Chapter 11.
And here we both are, standing before a gnarly looking tree. At least, I'm standing in front of it. You should have your tootsies up, enjoying a nice bowl of chowder. Mmm. Boy, I could sure go for a good bowl of fingernail chowder. I'll save that recipe for another time (the trick is to get the fingernails left over from a dim-sum style Korean restaurant, preferably with the fingers still attached to the nail. Not the Mandarin style, though. 50/50 chance the fingernails will be done up in ornate nail polish, and that nail polish just wreaks havoc on the taste buds...another time).
I remember passing by this tree the night before. I was just needling George before with not knowing which tree in the jungle to look for. I take in the scenery for a moment, catch my breath. The sun is peaking through the trees behind me. To my left, the muddy brown river meanders along peacefully. Vines cling to everything. Green veins (yes veins, not vines) twist around every living thing, even around each other.
However, in a large circle, nothing else grows but the tree. Twenty feet around, no vegetation. The locals call it "de Jardinería el Diablo", or "The Devil's Garden." It's the ants. Lemon ants. They taste like tangy, zesty lemon. They crawl up and down the tree, and in and out of little holes and knots. They even have a slight lemon yellow color. They secrete acidic acid in every leaf they cut, kills off any other vegetation except for the tree.
The canoe is well concealed behind some palm fronds dragged over near the tree. It’s dented up aluminum. I give it a swift kick and run. I look back, nothing swarming about. It's a good thing George told me about the bees, I wouldn't have thought of doing that.
I turn over the canoe.
Surprise! Zombie lying in wait. A real ugly bastard. Freshly killed. Gives me the creeps. My skin is crawling. His skin is bloated.
I let out a girlish "Eek!"
The zombie, for his part, lets out a growl. But it's not like the growl of the jaguar. It's like he's got dirt in his mouth, a real earthy tone. He'd make a good tenor in a zombie quartet.
I only say "like he's got dirt in his mouth" because he has no lower jaw. His tongue is flailing around, like an obscene pink slug. He looks Mexican, which this far south makes me wonder if he is one of the eight people George is hunting down. Sorry if my description is not scary, but this particular zombie is not very scary to me. He looks like a drug deal gone bad. Ligature marks around his neck. His hands are bound in front of him. Lying under that canoe like it’s a coffin. Plus, he's slow to get up. I make a dash for the canoe; I’m paddling like crazy, laughing as he finally gets his stiff zombie legs beneath him.
I stop paddling long enough to flip him the bird. Then I feel sad for him. He's standing at the bank of the river, almost like he's contemplating to swim. That's the beauty of water. Zombies sink. Bumbles bounce and zombies sink. Rankin Bass made up the rules, not I.
My sadness and bemusement at his trepidation are cut short as I see the zombie step into the water and not sink.
"Huh?" I say.
He just groans in return and starts sloshing towards me. I paddle out to the middle of the river, and fifty yards from shore, this zombie is still ankle deep in water. I try to reach down under the canoe with the paddle to see how deep the river is. It's ankle deep here too. I paddle out a bit more, as the zombie is gaining on me. Reach down again. Even shallower, the canoe is even starting to bottom out. The water must be deeper closer to where he is...no luck. I look down the river. I see bits of twigs and the tops of rocks showing through the mud.
"Huh," I say.
The zombie says nothing, because in this entire depth finding exercise, I forgot the cardinal rule in dealing with these dummies: Never take your eyes off the zombies. (I know, in pop culture, in a movie that shall remain nameless, and a book that also shall remain nameless, there are all these rules and regulations dealing with zombies. Cardio. Fasten seat belts. They are all baloney. Do you like following rules? Me neither. You want a rule to zombie survival? Use your head for something other than a brain serving platter. Common sense, people.)
Now take this zombie, for example. I'm in no real danger, he has no lower jaw. The worst he can do, which he's doing now, is grabbing at me and mouth me with that gross tongue. It looks, smells, and feels like one of those bug eyed fish I caught earlier. So I swing the paddle behind me. Knock him down. Paddle away. He gets up. We go like this a mile down the river until I see Inspector George sniffing around on the northern bank of the river.
"Hey George," I yell. "Looking for him?"
I paddle up to George triumphantly. I look behind; the zombie is following me like a puppy dog. They tend to do that. You want another rule to zombies? Me neither, like I said, I hate rules. A good tip: Zombies don't make loving pets, no matter how long they sit at your back door, scratching to get in. Forget it, it’s not loyalty they’re displaying. Eventually, they'll try to take a chunk out of you.
George, for his part, is not amused. He has a look of concern on his face; his eyebrows are raised up, his baggy eyes exposing a slit of eyes...or at least eyelashes. I gave up trying to find expression surrounding the man's eyes long ago. Now I just look at his mouth. His mouth is wide open. Like he wants to scream "Look out!" or something.
I just shake my head.
"What a baby," I think. “Bright sunny morning, not a cloud in the sky.” This bounty hunter is acting like he never saw a zombie before. He's a hundred yards away too!
I pull up to the bank, yank up the canoe. I say to George, "What's the matter? You know this clown or something?"
I look over at what George is pointing at, because George is acting queer. He's not moving, he’s doing the statue thing. I look over, there's the zombie, right where I left him, middle of the river, growling away.
Wait a second. Is that?
"Hey, George, you hear that?" I ask.
George grabs my head, and swivels it around like my neck has ball bearings in it, points my pug nose at this slithering black form on the opposite side of the bank.
Me and George look at each other, and in unison teenage girlie voices scream, "Jaguar!" (Not to distract from the moment, but George in his thick accent actually says "Yag-war"...a minor detail, though. Should not take away in any form that a three hundred pound death machine is galloping at us through the shallow river at about sixty MPH).
I start to run, but George yanks me down. The zombie is making his way towards us, licking at his exposed upper teeth. The jaguar jumps out of the water, probably twenty feet from behind him. Graceful. In slow motion.
You ever see those old Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom television shows? I always thought they were slowing down the camera footage when I saw a lion, or...to stay on topic, a jaguar, running after and catching their prey. It's not like that at all. Just like you can't have hard and true zombie "rules," the rules of nature don't translate well when broadcast on Sunday evenings in black and white. I know it's not happening in slow motion, but it sure looks it. That jaguar just hangs in the air, the zombie is oblivious.
Crack!
His jaws crack open the skull of the zombie. Instant death. Or re-death. Instant out of commission. He’s a corpse. Not to get all pedantic, but unlike your mountain lion up north, or any of the big lions in Africa...also unlike the tiger of Asia, the jaguar does not grab at the neck and suffocate. I learned that from Mutual of Omaha too, you know. No, they go right for the skull. Their super strong jaws crush skulls like egg shells. They can even drag a killed animal, weighing as much as them, and jump twenty feet right up a tree with the carcass.
Beautiful animals. Natures best zombie eradicator. Unfortunately for us, jaguars are not above making errors in judgment. They are a movement based predator. Looks like lunch? Must be lunch time. This particular jaguar looks distraught. Must have been waiting to ambush George. Sees me and our now headless friend jaunting down the river, and being opportunistic, went for the easy kill.
But with one taste of the zombie, the jaguar knows it's not a fresh k
ill. It’s carrion, leftovers, junk. It's tearing at the zombie in the water, thrashing him about. Once the water settles, little ringlets surround the jaguar. The look on his face is priceless. He’s looking at us stupidly.
"George," I whisper, "now's your chance, take a shot."
George doesn't move, he's still a statue. "No move, Senor."
"No move? Get out your damn six shooters, and...shoot it...shoot it twelve times."
"My bullets just madden him, Senor. Stay still."
"It sees us George. Hide and seek is over. We can come out now, you know."
"Shhh!" he says.
So we stand still behind the canoe, and sure enough the Jaguar walks off. He never turns his head from us as he goes, and when he gets to the opposite bank, he turns his body around and goes into the jungle backwards. When he's out of sight, he roars in frustration.
"Wow!" I say. "Who'd a thunk a big guy like you was such a scaredy cat."
George just looks at me. "Stand your ground when the jaguar comes for you."
"Why, so he doesn't miss?"
"No, so he-"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, George, I seen it all on TV back in the day. When they get you, you won't even know it’s happened, right?"
"Si."
"So who was the poor sap in the river?" I ask.
"Never mind. We go down, follow the river today; I pick up the track again on the bank. Now there is cuatro."
He holds up four fingers to drive the point home.
He says little as the day wears on. The sun beats down all day, but the river water is shallow and cool, and the canoe ride is nice. The river grows wider whenever it straightens out, and then shrinks down around blind curves as we go over rapids and white water. The Amazon has some tired rivers, they still have life in them on occasion. Black rocks beckon to break our heads open. I imagine them as giant wet jaguars, ever ready to crush our skulls. But then the water slows down, and the excitement dies down, and the river is quiet again.
George starts singing to break the silence, so I figure now's a good as time as any to ask who we're tracking.
"Who I tracking," he corrects me.
"Si. Who George the mighty jaguar killer is tracking. You track them like the big cat too. I bet when we...excuse me, when you find your prey, you're going to slink back into the jungle and roar. Is that it?"
"Si. Close enough," he says and goes back to singing.
I start to doze off in the back of the canoe, and George is none the wiser. He paddles east, and the sun is down low at our backs. I awaken cold. George is splashing water on me.
"Senor," he whispers and points to the jungle on the southern bank. All I see is trees.
"What is it?"
"Banditos."
Then I hear their laughter and their banter, unaware and uncensored as we float down stream, the current carrying us like Baby Moses down the Nile. A small plume of white smoke breaks through the tree canopy. I smell cooking fish.
As their voices fade into the sunset behind us, George starts paddling in earnest. I follow suit, unprovoked. We will ambush them. At least, George will.
We paddle for four hours, no rest. My shoulders feel like they are going to break my arms off with each pull of the paddle. My lower back is aching; my legs are numb from sitting bent kneed for so long. George, at the front of the canoe has to paddle twice as hard to every paddle I make. He paddles furiously, nearly tipping the canoe forward at times, making me go airborne. A see-saw with a fat and skinny kid. He makes my paddle barely a rudder when this happens.
I hear the rush of rapids approaching, and in the sliver of moonlight, see white water about a hundred yards downstream.
George paddles to the south shore, and as we pull the canoe up the bank, my heart races with anticipation.
As we camouflage the canoe, George says “Senor, follow my every move. Break not a branch, stir not a leaf. Kick over not a stone. Each branch you touch, don't push it aside. Pretend you are the jaguar, comprende?"
"Yeah, I comprende."
I do as I'm told. I am anxious to find out who we are up against, but I keep my questions to myself.
We work our way up the embankment; it takes over an hour to cover fifty-sixty yards. The rapids drown out the insects and the monkeys. The frogs chirping are difficult to pinpoint, and I am starving. George offers me fish jerky. It tastes disgusting, but it's edible. Like chewing on fish flavored sole of shoe.
"Senor, I may need your help," he breaks the vigil we are keeping.
"Hey, you need my help, I'm here to serve. So who exactly are these guys?"
"They pay me to kill someone down the river, many months ago."
"So? Wouldn't that make them on your side?"
"No quite. I never kill the man."
"Wow. Really? For some reason, this does not surprise me. So you missed your mark?"
"Who?"
"The people that you kill, what are they called?"
"Usually I just call them people that I kill. Only this man, he not the guy we looking for."
"George, how did you know it wasn't him?"
"His not him, I just know."
"Yeah, but what if it was him?"
"The people of the village, they come, Senor. I standing in his hut, and his children and his wife they cover him. 'Please, please no kill our papa.' And that is when I had a moment of reflection."
"Like in Pulp Fiction?"
"Was his pulp fiction?"
"Never mind...so you didn't kill him?"
"Si."
"So you think these guys here just fed you a line to off somebody they don't want alive anymore, right?"
"Si. You a fast study, Senor."
"Gracias, I've read a book or two. But if they out number him eight to one, why not just kill him themselves? Save their money."
"I no ask questions. Because when they ask me, they outnumber me eight to one."
"Tough odds, huh?"
"Si."
"Eight against two…maybe one and a half?"
"Now only cuatro," he says with confidence.
"But there were eight?"
"Si. Ocho. That one back in the river. The one the jaguar killed…" George crosses himself, "he was trader."
"A slave trader?"
"Si."
"The most organized newest gang of idiots?"
He doesn't answer right away, but then he mutters, "Si."
I’m scared. If they catch me, right to the auction block I go, right next to the bags of peanuts and coffee beans.
George studies me. "Si, but now there's only cuatro," he says apologetically.
“Let me guess. The old guy in the village is between them and a village full of potential slaves, you get him out of the way, the village falls easy to these traders, right?”
“Si. Or maybe he tell them to get off his lawn, and they no like that tone.”
I'm about to read him the riot act, but I'm interrupted by blood curdling screams.
"SOCORRO!"
"What's the? Soccer goal?"
"SOCORRO!!"
George looks at me, "His them, the traders, they cry for help."
"SOCCCOOOOORRROOOOOOO!!!!"
Next chapter, the ambush...