The terrain had exacted a price from Bub. Vast tracts of hill country, alternating jungles and mountain ranges, a river of such mighty proportions that crossing its silty, crocodile-infested flow had washed him a hundred miles downstream merely pole-barging across it. He was now thirty pounds lighter and stronger than ever. He had just finished traversing an enormous swamp of a pestilence the likes of which he'd never before inagined possible. His once heavily-muscled physique was trimmed of every minim of fat, and the compact smooth muscles of a commando flexed under his disguise.
The two-foot cascade of satin blonde mane was gone. In its place was a Marine military cut - still slicked back with Bub's customary bear tallow. Bub now wore knee-length fatigues and a Jungle Camo vest.
He was stalking his target when she changed the rules on him, turned and ran right into him.
They fell, she onto him, the point of her Uzi digging into his ribcage.
The butt of his Casull returned the compliment to her left shoulder.
"Ow dammit!!" they exclaimed in unison, nursing their new bruises.
She locked eyes with him and looked hard. Recognition came in lockstep with annoyance, but neither could quite achieve certainty. The question needed to be asked.
"Bub!?"
"Rayambeh. Ah shudda known y'all'd come stompin down here with all th' finesse of a p.o.'d elephant. [Pause.] And yer lookin just as perky as evah, Ah see." He allowed his eyes to take the measure of her form - tanned, perhaps even tighter-muscled than before, and as unashamed as ever to display those twin monuments to youthful femininity. They were as sundials in the slanting beam of afternoon sunlight which bathed the little clearing in which they found themselves, now sitting up and arraging their gear. Ever the student of chronometry, Bub was secretly gratified that despite her blustery demeanor, she was always ready to give him the time of day.
The magic moment snapped like a twig. The fetid odors of the impenetrable austral swamp which surrounded their tiny oasis of dry ground pressed in. "What's the big idea following me here, Cheese-for-Brains?"
Bub ignored the pointed characterization and looked upon her with something like fondness. How far they'd come since that abortive combat in a far-distant village!
He stooped to pull three leeches from between the toes of his left foot.
"Lissen. This's important. Ah got good news, an'Ah got bad news." |
