In mid afternoon, they approached another mudflat. They paused at the edge and gazed uneasily across. It was a lot like the place where they’d been sick, then attacked by the crocodiles. They studied the field carefully, and Johnny panned it with his scope, but they saw none of the predators. Still, they kept their rifles ready and began to pick their way across.
Up ahead was a hill with a tree on it. It was uncannily like the one they’d taken refuge on in the storm. The one where the Jap got killed, Johnny thought. Carrion birds circled over it, and they approached on high alert.
Their alarm increased when they saw corpses strewn in the shrubbery. They had to work their way by a number of lower intervening mounds that blocked their view. When they came around the last hillock, they saw some distance away, a long imprint in the mud. Now they noticed the footprints and heavy indentation of the body, going to the river. They followed the marks until they were close to the clear impression of a huge crocodile.
“The Father!” Johnny breathed, the hair rising on his neck.
“The very same,” Footy agreed. “Unless there are two bastards this big, and the chances of that are as good as me making Pope.” The men covered the field with their rifles, but there was no sign of the animal. Johnny began to measure the length. He started at the tip of the tail and walked beside it, counting his paces. Footy paused to marvel at the size of the clawed back foot. This was the very one that had almost crushed his head in Kissim.
They continued by the wide boat of the belly. They came to the hole left by a foreleg and saw there were no claw marks. Any tiny shred of doubt about the monster’s identity was gone. Now they were at the head, and Johnny kept counting to the tip of the snout.
“Ten paces,” he said. “At least thirty feet long.”
“Blimey!” Footy said. “That’s three times the length of the bull we shot back there!”
The men stared up the hillock. It was not big enough for the Father to hide, but they saw the raw earth where its claws had plowed the grass. They climbed to the torn corpses. Hawks lifted off, and the men saw native faces missing the eyes.
“They wouldn’t feed if the croc was close,” Footy said.
“So says you,” Johnny muttered. Both men turned frequently with rifles ready. They continued through blood splashes and Footy stumbled over a torn-off head, then a leg. Blowflies buzzed everywhere. The stench of death made them retch.
They moved to the upwind side of the knoll and skirted the remains of another victim. They approached the tree. Beneath it, the ground was particularly torn up, and body parts were strewn all around. Johnny said the only way to tell how many men died here was to do a head count—literally. There were five of them.
“They’re from a tribe we haven’t seen before,” he said. The dead men’s hair was in long ringlets, woven with white beads.
“Job's tears,” Footy observed.
“What’s that?”
“The beads—they’re called ‘Job's tears,’ because they grow by the thousands.”
“These fellows found a lot more trouble than old Job,” Johnny said. From their vantage, the men studied the mudflat. Strangely, there was only a one-way trail made by the Father, and it went to the river.
“It swam in on the flood and then walked out,” Footy said. “But we must be careful. Crocs often stay near their kill.”
“Let’s go,” Johnny said. The men walked the rest of the way across the mud with their rifles at their shoulders. They breathed easier in the forest again, and felt better when they’d put some miles between themselves and the scene of the crocodile’s most recent rampage.
At last they came to another open, grassy riverbank. Again, they looked hard, but saw no sign of their hunter. Neither were there any natives.
The river was wild and beautiful. Storks and egrets hunted the shallows, and ducks careened overhead. Johnny would have liked to shoot one for dinner, but knew they couldn’t waste the ammo.
Soon they found more gardens, interspersed with groves of papaya and bananas. They pulled off two of the football-size “pawpaws,” as Footy called them, and ate them right there. They sliced them in half, scraped out the glistening seeds, and spooned the fruit in. They added several more, and bananas, to their bulging packs.
They hiked on, and the land grew flatter. The flood-swollen Raub remained wider than usual. They were truly in the tropical lowlands now, and the heat grew ever more oppressive. They hung their towels over their shoulders to mop the sweat from their eyes.
The path grew into a broad band of clay. It was clear that they approached another village, but still, they did not encounter a single soul. Eventually, in the distance they saw a grouping of huts and went closer.
“Still no one,” Johnny said low.
“Not a dog, any animal,” Footy observed.
“And no smoke,” Johnny added.
They reached the houses and walked between them. They called out, stuck their heads through doorways, and found all of them vacant. Johnny ducked into one and crouched by the fire pit. He touched his fingers to the ash and sniffed.
“No one here for a long time,” he said.
A dog began to howl. The men moved that way and the keening grew louder. They were approaching yet another hovel, when the dog appeared in the doorway. It was ancient, its muzzle gray, ribs standing out under loose skin. Its eyes were misty marbles.
“Blind,” Footy said.
“And left behind,” Johnny added.
The men kept going, and exited the village. A path went into the jungle and took them between two chest-high boulders, each crowned with a human skull. They went on through a thicket and came out in a silent, grassy clearing. It was dominated by the ruin of a giant A-frame, very much like Bumay’s house.
“House Tambaran,” Footy said. “Another men’s spirit house.” It was obvious some catastrophe had occurred here. Only the vertical support poles were left standing. There were about twenty of these trunks of forest giants.
“I’ve heard they bury a head beneath each of these poles,” the pilot said. Around them lay the rest of the building, a jumble of broken beams, crushed walls and grass thatching.
The men went to the first trunk and Footy stopped beside it. It towered fifty feet up. The long ridgepole lay nearby, a backbone in the rubble.
“Look!” the Aussie said. There were punctures in the wood. “Bullet holes, I reckon. Big caliber.”
Johnny stuck a finger in one and studied the angle.
“It came from above. I guess the place was strafed by fighters.”
“Now why would anyone shoot up a spirit house?” Footy wondered.
“Let’s find out,” Johnny said. The men picked their way through the ruin and Johnny pulled up a piece of matting.
“Here!” he called and Footy scrambled over. They were looking at the skeleton of a man, and he was no native. The bones wore a Japanese helmet and uniform and there were black-rimmed holes across the chest.
“What’s he doing here?” Footy asked.
“Let's see if there are more,” Johnny said.
The men put down their things and went to work. Half an hour later, they’d counted thirty-four dead enemy soldiers, and a half-dozen native men. The count was complicated by the hundreds of smoke-stained skulls laying around—headhunter trophies, they guessed.
“The Japs must have been hiding in here, and somehow, our guys found out,” Johnny said.
“Fish in a barrel,” Footy said. “Bad magic for the kanakas.”
“Maybe why they left,” Johnny nodded, “like Kissim.”
“Could be, this is the last of the Japs on the Raub,” Footy said.
“I hope you’re right,” Johnny told him. The men returned through the village. Even the old dog was silent.
“I don’t fancy this,” Footy said. “Too bloody still.”
“Like a grave,” Johnny agreed. They came to the edge of the village and stared at the river. The glare was on the water, and the surfa
ce remained littered with torn-up vegetation.
“Let’s get on to the coast,” Johnny said, “I’m itching to hitch a ride out of here.”
“Yes, mate,” Footy said “I reckon we’re through the worst of the drama now.” The men cut a beeline across open land to the place the trail disappeared in the jungle once more.
The instant they were out of site, a clump of waterweeds rose in the air, borne up on a wide head. The Father had watched the enemy come out of the prey nests, and turn for the trees. And now it knew exactly where the game trail came to the water again.
At once, it splashed into the current and surged downriver. It knew it would get there first, and the smooth-headed man must come to it.
CHAPTER 20
After it killed the men on the island, the Father rested. When it had taken the first one and charged up the hill, it hurt its leg again. Savagely, the Father assuaged its suffering, throwing bodies around. It bolted its meal, then slid into the flood once more. The waters held the weight off its ruined limb. Hunger satiated, the crocodile dozed through the darkness. It sensed the flood subsiding, and dawn revealed that it stretched on a bed of mud.
It faced the hill on which its kill was scattered. Already at first light, riding the scent of death, carrion birds were circling. Their sharp eyes took note of the enormous crocodile, and they would not land.
The heat was welcome on the crocodile’s back, but the incessant jab of the wound made it cranky. The Father raised its head and grunted a complaint that made eagles veer in flight. The infection was mounting a new assault, and the reptile was no longer interested in eating. It dragged itself on its belly to the river.
As always now, it watched the path of the two-legged animals, seeking the prey it truly wanted. Only killing this one would slake its fury. It launched itself into the stream and drifted downriver in the detritus of the flood.
With every bend of the Big River, the predator came to increasingly familiar haunts. Again, the light scorched the sky and the Father followed the current. Eventually, the glow dropped into the trees, and the colossus and all things flowed on through the black.
The Father’s eyes on top of its head stared up. The points of light seemed to glow just above. Its leg seeped poison into its blood, and the giant became bilious. It regurgitated some of the man-flesh into the river.
With hypersensitivity, it felt every place along its flanks, on its head, and down its back, where the hot stings had ever hurt it. It shivered along its length, sending out waves, while the sensations popped and crackled along its spine and into its brain. The beast stared at the lights and saw each one as an ache in its poisoned scars. Lost in distress, the reptile stopped paying heed to where it was. Its general suffering was a discordant jangle, against which the leg was a constant shriek.
Katsu regained consciousness when his face went under water. He choked and jerked his head up, coughed and spat. He was a mere pinprick of awareness and did not know where he was, or even who he was. He was something that breathed, that was all. He attempted to puzzle it out, but only straws of disconnected nonsense drifted by.
Time passed, and he was still in the void. Gradually, he made simple distinctions. There was air—his head was in it. There was water—it surrounded his body. And there was mud—he lay in it.
Gradually a word coalesced. Nigero! (Escape!). He kept clutching for scraps of thought, but they made no sense. Again the thought came: Nigero! But from what, and to where? How had he come to be here? His head was hot, and yet he shivered. He groaned and, like a drowning man, he clutched what he could.
Nigero!
He tried to move, but all he did was twitch. At last he found arms and legs, and got on his knees, shivering and panting. He raised a hand to his eyes and both arms rose together and he felt the rope. Still, he could not see a hint of shape. At last he forced himself onto his feet and stood, strange light patterns whirling in front of his eyes.
The next thing he knew, he was floundering through water to his waist. He seemed to move with legs roped together. They are tied as well, he thought, and fought panic. He searched down with bound hands and found something between his knees. He tugged, and it unraveled into trousers that he pulled up and knotted the rope by feel.
On he stumbled, constantly attempting to marshal his thoughts, but without success. He toppled on his face and swallowed water that tasted of mud, came up hacking, and stumbled on. Rain struck his head and rinsed his eyes.
When the flood spilled across the field, the she-crocodile stayed in the reeds and watched. The female had not fed for weeks, and she was driven by hunger. Darkness descended and she thought to explore the expanded territory in search of marooned and drowned animals. Shortly after dark, she crested the bank and nosed through the shallows. Then she heard the unmistakable sounds of a land animal in the water, in noisy distress. She turned in pursuit.
The Japanese blundered on. His feet stubbed a dirt slope and he fell forward onto thorns. He crawled out and his face and hands were torn. The crocodile heard the prey leave the water and she sped up. She, too, encountered the slope and came out. She smelled the animal and knew what kind it was.
It was close, very close.
The man ran into a wall. His hands recognized a curve of bark and broken branches. He grabbed and climbed. The fallen tree was as high as his head, and he needed both hands and feet to mount, nails tearing. He teetered at the top and fell headfirst down the far side, scraping skin off chest and shins. He broke his fall with his hands and rolled. For a moment he lay panting, then struggled on.
The crocodile rushed up and ran her snout against the wood. She heard the prey on the far side and knew she could not go over. She ran one way and found an impassible tangle of branches. She went the other, and eventually got around the roots. But by then the creature was gone, and she knew it was too far to chase. She returned the way she had come.
The man careened through the night, clawed by branches. He came to a place where he was pinned in on all sides. He fell on his belly and crawled. His knees and elbows were soon worn raw by gnarled roots.
At last his hands discovered cool, smooth columns. They felt like home and soothed his spirit. He stayed clutching them and then was oblivious. He awoke in the depths of night with a thought like a bell tolling in his mind.
I am in a bamboo grove and I am Takano, Katsu. He tried to cling to the thought, and the poles, while his mind dropped like a stone into the lake of oblivion.
How long it drifted in darkness, the Father did not know. Pain brought it alert when its leg bumped a log. The giant found itself floating in blinding light. It stared around and realized it approached another gathering place of the two-legged herd. Something nudged its body and it realized it drifted beside another giant. The great tree had been undermined by the flood, and now the Father swam with its head beneath the umbrella of branches. Again, it studied the banks for any sign of its enemy.
It swept around a bend and the Father saw the prey-animals’ nests. Always in its memory, the herd was thick here, but now it saw no movement. It drifted from the tree and entered an eddy. Hidden among the weeds, it waited and watched.
After some time, the Father saw something that brought its awareness to razor edge. Coming towards it from among the nests was the smooth-headed man. A companion walked beside it. The reptile watched the one-prey draw near and prepared for the reunion.
Then the prey left the trail, went across the land, and was lost in the trees. But the predator knew where the game path came to water again, and it cruised downriver. It arrived at the place and knew it was first. Here the prey animals sometimes congregated in such numbers that they had worn the vegetation away. During one of its attacks here, the crocodile had killed five in one rush.
The ambush place was a wide, shallow bay. Reeds grew in profusion. The Father slid into the bed and walked underwater until it reached the bank. The giant’s arrival struck terror into its river cousins that infested the place. One minut
e, the bay was sleepy, reeds nodding their heads to the sun. The next, it was an explosion of lines aiming for open water. A score of river crocodiles burst onto the river and rushed away.
The Father settled until only its sly eyes were up behind the foliage. It stared at the red clay bank where the path came to it and became deathly still.
The men left the abandoned village. Johnny shaded his eyes against the glare, watching the river, but saw nothing unusual. He cut directly for the jungle.
Forty minutes later, he and Footy came down a wooded hill to a field by the river. The main channel ran further out, and near shore was a vast bay, thick with reeds. They watched a heron glide in on a six-foot wingspan and splash into the shallows. It stood on one leg, dagger beak poised.
It looked to the men like this was a place where the villagers washed. The path went straight for the river, to a point of bare clay. Beyond, the trail continued between the water and the gardens.
Johnny led that way. They were passing the kaukau mounds when Footy stopped and turned his head. He heard something so out of place, he got goose bumps.
“Hold up mate,” he called. Johnny turned. “Listen!”
The crocodile was staring at the smooth-headed man, almost within attack range, and it tensed for the lunge.
Johnny heard nothing, shrugged, and took another step toward the river. But Footy heard the eerie sound again.
“Wait!” he called.
“What is it?” Johnny grumbled.
“Listen! Over there!” Footy pointed at the inland jungle. Johnny strained his ears, and now he heard it too.
The voice was reed-thin, and in the distance, but there was no mistaking what it was. A woman was singing. Footy trotted a few steps in that direction and Johnny went after him.
The Father watched the prey retreat. It was too late for a charge, but it remained poised in place.
Footy cut across a garden and Johnny caught up. Then the breeze turned their way and both men stopped in astonishment.
TEETH - The Epic Novel With Bite (The South Pacific Trilogy) Page 30
