Chapter 1 #2
would do. No, I imagined someone like her would be writhing, moaning,
and scratching at the dirt with her delicate fingers. I would have
had to use my strength to pin one such as her down, but I would enjoy
her complete surrender.
That thought
alone had my shaft thickening, so I immediately tried to think of
something else to quell its rise to glory.
Moira stumbled
again, and I wanted to yell at her to watch where she was going. Her
face was tilted upward to a pair of howler monkeys right above us, a
small smile on her face as she watched them swing in the branches. I
only glanced up briefly, and then turned my attention back to the
jungle floor.
My gaze was
keen—well trained—and in just a mere moment, I saw danger
three feet from Moira’s stride as she stumbled along. A
bushmaster snake was slithering its way onto the path from her right
and, in two more steps, she would be right on it.
My hands shot
out, grabbing Moira by the shoulders and pulling her backward into
me. She screamed in fright as the bushmaster lifted its head toward
us. I forcefully shoved her behind me, and she went crashing to the
path on her butt. Father Gaul and Ramon looked at me as if I’d
lost my mind, but they didn’t see what I did.
Certain death.
The bushmaster
was defensively poised, its head hovering several inches off the
ground. Without a word to any of them, I swung my machete through the
air and alleviated the viper of its head, where it thudded softly
onto the rotting leaves.
Reaching out to a
large, wet palm leaf, I wiped the serpent’s blood from my blade
and turned to Moira with a glare. “You need to keep your eyes
on the path, foolish chama de cabelos. Next time, I let the serpent
strike.”
She looked up at
me with those mossy, green eyes filled with fear and contrition. Our
gazes locked for a moment, but then I turned away and started walking
down the path. Ramon rushed past me to help Moira from the ground,
and our little expedition continued.
I reacted on
instinct, saving her miserable life, and in turn, trapped myself at
her side. In hindsight, I should have let the snake strike, then I
could have hauled her lifeless body back to the village and been done
with this foolishness.
We parted ways with
Father Gaul and Ramon when we reached the Jutai. Moira and I
continued north via dugout canoe, while Father Gaul went west to
visit the Matica tribe, who was a sworn enemy of the Caraicans. There
had been much bloodshed between our two clans.
On the second night
after we had ported off the Jutai, I almost left Moira… so
great was my longing to return home, back to the Caraican village
where my friends and family revered me and I was happy. I went off
into the jungle and contemplated what I would say to Paraila when I
returned. I could tell him some lie, like Moira had changed her mind.
Or that she had been eaten by a jaguar or caiman. With that story,
I’d have to kill her and dispose of her body to get away with
that, because knowing what little I did about her, she would have
just tracked me back to the village.
Nothing I could come
up with seemed to be feasible, but ultimately, I knew I would never
be able to look Paraila… my father and teacher… in the
eye and tell him I wouldn’t respect his wishes.
Paraila begged me to
go, to give this opportunity a chance, and I ultimately couldn’t
say no to the old man.
But I didn’t
go down without a fight.
For two days after
Moira’s arrival, we fought.
He threw
everything at me, and when I still denied him, he threw more. I
pointed out that he was an old man, and that if I left, no one would
take care of him. I promised that I would go… as soon as he
died, but he was proving to be just as stubborn as I was.
He even became
cruel with me, showing me a new side to the man I’d called my
father for so many years. Paraila told me that I truly wasn’t
welcome within the tribe. That he had insisted I stay only when he
knew I had no other options, but now that he knew I had a family
member back in the States that was eager to reconnect, he told me
that he didn’t want me around anymore.
That hurt so
badly that I lurched out of his longhouse, kicking over a basket of
cassava flour in my sorrowful haste. I looked everywhere for Tukaba,
feeling the need to pound away inside of her body to ease my
frustration and anger, but she was nowhere to be found. I thought
briefly about dragging the goddess-like woman named Moira into the
jungle and forcing her to submit to me, but I was smart enough to
know that would not be acceptable by her standards. So with no means
for release, I grabbed my bow and quiver, heading deep into the
jungle to find something to kill.
Paraila later
apologized to me for his harsh words and, over a quiet dinner, made a
last plea that finally caused me to surrender.
“ Cor’dairo,”
he had said, calling me “my son” in the old and almost
extinct Caraican language. “Why do you fight me on this? This
is not the life I would wish upon you.”
“ But I’m
happy here,” I told him while holding his hand.
“ Maybe, but
you may be happier elsewhere,” he said with a much stronger
voice than I had heard from him in a while. “What kind of life
is this… struggling day in and day out for survival? Father
Gaul says that where you are going, you will have food overflowing
and many opportunities laid before you. What do you have here? An old
man and his shrew of a wife.”
“ I have
Tukaba,” I said with a wink. “She makes me plenty happy.”
“ Yes, you
have Tukaba, but she has many friends,” he said with a sly
smirk.
I grinned back at
him because Paraila and I always shared the same type of humor.
Tukaba was, indeed, a woman that shared the pleasures of all the
single men in the tribe.
“ You
deserve more than this meager life you lead, and I want to see you
have a chance at real happiness before I die.”
“ But
Paraila—” I started to say, but he cut me off.
“ No,
Zacharias… son not of my loins but of my heart. I am begging
you to go. For me… I am begging you. Give it a year and, if
you wish, you may return. But for me… give it a chance and go
with this new fortune.”
I stared at him,
noting the sheen of tears in his eyes and the surety of his voice. It
crashed all around me that I could not deny this man anything…
not the man who had raised, protected, and even given me love when my
parents died. I owed him my life. I would do anything he asked.
So I agreed to
go.