Hell's Gate(17)

He used the compass and the last bright shafts of true afternoon daylight to estimate the direction to Chapada or at least the road that would supposedly lead him there. It was a frustrating task from where he stood, beneath a humid ceiling of greenery, next to a stream that no one had charted. Finally, he seemed satisfied, until he looked up from the compass to his projected path, across the stream.

“Shit,” MacCready muttered, as he waded into the murky water. It’s going to take some real thought and a whole lot of creativity to pay Hendry back for this one.


Slogging into swampy terrain, Mac tried to keep his mind from focusing too much on the impossibility of his mission. Just two weeks earlier he had been on leave, eating hot dogs at Nathan’s, and now he was deep in the Brazilian interior looking for a needle in a haystack—a group of Japs and Nazis who implausibly had submarined their way deep into the middle of nowhere, and whose unknown pursuits had to be a threat, in ways he and Hendry could not yet fathom. Mac hoped he would get some important clues from Bob Thorne and his native buddies. A happier thought. Bob is alive. That too seemed impossible—as impossible as his cabin mate Richard’s directions to Chapada. He checked his compass, tried out a colorful curse on the Texan, and charted a new course to hopefully bypass the mud. Maybe this route will be easier.

Two hours later, filthy, wet, and mumbling about “Conquistadors and gold-filled intestines,” MacCready pushed his way out of the dense undergrowth into a clearing. He felt like a moth that had just escaped a jam jar. He was also wondering if that young pan tuner in Trinidad needed an assistant.

Okay, everybody off, MacCready thought, certain in the knowledge that his hump through the dense brush had attracted a variety of bloodsuckers, from ticks to terrestrial leeches, each of them now swelling to hundreds of times their unfed body weight, gorging on his blood.

You guys should just drop off now and save yourselves some tr—

He froze.

At the center of the clearing lay an Indian village. There were four rectangular huts—each one a framework of poles draped with palm fronds. The huts were supported ten feet above the ground on wooden stilts. The surroundings looked fairly typical: There were pots and baskets scattered about and a rack that held several dried skins—capybara and coati, by the look of them.

“Avoid the village,” Richards had said. A little late for that, MacCready thought, but nevertheless he began to back quickly and stealthily out of the clearing. Get on the road.

Yet just as he was about to turn his back on the village, he stopped.

Something’s wrong.

MacCready scanned the area again.

No people. No dogs. No fire. No movement at all.

With my luck, the remnants of a Xavante raid. He drew his Colt .45 from its holster, then stepped out of the brush and into the open.

The silence was strange and unnerving. Even the insects were quiet.

“Bom dia,” he said, softly. “Hello.”

There was no reply.

The forest seemed to have crept in closer and the light was going fast.

He checked his watch. It’ll be pitch black in ten minutes, he thought. And that’s gonna be fun.

Back home, darkness came in stages. But in the tropics, MacCready knew, twilight was fleeting, almost momentary. Something told him to find the damned road before it was too late, but instead he approached the nearest hut. Sheets of dirty fabric hung like dead skin across a large screenless window flanking one side of the doorway. The entrance seemed to be gathering shadows.

Seeing that he would need to maneuver up a wooden ladder to enter the hut, he holstered his pistol, then silently, carefully, he began to climb. A faint odor was wafting from within, almost sweet, and he recognized it as the last stage of extreme decomposition. MacCready poked his head over the top rung, and into the hut.

Are those—?

Suddenly, something hugged his face, like a veil, vibrating wildly. MacCready stepped back and fell halfway down the ladder, bruising both knees as he released his grip to claw at a membranous shroud that clung to his cheeks and brow.

MacCready felt something buzzing and pulsating in his hair and he batted at his own head for several seconds before regaining his composure. Looking down at his hand, he saw several silk-entrapped creatures. Insects . . . flies. It’s a spiderweb, he thought, shaking his head. A spiderweb and I’m pitchin’ a goddamned fit.

But it wasn’t the spiderweb and the flies that were the real problem. It was something else. Something else inside this h—

As if on cue, from within the dwelling came more buzzing, rising in volume like radio static. And before MacCready could move, a thick cloud of flies rose from the floor, swirled through the doorway, and engulfed him.

“Shit,” he cried in disgust, swinging his arms wildly. More insects became entrapped in the remains of the organic veil still clinging to his face—more and more of them. A half dozen found their way into his mouth, tasting faintly of their last meal. MacCready tore at the webbing, spitting and coughing.


Several minutes later, his pack at his side, his lips wiped clean of webbing and flies, R. J. MacCready stared up at the doorway. Well, that could have gone better.

I should be on that road by now, he thought. But there was something about this hut—for starters, the flies and the smell—which told him, You’re not going anywhere just yet.

“Let’s hold the flies this time, huh?” MacCready announced, hauling himself back up the ladder, this time using a flashlight.