Red Jungle by Kent Harrington Page A

in love with me. No one is responsible. She’s a grown woman.”
    “Is she?”
    “She’s nineteen . . . most girls have two kids here by that age. Shall we eat?” Mahler said.
    “She’s eighteen, maybe, and you know it. She might be younger,” Russell said.
    Mahler looked at Carl, and then back at Russell. He shrugged. “Is he jealous, Carl? Is that it? What do you think, you’re a man of the world. Is she sixteen or is she nineteen? They don’t even know, most of the time. Did you know there’s no birth certificate for these people? Maybe something in the church. But not during the war. Who knows how old she is? She probably doesn’t even know.”
    “He might be jealous. She’s very beautiful,” Carl said. Carl tried to smile about it, trying to make a joke of it.
    “You see, my friend. Even Carl says she’s very beautiful, and he’s a fucking homosexual. Can you blame me?”
    “She’s a simple girl who’ll get hurt. She can’t even read. She’ll expect you to marry her,” Russell said.
    “Shove the morality, old boy, will you please? She doesn’t need to know how to read for what we do, anyway.” Mahler slapped him on the shoulder.
    “Wow, you’re something else,” Russell said.
    “You wanted to sleep with her the moment you saw her, didn’t you? Tell the truth,” Mahler said. “Go ahead. I mean, in your newspaper you tell lots of pretty lies all the time, but here you don’t have to. It’s just us. Didn’t you want to sleep with her?”
    Russell looked at Carl. “No, I didn’t,” he said. “You see, I’m not an asshole like you.”
    They got drunk later and Mahler apologized, but it hadn’t sat well with Russell, and he didn’t let it go. The girl was in love with Mahler, Russell could see that plain enough. They slept together again that night, he was sure of it.
    “You have to stop kicking and pulling on the reins. You’re confusing the horse,” Russell said angrily. He’d come back down the river, the water gray and turgid from the rain. The constant drizzle had suddenly turned to something harder. Above them, the strip of sky showing through the jungle’s canopy was completely gray. “Do you understand?” He could see Carl was scared.
    Russell reached over and grabbed the horse’s halter, then moved up the neck and took the reins. “Now stop doing anything . Just stop for a moment,” he said, the rain dripping from Russell’s cowboy hat as he spoke. He’d told Carl to wear a hat but he hadn’t, and now he was scared and couldn’t see very well because the rain was hitting his glasses.
    “I think I should go back; the fucking horse is wild,” Carl said.
    “No, he isn’t. He’s tired of this river and he just wants out. But we have to go upriver; it’s the quickest way in,” Russell said.
    “I didn’t know it was going to be like this.” Carl was wild-eyed. Everything seemed to be scaring him now. Russell led his horse out, away from the bank. The water was running off his hat and his clothes were soaked through, but he felt like he was sweating; it was that warm, maybe ninety degrees. He stopped his horse, got his plastic poncho out from the saddle bag and slipped it over his head. He would be even warmer now, but he was tired of getting wet.
    “Now you have to stop putting on the gas and the brakes at the same time. It’s one or the other, but not both. Do you understand? And stop yanking the reins. They don’t like that.
    Think about it; it’s a big piece of steel you’re shoving around in his mouth.”
    “Yeah, okay,” Carl said. Russell pulled his horse around until they were directly across from each other, then handed Carl back his reins.
    “What’s he looking for anyway? Mahler?” Carl asked
    “How the fuck should I know,” Russell said. “I hope he’s looking for a big jade figure. And I hope to fuck he finds it. How much is Mahler getting of that ten thousand?” He hung his shotgun over his back, so that the weapon rode over the