the world's oxygen and pumped out 20 percent of the earth's flowing fresh water. It was late afternoon under the thick of the jungle canopy and in spots Sam couldn't even discern if the sky was overcast or clear.
Yodo followed behind Grady, who walked behind Sam, Javier at his shoulder; Cat-man led the way. After they had walked a half hour with Cat-man barely studying the ground, they came to one of the tributaries of the Galvez. It looked to be nearly seventy or eighty feet across and on its near bank stood a half circle of abandoned huts. Matses often made small fishing camps, such as this one, which they'd leave when the fish stopped biting or the floodwaters came.
This camp had one unique feature: dead tribe members lay between the huts. It was astonishing because the bullet holes indicated they were killed by westernized people, and it was almost unheard of for ciudadanos to sneak up on na tives. Devan Gaudet, if it were indeed his work, never ceased to amaze Sam. It was, however, apparent that not all of the natives in the village had been killed. There were five bodies and, judging from the huts, there could have been as many as fifty in the group. Two of the bodies were prepubescent girls. Three were young women; none were men. The men had probably been away fishing; perhaps others had escaped. It mystified Sam that Gaudet would allow his men to slaughter natives, especially before his main mission was complete. The young women had obviously been tortured, probably raped, so Gaudet would have watched while his men distracted themselves from the discomfort of the jungle. Sam had a hunch that a man like Gaudet would not free his baser instincts in front of his men. He might watch, but he wouldn't participate. For that, he would need to be alone.
Could this really have been purely for his troop's morale?
Grady began to retch. Sam quickly pulled her away.
'It's him, isn't it?'
'We don't know. If I thought he would get here this quickly, I would have left you home.'
'I hate that bastard. Evil isn't a big enough word'
Cat-man displayed no emotion and made no attempt to communicate. He seemed as immune to the smell of death as to the muggy air.
Sam kept his arm around Grady as they skirted the huts, following Cat-man to the place where the killers had exited the fishing camp. Within a couple of minutes they were deep in the jungle.
Sam noticed a new purpose in Cat-man's stride as he slipped more quickly through the vines and undergrowth, but still he left no visible record of his passing.
At nightfall they hadn't yet caught up to the group. Cat-man came to Sam and pantomimed sleep for the group and continued tracking for himself.
'When Matses go to town, they will walk all day and hunt at night. Cat-man wants to move at his pace and find the bastards. He'll come back for us when he locates them… would be my guess,' Javier said.
It took twenty minutes of machete work to create an opening large enough for five hammocks in the thick jungle. Cat-man set about gathering fruit and within twenty minutes had a pile large enough for everybody to get a good taste if not a full meal. Then he hung his hammock and left.
'They aren't like you and me. They see in the dark,' Javier said. 'He'll find those gringos fast, and they'll never see him.'
'Don't suppose he'd tie them up for us?' 'I don't think so. Cat-man understands guns.' Everybody but Cat-man had a rain slicker to pull over them to provide minimal protection from any night time rain, which was fairly likely even at the end of the so-called dry season. It also helped with squirmy things that might be falling or unreeling on spider silk from above. Around them the vines and undergrowth were thick and full, so that in the soft camp light it appeared that the machetes had created four walls. There were heavy fragrances, some like rotting eggs, some like whore's perfume. Sound emanated from every di rection. There were many sorts of noises: rustling of branches and leaves; a steady intermingled chorus of frog sounds that were bass violas; singing sounds that were the cricket violins; birds that sang melodious and flutelike; raucous birds that squawked and chirped, chief among them the horned screamers, also known as donkey birds, that sounded like a jackass at hell's gate; there was a clicking sound like those made by street rappers; and finally the eerie calls of howler monkeys, similar to the big, breathy hiss of a mountain lion or a child instructed by his mother to make quieter monster sounds.
Sam could tell that this jungle cacophony wasn't Grady's favorite night music. He stepped away to take a leak and reached into the zippered pocket of his jungle pants, where he found a pack of cigarettes. He didn't smoke, he reminded himself. And it could be dangerous if they were being stalked. He squatted down facing a large tree and cupped it in his hands. Just a few puffs. He took three deep drags, put out the smoke, and returned to camp.
'There is a certain primitive flavor to this place. So much life and so much death all jammed together,' Grady said.
'You know you wouldn't have said that when I first met you.'
'Do I make you proud?' She laughed. 'All that college?'
'Sometimes.'
'Funny thing,' Grady said. 'With all these damn smells something reminds me of cigarettes.'
'Probably something like a tobacco leaf' Sam said.
Grady turned to Javier.
'Do you smoke?'
'No. Maybe there's been a fire nearby.'
'Let's get some sleep,' Sam said.
After a few minutes Javier stepped over to Sam.
'The exact truth is not always important?'
'The truth is always important,' Sam muttered. 'Full dis closure is another matter…'
It was something of a puzzle to get four hammocks hung in their small hole in the foliage. Ultimately they ended up with Sam's hanging over the top of Yodo's. Finally they all managed to slither onto their hammocks, pulled on their mosquito netting, and doused the lights. Sam was falling off to sleep when he felt Grady reach for his hand. He patted it in what he deemed a fatherly touch and whispered that everything would be fine. He could sense that the slaugh tered natives and the image of Gaudet were haunting her. But she still seemed to cope. That was up until the jaguar screamed and shortly thereafter a rather large snake came down one of the trees. First they heard it and then Grady's flashlight lit the beautiful mottled skin.
'Sam?'
'Uh-huh.'
'I'm sleeping with you in your hammock.'
'It's not big enough.'
'Oh yes it is.'
She brought her slicker and slipped rather neatly beside him, even getting under his mosquito netting. It took a little doing to get both slickers over the top of them. Anna, being Grady's aunt, would probably understand about the single hammock. In fact, if anything happened to Grady, Anna would have his ass.
With Anna had come Grady, a wild and beautiful young woman whom Sam had salvaged from drugs and a booming occupation as a stripper. It had been one of those family interventions, where Sam had swooped in, paid Grady to leave the club, and delivered her to a Tilok Native American spiri tual leader who happened also to be a psychologist-and Sam's mother. Grady graduated from his mother's drug counseling with honors.
Using her formidable powers of persuasion, Grady had talked her way onto the staff of Sam's business, and lately her smiles and the way she flashed her eyes were stirring his soul. There was a freshness to her youth and an exuberance about her that dug deep in a man. When at work in his offices in LA he noticed that he looked forward to chatting with her in the morning on his way through the office complex. But the side of him that he inherited from Grandfather made sure that he never crossed the line.
He didn't really know if his feelings were limited to the sort of affection that a man has for a niece or a daughter, or if maybe it was something more unsettling. On most days, when he and Anna weren't arguing, he realized that he had something special with Anna and that helped him with Grady. Just as significant, he knew that a forty-two-year-old man would take something from a twenty-year-old woman the minute she committed herself to him, and it was some thing that he could not give back. The way he figured, to love Grady would be to let her go, and if he didn't love her, he had no business taking her. Mentors do not have sex with the mentees, he advised himself as he put a fatherly arm around her shoulders and clenched her hand.
'Thank you,' she whispered. Then after a minute or so: 'Sam?'
'What?'
