The Legend of the Phantom (2 page)

Chapter
2

The following morning was a flurry of activity. Kit and Caribo needed to get their transportation needs taken care of, followed by the stocking of provisions.

Caribo was quite p
roud to show Kit their new boat, having worked most of it himself.

He led Kit down to the river’s edge and there he proudly displayed his dugout canoe.
It was long, sleek and well designed. Caribo had carved a depiction of how they met alongside the outer edge. Kit was duly impressed, and well he should have been; for Caribo had been working on the craft for the past few months, and it was beautiful.

It did not strike Kit
as odd to travel the ocean in this craft for he had seen just what amazing work the Cubans could do in their dugouts. 

The
Cubans loved to travel. Typically, they could be found travelling the rivers and the sea in search of fish. Additionally they were great traders well known on various islands and the mainland.

The
Cubans’ primary form of travel was in a dugout canoe.
The dugout canoes varied in size from small (fitting just two members of the tribe) to large (in which seventy to eighty people could all fit the hollowed out trunk). Not only were the canoes propelled by their streamlined swath and deep paddles, they also used sails made from the woven leaves of the moriche palm or cotton.

The Cubans were very proud of their cotton and grew and produced it for use in all areas of life from ceremonial to the mundane: from ceremonial sashes to fishing nets, hammocks, and sails.

In this case Caribo had made his canoe of the Ceiba tree, commonly called the Kapok... a wood that is naturally very buoyant. He made it slightly larger than the average two-man canoe in order to leave room for their supplies.

Kit suggested and received consent from Caribo to supplement the woven moriche palm sail with a cotton s
ail. The combined effort really caught the wind and looked as if it would do well on a long voyage.

In addition to
food and water, stored mainly in gourds, Caribo also brought indigenous weapons of his own make.

Though the
Cubans themselves were a peaceful people, they did have enemies and on occasion needed to defend themselves from the Caribs; a neighboring tribe reputed to be cannibals.

Caribo understood the Caribs all too well, being half Carib himself.

His mother was Carib by birth
, but she adamantly refused to participate in the ritual ceremony of victory that the legend of cannibalism originated from; a legend that the Caribs permitted neighboring tribes to believe in as it helped in their fight against their enemies.

Though they did not eat human flesh, v
ictims of the Caribs were ritually sacrificed and bled, with the victim’s blood ceremonially drunk.

Then one day
Caribo’s mother found a man that had made landfall on their island as a result of a storm, who was a trader by profession, who told her of others that lived on neighboring islands. Though he was captured and killed, the idea of escape was planted in her mind and allowed to germinate.

W
hen she was finally old enough to make a getaway, she ran away, and by chance of ocean currents, ended up on the island of Cuba, where she met Caribo’s father.

There they fell in love.

The Caribs noticed that they had lost one of their own—to the Cubans, no less—and wanted her back. But Caribo’s father wasn’t going to give her up.

A mighty battle ensued between the Cubans and the Caribs and in the end, the Cubans won. However, Caribo’s father died, never knowing his new wife carried
the physical representation of his love inside of her.

Many months later
, the widow that had renounced the Caribs to stay with the Cubans had her son. Thus, when Caribo was born, his mother named him “Caribo” which in the native Cuban tongue means “not of Carib”, in reference to the life she left behind.

D
espite the name, and the great demeanor of Caribo, his features still betrayed the high cheekbones and nose of the Caribs, features that shamed him and caused him to try to hide them through face paint.

Kit never knew the history of his friend and really wouldn’t have cared aside from the friendship that Caribo demonstrated.

Caribo packed his weapons into the vessel while Kit stored the food and water. In went the bows and arrows, along with the cassava poison for the arrow tips. He added some long cotton ropes for defense and some spears with fish hooks on the end. Since there were hardwoods on the island, he was also able to add a war club made of macana.

The hammocks were packed, along with two espadas that belonged to Kit. The last item to be packed were the two silver pistols Kit’s uncle had given him.

Most of the tribe saw them off, and it surprised Kit to find that
he had grown so fond of them. However the feeling of adventure overwhelmed him; and tossing his head back, he gulped in some of the salty air while a smile of anticipation crossed his face.

The Caribbean Sea is connected with the Gulf of Mexico by the Yucatán Channel, a passage 120 miles wide between Cuba and the Peninsula itself. The ocean’s currents were in their favor as well as the wind. Caribo and Kit found that they really had little paddling to do, despite the drag that was caused by the Sargasso kelp that seemed to cover the majority of their trip.

The trip was somewhat long and for the most part uneventful as they passed their time in conversation. It was
early in the afternoon of the next day when they finally saw it: land! The northernmost tip of the Yucatán! Unbeknownst to Kit, he was the first white man to reach the New World.

The decision to head south was a difficult one.

“The water seems to want us to go that way,” Caribo rightly pointed out to Kit as he indicated north.

“True,” he assented, “but my uncle asked me to search out the Golden City he had heard about,” replied Kit, “…and I would not be here had it not been for my uncle. The rumors are that the city is that direction,” continued Kit, pointing south. “Besides, we can always go north again later if we don’t find anything to the south; and the waters will help us along our way,” he concluded, his argument made.

Caribo studied the landscape. “Then we will go south, as you say,” he finally consented.

Their southern meanderings along the coast took them many days in their canoe.

Eventually they arrived at the mouth of a large river.

“What do you say?” Kit asked his friend. “Do we explore it or keep going south?”

“I am tired of this southern trip. We haven’t found anything. Let’s explore,” Caribo frankly replied.

“Agreed,” said Kit. So it was decided.

The river was huge and flowed from
the west. Caribo was tired of paddling against the current and said so, but Kit wanted to press on. The current in that part of the outer fringe of the river wasn’t too strong, so Kit offered.

“Tell you what. I’ll paddle for a time and you sleep.”

Caribo didn’t need to be told twice, and without a word, and with a grunt of assent, he laid down his paddle and folding himself down into the canoe, drifted off into a deep sleep.

It was the lack of motion that woke him a few hours later.  Groggily he stretched and yawned as he tried to wake up. He realized his companion wasn’t in the canoe and sitting up, searched him out along the shore.
When he saw Kit his pupils widened.

More through reflex than through anything else, he
swept up his bow and arrow and brought it to bear upon his friend and partner in travel. Without even consideration for the logistics of such a long range shot from such a primitive weapon, he let the arrow fly.

Chapter
3

The arrow sped steadily… ever closer to Kit’s head. Yet Kit had no idea of the projectile that was on its way.

Kit stood under a large tree with
grayish bark, shiny green leaves and spikes of small greenish flowers. Above him hung green and greenish-yellow fruits that looked like small apples. The tree leaned inward a bit from the shore, an obvious natural windbreak, and had small crabs clustered around its base.

As Kit reached up to pick its fruit, the arrow narrowly missed his head and caught the fruit a half second before his hand closed on it.

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion as Kit’s heart sped up and he whirled around to discover who was shooting at him.

To his surprise it was Caribo.

“Don’t move friend!” Caribo called out, nocking another arrow. “If you want to live, friend, keep your hands where I can see them and slowly walk toward me.”

Kit didn’t know
why Caribo shot the arrow at him, but did as he was told. He considered his weapons and realized there was no chance to get at his pistol before Caribo could let fly another arrow. The last one was so close to him that it cut a small apple out of his outstretched hand before he could even close on it, and that was from over 150 meters! He considered his swords, and realized he had left them in the canoe. Slowly, with his hands in view, he walked toward Caribo, altogether forgetting the fruit.

As Kit approached Caribo, he kept his hands out with the palms showing. When he was about half the distance between the tree and Caribo,
Caribo immediately relaxed, dropped his weapon, and even let out a hearty laugh. “You really had me scared my friend. I thought I would surely need to build a funeral pyre for you.”

Kit stopped and eyed his
‘friend’ quizzically. His obviously confused look sent a new wave of laughter through Caribo.

“Please tell me the joke,” Kit commented drily.

“Caribo regained some composure and began, “I woke to see you about to pick the fruit of the manchineel tree. It is a deadly fruit.  It is a deadly tree.”

“What?” burst out Kit. “But they’re just apples.”

“No,” corrected Caribo. “They are not apples but a fruit that resembles the apple,” said Caribo in reference to the fruit his people received as gifts when the Europeans had first arrived, “…however, this fruit is very dangerous. It is a very bad fruit. It will kill you.”

Kit finally relaxed, allowing himself to take in the situation.

Caribo came near and he explained. “The
manchineel
tree and its parts contain strong poisons. The Caribs use the sap of this tree to poison their darts (and are known to poison the water supply of their enemies with the leaves). As a form of torture they tie victims to this tree and leave them exposed to the outside... especially the rain.”

Kit stared on incredulous.

Seeing that Kit either wasn’t understanding or didn’t believe him, Caribo continued, “Contact with the manchineel tree can cause very bad problems. Just touching the milky sap makes you feel like you are on fire. You get raised skin and red burns.  But that is not all,” warned his friend, “the leaves, bark, sap and fruit of the tree are all poisonous. Eating the fruit, as you almost did,” he reminded Kit, “though the smell is good, and I am told the fruit has a very good taste, is deadly. Swallowing even a tiny amount of the fruit will cause the tongue to have bumps and the mouth and throat will close tight making brave men faint and die in agony. Even standing under the tree is bad if it is raining. The water burns as it passes through the leaves and fruit.”

“If this is so dangerous why hasn’t it been
abolished?” asked Kit.

This time Caribo looked quizzical.

“Destroyed,” Kit answered his unvoiced question.

“Ah! Cutting this tree will cause the sap to squirt. Burning this tree makes the sap to be carried in the smoke and burn the eyes and skin of people that are close to the smoke. If the sap, or smoke from the burning tree
enters the eyes it will make you no longer see,” Caribo finished.

‘Blindness,’
thought Kit, ‘practically death in this environment.’ Openly he stated, “Warning taken.” Then as an afterthought he added, “Thank you, my friend, I owe you my life.”

“It was nothing, my friend. But remember it.” Caribo smiled back.

Several hours later the two of them were further along the river. As Kit trailed his fingers in the water, he commented to Caribo, “I just saw something I don’t believe I saw.”

“What was it?” asked Caribo.

“Well, I can only describe it as a living greenish-gray log with eyes on top of its head!”

“
Be wary of this animal, Kit. My people know its smaller cousin and he will grab you with his many teeth and drag you underwater, never to be seen again.”

“A lovely place, this river,” replied Kit, sarcastically, as he pulled his fingers out of the water. They stayed quite vigil
ant after that.

As they followed the river, they e
ventually came to a large lake. More than 100 miles long and averaging 45 miles wide, its western border lay only 12 miles from the Pacific Ocean.

The size of the lake was amazing in itself, but
Kit and Caribo were even more amazed to see sharks circling the dugout canoe. Caribo dropped his hand into the water and cupped out a handful. Tasting it his face lighted up. “This water is fresh, not salt,” he said with a surprised look to Kit.

“Hmmm. Freshwater sharks…” Before Kit could finish what he was about to say, a strange creature lea
pt out of the water, with a shark in close pursuit. The fish had the appearance of a saw in front, as if it were used to cut down large trees. “…and a saw-head fish. The wonders of this world never cease to surprise me!”

In the distance beyond where the saw-headed fish landed was an island
topped by twin volcanoes. The place was a haven of beauty mingled with just enough oddities to keep the boys heads turning in every direction. As they neared the island, howler monkeys announced their approach. Like a siren to the local inhabitants, men came pouring out of the forest and into dug-out canoes. Shortly the many canoes had pulled up along side of the boys and through words and gestures the boys were made known to follow them.

Kit and Caribo resigned themselves to fate as they dug their paddles into the water after the head canoe.

“At least we haven’t been killed by them yet,” said Kit, trying to sound jovial despite the circumstances.

“Yet…” echoed Caribo pessimistically, as he sized up the tribesmen around them.

The tribesmen led the boys past the towing volcanic cones of the island to the far shore. There they were prodded and directed towards an ornate building of some magnitude where they met chief Nicarao, a rich ruler who lived in Nicaraocali the ruling city of the tribe.

“Who are you? Where do you hail from? Why are you here?” The verbal
interrogation lasted some time before the guards lightened up.

Once the king and his guards realized that the boys were just adventurers in search of gold, the tribunal relaxed
. Jokingly, they called Kit and Caribo ‘chontal’, a term meaning ‘foreigner’, but relating to a lesser tribe east of them. In the end the Niquiranos were very friendly and helpful.

Yes, they knew of the Golden City, but claimed
it was north, not south, and that it sat on a large lake named Texcoco. In fact not only had they heard of the city but they had been tribesmen of it when it was still part of Teotihuacan.

However, as Teotihuacan fell, o
n the advice of their religious leaders, they traveled south until they encountered the lake with the two volcanoes rising out of the waters. There they stopped and built anew, finally founding their great city of Nicaraocali.

However, the
boys were warned to not approach the Golden City, which the Niquiranos called Tenochtitlan, as the Aztec that lived there was a blood-thirsty group.

Kit and Caribo thanked them for the
advice and inquired what was west of them.

The reply from the Ni
quiranos was an astonishing one. Less than a day’s walk west was the ‘Mighty Waters’.

“Can it be that we are on another island?” asked Kit, amazed. “It seems that every island is larger than the first.”

Caribo passed the question onto the Niquiranos and replied, “No. they say that this is no island as they have never found the end thereof. That the land stretches very far north and south, but only a short distance west and east.”

“
Well, what do you say?” asked Kit.

“I say we
see these mighty waters,” replied Caribo.

“That’s what I was hoping you would say,” replied Kit.

The mighty waters were mighty indeed.
Yet a larger surprise awaited them: one of the most beautiful beaches on the Pacific. The pure white sand was bordered by tropical forests on one side and the Pacific Ocean on the other. There they found thousands upon thousands of sea turtles. They had stumbled on their mating and nesting areas. The huge numbers left them in awe and again filled them with wonder.

“I suspect I know what we will be eating tonight,” remarked
Caribo drily as he took in the grand
scene.

Apart from the beautiful beach, the area behind them was made up of tropical dry forests and mangroves. There they found the forest full of an array of animals including monkeys,
garrobo negro, coyotes, raccoons, iguana verde, skunks, and legartijas. Hundreds of birds also made this small Eden their home, some of which feasted on turtle eggs.

They rested along the beach for a few days,
playing in the surf, having found sport by being towed out via grabbing two sea turtles below the upper shell, just behind the head, only to let go and ride the surf in… belly style on a piece of driftwood. Kit soon bored of this amusement and decided it was time to pursue his quest of exploring this New World; never knowing that he had made yet another historical first, setting foot in the Pacific Ocean years ahead of the rest of the Old World explorers.

T
hey made their way back the way they had come, deciding that travel via canoe was easier and quicker than by foot.

True to their word, the Ni
quiranos had not only guarded their canoe, but had also supplied them with a number of trinkets and supplies in exchange for some of Kit’s brightly colored glass beads.

The return trip down the river and the subsequent travel north following the coastline was a delight to them, as they were finally moving in the direction of the flowing water.

It wasn’t many days later that they passed the place where they had first made landfall and decided to travel south.

A
gain everything was new to them. As they rounded the Yucatán Peninsula they decided to make landfall again. According to the Niquiranos, somewhere in this area north was the Golden City of Tenochtitlan which sat on Lake Texcoco.

Luck was on their side for they
shortly came to the stone structures of the Maya.

Kit and Caribo decided it was best to approach unseen.
Pulling alongside the sea cliffs, they carefully hid their canoe and hiked the remaining distance to the closest building.

The city was buil
t of massive blocks of gray stone and was protected on one side by steep sea cliffs and on the landward side by a wall that averaged eight to sixteen feet in height. The wall was also exceptionally thick and long on the side parallel to the sea. The part of the wall that ran the width of the site was slightly shorter and thinner on both sides. Kit realized that constructing this massive wall would have taken an enormous amount of energy and time, which showed how important defense was to this people at the time they built the city.

On the southwest and northwest corners there were small watch towers, showing again how well defended the city was. There were five narrow gateways in the wall with two each on the north and south sides and one on the west. Near the northern side of the wall a small
natural sinkhole provided the city with fresh water.

It was through that
northern opening past the impressive wall that Kit and Caribo entered the city.

The first free-standing building they found was something to be admired. There a stone step ran around the base of the building which sat on a low substructure. The doorways to the building were narrow with columns
that appeared to be used as support of the building. Beyond, the walls flared out and there were two sets of molding near the top.

They entered the building closest to them
but found it devoid of all life. Looking around, ample sunlight filtered in from two small windows, onto a small altar at the back wall. The vaulted room made their conversation sound distant. No other voice could be heard.

“
Where were the people?” Kit wondered aloud as he craned his neck to take in the lofty structure.

They climbed to the outer wall
for better view. Before them stretched a vast city with temples, pyramids, and other buildings undreamt of in Europe. The buildings seemed to rise straight out of the jungle, with huge fruit bearing trees between them, lining the avenues, giving shade.