..."Bing"...excerpt Part 2..now on Lulu...

2:

When I awoke with the kirpan* at my throat, on the edge of cutting it, I knew that my so-called guides were already mystified by Da Vinci.  By what means, I could not guess.  However, being that he was a day ahead of me, I was aware of the risks involved.  The inexhaustible means and mechanization he had at his disposable were not a trifle – these hypnotized men were proving the rule.  He was a scientist, an alchemist, and had proven the dangerousness of his knowledge in places across the Mediterranean
[* I understand that this is not the continent for the kirpan, but, having recently fought alongside Sikhists in the North of India, this knife readily reminded me of one.]

My luck bore out as I slept with a revolver on my belly and my hand on it at all times. With only a forced turn and three shots, he was dead.  His eyes bulged, his body convulsed back, bringing the knife with it.  The other two guides ran into the brush - I could only make out the direction by the foliage that jostled behind them. I emptied out the remaining rounds and spat.  I reloaded without missing a beat.

....

As I made a direction by the constellation Lepus (using the variable direction of the moon, and the north-easterly direction of the wind the last day), I struck north by east.  By three in the morning, I could feel the clamminess of the jungle start working on my body heat. I trudged on, at an almost frenetic pace to stay warm. Better to keep going and sleep during the early day.  I've done the opposite before and all for the price of a mean-spirited headache.

Humming a bit of Gus' tune put me back in the music room of his little apartment on Los Angeles Street. We'd pull back some dry whiskey, a few pints from the corner mart, and have a couple of swell young starlets join in the fun.  Gus was almost on with the Coconut Grove and I had a way with "I Surrender Dear". That one made the ladies cry. Boy, could I put the ham on with that song, all on pumpernickel and mustard and carried it all the way from the deli.

Chuckling in the pre-morning mists of a jungle was not on my honey-do back then.  Nor was this interminable bastard on my short lists to celebrate with this year.  Let me tell you that I was hankering for a pull and a long smoke.

Suddenly I found that my movement was encroaching on something that wanted for quiet.  The jungle was unnaturally still and I was being the belligerent one.  Not a single sound from a creature came, at least not in the area within 150 feet. There was something out here that even the bugs didn't want a part of...and I know that fear wasn’t coming from me.

I looked below [my feet].  What first appeared as normal foliage was nothing more than shriveled growth.  In fact, as far as I could see in the meager light, the entire jungle around me had been sucked dry as if a capable agent had ingested the entire plant and animal life in this little circle and swallowed its animus whole. The ground beneath my feet, where there would have been a wet loam, was completely dry.  Perhaps this was the answer for coming to the dark of the world.

Da Vinci and his crew passed through here and may even be watching me.  He had done this in at least two known locations, although the prey was much different. One was the entire crew of an Oriental outrigger ship, the other a small bar on the shore of Venice.  ....

There was a trail leading from this last jungle copse and into the prairie: five to one odds he was heading out deeper into the wilds of Africa.

Continue to part 3...