Chapter 30.
In the morning, we sneak off, heading out east. We circumvent Tiara's village. Tiara tries to convince George that her sister deserves to die. George says it's not his problem. George concentrates on finding Dodge's trail.
"How do you know this is his horse?" I ask. "I mean, on this trail we've been following, it could be anyone's horse prints."
“My horse threw a shoe, see?”
He also points out there are no footprints, only drag marks whenever we get near water. I don't question him again. He makes us ride fast.
The next few weeks were a blur for me. I got a bad case of worm foot. Guinea worms. I drank some water that even the horses wouldn’t touch. George and Tiara thought I was a goner for sure. I started acting all weird. They had to keep me tied up and slung over my horse. Every time we’d stop for water, they would complain that I was soaking my feet for too long. It felt good to do it. Once, after a good soak, Tiara grabs me, and George takes a look at my feet. He lances some boils on them, then he takes some match sticks, wraps these worms that are living in me around the match. He can’t just yank the worm out; that will kill me. Instead, it takes weeks of slowly wrapping the worm every so often around the match.
During this time we come across a zombie. George shoots one that's about my size. For once in about twelve years I have on a decent pair of shoes, blue jeans, checkered shirt, and a black hat. I'd prefer white, but this isn't hub cap city, either.
Getting rid of the worms and having cloths really lifts my spirits. Plus, neither George nor Tiara treats me like a slave. Tiara is still is too clingy for my liking. As we come up to the last flowers of the season, she puts them in her hair. Maybe if she just had access to a mirror, and shaved. I mean, her upper lip has stubble. Stubble.
George has me send out a cryptic message, “Coast in uno month.”
And so it goes, we ride the clear-cut forests of the Amazon for the better part of a month. I’ll spare you the details, it was very monotonous. Let’s just go to the highlight reel. We did not see a whole lot until we started to get close to the eastern coast.
First, there was a change in the villages we came across. More and more of them were filled with friendly natives, and pens filled with zombies. Telltale signs that we were in Vegas Showgirl Amazon territory.
Next, there were no outcast villages. There was also a lot more foot traffic on the paths we were taking, which irritated George to no end. We had to deal with traffic. Lots of donkeys pulling carts filled with chickens in crates and small native kids in smelly diapers with black straw hair and upturned Chinese looking eyes and arrow noses.
One day, we smelled smoke. I’ll pull you into the story here, because things got more interesting than George standing in the middle of a road, causing all kinds of traffic as he studies a foot print in the dirt for hours on end.
A village is smoking in the jungle. None of the foot traffic goes to investigate down the path from where the smoke emanates the strongest. There’s a sign on the road of a woman holding out a spear, wearing a dress. Below that sign is a skull and cross bones. Looks like a ‘No trespassing’ sign. The Vegas Show girls, as good natured as they are, are not the type to welcome visitors with open arms. You’re allowed on their turf by invitation only. Even if their house is on fire, they’re not the type to ask for a bucket brigade from strangers.
This doesn’t stop George. He sees Dodge’s trail going straight down the road, and like a bloodhound, he doesn’t lift his nose from the ground long enough to acknowledge the forbidding sign, or my anguished pleas for us to turn back.
“George, please, you’re the guy always saying whose business is whose. This is not our business.”
Tiara pleads with him in her native tongue. George doesn’t waver. We’re all three walk the horses down the path. I look behind us. A native in a cart has stopped at the fork in the road. He looks at us curiously, and then spurs his sickly burro down the other way.
George looks up the road, sniffs at the air, and stops walking. He slaps his horse’s rear, then Tiara’s. He tries to slap mine, but I’m trying to mount my paint, who I’ve named Shirley.
“Not Shirley, George!” I plead, as he grabs the reigns from me, and slaps her, sending all three horses and our kits back up the path. They run out onto the main road, and disappear around the bend.
George pulls us into the bushes along the path. They’re thorny, and I’m thankful I’m wearing normal cloths, because I’m only scratched a little. We go deep into the bushes, George pushes us further than Tiara or I want to venture. There are huge spider webs, and even bigger spiders. The spiders make audible thuds as I wave my hat and make them fly into the jungle. George grabs my hand, and puts his finger to his lips.
We hear marching up the road. I’m scared, Tiara is too. George ain’t. He’s peering out with those slits for peepers towards the path. There are chains rattling and heavy footsteps, and a lot of women crying.
Slave traders!
That jerk Scarface is up on a horse, big straw sombrero on, big nasty sneer, bottle of tequila dangling from one hand, reigns in the other. Two other men ride behind him, pushing up the brigade. Tiara gasps as she sees Scarface, and George holds her down, putting his mouth over her mouth until she stops struggling.
I’m moderately concerned if any of the girls are Riley Jr. This is her neck of the woods we’re in. The only image I have of hers is a mental one. A Polaroid her mother Riley Sr. sent me two years ago. Riley Jr. was maybe twelve; she had a wide grin with big teeth that her mouth hadn’t quite grown around yet. But she had her mother’s eyes and my pug nose, and a look of mischief about her. Slaves can’t own such trinkets, so I kept it hidden in the coop until it was found. Two weeks in the cooler for me for that infraction. Well worth it, though.
My concern is gone because all the girls chained up are dark brown and tan. Riley Jr. takes after me and her mom, lily white. Doesn’t mean I don’t feel bad for these girls, mind you. Recall that I am a slave. Slaves are colorblind to our own people. I feel like puking at the sight of these girls all chained up.
George cocks his gun slow, trying to hide the metallic click it makes. He fails.
The brigade of slave marching stops. One of the slave drivers barks an order in Portuguese. Except for a few sniffles and chains clinking, everything is quiet. Even the jungle birds and animals are quiet.
George breaks the silence by cocking his other gun. Two of the men get off their horses.
“George,” I whisper, “what about live and let live?”
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
George crosses himself. His gun leaves a trail of smoke in the shape of a cross in front of him.
“Come, Senor. Help me unchain the senoritas.”
Tiara is the first up the road. She pulls Scarface off his horse. She starts kicking and beating his limp body. I go to stop her, but George holds me back.
I look over at the other two men. George shot them both right between the eyes. No limbo for these jokers. The chained girls start rattling their shackles and tongues, talking that slurry Spanish Portuguese.
I have no clue what they’re saying.
“Relajarse, relajarse…” I try.
I search the two dead traders. I get lucky. The first dead guy has a key ring on him. I undo the loop from his belt; they are old school skeleton keys. Meaning, the locks are huge. Simple padlocks would do, but slave traders really love plying their trade of oppression on their hapless victims.
The girls are gracious, bloody, and smell smoky. As I’m unlocking their ankles and hands, I notice they are not that tall. Just under six foot.
“George, are these Rockettes?”
“Si,” one girl says. A black girl, close cut haircut, black eye, ink on her face still bleeding. She’s marked for life now, sadly. You can’t run from yourself as a slave. From zombies, yeah…but not the mark on your face.
She coughs up some blood, and spits it on the ground as she rubs her wrists. “We’
re on Rumspringa, enjoying the beach. We got led into a trap.”
“What kind of trap?” I ask.
“Wet tee shirt contest,” she says.
“Huh?”
“Wet tee shirt contest. Just because we’re Amazons, doesn’t mean we don’t like to strut our stuff.”
She says something in slurry to the other girls, and they answer her resolutely. They are not gracious for their temporary freedom. They run off chanting.
“What they saying, George?”
“Payback, Senor.”
George goes back to sniffing the road. I watch the young brown girls run up the road, away from the smoking village. Tiara’s done beating on Scarface, she’s a bloody mess. He’s even worse off. I think she’s holding one of his ears.
Tiara’s breathing heavy, and I give her a hand signal. I draw a heart in the air and point at her. She smiles, fatigued. She repeats the gesture, pointing at me and George. George only studies at the ground.
George missed his mark on Scarface.
He got him through the heart.
The slave trader is reincarnated into a better life form. He sits up.
“Watch out!” I gasp.
Before Tiara can react, Scarface is sitting up fully. He grabs her. Shoulder bite.
She screams, and goes back to beating him. She smashes his skull in with a fistful of hatred. The only thing worse than a face tattoo in this world, is a kiss of death from the undead.
I’ll hold no punches. I cry like a baby and hug the big girl. George looks on, tightens the harness of Scarface’s horse, and inspects the saddle as he throws sideways glances at us.
Me and Tiara have a good bawl session. She’s like a daughter to me. In the weeks of riding through the grasslands, she was becoming quite the lady.
That's the problem with the Amazons. No men to act feminine around, they turn feral. Not Tiara, though. She was a diamond in the rough; the only substance tougher than diamond is zombie enamel.
She starts muttering to George. George is silent.
She squeezes my hand, and I try to help her up, only she stays sitting on the ground. She gets up on her own, and walks a bit towards the smoky village. Then she turns around, starts talking to George again.
George looks at me.
“What’s she saying, George?”
CRACK!
George’s gun answers. Right between the eyes.
“Why’d you go and do that for, George?” I yell.
George blows the smoke from his muzzle pensively. Then he goes back to arranging the saddle of the horse.
“She have words of wisdom for you, Senor,” he finally says.
“Oh? Didn’t sound like it to me. Sounded more like she wanted to be put out of her misery. And you were so broken up over doing it, weren’t ya? Cold hearted jerk. Meathead.”
“She say, ‘Tell his daughter to wear shoulder pads.’ I think it wise, no?”
I’m bleary eyed. It doesn’t pay to get attached to people.
“Si, his good idea, Tiara. Adios, senorita,” George says.