Chapter Twenty-Six
By noon, the hunting party had seen a deer, but not hit it. They’d also killed two javelina. Dancy had admired the hairy little bodies, had thrilled to the charges of the psycho boars. She intensely admired the tuskers’ attitudes, the do you or die finality of their fury, their ultra-direct approach. With these javelina, she’d told Martillo, you know exactly where you stand. Yeah, he’d replied, right in front of their fangs.
They were taking a break for lunch on an open slope over the ridge from the castle. In addition to the lovers and Dancy’s original kidnap team, there were a slightly built, thoughtful gangster named Torres who slung his rifle with the barrel pointing downward, tough barrel-chested Morales who favored an AK-47, and Regalado and Maldonado, two big, sloppy thugs who were always armed to the teeth and not above sneaking off for a nip or toke. Torres and Ramos had accounted for the two kills, Regalado and Maldonado had missed the deer, though they had defoliated the entire area around the spot they’d first seen it. Everybody, including Dancy, packed heavy iron except for Martillo, who just carried his customary Browning automatic tucked against his flat belly. Dancy had expended a few clips on nothing more than sound, fury and muscle massage, and was just loving it.
Dancy examined the view from the ridge while they ate pork and chile sandwiches made with rough French rolls and chugged a few cans of Bohemia. Ramos was pointing out some reddish trees to Morales, a city boy who’d only recently been brought out to the country headquarters, and giving him a spiel. Dancy asked Martillo for a translation.
“They’re called amapas,” he told her, “They aren’t exactly trees.”
“They sure look like trees. Big suckers. But are they diseased or something?”
“No, it’s more like they are a disease. See that palm tree over there? That vine growing down it is a young amapa. They start up in the top. The seeds are in bird…you know…caca. They take root where the bird dropped them and grow down like snakes. See that one? Or over there?”
Dancy could see it now. Each palm he pointed out was more tightly wound in big, woody vines. She saw one in which the vines had grown together and covered half of the palm. She could still see the palm trunk, and there were fronds coming out of the top amid the amapa leaves. She asked, “So what happens?” but she already knew.
He pointed to the ultimate life of the amapa, a palm completely engulfed, with no part visible, the amapa standing firm like a eucalyptus. “Finally the palm is surrounded and dies,” Martillo was saying, “Then it just rots away. The amapa is hollow inside. They make nice supports for roofs. The wood is red and yellow.”
Morales grunted, “Sounds like a girl I used to know.”
Ramos chuckled “I thought you had to get married to get the full effect.”
Laughing, Martillo translated their comments for Dancy. She stared darkly at the palm engulfed in tentacles of wood and muttered, “What it sounds like to me is children.”
They were halfway down the steep trail back to the trailhead where they’d left the Buick and pickups, when the biggest javelina of the day charged them. Dancy and Martillo were lagging behind the other men, chatting, and admiring the view of the castle, so when the berserk tusker came snorting down the trail they were the first two items on his docket. A pretty big pig, gnashing tusks and squealing in rage. Martillo stepped in front of Dancy and whipped the Browning out in a smooth split-second draw, but Dancy was yelling, “I got it, I got it, I got it.” So he kept his bead right on the slavering mouth, but held his fire while she opened up. Which she did on full automatic, chopping the pig down with a full clip, blasting him into bloody chunks. With Martillo staring at her and the men behind cracking up, she slowly approached the steaming, reeking corpse and prodded it with the muzzle of her H&K. “Give up?” she asked.
Maldonado was laughing so hard he could hardly stand up, but managed to say, “I think she might have spoiled the mothering meat.”
Martillo grinned, giving her the eye. She looked back down at the butchered pig and said, “It’s more fun just firing up the landscape, frankly. This blood and muck is just a mess, is all.”
Martillo said, “And like Malo said, you pretty much ruined it for cooking.”
Dancy had some smartass reply on the way, but broke off at a rising roar in the valley down below. The whopping sound was two American Army helicopters cruised by, heading towards the castle about twenty feet off the deck. Dancy glanced at Martillo for an explanation. He smiled indulgently. “There’s nothing to worry about. It’s just the army pretending to sniff out drugs as usual.. they are in our pay.”
As he said it the two choppers reached the castle and popped up over the trees. With a whooshing whine that cut through the sound of the rotors, two rockets dropped from one of them and accelerated directly into the front doors of the castle. The explosion was muffled by distance, coming a heartbeat after the gouts of glass, fire and brimstone erupted from every window on that tier. The other gunship also fired twin rockets, which slashed in through the second floor windows. Hovering around for advantage, the airships continued to fire missiles into the castle until it was collapsed, burning, and pouring smoke. Then they moved over the Hummer and other vehicles and used 40 mm cannons to pick them all to flaming pieces. The whirring mini-guns were turned on, wiping out anyone moving on the place and destroying the huts of the village.
Within five minutes everything was in ruins and there seemed to be nobody alive. The two ships continued down the valley, where one of them dropped what looked like oil drum until it hit and spewed a rolling tide of flaming napalm into the fields. The other disappeared around the bend of the ridge, but they could hear the strange whoom of the mini-guns butchering the work crews. Then the sound of the rotors diminished. Several of the men had their guns ready, but the helicopters didn’t come back.
Martillo and Ramos were the most affected, both standing still, staring at the ruins. Dancy was slowly shaking her head in disbelief. Without thinking she blurted, “How much did they charge you for that?”