Part 20 (1/2)

Brandon watched in dismay as Temba sprinted into the forest after the gray pygmy.

You're kidding me, right? Ike saw the size of the tiny arrow in Kuntolo's arm. Surely it stung, but Ike was holding an a.s.sault rifle. Who would dare attack the group with a tiny child's toy? He wondered if the weapon belonged to Temba. But the expression on Kuntolo's face was one of fear.

A spear burst from the forest in flight. Ike ducked and the shaft narrowly missed his shoulder. Two more arrows and one spear sailed toward the group. Gilles fell back, barely dodging one arrow. And to Ike's right, Nessa cried out in pain.

Ike spun toward her. She fell to her knees, a thick spear shaft extending from the side of her calf. Her hand fell to her leg. His eyes flashed back to the forest and he suddenly understood the advantage of such weapons. No flash. No retort, nothing that gave away their positions.

Well, almost nothing. The spears couldn't come from far and they all flew from the same general direction. Their attackers didn't have the craft to surround their opponents.

Ike fell to one knee beside Nessa. Without asking and without caution, he gripped the shaft of the spear and tore it out of her calf. Her scream chilled his bones and she nearly collapsed from the pain. He grabbed her arm and lifted her to her feet. As he stood, he saw Delani standing, gun raised and pointed into the forest.

Raoul, Kuntolo, and Gilles moved behind the mercenary boss for protection.

”Fall back,” Ike yelled. ”Put the fire between us and them. Make them come into the light.”

The a.s.sault continued one arrow at a time. Ike dragged Nessa along with him, although she resisted, hopping painfully on one leg. He kept his eyes on the jungle, hoping for the smallest glimpse of his attackers.

Delani and the others came around the other side of the blazing campfire and moved further back, past the tents. Soon, a wide stretch of lighted jungle lay between them and the ambushers.

Ike furrowed his brow. Nothing made sense. Although skilled hunters, the pygmies were not warriors. When they had disputes to settle they usually did so the easiest way possible: by leaving the area and moving somewhere else. Ike pushed Nessa behind a fallen log. She slumped to the ground, her hands clasping her knee. Blood soaked her pants.

Raoul, Gilles, and Kuntolo took cover there as well, Kuntolo leaning heavily against Raoul. He had pulled the arrow out of his arm and clenched it in his fist. His face sagged, his body weak. Ike and Delani perched against the log, gun barrels pointed across the campfire. A slight sound drew Ike's attention behind them. As he turned, he saw a wall of foliage, close to the river, at their backs.

A terrible thought occurred to him. Perhaps the ambushers had surrounded them. Ike spun and opened fire. The rifle rattled thunderously and the undergrowth crackled and split under the hail of bullets. Shadows moved in the darkness, fleeing the a.s.sault. They floated off the ground in silence, like ghosts.

Kuntolo said something to Raoul that caused the Frenchman to pale. Raoul cried in despair even as Kuntolo began to falter. His head tilted to one side, his breathing strained. Confused, Ike looked over at Kuntolo in search of a second wound. How could such a tiny arrow do this much damage?

Raoul burst into tears. Overwhelmed with grief, he pulled the pygmy close to his body, his thick arms wrapped around the muscled torso. His forehead touched Kuntolo's cheek. He cried out in French, his words too fast and too filled with emotion for Ike to translate.

And then Ike knew. ”Poison. s.h.i.+t.”

Delani's eyes met his. The mercenary boss aimed over the log. Fire blazed from the end of his pistol barrel as he fired blindly into the foliage. With Delani's attention across the campfire, Ike faced the opposite direction, rifle raised, just in case more tried surrounding them.

When Delani's clip ran out, he carefully fitted a new one. For several moments, the forest fell silent, aside from Nessa's quiet groans and Raoul's sobs. Not a single footstep. Not a single animal call.

Brandon ran through the jungle. He collided with every bush and log imaginable, nearly tripping several times in the darkness. His eyes focused on a small flicker of light up ahead. The white beam shone across the ground, lighting mud and twigs; his flashlight, where he had left it.

His legs kicked through a row of ferns as he came to the top of the hill. To his right, the ground sloped down, the depression Temba had mentioned. To his left, the forest was empty. He heard distant gunshots and, for a moment, he paused, staring off in their direction, back to camp. Finally, he retrieved the flashlight and whipped it around in search of any sign of his wife or Alfred. He saw n.o.body.

Then something reflected the light back to him. He stepped closer, bending to inspect the ground. A pair of broken gla.s.ses flashed and, not far away, he spotted a hooked prosthesis. He spun around, searching for more clues. An empty sandal lay on its side against a sprig. It was Sam's.

He cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled for Sam, disregarding stealth and his own safety. The silence ate at his nerves.

And then, far in the distance, he heard a scream: ”Brandon!”

He yelled again, but this time heard no response. In a frenzied state, he headed off in that direction.

Temba's feet weaved between puddles and patches of mud. A Bantu or a European would have slipped by now. But the forest was Temba's home, despite his time spent in Bantu villages. He didn't fear the darkness, and he knew just where to place his feet so that he didn't have to slow his pursuit.

Kitu had gotten ahead of him and Temba couldn't be sure if he was headed in the right direction. But he still ran. Anger burned in his heart. It fueled his limbs even as it blurred his reasoning. Why would they do this? Since when did BaMbuti hunt people?

He heard the distant gunshots and knew that they came from the mercenaries. Although he disliked those men and knew that they were firing at other Mbuti, he couldn't help but feel that these particular pygmies had gotten what they'd asked for.

Let them learn their lesson, he thought bitterly. Kitu had almost killed Brandon, something completely unreasonable. Temba could see no purpose for it. They were acting like the militias he hated.

Temba slowed his pace, suddenly realizing he had lost Kitu. Instead he listened carefully to the forest, hoping that Mbogo's cousin would slip up and give himself away.

Temba . . .

He froze in mid-step. His foot hovered just above the ground, every muscle rigid. Something had just whispered his name. He listened hard for any other sign. But none came. A small breeze stirred the trees.

Temba . . .

Temba blinked and wiped his forehead. He let his foot settle in the mud. He spun slowly taking in the forest, sure someone was nearby.

”This is nonsense,” he said aloud in his own tongue. ”The forest is talking to me?”

He felt a vibration deep within. His thoughts flowed from his mind into the air and others flowed in just as easily. As if his mind merged with the forest. The strange sensation put him on edge.

”Sam?” The cry echoed through the forest. It originated from the top of the hill.

And then the reply: ”Brandon!”

This voice was closer-and in the wrong direction. Temba spun toward the sound. Why was Sam moving away from the river? And why did she sound so terrified? Maybe she fled in that direction foolishly. Or maybe Mbogo's family had her.

But why? He knew that some wanted revenge for what the militias had done to their elders and women. Maybe they meant to take out that revenge. But on Sam? Not her. Temba's fists clenched. Surely they knew that Sam wasn't like the militias. She would never hurt an Mbuti.

I have to stop this.

Stop this . . .

”Yes,” he agreed.

Temba ran in the direction of Sam's voice. He hoped he wasn't too late.

A vine whipped Brandon's face. He batted it away. The flashlight beam bounced before him, flas.h.i.+ng on green, brown, and black. Although he started heading in the direction of Sam's voice, he lost all sense of it as he ran through the forest. He had to weave between trees and without even the stars overhead to guide him, he became less and less sure he knew where he was going.

He had started going down a hill and now he felt like the ground was sloping up. But had he turned around or simply reached the other side of the depression? He called for Sam a few more times, but as he got deeper and deeper into the forest, his confidence waned. The sounds of the forest animals returned and soon every cough, hoot, or howl sounded like it came from around the next tree.

The forest closed in on him.

A root coiled around his ankle, and he fell forward. He caught himself in the mud.

G.o.dd.a.m.n jungle!