The Sky And The Forest

by C. S. Forester

  They were destined to see a good deal of the cataract over its twenty miles of length, for its gorge deepened and the cliffs shutting it in grew steeper, compelling them to pick their precarious way at the very brink of the water, where the rocky surface practically prohibited the growth of vegetation, although the cliffs that rose above them bore trees in every ledge, and elsewhere were covered with brilliant lichens and mosses. Shut in between the cliffs, Loa was not as conscious of the vast extent of his brother the sky as he usually was when beside the river; and he even felt a more friendly feeling towards the narrow strip that was visible over his head. The continual roar of the cataract worked on him until he grew lightheaded, and pranced and brandished the axe as he walked along; the lightheadedness might have been partly the result of hunger, because they went with empty stomachs along most of the gorge. It was only when they were near its end that two successive lucky shots brought down parrots for them to eat.

  Twice at points where the water lapped the foot of the cliff they were forced to climb the cliff face, with endless difficulty, until they reached a shelf along which they could make their way until it was possible to descend again. Up there Loa's head swam even worse than when he emerged into open spaces, but he suppressed, as he always had done, any mention of this sensation, for Lanu seemed actually to enjoy being on a height, while Musini hardly spared a glance down the gorge and clearly acted as though, given a firm footing, she did not care whether the drop at her elbow was five feet or five hundred. The god Loa of his previous existence could without qualms have acknowledged feelings of weakness, but the present Loa, who was little use at lighting fires, and who was not as good a marksman as Lanu, and for whom respect was blended with tolerance or even amusement, could not afford to do any such thing. It was only rarely nowadays that Loa would even admit that he was hungry, although it is to be doubted if the appearance of stoical indifference that he cultivated made much impression on Musini.

  The gorge gradually flattened out without any abrupt change; the surface of the river gradually became wider and less studded with rocks, and its course became slower. It was not until they found themselves among trees and enjoying the mushrooms and white ants of the forest that they realized the gorge had ended. What really brought it home to them was Loa's noticing of a creeper carelessly lying between two trees -- just too carelessly; concealed behind the tree was a bent bow with an arrow on the string, to be loosed at a touch on the creeper. They were back among the little people again; all along the gorge they had seen no sign of them.

  This side of the cataract the river seemed to run straighter, without so many turns, and consequently without being so marshy at the banks, so that it was a little surprising when they found themselves entering into an area of bog which seemed to extend a long way inland. It was soon obvious that they could not struggle through it, and so they turned to their left (left-handed away from the river, right-handed towards it, as always) to seek high ground. Keeping to the forest rim, at the fringe of the marsh, they were forced to make two days' detour; it was on the afternoon of the second day that they came out upon a prospect that halted them abruptly. It was only a little bluff upon which they stood, but it commanded a wide view. To their right was the reedy marsh, with occasional trees standing in it, and with water visible here and there among the reeds, and far beyond it they could just see the broad surface of the river. But in front of them, at their feet, lay another river.

  It was nothing like the size of the big river, but it was far greater than the numerous little threads of water through which they had splashed in the course of their journey. One might shoot an arrow across it, hardly even drawing the arrow to the head, but there was no leaping across it or splashing through it, that was obvious. There were black depths in that river, here where it made ready to join with the bigger river, wherein devilish creatures might well live. It was an obstacle they could not pass.

  “So,” said Musini at Loa's side. “Another river.”

  She looked at him sidelong. There may even have been something of malice -- at least of bitter amusement -- in her glance, as though to question what the god Loa proposed to do in these new circumstances. As Musini advanced in her pregnancy, in that essentially womanly business, she was inclined to leave men's affairs more to men, and to withdraw into herself. It was plain that she washed her hands of all responsibility for the present situation.

  “What next. Father?” asked Lanu, eagerly. He still had faith in his father's superior intellect and experience.

  “Wait, my son,” said Loa, as ponderously as he could while trying to keep despair out of his voice.

  He sat himself down upon the bluff, at the foot of a great tree, and addressed himself again to a study of the landscape -- more to keep despair out of his mind than for any other reason. Down to his right spread the marshes of the river junction -- actually the delta of the tributary -- alive with birds, reedy and marshy and everywhere intersected by water channels. Ahead of him lay the little river, little by comparison but immeasurably wide when their own helplessness was taken into account. To his left the river wound among the trees of the forest out of sight, and behind him -- he knew what was behind him. In his mind fluttered the notion, not very well defined, that all rivers have their sources somewhere, so that by turning to his left he could follow the tributary upstream until it became passable, and then, crossing it and turning to his right, he could follow it back again to this junction. The notion fluttered in his mind and passed out again. He had not yet learned enough about the world; he might have thought of such a scheme had the obstacle before him been smaller, had it been such that he could nearly jump across it, but he could not really believe that such a major stream as this could start from nothing.

  In that case the problem was insoluble. Even the old trick of pressing his fists into his eyes was of no help. He pressed until wheels of fire circled in his sight, and he reached no conclusion; he only fell into despair. Musini and Lanu waited by his side for him to announce his decision, and he said nothing, sitting morose and silent against the tree. It was easy enough to fall into apathy, to sit there not thinking at all, with all his thinking processes clogged by despair, while dark shadows played in his mind. So far during all this while, ever since he had assumed command of the party, he had been borne up by faith, by that much of the blind belief in his own powers which had survived his capture by the raiders, or by a mere animal fatalism which had urged him along. Now all this was at an end; everything was in ruins. He sat there conscious of nothing save misery and depression.

  In time Lanu and Musini became restless.

  “Father,” said Lanu.

  “Lord,” said Musini. “Loa. Husband.”

  She raised her voice with each word; it was the first time in her life that even she had ventured to address Loa by the familiar expression “husband,” but she could not rouse Loa from his apathy. She put her hand on his shoulder and shook him gently.

  “Leave me in peace,” said Loa, heavily, without raising his eyes to her face. “Peace” was not a fair description of his state of mind, but it would serve in comparison with what he would feel if he were roused and set to thinking again. And he was tired, mortally weary. Lanu and Musini exchanged glances. It was obvious that there was no reasoning with him when he was in this mood.

  “Come,” said Musini to her son. “Let us gather food.”

  Loa stayed where he was in his melancholy for all the rest of that day. He did not shake off his mood even when Musini came to him in the evening and told him that food was ready for him. The thought of food roused him sufficiently to get him stiffly to his feet to walk back among the trees where the others had lighted a fire, but he sat and ate his food silently, his brooding depression conveying itself to Musini and Lanu so that they talked, when they talked at all, in whispers. And when he had eaten he lay down and slept with no more words either; he slept heavily, oppressed by formless dreams, so that he awoke in the morning unrefreshed and as
deeply sunk in apathy as before. Lanu and Musini looked at him as he sat staring at the ashes of last night's fire without seeing them. They shook their heads and moved silently about him.

  Then they heard sounds, sounds which penetrated even in Loa's consciousness and roused him instantly, which keyed them all up and which set Loa grasping for his bow and arrows and then started them all creeping silently back to the riverbank; not breathing a word to each other, creeping like beasts of prey towards the source of the noise. Loa wriggled like a snake for the last yard or two to the point where he could see the river. With his chin buried in the leaf-mould he peered over a root at the base of the tree, showing no more than his eyes as he gazed down the brief declivity at the water. It was a canoe, not one of the big canoes he had seen casting nets in the river, but a smaller craft altogether, tiny and cranky, hardly larger than was necessary to hold the two men who sat in it, propelling it slowly along with their paddles. They were big men, much scarred and tattooed, and the one in front wore on his head an ornament of grey feathers, and there were bracelets round the arms of the one in the back. Their paddles touched upon the sides of the canoe as they worked; that was one of the noises that had attracted Loa's attention, and now and then they exchanged a word -- that was the other noise. One of them laughed, and clearly they felt themselves in no danger.

  But they were well out in the middle of the river, and already a little downstream of where Loa lay. It would be a long arrow flight that would reach them, and if they died there in the middle of the river they were as much out of reach as the other side of the river was. Loa turned his head slowly to where Lanu lay in like concealment. Lanu had the same grasp of the situation. He was lying perfectly still merely watching, and when his eyes met Loa's their lack of expression told Loa that he, too, could see no reason for immediate action. They watched the canoe paddle slowly down the river, far out of reach, but not out of sight. It turned into one of the minor channels among the reeds, and Loa waited long before he rose and cautiously led the way among the trees at the water's edge in pursuit. With the patience of the leopard on the tree branch, with the cunning of man, they crept after the canoe, slipping from tree to tree, wading through marshy patches, standing stock-still behind cover when there was the least chance of being observed.

  Loa found it hard to understand what the men in the canoe were doing, especially as frequently they stopped out of sight for long intervals in one of the narrow reedy channels. On the occasions when he could see them one or the other of them leaned perilously over the side of the canoe and drew something out of the water, and sometimes he would toss something white into the bottom of the boat -- these mysterious fish, Loa supposed, which Lanu and Musini had talked about. But once they stopped for a long time still, with one man standing in the canoe -- all Loa could see was the black dot of the man's head over the level of the reeds. This stop explained itself. Loa saw the man's arm rise in the unmistakable gesture of bending and loosing a bow; the canoe had been waiting for one of the innumerable marsh birds to come within range.

  The canoe threaded its way in and out among the reeds, and Loa watched it with his interminable patience; patience the more laudable because he was not waiting for something certain, nor even for any definite possibility. He was just waiting, in case something, he knew not what, should happen. He and Lanu were close to the water's edge here, each behind a tree. Before them ran one of the reedy channels of the delta; about them was marshy land, not impassable, with the roots of the trees growing in it -- Musini was farther back, waiting too, with the same patience. About them brooded the sweltering heat and the deep silence of the forest, and the reek of the delta was in their nostrils. The distant cry of birds only served to accentuate the silence about them as they stood like statues, not daring to move because the canoe was out of sight and they did not know where or when it would reappear. Then they heard sounds, coming from not far away -- almost the same sounds as had first broken in upon Loa's apathy, the sound of wood against wood, the murmur of voices, even a laugh like the one they had heard before. Loa's muscles tightened; he notched his bowstring into his arrow and half drew it. He could see that Lanu was doing exactly the same. The canoe emerged round the corner of the reedy channel, heading down it straight towards them. Loa waited with his bow bent, as the canoe crawled along towards them, ever so slowly. At long arrow range the canoe stopped, and again one of the men leaned over the side -- Loa could see the canoe heel over dangerously -- to draw something out of the water and examine it and drop it in again, something that looked like a basket of reeds. Then the canoe resumed its course towards them, rocking a little with the strokes of the paddlers, yawing a little from side to side of the channel. Loa was actually quivering, so tensely expectant was he, but he must wait -- wait -- wait. But now the moment had come, with the canoe close beside him, not twenty feet from his arrowhead. He stepped out and drew his bow to the full and loosed, seized another arrow and loosed again, and yet a third time. Lanu's bow twanged beside him. At that close range the hard wooden arrowhead, hardened in the fire and sharpened to a needlepoint, could penetrate easily even through something as tough and as elastic as human skin. Loa's first arrow struck the man in the bow of the boat below the armpit and went in deep between the ribs. His second arrow struck lower and farther forward and penetrated as deeply. Even without the poison on the heads those wounds were mortal. Loa used his third arrow on the second man, who had turned an astonished face towards them with Lanu's arrows sticking in his back and his arm. Loa's arrow whizzed in at the opened mouth at the same moment as Lanu's third arrow struck him in the breast. He fell backwards, tipping over the crazy dugout. Both bodies vanished beneath the dark surface of the backwater, and the canoe, filled with water, floated with only a strip of gunwale showing. Beside it floated a collection of debris -- the two paddles, a couple of dead birds, half a dozen white-bellied fish, a bow and some arrows, a wooden bailer.

  Loa and Lanu stood by the bank waiting for the boatmen to reappear, but the dark water was undisturbed as Musini came up and stood beside them.

  “They are dead?” asked Musini.

  “They are there,” said Loa, pointing into the backwater. With the relief from tension and from his apathy of yesterday his voice sounded cracked and unnatural.

  “They are dead!” said Lanu. “We killed them, Loa and I With our arrows from here we killed them. How surprised they were when we stepped forward with our bows bent. We struck as the snake strikes. “We -- “

  “Peace, son,” said Musini, breaking in on his rhapsody. “And now? The men are dead, and the boat is there.”

  It was like Musini to call attention to the difficulties ahead. The canoe, just showing above the water, floated five yards from the bank, quite beyond their reach, and Loa was a trifle nonplused.

  “I can get it,” said Lanu, eagerly.

  He took the axe and severed a creeper which climbed the tree beside which they stood, and then, dragging at it with all his weight, he tore it down from its anchorage far enough to be able to sever it again, cutting off a piece twenty feet long.

  “See,” said Lanu, and, standing carefully at the water's edge, he cast the end of the creeper over the canoe. When he dragged the creeper in the canoe undoubtedly moved, and came an inch or two nearer. Another cast just moved it again.

  “Ha!” said Musini, her interest and approval caught.

  She looked round her and approached a fallen branch and was going to cut a section from it with the axe, but a glance from her brought Loa to her side, for there was something vaguely improper about a woman using cutting tools of steel. Loa cut off the length she indicated and Musini hastened to fasten it to the end of Lanu's creeper. Now a bold cast beyond the canoe, and a careful pulling in, brought the waterlogged boat much nearer, and two or three further attempts brought it so close that it grounded beside the bank where they could just reach it.

  “And now?” said Musini again.

  For answer Lanu leaned far out
from the bank and took hold of the gunwale of the canoe, heaving at it. “Water lapped over the side out of it, and Loa came to his help. With a powerful heave they were able to pour a good deal of the water out, so that the canoe floated against the bank with a fair amount of freeboard. Lanu began to climb in.

  “No! No!” said Musini in sudden panic.

  She had qualms about this enterprise; the water of the backwater was dark and mysterious, and boats were strange things, and she had fears for her son, but Loa put his hand on her shoulder and restrained her. Lanu climbed into the canoe with a laugh which was checked when the crazy craft wobbled violently under him so that he nearly capsized it again. Common sense made him sit down in the water in the bottom and stabilize the boat a little; he laughed again, but a trifle nervously, and the nervousness was the more perceptible when he glanced round and saw that the canoe had left the bank and he was drifting free. But after all, he had been in a canoe before, when he and his mother had been captured; he knew one could float in one and survive the experience, and his father had told him much about them with an inaccuracy Lanu knew nothing about.

  His momentum carried him out to the floating material, and he reached out -- with a sudden hesitation on account of the lurches of the canoe -- and took a paddle. He waved it triumphantly and was about to try to use it when his eye caught sight of the bailer floating beside him; he had seen a bailer used on his short previous voyage. He took the bailer and set the water flying out of the boat, laughing excitedly again now. With the boat nearly empty he tried to pick up the other floating things. He had to use the paddle he had to get to the other one, and his first amateurish digs sent the little boat circling round in a quite unpredictable fashion, and his attempts at managing it made it rock frighteningly again. But soon he had picked up paddle and bow and arrows and fish and all, looking back at his parents with all his teeth flashing in a grin, while they for their part regarded him with parental pride -- combined with a little of the consternation of the hen who has mothered ducklings. It was only a few moments before the obvious fact was brought home to Lanu that the canoe turned away from the paddle; by taking a stroke first on one side and then on the other he was able to propel it in some sort of straight line. It was wonderful. He headed the boat towards where his parents stood, and after one or two failures managed to come up beside them. Loa leaned over and took hold of the side and drew it against the bank.