“Who is that, Ian?” Emily whispered.
“That’s their medicine man, or witch doctor you might call him. His name is Malu.”
“What’s he saying?”
“Why, he’s the storyteller. Pretty much carries on the oral history of the tribe. Not very reliable, though.”
Emily listened to Malu and then listened carefully as Ian interpreted it. “They’ve got a legend out of their past. It seems they were a large tribe of women who had only a few men. They were warriors and killed most of their enemies, but they kept a few men alive for husbands.”
“That’s what the Amazons were,” Wes said with astonishment.
“About the same kind of legend.”
“Do you believe that, Ian?” Emily whispered.
“I never tamper with another country’s legends. We’ve got our Paul Bunyan and Johnny Appleseed. Anyway,” he went on, “these women possessed magic flutes called jakui. But in time something happened. Malu’s not real sure what, but the men wound up taking the flutes away from the women. Now no woman is ever allowed to see the jakui or be in the men’s meetings where they play them. You look around and you don’t see any women here except you.”
“Why did they let me stay?” Emily questioned.
“I don’t suppose they think you’re important enough. Or maybe they think you’re too important to ask to leave. I think they really look on us as another species. I don’t count as a man, and you don’t count as a woman. They believe in their own people.”
The ceremonies went on for some time, and finally Emily felt herself growing very tired. She did not think that Ian was watching her, but he suddenly leaned over and said, “Time for bed, daughter.”
She looked up and could not help but smile. “All right, Dad.” She got up, bowed to the chief, and Wes rose also. They left the circle, and Wes went at once to his tent, saying, “I think I had too much Amazonian kasili. Good night.”
When they got to the hut, Ian said, “Let me check it for snakes and scorpions.”
“Gladly!” Emily said nervously.
Ian lit the small lamp, searched the hut, and put the lamp down on the table. He stepped out and smiled. “It’s all clear.”
Emily felt awkward, as always, when she was alone with Ian Marlowe, but she felt obligated to say, “Wes and I are very grateful for what you are doing for us, Ian, and I . . . I want to thank you for taking such good care of me when I was sick.”
“Don’t mention it. That’s what I’m here for.”
The cicadas were singing their song now. It made rather a peaceful sound to Emily. She was tired, but she leaned back against the doorframe and studied Ian. By the flickering light of the small lamp, she could see his features clearly, and a curiosity rose in her. “Why have you done all this for us, Ian?”
“Why, you asked me to.”
“Do you do everything that anyone asks of you?”
He smiled and crossed his arms and stood looking down at her. “I don’t know, Emily, why I do most things. It has something to do with the fact that I’m a Christian now.”
Emily hesitated, then said, “What do you mean by that?”
“I mean all of my life I never loved anyone but myself. I don’t think you’d know anything about that. You’re not that kind of person. But it was the way I grew up, I suppose. It was the law of survival to take care of myself. I got used to it. I never loved anyone until—”
Ian broke off abruptly, and Emily leaned forward to see what was in his face. “I don’t know what you mean by that. Until what?”
“I was going to say until I met you, but you don’t want to hear about that.” He dropped his head, then said, “I found out that I couldn’t love anyone, and I thought I was a cripple emotionally. But then when I asked Christ to come into my life, He did. And when He came in, Emily, He brought something with Him.”
“What was that, Ian?”
“He brought love with Him, and that’s what I feel for these people here. That’s what I want to feel for everyone.” He suddenly laughed shortly and said, “It sounds like I’m preaching a sermon. Good night, Emily.”
She watched him as he left and, stooping, entered the tent. For a long time she stood there, and then she walked over and sat down at the table. In the short time since they had arrived at the Guapi village, Emily had observed a number of interesting habits. For nearly an hour she covered page after page in her tablet, trying to write as carefully as possible. Outside, the cicadas made such a chorus that it was the only sound she heard.
Finishing a page, she turned to a new one, at the same time looking at the door of her tent—and her heart froze. A Guapi warrior was standing there watching her. At least she assumed that he was Guapi. His face was smeared with red like a mask. A feather-tufted tube of bamboo protruded from his earlobes, and a quiver of darts hung at his waist.
Emily could not move. His ebony eyes glittered as he watched her, and she saw that he had a blowpipe at his side. He was naked except for a loincloth and was as still as a human being could possibly be.
Emily could neither speak nor move, and she looked deep into his eyes, wondering what he would do.
And then suddenly with a smooth, liquid motion the warrior turned, and he was gone. He disappeared as silently as a wraith, and Emily blinked with shock. He seemed almost like a phantom to her, but he had been real enough.
She put the tablet down and noticed that her hands were trembling. She placed the pencil on top of the pad, went to the cot, and blew out the lamp. As she lay down, she thought, There’s no protection here, God, but you . . . !
CHAPTER TWENTY
The Guapi Way
Wes was quietly taking pictures of a man named Yato, who was making a blowgun, while Emily sat on a log writing. Ian had gone hunting, and the two had been fascinated by the care that went into the construction of the weapon. It was slow, careful work, and Emily documented it as carefully as possible. It was this sort of specific information that National Geographic liked. The blowgun was made in two pieces, each equal halves of a long, straight-grained palm tree sapling. The trunk had been painstakingly split down the middle and separated into equal halves and then set aside for a week of drying. Now Yato was making an inch-deep groove down the exact center of each of the two halves. He finished cutting as Wes and Emily watched, and then he placed the two separate pieces together. Since Ian was not there to interpret, the two simply watched and recorded what they saw, trying to make the photographs and notes tell the story.
Yato was an older man, but his hair was still black. His face was marked with many creases, and his ears were pierced, as were those of all the men. Feathers and ornaments dangled from his earlobes. Yato wrapped bark strips around the two halves of the sapling to hold them snugly together and then poured a coating of liquid over the wrapping. The coating was very thin and served mostly to keep the gun airtight. After this process was done, Yato brought out some very fine sand, which he placed in a bowl of water and heated over a small fire. When the water was boiling, the sand was poured down into the blowgun’s bore through a tiny funnel.
Emily watched this step repeated for what seemed to be countless times, and she finally said to Wes, “I guess he’s making the inside smooth.”
The afternoon went along slowly, for time seemed to have no meaning in this place. Over and over, Yato poured the sand down the barrel. The sound of children playing and screaming with pleasure came from the river, where they were bathing, and the women laughed softly as they went about doing their work.
“It’s funny, Wes, how time seems so different out here in the jungle.”
“That’s right,” Wes said, trying to get a closeup shot of Yato’s hands as he worked. “At home we’re always rushing around trying to get somewhere. I don’t think these people are ever in a hurry.”
“Might be a good idea if we could adopt that custom.”
Time went on, and finally the mouthpiece was constructed to act as a small funnel.
“I don’t see how they ever hit anything more than five feet away,” Emily observed. “It just looks impossible.”
Wes moved over and started to pick up one of the darts, but Yato immediately turned and held his hand up with a warning frown. He said something, and Emily said, “I don’t think he wants you to touch those darts. They probably have poison on the tips.”
“I guess you’re right.” Wes smiled and stepped back to show that he was harmless, and Yato returned his smile and went back to working on the blowgun.
Half an hour later the two were still there when Ian appeared. He nodded at them and then stood looking down at Yato and made some remark. Two of the women who had been working nearby came over, and one of them reached out and pulled at the top of Emily’s shirt, trying to pull it away from her body. Startled, Emily grabbed the front of her shirt and said, “What does she want?”
Ian said something to the woman, and when she replied, he could not help smiling. “Faces get pretty bronzed out here, like mine. Once I took my shirt off, and it frightened everybody.”
“Why were they scared?” Emily asked.
“Because my face and neck were one color, kind of a reddish hue, and the rest of me was white. That lady there wants to see if you’re white all over.”
Emily giggled suddenly. “Well, you can tell her that I am.” She waited until Ian translated, and the two women went away, their curiosity satisfied.
“I thought you might like to go on a hunt,” Ian said.
“Hey, that’d be swell!” Wes agreed enthusiastically. “Let me make sure I’ve got plenty of film. The light’s pretty good.”
Emily rose and closed her notebook. “I’d like that.”
“An old friend of yours will be doing the hunting. Omala.”
“Omala? Do I know him?”
“He’s the one who frightened you by looking in your door.”
Emily felt rather foolish. “I was scared that time,” she admitted. “I turned around, and there he was just watching me.”
“You should have seen me the first time I saw one of these people when I wasn’t expecting him. I was on my way here, stumbling around, and then I fell down. When I looked up I saw him. Not Omala, but someone who looked like him. I thought my time had come. Talk about scared!”
Emily felt better after hearing Ian’s story, and she suspected that he had told her this to help put her at ease. “Well, I’m ready,” she said.
“Better put on some bug juice. The bugs are bad today. These people call them piums—tiny black bloodsucking critters.”
Emily nodded at once. “I’ll put it on an inch thick.”
As the two walked back to her tent, Ian remarked, “These people don’t like the piums any better than we do. They leave swellings that itch like blazes and sometimes turn black.”
When they reached the hut they found Wes there, and Ian instructed them carefully. “You’ve got to tie your shirt sleeves around your wrists and your pants around your ankles. And soak your hands and face and neck in all the bug stuff you can bear.”
The mosquito dope smelled terrible, but Emily slathered it on, as did Wes. Even Ian applied a liberal portion to his face and hands.
When Emily had finished that preparation she looked up, startled to see that Omala had approached silently. “How do these people move without making any noise?” she said. She smiled and nodded, and he studied her carefully, then nodded and said something.
“He says he’ll get you a fine supper,” Ian translated.
“Tell him I said thank you, and I appreciate it.”
As Omala led them through the forest, Emily was fascinated by the variety of birds that flitted through the trees. She asked about a scarlet one, and Ian said, “That’s a macaw.” A few moments later, he said, “There’s what they call a pulsatrix. It changes color when it matures.”
They had not gone far when Omala stopped them and put his finger to his lips.
“I recognize that sign,” Wes whispered. “It means shut up.”
They stood there silently, and the breeze scarcely seemed to move. The vegetation was dense, and the flies swarmed around them. Finally Omala pulled out a poison dart. He wrapped what looked like cotton around it, Emily observed, and inserted it in the mouthpiece. He made a noise, a whistling sound, that Emily assumed was the call of a bird. She waited, holding herself perfectly still. The fronds of a large fern rustled in front of them, and suddenly a large black bird ran out of the underbrush. Emily heard a puffing sound. She did not see the flight of the dart, but she saw the bird stop abruptly and turn to make a run. It ran only two or three steps, however, then began shaking and fell over.
“That was a good shot, friend,” Ian commented. He listened to the warrior speaking as he went to retrieve the bird, which had fallen some thirty feet away. Omala came back, plucked the dart out, replaced it in the blowgun, and put the bird in a sack by his side.
“What did he say?”
Ian smiled at Emily’s question. “He said the bird came because he thought he had found a female. He says that men looking for females always get in trouble like this.”
Emily was startled. She had not yet become completely aware of whether these people were witty or simply said what they thought. She saw Wes grinning and reached out to pinch him on the arm.
They became quiet and still again, and finally a peculiar noise came floating to them. Emily saw Omala stiffen and hold himself perfectly still. For some reason his attitude frightened her, and Omala turned to Ian, whispering, “Onca.”
“A jaguar—somewhere close,” Ian whispered to his two companions.
Omala stayed still and so did the others. Finally a bird made another call, and Ian nodded and lowered his rifle to a more relaxed position. “The jaguar’s gone. That particular bird makes that call when a jaguar’s around.”
“Convenient for us,” Wes said wryly.
For what seemed like a long time then, they stood still, and finally Omala looked upward to their right. Emily followed his gaze, and high in the canopy she saw a monkey, which must have been seventy-five yards away. It seemed impossible that anyone could hit that monkey with a blowgun, and she made a bet with herself that Omala wouldn’t do it.
Once again she heard the puffing sound and caught a flash of the dart as it flew through the air.
“Did he hit the monkey?” Wes asked with astonishment.
“Yes, he’ll be falling soon,” Ian replied.
The four waited and soon the monkey fell to the ground. Omala ran over, picked it up, and held it by its hind legs. He pulled the dart out and then stopped. He looked upward and said something.
“There’s a baby monkey up there,” Ian translated.
“Oh, the poor thing! It’ll die!” Emily cried.
“Would you like to have it for a pet?”
Emily said instantly, “Yes! But how will you get it?”
Ian smiled and turned to Omala. He said something, and the native laid aside his blowgun. He climbed the tree easily and soon was back, holding a tiny ball of fur in his hand. Emily reached out, and the tiny creature, so small she could easily hold it in her palm, began to make a heartrending, whimpering cry. She held it to her chest and soon it grew quiet.
“Now you’ve done it,” Wes grinned. “She’ll want to make a pet out of everything. We kept our house full of stray cats, and once we had to raise a whole litter of coons.”
Ian was watching Emily as she held the tiny animal. Her lips had a broad, maternal cast, and he was thinking he had rarely seen a prettier picture. “Plenty of pets around here. They’re no trouble. But when you go back, what will you do with it?”
“I’ll take it with me.”
“Pretty strict laws about that. You’ll probably have to give it to one of the people.”
“All right,” Emily said, stroking the soft fur. “At l
east I’ll know she has a home.”
****
The hunt was successful, and they arrived back at the village with two fat woolly monkeys, enough to feed more than one family.
Omala invited them all to stay for dinner, and Emily said, “I don’t think I can eat one of those monkeys.”
“They’ll have something else. You can fake it. This is what you came for, isn’t it?” Ian asked. “To see what the people are really like.”
“Well, yes it is. I’ll stay if you will, Wes. You can eat all the monkey meat.”
****
Omala’s family situation was interesting to both Wes and Emily, and they seemed to be accepted there. The house was open, for the most part, and five families shared it, all of them blood relatives. Hammocks hung everywhere, and Emily discovered that children usually slept with their mothers until they grew too large, and then they had hammocks of their own. When a bachelor stayed with a family, he kept a night fire blazing to drive away the chill. Some of the men were smoking their cigars as the women cooked, and finally Emily asked, “I never hear them call you by your name, Ian. Why is that?”
“If they did that, according to their beliefs,” he said, “that would allow a yolok to attack me.”
“What’s a yolok?”
“It’s an evil spirit, and it can only attack those whose name it knows. So these people put a lot of stock in names. I never call them by their names either. I either call them by a title such as ‘the chief’ or ‘the chief’s wife’ or ‘the head man’s mother.’ Something like that. Sometimes I just say ‘the one who’s with me.’ ”
“How odd,” Emily breathed. She looked around at the peaceful scene and said, “Are they really cannibals, Ian?”
“I don’t think these people are. I stayed with another group downriver on my way here. They fed me stew, and I fished a human finger bone out of it.”
“My word!” Wes exclaimed, his eyes staring. “What did you do?”
The Amazon Quest (House of Winslow Book #25) Page 24