Alexander Death(41)

Jenny looked at Alexander and the ranch owner, a wrinkled man who must have been in his sixties.

“Okay...so how do I get on?” she asked.

“Just put one foot on the stirrup and swing your leg over.” Alexander indicated a leather loop at the height of Jenny's chest. She looked at it doubtfully.

“I think I left my go-go-Gadget legs at home,” she said. “How do I get up there?”

“When you're comfortable enough, you'll jump.” Alexander took her around the waist and picked her up. He guided her foot into the stirrup, then seated her in the saddle. “How's that?”

Jenny petted the horse while she looked around. It was strange to be so high off the ground, relying on the huge mammal beneath her not to freak out and throw her off.

“Too scary for you?” he asked.

“Oh, whatever. I can handle this.”

Alexander placed the reins in her hand, and Jenny held them loosely while she watched Alexander walk back to the truck. The snarls from under the tarp grew louder, and something punched upward against it, but Jenny still couldn't see what was back there. Then Alexander lowered the tailgate.

Jenny held her breath and tightened her grip on the reins. She was expected some huge dogs to come rushing out of the darkness under the tarp, but nothing emerged. The growls grew louder, though.

Alexander left the tailgate open and jumped into the saddle of his huge black stallion. He pressed his knees into the horse's sides.

“Yah!” he said, and the horse began to trot away, towards the jungle at the edge of the ranch.

“Yah?” Jenny asked, and her horse took off after Alexander. Jenny clung tight as it bounced her up and down. Her hair blew out behind her.

A wall of tropical vegetation stood just behind the rail fence at the edge of the ranch, as if the little valley had been slashed and burned from a dense rainforest. Alexander was riding towards a trail that led up into the rainforest, towards the next mountain.

Alexander whistled. Jenny looked back to see a pair of huge beasts leap out from underneath the tarp on the truck. They weren't dogs at all, but huge cats with golden coats and dark spots. They thudded as they hit the ground—they must have weighed at least two hundred pounds each.

Jenny watched the animals race to the fence and leap over it, then disappear into the jungle.

“Jaguars?” Jenny asked. “You trained jaguars?”

“Don't be silly. Nobody can train a cat.”

Alexander led the way into the jungle, where the dense canopy turned the daylight green. Insects, birds, and monkeys chattered overhead. Jenny watched a few giant mosquitoes land on her wrist, then immediately crumple up and die from her Jenny pox.

In the rainforest around them, she caught an occasional quick glimpse of the great cats darting through the foliage.

“So, if they're not trained...” Jenny said.

“Look closer.” One of the jaguars leaped onto a thick tree limb overhanging the steep trail. It walked until it was directly above Jenny, then sat and licked one paw.

Jenny looked closer. The jaguar had a number of deep gashes in its skin, revealing stripes of gray muscle and bone, but none of these were bleeding. Its coat was matted and dirty.

“They're dead,” she said. “You made zombie jaguars.”

“Great security against man or beast,” he said. “Took a while for the horses to get used to the smell.”

“Do they have names?”

Alexander smiled. “I call them Pekku and Pukuh. They're named after the god of thunder and the god of death.”

“Mayan gods?”

“That's right.”

“You're really adapting to the locals here.”

“It's not so hard,” Alexander said. “We've been Mayan before.”

“You and me?”

“There were great stone cities in those days,” he said. “You can still find the ruins of them, here and there.”

“What happened to their civilization?”

“The same that happens to all of them,” Alexander said. “Men can't live in peace together. We are designed to compete, and fight, and kill.”

“And what about women?” Jenny asked, with half a smile.

“Women are twice as dangerous.”

Jenny snickered, thinking of Ashleigh. Behind them, the jaguar who'd posed for her leaped off the limb and disappeared into the jungle.

The trail grew steep, rough and choked with lush growth. The jaguars stayed well ahead of them on the trail, where their presence flushed out brightly colored, squawking birds that retreated high into the canopy.

“Do you control everything they do?” Jenny asked.

“I can set them to one repetitive, simple task,” Alexander said. “Like walking. Anything else requires some extra focus.”