The blow did not come. The grin broadened. ‘You should watch your mouth. It’ll get you in trouble soon. Very soon! But there’s no hurry – I’ve plenty of time. Unlike you!’
A feeble groan came from Kite’s throat. The captain looked at him.
I realised the policeman was asking what the otomi wanted. I repeated the question.
The great brute looked more amused than ever. ‘You, of course,’ he purred. ‘I’ve been waiting for this for so long!’
I jerked my head towards the policeman. ‘Well, you seem to have got me. He needs help, though.’ Kite’s breechcloth and the lower part of his cloak were saturated with dark red fluid. ‘He’ll bleed to death, if the shock doesn’t kill him. And if that wound turns rotten...’
‘Fuck him!’ the captain shouted. A foot struck out, slamming into the wounded man’s chest. His body jerked in response. ‘He can live or die. I don’t care. You, I intend to have some fun with. Just one thing I have to do first...’
He strode past me, casually swinging his foot against the side of my head as he entered the hut behind me. The blow was a token, only hard enough to make me flinch, and the moment he was out of sight, I tried to get up. I was going to run. I knew it meant leaving Kite to his fate, but unless I got help he was a dead man anyway, so I had no choice.
My right leg sprawled helplessly under me, depositing me back on the damp mud. Before I could move again the otomi had reappeared.
His huge form hurled itself outside. Mud flying off his feet spattered my face. He ran several paces before turning to face us, and when he did so, it was obvious that whatever he had seen in that hut had turned him nearly demented. His jaw was working, twisting the living part of his face, and his feet stamped and danced in the mud.
‘He’s dead!’ he screamed. ‘What happened? Tell me what happened to Red Macaw!’
I stared at him. ‘You opened his stomach with that club of yours. What did you expect that to do, give him mild indigestion?’
He held the weapon high in the air. The blades glittered in the sunlight. Then he lunged at me.
It was my turn to scream, to cry out in terror, but the agonising, crushing blow was not to fall yet. Instead he stooped, seized my ankle and tugged at it. The next thing I knew I was on my back, staring into the sky, with my left leg raised and stretched. The ankle was held in an unbreakable grip and something sharp was tickling the skin. I gasped as I felt it do more than tickle.
‘You tell me what happened, or I’ll start flaying you alive from the feet up!’ the otomi bellowed.
My courage left me then. The stinging pressure of the obsidian blades increased. ‘All right!’ I stammered out an account of the three-captive warrior’s death. ‘But he was dying! We couldn’t have saved him, not with a wound like that! Why did you do it if you wanted him alive?’
The otomi’s expression was always hard to read. At this angle it was nearly impossible, but I watched the muscles twitch and bulge and saw his agitation, even something that might have been remorse. At the same time the blades were biting deeper into my skin. I could feel blood running along the inside of my leg. Much more of this, I thought desperately, and he’ll have my foot off.
What he said next was not meant for me. It was not even a question. ‘I didn’t intend killing him. I didn’t know it was him! How could I? He crept up on me. I didn’t have time to look!’ He let out a wild groan. ‘What do I do now?’
‘Let me go!’ I gasped. ‘What can I give you, to let me go?’ He ignored the pathetic squirming thing begging for its life at his feet. He went on talking to himself: ‘Why did he have to come out here? I haven’t got long now. If he’d just clung on a little longer. I’ve got to think!’ He seemed to come to a decision. He dropped my foot. His war club swept towards my face, stopping still a hair’s breadth from my eyes, so close I could not bring the blades into focus.
‘Get up,’ he barked.
‘I can’t, not with that club there. It’ll take my nose off!’
The weapon was twitched aside. ‘Get up! Any more wisecracks and you’ll lose more than your nose!’
I tried to rise and fell backwards, gasping with pain from my leg. Suddenly it was not numb any more. The captain growled threateningly, and I forced myself to stand, bracing myself unsteadily against the wall of the shed.
‘Now get in there and drag that body out. You’re going to bury it, here, quickly. Any funny business and this fool starts to die – slowly!’
I looked at Kite. From the way his eyes were rolling under half-closed lids it was hard to tell whether he was conscious or not, but I knew the otomi would find a way of waking him up.
‘Get on with it!’
I hastened to obey, only hesitating when I stepped through the door of the shelter and the smell of what was inside hit me once more. For some reason it seemed stronger and ranker than it had before. When I looked down I realised why. The captain must have taken some convincing before he would believe Red Macaw was dead. It looked as if he had picked the body up and shaken it in the hope of getting some response. What this had done to the dead man’s innards is something I try not to recall at mealtimes.
There was no point in attempting to pack everything back inside the wound. I reminded
