Tribesmen (12 page)

Tito heard his own yelp as his gut slammed into the far side of the hole, crumbling the dirt around the edge and knocking the breath out of him. As his feet kept falling, he threw out his arms in a desperate attempt to grab a hold of the edge.

He balled his hands into a fist, and the gun went off again, jumping out of his hand and onto the dirt at the mouth of the hole. Both elbows crashed against the edge, his hands flailing, fingers ripping at the ground, trying to pull him back on to solid ground.

Struggling caused more harm than good. Tito snapped off the fingernail on his left index finger.

Then plummeted into claustrophobic darkness.

Chapter 22

Umberto

From the beach, through his good eye, Umberto could see the faintest corona of light as it stretched across the watery horizon.

The coming dawn made him wonder how long he had been out in the jungle, looking for the girl.

At one point in the night he had heard something, but the movement seemed to come from all directions at once. So by the time he mustered the energy he needed for pursuit, popping a pill down his dry throat and rushing off into the foliage, the night was again at rest.

When he heard the gunshot, he was preparing to give up the search, collapse into the sand and let the sunrise warm him. His bare feet were numb from running. Last night, he’d taken off his boots and used the laces to affix the boar head to the top of his own. The rest of his body was numb from the fistfuls of uppers and downers marinating with the bits of makeup girl-flesh in his stomach.

Running made the mixture in his stomach slosh around like a caged animal, but it didn’t exactly make him sick.

Umberto couldn’t believe he ate so much. At first he was just rolling the meat around in his mouth, but then he decided that when the footage was played back in a theater—three stories tall, just mouthing the blood and guts wasn’t going to read as authentic. So he’d swallowed some, then a bit more.

The people pressing against his mind urged him on with every bite and lick.

Tito was the only one with a gun. Tito was never going to leave the comfort of the village. Thus Umberto concluded that the gunshot had to have come from the village. At a full sprint, the assemblage of huts and fishing nets was still a minimum of ten minutes from the beach.

A second shot, closer but still far, rang out through the woods and quickened his footfalls. Umberto bounded over fallen trees and through a number of deep mud puddles that could have just as easily been quicksand.

He wasn’t running because he wanted to protect the cameraman and director—he could give a shit—but to protect the project. Umberto had already given up so much over the last two days (not only out of his schedule, but possibly out of his soul): he intended on collecting the fame that he had been promised.

How long since you’ve slept?
a familiar voice asked at the back of his mind, he almost didn’t recognize it at first. It had been so long since he had heard his own voice in his head.

It had been a long time since he’d been asleep. The last time had been on the plane. It did not feel like it had been that much time, but it was.

As suddenly as it had arrived, the voice of reason departed. The now-familiar chorus of the island raised its voice until there was no more of Umberto left.

They told him to keep running.

As he hit the packed dirt roads of the village, it took tremendous effort to will his arms and legs to stop moving. His skid into town left a trail of dust in his wake like the perpetual cloud that followed Speedy Gonzales.

There had been two gunshots, but there were no bodies and blood that Umberto could see. He looked around in the first morning light. There was no one at all: living or dead.

“Pronto,” Umberto asked into the emptiness of the village. What had happened here, and where was the moolie? The wooden stake was empty, the remnants of Jacque’s tape restraints still stuck to the sides.

There was a groan and Umberto whirled around, muscles painfully tensing as he readied himself for attack.

There was nothing behind him, no one that he could see.

“Aiuto!” The voice was calling from right in front of him, but Umberto still saw nothing.

“Signore Bronze,” Umberto asked the empty clearing. The director’s voice was recognizable, but weak. There were no more cries for help, only quick labored breaths.

Then Umberto’s eyes fell on the hole in the ground, the small pistol lying right in front of it, and all at once he pieced together what must have happened.

A jail break? Really?

How could the “legendary” Tito Bronze be so stupid?

The sunrise was almost complete now, but the morning haze resulted in heavy shadows. Umberto had to cup his eye as he peered over the edge of the well.

“What happened to you?” Umberto asked. He was only able to make out the tip of Tito’s silver beard staring up at him from the blackness of the well.

Below, the old man gave a wet cough and moaned as he cleared some phlegm, and possibly blood. His body didn’t seem far enough down to be at the bottom of the well. The fat old bastard was probably stuck halfway, wedged between the coarse sheets of limestone as they angled closer together.

“Throw me the bucket. Pull me up,” Tito wheezed. It was apparent that he was expending great energy just to say a few words.

“How badly are you hurt?” Umberto asked, ignoring the director’s demands for the time being.

“I’m fine. Throw me the rope and pull me up!” The scream came at great cost. Umberto could hear the crumbling of rock as Tito’s body wedged itself deeper into the hole.

“No,” Umberto said. “It won’t hold you.”

“Yes, it will.”

“I’m not strong enough to pull you up,” Umberto said.

His mind was now made up. The old woman with the shell necklace spoke to him, reminded him of how badly Tito Bronze had harmed his career. Tito had put him in schlock, picture after picture. For Tito Bronze, Umberto was a joke.

This man was no friend of his.

“Mr. big action star, not strong enough? No!” Tito tried to sound chummy, but there was too much desperation in his voice to sound anything but terrified and anguished.

Umberto’s response was moving away from the edge.

“That’s my boy,” Tito said, from down in the hole.

Umberto picked up the Korovin and put it in the waistband of his loincloth. With his foot, he edged the water basket further away from the mouth of the pit.

“I’m going to wake Denny and have him get the camera,” Umberto said.

“What for? Where’s the rope?” Tito was beginning to sound desperate. Umberto ignored him and went looking for the camera.

He was going to finish this movie by himself.

Chapter 23

Cynthia

She’d been close enough to know that Tito’s first shot was a miss. As the bullet whizzed by, Jacque let go of her hand.

That was her signal to run off into the jungle. and she did, not able to look back for the second shot, and the pained scream that immediately followed it.

The foliage bordering the village was thicker in this area, her feet were being torn up with every step, but still she ran.

If Jacque had been shot to buy her an extra few moments to escape, Cynthia was not going to let his sacrifice be in vain.

After running until the trees were tall and the canopy dark above her, she turned and listened. There had been no more gunshots, but there wasn’t any sound from Jacque’s footfalls, either.

Her face throbbed, her feet bled, but still she was able to summon her newfound jungle-walking abilities to make a soundless trek back to the west side of the village: the place where Jacque should have broken through the tall grass and into the jungle to meet with her.

The treeline thinned as she approached the village, and she watched the sunrise begin in the east. She held her breath as she walked and let it out in small, quiet bursts as she surveyed the empty village.

She got close enough to see that the small panels that had been laid on top of the well were missing. That had been Jacque’s plan, and it looked like it had worked, Tito’s small pistol teetering on the edge of the hole.

She allowed herself a smile, an expression that felt both grotesque and triumphant as it stretched across her face.

“Hey.” His shaky voice made her jump in surprise. She had Jacque wrapped up in her arms before he could say anymore.

“We did it,” was all she said before the wetness of the embrace stopped her.

She looked down at her filthy blouse, now soaked in blood.

Jacque’s blood.

“No.” Her own voice sounded small and defeated. It made tears blur her vision.

“I’m alright,” Jacque said. She daubed her eyes, turned him around, and saw that he was either lying or wrong. There was a small dark hole below his left shoulder blade, the flesh around it puckered and bruised.

The gunshot was close to his spine, heart and lungs. It oozed as she placed her hand next to it, only applying the slightest pressure. Jacque gave a quick hiss in response.

There was no exit wound in his chest. The bullet was still rattling around in there, and she wasn’t going to go digging for it with the tiny blade she’d used to kill Denny.

Still holding him tight, feeling the warmth of his body as it began to fade under her palms, she pushed him to the forest floor. She helped him flatten the sharp grass beneath his back and lower himself to the ground. They were very close to the outskirts of town; but with Denny dead and Tito at least incapacitated, there was only one very loud person they had to keep an ear out for.

“Tito fell in the well,” Jacque said, giving a faint laugh and smiling. His mouth was speckled with blood, like a girl who’d mistakenly smudged lipstick all over her front teeth.

“I know, good job,” Cynthia said as she packed fallen leaves under his wound, letting Jacque’s body weight do the work of applying the pressure. This probably wasn’t the most sanitary way of dressing the wound, but it was all she had.

“I think he might have clipped me,” Jacque said. His tone hadn’t been this light the entire trip, and the combination of morbidity, smiles and hopelessness did something to Cynthia. She laughed, not for his benefit, but because she found genuine humor in the situation. The laughter made her tears flow faster and fiercer. They splattered Jacque’s bare chest and neck.

“What’s that?” Jacque said and gave her hand a firm squeeze with his blistered fingers. She had not heard Umberto enter the camp and choked as she tried to hold in her laughter and sobs.

The Italian looked even worse than the last time she’d seen him. His sunburn had begun to peel, the pink splotchy skin underneath looking alternatively leathery and inflamed. Prominent veins stuck out from his neck and arms, moving across his skin like inchworms as he walked over to the well and spoke into it.

Most of his makeup had washed away. Only his fur loincloth remained, and it had shriveled against his buttocks as the pig’s flesh began to dry.

Tito spoke from the hole in Italian, but she could barely hear him, so it didn’t matter that she couldn’t understand him. If Umberto was able to pull his boss to safety, then the teams would be even: one wounded man to each side.

Cynthia followed Umberto’s gaze to the gun. She cursed herself for not running out and picking it up while she had the chance.

Umberto stuffed the pistol in his skin-belt next to his machete, which had been cut up his thigh, leaving deep gouges as he ran. Rising to stand, Umberto kicked the basket and rope further away from the well. It didn’t look to Cynthia like he was going to try helping Tito to the surface any time soon.

Jacque coughed, and she put a bloody finger to his lips, silently pleading with him to hold it in. His respiration was shallow, and his lungs sounded like they were beginning to flood.

He’s going to die on this island
, she thought, remembering that the plane and any hope of rescue did not arrive until tomorrow morning.

She removed her finger when it was clear that Umberto was walking away from them, back into town. Jacque’s brow was beaded with a cold sweat and she brushed his hair as she watched Umberto walk through the huts, ducking inside each one, looking for something.

Finally, he reached the hut where Denny’s body was stashed. Cynthia hadn’t done much to hide what she’d done. She just covered Denny with the bed roll after she could not get his eyes to close.

It was hard to tell from this distance, but Umberto didn’t seem surprised to find the cameraman’s dead body. Instead, he stayed in the hut for a moment, and came back out with the camera propped on one shoulder.

He came back to the edge of the well and spoke in Italian some more, motioning to the camera, playing with the knobs and switches until finally it whirred to life.

Umberto pointed it up at the rising sun, then down into the hole. He spoke some more, louder this time, his voice carrying the familiar cadence of a director.