“You stay away from-”
“Oh? You are suddenly jealous?”
“I’m not jealous.”
“You have only my best interests at heart.”
“Right the first time.”
“Perhaps I could consider adultery after all-”
All but one of the boats was afloat now. I pulled myself up onto the bank and shook off the excess water. “Some other time,” I told her. “You wait here. I have to see how Bowman’s coming along.”
“It would be easy to leave now, Evan. Without him.”
“I know,” I said, and headed back to camp.
Bowman was beautiful to watch. I found someone’s abandoned machete and sat in the shadows with it, waiting for him to need help. He never did. He just kept hanging in there, letting the troops decrease from fifty to twenty-five to thirteen to seven to four, and while two men were joined in brief combat he worked his way around among the fallen. Whenever one of them threatened to regain consciousness, he would wait until all eyes were riveted on the combatants before moving to apply a kick or chop to some vital center. When the four were narrowed down to two, he stood them next to one another, stepped alongside of them, and knocked their heads together. I had heard of knocking two clowns’ heads together often enough, but this was the first time I had actually seen anyone do it. After such a display of advanced judo technique there was something shocking about such a primitive act as this. But you couldn’t fault it for effectiveness. There was a marvelous clunking sound and that was it. They fell, and stayed put.
He had his back to me when he finished. I stood up and took a step forward, and he spun around to face me, moving at the speed, I would guess, of light. I was holding onto the machete, but I realized instinctively that the sight of it would not stop him from flinging himself at me, nor would the use of it do much more than slow him down a fraction. I shouted out that I was me, and his hands dropped to his sides even as his face relaxed in the now-familiar grin.
He said, “Shee-it, Tanner cat, you has missed all the fun. Or were you around for the finale?”
“I caught the last act.”
“Like cracking coconuts. I told you there’d be nothing to it. Once you get people trustin’ you, ain’t a whole lot you can’t get by with.”
“True enough.”
“You make out good with the Queen of the Jungle?”
“Something strange happened.”
“Lady Jane?”
“Oh. She’s made that trip before?”
“Every time, man. Sends me up the wall.”
“You might have told me.”
“And ruin the surprise?” He slapped me on the back, which was something I would have just as soon he hadn’t bothered doing. “I just figured you might like findin’ out about it all by yourself. First time she tried that on I went bonkers, baby. I bet you heard all about Mommy and Daddy and Uncle Bobby.”
“I bet I did.”
“Lady Jane came by that taste for dark meat honest-like. Inherited it from her old lady. You put her out?”
“Yes.”
“Kill her?”
“Of course not.”
“Just that I was thinkin’ you maybe should. She plays mean, you know. The way she gets on with these bush types, she’ll have fifty fresh men in colors by daybreak. I wouldn’t want to meet up with her again.”
“Just kill her,” I said.
“Easiest way.”
“Just like that.”
He clapped me on the shoulder again. Plum had a point, I thought; he would be a real pleasure to abandon. He said, “You gettin’ butterflies, Tanner cat. I’ll go on and do it for you. Don’t make me no never mind.”
“No.”
“If you want.”
“No,” I said. “No, go down by the river, give Plum a hand.” An unfortunate choice of words, that. “I’ll be along.”
I was panting by the time I reached the riverbank. I got to where the boat was beached and my knees started to buckle, but I stayed on my feet.
Plum and Sam were looking at me as though I had lost my mind.
“Tanner cat-”
“Evan-”
“Not now,” I said. “I can’t talk. I can barely breathe. Later.”
“But-”
“Later.”
I put Sheena in the back of the dugout and arranged her animal skins over her. Then I straightened up again and tried to catch my breath.
Bowman was scratching his head. Plum was shaking hers. I couldn’t honestly blame them, but I was damned if I felt like talking about it.
Chapter 13
Some conversations which took place between or among various persons floating down the Yellowfoot River over a period of several days:
“Tanner cat, you must be out of your head. Like totally stone bonkers.”
“Ours not to reason why.”
“How’s that, man?”
“You know the Chief, Bowman cat. You worked for him long enough yourself. When he gives out an assignment, he wants it followed every step of the way. Right?”
“Right as rain. But-”
“The last thing he wants to see is a man who starts improvising. He wants me to carry out the plan. I could try to simplify things, and if I was all alone I might. But I’ve got you along for the ride, and that makes it different.”
“How so?”
“He might hear from you that I left Sheena to go on queening it.”
“You think I’d tell him?”
“I don’t even trust myself, Bowman cat.”
“A sound policy. You never said Sheena was part of the assignment.”
“You never asked.”
“Yeah, well. What’s so important about her?”
“That’s just one of the things the Chief keeps under that crazy plaid hat he always wears.”
“That nutty old hat.”
“You know it, man. I don’t ask him embarrassing questions. I just follow orders. Saves a lot of heartache when it’s time to type up the report.”
“Evan? Obviously you no longer love me. You love this white woman.”
“There’s a big difference between love and the milk of human kindness.”
“Would you overflow with this milk if she were not beautiful?”
“Oh, don’t be silly, Plum.”
“It is enough that we are encumbered with him. My bottom is sore from pinches. I do not think I can endure very much more of this, Evan.”
“I thought he was keeping hands off.”
“Well, he is not. I believe it was a mistake to take the stain out of my hair and skin. I believe it is my color that has this effect upon him. Evan?”
“What?”
“Can we not put her overboard?”
“Plum, you’re being very foolish about this. She was a ten-year-old girl, a child. And that personality is all locked up inside her just waiting to be brought to the surface.”
“I have not seen it. When she is awake she does nothing but call down the wrath of the Lord upon us.”
“She’s being Sheena now. When she’s Jane-”
“I have never seen her be Jane.”
“Well, she only does it after an experience that moves her very deeply.”
“I believe I know the sort of experience you mean.”
“I thought you might.”
“Is that what you plan, Evan? You will give her such experiences constantly so that she will remain Jane?”
“Oh, cut it out, will you? Look, there are clinics that can do wonders with personality disorders like this. It’s just a matter of rooting out the Sheena person and bringing the Jane person to the surface.”
“And then there will be this beautiful woman with the mind of a ten-year-old.”
“Well, most beautiful women have the mind of a ten-year-old.”
“Evan-”
“Some other time, okay? I think he’s waking up.”
“No, he sleeps. Evan, I was-”
“You’re not paddling right, Plum. Try to slip your blade into the water at a little more of an angle.”
“Like this?”
“That’s a little better.”
“But that is how I was doing it. I believe you are attempting to change the subject, Evan.”
“Why, that’s very perceptive of you, Plum.”