Говард Уолдроп: Them Bones

I turned occasionally. I had only fired off a few shots, when one of the Meshicas was especially stupid. I only missed a couple of times.

The Huastecas seemed to be in three waves. The runners were half a klick back. There was a larger body beyond that, then half the city, way back of them. That much we saw from a small rise we went over.

I could see a few of our people, too, even with us, in flashes between the shrubs and crops. The Huastec runners were slowly closing a pincers on us. It was still two kilometers wide, but I could feel it.

If we kept running like this, we’d smash into a tree trunk and do their work for them. We slowed a little, trying to see what was ahead.

‘How-long-will-they-keep-on?’ I asked.

‘Till-they-catch-us,’ said Took.

An arrow bounced off a tree trunk, to keep us honest. Sometime in the night we slowed, but so did the Huastecas. They didn’t want to lose anybody either, but every time we crossed open spaces they yelled and drew closer. I couldn’t see shit, but they could.

We heard victory whoops off to the left as somebody slowed to a walk and they caught him. I couldn’t tell if they were killing and eating him on the spot or were taking him back to the slab as a real high tone sacrifice. I didn’t have the breath to ask Took.

I just knew that I couldn’t go much farther. I would be walking soon, and they could get me. I’d shoot myself in the head and spoil their real fun, but they would have the rest. I’d have to give Took the woodpecker suit first; I’d told Sun Man I’d bring it back.

It was probably pretty ragged by now anyway. The bill was flopping and the sound it made rustling wasn’t as muffled as it had been.

Took stopped and I almost ran into him.

‘This-way-fol-low-me.’ He pointed left. We came to some twisted old trees, thick as three men, with long low branches.

‘Up!’ he said. We went up the first one. I followed Took to the end of a low limb. He stepped across to the interlaced limbs of a second squat giant, then a third. I couldn’t see anything, I could only feel a half-meter-wide limb under my feet.

We reached a fourth tree, in the center of them. Took pushed me toward a smaller limb. We must have been six meters up.

I pulled myself up into a bunch, trying to slow my breathing. The limb swayed in the slight breeze. My throat and nose were raw. I felt like lead.

We heard the runners go through below us, tireless, steady, probably a fresh gang. A few minutes later the second wave came through, somewhere between a trot and a fast walk. They talked among themselves. They were a long time passing under us.

Then we waited. It seemed like an hour; it was probably only a few minutes.

These people were having a party. They were laughing, talking, whispering; they barely moved. One leaned his spear against the tree next to ours and took a whiz. I couldn’t see much, but didn’t look down when some of them came by with torches. The largest bunch of them were singing some kind of war chant. We heard their armor clink, the padding of different feet, the creak of wood shields.

There were hundreds of them, and they took an eternity to pass by.

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.

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.

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.

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.’