Books Of Blood VI by Barker Clive

Author:Barker, Clive [Barker, Clive]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, Horror, Collections
ISBN: 0722113757
Publisher: Sphere
Published: 1984-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Books of Blood VI

part of one wretched tribe - were impossible to decipher;

deceit was their only skill.

'What are you doing here?' he said. The sun was baking the back of his neck. 'This is our land.'

The boy still looked up at him. His almond eyes refused to fear.

'They don't understand you,' Cherrick said.

'Get the Kraut out here. Let him explain it to them.'

'He can't move.'

'Get him out here,' Locke said. 'I don't care if he's shat his pants.'

126Cherrick backed away down the track, leaving Locke standing in the ring of huts. He looked from doorway to doorway, from tree to tree, trying to estimate the numbers. There were at most three dozen Indians, two-

thirds of them women and children; descendants of the great peoples that had once roamed the Amazon Basin in their tens of thousands. Now those tribes were all but decimated. The forest in which they had prospered for generations was being levelled and burned; eight-lane highways were speeding through their hunting grounds.

All they held sacred - the wilderness and their place in its system - was being trampled and trespassed: they were exiles in their own land. But still they declined to pay homage to their new masters, despite the rifles they brought. Only death would convince them of defeat,

Locke mused.

Cherrick found Stumpf slumped in the front seat of the jeep, his pasty features more wretched than ever.

'Locke wants you,' he said, shaking the German out of his doze. 'The village is still occupied. You'll have to speak to them.'

Stumpf groaned. 'I can't move,' he said, Tm dying-'

'Locke wants you dead or alive,' Cherrick said. Their fear of Locke, which went unspoken, was perhaps one of the two things they had in common; that and greed.

'I feel awful,' Stumpf said.

'If I don't bring you, he'll only come himself,'

Cherrick pointed out. This was indisputable. Stumpf threw the other man a despairing glance, then nodded his jowly head. 'All right,' he said, 'help me.'

Cherrick had no wish to lay a hand onStumpf.

The man stank of his sickness; he seemed to be oozing the contents of his gut through his pores;

his skin had the lustre of rank meat. He took the outstretched hand nevertheless. Without aid, Stumpf would never make the hundred yards from jeep to compound.

Ahead, Locke was shouting.

'Get moving,' said Cherrick, hauling Stumpf down from the front seat and towards the bawling voice. 'Let's get it over and done with.'

When the two men returned into the circle of huts the scene had scarcely changed. Locke glanced around at Stumpf.

'We got trespassers,' he said.

'So I see,' Stumpf returned wearily.

'Tell them to get the fuck off our land,' Locke said.

'Tell them this is our territory: we bought it. Without sitting tenants.'

Stumpf nodded, not meeting Locke's rabid eyes.

Sometimes he hated the man almost as much as he hated himself.

'Go on . . .' Locke said, and gestured for Cherrick to relinquish his support of Stumpf. This he did.

The German stumbled forward, head bowed. He took several seconds to work out his patter, then raised his head and spoke a few wilting words in bad Portuguese.

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