And a Tall Tale of Tell the Great Hunter

“Tell arose in the morning and rolled out of his hammock while Wato, his second wife, continued to sleep. The smell of cooking kobo root drew him to the hearth where Corro stirs the clay pot which sits on the crackling embers. Corro kisses her husband and says, “I have invited my sisters for dinner tonight.”

“Tell’s face turns sour. “Your sisters will bring their children and their cousins; it will be many mouths to feed. Besides, I can't say a word among all the babble.”

“You never talk to them; you run around with the children, teaching them to hunt; even the girls listen to you.” Corro takes Tell’s blow gun and bag of poison-tipped darts from the post and hands them over. On his way out of the longhouse, Tell gives Wato a loving kiss.

“Tell has to hunt; he can’t let Corro’s sisters see him return empty-handed; they will laugh for many days. His journey takes him by Japur the great iguana, and he prepares to shoot it from the tree with a poison dart, but Japur pleads, “Great Hunter, I see you intend to kill me; I am so tasty I will make your belly happy, but my wife has a new clutch of eggs, and I must guard them. Please let me live.”

“I have many mouths to feed, and you look like you could feed them. So you will fill Corro’s pot,” Tell says.

“The Great Iguana asks, “Who will teach the little ones to hunt and climb; they are small now but will grow big and tasty?”

“I will,” says Tell, smirking and rubbing his rumbling belly.

“Will you teach them to climb a tree?” Japur asks.

“Yes, I will climb a tree for them.”

“That is good, for there is much food up here.”

“What food? You are the only food I see in the tree today,” Tell says.

“There is no food for you, maybe, but there is food for me and the little ones. See that fat juicy spider on the branch; watch me.” The Great Iguana shoots out his sticky tongue, and the spider disappears in one bite.”

“I can eat spiders,” says Tell. “But, I must first cook them.”

“That is all right,” says Japur. “The little ones will understand the great hunter has a weak stomach. You are lucky; there are not many spiders here today, so you must teach them to eat other bugs.”

“What bugs?” Tell asks.

“Oh, they are the tastiest bugs, and there are lots of them. They will fill you and make your belly happy.”

“Yes, I will teach the little squeakers. What bugs are you talking about?”

“Ah, I will tell you, so you may show my children how to eat them after you eat me. I saw many cockroaches this morning; they are so good I will eat them day and night; even now, my belly is full of them. But, up here, high on my branch, I see many things, I see the cockroaches, of course, but I also see the boar and the capybara. I saw a fat juicy capybara trotting by here a minute ago.”

“Perhaps you should teach the little ones to eat the cockroaches,” Tell says, as he starts to chase after the giant capybara,” Upatu finishes his tale.

Pell and Losau groan while Amara and I smirk. So Tell maybe a great hunter, but he isn’t the smartest of men, as if there are any smart men.

~

I invite Upatu to eat with me and tell another story. He opens up a packet of dried snake meat, and we chew on the hard slivers. He sits almost next to me but not close enough. I ask, “Tell me about your family.”

His gentle smile hardens, as does his shoulders and arms. He doesn’t say anything for a while, and I will change the subject when he speaks. “My father died on the tusk of a mighty boar; my mother and stepmother had to marry other men. So my sister went to my stepmother’s new husband. Oure arranged it to keep everyone happy.”

“You are not happy?” I ask.

“No. No, my new stepmother did not like my mother, so her children and their cousins said bad things to me,” said Upatu.

I suspect they did more than that, but I say nothing. Instead, I ask, “What about your new father?”

Upatu says nothing and remains quiet for a long time. Finally, I decide to show him; I take hold of his right hand and pull it up for his fingertips to touch my brand, the letter K burned into the back of my neck and now hidden by the tattoo of Aman. “Who did that,” he asks.

“The girls with whom I lived. They did it to all their members; I had no choice; they held me down.”

Turning my hand's palm up, I expose the scars on my wrists, holding them out to see.

He touches the scar on my wrist, he doesn’t need to say anything, but he does, “I wanted to do that, but Oure told me I had more important things to do with my life. He asked me to live, and he would help me.”

“Did he?”

The familiar smile returns to his face, “He brought you to me.”

I look across the clearing at Oure; he is holding Whisperblade’s hand but staring at me, a sly grin on his face. The conniving dog; I feel like setting Lady Gay to bite him for a moment, but I decide not to disturb the wolf sleeping in front of my legs. I like Upatu, not like Wolf or Wart; despite his sad history, he’s fun to be around.

~

Losau walks over to sit on my other side and asks, “Wolf says he has a woman from where he comes. Is this true?”

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“He has a girlfriend, but he has not asked her to marry,” I answer.

“He will marry; I will be his second wife, yes?”

Her question stuns me. “Where we come from, men have one wife,” I answer, “No second wife.”

She looks down a second and back at me. “Then she will be Wolf’s wife there, and I will be his second wife here.”

I avoid her idea by saying, “He cannot marry now; he must become a knight first.”

“We will have our children first, and they will be ready for him to teach hunting when he comes back,” she says.

Losau is persistent, a good trait for a hunter. “Have you said this to Wolf?”

“No, but I see the look on his face. He likes me.”

I look over at Wolf and see that silly smile; he’s in love. “Say nothing to him.”

“I will say nothing,” Losau answers.

She stands and goes back to him. I will have to tell Whisperblade.

~

The heavy rains again fall as we sleep, but I don’t mind it anymore. It is a welcome relief from the sticky heat, and I am comfortable as long as I stay in my hammock. I wake up to see Upatu wake the other men up and lead them out from the camp. I follow, to find they are playing by sliding down the muddy hill into the river and climbing back up to do it again. I return and wake up the other women, who follow me to the mudslide. Pell and Losau strip off their loincloths to jump feet-first onto the slide. I look at Amara and shrug my shoulders, so we do the same thing. It soon becomes a contest between the men and us to see who can do the best tricks on the slide.

Losau waits until Wolf reaches the top and tackles him, and they go headfirst down the slide together. Then, they disappear under the brown water. Alarmed, I start down the slide to find them. They emerge for breath, locked in a tight embrace. Wolf asks her, “Will you marry me? Will you be my wife?”

I cringe; he said it loud enough for everyone to hear. Whisperblade whispers into Oure’s ear and then orders Wolf out of the water to follow Oure. She takes Losau in tow and leads her in the other direction, and I bet they get a good talking-to. The rest of us put on our loincloths and return to camp.

For the remainder of our journey, the women sleep on one side of camp, the men on the other side. Oure and Whisperblade pitch their hammocks beside each other. They are adults.

~

We continue our hike to the promised forest in the morning, and I pull Wolf off the trail to talk. No one seems to care; we’ll catch back up. “Wolf, you idiot, what were you thinking? The Lion could kick you out of school for what you’ve done. No, He will kick you out.”

“I love her,” he says, eyes downcast.

“What about Sally? What are you going to tell her?”

“I’ll think of something; I’ll make her understand.”

I get angry at my best friend and slam a hard fist into his shoulder for the first time. He doesn’t react, so I push him into a tree and storm away. I remember now why I hate men.

~

I hear a bird screech, then the forest bursts alive as men with blowguns step out from behind the trees to fire darts at us. I’m hit, and in seconds my legs crumple, and I land hard. I don’t see what else is going as my eyes fall shut, but I feel hands placed on me, and I pass out. The paralysis retreats, and I can open my eyes. I find my hands tied behind the tree. I’m sitting against a thin cord clamped tight around my neck. The others are bound the same way, and I see our weapons tossed in a pile. The man in charge walks around looking at each of us and bends down to stroke Amara’s curly copper locks, and when he starts to pull on her loincloth, I yell a wonderful and nasty Kaniwa curse that Pell taught me. The man walks over to me and reaches down to rub my chin tattoo. That is the last thing he ever does on his own; my leg comes up into his crotch, and he lifts into the air to fall flat. His head lays across my other leg, so I lock my ankles tight, my thighs around his neck, and squeeze; he struggles to break free, but I bear down harder. I watch as his face turns from red to purple. I end it by rolling my hips as best I can; I feel a grinding pop between my legs as his neck breaks.

His friends kick me, but my pain is interrupted by the crack, crack, crack of an assault rifle and the mini-explosions of bullets hitting the dirt about me. I freeze, as do the men beating me. Then I see a man in a tee-shirt and trousers holding an AK-47 assault gun and pointing it at me.

He says something in Spanish, no, it’s Portuguese. From where he’s tied, Wolf translates, “He wants to know who killed his brother?”

“Tell him it was me, The Great Wachinga, Queen of the Amazons,” I say.

The man listens to the translation and laughs before he turns ugly and kicks me in the kidney. I see it coming and tighten up to resist the blow. I look around at the others but don’t see Losau; did they kill her? The man lifts his gun to kill me but grins and spits out a command. Men untie Wolf and Pell from their tree. The leader then speaks to Wolf, who translates.

“He says Pell and I have to fight, or he will kill Wachinga. He says Pell and I must fight to the death.”

“Take him out,” I yell in English. “He’s going to kill me anyway.”

A man pulls two staves from our pile of weapons. Wolf gets Pell’s staff, and Pell gets his staff. My heart sinks; neither staff has power in the other's hands. They start a practice staff exercise which Wolf calls out by number, each movement more violent than the last.

I feel someone cutting the cord tying my hands. I feel them fall, and the one around my neck loosens up. I grab the flint knife pressed into my hands; I don’t move.

Wolf barks out, “Attack nineteen; it is a good day to die.”

Pell responds, “The day is not over; counter twenty.” They toss their staffs to each other in a well-practiced exercise move and spin to attack their captors. I arise, slipping the flint blade up under the gunman’s sternum, slicing down. He looks at the blood gushing from his belly and collapses, dropping his weapon.

The others freed by Losau scramble for their weapons, but I end the fight by firing the assault rifle into the air. I’ve killed two men. But, looking around, I see no one else is dead. Wolf is close to killing someone, his flint knife against the throat of the man he is holding.

A horn blows, and a big man walks into the clearing; he wears a blue and red crown of feathers with more feathers spread over his shoulders. His grim look shows no fear. More men follow with yellow feathers on their shoulders. Hunters with blowguns step out from between the trees around us. The chief bends down, picks up the bloody knife, and hands it to me. I maintain my grip on the gun as I accept the blade; I think twice about shooting him but instead lower the gun; we would all be darted dead. Then, turning his back to me, he points to Wolf and the man he holds to bark an order in Portuguese. Wolf lets go of the man and sheathes his knife.

Wolf translates, “I must fight this man to the death, and if I lose, we will all die,” he repeats it in Kaniwa. He walks over to Whisperblade and whispers to her as he hands her his knife. He faces his opponent and stumbles, probably an effect of the dart poison. I cringe as the blows start; the warrior penetrates Wolf’s defense to land a few hard ones. Finally, Wolf stops acting clumsy and counters with a fast kick into the side of his chest. The man staggers and holds his arm tight to his side as he starts to spit blood; a broken rib has punctured his lung.

Wolf points to the man and asks, “Morto?”

The chief answers, “Morto.”

Wolf says something else in Portuguese, and the chief nods to him. Wolf retrieves his staff, stands over the man who continues to cough out his life’s blood. He touches the staff to the warrior’s ribs, and the blood stops flowing. The chief spits on his fallen champion, and without a word, he strolls into the forest, followed by the other warriors. Wolf reaches down to pull the man up and says in Kaniwa, “Your life is mine.” He repeats it in Portuguese and walks into the forest, followed by the defeated warrior and Shadow.

I sheath my knife, throw away the gun, retrieve my other weapons, and follow Wolf. The idiot now has a slave.