The Tattooed Tribes

by Bev Allen

  “I’d like to stay, please,” he said in a tightly controlled voice.

  “You’ll abide by your indenture?”

  Lucien nodded.

  “Right,” Jon said. “We need to get a few things established. It’s my fault; I should have made things plainer. You do as you’re told. No ifs, no buts. Once we leave here, your life could depend on you doing as I say.”

  That made sense; even Lucien’s limited experience up river had shown him there were unknown dangers around every bend.

  “You’ll also keep your tongue between your teeth when I tell you to be quiet,” Jon continued. “Custom and good manners are important amongst The People. They’re tolerant of newcomers only up to a point. They demand respect from their own young and won’t put up with a lack of it from mine.”

  “I wouldn’t …” Lucien began.

  “Not knowingly,” Jon agreed. “But until you understand local custom, keep quiet.”

  “Okay.”

  “And you’ll behave yourself when we aren’t travelling,” Jon stated. “Yesterday’s little adventure won’t be repeated. Understand?”

  Lucien nodded,

  “And now we come to this!” Jon threw the roll of leaf on the table. “What did I tell you?”

  “You said I wasn’t to bring it upriver and I didn’t. I got it here!” Lucien protested.

  “Did you really believe I meant you to buy it here?”

  “I … er … I was drunk.”

  One glance showed this was possibly not the best excuse.

  “The beads you used will be paid to a tribesman for some furs or fish or a basket. They’ll add some dust or weed as a little bonus and another good man will be like those sad wrecks you saw in the street.”

  “I’m sorry,” Lucien muttered.

  “And so you bloody well should be!” Jon thundered. “If I’d done this when I was an apprentice my master would’ve skinned me alive.”

  “I said I’m sorry!”

  “And I’m wondering if you’re really are,” Jon returned. “Do I have to take my belt to you?”

  “No!” Lucien replied quickly.

  “Very well,” Jon said. “But you might like to keep it in mind.” There was a long silence full of unpleasant possibilities, but Jon finally said, “We’re going on upriver tomorrow.”

  Headache and gut ache forgotten, Lucien’s head came up fast. “Really?”

  “There are some odd rumours coming downstream,” Jon replied. “A bride has gone missing on her wedding day. It doesn’t seem likely, but I need to find out what’s behind it.”

  Later in the afternoon, after Lucien had slept the morning away, Jon took him back to the Liaison office.

  “Can you shoot?” he asked.

  Still a little subdued by the reality of what he had signed up to and the aftermath of his hangover, the boy just nodded, but the old grin struggled to come out.

  “Bow and arrow?” Jon asked, “Or rifle?”

  “Both,” Lucien replied, surprising him. “I’m not all that good with a bow, but I’m not bad with a rifle.”

  “Where did you learn archery?”

  “It was about the only fun after school activity.”

  In the armoury he ran his hands lovingly over the composite bows, but his eyes went to the rifles locked in their rack.

  Jon retrieved what Lucien thought was a long pole, but realised was a bow. And what a bow!

  Jon allowed him to try stringing it, but he could barely make it bend a fraction.

  “Is it tribal made?” he asked in wonder as Jon bent it with practised easy and slipped the string on.

  “Yes,” he replied. “The best thing about a bow is you can reuse your ammo.”

  He picked up a quiver full of fletched arrows.

  “We take both,” he said. “But we avoid using the rifles unless it’s absolutely necessary. You can practise with a bow.”

  Lucien rediscovered a lot of muscles during the afternoon as he loosed arrow after arrow at the butt and listened to Jon’s comments on his skill, or the lack of it.

  “Not bad,” was the final comment. “We’ll see about getting you a decent bow when we get further north.”

  “Like yours?”

  “If you can string it!” Jon replied, laughing. “Come on, you must be hungry. I know I am.”

  They walked back through the gathering dusk and Jon told him about the tribal craftsman and their skill with wood, leather and metal.

  The attack came without warning.

  Three men erupted out of the shadows and were on them before Lucien had time to react. His arms were pinned to his sides in a savage bear hug and he was lifted off his feet.

  Somewhere behind him he thought he heard a rough voice say, “Remember the boy lives.” He struggled and kicked and twisted, desperately trying to free himself, but the vice-like arms merely got tighter and he could feel the air being crushed out of his lungs.

  In front of him Jon was being circled by two men with knives drawn; every way he turned one was behind him, looking for a chance to give the other an opening.

  They were wary of him, dodging out of the way of his hands and feet. Suddenly Lucien saw them rush in and tried to scream a warning, but there was no air in his lungs to give voice.

  “Watch the big Liaison Officer get filleted like a salmon,” the man holding him chortled in his ear. “I love the sight of fresh guts.”

  As the two men closed on him Jon went down under their onslaught, falling as if all his bones had gone soft.

  Lucien felt a terrible wave of grief and a hoarse cry broke from him … and then he realised it was a ploy.

  Jon was up in a crouching position and this time his knife was in his hand. The momentum of the attack had carried one of the men passed him and as he went by Jon’s knife flashed out catching him across the back of the knee, ham stringing him. He gave a howl of pain and collapsed forwards.

  Jon did not wait to see him go down; he went towards the other one. They circled for a few seconds each looking for a lapse of concentration that would provide an opportunity. Jon’s eyes never left the other’s face, he was cool and contained, but his opponent began to have doubts. His eyes slide towards the man holding Lucien for just a second and then Jon’s knife flashed out, slashing him down the side of his face.

  The man dropped his blade as he put his hands up to stop his eyeball falling out of his head.

  Jon turned to face Lucien and his captor. “Your turn!” he said, advancing towards them.

  A second later Lucien was dropped to the ground. When he had enough wind to raise his head, the only sign of violence was a pool of blood in the mud.

  “Are you all right?” Jon asked.

  “Yes,” Lucien wheezed. “They were tribesman, I saw their hands.”

  Jon shook his head. “They weren’t tribal.”

  “How could you tell?” Lucien asked, sucking air into his abused lungs.

  “If they’d been tribesmen we’d both be dead,” Jon told him with a grin. “Now who do you suppose wants me out of the way and The People blamed for it?”

  “I don’t know!” Lucien protested.

  “I never thought you did,” Jon replied. “Come on. We both need a good night’s sleep; we’ve an early start in the morning.”

  Chapter 7

  Lucien would have liked to discuss the fight. Given the chance, he would have gone over the whole thing blow by blow, knife slash by knife slash, but he received no encouragement and Jon changed the subject every time he began. The only thing he was prepared to talk about was the remark Lucien had overheard about not hurting him.

  “They wanted a witness who’d testify it was an attack by tribesmen,” Jon explained.

  “Why?”

  “To add to the evidence. There are a lot of people who’d like the tribes labelled as savages who must be stamped out.”

  “Are they?” Lucien asked. “Savages?”

  “You’ll find out for yourself soon enough,” Jon sa
id and refused to be drawn further.

  The next morning he checked Lucien’s pack, adding a few basic supplies of food, spare bow strings and a small amount of ammunition. He had the boy make sure his knife was sharp and checked he had not misplaced the means of making fire.

  They both went over the rifles to ascertain they were clean and in full working order and Jon also inspected Lucien’s clothing and boots.

  “You’ll do,” he said. “Did you remember a tooth brush?”

  Lucien nodded, grinning.

  “Come on then.”

  They left the makeshift town as dawn was breaking and made their way back to the river. Before them the cataract roared and water rushed over the rocks.

  “This way,” Jon said and they followed a worn path up the bank and almost into the tree line. Following the river they walked upstream for several hours until the water ceased to foam white and grew calmer.

  Before them it stretched away between towering trees, a wide highway paved in water.

  Lucien paused for a moment to listen to the silence broken only by the call of birds and the faint rumble of the falls far behind. His smile was full of wonder and joy and for the first time Jon saw some of the tension drain from his face, leaving it calm, youthful and full of hope.

  They walked on into the day, following the river on its age-old course, the silence only broken by the sounds of nature and the occasional comment as Jon pointed out some new wonder.

  This idyll was broken in the mid afternoon.

  Ahead of them a canoe was pulled up onto the bank, while in the river, standing waist deep in water, two men tried to stop another from sinking. Even Lucien’s inexperienced eye could see it had been badly overloaded.

  Two women watched the operation and offered what sounded like advice, much of which involved demands for the men to be careful with various specific items.

  “Who are they?” Lucien asked, annoyed at this reminder of the world left behind.

  “Work,” Jon replied. “Our work, so keep quiet, let me do the talking and learn.”

  As they drew nearer the two men gave a cry of alarm and the canoe sank with just the odd bubble to show the way it had gone. Both women became shrill with indignation and admonishments. They were so busy reproaching the men they failed to notice Jon and Lucien, but the men exchanged wary glances.

  “Good day,” Jon said, coming to a halt. “What is going on here?”

  “I would have thought it was perfectly obvious,” one of the women said. “What business is it of yours?”

  “I think you’ll find it is very much my business, madam,” Jon replied and pulled a shield out from his pocket, holding it up for them to see. “Tribal Liaison Guild,” he announced. “May I see your permit to be above The First Cataract?”

  The men in the water showed marked signs of wanting to be elsewhere, but Jon had casually swung his rifle from his shoulder and, while he was not exactly pointing it at them, the possibility he might obviously occupied much of their thinking.

  The two women either did not know the significance of the shield or pretended they did not.

  “If you are some sort of official,” the second one said, “you can assist our guides in retrieving our belongings from the river.”

  Jon glanced across at the two men, both of whom were covertly sidling downstream, hoping not to be noticed.

  “Stay where you are!” he ordered. “I’ve recognised both of you, so there’s no point in trying to hide.”

  Both were chagrined, but resigned and made no further attempt to escape.

  Turning back to the pair of ladies, Jon again said, “I want to see your permits to be above First Cataract.”

  The smaller of the two glared at him. “You’ve no right to question us.”

  “I think you’ll find I have every right,” Jon replied. “Show me your permit.”

  “I refuse.”

  “Then under General Order 17 of the Tribal Lands Access Bill, I am charging both of you with violation of the provisions therein. I will be issuing you both with a summons to appear before the magistrates at The First Cataract where you may be sentenced to a fine not exceeding $10,000 or imprisonment for a period not less than six months.”

  Both women stared at him in horror.

  “You can’t! We have permission to be here. Our guides assured us ...”

  “They were lying,” Jon replied. “Weren’t you, boys?”

  There was no response from the men in the river, who now began to shake with the cold.

  Jon saw it and smiled. “Getting chilly? Tell these ladies the truth and I might let you out. You did lie to them, didn’t you?”

  A couple of shrugs followed, and a brief acknowledgement of the undeniable.

  “But they said ...” the other woman began.

  “Did you check?” Jon asked, interrupting a stream of protest.

  “No, but ...”

  “Ignorance of the law is no excuse, especially when there are notices all over the town advising tourists there is no access without a permit.”

  “We didn’t see any ...”

  She stopped as she saw the cynical look on Jon’s face and coloured slightly.

  “If we saw them, we didn’t fully understand their meaning.”

  Lucien, who had seen them and understood them, was about to help her with a detailed explanation, until he caught Jon’s eye and thought better of it.

  “My next question is,” Jon continued. “What was in the canoe?”

  The two women exchanged wary glances, but Jon had turned to the two guides.

  “Well?”

  “Nothing much,” one of the men said quickly.

  “Really? How about I make you raise it and we have a good look.”

  This was blatantly unwelcome to them, but jumped on with enthusiasm by the women.

  “We’d be very grateful if you could. We’ve paid for everything.”

  “Did you buy some nice things?” Jon asked, with what appeared to be mild and friendly interest.

  “Some really beautiful pearls,” one woman replied enthusiastically. “And the most exquisite furs, some sort of spotted cat that ...”

  She saw the expression on Jon’s face, caught the furious gestures her guides were making, and shut up.

  “Pearls and fur from protected animals,” Jon said. “The fine and the prison sentence just went up. What else you did you ‘acquire’?”

  “Nothing,” they both said, swiftly.

  Jon turned to the two men. “Talk!” he ordered.

  “A couple bits of jade, a painted skin and some shell work,” one replied reluctantly. “It was all in the canoe.”

  Jon looked to the river where the odd bubble was still rising.

  “Excellent,” he purred. “And it will all be staying were it is.”

  “But we’ve paid for it!”

  “Well, you’ve lost the lot,” Jon replied. “And I’ll be issuing both of you with fixed penalty fines for the offence of being above the barrier and another for illegal trading. You can be thankful the evidence is at the bottom of the river or the fine would be fixed in accordance with the value of the contraband.”

  To Lucien’s amazement and delight, Jon produced a pad of official-looking forms and proceeded to take down full details from each woman and then handed each a copy, keeping a duplicate for himself.

  “Please don’t think you can leave without paying,” he said. “Your names and addresses will be on record back at The Settlement and I will find you, no matter what.”

  Both looked as if they would have liked to scratch his eyes from his head, but they snatched the papers from his hand.

  He repeated the process with the two men, who looked exceptionally glum.

  “What is it, Hughie, third or fourth offence?”

  Hughie chose not to answer.

  “I’d take a tooth brush when you go and present this,” Jon advised. “I think you may be going away for a while. Good afternoon, gentlemen. Ladies.”r />
  “Wait!” one of the women shouted. “How are we to get back to The First Cataract with only one canoe?”

  “There’s room for four of you in this one,” Jon said.

  “But not for us and our luggage!” one protested.

  “Yes,” Jon agreed. “That is a problem.”

  He looked thoughtfully at the bags in the beached canoe and then threw each one far out into the river.

  “Problem solved,” he said. “Come on, Lucien. Time to go.”

  Deaf to the screams of protest behind him, Jon strode off down the river bank, Lucien trotting along behind.

  “You can be a bit of a bastard, can’t you,” he said, not without admiration.

  “When necessary,” Jon replied. “You might like to remember it.”

  They walked on for another hour or so, Lucien torn between a burning desire to know the extent of Jon’s authority and where the women had been to acquire their illicit souvenirs.

  “Can you really fine people?” he asked at last.

  Jon nodded. “And arrest them and take them into custody. We’re policemen as well as everything else.”

  This was an interesting and wholly delightful aspect of being a TLO Lucien had not known of before. Thinking about it kept him quiet for the next mile or so, his reverie only broken when Jon stopped to draw his attention to a shy speckled deer on the opposite bank. She had come down to drink, wary of predators, her huge ears twisting and turning to catch every tiny sound.

  She caught Lucien’s intake of breath and her head came up quickly to look for the source of potential danger and in an instant she was gone, fading back into the trees like a shadow.

  Distracted from thoughts of law enforcement, Lucien turned to ask the next question that buzzed in his head.

  “If all trading is forbidden,” he said “How come those old biddies were able to do it?”

  “Missionaries,” Jon replied, spitting the word like it was made of vomit.

  “Missionaries?”

  “Yes, idiots who think they are bringing the word of God to the poor benighted savages.”

  “But no-one from the settlements is allowed to live up here, are they?”

  “You would’ve thought not, wouldn’t you, but unfortunately a few were allowed to set up a place further along one of the smaller tributaries. It provides somewhere for a lot of dubious business to go on.”