Ted Dekker - Outlaw

Breathless, I spoke again, in the thinnest voice. “Hello?”

“Who is it?” Even through his whisper I could hear that his accent was American, though not Southern.

“Julian,” I managed.

The steady song of cicadas came through the opening ahead. Nothing more.

“Hello?”

“You’re an American?” he finally asked.

“I’m from Atlanta,” I replied.

The moment still stands in my mind as utterly surreal. There in the deepest unknown jungle I had indeed stumbled upon an American, like myself, and I was so overwhelmed that I could not yet think to set him free.

“Who…who are you?” I asked.

“I’m Michael,” he said. “Can you open the door?”

Dropping my shoes, I tugged at the knot with fervor, managed to unwind the twine, and yanked open the door.

There stood a man taller than my five feet and four inches, looking half my width, and I was a small woman. His hair was thin and receded, tangled and sticking out in every direction. A dark beard hung low enough to make me wonder if he’d shaved in the last year.

His nose and cheekbones protruded from a gaunt face covered in days of well-worn dirt. He was dressed in tattered slacks and a filthy shirt that might have blown away in a strong wind.

He stared at me with eyes that looked too large for their sockets and tentatively offered me a thin hand coated in dried mud. “I’m Michael.”

“We have to go!” I said. I knew that I wasn’t reasoning properly, but I was so eager to be out of that clammy place that I made no attempt to slow myself down. “They’re coming! Hurry.”

“You’ve finally come?” he said. “You’re her?”

“Who? No. My boat was wrecked. They found me and forced me here.”

“You’re an American?”

His eyes twitched in their sockets and I could see that his mind wasn’t fully coherent. But the fact that we were both alive and together buoyed my courage and I tugged at his arm.

“We have to get out.”

“Where are we going?”

“Out! We have to get back to the coast.”

“The coast?” His eyes darted to the opening on his right. “No, we can’t. That’s not the way it goes.”

“The way what goes? We have to! I’ve been sentenced to death.”

“Sentenced?” He lifted his crusty hand and ran his fingers through his hair. It was clear to me that his captivity had affected his mind in a profound way.

“This may be our only chance, we have to try,” I said.

But he didn’t come. “You don’t understand…” He stared at me, eyes searching mine, as if lost in a trance.

For a moment I felt as if I were disconnected from my own body, watching insanity unfold beneath me. I had no context for what was happening to me. I was lost between worlds.

But then the moment passed. I wasn’t lost at all—I could see, hear, smell, and feel that much with every cell of my body. I was trapped. A slave against my will, suffering through a horrible tragedy that would surely end in my death.

As was Michael.

Even in my own frenzied state I could see that such a fragile man could be as much of a liability as an asset in any escape. But I also knew that any journey through crocodile-infested swamps would be impossible without help. There was no telling what this man might have learned during his time among the Tulim. He spoke their language, didn’t he?

“How long have you been here?” I asked quickly.

“What date is it?”

“August. Nineteen sixty-three.”

He stared at me. “They only put me in the hole when they think I’ll be a problem.”

“You’ve been free here?”

“No. Yes. Not without a guard. But…” He kept looking at the moonlit opening and now whispered what seemed to be a great secret to him. “I don’t think I can leave the valley.”

“Why not?”

He tugged at my arm and struck out toward the opening, suddenly and fully alive.

“Hurry!”

I hurried after him as he quickly hobbled toward the exit.

The sounds of the night exploded in my ears as we rushed from the structure they’d imprisoned us in. Tall trees, many meters high, blotted out the stars above and blocked any view of the houses in the main village I knew to be near.

“This way! This way!” Michael ran in a half crouch, back hunched, straight up a jungle path that quickly ascended a hill. I followed on his heels, not daring to say a word. He seemed to know where he was going and I was so relieved to be free of the hole that I didn’t think about what lay ahead.

It took us ten minutes to reach the knob of a barren hill that rose above the surrounding canopy. Michael doubled over, hacking, hands on knees.

I was more worried about pursuit than my lungs. He saw me searching the jungle behind us and waved it off.

“We’re good.” Pant, pant, cough . “Trust me, if anyone saw us leave we would be back in the hole by now.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.” Cough, cough . “I’m going to die.” Cough . “How did you get out?”

“Someone cut me loose,” I said. “They brought my clothes and untied my bonds.”

“Cut you loose?” He straightened. “They intentionally set you free?”

“They must have. Yes, why else would they untie me?”

He stared back at the section of the jungle we’d fled. “Hmm.”

“So what do we do now?” I asked, gaining my breath.

He turned to me. “Eh? Not we. You . I can’t. I’d die before we reached the sea.”

I stared down into the dark valley, toward the lowlands. Moonlight glinted off patchwork swamp water miles distant. The screeches of a million creatures daring me to enter the black tangle of jungle sent shivers down my spine. Thoughts of trying to navigate the rivers alone filled me with dread. Surely I stood no better chance than he.

“Are you sure you can’t make it out?” I asked. “Whatever the risk, it would be better to die trying to escape than to die here.”

He scratched at his head and paced, considering the matter as if tormented by the choice set before him. What was I missing?

He made for a boulder to our right. “Just let me rest a second.”

I felt naked on that hill under a bright moon. “Are we safe here?”

“There is no safe place,” he said, waving his hand about. “We would have to get to the cliffs and get down to the swamps. Roughly ten miles that way.” He pointed westward. “The tidal surge reaches all the way in and reverses the flow of the river currents each day. Hundred miles in places. The alluvial coast makes one heck of a swamp…nothing but mud and mangroves for hundreds of square miles.” He was babbling. “I’m not sure if this is one of the Catalina tributaries that eventually meets the lower Balim River, or if we’re farther west. I’ve been trying to figure it out by the stars ever since I got here, but it’s near impossible without my glasses.”

“Slow down.” He was dumping details on me that might be invaluable. “You’re speaking too fast. How am I supposed to remember any of this?”

Michael stared at up me. I wrapped my arms around myself and paced in front of him, sure that at any moment the Warik would appear at the clearing’s edge. But he didn’t seem to share my concern, and I was desperate for more information about where I was, so I pressed him for more.

“Michael? Michael who?”

“Stevenson. I’m an anthropologist.”

“How did you get here?”

He spoke quickly. “I was on a trip to collect carvings and skulls. My boat was swamped by a tidal flood. I made it to shore but was stuck in all that mud by the river. They took me.”

“Where? Which river where you near?”

“The Eilanden. Along the Casuarina Coast in the Arafura Sea. They had a bag over my head most of the way and I was handed off twice but I’m pretty sure we traveled northwest.” He paused. “If you ever make it to the swamps, you’ll have to stuff your ears and nose with something when you sleep to keep the bugs out. That’s primarily why they use the head bags when they take slaves. When your hands are tied, you can’t swat them away.”