Outlaw

Chapter Eight

THERE in the jungle, I understood fully what it meant to be worthless.

In America good health was a basic human right, and if the family could not bear the cost of extending life, the state would step in to spend millions of dollars on the infirm, all with the hope of adding a day, a week, a month, or a year to a person’s life.

And yet in the Tulim valley I was purchased for two clamshells, then rejected and sentenced to death so that one man wouldn’t gain an advantage over another.

The council dispersed and two warriors pulled me away from the table. My struggling only made things worse. They gagged and bound me and carried me down the mountain without fear that I would cause them any more trouble. Once again I was only a pig on a pole.

An hour later I was back in the hole.

Only then, after the slapping feet of my carriers had faded, did my mind settle enough to form coherent thoughts.

I hadn’t been kidnapped by savages as I’d first assumed. Instead, I had been collected by highly skilled hunters and traders. In their world none of my rights had been violated, because I was wam and therefore had no rights.

Tomorrow I would die.

I lay on the damp earth, breathing into the bag they’d left me in, and slowly drifted into oblivion, wholly defeated.

A soft thump prodded my tired mind. But only a few hours had passed and so I was sure I’d imagined it. They hadn’t come for me yet. Tomorrow was still a long way off.

My eyes snapped wide when I felt hands tearing at my bonds. I was instantly awake. It was morning already?

Someone was over me, breathing hard, freeing the knots that bound my hands and feet. The bag was unceremoniously pulled off my head and I turned in time to see the bare outline of someone vanishing over the hole’s rim. And then they were gone, leaving me in the earth, my heart pounding like a drum.

They would come back?

But they didn’t come back, and after a several minutes I dared to think the impossible: someone had freed me! Who or why I had no basis of understanding, but their actions had been deliberate and they had not returned to collect me.

I saw something else. My blouse, my capris, and my shoes lay beside me in a heap. Everything but my bra. They had known I would need some covering to survive an attempt at escape? My feet needed protection from the jungle floor, and my skin a barrier from sharp branches and leeches.

I ripped off the gag wound about my head. Trembling like a twig I scrambled to my feet, frantically pulled on my pants and blouse, and made an attempt to pull on my shoes. But I staggered off balance and decided they could wait. I had to escape before anyone else came. So I flung the shoes out of the hole and climbed up after them.

The structure’s layout slowly emerged by moonlight seeping through an opening roughly thirty paces to my right. I was in a long thatched house with a dirt floor, a prison for slaves or enemies, I guessed.

I ran two steps, made a hasty retreat to collect my shoes, then turned and sprinted toward that faint light, desperate to be free.

“Ta temeh?”

The hoarse voice swirled around me. They were coming! I had to get out! Never mind that I had not the slightest notion of where to go. Never mind that they would only discover my escape and fetch me as if I were but a pet turtle who’d crawled under the table. I only wanted out.

“Ta temeh?”

I was halfway to the opening before it occurred to me that I recognized the gruff voice. It came from the other prisoner. The one who’d spoken English. In my gagged haze, without the means to call out, I’d forgotten about him.

“Hello?” My speech sounded hollow, suppressed by hard breathing.

His call came back, just ahead and to my right. “Hello?”

I hurried to what I now saw as a cell of sorts, made of timbers set in a framework of poles. Twine was knotted around a piece of wood that kept a rough-hewn door shut.

Breathless, I spoke again, in the thinnest voice. “Hello?”

“Who is it?” Even through his whisper I could hear that his accent was American, though not Southern.

“Julian,” I managed.

The steady song of cicadas came through the opening ahead. Nothing more.

“Hello?”

“You’re an American?” he finally asked.

“I’m from Atlanta,” I replied.

The moment still stands in my mind as utterly surreal. There in the deepest unknown jungle I had indeed stumbled upon an American, like myself, and I was so overwhelmed that I could not yet think to set him free.

“Who…who are you?” I asked.

“I’m Michael,” he said. “Can you open the door?”

Dropping my shoes, I tugged at the knot with fervor, managed to unwind the twine, and yanked open the door.

There stood a man taller than my five feet and four inches, looking half my width, and I was a small woman. His hair was thin and receded, tangled and sticking out in every direction. A dark beard hung low enough to make me wonder if he’d shaved in the last year.

His nose and cheekbones protruded from a gaunt face covered in days of well-worn dirt. He was dressed in tattered slacks and a filthy shirt that might have blown away in a strong wind.

He stared at me with eyes that looked too large for their sockets and tentatively offered me a thin hand coated in dried mud. “I’m Michael.”

“We have to go!” I said. I knew that I wasn’t reasoning properly, but I was so eager to be out of that clammy place that I made no attempt to slow myself down. “They’re coming! Hurry.”

“You’ve finally come?” he said. “You’re her?”

“Who? No. My boat was wrecked. They found me and forced me here.”

“You’re an American?”

His eyes twitched in their sockets and I could see that his mind wasn’t fully coherent. But the fact that we were both alive and together buoyed my courage and I tugged at his arm.

“We have to get out.”

“Where are we going?”

“Out! We have to get back to the coast.”

“The coast?” His eyes darted to the opening on his right. “No, we can’t. That’s not the way it goes.”

“The way what goes? We have to! I’ve been sentenced to death.”

“Sentenced?” He lifted his crusty hand and ran his fingers through his hair. It was clear to me that his captivity had affected his mind in a profound way.

“This may be our only chance, we have to try,” I said.

But he didn’t come. “You don’t understand…” He stared at me, eyes searching mine, as if lost in a trance.

For a moment I felt as if I were disconnected from my own body, watching insanity unfold beneath me. I had no context for what was happening to me. I was lost between worlds.

But then the moment passed. I wasn’t lost at all—I could see, hear, smell, and feel that much with every cell of my body. I was trapped. A slave against my will, suffering through a horrible tragedy that would surely end in my death.

As was Michael.

Even in my own frenzied state I could see that such a fragile man could be as much of a liability as an asset in any escape. But I also knew that any journey through crocodile-infested swamps would be impossible without help. There was no telling what this man might have learned during his time among the Tulim. He spoke their language, didn’t he?

“How long have you been here?” I asked quickly.

“What date is it?”

“August. Nineteen sixty-three.”

He stared at me. “They only put me in the hole when they think I’ll be a problem.”

“You’ve been free here?”

“No. Yes. Not without a guard. But…” He kept looking at the moonlit opening and now whispered what seemed to be a great secret to him. “I don’t think I can leave the valley.”

“Why not?”

He tugged at my arm and struck out toward the opening, suddenly and fully alive.

“Hurry!”

I hurried after him as he quickly hobbled toward the exit.

The sounds of the night exploded in my ears as we rushed from the structure they’d imprisoned us in. Tall trees, many meters high, blotted out the stars above and blocked any view of the houses in the main village I knew to be near.

“This way! This way!” Michael ran in a half crouch, back hunched, straight up a jungle path that quickly ascended a hill. I followed on his heels, not daring to say a word. He seemed to know where he was going and I was so relieved to be free of the hole that I didn’t think about what lay ahead.

It took us ten minutes to reach the knob of a barren hill that rose above the surrounding canopy. Michael doubled over, hacking, hands on knees.

I was more worried about pursuit than my lungs. He saw me searching the jungle behind us and waved it off.

“We’re good.” Pant, pant, cough. “Trust me, if anyone saw us leave we would be back in the hole by now.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.” Cough, cough. “I’m going to die.” Cough. “How did you get out?”

“Someone cut me loose,” I said. “They brought my clothes and untied my bonds.”

“Cut you loose?” He straightened. “They intentionally set you free?”

“They must have. Yes, why else would they untie me?”

He stared back at the section of the jungle we’d fled. “Hmm.”

“So what do we do now?” I asked, gaining my breath.

He turned to me. “Eh? Not we. You. I can’t. I’d die before we reached the sea.”

I stared down into the dark valley, toward the lowlands. Moonlight glinted off patchwork swamp water miles distant. The screeches of a million creatures daring me to enter the black tangle of jungle sent shivers down my spine. Thoughts of trying to navigate the rivers alone filled me with dread. Surely I stood no better chance than he.

“Are you sure you can’t make it out?” I asked. “Whatever the risk, it would be better to die trying to escape than to die here.”

He scratched at his head and paced, considering the matter as if tormented by the choice set before him. What was I missing?

He made for a boulder to our right. “Just let me rest a second.”

I felt naked on that hill under a bright moon. “Are we safe here?”

“There is no safe place,” he said, waving his hand about. “We would have to get to the cliffs and get down to the swamps. Roughly ten miles that way.” He pointed westward. “The tidal surge reaches all the way in and reverses the flow of the river currents each day. Hundred miles in places. The alluvial coast makes one heck of a swamp…nothing but mud and mangroves for hundreds of square miles.” He was babbling. “I’m not sure if this is one of the Catalina tributaries that eventually meets the lower Balim River, or if we’re farther west. I’ve been trying to figure it out by the stars ever since I got here, but it’s near impossible without my glasses.”

“Slow down.” He was dumping details on me that might be invaluable. “You’re speaking too fast. How am I supposed to remember any of this?”

Michael stared at up me. I wrapped my arms around myself and paced in front of him, sure that at any moment the Warik would appear at the clearing’s edge. But he didn’t seem to share my concern, and I was desperate for more information about where I was, so I pressed him for more.

“Michael? Michael who?”

“Stevenson. I’m an anthropologist.”

“How did you get here?”

He spoke quickly. “I was on a trip to collect carvings and skulls. My boat was swamped by a tidal flood. I made it to shore but was stuck in all that mud by the river. They took me.”

“Where? Which river where you near?”

“The Eilanden. Along the Casuarina Coast in the Arafura Sea. They had a bag over my head most of the way and I was handed off twice but I’m pretty sure we traveled northwest.” He paused. “If you ever make it to the swamps, you’ll have to stuff your ears and nose with something when you sleep to keep the bugs out. That’s primarily why they use the head bags when they take slaves. When your hands are tied, you can’t swat them away.”

I knew then that there was no way I was going out alone.

“The rivers are a meandering maze of mud and silt, changing—”

“And I’m supposed to do this alone?” I said. “With cotton in my ears and nose?”

“I can’t go,” he answered without a missing a beat, shaking his head. “They would hunt me down.”

It was nearly hopeless—he caught in his own fear; I still frantic from my ordeal. So I drew deep breaths and tried to still my hammering heart.

A comment he’d made when he first stumbled out of his cell returned to me and I turned to him. “You asked if I’d finally come. If I was her. What did you mean?”

He studied my eyes, thinking. “I’m not sure. Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“I’ve been having dreams,” he said, voice so very quiet. “I was meant to come. So is she.”

Dreams? My mind was filled with the dream that had haunted me in Atlanta. But by now I was so loath to accept its validity that I rejected any serious consideration. If my captivity and Stephen’s death were party to that vision, it had come from hell.

And what if that was true? What if I had died on that white sailboat and was now paying for my failure as a daughter? Was God like my earthly father, capable of such torturous abandonment?

I shivered and shifted my stare. I think the final doorway to that dream closed then, with the terrible fear that I had been lured into hell, not figuratively, but literally. I simply could not hold that thought in mind without breaking down.

So I didn’t. I blocked it out.

“Whoever she is, it’s not me,” I said.

Michael gazed at me for a few long moments. “Don’t know.” He grinned, baring dirty teeth. “Just crazy dreams. I know that I was meant to find Tulim. This is my home now. Somehow my wanton mind calls for a woman.” He shrugged. “Not for me. For this valley. Something much bigger than me or you. And I’m not saying it’s you or anybody, for that matter. But I’ve learned some things.”

He sounded like he looked—unhooked.

I made a conscious decision then never to regard the absurd dream that had first persuaded me against good judgment to leave Atlanta. The foolishness of my naïveté angered me.

“What have you learned?” I asked.

He nodded, suddenly in his element, and I listened as Michael told me “some things.”

He’d been taken captive by the Tulim, a previously unknown tribe who lived a hundred miles inland, just north of the better-known Asmat people whom he was studying. The valley system we were in contained several small peaks within a massive depression bordered on three sides by cliffs, and to the south by a swamp.

He began to speak in more lucid terms now. There seemed to be two parts to his psyche, one that dipped into his academic prowess, and one that had been broken by his imprisonment.

He was well versed in the entire region, having already spent several years traveling all of Irian Jaya. Did I know that all early attempts to make contact with the indigenous people along the south coast had failed miserably? Captain Cook had met with death and disaster when he tried to land in 1770. Even though Dutch missions had been set up along the coast long ago, the inexplicable ways of the Asmat deeper inland were hardly known.

“So then the Tulim are from these Asmat?” I asked.

“No. Heavens, no. Not alike at all. Well, in many ways, yes, I suppose they are similar to an unstudied observer. But the Tulim ancestry is a mixed bag. Influenced by crossbreeding with their slave trade over the centuries, which, to my knowledge, is unique to the Tulim in this part of the world. They are ethnically distinct from other tribes in the region. Taller, darker than the Asmat. Even some of their customs and names have been influenced by far reaches. It’s extremely rare. Staggering, actually. Hidden away here north of the Asmat live an undiscovered people that would deliver any anthropologist to heaven.”

He coughed.

“But they don’t accept change easily,” he said. “They reject most notions suggested by the outside. Whether it was the Japanese soldier they took during the Second World War, or a Chinese merchant, they judge most new ideas of advancement as the foolish talk of wam. And frankly, they might be right.”

“This is all good, but we need to talk about how to get out.”

“Just hear me out, you’ll see,” he said, lifting his hand to calm me. “You’ll see. You need to know what you’re up against if you expect to survive. There’s nothing but hundreds of square miles of Asmat territory between here and the coast.”

I sat and let him continue, though it was clear that the anthropologist in him was more interested in sharing his rare discovery than in discussing an escape he clearly thought was impossible.

While the Asmat were certainly fierce survivors, they lacked the natural resourcefulness that had allowed the Tulim to grow into such a formidable group. The people here were hidden not only from the Western world but from their Asmat neighbors, who consisted of nearly a dozen ethnic subgroups that spoke several languages.

Did I know that there were well over eight hundred distinct languages in New Guinea?

No, I did not. Neither did I care. But he was adamant that I hear him out.

Only a handful of the languages had any alphabet or written form. He was certain that he was the only Westerner who spoke Tulim. Many tribes had lived in complete isolation for centuries, particularly the peoples of the south coast, where the terrain was too forbidding for humans less skilled than the Asmat or the Tulim to navigate.

There were three other factors that kept the Tulim hidden from the world, he said, holding up as many fingers.

The first was that, in addition to the treacherous swamps to the south, the terrain leading into the mountains to the north was as impossible to traverse as the swamps.

Had I seen the documentary The Sky Above, the Mud Below, he wanted to know. It was the fascinating and detailed account of a joint Dutch-French attempt to cross this very territory by any means possible. Disastrous. Seven months and numerous deaths later, all but a few of the party were finally airlifted out.

He told me that 80 percent of soldiers involved in campaigns here during the war had perished, not at the hands of the Japanese, but at the hand of the greater enemy, the land itself. Crossing mountains such as these was, as the army engineers had learned, the ultimate nightmare.

The revelation only deepened my anxiety. The man seemed bent on making my case unmistakably certain: I was hopelessly trapped between the mountains that towered against the night sky to my right, and the impassable swamps to my left. I had the distinct feeling he was out to persuade me that I, like him, should just accept my fate here, in the Tulim valley.

He didn’t know me. I hadn’t been raised in privilege to die so far from home.

But then I saw another reason for his presentation. He was an anthropologist paying homage to the land and those who had conquered it. In some respects these included him, and he found some measure of pride in that fact. He could not hide the wonder in his eyes and the slight curve of his lips as he touted the land’s threats.

In some ways Michael was finally giving his report to the only Westerner he believed would ever hear it. This was his opus.

A second factor in the Tulim’s isolation, Michael continued, had to do with their animistic beliefs, which demanded they stay hidden from the evil spirits above. It was forbidden to build any structure under an open sky. They lived under the jungle’s thick canopy and avoided open spaces.

“Clearings like this?” I asked.

“Oh no, they would never build a path directly through this clearing. They would follow the tree line.”

“But the council—”

“You were there?”

“I…my trial, or whatever that was.”

“Neutral space,” he said, waving it off. “But the court is built under trees, yes? And they only meet at night.”

It explained why he wasn’t as eager as I to leave this knoll. We were under open sky, hunkered down among the rocks.

“And the third reason?” I asked.

“All these questions drove me crazy, you know. Why these people have remained unknown. You would think they could have been observed from the air, or that the surrounding tribes would spin rumors of their existence. I eventually understood why that couldn’t happen. But what surprised me more was that no one had ever escaped this valley and lived to tell.”

“No one?”

“No man, woman, or child, once entering the valley, may leave alive. It’s at the heart of their law. They believe they’re the only true descendants of the first humans, created here in this valley. Their protection from evil spirits is limited to this valley. The belief is so ingrained that no one dares try, and any who do are quickly hunted down and killed to appease the spirits.”

“What about the traders who took me?”

“Ah yes. But you were taken by traders who consumed tawi in a ceremony that protects them from certain death if they leave—up to ten days at most. Only Sawim, the old shaman, knows the ingredients taken during a ceremony. And only those among the Warik tribe are allowed to ingest it. It’s part of the intricate balance of power among the three tribes that make up the Tulim. So you see, I can’t go.”

“You’re not making any sense. That’s only folklore.”

“Still, they would hunt me down. I would be dead.”

“And so would I if I tried to go alone.”

He stared at me, then nodded. “Yes, there is that.”

“Then there’s no way out for either of us?”

He thought. “No. No, come to think of it, there isn’t.”

He had surely known that from the beginning. This had just been his own way of making it clear to me.

“So I’m stuck. And I will be killed.”

“If they’ve condemned you, then yes. Although you could try.”

“How?”

“You could get into a canoe and hope for the best. Maybe an Asmat party finds you and helps you to the coast. Or they might just take your head.”

“That’s it? That’s your solution?”

“Or you could make an effort to change the council’s mind. Why did they condemn you? You’re too ugly?”

The events of the trial spun through my mind. “Apparently. But Kirutu, the prince from one of the tribes—”

“The Warik. He’s the one who condemned you?”

“No. He made a bid for me. Two clamshells.”

Michael looked astonished. “Kirutu did? Then you’re saved!”

“No. I think I offended him.”

“You what?”

“He wanted me to bear him a child.”

“But of course! Do you have any idea how valuable children are in this valley? Can you bear children?”

“I have a…”

I caught myself and turned away, doing my best to suppress the horror of my loss. But I could not stem the emotion easily and this wasn’t lost on Michael.

“It’s OK, my dear,” he said in a soft voice that sounded as if it might belong to an angel. “We all have our crosses to bear.”

The last comment sparked anger in me, but I knew he meant well.

“Better not to resist it,” he said.

This proved too much for me.

“How can you be so insensitive?” I snapped. “My son drowned out there!”

“I feel your loss. And I also know that you’ve arrived at exactly at the right place at exactly the right time. As have I. Resisting that truth will only cause you to suffer.”

“I already am suffering!”

“Then you will suffer more.”

He was suddenly sounding far too lucid and I wanted none of his stoic philosophy.

“This isn’t the right place at any time!” I said, shoving my hand at the jungle. “I’m nothing but an animal here! One of their wam. That may be fine for you, a man who made the choice to investigate these people, but I don’t belong here.”

“And yet you are here. We both are.”

I dismissed his childish view outright but held my tongue. How cruel that my only hope for freedom was in the hands of a man who couldn’t value my right to it. For a brief moment I think I despised him.

“Well, then,” he finally said. “If you can’t see the world through their eyes, you will die.” His tone had turned matter-of-fact.

“Then why did you agree to help me?” I demanded.

“I am helping you. And at great risk, I might add.”

“By telling me that my only hope is to accept my fate here? They’re going to kill me tomorrow!”

“By helping you understand what we have here. Someone freed you, am I correct? You’re in a world bound by laws and beliefs that haven’t changed for centuries. There’s conflict brewing among the tribes that you could use to your advantage. A power struggle could blow this place wide open, and, like it or not, you have some of that power.”

“Not if I’m dead.”

“Are you? Dead, that is? No. You can worry about being dead when you’re dead,” he said. “Until then, use the power you have.”

“What power? Having a child?”

I meant it as a preposterous suggestion. Michael did not.

“Naturally.” He stood and walked a few steps to the right, then back again. “But you can’t see it that way, can you? No. And frankly, I’m afraid it might be too late. Changing the council’s mind would be impossible. Maybe a month ago, but things are too hot between Wilam and Kirutu. The chief is practically on his deathbed, and one of the princes will take power when he dies. Kirutu has something up his sleeve. He’s a very powerful man.”

“Now you’re throwing in the towel, after setting me straight?”

“You don’t seem to want to be set straight,” he said.

“I want to live!”

“Then live!” he stormed. “Bring life!” The volume of his voice stood me back. Then softer: “Bring life, not death, my dear.”

Bring life. His conviction was so great I almost believed him.

The memory of Wilam staring at me with his look of amusement filled my mind.

“It wasn’t Kirutu who condemned me,” I said. “I think the other prince, Wilam, was behind it.”

“The prince of the Impirum,” Michael said. “It makes perfect sense that Wilam wouldn’t want his greatest rival, Kirutu, to come into possession of another slave who could bear him children. It’s quite a status symbol.”

“Having a pregnant slave?”

“Fathering children. The women in the Tulim valley are plagued with infertility, something that is either hereditary or perhaps results from their diet, but without testing there’s no way to know. Suffice it to say only one out of three women ever becomes pregnant. Fertile women are highly valued, as you can imagine. I would say it’s a wam’s only leverage.”

The whole thing bothered me to my deepest core. It went against my convictions as much as my desire.

I set my elbows on my knees and lowered my head into my hands.

“You are no longer bound by the laws of a foreign culture, my dear. Bring life into this valley. Love them. After all, I’m sure God does.”

“I don’t even know who God is anymore.”

He sat back down on the boulder and stared at the jungle ahead of us. “Then perhaps you will learn.”

What happened next is still rather foggy to me. My mind was split between my loss of Stephen and the last words spoken by Michael. A soft crack sounded in my right ear and I jerked up, startled. Michael slumped over and toppled off the rock.

A bag was slipped over my head from behind; a muzzle over my mouth and nose smothered my cries. In mere moments they jerked my arms back and bound them. Powerful hands plucked me from the rock and threw me over a shoulder. And then they were running.

But not a sound. Not from Michael, who I assumed was either unconscious or dead. And not from the men who had found us on the knoll.

I hadn’t been recovered, I thought. If they’d only meant to recover me, they would hardly be running or keeping so silent. Why would they see any need for stealth?

My abductors ran on bare feet that slapped lightly on the muddy earth, perhaps a dozen of them, a small army of men. I had been cut free in my pit. My clothes had been returned to me.

Maybe Michael had been right. Perhaps I was meant to live.

I clung to the thought as their feet pounded through the screaming jungle.