Standing now, staring at the slithering roil, his legs refused to move.
Then he was struck from behind. “Get inside!” Ndaye shouted and shoved him into the room.
Benjie gasped and wailed. He fought to keep his footing, lifting both arms high. Snakes writhed around his waist. His vision narrowed. A ringing rose in his ears.
Ndaye waded in with his rifle, followed by the small kid with a backpack; Benjie didn’t yet know his name.
“No be scared,” the boy scolded him. He picked up one of the snakes, which coiled in his grip, and threw it aside. “Chatu.”
“Faraji’s right,” Ndaye assured him, crossing through the roiling mass. “They’re Calabaria reinhardtii. The Calabar python. Nonvenomous.”
Benjie didn’t care and kept his hands high. He squeezed his eyes closed and fought against his terror with facts. He pulled up what he knew about the species, relying on his memory. Calabar pythons rarely grew longer than a meter. Named after a Danish herpetologist, Johannes Reinhardt. They were found throughout the rain forest and were fossorial, which meant they lived in burrows, usually in leaf litter . . .
He peeked his lids open enough to gaze at the stirring spread. He noted most of the snakes were juvenile and small, only as long as his forearm.
Their riverside nests must have been flooded out.
He forced his breathing to calm but refused to lower his limbs.
Still, the snakes were not the true danger here. Benjie stared toward the doorway guarded by Ndaye and his rifle. It had grown silent out there. Then something struck the corrugated steel roof with a loud bang, which made him jump.
Another shape hit.
Then another.
A soft hooting and barking rose from atop the roof.
Ndaye lifted a finger to his lips as they all stared up.
More shapes piled onto the roof, clambering about. Strong fingers pried at the corners of the corrugated steel. Then suddenly a shape swung down from above, hanging by an arm from the lintel of the doorway. It caught Ndaye off guard. Strong legs struck outward and knocked the rifle from the guard’s hands. The weapon splashed into the water and sank.
The baboon—a hundred-pound male—swung back again. It bared huge canine teeth and prepared to leap at Ndaye.
Then the boy, Faraji, sidestepped the tall man. He swung his arm. A two-foot-long snake flew from his hand. It writhed through the air and struck the baboon around the neck, half-wrapping around its new purchase.
A scream ripped out of the beast, deafening in the small space.
The baboon crashed heavily into the water as Ndaye dove to the side. The male clawed at the clinging snake, its eyes round with panic. Then it seemed to recognize all the snakes surrounding it. It screeched, leaped high, then thrashed out of the room. It splashed heavily away, trailing a cry of terror.
Benjie glanced to the boy.
“Nyani no like snake.” Faraji pointed at him. “Be scared like you.”
Benjie fought against a spasm of rapid blinking. Only now did he recall how baboons had an innate terror of snakes. With all the venomous species out in the jungle, such a fear made sense from a survival standpoint. The inbred terror was likely passed from generation to generation, imbued into their code after millennia of encounters. Behavioral research in humans attested to a similar inheritable terror. Our natural distaste for snakes and spiders was likely a survival mechanism cemented into our code from past venomous exposures.
Benjie’s own thesis tangentially dealt with this subject, on the inheritability of stress-induced mutations. Only this night’s stress was just beginning.
The panic of the fleeing baboon had not scared off the troop above. They screamed and ripped at the roof. A huge section of the steel bent and tore loose, raining nails down into the water. Dark shadows filled the gap.
Ndaye frantically searched the waters for his rifle. Even if he found it, the waterlogged weapon would prove too little, too late.
Benjie stared up.
We’re not getting out of here.
11:34 P.M.
“They’re almost through . . .” Jameson moaned.
Charlotte cringed as Kendi fired blindly up at the roof. Thatch rained down on them. Not from the shooting, but from the digging above. Hooting and barks answered the rifle fire. A body splashed heavily out into the water, maybe hit by a stray shot. Still, the death did not discourage the other hunters.
Jameson had his back pressed to the door, bracing it closed. Byrne slumped atop his stool, held in place by Charlotte’s hand. Disanka kept to her corner, gripping her son, who wailed at the gunfire.
Charlotte’s ears rang, too.
Kendi lowered his rifle, perhaps recognizing the futility or saving his ammunition. He cocked his head, then stared up. “Listen. I think they’ve stopped.”
Charlotte gazed toward the roof. A few strands of palm thatch fluttered down, brushing her cheek, but Kendi was right. The rustling and shaking up there had stopped.
Why did they—
Then she heard it, first in her chest, then with her ears. A low thump-thumping.
A helicopter . . .
The baboons above screeched and bounded off the thatch and clattered across the rooftops toward shore. The bell-beat of the aircraft grew louder, growing deafening.
Jameson cringed and pulled the door open a crack. She joined him, leaving Byrne balanced on his stool.
The wash of rotors swept across their village, pounding thatch from the roof as it passed overhead. A brilliant blaze of light lit the waters around them, then continued toward shore, hopefully chasing the baboons even farther away.
Jameson pulled the door wider. He still shook, but now likely with relief. “Maybe my radio call reached someone after all.”
The large-bellied helicopter looked like a shining angel, brightly lit, sweeping to a hover as it reached the shore. Its landing gear lowered toward the ground. Before it even touched down, dark shapes piled out of both sides. A taller man in a camo uniform jumped down and positioned himself in a bright spotlight. He raised a bullhorn, to be heard above the engine’s roar.
He hollered in French. Just the familiarity of her native tongue welled tears in Charlotte’s eyes. “Search the camp!” he bellowed out. “Secure any medical personnel. We can’t stay long!”
A crackle of lightning burst across the underside of the black clouds, reminding them all of the threatening storm about to break.
Jameson hauled the door open. “Hurry,” he called back to their group, then set off on his own.
Charlotte returned to Byrne and looked at Kendi. “I’m going to need help getting him to shore.”
The guard obliged, shouldering up to one side of the nurse. Charlotte supported the other. Byrne tried to help, but his legs wobbled uncontrollably. He finally gave up and simply hung between them.
They exited the small hut and waded through the waters. Disanka followed with her boy. Charlotte continued to watch the rooflines for any further threat. She strained for any warning hoot or loud bark, but the helicopter’s engines drowned out nearly everything.
Still, she heard Jameson shout ahead of them, already on dry land. “Over here! We’re over here! We have injured and sick!”
Charlotte shook her head at his claim.
More like, I have them.
She slogged toward the light and noise. Even before she reached the shore, men appeared. They splashed and waded to her. They scooped Byrne, took the burden from her, and rushed away. As she followed, other soldiers escorted them, rifles raised all around.