by N. A. Nelson
TIRIO!
I’m trying!
TRY HARDER.
I struggle to tune out the warning signs from my body. Don’t give up. Mind over matter, T. Go, go, go.
YOU CAN DO THIS. I KNOW YOU CAN. His words are whispered, yet forceful.
It hurts. It hurts so badly.
Step, limp. Step, limp. I’m slowing down and, like any stalked prey, I feel the tide turn. So does my father.
LISTEN TO ME. YOU ARE ALMOST HERE. FOCUS ON MY VOICE. FOCUS ON THE END. YOU HAVE TO DO THIS. YOU MUST MAKE IT. FOR BOTH OF US.
“I…don’t…owe…you…anything.” My words come out in jagged sobs, and I feel myself growing angry again. “Nothing…do you hear me?” I scream the sentence rather than think it. “It’s you…who…owes…me!”
Silence.
The cat is gaining ground. His feet pound the forest floor, filling the spaces between my heartbeats.
“You…who…owes…me.” Unable to run any farther, I limp, and tears blur the path.
The cat. The cat. The cat. The cat. The frog. The frog. The frog. The frog. I stop and bend over in pain. For the second time in a week, I think about my hunting trip with Wata. I have the answer to my question: I am the one-winged pierid. Because of my foot, I too have no chance to survive in the Amazon. I visualize the injured butterfly’s last moment before death—scramble-crawling as he tried to get away. I picture myself run-limping. Similar. Pitiful. Futile.
Looking up, I stop. I’m in a garden. Could it be…could it be the Takunami garden? It looks familiar: the manioc plants, the maize, the weeded rows of pu-ni-ka. My mind races. If it is…I am close. Maybe…maybe…maybe…
“Yeow!”
A familiar tan and black beast slinks out from behind a tree in front of me. The female jaguar.
The low growl of the black jaguar rumbles behind me. I’m surrounded.
Spinning around, I see the black cat inching toward me.
Suddenly I hear the woman’s song I had been following earlier on the trail.
Come this way, the voice sings softly but strongly. Do not be afraid. Open your eyes and come this way.
I look toward the mottled jaguar. She is staring at me. The song is coming from her. It has been all along.
Come this way. The song continues, the words pulling me forward. Let go of your body, trust in your soul, open your eyes and come….
The black cat leaps. One powerful paw slashes my legs from under me and I slam to the ground. The mottled female darts around my body; I hear a grunt as they collide. I scramble to get up, but my right leg collapses. Crab-walking, I scuttle backward. The two cats separate and shadow each other like boxers. Two times they circle. Then three. With each rotation, they hunker lower, as if their bodies are being screwed into the ground. They watch for that flick of muscle, that telling shift, those hind legs lowering slightly. The movement will be subtle, the following action…possibly deadly. Blinking would be risky; looking away could be suicide. But she does. Glancing over the black jaguar’s shoulder, the female locks eyes with me.
Go, her stare says. Go, now.
In my mind, the gaze lasts a lifetime; in reality, it is a second. It’s all he needs. Shrieking, the black cat is on her.
Unable to walk, I crawl along the mud path. Rotting leaves stick to my skin. A fallen tree blocks the path. I turn around to crab-walk over it, but my leg screams as I bend it, and I collapse onto the trunk, gritting my teeth in pain. For the first time, I stop to look at my injury, and I stare in disbelief. My right calf is sliced from the back of the knee to the ankle. Mud has mixed with blood to form a sort of bandage. Since there’s nothing I can do, I grit my teeth, turn back to my hands and knees, and keep crawling.
I am like the pathetic five-legged bu-ki ant, dragging myself along.
I will return to the village as I left, I promised myself two days ago at the river. Two days ago when I was strong. Two days ago when I was stupid. Two days ago, when I was twelve.
The sky is turning that shade of pinkish blue that makes you feel anything is possible. It is a new day. I hear empty water pails being collected and the dry rattling cough of someone’s grandfather. I am almost there. My instinct tells me to keep going, my mind tells me to stop, my body is along for the ride.
This is not how it’s supposed to happen. I’ve imagined this moment, meeting my father…hundreds, no, thousands of times. In my vision, I was chest-out strong, chin-up proud, and rock solid on two feet. And Paho’s face—the one I made up—was at first shocked, then amazed, then ashamed as he stared at me. He would apologize and then want to know how I had done it, all the while showing me off: Look at my son, Tirio. Do you remember him? He could barely walk when he left and now he is as solid as a po-no. Laughing, he would shake my legs to prove the point and I would stand there, smiling and nodding. That is the way it was supposed to be. I look down at myself, my skinny body, my dirty clothes, my ravaged leg. A rooster crows in the distance. Not like this. I won’t do it. I won’t disappoint him again.
LUKA
27 Years, 72 Sunrises
The Amazon
I cannot see Tirio, but I know he is near. Near enough that I could run or yell to him, yet I do not. Talk and touch are not allowed in the soche seche tente until the boy has crossed the village border, so I stand as close as I can and wait. I hear the jaguar scream and feel the thud as the two cats collide.
This is your chance, Tirio. Run! Run fast!
Holding out my hands, I face their direction and channel my energy. I send it through the rivers of rain on the earth, in the breath of the wind tunneling down the path, and with the rays of the rising sun I feel on my face.
He is not resisting me as he has the last two days, and I am worried. A fallen soul sucks a body down faster than a hungry caiman in a death roll. I hope it is not too late.
I have visualized our first meeting many times, but, having never experienced it with my own paho, there has always been an uncertainty. I knew it would be wonderful, yet strange. We would be overjoyed to finally meet, yet unsure about what to say or do. I imagined we’d stare at each other and compare: same nose, same cheeks, same chin, same smile. We would talk and discover the same voice, same gestures, same laugh.
Now I wonder if the meeting will happen at all.
I open my eyes and stare as something crawls over a fallen log on the trail. Covered in mud and leaves, the creature does not lift its head as it drags along the path. It does not flinch as the branches whip and scratch. It stops, then starts again. Behind me, I hear water buckets being collected and the raspy cough of an elder. The creature hesitates and considers. A rooster crows. The something that is my son crumples. He is a stone’s throw away, but it might as well be the moon. I cannot help. He must do it on his own.
Get up, Tirio. Get up, Son.
His mind is foggy. He does not hear me.
Do not give up.
Nothing.
GET UP! NOW!
No response.
I watch him and refuse to blink, in fear that I will miss a movement. But there is none.
I slide down against the po-no tree and drop my head into my hands. How cruel the Good Gods are to let us get this close.
Hearing a twig snap, I look up. Tirio is crawling again. Seeing the determination in his weak movements, I pound the earth between us.
Yes! Almost there! Five more pulls!
He doesn’t look up, but I know he can feel the vibrations.
ONE!
TWO!
THREE!
FOUR!
FIVE!
He grasps my hand and collapses. His eyes are closed, but he is breathing. I am shaking so badly, I almost do not trust myself, but I grab under his knees and arms and stumble toward the village. Blood is dripping down my arms and I am scared because I do not know where it is coming from.
“Do not die,” I sob. “Please do not die.”
He tenses at the sound of my voice and then goes limp. I freeze. My eyes dart b
etween his lips and his chest. What happened? Is he still breathing? Feeling his heartbeat against my forearm, I pull him close and sprint the rest of the way to my hut. Easing him onto my sister’s hammock, I scream for her. “Sulali!”
She rushes in and I explain what happened.
“Go to the ku-mah-kah tree,” she says, handing me two covered baskets. “Fill these with ants. Run.”
I am there and back before the shadows have shortened a hair. “How is he? Is he still alive?”
“He will be fine. I stopped the bleeding.” Sulali finishes cleaning the wound. “The cut is deep, but it is straight and will heal well. We must hurry, Luka.” She motions for me to sit. “I want to finish before he wakes.”
Unlatching the top of a basket, I seize one of the giant qu-qu-lola ants. Twisting around, it snaps at me with pincers the size of a child’s finger. Sulali squeezes the edges of Tirio’s wound, and I place the insect next to the flesh. The ant digs into the two pieces of skin, pulling them together. My sister swiftly slices the body off with a knife and then tugs on the leftover head and jaws. The seam of skin lifts and pulls, but holds together. She nods, satisfied.
We work quickly. I position each insect. It pinches angrily. Sulali chops and checks for a tight hold. Forty ants later, we are finished. Sulali sweeps the writhing remains out the door, where our pet yanuti squawks and pecks excitedly at the unexpected free meal.
I stare at the tidy row of ant mandibles that seal the wound. If only Tirio and I can heal our relationship that neatly.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
TIRIO
13 Years
The Amazon
“Tirio…”
It is the familiar voice of my father, the man I have heard more from in the last two days than in the past thirteen years of my life.
“Son, wake up,” he says.
It is the same voice, yet different.
Someone shakes my shoulders, and the ground underneath me sways strangely. Where am I? I struggle to swim through my exhaustion to the surface of consciousness. Am I dead? Forcing my heavy eyelids open a slit, I see the bottom half of my body. It is covered with a large turunu tree leaf, and beyond that a thick vine reaches out and wraps around a tall vertical pole. I’m lying in a hammock in someone’s hut. Whose hut? His? Without moving my head, I slowly scan both directions. To my right, a fire burns; small leaf-wrapped bundles circle it, the contents inside slowly cooking on the warm coals. A pair of tree stumps sit side by side, their tops worn smooth by repeated use as stools. To my left hangs another hammock, and then behind it smaller ones, suspended between poles, filled with fruit, vegetables, and dried meat—the Takunami version of shelves.
“Tirio?” My father sounds scared.
I open my eyes a little more. On each side of my body, long brown arms cage me in.
I now realize why his voice sounds different. It’s outside my head, not inside. My gaze follows a long blue vein snaking down the inside of his elbow to his clenched hand gripping the edge of my hammock.
“Tirio, can you see me?” Calloused fingers lift my chin, but I keep my eyes down. I’m not ready to look at him yet.
Outside, boys laugh and sticks strike each other with solid whacks. War cries are whooped and then suddenly stop. A man’s angry whispers fill the silence, and tentative footsteps creep by. A little girl sings and claps her hands until an older woman shushes her and she quiets. Umutinas call out to each other, echoing and then adding on to their mate’s caw. Then, even they fade off into the distance. Except for the occasional crack of the fire, total silence surrounds us. It is as though the universe is waiting for this moment…this reunion between us. Stop watching us! I want to yell. Go away. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say. This is not how it was supposed to be!
I keep staring at the vein in my father’s arm and imagine the blood pulsing through it. It’s the same blood that’s coursing through me right now. He leans down. “You made it. You are safe,” he says.
I allow myself to look up at his mouth, but no higher. He runs his tongue over his lips nervously and I see where they are cracked in several places. I have dry lips too, I think, and then scold myself. A lot of people have chapped lips, stupid. That’s not something dads genetically share with their sons.
Is it?
“Do you understand me, Son?” The muscles in his jaw tense. “Tirio, say something.”
I close my eyes and swallow.
“Tirio!”
“Whh…” It comes out as a croak. I clear my throat. “Why?”
He lets out a sigh of relief after hearing my voice and straightens up.
“Why?” I say again. “Why did you give up?”
“Give up?” He sounds confused. “I didn’t give up. I kept trying to communicate, but you wouldn’t listen.”
I continue to keep my eyes down. If I just keep imagining him the way I have for the past thirteen years, I won’t fall apart. “No, not yesterday. When I was six. Why did you give up on me?”
My father drags to the window like a prisoner with a ball and chain. His legs and feet are muddy, but his muscles move powerfully under his brown skin. His strength doesn’t surprise me; I never expected him to share my disability. Yet something about seeing him walk without any problem revives the anger I’ve always felt for him.
When he doesn’t answer, I snort. “Even now you won’t admit the truth—that you were ashamed of me.”
“I wasn’t ashamed,” he begins. “You were very young when you left, Tirio. It’s not—”
“You wanted me dead,” I interrupt, accusing him with my words. “You didn’t think I was strong enough to be a Takunami warrior. You didn’t want me.”
In the long silence that follows, I let myself look up at his torso. His shoulders are slumped and he’s buried his face in his hands. His fingers cover his eyes. Long fingers…just like mine.
Slowly he removes his hands and I freeze in shock. He looks just like me. Except older, but not by much—maybe fifteen years. He’s got my nose and my eyes, my lopsided frown. I shift to see the side of his face; he’s even got my pinned-back ears. He’s so young. He looks like my brother, not my father.
“Is that what you thought all these years?” he asks quietly. “My son, there are many things you do not understand.”
“Tell me.” I blink back tears. “What don’t I understand?”
The sadness in his eyes scares me. They’re the only part of his face that looks old. “Your maha thought she was doing the right thing that day. She…”
Maha! I sit up and gasp as pain shoots through my leg.
“Tirio, do not move.” He rushes toward me. “You might open the wound.”
“Where’s Maha?”
Why did he just look down? My mouth goes dry.
“I should start at the beginning,” he says.
“Where is she?” My calf is on fire, and the tears flow freely now.
There is a long silence before he finally speaks. “She’s dead, Tirio.”
“You’re lying.”
He shakes his head.
I don’t respond. I can’t. Her last words to me echo in my head: I too will pay.
My father squats close to me. “The whole thing was a mistake…a misunderstanding.”
Numbly, I listen as he speaks about his childhood: his mother and Sulali, Karara and Tukkita, Kiwano and the Punhana and then finally Maroma.
“Since I never took the soche seche tente, I could not be considered a Takunami man, and the tribe was unsure what to do. Tukkita consulted the spirits, and they told him I would be given another chance. But the test would be more difficult—and this time, it would include my son. The visions said that at six years old you should be sent away to live with the Vanaalas.”
My eyes widen. A Takunami sent to live with another tribe?
“We are at peace with them. You would not have been harmed,” he assures me, reading my mind. “Two days before your thirteenth birthday, you were to be told the t
ruth and taken into the jungle. Using the sixth sense, I was to bring you back to our village. Only then would we both be Takunami men.”
I sit there, unable to speak.
“I did not want to send you away.” His eyes plead with me to understand. “At first, I told Tukkita no. I would sacrifice my own life before giving you up to the Vanaalas for so long. But I was thinking with my heart and not my head. If I was dead, you would be left without a guide for your soche seche tente. Tukkita did not think the spirits would look kindly on my selfishness and would punish you and Maroma. I had no choice but to pray for time to pass quickly and then bring you back on your birthday.”
A laugh of relief escapes through my tears. “So it didn’t matter that I had a bad foot?”
“Never. In fact, I think the Good Gods wounded you to make things harder for me. But Maroma blamed herself. She knew your importance to our family, so she tried to hide your weakness until she could fix it.”
I nod. “She used to carry me everywhere when we were in the village, but then after we finished our work, she’d take me out to the jungle and make me walk until I collapsed.”
“Your body always gave out before your spirit did,” my father says. “You had the same determination the last few days as you did when you were a little boy many moons ago with Maroma.” He crosses his arms. “I’m glad to see you did not lose it. Even if it meant you refused to listen to anything I said.”
I look down, my face growing hot. “I didn’t know….”
“It’s fine,” he says. “Maroma was the same way…stubborn.”
There’s a moment of silence, and I can see that my father is thinking of her too.
“She tried everything: ointments, chanting, even offering her foot to the evil spirits if they got out of yours,” he said. “And she got very frustrated when nothing worked, so she went to Tukkita. The shaman, knowing the Good Gods’ plan, assured her of your safety. At first she believed him, but after seeing others stare and whisper, she became nervous. She heard Tukkita tell me it was time for you to go.”
