Free P. O. W. by Donald E. Zlotnik Page B

boy. She’s only a dumb reptile… remember that! We’ll outsmart her, boy….
Spencer!
Talk to me.”
    The colonel’s voice was a comfort to Barnett, and he quickly gained control of himself. “I’m fine, Colonel.”
    “Good! Now back up into one of the corners of the cage, and if she starts moving, don’t let her get her head behind you and
     push you away from the bamboo…. She can’t coil or squeeze you without getting some kind of traction.”
    “All right.” Spencer scooted from his position against the bamboo bars to a corner of the cage. Mother Kaa’s head didn’t move,
     but she tested the air again. “Man, Colonel… she has a head as big as a football!”
    “She might try and coil up against you for warmth when it gets dark…. Be ready for that too.” Garibaldi looked over at the
     guard in the shack and wondered if he could speak English.
    Spencer pushed his back against the corner of the cage and pulled his knees up to his chest. He wrapped his arms around his
     legs and waited.
    *   *   *
    The old Montagnard sat on his porch with three more of the village elders and sipped the bamboo straw that stuck out of the
     large wine pot in front of him. A length of bamboo had been placed over the lip of the jug with a splinter of bamboo about
     two inches long bent down into the jug. The purpose of the stick was to measure how much each man drank. When it was your
     turn to drink through your straw, water was poured in the jug until it reached the very lip and was going to overflow. You
     drank through your straw until the level of the wine lowered and the sliver of bamboo was exposed. There was no faking drinking
     at a Montagnard wine-drinking ceremony. What made it even worse was that they were constantly adding new water to the wine,
     and since it was drawn up from the bottom of the pot, the wine would actually still be fermenting in your stomach. There wasn’t
     a worse drunk and hangover than the ones created from Montagnard
num-pah
.
    As the Bru chieftain saw the sun drop down behind the mountain, his vision disappeared. He was suffering from a severe vitamin-A
     deficiency and would be totally blind before the year was out. The old man spoke to the other elders and asked that they beg
     the evil Tang Lie to leave them alone in peace. The other old men began chanting and beating their gongs. The music reached
     the POW camp and would have provided a refreshing form of entertainment, except for the situation Spencer was in.
    The sun dropped even lower in the sky, and the long, dark shadows filled the camp. Garibaldi couldn’t make out Spencer’s form
     in the cage, but he kept talking to him. The darkness was making it even more difficult for Spencer.
    “She… she’s starting to move, Colonel.” Spencer’s voice echoed with fear.
    “Take it easy…. She’s just going to check you out…. Remember to keep your back pressed against the cage.” Garibaldi didn’t
     know if his advice was any good; the snake was so big and so powerful, she could probably wedge herself between the soldier
     and the bars without any major effort, but he had to tell the boy something.
    “Oh… fuck… fuck… fuck…”
    “What’s wrong?”
    “Her head’s less than a foot from me! Shit, Colonel… I can’t take this shit!” Spencer’s voice broke.
    A scream forming on Spencer’s lips bubbled out just as a long narrow bamboo stick appeared through the bottom matting of the
     cage about two inches in front of the snake’s head. A second later, another one of the finger-sized sticks appeared through
     the floor about five inches away from the first. Mother Kaa stopped crawling forward and tested the flimsy barrier with her
     tongue. The hot peppers that the sticks had been soaked in instantly burned her sense organs, and her head jerked back. The
     sticks kept appearing through the floor until a wall had been created around Spencer from the floor to the roof. Spencer blinked
     his eyes to see if