At Play in the Fields of the Lord (42 page)

The death canoe was slid out from the bank, the head of Boronai high in its stern.
But immediately it began to circle, as if struggling to return upstream; it drifted off slowly, broadside.
On the first bend it spun a second time, in an eddy, and wedged itself in flood debris on the far bank.
A wailing rose anew, for this was a bad sign, but no one was sent to free the canoe and send it on its way.
It belonged already to the spirit world and could not be touched.

A
EORE
drank nipi on the afternoon of the death, saying that he would go to the spirit world to learn the name of the enemy of Boronai.
Because he was a jaguar-shaman, a familiar of night cats, Aeore would learn the truth, but Moon was certain that the warrior was intent upon the death of Quarrier, and that nothing his spirit would learn in its night among the jaguars would dissuade him.

The missionary was too near-sighted to read the signs on the faces of the Indians; for a whole day he had badgered Moon for ethnological data on the Niaruna, bemoaning his lack of paper and pencil.
His eagerness for information, his stubborn, brave attempt to rearrange the wreckage of his life into some sort of pattern, was exasperating; Moon barely answered this unlucky man who had come at the worst of times to plague him.
The man was doomed, had always been doomed, perhaps, and any attempt to intervene might turn the tribe against himself and undo the entire federation.

Aeore had drunk nipi in flamboyant draughts, which evoked sighs of admiration from his tribesmen; seated in an animated circle, they waited for him to vomit, but he did not.
The infusion affected him very fast, and by nightfall he lay rigid on his back, near a fire constructed in the center of the plaza.
The women and children were forbidden to look at him; his own young warriors tended the fire.

As the moon rose, Aeore’s body began to tremble.
He shivered and shook, muttering gibberish, and the jaguar necklace twitched upon his chest.
“Now his spirit is going,” Tukanu said; his eyes were bald with fright.
Tukanu had spoken in a whisper, for should Aeore’s body be awakened while its spirit was absent,
the spirit could not enter it again, and Aeore would sicken and die.

They watched the body through the night.
Beyond the black walls of the jungle, down the moonlit river banks, across the high ground and along the swamps where the great anacondas slept, Aeore’s spirit hunted in the body of a jaguar.

Though the big cats often circled the village in the night, swelling the jungle with huge hollow coughs, Moon had seen a jaguar only once.
It was lying on its side on the flat limb of a low hoary tree found along the rivers, camouflaged so demonically by the deep shade and shifting sun spots that he almost passed beneath it.
Because the cat was on its side, the yellow pupil slit burned vertically, a jet of flame; it fixed him in his tracks.
In that instant, expecting the jaguar to crouch and leap, he saw the ear twitch and the mad pulse in the throat, the flowering of the black rosettes as the cat breathed, the dead black belly spots, the nervous rippling of the flank, the metronomic thump of the black tail tuft on the rigid wood.
And because the jaguar never roared, nor sprang, nor fled, nor even raised its head, but simply watched him, he was shaken for days by the malevolence of this were-jaguar that the Indians so feared.

Now, like the Indians, he awaited in awe and silence the return of the jaguar-shaman.
The frogs and the night birds tocked and whistled in the ringing silence, and the bats crisscrossed the clearing, and the scent of the night flowers grew and vanished.
Rawk, rawk; ror-awk
: the rodent Marato, moved by its dim processes, uttered a hollow warning to the world.

The stars turned in the black hole above the clearing, and the Indians sighed.
Even Quarrier was infected by the Indians’ awe and did not sleep.
Though unaware of his own danger, he was as sensitive as the rest to the tremors of the night malaise.
“Demons,” he told Moon.
“There
are
demons.
I can
feel
them.”

Toward day the body of the shaman twitched again, heaved over and settled.
Its tension slackened.
In the greenish light the jaguar-shaman stared blankly at the sky.
After a time he sat up, slowly and stiffly, his head bent on his chest, arms at his sides, legs
and feet pointed straight ahead.
The other Indians turned their heads away, out of politeness.
In a dull monotone, the jaguar-shaman recounted his travels in the night, how he had stalked and run and climbed great trees and plunged into black rivers, on the trail to the Sea of Life.
There he had met with the spirits of the Ancestors.
He repeated this, and paused.
The others waited.

Slowly Aeore rolled onto his haunches, in a crouch; when he spoke again, his voice was a vibrant singsong.
The pupils of his yellowed eyes were still dilated, and his nostrils were flared and flattened, and the sinews of his limbs coiled on the bone.

The Ocelot, grinning, hunched in closer.
Moon’s mouth went dry.
The Niaruna would never doubt what Aeore was about to say, or restrain in any way this self-appointed judge and executioner, for it was not Aeore who would speak but the spirit world, through the words of their jaguar-shaman.
Aeore himself would hear the words as vision and divination, brought from his mouth by nipi.
Balanced on his fingertips, head switching back and forth, he spoke his message dazedly, voice mounting, and the tribe repeated his phrases in a chant; his voice did not seem to come from his own mouth, but from the air:

“We are the People of the Tuaremi, from the Creek of Agoutis to the rapids of Tai-wi-’an
.

“In former days our clans also controlled the Tiro forest.
In the Tiro forest, in former days, the clans of our mothers fished and hunted Wutari the tapir, and now Our Time has come again.
We will go with all the clans of all the Peoples to the East.
We will live again on the Tiro rivers.
We will kill the Sloth People, the Tiro, and we will hunt Wutari the tapir
.

“The white man is the friend of Tiro, and Tiro is our enemy
.

“The white man is
emita.
He has brought us sickness.
He has killed our woman Pindi.
He has killed our father Boronai
.

“We are the People, and the white man is our enemy
.

“The white man now among us is deceitful.
He has said to us that Kisu is the only god.
He has said to us that Kisu loves the Niaruna.
None of this is truth.
He has sent poison to the people of our clan, and they have died.
He is our enemy
.

“We will kill the enemy among us.”

Aeore sprang forward and crouched in front of Quarrier.
The missionary struggled to his feet, and Aeore rose with him.
Quarrier understood that Moon was powerless, and he actually smiled a vague loose smile which, in combination with his sightlessness, made him look as giddy as a baby.
Moon turned his head away.

Aeore had been brought a feathered club, and now he set himself to crack the white man’s skull.
Moon stepped between them.
Aeore sprang back, his mouth stretched wide; the Niaruna shrieked and chattered in dismay.

Moon bellowed at them, “Aeore tells you the truth.
The white man is the enemy of the People, and all the Peoples to the East.
You must drive the white man from your land; this I too have told you.
But this man”—he pointed at Quarrier—“is not your enemy.
He has come into the forest as your friend.
He has brought presents.
He has given food.
It is true that Boronai has died.
But the son of this man has also died.
Would he kill his own son?
I tell you, he is not your enemy!
Your enemy is the white man Guzmán, who is bringing his Green Indians here to kill you!”

The Niaruna awaited Aeore, who clutched the club as if to squeeze it dry.
Across a sudden hush of silence, Moon said slowly, “I am Kisu-Mu.
I am sent by Kisu.
You will obey me.”

In the same quiet tone Aeore answered, and he said what Moon had always feared that one day he would say.
He said that the People had listened because they thought that the stranger was Kisu-Mu.
But Aeore did not believe that this was Kisu-Mu.
Now Kisu-Mu must give them a sign that he had come from Kisu.

Aeore went down on his knees and lifted his hands, the club still clutched in them.
To Quarrier he said, “At the time of the death of Billy, you called to Kisu in this way.
We have watched you speak to Kisu-Mu.
You do not speak to him in this way.
You speak to him as to a man.
If Kisu-Mu is a spirit, speak to him now as you spoke on the day of the death of Billy.”

Quarrier sank slowly to his knees.
He was careful not to face Moon.
“Almighty God,” he said, “I pray—”

Led by Tukanu, the other Indians got on their knees and prayed to Moon.
Quarrier flushed and became silent, then rose suddenly to his feet, shaking his head.
“You must not do this,” he told the Indians.
“You must not pray to this man.”

Across the tumult Moon said, “You feel better?”
He had taken out his revolver.

Quarrier said, “I appreciate what you tried to do.
I’m sorry.”
He knelt again, then bent his head and closed his eyes.
He was very pale, and his voice was high and strained.
“I shall pray for us.”

“Pray for yourself.
If Jesus Christ was as pig-headed as you, I don’t know why they didn’t kill him sooner.”

Aeore, still dazed by nipi, had not chosen his course; he seemed uncertain about attacking Moon.
The other Niaruna watched in dread, searching for leadership.
Moon thought, If I can just get the jump on him before he makes his move … The surest way was to blast him where he stood, in the name of Kisu.
He slipped the safety off.
“If I have to shoot this man,” he said to Quarrier, “I’m going to shoot you too.”

The missionary squeezed his eyes shut.
“If you can save lives by shooting me,” he said, “please do it.
While my eyes are closed.
They’ll kill me anyway.”
There was a note of martyrdom in the voice, even self-pity, but what seemed to Moon far more disgusting was that Quarrier’s voice was resolute, he meant sincerely everything that he had said.

“So get the hell up off your knees,” Moon said.
“Tell them I am not your precious Jesus.
Tell them I am Kisu-Mu, who comes from the Great Spirit of the Rain.”

Quarrier stared at him, setting his jaw again.
“I can’t do that.”

“Why, you stinking—
why
can’t you, for Christ’s sake!
It might be true!”
Moon kicked him viciously in the side.
“Get the hell up, I said!”

At the sight of the kick, Aeore moved forward with the club.
Moon lifted the revolver.
“Tell him,” he said, “or I’ll shoot him down to save your neck.”

Quarrier pointed at Moon.
“Kisu-Mu is not the white man’s god,” he said, his voice an ugly croak.
“Kisu-Mu comes from the Great Spirit of the Rain.”

Aeore whooped with rage.
He raised his club above Quarrier’s head, but this time Tukanu sprang forward.
In the second that the maddened Aeore turned to meet Tukanu, Moon seized Quarrier by the collar and yanked him backward, out of the club’s reach.
Aeore and Tukanu were circling in a kind of dance, chattering so rapidly and angrily that Moon could not understand them.
Then Tukanu leaped aside.
Pointing at Moon, he shouted, “Kisu-Mu is our friend!
Has he not come to the People out of the sky?
We have seen it.
For many seasons he has lived among us.
He has led us against the white man, our enemy, and he will kill the white man who comes here with the Green Indians.
Is this not so, Kisu-Mu?
Tell the People that this is so.”

For a moment Moon was silent; then under the eyes of Quarrier, he said bitterly, “I say to my friend Aeore that this is so.
I will kill the white man Guzmán when he comes here.”

Aeore threw down his club so violently that it bounded among the tribesman, scattering them.
A moan arose.
He stalked away into the maloca, reappearing a moment later with his paddle and bow and arrows, and a net bag of his belongings.
He paused in the sunlight, contemplating his people, then started toward the river, trailed by the Ocelot and two of the other Yuri Maha.