I could barely make Took out. He was holding his fingers to his lips. We waited some more. The wind swayed the limb, not a pleasant feeling. The sounds died away in the night. I could see the faint blot of the torches moving east.
I started to say something, but Took put his hands to his lips again.
I heard a stealthy sound below, and through the blackness I saw a Huasteca, stripped and covered with dark body paint, edging through the tree trunks below. He searched the woods, stopped, waited two or three minutes, continued on, pausing again a few dozen meters on.
After a very long time Took said, ‘Try to sleep. Tomorrow they’ll be back with the dogs.’
Tying the carbine around my chest, I went to sleep.
THE BOX XV
DA FORM 12206 Z 15 April 2003
comp: 147 (amended 1206 Z 16 Apr 2003) cws
TOE: 148
pres dty
41 cws
KIA
69 cws
KLD
8 cws
MIA
13 cws
MLD
2 cws For: Robert Putnam
wounded, hosp. Maj, AGC
10 cws act. commander
AWOL by: M. Smith
1 cws CWO1 RA
Total 147 act asst adj.
THE BOX XVI
Smith’s Diary
I am in charge.
Atwater was killed when they overran the work party. It was a stupid idea and I said so. Then Atwater got himself killed.
A couple of hours later they fired a grenade that landed on top of the command bunker.
Putnam was killed by a piece of wood the size of a little finger. It went in just below his ear. There was very little blood, but he was dead.
Compson is out of it, and has been for weeks. That leaves me.
We are down to fewer than fifty people who can do any good. The CIA people want their own command, which is fine with me. They refuse to accept a warrant officer as commander.
I’ve got Hennesey making a beacon box, so maybe we’ll be found sometime. All the reports and diskettes go in, this diary too, if we have enough time. He’s got an old ammo box, some shellac and pitch. We’ll seal it all in with the beacon, and finish this thing out.
I didn’t want it this way.
Leake XVI
‘Who knows whether the best of men be known? or whether there be not more remarkable persons forgot, than any that stand remembered in the known account of time?’
I jerked awake and nearly fell out of the tree. The sun was up.
The baying of the dogs was what woke us up. Took pointed east toward the rising sun. ‘Let’s go. Be careful. They’re ahead of us.’
We shimmied down the tree, the dogs getting louder to the left. We moved right and toward the sun.
As we made the next trees, I saw a line of Huastecas off to the north, moving slowly.
I still had a magazine, plus a few rounds in the carbine, and the loose ones. The damn woodpecker suit was a nuisance. My muscles were cramped. The dew was still on the grass as we pushed through. The costume was soaked. But I’d told Sun Man I’d bring it back.
My breath was already rasping in my throat, and the arrow wound from the day before was stiff and burning.
They hadn’t been after us, just making long sweeps through the ground they’d already covered, looking for strays. We knew that before we’d gone two kilometers. We slowed, became a little more cautious. Took stopped, dug around on the ground, came up with some peanut-looking things from under a dead bull nettle. They tasted like wood pulp but I ate them anyway.
We found a deep pine wood, dark and dry, and pumped through that. The sun was a slanting whiteness through the trunks. We followed it even though it ran to the south. But they would have to be in here with us to see us.
Then we hit a bayou full of cypress knees and rotten trees, crossing it as quietly as we could with muck up to our knees. I don’t want to think about the smell coming up from the water and black mud. It wore us all out. We crawled out onto the first dry land we came to, panting. I was lost.
‘We’re doing fine,’ said Took-His-Time, panting. ‘We go east until we find the River, then north or south to home. They won’t follow us closer than a day’s march out.’
‘They attacked the whole damn village four days ago,’ I reminded him.
‘That’s because they’re sneaky bastards. We’ve got plenty of warning this time. Sun Man’s madder than hell, probably got everybody east of the Mes-A-Sepa over on this side waiting for them to try it again.’ He started to sit up, then thought better of it. ‘It’s the next few hours we have to worry about.’
‘Great. It’s the next few hours I want to lie here,’ I said.
From far off came the barking of dogs.
We were up and running.
Nearly dusk. Anybody closer than a kilometer could here us breathing. Like freight train sounds. We’d seen one bunch of Huastecas going back the other way, either off shift on the chase, or with prisoners, or accompanying some noble. I didn’t have enough shots for all of them, so we kept going.
There were probably a couple of thousand of them between us and home.
As soon as it got dark, we stopped up another tree. It was by itself but was the only tree big enough to hold us both. The limbs weren’t wide. I didn’t like it. ‘I’ll listen first,’ said Took. ‘I’ll wake you up after a while.’
I closed my eyes. Next thing I knew, Took was shaking me. ‘Your turn,’ he said, and went to sleep.
I waited. I listened. I watched, although I couldn’t even see the tree we were in. The wind was cool. I shivered. It seemed like an eternity up there. I had no idea how much time passed. I tried counting, got up in the high thousands, forgot it. As soon as I started nodding, I woke Took up again.
‘I’m half asleep,’ I said. It sounded like he was rubbing his eyes. I lay back as well as I could on the limb.
I jerked awake at the same instant Took grabbed my arm.
The dogs were coming.
We ran into trees. I fell down. The dogs were louder, closer. The sun was coming up. We headed for more cypress swamps, ran through them. I grabbed a limb at the water’s edge once. It moved. I didn’t even look back as the snake fell into the water behind us.
Now we heard yelling to both sides, and a horn blowing. They were closing in on us.
Dry land, more water, then land again. We ran toward the dawn, pushed more to the north by the sound of the hunt.
‘They’re … trying … to … make us circle,’ said Took. ‘This way.’ He headed toward the sounds to the southeast. ‘I’d … rather meet men … than dogs.’
I didn’t want to meet either.
We came up onto a treed knoll, and we met both.
The Huastecas came up from behind bushes, throwing spears with their atl-atls and siccing the dogs on us. The spears were supposed to stop us so the dogs could bite out our assholes.
There were twenty dogs, all sizes, shapes, from ones that looked like Dobermans crossed with giant rats down to Chihuahuas. All I saw were eyes and teeth.