Sisimito I--Ox Witz Ha

by Henry W. Anderson

  I concluded I was somewhere on the Main Divide of the Maya Mountains, generally west of the area where my section and I had travelled. How far west, again, I didn’t know. Whether my deduction was correct or not, I didn’t know as that jungle was alien to me; however, I was a soldier and, as a soldier, I had to have an escape plan. I had to develop a strategy and I would have to make it based on tactics I knew, what I had seen, and what I was then seeing. If I had really been transported into a place I did not know, I still had to react according to my training. I would draw from what I knew of my jungle and from my experiences in order to survive, making adjustments as needed. I, therefore, placed my position as being on the Main Divide, west of The Fork.

  I tried to do a visual reconnaissance of the area to the southeast. That was the area Molly and I had been running through and, possibly, where Sisimito’s cavern was. There was very little I could see, however, as that entire field, I estimated it about one hundred square miles of jungle, was covered by a dense grey fog. The miasma, the whole malicious entity, was not moving, but within it there were swirling darker masses. Even though I stood in the hot sun, I felt cold as I stared at the blackening eddies, developing a sense of foreboding that left me puzzled. I looked away from the deepening fog. We definitely would not go down into that vile mass of the unknown. I took in a deep breath. It was time to wake up Molly and it was also time to find water. My mouth was parched and my dry tongue was constantly touching my cracked lips that had begun to bleed.

  I kneeled beside Molly and said her name. “Molly.” I repeated it again, but she did not respond. I cried out her name even louder then I realized that although I was saying her name, no sound was coming from my mouth. My mouth was too dry. I shook her and as she opened her eyes, I saw fear in them for a moment until she realized it was me and relaxed. I used the blood from my lips to moisten my mouth as best I could and words did form, but they sounded harsh and crackly. “I can’t speak well. My mouth is too dry and talking hurts.” She nodded and got up, but stumbled as she tried to walk, so I held her.

  “I am filled with aches and pain,” she said, grimacing, her voice also cracking. “My skin burns. Every joint is stiff and I feel very weak.” She gazed around as if evaluating the situation then looked back at me. “I am also thirsty.” She tried to smile.

  I nodded. “I’ll look after your ails later, but we must find water first. We have to go.”

  She sighed. “I don’t think I can move. As I said, I am weak.”

  “Now!” I entreated, firmly. “We have to go now. The aches and pains, the weakness, they will disappear as you begin moving.”

  She smiled, feebly. “I see you have on your pants.” Perhaps, I should have responded, make something light of it, but I didn’t. She gave me her hand and we started to walk towards the inclining sun.

  It was about one-o-clock and we had only taken our first steps of descent when we heard the distinct and solitary roar of a howler. The frightening sound was so intense it wanted to take away the strength from our legs and we stopped, as if riveted to the ground, holding on to each other. The roar was immediately answered by another, louder and seemingly more urgent. There was another and another and within moments it seemed that the entire jungle had erupted in wild and furious lamentation. The bewailing chorus sang the howls of thousands of Black Howler Monkeys, a discord of primeval mourning and murderous rage. Within moments, the angry jabber of birds was upon us. It was difficult to be sure where the clamor was coming from, for resounding echoes off the many mountain chains were being hurled back at us, again and again. Yet, as we listened, the loudest noise came from the jungle we had passed through. Then a most horrible and bestial moan rose above the cries of the animals. Sisimito had awakened from his drunken stupor and knew he had lost his bride.

  I ran back to the summit, dragging Molly with me. We looked down at the area we had come from. The fog I had seen was deepening, blackening, and rotating wildly like an angry hurricane. Mozon190 is here, I thought. The fog hurled out the roars, moans, screams, and howls of the angry animals beneath it, the cries of anguish were those of hellish burning bewailing spirits. They were death calls, but not the sweet death calls of the Sirens off the Straights of Messina. I cussed myself, wondering why the fok I was again thinking of the Sirens, remembering fokin stories from my school days when I was about to die, but all thoughts of the Sirens disappeared as lightening flashed upward into the clear skies tearing apart the heavens. Thunder shook the hills so violently that we grabbed on to each other so as not to be hurled to the ground then, all of a sudden, all was quiet. The immediate and instantaneous quietude made both of us shiver as we stood, still holding each other, our bodies covered with koal seed.

  “They’re coming for us,” I warned, my throat burning me as I spoke. I turned and ran to the western slope, Molly following me closely. We were quickly out of the tall golden grass and running through the pines. Suddenly, we were on an outcropping that rapidly turned downhill and we could not stop when the edge of the rock was reached. We tried to run down the steep incline of the rock but slipped as our feet treaded on the mosses that lined areas of the rock. We fell, rolled, bounced to the bottom off the piece of granite and into some more tall grass. I did not cry out. Molly did not cry out. On hitting the bottom, however, I bellowed Oh fok! and that expression of frustration was loud and clear for it echoed through the valleys and came back shouting at me. Our fall had added more scrapes and bruises to our already battered bodies, but that was all for, luckily, the outcropping had been weathered relatively smooth. I had to quickly reexamine our situation. We were both bleeding again and even though the injuries were minor, both our feet were particularly sore from stone bruises, small lacerations, and filled with prickles. If we lost the use of our feet, it was over for us. Anderson always told us, “Take care of your feet.” We had to take care of our feet.

  “Let’s walk to the tree line,” I grunted. The jungle tree line was about three hundred feet away and we were soon out of the hot sun and in the thin undergrowth of the jungle. I needed something to moisten my mouth. I needed to talk to Molly, explain what we had to do. I started searching the undergrowth like I was a crazy man intent on finding something I had lost.

  “What are you looking for?” asked Molly. I could hear pain in her voice. “Shouldn’t we be going?”

  I did not answer. It was too painful to talk, my tongue and mouth dry, my lips cracked and bleeding. I was searching for a special plant that Na’ had told me about. She had showed it to me one day while we were walking from the kool. Na’ had looked down at me as she explained that it grew all over the jungle, one only needed to know where to look. There was always love in Na’s eyes when she looked at me, when she taught me. I stored all the knowledge that Na’ gave me, even if I didn’t understand how it would be useful. I knew Na’s love was always there for me and as I searched for the plant, I reached out for that love too. Whenever I had needed that love before, it was always given to me … by Na’. I shook my head, coming back to the dreadful situation I was in. I had never needed the plant before so I wasn’t sure if it really worked; yet, I firmly believed that it would work exactly as Na’ said it would. Well, I would soon find out. She had told me that the working class of the ancient Maya chewed small pieces of a branch to relieve thirst when working. I was sure she had given me its name, but I didn’t recall it. I didn’t care, I just needed to remember what it looked like. Then I saw a bush that further jolted my memory. I couldn’t afford to make a mistake as I didn’t want to chew something that was going to irritate my mouth further or poison me. As I looked at the plant, however, as I touched it, all that had happened that pleasant day I walked from the kool with Na’ returned to me. Na’ was beautiful, of that I was always sure, and she was proud of her heritage. Even when she worked, her long black hair was always neatly combed, her huipil clean and beautifully embroidered. I ripped off a branch of the bush and started chewing on it. At first, there was nothing then, slow
ly, I began to feel moisture return to my mouth and throat. I broke off another branch and gave it to Molly then we both sat and continued chewing. Sometimes, I wondered about me. As I sat there, chewing and chewing, trying to relieve my extreme thirst, I started remembering the old worn out cows of my village as they sat on the grass, in the shade, grinding their cud. I sighed and saw Molly look up at me, but, thankfully, she did not ask anything. I don’t think she would have taken nicely to my thinking about cows at that time of our lives. We still needed water, but at least we would not feel the constant sensation of thirst and we’d be able to talk without much pain.

  I sat, leaning against the trunk of a tree, Molly with me. We were side by side, our sweating bodies touching. I looked around. That may not be my jungle, but I intended to fight to make it mine.

  “We need to find water or we’ll soon be in trouble, Molly. We’ll go downhill and there’s bound to be water down there. After that, we’ll travel northeastward along the base of the Main Divide.” Molly looked at me. I saw that I was making no sense to her. “We are on the Main Divide of the Maya Mountains, Molly. We are west of the area my section and I were in during Expedition Bold.” Molly frowned. “That was the name of our expedition.” I paused, then continued. “We were going to climb Victoria Peak. If we go to the base of this mountain and travel northeasterly, we will come to a point where we’ll meet the Cockscomb Range. We’ll travel easterly along the northern slopes of the Cockscomb until we reach the broken ridges of the coastal plains. From there we’ll continue eastward until we reach the Southern Highway.

  “You talk as if we’re still in our jungle, but I really don’t know where I am. Do You? After all I’ve seen, I don’t know what’s real and what isn’t.” Molly looked away from me.

  I stood up, pacing in front of her, agitated, gesticulating. “We have to have a plan, Molly. I have to base it on what I see … what I see I have to believe is real. From the summit, I looked at the lay of the land. Even though we seem to be in some evil fantasy land, I can’t make sane decisions based on fantasies. I have to put us in the jungle I know … the land I remember from the maps we studied before Expedition Bold, extrapolate that knowledge to what I see now. We must have a workable plan … a plan that is practical. We just can’t wait for something to happen then react to it. That would put us at a great disadvantage. I am not trained to be like that. What I’ve told you is the basic plan. We’ll follow it. If we have to change anything along the way, we’ll do that. Regardless of what happens, remember,” I looked directly at her, “we have to eventually head east to find the coastal plains.”

  “Why can’t we head east now?” she uttered.

  I shook my head. “We cannot go directly east or southeast now, even though that would be the shortest route. That is the general area where Sisimito captured me and murdered my men. That must be his territory. Let’s hope he confines his search to that area, at first, before he begins looking elsewhere.”

  “Well, I have no plans of my own,” acknowledged Molly. She looked at me and I saw hopelessness in her eyes.

  “If you think of anything, Molly, tell me. That’s an order,” I added sternly. She looked intently at me and I smiled, wistfully. “If we’re to survive, you can’t be the pretty gyal Molly from Belize City. You have to be a soldier just like me.”

  “Yes, Captain,” she answered, haughtily, playfully. She saluted, grimaced as she moved her arm, then smiled even though she was hurting. The smile, somehow, penetrated deep into my chest.

  “I’m a sergeant,” I said, offhandedly. “You don’t salute noncommissioned officers.”

  “What a pity. I actually enjoyed saluting you.”

  I may have blushed, but I was too dark for it to show. “Okay, Private Cervantez. Sisimito isn’t going to wait for us to finish our briefing. The first thing we have to look after is our feet. “You didn’t bring your sandals.”

  “A howler took them away. It told me I wouldn’t need them anymore.”

  I sighed. “We need our feet to walk.” I closed my eyes, trying not to think of Anderson … of his concern for our feet … of the deranged torso. “When we find water, we’ll bathe and I’ll find herbs to put on our cuts and bruises, but we must try our best not to damage our skin any more. Also, it’s very important that we disturb the jungle as little as possible. We don’t want to make their tracking us too easy. We’ll keep the branches we’re chewing until we found water.” I returned to the shrub from which I had removed the small branches and, using my machete, I cut off the remaining stumps and shook the plant a little so that leaves covered the areas where the branches were missing.

  I had to make some kind of sandals and, quickly, as we had to continue making our escape. The first thing I needed to do was to remove some bark from a tree. I looked up at the tree we were sitting under; it was a tall p’om tree. How appropriate, I thought. The tree was a sacred tree, it’s resin used by my people for ceremonial incense while in prayer and to ward off witchcraft, evil spirits and the ‘evil-eye’. There was no way I could hide the area from which I would remove the bark so I decided to take it close to the ground, after which I would pile some litter against it. I removed two pieces, ten inches by ten inches and split both of them in half. I had already noticed that although Molly was not tall, her feet were almost the same size as mine. I continued by placing three layers of the large leathery leaves of the p’om tree, cut to size, over the raw surface of the bark. Next, I looked for thin pliable lianas191 and cut four in long lengths.

  I started with Molly. I placed one foot on top of the leaves and bark, noting the cuts and bruises. I didn’t want them infected so I scraped the bark of the p’om tree, gathered the powder in a leaf, and scattered it over her foot and sole as the powder was known to help heal cuts and bruises. I then took the liana and starting above the ankle, wrapped the foot, holding the bark and leaves against the sole of her foot. I did her other foot and then my own. I did not know how long they would last, but for the meantime, we had shoes, or better said, jungle sandals. Our feet were protected.

  We started our walk downhill and I estimated that we would have to descend about a thousand feet to reach the base of the mountain we were on. I did not use the machete much, trying not to mark out our trail, but the undergrowth did get thick in areas. Sometimes, we were able to go around those areas and that helped. We did not see much wildlife and for that we were grateful, not knowing which of the animals, if any, would be under Sisimito’s control. There were, however, hundreds of ts’unu’uns displaying glittering greens, reds, greys, olive . . . just a mass of colors. Some buzzed us, giving a sharp squek before going on their way. Some simply hovered, looking at us. Others moved forward and backward in crazy little dances. They did not seem very interested in us and, because of our plight, we were not interested in them.

  The sun was already disappearing behind the mountains in the west when we reached the base of the mountain. We had hurried yet taken as much time as needed not to leave an obvious trail. Water! There was water. A wide shallow creek flowed westward and we ran towards it. I saw that, further along, there were deeper areas where one could actually submerge oneself. I dragged Molly behind me and threw ourselves into the first deep hole I found. We drank and drank the sweet water of the Maya Mountains as the slow current began washing away the dust, grime and sweat from our bodies. But it was getting dark. I walked out on to a sani-bay and sat, removed my makeshift jungle sandals and placed all its parts together. I called to Molly and told her to do the same. She came, removed her jungle sandals and sat beside me. I stood up and removed my pants, but I left my machete and scabbard in place. I walked back into the water and started scrubbing my body with my pants. I wanted my scratches clean.

  “Private Cervantez,” I shouted from the water, looking directly at her. “I suggest you take off your cloths and do as I am doing. You need to clean your body, especially the scratches and cuts. And, while you’re at it, wash out your cloths. Get rid of the sweat and
dirt. Human sweat isn’t all that sweet and animals can smell it from far away. As soon as I am finished, I will look for herbs to rub over our bodies, to help keep away any infection. We don’t want to have to put up with infections. That wouldn’t be good.” I looked away from her and shortly later I heard her return to the water. She chose a different deep hole from mine. Fok!

  I laid out my pants against some warm rocks beside the creek, hoping that they would dry or at least lose some of their wetness. I climbed the low bank and started looking for the leaves I needed. It was only then that I began noticing the trees. The banks were filled with wild bird-of-paradise192 plants covered with orange and red blossoms. I saw wild custard apples193 and cocoyol.194 The trees were laden in fruit and many of the fruits were ripe, so I gathered some of the custard apples within easy reach. The cocoyol was more difficult, but I cut a pole and was able to bring down some of the fruits of the palm tree. I placed them in a pile and continued my search. I quickly found some xiv-yak-tun-ich195 herb and a large jabin shrub. I gathered the leaves I needed and, after several trips, had both leaves and fruit on the sani-bay. Molly was still in the water and I took a custard apple and a few cocoyol to her, then returned to where I had placed my cache.

  I took the leaves and began crushing them between two flat stones. As soon as they began to moisten, I rubbed them on to my skin. The xiv-yak-tun-ich was good for sprains, aches, backache, and painful muscles and we certainly had all of those ailments. The jabin was good for wounds, rashes, and skin conditions. Again, we had plenty of those … unfortunately. Darkness was falling upon us, quickly. I knew that the moon would be up in a few hours, but until then it would be too dark to see.