The Cutthroat Cannibals Read online

  It wasn’t too difficult after that to pull himself up and onto the huge nature-made boat. Once up on the leafy body of the log, Stone pushed his way through the thick branches for about ten feet, searching for the dog. Then he saw the pit bull standing dead center on the log, balancing itself as the thing buffeted it back and forth. As big as the damned tree was, the currents were so powerful they were shaking the thing around like it was just a big cork floating free.

  The pit bull barked when it spotted Stone—it had thought maybe he hadn’t made it and wasn’t feeling too happy about that fact. And being the happy-go-lucky creature that it was the fighting canine surged forward, forgetting that it was on a floating log in the middle of a maelstrom—and nearly lost its balance. Suddenly it was scampering away at the dark wet bark like a test subject on a treadmill. Just as the animal started sliding right down the side of the tree Stone moved forward fast and threw out an arm, grabbing the creature by one of its front legs. With one great heave he pulled the dog up and onto the log, where it squealed with sudden fear and had to do everything to control its own body not to twist around and jump into the air in corkscrew motions as it often did to release tension. But even a dog knows when to cool it—when the fucking Red Sea is slamming in from every side.

  CHAPTER

  Five

  STONE had thought he and the pit bull were alone on their little river ride. But he had scarcely settled into a vaguely balanced position dead center on the tree when he heard a sound emerging from the far end of the rising and dropping tree as it sped through what felt like increasingly rough waters. It was hard to hear at first, like a whine, then like a buzz saw. And then as it emerged from the spiderweb of branches and its feline face came into view it made a screeching sound that sent fingernails clawing along Stone’s backbone.

  It was a mountain lion, one of the biggest sons of bitches Stone had ever seen, a good two hundred pounds if it weighed an ounce. And the animal had apparently never heard of sharing its toys when just a cub. No, this one seemed to want the whole fucking log to itself. And maybe, Stone saw as the golden-furred creature prowled slowly forward, moving low on its shoulders so the blades stuck up, its thick padded paws easily getting good traction on the slippery log, maybe it would get its way. It eyed the two recent arrivals from about thirty feet off and they eyed it back. Three different species all doing their own macho thing.

  Excaliber suddenly let loose with a growl of challenge and went into his hunting point, lining up his body like a missile ready to launch itself straight at the predator’s chest. The dog was not one to take any bullshit, from man or mountain lion.

  “Easy, dog,” Stone whispered out of the side of his mouth, not making any sudden movements. He knew the cat could be on them in the flash of an eye if it felt like it. It was playing with them. Cat and mouse, probably waiting to see if he had any weapons. But seeing no flash of steel that it knew could kill as its mate had been hunted down years before, the cougar came forward even more aggressively, picking up speed as if it was about to break into full charge.

  Stone’s eyes swept the tree around him for even the most primitive of weapons. There was nothing. “Son of a fucking—” Suddenly everything was a blur. Excaliber, sensing something in the killer’s eyes, sprang right over Stone’s head. The instant the pit bull shot into the air, the cat did the same, snarling and hissing. Stone was so hypnotized by the two balls of murderous fur flying toward each other that he froze in place, his mind numb as a rabbit looking into the headlights of an oncoming car. As it flew, its body stretched out to full magnificent length like a pelt about to be mounted on a trophy hunter’s wall, the mountain cat opened its huge claws to take off the head of the animal that dared challenge it.

  But though Excaliber was brave, it wasn’t a fool. The first thing the animal ever did when confronted with another beast was to size the fucker up: give it a once-over and seek out its strengths and weaknesses. Having been in countless battles with countless kinds of creatures ranging from scorpion to gunslinger, the pit bull knew that in this particular fight it was outclassed as far as it came to brute strength. But not when it came to street smarts. For the dog had its own brand of martial arts when it came to meeting charging carnivores in midair.

  Just as the claws of the big cat came swiping down out of the wet air like a fork searching for dinner, the pit bull somehow altered its flight path just inches from the mountain killer and dropped straight down onto the tree, landing on all fours. The cat sailed right over its prey and flew by, hissing and scratching at the air. Excaliber slammed its head back up, pushing at the same time with all four legs. The effect was as if the mountain lion had been propelled from a slingshot. It shot forward clawing at air and sailed right off the side of the tree and into the boiling waters. The furious predator splashed around in the frothing river in a rage of screeches and slashing claws. But by the time the killer got itself turned around and started toward the floating tree it was too late. Excaliber and Stone watched as the mountain cat paddled frantically behind them with an angry and forlorn look on its whiskered face—its fucking tree had not only been taken over by invaders, but it as well had been unceremoniously booted out. Just as the creature disappeared in the mists that rose above the river, Stone saw that it managed to crawl onto a smaller but nonetheless seaworthy log.

  “Good dog,” Stone said, staring back at the pit bull, which had turned and was looking at him with a most contented expression on its face, its tail wagging around like a cobra on acid.

  “Son of a bitch, but you know how to fight, don’t you, dog?” Stone said, leaning over and giving the sopping wet head a hard rub. “If this was the old days you could open a chain of self-defense franchises for dogs and make millions. Too bad you’ll have to be resigned to a life of poverty like your traveling companion here.” But if the animal had any monetary worries it kept them to itself, and just stared back at Stone with its unfathomable dark eyes, wagging its tail back and forth in simple but total zen joy at the defeat of its enemy.

  Stone got to savor the removal of the mountain cat for only about thirty seconds, for suddenly they were in the midst of churning rapids that made the rough waters they had already been through look like a pond. Everywhere around them the world was white with foam and spitting funnels of water that smashed together rising ten, twenty feet into the air then crashing back down right on top of them. It was as if they were going through a car wash—one that was trying to kill them. Stone did all he could to hang on to the wet tree trunk as sheets of water came cascading over him. The tree rocked and jumped and flew around like a piece of balsa wood as even its tremendous weight was really just a tiny speck when it came to an angry mother nature and the power that flowed from even the merest of her temper tantrums.

  Suddenly they hit a tremendous wave, a good thirty feet high. The entire spruce flew up out of the water, countless tons of it. For a split second Stone could see above the mist and spray on the surface of the river and ahead—to a washing machine of white water. Not that he was going to get to see much of it. For the tree came down like an elephant jumping into a tub and sent out a splash as high as the wave that had tossed it. Stone felt himself flying off the thing, just rising up as in a dream and gliding off at an angle. Then he was in the water and everything was just a blur of foam and mouthfuls of water and fear, terrible fear, for he didn’t want to drown. Not this way, sucking in mouthfuls of water, the lungs exploding.

  Blindly he swam, just trying to keep himself afloat, not even heading in any direction. Suddenly he felt himself pulled straight under as if a giant hand had grabbed him and yanked him right down. He was buffeted around at all crazy angles, pulled first this way and then that, like a child playing with his toy ship and constantly ripping neurotically at the controls as he couldn’t make up his mind which direction he wanted the toy to go in.

  Then he was nothing but animal consciousness, flailing around in a world where he couldn’t grab hold of anything, which jus
t spun and spun and seemed to pull him down ever deeper into a vortex of darkness. And just when he knew he was dead, that he had reached bottom and there was no further to go, Stone felt something pulling at him. For a split second, in his half-delirious drowning state, he thought it was giant snakes, a childhood fear suddenly dredged up out of the terrors of imminent termination. He struck out at the grasping snakes, trying to dislodge them from his body.

  Suddenly he was sucking in air and realized he wasn’t even in the water but up on land and that he could breathe. But when he opened his eyes Stone saw the meanest-looking bunch of dudes he had ever laid eyes on, and every broken-toothed, scarred face was streaked with garish stripes of reds, greens, and yellows in sharp, nasty-looking patterns. It was a fucking Indian war party. And Martin Stone was General Custer.

  CHAPTER

  Six

  STONE half expected one of the Indian warriors to say, “Now you die, paleface.” Instead, the nearest of the braves standing in a semicircle around him, with a face painted in jagged red and yellow dayglow stripes, spoke up.

  “White asshole, you look like shit.” The other Indians stared hard, their mouths twisted into grimaces within their warpainted faces. They were all powerful-looking men stripped to their waists in animal hide pants, carrying only traditional Indian weaponry—bows and tomahawks—though the latter were made from hammered-down meat cleavers, Stone noticed as his head began clearing slightly.

  “You could say that again,” Stone grinned, rubbing his head where he must have taken a hit from one of the rocks when he took his little water ride. “Did you… guys”—Stone faltered for a second, not sure what the hell to call them—“save me?”

  “Save you?” The brave who stood above him looking down as if from a towering height laughed. “No, white man, we just pulled you from the river. Pulled you from one grave into another. You’ll most likely die now that you’ve stumbled onto our world. That will be up to Chief Buffalo Breaker, he with fists that can kill buffalo, Hwanata—my father.”

  At least they weren’t going to bleed him on the spot, Stone thought, though it was little enough comfort. From the way the half dozen or so men of bronzed muscle stared at him, their dark eyes peering through those nightmarish painted faces of stripes and jagged lines, with wolves and serpents drawn in brilliant colors all over their bodies, from the way those faces looked at him with purest malevolence in them as if they could imagine nothing more enjoyable than ripping his heart right out of his chest at that moment, it didn’t look promising. But even savages have moral codes by which they live. Or at least these did.

  “Sounds like fun,” Stone said, trying to rise. Suddenly there was a commotion about fifty feet down the sandy shore and they all turned, reaching for various knives and tomahawks. An Indian that Stone hadn’t seen was backing away from the water and toward the group surrounding Stone. And coming toward him walking in a crouch with its teeth snarling and its body so completely drenched with muddy water that it looked like some sort of aquatic rat that wasn’t having very good luck was Excaliber. As the brave retreated, his red skin turning a much whiter shade, he reached for a long blade at his side. But somehow he didn’t seem particularly interested in trying to use it. The dog looked like it had just jumped up from hell itself, so fierce were its almond eyes, absolutely bearing down on the Indian.

  “Dog!” Stone screamed with something approaching joy. He hadn’t even had time to wonder about the dog, and if he had, doubtless he would have been sure it was dead. But Wonderdog, albeit looking like refried shit, had made it through the watery gauntlet. The rest of the braves tried not to look uptight, keeping their lips as hard as cast iron, but in their flashing eyes Stone could see fear. For some reason the dog seemed to scare the shit out of them, way beyond its physical threat.

  “That… your dog?” the brave who had been speaking to Stone asked, with a dash more respect suddenly in his eyes.

  “Like I tell everyone,” Stone smirked, “we travel together but he’s his own animal.” To say the least, he added under his breath. Excaliber kept coming forward in that low crouch like a wolf, as if ready to spring off those overmuscled legs at any second and launch right at the throat of the green-faced brave who, still walking backwards one careful and slow step at a time, had reached the rest of his band.

  “Call him off, call him off,” the chief’s son demanded nervously as he too whipped out a long machetelike implement. “Don’t want to have to kill.” The brave seemed almost desperate, and Stone could see that Excaliber had some strange effect on the Indians way beyond his menacing stance. The steely frames and scarred bodies of the Indians attested to their toughness, but the quotient of stark fear in their eyes was more like what a man might have of a charging grizzly like the one Stone had faced, than of a dog. But perhaps he could use all this to his advantage. If only he knew what the hell was going on.

  “Excaliber,” Stone called out, slapping his hands together. The clap caught the pit bull’s attention like a bomb, and the dog’s ears ripped around toward the source of the sound.

  The instant the animal saw Stone its whole body relaxed, and it rose up higher on all fours and trotted happily over like nothing was going on whatsoever. Once it had jumped up against Stone’s chest to sniff him and make sure that he actually was the Chow Boy and not some imposter, the animal dropped back down on all fours and turned with a happy tongue-hanging look toward the Indians. Excaliber barked twice, but this time in more friendly fashion as if to say, hey who the hell are you guys? Any friend of Chow Boy’s is a pal of mine!

  But the braves’ demeanor hardly changed; their eyes still wide, they were still backing away, not really wanting to get too close. Something was getting to them. Stone wished he’d paid more attention to his “Primitive gods” lecture in anthropology back in college. Dogs, dogs—what the hell did they represent to a bunch of lost Indians?

  “You—you come with us,” the brave addressed Stone, but much more haltingly now, unsure of himself. “Me, Cracking Elk, son of Buffalo Breaker. Take you to chief. He must decide.” The brave glanced over at the dog as flickers of fear raced across his features like a swarm of bugs. “You can control dog from biting?” Cracking Elk asked with a little contemptuous grin as if he really didn’t care about it much one way or another.

  “Sure,” Stone lied, knowing that though the pit bull had certainly helped him on numerous occasions when the shit had hit the fan, making it attack or hold back was a different matter. “Yeah, he’ll do pretty much what I say, right, pal,” Stone said, leaning over to scratch the animal behind the ears. Only problem was he had forgotten for a moment that his right leg was cracked like a child’s old toy, and as he shifted his weight onto the wounded leg, a bolt of pain shot up through his nervous system and he tumbled to the ground, like a scarecrow fallen from its perch, and crashed straight down onto the sand.

  The only good thing about the stone-faced stoicism of Indians Stone decided at that moment was that though they didn’t act too friendly, they also didn’t laugh at the asshole sprawled below them on the ground. Stone didn’t like this being wounded business, it made him feel much too vulnerable.

  “Here,” Cracking Elk said without expression, handing him a stick to use as a crutch. The one Stone had used before no doubtless had been ground into toothpicks floating twenty miles downriver.

  “Thanks,” Stone said, trying to look into the brave’s eyes with an offer of friendship. But the chief’s son would have none of that, and he looked away coldly. Stone knew he had no choice but to go with them. If he’d had his firearms it would have been different story. But without the slightest weapon, even with the dog on his side, he would be slaughtered by this crew. He’d just have to play it by ear and try to find out fast why the red men feared Excaliber so.

  The Indians led him off into the woods that ran alongside the river. Here the solid land between riverbank and the towering mountains that followed along was nearly half a mile, so there was plenty of
forest and wildlife, which Stone could hear scampering around in the distance. Cracking Elk and two others led and the rest followed behind Stone, escorting him along like a prisoner of war. They kept a wary eye on him, hands resting on their stabbers, as if Stone was about to make a running one-legged dash off into the shrubbery. As he stumbled along trying to get used to walking with just one appendage, Stone got the chance to look closer at their painted bodies. They were a strange breed. The things they had adorned themselves with were a bizarre mix of modern and ancient. Beads and wolf teeth were worn around necks but on some feet Stone saw beat-up old tennis sneakers. Several of the braves wore leather thongs around their waists to hold up their buffalo or buckskin pants, but again Stone noticed that two of them had mass-produced belts, one a black patent leather number, the other some sort of silvery rippling thing like a disco belt. The contrast of different accessories was quite striking. But Stone knew better than to criticize a murderous band of Indians’ dress habits.

  They led him on twisting, hardly noticeable paths through the thick woods. The sky had lightened from very dark to a slate gray, the rain at last diminishing to just a thin spray. It was hard to see his way and Stone kept nearly falling, having to wobble along on one leg, and, to make matters worse, the pit bull kept winding back and forth all around him so that the damned creature kept tripping him up. Excaliber, assuming the Indians were friends, felt playful and kept looking up at Stone as if to say, “Well, aren’t we all having a good time?” The Indians stayed clear of the pit bull, which seemed to hurt the animal’s feelings. Whenever it drew close to one of them in playful jumps, they would back off. Again Stone saw that same peculiar and deep fear in every man’s eyes.