The meat fell to the dirt, and Johnny glared at the prisoner. The man pointed down and the horror in his face got Johnny’s attention. He looked and saw only a fire-blackened joint on the bone. A pork hock, he thought, and then stared harder. He recoiled and felt the urge to vomit. How could he have missed it! He was looking at a human forearm, elbow to wrist, crisp skin with veins below.
“Dear God!” Johnny gasped. Footy’s eyes went wide as well.
“Bloody cannibals,” he choked. “May they rot in hell!” The Mambu warriors were watching the strangers closely and they grinned and laughed. They knew revulsion when they saw it. Some of their neighbors did not consume human flesh, and they interpreted the reaction as weakness.
A village mutt rushed forward and snatched up the meat. But before it could run, the hoarse warrior raised his spear and stabbed, skewering it to the earth. He bent down, pulled the joint from the teeth, and waved it to the crowd. The people roared their approval. The chief’s brother displayed his buai-stained grin, brought the meat to his mouth, and tore off a strip. This he chewed heartily, reveling in the outrage on the invaders’ faces. The crowd cawed at the show.
“Let’s get out of here!” Johnny growled. While the people’s attention was on the warrior, Johnny and Footy slung on their packs. They took the prisoner’s arms and muscled forward. They came up against the warriors, who whirled to face them. Like a cloud coming over the sun, the mob’s mood turned. Mirth became sneering cruelty, and the blood lust rose.
The brother tossed the gnawed arm into the crowd. A woman caught it and began to eat. He put a foot on the dog twitching in its death throws, jerked out his spear, and leveled the bloody point at Johnny.
A shout erupted from the old men who remained near the big house. All eyes turned to see a new group of about thirty warriors come into the clearing from the far side. Their bodies shone black, decorated in whirls of red, white and yellow. Each wore a soaring white headdress, and had pig tusks through the nose, points up. They, too, wore penis gourds. Each of the sturdy young men carried one or more weapons whose points and blades were wet with blood. Some at the back dragged burdens the watchers could not make out.
War party, the soldier in Johnny observed. The warriors came by the big house talking exuberantly, but broke off when they saw the vast gathering and the three light-skinned aliens.
Even though he’d never seen him, Johnny knew Bumay at once. The heavily muscled man led the group. His headdress was the most magnificent, his penis gourd, the most intricately curled. He wore a shell the size of a dinner plate on his chest, and in one hand carried a huge spear, in the other, a stone axe, both crimson. The warriors around Johnny formed an aisle.
“Bumay, Bumay, Bumay!” a thousand voices called. The Mambu-ato stretched his scarlet lips back to expose the ebony teeth of the buai-addict. He strutted along the riverbank and stopped fifteen feet from Johnny’s group. His men formed an armed wall around their leader.
“We asked for the chief, now we’ve got him,” Johnny said out of the side of his mouth.
“Yes mate,” Footy agreed. “We’re in the deep poo now.”
CHAPTER 7
Johnny’s group faced the arrogant chief. Bumay made a comment to his warriors and guffawed. It was a barking laugh that irritated Johnny. The war chief passed his axe to another man, grasped his huge spear in both hands, and leveled it at Johnny’s chest. Do something or else! the hard voice said.
“Bumay!” he yelled in his deepest voice. He had the satisfaction of seeing the chief's eyes widen at hearing his name. Johnny stepped towards him.
“Greetings from Harry Truman, President of the United States of America!” he shouted. “And it’s not important what I say, just so long as it’s loud!” he bellowed. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Footy staring at him strangely.
Chief Bumay let loose a string of words Johnny didn’t understand. He accompanied this with stabbing motions of his spear, which Johnny did get. His warriors scowled, and menaced the intruders with axes and clubs, while bowmen put arrows on the strings and drew them taut.
The hoarse warrior stepped to Johnny’s side and spoke to his brother, but in a voice intended for the assembly. Bumay cocked his head, nodding sharply while his eyes went from Johnny, to Footy, to the prisoner, and back again. When the brother’s oration was done, the old couple pushed between Bumay and their spirit-ancestors. They raised their hands and told their tale.
After only a few sentences, the chief’s lip curled and he interrupted. His warriors grabbed them and shoved them into the crowd. Deliberately, his eyes on Johnny, Bumay threw back his head and laughed again. He swaggered toward the tall man and this time, pressed the point of his spear to the white man’s chest. Johnny was wearing his undershirt, and the point went through and drew blood. It was all he could do to stop himself from shooting the chief right there.
While he was preoccupied, the young man he’d knocked down earlier snuck up behind him and flipped the helmet off his head. It hit the dirt and rolled towards Bumay. The chief trapped it under his bare foot and picked it up. He turned it this way and that, studying the lining and straps. He spoke, and a warrior stepped to each side. They unpinned the egret headdress and removed it.
The chief sneered at Johnny and pulled the steel helmet down on his curls. He struck the butt of his spear on the ground, held it at arm’s length, and struck a regal pose. The crowd shrieked with delight. What a splendid man was their Mambu-ato! Johnny knew he was being ridiculed, and he glowered at the chief.
Bumay thumped his spear on the ground and shouted over his shoulder. The men at the back came dragging their loads. At the last moment, Bumay stepped aside and his warriors dumped three corpses on the clay.
They were native men, Johnny saw, but outfitted very differently than the Mambu. They wore cloth laplaps knotted around their waists, and each had a feather protruding from the tip of his nose. They wore headdresses of bamboo circlets with springy stalks, topped with strips of painted bark. Their torsos were painted with broad bands of yellow and white around their pectoral muscles, and they were marked all over with raised scar tissue.
It was clear the three had been killed in battle. One had an arm hacked off. A Mambu dragged it nonchalantly by the hand. The other two were spiked with arrows.
Bumay watched the visitors intently for their reaction. Johnny heard a hiss of breath from Footy, but kept his own face hard, staring at the chief with his chin stuck out.
Again Bumay thumped his spear and warriors came dragging two more carcasses. Johnny saw uniforms and thought for a second they were GIs. But then he made out the black hair and realized they were Japanese. The bearers dropped them with the others. These, too, had arrows in them and deep slashes in the flesh. Johnny glanced at the prisoner and saw him fixated on his countrymen. Johnny’s gaze went back to Bumay and saw the insufferable grin. Now the cold fighting rage rose within him.
Bumay pointed with his spear at the Japanese and said something. His warriors chortled. Johnny almost shot Bumay then, but got a grip on himself. He could kill the chief, but his warriors would certainly avenge his death at once. They needed an escape plan.
Show them what rifles can do! Johnny aimed over their heads and pulled the trigger. The report cracked like a whip and sizzled across the river, and the crowd jerked back. Johnny watched Bumay while his hands reloaded and was pleased to see the native flinch.
The chief, however, was not thrown for long. He had witnessed the foreigner’s magic sticks in action down the river, and while he feared them, that had not stopped him from slaughtering their bearers.
Bumay had not been born Mambu-ato. He had earned the position in single-handed combat with the most formidable warriors of his nation. Two of the men, his closest rivals, he had killed and eaten. Other times, he had spared the loser’s life, while taking his youngest wives and his choice of their lands and possessions.
In the previous year, he had at last challenged and defeated the reigning
war chief. It was expected the victor would put the vanquished to death, but this Bumay had not done. He had made the man his slave. After that, the clans gathered for the lavish feast to confirm Bumay as leader. He accepted their tributes of virgins, pigs and prime gardens, including a fine grove of betel trees, and then demanded more.
Bumay was his nation’s finest warrior. He was beside his own spirit house, at the center of Mambu heartland, surrounded by hundreds of the fiercest fighters on the entire river. No outsider had ever entered the Mambu valley and lived to tell about it. The intruders confronting him, Bumay thought, were already dead men.
There were only two of them. The third was obviously their captive and of no consequence. Yes, these were the hairy, reddish foreigners with killing sticks. But two men against his entire nation? It was no contest!
Johnny saw the emotions play over Bumay’s face and knew he was getting ready to kill them. Urgently, he spoke to Footy. “Aim at a pile of skulls. Wait for my word!”
“Right!” The muzzle of the Lee Enfield swung around.
“Bumay!” Johnny called again. He raised his arm and dropped it. “Fire!”
There was the crash of Footy’s shot and a skull pyramid exploded. Skulls bounced down with a sound like dry wood. A gasp went up from the crowd. Nearby warriors picked up orbs of shattered bone and stared.
Bumay was livid. Now the invaders had committed sacrilege. He fixed his scowl on the tall one and allowed the urge to kill him swell. He felt fear as well in the face of their strong magic, and because of that, again he made a show of laughing. I will spear that one and drink his heart-blood while he watches, he promised himself. His muscles bunched for the killing ecstasy, and he stepped to the corpse of one of the foreigners and put his foot on it.
“Look at this one!” he called. “Dead! Now these will die as well!
“Get ready to run!” Johnny said to Footy. “I’ll take Bumay. You shoot the brother, and as many as you can. Go for the far side!”
“Roger,” Footy said, lining up his shot only a foot away.
Bumay saw a skull near his feet and he kicked it in fury. It spun away, spewing teeth. He shook his spear and screamed.
“Are we dead men?”
“No!” the warriors shouted.
“We are Mambu, the only true people! These invaders have broken our law and they die now!”
Johnny was in his killer mind, and it no longer mattered if he lived or died. His eyes flashed to the pilot. Rifle up, good man. He glanced at the Japanese and saw he was calm and alert, even with his hands tied. Johnny felt a flash of respect. He is not afraid.
Johnny flexed his knees and took a breath as his gaze returned to Bumay. His helmet was still on the chief’s head, and his eyes went to it, then back to the black eyes. Bumay saw the anger on the strange face and felt satisfaction, sweet as wild honey.
“The tall one is mine!” he thundered. “Kill the others!”
What happened next took the space of heartbeats. Bumay jerked his spear back to stab Johnny through the chest. Johnny aimed his rifle at the chief’s head, but as he fired, a club glanced off his arm. The bullet shattered Bumay’s left shoulder and he spun and went down, dropping his spear.
Footy shot the hoarse warrior so close, the powder scorched the curls on his chest. The bullet tore apart the heart and went on through the two men behind. All three sprawled, knocking others over. Footy fired fast, working through the magazine, and more warriors found themselves hugging dirt. Johnny was only a little slower, having to reload between shots. Mambu closest to the strangers lurched back, those further away pressed to attack.
Abruptly the Japanese moved. His bound hands flew to Footy’s pack. He grabbed his sword and jerked up. There was a flash of steel, and it was in his hands once more. He felt a rush of elation. If this is the time to die, let it come!
He swept the blade almost upright in a semicircle. The tips of arrows and spears clattered to earth in a rain of fingers. Mambu brought stumps before incredulous eyes.
The warriors were too close! Johnny swung the butt of his rifle again, breaking a man’s jaw and driving them back. Again, the sword flashed across the sun, and a warrior’s head leapt off his shoulders. There was a gasp from the crowd. Johnny put his rifle against a man’s jaw and shot, feeling the spray of hot blood. Footy’s rifle spat again and again, and warriors with arrows on the string spun and shot their fellows.
Two Mambu grabbed Johnny’s rifle. He kept a grip on it while his other hand drew his pistol, thumbed the hammer, and shot as fast as he could. His rifle came free. The Japanese helped carve some elbowroom. A warrior swung his axe at the prisoner’s head. Johnny shot the Mambu through the ear and the stone blade whistled overhead and struck another headhunter across the eyes. The victim screamed and staggered away, trying to tug the stone from his face.
A hefty warrior rushed Footy, took him in a bear hug and began to squeeze the life out of him.
“Help!” he gasped. Johnny put the pistol to the Mambu’s temple and scrambled his brains for him. Suddenly, the three men found space around them. Warriors recoiled from the ring of death, leaving the ground thick with the writhing and the dead.
Their departure revealed Bumay on his knees. It had been only a space of breaths since the chief launched the attack. One arm hung bleeding and useless, but the strong right arm was sound. Bumay grabbed his great spear and sprang up. He raised his chin and howled his famous war cry. At once, his men felt their courage flow into them. They rallied to their leader, as they had so many times in battle.
Four hundred cannibal warriors turned to face the invaders. They would overwhelm them in a single rush.
CHAPTER 8
The Father dove away from the sharp noises and pain with the man in its teeth. It swam underwater and the prey stopped twitching. The reptile was too overwrought to be hungry. It opened its jaws and the current took the carcass. Then it rushed downstream, overwhelmed by the agony of its ripped leg and the puncture wounds along its head and body.
After some distance, it came to a place where the water was shallow and boiled over rocks. As the creature bumped over them, the foot was battered and the suffering was terrible. It grunted and hissed and writhed its way down.
The Father continued day and night, trying to outrun its torment. It swam with its throbbing limb held stiffly to the side. Bacteria invaded the flayed flesh and infection set in. The leg swelled so the scaled skin was too tight. The Father’s misery was relentless, and it grew more desperate by the hour.
In its fevered brain, the distress was one with the image of the smooth-headed man. Each beat of its enormous heart pulsed with the desire to hurt its tormenter. The predator began to swim on the surface, uncaring if it was seen. It swung its head back and forth, back and forth, endlessly searching along the bank for the source of its affliction. At last the rapids were behind it, and it had relief from the stones. The river grew wider, thick with silt.
In the light of yet another dawn, the Father snuffled the stench of the two-legged pack. The odor enraged the reptile. Its teeth clattered together, and it felt the shudder all through its skull.
In mounting fury, the crocodile raised its head and observed an enormous herd of the creatures. At once it rushed to attack, but then heard the sharp explosions that made it prickle all over with anxiety. The extreme emotions, magnified by the unbearable days of suffering and the poisons pumping through it, unhinged the reptile.
It threw itself from the river and up the slope. Fiery pain shot up each time its weight fell on the raw leg. The Father burst over the bank and stopped, tail twitching, facing the greatest gathering of the animals it had ever encountered.
Hundreds of Mambu heard the splash and turned from the fight with the foreigners. They were thunderstruck. The enormous supernatural crocodile had materialized by magic. It crouched on the bank in all its monstrous glory, water pouring off ten thousand scales. Here, in the flesh, was the calamity they both worshiped and abhorred. They ev
en forgot the strangers as they stared into the malevolent eyes of the Father of all the Crocodiles. In awe, they took in the moon on the head, and the bloody stump of its leg. They believed the Father could not be harmed, and they wondered what this manifestation meant.
The river’s anger grunted, rushed among them, struck with its tail, and six people died. Then the beast stood up, stared across the herd and froze. There, of all things, was its single-hearted desire—the smooth-headed man. The predator opened its jaws and let out a bellow that filled the village. Then it charged, rage overwhelming its pain.
The old woman who saw it in her dreams watched the deity bear down. When it was close, she raised her arms and screamed.
“Mambu-matu!”
The god ran down its handmaiden, and a clawed foot tore out her throat. The Mambu scattered before it, trampling their neighbors.
Fighting for their lives, none in Johnny’s group noticed the crocodile come from the river. Johnny and Footy each shot again, pistols hot in their hands. But when the beast roared, the hair stood up on their necks. A warrior menacing them glanced over his shoulder at the commotion, and the sword unzipped his belly.
The sea of natives parted, and Johnny saw the Father come at a lurching gallop.
Bumay, too, witnessed the appearance of the deity. This time, he could not deny his fear. He might be Mambu-ato, War Chief of the People, but here came the Mambu-matu, the very Chief of Chiefs.
The prisoner saw his chance. He ran to his fallen countrymen. Standing near them were the warriors who had dragged the bodies up. His sword swung, and another man lost his head. The corpse tottered while the man beside it tried to jump away. But the blade flew like a hawk. It parted the soft flesh under the rib cage and separated the spine. Two bodies went down in a shambles.
A warrior sprang at the Japanese from behind, stabbing spear raised. Johnny shot, and he tumbled across the prisoner’s feet. Across the space, “the Jap” met Johnny’s eyes and he nodded.
TEETH - The Epic Novel With Bite (The South Pacific Trilogy) Page 19
