Salticidae (3 page)

He pushed through the dense fronds, swiping the
m away with his machete. Having walked barefoot since birth, the soles of his rough feet felt no discomfort when stepping on branches and stones. He ignored the mosquitoes and other biting insects that flitted around his face and naked torso. Many of the men in his tribe wore only loin cloths but he preferred the warm, tattered jeans brought by the Toleka Traders, men whose sole purpose in life was to ride from village to village, tribe to tribe, trading clothing, cigarettes and foodstuffs for bush meat and jungle minerals. They came more often these days, many times with white men trailing behind them with cameras and notebooks. The white men always wanted to take picture and ask questions but Shumba subscribed to
la loi de silence,
the law of silence, for the white men did not need to learn their survival secrets. They enjoyed the dancing and singing Shumba’s tribe reveled in on a nightly basis, but they always winced at the fresh food offered to them. They explained to Shumba, as was usually translated through the traders, that bugs and lizards were not common meals for them. Shumba always laughed at this. Food was food. If it gave you strength, you should eat it.

The bushes finally opened up onto the side of a
cliff, the overlook. Beneath him, swaying treetops from the lower part of the rainforest spread out like green water. Patches of mist swam over it all. For a brief moment he stood and watched the birds flying below him, green parrots playing in warm air. The sun was high in the sky now, and the women in his family would be out mixing vegetables together for dinner and weaving liana for rope and nets the men would use for hunting and trapping.

A
small rodent darted from one bush to another, momentarily revealing itself near Shumba’s feet. He crouched low and moved quietly to catch it. He was only in charge of getting some honey today but if he came back with other game it would be greatly appreciated.

Aside from his
machete, he also carried a tiny spear. This he tapped on the ground in an effort to scare the animal into the open, but it was staying put. No bother, he would flush it out like his father had shown him.

There was a cracking from somewhere to his right, like trees being felled.
Snap snap snap
! This was followed by distant cries and pleas for help in his native language. It was all very faint, but distinct nonetheless, as if the wind were talking to him.

Shumba sat still and looked along
the side of the mountain. The noises were maybe a kilometer or two away but echoing off the rock walls jutting up above the trees. If someone was in trouble, especially a familiar tribe, he should alert his father. Out here in the wild, tribes had to stick together as best they could. There were too many other dangers to not have allies, especially the rebels with their guns and trucks, ravaging the smaller communities on the outskirts of the jungle. Even the Bantu tribes had come around somewhat to forming alliances.

But should he g
et the honey first, e wondered. Yes, that would only take a minute and then he’d go tell the men about what he’d heard. He could do nothing for anyone right now anyway.

He
removed the tiny liana net tied to his belt and made sure the fronds lining the bottom of it were packed tightly. This would keep the honey from dripping off the combs and leaking through to the ground. He grabbed a tree branch to his right, swung out over the overlook, moving above nothing but a ten-story drop, and then landed back onto the jungle floor on the other side of the tree. If his father saw him do that, he might be in trouble, but he liked a bit of adventure. It was a dangerous move, yes, but it was extremely fun. The nest was a few meters in front of him. A swarm of bees covered the tree trunk like a furry, living pelt. He would have to move slowly so as not to annoy them.

Something out of the corner of his eye caught his attention,
made him stop dead in his tracks. A red star shooting out over the side of the mountain, about a kilometer away, from the direction where he’d heard the yells. It fell slowly toward the tree tops of the lower montane jungle beneath, leaving a pink ribbon of smoke in its wake.

It was followed by more screams.
Then something leapt out from the trees on the side of the mountain, leapt out into space, falling to the lower jungle with legs splayed, a rope of white trailing behind it. If Shumba would have blinked he’d have missed it. It moved so fast! And there was something hanging from under it, something that looked like the arms of a human.

Then it was gone, hidden beneath the
lower canopy, shaking the flora as it moved into the jungle’s belly.

***

“Set the tripod up there, dude, I need to get an F-Stop reading.” Derek Pike took a handheld light meter from his vest pocket and placed it next to the large mushroom growing on the side of a moss-covered tree.

“I could have gone to Berlin and done a story about the Egyptian artifacts on Museum Island,” repli
ed his co-worker Jack Reynolds, who was swatting insects away from his ears as he tested the stability of the tripod. “They were excavated during World War Two. Egypt wants them back. Says it’s stolen property.”

“How’s that?” Derek asked.
He put the light meter away, picked up his Canon digital camera.

“Nazis raided the catacombs during the war, took all the loot. Lots of gold and silver and statues and shit.”

“The Nazis loved their gold, didn’t they. Me, I hate gold. Reminds me of my ex wife. Looks cheap.”

“The gold or your ex?”

“Both. That tripod set?”

“
Yeah, it’s stable. Either way it’s a sore spot with Egypt these days. But Germany ignores it. They still have Nefertiti’s head.”

“What? Like, h
er real fucking head? That’s fucked up, man.”

“No, it’s just a bust.
Tell you this though, if it represents her accurately she was a damn hot woman. Point is, it would have been a good philosophical piece. But, no, here I am covered in ants while you dick around with fungus.”

“Well, why didn’t you take that assignment, then?
If you knew this one was fluff.”

“Because I wanted to see the
African rainforest. Chance of a lifetime, they said. See where life began.”

“And?”

“And… there’s certainly a shit load of life here.” Jack swatted another bug on his arm, looked up at the trees towering above him. At the end of the day it
was
cool, he thought. They’d spent a night with that strange Pygmy tribe their guide had introduced them to, everyone singing around the fire (he still stank like smoke). Then the two-day trek into the mountains, watching monkeys and snakes high in the trees, camping out in the jungle at night and listening to the mysterious sounds of wildlife around them—so damn loud it almost rivaled the level of noise outside his Brooklyn apartment. It truly was unlike anything on Earth. If it wasn’t so humid and full of bugs he’d even consider cracking a smile. But he liked his pessimism, he liked how it irked this new staff photographer. It was the only entertainment he had up here.

“
And you don’t think this is a good time?” Derek bent down and studied the two-tiered brown mushroom he was about to photograph.

“What?” Jack asked, having forgotten what they were even talking about.

“A good time, dude. Are you having any fun at all, is what I’m asking.”

“I thought it would be more exci
ting. I thought, you know, there’d be something more compelling to write about out here. Not salad fillings.” He crushed a mosquito on his neck. “These fucking things are relentless. I had to get four hundred shots before coming here, you’d think one of them would include a repellent.”

“
More exciting, huh? You want to write about the civil war and genocide? Congolese health care reform. Maybe rogue alligators attacking people?”

“I dunno. Something.
I’m certainly not gonna win any awards with this crap.” He motioned to the mushrooms. “Are you ready?”

“Just about.” Derek screwed his digital camera onto the tripod and messed with the
depth of field. “I’m gonna take some test shots. Can you set up the laptop?”

Jack took the computer from his backpack, hit the power button and let it fire up.
This battery was still half full. He had two more charged up, thankfully. “If nothing else I figured we’d see some big-tittied bush women running around all naked.”

“
Hey don’t look at me. I just go where they assign me. I wasn’t here, I’d be in some other shit hole filming something equally as stupid. I once went all the way to China to film slippers. Five days in Jieyang taking photos of the same shit I have in my closet at home.”

“A child lab
or piece?”

“Nope. Just slippers. Export focus. I don’t know, I didn’t write it,
man, just shot the crap.”

Jack set the laptop on the backpack.
“How long have you been with
International Traveler
?”

Derek connected his camera to the computer
via a USB cable and snapped a pic. The mushroom appeared on the computer screen. “I told you this already. On the plane.”

“
Humor me, I’ve run out of conversation. I don’t feel like talking about mushrooms.”

“
Need more light,” Derek said.

“There is no light here.
” Jack looked up at the tree canopy covering them. “I know the sun is up there somewhere, but fuck me if I can find it.”

“At least you don’t need light to write your story. This is driving me mad.
”

“
Seriously, how do I make mushrooms an interesting read? I’m here in the Congo. If ever there
was
an opportunity to write about the militias and rogue alligators it would be now. But Bill only wants a piece on damned mushrooms. I pay student loans every month for a journalism degree that is better served at a gardening store than in a national travel mag.”

“
It’s travel, not politics. But I hear you, man.” Derek studied the image on the tiny screen of his camera. “This looks like troll shit. Aren’t there supposed to be, like, super giant mushrooms here? Isn’t that the point of this trip? I’ve seen ones this big before in Washington.”

“Point is to find them. Barring that, we shoot these and I make some shit
up about medicinal benefits and food sources and whatever. We could always just lie and say a monsoon hit, hop a plane down south, grab some African kine bud and have our way with some blonde surfers.”

“Okay, I’m in.”

Jack turned to their local guide, a tall ebony man whose fluency in English made him an asset to the local tourism board. He was dressed in khakis and a white button down, wore a blank blue baseball cap and sandals, and had a rifle slung over his shoulder. “Hey, Banga, I thought you said you knew where the big mushrooms were?”

Banga stopped humming to himself. “They are all big, friend. There are others. We will find them.
Much bigger than this. You like these mushrooms?”

“I dunno.
They like cow mushrooms? If I eat it will I see God?”

“You may see many gods.”

“Naked women gods?” Derek asked.

Banga laughed.
“I take you to women if you want. Forty American dollars.”

Jack took out his pad and started making notes about the mushroom.
He’d already seen the waves of street whores in the larger villages, each one like a corpse reanimated in a necrophilia porn film. Prostitution was rampant in this country, but not out of greed or drug addiction like in the states. The women here were starving and dying, and the sex trade was just a way of life for them. They were born into it or forced into it and it disgusted him. “No thanks. Forty bucks is too steep for Congolese herpes. So tell me about this fucking mushroom. You use it for healing or what? I have to write something to make my editor, Bill the Shill, happy.”

“These we eat. Sometimes. Other times we sell to the markets. The restaurants use them in sauces.”

“There’re restaurants in the jungle?”

“Of course not. The tribes carry them to the cities on a truck.
Or sometimes trade to the Toleka. You can eat it now if you like. It won’t hurt you. Not this one. Others will kill you.”

“
I’d rather not,” Derek said, snapping more pictures. “Tell me again about the forty-dollar whores.”

“They used to be hairy but now they shave. Like Americans like.”

Jack had to laugh at this. “They wouldn’t like your mustache, Derek.”

“Fuck you. My wife loves this thing. Tickles her in all the right spots.”

“Wife? Thought you were divorced.”

“Yeah, but we still hate fuck each other occasionally.”

“And they say love is dead.”

Jack took a couple of more notes, mostly
describing the fungi’s color and texture. He asked Banga to explain the sauces that the restaurants made out of it. Then he put the pad away, bored. “So, Banga, are you married? Kids?”