Amazon Slaughter

4

Following two Indian point men along a pathway through the stinking yet sometimes fragrant half darkness of the jungle, Lyons heard Blancanales and the Indian named Thomas Jefferson talking in English and Spanish and Portuguese. After introducing himself at the airfield, the Indian leader had said there was no time for questions, that they must move quickly, before the army came.

The Indians had loaded and slung their new Remington shotguns, then hacked apart the wooden shipping crate with their new black-bladed machetes and burned the wood. Each man had also received black nylon bandoliers and two boxes of shotgun shells. Now, they carried both their old weapons and their new Remingtons, the cartridge boxes and the plastic-wrapped bundles. The line of Indians wove quickly through a maze of trails, shoving fronds and branches and giant elephant-ear leaves aside with their shoulders.

The line of men moved through the shadowy darkness of triple-canopy rain forest. Above them, the tops of hundred-foot-tall trees shadowed a second layer of smaller trees. Below the lowest branches of the two levels of tree foliage, the ferns and vines and flowering plants blocked the last specks of direct sunlight.

As the men left the river miles behind, the heat became total. No leaf or frond moved unless they touched it, no wind stirred the heavy, dank air. Lyons sweated like never before in his life. Sweat completely soaked his faded gray fatigues before he had walked the first mile. Soon, sweat ran from the cuffs of his shirt. He felt sweat flowing down his legs. Sweat trickling from his close-cut hair stung his eyes.

Insects found his sweat. Flies wandered on his face until he wiped them away. Small beetles clung like multicolored buttons on his gray uniform. He heard a droning. He searched for the insect making the sound, looking above him, behind him. Finally he saw it: a wasp the size of a small bird. He flinched away, horrified, blundered into a fern silky with spiderwebs. An orange-and-violet-and-red spider tried to capture him. Lyons thrashed free. The Indian point men glanced back laughed.

In the distance, they heard a cacophony of bird songs and screeches. But when the men neared, despite their stealth, the birds went quiet. Only the insect sounds continued.

After an hour or more of walking, one of the point men came back to Lyons and motioned for him to pause. The Indian squatted. Lyons looked up the trail, couldn't see the first man. Lyons squatted, his knees almost touching the Indian, waited. Lyons took a squeeze bottle of insect repellent out of his thigh pocket and smeared it on his face and neck.

The Indian watched, his eyes white half coins in the black of his painted face. Lyons saw the Indian's eyes follow the bottle. Lyons held up the bottle, motioned for the Indian to watch. Then Lyons smeared the repellent on his left hand and wrist. Putting down the bottle, Lyons held up his hands to the flies and tiny beetles buzzing around him. Mimicking him, the Indian held up his hands.

Flies attacked both of Lyons's hands. An iridescent black fly with gray thousand-faceted eyes landed on the back of his left hand and immediately put a sucker through the skin. Lyons slapped it away. The fly came at his face. He grabbed it out of the air, slammed it into the leaves and mud of the trail, hit it twice with his fist before it stopped moving.

Grinning, the Indian still held up his hands. No insects landed on his blackened skin. Puzzled, Lyons rubbed the back of his right hand over the Indian's arm. A smear of black came away. Lyons watched as insects alighted on his white skin but avoided his blackened skin. The Indian nodded. Then his eyes whipped up the trail.

For a second, Lyons heard nothing. A young boy walked toward them. The boy was naked except for black body paint and a necklace of brilliant blue feathers. He called out to the men. When he saw Lyons, he stared, then ran back. The Indians laughed, followed the boy.

Smoke from a fire swirled in a small clearing. Above a circle of ferns and trampled grass twenty yards across, the trees closed, creating a dome of interlaced branches. Flowering vines splashed the green walls with lurid colors.

A cool breeze carrying the odors of river water and burning wood touched Lyons's face. The point man sat at the fire, poked at something. Lyons and the other men joined him.

"We eat," Thomas Jefferson Xavante told him. "Then we take boats to the next camp."

"How's it going, Ironman?" Blancanales sat beside Lyons. "Looks like you went swimming."

"Yeah." Lyons slipped out of his shoulder holster and bandoliers, took off his long-sleeved shirt. He wrung it out. He draped it over his backpack and Atchisson assault shotgun to dry.

Gadgets sat down and leaned back on his pack as if it was an easy chair. "What's for breakfast?"

Blancanales glanced into the fire's ashes and stones. "Looks like turtle."

"Hmm, a delicacy." Gadgets pulled a Swiss Army knife from one of his pockets and folded out a fork from it.

"So what did you find out from the men?" Lyons asked Blancanales. "Where's that city he talked about? Is it the place we're looking for?"

"We look at your maps, we talk," Thomas told Lyons, taking a seat beside him. The boy sat with him. "This is my son, Abraham Lincoln Xavante. What are your names, sir?"

Lyons hesitated, glanced at Blancanales and Gadgets, then answered, "Ironman."

"And I'm the Politician."

"You can call me Gadgets."

Thomas frowned, offended. Then he flashed his brilliant smile again. "I forget. You are secret agents. You can no give me names. No can? Do not?" He struggled to find the correct words.

"Can't," Blancanales advised. "Your English is excellent, Thomas Jefferson. You speak Spanish and Portuguese also, right?"

"Yes. And my people's language. And languages of other peoples, other tribes. I study in mission school, many years. Then read books, hear radio, see television. I study history of America. I take name of your President Jefferson, give my son name of President Lincoln, give other son name Simon Bolivar."

"What denomination was the mission?" Lyons asked. When he saw Thomas did not understand the word, he said, "What church? Catholic? Protestant? Mormon?"

"This is my church." Thomas gestured to the living cathedral over them. "No need Jehovah, Jesus, Mary. I only want your Constitution. Now we look at maps. Abraham! Bring food." Thomas spoke a few quick words in his own language. The boy hurried away.

Blancanales unfolded a plastic-coated map and located the position of the river airstrip. Thomas leaned across Lyons and traced a line with his finger from the river to a tributary.

"We take boats now. Two hours, three hours we back on same river."

"Then why did we walk overland?" Lyons asked.

Thomas pointed to the map again, to a bend in the river. "Mission school there. Army sometimes come. Priests see us, they tell army."

Abraham returned with a folded leaf the size of a shopping bag. The other Indians gathered around, smiling, watching the foreigners.

"The appetizers!" Thomas exclaimed. "We eat!"

A tangled mass of caterpillars squirmed on the leaf. Barely suppressing a laugh, Thomas took one, popped it into his mouth. He watched the three North Americans as he took several more, threw the handful in his mouth. The tail of one whipped about on his lips until he sucked it in.

His stomach heaving, Lyons watched Blancanales take a caterpillar and eat it. Blancanales took another one, bit off the head, looked at the oozing fluids, then finished it. Gadgets saw Lyons not eating.

"Hey, man. Get with it. High protein."

"Think of them as sushi," Blancanales told him. "You're at a Japanese restaurant eating raw fish. Sea anemones. Except they're still moving. Once you get past that, the taste is all right."

Lyons stared at the caterpillars. They writhed their fat bodies against the slick leaf. Some were blue and white, some bright yellow, others reddish. Some of them had long waving antennae.

Blancanales leaned toward Lyons and told him, "You have to. It's one of the rules of indigenous operations. Eat their food, talk their language, sleep with their girls. Go to it."

Reaching out, Lyons glanced up, saw all the Indians watching him. He steeled his gut, took one of the wriggling larvae. It was warm in his fingers. Keeping his eyes on the Indians, he thought of egg rolls in a Chinese restaurant and tossed the caterpillar into his mouth. It knotted itself up on his tongue in the long instant before his jaws closed.

Like a half-melted chocolate, it squashed between his teeth. Only after he swallowed did he taste it. A flavor not unlike chicken cream soup. He liked it. He grabbed three more, gulped them. Again, the cream-soup flavor, but with accents of spices he couldn't identify.

"Hey, they're great!" he told Thomas.

All the Indians laughed. Thomas slapped him on the back, shook his hand. Then Thomas reached into the fire's embers, pulled out a blackened tin can.

"Now try some grasshoppers!"

After their meal of caterpillars, roast cicadas, and baked-in-the-shell turtle, Thomas told Able Team what he knew of their mission's objective. "Two years ago, the army comes. They have machines, boats, helicopters. The soldiers take many Indians, make them slaves. If Indians no work, army shoot. Soldiers make camp for slaves. Sharp wire, high houses with machine guns. Many dogs. But Indians live. Sometimes we attack when they cut jungle. We kill soldiers. Save some Indians. So army get fast boats, boats that fly. More fences. Bombs. Man step on bomb, legs gone.

First, they make road, then dig great holes. Holes bigger than trucks, bigger than many trucks. River boats bring much concrete, long steel. They make concrete buildings in holes. Much of building in hole, only top of building above dirt.

More Europeans and Chinese come, with many machines..."

"Europeans? Chinese?" Blancanales interrupted.

"Yes. Many. Maybe North Americans. They have light hair, light skin. Chinese never work, only watch. Sometimes kill Indians. Maybe the Chinese the boss. They bring new machines, make electricity. Make place like Dr. No, in movie. You see James Bond? Like that..."

"Were you in there?" Lyons asked.

"No. Later some Indians escape. Boats come from mountains, bring yellow sand. The army, the Europeans, the Chinese, they never touch sand. Only Indians. Soldiers wear mask. Soldiers who drive trucks wear mask.

"There is fire. Much fire, not water. Sometimes smoke that kills, one minute and — dead. Soldiers wear suits like spacemen. Indians work, then much sickness. Many Indians sick. Hair fall off, skin fall off, teeth fall off.

"Soldiers take Indians to river, machine-gun. But not all die. We help, they live month, two month. Then they die. Strange things on hands, feet. Sometimes in body — here." Thomas thumped his chest.

"Did you take them to doctors?" Blancanales asked.

"Doctors?" Thomas almost spat the word. "Government doctors? Army doctors? We take sick men to church station, one night helicopter comes. Many soldiers."

"Are you sure it was the army? Brazilian army?" Lyons pressed.

"I know army. In time of my father, grandfather, army takes Indians. They are slaves on railroad, on boats. Then for many years, no more slavery. Some government people help Indians, some soldiers build roads with machines. But then army comes to build the city, they take Indians for slaves. Same as old times."

"Where is their territory?" Lyons asked. "Do they have patrols?"

"Soldiers guard city. Leave only to take slaves. Find villages, attack. Take men, take women."

Blancanales studied the map and pointed to their position. "We are in Bolivia now. Do the soldiers attack Bolivian Indians?"

"Map means nothing. Never see soldiers of Bolivia. They camp on roads, stay in trucks. No government here."

"Let's go, gentlemen." Lyons gathered up his equipment. "Enough talk. Time to make distance."

Thomas issued instructions to his men. His son scattered the ashes of the fire with a stick. As the smoke dissipated, the insects returned. Flies found Lyons's bare skin. He swatted at them with his wet shirt, then slipped on the shirt and pulled the collar up to protect his neck.

Across the clearing, he saw one of the Indians touching up his black body paint. Lyons went to him and squatted down to watch. The Indian squeezed the juice of a fruit into a can, then added pinches of a powdered herb and stirred. He smeared the black mixture onto his skin.

The Indian offered the can to Lyons. Lyons smelled the juice. It had an odd greasy-bitter smell. The Indian stuck a finger in the can and drew a stripe across Lyons's face.

Lyons held the can up to the flies. None of them came near the can. Stripping off his shirt, he smeared the juice on his shoulders and neck. Insects landed on his arms, and he smeared the last of the mixture there.

Gathering up weapons and cartridge boxes, the Indian pointed to an uncrushed fruit and said, "Genipap."

"Ge-ni-pap," Lyons repeated.

Thomas and Blancanales left the clearing. Gadgets shouldered his backpack and followed. Lyons kept the can and fruit, returned to his equipment. He slipped on his shoulder holster and bandoliers, draped his wet shirt over his pack, jogged after the others.

Insects bit his unprotected skin. The fruit and soot-blackened can in one hand, the Atchisson in the other, he couldn't swat the flies away. He twisted and jerked as he walked, the flies lifting away for an instant, then returning.

He didn't suffer long. In a few minutes, they came to a stagnant stream overhung with branches. Fragments of midday light flashed on the green water. Lyons squinted against the sudden brilliance, saw on the muddy slopes several canoes camouflaged with brush.

Indians threw aside the branches and fronds. They stacked their boxes and packages in the fire-hollowed interiors of the boats. Blancanales and Gadgets passed them their packs. While the others arranged the equipment, Lyons squatted at the water's edge and squeezed genipap juice into the battered can. He dipped the can in the scummy water to thin the juice, then dabbed the mixture on his torso. Blancanales watched him.

"Go easy on that stuff," he told Lyons. "There's no way to know what it is."

"I don't care what it is, the bugs don't like it. It's definitely going to save my white skin."

Thomas saw Lyons blacking his body. "Good. On skin. Face. Hair. Make you not look like civilizado."

Lyons squeezed the last of the juice out of the fruit and massaged it into his hair and sideburns.

Jaws a foot wide snapped at him. Rising from the stagnant shallow, a ten-foot-long crocodile opened its jaws to take Lyons's legs. Scrambling backward, digging in his heels and feeling his boots slide in the ooze, Lyons looked into the mouth of the reptile. The jaws opened impossibly wide, exposing jagged rows of teeth. Lyons clawed at the bank, his fingers slipping in the slime.

The jaws ripped away a strip of his pant leg. Lyons heard himself crying out as the crocodile gained another few inches. As the jaws yawned again, Lyons tore his Python from his shoulder holster. He stuck his arm out, the muzzle of the revolver only inches from the pink flesh of the creature's upper palate.

The 158-grain jacketed hollowpoint slug punched through the soft tissues and exploded from the top of the reptile's skull, the impact snapping the crocodile's head back and killing it instantly. Brain gone, its head flopped forward and lay still in the mud. The unblinking eyes bulged from the sockets.

Even as nerve spasms twitched the tail, the Indians crowded past Lyons and dragged the reptile up from the water. They pulled it to higher ground and set about butchering it with their machetes.

Lyons sat on the water's edge, his Colt Python still in his hand. He stared at his ripped pant leg.

"Good, good, Ironman," Thomas congratulated him. "Much meat, meat for everyone."

Gadgets called out to him. "That insect repellent attracts crocodiles. I'd rather get bitten by a fly anytime!"