Outlaw

Chapter Seven

THIS LORDS, as Lela called them in her broken English, were positioned around a massive rectangular slab of gray slate about a foot thick set upon four stumps. I say positioned because I immediately saw that each side of the table hosted a unique group.

These were the leaders of the three tribes that occupied the Tulim valley, and as a group they looked as imposing as the scarred man who’d plucked me from the sea.

I couldn’t shake the certainty that I was walking directly to my death. The script was already written and I was only following the same path many others had taken before their demise.

I should run now. I should spin and flee into the jungle to face whatever fate awaited me there, beyond their reach.

And yet I walked confidently. One foot in front of the other, captive already in a world that offered no escape.

I stopped at the edge of the thatched roof. To a man, they stared back at me. It was as if I were not only in another world but in another dimension altogether, a newcomer to an alternate reality.

My head swam with a sense of déjà vu and my heart, beating quickly already, slowed to heavy beats.

Maybe this was all a horrible nightmare. An illusion that was swimming through my head as I slept peacefully in the white sailboat, still in calm seas. Perhaps at a single prod from the captain, or at my son’s fussing, I would wake to find all well.

Lela gave me a gentle nudge. I looked at her. The plain reality of my predicament returned, free from illusion. But of course I’d known the full certainty of it already. My mind, so strained by terror, had offered me a moment’s reprieve, however absurd.

She gave me an encouraging smile and glanced at the one side of the table that was unoccupied. I faced the council and edged forward into a yellow glow provided by the fire pit in the middle. Smoke drifted up to the blackened ceiling high above.

Each group consisted of five men, four of whom stood on the ground or sat on rocks behind their spokesman. Another twenty or thirty warriors from each tribe stood idly in the dark beyond the structure, peering in with interest.

They were all fully clothed in their own way. That is to say they were naked except for woven bands around their thighs, arms, waists, and heads. Piercings graced their nasal septa and earlobes, some accented with pieces of bone, fangs, or claws. They all wore headdresses of colorful feathers or animal carcasses—bird heads, fox-like heads, boar heads. Each of the men in the group to my left wore a human skull on his back, suspended between his shoulder blades on a cord.

I stood in my own near-naked glory, trying to present myself as beautiful and fertile and worthy of bearing a child. According to Lela, this was my only hope for survival, and I had no reason to doubt her.

I stood quivering, trying to be strong and failing miserably. The spokesman to my left began to speak, a long rumbling sentence that sounded dismissive. He wore a thick bone through his nose and was missing three fingertips at the first knuckle. Bright yellow feathers fanned out above his head. I thought he must be the master of ceremonies here.

Head bowed, hands together in a praying position, Lela stepped forward and addressed the speaker, stopped immediately when he interrupted, and then continued in a similar fashion through several exchanges, which ended with a collective mumble from a number of the men.

The scarred warrior who’d taken me from the sea was seated cross-legged on a flat rock behind the speaker. Around him squatted three other warriors, but none with shoulders squared or jaw fixed to display the same authority as he. My captor wore a human skull on his back and the top half of a boar’s head on his head. As soon as my eyes met his, I was convinced that he was indeed one of the princes and I felt compelled to look away.

The three groups launched into a short but pointed discourse that ended with all three staring at me. I looked down at Lela.

“Miss, this lord wish to know if it is true, what I have said.”

I cleared my throat. “What did you say?”

“As we have spoken,” she said. “You must not be ugly spirit.”

“Yes. I mean, no. Tell them I am not a spirit. I am a woman from America.”

She spoke to them and the first speaker scoffed.

“This lord says that all peoples is spirits. You are white and this must be evil spirit.”

“Tell him he is wrong. Where I come from nearly everyone is white and they are not evil spirits.”

Lela’s eyes grew at my request. “You cannot say this is wrong, miss. This is lord.”

“You tell this lord what I said, you hear me? I am not an evil spirit.”

The speaker followed with a command that I took as agreement. Tell me what she said.

Lela faced the council and spoke, this time with some trepidation. I looked around the council with more boldness, realizing that after days in their possession, I was finally in a position to be heard. That I was as free as I might ever be. That standing before the council might be my last opportunity to be fully human here in their realm.

When Lela finished, the man snapped back his response, which she quickly interpreted.

“He says that you are wam and can know nothing.”

“And he’s a savage!”

She blinked. “What is this?”

I rethought my remark, grasping for something that might give me an advantage, however slight. The courage I’d found helped me rise from the immobilizing fear, and I clung to it.

“I will only tell them who I am if I know who they are.”

She looked confused. “This is lords, miss.”

“Who are lords? All of them are lords?”

“All this people is lords.” She pointed to the group on my left, my captors. “This Warik clan.” Then to the tribe on my right. “This Impirum clan.” Then to the tribe directly across from me. “This Karun, the keeper of this spirit. There is three princes, one from Warik, one from Impirum. One from Karun tribe.” Her eyes drifted to a figure to one side and behind the Karun tribe and I could see immediately by the fear on her face that she was afraid of the man.

“This Karun tribe has shaman,” she whispered.

I followed her glance. Behind the Karun clan, just beyond the fire’s brightest reaches, stood an old man with wrinkled flesh covered in glistening black pigment or grease. He wore a darkened mask made from plaster or mud with large white pig’s tusks that jutted from the mouth and deep holes drilled for eyes.

The deep pits in his mask seemed to look through me.

For a moment I found myself swallowed by those black holes. I was suddenly so terrified that I couldn’t move. It was as if they were sucking me into an abyss of horror deeper than my fear for my own life.

What kind of evil hid behind his eyes I could not know, and I forced myself with great difficulty to avert my stare.

It took me a moment to settle my mind. I had just found some courage. I couldn’t afford to lose it so quickly.

Three tribes, three princes, one shaman. I wanted nothing to do with the last.

“Tell them I must know who’s the most powerful among the three princes,” I said.

“I think this is not good.”

And yet I knew most leaders to be brokers of power above all else, and I knew that if my father had found himself in an argument among three powerful men, he would have played them against each other until he saw some weakness to exploit.

“It’s the way of my people,” I said. “I can only address the most powerful when telling my secrets.”

The speaker demanded to know what was going on and Lela gave them an answer. They discussed the matter briefly.

“Did you tell them?” I asked.

“No, miss. I only say that you have very important secrets.”

“Why didn’t you say what I asked?”

“This is not good. There is much trouble for you.”

“Tell them I need to know their names before can I tell them my secrets.”

When she told them, the speaker for the Karun tribe objected in the most strenuous terms, spitting on the ground to accentuate his point. When he’d finished, Lela was visibly shaken.

“What did he say?”

“He say you are evil and will use names to speak evil. He say your eyes are the color of the sky where this evil spirits fly.”

A somber silence settled over the gathering. Again I had a strange sense that everything I was seeing was a mistake. This could not be happening to me. I was in a world in which talk of spirits and evil trumped all else, and I had firmly planted myself on the wrong side of that world. I silently begged God to save me, though he hadn’t paid any attention to my prayers thus far. I felt utterly powerless.

A soft but certain voice spoke to my right. One of the Impirum.

All eyes immediately turned to a man with strong cheekbones and gentle eyes. Well muscled without an ounce of fat. Wide woven bands wrapped around his biceps, his neck, his waist, his thighs, and his calves, each bordered by blue body paint. His headdress was exquisite, fashioned with blue and black feathers that protruded from a beaded yellow band.

But it was the way he looked at me, with a sure yet amused expression, that struck me the most. Here was a man who found me interesting. Perhaps only in the way a cat might find a ping-pong ball interesting, but that was far better than the way a cat finds vermin so.

In that look I found comfort. And I was sure that only a very powerful man could command such respect.

The man looked at the ancient shaman behind the Karun tribe leaders and asked a question. To a man, those gathered stood in perfect silence. After a moment’s pause the masked man dipped his head just barely, but enough to make his approval clear.

“This shaman says I will tell you their names,” Lela said.

She quickly asked the council something, heard the answer, then told me.

“I will speak. At this time the chief is called Isaka, from the Impirum. This two prince of Isaka blood.”

So the leader of them all, this chief, wasn’t present.

“They are his sons?”

“Yes, miss, only two Isaka sons. They may be chief.”

Princes by blood.

She pointed to one of the Karun leaders opposite me. “This Karun peoples has this prince. He is Butos. Not son.” The man she indicated was shorter than the others and laden with beads. He was the Karun prince but not as powerful as the shaman behind him, I guessed.

Lela looked at the man with the scar on his chest, the one who’d captured me. “This prince is Kirutu of this Warik tribe. He is great warrior and kill many, many peoples.”

Kirutu, the man who’d taken me captive. I did not let my eyes linger on him.

“This Wilam prince of Impirum.” She indicated the man who’d convinced the shaman to let me hear their names. “This son of Isaka.”

I began to make sense of the council. The Tulim valley had one chief who had authority over three clans, the Karun, the Warik, and the Impirum. Each clan was controlled by a prince. They were Butos of the Karun clan, Kirutu of the Warik clan, and Wilam of the Impirum clan. Kirutu and Wilam were vying for their father’s title.

I doubted my learning this much helped my case, but I had gained a small victory in being heard. So I pushed further.

“And what about the other one?” I asked. “The shaman.”

“This spirit man is called Sawim. He is very important leader. You must not look at him.”

There it was. What to say next, I had not a clue.

“I will now say this secret, miss,” Lela said. And then, before I could stop her, she offered them my secret, whatever that could be. They watched me with new interest.

“What secret?” I whispered, when she had finished.

“That you will make this baby, miss.”

Yes. There was that. Seeing no good alternative I went with my advocate’s suggestion.

“Tell them that I am the only white woman to enter their valley because white women are rare and made only from good spirits.”

She told them and received a harsh rebuke from Butos, one of the three princes.

“This lord say not to think they are fools. They know this white peoples. But this white peoples is not too smart. They die quickly in this jungle.”

“But am I not the first white woman in this valley?”

She nodded but asked them anyway. “They say yes.”

“Then what they cannot know is that a white woman may be stupid because white women are not made to think, but to make babies. This is good, not evil.” I said it only for their sake, naturally.

Lela’s translation went on far too long, but it held their rapt attention.

“What is it?” I asked.

She looked up at me, beaming. “I say you have made baby. I know this. You say to me in secret. You will make many babies with this lords.”

Butos, prince of the Karun, objected again, spitting with disgust.

“This prince say it is forbidden for this lord to make baby with this ugly animal.”

Up until this point I don’t think I fully understood that the Tulim really did perceive me as a kind of animal. I wasn’t human to them. Furthermore, I was also too ugly to touch.

“I’m not an animal,” I said with renewed fear. “Tell him that.”

As she translated, I thought it wiser to play into their way of thinking than try to change it.

“I am wam,” I said. “Which is more than only animal.”

Lela nodded and repeated my claim with pride, because she too was wam.

“And I am proud of it,” I said.

Lela translated and I continued.

“Who is the most powerful among you?”

“It is this black one,” she said, and I could see the fear in her eyes. They darted toward the shaman.

But the shaman wouldn’t be vying for the throne.

“Besides him, which prince is the most powerful? Ask them.”

She did, haltingly.

By their sudden stillness I knew that by returning to the issue of power I had struck a chord.

“Who will be the next chief here?”

“I cannot say this, miss.”

“Ask them—”

“I am afraid! I must not say this. The one who is strong will be this chief. If he can make babies.”

So then, I had stumbled upon the conflict between them. The strongest would take the throne when the current chief died. Among other considerations, children were a sign of strength because producing offspring was difficult.

Lela suddenly hopped up onto the stone table, stood to my height, and pulled open my lips. She showed them my teeth and spoke in excited terms. She turned and beamed at me.

“I tell them you are very healthy, miss. You have made baby and are still young and strong. You must speak only of making this baby.”

I resigned myself then to the mere task of survival.

“It’s true,” I said. “I am very healthy and can make many babies.”

Kirutu, prince of the Warik tribe, stepped forward, spoke three words, “Ti an umandek,” and set two clamshells on the stone.

Lela hopped down, grinning wide. “This lord will take you. You will be saved.”

The idea terrified me. “I don’t want this lord!”

Lela’s smile vanished, replaced by a genuinely frightened look. “No, miss, you must not say this! It is great insult.”

Seeing Kirutu’s glare, I knew he could not have misunderstood my tone. His eyes darkened.

But I saw something else in his face. Pain. He was wounded. This prince wasn’t accustomed to being turned down. He likely couldn’t understand why anyone, particularly one as lowly as me, the white wam, would object to the prospect of marrying him. It should be the pinnacle of my existence, a great honor.

Again reason came to my aide. I cast my gaze into the fire. “Tell Kirutu, the great prince of Tulim, that I am overwhelmed with gratitude at his choosing,” I said.

Lela quickly told him and listened to his response.

“He says you will suffer most painful death if you lie to this lord.”

“Tell him I have not lied.”

She did and gave his response, once again smiling. “You will bear him many strong children.”

The thought of allowing Kirutu to touch me was deeply repulsive, but I managed to hold the feeling back, thinking that I would agree then and make myself revolting to him later.

“Yes.”

The prince Kirutu addressed the others and nodded at the two shells. The clans discussed his offer for a minute, then nodded in agreement, all but Wilam, son of the Impirum chief, who didn’t seem interested in the talk of payment.

“This is very good price, miss,” Lela informed me.

“He’s paying two shells for me?”

“This is this trade. They must pay the chief.”

I caught the eye of the prince called Wilam, who studied me with a curious expression that made me wonder what he was thinking.

He spoke without taking his eyes from me, then turned to Kirutu and exchanged several words with the man. I wondered if he was making a bid for me as well.

As one they turned to me. Wilam nodded at Lela. “Yoru.”

“This Wilam says you are making them fools,” Lela said. “He says you lie to this lords. That you don’t want to be with this prince. This is insult. The prince will not force any woman.”

Wilam had exposed me, and I felt as though I had no choice but to offer my honesty. “What does he expect from me? To want this? I was taken from the sea by force. I’ve been bound for three days in a canoe, like a pig. They’ve thrown me in a hole and hurt me and they expect me to be thankful!”

“This is very dangerous to say, miss,” Lela whispered.

“It’s the truth.”

“I think this lord Wilam does not want the other to have you. Maybe he not like you making this babies with Kirutu. It gives Kirutu power.”

“Then tell Wilam to take me.”

“No, it cannot be. All must agree.”

For the first time the shaman with the mask asked a question, to which Wilam responded. The exchange between them came to an end. Without further delay, each one of the three tribal leaders spoke the same verdict.

“Kamburak.”

Nothing about these people met my expectations of the word savage. Their ways were not characterized by boiling pots and chanting. This was a calculated affair driven by complexities and cunning. I was only a pawn to be taken or sacrificed in some chess match far beyond my understanding.

Kirutu picked up the shells he’d offered and stepped back. Only then did I see the horrified expression on Lela’s face.

She looked up at me, stricken. “This prince Wilam say you cannot live.”

I felt my heart stutter.

“They say you must die tomorrow.”