Reckoning (18 page)

Dockrell occasionally asked a likely looking individual,
“Parlez vous Francais?”
A few shook their heads, most pretended they hadn’t noticed him talking to them. He had to do better than this. There might
be people here from Diku. They might know exactly where Paul Egan was at this very moment. But the people here mostly refused
to acknowledge his existence among them. He was beginning to feel like a pale insubstantial spirit floating around, invisible
to dark-skinned real people. This must be what it felt like to be a ghost. No wonder they rattled chains and made things move.
Frustration.

He had more success with the traders. Most of them spoke at least some French, but none were from this part of the Ituri.
They were nomads, wheeling their merchandise-loaded bicycles from village to village through the equatorial forests. One trader
told him to try the sellers of illegal liquor. They had to make it their business to know who everyone was and where they
were. He pointed down a narrow track through the bush. Dockrell went and came into another clearing,
with some thatched lean-tos and a throng of men. Every head turned to face him.

Dockrell decided against more exotic brews and bought a bottle of beer. Suddenly he felt visible again and allowed himself
to be hustled for a few beers, always bringing the conversation around to Diku. It was amazing how much French some of these
thirsty men could understand. One man agreed to take him to Diku the next day. It was four hours’ walk, he said. Dockrell
wanted to go now. This was not possible, the man explained, because he had come here to see his friends and drink—to leave
now would be a very great inconvenience to him. Dockrell would make it worth his while. They were discussing this when suddenly,
to Dockrell’s amazement, the journey to Diku no longer became necessary. His victim had come to him.

Gray-faced, sweating, with wide eyes, Paul Egan stumbled out of the jungle into the clearing. His clothes hung off his large
frame like damp rags, and the swell of his big black-haired belly pushed through his open shirt. He stopped dead in his tracks
and stared at the other white man in the clearing. Dockrell tried to smile in greeting, but he knew it was useless. When the
two men’s stares first locked, their eyes in an instant gave everything away before their working minds took control. One
was the hunter, the other the hunted.

Egan spun around and dashed back the way he had come. Dockrell saw the automatic rifle hung across his back, an FN FAL. In
Kisangani, Dockrell had bought a World War II German Air Force pistol. It was the only
weapon he could find in good condition on the black market there. It was a Mauser, and a Mauser could take a beating and still
function faultlessly. This 7.65 mm HSc model had its peculiarities—an almost totally enclosed hammer, without enough protrusion
to enable the user to lower the hammer on a loaded chamber, and a finger spur on the magazine. The slide stayed open after
the last round was fired and remained open after the magazine was removed, but went forward when a new magazine was inserted,
chambering a round in the process. The semiautomatic pistol held only eight rounds, and normally it would have been crazy
to use it to chase a man carrying a twenty-round fully automatic rifle. But Egan looked in bad shape. He was alone. He was
frightened. Dockrell could handle him. He took off after him.

The Africans stood and stared at the strange doings of these two
muzungus
. Many had seen or heard of the one at Diku, and the nuns had brought the other one. They had their own customs and were best
left alone. They had the power to bring much trouble down upon a man.

Dockrell crashed through the undergrowth after Egan. He could hear the big clumsy man ahead of him, plowing through the brush
like an elephant. The sound alone was enough to guide him. Then he heard Egan shouting. Dockrell couldn’t make out what he
was saying. It didn’t sound like French or English. He eased up in his headlong run and snapped the safety on the Mauser.

All at once he saw them—small brown shadows running silently through the bushes. One aimed an arrow at him. Dockrell blew
him away with a single shot, the force of the bullet lifting the pygmy’s bare feet off the jungle floor.

He drilled another as the almost naked savage drew back a spear to throw at him.Dockrell snapped his shoulder bone with the
first bullet and sent the second into his lower chest.

He emptied the magazine at random after the other pygmies as they ran, hitting only one for sure. He got him in the thigh
or buttock, and he managed to drag himself off into the bushes.

Dockrell stayed where he was until he had finished pushing fresh cartridges into the magazine and inserted it in the butt
of the gun. There was no more sound of Egan crashing through the jungle ahead. The bastard was sitting waiting for him, with
his rifle ready to roll. Well, Dockrell would see about that.

He made his way deeper into the forest. The pygmies seemed to be gone. He heard shouting behind him as the men at the liquor
stands reacted to the shots—but they weren’t going to run in where bullets were flying. He maybe didn’t have much time, yet
he had time enough.

He kept going, reacting to every leaf that moved, imagined shapes behind the big leaves. He was going in for the kill. He
could feel it in his blood.

Moving from tree trunk to tree trunk, zigzagging, walking softly, crouched low, he tried to blend in with
the vegetation. He saw Egan only an instant before the man opened fire on him and threw himself face down on the dirt.

Bullets severed leaves from stems three feet above Dockrell’s prone body. Dockrell was surprised at the length of the burst—it
was seven or eight shots. If Egan kept that up, he’d empty his magazine in another two bursts. The man was an amateur! He
did not know what he was doing! Short bursts of two or three shells achieved the same effect as longer bursts of automatic
fire. Either the bastard was there and you hit him or he wasn’t—four or five extra shells was not going to change that. Firing
two or three shells at a time, you kept the barrel cool and you made the twenty-round magazine last.

Dockrell moved forward fast, to surprise Egan and to keep the pressure on so he wouldn’t take the time to change magazines.
Egan pinned him down with another long burst of automatic fire.

Then Dockrell was on the move again. This time he was nearly too late in hitting the ground. Had Egan been right on the target,
he would have got him. But Egan wasn’t, and he went on waving the barrel from side to side at empty air, finger down hard
on the trigger.

When the magazine ran out, Dockrell came at him. Egan saw him coming. His fingers fiddled with the magazine release button,
then fumbled with inserting the new magazine in the well. Having a case of the shakes from booze withdrawal wasn’t helping
any. He
dropped the fresh magazine. He had no handgun, only a knife. Dockrell caught him cold.

Dockrell positioned the foresight blade in the rearsight notch and steadied on Egan’s forehead. He smiled slightly at the
thought that simple pleasures are always the best kind. He was having a hell of a time. He took one more look at Egan’s frightened
eyes in his pasty face. Then he squeezed the trigger.

On finding Egan gone, Richard Dartley and Dieudonne assembled the six fastest of the BaLese sentries at Diku. It was a hot
day and they were clearly going to be reluctant to volunteer for anything that meant expending energy. Dartley presented five
tenzaire bills to Dieudonne to give to the five runners-up in a race to the medical aid outpost. He held up a hundred-zaire
bill. This he himself would give to the winner of the race. There were no questions, no complaints.

After half an hour on the trail, Dartley and two of the sentries began to put distance between them and the others. After
two hours, Dartley and one man were out of earshot of the others.

Dartley and this BaLese kept it up. When one weakened, the other set the pace. The ground was level and soft underfoot, the
path was clear of thorns and stinging leaves. They were going to make the half-day’s walk in a little more than an hour.

The BaLese, who spoke no French, was gesturing with a smile to Dartley that they were almost there and that he and Dartley
should race each other on the final
stretch. A burst of pistol shots ahead halted them real fast. Next they heard a long burst of automatic fire. Dartley recognized
the sound of Egan’s FN FAL. He had cleaned and test-fired the weapon for Egan only the day before. He unslung his own rifle
of the same make from across his back, where it had been slapping against his sweat-soaked body as he ran. He handed the BaLese
the winner’s hundred-zaire note and gestured for him to wait where he was until the others arrived.

As Dartley went forward, a second burst of automatic fire rang out. It was not far ahead. There was no answering fire. Then
a long third burst. Shit, Dartley thought, he’s emptied the magazine. Then he heard a single pistol shot. Neat. Precise.

Dartley had an ugly certainty as he rushed forward that he’d come too late.

The pygmies had scattered into the forest before Dockell’s pistol shots. Now they regrouped. They knew two of them were dead,
a third wounded. One had seen Egan get killed. Their attacker was now fleeing through the forest. The pygmies pointed. That
way. They ran with extraordinary lightness and speed barefoot through the forest on Dockrell’s trail. Their short, metal-tipped
arrows were fixed in their bows and held that way as they ran.

They saw their enemy rushing through the trees. Now he had a long gun. He had picked up the dead Egan’s long gun. They could
not get too close. They
had seen what such a long gun could do. They slipped through the shadows.

Their enemy did not see them. He stopped. He had lost his way. He looked around. He listened. But he did not see or hear them
as they moved around him in a wide circle. Then one, then another, then all let loose their arrows at him and fled into the
forest.

The first arrow hit Dartley high in the right shoulder. The second sliced his left forearm. He doubled over with pain. Three
more steel points buried themselves in his back, like harpoons in a floundering whale.

There was someone else in the room when Dartley woke up. He tried to move and it hurt like hell. But he had to see who was
there. It was an old black man in a hospital bed. He smiled at Dartley and said something Dartley couldn’t make out.

“What?” Dartley asked, wondering where he was.

The man spoke again. Dartley recognized the distinctive sounds of an African language. Zaire! From there it was only a short
step to Dockrell and Egan. There were two other beds on the other side of the room but he wasn’t up to raising himself to
take a look at their occupants. Yellow walls, white ceiling, tiled floor, smell of ether and disinfectant. Even he could guess
he was in a hospital, and this was confirmed by the way he felt when he tried to move. A wave of nausea and dizziness put
an end to his speculations and he drifted into a deep sleep.

Next time he woke, he felt better and his head was
clear. He said hello to the African in the bed next to his and got a big smile and more talk in something which was neither
BaLese nor Swahili. One of the other two hundred languages, he assumed.

Dieudonne walked into the room. He had newspapers under his arm. He glanced only momentarily at Dartley and continued past
his bed to the old man’s.

“How are you today, uncle?” Dieudonne asked him in French, placing some banknotes in his hand. “Like a dutiful nephew, I come
to see you each day. I see your neighbor has finally woken up. It is about time. He has been here four days. Certainly if
he has any visitors, the police will question them. Everything he says and does will be watched and reported. He need not
worry about my uncle here, who sees only what I wish him to see. The other two patients in this room are too far gone to cause
concern. Now, uncle, I will read you the papers, even though you don’t speak a word of French.”

Dieudonne settled himself comfortably on the side of the old man’s bed. He described how a Paul Egan had been shot dead by
another “European” and how a third “European” had been hit by arrows when pygmies mistook him for Egan’s attacker. One pygmy
had told the police that to him all Europeans looked alike. From Dieudonne’s laugh, Dartley assumed he was the author of that
remark. The man struck by arrows had not yet been identified. He was without money or passport and was unconscious at present
in a hospital at Kisangani. He owed his life to the quick attention he
received from some medical sisters who happened to be nearby and took him with them to their hospital.

Dieudonne put the papers aside. “On hearing that the man was probably an American associated with oil exploration, as Egan
was, the government took a sudden interest in his welfare and flew him here for special attention. The arrowheads were dipped
in a plant poison that the pygmies use to paralyze monkeys. It would be interesting to know if this man has regained full
use of all his limbs.”