Blood And Bones Read online

  Johnny yelled, “Watch out!”

  Something smashed me in the back of the head.

  Everything went black.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Prisoners of Love

  The sound of a voice, a soft voice, was in my ear. It spoke to me, murmured to me, soft nothing words that ... I had no idea what the hell they meant.

  Hands stroked my head, my face, softly soothing me.

  The voice whispered, “Sho-sho-sho-sho-sho-she-nee. Sho-sho-sho-sho-sho-she-nee.”

  I heard Johnny’s voice, “Girl, why don’t you leave him the fuck alone. He’s in enough pain without you climbing your big ass on top of him!”

  I opened my eyes.

  A big brown head with big brown eyes and a bone stuck through its nose was leaning down and peering into my face.

  At the opening of my eyes the thing leaning down in my face uttered an astonished, “Oooooo!”

  The breath that issued from that mouth was rancid. It held the smell of rotten meat. It burned my eyes and made me cough.

  “Jesus fucking Christ!” I said and sitting up slid back away from the huge woman that was hovering over me.

  This woman was BIG. Standing at around six feet tall she tipped the scales at somewhere around four hundred and fifty pounds. Aunt Jemima didn’t have shit on this girl.

  Her being big wasn’t the only thing freaky about this girl either. She had tattoos all over her face, weird little pictures of snakes and spiders carved into her skin. Her hair was tied on top of her head in some kind of a strange bee-hive type thing with a combination of bones and wild flowers.

  This girl looked like she was ready for a night out on the town ... on the Planet of the Apes.

  And it looked like she had a crush on me.

  She held her arms out and cooed to me, “Shoo, shoo ...”

  “Yeah, shoo the fuck away from me,” I told her sliding backward on the dirt floor.

  She stood all the way up then and placing her hands on her hips she grinned at me and winked. Her teeth were filed down to sharp points.

  With a giggle she now turned and skipped away.

  “Dam, that girl’s in love,” Johnny told me.

  “Well if love’s blind, I sure as hell wish I was,” I told him.

  Now without this tribe’s beauty queen in my face I had a chance to see where we were.

  We were in a cave, a large cave.

  The cave was somewhere around fifty feet across and it was shaped something like an upside down bowl. Because of the dome shape I was guessing this was not a natural cave but something that had been carved out of the side of a hill.

  I saw all of this because of a campfire built in the center of the floor that threw flickering light all around the chamber.

  Two warriors with spears stood guard inside the doorway watching as the big girl fawned over me. They moved aside as she skipped out of the chamber.

  I looked over at Johnny. Just like me he was sitting up and had his hands tied behind his back.

  I asked him, “What the hell happened back there?”

  He answered, “When you were busy playing stick-fight with those two guys the other one ran around to the side, grabbed a rock and raised a lump on your head.”

  “Why didn’t you kick their asses when you got down?”

  “Because by the time I did get down there were ten of them there. I didn’t feel like being the neighborhood pin cushion so I did what they wanted me to.”

  The entrance to this cave was a hole in the wall about four feet high and three feet wide. Light shone in from outside.

  The light was blacked out and a bulk squeezed through. When the bulk stood up I saw it was that guy we’d seen ordering the warriors to slice open the prisoner.

  He grinned at us and laughed.

  I glanced at Johnny and he knew exactly what I was thinking.

  “I wonder if they’re gonna drag us outside and do us like that other guy,” he asked me.

  “That wouldn’t surprise me one bit,” I told him.

  “If they think they’re gonna get me to beg like that other guy,” he said. “They can fuck off and die.”

  “The same here bro,” I agreed.

  The light at the exit was blocked off again and another huge bulk pressed its way in through the doorway.

  When it climbed up off its knees, stood up and dusted itself off Johnny exclaimed, “I don’t fucking believe it. Where do they find these girls?”

  It was another of the massive mammoth women. She weighed at least as much as the other girl and had a head of hair that was teased out and stiff and looked something like the hairdo the Bride of Frankenstein wore.

  At the first sight of Johnny this woman broke into a huge grin. Her teeth were sawed to points too.

  She shouted, “OOOooeeeee!” and ran toward Johnny with her arms out in front of her.

  “Oh hell no!” Johnny yelled.

  The big girl tripped and fell right on top of him. Dust flew into the air as Johnny vanished underneath her.

  “Are you alive bro?” I shouted and only a muted, “Mmm, mm, mm, mm,” came back to me.

  Then the woman rolled off him and grabbed Johnny by the head picking him up in her hands and cooing, “OOOoooeeeee, OOOoooeee.” She started showering him with kisses all over his face.

  With his hands tied behind him Johnny couldn’t do a dam thing to stop this form of torture.

  “Son-of-a-bitch!” Johnny yelled. “Fuck! I think I’m ready to beg for mercy now!”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Sisters That Raise Blisters!

  Yeah, for Johnny that girl was a fate worse than death. And coming right in behind her through the cave entrance was the big girl who had the hots for me. She squeezed through, then stood up and stepped to the side of the Big Chief.

  Now, with them side by side the family resemblance was obvious.

  This girl was the Chief’s Daughter. Both of these women were the Chief’s Daughters.

  He stood with his hands on his hips looking from me to Johnny, who was still being slobbered over, then back to me again. The expression on his face was stern to say the least.

  One sharply barked word from this guy got the girl off Johnny.

  She went to the Chief and grabbed his arm and laid her head on his shoulder and cooed out some words.

  The Chief’s lips curled into a crooked smile.

  This was a father with two daughters who had crushes. The problem was the crush they had would put the crush on us.

  The Chief peered into each of our eyes. His gaze was intensity itself. He wanted to make certain that we understood that he meant business when he said, “Shoo-nee. Who-nah!” And one of the warriors guarding the entrance came and pulling a bone knife he squatted down beside us. Then he cut the ropes that bound our hands.

  When my hands were free I flexed my arms to loosen them and stood up.

  Johnny stood up.

  The Chief stepped to us standing just a few feet away. He looked us up and down carefully like he was inspecting livestock.

  The Chief suddenly grinned. He had some of those fucked-up pointy-ass teeth too. The points were white. All the rest were black.

  I grinned back at him.

  He hocked then spit some phlegm into his palm and slapped in to my forehead. It was so sudden that I stepped back saying, “Dam! That is fucking nasty.” and wiped the slime from my face.

  As I doubled my fist up to repay the favor, the Chief stepped in front of Johnny and did the same thing to him.

  Johnny stepped back too and wiping the phlegm away said, “Thanks a whole hell-of-a lot.”

  The Chief motioned for us to follow him, and then with his daughters he ducked through the doorway and went outside. Since there was only one way in or out we didn’t really have a choice.

  Me and Johnny looked at each other and we both shrugged simultaneously.

  “I guess I’ll go first,” I told him and stepped outside.

  Just as I was sti
cking my head out of the cave’s entrance two guys passed in front of me carrying a butchered boar tied stretched out on a pole. They moved to a fire at a little distance away where there was a set-up like a primitive barbecue pit.

  I stepped all the way out.

  It was night time. A full moon threw down silver light from overhead.

  This was a different clearing from the one where we’d seen the guy sliced and diced. This clearing had a cliff face on one side with numerous caves and some mud huts scattered around it.

  There was a large bon fire blazing. Guys were dancing around the fire swinging their spears and knives and jumping through the air like they had bugs up the ass. A drummer was pounding on his drum for all he was worth.

  The boy’s musical talent wasn’t worth shit. He couldn’t keep a rhythm to save his life. But that didn’t matter one bit to the guys cutting a rug around that fire. They’d have danced to any dam thing.

  Johnny came out and stood beside me.

  We took a good long look around.

  Around the edge of the camp guards were posted. From where we stood I could see at least six guys standing back in the shadows holding spears at the ready.

  The Chief and his two goggling daughters watched the dancing for a moment or two then he pointed at a log that was lying between two cave entrances. We were prodded at spear point to go and set down on the log.

  The two daughters came and sat down beside Johnny and me. Johnny’s grabbed his arm, began stroking it and started cooing in his ear. Mine sat down beside me threw her arm around my back and laid her head on my shoulder.

  Her hair smelled like bacon grease.

  The guards were watching us very closely.

  I spoke to Johnny slowly now as my big girl fiddled with my ear.

  “We best just play along with this,” I told him. “I get the feeling if we piss these girls off the Chief is gonna make what happened to that other guy seem like a walk in the park.”

  “That’s probably a good idea,” he agreed. “But I tell you what, when this girl wants to bump uglies, I’m gonna become the shyest virgin in the convent.”

  The Chief now turned his back to us. He clapped his hands together and all the dancers froze.

  He shouted, “Ka-Ra, He-Na. Ka-Ra!”

  The drums started again.

  A group of young athletic native girls ran out from one of the caves and started gyrating to the drum beat.

  Johnny said, “Dam, why couldn’t they hook us up with a couple of those babes?”

  A few warriors carried out what looked to be a throne made of bamboo.

  The Chief plopped himself down. A stone bottle was brought along with mugs made from coconuts. We were handed the mugs and they were filled.

  The liquor in that mug was a home brew that was so strong that at first taste it took your breath away.

  When Johnny tasted it he went, “God-Dam boy! I had a Great Uncle that brewed some shit like this and they hung him.”

  “The cops caught him?” I asked.

  “No, it was his friends that hung him.” He said. “That was some rot-gut shit that he made. Half of the town went blind from it.”

  But we drank the native’s moonshine anyway.

  It burned as it went down.

  We watched the dancers, tried to smile and put up with being prisoners of love.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Barbecue

  After just a few minutes a few other guys carried a squat knee-high long table and sat it in front of us. A moment later a wide selection of fruits were loaded onto the table.

  We watched the table being piled with food and as soon as it was stacked up the Chief pointed at us then pointed at the table and barked, “Soo-Ee! Soo-Ee!”

  “I think he wants us to eat,” Johnny said.

  “Well, fuck-it. Why not?” I said, grabbed a banana, peeled it and dove in. We started eating. The Chief started eating. His daughters started eating too. One thing I can definitely say as I watched the two girls go at the food in front of us was that the Chief, me and Johnny were amateurs when it came to putting the food down compared to those girls.

  They’d have a peeled banana in one hand and a thing that looked like a papaya in the other and while grunting and slobbering they’d bite and swallow back and forth from hand to hand so fast I was beginning to wonder how the hell they didn’t bite off and swallow fingers.

  It was like these girls were in some kind of an eating contest on ESPN or something. For these piglets it was time for a feeding frenzy.

  The Chief noticed that we were watching the girls throw a mean crunch and smiled at us like he was real proud of the display they were putting on. I guess he was. In a primitive tribe like this where food could get scarce at any moment, probably without any warning, heavy eating was an asset.

  I just smiled back at the Chief.

  “Yeah, these are some real fine little girls here,” I told him.

  He beamed like the proud father that he was.

  Johnny looked at me.

  “We are some lucky mother-fuckers aren’t we,” he said and smiled with every word that he spoke.

  As we ate the dancing girls twirled around in front of the table shaking like they were coming out of ice cold water, jiggling everything they had.

  Three of them stopped in front of us and bent over and we found out that on this island they didn’t know what the hell panties were.

  “Jesus Christ,” Johnny said when this happened. “I’d advise you to brush your fruit off before you eat it. I know I saw at least a few crusties fly.”

  They left then and the main course was brought.

  The fruits were cleared from the table and a moment or two later two warriors carried over, spitted on two spears the charred side of meat from a large animal. The meat was greasy and still sizzling as they placed it on the table.

  I looked at the meat and thought, well it’s a bit overcooked and I don’t have any barbecue sauce but it should be alright.

  Johnny looked at the meat and whispered to me, “Oh man, I don’t know if I can do this. I mean, we saw them slicing up a guy, now they bring this out.”

  He discretely pointed at some gashes that were cut diagonally in the rib-bones lying in front of us.

  Johnny was looking a little green around the gills as he went on. “I think I saw when those cuts were made.”

  One of the warriors started slicing into the meat with a bone knife.

  Johnny watched this with a sense of horror. He had a look on his face like he was going to toss his cookies.

  The warrior cut a piece of the fatty meat loose and handed a chunk to me.

  I took it and glancing at Johnny said, “Bro, I can eat any dam thing when I need to,” and took a big bite.

  Johnny gulped and I could tell he was fighting hard to keep from spewing his stomach.

  The warrior cut another piece and held it out to Johnny.

  Johnny stared at the meat.

  The Chief stopped eating and looked at us.

  I was sorely tempted to let Johnny keep suffering, to keep letting him think that this was the guy we’d seen sliced up. But with the Chief looking at us like that, I knew it was not a good idea.

  “It’s pork,” I told Johnny. “I saw them carry a butchered pig by before you came out of the cave.”

  Johnny took the meat and took a bite.

  “It’s not bad either,” he said. “Remind me to kick you in the ass later for fucking with my mind.”

  “You fucked with your own head,” I told him and sipped a little more of the native moonshine. I sipped because I was trying to keep a clear head.

  The rest of the tribe wasn’t sipping at all. There were downing that stuff fast.

  The natives were restless on that night. Of course the moonshine helped. They danced and whooped it up and all of them got looped.

  After this went on for maybe another two hours the Chief got up and walked to each of his daughters in turn and whispered something in
their ears.

  The Chief went to the girl on Johnny’s side first and talked to her. When he did, the girl nodded rapidly, grabbed Johnny’s arm and giggled like she was under a tickle attack.

  Johnny glanced at me.

  “I wish I knew what the fuck was up,” he said.

  Then the Chief went to the girl on my side who was smiling at me with those scary teeth of hers. He whispered in her ear and she nodded enthusiastically.

  She kissed my ear and leaning close said, “Oola-me ga. Oola, Oola.”

  Now the Chief stepped back and clapping his hands together he barked out an order, “Me ga! Me ga!”

  Two of the dancing girls strode up to the Chief. Each one of them had ropes of flowers braided together. Each rope was about a foot long and at each end there was a bracelet.

  The meaning of this ceremony was clear.

  “Oh shit!” I said to Johnny. “They’re gonna make us marry these big ass broads.”

  The Chief held out the ropes to Johnny and me, one in each hand.

  Solemnly he said, “Sungonnay!”

  And his head exploded.

  Book Two

  Blood And Guts

  And

  Salt Water

  Part One

  Skull And Cross Bones

  Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest,

  Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of Rum!

  Drink and the Devil had done for the rest,

  Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of Rum!

  ... Young E. Allison, 1891

  Chapter Nineteen

  A Nature Hike

  A loud CRACK filled the air and the Chief’s head exploded showering us with blood, brains, teeth, hair and eyeballs.

  More cracks and pops followed in rapid succession and several warriors frozen in surprise dropped in their tracks.

  Our two blushing brides-to-be screamed, jumped to their feet, and ran together into a cave entrance to the left of us.

  It only took a glance passed between Johnny and me to make me yell one thing, “Let’s get the fuck out of here!”