Salticidae (7 page)

Shumba felt a shiver race up his spine. He made a decision. Better to run in this instance than try to fight with the machete.

He turned and fled just as
something burst out of the bushes behind him, the sound of rushing feet slapping dirt. As much as he wanted to look back he knew his only hope was to keep his head forward and sprint as fast as he could. Familiar landmarks passed by him—-the rock like a chair, the dip in the ground. He was getting closer to the village. Now the trees were stripped of bark from where the tribesmen had shorn them for rope. The beast behind him drew closer! He could hear it just behind him, could hear its ragged, hungry breathing.

Shumba turned and s
wung his machete, crying out in panic.

A hand caught his wrist in mid swing, brought his arm down to his side with delicate strength.

“Shumba! Why are you trying to kill me!”

It was his father, carrying a large, dead snake over his shoulder. Shumba began to shake,
and buried his face into his father’s belly.

“So why did you and your wife get divorced?” Jack hopped over a small sinkhole of mud. The waterfall was drawing closer, but the top of the mountain still seemed a hell of a long way off. It was going to be a workout getting up there.

Ahead of him, Derek huffed as he cradled his camera bag and ducked low vines. “Dunno. Pretty sure just because everyone else was doing it. I don’t think they should call it marriage anymore.”

“What should they call it?”

“Leasing pussy.”

Jack laughed. This Derek guy wasn’t so bad. Not that photographers generally were, but he’d been on enough travel assignments to know you rolled the dice and hoped you didn’t wind up with the snooty artist you wanted to punch in the mouth.

“So it just got boring then? Or is there something you’re not telling me.”

“She wanted to fuck other guys.”

“And you couldn’t swing that into a mutually beneficial situation?”

“Yeah well, not in a swingers way. I mean she wanted to move on but was afraid to go through the divorce. I dunno. I heard rumors that she was cheating on me. I found out through the grapevine. And by grapevine I mean by a local journalist who I’m pretty sure was banging her.”

“Ah. I see. Us writers do love to break up marriages.
We’ll fuck anything with tits. I’m working on the Brangelina situation myself right now.”

“Cool. I’ll take pictures if you need ‘em.”

Jack brushed insects from his face. “Deal.” They walked for another minute, the shade growing cooler. “You realize I’m joking, right? I wouldn’t mess up anyone’s marriage.”

“Jack, I really wouldn’t be angry if you did.
I don’t know if I blame that journalist or not. Not even sure who to blame.”

“And you’re still sleeping with her?”

“Well, yeah, I love her. And she’s a good girl deep down.

“When she’s not
sleeping with other men.”

“It’s duplicitous, I grant you that.”

“That’s a big word. You’re talking like a writer. You’re not gonna bang me are you?”

“
Only if Koko passes you up. But no, truth is we’re trying to work things out. We were young, I think we hadn’t sown our wild oats yet. One pussy, one dick, for the rest of your life…I see where some people can’t have that.”

“But isn’t that the point of love and commitment?”

“Look, Jack, I divorced her and went and had my fun too. Truth be told I was a shitty husband and said a lot of things I regret and I did a lot of things I hate thinking about. I were her, I would have left too. Maybe not done it in such a mean way, but yeah, I was not Prince Charming. Of course what did I know? I was in my twenties, typical egomaniac, definitely uncaring. I think we both married capriciously simply because we liked the romantic idea of marriage. We weren’t ready for the actual lifelong commitment. I mean, you have to stay with this person forever. At least that’s the vow you take. Think about that. Fucking forever is a long time. But maybe we’re ready now, if not out of love, out of fear. We’re discussing it, anyway. Christ I feel like I’m in therapy all of a sudden. Why are you so interested in my failed marriage?”

“I’m not.
But Banga is a bad conversationalist and I’m sick of talking about mushrooms and trees.”

Derek stopped, took a breath, waited for J
ack to draw up next to him. Together they watched Banga ahead of them hacking away low branches with his machete.

“Banga,” Derek yelled.

Banga stopped and looked back at them. The man was covered in sweat.

“
Jack says you’re a bad talker. Tell us something funny.”

After a moment of consideration, Banga smiled and said, “Okay. This is funny.
There is a monkey that doesn’t like you.”

Jack looked at Derek, who was reciprocating confusion.
“The fuck does that mean, Banga?”

Then something hit Jack in the head. “Ow!” He looked up and saw a small monkey in a branch leering down at him. It was holding a nut from the tree. It hurled the nut at Jack and hit him in the shoulder before scooting up higher into the tree tops.
“Ow! Little bastard!”

Laughing, Banga resumed
his trailblazing, his machete slicing away at obstacles in his path.

“You know, I should have gotten a picture of that,” Derek said.

Even though they’d seen monkeys in the trees at Banga’s village, Jack was still scared of them in the wild. They weren’t the cute, cuddly animals he’d seen in zoos or on TV. In the wild, monkeys were little shits. Where the nut had hit his shoulder there was a round, beige stain. Jack rubbed at it, smelled his fingers. “Oh, sonofabitch.”

Derek started off after Banga again. “What’s wrong?”

“I think the damn monkey peed on that nut.

***

Behind Janet, Moyo was moaning
, his voice echoing off the rock walls as they finally emerged out of the water and onto an elevated shelf made of slate.

“What’s he saying?” she asked Gellis.

The large man was tracing his fingers on the rock walls in front of her, testing for handholds; the ground here was still slick with moisture and it was necessary to hold on to something to avoid slipping. “He is complaining about his ribs. His breathing sounds worse. He may have hurt a lung.”

“What if we just leave him here?
We can come back for him later.”

Gellis
met her eyes, his headlight beam nearly blinding her. For a brief moment Janet thought he might yell at her. Again she fought down an instinctual fear of the man, stood her ground. He did not speak to her, however. He spoke over her shoulder to Moyo.

The smaller man nodded and
responded through the labored breath of his native language.

“I
told him to be quieter,” Gellis told Janet. “Told him he would attract danger. He says he will try not to moan anymore.”

Janet
glared at the wounded worker leaning against the rocky wall. His face was pinched in pain and he still hugged his sides. “I’m saying it for the record: Shut the hell up. You don’t and I’ll make sure you’re never hired in this fucking jungle hellhole ever again. Now let’s keep moving.”

She gave Gellis a light shove to get him moving again
as well. Moyo followed closely behind, maintaining their single file formation. The cave was colder here, and several times Gellis pointed out deep pits to avoid. They walked for many minutes in silence, listening to various mysterious sounds Janet assumed were trickles of water or skittering bugs. At one point there was a faint squeak that gave her the heebie jeebies, but Gellis assured her it was just a small bat and nothing to worry about. Bats suck blood, she thought. I’m gonna worry about it and don’t you tell me different.

The floor angled down for several feet, which Janet took as a good sign. The water
was running down to the river below, so going down was exactly what they wanted to do.

“Hold up,” Gellis said. He raised his hand to signal them to stop.

“What’s wrong?” Janet asked.

“We’ve
hit a wall, ma’am. Literally. It’s a dead end.”

“Great. So we go back the way we came and find an
other route?”

“Maybe not. Let me see.” Gellis’s headlamp played over the wall in front of them, moving off to the side, and finally revealing a crack in th
e rock, not unlike the one they’d blown open in the mountain façade outside. “I think we can squeeze through here but it will be tight.”

“Fuck that, Antoine. I’m not getting stuck in some wall in this mountain. That
’s why I hire your people to come in here and blast open passageways. I’m going back.”

Janet turned to push past Moyo, but stopped dead when she heard the sounds of something moving back in the tunnel behind them.

Gellis heard it too, and swung his headlamp to illuminate the darkness back there. Moyo was nearly crying now. Janet stepped toward Gellis and the crack in the wall, keeping her eyes on the tunnel behind them.

“I fear we have company,” Gellis said.

“No no no no. Fucking Moyo, they must have heard you! I should leave you here to deal with them.”

She was shaking in fear and anger now. When Gellis
’ hand fell on her should she nearly jumped out of her skin. “Madam, this is our only option.”

The scuffling sound
s grew louder, closer. It was followed by a
thumpa thumpa thumpa
, the clear sign of some demon creature running forward. 

“Go!” Gellis shouted, and threw her into the crack. He pressed himself in after her, with Moyo struggling to get in as quickly as possible. The three of them were forced to maneuver sideways through the tight space. Janet had never felt so trapped in her life. Claustrophobia washed
over her and sent her heart racing.

Behind them came the soun
ds of many legs running and then a sizeable vibration as the giant beast slammed into the rock wall. She was able to turn her head to look back as she squeezed herself forward. In the light of Gellis’ headlamp she saw two large, hairy black legs probe into the crack, swatting at Moyo, causing him to finally forget his vow of silence and scream in terror.

“Oh my god oh my god,” Janet chanted as she moved.

The passage began to bend, and she was sure it would simply wedge tight without any exit, leaving her stuck in here, in this rock coffin, dying where no one would ever find her. But then she saw the end of the crack, illuminated like a bolt of lightning, glowing with honest-to-goodness sunlight.

She could hear the giant spider trying to work it
s way into the passage after them. She could hear Moyo crying. She could hear Gellis mumbling some kind of prayer. Just a few more feet and she’d be free, out where she could see her surroundings, maybe even find a way back outside.

She shuffled as fast as she could, felt her shoulders slip beyond the end of the tight rock walls, and fell out into the light.

And then she screamed.

***

Banga swung his machete, clearing away the last of the thick fronds blocking their view of the river. Jack and Derek emerged from the jungle overgrowth and stood in amazement at the sight before them.

Tower
ing upwards some two thousand feet was a rocky mountain that disappeared into a swirling layer of mist. Spilling outward from this mist was a river of fresh water that cascaded down through tiers of overhanging trees before crashing into the brown river cutting across the jungle floor in front of them.

The
y stepped out onto the muddy banks of the river. Their feet sank in, releasing bubbles of gas that stank of sulfur.

“There’s no way we’re getting up there,” Jack said.

Derek took out his camera and used his zoom lens to get a better view of the rock face. “It’s way too steep to climb. Shit. Is this game over?”

“Unless there’s a road up to the top. Banga?”

The guide was looking down the river, studying the terrain. “I think…we can go around. Walk up the back side. It will be steep but people have gone up this mountain often. The LRA have been spotted here before. If they can do, it we can do it. Only problem is…” The guide unshouldered his gun and pointed down the river, toward the point where it doglegged left.

“Only problem is what?” Jack pressed.

Banga’s eyes narrowed. “Hippos.”

***

It took several minutes for Shumba to stop stuttering and shaking. He was sure it had been a spider chasing him, not his father. His mother handed him a plastic cup of water and rubbed his head for support. When he was calm once more, he relayed what he had seen while collecting the honey.

“Are you sure of this, Shumba?” his father asked. “Could it have been one of the gorillas or perhaps a cat?”