by Thomas Head
Mighty Kenzo sat himself with a grunt on the gunwale while the rest of them walked around a bit.
“How far to Nashville,” someone asked. Doc turned to see Gig staring down into the cave.
“A hundred mile or so. Maybe a little less.”
“What!” Jick thundered. “I though you came to us on the river?”
“I did. The big one. The Cumberland. Not this.”
“Well, shit. Now what do we do with the Goat, old boys?” he asked.
Rocco grunted. “In the old days, we’d steal one of those Mexican’s wives and tell her husband that if he let anyone…”
But even hardened old Rocco could not continue this thought—not with the look that Tyler gave him.
“Dale, my boy,” Jickie called. “You know the Mexicans better than you know us! Prove yourself, sir! Suggest something!”
“Doc,” said Dale.
“What,” Doc called out, already alarmed where this might go.
Dale continued, not addressing him now. “Doc, I say, is the best looking among us.”
“What the fuck are you getting at?” Doc thundered.
“The Mexicans, they ogle newcomers to their camps. I would suggest the favors of a Governor’s daughter, what they call a hefe, would be most beneficial.”
“Hey now,” Doc warned.
“Presently, we are in the land of the Los Desnudos. The naked ones.”
“I’m going to pull out your tongue, Dale.”
“May I suggest,” Dale asked him with the charm of a diplomat, “that you consider pulling something else out?”
* * *
The Naked Ones’ compound, naturally, was not far from the water.
In the end of two week stay, Doc had not only zeroed in on the Hefe’s daughter, but had every woman in the compound wanting him so badly he could have gained the run of all the shaky wood lodges and tents that surrounded the Hefe’s Khol’s Department store turned castle. But, of course, the hefe’s daughter, fat, bald, gray-toothed and possessing breasts like pillow cases that were half-filled with sand, was to gain his practiced attentions that night. Practiced, of course, was only the opinion of an old boy who loved the work of nature. The jangle of so much bared flesh, which could stir no living thing that Doc knew existed, was his first obstacle. The awakening began on the inward journey, thinking about Tyler’s girlfriend, naked; but the new life hardly gained full possession before that dull mouth began kissing his face like a catfish straight out of the river. The girl’s forwardness was exceeded only by her impatience, and before Doc could easily weasel from her attentions, Doc charged straight into the fray, turning her over, and slapping her unbroken ocean of an ass, sending tidal waves of flesh encircling the waistline horizons. Of course, allowances must be made for a young man in his prime. Other folk might have discovered a worldful of horrors in her delight at this, or the way she turned him over and did the same to him. But not Doc. He did not see the lonely calls of a fright he cried that nigh out as anything less than warcries, so he rallied back, charging into the mayhem with all the vigor and determination of a commando, drumming, chirping like a feathered creature through the pain. The roaring and growling could not have sounded less musical to his warrior’s mindset. Indeed, come morning, Doc needed more than a little diplomacy to save him from becoming the adopted son-in-law of one resolute old fellow—a kind of embarrassment not wholly confined to adventures, stranded in the wild, but certainly one that this morning called even more of his cunning.
“I will return to this fine village,” Doc told the old man’s translator, but in order to do so quickly, he needed horses enough to carry his party and their belongings.
* * *
It was no small ache, thinking about sweet Emily that morning—but by thunder, lightning, and whatever torrential force a fellow can dream of, Doc had earned them some horses. His uncles were taken out into a valley some distance from the camp, then some distance off the trail to green valley, where horses as large as Little Fellow awaited them.
Doc was relieved to see them returning over a distant hill. with a team of riding ponies, plus a packhorse for each of them. He returned his attention to the gibberish being spoken around him. He was as sitting with a group of grumbling hunters, playing a game called loteria, squatted before his would-be father-law.
In the scant few minutes he sat there, he had lost four gold dollars, when somebody rode up behind them and gave a long, low whistle. It was Old Jickie, signaling that the horses were packed with what would be carried. The rest of the fellows were riding behind them.
The old Mexican evidently understood, for he turned and waved for his daughter to come.
Doc turned and shrugged at Jickie and the fellows. They gave no sign of recognition.
When Doc turned around to the old Mexican, he was given such a tongue-filled kiss that the old man and the hunters rolled about on the grass, slapping the earth as they laughed.
* * *
A touch of the spur to his horse and Doc was abreast of his fellows, Tyler leading his horse aside to give him middle place. They were silent as mice, and none were looking at him. And Doc knew what that meant. As Uncle Jickie used to put it in his peppery way, Doc always did have a knack of tumbling headfirst the instant an opportunity offered. This time, Doc had gone in heels and all, and now came up as bashful as any backwoods man before a woman.
“You traded the ship for these horses, didn’t you, Uncle Jickie?... I spent the night with that nightmare for nothing.”
In reply, he and the rest of the party laughed so uproariously that the packhorses whinnied and bucked, and nearly started off into the fields in a sprint.
Chapter 41
Doc questioned if it was humanly possible for a more thrilling adventure to be had than the wild rush of thundering along atop the Mexican horses. At that moment, a small cavalcade of seven strong men, mounted on cantankerous beasts, eager for the furious dash through sweeping meadows and primeval forest to the lair of evil men seemed twice as much fun as was possible. But it was a question Doc would not know the answer to—because a dash, or indeed a good gallop, was impossible. The packhorses were simply too heavily burdened. And Doc rode a knob-kneed, muscular brute, which carried him like mad in precisely the opposite direction he steered him.
Out here, Mexican warriors, and even their children and women, stretched in long, loud lines far to their side. Altogether, the host behind them numbered not less than a hundred.
But soon their novelty was lost on the Mexicans, and only their dogs remained to give chase.
* * *
The tenth day south of the compound, they found something remarkable.
Tire marks on soggy ground.
At once, they set back a few miles to pitch camp on rolling land. A cordon of guns and sharp swords were turned outward encircled the camping ground. At one end, the animals were tethered, and at the other their tents were huddled together. There was no sense in luring what was no doubt a longmonger vehicle to them with the promise of easy horsemeat, only to be drug off to Nashville like the rest of the longmonger’s victims.
They tried to be silent, but all night the Mexicans curs went tearing about the enclosure in packs, keeping noisy watch. Twice, Tyler and Doc went out to join Kenzo, who was on watch that night.
They saw only a lone, whitish zombie, scurrying through the long grass.
Tyler thought this is what had disturbed the dogs; but Doc was not so sure. Indeed, Doc felt prepared to trace figures in the distance, and under every tree grove, or low cloud, Doc watched, knowing how quickly the cunning longmonger bastards could appear.
Doc deemed it wise to have a larger watch, and he volunteered to remount and keep within call during the thick of night. But in the morning, he knew this was a mistake. The tents were a beehive of activity. The horses, with almost human intelligence, were wild to be off. Riders could scarcely gain saddles, and before feet were well in the stirrups, the horses had reared and bolted away, only to
be reined in sharply and brought back to the ranks. The dogs, too, were mad, tearing after unseen enemies and worrying one another until there were several curs less for the hunt.
They pressed on, exhausted for lack of sleep.
* * *
At the next encampment, Dale and Doc offered what remained of their trading stock for a hunter to guide them.
The previous group, the Mexicans called the Desnudas had kept well within the lines of good Survivor order; but the hardened rabble they stumbled into this time were much wilder. But they were just as naked. These men were of every color and creed imaginable. They had only one thing in common, their noise. Their noise and motion lashed their half-broken horses into a fury of excitement that threatened to send their own mounts bucking them off to join them.
The camp was strongly guarded. Fifty of them circled around them wildly, confusion to spite any shred of discipline. Dale remained calm, though, whispering at Doc to keep smiling.
“Let them think you’re fucking bite-your-dog’s-balls loony.”
Doc was sure he looked the part of a fool idiot as he looked dumbly at their unusual longhouse. These were not normal men. They were covered in ash and mud. Their teeth were filed to points and they appeared as though they had been eating raw meat. In all but their strength of limb, they seemed like zombies. They built long halls, though, like men—and what a structure it was. It resembled a hedgehog, bristling with thirty foot, sharpened logs. It looked more like a spikey beaver dam than any sort of dwelling.
“That’s just the entrance. These folk, they live under the earth,” he said, “like the shado.”
He hoisted the chest they carried.
“That’s… well, that’s something,” Doc quipped.
Inside their ranks, they were whistling orders back to their women and scolding the naked little urchins that popped up here and there from the ground.
Half of them scampered in the way, and the whole encampment began setting up a din of yowling that might have scared lesser men into endless flight. Luckily, all these people were known to Dale, as Doc discovered when they reached the incredible hut.
Under the odd tangle of a roof, they watched the approach of the warden of the abode, what these people call a chieftain. He came quickly to the entry and nodded to Dale, who sat on his knees in the style of an animal.
The man stood silently, staring at him. Clad only in a fringed, buckskin hat and red neck-cloth, he was as wild a figure as any one of the savage rabble. Pursuing big game across these meadows had left him bow-legged and leathery. But his eyes told a different tale than his body. Glossy with age, they had a playful kindness about them.
But as Doc plunked down the chest, he gave a scornful laugh and spoke in perfect English.
“Your coming has been foretold to us. You come seeking scouts. Seeking warriors.”
Doc looked up at his eyes. “Yes. Yes, we have.”
He had an arm leaning on a long, homemade bow, which he used to bid him to sit. As Doc took his seat, he sat back down too, easing down with the grace of a man born and bred in the saddle.
“Faith, man,” he said. “It takes the faith of the fool to ride to battle against such a foe.”
“I’m certain it does, Mister.”
“And what are the capers of the Black Ones to warrant an assault, compared to the antics of the bear, or the fox?”
Doc felt an odd mix of understanding and confusion, for though he understood the words, he had only a vague sense of what he meant by them..
The wind caught the chieftain’s long, thinning hair and blew it about his face. He remembered Batt, the Mute, whose rare statements tended to be odd and unclear, but Doc had become acquainted with some of the fellows that hunted with Batt. They had a habit of asking vague questions, a trick they used to get at the nature of things without being direct.
“By my ancestors,” Doc said, “I’ve no mind to fucking around with no bears and wolves! I’ll get out of your way, Mister, if the Black Ones have done so little to your people as steal away with your fish and rob you of your venison.”
“For bears, one needs a higher tree. For wolves, a simple wall of stone. To live with any beast you must know its ways. What does one need to fight a devil?”
Dale’s lips began to frame some answer to the elder man. But he stopped himself.
Doc didn’t know why his patience was suddenly so short.
“Faith, I already have sir!”
“Are you so certain? Have a care, young fellow,” he warned. “You’ve escaped The Black Ones with your life once, but look into your heart and see what it took.”
“How do you know—agh, forget it. What are you talking about?”
“Ha! You have your faith yet, do you?” the old man laughed, and turned triumphantly to a figure that entered from the gloom of the woody home.
It was the wetman shaman from the riverbank. He was wearing a gown of skins, tied at the waist. He still wore the dirk Doc had given him.
“Oh, this one again!”
The old man laughed.
“Leave your chest, young one. Our time and our way on this land are beginning to fray. Change visits all, and it when it comes, it comes to stay. The way of things will be but memories when the young ones are gray. They want adventures, and houses, and clothes for their assess. Because this has been seen, and it is known, we will captain their own fates. And we will end the age ourselves!”
“What the… huh?...”
Chapter 42
The next day, after a feast of trout and venison, they headed south with twenty-seven of the Mexican’s finest hunters and scouts. Scouts ahead, hunters to either side, they followed the course of a soggy slough where the tire marks were visible. Some two miles from camp, the out-runners returned with word that the vehicle was “sleeping” a short distance ahead, and that the marsh bed widened to a banked ravine.
The longmonger scouts could not have been found in a better place. There was a fine slope from the upper land to their game. Doc and the boys ascended the embankment and coursed cautiously along the cliff’s summit.
Suddenly, they rounded an abrupt headland and gained full view a machine quite unlike anything he had expected.
This one had tires, but something about it was somehow more than just a machine. It had no windows, either, but something in the build of it was a terrifying. Though nothing like the drone that flew over Foxwash, it bore similar traits, or, rather, it had a similar air about it, as if it were designed by the same devilish mind. Doc raised his hand, stopping the march, and his fellows raised themselves in their stirrups to survey the machine.
They just stared.
“That, boys, is no ordinary tank,’ Dale said. “See that gun?”
“Yeah… It’s fucking… breathing.”
A light mist screened them and a deep growth of the leathery grass, common to Tennessee’s marshlands, half hid a multitude of smaller guns, moving with its head. Coal-black smoke rose through the green stalks as it moved a bit.
In the next instant, the “head” turned toward them, as if sniffing the air suspiciously, and the curved dome seemed to toss broken stems off it in savage contempt.
“What the frozen fuck are we looking at?...”
Doc was dizzy just from the sight of it. From the headland beneath them, to the rolling prairie at the mouth of the valley, the earth seemed to vibrate as the machine rumbled. It looked like the machine was restless, or dreaming. Protruding amber lights glared savagely sideways. The great, thick body hulked forward in impatient jerks.
Some of the fellows grew excitedly profane, mumbling curse under their breath.
Others, like him, were just fearful, breathing quickly.
The wild hunters nocked arrows onto their bows and filled their mouths with the dirks they had given them. Wheeling his horse in front, Doc looked once more at the beast. Then he gave one quick wave of his samurai sword.
With a storm-burst of galloping hoofs, they charged down the sl
ope. At the sound of their whirlwind advance, the beasts tossed up its heads and began pawing the ground angrily. From the hunters, there was no shouting, no warcries, but his fellows filled the air with screams unearthly that the wild folk almost broke from their company.
The machine started up, turned as if panic-stricken, bellowing roars down the valley while it tore for the open prairie.
The ravine rocked with the plunging monster, echoing the crash of its thunderous treads. They were closing in faster than Doc could have expected.
In the next moment, swift as lions, the swiftest riders darted towards the large tank and rode within a few yards before taking aim. Instantly, the ravine was ablaze with fire. The two fastest hunters were unhorsed as the gun whipped toward them, their ponies thrown from their feet—their blood splattered everywhere with the shattering of hunters’ bones while showers of arrows from more of the wild hunters sung through the air overhead.
The third hunter was nearly gored by a long spear that shot from the machine’s side. It missed him, ripping his horse from shoulder to flank. Then, maddened by the creature’s blood, another horse reared. Before a shot from a second hunter ended his horse’s misery, a small latch opened. A shotgun appeared, and caught the man on the side of the face and tossed him some tree feet.
By keeping just to its rear, where the driver could not see, Doc managed to chop at the wheels with the sword. If it were the beast it seemed, he would have gravely wounded the enormous foot. But all he managed to get for his trouble was nick in his fine sword. The tank bellowed fire again and began swerving alternately from side to side as the enraged wild men struck forward, their trained horses avoided side thrusts with the spears. The saddle-girths of one hunter, though, gave way as he was leaning over to send an arrow into the spear-opening. Down he went, shoulders foremost under the front wheels while the horse, with a nimble leap, cleared another vicious drive of the spear. The beast galloped onward. Two more were mowed down like felled trees; but still their horses plunged on and on, pursuing the racing machine while the ground shook.
