by K. Walker
The next morning, I got up first and left the house looking for an outhouse and maybe something to eat. Just outside I met a middle-aged woman and two young girls, with platters and baskets of food. I quickly discovered that she did speak some Spanish — in spite of what Tomas had said, quite a few of them it turned out could speak at least of simple things. She was the wife of the chief. The two of them when young had spent time working on a mestizo farm, earning money for iron cooking pots and knives and farm tools. She had come with food for us all, and to ask if I would like to go with them to bathe? Of course, I would.
We walked together through the settlement and down a short path to the nearby river. It was about ten feet deep and so clear you could see the gravel bottom. The village was built on a bluff fifteen feet above the water. Must be nice in the wet season, they wouldn’t flood. On the river bank there were three stations marked by rocks or fallen logs: one upstream for drawing water, which they carried back to their homes in buckets; a second for bathing; and a third, the farthest downstream, for washing clothes by beating them against the rocks and laying them out to dry. Not that they needed to wash many clothes, but I guess a clean loin cloth is good.
There were only women there, and for these tasks they stripped. The girls were graceful, the woman were all chubby to an American eye. They had perfect brown skin and dark eyes, and straight jet-black hair, but they all had little round tummies and after a baby or two their boobs drooped. They seemed shy of me, but I laughed as I bathed, and they relaxed. I jumped all the way in and swam to the bottom, then shot to the surface with hands high. Having no soap, I rubbed my skin all over and rinsed again and again. You can get clean that way if you try. My wet hair I combed with my fingers, as I sat on a rock in the sunshine to dry. Nobody looked me directly in the eye. Maybe that had to do with my being a witch?
The next few days were — I almost said “paradise” but hey, I was still a prisoner. Let’s say that, going with the flow, I felt pretty good. I had no work to do. I bathed twice a day, I swam and sunned myself by the river, and lazed away the afternoons in a hammock that Fatty rigged up for me. The Indian women brought us food, mainly starchy bread made from manioc, fresh fruit and vegetables from their gardens, and bits of fish or other protein. Fatty warned me never to eat raw manioc tubers, the whole plant is full of cyanide until the women wash and strain it. He and the others went hunting with the men, and with their rifles brought back several tapir or deer. The Indians probably ate better than usual while we were there. I was not bothered by anybody. No one but the chief’s wife ever spoke to me unless I spoke first to them, and then only about the simplest of things. She went with me everywhere, quiet, expressionless.
On the third day, after breakfast, the guys had gone hunting and I thought we would go to swim, when she asked me suddenly –
“Are you really a bruja?” She wasn’t pugnacious, she just looked me in the eyes which nobody else had done. I thought it would be chancy to undercut what Tomas had claimed, so I replied firmly –
“Yes, I am.”
“I never met a white bruja. What kind of bruja? The singing kind or the touching kind?”
“The touching kind” I said. I can’t sing for beans.
“There is a man who needs your help, will you come with me?” So, of course, I had to make good. In a small house on the edge of the settlement, on a pallet, feverish, I found a man lying. His wife bathed his face with cool water. A youngish man in elaborate feathers and paint danced and chanted outside.
“That fellow, is he the village bruja?”
“Yes, but he is young, his song has not yet defeated the evil spirits. The man is no better.”
I took a close look. The man had an infected sore on his thigh, it looked like a puncture wound, maybe from a fall. The wound was enflamed and there was a narrow line of darker color extended about an inch upwards. I remembered my first aid training, and I didn’t like the look of it at all. God knows, I am no doctor, but something needed to be done.
“Can you take him to a hospital? You know about hospitals?” She nodded in reply.
“Yes, we know that there are other medicines than ours, and sometimes the way of the Christians works well. But the nearest hospital is four days walk, and we have no money to pay.” I made up my mind to give it a try.
“Come with me to the house where we stay. I need something.” I knew Tomas kept a first aide kit in his pack. We went, I found it. It contained a big tube of triple antibiotic ointment and rolls of gauze.
“Now, bring to the man’s house an iron pot of boiling water and a sharp knife.” They did as I had asked. I ran the knife several times through the flame of a cooking fire, then spoke to the man him through the chief’s wife, whose name was Autana.
“This will hurt, but afterwards I will pray over it to make it better. OK?” He made no reply, he was utterly motionless, but Autana told me to go ahead. I slit the wound open and washed it out with hot water. I had to cut again, quite a lot of puss and blood flowed. In the center, I found and removed as I expected a shred of wood or dirt. I washed everything thoroughly, slopped it all with antibiotic ointment, laid a pad of gauze on it and wrapped it in place. He never said a word. I went outside to where the other shaman was still singing and dancing. I smiled at him. He seemed surprised. Because such things seemed to be a part of local life, I raised my hands over my head, swung my hair in a circle, and danced for a few minutes, crying out “Hello! Hello! Hello!”
“That should do it,” I said to Autana. “Keep him quiet and I will look at him again tomorrow.”
That night Tomas was concerned about what would happen if the man died or got worse. But when I saw him the next day, he was on his feet. A big scab had started to form. I dressed the wound again, and warned him not to swim or get it dirty until it healed.
I was a successful healing bruja! Tomas was impressed that I could actually do something useful. Autana seemed pleased. The next day, she gave me a present – a pair of woven straw sandals. They were much easier to take off and on than my boots had been.
When I was almost getting tired of the quiet, Juan reappeared. He brought some trade goods in his pack, coffee and spices and a dozen steel pocket knives. More important, he brought news. He had hung around the big town for several days to see what reaction there was to his emails. He brought with him a front page from one of the main Venezuelan newspapers.
They had Photo Shopped the naughty bits to fog them, but it was surely me and surely naked. The article told in sensational terms about the poor gringa girl, kept a naked slave in the jungle. They knew about Merida and the school, and speculated that the kidnappers were Colombians who had taken me across that border. There was a printed appeal from my Mom, begging that I be released, that bought a lump to my throat. She must be so worried. I felt guilty, that lately it had not been so bad.
Best of all, the story mentioned that a TV station in Tucson had started a fund for me. Just as Tomas had hoped. That night, relaxed together after sex, I asked Tomas what happened next.
“In a week, I will send Juan or Fatty to a town, to check if your mother has made a statement about the ransom. How much has been raised. If it is at least $100,000 he will use a statement that I will have given him, explaining how to pay, and send it to the press by email from an Internet café.”
“How will it be paid?”
“That’s my concern. Probably through one of the companies that negotiate, like Risk Management of London. They will make a statement on the radio and I will give them a drop point on short notice. I was with the FARC when they did a ransom, I know how to do it.” Then he pushed my legs apart for another round.
So, it was back to the routine: eating, bathing, swimming, fucking. An occasional small bit of first aid work. Truth to tell, except for the fucking, it could easily get boring. I wandered in the outskirts of the great forest, never very far from fear of getting lost, and tried different flowers for my hair. I asked Tomas if I could have my clot
hes back, since I clearly would not run away. He shook his head.
“Making you go naked was a good idea at the time. Now, we are stuck with it. I told the chief that nakedness was part of your magic. We can’t go back on that. When the ransom comes, no doubt they will bring you clothes. Besides”, he added with a shit-eating grin, “I kind of like you naked.” I stuck out my tongue at him.
Carlos stopped sleeping in our house and didn’t bother me for sex any more. I found out he was with an Indian woman, a young widow. I asked Tomas about it. I thought there was a taboo?
“Carlos’s mother was an Indian. Not this tribe, but some of the words are the same. Plus, the woman is probably barren. He and her husband were together ten years and had no children. Nobody wanted her after he died. Maybe also it’s a bad-luck thing. I don’t know. So, they don’t care who she sleeps with. When the ransom is paid, there is a chance that Carlos will stay here. He is a simple man, all he really wants is the life he had when his wife was alive. If he has a good woman and a piece of land to work, it is enough for him. And his share of the money will make him a big man for many years.”
Chapter Five: An End and a Beginning
Before the week was up, before Tomas could send Juan to check again on the ransom, our lives were suddenly disrupted. I was dozing in my hammock, late afternoon, when I heard wailing, faint at first and then pitiful and loud, the whole village keening. Down the path to the north, a group of about ten men entered, two of them prone on litters.
They were dressed in a mixture of Indian and European clothing. Some were bare-chested, some wore old T-shirts, including one that said “Harvard.” All wore beaded headbands. One or two wore shorts. Most were in jeans, and all wore rubber boots. None appeared to be over mid-20’s and most were younger. They looked bruised and worn, exhausted. Some wore big backpacks, others large cloth bags slung over their shoulders. The workers at the pineapple plantation had returned, and not in a good way.
Soon after we arrived, I noticed that the village was short of grown-up men, and asked why. Money and the things it can buy were beginning to corrupt their lives. In the previous generation, only the man who was now the chief had left home to work for wages. The trade goods and prestige he accumulated were one reason he was the chief. A few years ago, two younger men did the same, and did well. Then, about six months before we arrived, a much larger group of young men had gone to try their luck, and sent word back that they had been engaged on a new pineapple plantation, two days walk to the north, at the frontier of settlement, for a farmer known as Don Ramon. They had not been home since.
Tomas hurried to join the chief, who was talking with the returned men. Men and women clustered wailing around the litters, which now rested on the ground. Not proper litters of course, some sort of self-made things from ponchos and tree branches. I drew near. One man had multiple puncture wounds on his right thigh and leg. He was in pain but alert and talking. The other was silent and inert with closed eyes. There were several small wounds on his chest and a round hole in one temple, from which blood had flowed down his cheek and onto his neck. The regular witch doctor was on the scene, chanting in a high-pitched loud voice and whirling his feathers in an endless circle. Amidst the chaos, Tomas turned to me.
“Can you do anything for them?” I knelt beside the motionless man. He was young, a teenager. I pressed hard at the nail bed of his right thumb; no reaction. I called into his ear, nothing. The fluid on his cheek was a mixture of blood and something clear, which probably meant the brain sack was leaking. I lifted his eyelids; the pupils were fixed and dilated.
“Tell the chief that I hope the other bruja can help with his magic. My magic will not work for the man with the head wound. Perhaps the other doctor can save him. I cannot. I think he will die within a day. The other man needs to have his wounds cleaned and treated with antibiotic ointment. I can do that.”
The wounds were from shotgun pellets. The young men had worked for months and had never been paid. When they asked, they were put off with excuses. Finally, Don Ramon had hired a new crew of non-Indians, mestizos just arrived from up country, and told the Indians they must go. He claimed that after deductions for food and lodging, he owed them nothing. There was a shouting match, which ended when Don Ramon’s bodyguards peppered them with shot. They had been two full days on the trail home.
The head wound did die, that night. The other man healed fast. The whole village went into mourning. There was endless talking outside the big buildings at the center (one, I had learned, was the men’s sacred house, the other was the women’s). The witch doctor danced and sang. The men danced and sang. The body of the dead man was carried to a small house under the trees some distant outside the village, and left there unburied. I heard this from the men; only men went to the funeral.
“Why don’t they put him in the ground?’ I asked
“Only Christian Indians do that. This tribe follows the old way. After his flesh rots, they will collect the bones in a pot and place it with his ancestors in a cave in the nearest hill. Those caves are their most sacred place.”
There followed more singing, more dancing, all night in fact, while Tomas and the chief and a few of the older men sat on the porch of the men’s long house and talked. I sat to one side, and an Indian brought me beer. At least I wasn’t kneeling any more! But I was excluded from the men’s talk. They seemed to disagree. There was arm waving. At one point the chief retreated into the house, and had to be coaxed out. More talk. I slipped away to our house, to sleep. At dawn, a weary Tomas awakened me, sitting beside me on the pallet.
“I can’t talk them out of it. And it involves you also.”
“What’s it all about?”
“They are peaceful, but not soft. They are very angry and they want justice. They won’t use guns themselves, but they know that we do. They think that if we go with them to see this farmer, we can intimidate him into paying their wages, plus compensation for the dead man. They will use the money to buy tools and trade goods, and they swear nobody will ever work for a farmer again. I don’t believe that,” he commented, “They will eventually need things and be drawn in again. But for now, they have had enough of the white man’s ways. The chief asks, are we with him or not? If not, we have to leave right away. If we are, we have to go with them to see this Ramon. It’s a hard choice, but I feel I owe these people something. They gave us refuge once before, when the police were closing in on us up north.” He looked me in the eye.
“He wants his magic blonde witch to be there also. You will bring good luck, the gods’ favor, and of course it will throw the farmer off base.” He laughed. ”I’ll bet my share of the ransom he never saw a naked blonde witch before!”
“The chief wants me to walk through the jungle for two days and face down a violent farmer who shoots people?” I didn’t try to hide my apprehension.
“Yeah, that’s sort of it. Sorry about that. If we left here, it’s a hundred miles to the next tribe, through country I don’t know. And it would put me out of touch with the people and places I have planned for the ransom payment. So, we need to do this.” I dug in my heels, metaphorically speaking.
“I think it’s a dumb idea, it won’t work and it could get me hurt. You should talk him out of it. Why don’t they just complain to the police?”
“Jesus, don’t be stupid.” He was tired and out of temper. “The police here work for the big landowners or the narco’s or both. They will laugh at the Indians and then beat them. And don’t forget, we are here. We can’t afford to get the police involved.”
“I won’t do it, I just won’t do it. Try something else.”
He looked hard at me, in a way he had not for a long time. He made love very well, and I have no shame to take pleasure where and when I can. But of course he wasn’t my lover, he was my kidnaper, my rapist, a robber and a killer. An angry one, right now.
“Listen,” he said grimly, “Maybe we have become something to each other, these last days. Maybe you ar
e not just my prisoner and my slave. I don’t wish you anything bad. I’m actually sorry that, after the ransom is paid, I will never see you again.” He paused to let that sink in. “But you are my slave when I need you to be. You will come with us. You will play whatever part we think best. Or I will beat you until you do. Understand?”
I just looked at him, as a tear slid down my cheek. Reality bites. I shrugged.
“I thought you cared more. Silly of me. Of course, if I have to do it, I will. No point taking a beating first.” I turned my face away, and he left the house to look for his men.
We spent that day getting ready. The Indian women prepared food for the trip. The men sang long songs with the young witch doctor, I suppose to ward off the evil spirits that might otherwise cause us to fail. Everything is spirits to them. Common sense seems to have little to do with results. The morning of the next day we set out: the men who were owed money, half a dozen of the senior men, the chief, Tomas and his three men, and me. I had on my hiking boots again, and my little school backpack with some food and water inside. The Indians all carried their bows, in spite of their alleged pacifism.
We walked about twenty-five miles that day. The Indians sang or chanted almost constantly. They did not keep any sort of military order, and if not for Carlos way in front scouting, we might have been a picnic party. We set up camp by the trail, which was much narrower and fainter than the ones we had followed from the west. That first night, there was no spring or pool. We had enough to drink, but no way to wash. Food was manioc bread and fruit. Tomas gathered a few branches for padding and spread a nylon sheet. Carlos and Fatty were off somewhere, patrolling. Juan came up as darkness was closing in, and pointed at me