Wilson studied Charles's slumped posture, his bowed head, and said, "You got somethin' to say, Charles?"
It was slow in coming, but finally. "I ain't got nothin' against doin' what needs to be done. We should have done it then, when we come up on 'em. But then or now it's all the same. That's all I got to say."
Wilson knew what that meant. Charles loved killing. For Charles, that was what always needed to be done. It was the only time he felt strong, in control.
The other two, they weren't much better. Gromvitch, though a bully, maybe didn't enjoy killing as much as Talent, didn't accept it as quickly as Cannon, but he didn't mind it. And Wilson knew he himself was only a hair's breadth better than any of them. He liked to think that difference made him slightly superior, but in fact he felt bad about how he lived, the choices he had made.
Cannon said, "We got ammunition, we don't need the food so bad. We can hunt game then. We don't get it, we won't last long. Anyone finds us, even, there won't be enough left to pack a snuffbox. Some chewed bones. I say we got to do something, even if it's wrong."
Wilson grinned some damaged teeth. "Hell, boys, wrong is all we ever done, ain't it?"
"That's the truth," said Cannon, "but now we got to do some right for ourselves, even if it is wrong for them pilgrims."
"They've talked to us and gone on," Gromvitch said. "I don't think they suspect nothin', and if they do, they don't care. They're just glad to be shed of us. See how nervous they was? 'Specially that gal."
"I figure if they thought we was gonna do somethin' we'd have done it," Cannon said. "This way, we can surprise 'em. Swoop down on 'em like hawks. . . 'sides. I'd like to have me a little visit with that gal. See she's put together right."
"Hist's good by me too," Gromvitch said, and be shook the canteen. "And they might have some whiskey somewheres. I'm sick of water."
Wilson thought a moment, studied his companions, and hated them as never before. He couldn't figure how he had ever got himself into such a mess. He wished he'd never left the boxing game. Throwing that fight had changed his life. He shouldn't have done it. Not for money. Not for any reason. He should have fought his best. He should have gone on to be a manager, even a cut man. He should have done a lot of things, but he hadn't done any of them.
Wilson thought, if I had it to do over . . . He caught himself. Yeah, if. And if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
Wilson turned to Gromvitch. "You stay here, we'll go."
"Me?" Gromvitch said. "Why me?"
"Because I said so," Wilson said. "That isn't good enough, maybe I ought to remind you who's boss here. Without me, you'd still be a Legionnaire eatin' desert"
"No," Gromvitch said. "I don't need no remindin'. But that girl-"
"Get it out of your mind," Wilson said. "I'm not in for that. We have to kill them, we do it quick, and we're out of there. We do what we got to do, not what's fun for you."
"Well," Gromvitch said. "Whiskey then."
"Just mind the camp," Wilson said, then turned to his confederates. "Come on, let's get goin'."
Eugene Hanson stood up from the camp chair, adjusted the camera strap around his neck, wiped the sweat from his face, placed his hands on his hips, stretched his back, and studied the jungle. It was dark and green and rich with the sounds of animals and the buzzing of insects. It was humid and uncomfortable. His feet hurt. He'd been bitten by insects on nearly every part of his body and he was weary and sore. Yet, he loved the jungle. His mission and the beauty of the jungle had driven him on his photographic expedition. He wanted photographs that had never been taken before. Photographs of the manlike apes that were reputed to live in this part of Africa.
Outside of legends, the evidence was thin, but Hanson was convinced these man-apes existed. Man-apes were most likely cousins to the Yeti and the Sasquatch. He had researched them for years. Made plaster casts of their footprints. Talked to eyewitnesses. But this trip to Africa, he was determined to prove their existence; determined to push into the interior where no white man he knew of had gone before, and finally, with his cameras, prove once and for all that the man-apes of Africa were more than legend and that they lived near the ruins of an ancient city-the remains of a once-great, black kingdom called Ur.
Hanson grinned to himself, thought: this is a hell of a lot better than a classroom. He had never felt like a Ph.D. anyway. And since he was interested in such things as Sasquatch, the Yeti, and the Great Man-Apes of Africa, his colleagues at the University of Texas were not always inclined to think of him as a Ph.D. either. He certainly didn't look. like one. A fact he was secretly proud of. He was a little less trim at forty than he had been just five years ago, but he was husky, strong, and he still had some of what had made him an excellent fullback on the Lumberjacks football team at Stephen F. Austin State University. And he could still throw a punch as well as when he was an amateur middleweight fighting out of San Antonio.
He turned to locate his daughter, Jean. She was nearby, directing the four askaris and the bearers, showing them where she wanted camp set up. She was like that. Always in charge. One of her anthropology professors-Hanson refused to have his own daughter in his class-Professor Chad Oliver, referred to her as having the head of a bull, if the bull's head was made of steel.
He studied her, thought: my God, she looks so much like her mother. Her shoulder-length blond hair was dark with sweat, and the back of her shirt at the small other back was stuck to her skin. Her baggy khaki pants were pocked with burs, thorns, and sticky little plants, the .38 revolver dangled Annie Oakley-style from the worn holster and ammunition belt at her hip, but still, even though a bit lean and gangly, she was beautiful.
When she had directed the bearers properly, and they were about their work, she turned and saw Hanson smiling at her. She strolled over to him, said, "You took happy. Dad. I'd hug you, but I'm so sweaty."
"It's just you remind me of your mother," he said.
"Really?"
"Oh, yeah. But I can't say you look happy. Sorry you came?"
"Oh, no. It's those men. I didn't like the looks of them. They made me nervous. They looked like criminals."
Hanson hadn't liked their looks either. He had kept his hand near his .38 all the time they had been near. The words that had passed between him and them had been friendly enough, but he hadn't liked the way they studied him, his supplies, and especially the way that one man, the fat one, looked at Jean, as if she were a pork chop and he a starving wolf.
"They were a tough-looking bunch," he said. "Deserters, I presume. Foreign Legion most likely."
"I thought so too, "Jean said.
"Wise you didn't say as much," Hanson said. "They might have been trouble if you had. But they're behind us now and they were heading south."
"I know, "Jean said. "But I'm a worrier."
He patted her shoulder. "Yon needn't be."
The brush crashed. Hanson reeled. The two Negro deserters and the fat white man came out of the brush. Each carried a .45 service pistol in his hand.
"I believe die best way to put this is," Wilson said, "this is a stickup."
The lean black man walked over to the bearers. He pointed the gun at them without looking directly at them. He had an odd way of holding his head, like a dog, constantly listening for a sound.
"Tell those bearers not to pull any weapons," Wilson said, "otherwise, we'll have to put holes in them."
Hanson spoke to the askaris, who understood English, and they transferred the message to the bearers in their language. Hanson turned back to Wilson. "Just take it easy," he said. "We don't want trouble."
"Neither do we," said Wilson. "Trouble's the one thing I don't want. Get their guns. Cannon."