Assignment- Tiger Devil

by Will B Aarons

  A dark, uniformed maid appeared with a bucket of suds and scrub brush. Durell watched through a daze of exhaustion as she scoured the blood from the floor. His head hung wearily from his shoulders, his body felt numb. When the maid left, he lay down just as he was, pulling his feet onto the mattress as if they were weighted with iron. His chest tingled where Ana's lips had touched, where the point of the stiletto had aimed.

  He had two hours before the next plane left Timehri.

  He felt as if he could sleep for a week.

  About four o'clock Peta came in.

  Durell shook the sleep from his eyes, ran fingers through his mussed black hair.

  "I'm tired, too," Peta said.

  "You know about Ana?"

  Peta nodded, blew out a long breath, flopped in the old Morris chair. Pakaraima mud still smirched his shorts and sneakers. "I have been with men of the government. They told me. They made me eat with them."

  "Was it so bad?"

  "It was not good."

  "I'm sorry about Ana," Durell said.

  "She helped steal my father's claim. She would have killed me. You were right."

  Durell could make nothing of the half-breed's green-eyed stare across the hot, gloomy room. The youth's hunting scars glistened in the low light. He still wore the beaded bands beneath his knees.

  "What else did the government men tell you?" Durell asked.

  "I will be rich. I will get a medal."

  "That should make you happy."

  "Yes. A medal is a rare thing."

  Durell grinned. "I like you, son. Let's have a drink." He rinsed a tumbler and poured it half full of bourbon and handed it to Peta, then splashed a double into his own glass. They sipped in silence, Durell aware of the hollow mumble of Georgetown, the moaning whine of the unceasing wind.

  After a minute had passed, Peta said: "If I am rich, I can build a new shack."

  "Yes."

  "And buy Miss Morera a big tombstone, a pretty one of pink rock."

  "If you wish, Peta. There will be money left over."

  "You can have some of my money. As much as you like. Take the big diamond. They said I would get it back."

  "You keep it," Durell said. "Perhaps you can use it to help your tribe."

  "They have the forest and rivers." Peta looked sad. "The government men said my life will change. What do you think?"

  "I'm afraid they are right," Durell said. "You should prepare yourself for it; use some of your money for lessons; go to college one day. You'll be a big man."

  "I am a man already."

  "Oh, yes."

  "I want to be a man like you. You have respect. You know guns and fighting."

  "That doesn't make a man, Peta. Only deep convictions and the daring to stand up for them."

  "Would you teach me those things?"

  "I couldn't," Durell said, and smiled at the troubled furrows that crowded Peta's brow. "But you akeady have them," he added.

  Peta looked proud. Then the rangy youth rose and held out his hand, and Durell took it, and they stood, each with a hand on the other's shoulder. A picture flashed across Durell's mind: Peta in Prince John with him and Deirdre, learning the skipjack. But Peta was not meant for those cold and complex northern climes; his place was here. Durell did not think wealth would spoil him, and he saw no fear of the future in those bright jade eyes.

  "I'll go now," Peta said. "Thank you, Mr. Durell."

  "Call me Sam."

  Peta's grin was a surprise of broad, flashing teeth, "Maybe we will meet again," he said.

  "I'd like that."

  As the big jet winged toward Rio, the memory of Ana blunted Durell's satisfaction in the job just completed. He had not thought she would have to die. Leon had used her callously, and for an orphan to succumb to the will of a father returned from the grave was an understandable sin, however vile. Durell sighed, gazed at the darkening horizon, and the hours dragged by until, at last, the airliner thumped down at Galeae International Airport that night.

  Durell's spirits did not begin to lift until he checked in at the sumptuous Hotel Pao de Acucar. The life flowing back into him had nothing to do with the blazing sweep of Copacabana Beach with its splendid Carioca girls, nor the vital throb of bossa novas and sambas that spilled from countless nightclubs and discos.

  He knew that Deirdre waited for him here, in this hotel, and her presence was almost palpable through the din and dazzle.

  When they met in their room high above the city, with Sugarloaf and the ocean beyond their balcony, nothing more than, "Dee ..." would pass the tightness in his throat.

  "Sam—oh, Sam!"

  She dropped a book she was reading and threw her arms around him, and he felt a slight tremor in her tall frame with its intelligent gray eyes and mantle of embered black hair. He kissed her and leaned back, holding her patrician shoulders in both hands. In her eyes he saw the calm serenity that was her anchor against all the deadly currents that swept them.

  They did not speak for a long moment as their gazes mingled and they held each other close.

  Durell thought briefly of what life might be if he never returned to K Section, then shrugged it away. And there were thoughts, as he held her with accustomed intimacy, of strong sons and beautiful daughters—an ambition that seemed modest enough when you looked around. But he put that out of his mind as well.

  His job was his only purpose in life, and he did not see that changing.

  Then Deirdre led him toward the bed with, "Come here, darling Sam."

  And he decided he could only make the most of what he had.

  That was quite a lot.