Slash and Burn

watching films?”
    Siri reached for his broken heart.
    “Civilai!” he called to his friend on the next truck. “Daeng thinks we’ve wasted our lives watching films. What should I do?”
    “You’re in good shape for an old man,” Civilai shouted. “You’ll always be able to find a new wife.”
    “Watch your back, comrade,” Daeng shouted. “We’ll be passing along narrow mountain ledges with sheer drops. I wouldn’t want you to have an accident.”
    “Oh, did I hear a threat?” Civilai laughed. “You’ll have to get up very early in the morning to get the better of me, comrade noodle-seller.”
    “We’ll see, old man.”
    Despite Siri’s warnings and his unspoken concerns about his own health, the hike was comparatively easy. The path was well used and it wound over gentle hills, avoiding some of the higher peaks. Even so, Civilai maintained a safe distance from Madame Daeng. The teams walked in a long single conga line along the narrow trail. Ugly walked at heel beside Siri like a pedigree show dog. The porters carried the heavier bags and the pace was that of a nature hike for elderly ladies rather than a route march. The only sound, apart from the footfalls of heavy boots, came from Judge Haeng who had remembered his fictitious leg injury and now grunted and grumbled and leaned heavily on a tree branch. Siri pointed out to Daeng that a month earlier it had been the other leg causing so much grief. The whole expedition was tired of hearing the judge’s jungle survival story, even as translated by a very sarcastic Auntie Bpoo, today glamorous in a yellow pant suit.
    “Can’t we shut him up somehow?” Siri asked.
    They were walking through a narrow valley full of odd-looking trees with thick foliage.
    “Judge Haeng,” Daeng called from the back of the procession. “Excuse me. Sorry to interrupt.”
    The judge looked back over his shoulder.
    “What is it, Madame Daeng?” he said. The voices echoed against the karst cliff walls on either side of them.
    “You have a reputation of being a man with extensive knowledge of the jungles up here in the north.”
    “There are those who would say that I am something of an expert,” he smiled. “A good communist is like a tree. He stands firm but knows how to bend in a strong wind. He is fertile but gladly gives up his nuts to less fortunate creatures. Why do you ask?”
    “We were just wondering about these trees we’re passing under right now,” she said. “I haven’t spent much time in the north but I do believe we have something similar in the south. There we call them ngoo dtok .”
    Siri noticed that as she spoke his wife was surreptitiously unbuckling her leather belt and sliding it from the lugs of her canvas army trousers. “Would you happen to know if these are the same?” she continued.
    “I have heard them called that,” the judge lied. “I won’t bore you with their Latin names or the names attributed by local botanists, but, yes, I believe these are ngoo dtok. ”
    “Then it’s just as well we aren’t in the south,” said Daeng, who had just plucked the tree’s name from the air. “Because down in Champasak the ngoo dtok is the home of the infamous drop adder. I hope that isn’t the case here.”
    “The what, comrade?”
    “The drop adder, Judge. The trees are full of them. They’re deadly venomous snakes camouflaged the colour of branches.” The local porters began to look up at the overhanging foliage with trepidation. “There is no known antidote to their venom. One bite from a drop adder and it’s all over, a long, slow, excruciatingly painful death.”
    She had her belt rolled in her hand and was taking aim at Civilai four bodies ahead of her.
    “They wait for their prey to walk beneath the tree,” she continued, “and they focus on a vulnerable spot, a neck, a wrist … a bald head. They are remarkably accurate. You step beneath their branch and … hiss!”
    She launched her belt into the air where it began to uncurl and came down square on Civilai’s left shoulder—writhing. He shouted his surprise and beat off the fake drop adder, but the porter directly behind him screamed the heavens down. He ran in a blind panic away from the trees and rid himself of the cumbersome packs by tossing them to one side.
    The sound of the explosion was amplified in the gully and the force of it blew the escaping porter clean off his feet and into the rocks. Several of those nearest to the blast were knocked