Chapter 40 mature situations

It all happened so quickly, Katie would have missed it if she’d blinked. 

The cassowary was just about to lift her beak from the water when a huge, dagger-shaped head came rocketing from the depths with jaws wide open, clipping off her head as neatly as shears pruning a rose.  Instantly, the bird toppled backwards, her lifeless legs kicking spasmodically at nothing.

Katie MacArran did not scream; her mouth and her throat were too dry...even to produce so much as a rasp.

This wasn’t the first time she’d seen a crocodile, since her arrival in New Guinea...but it WAS the first time she’d ever encountered one of the big estuarine crocs, more commonly known as the saltwater crocodile, or sometimes just plain, ‘salty’.

They were the largest species of croc on the planet.  Though 20 foot salties were not a common sight, neither were they unheard of.  This one, however, was of only average size...12, maybe 14 feet long.

As the name implied, salties preferred to live in brackish, coastal waters...but they could and did move away upriver and into the hinterlands to avoid the encroachment of civilization -- and the hunters that came with it.  For the skin of the estuarine croc was the most highly prized of all crocodile hides.

And also the most dangerous to obtain.  In addition to ‘salty’ and saltwater croc, the reptile was also known by another, grimmer sobriquet.

It was sometimes referred to as the killer crocodile.

Transfixed by the sight, tail high and her eyes wide, Katie watched the headless cassowary roll and thrash it’s legs in the air.  A part of her wondered what the croc was waiting for.  Why didn’t it finish what it had started?

“Probably waiting for that bird to be still,” she finally decided.  Even when hacking involuntarily at the empty air, the talons of the cassowary were still some pretty formidable weap...

It was only then that the pinto mare noticed the brown, scaly patch floating on the creek’s surface...gliding silently through the water, leaving a smooth wake in it’s lee.

Only it wasn’t moving towards the cassowary, now laying still at the edge of the shoreline.  It was moving in a different direction...towards the head of the pool...and AGAINST the current.

The salty had become aware that yet another tasty morsel had entered it’s domain.

It was coming for Katie.

Frantically, the pinto mare looked towards the shoreline.  Too far away...on both sides.  And even if it wasn’t, the rocks...those Goddam super-slick rocks on either side of her!   If she tried to cross them at anything but a slow march, she’d be flat on her face before she’d gone three steps.  Ohhhh, damn this overgrown iguana!  It couldn’t have picked a better time to move on her.

Then she remembered...the shotgun!  She was still holding the shotgun.  But had she remembered to chamber a round?  Was it cocked?  She didn’t know.  She’d been just about to shuck a round, but then the cassowary had bent over the water instead of attacking and...  Oh, God...here he comes.

Katie raised the shotgun, aimed it at the approaching crocodile.  It felt so puny against such a monster.  And where were his eyes?  She had to hit him right between the eyes, kill him with the first shot.  Because if she didn’t...there was only one animal in New Guinea more dangerous than an estuarine crocodile, and that was a WOUNDED estuarine crocodile.

Now the croc was within striking distance.  Katie squeezed her finger on the trigger, at the same time trying not to let her eyes squeeze shut.

That was when the ‘crocodile’ turned sideways and rolled over in the eddy in which it had been caught, revealing the protruding stub of a branch on it’s other side.

Almost weeping, almost laughing, Katie started to lowered the shotgun.

Just as a thought screamed in her head, “FLOATING-LOGS-DON’T-LEAVE-WAKES!!!”

And that was when the salty exploded out of the water from just behind the piece of wood, white spray shooting in all directions as it lunged for Katie with maw wide open.  She could see the whiteness of it’s throat, smell it’s hot, foul breath, hear the faint hiss of air from it’s nostrils.

Katie panicked, firing a wild shot that went over the crocodile’s head by a good two feet.  She didn’t see the miss; she hadn’t braced herself before firing, and was knocked flat on her back by the recoil.

And that was what saved her life.  So suddenly was the pinto mare bowled backwards that the crocodile’s aim was also too high.  It literally went right over the top of her, it’s huge jaws closing on empty air instead of her arms, coming to rest straddling her legs.

For hint of a second, Katie was too dazed to react; had the reptile had backed off and attacked immediately, it would have taken her.  But because it WAS a reptile, the creature’s brain was not capable of rapid adaptation to an unexpected change.  So it was that the croc just stood above her for a few seconds, mouth agape, not knowing that it had fallen atop her with the barrel of the shotgun jammed into the underside of its jaw. 

That was all the time it took for Katie to receive a fresh bolt of adrenaline; she screamed, shucked the shotgun, and pulled the trigger.

The report was like a bomb going off inside her head.  She saw something liquid, red, and gray blow out the back of the crocodile’s head like a giant, obscene party-popper.  Then the creature  made a sound, like the world’s largest hiccup, and collapsed on top of her with glassy, sightless eyes. 

Katie did not seem to realize the crocodile was dead.  Whinnying and screaming even louder than before, she began to hammer on the side of the great beast’s head with the shotgun butt.  At the same time, kicking frantically with her legs, she tried to push herself out from underneath the reptile, but only succeeded in digging herself even deeper into the sand.

Finally, exhausted, she began to cry quietly...and ended up crying herself into either a deep sleep or a dead faint; she never knew which

She came awake to the sensation of a weight being lifted off of her, and the sound of feral grunts and muttering.  At first she saw only blackness before her eyes, then amorphous, swimming shapes.  Was it her head again? 

Two faces moved into her field of vision, round heads, swathed in buff-colored fur, shards of bone piercing their noses and ears.  Gingerly, tentatively, Katie sat up and shook her head, trying to clear it.  When she attempted to speak, she  found the best that she could managed was a dry, rattling croak. 

The larger of the two natives said something to her that sounded like, “Tambu muaha’a...missing...ki kolo...from digging-place...akulu boma’a to...Iso?”

Katie coughed and tried again, in as much of the Ayon language as she could remember.

“Yes...me come out Iso.  My bird attacked.  Made me fall.”

The natives turned and began talking rapidly amongst themselves.  Whatever they were saying, it was impossible to make out in the hubbub.

Katie could see now that her vision was okay; it was simply after dark.  Turning away slightly so the natives could not see what she was doing, she checked her watch. (She had to do this out of sight of the abos.  Otherwise, they might grab the timepiece and smash it.  Certainly, the Ayon would: “Can no cut the day into pieces!”)

Only 10:15.  She hadn’t been out as long as she thought.  Moving carefully, deliberately, she rose and stood up again.  Though her legs were as wobbly as a new-born foal’s, she somehow managed to remain upright.  Again, she’d been lucky; again nothing was broken.  She could see now that the natives who had pulled the crocodile off her were tree-kangaroos, fifteen, perhaps twenty of them in all.

Katie took a short breath and searched her memory.  It was like trying to find one particular file in a cabinet that’s been dumped on the floor.  Tree kangaroos....tree kangaroos.  Oh yes,  that made them members of the Gimi tribe. 

Which meant she would have to be on her guard.  The Gimi weren’t QUITE as fierce as the Ayon; they were herbivores after all.  But they were still nobody to fool with...and they were extremely capricious by nature.  They would declare war on the Ayon one week and trade peacefully with them the next.

Oh, well...they were still better than the air-pirates...or that was what  Katie told herself anyway.  Then the leader spoke to her again, and this time she was able to more or less understand him.

“You be take back Iso with us now.” he said, and it was only then that Katie realized she had been rescued.  Safe, safe....she had made it, she was safe.  By rights, she should have drowning in relief...broken down and weeping, unashamed.

She did no such thing, not in front of these guys, and besides...coming on top of everything else, the episode of the crocodile seemed to have purged Katie MacArran of all feelings.  She felt nothing, nothing at all.

They didn’t set out immediately for Iso, something Katie didn’t hold against the Gimi.  Eager as she was to get back to the mine, she was in no mood to travel at night...and anyway, she was too exhausted, both physically and emotionally  When they sat down before a small fire to eat a meal of mangoes and roasted yams, only then did Katie remember that she was still wearing her rucksack...and that she had landed right on top of it when the shotgun’s recoil had thrown her backwards. 

THAT could be a problem.

When she opened the pack, she saw the flare-gun’s barrel was now ovular, and the lid of the first-aid kit had been bent into a butterfly shape.  But her precious bottle of leech remover was still unbroken, and the rest of the contents seemed okay.  That was when one of the Gimi noticed the body of the death adder, and asked how she had killed it.  Katie started to tell him how she had dispatched the reptile with her shikomi-zue, then realized to her horror that her precious cane-sword had vanished.  She was just about to go into another panic after all when one of the Gimi added a branch to the fire...and Katie hurriedly snatched it out before the flames could catch.  This provoked a rapid, bewildered exchange amongst the tree-kangaroos, until Katie drew the blade from the ‘branch’ and showed them what it really was.  How the Hell had they not noticed the (now missing) leather thongs?, she wondered -- and would have asked them had she known the correct words.

The rest of that evening’s conversation was similarly frustrating for the pinto mare.   She was desperate to know what had happened back in Iso when she’d gone missing and more importantly, whether her distress call had been heard.  But all the Gimi wanted to talk about were three things - the crocodile, the crocodile and the crocodile.  Nonetheless, in the course of their conversation, Katie was able to glean a few important facts:  At least part of her SOS had been heard in Lae; they didn’t know where she’d gone down, but they DID know she’d been forced down by air-pirates.  This provoked yet another confounding exchange with the Gimi -- no matter how Katie tried to explain it, they simply could not understand what an air-pirate was; the practice of making war in order to steal someone’s property was completely unknown in their culture.

Katie next learned from Kuuma, the leader of the group, that word of her disappearance had been relayed to the Ayon, who had passed it on to the Gimi.   What the shrew-mice HADN’T told the Gimi, Kuuma added with a grin, was that there was a reward posted for her safe return.  One of their warriors, however, had shadowed the Ayon from the treetops when they’d departed the Gimi village and heard them talking about it amongst themselves.

That was when Katie MacArran enjoyed her first real laugh since setting out from the wreckage of the autogyro.

She learned a few other things as well:  So far, the search for her was still being concentrated in and around the Iso valley.  None of the search planes or rescue parties had as yet ventured up into any of the side-canyons.  Katie wondered for a fuming moment what the yiff they were doing that for, and then remembered that she had gone down only two mornings ago.  Christmas, had it only been that long?  It seemed like more a month.  Thinking about it a little more, she had to marvel at the speed of the jungle telegraph.  Less than two days and already the Gimi knew all about her.  Then it occurred to her that since her distress call had been received in Lae, the word would have spread out from there as well as from Iso. 

And that meant, she realized with a dawning sense of dread, that Ray Parer would be airborne and searching for her as well.  Oh, God.  Katie hoped, prayed, that HE wouldn’t run into the air-pirates -- especially not in his DH 9.  That thing was even more vulnerable to gunfire than her autogyro had been.  ( Although, she knew, the Brumby was nobody’s fool -- and now he would have ample warning that a gang of heavily armed brigands was out there somewhere. )

Kuuma next told her, somewhat sheepishly, that the Gimi hadn’t come into the canyon looking for her, either.  They’d been after the crocodile she had killed. (It was here Katie noticed that the Gimi were all heavily armed -- not only with bows and arrows, but with spears as long as pole vaults, together with the hurling stick known as the woomera.)  Normally the Gimi kept out of the way of crocodiles, the tree kangaroo went on, but this one had badly maimed one of their warriors...who had naturally and mercifully then been put to death, since what good was a warrior with no arms, and a left eye gone, and...why was Kay-ti shivering?  Was she cold?

The situation did not get any less exasperating for Katie MacArran the next morning. The Gimi refused, point blank, to move on until they had skinned out not only the crocodile, but the cassowary as well.  And being the natural born trader that a Gimi was, Kuuma also insisted upon haggling with Katie for a section of their hides in exchange for performing this ‘service.’  Katie wanted to tell the tree kangaroo that he could have whole Goddam thing if the Gimi would just get her back to Iso right NOW.  (Of course, she said nothing of the kind, knowing full well it would be taken as a profound insult.)

They finally agreed on a third of each for the Gimi.  “If you’ll also skin out this snake I killed...and I get ALL of him.”

It was during the course of these negotiations that Katie finally became able to talk about how she had killed the crocodile.  She admitted that it had been entirely a lucky shot, and that if she hadn’t been carrying a shotgun in the first place, the croc would have taken her easily.

Kuuma, for his part, was no less impressed with her for this revelation.  Gun or no, fortuitous shot or no, she had still dispatched the most feared creature in New Guinea....and she had done so not only while the reptile had been on the attack, but almost upon HER.

Katie thanked the tree kangaroo for his sentiments, but privately disagreed with him about the estuarine crocodile being the deadliest creature in Papua.  That honor went to an animal that walked on two legs rather than four -- and flew airplanes armed with Lewis machine guns.

But only until she made it back to Iso, the pinto mare decided.  Then, there would be a new contender for that crown.

Herself.

And it was here that she finally began to show an interest in what the Gimi were doing.

By the time the hides were rolled up and ready to transport, it was well after sunrise, and not only Katie but everyone else was eager to get going.  Between the crash and the crocodile, the pinto mare was not in the best shape to keep up, but she made a game effort...and not just out of a desire to hold her own.  This nightmare would not really be over until she was safely back at her mine.  It was especially difficult for her whenever they came to a log or a boulder blocking the trail.  The Gimi, being an arboreal species, could clamber over such obstacles with practically no difficulty.  Katie, a horse, was not so gifted and much too tired and battered to make any jumps.  More than once they had to help her over but none of them complained or made sly comments about the weakness of western species.  Any Gimi who thought this mare was soft needed only take a good look at the hides being carried on the shoulders of their warriors.

After two, perhaps three hours of trekking, the trail began to rise upwards along the cliffs again.  Katie almost balked - not only was it steep but they would be right out in the open if the air pirates showed up - and she couldn’t imagine getting that lucky twice.  In response, Kuuma explained through a combination of language and pantomime that they had no choice.  About a mile or so further down, the canyon narrowed into an impassible gorge.

And so, panting and sweating, Katie began the arduous ascent of the canyon wall.  The Gimi tried to make it easier by offering to carry her pack for her, but it was still a tortuous hike.  And all throughout the climb, her ears kept swiveling this way and that, listening for the telltale thrum of an approaching aircraft.  None came.

At the top of the cliffs, the trail branched into two forks, one following the course of the canyon, the other veering off towards the northwest.  It was this second trail that Kuuma took, explaining that this route would take them to the Iso Valley on a shorter course than the other.

It was much easier going than it had been down below.  The pathway here was both broad and relatively straight, with no impediments, save the occasional tree root blocking the way, and also mercifully, wonderfully flat.  With the trek now considerably less complicated, the Gimi broke into one of their native songs, a responsive chorus with Kuuma as the designated choirmaster.  Being such good-hearted types, the tree-kangaroos invited Katie to join in, but at this point, the pinto mare was having trouble enough just keeping her breath.

As the party marched along, they passed from forest to scrub, to forest, to grassland, to forest, and back to scrub again.  At one point the clouds opened up in sheets of water, but the Gimi slowed down only to take a drink, as did Katie.

It was still raining when they entered the rain-forest again, and when they emerged, it was into brilliant sunlight.  Before them, the ground was sloping away into a small clearing.  And there, above and beyond the treeline, was the most beautiful sight Katie had ever seen, the far side of the Iso River Valley.

She was almost there.

They were halfway across the clearing when a flash, like a match being struck, erupted from the tree line in front of them, followed a split second later by a long, echoing report that sounded like, “TCH-KOKK!”  Then, there was another sound, like a pumpkin hitting the sidewalk after a long drop.

It was the sound of Kuuma’s forehead disintegrating.

Then, all was screaming and confusion.  As more gunshots exploded along the tree line, the Gimi turned and bolted for the safety of the forest, leaving the croc and cassowary hides behind -- and also Katie, who tried to run away with them but was unable to keep up. 

“Wait!” she screamed, as the first Gimi vanished into the forest, “Wait!  Please help me!”  But the tree-kangaroos ignored her; two of them even ran past her without stopping or even looking in her direction.  Only the first of these two made it to safety, the second one going down fast as a bullet struck him between the shoulder blades. 

Then something grabbed Katie by the tail and pulled hard.  She tried to kick out, but could manage only a feeble effort and ended up losing her balance and falling face forward against the hard-packed earth of the trail.

When she tried to get up again, something cold and metallic was pressing into the back of her neck.  She didn’t have to guess what it was.

Then a rough, harsh voice was growling at her in Mandarin, “Do not even consider it, daughter of a whore!”

Someone grabbed her by the mane, hauling her roughly to her hooves.  She felt her arms being pulled behind her back, a thin cord wrapping around her wrists, pulling tight and cutting off the circulation, then another one was looping around her elbows, cinching them together into a painful, unnatural position.

 There were half a dozen of them, four Chinese, and two westerners; a heavyset badger with a scar splitting his features...and her old friend the carabao, who was curling his nose and giving her the flehmen again.

It was the leader, however who was getting most of her attention.  He was an Asian Rhinoceros with a truncated horn, and tattoos markings on his neck and chest.  He was dressed for the occasion in khakis and a bush vest, and wore what looked like a chrome-plated Browning.45 on one hip and a Chinese saber on the other.  On his face, he wore a snarl that seemed to stretched all the way to the back of his jawline   Even though he was a good half head shorter than the carabao, he seemed to be at least twice the size at least of anyone else in the group..

By way of greeting, he stepped forward and slapped Katie hard across the muzzle with the back of his hoof.  She felt a coppery taste in her mouth...and much to her own astonishment, what she did not feel was panic.

“Dew Neh Loh Moh.” she snarled, favoring the rhino with the Chinese version of the Universal Insult, then spit the blood in his face.

The rhino slapped her again, then grabbed her tunic, ripped it open, and tore her bra away, prompting a raucous chorus of hoots, whistles and catcalls from the others.  Katie wanted to cry, but refused to give them the satisfaction.   Then the rhinoceros grabbed her by the throat, pulling her close.  She felt him squeezing tightly choking off the air supply, saw speckles dancing before her eyes.  Then she saw a flash of metal, felt the blade against her left breast.

“Do that again, whore’s daughter,” the rhino hissed, “and I will cut this off.” His expression turned oily.  “And no, it shall not be my mother.” With that, he jammed his mouth against hers.  Katie tried to pull away, but the rhino only pressed the knife more tightly against her flesh.

Then, she felt his lips opening, forcing hers open...smelled the stench of his breath, tasted it in her mouth.

...and then she did start to cry.

“And you will take much more than that into your mouth before we are done.” he told her, when he finally let go, “MUCH more.” He then turned to one of the others, a shar-pei dog who clearly couldn’t wait for his turn. “Bring her.” he said, and Katie was turned and marched roughly towards the trees, accompanied by non-stop litany of filth and lewdness.  Several times, she was pushed from behind and almost fell.  One time she did fall, and was immediately pulled back to her feet by way of her tail and forelock.

The air-pirates camp was set in rough semicircle just inside the tree-line.  Katie expected it to be about as well-kept as a rubbish tip, but every lean-to was as neat as a pin, and the encampment was utterly clear of debris.  Even the stones lining the fire-pit were almost perfectly arranged.

Under the circumstances, however, she was far from suitably impressed.  At the center of the camp, they stopped and Katie was rudely spun around to face the rhino again.

“Joe and Le, two good mels. both dead.” he growled, hooves on hips, in a voice like an approaching thunderstorm, “and their plane, completely demolished.  You are going to pay for that, whore’s daughter.  You are going to pay for it with the most precious thing you have.” With every word he had spoken thus far, the rhino’s voice had been rising, and now the storm finally broke.

 “YOU ARE GOING TO WISH WITH EVERY FIBER OF YOUR BEING THAT YOU HAD NEVER BEEN FOOLISH ENOUGH TO RESIST US!”

It seemed as if the trees were drawing back from the rhino as he bellowed out his rage.  Then he turned to the shar-pei and the carabao. And pointed to the left  "Wo...Dan, over there.”

Katie was grabbed by the arms and turned again, this time in the direction of a fallen log.  She didn’t have to guess what was going to happen next; she was hustled forward and thrown over it, her face coming to a hard rest against the damp earth, with her backside high in the air.

Someone grabbed her by the nose, the carabao, and someone else grabbed her left ear, twisting it viciously downwards.  Then two sticks bound with leather cord were clamped over her nose like a nutcracker, tied tight, and twisted sideways, held that way by another cord wrapped around her neck.

Then she felt her boots being pulled off, a knife under the waistband of her flight suit, heard the fabric tearing.  She wanted to kick out, but she couldn’t.  With her nose clenched firmly in the twitch, all communication between her brain and her legs seemed to have been cut off.

She felt her undies tear away, tried to push her tail down, but a thong was quickly looped around  it and the tail was pulled viciously forward, exposing her completely to the gaze of her captors.  Then the cord holding her tail was tied to the one around her elbows, and the air pirates stepped backwards, to admire their handiwork.

Another round of commentary at Katie’s expense quickly followed, which she tried to force herself not to hear.

Then the rhino came around into her field of vision again.  He had not dropped his pants, as she expected, but instead was holding in his paws a long section of black rubber...what?

And he was not smiling.

“This,” he said, swinging the long piece gently back and forth, “used to be the generator belt from the plane you wrecked.  It is just about all that’s left.”

He stepped back around behind her again.  Katie tried to turn to see what he was doing...and caught a glimpse of him raising the pulley belt high above her backside.

“And this,” he snarled, “is for Le Han.”

The belt whistled down with an ugly crack 

Katie screamed, she couldn’t help it, the pain was like nothing she had ever experienced before. She shrieked out, in a loud, tearful, whinny that pierced the still of the jungle like a bullet.

“And this is for Joe.” said the rhino, and struck her again, harder.

Katie screamed again, louder....not so much from the pain as from the realization that this time she’d been cut. 

“And this is for the plane you destroyed.” said the rhino. 

This time Katie screamed so loud, the shar-pei actually covered his ears.

“And this is for thinking you could get away.” said the rhino, deterred not even a bit by this.

“And this is for spitting blood in my face.”

“And this is for putting us through the trouble of having to re-capture you.”

“And this is for throwing Dan out of your mine.”

“And this is for being a stuck-up anglo bitch.”

“And this is just because I feel like it.”

“And so is this.”

“And this.”

“And THIS!”

There was more, but Katie didn’t hear.  All she knew now was the crack of the belt..and the pain.

Then someone was throwing water over her.  She did not remember having fainted.  When she looked up, the rhino was standing before again, and this time he was wearing a wide, fiery grin.

Below the waist, he wore nothing, and now she could see that he was holding in his hoof...an object for her consideration.

She screwed her eyes shut, praying that they would hurry up and just get it over with.

Heavy footfalls echoed in her ears as the rhino moved around behind her -- to the hooting encouragement of his comrades.  She could hear the clink and rattle of belts being undone, as the others prepared themselves for their turns with her.

Then she felt the rhino’s fingers....rough, crude things, moving where they didn’t belong.  She grunted against the pain...and found that only served to encourage her tormentor. “So you like that, eh?” he half growled, half chortled, “Then how about THIS?”  

Katie didn’t want to want to cry out, but she did.  Then the fingers were gone, and something else was pressing against her there.  “Give it to ‘er!” someone shouted, the carabao...and the others quickly took up the chant.  Katie heard it swelling up, rising in a tide, drowning out the sound of the birds in the trees.

Then the rhino drew back...and thrust.

Katie never imagined anything could hurt so much; it was even worse than the beating.  She was not ready, and the sensation was like...like being reamed with a sandblock. 

And her assailant hadn’t even gone in very far.  She tried to scream, and ended up blubbering instead.

“THAT’S my good girl,” the rhino, stroking her mane and sounding almost tender in his oiliness.  Then he pulled back again...and rammed her even harder.

Now, Katie did scream.  And there was more screaming, coming from all around her.

And the rhino was gone...gone as if he’d never been there.

She opened her eyes, and saw the shar-pei with his pants around his ankles, tottering on his feet and staring with an almost childlike wonder at the pair of eight-foot spears, skewering him through the chest and abdomen.

Something else flashed into view.  It was the badger, running pell-mell for the trees and trying to get his pistol out of his hastily fastened belt.  Something dropped from overhead onto his shoulders, a lighting-fast ball of brown and buff fur.  She saw the tree-kangaroo raise his war-club, and heard a crunching sound as he brought it down.

Then someone was grabbing her from behind and pulling her back up again...and then the cords binding her nose and limbs were being severed. 

It took several minutes for the circulation to return to her limbs.  Three of the air-pirates were dead, one with a crushed skull, and two others turned into life-sized voodoo dolls.  The other three had managed to survive, but not for long, given the looks they were getting from the Gimi.  The first, an Amur leopard, had taken a spear through his left thigh and was bleeding profusely but still conscious.  The carabao was also among the living...and also without so much as a scratch.  When the Gimi had launched their counterattack, he had apparently thrown down his weapon and given up without fight...and had thus emerged unscathed.

And then there was the rhino.

He had gotten it in the back of a shoulder with an arrow, and his left eye was swollen into a purplish eggplant, but otherwise he appeared uninjured.

Very shortly, Katie MacArran would be very glad that he wasn’t among the dead...but not yet.  Right now, the only thing she experienced was an overwhelming desire to clean herself.  As soon as she was able, she began tearing through camp, draining one canteen after another pouring it over herself and wiping frantically with whatever cloth was handy -- while the Gimi stood back and watched, unsure as to how to react to this. 

Rape was also an unknown quantity in their culture.

The next thing Katie did was try to get dressed again...but her tunic as now in tatters and so were her pants.   Falling to her knees, she began to cry again.  Now, the Gimi did become involved, stripping the clothing from the dead air-pirates and giving them to her to wear.  Katie responded to this generosity by snatching the garments out of their paws and bawling in a loud, shrill whinny, “Why you run off and LEAVE me like that?!”

“We stop for you, more Gimi die.” was the new leader’s completely unapologetic response.

What happened next was the closest Katie MacArran would come that day to going into hysterics.

“Why you no stop them earlier?! ” she screamed, not caring if they took offense, “Why you let...?  Why you let them...?  You...God...Damn...NO YOU SEE WHAT THEY DID TO ME?!”

“We need wait till they put down thunder-spears.” said the tree-kangaroo, in that same unsympathetic tone.

Katie said nothing to this, she just kept on sobbing while continuing to dress herself.  After much longer than it should have taken, she was once more suitably, if not comfortably clad.

She was also all cried out...and her ears were plastered back against her scalp.

It took the pinto mare several moments to locate what she wanted, the rhino’s chrome-plated .45, laying abandoned, on the ground. 

The rhino...

She would deal with him in a minute, but right now, first things first.  Drawing the weapon from the holster, she jacked a round into the chamber, and went striding towards the carabao, who was seated on the ground, tailor fashion like the others, bent partways over with a spear point at the back of his neck.  When she started towards him, the new first Gimi moved immediately to block her path.

“Ours.” he said, and Katie immediately shook her head, pointing in succession at the rhino, the carabao, and the leopard.  “No...that first one mine; he hurt me...second one we share; I start, you finish...but last one all yours; he one kill Kuuma.”  Katie actually didn’t know which of the pirates had shot Kuuma, but the tree kangaroo quickly nodded and then gestured for the other Gimi to move aside.

Katie walked up to the carabao, just looking at him for a second.

“Look at me.” she said to the bullock, in a growl more appropriate to a grizzly bear than a horse, Reluctantly, he raised his eyes.

“Please...” he started to say, and was immediately silenced as Katie stepped beside him, put the gun to the side of his nose, and without no great fanfare, pulled the trigger and blew it off.

“Gonna flehmen at me NOW?” she said, and then shot him twice more, once in each kneecap.  She didn’t even seem to feel the recoil.

“I done...he yours.” she said to the Gimi leader, ignoring the shrill, liquid sounds the carabao was making, and turned her attention to the rhinoceros.

“Hey, big fella.” she said, her voice sounding almost soothing.

The big air-pirate just glowered at her, then cocked his head to one side.

“Do you see this tattoo on my neck, whore’s daughter?  Do you KNOW what it means?”

Katie appeared not to hear him.

“Awww, that hurt?” she asked, pointing to the arrow embedded in his shoulder, “Here, lemme help you with it.”

Without waiting for an answer, the pinto mare grabbed the arrow, and in a surprising show of strength after all she’d been through, ripped it out by the roots. 

This time, she didn’t ignore the sounds the rhino was making.

In fact, she savored them..

“No, I don’t know what your tattoo means.” she said, switching to mandarin as she tossed the dripping arrow away, “Now, ask me if I CARE.”  Her voice was as flat as a stone shingle.  “And that’s what you get for not wearing silk.”

She turned to the Gimi, pantomiming the act of having her hooves tied behind her back, and then pointed to the rhinoceros and then to the log.

“We get skull?” asked the new leader, folding his arms in a remarkably sophomoric gesture.
 
“You get skull.” Katie answered immediately, “As long as I get REST of him.”

A moment later, it was the rhinoceros who was thrown face down over the log, with bared buttocks hiked in the air...and it was Katie who was standing with the fan-belt in her hooves.  To his credit, there was no look of fear in the rhino’s eyes, only a smoldering defiance, as if to say, “You think that little thing can break the skin of MY species?”

Katie noticed this, dropped the belt and walked away, returning in a moment with something more substantial in her hooves, a wooden stave, whistling a sprightly tune as she did.

“In case you’re wondering what that song is,” she told her prisoner, letting the new bludgeon swing before his eyes, “It’s from Gilbert and Sullivan.  It’s called, ‘A More Humane Mikado’.”

She stepped around behind the rhino, singing the melody aloud:

“My object all sublime,
I shall achieve in time --
To let the punishment fit the crime,
The punishment fit the crime.”

And only when she was certain that her captive could not see her; only then did Katie MacArran draw the blade from the ‘stave’, revealing it for what it really was.

“THIS is for putting your filthy mitts where they don’t belong,” she hissed, raising her shikomi-sue high over the rhino’s backside.


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