by Calvin Baker
My hand groped its way to the hot center of heat, and I felt there the wetness of blood. I brought it instinctually to my face, as by some subconscious belief that it could not be my own blood, until I smelled its ferric familiarity.
I was overcome by pain, but knew I could not remain there, and pushed off the side of the mountain down the uncertain incline, unable to see more than three feet in any direction, and unsure whether they knew I had been hit. I started across the slope, knowing they would no longer have a straight shot down at me if I could get far enough away.
I could not judge distance in the darkness, but leapt from the ravine in desperation, banging hard along until I fell to rest again, against a bed of smooth stones, where I remained, unable to move.
I listened over the pain, and waited for the sound of their guns. I did not hear anything then except the pounding of blood in my own ears, until the tinkle of pebbles falling let me know they were still on the precipice above me.
Their flashlights reached down into the ravines, like transparent fingers, and I flattened against the rocks, as the light prodded and searched each gully in turn. They fired a burst of rounds into each trench when they were done searching it, and I began sweating with fever and freezing from the coldness of my injury, when the thick fingers of light began poking along the ground nearby until they finally let go a volley of rounds against the stones that rang in my ear like my own heartbeat. Then nothing remained and nothing could be heard but the darkness and evensong of the earth itself.
The lights brushed over the darkness above once or twice more, before bending down into my trench again. I do not know how long it took, but eventually the lights passed, and they started back up the mountain. I knew they would return at first light, if the hyenas and wild dogs did not pick up the scent of blood before that.
I was bleeding badly, and kept one hand pressed down against the wound to try and staunch it, and tried as well to control my breathing, and keep from crying with pain. I began down the mountain again.
I first picked my way horizontally across the face, trying to find the path we’d taken up. I could not separate it from the darkness, or see even more than a few steps of the trail I was on, until I was eventually completely lost, and on a different side of the mountain from where I’d started. Every opening in the vegetation seemed like a trail and every clearing seemed like salvation, but all were cruel tricks. The only thing for me was to head straight down, and try not to end up in one of the deeper couloirs, which I might never escape. Each step fell into a deeper darkness, and I poked at the air first with my foot to find the slope, then at the soil, testing the ground, to keep from falling off the mountain. I was hopelessly lost by then, feeling my way back in the direction I remembered, hoping I would not get taken by the hyenas or wild dogs, or else fall into one of the holes. And what I knew about where I was headed was only gravity.
When the slope evened out, I found a place to perch and managed a tourniquet from my shirt, which was soon soaked through. There were a lot of ways for me to die on the mountain then, and I did not know which I dreaded most, and I did not wish to acknowledge my fears any further, for fear of conjuring them, or giving over to them more power than they already had. I heard lizards scurrying in the brush and then a bark in the darkness, and that fixed my fear on the hyenas. The cats would come one-on-one nobly, and I had the gun and if I missed it would be a quick death, but the hyenas and dogs would come in packs, ganging up to rip and pick little by little, until I succumbed. If I fell into a ravine there was at least the chance I would break my neck and lose consciousness. Time I would lose against eventually, if not that night. The bullet I already had in me. I kept heading downward into the brutal blackness, keeping watch for hyenas and wild dogs.
36
The base of the slope appeared through the fog sometime past midnight. I was caked in dust and muddied with blood, and the pain from the wound throbbed with each heartbeat. The clouds parted midway and the dense stars were high and bright in the sky, along with half the moon, which made the going a little easier, until I realized how far I was from where we had ascended, and how far I was from the lorry, where I hoped Sylvie would be waiting and safe. I rounded the lower reaches of the mountain in another hour, before I spotted the truck below me in the platinum darkness. It was only half a mile away, but there were a series of plunging crevasses in front of me, and no way to cross over with the pain in my shoulder, and that hand unusable. I wrenched the tourniquet tighter, as I sat down to rest and try to plot a way down. There was no certain passage from where I was that I could see. The only safe thing to do was to climb back up, until I found the trail we had taken before.
I stood wearily and climbed uphill another hour, before finally picking up a ridge wide enough to pass over without falling into one of the ravines. From there I descended the remainder of the way.
By the time I reached the truck it was near two o’clock, and Sylvie was nowhere to be found. I was dead with worry, and tried to keep my mind from running off with bad scenarios, as I searched the cab of the truck for the medical kit and checked around for a spare key.
I did not find keys to the truck, and the medical kit was half empty, with nothing of use for the gunshot wound. I was overcome by thirst then, and went round back to find water and my gear bag, where I had some painkillers Doc had given me. It would be light in a only few hours and I did not think they could head back down before then without my being able to see them before they spotted me. I calculated if I slept three hours, and set out for Sylvie an hour before light I could still keep out of their reach.
When I climbed up into the back of the truck I was struck hard by something crashing into me, and tumbled backward, reaching for the gun holstered in my waistband.
“I’m sorry,” I heard Sylvie gasp. “I thought they had caught you. They were so close.” She threw her arms around me, crying with joy but drew back when she saw how I winced in pain, as moonlight streamed into the truck through the open flap. “Did I hurt you?”
“Not you,” I told her.
“Let me see,” she said, pulling away in shock, when she saw my arm and how bedraggled I was. “You’re covered in blood.”
She touched my shoulder gently, near the wound.
“It is better not to touch it.”
“They shot you?”
“It did not hit anything major, or I would have known already,” I tried to comfort her.
“You are just trying to keep me from worrying,” she said.
“Worrying does not help.”
“Does it hurt?” she asked.
“Like hell.”
She found scissors and cut away my makeshift tourniquet, and made bandages from a clean shirt, and began to pour water from a canteen to wash away the blood, but I told her it was better to save the water. She began to redress the wound with the clean bandages, and I began to feel cold and clammy and parched. I was thirsty again and asked for the canteen, and drank deeply, until it was empty. She wrapped a blanket around me to help regulate my temperature, and refilled the canteen from a half-empty jug in the truck, and I drank half of it down, and swallowed the last of the pills.
We had not eaten since breakfast, and I had no appetite, but forced myself to eat an energy bar we found in our packs.
After that she fashioned a sling for my deadened arm, to elevate the wound, and make carrying the weight of it easier. There was nothing else for us there with the truck but danger. We refilled our canteens from the last of the water in the jug, found a bit of food, flashlights, a compass, and money from our packs, and started down toward the trees.
It was five treacherous miles to the lake by my reckoning. The hard night around us was infinite and deep, as we tried to keep watch for the predators and soldiers and whatever else might be out there in the jungle. I still had rounds in the gun, but not enough.
“From the lake we should be able to cross the border out of the country by water.”
“Do yo
u think we will be able to find a doctor?”
“No. There are none in places like this, and if there was one he would either have fled, or else have some connection. But if we reach the lake, we can get one of the villagers to row us across.”
“I’m afraid.”
“We still have the pistol,” I said, calculating the chances of running into one of the rebels, or a predator that did not fear humans.
We were out of sight of the lorry by then, on the last stretch of fore mountain. Down below the tree line had come into view, and just after that a break, and a stretch of plain, where there were some structures visible.
“Look, there is a village over there,” she pointed.
“I think it is better if we avoid it,” I cautioned.
“They may be able to help us.”
“Or harm us,” I argued.
I did not want to take the risk, but we were not certain of our exact location or the lake’s, and I knew she was right. We oriented ourselves toward the village, and kept focused on it as we came down the last stretch of incline onto flat ground, where the village disappeared in the darkness.
When we were finally off the mountain, we began quickly as we could manage across the open plain, toward the cover of the forest. We had no sense of shelter as long as we were out in the open, and no advantage over anything else out there, except for the few shots left in the gun.
We thought being back inside the forest would offer a greater sense of protection, but when we entered the trees again the shadows quickly brought home how many more places there were for danger to lurk, as we began to worry about what might be above us as well. There was no choice, and we picked our way carefully through the strange forest, trying to control our fear as the trees swallowed us in the denseness. The vegetation was equally impenetrable, and we fought through with our hands, using the compass to navigate a straight-enough line.
There were no stars visible anymore, only the occasional break in the clouds and gilded light of the moon, which shone sharp into the forest, playing intermittent tricks with the shadows. I felt every sense grow acute, and the fear at least deadened the pain. We made our way through the darkness by feel, a few feet at a time.
My shoulder was in terrible shape after a while, and there were no more painkillers, so I tried to focus on my steps to take my mind off the shoulder. After an hour the forest seemed to thin out, and we could get a glimpse ahead, where the outline of the village came clear again, but was soon swallowed by darkness when the clouds passed across the face of the moon and fog began rolling in over us, swelling the night with a perfect darkness and perfect fear.
We continued on until we startled, hearing activity in the leaves ahead. We froze where we were, listening to a rustling of the ground moving steadily toward us, with the confidence of feet familiar with the forest. Whether human or animal was impossible to tell. We crouched against the trees, and tried our best to remain calm. The sound grew steadily nearer with slow intent. I kept my hand on the gun, hoping for the advantage of surprise over whatever it was I was going to shoot.
A moment later we heard the meaningful patter of human voices crystallize, but the words did not separate out one from the other. We knew what we faced, at least, and hoped it was a villager out looking for wood for the morning fire, and not something more nefarious out there at night.
The steps grew closer until we were certain it was more than two people. We did not wait, but quickened our pace in the other direction, to run before they could reach us.
Their movements were confident in the strange landscape, and when we heard them stop, we stopped as well. A voice called out to us, but we did not know the language nor trust the voice we heard, and did not leave the spot where we hid against the trees, until the nearby branches stirred with a movement too near. I stepped out with the gun drawn, and saw in the break of the moon three children passing in near silence.
They startled when they saw the gun, and paused, looking at us, and at the gun. We did not say anything at all, and they broke out running in the direction of the plain.
When they were gone we kept in the opposite direction as quickly as possible. There was something about them that did not seem like children. Perhaps I was only being fearful, but it was not a time to second-guess the instinct telling me I did not want to find out what they might have known that gave their faces such hardness and courage in that jungle.
We circled back toward the village, checking nervously every time anything stirred in the underbrush to make certain no one was following us from behind and nothing was tracking us from the trees. The forest felt empty, yet they had come from somewhere, so I was hesitant of going to the village after that, but Sylvie still thought it the best option to get help, so we kept going undeterred through a darkness and silence so deep the only thing we could hear was the age of the earth.
We eventually reached a clearing on the open plain again, out of immediate danger. The fog had dissolved and the clouds had cleared and we could see a fair way in all directions, but search as we might, we had lost sight of the village.
Sylvie was more at ease having cleared the forest, but I was still tense with edginess, trying to ignore the fear, as the insects in the high savannah grass called from the distance, and the forest sounded from behind us, and my own pulse still beat hard in my blood.
“Do you smell something?” Sylvie asked, stopping midway across the clearing.
“No.”
“It is fire.”
I still did not smell it, but a few feet further on the wind caught it and carried it toward us, acrid and distinct, but impossible to tell where it came from.
“If there has been a ground fire it will be good,” she reasoned. “The animals will have been frightened from the area.”
“What makes you say it is a ground fire? Isn’t it more likely from the village?”
We debated again whether to go to the village, but we were lost and had no choice. She wove her fingers through mine, and I laced my hand in hers briefly, before putting it back on the pistol. The stars burned away overhead and the partway moon gave some partway light, but not enough.
We could not tell whether it was more dangerous for us in the village or whether there was more danger there in the dark. That is what fear is and it is what we felt and the only thing moving us forward was desire to escape the fear.
The village came into view again not long after Sylvie first smelled fire. We could see everything that had been there was burned down to embers and ash.
As we navigated the charred earth we saw bits of what had been there before, stones from cooking fires, and posts from buildings. It was after that we started to see pieces of bone scattered on the ground, and at first they looked like the bones of cattle, because that was what we wished, but my foot kicked something and it was not.
“What is that?” Sylvie asked.
“Do not look,” I said. “It is not something to see.”
We hurried to get out of that place of death. It was only a small village, and most likely a temporary settlement for the herders moving their cattle over the plains to summer pasture, but the ground showed clearly where the houses had been, and they were not there. The people were not there, and, as we crossed out of that place, we could smell nothing except fire. They had purified that place, and when they were done making it pure only the atoms remained.
The forest soon grew up severely all around us again. The herders had probably chosen that place thinking it safer than the wide-open plains, but it was not for them and it was not for us.
We picked up a trail at the edge of where the village had been, and hoped it would take us on to the lake. Without that we had no chance in all of hell.
We were relieved to be out of the village, and the forest felt safe to us, or just less unsafe, as we pressed through, not knowing where, but believing that it could become no worse.
A hundred feet into the forest again we saw a shape ahead of us, crouched low to the
ground. We stopped in terror, then began backing away slowly.
The creature in the road did not move toward us, but nor did it run, so I pointed the Sig at it, and Sylvie stood behind my shoulder, and we searched for another way but the trees were dense and there was no other way forward.
I yelled out, and still what was there did not move. We inched forward again, my finger tight around the trigger, until I saw a pair of eyes staring at me, and squeezed off a shot that exploded in the dirt.
The thing did not stir, and I yelled again, inching close behind the gun, until my stomach heaved at what a monster of a thing it was: a human baby dead and burned up and wrapped in cloth and left there in the jungle for the animals.
“Don’t look.”
She had seen it already, and clung tight to my arm, then buried her face, as tears coursed from her eyes. I went up to it and knelt to close the dead child’s eyes, but the eyelids were burned away and it kept staring at us.
“What an awful thing.” She was crying hard, and I could not comfort her.
“It was meant to be humane. Whoever did it was trying to spare the child. To sacrifice it to whatever they were and believed in, and not whatever enemy wanted to cut them from it.”
We walked in silence, but our breathing was loud over our emotion, and the pain in my shoulder seemed to breathe again too as the pills wore thin.
“How is your shoulder?” Sylvie asked, from concern, as well as desire to dispel the silence.
“It is fine. It does not hurt as much,” I answered flatly, to mask my worry about the bullet still being inside of me.
“Oh, you are suffering.”
“I will be fine.”
“You don’t have to be brave for me.”
“I know. But I do if I want to keep going.”
There was nothing else to say about it, as the forest called around us, and the earth sounded beneath us, and our fear rose a little but soon so did our hope when we realized it was nearly morning. The darkness was not yet burned to the blue light, but the crepuscular window between night and morning was starting to open.
