"Our troubles can be contained as soon as they start across the Peten Lowlands." The Kaibile colonel spoke with great confidence. "The helicopters will spot them. We know they aren't far ahead anyway. The Indian and that gringa he picked up will be slowing him down. Our only real threat would come from any subversivos he might contact in the area. Of course, they are as likely to kill them as not, anyway. Animals."
The short norteamericano nodded without as much enthusiasm.
"What do we know about the gringa?"
"Ah, another aging hippie out to save the world. We get them all the time. They like the climate, I think. Disgusting. This one hasn't tried to convert anyone or make any 'improvements.' She has not even endeavored to turn anyone to communism. That's why she was allowed to stay. Harmless, but potentially useful as an information source - under the proper stimulus - or a hostage." He ran thumb and forefinger over a perfectly-groomed mustache, now striped with the white VapoRub. Behind his sunglasses, his eyes moved to the gangling walking corpse who stood before him silently. The grass turned brown beneath his feet, and marked his trail through the camp. "I'm sure my Kaibiles, my tigers, will be able to eliminate this problem, but perhaps you will find it educational."
"Ah heah one a those fugitives is a devil-worshipper." Crypt Kicker spoke, although it was difficult to understand more than every other word with the Texas accent and what sounded like a cleft palate birth defect. "Witches can't be suffahed to live. Bible says so."
The other two men were silent. Neither could think of a reply.
"Get a few hours of sleep. We'll be after them at dawn. My aide will show you to your tent. Tents. Food is available in the mess."
"That would be for me. The gentleman accompanying me requires neither rest nor food. But thank you, Colonel. Your hospitality is appreciated."
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
Suzanne took a break from cutting a path through the underbrush to wipe away the sweat pouring down her face. It was beginning to occur to her that a woman who would be forty on her next birthday had no business in the middle of a rain forest. Avoiding a fer-de-lance was not normally recommended as an aerobic exercise. Her hair was pulled up into a knot on the top of her head. She and Uman were taking turns at the machete. McCoy had given it a try once, but he could not manage the rhythm that put enough strength behind the swings to make any real headway. Despite Uman's "handicap," once more he turned out to be as able as she. With one hand braced against the bark of the ceiba, she used the other to wave away flies.
"Trouble will overtake us soon." Uman came up behind her and grasped the handle of the machete to pull it from its resting place in the trunk of a lightning-felled mahogany. "From the sky, I think."
As fatigue took its toll on everyone, language skills seemed to evaporate. No one used more words than he or she had to, regardless of the language being spoken. Last night's four hours of sleep had done little to refresh any of them.
"Helicopter gunships." McCoy came up to join them. He was drenched with sweat.
"One, maybe two. Lots of ground to cover." The taltuza waddled over and she extended an arm for it to climb.
"North." From Uman, it was both statement and question.
"We're about to hit a logging road." She rolled her shoulders as she looked back at the trail they had hacked through the jungle. It might as well have been outlined in neon. It was probably safe from the air because of the jungle canopy, but if anyone spotted it from the ground they were dead. "We've got to stop making it easy. It's a trade-off. We'll make more time and they may well lose our trail if we can hide where we turn south and east again. But we'll be much easier to spot from the air. My ears will protect us there."
"Great. Well, we'll have the advantage of being able to hide quickly." McCoy was trying to convince himself. "What do the tz'ite seeds say, Uman?"
"Danger lies ahead of us as well as behind." Uman looked to the east.
"No offense, but I could have guessed that one."
"Closer. There's a rebel encampment southwest of here. EGP, maybe, or I've heard there are some offshoots of the Shining Path operating up here now. That could be bad. They don't care for non-Maoists much. Small, though, just five or ten men." Suzanne closed her eyes for an instant, and the image of the camp as seen by a band of howler monkeys flashed into her mind. "Lots of guns. In fact, they could be drug dealers or running guns to the guerrillas."
"And just how do you know that? Been reading Uman's crystals? Or are they friends of yours?" McCoy's voice held sudden suspicion. Suzanne realized that she had been keeping most of her knowledge of their surroundings to herself, and most particularly how she was getting it. Having both herself and Uman as oracles must have been irritating the hell out of McCoy. McCoy had been thinking of her as simply the Doctor Doolittle of Guatemala.
"I'm no guerrilla. We'd have guns and protection if that were true. Sorry." Suzanne and Bagabond warred for a moment inside her head. This time, Suzanne won. "I, uhh, see through their eyes and use their ears to listen. The other senses as well."
"Say what?" McCoy was obviously wondering if he was following a madwoman around Guatemala.
"Now, remember what you said about learning to believe in wild card powers. I have a ... connection to wild creatures. I can share their perceptions." Bagabond made her stop short of discussing now much influence she could wield over their behavior.
"What the hell. My girlfriend has wings." He sighed with feeling. "But I'm not sure I'll ever get used to all this."
"How far is this logging road?" Uman was impatient. Suzanne suspected that he had figured this out many kilometers back.
"Another half hour of hacking." Suzanne reached for the machete, but Uman had already turned and begun swinging. Instead, she and McCoy followed the older man, pulling out the vegetation as he cut a path through it and arranging it behind them as naturally as possible. McCoy began humming "Talk to the Animals," and she threw a nice, thorny branch at him. He went back to cursing.
Stepping onto the lumber road was like stepping into heaven. They were re-energized by the instantaneous ease of passage, compared to what they had just endured. Balam had kept pace with them in the undergrowth, but now she bounded ahead and out of sight. Suzanne knelt and the taltuza marched down her arm and onto the soft earth.
"Walk on the crown. You'll leave less noticeable tracks in the gravel and rocks there." Suzanne put them in a single file.
Moving east toward Belize once more, the three fugitives walked as quickly as possible down the rough road. It was obvious it had not been used in some time, so there was little worry about drivers seeing them. Every hundred yards or so they skirted or clambered over a fallen tree blocking the track. But after the claustrophobic jungle, Suzanne felt terribly exposed. Seeing the deep blue sky overhead only made her more nervous. Now Uman was at a disadvantage. The speed at which he could struggle along set their pace. More than once, Suzanne and McCoy traded glances at the set of his face and agreed not to help him unless asked or the situation became critical.
After three hours and a good six kilometers, Suzanne - listening with sharper ears than her own - heard the heart-stopping rhythm of helicopter blades. They took immediate shelter in the dense growth beside the track. Uman was most appreciative of the forced rest stop. The helicopter prowled low, following the lumber road's turns only a few feet above the treetops. They froze as it passed directly overhead, pressing themselves into the shadow of a fallen mahogany ignored by the loggers. When not even Bagabond's borrowed ears heard the gunship's rotors, they got up and brushed themselves off.