Norton, Andre - Anthology (8 page)

 
          
 
In that split second when her touch was lost
to me, the giant bird swooped. Its beak seized my shoulder and snatched me from
her arms. Pumping in ever-quickening strokes, the powerful wings bore me up into
cold, dry currents of air.

 
          
 
Jinell's
screams
followed me,
then
slowly died away as we headed toward
a cone-shaped mountain in the
Pakaraima
range. My
body felt light as the air, and though the curved beak clamped tightly on my
shoulder, I felt no pain. Only panic filled me. I could not cry out. When the
mountain loomed close, I could see, above

the
tree line, broad sheets of rock with thick
plants growing erratically between them. I would be dashed against those rocks
any moment now, yet somehow any fate seemed better than this terror.

 
          
 
But no! The
taloned
feet clutched my waist, and the massive wings thrashed against the chill wind.
I hung sideways, barely clearing the rocks, and a hideous chant of croaks and
groans over a muffled thudding floated through the frigid air.

 
          
 
The giant hawk carried me over the sharp rock
ledge of the mountaintop where I saw a swarm of shapeless non-human things
bouncing up and down in aimless fashion. Terrible to hear and even more
terrible to see, the creatures were as formless as jellyfish, their long
tentaclelike
arms striking the lava rock of the mountaintop
with every bounce. Each thing bobbed to its own time so that the thudding never
paused or stopped.

 
          
 
The huge claws of the bird released my waist, its
beak opened, and I fell into the center of the ghastly mass. Lying still on the
jagged lava, a freezing wind swept over me. I shook with the chill, but the
trembling that seized me when I opened my eyes and saw the formless faces
clustered above me was worse. Lidless eyes under hairy brows peered at me, and
pale straggly beards trailed from the nonhuman blobs. Smacking colorless lips,
the creatures made greedy sucking sounds that congealed my blood.

 
          
 
Two bearded things picked me up with stringy
tentacles. I felt the sticky mucus on their boneless arms. They lifted me high
and threw me to be caught by other gummy arms, and I was tossed on and on like
a senseless plaything. Faster and faster they hurled me until I couldn't catch
my breath—couldn't scream or struggle. Only pain let me know I was alive.

 
          
 
Each toss brought forth an outburst of the
demonic laughter
Jinell
and I had heard as we came
out of the forest.

           
 
These, then, were the
wukna
,
the mountain spirits. They were once real people,
Jinell
had told me, but had been ruled by evil forces. Doomed to be ghouls, they
wailed for the living to be brought to them so they could suck the blood and
drain the human body dry. And they wouldn't stop until it was a shapeless
nothing like themselves.

 
          
 
At last the bearded ones tired of their
catch-and-toss game. They dropped me on the lava floor, and women things—more
terrifying than the bearded men—bent over me. Their mouths opened to show
translucent tongues all ridged and beaded like overgrown leeches. They must be
the bloodsuckers.

 
          
 
Gasping for breath, I tried to lift myself to
my feet. If I could escape the slimy tentacles and run to the ledge of the
mountaintop, I would throw myself over. Instant death would be preferable to
being sucked dry of life. But the thin mountain air took away my strength, and
the freezing blasts of wind numbed me. My arms were like useless rags, my legs
without feeling. The hideous women things cackled with delight as I strained to
sit up.

 
          
 
Mucus from their jeering mouths dripped on me.
Their flaccid arms carried me over the rim of a lava basin toward a patch of
murky green water bordered by a frothy scum. Though rumblings in the mountain's
heart broke out into thundering booms and the mountain shook, the arms that
held me did not loosen their clutch.

 
          
 
Then, like the gush of a newly drilled well,
the green water rose in a whirling column. It threw off a stench of rot and
death, and my fight for breath became more desperate. I could only manage
shallow gasps that did not seem to reach my lungs. Mocking laughter rose up
around me.

 
          
 
Then, like an attacking beast, the ghoul who
supported my head tore off my shirt. With a groan of pleasure, her ridged,
leech mouth fastened onto my left arm. The others waited in turn.

           
 
I felt the gentle touch of a hand on my
stomach. A faint whisper sounded in my ears. "
Jinell
,"
I said, though no word came from my lips. I dug my right hand into the pocket
of my denims for the rough stone.

 
          
 
Unbearable cold wrapped about me and my mind
went blank. But
Jinell's
voice came through the
oblivion.
"Inhale.
The
stone."

 
          
 
I dragged the stone from my pocket and
inhaled. The stone flew from my hand and whistled through the air. Not a moment
passed before the swooping claws and strong beak of the giant bird snatched me
up—away from the clammy tentacles and the slobbering mouths—carrying me down
toward the
Akawai
settlement and
Jinell
.

 
          
 
Faster than the wind the enormous hawk flew.
As we whizzed over the clearing, I could hear singing and the rhythmic beat of
Ekjojo's
"leaves," and then the sound of the
rushing currents of the
Mazaruni
River
. I felt the waters rise to meet me, and was
dropped on the mucky bank. At last, I could breathe.

 
          
 
Dizzy and barely able to see, I crawled away
from the spitting water to dry land. The stretch of warm sand between the river
and the forest was inviting. I stretched out to rest.

 
          
 
Whether I slept or lost consciousness I do not
know, but the touch of a hand on my stomach awakened me. "Nan-
cee
, Nan-
cee
, where are
you?"

 
          
 
"Here,
Jinell
.
Here on the sand strip by the river. I can't walk." Again my words were
uttered without a sound.
"Close by—the cave of the
water-
papai
.
The call-stone.
Blow."

 
          
 
I dug into my pocket. No stone.
Nothing there.
Had I lost it during the long flight from the
mountaintop? Or had the evil magic of
Ekjojo
taken it
from me? "Lost," I whispered. "
Jinell
,
call-stone is lost."

            
I turned my head. From the great
boulders beyond me, a shiny green head on a black-mottled neck protruded from a
dark opening. It was an anaconda, a giant anaconda. Its iridescent green
body—splotched with black—rippled as it slid over the sand. Alerted by my fall,
the snake had left its cave to explore. Though the anaconda sees little and
hears not at all, its fast-flicking tongue—its organ of smell and
feeling—directed it toward the warm meat
lying
near
the river . . . the warm meat that was me.

 
          
 
It was now halfway between the cave and where
I lay. I could see its muscle segments grip the sand as it neared. I was paralyzed
with terror. The lidless brilliant eyes of the monster fixed on me, and I felt
myself sinking under its hypnotic stare.

 
          
 
Then I heard a strange hoarse whisper.
"Nan-
cee
, water-
papai
draws near to kill. Throw sand in mouth."

 
          
 
No time was left—not a minute—before the
gigantic snake would unhinge its jaws. Its saliva would ooze over my long pale
hair and seep down to cover me. Its coils would squeeze out my breath, quickly
changing me into a rag. I would be easy to swallow.

 
          
 
The terrible head hovered over me.
Its mouth, with teeth slanting back to prevent its prey from
escaping, opened like a great tunnel.
Already a steel-strong coil
twisted about my legs and tightened to encircle my hips. With my uninjured hand
I scooped up sand and threw it at the flicking tongue.

 
          
 
A threatening roar came to my ears from far
away. It was the roar of the
Guyana
jaguar, larger and heavier than any
leopard, the sly ferocious king of the forest.

 
          
 
But threatening roars did not disturb the
slow, methodical attack of the monster-snake. Like a shadow, the story of the
Guyana
boy swallowed by an anaconda just three
days before crossed my mind. I, too, would be found within an anaconda, my body
deteriorating in its digestive juices. . . . No sand stirred under the pads of
the spotted gold jaguar as it leaped past my closing eyes. The big cat must
have cleared the sandy stretch in a single bound, fastening its teeth on the
back of the snake's head.

 
          
 
Almost at once the snake's jaws turned about
and its coils released my hips and legs to attack the jaguar. Thrashing and
flailing sand, the two huge beasts locked in their fight to the death. And
though
Jinell
had told me that no killer of the wild
has the tenacity and agility of the jaguar, el
tigre
, the raging snake tried again and again to
coil its tail about it. But the jaguar did not pause for a second—its springing
bounds were too quick for the snake's weak eyes to follow. And at last I heard
the great cat's fangs tear into the neck bones of the anaconda. A shattering crunch—and
the snake became a wriggling massive length beating upon the sand.

 
          
 
As the snake writhed and twisted in its dying
struggles, the jaguar bounded away; then
Jinell
ran
from the forest and leaped to my side. Her brown eyes held pity as she knelt
and lifted me in her arms. Carrying me to the river's edge, she stooped to wet
a cloth in the water. Tenderly she bathed my face and washed back the
sand-laden hair from my eyes. Then she plunged my left arm, still oozing blood,
deep into the fresh clear water of the river.

 
          
 
"Nan-
cee
!
Open mouth, Nan-
cee
,"
she said, and from her jaguar sling she took a coconut shell to drip a cool
liquid between my lips.

 
          
 
"
Jinell
.
Oh,
Jinell
," I sobbed.

 
          
 
"Shush now. You are safe. We go
home." As she bore me to the forest path, I saw the monstrous snake body
of black and green lying motionless in the sand. "But Dad says the dead
snake writhes until the sun sets," I said with wonder.