Chapter Ten

Duncan swished the swarm of tiny flies away from his sweating face for the hundredth time. They were back in no time though, stubbornly oblivious to the repellent he'd slathered on earlier. He glanced up at Mpande's khaki-shirted figure a few paces ahead, setting a rapid pace as he followed the trail Methos and his captors had left.  Thankfully the lurid t-shirt had been left behind, along with, Duncan hoped, the rest of the tracker's stash. Their journey had been quiet so far, no casual chatter passing between them. In fact they had barely spoken a word to each other beyond what was strictly necessary.

He didn't mind all that much. While he was coming to respect Mpande's tracking ability -- from what he had seen over the last several hours, he was every bit as talented as Montgomery had said -- Duncan was a long way from understanding or trusting the other man. But that wasn't essential...finding Methos was. And, as they continued to follow the muddle of tracks and tenuous signs that only occasionally resolved to show Duncan that it was indeed Methos that they were following, he became more and more sure that they would find him.

Until then, in the long, leaf-crunching silence, Duncan had time to think about what exactly he would say to Methos when they were reunited. It was hard for him to find the words to explain his change of heart -- the change in his heart -- even to himself. Words had never come as easily to him as they seemed to do for Methos. Whether they were exquisitely sharpened weapons or brightly colored juggling balls tossed around to entertain, the old man never seemed to flounder for the right turn of phrase. Not the way he did.

Duncan's actions had always spoken loudest for him, it was the way he was -- the way he'd always been. Now, and not for the first time, Methos was making him wonder whether the way he'd always been was enough. One thing was certain, it was going to take a lot more than simply showing up and rescuing him for Duncan to rate a second chance. A lot more. But first things first.…

His heavy pack was biting into his shoulders and he hitched it into a more comfortable position without missing a step. They'd made good time so far today, pushing further into Angolan territory, fortunately without running into any unfriendlies yet. Duncan laid his hand over the gun that hung by a strap over his shoulder and sharpened his gaze as he scanned the forest around him with a wary eye.

He strode along, matching Mpande stride for stride, feeling himself challenged but not defeated by the difficulty of the trek. The dry, sandy ground was soft beneath his feet, making each step just that little bit harder, taking a bit more out of him than it would otherwise. Sweat bathed him, soaking clothes and skin alike in liquid heat. He reached up and dragged a hand through his short-cropped hair, pushing back the sodden strands and turning to his shoulder to wipe his face on his sleeve.

Damn, it was hot and even more humid than he'd expected it to be, like a forced march in a sauna. And he saw the reason, as he glanced behind him for a second -- rain clouds were gathering, low and dark in the east, a bruised mass of deep blue-gray on the horizon. He quickened his step and hoped like hell that they’d hold off a while longer and not wash away the fragile evidence of Methos' progress. It was going to be hard enough to find him as it was.

At least he was adjusting to the conditions, slowly but surely, thankful that through all the dark times of recent years that he hadn't let his fitness decline. Some days a good, hard run or workout had been his best refuge from the pain, the only time he could forget how much he had lost, so much so that, when he'd come to Africa, he felt fitter than he had in years.

Methos would have seen the small irony in that, Duncan thought as he ducked beneath a low tree branch. Pain lanced brief and sharp through his chest as Methos' cynical grin ghosted across his memory. No...not a ghost, he reminded himself, pushing the pain aside again; Methos was very much alive and out here somewhere needing his help. Somewhere... A thought and a memory came to him at the same time.

"What is it that they want?" Duncan asked the tracker as they picked their way through the sparse, dry bush.

"Who?" Mpande asked absently, holding up a thick, dangling vine so they could both pass under it.

Duncan waited until he had gone under the vine to answer, "The soldiers who have my friend...UNITA, FAA...whoever they are. Someone once told me that to track something, no matter if it was human or animal, you had to know what it wanted."  Poor Old Carl, another one who deserved a better end than the one he got.

Mpande turned to regard him thoughtfully, narrowing his eyes before he answered, "Bloody good question, man." He turned away from Duncan and gestured up a gentle slope where the forest grew in straggly clumps, clinging precariously to the rocky ground. "Up this way," he said as he took the lead again.

"And do you have an answer?" Duncan pressed, following close behind. "What do they want?"

"What you think they want?" Mpande shot back absently, his eyes fixed on the ground ahead.

"Same thing everything out here wants: food, water, shelter," Duncan answered, although he knew it was far from as simple as that. "But it must make a difference who they are -- whether they're the government or the rebels."

"Maybe yes -- maybe not," the tracker replied maddenly, his voice still quiet and even. "Someplace it make a difference -- here, I don't think so. Not much difference here."

He seemed disinclined to explain further, but Duncan had to know. "In what way?" he prodded.

Mpande looked over his shoulder at him and gave a small sigh. "The difference here is all words, different names for the same thing. UNITA...FAA tropos...you think it matters to a farmer here what the bloody name is when he's got a gun in his face and some boy is raping his missus and the rest are stealing the last of their food? You think he cares which side it is lining him up on the bridge with his whole village so they fall in the river nice and easy when they shot? He don't care, all the same, all bad. Don't look for no nice clean good guys/bad guys here, Mac, Angola's fresh out."

The vast cynicism took Duncan back a little, though it was far from the first time he'd heard a similar opinion of African politics. He was doing what he could, in his own small way, to help bring an end to all that terror, and in the meantime he had someone he needed to find. "I'm not looking for anyone, except my friend," he said at last. "Do you know anything yet that will help us find him?"

Mpande flashed him a tight, quick grin. "Yebo." The tracker vaulted lightly over a massive fallen tree that lay across their path, taking his time to add as Duncan followed close behind him, "They headed up into the mountains, UNITA for sure. Been two, three years since tropos been up there. UNITA boys find a village to hole up, somewhere hard to sneak up on, fresh water close by...come down get food, supplies, maybe knock off some tropos, blow the phone line, maybe the train track." He glanced over his shoulder and caught Duncan's eye again. "And sometime they find nice westerner and try for big ransom."

"And you think that's why they've taken him?"

"Your mate's a doctor, right?" Duncan nodded and Mpande went on, "So maybe they got wounded. Not a lot of docs 'round these parts. Kind of a two for one deal."

Duncan already knew that much.  "And if they don't head up into the mountains, then they're government?"

"Prob'ly. We wait 'n' see."

Making a sound of agreement, Duncan let the silence return and concentrated once more on negotiating the rough ground. One thing that Mpande had said stuck with him, though, just an offhand epithet, but it resonated deep in his heart. 'Your mate...' It was true, in every way that mattered -- in every definition of the word -- Methos was his mate. Of course whether Methos felt the same way was very much anyone's guess.

He'd come close to telling him, back at the camp in those few, brief moments of joy before he shot it all to shit. But saying, 'I never stopped loving you' wasn't 'I love you' by anyone's standards, especially his own. It wasn't enough; Methos deserved far better from him. Now if he could just find the cranky old bastard and convince him of that.

A flicker of movement in front of him caught his eye. Mpande was signaling him, a hand raised in an unmistakable order to stop. Duncan went two steps further to stop close behind Mpande. "What is it?" he whispered.

"Soldiers."

Duncan's eyes shot quickly ahead, spotting them at the same time as he heard the crump of feet moving through the dry undergrowth. There were about twenty of them, clad in khaki of varying age and decrepitude, marching untidily through the forest with AK-47s slung over their shoulders or bouncing gently against their backs. Duncan felt Mpande crouch low beside him and instantly mirrored the posture, squatting low beneath the shelter of a thorn bush. He peered through the branches to watch them passing, careful not to make the slightest noise or motion to attract the soldiers' attention.

The soldiers were traveling about a hundred yards away, still apparently oblivious to their presence; though Duncan saw a few of the men scan casually around them. Mpande's hand on his arm pressed him backwards, further behind the cover of the low, scrubby thorn bush. Adrenaline pumped through his body until his heart thundered in his ears and a new river of sweat ran into his eyes. He and Mpande squatted -- frozen in place -- as the troop passed. The whole encounter had only taken a few minutes, Duncan knew, but the time had telescoped until it felt like an hour.

At last the soldiers disappeared into the bush once more and the sound of their footsteps faded away. Duncan pushed up from the ground and wiped the sweat from his stinging eyes. "FAA?" he asked quietly.

"Yebo," Mpande nodded. "Too bloody close, man." He looked around, squinting into the distance. "We have to go a different way."

"What?" Duncan hissed, finding it an effort to keep his voice low.  "We can't do that -- we'll lose the trail!"

The tracker shook his head.  "I can pick it up again. I think maybe I know where they headed.  Border patrol catches us -- we all finished," he added with a sharp cutting gesture of his hand across his throat.

"But you said you didn't know who they were!  How can you know which way they'll go if you don't even know as much as that?"  Whatever confidence Duncan had gained in Mpande's ability was fast being forgotten, as images of wandering about far from the trail for days, flashed through his head.  "You can't know where to pick up the tracks unless you have some idea where they're headed."  Duncan pointed an emphatic finger into the other man's chest and saw his eyes narrow and his chin lift pugnaciously.

But Mpande held his silence for a long moment, holding Duncan's gaze as he took several slow, deliberate breaths.  "There two ways through this place," Mpande said with exaggerated calm as he gestured just ahead of them. "One goes through the forest, where the water is, where it come down from the mountains."

"And the other?"

"Mines all along, but you get through you get to the towns."

"And you're sure they won't be taking him into a town?"

"Nah, man, these are boys from the bundu -- they know where they going. They headed up the mountains, you watch."

"Show me," Duncan asked seriously and saw the smallest softening amidst the defensiveness on the other man's face.

Mpande made an irritated noise and stepped back around the thorn bush, pointing to where the tracks were clear in the sandy soil at their feet. "Here, see they go this way -- no stopping -- even though that way not so rough?" He pointed to a distance about twenty yards back the way they had come where the going seemed a lot easier.

"So what's wrong with that way?"

"It look easy but it all scree, see the rocks near the top? Tracks go right past, but they did not stop, not even a little bit."

Duncan looked closer and saw the fine cover of loose rocks over the surface of the sloping part of the track. "Aye, " he said, recognizing the signs. He'd stumbled -- literally -- across similar traps in other places and other times. "So, where do you think they'll go next?"

"Quickest way up to the mountains is the road. We will go up this way," he pointed up to where the trail disappeared into the thicker forest, "so we cut through to the road."

There really was no other option, Duncan knew. To insist on sticking with the tracks was too big a risk and kept them almost a day behind Methos. Maybe this would gain them some ground. "Fine," he said, jogging his pack back into position. "Let's go."

They set off up the small hill, back to silence again, as if the conversation had exhausted the store of words they had for one another. But Duncan still had questions buzzing in his mind as annoyingly as the flies around his face. Finally, he had to ask, "If they were government soldiers, though, wouldn't they know the area anyway? Have maps -- training and so on?

"You'd think, huh?" Mpande shot back, the faintest trace of humor in his voice.

"They don't?"

"Nah, man. Throw them in uniform, show them which way to point an AK and haya -- you got a soldier."

Deep down, Duncan wasn't surprised; saddened, but not surprised, that so little had changed for so much of the world. Only too well, he recalled all the boys he'd fought beside in so many wars, battles, revolutions.  Boys pressed into service or caught up in the adventure, all awkward limbs in ill-fitting uniforms, eyes that shone with pride as they mastered the rote tasks of their service, blood and death and madness in all its forms.  He found he had no reply to Mpande's words and so continued on in silence, feeling the shadows of the past lengthen with the setting sun.

***

The forest was thick and close around them; huge trees reaching tall and straight to form a canopy that all but blocked out the sun. At first there had been dappled patches of light along their path, but now the shade had coalesced to an all-encompassing cool dimness that was a real relief after the baking sun. Mpande still took point and Duncan followed close behind him, long strides eating up the ground, pushing along as fast as they could manage in the terrain.

Duncan understood the rush only too well. In an hour or less they would lose the light altogether and have to stop for the night; they needed to cover as much ground as possible before then. He lengthened his stride a little more, drawing almost level with the tracker. "How much further to the road?" he asked.

"Maybe ten k's -- too far for today -- we find a place just now and set up camp for the night."

Duncan nodded and concentrated once more on pushing his way through the thick undergrowth. They were traveling through a small ravine -- a kloof, Mpande had called it -- filled with ferns and vines and saplings struggling out of the shadows of their elders. It was really was very beautiful, he realized, glancing up at the improbable autumn hues these trees wore all year round. Massed colors of gold, orange, purple and red.…

He had an eye blink's warning of sudden, sinuous movement and a quick, sharp hiss before his mind could register the cobra raised up before him. It was immense, standing almost as high as his shoulder, swaying slowly on the lower third of its body. It seemed an age until it struck, although he only heard his heart boom twice. Instinctively, his hands flew up to protect his face, but the snake was faster. He fumbled for his blade, the gun tumbling from his shoulder in his haste. The great hooded head drew back and flew at him, curved, white fangs dripping death as it neared in what seemed slow motion.

He could see every detail, every patterned black and white scale, the small eyes like tektites set inside the monochrome hood ballooning around wide-open jaws. But he could not move fast enough, his muscles were sluggish, his body weighted as if he was swimming through molasses as he tried to beat the snake's first strike. He managed a quarter turn -- barely -- before the hot brand of pain burning into his upper arm brought him to his knees.

And the snake was stuck there, its face jamming into the flesh of his arm, biting again and again, its long body wrapped around his torso; all death and taut muscle as it pumped the venom into his system. He fought it for what seemed long minutes, struggling with the cobra's blind, killing determination, defying it with his own. But it was never going to be enough. He could feel the venom flowing, burning in his blood with every beat of his heart. The razor-sharp machete sliced the cobra into twitching halves, but the head was still firmly attached to his arm. A last burst of strength tore the fangs from him, thrusting it away desperately as he sank down onto the cold ground and began to die.

That he would die, he had no doubt, remembering, only too well, the cobras of India and the swift and horrible -- or worse, slow and horrible -- deaths of their victims. Christ.... it was getting hard to breathe already. How many times had the bloody thing bitten him? Saliva flooded his mouth and he tried to lift a hand to wipe his face, but his muscles were strange and shaky, trembling and growing numb. Tiredness washed through him, sapping what remained of his strength.

There was something he had to do -- had to tell...someone...but his thoughts were blurring and his mind refused to work, no matter how hard he tried to force it. The silence was odd and he tried to shake his head, tried to clear ears that no longer functioned.  The forest spun in sick, lazy, silent circles in front of eyes that he could barely keep open.

Then he realized that Mpande was in front of him, though he could not remember seeing him get there, and he was blasting the snake's prone body with his rifle, the motion seeming oddly off-kilter somehow. There was still something he needed to do.… That was it, he had to tell him...tell him it would be okay...tell him not to panic. Then the tracker was kneeling beside him; his hands busy opening the pack he'd been carrying, dragging out first aid supplies, rolls of crepe bandages tumbling out onto the ground.

"No..." he managed, though he could not be sure if he made a sound at all. "Jesh lemme go...be okay...."

But Mpande's face was creased in worry above him, his jaw set as he tore open the bandage wrappings and began to bind Duncan's arm firmly. Duncan wanted to shake him off, wanted to tell him that it would be better -- quicker -- if he was just let die, but the words wouldn't come and then the slowly spinning world was fading from the edges in, blackening at the margins like a burnt photograph as the breath seized in his chest.

***

He came back gasping and disoriented, panicked by the darkness surrounding him. In the jumble of thoughts churning in his head, Duncan found himself wondering distantly if he'd been buried while he was dead. He breathed deep and clear, clean air slipped sweetly into his deprived lungs. No...he wasn't underground, and that at least, was a relief.

Nor was the darkness as complete as he'd first thought, as he looked around he could see red-orange glowing against the undergrowth and there was a faint warmth feathering over his skin. The pain was gone and he felt immeasurably better, which was no surprise considering how very bad he'd felt before he died. He was still a little weak, he found as he sat up and wiped a shaky hand over his face, but he knew that would soon pass. His mouth was dry, though, sticky and stale and as his thoughts settled, he wondered if he'd bled out sometime after he'd lost consciousness.

The bush in front of him crashed and crunched, loud against the forest quiet and Duncan looked up quickly. His eyes connected with Mpande's and the tracker gave an explosive shout as his eyes flew wide open, the whites clear all around the dark pupils.

"Fuck me!" Mpande stood frozen, shocked into immobility.

Duncan pushed to his feet, stumbling a little on the first step and then righting himself and walking across the small clearing, realizing suddenly that this had not been the spot where he had died. "How'd we get here?" he asked, looking about him.

"You think I'm sittin' all night in a dark kloof wit' a dead guy -- you got another think comin'." Mpande did a double take and shook his head quickly. "Hang on a bloody minute, mate -- you were dead! That fuckin' snake killed you, I saw you die. What the fuck is this?"

"Don't suppose you'd believe it was magic?"

Mpande narrowed his eyes. "I'm not some abafazi from the village."

Plausible denial was never going to work this time, not after such a graphic and obvious death. Duncan reached out a hand to him and gestured towards the fire. "Come and sit down, Mpande, I've got some things I need to tell you."

The tracker shrank back from the touch, but followed Duncan to upwind of the briskly burning campfire. At the furthest edge of the firelight Duncan spotted a long, shallow hole in the ground and changed his mind about sitting down.

Duncan raised an eyebrow at the man standing across the fire from him. "Planning on burying something?"

"You were dead!" Mpande barked back.

"Not permanently," he returned with a wry twist to his mouth.

"Well, how the fuck was I s'posed to know that? You know, usually when they dead, they stay dead." The panic was gone from Mpande's voice and all that was left was a tone of deep and considerable bafflement.

Duncan had to give him that. "Well, yes. Usually. But not always. There are some...exceptions." He fought the sudden, inappropriate laughter that threatened to burst out of him at the absurdity of the conversation.

"What the fuck is that s'posed to mean, man? What bloody exceptions?" The confusion was fast turning into annoyance, that much was obvious.

It was time for explanations, there was nothing else for it, as much as he disliked the thought. He settled down on the cleared ground beside the fire and gestured for Mpande to do the same. The other man hesitated though, still stiff and suspicious. "Come on...sit down and I'll tell you what I can." Mpande still hovered, his eyes narrowed as they fixed on Duncan's face. "It isn't contagious, I promise," Duncan added with an approximation of a smile.

At last Mpande sat down, a careful distance from where Duncan was. "Come on, then. What you waiting for?"

Duncan stared into the flames, thinking of all the times he'd had to do this. Well...here we go again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Continued in Chapter Eleven Back to Main Page Back to Contents