Tuscany

by Matthew Thayer

  “Are you injured?”

  It was a struggle to reply.

  “Not badly,” I croaked. “Rope makes it hard to breathe. Banged my head.”

  “I have you tied off. I’m going to pull you up. Can you help me with your feet? That’s it! Use your hands and arms against the wall to protect yourself, keep from turning if you can.”

  When I neared the top, I found Paul was leaned out at a 45-degree angle over the abyss on the opposite side of the narrow ridge. If the rope had broken, we both would have fallen to our deaths. Our eyes met as we both leaned backwards, with about six feet of rope between us.

  “OK, babe, stop right there. Keep leaning backwards. We’re going to walk just like this over to where it’s safe.”

  Using each other’s weight to keep our feet in contact with the slanting walls, we escaped the landslide area and reached a spot where we had enough foot space to stand together and catch our breaths. Paul put his arms around me and hugged me tight.

  “Love you.”

  “Me too, babe.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  TRANSMISSION:

  Kaikane: “This is Kaikane for Jones, do you copy, Jones?”

  Jones: “I read you.”

  Kaikane: “Hey, Jonsey, where you stay?”

  Jones: “Clan’s based on western side of hill. Camp’s set up in field under the big trees. Look for the biggest tent. Can’t miss it.”

  Kaikane: “We’ll beach the boats and come in. See you in an hour or so.”

  Jones: “Roger that. Plenty of spots to the east.”

  Kaikane: “I caught some fish.”

  Jones: “Oh, boy.”

  From the log of Lance Cpl. Juniper Jones

  Security Detail II

  Duarte and Kaikane showed up this morning. Excited about some cave. Insisted I finish this journal so she can copy my files for burial.

  No apologies. No explanations why they are so late.

  Not sure if Tomon’s people will wait. Not sure if I give a shit. Clan has traded away everything it doesn’t want. Lived like kings and queens for a few weeks, now ready to chase the herds. Don’t understand why I need to climb up into the hills.

  Made promise to old man, though what does he care. Seems quit of this clan. Has steered clear of Nice. Holed up in a cave high above town with a girl scared as a deer.

  If clan leaves without me, so be it. I’ll catch up and finish the job. See how Suzie’s getting along. After that? Who knows?

  Wish I could find something positive to say. Mission has been fucked up from the get-go. To my family, I do not miss you. To the men in my unit, I do not miss you.

  Find myself tied to the lives of people I care for but cannot tolerate. Their happiness cuts at me.

  Depression is something we soldiers laughed at. Made fun of. One time a shell-shocked private up in Quebec froze up right there on the barrack’s floor. Said he had an “elephant sitting on his chest.” Wrote that sucker up, shipped him out. Told him his weakness was a danger to us all.

  Thought it was my duty to protect my men. Now, I fear every day, every minute, I will fail in my duty. Whatever the heck that is.

  TRANSMISSION:

  Duarte: “Just wait, Salvatore, wait ’til you see this cave. It is a Neanderthal gold mine. This cave could be your life’s work.”

  Bolzano: “Good luck convincing Jones to accompany you. He and the Green Turtles have been chomping the bridle, anxious to leave for more than a week. They have been waiting here for nearly a month. I might add, he has been worried sick about you two. Though he has not said so, I can tell.”

  Duarte: “He’s a softy on the inside.”

  Bolzano: “Deep inside.”

  Duarte: “True, true. I know he’s cranked up to head north. He expressed his concerns to me and I pulled rank, told him it was just too bad. Don’t worry about Jones. He’s going. How about you, Sal, are you ready to entomb your first packet of files for the journey home?”

  Bolzano: “Is one ever completely ready? So much time. So many doubts. To answer your question, yes, I am ready, though I may add a few more nuggets to my journal.”

  From the log of Maria Duarte

  Chief Botanist

  Not an overly warm welcome back to Swedsissi. As Paul puts it, the Green Turtles act like we walked in and took a piss in the stew bag. I will not miss their unfriendly behavior.

  Jones and the clan are angry we kept them waiting a week or two longer than they expected. It is probably the first time I have been tardy my entire life, and yet they insist on giving me grief. Jones is doubly miffed I want to rearrange his schedule. He feels some misplaced need to complete his “mission” to deliver the clan north. I have informed him, in no uncertain terms, it will not happen. Now is the time for our native friends to carry on without us, at least for a while.

  Cpl. Bolzano also resists my edict we begin traveling on our own. To hear him tell it, he and Leonglauix have become bosom buddies. “Close friends and comrades-in-arms,” he says. By all accounts, they had a very productive journey from Firenze, having arrived with a string of pack dogs, a fortune in trade goods and a stunning victory over a troop of Tattoos.

  The wealth Bolzano has brought to the clan is just one reason he has become a favorite of the Green Turtles. The gregarious Italian is particularly favored by its new leaders, Tomon and the woman Gertie. He speaks their language fluently. They laugh and sing, share most of their meals together. Jones too, is accepted as part of the clan. He commands the people’s utmost respect as a warrior.

  Meanwhile, Paul and I are outcasts. The entire camp grows quiet the moment we arrive. Silence is maintained until we leave. At first, it was the women who hated me. Jealous bitches. Now the men cast me venomous looks as well. Paul, I’m afraid, is guilty by association. We have set up camp down the coast, near where we hide the kayaks.

  Though it is busy due to its location on the main east-west trade route, Nice is like every other place we have passed through. We have seen no signs of churches, wooden crosses or warlords. Jones and Bolzano knocked down a trio of crosses when they arrived and no one has made an effort to replace them.

  It is a far quieter place than it was when every Cro-Magnon in the land was gathering for the great Christmas service.

  How many times has the story been told? I now fear our attempts to quash the tales of Lorenzo only fan the flames. On the bright side, two new topics are on the tip of every traveler’s tongue this summer. Clans arriving from the north bring word of a series of volcanic eruptions along the eastern edge of the Massif Central. They say rivers of lava flowed toward the Rhone for one hand of days. Lava bombs ejected from the top of the mountain sparked huge, running fires among the pines.

  I asked Tomon and Gertie to question their customers as to our distance from the volcano. Averaging every traveler’s estimate, I surmise the eruption was two hands of days of hard travel, plus two–twelve days. At 16.5 miles per day, it equals 198 miles, well north of Fralista’s valley.

  Travelers from the east are abuzz with tales of a white mammoth tame enough to ride. They say a mountain clan spied the rare female not long after its birth. On a lark, a shaman decided he must have the special beast. Once the mother was dispatched and the rest of the mammoth herd driven away, no small tasks, the clan captured the baby and took it home. The shaman raised it with his dog pack.

  This spring, the clan wandered out of a snow-filled valley led by an adolescent white mammoth. Atop the beast was a silver-haired shaman who rode with his legs tucked behind the animal’s ears.

  Most tales of the mammoth are no better than secondhand. “A boy from my sister’s clan said he saw the white mammoth from afar.” We did, however, speak with one credible eyewitness. Tomon brought the fellow into our camp as I held a new ivory fishhook between two sticks while Paul wrapped it tightly with sennit.

  “He talk, you listen,” Tomon said as he motioned for the fur-draped traveler to have a seat on the ground. The man’s long face
bore the coffee-stain blotches of age. He gazed at me with clear brown eyes. Sharp. Taking us in. Finally, Tomon gave him a gentle nudge. “Tell them.”

  “I saw the white mammoth, though I wish I did not. The animal has grown so big in the stories, no one believes me. I tell the truth.”

  I signed we would listen and judge for ourselves. That drew a glint of anger, which passed with a sigh.

  “Early this spring, I was tending my traps along the snowline and having a pretty good day. Two ground squirrels and a fat fox were in my bag when I looked up to see a clan following a white mammoth down the middle of the valley. The mammoth had not started molting. It had a full coat. Pure white, except for the mud on its legs and underbelly.

  “I was afraid of the beast. The people of the clan saw me and waved me down from the forest to join them. Although I do not usually eat fox, the clan was hungry. We built a fire and ate the two squirrels and the fox while we shared the stories.

  “The clan leader was not talkative. Nor was the shaman. They did not speak to me. The leader’s son was friendly. He said the shaman had planned to raise the mammoth for its hide and food. It had become a beloved pet. Smarter and more loyal than any dog, he said. This past winter, the five-year-old beast was to be ceremoniously killed and carefully butchered. But the old men had grown fond of the animal which they call ‘Hroopola,’ their word for baby.

  “The son said the clan believes the mammoth is blessed with magic. Although they no longer hunt or gather, there is always food to eat. Wherever they travel, people flock to share their bounty, so anxious are they to be close to the rare white mammoth.

  “The son said the two old men take turns riding the mammoth, but I did not see that. I was too poor to trade, and the old men did not like me.”

  That was the man’s story.

  Those two tales have pushed would-be god Lorenzo to the back burner. Hopefully, Sgt. Martinelli’s crusade will fade from the Cro-Magnon’s collective memory.

  I am beginning to regard the sergeant’s abuses in a new light. Although he was clearly a flawed individual who had no business on The Team, we must consider the role the jumpsuit played in his spiral toward insanity. Recent events force me to consider the suit itself as a major factor.

  From the start, we all have noted strange, uneasy feelings when we are in full gear. There is a body-wide hyper-awareness when the suit and helmet are worn together, not felt when we wear just the helmet, or just the suit. The longer you wear the full outfit, the less noticeable this feeling becomes. The suit becomes an addictive crutch, as it takes away fatigue and makes you somehow more capable. Muscles are stronger, synapses fire quicker. The instant you want to move, you move.

  I have no doubt the equipment was designed for military applications. I believe the hundreds of thousands of visual receptors which feed the equally numerous projectors to make the equipment appear invisible must also route their data through a defensive computing system that analyzes threats and initiates responses. You move without thought. It feels like intuition.

  In times of great stress, particularly during battle, the suit and helmet combine to turn even a calm botanist like myself into an efficient, cold-blooded soldier. The blood and guts of eight men, women and children stain my gloves to prove it.

  Paul and I had been in full gear for two days conducting reconnaissance of a native clan camped by the sea. Judging by what we witnessed, the clan had been deeply influenced by Martinelli’s preaching. Not in a positive fashion. To our horror, the leaders held ritualized human sacrifice while chanting prayers in broken Latin.

  We left to fetch Jones, and upon our return the next day, found the clan preparing to sacrifice a captured man and women. Our plan called for Paul and me to guard the main escape route while Jones used his atlatl to surgically eliminate the clan’s leaders. Paul and I were armed with our kayak paddles and were thus completely invisible.

  The attack was going as planned when the bulk of the clan made a dash our way. As they approached, Paul and I were consumed with cool, calculated rage. The escapees ran into an invisible wall of brutality. Paul said it was the same feeling which overtook him the night he almost single-handedly destroyed Lorenzo’s army. Killing without thought, like marionettes, we acquired targets and demolished them.

  When Jones jogged down the path to assist us, he found Paul and me rampaging through the camp, killing every human, dog and living thing we saw.

  “Stop, stop, snap out of it!” He barked his orders over the com line. It took a long while for us to wind down.

  In total, Paul and I slew 29 people, the entire clan and all of its captives. Jones killed its two leaders. Objectively, I suppose Team leaders would call it a job well done. A threat to humanity had been wiped from the earth.

  Easy to say, quite another to live with. The bitter taste of that day will not leave me. It has become a bad dream which haunts my waking moments. Paul wants to discuss it, but I don’t know what to say. “Was it really me who murdered those people?” Of course it was. I will have to live with that for the rest of my life.

  Besides spooking us out of the jumpsuits, perhaps forever, the episode forced me to take a hard look at what we were hoping to accomplish by back-tracking Martinelli. Are we destined to kill every living soul who repeats his prayers or wears a wooden cross around their neck? Would those actions stamp out his memory or perpetuate it? From what I know of religion, trying to outlaw a faith is akin to adding dry pine cones to a fire.

  Without Martinelli’s theatrical use of glowing suits, blazing pistols and modern songs to drive interest, I am hopeful his crusade will someday fade from mankind’s collective memory. Removing ourselves, especially Salvatore “Son of God” Bolzano, from the equation is probably the best we can do. That is why we are headed south without our native friends.

  Once we made our decision, the hardest part for me was saying goodbye to Gray Beard, my native father.

  He was off on a hunt when Paul, Jones and I arrived at his secret mountainside cave. We startled a skittish girl with auburn hair who knelt, humming a native tune, as she nursed a fire near the mouth of the cave. I guess the storyteller must have taught us something about keeping quiet along the trail, for we walked right into camp without alerting the girl or the dogs.

  Once we were in their midst, the dogs finally registered our presence and barked up a storm. The girl swiftly ducked into the cave and emerged with a club and spear.

  “We’ve come to visit Leonglauix,” I said in an even tone with my hands spread wide. “The great storyteller, is he present? We are his friends. I am Doo-Art. This is Kaikane, and this is Jones. The man named Bolzano said we would find him here. You are Lanio?”

  The girl recognized the names. We evidently matched Gray Beard’s descriptions, for she dropped the weapons and motioned we should take seats upwind of the fire. Her long hair was pulled back in a pair of ponytails tied with leather thongs strung with feathers and shells. A spray of freckles dusted each cheek. It was obvious why Bolzano referred to her as the “blue-eyed girl.” Those startling, sky-blue eyes never left us as she hovered near the edge of the cave, poised to take flight at the slightest provocation.

  Leonglauix looked to be in the middle of several projects. A deer hide was stretched tightly across a wooden frame leaned against the mouth of the cave. Looped over the limb of an overhanging tree, its ends weighted by heavy stones, stretched a recently braided leather rope about 12 feet long. By the fire, 23 thin strips of lean red meat were draped over a latticework of green alder limbs assembled downwind, drying and smoking, just out of reach of Lanio’s dogs.

  The mutts were tied to trees or to stakes driven into the ground. Two chewed on deer bones while the other four watched the girl’s every move with drowsy eyes.

  We sat in silence. Jones drifted off for a nap with his atlatl launcher nestled into the crook of his arm. It is such a rare sight to see him sleep. Paul was staring into the fire when I rose and approached the girl. By her eyes and fa
cial expressions, I thought she might bolt at any second, but she let me draw close enough to lift one of her ponytails into my hand. I examined the shells which adorned the leather laces holding it tight.

  “My father made this for you, did he not?”

  “A gift.”

  “He must care for you very much. Bolzano told me many good stories about you, Lanio. It pleases me you help my father.”

  “Leonglauix is kind. You are his daughter. Are you kind?”

  “Yes, I am very kind. Your hair is pretty.”

  Shyly, with her head lowered, she displayed the necklace she was currently making from the dried beans of a tree from the Magnoliopsida class. Most of the beans were silvery gray, while a few were red or yellow. Using the sharp needles of an acacia tree, Lanio augured holes through the fingertip-sized legumes wide enough to thread them with a narrow string of leather.

  “It’s beautiful,” I said, truly meaning it.

  “It is. My mother and aunts made them like this. The beads will dry out, be dust by winter. Pretty now. Pretty all summer.”

  Paul coughed to get our attention, then used native sign language to say he was off to look for the storyteller. He signed he would help him carry game if his hunt was successful. Lanio signed he was probably to the west and uphill. Paul nodded his understanding. We knew all too well, Leonglauix prefers to drag his game downhill.

  “The dogs eat too much,” she said with a resigned shake of her head. “I want to trade them. Your father says to wait for Kolettelena’s. Good trading there.”

  It took a few indirect questions to nudge her in the right direction, but once she got going, her story came forth in a flood. Her survival had been a matter of luck. She had snuck out of camp to make water when the Tattoo warriors struck. She was crouched in rushes by the river’s edge relieving herself when a pair of warriors crept past. Before she could shout an alarm, the attack was launched with blood-curdling screams and the sounds of dying.