by RB Schalin
Chapter 19
The following evening just as the sun is setting they come around a bend in the river and up ahead they see a small village. They are no longer on the Amazon, but a day and a half up a branch going straight north with a few twists and turns on the way. The river is much narrower. Hogan estimates it’s about two hundred yards across. During the last few hours it has become shallower as well and Ortiz has had to slow down to a near crawl not to run aground on the sandbanks sticking up around them like little islands.
Ortiz calls and waves them back to where he is at the helm. When they get there he says something to Julia and she translates, "Ortiz is saying he will drop us off at this village. He cautions us to be careful and not to act upset whatever happens. There should be a couple of people who speak some Portuguese. There was a Missionary here a few years ago, and he taught the locals until they threw him out."
"Why did they kick him out?" asks Hogan.
"It turned out he was one of those religious men who can’t keep their hands from young boys and girls, he was lucky to get away alive," says Julia after asking Ortiz.
"That would explain their suspicion against white people," says Kerry and the others nod in agreement.
They are let off on a sandbank and after helping them with their gear Ortiz turns the boat around and heads back downriver. They watch him for a while, and Julia feels uncomfortable about being almost alone in the jungle. She turns around and follows the men up the bank where there is a group of Indian children waiting for them. When they reach the top she sees they are not children, but adults, armed with bows and arrows. Their hair is cut like a bowl and some of them have piercing and their faces are painted. They don’t look friendly. She looks at Hogan and Kerry as they whisper to her to say something. Julia clears her throat and says in Portuguese very slowly, "Good evening, we come to learn from you, does anyone understand me?"
The group of men just stares at her, some of them fingering their weapons. Julia feels cold sweat running down under her armpits and down her spine. She tries again, "we come in peace, looking for help." She realizes she sounds like a movie character and blushes.
"Go away, leave us alone," says an old voice behind the group.
Julia stretches her head to try to see who spoke, but it’s too dark now and the only light comes from inside the huts behind the group. The jungle is coming alive, the night creatures begin their music.
"Please, we can’t go back. You saw that our boat left."
There is a movement in the group and it parts, letting an old man through. He has no weapon, but a stick he uses as support. His hair is still black, but his face is wrinkled. He stops in front of Julia and asks. "Who is in charge?"
She points at Kerry, and the old man says, "he doesn’t speak, so he can not be in charge. And no woman can be in charge either."
He makes a clicking sound with his mouth, and it sounds like he is taking pity on them, like they were lost sheep with no leader.
"He doesn’t speak Portuguese, but I can translate," says Julia.
The old man looks up at her, he is almost a head shorter than her, "ah, he needs a woman to do his job for him? Useless man, we should just kill him. We can use the big one to work for us, and you," he says, looking her up and down, "you I can sell to the river pirates."
Julia decides not to translate the last parts because she can see how Hogan is gripping his weapon hard in his hand. The last thing they need is a shootout with these people.
"We will only stay one night, and then we will leave you in peace."
The old man turns around and says something to the men around him, they burst out laughing and then the old man turns back to her and says, "very well, you can stay here, on the river bank. Tomorrow we shall see if you leave, and that is if the alligators haven’t eaten you during the night."
He turns around and the group follows him laughing all the way until they disappear into the different huts.
Julia tells Hogan and Kerry what was said, leaving out the parts where Kerry was insulted and Hogan was to be turned into a slave.
"That went pretty well, I thought," says Kerry while unpacking a tent from his backpack.
"Yeah, hopefully we are alive in the morning and not crock food. I suggest we sit guard in four hour shifts. Julia starts then Kerry and finally myself."
Julia cooks soup from cans while the men set up the tents and hang the mosquito nets. The jungle is alive with sounds around them. Whoever thought animals slept during the night are wrong. The day animals do, but then their friends wake up as the sun goes down, and they are even louder than their day friends.
After eating, Julia sits down with her back against the bank thinking that if they are attacked by an alligator it will most likely come from the river. The two men lay down in their tents and soon she can hear them snoring. She is too nervous and a little scared to sleep so sitting guard is fine with her. She even considers the idea not waking up Kerry and do a double shift.
The moon comes out and lights up the scene in front of her. Across the river, she can see some big animals drinking and an alligator comes up to the surface a few yards away and stares at her. It doesn’t swim closer, but instead floats downstream. She is just about to open her water bottle when she hears a light sound behind her. She whips around with the gun ready to shoot.
"Good evening," says the old man from before. He is sitting about two yards from her. His legs are crossed and he is picking his teeth with a thin twig. She is shaking from the fright of seeing him so close. How did he get there without her hearing him? He is old and uses a stick for god’s sake, she thinks.
"Hello," she says.
He sits there in silence and looks at her until he is finished picking his teeth, and then says. "One of the few good things that missionary taught us, dental hygiene, very important."
She smiles at him and he smiles back showing a few gaps between his teeth, so much for his dental hygiene.
"I’m sorry if I came on hard before, I had to do it in front of the others. I know you are not religious people trying to push your god and ideas on to us."
"I liked the part about making my friend a slave, I didn’t tell him about that."
"Good, I don’t think he would have appreciated it, and looking at him, I figure he is a good warrior, not like that fat man."
"Well, the fat man is an intellectual, he studies and learns things."
The old man is quiet, but after a while he says, "we have a man like that, and he is even older than I. Sometimes I sneak off in the night to go and see him."
Julia is confused; she thought Indians lived in tight knit groups where the elder were revealed for their knowledge.
"Why doesn’t he live with the rest of the village?"
The old man sighs, and says, "because he is a stubborn old man, and doesn’t want to come and live in this century."
Julia giggles, this guy is too much, she thinks, and asks. "Why is he stubborn?"
"He believes in old stories and is sure we will be attacked by the Skin People."
"Skin People, who are they?"
He shrugs his shoulders and says, "hundreds of years ago, there lived a people in these areas that would take the skin of their enemies and use them to make dolls that they worshipped. At least that’s what the old man says, and he heard it from his father who heard it from his and so on."
Julia moves closer to him and asks, "so you don’t believe in the old stories?"
"It’s all rubbish, they never existed, and even if they did, they would be long gone by now. It’s just his way of making himslf feel important and scare the children."
They sit in silence for a while and then he asks her, "what do you need help with, are you lost?"
"No, we are looking for a lost town. Supposedly it was built by a tribe hundreds of years ago, and then they just disappeared. Kerry, the one you call fat, has studied our old stories and is sure that the town is around here somewhere."
"Tomorrow I will take you to
the old man, he might be able to help you, but don't mention to him I was here tonight. By the way, my name is Tuki."
"I’m Julia, good night and thanks."
He stands up and walks away, suddenly he is gone, no sound, no shadows, nothing, it is like he was never there.
