Ted Dekker - Outlaw

The children with the beetle pattered along the wooden path behind us, whispering and arguing. They were soon joined by a few others, then a dozen, all hurrying along, jostling for a better view of me. When I looked at them they fell silent and grinned from ear to ear.

But I was too entrenched in my own predicament to appreciate the children’s obvious wonder.

The walkway rose and fell with occasional steps that followed the change in the forest floor’s elevation, but coming to a steep rock cliff, it rose up a flight of stairs made from seventy or eighty steps. We left the children behind and I made it halfway up before stopping to rest my burning lungs and aching legs. Once again I was the subject of amusement for the women who escorted me. I guessed they couldn’t comprehend how anyone could tire with such little effort.

The moment we stepped onto the upper landing, I thought that we had left one plane and entered another, this one built for royalty.

The manicured cleanliness of this large section of forest reminded me of a botanical garden I’d once visited. The canopy was thinner here, allowing more light to reach the ground than in the village below. A fence of perhaps fifty meters per side surrounded a large round structure in the midst of seven or eight smaller ones. Later I would learn that this was their Kabalan —the lords’ royal courts. I assumed the central structure to be their palace, although the Tulim’s version of a palace, which they called the Muhanim , was like none I had seen or imagined.

We passed under a tall archway to which were affixed twenty or thirty human skulls. My escort motioned me through but withdrew as I stepped between two tall men who studied me without expression. It took my eyes only a moment to adjust to the dim light, most of it from a large fire at the center, which revealed a floor covered by thatched mats and walls lined with shields, spears, and bark paintings. Tall round timbers, at least a dozen of them, rose from the floor to beams that supported a pitched roof.

Warriors stood or squatted on either side of the fire, watching me as if interrupted by an unremarkable distraction. I don’t know how I had such little effect on the Tulim men in comparison to the women’s and children’s interest, but not once had they seemed either interested or put off by me.

“Amok.”

My eyes darted to the end of the room. There, on a platform holding a large stump surrounded by drums, shields, and hides, sat the man who’d spoken. I recognized him immediately.

This was the prince named Wilam. So I was among the Impirum tribe at the north end of the valley.

Two women sat near him, outwardly unimpressed but unable to hide the curiosity in their eyes. Another knelt in front of the prince with her back to me. I saw the prince’s eyes watching me and I felt chilled by his stare. The quiet in the room stretched out. He’d commanded something but no one was moving.

“You must come, miss.”

My heart jumped at the sound of Lela’s voice as she turned her head. She was the one kneeling.

I hurried forward, pulled by the comforting sound of her voice. All the men and women here were well appointed with golden bands and all of the women wore dyed skirts. The feathers they used were more colorful and the bones on their necklaces whiter than what the villagers wore. But Lela, the young girl from Indonesia, was dressed simply in a grass skirt without any appointments. I could only guess it spoke of her status. As she’d said, she too was wam.

Reaching her side, I didn’t know what to do, so I knelt.

Wilam mumbled something, which was returned by soft chuckling from the men behind me. I kept my gaze directed at the woven floor mats.

“You must stand before this prince,” Lela said quietly.

“Stand?”

“Yes, miss.”

I pushed myself up in front of the platform, which I now saw was made of planks covered in the hides of small foxes. Wilam sat on the large stump, which was topped by the same hides.

He spoke again and Lela quickly stood.

“You must look at this lord,” she whispered, looking up.

I lifted my eyes. He was darker than I remembered. Perhaps his color was accentuated by the bright bands on his biceps, forearms, and thighs. The men in the village below were all fit and healthy enough, but the warriors here, led by their prince, looked supremely healthy. But if Wilam was royalty among these savages, he likely had better food.

He leaned forward and rested an elbow on his right knee, studying me with that look of mild amusement. Then he shifted his eyes off of me and lowered them to Lela, who stood still under his long, firm gaze. Long enough to make me wonder whether she was here only to translate.

He demanded something of her. She answered.

Another question. Another answer.

They went back and forth for several minutes, he demanding answers, she humbly offering them, until my curiosity could bear it no longer. My fate was at stake, and I was lost in the dark.

“What?” I asked during a pause.

Lela kept her eyes on the prince. But then he nodded and she looked up at me.

“This prince say I must now die with you.”

I was aghast. “Why would you have to die?”

“He say it was I who set you free, miss.”

“Was it?”

“It is good to take another slave if they escape. This too will give this prince power.”

“But did you free me?”

She didn’t respond, and I knew she had.

“And what about the man? Michael.”

“This Impirum no want that man. He not good for work or for fight.”

So Lela had told the warriors from the Impirum that I had broken free and they’d retrieved me, which was evidently allowed under the tribal code.

“Why would Impirum men want me?” I asked.

Her eyes shifted. “To make this babies, miss.”

The prince cut in, and they spoke for another minute before Lela turned back to me.

“This prince say I make you free and Kirutu will want blood. But I say you escape and I tell to his fighting man to get you. I say he now has new wam with power to make this babies, and this people will see Kirutu not as strong as this prince.”

About the making babies I wasn’t sure in the least, but she seemed to have talked some sense into the man and for that I was relieved.

“So then it’s good,” I said.

“No, miss. He not believe me. This prince say I lie and now I too must die.”

Contemptuous. That’s what my father sometimes called me as I was growing up. I knew even as heat burned my face that I wasn’t in a position to assert myself, but good sense did not redirect me as I turned to the prince.

“It’s not her fault,” I snapped.

His brow arched. I at least had the satisfaction of gaining his full attention. And I wasn’t done.

“She’s just trying to save me and give you a good thing. Because of her you look strong, you should be thanking her.”

“Koneh.”

But I wasn’t ready to koneh , which I assumed meant “shut up.”

“You want babies? I can give you babies.”

Lela translated without waiting to be told.

The prince studied me for a few seconds, then began to chuckle. Lela smiled and returned a tentative laugh as I watched. Seeing Wilam so close, I saw that it was muscle, not fat, that covered the sharp edges of his bones. Kirutu was tall and as wiry as a vine tree, but Wilam was as tall and perhaps the stronger man.

He said something and Lela’s smile faded.

“What did he say?”

“He say that I am very clever and you are wild cassowary.”

“Is that good?”

“Yes, miss. But it does not change his mind. He say because I have tricked him, and you have tried to tempt him, he will give us to Kirutu when this man come.”