Tupahn--the Thunderstorm/Chapter 8

ROUCHING behind a tree, we waited.

We saw that the coming of the tribe was not an attack on us; saw that nobody bore weapons in a threatening manner, though all walked quietly and there was no shouting or laughter; saw that nobody, indeed, seemed to know we were there. And then we saw something else—that in the middle of a knot of armed men just behind the pajé traveled a thing that seemed not be be human.

Just what is was we could not tell at first, for we were lying low and could not see well. But its head rose more than a foot above those of the Indians, and it was the head of a great bat—a hideous bloodsucking vampire, bigger than a man. Its mouth was partly open, red as blood, with wicked teeth grinning like those of demon of the great pit, and its eyes bulged as if glaring around for prey. Yet the Tucunas around it showed no fear of the awful thing, marching on as coolly as if it were not there at all.

Wondering, ready for anything, but keeping silent, we watched the thing and its escort approach. But they did not meet us. Not more than ten feet away from us they passed into the forest, giving no glance in our direction. The whole troop went by and was gone.

“Did you see that thing?” Pedro whispered.

I nodded. When it passed close to us I had learned what it was.

“A big mask of bark-cloth and sticks and dye, worn on some one's shoulders,” I muttered. “What do you make of it?”

“This: No white face was among those passing by, and I believe the captive is inside that bat-mask. That sneaking priest is doing devil's work. Come.”

He crept away toward the place where the Indians had entered the forest.

There we found a path—a plain, wide path which we had not found before because we had turned short of it. Peering along it, we found it empty. The crowd had gone around a bend.

We did not enter the path. Instead, we worked along beside it, keeping always behind trees. Soon we heard a single voice talking—a growling voice which seemed to be making a short speech, but which did not speak loudly enough for us to make out the words. We knew the snarling tones to be those of the priest.

Suddenly Pedro, a few feet ahead of me, sank low. I dropped. A slight rustle sounded at our right, and through the leaves I glimpsed the Indians trooping back to their maloca. As silently as they had gone into the forest, they passed by us for the second time and were gone. And this time neither priest nor bat-head marched among them.

When the last Tucuna had disappeared we arose and advanced swiftly toward the place where we had heard that voice. Only two or three rods farther on we found another clearing and another house.

Both the open space and the hut in it were small; but the house was built in the same style as the maloca—square-cornered, and thickly thatched from ground to peak. In it we could see no door. Nothing else stood in the clearing, and nobody was in sight. To all appearances, the place was bare of life.

Yet we were sure that the pajé, at least, was in that house. Quietly we stole all around the little circle of trees, seeking the door. But we did not find it. The thatch walls seemed unbroken everywhere.

Whispering together, we decided on a ruse. We wanted to look into that hut without letting the priest know of it. But our only chance to do so was to find the door; for the place was so small that any attempt to cut into the walls, as we had intended to do at the maloca, would be heard inside. So we separated, each finding a position where he could watch one side and one end at the same time. Then Pedro gave the wail of an owl.

An owl wailing in broad day was queer enough to make even a wizard look around him; but my partner gave the call twice to make sure it was heard. A long minute passed before any response came. Then, at the corner nearest me, a black crack opened. Through it came the head of the medicine-man, squinting in the sunglare and peering around the open space.

He looked even more ugly than usual, and I suspected that he thought some youth from the maloca might be joking with him. But he did not come out to investigate. After standing there a couple of seconds he stepped back. The black opening narrowed and vanished.

Pedro, who had been watching the other side, came along to the edge of the bush until he could see me and signal to ask whether I had seen anything. I pointed to the corner and motioned him out. Quietly but quickly, we crossed the bare ground to the secret door.

As we walked we heard a voice inside the hut—a voice low but harsh, which we knew to be that of the wizard.

“You will do what I tell you,” it said. “You will obey, or you die.”

If any one answered, we did not hear the reply. And we did not wait at the door to hear what might happen next. I grasped a handful of wall-thatch and pulled sharply, expecting the door to swing out and let us stride in. Instead, the dry leaves made a loud rustle and stayed where they were. No door opened.

Again I yanked, harder than before. Again the wall crackled but stayed shut. Inside we heard quick movements, something that sounded like a struggle, and a grunt as if a man strained at a weight. We wasted no more time trying to pull out the door. Drawing our machetes, we hacked at the palm-leaves.

“Open!” Pedro growled in Tupi. “Open, dog, or we will chop you apart as we cut this wall!”

No answer came. The door stayed barred. Furiously we slashed at the thatch and its pole framework, gouging out chunks of it but making slower progress than we wished. Then Pedro stopped, nudged me and said:

“Stop, comrade! Why toil so? Let us burn the place instead. It will blaze up swiftly, and the dog will roast in his own hole. It will be more fun to hear him scream while the red flame blisters his thick hide.”

This time an answer came—a startled grunt from within. I promptly replied:

“So it will. He is so fat that he ought to sizzle well.”

Then, as if speaking to others, I added:

“Move back a little, men. Fire the walls, but keep the place surrounded so that he cannot break out anywhere.”

While I spoke Pedro lighted a small bunch of dry leaf which lay near the wall but did not touch it. The blaze crackled, smoke floated into the holes we had made—and again came a quick movement and a grunt inside. A bar slid with a slithering rasp. The door jumped open. Out popped the pajé.

Instantly Pedro kicked the tiny fire several feet away, where it would die out with no damage. In the same move he swung to the wizard, whom I already was facing. The narrow eyes of the priest now were wide open with fear, and sweat was rolling down his cheeks and chest. Yet in one glance he saw how he had been tricked, and the fear in his face changed to a scowl of rage.

“So you do not fancy being toasted?” mocked Pedro. “Then back into your hole and keep quiet. If you should yell this machete might slip.”

The point of his machete was against the bare stomach of the other. After one look at my comrade's hard face the evil-eyed Indian backed. Almost walking on his retreating toes, we followed him into the dimly lighted interior. There we looked for the prisoner.

At one side, within reach of my arm, the horrible bat-head leered at me. It stood as motionless as if nothing alive were inside it. I grabbed the thing by the nose and gave it a sharp twitch. It fell over and lay leaning against the wall. Glancing down, I found that in truth no living thing was in it. It had been resting on a tall, narrow clay jar, nearly as high as a man.

Around us stood other jars, of queer shapes and different sizes. But, except us three men, no living thing stood among them. The captive whom we had expected to find was nowhere in sight.

The pajé, looking poisonous but saying nothing, stood as still as the jars, with my partner's knife still leveled at his abdomen. I stared straight at him, then searched the place more carefully with my eyes. As before, I saw nothing but the clay vessels.

“Where is the prisoner?” I demanded. “Answer quickly!”

“The prisoner of Andirah is in the maloca of Andirah,” he replied sulkily.

“You are a liar,” Pedro flashed. “Where is the one who wore that bat-mask to this evil den of yours?”

“He has returned to the maloca.”

“No more lies!” my partner warned. His knife hand moved a little. The pajé stepped back sharply, his skin pricked by the point of the blade.

“Who wore that mask here?” Pedro went on.

“A man of the tribe of the Bat.”

We gave him hard stares. He stared back without a flicker of the eyes.

“A man of Andirah?” I repeated. “He wore that here and then returned with his mates?”

“So I have said.”

“Then who was with you here after the men of the Bat left?”

“No man.”

“Have care, priest! We heard you threaten one with death.”

At that his eyes swerved aside. But at once they came back.

“I, pajé of Andirah, spoke to the spirit within that clay beyond you.”

His glance went back to the same place where he had looked before. There stood another of those big jars—an odd-looking thing, shaped like half an egg, with the pointed end up. It was perhaps three feet high, and its broad circular base covered a space nearly four feet wide. From its peak jutted a wicker plug several inches across.

“One of your mystery tricks, wizard?” I started to sneer, when it seemed that a slight sound came from that jar.

Stepping over to it, I pried out the woven stopper and was about to peer down inside, when something told me not to put my face too close. For a long minute I stood watching the hole. Then something moved.

Smoothly, silently, a pointed snout rose through the opening. Eyes followed. The whole head hung there, slowly swaying—the head of hideous death; the flat, vicious head of a huge surucucu, or bushmaster.

As I stepped back from the deadly thing a hard chuckle sounded. The voice of the pajé jeered—

“You have called forth the Spirit, bold hunter—now put it back again.”

With that he whistled softly through his teeth. At once the head slid out farther. The snake was coming out of its home.

Probably the wizard expected to see us turn and dash madly out and away from the thing. If he did, he failed to realize that we were hardened bushmen. I put that spirit of his back into the jar, but not as he would have had it.

SWUNG my machete. The head flew off the creature. Its body jerked back into the jar, where it thrashed about with a muffled, sickening sound. Jabbing the point of my bush-knife into the severed head, I rammed it into the hole and shook it off. Then I ran the point into the ground several times to clean it of poison.

“So that is the thing you threatened with death if it did not obey you?” I asked.

A snarl was my only answer. The lower teeth of the priest gleamed as if he wanted to bite me. Perhaps he did.

Once more I scanned the place. The walls, I now noticed, were hung with things such as might be expected in the hut of a medicine-man—snake-skins, bones, spiders, many dried bats, and several skulls—animal and human. Nowhere in those walls, except where we had entered, was any sign of a door. None of the clay vessels was big enough to hold a man, unless it was built around him after death. Yet I went poking around among the jars and tested the walls before I would admit that no prisoner was in the place. Then I had to give it up.

“Pedro, perhaps you can find something,” I said. “Look.”

As he stepped away I took his place, guarding the wizard with drawn machete and giving him no chance to try any trick, human or devilish. And my partner, still unwilling to admit defeat, searched all about the one room of the house. He even probed and smelt at the other jars, finding diabolical messes and sickening stenches, but nothing alive—not even another snake.

When he too gave it up we both stood eying the pajé. The Indian's mouth still hung in a heavy sneer. Yet in his eyes was a look that puzzled me—a look of relief and triumph together.

“You know now that the pajé of the people of the Bat speaks truth,” he grunted. “If you seek the prisoner look in the maloca. Then go your way and trouble us no more.'

Pedro looked hard at him. Then he coolly answered:

“I will look in the maloca. Lourenço, hold him here until I return. Watch him every instant.”

The sudden scowl on the face of the pajé told us that this was not what he wanted. His idea perhaps was that we both would go, leaving him free to sneak around us and get us killed. Pedro laughed shortly and, before I could object, was gone.

For a long time—or so it seemed—I held that medicine-man exactly where he was. he tried several times to move, but when he found it useless he shut his jaws and stood motionless, glowering at me. Meanwhile I listened, dreading to hear some sudden outbreak that would show Pedro was caught. But none came.

At last the soft wail of the owl sounded outside, and soon Pedro came in again.

“Pajé, I have said you are a liar,” he rasped. “I say it again. No prisoner is in that maloca. I have looked inside and watched the people of the Bat long enough to know.”

The pajé answered never a word. His sullen stare did not waver.

“Now the day ends,” Pedro added, “and we must go.”

A grim light passed over the other's face. I read his thought—that now he could put men on our trail. But my comrade's next words brought to his forehead the blackest scowl I had yet seen there.

“Yes, we go. And since your spirit of the jar yonder is dead, we fear you may be lonely. So we shall not leave you alone. We take you with us.

“Lying priest, say farewell to the people of Andirah. Turn. Go out. Face to the east. Now march!”