Ted Bell - Spy

Like a man before a firing squad disdaining the blindfold, he wanted to see. He lifted his head, craned it round, and saw another spear and then a third flying toward him. He was not prepared to die with a spear in his back and so he completely about-faced to witness the onslaught of whistling shafts, instantly calculating the angles, deciding which spear would strike where and how he must dodge them.

But they all fell short. A quick flurry of spears hit the ground, all striking at a forty-five-degree angle and forming a semicircle around him. The delicate precision of this instant cage, even in his cornered and desperate state, demanded some appreciation. It had to be deliberate, but why trap rather than kill? Then came the dogs. He saw the loopy saliva of the animals flying as they sprung toward him out of the undergrowth, racing toward him with their snapping jaws wide.

Another spear, then more, at first only a few, but then many, arced toward him. To his complete amazement the upright shafts began to form a more complete circle around him. Hawke braced for the dogs. But, upon reaching this strange and newly formed perimeter, they slowed, then stopped. Howling in frustration, they looked back to their masters, the Indians still in hiding.

Hawke saw that the dogs might easily go around the cage of spears and kill him, or, in some cases, even slip between them. But they did not. The dogs stood rock-still, eyes blazing and tongues lolling, and waited. Hawke, finished, released his grip on the canes and fell to the ground.

He heard a man grunt and looked up.

A tall Indian warrior, a Xucuru whom Hawke recognized from the camps, had stepped into the tiny clearing. It was Wajari, the brutal chief who had been assigned to guard Hawke’s construction site. The man was wearing an old itip, a ceremonial loincloth with vertical stripes of black and yellow and red, the same regalia he wore every day.

Wajari, who normally carried a rifle on the job, now wore a machete, stuck inside the cinched waist of his loincloth. He approached Hawke, withdrawing the blade. It was almost over. A swift blow from the machete would put an end to his suffering. But there was something very odd about his eyes. Gone was the fierce expression, replaced by something new and terribly strange.

It wasn’t fear, exactly. No, it was worry.

Seeing those troubled black eyes, Hawke knew his life had taken a sudden turn for the better. His head might actually remain attached for a few days longer.

“Hawke,” Wajari said, making it sound like “Hoke.” Then he was gently taking Hawke’s arm and helping him get to his feet.

“Wajari,” Hawke said, letting himself be taken. The running was truly over. He felt a sense of relief flood through his body.

“Lord Hawke,” Wajari said, seeming to like the sound of it.

“So glad you could make it,” Hawke murmured as he was led toward the trees. “One doesn’t receive an invitation to a beheading every day.”

Wajari ignored his ramblings. Hawke collapsed at the feet of a fierce looking group of savages whose faces were painted in bright yellow and red. All held machetes above their heads.

To his enormous surprise, the blades did not fall.

Not only did these ferocious cannibals not behead him, but they treated him gently, with a strange blend of caution and respect. They gave him a bowl of manioc beer, which he drank in great gulping draughts. Wajari, who seemed to be presiding over this ceremony, ordered him wrapped in a blanket and placed carefully on a grassy mound.

They moved away, leaving him in the care of a single warrior with a spear. It occurred to Hawke that for some strange reason he was now worth more alive than dead.

Hawke lay under the shade of the trees, watching as the Indians hacked at the canebrake with their machetes. For an hour or more, they were busy cutting sections of four-inch-thick green cane, some about ten feet in length, some shorter. A female member of the war party came forward and presented him with a gourd of water followed by a small bowl of manioc bread.

He ate greedily and, after a time, feeling much revived, Hawke understood what it was the Indians were building.

They were using the bamboo poles and lengths of ropy vines to construct a cage. Ten feet long by four feet wide and approximately five feet in height. The bottom of the cage was filled with a bed of fronds.

It was to be home for the next five days, the large green cage borne upon the shoulders of four trotting savages as they raced through the jungle. These Xucuru, whom he now thought of as his saviors, would rest for short periods and when they moved, they moved very quickly. There was a sense of great urgency about his captors he found puzzling. When they slowed their pace, or spent too long at rest, Wajari would chastise them with his stick, prodding them along.

After three days of this they came to the brown swirling waters of another wide river. It was not the swiftly running Xingu, which he would put behind them many miles to the west. Hawke thought that perhaps this water was the great tributary called Tapajos, a river basin much ravaged by gold miners for the last few decades.

At the river’s edge, Wajari ordered a rest for his weary men. After some hours, after much bathing and drinking of manioc beer, his cage was lifted again and carried to the river. There, it was mounted atop a long dugout catamaran which had the skull of a jaguar mounted on the long snout of each slender prow. This large craft was one of many hidden in a small inlet in the bank. The secret flotilla had been covered with palm fronds.

With great alacrity, Wajari organized their immediate departure, and soon the long prows of the dugout canoes were gliding over the waters, headed upriver, even deeper into the green maze. Wajari, helmsman of the sole catamaran, brought up the rear and Hawke was reminded of an old joke. “If you’re not the lead dog, the view is always the same.”

The days were spent under an unrelenting sun. To amuse himself, in the midst of such stunning monotony, Hawke had used a needlelike sliver of bamboo to decorate himself. Using the dark juice of the chi-chi root, he tattooed “HOLD FAST” on the knuckles of each hand. It wasn’t much comfort, but he’d always believed they were good words to remember in times of trouble.

DEAD ASLEEP one night following yet another endless day on the river, Hawke was awakened by the crash of violent thunder. Jagged spears of lightning crisscrossed the sky and fat raindrops hissed on the water’s surface. A second later, hard rain hammered the river and everyone on it. Wajari, who manned the stern of Hawke’s flagship, was poling hard for the shore as they rounded a soft bend in the river.

Hawke sat up and rubbed his eyes, not quite believing what he was seeing. Through the undulating curtains of rain, long shafts of artificial light striped the black water and river bank. Such light on the shore could only mean one thing. Civilization! Indeed, as they drew nearer to the shore, a small village of traditional huts stood along the riverbanks. The settlement was lit by hissing arc lights mounted on wooden towers.

Artificial light was unheard of this deep in the wilderness, and Hawke was mystified. Then he heard the deep thrum of generators as they neared the riverbank. Civilization, or what passed for it, was at hand.

It was some kind of hastily built trading port, an unlovely facility, but still a welcome sight. The lights now revealed a long row of brown-thatched buildings perched along the shore. There was a long steel dock, perhaps two hundred feet in length, and upon it were stout wooden crates stacked as high as the rooftops of the riverfront storehouses. Men worked frantically with hand dollies, moving the heavy crates inside. It was a recently arrived shipment, Hawke thought, and they were hurriedly getting the crates sheltered before the impending thunderstorm.