by Jeff Long
It became—absurdly—erotic. The forest was dancing with her, bending her, carrying her. Like yesterday while climbing the tree, she felt pieced away from the greed and confusion and dangers of the expedition. But it was more powerful than that. She felt embraced. She felt desired.
The stand grew thicker. She found herself snaking between the stems in brief surges. The way a boatman rests among the waves, gauging the sea and hoarding his strength, Molly paused. She stopped. It took a minute to register that she was, in a way, trapped.
One green rod pressed between her thighs, another lined up against her spine, more a saddle than a scissors. There was nothing awkward or alarming about it. She would simply have to wait for the bamboo to shift and release her.
The bamboo chattered all around her. The fat stem running between her legs vibrated. Absurd, she thought again. But nice.
The stalks had tangled their leaves high above. Patience, a moment more, she thought to herself. A wicked moment more.
It happened again. The stem pulsed from the top down, a velvet jolt traveling from the sky into the forest floor. She struggled, though not for long. Surrender. Another tremor, and she felt lifted off the earth.
It was unspeakable, literally…getting humped by a tree. Not another person in the world could ever know. She couldn’t even speak it to herself. But really, what was her alternative? To fight? To cry out for help? In a moment, the leaves would untangle. The bamboo would part. She would get back control of herself.
The wood throbbed again. It was like the devil down there between her legs. It took her breath.
She pushed with her back. The bamboo bowed with her. She bent sideways, but her camera strap tangled. Surrender. How was this different from a sunset or a flower’s perfume or the meat of a fruit? It pleased her. And where was the decency in nature anyway? The soft earth gave her feet stirrups. Bamboo appeared between her fists. She hung on.
The high leaves shivered. She let her hips tilt and would have gone through with it, would have let the bamboo finish her. But as her head settled back along the one stem, she saw the soldier.
The skeleton wore a uniform of rags. The pieces of him lay in a patch so dense it formed a forest within the forest. The bamboo shafts opened and closed like seaweed in a crosscurrent.
Molly straightened. She pushed against the bamboo, really pushed, and this time the forest released her. She freed her legs and stumbled upright.
The thicket had her penned in now, unable to move forward, unable to retreat. The breeze was blowing stronger. The bamboo quickened its jangle, changing from wind music to the clatter of teeth. There was a skull in there, its eyes covered by the helmet.
“Kleat,” she shouted. “Duncan.”
The rattle rose to a clashing of wood against hollow wood. She shouted again.
Thunder fell against the top of the canopy.
She yelled herself hoarse.
It was an American uniform. He had a rifle.
The breeze became a wind. The wind became a gale.
At last she saw a distant figure approaching from the outside, chopping with machinelike double strokes, a forehand from the right, a backhand from the left. A second man appeared behind him.
“Here,” she shouted.
Duncan was in front with the machete. “Are you hurt?” he called. “Can you get to us?”
“Just come,” she shouted. She didn’t tell them more. They had to see for themselves.
The closer Duncan got, the farther away he sounded. The toc-toc of the machete blade paled in the mounting racket.
Vin was not with them. She feared Kleat had done something to him. But she didn’t see the boy’s rifle, and Kleat would have taken that.
The rain began. It wasn’t like yesterday’s slow leak. Driven by the wind, the drops had real velocity. They stung her face. While the men worked closer, she tried once more to move nearer the skeleton. But the bamboo held her out like iron bars.
Finally, Duncan cut through to her. He laid one hand on her shoulder, as if to take her back from the forest.
“Where’s Vin?” She had to shout over the crash of bamboo and thunder.
“We sent him down for help. We thought you must have broken a leg. Or that a tiger was at you. He gave us his machete just in case.”
“Not his rifle, though,” Kleat shouted. He looked almost disappointed that she was in one piece. “What are you doing in here?”
“Samnang’s leg,” she said. “You didn’t see it?”
“See what?”
“His leg. The monkeys must have stolen it again.”
“Samnang’s in here?”
“I came to find him. And look.”
She pointed. The bones were all but invisible through the thrashing bamboo. It took them a minute to see.
“How did you know he was in here?” Kleat shouted.
“I didn’t.” And yet she’d come almost directly to the skeleton. Molly tried to remember the phases of her entry, her reasoning for this detour. The monkeys had gotten her attention, and there had been the music of the bamboo, and the light, and the dance. Now, with the bamboo smashing together and the rain whipping them, it seemed off the wall.
“We can’t stay in here,” Duncan said. “The wind is getting worse.”
“Give me that.” Kleat grabbed the machete from his hand.
Molly and Duncan stood back while Kleat attacked the bamboo. He threw his raw emotions at the barrier, grunting and cursing. The blade caught each time the stalks bent in the wind, pulling the handle from his grip.
In the movies, a single swipe would have opened a small highway. Here the bamboo fought them, knocking them sideways and backward. Caught at their tops, each severed stalk bucked and stabbed in wild directions, their bottoms like tubular knives. Each stem had to be yanked loose from the canopy and laid flat before the machete could be used again.
“This is no good,” Duncan shouted.
Kleat gave up. He’d gotten them closer. But the bamboo still kept them out. They could clearly see the soldier, wearing a tanker’s helmet with padded ears. His rifle was trussed to his ribs by vines, barrel up, the way it had fallen from his hands. The skeleton was amazingly whole. Green shoots had grown up between the long bones. Creepers held the ribs and spine in place. Like the city, the bones were both raided and preserved by the forest.
“He shot himself,” Duncan said. “Look at the back of his helmet, the hole. And see the way his rifle’s lying?”
“What?” The rain glanced off Kleat’s head.
“He ate his gun,” Duncan yelled. “Look. The recoil tore out his teeth.”
“What was he doing out here?” Molly said.
“It’s an old jungle fighter’s trick,” Kleat said. “E and E. Escape and evasion. Bamboo makes the perfect hiding place. It guards you in your sleep. The minute anything approaches, the bamboo wakes you up.”
Duncan scanned their sky of furious leaves and cane. It sounded like the clash of spears and the scream of men. His hair whipped like a mare’s tail. “The storm’s growing,” he said. “Listen.”
Molly listened. Deep beneath the clatter of bamboo, some monstrous entity was grinding its stone teeth together. The earth vibrated with it.
“It’s the wind,” he shouted. “There’s a sail effect on the canopy. The canopy rocks the trees. The trees rock the ruins. The wind is moving the whole city. We have to return to camp.”
“But this is my proof,” Kleat said. “I only need one of them. I need him.” His knuckles were white on the handle.
“It could take another hour to get in there.” Duncan pointed at the sky. “This is the big one.”
Mekkhala, Molly thought. The angel of thunder was here. But it would pass. The city could be theirs. This was their chance to be rid of Kleat.
“Let me try,” she said.
Duncan ignored her. “The bones aren’t going anywhere,” he said. “We can come back for them.”
“A typhoon could bring the whol
e forest down,” Kleat said.
She gave her camera bag to Duncan.
Kleat had brought them to within ten feet of the remains. She pressed her palms against the wall of bamboo, feeling for its tempo. Two towering stalks parted and clashed together. When they opened again, she was ready, slipping through with a skip. The stalks clapped shut. She waited again.
Her body swayed with the stand. She waited and stepped again, and waited. Like that, she insinuated herself all the way to the bones.
31.
She stood astride the skeleton, not sure what to do next. Here was this mortal thing in her keeping. The bamboo raged around her. The rain was coming down harder now.
The uniform was just threads held together with tendrils. Moss grew in the spaces of his remaining teeth. The barrel’s recoil had ripped most of his front teeth outward. Three stuck up at odd angles.
Bullied by the stand, she bent and unfastened the dog tag. They would need more, she knew. Teeth. The mandible. The whole skull.
Fastened together, the straps of the helmet would make a handle for the bucket. But when she tried to lift it, the helmet rolled away, exposing the upper face.
His jade eyes stared at her.
Molly barked and straightened bolt upright. The bamboo promptly clubbed her to her knees.
Someone had pressed the jade balls into his eye sockets years ago. Pale green, they bulged from the bones of his face. A skein of rootlets had grown across the skull and stone eyes, a mask of vegetation.
“Moll-lee.” They were calling her, though it came to her as a whisper.
The J school Ws crashed through her mind: who, what, when, where, why. The bamboo shoved at her. She couldn’t think. The typhoon was coming.
The helmet had preserved his blond hair. The skull, she told herself. It was wet. His hair was coarse.
She worked her fingers under the bone to get a purchase, and the back of his head was a ragged cave. Her hand slipped, and the whole carpet of his scalp came away.
She was almost sick. “God,” she yelped. The skull was fused to the earth.
“Moll-lee.”
A branch of leaves whipped her face. Leave the skull. The forensics people would have to make do with pieces. She plucked the three loosened teeth from their sockets and folded them, with the dog tag, in the pouch of the scalp, and shoved the bundle into one pocket of her pants. She stood, half bent, and began her exit.
The bamboo punched her ribs. It creaked and banged. The rhythm eluded her. She went too fast, then too slow. The stand struck at her. It caught her hand. She fell, then got to her feet.
Then Duncan was pulling her through. Without a word, he gripped her arms and propelled her along their narrow path through the bamboo. Kleat was already out of sight.
She cast a last glance back at the skeleton, knowing the skull would be wearing its death grin. What she didn’t expect was its knowing authority. It seemed to be nodding to her. The remains floated on sea swells of vegetation, the arms and legs spreading and rising and beckoning her back, or waving good-bye, the eyes staring.
They emerged from the bamboo, and Duncan did not stop. The clash of bamboo faded, and now she heard that deep-ocean scraping of stone on stone. Dazed by her beating in the stand, Molly looked to see if walls were shifting or spires bending. Surely the city was tearing to pieces. But it stood intact. It was nestling. The ruins were rearranging themselves deep in their foundation, settling a fraction more into the forest.
In the rain and green gloom, they could have been on a giant ark of stone. The floods were coming. Molly smelled wet fur, and it was monkeys—dozens of them now—huddled on the temples’ edges and on top of giant faces, watching them, passing them from one pair of eyes to the next.
Kleat was waiting for them in the mouth of a building, out of the rain. The bamboo had knocked one lens from his steel-rimmed glasses. The remaining lens was misted over. He seemed fractured and only half present.
His one visible eye looked a hundred years old, bloodshot and milky. For all his ugliness over the past weeks, Molly felt pity for him, even a kind of respect. At an age when many men were retiring to the links or cursing the financial pages, Kleat was getting broiled by the sun and horsewhipped by bamboo, faithful to his brother.
He had the machete. Slow water bled from the metal. With the scar along his throat, he might have just returned from battle. “What did you get?” he said.
“Sit,” Duncan said to her. She was shivering.
Molly brought out the bundled pelt. The soldier’s hair was three or four inches long. It had grown during his exile among the ruins. She unfolded the scalp, and there were dark veins along the inside of the leather. The teeth lay on top, yellow with coffee and the decades. The dog tag was so tarnished it appeared to be blank.
“Good,” said Kleat. “Very good.”
She felt ghoulish crouching over the bits and pieces of a man. She set the artifacts on a stone and wiped her hands on the wall, trying to clean away the feel of his hair. Kleat could carry the thing from here on. She’d done her duty.
“There’s something else,” she said. “He had jade eyes.”
“What are you talking about?” Kleat said.
“They were hidden by the helmet. I moved the helmet and someone had put stones in his eye sockets. It was almost like he could see.”
“Who would do that?” said Kleat.
“Maybe it’s a funeral rite,” Duncan said. “But I’ve never heard of any of the mountain tribes doing a thing like that. And the only people inside the city were the soldiers.”
“Get out of here,” Kleat said.
“Who knows?” said Duncan. “After a few months in here, the survivors might have been losing their grip on things. Going native. Going wild. Making things up. Maybe they buried him that way, modern warriors copying ancient warriors.”
“But he wasn’t buried,” said Molly. “He was lying in the open. He shot himself where no one could find him.”
Duncan fell silent.
“This fucking city,” Kleat said. He took off his glasses and cleaned his fogged lens and fit what was left of it onto his face. “At least we’ll know who he was.”
He held the tag up in the light. Molly watched his expression. He blinked. The muscles twitched in his cheeks. “Ridiculous,” he said. His lens clouded over again. He said it a second time, in a whisper.
Duncan took the tag from him and tilted it to read the embossing. His face drew into itself. “I don’t understand,” he said.
Molly pulled the tag from his fingers.
“ ‘Yale,’ ” she read aloud. “ ‘Lucas M.’ ”
32.
“He’s playing with us,” Kleat shouted over his shoulder. He was angry.
“It’s tattooed on his arm,” said Duncan. “We all saw it. Lucas Yale.”
They were on the move again, heading for the stairs. Nagas reared up along the rim. Water shot from their cobra mouths into the depths of the terminus. Channels hidden within the terraces sped it toward the waiting reservoirs. Duncan had said the history of Cambodia lay in its hydraulics. She was beginning to see this empire built on shaping the shapeless, capturing the rain with its ancient geometry.
The wind was picking up. It struck the canopy in bursts, creating huge green pinwheels that moved overhead. Maelstroms in the sky. Molly thought of Van Gogh’s The Starry Night, and that panicked her because night was not far enough away. They needed all the day that was left for their escape.
She tried to see their camp in the abyss, but the rain drove at her eyes. Roots and fallen leaves skated underfoot. The rain was as warm as blood. She put it out of her mind. She was putting a lot of things out of her mind.
“He had free run of the place. He found the bones,” said Kleat. “He saw the dog tag. He got the tattoo. Or he had this made and planted it there. Who do you think put the stones in his eyes?”
“But why do that?” Molly wondered out loud.
Kleat whirled on her. “Defili
ng the dead, that’s what he’s done,” he shouted. “He’s a lunatic.”
His outrage was out of proportion to the event. Kleat was possibly right. Luke had somehow written himself into the last days of the Blackhorse missing. There would be some reasonable explanation. But the remains of the soldier had not been desecrated so much as adorned. Luke hadn’t moved a bone. At most, he’d decorated them.
What disturbed her was Kleat. With his cockeyed steel rims and the missing lens, and that machete, he looked unraveled. His furious rationalizing was irrational. The soldier’s real identity wasn’t lost, only temporarily lifted. They had flesh, hair, and bone to present to the forensics lab. The soldier would get his name back. Luke’s act baffled her. Identity theft was one thing, but in the middle of a jungle? What did he gain? Nothing added up.
“You’re saying a madman went to the trouble of forging something so common, a dog tag?” Molly said. “And then hid it where we would probably never find it? All so we could find it?”
“He brought us here, didn’t he? He lured us with the tags.”
“I’m not so sure anymore. We brought ourselves. With our needs.”
“The gypsy kid walked right up to our table in the restaurant. He’d watched us for a month and selected us out of all the others. It’s so plain in hindsight.”
“It’s not plain at all. What does he get out of it? Why us?”
“Maybe he needed to get resupplied. Look at all the food and gear we brought with us. Plus two vehicles, with pirates to drive his riches out of here.” He added, “And a woman.”
“You said he’d gone. Halfway to China, you said.”
“Maybe I was wrong.”
Kleat was talking nonsense. He wanted things to make sense. He wanted them to connect even if they made no sense.
He strode ahead, arms swinging, that machete like a pendulum. The blade sparked against a wall. She wanted to get it away from him. Regardless of whether they escaped today or in a week or in six months, they were going to need the machete to build camps and cut wood and butcher game and keep them sustained. In Kleat’s hand, it was only a weapon.
