“What Indians?” Melanie wanted to know. “Even the authorities agree there’ve been none around here for years.”
“Natives have been known to be nomadic,” was all Roy could come up with.
“Nomadic natives. Nomadic jaguars. Nomadic river rock. Nomadic what else?” Felix wanted to know.
“There’s nothing here for natives to eat, by the way of large game.” Carolyne was sorry the minute she said it.
Melanie wasn’t going to let it pass, either. “The jaguar almost got someone to eat. Maybe, the natives were luckier.”
“I think we should move out of here, and do it now.” Felix read the writing on the wall, and he didn’t like the story line. He certainly hadn’t lived this long to become victuals for cannibals.
“Won’t they beat drums, sing songs, make prayers; won’t we hear them?” Carolyne had known Charles Ditherson for a good many years. She liked him. She was less certain he was dead, now that Roy had materialized, and she felt less justified in leaving.
Melanie’s thoughts were more self-centered. “Hear Indians, and we’re too close to them.”
Felix didn’t have to think twice, either. “Agreed!”
“It’s a majority, Carolyne,” Roy dashed her last feeble hopes. “We’re not equipped to deal with some kind of native uprising, on top of everything else.”
Such superb logic didn’t make the logical more acceptable or easy to oblige. Carolyne had pulled out of New Guinea, forced to leave Mabel Funegan behind. No one ever found poor Mabel, and Carolyne didn’t want more of that kind of guilt trip. However, then, as now, the decision seemed to have been taken out of her hands.
CHAPTER FOUR
“Drums!” Melanie’s hysteria was contagious. Felix’s face went white-washed. Carolyne’s heart skipped a beat.
Roy, the only Rock of Gibraltar, insisted, “It’s an SOS!”
That wasn’t the general consensus, emphasized by Felix, “You have to be kidding!”
“I’m not. Just listen. Hear it? Boom, boom, boom. Boom…boom…boom. Boom, boom, boom. Equals SOS.”
“I don’t think so.” Felix didn’t buy it.
“Shut up and listen!” Carolyne was more open-minded. Her decision: “Damned if it isn’t!”
“The natives are trying to suck us in.” Felix’s nerves were definitely on edge. “‘Step into my parlor,’ said the spider to the fly.”
“Don’t be absurd,” Carolyne insisted.
“You think it’s Teddy or Charles?” Melanie certainly preferred them alive.
“If so, they’re telling every savage in the area where to go for good dining,” Felix criticized.
“I want all of you to keep heading east,” Roy instructed.
“While you’re headed where?” Felix, who knew Roy had a better grasp of the territory than anyone else present, wanted him right where he was.
Roy ignored the question, and so did everyone else; the answer was obvious.
“He’s right about what they’re advertising.” Carolyne’s intention wasn’t to hold Roy back but superfluously to make sure he was aware of the danger.
“I’ll be careful.” Then, quickly, he was gone.
“He’s mad,” was how Felix saw it.
“Sure you don’t want to go along and give him a hand?” Carolyne was facetious, because she saw Felix as nothing other than a ball and chain. “He could probably use the help.”
“You’d like me the ingredient in some cannibal’s soup, wouldn’t you?” His white-washed complexion progressed through its usual mottled reds to a brilliant scarlet. “You’d like my shrunken head as a souvenir on a chain hung around your neck.”
He looked headed for a heart attack; the last thing Carolyne needed. “Don’t be silly,” she ridiculed.
They went east, which followed Roy’s instructions and was the shortest route out. Carolyne had assumed the lead; Felix was in the rear but would have preferred a spot less exposed. Melanie, who had learned a lesson from the disappearance of Teddy and Charles, made sure everyone said something at least every five minutes.
The continuing SOS seemed a good sign. Likewise, so did their discovery of the trail they’d used on the way in.
“Finally!” Felix had lost track and had been doubtful of Carolyne’s sense of direction.
The trail was good only in comparison to what they’d traveled as lead-in. Enough people had used it in the past to etch a visible dent in the vegetation, but nowhere did it show wear to bare ground. In fact, it no longer had a distinct beginning or end, rather like the roadway of some long-dead city that took up and left off without rhyme or reason to anyone but an archaeologist.
“Do you think the bridge is far?” Melanie wanted to put it between her and whatever she’d hopefully left behind.
“I do think I’m hearing the water the bridge crosses,” Felix encouraged.
Carolyne didn’t think he did, unless his hearing was far better than hers—which she doubted. “It’s a good ways yet.” She knew exactly where she was.
When they reached the bridge, two hours later, the drumbeats ceased at that same moment in time. They were more aware of the former, however, because the bridge no longer spanned the void between the two facing rock walls; it hung like spider-webbing down the opposite side of the deep ravine. Without checking the rope remnants on their end, they knew the bridge had been purposely cut loose; all they needed to tell that was the stake, with its three human skulls by way of embellishments.
“Now what” Felix expected an immediate spear point to his gut.
“How are you at the broad jump?” Carolyne suggested.
Melanie took her seriously. “He’ll never make it across.”
“Of course, I’ll never make it.” Felix didn’t appreciate being the brunt of Carolyne’s humor. “However, maybe Carolyne will summon her broomstick for the ride across.”
The absence of the drumbeats was parenthesized by the beat’s sudden return. Its new shave and a hair cut six bits rhythm was more recognizable than the preceding SOS.
“Hopefully, someone is trying to relieve our anxiety,” Carolyne decided upon hearing the thump de de thump thump; thump thump once again.
“Only minor consolation if it is.” Felix walked to the edge of the abyss. Not to contemplate a leap for the other side, because twenty feet were at least seventeen feet too far, but to consider a down-and-up. Quickly, though, he decided none of them would succeed any attempts to get down and then scale the opposite wall, because even a mountain goat would be suicidal to give it a try. Besides, there was the additional obstacle offered by the roaring cascades of water at the bottom, in between.
The drumming stopped.
“Do we wait here, or what?” Felix faced the fact that Carolyne probably had more experience in these sorts of things.
“Maybe the chasm narrows off to one side?” Melanie was hopeful.
“Were that the case,” Carolyne ventured, “I suspect the bridge would have been built there, not here.”
Felix didn’t appreciate that hope dashed. “We can’t go back,” he insisted, as if that were Carolyne’s next suggestion.
“Teddy, Roy, and Melanie, might work something out with ropes, when everyone is back.” That was the only solution that came to Carolyne’s mind. “I’m too old to attempt any adventurous circus acts, and you.…” she speared Felix with her I dare you to deny it gaze. “…are certainly no more a human fly than I am.”
Pleased she hadn’t been excluded from Carolyne’s all-star rescue team, Melanie tried, without success, to imagine the logistics of Teddy, Roy, and her making it to the other side and getting Carolyne, Charles, and Felix across with them—if, that is, everyone ever showed up.
What makes you think Teddy will be up to scaling chasm walls?” Felix didn’t need Carolyne to tell him who was old and out of shape. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t that an SOS we heard?”
“Not the second time” Melanie chimed in optimistically.
�
�The second time, I assume, was Roy’s doing.” What had Felix ever done to deserve being stuck on this cliff edge with the Wicked Witch of the West and Pollyanna?
What did Carolyne ever do to deserve being stuck on this cliff ledge with a man who thought her capable of murder? Were she as cold-blooded as he thought, she’d knock the bastard over the chasm and let the rushing water flush him out to sea, like a turd to the sewer. “You want to explore.…” She gestured right, then left. “…be my guest. I’ll wait here.”
“I’m taking bets it’ll be our heads on that pole to greet Roy and whomever else—if they ever get this far,” Felix wagered.
With more guts indicated than she was feeling, Carolyne walked to the pole and put a hand on the top skull. “These things are years old, not something lopped off their necks just yesterday.” Her brave talk was to keep Melanie from following Felix into panic. “They have dirt encrusted in their eye sockets and in their cranium cracks, which says to me these old relics were dug up by way of improvisation for this performance and not specifically harvested for it.”
“I’m supposed to be encouraged because the natives are only recently out for fresh game?” Felix was serious.
Carolyne was serious, too: “You’re supposed to shut your lily-livered mouth and exhibit a bit of manly spine to give us women some much-appreciated moral support. If you can’t manage that, keep your fears to yourself.”
Melanie liked the old girl more and more. “Amen to that!”
Her pep talk over, Carolyne turned her back on Felix and the skulls; she found a bit of shade and sat down in it.
Melanie joined her. “Is Felix about to crack, or what?” Melanie asked
“Felix is not a happy camper.” Carolyne was glad he sulked in a spot out of hearing. “He’s stockpiled a lifetime of fantasy around how exciting life is in the field, and how boring life is behind a desk. His fantasies were a bit more digestible than the real thing, that’s all.”
“Do you think Roy, Charles, and Teddy are all right?”
“Until I find out differently, they’re fine. Why should I get an ulcer before all the facts are in? If one or another isn’t okay, I’ll deal with that only when I have to.”
“Shall we snack while we wait?” Melanie broke a trail bar neatly in half.
Carolyne produced one of her few remaining wet-wipes, opened its vacuum packet and shared it.
They savored chocolate and waited, but not, hopefully, for madmen, jaguars, cannibal head-hunters, or anyone in less than perfect health.
Charles was looked horrible when he rejoined them, aided by a trail-weary Roy and Teddy.
Roy had prefaced their arrival with more than one long and loud, “Hello!” This had been eagerly returned by Melanie and Carolyne in unison. Felix had only mustered, “Tell the whole world we’re here, why don’t you?”
Carolyne brought Charles a plateful of food and promised him Felix hadn’t anything to do with the preparation of it.
Charles wasn’t willing to eat; his excuse: “Dysentery.”
“You don’t want to get dehydrated, Charles.” Carolyne gave him her canteen and wouldn’t take it back until he drank several swallows of its water.
“The dysentery,” he explained, “makes a horrible experience even more so.”
“I’m still not sure what happened,” Carolyne reminded.
“Took Teddy out first, don’t you know? Then, me.”
“Who took you, Charles? Natives?”
“Teddy says, no. Says the guy spoke British. Wore a ring that cut Teddy’s face. I never did see him. One minute, I was walking, the next.…”
He rubbed the back of his head where a goose egg had been laid as big as Felix’s in its prime. “I was blindfolded, gagged, tied to a tree. Teddy was blindfolded, gagged, and tied to a tree not six feet from me. Neither of us knew of the other until Teddy got free. By that time, I had stomach problems. I shudder to think how it might have ended with me dead and stewing in my own filth.”
His stomach growled. He looked expectant, then grateful for an additional respite.
“You should eat something solid, even if it’s just a spoonful.” She reoffered the plate of glutinous stew. “If this won’t stick to your ribs, nothing will.”
He smiled; it was something he’d recently thought he’d never do again. He humored her by spooning up a small portion of the food. “Teddy was marvelous.” He took another bite and hoped he wouldn’t regret it. “Do you know anything about his father?”
“Teddy’s father?”
“Mmmmm.” It was confirmation, not a comment on what he was eating.
“I don’t, as a matter of fact. Melanie likely does. Why?”
“I got the impression his father must have been exceptionally ill at the end: bedridden, soiled sheets, bed sores, that sort of thing.”
Carolyne drew her knees into her chest and wrapped her legs with her arms. She wanted the conversation back on track. “You know about the arrows?”
“Yes.”
“You saw the skulls on the stake?”
“I thought I was looking in the mirror.” He risked another bite of stew.
“We thought your drumbeat was your captives celebrating a good meal.”
“Teddy’s idea: pounding on that hollow log. He’d reconnoitered and knew you’d headed off without us.” He was quick to add: “Not that we blamed you.”
“Roy did instigate a search.” It was important he know.
“Must have been like looking for a needle—two needles—in a haystack. All that jungle; two men, tied to two trees. Hopeless. No chance for us if Teddy hadn’t gotten free. Did you see his nasty rope burns in result?”
Carolyne nodded.
“Have Roy to thank, too. Came running when he heard our SOS. Damned fast, once he had something to work with.” He’d had enough stew. “I haven’t been as lucky since I fell off that mountain in Chile.”
“I only wish I could have been there for you this time.”
“I’d never have heard the end of it.” His laugh was a ghost of the original, but it was good to hear.
Melanie joined them: “Good news!”
“Will my poor heart take the shock?” Charles ventured.
“Teddy said if you’re not dead now, you won’t soon be; Roy agrees.”
“That is good news.”
However, it wasn’t “the” good news, and Melanie didn’t keep them in suspense as regarded the latter. “Roy knows a way across.”
“Seriously?” Nothing could have cheered Carolyne more.
“About a mile upstream.”
“This means, we should have taken a look when you suggested it,” Carolyne said.
“It wouldn’t have helped. Something to do with quirky river currents. Slip in on one side of the river, wash up on the other. Roy’s prepared to take a rope over so we can ford.”
“Who’d ever have believed getting out would prove more difficult than getting in?” Carolyne marveled.
“All rather exciting, though,” was Melanie’s ongoing opinion.
Carolyne and Charles exchanged glances and laughed in remembrance of their younger days wherein danger more easily rolled off their backs. These days, they less easily accommodated heady rushes of adrenaline.
Teddy came on over with the nasty scratch on his right cheek and the rope burns around his wrists. “Melanie told you the good news?”
“And weren’t we delighted to hear it.” Charles wanted a bathroom with all the conveniences.
“Now, if someone could assure me there aren’t any nomadic Indians on the rampage.” Carolyne wanted it all.
Teddy had no such assurances. “I didn’t spot any, but the arrows are proof.” He nodded toward the stake. “So is that.”
“Charles said it wasn’t Indians who had you.” Carolyne liked to verify facts.
“Bastard had an accent, whoever he was, and called me ‘Yank.’ That sound like an Indian to you?” He traced the scratch across his cheek. “Had a ring o
n his finger, not through his nose.”
“British?”
“Beats me! Roy knows of no Brits in the area. We might get something when we check for recent permits, but I came in under the impression we were it, as far as legal access. You have a different impression?”
Carolyne shook her head.
Their night wasn’t a good one. Ill-conceived or not, the majority opinion was that this was the far boundary of territory controlled by a stark-raving mad killer, a jaguar, and wild natives; the expedition was still on the wrong side of that line. If they were to be victims, it was a kind of now or never moment, which made for restlessness. More than one wished they’d already succeeded in the river crossing, especially with the attending dangers of nightfall.
Made paranoid by her sleeplessness, Carolyne wasn’t the only one who feared the person on guard was less diligent than he/she should be. Charles was up more than once with his dysentery. Melanie battled full to bursting kidneys until there was enough light to see. Teddy continually cocked and un-cocked his pistol; Felix told him to knock it off before he shot someone. Roy was the only one not heard from, except when assuming or surrendering his turn at watch.
It wasn’t a very talkative group that crawled into more morning than it was used to; the ravine came complete with a rare expanse of blue sky that admitted just as rare indirect sunlight.
Carolyne ate raisins and walnuts and hoped the river was nearer the lip of the ravine, and less wide, a mile upstream. If she wasn’t all that fond of rappelling, fording was something she’d tried to avoid since an unexpected surge of water had washed her off a guideline on the muddy headwaters of the Digoel in New Guinea; she still wasn’t certain how she’d survived. Since then, she’d risked any flimsy bridge, swung like Sheena of the Jungle on any hanging vine, or jumped any reasonable distance in a single bound, rather than willingly commit to any body of water. Were this bridge, dangling temptingly across the way, attached to her side by even a mere thread, she’d be tempted to walk it in lieu of what Roy suggested.
Melanie approached the ravine. She nodded greeting to Carolyne, but that was the extent of it. She had her own psyching up to do. For her, this morning adventure was anticipated as much as feared. During the few minutes she’d slept last night, she’d dreamed herself neck-deep in the deluge, clinging precariously to a spider-web lifeline, roiling liquid all around her, as a war-painted savage delivered a machete chop to her only link with the shore.
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