When The Jaguar Sleeps: A jungle adventure (14 page)

During the day when the jaguar slept, his spirit slept as well. So the Indians were going to wait patiently for night. As soon as the velvet robe of darkness fell over the forest, they were going to drink ayahuasca and connect with the mystical world inhabited by the jaguar spirits and the spirits of their ancestors. Then the shaman would travel to distant places, where he would encounter the spirits of his forefathers. The jaguar was going to carry him on his strong back and at the same time protect him against every evil spirit they met on their way. The king of the Amazon rainforest would help him explore the darkness and the human heart, and even look into the future. Tonight he would tell them what to do with the captive white man who had walked uninvited onto the land inhabited by the spirits of their ancestors and could bring danger to their kinsfolk who called themselves the Huaorani, a proud name that in their language meant simply ‘people’ and reflected their strong belief that they were the only real people on earth. Other tribes in contrast gave them the contemptuous name Auca, meaning savages. But they rejected it.

The last time the shaman had consulted the jaguar spirits they told him what to do with a group of armed strangers who trespassed on their land. These evil incomers had found the graves of their great ancestors, pilfered and plundered them of all the treasures gathered in there, desecrating the human remains that had been lain to rest. The souls of his ancestors encountered during his astral travel told him to seek revenge but wait before dealing with them as at present too many of his people might die.

‘It’s not the right time,’ they had whispered softly in his ear. ‘Not yet. You need to be patient. But be all the time on your guard, do not let your enemies out of sight. Watch all their movements. And be at any time ready to fight. We’ll let you know when the right moment comes.’

In the evening others whom Didier had not seen before arrived at the shaman’s hut so there were now about twenty men present. The shaman’s wife and daughter had left. The pot containing the herbal concoction had been simmering for some hours over the fire. Much of the water had evaporated leaving at the bottom a thick, bitter-smelling, brown liquid.

It was time for the ceremony to begin.

The son of the shaman threw a few wood logs on the fire while his father sat cross-legged on the earthen floor in the middle of the room, his back straight, his shoulders stiff. He wore a crown of plaited parrot feathers on his raven-haired head, a jaguar fang necklace and the jaguar pelt slung on his back. All the other men were sitting around him in a circle. Didier recognised among them the man who killed Florent. Instantly, an intense feeling of hate and desire for revenge washed over him, closely followed by a wave of painful bitterness because he knew that for the time being there was nothing he could do to appease his desire. Again, he felt so irritatingly helpless.

Suddenly out of the men’s mouths came a strange, rhythmic melody and everyone got up and started to dance in a fast and lively tempo, rhythmically drumming their bare feet on the floor. As if in a trance, they kept repeating the same movements, but gradually speeding them up. Their smooth, sweat-covered skin glistened in the flickering bright orange flames of the fires in which a few wood logs were burning with a dry popping sound.

Sometime later the unattended fires began to die. The fast, rhythmic beating of feet stopped and a heavy silence followed. The men, apparently tired from their exertion, sat again in a tight circle around the shaman.

Soon darkness descended and enveloped the interior of the hut like a heavy blanket of impending ominous doom. It was only slightly dissipated by the frail glow of the waning fires. The shaman took in his hand a clay bowl filled with the dark-brown herbal brew, lifted it, and drank it all up. Then he immediately refilled it and handed it to the man nearest him. He repeated this manoeuvre until each of the Indians had received his ration of the concoction.

An eerie, awkward silence took over the chamber. Everybody sat waiting impatiently for the hallucinogenic drug to settle within them. Its power would feed them and show them the world as it really was, without the mask of everyday life. They would be able to see what lay beneath the surface of the visible world, would discover everything that was normally hidden from them. Soon the true identity of people and objects would be revealed.

The shaman poured himself another portion of the fluid and tossed it down his throat. Unexpectedly some loud voices issued from the darkness. The men began to talk agitatedly. One of them told a story, another a joke, clearly recognisable as such by the explosions of uninhibited laughter that followed his words.

The shaman was sitting stiffly erect, frozen motionless in the middle of the room and all of a sudden began to chant softly. The other men, one by one, fell silent and listened to the bewitching, mesmerising sounds filling the interior of the hut. His melody differed from the vigorous rhythm intoned by the choir of warriors as well as from the lullaby hummed the previous night. It was even more appealing and captivating. Didier closed his eyes and let himself be engulfed by the magic chant, and soon began to feel as if he had entered a trance. Some primal instincts seemed to stir in him that until then had stayed buried somewhere deep inside.

Half an hour later the men got up and began to scatter, searching for a dark, secluded, comfortable place. Some of them sat on the ground, others crawled into a hammock or perched on a log of wood by a wall. ‘Vine of the soul’ started to work.

The shaman called and the spirits came.

Before their eyes, or rather inside their heads, appeared the first visions. The shaman continued his hypnotising chant pausing only for a moment when he poured himself another bowl of drink, and then swallowed it all in one gulp. Some embers were still glowing and a few pieces of wood burnt with a faint flame in two of the fires. But they did not give much light and so the hut was plunged in a deep gloom.

Another hour passed marked only by the bewitching melody.

Finally, the shaman stopped singing, but did not move from the place he occupied. He kept sitting stiffly erect, with his head bent somewhat forward, swaying slightly, again and again, with all his body. Occasionally a few of the men got up, went aside and vomited, and then returned to their seat.

Yet another hour went by.

Slowly Didier managed to snap out of the strange lethargic state that had engulfed him, freeing himself from the grip of the magical melody, but he did not think at all about falling asleep. He was wide awake. He was not sure how long the men would remain under the influence of the hypnotic drink. With terrifying clarity, he realised that this night might be his last one and that at dawn or during the next day they would sentence him to death. He did not know how they would execute him.

His survival instinct kicked in again and the adrenaline released by it gave him a boost.

He would not give up.

Was it all in vain that he had walked for so many days, struggling with every step, breaking through the jungle hell? Would he let them kill him now like a helpless trapped animal?

A sudden bout of feverish energy overcame him.

Perhaps now was his last chance to escape. He should use it. He must do something. The Indians, still immersed in a deep trance, would not be able to catch him. He did not know how much time was left until sunrise, but he felt he had to act straightaway. First of all he must get rid of the encumbering ties from his hands and legs. At night, when a jaguar was hunting he would not be able to get out of the hut. It was too dangerous. He would not dare to venture into the forest when the big cat was prowling it in search of prey and risk to become its next meal. All the dreary noises of the rainforest teeming with life he heard every night were enough to make him feel scared. He was forced to wait for the first light of day, when the king of the Amazon jungle and other deadly predators would go to sleep. Then he would feel safer.

Slowly and silently, he shuffled his body closer to the fire. Once within its reach, he manoeuvred his bound hands in and out of the embers trying to burn the ropes securing his wrists. It was not easy. Only after many clumsy attempts did he finally feel the bonds loosen and then fall off his hands. However, he did not manage to avoid some burning. Clenching his teeth he suppressed the almost irresistible urge to scream out.

‘Stay calm! Don’t mess it all up,’ he told himself inwardly. ‘Maybe you won’t get another chance.’

A bit of smoke rose from the scorched ropes and for a tense moment he was afraid of being detected. But the Indians, still plunged in a deep trance, completely engrossed in watching the images that appeared in their hallucinogenic visions, did not pay the slightest attention to anything around them.

Next Didier tried with his freshly freed hands to untie the ropes tightly wrapped around his ankles. It was so dark in the hut now that he could see nothing of the knots, and just groped at them. To his great frustration he felt he was only succeeding in making the bonds tighter. On a sudden impulse he called to mind the image of the shaman bent over a pile of vines and with rapid movements of the machete cutting the long plants into smaller pieces.

Where was the machete?

Didier moved awkwardly across the floor feeling assiduously with his hands. It was only when he reached the other side of the hearth that his fingers encountered a cool, smooth metal surface. He grasped the handle and put the machete’s sharp edge against the ropes that were tying his feet. He began to move it noiselessly back and forth imitating the movements of a saw. After about five minutes of hard work he sensed the first bonds about to give up. He manipulated the machete a bit longer until finally the ropes fell off his ankles and he could move his feet.

Tiptoeing, he headed towards a wall and sat there absolutely still. He knew that his life was at risk if the Indians awakened from the trance. He hoped that their state of hypnotic inebriation would continue, at least until dawn. On the other hand, what was there for him to lose? They would not let him go free, anyway. Who knew what the spirits encountered in their hypnotic visions would tell them, what cruel end was in store. It was surely better to die fighting.

Presently, all the bustling sounds of the jungle’s nightlife stopped. Everywhere reigned an uncanny, menacing silence laden with uncertainty as to what might happen next. Huddled in a shadowy corner, Didier sat waiting impatiently for the first rays of dawn. Fortunately, he did not have to wait too long.

Little by little shadows of the night gave way to half-light.

A new day was breaking.

Soon the pallid light of dawn began to seep into the room. In the dim twilight he could now distinguish the blurred silhouettes of the Indians beginning slightly to stir, shift tentatively, though stunned still by the magical, extraordinary world encountered in their visions, behaving as if they were returning from a distant journey. They were slowly recovering from the intoxication; the drug was wearing off. Gradually, their visions were fading. Some of them opened their eyes and looked around groggily, uncertain where they were.

Realising that he could not delay his escape any longer, Didier squeezed his body stealthily through a small opening he had managed to make in the wall of the hut. As soon as he was outside, he lifted himself rapidly from the ground, darted forward and judiciously swooped between the trees.

The rainforest was, as usual every morning, shrouded in fog as thick as milk. Without a moment’s thought he scanned the area, found the path they’d taken the day before, and headed that way. He decided to walk towards the river, hoping to find a boat moored on its bank. He had neither shoes nor shirt, just a pair of trousers. And a machete in his hand. At first it was hard to walk; his soft bare feet, unaccustomed to walking without shoes, were often pricked or mercilessly stabbed. But immune to pain and motivated by the desire to escape, Didier was undeterred.

He hurried on, walking briskly, sometimes even running. So far he’d heard no sound of pursuit. The air at this time of day was moist but pleasantly fresh. The higher the sun rose the brighter it became around him. Probably the jaguar was now asleep, so he might venture into the jungle thicket without fear of becoming its prey. But he had to hurry to get as far as possible before the Indians woke up and gave chase.

Didier picked up his stride. A few more paces further down the path an oval shape emerged from the semi-transparent mist, a hut surrounded by several palm trees towering high over it as well as some shorter banana and avocado trees. It was the hut in which Florent had been killed. So it meant that the river was not far away; it should be flowing somewhere around here at the bottom of the hill. Didier halted for a moment, strained his ears and looked around attentively. He breathed a sigh of relief. It had worked. He was free.

Unexpectedly his sharp ears picked up some faint noise, a gentle rustle of leaves and a muffled sound of cautious footsteps. Somebody was coming.

The thought had only just crossed his mind when he found himself standing face to face with a young Indian woman; it was the daughter of the shaman. Utterly startled he remained for a moment motionless, petrified in indecision and fear. Then he grabbed her tightly at the waist with his right hand – the one holding the machete - while with his left one he cupped her mouth to prevent her from screaming. The girl was astounded, her wide-open dark eyes staring at him intensely, piercing him through. When, however, Didier tightened his iron grip on her tensed body she woke up from the initial stupor and began to move and pull vigorously, trying to wriggle out of his tenacious grasp, the terror in her eyes turning to hate. Her naked, firm body, flexible as a snake’s, was very agile and strong; under the smooth skin he could feel her ropey muscles pulled tight like guitar strings, as if she was a wild animal ready to strike.