Within moments the single cry was joined by a dozen more, and then by hundreds of voices whooping in unison, and a stampede of bare feet. They began to pound the earth with their heels, carefully in time with the chanting, making a kind of music of its own.
Uhm, uhm, uhm, uhm.
Deep and guttural, the sound shook me to my bones. This was the warriors" welcome home.
Inside the bag my eyes were wide and my breathing was frantic. Imagined or not, I could feel hundreds of eyes staring at my coc.o.o.ned body as my captors marched me through the throng.
A single voice silenced the others, calling above them in a long, melodic string of words. Within a few seconds the caller stopped and the chorus resumed.
Uhm, uhm, uhm, uhm.
We marched on.
I began to tremble in my sack.
Then the solitary melodic voice again, followed by the chorus and the pounding agreement. Uhm, uhm, uhm, uhm.
Children ran alongside us, whispering and giggling. Women joined in with high cries between the lower chants, like cymbals between drumbeats.
And then the pinp.r.i.c.ks of light vanished from my hood. The rhythmic mantra fell away. The darkness deepened and the air grew slightly cooler, thick with an earthy scent. A door or a gate of some kind was closed, muting the voices to a distant burble. I was marched deep into the earth and dropped into a large hole in the ground.
No parting words of instruction, no encouragement, no sign my carriers either cared or did not care that I"d been brought into their village.
They simply left.
I was in my new home.
I was in h.e.l.l.
Chapter Five.
AN UNCLE had taken me and my sisters camping once. I"d spent only one night on the lumpy earth before deciding that I hated tents. The ground was hard, the smoke was rank, the night was cold, the bugs were everywhere, and I was not a happy camper. Only my sisters" willingness to brave the harsh environment convinced me to stay the second night.
Compared to the dank holding cell into which I"d been thrown, that tent was a palace.
The air was cool underground, but I couldn"t appreciate the reprieve from the oppressive heat. At least in the boat I"d had gentle rocking and birdcalls to settle my thoughts.
In that dungeon I had nothing but my own mind to keep me company, and it was clogged with impossibilities that had somehow, through the most cruel twist of fate, become certainties.
The sea had taken my life. The jungle had stripped me of my dignity. The G.o.ds of the earth had taken my soul.
During those three days on the river, my mind had frequently gone to G.o.d, begging him to deliver me, clinging to the vaguest hope that there might be more to my faith than mere fantasy. But there in that hole, a seed of bitterness took root deep in my heart.
The dream that had drawn me across the ocean felt like a smudge on the edge of my consciousness. I cringed every time it slithered back into my memory, though the dream itself had not returned since I"d left Atlanta.
Dest.i.tute, I lay still and tried to shut down my mind. In the wake of my son"s death, filled with fear and anger, I began to believe that no distant G.o.d who would allow such suffering would rescue me.
I had left my home in good, obedient faith, eager to discover and offer wholeness and light. And I had found only wretched anguish and darkness.
It was the first time that I"d dared curse G.o.d for my misfortune.
"h.e.l.lo?"
My eyes snapped wide.
"Is anyone there?"
The voice was male. Raspy. It spoke English. My mind refused to process the sound as a reality. I was hallucinating.
But then it spoke again, in a hushed tone from another cell that seemed not so far from my own, this time in a broken form of the language the natives spoke. I knew then that the man was not a figment of my imagination.
I cried out, but I couldn"t form any words around the gag.
The prisoner must have a.s.sumed I was a native, because he mumbled something in their tongue before falling silent. I cried out again, and then again, until my throat was raw. All to no avail.
But I was no longer alone.
My body began to tremble with hope. I lay there, bound like a cadaver awakened from death, flooded with life. Waves of elation washed over my mind.
I was not alone!
I was alive.
Even more, the man spoke their language, which could only mean he"d been alive long enough to learn it.
They say that once broken, a person often willingly subjects himself to the master who has broken him. My ordeal had shattered my strongest resolve. The men who had taken me had become my G.o.ds, and I their slave. But now I had heard the voice of another slave.
I wanted to rush out and throw myself into his arms. I wanted to kiss him and beg him to tell me that everything would be OK, that this small interruption in my life would soon fade into the distant past, that my son was still alive and my sisters eagerly awaited my return, that my family and friends were preparing a sprawling lawn party for our reunion on the far side of the world. I would tell them of my most magnificent adventure and they would all cry and hug Stephen and me. Then they would beg me to sing for them.
I refused to listen to the other voices whispering in my mind. The ones that asked why, if the man had been here long enough to learn the language, he was still captive in this pit. The ones that wondered if these G.o.ds would treat a woman as kindly as they had treated a man.
I tried to rouse the man"s attention again. And yet again. It was pointless. Maybe his voice had been a hallucination after all.
THEY came for me several hours later and woke me from a heavy sleep full of indecipherable dreams. Two men pulled me from my hole, then hefted me over one of their shoulders. The realization that they were taking me away from that place of safety near the man who spoke English jolted my mind. I made a pathetic protest into my gag and tried to kick, but I was nothing but a squirming pig in their grasp.
It was dark outside, and a chorus of insects announced my pa.s.sing. Bare feet slapped at the earth as I bounced over my carrier"s shoulder. No rain-that was new. Night had always seemed to bring rain.
Even then my mind was beginning to register perceived facts about my new life. Such as that I was a pig. That it rained most nights. That the man"s shoulder under my waist was powerful and his stride strong under my weight.
We must have traveled a mile before the man ducked through a doorway and set me in a sitting position on a hard floor. Soft voices were exchanged, and the men who had brought me left.
A fire crackled. The air was hot, but a chill tickled my flesh with antic.i.p.ation-of what, I could not know.
When I didn"t think I could hold still in that silence for a moment longer, the bag was lifted off my head and I found myself staring up at a man I immediately recognized by the long scar on his left side: the tall leader on whom my eyes had first fallen in the ocean fog. His skin looked even blacker by the dancing flames. The fire pit was at the center of a round hut with a low, charred ceiling. His dark eyes studied me, still emotionless.
He was dressed more stately and his skin glistened clean now. But when I say dressed, I mean only as the G.o.ds can dress, naked except for what could be called jewelry. Thatched golden arm- and thigh bands. A yellow-and-red collar nearly an inch wide wound around his neck. Two white bone hoops through his earlobes. No longer covered by the furry headdress, his hair was longer than I"d imagined, and wet with some kind of oil. The orange light cast deep shadows between his muscles. I was sure that this man could snap my neck with a simple, quick twist if he was so inclined.
I found it difficult to breathe in his presence.
He wasn"t alone. Behind me hands carefully unwound the wide lengths of woven fibers that that had secured me for the last three days. The yellow of my sleeveless blouse had turned brown, and my canvas shoes were gray with mud. My black capris were torn at one knee.
I sat on a bark floor surrounded by thatched walls lined with no fewer than thirty human skulls.
I turned my head to see who was behind me. A woman, perhaps in her late teens, knelt at my back. I could not see her face in the shadows.
Like the man, she wore bone earrings and woven bands around her neck and arms. She was naked except for a lap-lap, flaps of red- and yellow-dyed fabric that hung from a string around her waist.
Having completed her task, the woman stood up, squared her shoulders, and stepped to one side.
"Mitnarru." She motioned for me to stand.
I slowly pushed myself to my feet and stared at the woman"s face, struck by her beauty. Her dark cheekbones rose high, brightened by two streaks of a light blue paste or mud that wrapped around her brown eyes and rose like wide, pointed vines on her forehead. Her shoulders and b.r.e.a.s.t.s were accentuated by woven bands of blue and yellow.
Both she and the man were clean despite the environment. From what I could see, other than the hair on their heads, both had either plucked or shaved every strand from their bodies.
The man nodded at the woman. "Bo purack."
She motioned for me to remove my blouse. When I stared back, unsure, she repeated the man"s order.
"Bo purack."
To say that I was not given to public displays of nudity would be to grossly understate my disposition at the time. Even in the face of terrible danger, human pride is not easily sacrificed, at least not among those with refined character. Being made to disrobe in front of them suddenly struck me as inhumane.
The man mumbled a short word and spat into the fire. When I still did not move, the woman stepped up and began to pry at the b.u.t.tons on my blouse.
I hated myself in that moment. I hated that I stood trembling with neither the strength nor the resolve to resist. I hated being forced to disrobe.
It"s strange how the simplest things, like nakedness, can be so debilitating. How the fear of being seen for what she really is can render a person so powerless. We humans protect what is ours to the bitter end, and when it"s forcibly taken from us, we no longer feel human. This is an absurdity.
Even so, I was given a small gift in the hut. The woman trying to undress me was as unfamiliar with b.u.t.tons as I was with public nakedness. Before she or the man resorted to more strenuous means, I made the decision to help her. I would undress for them, of my own free will.
Pushing back my anxiety, I lifted my hands and unb.u.t.toned my blouse for her. She slipped my shirt off, then stepped back and stared at my bra, blinking.
The man"s eyes settled on my chest. It was as if neither of them could quite believe that I was encased in yet another layer of protection.
I was too dense at the time to realize that their curiosity was motivated by incomprehension as to why any woman would want to hide her femininity and perhaps be mistaken for a man. In their eyes I was not unlike a cross-dresser. An outer garment was bad enough-surely they"d seen Western clothing before. But from their expressions I gathered that they"d never seen a bra.
For several long moments, neither seemed to know what to think of it.
The woman reached out and plucked my shoulder strap. Then she pulled one of the bra"s cups aside to make sure it wasn"t attached to my flesh.
She giggled and turned to the man, who shared none of her amus.e.m.e.nt. He mumbled something that elicited a high-pitched diatribe and unbelieving scoffs from the woman. The man let her rave for several seconds, then cut her off with a single word.
She nodded and waved her arms at me, motioning me to take it off. "Bo purack."
Needing no further encouragement, I quickly removed my bra and handed it to the woman, who examined it carefully. When she motioned to me to keep going, I took off my shoes and pants.
I stood naked except for my underwear, once yellow, now brown. They continued to stare at me. Once again the woman broke into an amused diatribe. Once again the man silenced her.
The man shoved his chin at me. "Peked."
She began to inspect me as if I were something from the market. Without any regard for whether I might care, she examined my hair and my scalp. She pulled open my lips and flicked my teeth, then peered into my mouth. At this both of them mumbled in amazement.
Satisfied, she moved on to a cursory examination of the rest of my body. There was no mistaking the matter: I was not her equal. I was her lesser, her slave.
In a strange way the realization gave me strength as she examined my belly, my thighs, my toes. When she"d finished, the man stepped forward and gently squeezed my mouth open again. He stared at my teeth for a few seconds, then grunted and stepped back. It was my teeth that impressed him the most. In fact, he seemed interested in nothing but my teeth.
Then he released my face, spit one last time into the fire, mumbled something to the woman, and left the hut.
I could not know it at the time, but I had just been touched by one of the three most powerful men in the Tulim valley, and he"d left me unscathed. His name was Kirutu, fearless leader of the Warik, one of three valley tribes coexisting in a fragile balance.
Never again would I be so fortunate.
As soon as he left, two older women entered the hut through the same door. For a brief moment the three women stared as if unsure what to make of me. Then they approached and touched my skin, expressing their astonishment.
The eldest, a woman of about thirty with heavy b.r.e.a.s.t.s and a scarred chin, began to speak in a harsh tone. She was lecturing me, waving at my body and then at the skulls on the wall, scrunching her nose and pointing accusingly at my skin and my hair. With each exclamation, the woman who"d accompanied her voiced agreement. I didn"t know any of the words, but their eyes and gestures spoke a language shared by all women.
Clearly these savages who were as black as midnight and wore little more than colored mud for clothing did not approve of the way I looked or smelled. But their opinion outweighed mine. I was at their mercy and I quickly felt as ugly and stinky as they seemed to believe I was.
The eldest must have decided to correct my flaws, because she scooped up a handful of black soot and began to rub it over my belly and chest. The other newcomer joined in, heaping the soot on my head and my shoulders, smearing it over my whole body.
The show came to an abrupt end when the youngest, the woman who"d helped me undress, picked up a burning stick from the fire and threatened to burn the other two if they did not leave. They argued with her for a moment, then left, uttering their disapproval.
At first I thought I had been spared, but it soon became clear that the G.o.ds of that earth were fickle, and there were only very faint lines between salvation and d.a.m.nation.
The young woman walked around me, frowning, then tapped me on my head and pointed to the line of skulls. She snapped a clear warning, threw the stick back into the fire, and followed the others out.
I was alone with the fire. Alone with the human skulls. Naked and shivering, but unbound.
Free.
Chapter Six.