Outlaw

Chapter Seventeen

AFTER BEING delivered to my hut alone it took me two hours to drift into a fitful sleep. When I asked Melino to stay with me, she informed me that she could stay only until I slept and would then be otherwise occupied. It was crucial that I sleep. Nothing must disturb me.

The night was quiet and the three warriors stationed outside my hut spoke only occasionally in soft tones.

I don’t know how the dark ones slipped through the perimeter guard Wilam had stationed around the village.

I don’t know why the three warriors at my door didn’t put up a fight or call out a warning.

I know only that I was in deep sleep when a crushing blow struck my head. I remember thinking that the roof had collapsed before darkness swallowed me completely.

But the moment I awoke I knew that a falling roof was not my problem. My being wam, on the other hand, was.

I was bound hand and foot, hanging from a pole. A bag was over my throbbing head and a gag cut deeply into my mouth. I had been in that position before, swinging a foot off the ground between two Warik warriors who rushed me through the jungle.

I struggled and cried into my gag, thinking we might still be close enough to the Impirum village to be heard, but my resistance only earned me a hard blow to my head and a harsh grunt of rebuke.

“Koneh.” Shut up.

A hundred thoughts badgered my mind—nightmares of the worst kind. Surely Kirutu would not allow me to live.

If only it had been so simple.

Only one thought gave me a moment’s hope as I hung from that pole and silently cried into my bag: I was alive. I should have died with Stephen in the sea, but I was alive. I should have been executed the day after entering the valley, but I was alive. I should have been given to Kirutu at his wedding and paid him back with my life, but I was alive.

If Kirutu had wanted me dead now, he could have instructed his warriors to kill me in my hut.

But then even that hope was quickly dashed, because being alive in Kirutu’s hut would be only a different kind of death. Whatever his plans for me might be, they could not be favorable.

The vines they’d used to bind my hands and feet to the pole dug into my skin with each bounce as they ran. If we had gone on much longer, my arms might have come out of their sockets, but we were much closer to the Warik village than I had assumed. Indeed, I briefly wondered if we hadn’t gone south after all, but to the house of an embittered Impirum villager.

No more than twenty minutes after I’d awakened to find myself bound, my carriers hauled me into a hut, dumped me on the bark floor, and left me prone with a crackling fire near my feet.

My every thought cried out to God. And for Wilam to come before Kirutu could begin whatever harm he intended.

And yet I knew even as I lay bound and gagged, like one of the pigs my prince had slaughtered to honor the life in my womb, that Wilam could not save me from Kirutu. The man was too shrewd and too angry to allow his enemy another victory. He’d been scorned and mocked, and his revenge would be carefully orchestrated to end his shame once and for all.

If Wilam had failed to keep me safe in his own fortress, he could do nothing here, even if he knew I was missing.

The only thing I could do was play Kirutu’s game with the thinnest hope that I, not Wilam, could foil him long enough to give my prince the time he needed to find me and save our child.

“I have heard it said that the children of some wam have blue eyes because they are evil spirits.” The man spoke in a low tone, only feet from where I lay, and a chill washed down my spine. I could not mistake Kirutu’s voice.

“But when I see your child, I do not see an evil spirit,” he said. “I see only a child who does not know where it belongs.”

The Tulim often spoke of unborn children as if they were already walking about the village, and they used metaphors regarding the ways of the spirit world. But his meaning hardly mattered; I was still consumed with the sound of Kirutu’s haunting voice.

“But if I am wrong and the child is evil, then the mother must also be a demon. Only this would explain how you have escaped my grasp and bewitched the Impirum.”

You must be calm, Julian. For the sake of your child, you must still your mind and think very carefully.

A hand snatched the bag from my head. I blinked and saw that I was inside the same hut I’d visited during my first night among the Tulim, presumably one belonging to Kirutu, perhaps one on the outskirts of the village reserved for liaisons or for hunting.

Kirutu stepped into firelight, unadorned except for a rattan waistband and a necklace of cowrie shells bearing a single boar’s tusk. The scar on his side stood out angrily on his shiny skin covered in black grease—crocodile fat and Sawim’s blood mixed with whatever other ingredients turned it black. He watched me with dark eyes set deeply into his hardened face.

“I should have crushed your skull with my paddle in the sea where I found you,” he said. “But now I have the pleasure of crushing your child’s head as well.”

It was to my benefit that he hadn’t yet removed my gag, for I would have lashed out at him then. Instead I took great pains to calm myself. My sole objective became to stall him as long as I could, even if that meant compromising myself.

He leaned over, grasped the gag with strong fingers, and jerked it over my chin, freeing my mouth. “You will now wish I had left you dead.”

“Then you were foolish for not killing what you could never have,” I said. “Now all the Tulim see that Wilam made what you could not.”

His eyes lowered to my belly. “So they tell me.”

“Any man can take a woman, but only the strongest can win her heart the way he wins the heart of all Tulim,” I said.

A wicked grin twisted his mouth. “Your intelligence surprises me. It’s true, I will never be favored in a struggle for the people’s affections. But I won’t have to. Your offspring will give the people to me.”

He was playing games, I was sure of it. I had no power over the people.

“I am not so weak.”

“No, I hope you aren’t. You will need to be strong to kill Wilam.”

Again, a game. But there was something in his voice that frightened me. His composure was not that of a bluffing man.

“I would die before I killed Wilam,” I said.

“Yes, you would. But would you also take the life of your child?”

“The life of my child is no longer in my hands.”

Kirutu smiled. “No. The life of your child is now in my hands.”

“What did the Nameless One whisper in your ear?”

The question seemed to rob all sound from the hut. Kirutu’s jaw clenched, bunching taut muscles along his cheek.

“You think I would bow to the whim of the one Sawim fears? Then you don’t know my heart.”

“I know only that your heart has been turned black with hatred. This isn’t the way of the Tulim.”

“This is my way!”

He snapped an order and two Warik warriors stepped into the hut. Their leader nodded at me.

“Hold her up.”

They quickly untied my hands and feet from the pole and pulled me to my feet, one warrior on each arm. The grease from their arms turned my skin the color of soot where they rubbed me.

Kirutu stepped forward and I knew from the look in his eyes that he was going to try to destroy my womb now, as I stood before him.

I felt raw with panic. “The child is your blood, Kirutu,” I said. My resolve began to crumble and my body began to shake. “Wilam is your brother…I beg you—”

His fist slammed into my belly like a battering ram. Pain bit deeply into my pelvis and spread up my spine. I instinctively gasped, but the air was already gone from my lungs. He hit me again, harder and lower this time, destroying what life might not have been broken with his first blow. My legs gave way, forcing the warriors to hold me up.

Kirutu hit me twice more while the muscles were still limp in my abdomen. I could feel the tissue tearing deep in my womb as his fist slammed into my gut. Horror washed through me. To have a wholly innocent and dependent child’s life pounded from your belly by a man’s fists is an offense impossible to describe. I could feel something wet flowing down the inside of my thighs. Urine, I thought, but it would soon be joined by blood.

I screamed my rage and my pain when breath finally came. With these blows Kirutu had crushed away not only my child’s life but my own. I cried for Stephen, because in losing my second child I desperately wanted my first. I cried for Wilam, because our only child was now dead, murdered while his father lay asleep in his bed. I cried for all the Tulim, because their love of life was as great as mine, and soon that very life would run down my legs.

I cried because once again God had gone deaf.

Kirutu lifted my skirt, stared at me, then let the fabric fall. “Put her down.”

They set me down against the wall, where I propped myself up with both hands to keep from falling over.

“Leave us.”

The warriors left.

For a long while I sat gasping, unable to speak, mind swimming in revulsion. How could I possibly tell Wilam? The death of his coveted seed would crush him, and my torn womb would render me useless. Better for me to bleed to death on Kirutu’s floor than to return home to Wilam and announce the death of his child.

“It is a terrible thing to lose a child,” Kirutu said. “Among the Tulim, it is even worse to be barren. You will never bear another child. For this, Wilam will throw you away. His interest is only in what power you give him through your womb.”

He was only reinforcing what I already knew.

I still could not comprehend how he thought the death of my child would compel me to kill Wilam. My determination to resist Kirutu was now unshakable.

“You must understand that I do this for the sake of my people,” he said. “Our ways have been protected for generations by a perfect law. Wilam is soft. His interest in the wam will only breed more and our laws will soon be like grass in the wind. By killing this one life I will save many. Now you must do the same.”

“I’ll never kill Wilam!” I screamed.

“Then your child will die.”

His words weren’t making any sense to me. He’d just killed my child! A great weariness settled over me and I thought my arms might give way. I wanted to curl up and let darkness swallow away all of the pain.

“They tell me he was found on the banks of the sea, bound to a mat. The party that found him considered taking him to the foreigners, but an Asmat war party took him during a dispute. I paid a great price to acquire his life when I learned he was still alive. Now your son is mine. And if you do not kill Wilam, then I will return him to Wilam, who will be forced to kill your son.”

My mind was reeling, hardly connected to his words. He was speaking as if he had Stephen, but my baby had died at sea six months earlier. Our boat had been smashed by the waves and I had survived only because I’d been trapped in…

An image of my baby tied to the seat cushion flashed through my mind. He’d been bound to a mat. How did Kirutu know about the mat?

“Bring him in.”

One of the warriors entered. His fingers were wrapped around the thin arm of a small, naked child tottering on wobbly legs. A white boy with shaggy chocolate hair and blue eyes that stared up at Kirutu’s towering form.

The child turned to look at me and I stared into the eyes of my own son.

The confusion and terror that flooded me in the moment are difficult to describe. I was in no condition to trust my senses and my mind was telling me that Kirutu was playing a cruel game.

My mind told me these things, but my maternal heart was crashing in my breast, telling me that Stephen, my dead son, was alive and standing before me. And I could not temper my sudden desperation for that to be true.

Then Stephen’s face wrinkled and he cried and he reached his hand out for me.

A groan filled the hut. My own. I lurched for him with both hands, but Kirutu had ripped the muscles in my abdomen, and they failed me. I fell to one elbow, screaming now, blurred eyes fixed upon my son. Even then it occurred to me that I might be dreaming, and if so, then in my dream I would sweep Stephen up in my arms and I would scratch out the eyes of any man or woman who came near us.

Then Stephen was walking toward me, crying. He reached me and wrapped his small arms around my neck and I knew then, when his cheek was pressed against my own, that my son, who had been swallowed by the sea, was alive.

Leaning on one elbow for support, I clung to Stephen with my free arm, pressed him against my breast, and wept over his shoulder.

How he had survived I did not care. What horrors he had suffered these past months I refused to imagine. All that mattered was that he was alive. And he still knew his mother.

I was clinging to more than my son in that moment. I was holding life, that great mystery that binds us all. He was an extension of my own flesh—skin on skin, cheek on cheek, fingers digging into each other’s back, weeping together. Perhaps only a mother can fully understand the sentiment that swept through my body when my son, who had once been dead, returned to me alive.

And then, as quickly as Stephen had come to me, he was dragged away by Kirutu. I screamed my horror, grabbing at thin air for his body.

“You will have your son,” Kirutu said.

“Don’t you dare touch him!” My voice was hysterical. “I’ll kill you!”

“You will have him only if you kill Wilam.”

Stephen was still crying, reaching for me.

“It’s OK, baby!” I could hardly speak. “It’s OK, Mommy’s here now.”

My eyes searched his body and face. He was over two years old but still such a baby! His hair was overgrown and tangled. He had a bad sore on his right shin and a dark bruise on his cheekbone. His nose was crusted with mucus. The Tulim would have washed and tended to one of their own, but Kirutu had left my child in this condition to inflict me with pain.

“Please,” I begged. “Please…”

“Take him away.”

Kirutu’s intentions were plain to me, and there was nothing I could do to stop him. I did not cry out for my son as they swept him from his feet and took him away. I simply lay down on my side and wept.

When Kirutu spoke again his voice was matter-of-fact, even soft.

“Now you know I have your son. If Wilam learns that your son is alive, he is bound by law to put him to death.”

“You’re lying…”

“By law, any child from your womb must come only from his seed. You are his wife, your child must be as well. By blood. For you to have a living son not of Wilam’s seed would remove him from consideration for power.”

I had never heard of the law and the thought horrified me. I tried to dismiss it as another ploy by Kirutu, but even hearing it I knew the law made perfect sense to the Tulim way of thinking.

“If your son dies now, you are purified, so I will not kill him yet. Your only hope is to kill Wilam. Once he learns that you have lost his son, you will be worthless. I offer you the only way for you and your son to survive.”

“You’re lying to me!” I screamed.

But I knew he wasn’t.

“If Wilam isn’t dead within three days, I will return your son to Wilam to be killed. If you kill Wilam, I will take you and your child to the sea.”

My mind was only a dim reflection of itself, unable to process my thoughts with any certainty, but one thing was perfectly clear: I could not let any harm come to my son. Never again. Nothing else mattered to me as I lay on Kirutu’s floor, weeping.

“How?” I sobbed.

He stepped over to me and bound a thin roll of leaves into my hair, near my scalp where it would not be seen without a search. “You will put this in his food. Half will be enough.”

“They will find it.”

“Then you will find another way or your son will die.”

Kirutu turned away and left me on the floor, a shell of myself.

I don’t remember what passed through my mind as the warriors bound me up and carried me over their shoulders to the clearing several miles up the mountain. I could only see my son crying, reaching for me.

They left me under a tree in the middle of the same clearing where the anthropologist Michael had led me. I lay in a heap to be found by the Impirum.