Either way, I could do nothing but wait. Mosquitoes tracked my rapid breathing. They began to swarm. I shifted the Devel pistol from one hand to the other, staying loose. In an attempt to still my brain, I focused my senses outward: Carmelo’s voice, Belton’s voice, their words often indecipherable. The scream of insects, bushes alive with foraging rodents, and a squall breeze that went suddenly still, then freshened, puffed and gusted from a northern quarter of the sky.
The wind had shifted. Spend your childhood on the water, you are aware of such things. The gusts fragmented, filtered down through the leaves, and explored my face. It was warm, tropic air befouled by something that fired a chill through the pores of my skin, up my neck.
An odor… What was that disgusting odor? It stunk of women’s perfume… stale sweat… a canine whiff of wet hair and rotten eggs. No… I was wrong. My nose had been confused by the heavy perfume. Perfume so cloying, it cloaked a familiar musk-possibly as intended. The fecal stench of a chimpanzee was otherwise unmistakable.
I got to my feet, the pistol ready. The stench laced through willows from the northeast, the same direction as the wind. That suggested the chimp could no longer track my scent.
Oliver’s nose is as good as any bloodhound’s. Once again, Theo’s brag came to mind.
I no longer doubted it was true. I parted willow branches until I could see the river and there it was only fifteen yards away: an apish creature that had just climbed onto the bank or dropped from a tree. It shook itself, pearls of water flying, then stood upright… tilted its jaw skyward and sniffed the darkness.
I thought, He’s confused.. lost track of my scent, the animal so close that its fur, saturated with perfume, stung my eyes. I raised the pistol, tried to frame the chimp’s head with the V-sights while my hands shook. No doubt in my mind I would pull the trigger, but I had to make the first shot count.
Too late. The chimp put its fists on the ground, threw its feet forward, and loped away before I could recover. A moment later Carmelo called, “Who’s there? Don’t be stupid, girl. I got ears.” The spotlight blinked on, illuminating trees above the sandbar where we had beached the boat.
Not thinking, I pushed my way clear of the willows and crept toward the spot where we had climbed the bank. To my left, bushes thrashed. Then I heard the trampoline recoil of tree limbs. Belton, thinking it was me, hollered, “Hannah, don’t do it. Run!”
I wanted to run-sprint toward the open plain that I believed to be cattle pasture. My mind had already concocted enough excuses to satisfy police. Whether or not they were enough to satisfy my conscience was unimportant-not during this moment of indecision anyway.
But only a moment. I am no different than most: a durable thread runs through my weaknesses and doubt and that thread is me, the very core of who I am. It is not steel but might as well be because it will not allow me to stray far from what I believe to be right or wrong. I was armed, fast on my feet, and a strong swimmer. Those details didn’t click in my head as thoughts but one simple truth did: abandoning an old man who had befriended me was wrong.
I walked faster, regretting the flashlight I’d left blazing on the gravestone. When I reached the riverbank, I would be silhouetted, easily seen by Carmelo or the animal that had been stalking me. I considered the merits of running to retrieve it, and might have, but I had lost track of the chimp. If he had circled downwind, his odor would not warn me before an attack.
The pistol barrel became my eyes. It steered my vision from left to right, to the trees that lined the river. The bright corridor created by my own flashlight lay just ahead. Rather than show myself, I turned early and started down the embankment in an eerie half-light of gray and green. Took my time, ears alert. Carmelo had been barking threats and orders all along, but there was something new in his tone when he said, “Hey.. you smell something weird?”
Belton, through foliage and shadows, replied, “When I knocked you on your ass, I didn’t think you’d get up. Ten years ago you wouldn’t’ve. This is pointless. Let the girl go and I’ll tell you everything. Plus, you’ve got her journal. Don’t believe me? Look in that bag.”
When Carmelo snapped, “Shut up… Perfume… You don’t smell that?” I stopped to listen. But also prepared to run by bracing a foot against an oak that was wider than my body, used it like a starting block. “Perfume,” he repeated. “That sonuvabitch Theo. You got no idea what I mean, do you?” There was a silence. I pictured him looking at Belton. “A snake bit him when we went back for the Gheenoe. Got him bad. I saw it. But it had a weird name, this snake. He went to get antivenom, must’a freaked out and turned his goddamn monkey loose. You don’t smell that French whore perfume?”
Belton said, “What’s perfume have to do with-”
“Quiet-I’m trying to think. That strung-out fool doesn’t give a damn about anyone. I told him I was done if he pulled this crap. Yeah… up in those trees, maybe. You don’t smell that? Or the other side of the river. Those monkeys are meat-eaters, man. Screw it… Yeah, screw it. I’m out of here.”
“But… then cut me loose first. And if Hannah’s ankle is broken-”
“Tell the monkeys when they show up, Mr. Matás. Shit.. now what’s wrong with this damn thing? Probably the battery.”
I heard him bang at something. The spotlight came on again, a flooding beam. It moved among the treetops and swung toward me. I crouched low, didn’t look up until Carmelo yelled, “Look… look’a there. That’s her, the bitch!” A shotgun fired and the sky absorbed a furious inhuman shriek.
The shriek took form when I lifted my head. High above me was the chimp, mouth open wide, close enough it might have crushed me had it fallen, but the animal leaped toward the river instead. No… leaped toward Carmelo, who fired again-BOOM-then the howls of man and chimpanzee were indistinguishable from the searing thump of flesh on flesh.
Belton raised his voice above it alclass="underline" “Damn animal… Stay away!”
I went down the embankment faster than was prudent. Made too much noise. Didn’t slow until the spotlight showed familiar landmarks: the sandbar angling into the river, our aluminum boat and the Gheenoe with a trolling motor beached alongside. Carmelo’s wailing and desperate profanities caused me to hesitate before exiting the bushes, but I finally did. The scene that awaited was nightmarish.
Belton was on his side, trying to worm his way up the embankment, his nose bloody. Closer to me, the chimpanzee’s shoulders appeared to be melded into Carmelo’s chest, Carmelo, on the ground, his clothes ripped, mouth open wide in a airless scream, while his body spasmed in surrender. The chimp had used its feet to pin the man’s arms. Its hands cupped Carmelo’s head like a chalice, tilting his neck to expose the throat, the chimp’s face nestled close as if suckling but in fact had buried its teeth near the jugular. The animal was so focused on killing-or feeding-it did not react when Belton saw me and hollered, “Hannah… for god’s sake, run.” His voice broke like an adolescent.
My eyes followed the pistol into the clearing, at first seeing only the chimp’s broad back but then realized that Belton was just beyond directly in the line of fire. The angle was all wrong, too risky to pull the trigger at a distance of thirty yards. I scuttled sideways without looking, unaware of the river until I was knee-deep in water and a slow current tugged at my jeans.