Sisimito I--Ox Witz Ha

by Henry W. Anderson

  I flashed again to the right bank to reconfirm my decision. Standing on the topmost boulder was a large mountain lion. I assumed it was the one we had seen before, as those animals were very territorial. I blinked my eyes, wondering if my exhaustion was playing sinister tricks with my eyes. The mountain lion was there, looking directly at me, its intense eyes red, giving me a terrible sense of foreboding. Perched on its back was a Mottled Owl, an icim. The owl’s two large ominous eyes were also staring sinisterly and point-blank at me. I saw the owl’s head turning as if looking about the jungle; yet, its malevolent eyes were always fixed on me.

  My machete was in its scabbard at my side and my rifle cradled under my right arm as I still tried to protect the magazine from the rain and flood. I slowly brought the rifle into shooting position, trying my best not to have the beam of the headlight waver even a little bit. Then the noise of the rivers changed. It grew loud and explosive and suddenly there was water above my waist, then to my shoulders and then the headlight went out and I was engulfed in darkness. The swift and strong currents of the three rivers tore at my body, each watery lord trying to claim me, or a share of me, for itself. I felt my rifle pulled from me. I felt my body become cold and I trembled as I sank. As the three rivers weighed upon me, I felt the air being forced from my lungs and my chest collapsing to my watery enclave. I smiled in the darkness of the raging river and as I smiled, I felt what must have been a leaf brush against my lips. It didn’t matter; yet, I moved my hand to brush it away. As I touched it, I felt its warmth against the coldness of the raging river. I clutched it, firmly. I held Bas’ Green Scapular as it glowed a soft green against my chest, and it was warm. So, that is how it is to be, I thought. ‘Home is the sailor, home from the sea, And the hunter home from the hill … but the soldier? …whatever will.’110

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  SISIMITO’S CAVERN.

  Tuesday, April 4, 1972

  I felt cold. Yet, it was not the coldness of a river in spate. My body was dry, but I was cold and I trembled. Slowly, my returning consciousness was awakening me. From where? I didn’t know. I had no idea of where I had been and I definitely didn’t know where I was. The only fact I held on to was that my alertness was slowly returning and that meant I was probably alive.

  I opened my eyes and met absolute darkness and utter quiet. The ebony that enveloped my vision and the silence that rang in my ears frightened me. Was I blind? Was I deaf? Or was I indeed dead? But I felt cold and I trembled. I was aware of myself.

  I fought my semiconsciousness and fright. I tried to orientate myself, though it was difficult in the oblivion I was in. I moved my fingers and I felt the hard surface upon which I was lying, grains of sand and small pieces of stone piercing my flesh. I was lying upon the ground … somewhere. I tried to move my legs. They moved. I felt my body with my hands. I felt for my clothes. There were no clothes. It was absolutely dark, all was silent, and I was lying naked upon the ground … somewhere. Where? I didn’t know. Blind? I didn’t know. Deaf? No! I could hear the sound of my breathing. Yes, the softness of my breathing was clear. I felt my neck. The Green Scapular was there and that was the only clothing I wore. I listened intensely into the dark and there were two other sounds. One was the faint rustling sound of water flowing slowly between small rocks in a shallow creek. The second was the regular but intermittent and distant sound of water droplets falling and bursting upon the ground.

  I sat up. I felt bounds about my ankles. I touched them. They seemed secure and made of some type of hemp rope that led off into the darkness. I looked about me and saw only a black void. I sniffed the air. There was a definite perception of smoke and a whiff of many herbs. There was another scent that I immediately detected. It was a stench that brought back immediate memories of the hunt … and the kill. It was the aroma of fresh meat hung out to drain of blood. Perhaps, the sound I had taken for water drops was actually the drops of blood falling from the hanging game meat I had perceived was there … somewhere there. I wasn’t sure.

  I got on my knees and hands and tried to explore my surroundings. The many small and sharp stones cut into my knees and I grimaced, but I did not make a whisper. I found a perimeter about me, made from stout tree branches or small trunks that were spaced some three or four inches apart and bound together by the same type of hemp rope that secured my feet. The stakes completely surrounded me and were firmly planted into the rock platform on which I was. How high they rose I could not see and I was not going to stand to examine them. The sense of the captive animal was developing in me. I was trapped in a cage.

  I decided to wait for light, for the morning, to ascertain more about my prison. Careful examination had convinced me that I was not blind. I had felt my eyes, they were intact, they moved, and there was no pain. Many hours passed as I drifted in and out of sleep, very tired, then, suddenly, the darkness that surrounded me slowly began to wane.

  I was in a large cavern, but I was still unable to see much of the surroundings because of the persisting darkness. A faint glow of light indicated an entrance at one end and another gleam at the opposite end as a possible exit. I was not sure which was which, however. There were huge and numerous stalagmites and stalactites, some sizable enough that a man could easily hide behind and remain unseen. As the daylight increased, I saw that my prison was built on a ledge bordered to the back by the wall of an immense cave and to the front by a ravine, the depth of which I was unable to deduce. Level ground surrounded the cage and disappeared among the columns. The ceiling was about forty feet above me and the stakes of my prison rose to about twenty feet. I looked for an outlet from my prison, but here was no obvious door, no entrance … no exit. The arrangement of the stakes and hemp did a remarkable job of hiding any gateway.

  Illustration 39: Sisimito’s Cavern (Actually, the Rio Frio Cave).

  Illustration 40: Inside Sisimito’s Cavern.

  As more light began to filter in, I saw that, although the cavern was large, it was not more than three or four hundred yards in length. There was a large opening at one end, over sixty feet in height, where I could see tall broadleaf trees and the jungle floor. There was one massive tree trunk in particular, around which were scattered yellow flowers. That outlet was most likely the entrance as, at the other end, the opening was much smaller and trees were almost blocking it. Caverns like that were usually made by an underground creek cutting through a small hill or the spur of a mountain. It was unusual to find one so large, however. Across from me was another ledge that had as its outmost limit the ravine that ran the entire length of the floor of the cavern. A creek flowed at the bottom of the shallow ravine, making the sound of water I had heard.

  As I tried to learn more about my surroundings, I studied the area on the ledge across from me. There were cave dwellers there. I sensed them. Yet, they were not those occurring naturally in a cave, like bats, salamanders, beetles. I squinted my eyes, trying to discern what was there. There was movement. It was very little movement, at first, but I saw definite stirring. A long shadow was moving across the ledge away from me. As the shadow took shape, I saw the long sleek orange-brown body of a mountain lion walking across the ledge towards the entrance of the cave. As it walked, its eyes stared intently at me. Without thought, I moved away from the front of my cage. Its eyes filled me with foreboding, deepening to a sense of evil that made me unusually fearful. Sitting on its back was an owl. A Mottled Owl. Its eyes also watched me. I wanted to scream at them. They knew what had happened to my men. I fought for control, but I had already lost control. I was no longer in control. I was naked, bounded, and caged. I bit back my cries and watched the horrendous pair walk down a short slope to the bottom of the ravine and to the entrance of the cavern. I heard the lap of the mountain lion’s tongue against the water as it drank. I heard the eerie ghostly cry of the owl as they disappeared into the jungle undergrowth, gwow-gwow-gwow-gwow-gwot. From the jungle came the distinctive cry, Wah-co!-Wah-co!-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. My skin was cold and koal seed
spread rapidly as I trembled. I scrunched down, wrapping my hands about my body, trying to keep warm. I closed my eyes as I remembered Bas saying that when you heard the cry of the icim, it meant that someone in the area had died. The icim had cried and so had the kos, but it was not someone who had died. All my men had died. I shut my eyes against the hot burning tears that gushed from them. Yes! They were tears for Bas. Yes! They were tears for the rest of the men. And, yes! They were tears for me. I slept and when I opened my eyes again, I sat up and stared into the soft and large brown eyes of Molly Cervantez.

  I was not prepared for anything that had happened so far, but even more so, I was definitely not prepared to see the face of Molly Cervantez. I jumped backwards, hitting the stakes of my cage, totally unaware of, totally unembarrassed by my nakedness. I tried to talk, but my lips only trembled. She raised one of her fingers to her lips, indicating to me to be quiet. I saw that the hand was bandaged with a piece of cloth that held leaves against the place where the thumb had been. I looked at her other hand. It was the same.

  “He is still asleep,” she whispered. She kept looking towards the other side of the cavern as she continued speaking. “They brought you in last night. You had almost drowned and you were unconscious. It was very dark and he couldn’t see your hands. You must cover your thumbs with your fingers as you must not let him or the animals see your thumbs. If they do, they’ll bite them or cut them off … like mine.” She started to cry, silently, brushing away the tears with dirty hands as fear tore away the softness that had been in her brown eyes. “I have to go. If the animals see me talking to you, they’ll tell him.” She started to walk away.

  “I’m thirsty.”

  “When he awakens, I’ll ask him if I can feed you,” she answered.

  “Who’s he?” She did not answer, just stared at me. “My clothes,” I added. Again, she did not respond, then she hurried away.

  Molly Cervantez looked very different from the girl I had seen on the bus to Punta Gorda. Her short brown hair was in disarray and matted with mud and leaves. Her pink cotton blouse was dirty, bloody and torn in several places, with pieces missing, and the short blue jeans were stained. She still wore her brown sandals and they appeared intact. Her body seemed frail and bruised, but the most obvious and horrible aspect of her plight was the loss of her thumbs. I could not believe that he, whoever he was, had cut or bitten off her thumbs … and would cut off mine too, if he saw them; or, if his animals saw them. It was in Molly’s eyes that I had seen her haunting story. The excitement at being alive no longer lit up those eyes. Fear had commandeered, had replaced the softness that I had momentarily seen … that I had seen on that hot dusty bus on the road to Punta Gorda Cut-off. It seemed so long ago.

  “Where the Hell am I?” I tried to shouted, but my voice only cracked as my throat was dry and I needed water.

  I crawled to the front of my cage, trying to see her as she walked away. I watched her as she crossed the creek and started climbing the ledge on the opposite side. I tried to reach for sanity even if what was happening around me was insane. I was a soldier and had to evaluate the situation quickly. I had to assess the situation, correctly. I had to decide if I were crazy or not; was this world where I found myself real or was I in some horrible dream from which I could not awaken? I had seen my men murdered, my only friend dead. I had seen animals behave in strange ways. Suddenly, I had found Molly Cervantez and she had advised me to hide my thumbs. She told me the animals communicated with their master. Did I believe her or not? I had to believe. After all, it was I who was locked up naked in a cage. I had to find the soldier in me. I had to reestablish the soldier in me. I had to or I would not only lose my thumbs, but I would die.

  I wanted to walk up and down. I wanted to tear at the poles that made my prison. I wanted to break out. Yet, I did not. Somewhere, deep inside me, my training as a soldier was struggling to take over. I had to conserve my energy, recce the area. I had to look for sources of food and drink. I had to search for weapons. I didn’t know where I was and I couldn’t go running off into the jungle naked unless I had no other option. Whether I like it or not, I had Molly Cervantez to protect and wouldn’t plan an escape without including her. I needed to know my enemy, our enemy. Yet, there I was, in a cage, naked, and my feet were bound.

  The sun rose, rushing light through the entrance of the cave, displacing the gloom that darkness had held in place. At last, I was able to see my surroundings completely, or almost completely. My cage was the only structure on my ledge, except for a large pile of leaves a few feet away in one of several dark recesses in the cave wall behind me.

  On the opposite ledge, there was a rudimentary table and a few stools. The wall on that side of the cavern had been hewed, and there were long indentations used for shelves on which were leaves, possibly for herbal and cooking purposes, fruits and other articles. Opened cans of varying sizes, blackened from smoke, also lined one of the larger shelves. Not far from there, separated by three stalactites that almost reached the ground, was a bed on which someone or something slept. I could not make out whom or what it was as the area was shadowed. On the floor, beside the bed, Molly was laying on some kuhoon leaves. I glanced back on the area that was some kind of kitchen and saw a fire hearth. It had been built off the ground between two short stalagmites. The fire was cold and a blackened kettle sat on it.

  I thought I had seen everything I could from my cage, but I remembered the smell of the kill I had perceived during the night. I looked for the source and found it. In a crevice, near the kitchen, were hunks of meat hanging neatly in a row. They were large pieces of meat, probably parts of a t’ix, that is, a mountain cow’s111 carcass.

  I was distracted from my thoughts by the sudden eruption of noise from the entrance of the cavern. A cacophony was being made by a large number of birds that were flying in and out of the jungle. To my astonishment, each was carrying a piece of dried branch, possibly the largest it could carry. As if for future use, some were depositing them in a pile near the root of a large p’om tree,112 while others laid them in a neat row over a piece of blackened ground above which, about five feet up, a stout pole was suspended by two tree crutches. Off to the side stood the mountain lion with the owl on its back.

  I stared at the spectacle. It was evident that the birds were collecting wood for a fire. It was also obvious that the procedure was being done under the supervision of the mountain lion or the owl, or both of them. I, once again, questioned my sanity. I was naked in a cage, but I had to command myself to remember that I was, in fact, a naked soldier in a cage.

  Even though I had not drunk any water since the night before, I felt the urge to piss. No matter what the conditions, I was not going to piss in the confines of my cage so I walked to the back of my prison and started pissing, spraying the stream as far away as I could. Again, I couldn’t help thinking how Bas and I, in our youthful stunts as boys, would force out our piss to see who could piss the furthest. Those days were gone and I dismissed the thoughts.

  My piss landed on the pile of leaves, making a crackling sound and scattering some of them. My sense of relief was obliterated when I saw the urine flowing down back towards my cage, towards me. I didn’t want piss in my cage, not even my piss. There was a sudden loud hissing sound and leaves scattered in the air and over the ground. My pissing immediately lost its forceful stream. The angry eyes of the evil black and yellow head of a Bocotora clapansaya surged upward above the mound of leaves, its head jerking about it in a spitting rage. I leapt back rapidly, jolted, yet remembering to cover my thumbs with my fingers. The snake did not seem aware that it was I who had pissed on it. Piss was not only flowing over the ground in the cage, however, but also over my legs and feet as I continued to piss … on myself.

  I was too alarmed to feel ashamed even though I knew that I, tough Sergeant Chiac, had pissed all over himself and was standing in a puddle of his own piss, something I didn’t do even when I was drunk. I was suddenly angry at what was h
appening to me and I would have probably done something crazy, like hurl myself against the walls of my cage, try to break out, had I not glanced a movement in the bed on the ledge across from me. Someone or something had sat up and was moving to the side of the bed that faced me. It stood up and had the stature of a large man, but looked more like a hairy gorilla with a human head and face. There was enough light and I saw, or my mind made me see, that both his hands had only four digits. There were no thumbs. His feet were turned backwards and he didn’t seem to have any knees. I hung my head. I did not want to believe what my mind was telling me. After all, legends were legends. Yet, I had no choice but to believe that I was looking at Sisimito. I turned away, quickly. I was always told that if I saw a Sisimito, being a man, I would die in one month. A woman, on the other hand, would live a prolonged life. I hoped the legend meant that the Sisimito had to see me too. What strange land was I in? What had happened to my jungle? Should I believe what I was seeing? Common sense told me I had to if I wanted to survive. That land, that jungle was no longer my home. I had to believe if I were to live and escape. I had to believe what I was then living and I had to react the way a soldier would.