Terry / A Tale of the Hill People

by Charles Goff Thomson

In the early morning he made a light pack of rations and the beads, matches and red calico he had secured to use as presents in case he won through to the Hill People. He dressed for the field in khaki, filled an extra canteen and after breakfast mounted Terry's big gray pony and rode off with Mercado, whom he took to guide him to the spot where Terry was last seen. The Macabebe took the lead and pressed by the urgent white man lathered his pony in the rapid pace he set through the winding trail. They dismounted at the ford shortly before sunset.

While the Major was transferring his pack from saddle to shoulders the Macabebe explored the pool with distrustful eyes. But Sears had done his work thoroughly: two cases of dynamite had blown in the banks and created a new channel through which the water flowed swiftly. The pool had been narrowed by half and shallowed to a depth of ten feet in the series of explosions Sears had detonated until the river gave up the rent carcass of the monstrous reptile.

The Major adjusted the pack to his liking, waved farewell to the Macabebe and moved toward the fringe of woods with a swinging stride. The soldier watched the receding figure with mingled admiration and awe. The Malay stood irresolute as the white man's head and shoulders passed from view under the low hanging branches, watched the pendulous khaki legs swing rhythmically into the shadows of the forest and out of vision, then cast one long look up over the dense roof of the forest which swept far up to end at Apo's summit, and atremble with the appalling memories of the lonely spot he mounted the gray and led his own exhausted pony along the edge of the pool. Once he glanced back apprehensively as a small Bogobo agong sounded somewhere to the north and filled the woods with its deep and mournful tones, then hurried on homewards.

The Major had headed due west, straight toward the summit of the mountain. He walked on through the last hour of the afternoon and as the woods became denser and darker he used the slope of the forest floor as his point, always facing in the direction of the rising ascent. He made good time, as here the going was little obstructed by creepers or thorned "wait-a-minute." Alert, he studied every sound of the forest life, for though he had placed his life on the knees of the gods he valued it too highly to neglect any slightest precaution. Inside his shirt there bulged a heavy 45 slung from a leather breast-holster. This lone attempt of the Hills was no sudden inspiration; he had planned it logically. There was no other way. Up there, somewhere, lay or lived his friend. Friendship was the call, friendship and ... The Service.

The sun, glinting fitfully through openings in the thatching of sparkling green leaves, dropped lower and sank from sight, and before the brief twilight faded he selected a spot beneath a great mango tree as his first camping place. Gathering some dry twigs and dead boughs he built a fire at the edge of a little stream and ate sparingly of his store of beans, chocolate and tinned sausages. In his collapsible pan he heated water and dissolved his coffee crystals, and the coffee finished, he boiled more water with which he filled his canteens and hung them on a branch after dipping the woolen jackets into the creek to secure the coolness of evaporation.

Night fell black in the forest. He threw more brush on the fire to enlarge the circle of light, and made himself a comfortable couch by patiently stripping the small branches of their most leafy twigs, and wrapped himself in his blanket, vainly hoping that sleep would come.

From time to time he rose to add fuel to the fire, as he wanted the light to be visible from the Gulf, where troubled friends would be searching the night hills with worried eyes. And he wished the flame to be seen in the Hills by those who lurked in the dark shadows so that they might know that no element of stealth entered into the approach of this white man who invaded a territory forbidden to strangers since the earliest dawn of Philippine history. This idea—the thorough advertisement of fearless confidence—was the basis of his plan. He knew wild men.

Desperately he fought off the forebodings which assailed him in the deep silence of the forest night, for hours he tossed in the distress of apprehension over the friend of whom he came in search. Toward dawn he fell asleep puzzling over the problem of Terry's reason for closing the door of his bedroom before going to bed and then opening it for ventilation. He waked from a dream in which he had slyly peered into the room in time to see Terry withdrawing a hypodermic needle from his arm, and lay worrying about the vivid nightmare until he noticed that the fire was dimming before the coming of dawn.

He breakfasted, drowned the embers of his fire with water from the stream, then reslung his pack and started up the slope. The way grew steeper with the hours, the forest thicker. The green roof of foliage was now so thick that the sun seldom penetrated and where it did strike through the sunlit spots were dazzling in contrast with the somber shadow of the forest. The undergrowth grew denser, so that he climbed with greater toil through the maze of thorned bush and snaky creepers that twined in enormous lengths across the forest floor.

The never-ending gloom of the weird twilight grew on his nerves. He tried to whistle to cheer himself but forebore when the uncanny echoes rocketed in the dismal cathedral of towering trunks.