Moon bellowed at them, “Aeore tells you the truth. The white man is the enemy of the People, and all the Peoples to the East. You must drive the white man from your land; this I too have told you. But this man”—he pointed at Quarrier—“is not your enemy. He has come into the forest as your friend. He has brought presents. He has given food. It is true that Boronai has died. But the son of this man has also died. Would he kill his own son? I tell you, he is not your enemy! Your enemy is the white man Guzmán, who is bringing his Green Indians here to kill you!”
The Niaruna awaited Aeore, who clutched the club as if to squeeze it dry. Across a sudden hush of silence, Moon said slowly, “I am Kisu-Mu. I am sent by Kisu. You will obey me.”
In the same quiet tone Aeore answered, and he said what Moon had always feared that one day he would say. He said that the People had listened because they thought that the stranger was Kisu-Mu. But Aeore did not believe that this was Kisu-Mu. Now Kisu-Mu must give them a sign that he had come from Kisu.
Aeore went down on his knees and lifted his hands, the club still clutched in them. To Quarrier he said, “At the time of the death of Billy, you called to Kisu in this way. We have watched you speak to Kisu-Mu. You do not speak to him in this way. You speak to him as to a man. If Kisu-Mu is a spirit, speak to him now as you spoke on the day of the death of Billy.”
Quarrier sank slowly to his knees. He was careful not to face Moon. “Almighty God,” he said, “I pray—”
Led by Tukanu, the other Indians got on their knees and prayed to Moon. Quarrier flushed and became silent, then rose suddenly to his feet, shaking his head. “You must not do this,” he told the Indians. “You must not pray to this man.”
Across the tumult Moon said, “You feel better?” He had taken out his revolver.
Quarrier said, “I appreciate what you tried to do. I’m sorry.” He knelt again, then bent his head and closed his eyes. He was very pale, and his voice was high and strained. “I shall pray for us.”
“Pray for yourself. If Jesus Christ was as pig-headed as you, I don’t know why they didn’t kill him sooner.”
Aeore, still dazed by nipi, had not chosen his course; he seemed uncertain about attacking Moon. The other Niaruna watched in dread, searching for leadership. Moon thought, If I can just get the jump on him before he makes his move … The surest way was to blast him where he stood, in the name of Kisu. He slipped the safety off. “If I have to shoot this man,” he said to Quarrier, “I’m going to shoot you too.”
The missionary squeezed his eyes shut. “If you can save lives by shooting me,” he said, “please do it. While my eyes are closed. They’ll kill me anyway.” There was a note of martyrdom in the voice, even self-pity, but what seemed to Moon far more disgusting was that Quarrier’s voice was resolute, he meant sincerely everything that he had said.
“So get the hell up off your knees,” Moon said. “Tell them I am not your precious Jesus. Tell them I am Kisu-Mu, who comes from the Great Spirit of the Rain.”
Quarrier stared at him, setting his jaw again. “I can’t do that.”
“Why, you stinking—why can’t you, for Christ’s sake! It might be true!” Moon kicked him viciously in the side. “Get the hell up, I said!”
At the sight of the kick, Aeore moved forward with the club. Moon lifted the revolver. “Tell him,” he said, “or I’ll shoot him down to save your neck.”
Quarrier pointed at Moon. “Kisu-Mu is not the white man’s god,” he said, his voice an ugly croak. “Kisu-Mu comes from the Great Spirit of the Rain.”
Aeore whooped with rage. He raised his club above Quarrier’s head, but this time Tukanu sprang forward. In the second that the maddened Aeore turned to meet Tukanu, Moon seized Quarrier by the collar and yanked him backward, out of the club’s reach. Aeore and Tukanu were circling in a kind of dance, chattering so rapidly and angrily that Moon could not understand them. Then Tukanu leaped aside. Pointing at Moon, he shouted, “Kisu-Mu is our friend! Has he not come to the People out of the sky? We have seen it. For many seasons he has lived among us. He has led us against the white man, our enemy, and he will kill the white man who comes here with the Green Indians. Is this not so, Kisu-Mu? Tell the People that this is so.”
For a moment Moon was silent; then under the eyes of Quarrier, he said bitterly, “I say to my friend Aeore that this is so. I will kill the white man Guzmán when he comes here.”
Aeore threw down his club so violently that it bounded among the tribesman, scattering them. A moan arose. He stalked away into the maloca, reappearing a moment later with his paddle and bow and arrows, and a net bag of his belongings. He paused in the sunlight, contemplating his people, then started toward the river, trailed by the Ocelot and two of the other Yuri Maha.
Then Tukanu brayed, a long loud sound of ultimate stupidity.
Aeore stopped short. He turned slowly and ceremonially, as in a ritual, and fitted to his bow a fine long arrow with blue and yellow quills. The people near Quarrier moaned and backed away; Quarrier, unable to see what was happening, faced Aeore on his knees.
Aeore stared at Tukanu, then snapped his head and spat. He stared at Moon. Then he raised his bow.
Moon called to him. “My voice is the voice of Kisu. You must not do this.”
Still on his knees, Quarrier asked what was happening. Were they going to kill him after all? He did not believe this, and his face was quizzical, almost cheerful.
In the silence of the clearing, a bird called. It was answered by another, then another. Aeore’s body trembled. Moon thought he glimpsed, between the savage crisscrossings of color at the eyes, a sign of recognition and regret: If you come from Kisu, very well—then you will punish me.
Death and sunlight, sunlight and death. The shimmering of day: the macaw quills, the bright sun on the forearm sinews, the clean paint on the clean brown of the body, the leaf-shifted morning light, the bird, the river—the very air was of such piercing cleanness that Moon sighed.
Aeore raised his bow again. His fear-softened face, the face of a young boy, became the cold brave terrified face of the last heretic.
“Riri’an.” Moon spoke the name quietly, and the Child-Star moaned; his eyes searched the frightened faces of the Indians to learn which had betrayed him. He faltered, lowered his bow, then gave a screech and ran toward his canoe. Behind Quarrier, the three men of the Yuri Maha were snaking for the river. Moon switched the revolver toward the Ocelot, switched it back; he fought down an impulse toward annihilation. He was going to burst. The whole magnificent plan, just to spare this—!
Quarrier reared up off his knees. “What did you—”
Moon brought the revolver around in a chopping backhand arc and smashed the barrel down across the missionary’s mouth, sending him sprawling. He aimed the revolver at the blood-smeared head. Quarrier lifted himself slowly, spitting bits of broken teeth. Moon’s body was transfixed, all but one finger; the finger tightened. He sighted carefully on a spot of dirt on the missionary’s huge forehead. The tears poured down Quarrier’s broken face, to the bright red lips, the bleeding mouth; the face filled Moon with horror. He got his breath again, and glanced about him.
Down at the river the men of Yuri Maha drifted free in their canoe, following Aeore. The Ocelot shouted ferociously at Tukanu and waved his bow. Moon called out to Tukanu, “Tell them to stay!”
“No one will stop them,” Tukanu said. “The Ocelot says that you are not Kisu-Mu, that you come from the white man.”
“Will they come back?”
“They will come back,” Tukanu said somberly, “but they will come back as our enemy.” A moment later, apparently forgetting what he had just said, his round face parted in a smile, as if the enmity of Aeore and the Yuri Maha were of no consequence. He was too innocent to conceal emotions; despite the threat to his band, he was chuckling with satisfaction at the prospect of his own leadership. Already he wore upon his chest the green stone cylinder of Boronai.
Moon pointed the revolver at Tukanu, who
jumped back in fear. Moon hefted the metal object in his hand—well, so be it. He jammed the gun into his belt as Tukanu watched him.
He will be headman of the tribe, Moon thought, and the tribe is doomed. He cursed Tukanu, cursed every stupid greedy Indian on earth, and at the same time he cursed himself and he cursed Quarrier, and cursed the low thick stupid sky.
AT daylight Boronai’s canoe still stirred restlessly among the branches. All agreed that the dead man’s spirit was unquiet, and they gazed resentfully at Kisu-Mu. Who would revenge Boronai? Could revenge be taken on Kisu-Mu? They did not know. They were unhappy that Aeore’s vision under nipi had been disregarded, that the missionary was still walking through their village; if the vision of the shaman was not truth, what faith could they have in anything? Had Kisu-Mu come from Kisu or had he not? They were disoriented and afraid. Some were bold enough to mutter angrily at Kisu-Mu; they had heard what the Ocelot had said.
Tukanu stood on the bank of the river, supervising the departure from the village. New Person was already in the canoe, waving his fat hands at flies. After his birth, his parentage had reverted to Aeore, and Tukanu took no further notice of him; now he was an orphan, tended with indifference by the Ugly One, who had grown lean and cranky. When the Ugly One remembered, she would force her daughter to give the baby suck. The Ugly One said everywhere that this New Person was the get of Kisu-Mu and was an evil omen; it had caused the death of Pindi. All the Indians despised the baby, yet none dared touch it. Moon longed to take the child from the Ugly One, and bounce him and say good-bye to him, but this would further weaken New Person’s poor position in the tribe; like Aeore, he would have to fight for a hand-to-mouth existence. New Person peered about him at the world and laughed and bubbled; he had a big voice for a baby and he liked to shout.
The women waited by the river. There was an atmosphere of nervousness and apprehension that expressed itself in general sullenness; few had faith in Tukanu to lead them to a new site, to see that the fields were planted and a good maloca built, to protect them from their enemies, both Indian and white. Tukanu spoke too loudly and gave too many orders; the red shirt bobbed incongruously among brown skins. At one point he cuffed Mutu, who had not moved rapidly enough about his business; this was another bad sign, and the people groaned. Moon had never before seen a child of the Niaruna struck, and when the boy himself stared astonished at Tukanu the new headman pretended that he was only joking.
Tukanu proclaimed that the People would start eastward, then turn north into a tributary creek above the Monkey Rapids; this was the last high ground near the main river. His people knew that this retreat from the main river was a sign of a dying clan; in the Falling River Time they would have to walk in their dry stream bed, which they considered an ultimate disgrace. Under Aeore, they muttered, the People would have taken Tiro ground and worked it with Tiro slaves. But now they were poor and fugitive, no better than Kori.
In his new role as headman, Tukanu was no longer the feckless Farter. Pompous in his shirt of red, arms folded upon his chest, he addressed Kisu-Mu with ceremony from his canoe. He asked the Spirit of the Rain to kill the white enemy and drive off the Green Indians; he asked the Great Spirit to go far away once this was done, and leave the Niaruna in peace.
One by one, the canoes drew away in silence. Moon called good-bye, but except from the children, he received no response. Only Tukanu, at the stroke position in the large headman’s canoe, lifted his hand off the paddle in a listless wave. Moon sat down on the bank and watched them go. Tukanu skirted wide of the death canoe of Boronai, still stranded among the fallen branches, and then the red shirt was extinguished in the angles of the great green walls, the high dark canyons which led away into another world.
25
IN HIS BAGGY PANTS, WITH THE STIFF POSTURE AND THE SHY EXPRESSION of uncertain eyesight, Quarrier awaited Moon. “It’s Yoyo,” he called across the empty clearing. “Yoyo’s gone.” Behind him, the Ugly One’s old yellow dog, abandoned in the haste of the tribe’s departure, appeared and disappeared along the forest edge, like a pariah.
They had forgotten all about the Tiro. He had broken through the rear of the thatched hut, and he would go straight to Guzmán. With Yoyo as guide, Guzmán would have no trouble finding the trail from the Espíritu to the Tuaremi.
A wave of lassitude came over Moon. He grunted aloud and shrugged. “I’ll take you to the mission,” he told Quarrier. But Quarrier refused to go; he knew it was silly, but he was afraid of Yoyo. He hesitated. “What else?” Moon said, regarding him.
“Well … I wanted to dissuade you … Are you going to murder Guzmán?”
Moon glanced at him in warning. “Come on,” he said, “let’s find some supper.” They went to an eddy of the river, where Moon speared three small fish; they picked plantains and dug manioc. Toward twilight, gathering firewood, they heard the hum of motors ascending the Espíritu.
They passed the evening peacefully, respecting each other’s chagrin. Moon had built a fire inside the main door of the maloca: This door faces east, Boronai said, because the sun’s first rays bring strength to us. When Quarrier repeated his question, Moon answered him quietly, “You heard me promise.”
Quarrier said. “Go into the world unarmed.”
Quarrier said this naturally and simply, and yet Moon perceived that the missionary had seen into him; he felt his face grow hot with consternation.
“I thought you had given up preaching.”
“That’s right,” Quarrier said, paying no attention to the sarcasm. “I have failed in the Lord’s work.” When Moon grunted uncomfortably at the phrase, shrugging his shoulders, Quarrier said, “You see … a man like me, a cautious man, has his life all figured out according to a pattern, and then the pattern flies apart. You run around for quite a while trying to repair it, until one day you straighten up again with an armful of broken pieces, and you see that the world has gone on without you and you can never catch up with your old life, and you must begin all over again.” When Moon made no response, but simply stared into the night, Quarrier said, “I needed badly to talk to someone who didn’t refer each problem to the Lord. But maybe we can’t talk after all.”
“Suit yourself,” Moon said. But after a while he said, “How does it feel? Are you afraid?”
“I’m not really afraid of anything that may happen.” Quarrier raised his eyebrows, as if surprised by this realization. “I’ve made such a disaster of my life that I’m not afraid of anything—that is, any change is welcome. Maybe you’ve never reached that point.”
“I’ve been there, all right. My trouble is, I never left it. I even like it.” He turned the manioc tubers in the embers.
• • •
IN the long night silence of the empty village, broken by fits of rain, the voice of the missionary rose and fell. Moon half listened. Quarrier told him of the moment his first doubt came: when Huben announced that Billy’s death was surely an expression of the Lord’s will, a means of converting the Niaruna. He shook his head. “What arrogance!” he burst out angrily. “And Yoyo! For months I couldn’t bear even to think of Yoyo, he was such a reproach to me. For every soul that has been truly saved we have made thousands of Yoyos, thousands of ‘rice Christians,’ thousands of beggars and hypocrites, with no place and no voice in a strange world which holds them in contempt, with neither hope nor grace! And even the saved—” He stopped, out of breath. “Well, I can’t be sure yet. I can only be sure that Martin Quarrier is unqualified to be a servant of the Lord.” He looked up, his face laid bare by pain. Moon winced at the sight of the dried blood and broken teeth.
“You’d better give it some more thought,” Moon said. He wished to comfort Quarrier, but any comfort in this moment seemed insulting. And Quarrier’s defeat made him uneasy, like an argument which, having won, he then had doubts about.
“I’m coming back here, though.” Quarrier looked eagerly at Moon. “I’ll go back to see to my wife, and get a little stake together, a
nd then I’m going to finish my study of the Niaruna. As Huben says, I’ve been more of an ethnologist than a missionary right along.” His face contorted; he was trying to eat hot manioc without hurting his broken teeth. “That doesn’t mean I can’t still help them—you know, with medicine and food. But with no strings attached.”
Moon laid more fuel across the fire. Near-sighted, leaning forward, Quarrier was searching his face for encouragement; Moon kept his eyes averted. “You better get another pair of glasses while you’re at it,” he said at last, “or you might wind up with the wrong tribe.”
Quarrier smiled in recognition of the joke; out of politeness, he waited a moment before speaking again. But he was so lost in the future he was constructing that he could scarcely contain himself. “If you’re still with the Niaruna, perhaps you would let me join you. You could teach me a great deal. What do you think?” Moon said nothing; he lay down in his hammock. A little later Quarrier said, “It will be very interesting, don’t you think so? I mean, to find out whether this tribe is really a lost group of Arawak, as I think it is, or whether it is Tupi-Guarani. Things like that—the sib groupings and everything. Don’t you think so?”
Moon rolled over on his back and sighed. “The sib groupings, huh?”
“I don’t really know what I’m talking about,” Quarrier admitted. Deprived of encouragement, he relapsed into silence once again.
Moon was thinking about how Andy Huben had looked at him the last time they had seen each other, the last time they would ever see each other. But finally he said, “If I don’t kill the Comandante, I can’t return to the Niaruna. And if I don’t go back to the Niaruna, then there’s no hope for them.”
Quarrier nodded.
“If I do kill the Comandante, and don’t get myself killed in the process, they’ll send the whole damn army in here, and the only Niaruna left for you to study will be Kori.” He gazed at Quarrier, who was silent. “As an ethnologist and ex-missionary, Mr. Quarrier, maybe you’d care to suggest a solution to this problem.”
At Play in the Fields of the Lord Page 35
