by RB Schalin
Chapter 20
"Kerry, Julia time to go, we have people waiting for us."
Julia opens her eyes and stretches like a cat. Her arms are shining wit sweat already and her clothes are sticking to her body. She looks at her watch, 8A.M. The sun has been up for almost two hours and it's already stifling hot and the humidity is like a blanket over her. Kerry is sitting up and his face is already red from the heat. He looks at her and asks, "how come you look so fresh in the morning, I feel like a wet towel?"
She laughs and stands up, grabbing her backpack next to her and opens the tent. Outside, she sees Hogan standing, looking up at the riverbank. She turns her head and is not surprised to see Tuki and his band of men standing there waiting for them.
"Good morning," she calls up to him.
He doesn’t answer, but waves to her, and then continues to just stand still.
After packing away the tent the three of them make their way up and join the group of Indians. Julia leans into Kerry and says, "I had a talk with the old guy last night, his name is Tuki and he came down while you two were sleeping."
"Did he say anything interesting?"
"He is taking us to some wise old man who might shed some light on the town we are looking for. He also told me about a people he calls the Skin People. Supposedly they are not around anymore, but they were a few hundred years ago. They might have been the people who built the town."
"See, I knew it was a good idea to bring you along, with your female charm you get all kinds of good information, " says Kerry.
Julia shakes her head. They are in the village now, but she thinks the word village is wrong. It’s just a collection of huts, made of clay with palm leafs for roofs. She can see a few women sitting outside cooking over open fires and the ever present children running around. The women are topless and most of the kids are naked. The men have a loincloth and some of them have their torsos filled with drawings. She doubts its tattoos, more likely some kind of paint made from fruits. The colors are red and black, and the drawings are straight lines or circles.
Hogan is walking between two Indians and he towers above them, he looks down and realizes that if he had a beer can he could stand it on one of the men’s head, and it would be the perfect height. He is big and muscular, but these men are thin and sinewy. They are made for long distance walking. He looks back at Kerry, who is shuffling behind him. His face is dripping sweat and his T-shirt is soaked through. Tuki must have seen him look and says something.
"Julia, what did the old man just say?"
She laughs and says, "something about Kerry carrying the weight of three men inside his clothes."
"Hey, it’s not my fault I like to eat and drink good wine," moans Kerry.
They have left the area with the huts and entered the proper jungle beyond them. There is a track, but it’s hardly wide enough for Hogan. His shoulders scrape against veins and trees, and all around him there are insects buzzing and he even sees a snake in a tree. Above him there are hundreds of birds in different colors. Down at ground level there is not much light, the thick canopy made of layers upon layers of trees and bushes doesn’t let the sunlight all the way down. It feels like he is walking in dusk or dawn.
Kerry is struggling, and he promises himself that when he gets back home, he will join a gym and lose some weight, especially if he ever decides to go on another expedition. He thinks about the Conquistadors who came here hundreds of years ago, dressed in heavy armor and cutting their way through the dense jungle with swords. He wonders what they thought about as they moved further and further away from the river and into the unknown. Gold most likely, that was what brought them here in the first place, the rumor of riches beyond their imaginations, cities with streets of gold and the opportunity to bring some back.
Tuki suddenly stops and says something to his men. They step aside a little so the three Americans can move up the line and soon they are standing next to him. He looks at Julia and pointing to his men he says, "they will wait here, I will take you from here, it’s not far, just a few hundred yards, but the old man prefers not to have a lot of people around him, and the men don’t like to be around him either."
Tuki walks off and the others follow him. They continue on for what Hogan feels is an eternity, but in reality can't be more than half an hour, then suddenly the trail stops and there is a small clearing in front of them. The sunlight is shining on a small hut with a brook and they can hear the sound of running water. To the left of the hut there is a garden with flowers and small bushes, on the other side is a similar patch and Hogan sees what he thinks are potatoes growing and some other vegetables. There is an old man sitting on the ground outside the hut, he doesn’t look at them, but says something to Tuki who turns around and translates to Julia.
"The old man said to get lost, and he hopes the jungle eats us."
"Friendly, isn’t he," says Julia.
"Don’t worry, he is always like that in the morning, he becomes better during the day. I will tell him who you are and then I’ll wave you over, stay here."
Julia tells the others what Tuki has said and they all hang back while Tuki approaches the sitting man. After some discussion which at one point becomes very heated and Tuki has to step back quickly when the other man pulls a spear from behind him.
"Jesus, he is a feisty old thing, isn’t he," says Hogan
"I guess he is at that age when you just want to be left alone with your memories. My grandfather was like that, he lived to be ninety-five and during the last five years he was a pain in the ass," says Kerry, leaning against a tree.
Julia looks up and says, "Slowly move away from the tree Kerry, very slowly."
He does what she says and then looks up. Above him on a thick branch there is a green snake and its head is slowly moving down towards them.
"Christ, that thing almost bit me," says Kerry shivering.
"I guess it’s poisonous and would have killed you within an hour or so, let’s be very careful where we step and what we lean against, " says Hogan.
"Time to go," says Julia, who has seen Tuki wave at them.
They approach the old man and sits down in front of him like Tuki, hunched down on the soles of their feet. Kerry can’t balance his heavy body and sits down completely. The old man coughs and spits out a big glob of phlegm which hits a centipede walking past him.
Tuki says, "Julia, I have told him what you have asked me, and I will give you the short version of what he said."
"Why not the long version, might be important information?"
He chuckles and says, "trust me, half of what he says are bad words which I don’t even know how to translate to Portuguese."
"Fine, short version it is."
"He says that when he was a child the tribe didn’t live here, but three days walk north of here. There he and the other children were told of a people who lived in a town in the jungle. The way it was told makes him believe it was another few days walk from where they were. These people were much more advanced than our tribe. There dwellings were built of mud bricks, and they had water systems to bring water from a river into the town where they grew their food. They would hunt and fish, but they were an evil people who prayed to a god who wanted blood and human sacrifices to be pleased. They would hunt the neighboring tribes and kill the women, men and even the children in drawn out rituals. They called them the Skin People, because they would tear off the skin of their victims while they were alive, their screams would please the god."
Julia holds up her hand to indicate he should wait while she translates to Kerry and Hogan. When she finishes Tuki continues.
"They became so good at this they would poke their victims with their spears first to hear them scream and then, according to the pitch would then skin them in order to make music out of their sounds. This they called “The music of the skin”."
"So what happened to them?" asks Julia.
"There was an earthquake, and the town sank into the ground. It happened at night so mo
st of them died in their sleep. The few that survived ran into the jungle and the tribe disappeared. Some say their god was not pleased with their gifts and that’s why they sent the earthquake to punish them; others say it was a good god who made it happen, to clean the earth from these monsters."
Julia translates again to the others and this time Kerry asks, "what about the people with the deformed faces? The man who wrote the letter talked about them."
Tuki listens to Julia and then turns to the old man and speaks. They discuss back and forth for a while and then Tuki says, "the man you are talking about most likely saw a member of the Skin People. It must have been one of the survivors, he was lucky to get away."
The old man said something and Tuki translates, "he is saying that if you go looking for them, be careful, sometimes what you are looking for is not what you find."
Tuki thanks the old man who just mumbles something, coughs and spits again. Then he goes into his hut and disappears.
When they reach the group waiting for them Tuki says to Julia, "from here on you are by yourself. I have told you what the old man said, and you know more or less in what direction you must go. Look for a river and the town should be close, but remember it sank, and it might be impossible to find. I will send one hunter with you, but he will only take you as far as the river."
He says something to a young man, who steps forward. Tuki says his name is Laka, or at least that's what his name sounds like. Julia, Hogan and Kerry, thank Tuki for his help and following Laka they head into the jungle.
Kerry turns back and says to Julia, "what’s your take on the old man, is he telling the truth, or is he just bullshitting?"
"I don’t know, he seemed serious, but you never know."
"I think it was just a bedtime story to scare him and the other children. Imagine making music by skinning people. That’s just absurd," says Hogan, walking last in their little line.
"It wouldn’t be the first time people use the human body to create sounds; they have found flutes made of human bones and even skulls used as drums in some ancient burial grounds. Music was and still is a big part of worshipping. Just think about our own religions, all of them use music before, during and after the service," says Kerry.
"But there is a difference between singing a psalm and skinning people," says Hogan.
The trail snakes its way up on a steady incline and soon they stop talking, needing all their strength to walk up the hill in the heat and humidity. Laka doesn’t show any signs of fatigue, he keeps the same pace going up as on flat ground and after a while they have to ask him to slow down by using sign language. While they drink some water and catch their breaths Laka watches them, his eyes are friendly, but he doesn’t say anything. Even if he did, they wouldn’t understand him anyway.
When they are ready, he picks up his machete and continues hacking away at the vegetation clearing a path for the others. And so it continues, they walk for hours, stopping on the way to drink and rest. When darkness begins to fall Laka finds a clearing, it’s no more than twenty square feet, but he hacks out some more space and they can raise one tent. It will be a tight fit for the three of them.
After a dinner of cold food from cans they crawl into the tent and wrap mosquito netting around them, Laka stays outside and as the fire slowly burns out the night creature's wake up.
Julia can’t sleep, the sounds from outside are too loud, and inside the tent it is too hot. Hogan and Kerry are snoring and after a while she gives up. Wrapped in the netting she creeps outside and finds Laka awake and smoking some kind of home made cigarette. She has no idea where he got it from since he didn’t carry anything with him except the machete. She sits down opposite him and he smiles at her, offering her the cigarette. Her first reaction is to decline. She has never smoked before and she has no plans of starting now, but under the circumstances, she thinks she should accept the offered cigarette, or Laka might take it as an insult.
She inhales carefully and the smoke is sweet and pungent. First, nothing happens so she takes another drag and slowly a weird feeling comes over her. It’s like she is floating, the sounds fade away and the only thing she can hear is her heart and her breathing. Laka takes the cigarette away from her and takes a deep drag, then smiles at her and nods his head. She feels like she is grinning like an idiot, and when she touches her face, it feels numb, like after being to the dentist. She is sure she has saliva coming out of her mouth, but looking at Laka she sees he hasn’t, and realizes it must be some kind of hallucination. Her body relaxes and before she knows it, she slowly lies down on her side with eyes closed, and the last thing she sees is what looks like a pair of eyes above and beyond Laka’s head.