by David Klass
Soon the last light glimmers across the water and the dolphins swim off. We stand on the bluff and watch them leap to the starlight and wave goodbye with their tails.
Then they’re gone, and we’re alone together.
Eko and I build a fire and sit awkwardly close.
“That was great,” I say truthfully. “I didn’t know there were freshwater dolphins.”
“There are only five species in the entire world,” she replies softly. “The others live in places like the Yangtze and the Ganges, but the pink river dolphins of the Amazon are by far the smartest. Loggers shoot them for food, so there are only a few hundred left.” She turns toward me, and her sad eyes have never looked more beautiful. “Soon they’ll all be gone.”
“That’s terrible,” I murmur. “They’re so gentle.”
“And smart,” she adds softly. “Their brain capacity is much larger than humans’. It’s too bad you couldn’t talk to them, Jack—you missed a treat.”
“I didn’t miss it entirely,” I whisper back, and our eyes meet. I was talking about the dolphins, but my remark takes on a second meaning.
Eko leans into me and my arm goes around her.
Suddenly we’re looking into each other’s eyes, reliving our wrestling match in the lagoon. The memory of how good it felt is right there with us, as hot as the campfire roaring in front of us.
Eko squeezes my hand. “Don’t be afraid,” she whispers. “If it feels right, trust it.” Her face has been warmed by the firelight, and I feel it turn slowly, her cheek sliding over mine.
Our lips find each other, and this time I don’t pull away. Her kiss is soft, and when our tongues touch she trembles. How can such a strong woman become so vulnerable so quickly? “I missed you,” she whispers. “I was afraid I would never see you again.”
“I missed you, too,” I tell her truthfully. “I thought you were dead when you disappeared over the ocean. Where did you go? What happened?”
Instead of answering she shivers in my arms and I feel her loneliness and her longing. She whispers my name, and her hands are on my face, my shoulders, sliding down my arms. We’re drinking each other in, inhaling each other, devouring each other, and it does feel right, or maybe I’m not even thinking at all, I’m too busy feeling …
A log falls over in the fire, and sends up a shower of sparks. It’s a tiny thing, but it fractures the mood.
And in that split-second pause, I remember sitting with P.J. in front of just such a fire on just such a dark Amazon night.
The memory strikes me like a punch.
Eko feels the shock of it and releases me. She watches silently as I reel back, stand up, and stagger away out of the bright ring of firelight.
66
The morning after our fireside embrace, Eko withdraws into herself. She becomes silent and, at the same time, extravigilant. I interpret her new mood to mean that we are nearing our journey’s end.
I can’t be sure because things are awkward between us. We don’t discuss the previous evening, but there are accidental slips when our hands brush, and moments when we look into each other’s eyes and then glance quickly away. Even steering the canoe is uncomfortable—as our paddles rise and fall in rhythm, I know we’re both thinking about what happened by the fire, and where it almost led.
My efforts to pull away and keep my emotional distance prevent me from pressing her too hard for information about our mission. I helped create this barrier between us, so I can’t break it down. But something is clearly wrong. Eko’s wary eyes sweep the thickly forested banks.
I steal glances at her face and try to figure out why she’s suddenly on high alert. Are we close to Kidah? Is there some hidden danger lurking? I completely trust Eko’s forest skills, but I’m bothered by a growing sense that she herself doesn’t know what she’s looking for, and that we’re now wandering aimlessly.
Eko has never told me exactly how we’ll know when we’re getting close to Kidah. Now, as we paddle silently into what feels like the pulsing auricle of the heart of darkness, I’m painfully aware of my own ignorance. I don’t know where we’re headed, and I have no idea what we’re looking for, or what we’re supposed to do if and when we find it.
The rain forest can’t possibly get any denser or wilder. When a ray of light somehow squeezes down between the leaves to the forest floor, it’s such a rare event that you can see it far off, like the stab of an usher’s pen-flashlight in a dark theater.
The birds and animals we encounter here are of an improbable variety and an otherworldly strangeness. It’s as if Noah’s ark docked in this patch of rain forest midway through its ancient cruise, and the most unusual passengers hopped off into these trees and pools two by two, and have remained ever since. I spot harpy eagles and giant anteaters with mouths like vacuum cleaners, spiny rats and tree frogs as bright as Christmas lights.
We pass a tree with distinctive, oblong green leaves, and Eko stops pensively scanning the forest long enough to give it a curious stare.
“What is it?” I ask.
“A cinchona tree,” she tells me. “Quinine, which prevents malaria, is distilled from its bark. Loggers have pretty much wiped them all out, but that’s a lovely specimen.” Its leaves seem to drip down like teardrops in the fading greenish light. “Strange that humans should do such harm to trees that have done us so much good.”
Darkness comes on, but we don’t pull over. The howls and barks and shrieks from nocturnal predators seem louder and more threatening than any we’ve heard before.
I find myself longing for the light and heat of a big fire. “Eko, shouldn’t we stop and make a camp?”
“Not tonight,” she mutters.
“Why not?”
“I don’t think we’ll need to.”
I understand that withdrawing is one of Eko’s ways of protecting herself. And I remember from the Outer Banks that when she’s on a mission and it gets dangerous, she doesn’t like to divulge details. But I can’t just sit silently in this canoe as the Amazon closes in around us for the kill.
“Eko, please tell me what’s wrong. You seem worried.”
She doesn’t answer, or even give me a glance.
“Let me help. What are we looking for? I think we passed that same tall tree three hours ago.”
“Four.”
“So we are going in circles! Do you have a plan? Will you at least tell me what we’re searching for?”
Her resistance to answering is almost palpable. She wants to do this alone. But she knows I won’t let it drop, so she finally tells me, “It’s not a what. It’s a who.”
“Kidah?”
“Maybe.”
“What do you mean maybe? Who else could it be? Did he come back in time with a traveling companion?”
“No. He came alone. But he may have found friends.”
A monkey’s hoot mocks her answer. “Eko, we’ve been traveling for more than a week, and we haven’t seen anyone. No natives, no canoes, no huts, not even a footprint. I don’t think it’s very likely your wizard popped out of the air in these parts and found a sympathetic social circle.”
“It’s different for him,” she whispers. And now she’s not just worried. She’s definitely spooked.
“In what way?”
Eko opens her mouth, but doesn’t manage an answer.
“Come on,” I plead softly. “Whatever it is, tell me. If you’re worried, then I’m scared to death. Look, I’m sorry about last night. I sincerely apologize. I know things are awkward between us now. But you’re full of information about pink dolphins and cinchona trees. Can’t you give me a hint about what’s really going on? Why is it different for Kidah here? How could he possibly find friends when there’s nobody around?”
Eko turns from scanning the trees to look at me. Perhaps my apology touched her. “Because he’s from here.”
“What? I thought he was from the future.”
“Yes, but his ancestors were from the Amazon. The legends say he is d
escended from a long line of shamans.”
“So you think Kidah’s backcountry relatives might have found him somehow? And they took him in?”
She doesn’t answer, she just looks beyond me, to the shadowy outlines of the surrounding forest.
I grab her wrist. “Isn’t that a stretch?” I demand. “If there was a tribe here, wouldn’t we have seen some evidence of it by now? I don’t think there’s another human around for a thousand miles.”
“The fact that we haven’t seen anyone could mean we’re close,” she says cryptically, and pulls her wrist free.
I hear something truly weird. It’s discordant yet rhythmic, tuneless but beautiful and compelling. Is it the trilling of a tone-deaf songbird? The ravings of a mad monkey? Or are human voices chanting in a way I’ve never heard before? “Eko, please stop talking in riddles.”
“According to legend, Kidah’s ancestral tribe had no contact with any outsiders. Even the other indigenous tribes weren’t sure they really existed. They were nicknamed the People of the Forest because they lived in perfect harmony with the plants and animals.”
I glance around at the shadowy trunks of giant trees pressing in on us from the narrow banks. “If the People of the Forest are really here, why haven’t we seen any signs of them?”
“If the legends are true and they live in such a pure and natural way,” she answers softly, “their ability to move through the rain forest with total stealth would be of a far higher order than mine.”
I begin to understand why Eko is getting nervous. It must be scary for the queen of the jungle to come up against people whose skills and knowledge surpass her own.
“Okay,” I say, “I get it. They can stay hidden if they want. But you sense that they’re close? Your instincts tell you that we’re moving into their neighborhood?”
Eko’s head moves in an almost imperceptible nod.
“So what do we do? We can’t track them, right? They leave no footprints, and need no marked trails. They might not even sleep in huts or build fires. How will we possibly find them?”
“We won’t,” Eko whispers. “They’ll find us.”
There’s a quiver at the end of her whisper. She half stands in the canoe, raises her arms out to her sides, and stares fixedly at some shadowy ferns along the bank.
The ferns move. Fan out. Men!
They’re four feet tall. Athletically built, totally naked, and covered with streaks of war paint. They hold long spears.
No, wait, not spears. Shafts but no spearheads. They raise them to their lips.
Blowguns, pointed right at us!
67
Don’t move, Eko cautions me telepathically.
I’m not moving, I’m not even breathing, I assure her, looking back at the muscular warriors on the bank. They have long dark hair and bright black eyes and distended earlobes that hang down several inches and appear to be pierced and decorated with small, sharpened bones.
Good, because their arrows have been rubbed with the venom of golden poison dart frogs—the most lethal toxin known to man. If one of them pricks you, it’s over:
I consider diving into the river and trying to escape by swimming underwater. As if anticipating my thoughts, two more warriors emerge from the trees on the far bank, also aiming blowguns at us. I spot several more tribesmen perched motionless on high branches. If I tried to dive over the side, I’d have half a dozen poison darts sticking out of me before I hit the water.
Tell them we come in friendship, I suggest to Eko. Maybe I could give them my bead necklace as a peace offering. Or they might like my sandals.
They have no use for your sandals, Jack. Except maybe eating them.
As long as they don’t eat me.
It’s not out of the question.
I ask myself what Gisco would do at this moment. He would probably be begging the Great Dog God to spare his life, while promising all sorts of self-degradations and deprivations in return. Sadly, I don’t think the Great Dog God has much pull when it comes to pygmy warriors with frog-poisoned blow darts. We’ll have to find a way out of this by ourselves. Eko, can you talk to them?
I’m trying.
You can joke with dolphins. I’ve seen you get inside the heads of birds in flight. How can you not be able to say a friendly hello to these fellow human beings?
I have to find them first. Telepathically.
One warrior barks out a few syllables. Perhaps he’s asking a polite question, like: “Hi, would you like to join our tribe for a spot of tea?” But it sounds more like a gruff command with a murderous intent: “Kill them quickly and let’s see how they taste with citrus sauce.”
Eko, they’re going to shoot! I can see it in their eyes.
I believe you’re right.
For God’s sake, find a way to talk to them!
I can’t. I’ll have to draw them a picture.
What? How?
Eko slowly raises her right arm above her head. She extends her index finger.
The warriors on both banks pause for a second before launching darts at us to see what she has in mind. I’m a little curious, too. Whatever you’re up to, Eko, it better be good. They have their fingers on the triggers … or rather their lips on the blowguns …
Sometimes I forget that Eko has an alternate career as High Priestess of Dann. I’m not sure exactly what this entails, but she usually has a couple of spectacular tricks up her sleeve, or in this case her index finger, that can come in very handy.
She half closes her eyes and concentrates very hard. I see orange-brown energy radiating from her eyes, flowing up her arm to her right hand. She begins to draw in the air, or maybe on the air. It’s like a plane doing skywriting, except that Eko is not using smoke. I’m not sure what she is using, but her finger moves slowly and artistically, somewhere between a magician’s wand and a sketch artist’s charcoal. As her hand sweeps back and forth, a dark image slowly takes shape.
The warriors gasp and back away a few steps. Surprise shows in their proud, fierce faces. I guess they’ve never seen anyone write on air before.
Neither have I for that matter.
Still holding their blowguns at the ready, they whisper among themselves. Several of them point excitedly at the mysterious black image hanging in the air just above me.
I watch their faces to try to read my fate, and I see something unexpected in their eyes. Not just surprise at Eko’s skywriting, or fear of unknown intruders with magical powers. I also see glimmers of recognition. She’s drawing something they know!
I turn my head and stare up at it. It’s hard for me to see Eko’s sketch clearly, since I’m standing almost directly beneath it. I surreptitiously slide over a few inches, and from this new angle I can see that it’s a face.
To my surprise, I also recognize it.
It’s a face I’ve seen several times on this journey in my dreams—an old man’s mummylike features, with playful, childlike eyes. Even this crude drawing conveys the impression of someone with great life force, who exists outside of time and place. An Einstein. A Gandhi.
Or, I surmise, as the warriors make a collective decision and lower their blowguns, it just might be the sphinxlike face of the Mysterious Kidah.
68
The forest trail we tromp along in single file is not blazed. Plants haven’t been cut back from it or even noticeably thinned. If I were on my own I could never find it, and if I strayed off it by a few feet I would forever lose its winding thread. But as I march on through the thick brush, with warriors in front of and behind me, I’m aware that this crude, twisting footpath is the only passageway through an otherwise impenetrable forest.
Eko is walking less than ten feet ahead of me, but the vegetation all around us is so dense that I lose sight of her each time the path twists. The warrior behind me touches me on the shoulder several times, nudging me back on course. Once I hear a hiss and look down to see that he’s just saved me from stepping on a coiled viper.
A scarlet macaw hu
rls outraged parrot curses down at us, as if rebuking us for making so much noise outside its neighborhood bodega. A lizard leaps from the ground and snares a blue butterfly in flight. The reptile eats the lovely insect head first, and its jaws seem to dismantle the still-flapping blue wings in a brutal demonstration of reverse origami. Behind us, a rain forest jackhammer opens up—perhaps a giant woodpecker is taking on a hardwood.
Eko, we should try to mark this trail so we can find our way back to our canoe. It could be our only way out of here.
Not anymore, she responds. Don’t you hear that thumping sound?
I thought it might be a woodpecker.
The two warriors they left behind are using rocks to smash up our canoe.
Why are they doing that?
It makes perfect tactical sense. Just in case we do escape, they’re making sure we can never paddle out of the forest and reveal the location of their tribe.
Great, then how are we going to get out of here?
We’re not.
Where are they taking us?
I don’t know.
I take it you’re not having much luck reaching them telepathically?
Actually I’m getting closer. I can sense some of their thoughts.
Are you picking up anything useful?
You’re annoying them by making so much noise.
What are you talking about? I’m not saying a word.
Try to walk more quietly.
Now that Eko has called my attention to it, I become aware of the sounds of my own walking—my knees swishing leaves, my sandals snapping up and down, my labored breathing as we press on in the heat. Eko and the tribesmen move silently. Ten of us are following this trail, but from a short distance away it probably sounds as if only one city slicker is blundering along.
I try to walk quietly. No sense in giving our hosts a headache. I want their minds tranquil so that Eko can reach them. I sort of understand what she means about how she’s zeroing in on the warriors telepathically.
Mind reading is not a simple or direct means of communication, like speaking out loud or writing a letter. It has limitations, and gradations of clarity, and the hardest part of all is finding the right wavelength to make contact with someone for the first time.