Hazards (15 page)

“Or export ’em to Africa for when they run out of leopards to skin,” added Clyde.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “I’m beginning to see that there’s no end of things you can do with three hundred jaguar skins—except breed more jaguars.”

Suddenly we heard a commotion from the center of camp, and we left the tent and walked over to see what was going on.

There were a couple of dozen armed natives, who Clyde kept calling Injuns though they didn’t look nothing like the drawings of Geronimo and Crazy Horse I’d seen on dime novels when I was growing up. They were little guys in loincloths who obviously weren’t on speaking terms with the local barber, and they were carrying spears and knives.

“What’s the problem here?” demanded Clyde, signaling five or six of his gunbearers to get some weapons loaded and ready.

“We hear you have gone to work for Mudapa!” said one of the Injuns accusingly.

“Ain’t a word of truth to it,” said Clyde. “I’m working for some half-naked little guy with bad breath and rotten teeth.”

“That
is
Mudapa!” said the Injun. “He is the enemy of our blood.”

Which guv me a new respect for these little fellers. I mean, most of us just choose an enemy and that’s that—but here were these guys saying that their blood chose its own enemies, and that led me to wonder if their kidneys and livers and spleens also took dislikes to certain folk, and if so, what they were inclined to do about it.

“Not to worry,” said Clyde. “He’s just out to overthrow the government, not to make war with ugly little runts like you.”

“We
are
the government!” yelled the Injun.

“You don’t say,” replied Clyde, and I could tell he was surprised. “I didn’t figger you Injuns had evolved enough to develop greed and corruption. Just goes to show you.”

“We are here to destroy the skins,” said the Injun. “Where are they?”

“You leave the skins alone, I’ll leave you alone, and we’ll all be happy,” said Clyde.

“Grab him!” said the Injun, and a bunch of his companions grabbed hold of Clyde before he could reach for one of his guns.

“I haven’t tortured a white man in weeks,” said the head Injun. “This is going to be fun.”

Well, I’d been standing in the shadows during all this, but I figured it was time to come to Clyde’s aid, so I stepped out into the light of the campfire.

“Unhand that man!” I said. “I, the king of the Jaguar Men, have spoke!”

Everyone turned to me and just kind of stared for awhile.

“Who are you?” demanded the head Injun.

“I just told you,” I said.

“You must have a name,” he said.

I was thinking of telling him it was Tarzan, or maybe Teddy Roosevelt, but then I realized that I was in South America and I ought to give him a name that would be appreciated down here, so I looked him in the eye and said, “I’m Simon de Bolivar, and that there man you’re about to torture is my friend.”

“Simon de Bolivar?” he repeated.

“No need to be formal,” I said. “You can call me Simon de.”

“This man has made a pact with our enemies,” said the Injun. “Our laws demand that we torture him.”

“
I
make the laws around here,” I said. “Unhand him.”

“Unhand him?”

“You heard me,” I said.

He shrugged, pulled out a knife, and was about to set to work sawing off Clyde’s left hand when I told him to stop.

“We got a little communication problem here,” I explained.

“You want the other hand?” he asked. “No problem.”

“I don’t want neither hand,” I said.

“Maybe an ear?” he suggested.

“Set him loose,” I ordered.

“Why should we listen to you?” demanded another Injun. “You’re one of the Jaguar Men.”

“That’s true,” I said. “But you guys ain’t thinking this through. There ain’t no reason why I shouldn’t be one of
your
Jaguar Men.”

The head Injun frowned, like he was struggling with the concept. “I don’t like dealing with people who have no loyalties.”

“I got loyalties, and to spare,” I told him. “They just happen to be for rent.”

“Explain,” he said.

“Can you see my face under this here mask?” I said.

“No,” he answered.

“Then the only reason you know I’m a white man instead of one of you godless brown heathen, meaning no offense, is because I sound so cultured, right?”

“We’ll come back to that,” he said. “Continue.”

“What if my friend Clyde here was to tell the illiterate savages he killed the jaguars for that he’d shot out the area and only came up with a hundred and fifty skins?” I said. “And what if he gave the other hundred and fifty to
your
illiterate savages? How would anyone know that one of your guys wasn’t a real Jaguar Man? Think of the confusion you could cause and the orders you could contradict.”

The head Injun stared at me kind of thoughtfully. “You interest me, white man,” he said at last.

“I don’t blame you, me being the good-looking young buck that I am,” I said, “but I got to warn you that us men of the cloth don’t do nothing degenerate, except on special occasions and then only with partners of the female persuasion.”

“You misunderstand me,” he said.

“Well,
that’s
a relief,” I said. “So what do you say, Tonto. Have we got a deal?”

“What do you want for the skins, and my name isn’t Tonto.”

“Tonto’s a perfectly good Injun name, and it’s probably easier to remember than whatever you call yourself. And now that we’re going to be partners, you can stop calling me Simon de Bolivar and start calling me Kemosabe.”

“What does it mean?” he asked.

“Great white preacher who speaks for God,” I told him.

Tonto made a face. “What do you want for half the skins?”

“First, you got to let my friend go,” I said.

He nodded to his men, and they released their grip on Clyde.

“Second, have you got a high priest or a chief medicine man or anything like that?”

“Yes.”

“He’s fired and I’m the new one.”

He considered it for a minute, then nodded his agreement.

“And third, my friend Clyde here gets a free lifetime hunting license.”

“Lucifer, they ain’t
got
no hunting licenses in the Matto Grasso,” said Clyde.

“Okay,” I said. “Fire your top general and put Clyde in charge of your army.”

“Has he had any experience?” asked Tonto.

“He’s sent more men and beasts to the Happy Hunting Grounds than any ten warriors you can name,” I said.

“What does that have to do with fighting a war?”

“Same principle,” said Clyde. “Anything what’s moving within rifle range soon finds out that moving ain’t no permanent condition.”

“Have you any more conditions?” asked Tonto.

“I ain’t sure,” I said. “Your temple got any good-looking virgin handmaidens?”

“No.”

“Then I got no more conditions.”

“I agree to your terms,” said Tonto.

“Now that we’re all going to be friends and partners,” said Clyde, “let’s pull out a bottle of fine drinkin’ stuff and seal the deal.”

I could tell Tonto didn’t know quite what Clyde was talking about, and my explaining that it was heap good firewater and much beloved by us palefaces didn’t seem to add much to his understanding, but when Clyde actually produced the bottle he smiled and took a healthy swig.

We drank and shot the breeze for half an hour, and then all the Injuns staggered off to their camp, swearing eternal friendship and promising to come back the next morning to pick up the skins and make plans for putting down the revolution.

“That was quick thinking, Lucifer,” said Clyde after they’d gone. “And don’t think I ain’t grateful. But I can’t meet expenses if I only sell a hundred and fifty of the skins.”

“You ain’t thinking this through, Clyde,” I said.

“Enlighten me.”

“We’re going to war with Mudapa’s tribe, right?” I said. “And we’re the only side what’s got guns. After we win, we’ll keep the spoils of war, which means the skins.”

“I never thought of that,” said Clyde. “I feel much better now. You got a real head on your shoulders, Lucifer.”

It was certainly a better head than Clyde’s, because I’d already figgered out that even if we won he was going to be stuck with three hundred skins and no buyers, but I didn’t want to trouble his sleep none, so I decided not to mention it as he was dozing off.

As for me, I wasn’t quite sure about all the angles and intricacies of being the high priest out here in the middle of nowhere, but once I arranged a steady flow of good-looking handmaidens and tributes from all the neighboring tribes, I figgered I’d send Clyde off to civilization to sell his skins and while he was gone I’d find some way to confiscate all the money that Mudapa’s tribe was going to pay him, which was another thing I was pretty sure Clyde hadn’t thunk of, as a lifetime of having his ears just inches from the explosions of his rifles had kind of dulled his brain, which in truth didn’t have a lot of sharp edges to begin with.

Well, morning came, and with it came about a hundred little fellers in loincloths. I expected ’em all to have big toothy grins, since we’d made our deal and they knew all the guns were on their side of the fence, so to speak, but this group looked mighty sour, like something they’d et disagreed with ’em.

I could hear ’em mumbling and grumbling to themselves, and I looked around for Tonto to tell me what the problem was, but I couldn’t spot him nowhere, and as I stared at these Injuns it dawned on me that they was wearing different ornaments on their almost-naked little bodies than Tonto’s warriors, and I realized that these had to be Mudapa’s men, and you didn’t have to be no brighter than Clyde to take a look and figger out that at least one of ’em had had a little pow-wow with at least one of Tonto’s braves, and the cat was out of the bag. Or in this case, three hundred cats, all of ’em recently deceased and ready to wear.

Clyde burst out of his tent when he heard the commotion, and found himself facing a few dozen spears.

“You have betrayed us!” yelled the leader, who I took to be Mudapa. “You have dealt with the enemy!”

“T’ain’t so!” said Clyde. “Do I look like a double-dealing back-stabbing traitor to you?” Then he added, right quickly: “Don’t answer that question. Ain’t important nohow. I got all your skins over in this tent here. You got your money?”

Which was the first time I wondered where they carried their wallets, since no one was wearing any pants.

Mudapa signaled for one of his warriors to step forward, and the feller handed Mudapa a little bag which he help up in front of Clyde.

“Twenty-five flawless emeralds from the mines of Columbia,” announced Mudapa. “Now where are the skins? And if you are lying to me, I will be wearing a Calhoun skin before noon.”

I figgered they wouldn’t welcome no distractions at that particular moment, so I just stayed in my tent. I noticed that I still had the jaguar skin I’d wore the night before, but I couldn’t imagine Mudapa would get too riled over Clyde’s total being one short, and besides I thunk it might come in handy before long, so I just tucked it under my cot, and I sat down and listened.

There was a lot of excited jabbering in some strange language that was even more incomprehensible than French, and I figured that was Mudapa and his men talking back and forth. Finally I heard Clyde say, “Now how about my emeralds?” and suddenly there was some wild laughter, but one voice drowned it out, and that was Clyde cursing a blue streak.

I heard Mudapa and his men all leave, and I came out of the tent. Clyde looked up, and I don’t think I’d ever seen him so mad, even that time back in Africa when his gun jammed right before he could set a record for the most innocent elephants slaughtered in an afternoon.

“That dirty bastard!” he growled.

“Mudapa?” I asked.

He held out his fist and opened it, and I saw he was holding a bunch of stones like you find on the bottoms of rivers, especially when you’re walking barefooted. “Do these look like emeralds to you?” he demanded.

“No,” I admitted. “But there’s a lot I don’t know about emeralds. Maybe you should leave ’em out in the sun to ripen.”

“Bah!” said Calhoun, tossing the strange-looking emeralds into the bush. “Nobody flim-flams Capturin’ Clyde Calhoun! I’m going to war!”

“Before breakfast?” I said.

“What’s more important to you?” he demanded. “My emeralds or your stomach?”

“Do you want a frank answer or a friendly one?” I replied.

“All right, all right,” he muttered, “we’ll put some grub on. I might as well enlist Tonto and his men in our cause.”

“Tonto and his men might be just a tad riled that you guv away their half of the skins to Mudapa and
his
men,” I noted.

Well, Tonto showed up just when the eggs were frying, and
riled
is an understatement. They had Clyde staked out spread-eagled and naked on the ground inside of a minute, and while I often thought fondly of coming upon Fatima Malone or some other genteel young lady of my acquaintance in just such a position, somehow seeing Clyde stretched out like that killed my appetite, and I didn’t even bother pulling the eggs out of the frying pan.

“You have betrayed our trust,” said Tonto, “and for that you must die, slowly and painfully.”

“If you really want me to die slowly,” suggested Clyde, “why not come back next year and strike the first blow then?”

“We are not going to strike you at all,” said Tonto.

“That’s a comfort,” Clyde allowed. “Now how’s about letting me up?”

“No,” continued Tonto. “We are going to pour honey all over your body and then leave you to the mercy of all the ants and scavengers of the bush.”

“I got a better idea,” said Clyde. “How’s about you and me squaring off,
mano a mano?
If I win, I ain’t no traitor and I get to go free; if you win,
then
you can feed me to the beasts of the jungle.”

Tonto looked like he was considering it, but Clyde had him by maybe five inches and seventy pounds, and in the end he didn’t like the odds, so he finally rejected the offer.

“Okay,” said Clyde, undeterred. “I got a better idea…”