In the mid-morning some black guards unwrapped the chain from the tree and looped it back through the cuffs with a padlock. They stood and walked Grayson over the lot inspecting him as they went and commenting on his gait and proposing probable tales of ancestry as if they were breeders at a track or cattlemen at an auction. The sky was overcast from one end of the valley to the other, but it was warm nonetheless and a charged alkaline taste hung in the air. His shirt clung to his back still wet with dew and sweat. As they walked, the guards prodded the purple, yellowing bruises and cuts from the handcuffs on his wrists. One gave a playful kick to his hip and whistled. They spoke in French but from the modulation and excitement in their voices, he could tell they had bet against him in whatever was coming. He could smell creek water and wildflowers carried on the currents rising from the valley and he thought about how sweet the water would taste and that its mere presence in the desert was a mystery that he didn’t understand.
They swung the chain and steered him to the edge of the lot where some dustcaked Humvees were parked. One of the Africans ran the chain through both of the tow hooks in the undercarriage to account for the slack and then snapped the padlock shut and shook it as he smiled to the others. Another of them tested it and then they walked off to the shade to smoke.
Across from him on this side of the lot, Denny sat on the rear bumper of his truck staring at him through his sunglasses. He stared back for a long time until Denny took a fancy pocket knife from the area of his waist and began to clean his fingernails. A half hour passed in the clearing with the camp noises of birds above and men going into the bushes and utensils being washed in tin cups at water stations. He counted forty breaths and stretched his back, side to side, to work out his hip. Guards moved slowly between posts and those off-duty began to collect themselves on the lot and others stood on the hillside in the leaden light. A stout white mercenary in full kit jogged up the trail with his rifle in one hand. Denny turned when he heard the footsteps and the jostle of gear and Grayson watched him as he rounded the tailgate smiling at Denny who also smiled. The mercenary kept coming straight at him unbuttoning his battle dress pants with one hand as he went. He came to a stop at Grayson’s boots with his business out and stood pissing on down in the dust between his legs and on his boots.
“The coffee is terrible here, bruh,” he said.
He was South African by the accent, his ice blue eyes that had seen the desert and the jungle. The men lined up to watch, laughed, and yelled that the Desert master could live off of piss and that it only fueled him and that he ate scorpions which also powered him.
“Then I’m just giving ‘im a boost.”
As the laughter died, a steady line of some thirty armed and outfitted mercenaries marched up the trail and over the road passing him into the skirt of the field, and the South African joined them. They were plainly of another class: elite, highly trained, and experienced. Four whites were among them, the rest dark African or mixed race. Vehicles moved along the road below. Some of guards and workers not of this caste sang lines in their native tongue. A rhythm beat out on hands and knees. Others traded last-minute bets of cash with a bookmaker who called the odds in French and again in English.
The last of the mercenaries bounded over the road as the first of the vehicles emerged into view. The man trotted like a nimble mule, even with the handicap of his full load-out and came to rest at the edge of the field in shadow among the others. Together they seemed something from a bygone era where men were warriors unambiguous and life was paid for in life in every ledger.
Grayson studied each man one by one and noted how certain of them fell together and others stood alone, or seemingly alone. A few looked hung-over. Most were bearded and wearing baseball or boonie hats except the darkest Africans whose faces were hairless and shone slick even in the dull light. They were all heavily armed, wired for sound, and none were at all new to the carrying of weapons. A few looked back at him and spoke about him among themselves. Some laughed but most looked dire and dull and blood-grim.
Another vehicle came up the hill. The men standing at the edges of the road stepped away to let it pass and when he saw it and noticed who was driving, he looked closer. The extended Econoline van arrived into the clearing and went slowly over one side of it in order that the crowd could make way.
The wild barking of dogs that only hunt and only ever ride in vehicles when they go hunting rang from the rear compartment where someone had pulled the bench seats and set down four steel cages. Some of the men smiled and walked over to the van to look through the window and coo or bellow for new odds depending on how they had
laid their bets or what they saw in each dog’s demeanor. The two dumb brothers who had wielded shotguns in the doorway of the Navajo Johnny’s house stepped from the van. A white South African had approached Denny, and they walked around toward the dogs and the van. And as if he’d been waiting for this precise transitory juncture, one of the African cooks in his hairnet and emerald culinary blouse, half-slunk and half-knelt beside the tire of the Humvee and began some queer incantation or curse to gods no one in that place could name. In one of the chef’s spindly caramel hands was a desiccated chicken’s foot that he gyrated over Grayson’s outline as he went on with the conjuring in a low, demure tone indicating his ways were subject to reproach if discovered by the others.
The dogs in Sor’s truck had started whining when they heard the others in the van. They would soon be getting to work. Grayson saw Sor was already dropping the tailgate and making room to release them. Sor was talking to the dogs and they quieted down. There was a beat-up diamondplate box along the edge of the bed that squeaked when he opened the lid. Collars and harnesses and small dog-sized saddle bags hit the tailgate near the rifles that the men laid there.
Grayson sat watching this unfold. He rotated his wrists as much as he could in the cuffs and flexed his ankles. As Grayson turned back to the conjurer, the man blew a great handful of something like ashes from his palm that powered his face and neck then the man came down with two thin slashing fingers to dab a kind of maroon paste or paint across Grayson’s cheeks. By the time the shimmer of dust had cleared, the chef had disappeared in the crowd.
More cars came up the road: a Suburban and a Mercedes utility vehicle. Executives in casual slacks and blue sportscoats got out with their personal guards who were themselves a different caste from those on the field. These men were all white Americans or Europeans wearing casual clothes and carrying fully automatic SAWs and folding stock HKs. The singing from the guards had continued even as the executives stepped out and assessed their investments—material, manpower and everything else such martyrs call out as being the whole world.
Cold water bottles were procured. Cameras clicked. The South African who had pissed on Grayson’s legs spoke with one of these executives as they examined him. Grayson watched the South African shake hands with the executive and then walk over to Denny and the two dumb shotgunners. He realized by the way the shotgunners mimed Denny’s hand gestures and by their similar carriage that they were Denny’s sons. The South African pointed to Grayson telling them something about the proposed events of the day he imagined and then slapped Denny on the shoulder and walked across the lot to Sor who had the first dog out and was clipping the harness along its shoulders.
Both dogs were dark splotched Malinois with black noses and lips that drew back when Sor spoke certain words to them. The white and yellow teeth flared. The perfect pink tongue welled up in the cracks of the sharp teeth. They were both sleek and well built. Perfectly suited to this one task. Their coats were covered in a light road dust that billowed around them as they quivered in the bed. A child would know to fear them at a glance. Sor got the harnesses buckled onto each Malinois dog and handed one of them to a lieutenant at the tailgate. Denny and his sons’ dogs were all a shepherd and coonhound mix. They had short brown and gray and white fur that was smooth on their skin up to the hackles that stood out in quills on all four of their backs. Denny was straddling one of them to look in its mouth. His sons stood to his side anchoring the other three hounds already harnessed and leaning on the leashes.
Some people in the crowd of guards and mercenaries and workers started bawling and shrieking short war cries until a warbling glossolalia echoed in the trees. Denny’s dogs yelped and whined. One of the sons went along slapping them on their flanks. Sor yelled commands to his dogs over the voices and then turned and yelled commands at the lieutenants. The executives and their guards strolled out with a retinue of assistants into the fullness of the clearing with the manicured air of royals going to a picnic. The South African pulled Grayson up by the chain and said, “Walk.” An element of the tracking team also went ahead out into the meadow. Their rifles were slung over their shoulders. The whites were sunburnt and the blacks carried gossamers of salty dust on their necks. All wore the same camouflage that disappeared against the backdrop of brown grass. The rim was bright off to their right where the sun was coming through a keyhole of clouds. Over their heads, the same light slotted and wove as the incoming faction of clouds bunched and grew and morphed.
The man yanked the chain and Grayson stopped. He felt him maneuvering the chain back through the loop. The cuffs twisted in the man’s hands digging the edges into the already purple abrasions.
“Who has his knife?” the man called out.