The Daughter of Doctor Moreau(88)

In his hurry he tripped and fell, hitting his head as he landed at an awkward angle. The horse collapsed right in front of Montgomery’s feet with a wet thud, and he lay staring into its eye.

The blow to his head stung, and everything went muffled and dark. He heard himself groaning. He could not feel his own body. Something was dragging him through the jungle, and he remembered the time when the jaguar had pounced on him and its claws sunk into his flesh.

Dear Fanny, he wrote. I may indeed be dying.

Jaguar. He ought to have died that day, when it gnawed at his arm. But he hadn’t and he’d lived and lived still. Well…maybe not for long. He thought of Carlota, wondered if he might die with the memory of her face and the whisper of her voice in his ears.



* * *



—

He blinked. Montgomery lay on the ground of a small hut. There were two hammocks to his left and a couple of chairs. Bare bones, even when the houses of macehuales were often simple affairs.

Sweat rolled down Montgomery’s sore back. It still ached with the memory of the rifle they had beaten him with, and his mouth was dry.

“He opened his eyes! Hey, Montgomery, you’re safe,” Cachito said.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and turned his head, looking at the boy. The scent of viscera and death from the road still lingered in his memory, though he’d obviously been moved somewhere else.

“Where are we?”

“The camp! Ramona was right. There’s a camp that Cumux’s men use.”

Montgomery frowned. The sleeve of Cachito’s shirt was stained with blood. “Are you hurt?”

“It’s a flesh wound. Stings if I move,” Cachito said, looking down at his arm. “They got me here, too.”

He lifted his shirt and showed him his ribs, where someone had wrapped him in a thick bandage. When he moved his arms, the boy winced.

“Next time don’t be getting in fights. What the hell were you doing there?”

“We figured you were being stubborn, Montgomery, when you said not to fight, and we hatched a plan. A few of us waited for you to come this way. Lupe said you would, and if you didn’t come in five days’ time then we should continue on our way. She also said she wouldn’t tell you any of this because you’d probably say no and ruin it.”

Montgomery frowned. “She did, did she?”

“You would have thought to stop us.”

“Probably,” Montgomery admitted, remembering poor Aj Kaab, his corpse left in the middle of the road. “Where are your new friends?”

“Outside. We have three of Cumux’s men and the hybrids who would fight. Not everyone was willing to wait or fight. It’s the best I could do.”

“Englishman, you live,” the old man in the red kerchief said, rifle over his shoulder, standing at the doorway of the hut. At his side there was a younger fellow, also carrying a rifle, and Lupe. “Good. We need to go.”

“One second, go where?” Montgomery asked, rubbing his head. It still ached like the devil. He wondered how long he’d been knocked out and how far Cumux’s camp was from the place where the confrontation had taken place.

“Somewhere else. We killed some of the folk who were holding you prisoners, scared others off, but it doesn’t mean we should stay. We are not safe.”

“The other hybrids have gone ahead,” Cachito said. “Cumux’s men have also moved. We’re supposed to catch up with the others.”

“I must return to Yaxaktun,” Montgomery said, rubbing his forehead. “Carlota and Moreau are there.”

“Yaxaktun has thick walls,” the man in the red kerchief told him. He had a stern, serious face that did not invite rebukes. “It can’t be breached. And there will be more of those men there. You’ve been lucky today. I owed Ramona a favor, which is why we came with your companions and waited for you. We will do no more.”

Carlota. He’d said she could have him for as long as she required him. It seemed to him if she ever needed him, it was now.

“I won’t ask you to come with me.”

“But you want to go back alone?” Cachito asked.

“I have to,” Montgomery said, and he pushed himself up on his feet, a little wobbly still. If there had been a thousand men between him and Carlota, and as many spears as stars in the heavens, still he’d have gone back for her.

“You can’t even walk,” Lupe said accusingly.

“I don’t need to walk. I need to ride. If you can spare a bit of aguardiente, that’ll make it better, and if not I’ll manage without it.”

They didn’t offer him a bottle, so he supposed there wasn’t any to be had or they had not taken him seriously. Well, he could do this sober, although he wouldn’t have minded a couple of fortifying sips for luck.

Montgomery stepped out of the hut. Outside waited four of the hybrids—Pinta, K’an, and two more—looking tattered and tired, their nails caked with blood. Aj Kaab was dead, and he didn’t see áayin, so he assumed he must also have perished.

They gave Montgomery a grim nod. He saw three other palm-thatched dwellings like the one he’d been in and a black-haired man who was tending to three horses. There were no other animals, nor any more structures. This camp was small. Cumux had probably employed it as a waypoint to move supplies and weapons.