Fatal Odds

by John F. Dobbyn

  Men whose bodies were covered with much more clothing than we wore came onto our shore. They clutched things in their hands that looked to us like a different kind of blowpipe. I have since come to call them by a name that I wish I had never heard—guns.

  They walked cautiously and kept close together until it became obvious that our people wanted only to greet them with smiles and warm words. They could not understand the words, but they could sense there was no danger. It was not long before they lowered the guns and returned the smiles.

  My grandfather and I had been in the forest hunting. I returned ahead of him with part of the day’s catch. I remember my first sensation when I saw the boat and our people swarming to greet the strangers. Our people were innocent of all doubt of their goodwill since no outsider had ever come beyond the bend in our river. I’ll admit that I would have shared completely in that innocence, but for my grandfather’s forecasting of an ominous change.

  I moved through the cluster of our people around the man who seemed to be their leader. When I said words of welcome in the language of the Portuguese my grandfather had taught me, I was almost stunned to hear words in their language that I could understand.

  We exchanged greetings that assured peaceful intentions on both sides, and my initial fears began to subside. While some of their number remained on the boat, I welcomed their leader and the group with him to the center of our village.

  The excitement of that first meeting was raised to fever pitch by their generous offering of gifts of food we had never seen. Before long, those on the boat brought shiny pieces of stone on strings that they placed around the necks of our women.

  Although our tribe had never experienced guests, it seemed natural to prepare a feast. A cooking fire was built, and large samples of every species of meat that we had come to include in our meals were brought to the flame to prepare for our guests.

  We were well into the preparations when my grandfather came back from the hunt. I watched his face as he took in the presence of the boat and the men it brought. For the first time, I saw a look of fear and, I don’t know, perhaps something deeper.

  I ran to meet him. I wanted to share my pride in using the language he had taught me to pave a path of peace and friendship with our guests. He listened in silence. My words seemed to have no effect on the bitterness I saw in his eyes.

  “It’s all right, Grandfather. They mean us no harm. They bring gifts.”

  “It’s not all right.”

  He said it with such conviction that I was stunned. I finally asked, “What should we do?”

  He had a grim look on his face as he seemed to be counting the number of strangers. He looked carefully at the sticks called guns that the strangers had let drop to their sides, but which they still held.

  “Nothing.” There was a strange resignation in the voice of this man I thought to be in command of everything in life.

  Together we walked to the center of the village. When he approached their leader there seemed to pass between them looks that left me stunned. There was a look of domination in the eyes of the stranger, and, with a sadness I’d never known, I saw a look of surrender in the eyes of my grandfather.

  The powerless feeling I had at that moment eased as the afternoon passed in the sharing of the greatest feast I had ever experienced. We favored our guests with every delicacy we had from the tenderest young monkey meat to slices of the rich meat of a manatee fresh from our river. We only refrained from the harvest of the pink river dolphin because of myths and legends our people held sacred.

  There was no less an outpouring of generous provisions on the part of our guests. From their boat, they brought us delicacies they called breads and meats of animals we have never known. It was a feast of food and friendship that left me for the first time in my life doubting the thoughts of my grandfather.

  When the eating was done and the feast settled into a restful slumber for our guests and most of our own people, their leader found me and my grandfather. He asked in his language that we walk with him a ways into the deep forest.

  My grandfather seemed reluctant but resigned. The three of us took a path that my grandfather favored when we went hunting.

  We walked in silence, while I noticed the leader scanning every movement in the great canopy of trees above us. We passed under colonies of spider monkeys that were equally interested in us. As we passed below capuchin monkeys, wooleys, red howlers, and pygmy marmosets, I answered every question about what we were seeing while my grandfather kept his silence.

  The eyes of our guest almost blazed with interest when we passed beneath the rare golden lion tamarin. He took an even greater interest in the screams and caws we heard at a distance. He asked to be taken to see the great birds that made a noise he seemed to recognize.

  In my innocence, I began to lead the way to where the hyacinth and scarlet macaws nested. I knew the place well. Our people believed that these enormous birds, colored in the most brilliant reds, greens, and deep purples like no other creature in our world, were the sacred gifts of God to keep us aware of the joy of life. In homage to God, we brought to their nesting area every day the best fruits and nuts as a thanksgiving for the sacred message these creatures brought from God.

  Before I could move far, my grandfather caught my arm. He spoke to our guest, but he was looking at me.

  “It’s too late in the day. We have to be out of the forest by sundown. The anaconda wait in the trees and the jaguar hunt in the darkness.”

  I had never heard of the giant boas or the jaguars being night hunters, but I would never contradict my grandfather. I noticed a reluctance in our guest to turn back, but my grandfather’s words prevailed.

  When we reached the outskirts of our village, our guest asked us to stop. He motioned us to sit under a kapok tree and talk. I could sense a foreboding in my grandfather, but I had no reason to fear the words of the stranger.

  Our guest spoke slowly, perhaps so that there would be no misunderstanding. “We’ve just feasted on the meat of these animals of the forest.” He gestured upward. “I have a different interest. I want to take some of them back with me. There are people of great wealth who’ll give them fine homes as pets. They’ll be well fed and live in comfort.”

  My grandfather was stone silent. Someone had to speak. I said, “They’re well fed now. Look at them. They’re comfortable with their families.”

  Our guest laughed. “So they appear. But remember, there is death waiting for them on every side. Day and night. The jaguars can climb trees. Boas are waiting to strangle them and swallow their young. Every animal here has predators. In these homes there will be no predators.”

  “Perhaps. But even so, what does all this have to do with us?”

  He leaned toward me. “We need you to catch the birds and animals for us.”

  I just smiled. “We can’t. It’s impossible.”

  “But you did. We feasted on them this afternoon.”

  I shook my head. “No. We can kill them with blow darts up there at a distance when we need food. We can’t catch them.”

  Our guest sat back with an enigmatic smile. “But suppose for a minute that it were possible. It would be good for the animals. It would be good for you and your people too. You enjoyed the food we shared with you today. There could be more. There could also be knives called machetes made of this.” He held up the hard pole called a gun. “Sharp enough to carve darts, blowpipes, even hollow boats to fish the river. You’d be well paid. Life could be better for you.”

  I smiled and pointed at the gun in his hand. “Perhaps even these poles you call guns.”

  My grandfather suddenly went from sadness to bitter anger. “Enough! No more of this!”

  He stood and began to walk back to the village. Our guest caught him in the crook of his arm with the gun-pole. He kept the smile while he said, “Give me a moment with your grandfather, Ancarit. I think we can reason together.”

  I walked out of earshot. I turned to wat
ch them. The stranger kept his hold on my grandfather’s arm. He did the talking. At times he lifted the gun-pole into my grandfather’s vision. At one point, the stranger looked at me and smiled and waved. I saw my grandfather’s anger fade. He simply sank into a look of deflation, defeat.

  Whatever else was said between them caused my grandfather to look back at me and simply nod. Somehow I sensed for the first time in my life that there is a power of evil in the world, and that a deal had been struck that would, as my grandfather predicted years earlier, change us all, perhaps not for the better.

  THIRTEEN

  TO THIS DAY, I remember the hunt with my grandfather on that previous morning before the boat arrived like no other. It was the last time I saw him smile.

  The following morning, I felt a nudge at my back calling me from sleep. What little sun filtered through the dense canopy of trees was barely announcing dawn.

  “Come, Ancarit. I need you. It’s beginning.”

  I followed my grandfather into the narrow path we always took hunting. By the time we reached the point where our village was shielded from sight by hanging vines, he would always be well into a story about what happened in a city called São Paulo or Rio de Janeiro. This morning there was only silence.

  We came to a small clearing under a chattering family of squirrel monkeys. He took a blow dart out of his quiver. I kept silence, but touched his shoulder and looked in his eyes. He could read my question. Squirrel monkeys are not good for eating. Why would we kill one?

  I could see the frustration in his tired eyes. I knew he hadn’t slept. He motioned me to sit, and he sat beside me. He had difficulty beginning, but I sensed that he had to explain.

  “Our lives are no longer our own, Obanti.”

  This was the name he’d chosen for me. It means “One who will lead.” I was sure he meant as shaman of our people. I just listened.

  “These men with guns are not what you think. You must know two things. First, they are capable of acts of evil beyond your imagining. Their words mean nothing. You must know that from the beginning.”

  “I believe you, Grandfather. But then why do we—”

  “Listen to me. Carefully. There is power in those sticks they carry that gives them control over us. For now, for the sake of our people, we have to obey them. Do you understand?”

  I didn’t. And I couldn’t lie to my grandfather. “If we do what they say, will they leave?”

  He would not lie to me either. “I don’t know. For the time being . . .”

  He took the dart and rested it on a leaf. We performed the usual ritual to excrete the poison from a frog. This time he gathered it on a leaf. He crushed the juice out of several leaves and twigs of a bush that he pointed out to me with the words, “Remember this. This won’t hurt the monkey. He’ll just sleep.”

  He mixed a tiny speck of the poison with the juice from the bushes and coated the dart. When he raised the blowpipe to his lips, I saw moisture forming in his eyes. He wiped them and took aim. He blew the dart straight into the chest of a male squirrel monkey. It jumped in alarm at the slight sting and began climbing. I waited for it to drop through the branches.

  This time it simply slowed up and made clumsy motions with its hands. My grandfather stood beneath it. When it finally missed a branch and tumbled down, he caught it gently in an armful of leaves.

  “It’s not dead, Ancarit. It will wake up about midday. We have to work quickly.”

  He set the sleeping monkey on a bed of leaves under a tree. Together we did the same thing again. In a short time we had seven sleeping squirrel monkeys.

  We moved on to where a family of red howler monkeys was playing some game in the canopy. My grandfather captured seven of them in the same way. When we finished, he straightened up with great difficulty. I asked him to rest, but he shook his head.

  “No rest. Not now. We have to get these to the boat before they wake up.”

  I carried as many of the sleeping bodies as I could, and my grandfather carried the rest down to the shore. He called to the man in charge. He came out on the deck with what looked like a staggering walk. My grandfather pointed to the sleeping monkeys. The man wiped saliva from his mouth and almost fell against the rail. His voice was raspy and slurred and coarser than anything I’d ever heard.

  “What the hell! They’re no good to me dead.”

  The disgust showed in my grandfather’s low tone. “They’re alive. They’ll all be awake and hungry by the time the sun goes down. Where do you want them?”

  The man seemed to be slow understanding. He finally called behind him. Two of his men, not much more alert than he was, came out of the cabin. They followed his orders to come down and gather up the monkeys.

  Everything inside of me was rebelling. These monkeys were as much a part of this forest as we were. Since I was born, we’d referred to every animal and bird as a brother or sister. Yes, we killed to eat, but we never made one of these brothers suffer.

  When the workman from the boat grabbed the first of the monkeys roughly, my reaction was instinctive. I gave a hard shove to his shoulder with both hands. His unsteadiness gave way to the blow. He tumbled backwards away from the sleeping monkey.

  The leader on deck shouted down with a crooked grin. “Hey, kid. It’s all right. We got a good safe place for the monkeys. They’ll have plenty of room. We got food for them. They’ll be good. Manuel, go easy with the monkeys.”

  He was forcing a smile and waving his hands. “It’s okay, kid. Ask your grandfather.”

  I looked beside me. My grandfather’s head was down. He wouldn’t look at me. He just said, “Come, Ancarit. Come.”

  “But what’s going to happen to the monkeys? We brought them here.”

  He turned and walked away from the shore with his head down. I was torn to the point of feeling ill. With no better basis for deciding, I followed, as I always had, my grandfather’s lead.

  The slurred voice from the deck boomed behind us. “More monkeys. And I want the birds. We don’t leave till we get the birds.”

  Neither of us looked back. We just walked. I was so worried about my grandfather that I scarcely heard the slurred words. “And a tamarin. I want a golden lion tamarin. You hear me?”

  * * *

  The sun was high above when we went deeper into the forest. We found another family of squirrel monkeys. I could see that the strength and even the heart of my grandfather had been drained. I made him sit beneath a kapok tree while I repeated what we had done that morning. Within an hour, I had seven more sleeping spider monkeys.

  I helped my grandfather to his feet and started to lift the monkeys to bring them back to the boat. He took my arm gently and looked in my eyes for the first time since we had left the shore.

  “Ancarit, this will be hard. We have to bring them the great birds.”

  Now I could see clear moisture in his eyes. I remembered that their leader was demanding birds. I realized for the first time that he meant the hyacinth and scarlet macaws. How could we do it? We believe that these radiant birds that stand high as a year-old child are the sacred gift of God.

  It was too much. “We can’t, Grandfather. You know we can’t.”

  “What I know is that we must. On the lives of our people. Let’s do it quickly. Then we’ll pray for forgiveness.”

  It took until midafternoon. We walked to where the loud calls and shrieks came from branches that were alive with color. I saw my grandfather’s hands tremble as he prepared the darts that would bring into our hands what was intended to light the skies.

  When we had four brilliant sleeping macaws, we held them in our arms while we pulled sleds of bamboo branches on which the monkeys slept like children. Every step we took was an assault to our hearts, but we did it.

  Their leader was steadier on his feet when we got back. We laid the sleeping monkeys and macaws on the shore to be taken by his men onto the boat. I wanted to plead for the release of at least the birds, but when I looked into the cold eyes of
their leader, I knew my grandfather’s words were true. We had no control.

  As we walked back to the village, I tried to feed our spirits with the words, “He said they’d be better off in the homes of their new owners.”

  My grandfather put his arm around my shoulder and started to speak, but he couldn’t lie to me, and he knew no truth that would give either of us comfort.

  The last word I heard from the deck of the boat was wrapped in a curse. It was a repeated demand for a golden lion tamarin.

  My grandfather’s energy was spent. I brought him back to where my mother had prepared supper for us. I left him there and stole out of the village. The last part would be up to me.

  The golden lion tamarin is so rare that whenever we caught a fleeting glimpse of it, we considered the day blessed. It tore at me as never before, but I prayed for success in doing what my heart knew was evil. It was in the last rays of the day’s light that I saw high on a branch, a small golden body that could fit in the palm of my hand. It was a mature male, though its large innocent eyes made it look like a child.

  I asked for forgiveness from all of nature as I prepared, according to my grandfather’s earlier instruction, the weakest solution that would put it to sleep. I sent the dart to its mark, and stood to receive the tiny body in a soft bed of leaves. I sat holding it for several minutes of indecision before beginning the long walk to the boat.

  When I arrived at the shore, there was no one in sight. I called, but there was no answer. I walked up the plank that led to the deck and called again. Still no answer.

  I walked through the door that led into the house that sat on the deck. A sickening, pungent smell of what I later learned was called rum stung my nose. There was a small flame in a lantern in the house that lit the bodies of sleeping men on the beds and on the floor. I saw the unconscious face of their leader and nudged his shoulder. There was no movement and no way to bring him to wakefulness.