The Jungle's Reach

El Toque Maestro - Chapter 5

Three…

Amina, Papy Kolo, and freshly-minted Turaco crouch shoulder-to-shoulder behind a thick stand of bamboo. Two of them tightly grip long knives, the other sweats bullets.

Two…

A pair of sentries, faces scarred and sun-blasted, stand watch. Two more vicious thugs swarm over the two canoes that brought them across the turbid river. An errant breeze carries their odor–hard men living a hard life–to the waiting ambush.

One…

A two-and-a-half meter tall elephant ambles out of the treeline about 50 paces away. Her rolling gait is unhurried and regal. The two guards hiss, wave their mates over. Four tongues moisten four sets of lips as they stare at the thick, straight set of tusks adorning the forest matriarch. The horn of a distant ferry blows an ominous note.

Amina raises her empty right hand up in a fist, signaling patience. The bamboo clack together like a living metronome.

The four men shoulder battered AK-47s, advancing and separating. Each of them wants the kill shot. Not only for bragging rights–a wounded elephant is a menace none of them wants to face.

The youngest of them, brash and arrogant, caresses the trigger of his Kalashnikov, finger trembling. A loose stone shifts under his foot, the vibration sends a three-round burst wild. One bullet slices a narrow groove across the big animal's tusk.

Mokele drops her peaceful facade, trunk straightening–unleashing a trumpet blast. Her powerful legs pound the earth. The charge scatters the poachers, their panicked shots doing no damage.

Amina and Papy tackle the closest man. He barely manages to deflect the dark blur of the Black Mamba with his rifle barrel. But with both hands straining to hold onto the AK, he has no way to defend against Amina's blade. She deftly slips it between his third and fourth vertebrae. He crumples, mouth open, scream stillborn.

Hugh sees the takedown in slow motion from his vantage point behind the bamboo. He scrunches his eyes shut.

I am not a coward. I'm following directions. They said to keep a lookout.

He swallows hard, forces his eyes open.

Sound and motion flood back at full speed. The three remaining gunmen back away from Mokele, trying to reach their canoes. Triple staccato rifle reports slap the air.

The elephant Queen is bleeding from a half dozen wounds on her flanks, a new piercing graces one ear. Her taunting trumpeting betrays her pain but not defeat.

Amina and Papy angle together but spread out, crouched low. Short dashes between stump and bush keep the intruders from focusing fire.

A single angry -pop- echoes from farther away, from the river. Hugh jerks his head to the right. A third canoe paddles hard for the near bank, two men in camo slashing at the water with paddles, a third trying to steady a high-power long rifle for another shot. The rose-gold glint from its optics is identical to the original flash Hugh spotted on the river.

They can't handle three more! His hopping from one foot to the other intensifies. Come on, Turaco! Just imagine three nasty insects in a banana-shaped boat.

His frantic gaze falls on the downed poacher, rifle still clutched in his dead, limp grip. A deadly, comical scramble makes him its new owner.

Come on, Quartermain! Make me eat my bias about useless English lit majors.

He points, squints, squeezes, and…gets knocked on his ass by the triple-burst recoil. The shots fly high, but the unexpected return fire causes the other armed men to duck, giving the good guys a chance to gain ground.

Amina breaks left, Papy Kolo right. Mokele wraps her trunk around a ten-foot section of fallen timber, limping directly at the center. From his vantage point higher up the slope from the river bank, Hugh sees the opposition fumbling to reload. Another shot punches through the air from the canoe in the water.

Mokele bleats in pain, goes down on one knee–blood pouring from the ruins of her right eye. The tree drops from her grip. Time slows again.

Amina hesitates, her friend's pain etched on her own face.

Without the pressure from the other two, Papy is forced to lunge back under cover.

Silence falls, like steel bands around Hugh’s skull, restraining intellect, instinct, and initiative.

Then…

A ROAR…ancient, bestial, furious.

A dark-haired primate drops from the canopy, shades of indigo writhe along the veins of his corded muscles. A massive bass-drum pulse of sound ripples out from the center of his impact.

NOTHING MOVES.

Had there been bullets in flight, we're pretty sure they would have hung, frozen in the air.

“Again, Mundele? Hush…this is getting good.”

Yes, it is getting good…hushing now.

That’s not a bonobo!

Hugh stands rooted as the big ape stomps to Mokele’s side. Even after he helps her off her knees, Nzube can still look her in the remaining good eye. He’s that tall, and more solidly built than a bonobo.

This being doesn’t match any known primate. His proportions are too balanced. The skull is wrong…

The two beasts touch, forehead to forehead, for a pair of heartbeats before the spell of Nzube’s entrance begins to fade.

The ratcheting sound of the sniper, chambering a round, draws all eyes to the boat in the river.

Nzube huffs—and sits down—like it is feeding time at the zoo.

Hugh’s jaw swings slack. The borrowed rifle almost drops to the ground. He looks to Amina for an explanation.

She’s not watching Nzube. One quick glance to check on Mokele and Amina breaks into a run, straight towards the three with assault rifles trying to flee back to the river in their own canoe. Papy gauges her trajectory and angles to meet her at the water’s edge–the enemy trio in the middle.

Two of the AKs start to stutter fire while their partner launches the canoe. Papy catches a bullet in the thigh, spinning around in a crimson spray.

“No!” Hugh yells, remembers the gun still clutched at his waist. He braces himself this time, fires a burst to give his friend cover. Miraculously, his target cries out and goes down.

Nzube moves–just his arms, slamming both fists into the ground with rhythmic force. Bright, violet sparks shoot through the fountains of dirt kicked up by his blows.

Boom-ba-doom-boom-ba-doom-boom

The effect is hypnotic.

The beats reverberate through the air and earth, blurring the vision of friend and foe alike. A sympathetic wave starts up between the two banks of the river bed. The ripples amplify, and then interfere, rocking the sniper’s canoe and fouling his aim.

Nzube’s cadence builds to a climax. Rhythm becomes motion. Both arms drive down into the earth, launching him forward. Three long bounds put the forest guardian at the water’s edge, shouldering the last poacher onto Amina's blade.

Powerful leg muscles bunch–Nzube crouches and vaults–soaring ten meters above the river. Mokele trumpets a vengeful curse–the heavy ape drops, crushes the sniper, and rebounds off the last bit of buoyancy in the sinking canoe. It's enough to carry him to the far shore and out of sight.

Hugh almost collapses, as the adrenaline that was holding him up evaporates. He manages to sit, without falling.

“Did I really just do that?” he breathes, looking at his hands, fresh blood under his fingernails. “Did any of that just happen? I mean, an unclassified purple hominid…”

A short burst of gunfire from across the river–cut off by a scream and the tinkle of breaking glass–answers his question.

Hugh winces. He'd forgotten about the other five men with the jeeps.

“Oh, crap…Papy! Mokele!”

The hand with the scorpion sting throbs as he rubs the recoil-bruised shoulder, looking for the others.

Amina is already squatting by the boatman, tying off a cloth bandage torn from a poacher’s shirt.

“The bullet went clean through,” she informs him as he stumbles over. “But he is alive… because of you. Well done, Turaco.”

“What happened to Mokele? Is she ok?”

Amina looks to the jungle, eyes downcast, but smiling wryly. “She is heading back to her herd. She will be fine. She has traded her depth perception for a badge of honor.”

She stands, gripping Hugh’s shoulder, his good shoulder.

“Help me gather wood for a fire. Papy needs to rest.” Her eyes find his, maybe seeing him for the first time. “Besides, Nzube may join us for supper.”

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