Hazards (13 page)

“Fine,” I said. “Lead the way.”

He got kind of panicky and began trying to pull me in the other direction.

“You’re confusing the issue,” I said. “I thunk Merry Bunta was
this
way,” I added, pointing to where he’d come from.

He nodded his head vigorously. “Merry Bunta!” he said.

“Well, fine, then,” I said. “Let’s go.”

He tried to break loose again, and finally it dawned on me. There wasn’t nothing wrong with anyone’s eyesight. They just all figured that none of ’em had a chance with Merry when matched up against a handsome young buck like myself, and they were just clearing out because they knew after one look that the race to Merry’s heart was already won.

“Okay, Brother,” I said. “I understand your motives, and I approve of them. But I ain’t met no one what’s stuck around more than ten or twelve seconds, and I’m gonna be needing a best man, and failing that a best little feller in a loincloth, so why don’t you come along with me, and I promise if you stick around we’ll invite you over to dinner of a Sunday at least twice a year.”

He pulled all the harder to get free of me.

“All right,” I said. “It’d fair break your heart to be in the vicinity of such blonde beauty and know it’s been spoken for. I can sympathize with that. Only one of us can win her delicate ladylike hand and all the good stuff that it’s attached to. Go on your way, little friend, and no hard feelings.”

I let him go. He looked at me like I was crazy, and headed off in the general direction of Madrid and Paris, though of course Rio was in the way.

As I walked I realized that Old Man Bunta must be a pretty good hand with a rifle, because suddenly I couldn’t hear a single bird singing. In another couple of hours I figgered that he had about as big an appetite as I’d ever encountered, because not only wasn’t there nothing with wings left in the area, but there wasn’t nothing with legs neither, not tapirs, not deer, not sloths, not even monkeys. I decided that I approved, because the sooner he et himself to death the sooner I could share his strongbox with Merry. Then I figgered that I didn’t want her worrying her pretty blonde head about such weighty matters, and it made more sense for me to just handle whatever was in the box myself.

After another five miles I began to realize that most of the money from the strongbox was gonna have to be spent on seed and fertilizer, because there wasn’t nothing growing—not even a blade of grass. The trees was dead, the bushes didn’t have no leaves left on them, and I couldn’t see nary a flower.

I was still puzzling on why Merry and her father would want to live in a place like this when I finally saw a house off in the distance, and I knew I’d reached my destination at last.

There was a little stream betwixt me and the house, and I knelt down next to it and doused my head in the water. Then I plucked a fish from where it had latched onto my nose and slicked my hair back with my hands, which was the best I could do since I’d left my comb back at the hotel in Rio. For a minute I thunk of taking a quick dip, since I’d been wearing the same duds for months and hadn’t had ’em washed since my last friendly visit to Madame Sarcosa’s, but I figgered if I did that I’d have to wait a couple of hours for ’em to dry, and I was too anxious to take Merry Bunta in my arms, so I just kept running my hands through my hair til it didn’t run into no more six-legged intruders, and then I set off to meet the love of my life.

I’d just about reached the house when an old guy with a shotgun opened the door and stared at me.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded, stepping out onto the porch.

“I’m here to pay court to your daughter, the most beautiful flower in all of God’s South American garden,” I said, and then added: “That is, if you’re Harvey Bunta, and if you ain’t, you might as well start packing your things right now, because nothing’s gonna stop me from hooking up with the delectable Merry.”

“Are you mad?” he said, kind of wide-eyed and surprised that a rival would footslog this far into the wilderness just to beat his time with Merry.

“Mad with passion,” I said. And then, since there was still a possibility that he was her father and not a suitor, I clarified it by saying, “With an all-encompassing and almost-Platonic passion.”

“You are a fool!” he snapped. “Didn’t you see all those men heading toward Rio on your way here?”

“You mean all them little guys in their South American skivvies?” I said. “Yeah, I kept running into them.”

“Didn’t you pay any attention to them?”

“Sure did,” I answered. “I kept asking where I could find Merry Bunta, and they kept pointing me in this direction.”

“Idiot!”

“That ain’t no way to talk to your future son-in-law, or maybe your rival, depending on who you are, which you ain’t told me yet.”

“I’m Harvey Bunta, and you are either the dumbest man I’ve ever met or else you’ve got yourself a real sweet tooth for punishment.”

“Aw, come on, Harvey—or should I call you Dad?—this ain’t no way for us to begin our relationship.”

“Not to worry,” he said grimly. “It’ll end in a day or two.”

I looked at his shotgun. “You ain’t thinking of trying to run me off, are you?”

“Idiot!” he said again. “You’re stuck here. We’re all stuck here!”

“I can’t imagine what you find so attractive about this here place, Harvey,” I said. “Ain’t nothing growing for miles around.”

“This place was greener than you can imagine just two days ago,” he said. “Why the hell didn’t you listen to those natives?”

“I did,” I told him, getting a little hot under the collar that he wasn’t taking my word for it. “I kept asking ’em where I could find Merry Bunta, and they kept pointing me in this direction.”

“Didn’t you wonder why they were all racing hell for leather in the opposite direction?”

I didn’t want to give him the real reason, because I didn’t want no prospective father-in-law to think I was stuck on myself when nothing could be farther from the truth, so I just said that I figgered it was payday and they were all racing off to Rio to spend their money.

“They were running away,” he said.

“From sweet little Merry Bunta?” I scoffed.

“From
marabunta
.”

“That’s what I said,” I told him.

“
Marabunta,
” he repeated, and spelled it for me. “
Not
Merry Bunta.”

“There’s a difference?” I asked.

“Merry Bunta is my daughter,” he said. “
Marabunta
are army ants. We’re surrounded by about six billion of ’em.”

“Six billion?” I repeated. “I guess that’s too many for you to stomp on ’em, huh?”

He just glared at me.

“So where are they now?” I asked.

“Their main force is about a mile to the south of us,” he said, “and it’s headed this way. There’s another bunch that’s been approaching from the west. They eat everything in their path.”

I figgered it was too bad Rosie Sanchez wasn’t here, because I had long since come to the conclusion that nothing could eat her beans and tortillas and survive.

“Well, Dad Harvey,” I said, “if it’s a war they want, it’s a war they’ll get.”

“You call me Dad Harvey again, and the first thing they’ll get is your buckshot-riddled corpse.”

“These here ants are making you kind of tense,” I said. “That ain’t no way to talk to your future son-in-law.”

“I take great comfort in the fact that you and I will both be dead by sunset tomorrow,” said Harvey. “I’m only sorry that Merry will also die beneath the
marabuntas’
onslaught.”

That got my fighting blood up, because I was bound and determined that nothing was gonna crawl all over Merry’s ripe young body before I did, and I decided it was time to start coming up with a plan of action.

“You got any gasoline, Harvey?” I asked.

“Why?”

“I figger we’ll pour it on the
marabunta
and set fire to it.”

“I got six gallons of gas. There’s seven billion ants out there.”

“I thunk you said six billion,” I said.

“They multiply fast,” he answered.

“Can they swim?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” said Harvey. “I’m usually so busy watching out for alligators and anacondas and the like when I’m in my boat that I don’t pay much attention to what kind of insects are frolicking in the water.”

“Well, even if we can’t kill ’em all,” I said, “at least we can discourage ’em.”

“Yeah? How?” he asked.

“You say the main body of the enemy is coming from the south, right?” I said. “I’ll just set a fire betwixt us and them, and that ought to discourage them.”

“Just how long do you think three gallons of gasoline will burn?” he said.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But even after it goes out, the ground figgers to be mighty hot on their tender little ant bellies.”

He shrugged. “What the hell. The gas is in canisters around the side of the house. Go get it.”

I got three gallons of gas and brung it back with me.

“Now, where’s the delectable Merry?” I asked. “I wouldn’t want to trap her on the wrong side of the fire.”

“She’s in the house,” he said.

“Fixing some vittles, I hope?” I said.

“Nah, just sitting there shaking like a leaf. The thought of being et alive by a bunch of godless insects put her off her feed.”

“Well, you can tell her not to worry, now that Lucifer Jones is on the scene.”

“
You’re
Lucifer Jones?” he said, surprised. “I heard about a Lucifer Jones while I was in Rio, but I guess you can’t be the same one.”

“Why not?”

“You ain’t been lynched yet.”

I figgered I’d explain all them misunderstandings later, but the main thing now was to get the war underway, so I walked about half a mile south and parceled out the gasoline, spreading it as far as I could. Then I sat down and waited, and it wasn’t too long before the enemy showed up in force just atop the next rise, so I lit a match and tossed it onto the ground, and two seconds later there was a blaze you could have roasted half a dozen dinosaurs in.

I went back to the house and reported that I’d saved the day, and once Merry realized we were going to live and confessed her love to me, maybe she could rustle up some grub.

To celebrate I opened my canteen and took a swig.

“The water around here ain’t safe to drink til you boil it,” said Harvey.

“Really?” I said. “I been drinking it since I left Rio and I ain’t noticed a thing.”

“I could get you some boiled water from the house.”

“This ain’t water,” I said. “It’s beer.”

“Where’d you come by beer out here?” he asked.

“I been carrying it for maybe three weeks now. I been saving it for the proper moment.”

“Ain’t it a little warm and a little flat?”

“Yeah,” I admitted. “But it’s better than water.”

He couldn’t argue with that, so in my great-heartedness I let him take a couple of swallows. He’d just handed the canteen back to me and was wiping his mouth off with his shirtsleeve when he froze. At first I thunk the beer was disagreeing with him, but then he pointed off in the distance.

“They’ve split into two groups, and they’re flanking the fire!” he said.

Until that moment, I had no idea ants was that smart.

So I figgered if one fire didn’t discourage the
marabunta
two certainly would, and I waited until the columns joined again about half a mile from the house and used the rest of the gas to set another one. But while it was burning away, Harvey looked across the battlefield through his binoculars and announced that it was just a feint, that the real attack was coming from the west.

“You got any dams on that stream?” I asked him.

“A couple,” he answered. “Why?”

“Give me a stick of dynamite,” I said. “If I can blow up one of them dams, we can flood the plain between the ants and the house.”

“I only got one stick of dynamite on the whole estate,” he said. “Are you sure this is going to work?”

“I can’t see no reason why it won’t.”

He went into the house for a few seconds and came out with a stick of dynamite.

“You’re positive, now?” he insisted.

“Trust me, Harvey,” I said, and he tossed the dynamite to me. I caught it and raced off to the first dam I could find, stuck the dynamite into it, lit the fuse, and put my fingers in my ears. It blew about ten seconds later, and tons of water rushed out across the land.

And started sinking in.

And vanished.

“When’s the last time you had any rain?” I asked.

He shrugged. “You’re in the dry season. Maybe a couple of months, maybe a little more.”

“You might have told me that before I blew up the dam. All the water’s sunk into the ground.”

“Let me see if I’ve got this straight,” he said. “You set a fire off to the south, and all the ants did was march around it. Then you set another one, using up the last of our gasoline, and it turned out that the real threat was coming from the west. Then you blew up a dam, not a single ant got wet, and now we’re plumb out of water as well as gas. Does that pretty much sum it up?”

“I have just begun to fight!” I said with fierce masculine pride.

“God help us all,” muttered Harvey.

“I don’t suppose we can send away for any anteaters?” I said.

“I don’t know,” he said, still kind of bitter. “You on a first-name basis with any?”

“I meant from a zoo,” I said.

“If you can find a zoo within three hundred miles of here, be my guest,” he replied.

“You ain’t being too all-fired helpful, Dad Harvey,” I said.

“I told you what I’d do the next time you called me that!” he said, picking up his shotgun.

“Come on, Harvey!” I said, backing away from him. I climbed down from the porch onto the ground, and pointed to the ants. “The enemy’s out there!”

“You choose your enemy and I’ll choose mine!” he said, lifting the shotgun to his shoulder.

“You can’t shoot me!” I said. “I’m a preacher!”

“All the more reason,” he growled, lining up his sights.

“Think about it, Harvey,” I said, still backing away. “If you shoot me, who’s going to be left to defeat the ants?”