Beat Not the Bones (19 page)

They spoke only once, when a chuckling cry broke out of the jungle ahead. The party stopped as one; even Stella froze to a halt. ‘It's only a bird,' she murmured.

Washington, stiff as a terrified dog beside her, said without moving, ‘I've never heard a bird like that.' His eyeballs turned a violent half circle while his head remained stiff. He dared not turn to either side and expose himself from the other.

The cry sounded again, a little further off, and sounded less eerie and more birdlike. The boys shuffled and muttered; they moved on.

But the cry must have decided them. When Washington turned round again, not more than five minutes later, they had gone.

‘They've gone!'

Stella turned sharply. The path was empty. It led back about twenty yards and then disappeared round a smooth-barked tree. She started to run. ‘Hitolo! Hitolo!'

She could hear Washington running close behind her. Another fifty yards past the tree they came on the stores dumped down on the path. She stopped. ‘It's no good,' she said. ‘They would be running too.'

She looked down at the stores. They looked to have been thrown down in panic. ‘Hitolo!' – she cupped her hands to her mouth and called – ‘Hitolo!' But her voice was soaked up in the heavy trees.

Washington had stopped beside her. She felt him standing there, sensed his stillness but did not look at him. Now she was afraid.

‘Hitolo!' She called again. There was some relief in calling. It postponed the fear, though she knew there was no hope of an answer.

To Washington her voice was an outrage, a flouting of the law of jungle silence. For a moment he did not move or speak, then he broke out hoarsely, ‘Don't! Don't!'

Only then could she look at him. By speaking he had proclaimed the remnant of some sort of humanity. She turned, and they looked into each other's eyes.

CHAPTER 18

They stood staring at each other. Stella's face was composed, but her eyes were filled with intelligence of what this moment might mean to her. It had not been sprung on her. It had been, all the time, a looming possibility, and she had not shut her mind to it, but had passed from village to village, point of safety to point of safety, knowing that each rejected fortress brought it nearer. It must be accepted if Eola was ever to be reached.

Washington was less clearly aware of their arrival than she. There was a dazed, vacant expression in his bloodshot eyes. The sudden terrible fact of finding themselves alone was all that he could grasp. They have gone, they have gone, they have gone, a voice whispered. Then the voice stopped and he became aware of the silence.

Stella had heard it too, for her eyes had moved away from his face and were fixed on the path ahead, searching for whatever it was that could make such silence. It was not merely an absence of sound – a hush in which no leaf stirred and birds were quiet – but a stillness that precedes violent action, as of a storm about to break or a beast about to strike. The jungle crouched with breath indrawn. For a moment they actually forgot each other and knew what it was to be alone.

Then Stella turned her head and looked at him again. His angry, helpless eyes stared into hers. He was trapped, it was no good, it was too late. The boys had left too late. He could never destroy the one creature that stood between him and the jungle and bring about by his own act the most appalling horror of all – to be alone on Eola land.

She understood and said quietly, ‘Shall we go on?'

Her words steadied him a little. Suddenly everything was easier and less terrifying. She was not to die. He could not for the moment look ahead and face up to the consequences of her living. He felt only an immense relief. It was unthinkable – he had never even got around to thinking about it. He could never have killed her, not even if the boys had left the day before, before they reached Eola land. She was a white woman. He was not capable of destroying her. He had fooled himself all along into thinking that this simple, easy way out was possible. Something else must be done.

His thoughts were quick. They were the last vigorous gusts of life and drenched his spirit in radiance and optimism. ‘We can't go on without the boys,' he said definitely.

‘Why not?' She had already moved down the path, and paused to look back at him. He read resolution behind the contours of her youthful face, and his elation died.

‘We might need help. It's dangerous.'

‘You have a gun,' she said, pointing to the pistol in his holster.

‘You don't use guns with boys,' he said sharply. It made him feel better to put her in her place. ‘Having a bunch of them puts you in a position in which it isn't necessary to think of defence.'

‘They didn't come before,' she said mildly. Her eyes were gentle but pitiless. He saw that she read exactly the reasons behind his excuses.

‘That was different. We upset them before. We must go carefully. Besides, David was experienced with them. We aren't – not with primitive ones, that is. And besides … the stores …'

‘We should get there by three,' she said. ‘We can take a few tins and our nets and spend the night there. There'll be plenty of food. They'll give us yams.'

‘Spend the night there!' It was all he could do to repress a shudder. ‘You don't know what you're saying.'

‘We can't go back now,' she said. ‘It would be unthinkable.' She walked back and faced him. ‘What is it about these people?'

It was the first time that anyone had asked him such a question. Not even Sylvia had dared. Now he saw they were to speak plainly. They had admitted between them that he was to have killed her and could not. There can be no closer relationship than between hunter and prey, and now she could ask him anything.

‘They aren't like other people,' he muttered, looking away.

Stella did not answer him. She was bending down among the stores. ‘We'll pick these up on the way back,' she said. ‘Maybe the people from the village will come out for them. We can't actually be on Eola land yet. You carry your net, I'll carry mine. We'll take the water bottles and a few tins.' She was unpacking and re-packing one of the small haversacks.

He stood, helplessly watching her. Her large eyes, once so wild and fanatic, were clear and determined. Yet he felt that she hardly knew what she was doing, and obeyed, like himself – bending down and helping her – some irresistible compulsion. They moved the remainder of the stores into the undergrowth on the edge of the path and slashed the trees to mark the spot. Then Stella hoisted her haversack on to her back and started off down the path. She did not look behind to see if he followed. He stood for a moment dazedly watching her. The sun was up by now, but the light in the jungle was still dim, and the outline of her body grew hazy as she drew away from him.

Still he stood; his mind would not direct him. The silence drew nearer. A ring of watchers hidden in the trees had taken a step forward. A living band had drawn tighter. With a stifled gasp that was almost a scream, he raced after her.

‘Wait!'

She paused and looked around. ‘You've forgotten your haversack,' she said.

He looked at her helplessly and then back along the path to where the haversack lay. He felt he could not bear to leave her. To place even this small distance between them filled him with terror. He felt that if he turned his back on her and once lost sight of her she would be gone forever, swallowed in the jungle. He would be alone. She sensed his agony and said quietly, ‘I'll wait while you get it.'

Only her command made the act possible, and he turned and walked obediently back to the haversack. She did not move on but waited for him to return.

They went on. The path bent away from the river and turned a little inland. It was hot now, and the air was thick and sticky. But they did not feel as hot and tired as they had during the noon hours of the previous days. They had forgotten their bodies and movement was mechanical to both of them.

Every now and again questions would rise to the surface of his mind. What am I going to do? What am I going to say? What explanation shall I give? But they would sink back once more like swamp creatures sucked down into mud. Most of the time he was hardly conscious of the past or the future. His body was not his own; his will had gone. He followed because Stella led and he could not live without her. He was not afraid, because he was beyond feeling. The jungle slid past like the backcloth of a revolving stage, each stretch of trees and undergrowth repeating what had passed before. Only now and again there would fall, like a shadow on his heels, the consciousness of that crouching, waiting, avenging silence that he only kept at bay by being with Stella.

Then Stella stopped. He did not know how long they had been walking. It might have been moments or hours. They were in a wide, open glade, entirely roofed in by trees. It appeared to have been at one time cleared right back to the trunks of the trees, but now the undergrowth was reaching forward on all sides and only a patch in the centre was bare. All around them were straight-trunked fig trees with long up-sweeping branches that gave the effect of cathedral aisles. Down from the tops of the trees hung the tendrils of creepers, each bearing on its extreme end a single bright round fruit like an orange, so that the whole jungle was festooned with Christmas hangings. The undergrowth was thinner, and shining out among the roots of the trees in sinister purity were tall, white lilies.

‘What a beautiful place.'

But Washington stared wildly around him. He felt like a sleepwalker who wakes in the mouth of a tomb.

‘What's the matter?' she said.

‘I know this place!'

‘One would remember it.'

‘We're only about six miles from the village!'

‘That would be right. It's one o'clock. We should be there by three, though the paths are very overgrown; they look as if they haven't been used for ages.'

He did not hear her. He could not believe that their dazed marching had carried them so far. A shadow at night by his bed, a coconut face on the door – these were nothing. Even jungle silence was nothing. They were six miles from Eola. This turf had been pressed daily by Eola feet, the leaves touched by Eola hands, the orange fruit, the dazzling lilies were specific for Eola medicine. The trees and shrubs were bound over to Eola allegiance, the air thick with Eola curses and fanned by the spirits of Eola dead.

‘I've been thinking how strange it is that we haven't met anyone,' Stella said.

He looked at her wildly. ‘Met anyone?'

‘I said before that the paths look unused.'

‘They hunt on the other side of the village. They don't like this side.'

‘The forest seems so utterly empty.' She stood listening. Then her eyes returned to his face. ‘Why are you so frightened of this place?' she said softly.

He did not answer her and suddenly she understood. ‘It was
here
that Sereva died.'

He nodded.

‘Is he buried here?'

‘Yes.' He looked wildly around. He could not see the grave and had no idea now where it was. That night he had been almost as dazed and frightened as he was now.

‘I see.' Her face had grown sombre.

He had hoped that if he told her enough she would not want to go further. ‘We camped the night here,' he said, ‘after we left Eola. And it was here he died. Poor Warwick, he was heartbroken …' Stella started to move on. He ran after her and caught hold of her arm. ‘What's the good of going on?' he blurted out. ‘There's nothing to see. It's just a village, just like any other.'

Her eyes regarded him, but she said nothing. She shook his fingers from her arm and moved on. When we get back, he thought, I will kill her for this. But another part of him yearned for her understanding. There was nothing for him to do but follow her. They walked on down the overgrown path into a more watchful silence.

The path was too narrow for them to walk abreast, so Stella led the way. Washington was almost treading on her heels. Only the front of his body, covered by hers, was in any way sheltered. He had a sense of something drawing in closer and closer behind him. He did not visualise it as a man but as a collection of images. Sometimes he saw it as a slimy substance crawling along the path at his heels. Sometimes the substance was grey, amorphous, writhing; sometimes it had only a hole for a mouth; sometimes a pair of round, lidless eyes. There was never a whole man, only parts: a disembodied arm that clutched forward, or a branch that clawed like a hand, a leafy spray infused with malignant humanity. Sometimes there was nothing, only a sense of collected, clotted wind that breathed on the back of his neck. He thought he could smell a faint pungent odour in his nostrils that hung in the air from no source. This was the most dreadful of all.

He could no longer resist the impulse to look back. There was nothing there, but he had a sense of having turned round just too late, at the end of movement. Something seemed to have flashed out of sight. Leaves, now almost still, vibrated with the agitation of something just gone.

‘Do you know where we are?' said Stella.

She had stopped again. He put a hand on her shoulder. Now that they had stopped, walking was preferable. He looked around him. They might be anywhere. There were the same tall fig trees and tangled undergrowth struggling forwards to devour the path. Then he heard the river.

He thought at first that it was only the silence, a little nearer, rushing a little louder, or the hungry growth of the jungle, the roots clutching the mud and the sap swelling the flat broad leaves. But it was the river, over on the right through the trees. He could see the glimmer of water. They were no more than a quarter of a mile from the village.

‘Stop!' he cried.

She was moving on and he reached out and clawed her back towards him. His hands, brutal with frenzy, clamped on her shoulders. ‘You can't go!'

With strength equal to his own, she shook herself free and backed away from him. Her eyes, hard, cautious and pitiless, did not move from his face.

His arms were extended now in helpless yearning. ‘Don't go. Don't leave me here alone!'

‘You'll not come,' she said tonelessly.

He could not go on, he could not kill her, he could not remain here alone. He could do nothing. He could only repeat. ‘Don't go!'

‘Why?'

‘You're nearly there.'

‘Well?'

‘I've got the gold,' he babbled, ‘I've got it. You can have half of it! You can have it all if you want it! You can have it! It's yours anyway. You have a right to it … I should have given it to you before …'

‘You and David came to Eola and robbed these people of their gold. Is that it?' she said quietly.

‘That's it,' he said. ‘That's it.'

‘You came here with that deliberate intention.' She had turned her back on the path ahead and faced him directly. It seemed to Washington that she had rejected the village and a faint hope rekindled in his heart.

‘Yes, we planned it all. Nobody knew about it, you see. We only had to refuse Jobe his claim and nobody would come out here for years. We needed the money – I needed it. I didn't get my promotion. I should have had it … I was the only one, but Trevor was scared to give it to me. He promised me something better. But I wasn't going to take it, I was going to walk out and start something of my own. I had to get out, I had to get away from him. He blocked everything I did. He prefers fools he can shove around, people he can bully and frighten like his poor idiot wife. And David needed it too. He owed Trevor money, a lot of money, and suddenly Trevor started pressing for payment. So we all put our heads together. Decided to come out here and have a look, then take what we could and put in an official report that there wasn't any.'