Ghost Flight (30 page)

As the snuff was readied, Jaeger found himself remembering a different pipe, one offered to him long ago and a whole world away. Momentarily he was back in his grandfather’s Wiltshire study, the familiar smell of Latakia oak and pinewood cured tobacco strong in his nostrils.

If his grandfather had felt able to offer a sixteen-year-old boy that pipe, maybe Jaeger could accept a different type of pipe, prepared by a different set of hands – a different elder – now.

For a moment he wavered.

The shaman looked at him enquiringly. Barely had he done so when Joe James practically knocked everyone out of the way in his rush to be first.

‘Dude, I thought you’d never ask!’ He sat before the shaman cross-legged, his massive beard reaching to the floor. He grasped the near end of the snuff pipe, placed it in his nose and took the shot. Moments later, the big Kiwi’s mind had clearly gone into warp factor.

Good on James, Jaeger told himself. Cavalry arrived in the nick of time.

But the shaman didn’t move. Instead he readied a second pinch of snuff and loaded it into the pipe.

‘You are two groups,’ Puruwehua explained. ‘Those who came first – they have already opened their minds to the
nyakwana
. It is not James’s first time with the pipe. And then – the new arrivals. This second pipe, it is for you.’

The shaman glanced up.

His eyes – the same as had peered deep inside Jaeger’s skull – fixed him with a look. A testing one. Jaeger felt himself compelled forward, drawn inexorably towards the proffered pipe. He found himself sitting before the Amahuaca shaman just as James had done before him.

Again his mind drifted to his grandfather’s study. But he was no longer that sixteen-year-old boy. As his grandfather had been, Jaeger was now a leader, a figurehead – albeit in a very different place and time, but somehow still connected by a common enemy.

The men and women in his charge needed him to be strong, constant and lucid. Despite the Indians’ customs and their hospitality, Jaeger was here to do a job, and he was determined to stick to it. He held his hands up in front of him, in a gesture signifying
stop
.

‘As I think you know, I have many ghosts,’ he remarked quietly. ‘But right now I also have a mission to lead. So those ghosts have to remain caged, at least until I’ve pulled everyone through the jungle and back to their homes.’ He paused. ‘I can’t take the pipe.’

Puruwehua translated, and the shaman searched Jaeger’s gaze intently. Then he nodded, briefly, a look of respect flashing through his eyes.

He lowered the pipe.

It was some time before Jaeger came back to his senses.

He was lying against his rucksack, eyes closed. After being forgiven the snuff pipe, he’d clearly fallen asleep – his full belly and the warmth of the spirit house lulling him into a deep rest. His mind remained a complete blank – all except for one mesmerising image that seemed seared across the inside of his eyelids.

It was a scene he’d clearly dreamed, one no doubt provoked by the close encounter with the shaman. It was one that he’d begun to think was a total impossibility, but right now it seemed so utterly real.

It was of a beautiful green-eyed woman, a child standing protectively at her side. The woman had been speaking, her voice calling to him from across the missing years. And the child – he’d seemed so much taller. In fact he’d seemed the right height for an eleven-year-old boy.

And he was even more the spitting image of William Jaeger.

53

Jaeger didn’t have long to ponder this extraordinarily haunting dream. By now the snuff pipe had done the full round of the spirit house, and the Amahuaca chief came to join him and his team. He began to talk, Puruwehua translating, and the gravity of what he was saying demanded all their attention.

‘Many moons ago – too many for we Amahuaca to remember – the white men first came. Strangers with fearful weapons journeyed into our lands. They captured a party of our warriors and took them to a remote part of the jungle. There they were forced under pain of death to fell the forest, and to drag the trees to one side.’

At first Jaeger was unsure whether the chief was relating a tribal myth, or the story of his people, or a vision inspired by the
nyakwana
.

‘They were made to clear all vegetation,’ the chief continued, ‘and to beat the ground as flat as if it were a river. All of this went against what we believe. If we do harm to the forest, we do harm to ourselves. We and the land are one: we share the same life force. Many sickened and died, but by then the strip of land had been cleared and the forest with it killed.’

The chief glanced at the open roof and the starlit sky above. ‘One night there came a giant monster of the heavens. It was a huge eagle of smoke, thunder and darkness. It pounced on that dead stretch of land and made its nest there. From its insides the sky monster disgorged more strangers. Those of our warriors who had survived were made to unload heavy cargoes from the belly of the beast.

‘There were metal drums,’ the chief continued, ‘and the air monster started to suck liquid from them, like a huge and hungry mosquito. Once it was done, it clawed into the sky again and was gone. Two more came, each like the last. Each landed in the clearing, sucked up more of the liquid, and took to the air, heading that way,’ the chief indicated due south, ‘into the mountains.’

He paused. ‘And then a fourth air monster came snarling out of the darkness. But there was not enough blood to satisfy this last hungry mosquito. The drums ran dry. It sat there awaiting more; hoping that more would come. But none did. And the white men aboard that monster – they had misjudged the anger of the forest, and how unforgiving the spirits would be to those who had harmed her.

‘Those white men – they floundered in death and ruin. Finally, the last two survivors closed up their metal sky monster, and left carrying what little they could. They too perished in the jungle.

‘Over the years the forest reclaimed the clearing, the trees reaching high above the monster until it became forgotten by the outside world. But it never left the memory of the Amahuaca, the story being passed from father to son. And then it brought more darkness. We had thought it was dead; a carcass of a dead thing brought here by the white man. But it – or rather something inside it – still lives; and still it has the capacity to do us harm.’

As the chief related the story, Jaeger had become aware that one amongst his team was absolutely riveted. She seemed glued to his every word; obsessed; an intensity burning in her eyes. It was the first time that Jaeger had seen Irina Narov looking truly engaged – yet at the same time her look struck him as bordering on a kind of madness.

‘The animals were the first to suffer,’ the chief continued. ‘Some had made the shelter of the air beast’s wings their home. Some fell ill and died. Others gave birth to offspring that were horribly deformed. Amahuaca warriors hunting in that area sickened after drinking from the rivers. The very water seemed cursed; poisoned. Then the plants of the forest all around started to die.’

The chief gestured at his youngest son. ‘I was still young at the time – around Puruwehua’s age. I remember it well. Finally, the trees themselves became the air monster’s victims. All that remained were bare skeletons: dead wood, bleached white as bone in the sun. But still we knew that the story of this beast wasn’t finished.’

He glanced at Jaeger. ‘We knew that the white men would return. We knew that those who came would seek to drive the curse of the air monster from our lands once and for all. That is why I ordered my men not to attack you, but to bring you here. So I could test you. So I could be sure.

‘But sadly, you are not alone. A second force has also trespassed into our lands. They came immediately after you, almost as if they had followed you here. I fear they have come with a far less benign purpose. I fear they have come to breathe new life into the evil the monster carried.’

Jaeger had a thousand questions burning through his mind, but he sensed that the chief wasn’t yet done.

‘I have men shadowing that force,’ the chief continued. ‘We call them the Dark Force, and with good reason. They are slashing a route through the jungle, one pointing direct to the air beast’s lair. Two of my warriors were captured. Their bodies were left strung up in the trees, strange symbols carved into their backs, as a warning.

‘It will be difficult to fight them,’ the chief added. ‘There are too many – perhaps as many as ten times your team. They carry many thunder sticks. I fear a massacre of my tribe should this descend into open warfare. In the deep forest perhaps we could be victorious. Perhaps. Even then it is uncertain. But in the open ground of the air monster’s lair – my people would be wiped out.’

Jaeger tried to say something, but the chief waved him into silence.

‘The only guarantee of success lies in reaching that air monster first.’ He threw Jaeger a shrewd glance. ‘There is no way that you can overtake this Dark Force. Not alone. Yet if you accept the help of the Amahuaca, you will make it. We know the forest’s secret ways. We can move fast. Only those with brave hearts should join such an undertaking. The journey will involve making a short cut that only we Amahuaca know of.

‘No outsider has ever attempted such a journey,’ the chief continued. ‘To do so, you must head direct to the Devil’s Falls, and from there . . . Well, you must take your life in your hands. But it is the only way to stand a chance of beating the Dark Force to the site of the air beast, and to triumph.

‘The forest will guide and guard,’ the chief announced. ‘At dawn, all who are ready will go
.
Puruwehua will be your guide, and you will have two dozen of my finest warriors.
It remains to be seen if you will accept this offer, and who will go from your side.’

For a moment Jaeger was lost for a reply. It was all moving so fast, and he had a hundred questions clouding his mind. It was Joe James who was the first to respond.

‘Give me another hit on your pipe, and I’ll follow you guys anywhere,’ he growled.

There was laughter, James’s comment grounding everyone in the moment.

‘One question,’ Jaeger prompted. ‘What about our missing two? What news of them?’

The chief shook his head. ‘I am sorry. Your friends were captured by this same Dark Force and beaten to death. We retrieved their bodies and cremated them. In Amahuaca tradition, we mix the ash of the bones of our dead with water and we drink it, so that our loved ones are forever with us. We have kept the remains of your friends, for you to do with them as you will . . . I am sorry, Mr Jaeger.’

Jaeger stared into the fire. So much loss. More good men and women. Ones under his command. He felt his stomach turn with a raw mix of anger and frustration bordering on despair. He vowed to himself that he’d account for whoever was doing this. He’d find answers and justice. Even if it was justice on his terms.

The conviction steadied him, readying him for whatever was coming.

54

Jaeger glanced at the chief, trouble clouding his eyes. ‘I think we’ll go scatter their ashes among the trees,’ he remarked quietly. He turned to his team. ‘And you know something else – I think I’m better off going on alone, with the chief’s warriors. I can move faster on my own, and I don’t want you guys getting any deeper into this—’

‘Typical,’ a voice cut in. ‘You may have the heart of a lion but you’ve got the brains of a monkey – like the one you just ate.’ It was Irina Narov. ‘You take it upon yourself to be tougher than everyone else. The loner. The lone hero. You’ll do it on your own. Everyone else is a burden. A liability. You cannot see the value in others, and that amounts to a betrayal of all in your team.’

Jaeger felt stung by her words. The loss of his wife and child plus the subsequent years in Bioko had made him distrustful of others – he knew that. But right now, it wasn’t that which was driving him to go it alone: it was the fear of losing more of his team, and being next to powerless to protect them.

‘Two are dead already,’ he countered. ‘It’s gone from being an expedition of discovery to something altogether shittier. It’s not what you – any of you – signed up for when you agreed to do this thing.’

‘
Schwachkopf
,’ Narov’s voice softened a little. ‘It is as I said after we nearly died in the freefall: you need to learn to trust your team. And you know something: by your example, you have earned the right to lead. You have earned it. Prove that you are worthy of our belief; our
trust
in you.’

What was it about this woman? Jaeger wondered. How was it that with a few choice sentences she could get so deep beneath his skin? She had a way of speaking that went direct to the heart of the matter, and bugger the social niceties.

He glanced around his team. ‘And the rest of you?’

‘It’s easy.’ James shrugged. ‘Hold a vote. Those who want to go get to go. Those who don’t stay behind.’

‘Yeah,’ Alonzo added. ‘Ask for volunteers. And let’s make it clear: there’s no dishonour –
none
– on those who opt to stay behind.’

‘Okay,’ Jaeger conceded. ‘And chief – are you good safeguarding those who choose to remain? At least until this thing is done.’

‘They are welcome,’ the chief confirmed. ‘Our home is their home, and for as long as they are in need of it.’

‘Right, I’m asking for volunteers,’ Jaeger announced. ‘And you all know the dangers.’

‘Count me in,’ James declared, almost before Jaeger was done speaking.

‘It’s a shitty kind of a holiday,’ Alonzo growled. ‘But man, I’m in.’

Kamishi raised his gaze to Jaeger. ‘I have already failed you once. I fear I may—’ Jaeger placed a hand on Kamishi’s shoulder to quieten him. Kamishi brightened. ‘If you would accept—’

Alonzo slapped him on the back. ‘What brother Kamishi’s trying to say is – he’s in!’

Dale glanced at the village chief, then at Jaeger. ‘If I’m in, am I allowed to film? Or will they stick me full of spears as soon as I pull out my camera?’