Ted Dekker - Outlaw

“Then he is an idiot,” I said.

She repeated the word slowly, with an odd pronunciation. “Idi-out?”

“He’s a fool.”

Her round eyes questioned me. “I will not say this. I tell him what this Kirutu cannot hold, Wilam can master. This people will see he is very strong chief.”

“And?”

“He say he cannot master cassowary who will peck out his eyes when he is sleeping.”

“So he will just turn us over?”

“I think he is afraid of you, miss,” she whispered.

I wanted to ask if Wilam knew of Michael’s condition, but the situation didn’t warrant the question.

The prince demanded something of her and she answered quickly.

Wilam stood up and spat to one side. Amusement was gone from his face. He issued a verdict that sounded ugly, spat once more, then strode from the house.

“What did he say?”

Lela stared up at me and for the first time I saw real fear in her eyes. “I tell him you must be so happy to make many nice babies with him. But he will not make this babies with you. Now this Kirutu will come with many fighting man and he will take us.”

Chapter Ten

Lela and I spent the rest of the day bound on opposite sides of the hut they’d first held me in, but it wasn’t until darkness approached and she began to cry that I fully appreciated what she had attempted to do for me.

I tried to talk to her, but she informed me that she’d been ordered not to speak.

A single lean guard with several pronounced scars on his chest and a single rattan band around his waist milled about the hut watching me with curious eyes as he carved the shaft of a spear. I was beginning to see the divisions among the savages’ classes, primarily in the sophistication of their dress. There also seemed to be distinctions in the ways they groomed themselves. Wilam, for example, took meticulous care of himself, while my guard, who was plain, had grimy fingernails and unruly facial hair. Nevertheless he looked as healthy as a tiger.

At one point the guard withdrew a bundle of palm leaves from a platform above the smoldering fire and peeled back the layers to reveal a white paste that reminded me of plaster of paris. He apportioned the paste onto two leaves and set them on the coals. When the food was baked, he set one portion before Lela and untied her hands so that she could eat, before approaching me with the second portion. Rather than untying me, he squatted before me and brought the food to my mouth with a dirty hand.

They’d fed me their disgusting paste on the river, but when it was cooked its smell wasn’t terribly different from that of toasted flat bread. Still, I was unsure.

The guard grinned wide, showing stained teeth, two of which were broken. He cackled and looked back at Lela. She glanced between the guard and me, then nodded at the food.

“This is sago, miss. You must eat this food.”

The man pushed the baked sago close to my mouth and muttered something that brought forth another cackle. I let him push it between my teeth and took a tentative bite. It tasted like half-baked bread.

The guard fed me the rest with some pleasure, as if he were feeding a new baby pet. Then he retrieved his own food from the platform—several strips of meat, which he enjoyed eating while watching me, wearing that same jagged smile. I was struck by his relatively charitable disposition.

When I told Lela I had to use the bathroom she informed the guard, who snapped at her, perhaps for speaking, because he surely couldn’t blame me for needing to do what even animals must do. I wondered if he expected me to urinate on the reed floor, but after staring at me for a while he motioned for me to stand. He then led me through the doorway.

The moment I stepped into the bright sunlight, a cry went up and no fewer than twenty children of all ages descended on the hut, whooping and hollering with glee. The guard tried to shoo them away with flailing arms and angry shouts, but the children’s enthusiasm wasn’t tempered until several other adults joined in the guard’s rebuke.

He led me down the boardwalk, then out into the forest, as the swelling crowd of children followed curiously at a distance of no more than fifteen paces. The thought that I would have no privacy superseded the horror of my impending fate. Rather than send them away, the guard led them with square shoulders, as if enjoying his position as the caretaker of such a popular oddity.

I was struck by the sight of one young girl who carried a piglet. The baby pig had dried mud on its snout and grunted, but otherwise seemed content to rest in her arms like a pet. I had been hauled through the jungle like a condemned pig, surely worth less to my captors than this animal. And yet even a pig could be treasured, could it not?

When we reached a dense patch of underbrush, the guard motioned to the bushes and said something that I took to mean, “There you go, do your business there.”

I looked back at the flock of naked children watching my every move with wide eyes.

“You expect me to go in there? With all of them watching?”

He turned on the children and began to yell at them, then scooped up small sticks and hurled them in their direction. The children dodged the missiles and retreated a few yards.

Evidently satisfied, the guard grinned and motioned for me to go on. But I couldn’t seem to make my legs move. Not only was the audience completely unacceptable to me, the thought of wading into the brush where spiders and snakes had surely gathered proved too much for me. I lost the urge to relieve myself.

After a bit of an argument during which I tried to express my desire to be returned to the hut, my guard reluctantly led me back, this time without issuing any order for the children to stay back. They hovered like a swarm of buzzing bees.

Within half an hour my bladder was painfully complaining. It’s interesting how attitudes change when one is confronted with stark choices. Tortured as I was by my body, I began to accept the fact that nakedness was not an issue in the jungle.

Once again I told Lela that I had to urinate.

She looked confused. “You did not do this, miss?”

The guard, who had settled back into whittling, tried to shut her up but she told him anyway. Hearing this he stood and spit to one side, then let loose with a tirade that must have clearly expressed his displeasure at having to take me out yet again.

Nevertheless he did take me out. Once again the children cried out with excitement and swarmed us. Once again he chased them back to a safe distance. Once again we all marched out to the bush, but this time, when we arrived at the selected spot, my guard picked up a long stick and ran at the children, beating the trees in a ruckus, yelling his threats in no uncertain terms. The children fled.

I pulled my pants down and quickly relieved myself while they were fully engaged, not bothering to climb deeper into the underbrush where the snakes waited.

When the guard returned I was already pulling my pants up. He took one look at the ground, then up at me, and muttered what could have been a scolding for not following his instructions. I wondered if I had somehow desecrated a part of the forest floor that was not made for soiling.

We marched back to the hut, I, my guard, and the children, who had returned in full force and were chattering with even more excitement.

Two warriors with set jaws and wearing golden bands came for Lela and me near dark. Our heads were bagged, and we were pulled to our feet and wordlessly guided out of the hut.

They walked us along the boardwalks, then out onto a grassy field and up a slope. The numbness that had settled over me was replaced by a terrible sorrow. Images of Stephen cooing in my arms as he groped for my face flooded my eyes with tears.