A Hunter
Watt stood on skeletons.
“We can make camp here,” Severino said, voice thin.
He turned in a slow circle, studying the surrounding patch of land.
The last place that Colonel Percy Fawcett was seen alive.
The last place they could be seen alive.
Severino generally did not take this route to the archaeological site from the Post, it was more of a round about way that took them through marsh land that was currently sparse and barren during the dry season.
Watt exchanged a glance with Cornelius, whose face was drawn and skin ashen.
Haunted. Cornelius tried to smile at his attention, but it was tight and looked damn near painful.
Was he in pain? Or just tense? He'd been struggling ever since they left the Post, and their mules behind.
They would be rendered inefficient in the upcoming terrain, and there was no way to care for them at the site, so they'd been left as gifts.
Cornelius looked away, busying himself with withdrawing his camera from its case.
As he began to take pictures of the area, Severino approached Watt and the unflappable Ant?nio.
“Will there be more opportunities, do you think?” Severino asked Ant?nio. Technically they were still in Bacairy territory, which he was more familiar with.
Ant?nio nodded, and Watt's shoulders relaxed. “It is grassland for a mile or two, then we meet the basin. That will be good.”
“Do we want to try for that then?” Severino asked Watt and Cornelius.
“Yes,” Watt said, a hand stroking down Maggie's back. She panted, ears alert but eyes calm.
“Yes,” Cornelius echoed, but his attention was on his camera, or more specifically the viewfinder. “Let me take a few pictures first.”
Severino ran a hand through his hair and blew out a breath. He muttered, “This place feels strange, no?”
“Wasn’t it you who spoke of feeling power in places?”
“Certo.”
“Well, there you have it.”
A moment passed, during which they watched Cornelius take photos of seemingly nothing important.
The trees. The grassy area where a camp could’ve been made.
A bird, some kind of green parrot with a yellow face.
Too bad the film wouldn’t be able to capture the different shades.
Ant?nio wandered over to Cornelius, his curiosity getting the better of him.
At his approach, Cornelius lifted his head and asked if he wanted to try it.
Ant?nio nodded, so Cornelius demonstrated how to do it before handing the camera over.
They weren't that far away, so Watt listened as Cornelius explained the specifications of the camera.
Watt practically had them memorized, for all the times that Cornelius had recited it.
A Kodak Eastman, Autographic. It was an autographic edition because of the little flap that allowed you to write directly on the film. It made him smile, watching them.
“Or … ” Watt began slowly. “Places only hold the power we give them.”
Severino considered that. He elbowed Watt and said, “You know, you have more wisdom in you than you let on.”
Watt chuckled. “I don’t know about that.”
Cornelius and Ant?nio joined them, the camera now tucked away into its case. “Don’t know about what?”
“That he's a smart one.” Severino jutted a thumb at Watt.
“Of course he is,” Cornelius said without missing a beat, brows slightly pinched in confusion.
Watt flushed from his cheeks to the tips of his toes. He coughed and said, “Let’s go.”
With Severino leading the way, Cornelius and Watt in the middle, and Ant?nio in the rear, they continued on.
Maggie easily kept pace beside Watt, ears perked and tail curled.
Conversation was sparse, allowing the noise of the swelling insects to thicken the air.
Watt constantly fended them off, while they hardly seemed to bother Cornelius.
The proof lay in the nasty bites along the back of his neck, behind his ears, and somehow there was a real angry one in his armpit.
He hadn’t told Cornelius about that one, the man was already worried about the ones that were visible.
He wanted to itch at it so badly, and caught himself rubbing his arm against his side in a vain effort to do so. After an hour or so of this, Cornelius called, “Doing alright there Watt?”
“Fine,” Watt said, perhaps a bit too quickly.
Cornelius said nothing in response, at least nothing that Watt could hear.
The man was notorious for cursing Watt out under his breath.
Once his walls were broken, Cornelius was a worrier, especially when it came to Watt.
Ever since leaving Cuiabá, he frequently asked each person in the group after their physical condition, whether they had any sores or bites, how they were feeling.
He was the one to make sure everyone had eaten and hydrated properly in the mornings before heading out, and in the evenings before turning in.
He didn’t ask Watt so much as interrogate and manhandle him, evaluating every inch of exposed skin in search of abnormalities that needed treatment.
It was he who treated all of Watt’s bites and strictly informed him not to itch.
Cornelius was particularly bossy when taking care of Watt, but he couldn’t say that he minded it.
What he did mind was Cornelius touching his side, fingers to bare skin.
The thought of it alone had an anonymous shiver going down Watt’s spine.
It was simply care, tending to a friend, but there was an aspect to it that Watt could not name, one he was not ready to explore.
No, he didn’t need Cornelius to do that for him.
He could take care of himself. He could.
As the sun retreated, so did the cerrado.
The gallery forests expanded until there was hardly any dry grassland between them, the canopies overwhelming and great.
By the time dusk arrived, they’d found what Ant?nio said was the last clearing for some time.
Ahead lay a dense treeline and thickening ground vegetation.
Watt glanced back the way they’d come. They could still go back.
Dead Horse Camp wasn’t the place of no return. This was.
The four men quickly put together a camp, stringing hammocks between some outlying trees close to the woodline.
There was a small and steady stream nearby, so Severino built a small fire and Cornelius boiled water over it in order to fill their canteens later.
Watt walked with Maggie and Ant?nio in hopes of scaring something out of the low vegetation near the stream.
They had plenty of food from the Post, but it would be several weeks before they reached the dig site.
Best to live off the land best they could, and supplement only when they needed to.
A few feet ahead of him and Ant?nio, Maggie made a noise low in her throat, body stiffening. Watt followed her gaze into an area overrun with ferns. Could be anything under there. A snake, an armadillo or tapir, or—
A pack of peccary burst out from the bush, charging at Maggie with canines gnashing and wiry black fur raised high on their backs.
Their white faces were streaked with mud, as was the rest of their bodies.
Maggie growled, body coiling in preparation to lunge.
Watt shouted and fired a shot, taking the wild animal down before it could thrash her.
It went down with a great squeal, but Watt hadn’t the time to make sure it was dead as another one charged at Ant?nio.
Ant?nio had his own gun at the ready, and he shot the animal square between the eyes.
It screamed even louder than the first, and the rest of the pack scattered in fear.
For a second or two they simply stood there, chests heaving.
Finally, Ant?nio said, “Leave it to the gringo to be scared by a pack of queixada.”
Watt laughed, although there wasn’t quite enough air in his lungs to do so. “You were too.”
“You scared me!” Ant?nio snapped, but he was grinning.
Guided by Ant?nio as he worked his own kill, Watt made quick work of butchering the animal.
There was a scent gland on the peccary that Ant?nio insisted they remove before anything else.
Situated on the hindquarters, it was hard to miss the area of skin that was not unlike a human breast and generally used to mark trees.
Using a wide berth and many reminders from Ant?nio not to puncture the gland, he cut a large circle through the tough hide and removed it.
Ant?nio uncapped his canteen of water, instructing Watt to rinse his hands before he did the same.
The smell was God awful, and soap would’ve been greatly appreciated, but after rinsing most of the smell came off their hands.
Watt didn’t want to know what it would’ve been like if they had punctured the gland itself.
They found a suitable tree to hang their peccary from, using rope secured around the hind legs.
Each weighed likely no more than forty pounds, but it was dead weight and Watt was tired.
Once they were hung, it was business as usual.
While the anatomy was slightly different, gutting an animal was more or less the same.
Out with the entrails and anything else that could spoil the meat.
He made several incisions around the legs and belly in order to cape the animal.
He pulled downwards on the hide until reaching the base of the neck, leaving the flesh beneath exposed.
He removed the hide in a single, satisfying piece.
“You are a hunter?” Ant?nio asked, watching him curiously.
His English was intentional and heavily accented.
He was a quick study, and had learned enough to ask questions, which he did often.
He’d removed the hide from his own animal at this point, and his arms were just as bloody as Watt’s, up to the elbows.