“The whole jungle knows it,” Jak said. “Want me to go check them, Ryan?”
“No.”
“I could go, Dad.”
“No. Everyone’s done their part. Now we just keep still and quiet and wait to see if Doc’s right.”
The old man sniffed. “So, I’m to bring home the bacon. I mean, carry the can, if things turn awry, am I?”
Mildred patted him on the back. “I’ll be first to tell you so, Doc. In between running away from here, very fast in the opposite direction.”
He shook his head, not joining in the joke. “I can’t share your amusement, Dr. Wyeth. I fear that failure here will mean the end for all these poor people.”
Ryan pointed a finger at him. “Bullshit, Doc. If you hadn’t come up with a plan, they’d have been lost, anyway. It should work. It will work.”
ITZCOATL HAD WALKED OVER to join them. He had a fan with a turquoise handle, made of bird of paradise feathers, and he used it to swat away the hordes of flies that had been attracted by the stinking mess of rotten meat and honey that filled the bottom of the natural basin of rock.
“The ants do not come.”
“Give them time,” Ryan said. “We don’t know how close they are to this place. How early they start in the morning. How far they got last night. We don’t know any of this. We just have to wait and be patient.”
“I will send a recce man. He will tell us where the ants are and if they are come here.”
Ryan considered the idea. “Guess so,” he said.
IT WAS A MAN in his thirties with the stocky build and powerful upper body of a wrestler. His body was almost naked, painted with white and yellow stripes that formed a complicated pattern across his chest.
“His name is Crushing Bull. He is ready for war,” Itzcoatl said. “This is war.”
“He speak American?” J.B. asked.
“No. Very little.”
“Then tell him that a dead hero is no use to us. He has to keep clear and not risk his life. Then run and tell us what news there is of the ants.”
“I will tell him,” the chief said. “But that is not the way of courage of my people. To look and run away with no prisoners or dead enemy or wounds on your own body to show how brave you have been. Not our way.”
“Tell him anyway,” the Armorer insisted. “We need to know if they’re coming and how far away they are, so we can all get real ready.”
“I will tell him,” Itzcoatl promised.
CRUSHING BULL had been gone for a little over twenty-five minutes. Ryan glanced at his chron. “Could be the ants have gone off on a different route.”
Doc shook his head. “Unlikely, friend Cawdor. Once set on their course, very little will divert them.”
“I honestly don’t know whether I hope that you’re right or wrong, Doc.”
There had been a quiet buzz of conversation around the basin of red, raw rock, but it ceased at that precise moment, ceased when everyone heard the shouts.
“Coming,” Jak said.
Itzcoatl turned to the Anglos and smiled, showing his filed, inlaid teeth. “All is hunky-dory. Crushing Bull runs to us with good news.”
Mildred shook her head sadly. “Not all good news, Chief. Man making those shouts is in great pain. Listen. You can hear naked agony in the voice.”
The yelling was closer.
Everyone scrambled for a vantage point, shading their eyes against the rising sun, peering toward the edge of the forest that lay to the east.
Krysty was at Ryan’s side. “The man’s dying,” she whispered. “Can feel it.”
One of the warriors gave a guttural cry, pointing with his hunting spear.
Then they all saw him.
He was running as if he was under water, arms and legs pumping in slow motion, head thrown back, the tendons in his neck strained like whipcord. His dark body was patterned with patches and streaks of bright red.
“Ants got him,” Ryan said.
Crushing Bull was dying in front of them, from hundreds of vicious acid bites, his blood boiling in his veins. He was almost blind, barely able to shout through the swollen lips. His tongue protruded, purpled and bleeding, and blood ran down over the tattoos on his chest.