gave a few sharp toots on his flute. They perked up their ears for a second, but I guess these Italian cats haven’t learned to “fear the flute,” because they dropped to the trail and headed our way fast.
Our spur dead-ended against a hillside choked with grape vines from top to bottom. There was a clearing at the end, a tight circle where larger animals had stomped things down while turning around to head back the way they had come. Bones were all over the place.
Gray Beard spotted a burrow in the fading light where smaller animals, probably rabbits, squirrels and porcupine, had tunneled into the tangle. Dropping to his hands and knees, scratching up his face, he fought his way inside without a look back. It was a long time standing guard while Maria squeezed in after him.
The tigers were stretched out running for all they were worth when I started backing my way in. No way was I going to give them a free shot at my ass. I roared and jabbed out with my spear, bracing for impact, when I felt four hands grab my ankles and yank me in. One snarling cat’s jaws snapped shut inches from my face as it hit the wall of vines.
The tigers yowled for hours as they tried to find a way into our hiding spot. Big as they were, no way they could navigate inside that patch. If they dared stick their heads into the entry to our den, or reach in to take a wild swipe, we made them pay with the sharp ends of our spears. At one point, when we could hear them both far above us searching for another way in, I crawled out to grab our packs and left them wedged in the entryway like armored plugs. Maria was worried out of her mind the whole time.
Gray Beard listened to the cats work the perimeter of the tangle just long enough to assure himself we were safe. “They are frustrated,” he finally said with a sigh. “They cannot reach us. A green tiger is a new thing to see. We are lucky.” He grunted for us to follow and we wormed our way by moonlight to the edge of the cliff where the branches of a dark oak kept the tangle of grape vines from falling down to the sea. He found a comfortable place to bed down and somehow fell asleep. Maria curled up next to him and nodded off not long after.
Now I know how poor old Jones used to feel, standing guard while we slept. Soon as one of these two stirs, it is bedtime for me. Man, I’m beat.
TRANSMISSION:
Martinelli: “Salvatore, my son, have a sip of water. It will help you. Come on, open your eyes. Open them!
“You fail me, as do the others. I pray so hard. So hard! And still, He tests me. Starvation? Betrayal? Desertion? What is next, Salvatore, frogs and locusts? Ha, ha. I know how you love a good joke. Salvatore, please open your eyes. I would like your input. You can hear me, I know it. I see your vital signs in my visor. You are a long way from dying.
“I miss the old Sal, the sassy dandy who was not afraid to speak his mind. You must wake, you must help me reignite the flame of our great crusade. You were correct when you wrote that the people’s spirits sag. I didn’t believe you, but you were right. Does that not make you happy? To hear me say that?
“Try as I might, I cannot find a solution. So many thoughts swirl through my brain, all at the same time, it seems I cannot carry a single one to its conclusion. Where vitality and conviction once pulsed, now run currents of self-doubt and worry. A God does not fret! A God does not wring his hands hoping his flock will not abandon him in his time of glory!
“The clanspeople whisper behind my back and think I do not know it. They scheme and plot, cast glances to the north as they pine for their lost herds and stinking camps. I offer them entry to the Kingdom of God, Almighty Heaven–or at least Purgatory–and how do they repay? With false praise and mockery. By stealing away in the middle of the night.
“What should I do, Sal? What should I do?”
From the log of Maria Duarte
Chief Botanist
The Italians are alive and causing trouble nearby. We think. The information came by way of wild pant
omime and language so foreign it was incomprehensible, even to Gray Beard.
We crossed paths with the whip-thin man and woman in the deep woods, far from any human trail. Leonglauix spotted them coming a long way off as they moved cautiously from tree to tree. Using a fallen poplar to screen us from their view, we watched until they were almost close enough to tap with our spears. Dressed in muddy furs from head to toe, they both had long, straight hair pulled back in tight ponytails. Hair black as coal to match their eyes. The woman’s footwear, which looked to be made from the pelt of a wolf, was worn but still intact. The man’s fur shoes were in tatters. Despite many wraps, his toes poked free, as did one heel. Each carried a spear in one hand and simple wooden club in the other.
When they turned to the old man’s perfect imitation of a porcupine gnashing its teeth, they were quite surprised to find the three of us on the opposite side of the log. Before they could run off, Gray Beard spread his arms in welcome and offered a traditional Green turtle greeting. When they didn’t understand that, he tried Cro-Magnon trade dialect, Tattoo grunts, a few other things and finally Frog Talking. Not one word registered in their thick skulls, but something about us must have conveyed the message we were not looking for a fight.
Though a common language eluded us, that did not stop us from sharing a brief lunch of raw crawfish and watercress in a quiet glen by a swift-running brook. The man was quite adept at catching the crustaceans using a simple trap made from a scavenged bird’s nest baited with the guts of a bullfrog he thumped to death with the shaft of his spear. He would hold the nest underwater for a few minutes and pull it out covered with green crawfish, some with tails as big as my thumb. He kept at it until there was enough for everyone to eat their fill.
After the chewy meal, the man stood to make an elaborate speech, of which I understood only two words. Punctuated by jumps and twists, and wide spreads of his arms, the delivery was entertaining if nothing else. It had been a long time since we had been around other humans, and it was satisfying in a very basic way to meet these new friends. The woman interrupted her partner several times to offer solemn clarifications, and once or twice they stopped to straighten out details in their strange, nasal language before he was allowed to continue. Unfortunately, we didn’t understand her any better than we did the man.
The two words we did comprehend were repeated several times, enough times that we could not mistake them, “Lord-enzo” and “Bald-zano.” The two Italians evidently made a big impact on these people. This is conjecture to be sure, but it sounds like they are camped along the northern banks of the great river, three long days walking from here, which for us, I suppose makes five or six days travel.
The overall meaning of the speech was inescapable. There is big trouble to the east. We should not go that way.
TRANSMISSION:
Martinelli: “Salvatore, I have been cross-referencing some of your ‘recollections’ in this journal against the ‘official’ version listed in your file. Oh yes, the Master Sergeant’s computer has a very detailed list of your transgressions, no doubt provided by your father’s confessor, Cardinal Sellaro.
“Your claims of running scams on the rich neighbors sound so quaint when compared to the truth. It says here you were officially charged with your first crime at age 14. Is it true you were caught blackmailing and extorting the household staff? That you threatened their livelihoods and access to your family’s water supply if they did not pay you a monthly tribute? Shame, shame.
“Soliciting prostitutes at age 17, bank fraud at age 18, the list goes on and on. My goodness Sal, how can a man who claims to be so holy, so ready to sit and tell lies to God, have such a checkered past?
“If I was God, I would weigh what you say against two grains of salt. They mean the same. Nothing.
“Wake up! Wake up! I want to hear you say it.
“Salvatore! As your usefulness nears an end, you must make peace with your Father! With me. The Americans are coming. God has told me. They draw near.”
From the log of Maria Duarte
Chief Botanist
Tuscan spring takes wing before us as we hide like bunnies in a thicket of juvenile stone pines. Three days of rain and fog slowly yield to sun as we stretch and groan, prepare to move out. Our view across the valley reminds me of something Van Gogh will paint. Rays of morning sunlight slant through holes in a floating tumult of whites, purples and grays. Roiling clouds churning apart. Millions of trees in bud give the bare forest a fuzzy notion of greens and reds, an unending sea which stretches over distant hills to the horizon beyond.
Having covered roughly 50 miles since escaping Neanderthal Beach, we’re near the area where Romans will found a settlement which will become the walled city of Lucca–a trinket Napoleon will present to his sister Elisa as a gift following one of his rampages through Italy. History in a future tense still seems odd. Am I remembering or predicting?
Shunning all human trails we cross, forsaking convenience for the cover of deep forest, our route has been circuitous at best. We’re regaining our wind, and are able to cover perhaps 15 miles a day. Gray Beard navigates by the position of the sun and planets as he leads us eastward. Although he’s never been through this particular part of the world, he has an uncanny way of picking the easiest route and knowing where to find the sources of springs we cross. Though we take no straight lines over hills and through valleys, I look back after a day full of twists and turns to find we have left those bumps and dips behind.
Occasionally, we hit a dead-end gorge, raging torrent, tangled blowdown, herd of auroch, or cluster of rude huts which forces us to backtrack and find a new way. Having left the coast behind, we now head east toward the fertile flatlands of the Arno. Toward Firenze.
Given his choice, Leonglauix prefers to amble through old growth forest, preferably pine. The needles not only form a soft carpet to muffle footsteps, their high acidity retards the growth of underbrush. Wet oak leaves are quiet as well, but sometimes not quiet enough for our leader. He’s been tense. Snapping a twig earns an evil look, presenting my profile on an open ridge warranted a stern scolding.
He’s teaching us to travel through the woods “as quietly as the wind.” It means walking on the outsides of our feet and moving in fits and starts. We halt every 50 yards to listen and watch for signs of trouble, or for confirmations the way before us is safe. He tells Paul and me to focus our senses and awareness fully on what is going on around us, not what is “dancing in our heads.”
We build no fires and do no hunting, though game is plentiful. Deer, rabbits, pig, massive porcupines, sloth, ducks, geese and other fowl. And, of course, wolf, wild cat, bear, hyena, raptor and viper. We emit no blasts of the flute to warn predators away. We stick together and keep our eyes and ears open. After our close call with the green tigers, we have managed to coexist with the carnivores without confrontation.
Gray Beard paid us a genuine compliment last night at our cold camp in the pines. He was trying to tell us about his clan, outlining the various bloodlines and explaining who came from where. I had assumed they were all pretty much related, but he said the clan was ever-changing. As people die or leave to go their own ways, new members earn admission through bravery, hard work, unique skills or marriage. Weak applicants either die trying or are rejected as unworthy. “Cowards and dummies drag a clan backwards.”
While he misses his sons and nephews and their families, he admits freely life has been more peaceful since they were taken away. The life of a clan leader is filled with the sound of flutes and drums, fights and squabbles, disputes over game and resources. He’s learned when to break up an argument and when to let the combatants pound each other senseless. After many years, he knows how to intervene when a man’s wife is headed for disaster with another wife’s man. With a sigh, he said his time with us has been much less interesting.
“When I tell you to go kill a mother pig, you do it,” he said. “My sons, they may leave for the pig today and come back nex
t week with a net full of fish. ‘The salmon were running,’ they will say, as if it explains everything. Kai-ka-nee, you tamed the awful sea house and brought us to shore. When I told you get off and face the Flat Heads you didn’t ask why. You did it.
“Doo-art, you remind me of my wife when she was young. You heal the sick and care so deeply about so many things. Your eyes miss nothing.
“For such young people, you are both very capable–strong and healthy and trained well. I’m proud to call you daughter and son. If I had a clan full of men and women like you I would start traveling and never stop.
“Do the forests to the east go on forever? I’d like to see if they do. My clan refuses to go. They are afraid to try. They would never take such a trip. Even so, I love them. Miss them.” He tapped his chest, “Though they are simple-minded cowards, I am empty inside without them.
“If we find my people, I will make sure they accept you into the clan.”
TRANSMISSION:
Duarte: “What I wouldn’t give for a cup of coffee right now.”
Kaikane: “You used to drink that stuff?”
Duarte: “Sure, didn’t you?”
Kaikane: “Never cared for the taste. Bitter.”
Duarte: “Did you have the real thing or synthesized?”
Kaikane: “Both, I think. I preferred tea. When I could afford it.”
Duarte: “You probably inherited the taste from your father. Englishmen have always loved their tea. Not me. Coffee was our drug of choice at Team Headquarters. We drank it by the gallon as we mapped out this mission.”
Kaikane: “Real stuff?”
Duarte: “Yep. Dr. Gomez had invested in some kind of coffee bean consortium. He was determined to drink his entire share before we jumped. Pedro was a generous man.”
From the log of Paul Kaikane
Recreation Specialist
Spring melt turned the bottomlands along the Arno into a boggy mess. We skirted the wide, muddy river a mile or two to the north. Sticking to the foothills, we wandered under a canopy of giant oak, pine and beech. Forest primeval is what Maria calls it. She says the trees have been spared most of the ravages of the ice age down here on the Italian peninsula. Some may be more than a thousand years old.