If We Were Giants

by Dave Matthews

  She looked past him, saw that the Takers were already halfway across the river, the whole crew pulling hand over hand to ferry the raft across the sluggish but steady current. Digging her fingernails into the branch she was sitting on, she took a deep breath. “I will.”

  He leaned in and gave her a big hug. “I’m proud of you.”

  Proud of her for what? Not fainting? She clenched her teeth in frustration at her helplessness but managed to say, “Good luck, Luwan. And please be safe. I’ll be worried about you.”

  He waggled his eyebrows at her. “Those hunters are the ones who have to worry.”

  Luwan turned and hopped down a few branches until he was directly behind the mouth of the giant puppet. He looked around at everyone else already at their stations, exchanging nods and silent signals of encouragement. They were ready.

  Within a few minutes, the half-dozen Takers sauntered along the path and into the little clearing before the tree, dressed in that clothing designed to protect them from anything—beast or man or natural disaster—they might ever encounter. It took an act of fierce willpower for Kirra to remain in her seat, silently watching. The urge to run away was overwhelming.

  Luwan took a horn hanging from his belt and held it up to his lips. At the same time, his foot found a lever connected to the lower jaw of the puppet. As he pumped his leg on the lever, the puppet’s enormous mouth clattered open and closed. “RAAWWRR!” Magnified and distorted by the horn, Luwan’s voice was gruff and powerful, the roar of a demon.

  The Takers’ reaction would have been comical if Kirra hadn’t been so terrified. All of their heads snapped up as one, and they stumbled backward, reaching out and holding on to one another for support so they didn’t topple over. That worked for almost all of them. One Taker was sent tumbling to land awkwardly on his ample backside.

  As he scrambled to his feet, that Taker and all the others withdrew those long weapons from the coverings that were belted to their waists, flicking them open to expose the slender silver blades. “Who…who goes there?” one of the Takers called out. Kirra noticed these interlopers had gotten better at learning the language of this land over the last four years, but that didn’t help the delivery. Perhaps it was wishful thinking on Kirra’s part, but for someone who was supposed to be the leader of this group, his voice certainly sounded shaky.

  “I PROTECT THE FOREST!” Luwan boomed. He turned and gave a signal to Mozan, who pulled on a series of ropes. This caused the puppet to lift one gigantic arm, slowly curl his branch-fingers into a fist, and shake it back and forth at the Takers.

  The hunters glanced at one another uneasily, dismay and perhaps the beginnings of fear showing on their long gray faces. A few of them motioned to the one who had spoken up. They pushed him forward.

  He took a few halting steps into the clearing, raising his right arm, and pointed his sharp weapon up at the puppet. In her memories of that terrible night in the encampment, that weapon had been impossibly long and cruel, but today it looked puny and pathetic in comparison to the great forest giant.

  Luwan signaled to Kharee and Teeha below. They leaped up to grab overhead ropes, let their weight drop them to the ground, and then released the ropes. They jumped up again and again, allowing the ropes to lower them back to the forest floor before letting go. This caused the puppet’s enormous log legs, wrapped in cloth, to rise and fall heavily, pounding the dirt with a great thud each time. Kirra could feel the tremors as the sound shook the tree she was sitting in. She also noticed that the Takers all took a few steps backward.

  “LEAVE THIS PLACE!” Luwan boomed. He worked his foot double time on the lever, making that huge mouth clack open and closed angrily.

  Down on the ground, the leader motioned to one of the other hunters, who reached up and grabbed something slung over his shoulder. It looked like a bow, but it was held horizontally instead of vertically. The man fitted it with an arrow and then worked some sort of a handle in a circular motion. The man then leveled the weapon on his shoulder, took aim, and the arrow came whizzing straight at them.

  In reflex, Kirra put her hands over her head and ducked. But the arrow merely stuck into the wood of the huge puppet’s face.

  Luwan signaled to Teeha and Kharee below, who scrambled up the tree trunk. Mohan furiously worked at his ropes, and the giant’s arm bent backward until it disappeared through the screen of leaves.

  Kharee and Teeha grabbed a big rock, roughly the size of a half-grown pig, that had been stashed in the crook of a tree branch. They each put both arms under and strained to lift it.

  While they were doing that, Mozan worked a lever that brought the arm back farther and farther, and Makina came over to cinch it tight with a length of rope. When Kharee and Teeha set the rock into the puppet’s branch fingers, Kirra finally figured out what they were doing.

  The giant’s wooden arm had been designed to throw! Like a weapon she had heard about in stories from long ago—a catapult.

  Mozan removed a slender cutting stone from his belt and whacked at the rope, severing it in one blow. The arm exploded forward, ripping through the leaves and launching the big rock into the air.

  It happened so fast, the Takers didn’t have time to scatter. The rock sailed across the clearing and smashed down on the foot of the hunter who had shot the arrow.

  “Aaahhh!” His howl of pain tore through the forest. The man desperately tried to move, to run away, but his foot was pinned to the earth. He turned his head and spat an unintelligible stream of words at the five men cowering in fear behind him. Kirra was willing to bet that some of those were curses.

  Keeping their wide eyes trained on the giant lest he attack again, the Takers dashed forward as a group. Three of them extended their weapons toward the menace in front of them, while two others lifted the stone off their fellow hunter. His anguished screams of pain only increased. As two men put his arms around their shoulders to carry him out, Luwan had his friends draw the giant’s arm back again. This time they filled the wooden grip with smaller rocks and sticker balls from the thorny bushes.

  “NEVER RETURN!” The catapult arm whooshed forward, and the retreating Takers were pelted with a shower of hard, sharp missiles. They cried out in pain and increased their pace, hustling to get back to their ferry.

  The kids in the tree waited breathlessly, watching from behind the leaves as the hunters made it to the raft, spilling weapons and the injured man clumsily onto the wooden surface. Luwan’s crew stifled giggles as the man cried out in pain and anger at his hunting mates. It wasn’t until the raft had made it to the other side, well out of earshot, that Luwan and his friends allowed themselves to cheer and hug and clap one another on the back.

  “You see?” Luwan looked up at Kirra, beaming. “I don’t think we have to worry about seeing those Takers around here ever again!”

  “. . . GET A LOOK AT HIS FACE? I’ve never seen anything like…”

  “. . . didn’t know eyes could even get that wide! He must…”

  “. . . that thing that shot the arrow? I need one of those to…”

  “. . . so great when he fell down, and the other guys didn’t even…”

  The entire crew was lounging on the banks of the river, talking over one another, telling war stories about successfully using the giant puppet to scare away the hunters.

  Kirra sat a little apart from the rest, keeping her thoughts to herself. They had worked so hard and deserved to laugh and celebrate. And she had certainly experienced a rush of euphoria as she’d watched the Takers turn tail and stumble away, racing to get back to the other side of the river to disappear into the brush.

  But still, she couldn’t stop worrying about what would come next. Was it possible that the forest giant would be enough of a deterrent, a frightening-enough threat to keep the Takers away for good? The illusion was clever and well constructed, and she had no doubt that the archer’s smashed toes would make him reluctant to return. But as grateful as she was to Luwan and his friends fo
r doing all this, she couldn’t help but think the men must have realized it was a decoy of some kind…or a youngster’s prank.

  The best she could hope for was that the hunters would be too embarrassed to tell their comrades about what happened, but they would steer them in another direction. On the other hand, if the Takers never heard about it, then all this had been for nothing.

  Kirra sighed. She’d had such clarity of purpose upon waking up this morning—her leaving would save the Tree Folk from the Takers. Even though she’d been heartbroken at the prospect of going away, at least she’d had a clear direction set in her mind. Now she wasn’t sure what would be the best thing to do, and the uncertainty was almost worse than the sadness.

  After an hour or so of imaginative reminiscing, the confrontation growing bigger and more legendary with each retelling, the group wore itself out. Luwan and his friends lolled back against the riverbank, hands clasped behind their heads as they gazed up at the sky.

  “Look at those clouds,” Mozan said. “Finally. You think the rain will start tonight?”

  “Tomorrow at the latest,” Kharee said.

  “Those hunters are going to be soaked unless they can get back to wherever they came from, and fast.”

  Luwan laughed. “Did you see how quickly they were trying to escape the great and mighty forest giant? They must be miles away by now.”

  Kirra hoped so.

  The group went back to studying the sky. After a while, Makina spoke up. “This is the longest dry spell I can ever remember in my entire life.”

  “Your entire life? What are you, about five years old?” Luwan sniggered. “I’m sorry to say, Makina, but the span of your living memory is not all that impressive.” The others joined him in laughter.

  “I’m twelve! Well, almost. And I can’t help it if I’m small for my age,” Makina huffed. “And besides, my parents said the same thing. They say it could be the longest dry season ever of all time.”

  “Oh, quit picking on her, Luwan,” Teeha said.

  The group quieted down again. Kirra watched as Makina sat up and sneered at the boys, then looked back and forth from the river to her friends.

  “Hey, Luwan,” she finally said. “You’re always talking about how you’re going to cross over to the other side someday. Why not now?”

  Luwan sat up and studied the river. “Nah. I’ll do it some other time.”

  Makina pressed on. “But the river might never be this low again. This could be your last chance this season.”

  Luwan cupped his chin in his hand, looked out across the meandering current.

  Kirra had to speak up. “Oh, Luwan. Please don’t tell me you’re actually considering this.”

  Makina shrugged. “Maybe he’s just afraid. How old are you, anyway, Luwan? Five?”

  Luwan, still full of himself from the victory over the Takers, puffed out his chest. “I’m nearly full grown. I could do it right now, no problem.”

  “I bet you couldn’t get across and just touch a single tree on the other side.”

  “Stop it, Makina.” Teeha shook her head. “I agree with Kirra. Don’t do this, Luwan. There’s no need.”

  Luwan jumped to his feet. “You know what? Sometimes you don’t need a reason to do something amazing!” he cried, and ran full tilt toward the river.

  Kirra gasped and put her hand over her chest. Her first instinct was to jump up and run after him, grab him, and drag him back to the safety of their little group. But she knew that was useless. As always, Luwan was going to do what Luwan was going to do.

  So all she could do was sit there and watch as he splashed into the river and started chugging forward, first in water up to his knees, then his waist, and finally his chest. When it got almost to his shoulders, Kirra could tell he was struggling to keep his footing.

  “That boy is crazy sometimes.” Kharee shook his head.

  Teeha scoffed. “That boy is stupid sometimes.”

  Kirra watched in silence as Luwan got smaller with distance, his head bobbing up and down as if he were jumping off the riverbed to keep himself above the surface. Out in the middle, it must have been so deep that he couldn’t touch at all, because he started swimming, pumping his arms and legs furiously as the current pushed him downstream.

  Kirra hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath until Luwan finally got past the middle, close enough to the other side that his feet had found the bottom once more and he was straining forward, wading until the water was back down to his chest, his waist, and finally his ankles. Kirra could start breathing again.

  When Luwan strode out of the river, safely on the other side, he turned and raised his arms in triumph. His friends stood and applauded him, whistling and cheering.

  Makina cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, “Remember! You have to touch at least one tree!”

  The forest over there was sparser, a collection of stunted trees and scraggly brush. Kirra wasn’t sure if Luwan could hear Makina or not, but in any case, he ran up the riverbank, slapped a tree, and turned back to the group to raise his hands again, a huge smile on his face as he reveled in his accomplishment.

  That’s when two monstrous men, clad in leather, dashed out from behind the tree line, grabbed Luwan roughly by each arm, and dragged him into the brush.

  KIRRA’S CLARITY OF PURPOSE returned in an instant.

  “Teeha!” She clutched the larger girl by the shoulders. “Take everyone to our hut, tell Loba and Maham what has happened. Tell them everything, understand? Don’t leave anything out. The puppet, the river, all of it.”

  Teeha looked as wide-eyed and stunned as Kirra felt, but she just nodded once. “I can do that.”

  “But what are you going to do?” Makina wailed.

  “This is my fault. I need to go and try to help him. Now.”

  Kharee and Mozan stepped forward, protests on their lips, but Kirra turned her back on them and fled before they could speak. “Go! Now!” she called over her shoulder.

  It felt maddening to be running in the opposite direction, away from Luwan. But she couldn’t cross the river here. Those hunters must have been watching, lying in wait. She had to put some distance between her and the Takers, cross the river unnoticed, and then sneak back over on land to try and find them.

  Kirra could not let panic seize control. The mind muscles she’d built up over the years in order to keep the Memory Traps at bay were helpful now. She was able to block out all other thoughts and maintain a sharp focus only on what needed to be done: get across the water undetected, find Luwan, bring him home.

  Running was a slog, her feet either sinking into soft sand or tripping over stones. But she kept her eyes trained on the bend in the river ahead. If she could get around that, she would be shielded from the Takers’ view. Kirra was also careful to head upstream, knowing that the current would push her sideways, as it had Luwan. She wanted to be carried closer to the spot where they had nabbed Luwan, not farther away.

  Finally, she reached the bend and raced the length of the curved riverbank. Glancing behind her to make sure she was out of the field of vision of whoever might be close to where Luwan had been taken, she turned and plunged into the river.

  Luwan was much taller than she, so the water was over her head sooner, but she just kept moving, churning her arms and legs, struggling inch by inch to get across. There was a moment of terror when the current seemed too strong, and the feeling of being overtaken by a powerful natural force washed over her again. Worse, some part of her thought there would be comfort in surrendering to the river, letting the current sweep her away from her life with the Tree Folk and all the problems she had caused. But she didn’t give in this time. She kept fighting, and soon her feet were dragging along the riverbed and she could force one foot in front of the other until finally she was on all fours on the opposite bank, gasping for breath.

  She stood up and scanned the countryside to get her bearings. Kirra glanced back at the other side and realized the riv
er had dragged her past the spot where she’d been sitting with Luwan and his friends.

  That got her moving again. She didn’t want to be spotted by the Takers before she could help Luwan.

  Kirra pushed herself up and ran for the tree line, working her way inside the underbrush. Concealed by the foliage, she paused to wipe the water out of her eyes and get her bearings.

  Her instinct was to move quickly, dash this way and that to find where they had taken Luwan. She guessed they had a camp nearby where they were bringing the game and dressing it, perhaps smoking it all so they could carry a big load of meat back to the main group.

  But she realized that, as difficult as it might be, she needed to prioritize stealth over speed. So she walked carefully, slowly, to avoid making noise, keeping one ear cocked to the sounds of the forest, listening for clues.

  Just like the first time she’d set out in search of a Takers’ encampment, it was not difficult to locate them. Perhaps they had so much confidence in their special clothing and cruel weapons that they didn’t think it necessary to take evasive measures. It seemed it was not in their nature to hide.

  And even if they were out of sight, the smells would have drawn Kirra straight to them. The sweet and pungent odor of meat being smoked filled the air, getting stronger as she took each step.

  Kirra made it to the space the Takers had cleared out for their camp and she crouched behind a thicket of brush to observe. A couple of crude lean-tos had been slapped together for shelter, and several fire pits were set up to facilitate the meat smoking, flames roaring at each one.

  A group of six Takers was huddled up in the middle of the clearing having a heated discussion, making broad gestures with those eerily long arms. About what to do with Luwan, she had no doubt.

  And there he was, the boy who had saved her life all those years ago. The person who had given her a family when she didn’t deserve one. Sitting on the ground, his wrists and ankles tied together with rope.