Confused, Ari turned and looked up the side of the falls. It was only fifteen feet high, but to her, it looked a thousand. There was a serviceable path up the side of it where the Cattleya orchid lived on the outstretched branch. It looked safe enough. She put her booted foot on the first rock and pushed to test it. It held firmly. Already she felt perspiration dotting her lip and forehead. Her heart wouldn’t stop hammering in her chest. Chewing on her lip, Ari asked herself why she was here in the first place. Okay, so her mother had had a fear of heights. Inca was suggesting Ari didn’t. Flexing her hands nervously, Ari stretched up and gripped the next moss-covered rock above her. Testing it, she discovered the rock was solid.
“Good, little sister. One step at a time. That is how fear is overcome. Tell it that you know it is there. That you invite it to come along with you, but that you will not allow it to stop you from reaching out for your dream….”
Inca’s voice sounded inside her head. Turning, Ari saw the woman warrior hadn’t moved from her spot, her head bent over the rifle as she oiled the metal mechanisms.
“Come on, Ari! You can’t be a coward down here in South America!” she told herself fiercely. Inca was right: she had to do this for her mother. She wanted that orchid for her growing collection of illustrations. In that instant, Ari felt a vague shift deep within her. It wasn’t anything she could pinpoint exactly, only that it seemed to her like a car shifting gears. The fear in her, the edginess, lessened in intensity. Lifting her head, Ari resolutely stretched her other hand upward to grip the next rock. She began the climb.
Knees a little weak after she had found a perch to sit on directly in front of the luscious-looking Cattleya orchid, Ari cautiously looked around. She was fifteen feet above the ground. She gripped the knapsack hard after she carefully shrugged out of it. The roar of the water was musical to her. She sat well enough away from the spray to keep dry. The orchid was five feet away, suspended out over the water on the dead limb.
Forcing herself to look down, she saw Inca was still working on her rifle, paying absolutely no attention to her. If Inca had been worried, Ari was sure she’d be watching her. More of her fear dissolved. She’d made it. She was up here. A thread of joy surged through her. She heard Inca’s husky laughter inside her head.
“You see, little sister? That fear is your companion, but once he knows you are going to step out and live your life, he slinks away like the coward he really is.”
Ari wondered once again at Inca’s guiding voice. Rafe had warned her that his friend was mysterious. He had hinted that she could read minds and could “talk” with mental telepathy. As Ari drew out her sketchbook and colored pencils, she smiled gamely. Inca was with her in spirit; Ari could sense it. She could feel the woman’s presence around her like a soft, protective blanket. Or was it her vivid imagination once more? Shaking her head, Ari wasn’t sure. Concentrating on the orchid instead, she began to draw quickly and confidently. No longer did it take her a week to finish one drawing. No, since Inca had come, they would trek into the heart of the jungle each morning. By midday, Inca would find an orchid for her, and Ari would spend the afternoon capturing it on paper. Toward early evening, they would walk back to camp, and by nightfall be enjoying a well-earned meal around the warmth and light of the campfire.
As Ari drew now, her strokes with the colored pencils were confident, even bold. She became lost in the vivid colors of the Cattleya orchid. The flower had five oblong petals, two to three inches in length. The outer lip of the orchid was a crimson color, the inner lip a deep gold. The leather, oval-shaped leaves thrust up around the single blossom, emphasizing the brilliant colors of the flower.
As she continued to draw, Ari’s thoughts turned to Rafe. When would he get home? Every day she worried about his safety. Inca would laugh at her, pat her on the shoulder and tell her that he was fine. For whatever reason, Ari believed the woman. There was something about Inca’s knowing that left no room for questioning. Besides, Ari had seen for herself how the people of Aroka’s village idolized Inca. She had gone with Inca on one of her trips to the village and watched as the woman warrior lay her hands on the sick and ailing. Ari was amazed at how Inca’s touch could make a baby or elderly person well. She knew she was seeing healing because it was impossible for a baby to fake sickness. And as for the older people of Aroka’s village who limped painfully around using a gnarled wood cane for support, they would throw their canes away after Inca had smoothed her long, beautifully slender hands across the injured or swollen extremity.
The orchid bloomed across the page of Ari’s sketchbook. Today the drawing was going exceptionally well and twice as fast. Ari looked up from her work and saw Inca down below reassembling her rifle. Every day the woman cleaned her equipment. In this humidity, rust was a real problem, Ari had been told. Ari knew little about guns or weapons of war, but Inca’s knowledge of warfare had shown her that a woman could be anything. One moment Inca was a healer nursing the sick, another, a warrior in full armament. Inca’s compassion was renowned, according to Aroka’s wife. The villagers of Amazonia always looked forward to her visiting them. The old, infirm and sick would line up and wait patiently as she placed her hands on each of them.
No wonder Rafe thought so much of Inca. Ari smiled softly and returned to her drawing. The orchid seemed to leap off the page, vividly alive beneath her hands. Was it because she felt incredibly happy whenever Rafe came to mind? Missing him acutely, Ari longed to see his handsome, smiling features—especially those dark brown eyes that sparkled with a smoldering heat whenever he looked at her.
Inca had said he would be back by tonight. Would he? Her pulse raced a little at that possibility. She missed his laughter, his insightfulness about life and about her. Ari felt a powerful, sweeping emotion rock her heart. Could this be love she felt for Rafe? They barely knew each other. Her mother had said that real love lasted through time and could not be made on the spur of the moment. Ari decided that when her drawing was done and she climbed down from her perch, she’d ask Inca about love. Surely, as beautiful as Inca was, she would know more about it than Ari did.
“Congratulations,” Inca said as Ari sat down with her near the tree with the buttress roots. “You did it.”
Smiling widely, Ari reached out and touched Inca’s firm arm. “Thanks to you.”
“Oh, no,” Inca chortled, “you did it all on your own.” Her eyes glimmered with merriment. “When Rafe returns tonight, he will meet a new woman. The old one he left has died. A new one has been born. I think he will be very pleased.” Inca spread out their lunch before them. “More importantly, you must be pleased with how you are growing. You are like a young sapling denied sunlight for too long, but now that you have experienced it, you are changing daily, growing into the great tree you will eventually become.”
Ari settled opposite her, her legs crossed. “I feel different. Better.” Then she laughed and flexed her arm so that her biceps showed. “And I am getting stronger because of you and these hikes!”
Above them, the sunlight filtered through the canopy. Tiny squirrel monkeys with white masks across their eyes chirped and hopped nearby, hoping for a morsel. A kapok tree, which had white flowers and fruit in scarlet pods, hung nearby. The rain forest was a feast of color and music from birds, monkeys and insects.
Inca handed her a beef sandwich with mayonnaise. “You do not see the other changes?” She munched on a ripe mango. Scattered around her were hulled Brazil nuts, thick and oblong in shape.
Ari bobbed her head as she ate with gusto. “Sure I do. I’m happier than I’ve ever been. I feel strong here.” She pointed to her stomach. “I’m not the sniveling shadow of before.” She laughed self-consciously. “I know Rafe and you probably thought I was the biggest mouse you’d ever seen. I used to be afraid of my own shadow.”
With a tilt of her head, Inca smiled, showing her strong white teeth. “And now, jaguar cub? You have felt your own power, have you not? It is a good feeling, eh?”
“It’s nice,” Ari admitted. “I scare myself sometimes with the feelings inside of me, Inca. I owe a lot to you. I noticed that every day you give me challenges that are a little tougher to surmount than the day before.”
“And you conquer them,” Inca said in praise. “Do you not think I am also afraid? I am. But the difference is I do not allow it to stop me. No one and nothing has the right to stop you on your own path as you become all you can be, Ari.”
Peeling another mango, Ari suddenly sobered. “Yes, I’m beginning to understand what you’re saying, Inca. Before it was just words. Now I’m feeling it.”
“That is the difference.” Inca regarded her as she reached for a handful of the nuts on the cloth. “When a woman feels her power for the first time, it feels strange and awkward to her. Later she will grow accustomed to it, and then she will feel the real power of herself. That is how all women should feel, but in this world, they do not. I am saddened by it. But you have the heart and the courage to reach out. Rafe was right about you—you are courageous and only needed a little watering and sunlight to help you grow into your full self.”
Chuckling, Ari finished off her sandwich. Inca handed her some nuts and she took them with thanks. She threw one of them to a monkey that sat up on his haunches nearby, then watched him skitter off with his newly found treasure.
“Well, I’m trying,” she told Inca. “By the time I get back to Washington, my father and friends won’t know me.”
“Hmm.” Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, Inca reached for a canteen of water from the webbed belt around her waist. “More important is that you like what you are becoming. What they think does not matter.”
“Ouch…that’s a big one to overcome. I always worry what others think of me.”
Barking with laughter, Inca said, “If I worried what everyone thought of me, I would have been dead a long time ago.” She tipped up the canteen, the gleam of her throat visible as she drank deeply. Placing the cap back on the canteen, Inca gave Ari an amused look. “People’s opinions do not—cannot—count. What you must do is ask your heart how you feel about yourself. There is truth in our hearts. Always. If someone calls me a murderer, do I believe them? No, because I know the truth of the situation. You must trust your heart, little sister, at all times, without turning away from it and letting the head chatter make decisions for you instead.”
Ari sighed. She felt stuffed. Opening a bottle of water, she drank a little. “Inca, I have a question for you.”
“Yes?”
With a twist of her lips, Ari said, “About love. I feel all these strange, new and wonderful feelings for Rafe. I’ve never felt them before and I’m not sure what it is. What they are.” She gave Inca a searching look as she packed away the wrappings from the sandwich into her knapsack. “Have you been in love? Do you know what it feels like?”
Inca blew a strand of her dark hair off her brow. She leaned back, her arms hanging languidly over her drawn-up knees as she made herself comfortable against the thick, gray wing of the root. “Love? That is one thing I have never felt. At least, not yet.”
“But you’re my age.”
“Have you fallen in love yet?” Inca demanded testily.
“Well…no, but…”
“What? You expect I have and should be able to tell you about it?” Her mouth lifted. “Do I know what love feels like? I know I feel deeply for those who come under my care, for what I can give them from the Great Mother Goddess. I have many emotions for different things in my life—the love I feel when I cradle a baby in my arms, the love for a young child who is crying and in pain…or for a woman who is in labor and who needs my care and nurturing.”
“I see your point,” Ari murmured sympathetically. “You just seem so worldly, Inca. So confident and strong. I thought that some man would idolize the ground you walked on, would love you as fiercely as you love life. I’ve never seen anyone like you before. You’re able to reach out, grab every minute, live every hour to its fullest. I see the emotions on your face. I hear them in your voice. I feel them when you touch something. You’re so in tune with everything….”
“Just because I am does not mean I know what love between a man and a woman is.”
Somberly, Ari wrapped up the cloth that had served as their makeshift table. “But you’re so beautiful….”
Harsh laughter filled the air. “Me? Beautiful? Little sister, do not be fooled by how someone looks on the outside. Be far more concerned about what is here.” She tapped her heart. “Besides, no man would have me. I’m too fierce. Too much my own person. Men cower in front of me. They run. They are frightened of me, of my power. I have yet to meet a man, with the exception of Rafe and Michael Houston, my other brother in Amazonia, who can stand to be with me for long.” Shaking her head, Inca said, “No, I am destined to live my life alone. I came in alone. I will die alone.”
Frowning, Ari said, “I feel you’re wrong. Surely if Rafe accepts you and isn’t threatened by you, who you are, there’s got to be some man who will admire and respect you for who you are?”
“My blood brother, Michael Houston, does as does Rafe,” Inca said more to herself as she gazed up through the jungle roof. “There are two men who are not afraid of me, who can stand being in my presence without wanting to tear me down or destroy me.” She tipped her head so that she could look at Ari. “When a woman becomes self-empowered, most men want to destroy her. For too long they have kept women crushed beneath their masculine energy with threats of harming or killing them. I see it to this day. Here in Brazil a wife can be shot by her husband if he thinks she even looks at another man. And yet the husband can have a mistress and boast about it, and the wife can do nothing.”
Grimly, Inca sat up, her voice dropping to a growl. “There are many injustices against we who live in a woman’s form. That is wrong. I do what I can to right it here, in Amazonia, where I live. But I am only one person. What must happen is that each woman must embrace her own power herself. And then she must stand the tests and not allow it to ever be stripped from her again.”
“I hear you,” Ari murmured. “I see it all the time where I live, as well. Women aren’t paid as much as a man for the same job. They don’t get the same opportunities, either. There’s a lot of spousal abuse that goes on, too.”
“Well,” Inca said, “I cannot tell you much about a man falling in love with you, little sister, but it is clear to me that you are empowering yourself so you need not worry about it. As for me, my life is here.” She gestured to the jungle surrounding them. “My destiny is here. I was born here, they say, on a stormy night during the eclipse of the moon. I was born in total darkness except for the dance of lightning and the drumming of thunder to welcome me into this world. I have storm medicine, and I walk with the Jaguar Clan. My destiny is to protect my people, the Indians, from white men who would rape, kill and enslave them. No, there is no man who has the guts, the heart, to love me, so that is why I cannot tell you about it.”
Saddened, Ari glanced at Inca, whose expression revealed an incredible loneliness. “I hope you’re wrong, Inca. You deserve a man who is as strong and brave and committed as you are.”
“Well, if he exists, it is only in my imagination.” She laughed sharply. “But what of these feelings you have for Rafe?”
Opening her hands, Ari muttered, “Inca, I don’t know if it’s possible to fall in love in such a short time. My mother said only time would show if love was true and lasting.”
“Wise words from your mother.”
“Whenever he looks at me, my heart swells.” Ari pressed her hand against her chest. “I feel like I can’t take in a breath of air—I’m under his spell. He has the most wonderful eyes. I used to avoid looking at people’s eyes, but not his. I find myself wanting to look at him, to eat him up with my gaze.” She laughed self-consciously. “I almost ache to feel him touch me lightly with his fingers. Oh, it’s nothing serious—you know how he touches others. He’s a toucher.”
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“Yes, one of the many things about Rafe I admire,” Inca murmured. “Most men cannot reach out and touch, console or embrace others when they are hurting. He can. So can my other brother, Michael Houston. He is good to his wife, Anne, and his baby.”
Nodding, Ari leaned forward, legs crossed, hands open toward Inca. “Well, then you do understand. I’ve had boyfriends when I was going to university, but the feelings I felt for them were nothing compared to what I feel for Rafe! When he kissed me, before he left, I felt my whole world rock. My knees became jelly, Inca. They’ve never done that before! And I so look forward to the evenings with him, when we work in the galley together. I love his teasing, his laughter that’s so rich and deep….”
“I think you are meant for him,” Inca said seriously. “I have never seen Rafe as happy as when I walked into camp a week ago. There is new light in his eyes. He smiles often. And the way he looks at you when you do not know it is that of a jaguar finding his mate.”
“Really?” Her heart bounded once to underscore Inca’s softly spoken words.
“Rafe has a deeply wounded heart, little sister. Has he told you of his father disowning him? Writing him out of the will? Denying that he even exists? And then Justine, the woman he fell in love with, spurned him because he refused to leave his home here in the rain forest. Rafe carries deep grief within him over these things. He also believes that he, like me, will never find someone who will share his love of Amazonia, of the things that matter to him. He and I have spoken often of this. What woman would want this kind of life? He is often gone from his camp. He is in danger sometimes. He is the first to arrive at a village when it faces an epidemic, so he risks his life in that way, too. When there is a natural disaster, when the great Amazon floods and people are marooned, he must find and rescue them. When the fierce storm god comes over and sends water pouring down upon us for days on end, people need his help, the food he can find, to keep them alive. What woman would want a man like that?”
Man of Passion Page 11