“Yeah, natives. But what tribe?”
He passed the glasses to Juan, who studied one fire, then another.
“Oh, boy, we could have some trouble. These are Tasadays, I’m almost sure. The most primitive of the tribes out here. They use stone knives, clay pots, and woven reed baskets. No metal is allowed. I have no idea what reaction they might have if we barged into their camp.”
“Can we go around them?”
“An extra four or five miles. See that cliff over there in the moonlight? It could be one that we can’t climb up. But there could be one trail up it if you know where to look. The Tasadays would. If they would help us.”
“We wait for daylight?”
“That’s a long time. But going in at night might really spook them.”
“Could you strip down to just your pants and shoes and go in and talk to them?”
“I’m not sure what language skills this tribe might have. Theirs is unlike any other. I could do some sign language, but even my presence there would be shocking to them.”
“Let’s give it to the decider,” Lam said. They worked their way back up the hill.
“So that’s the situation, Murdock,” Juan said. “Going around them is an option, but we’d have to scout that ridge across from them. Some of these ridges are almost unclimbable.”
“Do they have weapons?” Domingo asked.
“Yes, sir,” Lam said. “I saw spears with some kind of stone points that looked sharp. And bows and arrows. They could be a deadly force.”
Murdock considered it a moment. “Any more ideas?” he asked.
The rest of them shook their heads.
“Okay, Lam, Juan, and DeWitt. Do a recon around this right-hand end of their camp. Get over that small valley and check out the hills on the other side. If we can we’ll swing around them, go up the mountain, and still have a shot at getting to the rebel camp before daylight. Report in every five minutes by radio, and don’t in any way contact or be seen by the natives.”
“That’s a roger,” DeWitt said. The three stood and walked down the hill, angling to the right around the camp below. As they went, chanting began in the camp and Murdock shook his head. He had no idea what the natives were doing down there.
In the recon party, Juan stopped when he heard the chanting. He motioned the other two to come to him. “That chanting is part of a ritual of some kind. I’ve heard something similar in some of the other abo groups. All the more reason we shouldn’t go through them. They could be hopped up on something, maybe even drunk on some homemade wine. Lots of fruit out here, and wine can be a problem.”
They worked ahead.
“Let’s slant around the camp and check out the ridge,” Juan said. “We’ll come look over the camp closer on the way back. I want to see if I can figure out what the celebration is about.”
The three moved silently through the jungle’s lush growth. Once they kicked out a wild pig that went charging into the greenery with a few snorts.
“Glad that wasn’t an abo, or we’d be pincushions by now,” Juan said. “This bunch tends to be on the ferocious side when they get riled.”
Five minutes later they were past the camp and working toward the green mountain ahead of them. It looked much taller and steeper than it had from across the small valley. When they started up the first rise, they found a clearing where they could check out the top of the ridge.
“Oh, boy,” Lam said as he stared at the slopes above them through his night vision goggles. “We’re not climbing up there without some ropes and pitons.” He passed the goggles to DeWitt, who groaned.
DeWitt saw the face of the cliff, which looked like it was bare rock and soared almost straight up for over three hundred feet.
Juan took his turn with the glasses and looked to each side of the cliff. “Let’s try upstream,” he said. “We might have a better chance there.”
They moved a mile through the heavy growth near the small stream and checked the mountain all the way. The rocky out-thrust continued for half the distance, then narrowed, but was still a hundred feet of sharply sloping rock that they couldn’t get up.
“Downstream,” DeWitt said. He checked in on the radio with Murdock, reporting their bad news.
“Keep looking,” Murdock said. “We need to be a long way from this little valley by sunup.”
They worked as high on the slope as they could as they passed the abos’ camp. They were less than fifty yards away, and Juan motioned for a stop so he could check the camp out. He looked through the NVGs, then the field glasses, and waved to move ahead. When they were a hundred yards past the last of the small fires still burning, he stopped.
“Strange bunch back there. They were in the middle of some kind of ceremony or service. Not sure what it was. I did see a few skulls set on poles. Not a friendly sight. I counted about fifty of them, so I’m not sure it is the Tasaday tribe. I remember the last figures on them showed only about thirty. I still have no idea what the ceremony is. Could be some kind of fertility rite, or maybe a peace offering to the god of thunder. One of the Stone Age tribes I visited was scared shitless of thunder.”
They kept looking up at the cliff, and it seemed to be the same as before. The trio worked down almost a mile, and the rock wall remained stalwart and tall.
DeWitt checked in with Murdock and told him the findings.
“Keep going,” Murdock said. “The damn cliff can’t go on forever. We might have to make a four-or-five-mile detour. It will be better than getting roasted in a pot by our Stone Age friends out here.”
After another mile of plowing through the vines and undergrowth and going around fallen trees, they found a cleared place so they could see the top of the ridge.
“Yes, the rock is almost all gone and the trees and vines have taken over,” Juan said. He used the NVGs. “Yeah, we can get up the slope here all the way to the top of the ridge.”
Murdock sounded pleased on the radio.
“Good, stay put and we’ll meet you there. You’re on the right-hand side of the creek going downstream?”
“That’s a roger, Skipper.”
“Hang tight, we should be there in about twenty to thirty.”
The three sat on a log waiting. Juan looked upstream and shook his head. “Still wonder what tribe that is and what ceremony it was. I could do an addition to my paper on the abos.”
After a ten-minute wait, Lam lifted up and looked upstream. “Thought I heard something.”
“Could have been a night call from a bird,” Juan said. “We have a few thousand different species on the islands.”
“Yeah, probably.”
Twice more Lam lifted up and tried to hear something, but shook his head and settled down to wait.
The Motorola came on in their ears.
“Juan, we’ve got a situation here,” Murdock said. “You better come back up here. We’ve got abo men all around us, with their bows and arrows and spears, and they are screaming at us.”
The three took off running. Juan led the way through the vines, trees, plants, and orchids that grew wild everywhere.
It took them twenty minutes to cover the two miles. Juan had been talking to Murdock as he ran.
“Don’t for any reason fire a weapon. That would freak them out and you’d be a dartboard full of spears. Don’t shoot any of them. Kill one and the federal penalty is fifty years in the jailhouse.” Juan caught his breath, and then ran again. “Stay calm and don’t let them see that you’re upset. How many of you are surrounded?”
“All of us. We were going past a hundred yards out and they heard us, trapped us like wild game.”
“That’s how they make their living. Stay calm. We’re almost there.”
Juan moved his party up cautiously the last fifty yards. The abos were so busy with their captives that they’d let down their guard. Juan watched the situation. The SEALs were standing, weapons at their sides, abos surrounding them all with bows and arrows or spears.