This was not supposed to happen. The author’s rumble in the Amazon jungle ends badly. Part 2 of the Bait story.
To my left there was a sudden loud brush in the brush. Instinctively I turned my head to see what was happening. As I was doing this I heard some twigs snap to my right, and as I looked in that direction, more twigs snapped, again to my left. I turned back to my right, figuring that whatever had made that first sound was closer. I also remembered from my hide-and-seek games with my friends that the first sound could have been fake, a distraction caused by a thrown rock or a pulled-back branch released by a trigger of some kind. If it was a distraction, then moving in that direction was the way out.
That was a lot to figure out on the spot, now the wet spot where I had just peed on myself. But at least pee blended with my undies, close to the color of my skin, the color no one would notice.
As I started to move left two naked men lunged out of the jungle. Then behind me I heard other men do the same. I looked straight ahead, expecting the worst.
To my knowledge, I was the first white boy to see the Ayoré. All four of them were short, a few inches shorter than my father, who stood at five feet eight. Taut, welterweights, like the ones on my father’s boxing chart in his office. Some with a spear, like a javelin, only heavier. Some with bows and long arrows. It was understood they could hit a tapir at a distance of thirty-five feet. From where I stood, no distance was safe.
As I checked to see if the sloth had not moved, the four natives had advanced in unison and used their spears to form a corral around me. The one in front of me, quicker than I could have imagined, lifted his spear just above his shoulder and threw it hard into the ground inches from my feet. A warning.
The spear was taller than me. No one said a word.
The spear-thrower then walked over to me and grabbed the front of my tighty-whities and pulled them straight out and looked down to see if I was what they thought I was, only White. He had probably never seen a circumcised penis before, so mine looked different, but basically the same. He let go of the undies: They snapped back, startling everyone. A small flock of ani birds, like black cuckoos, made their usual loud warning croak and fluttered off.
At the same time all four Indians backed up a few steps, and like a military drill team I had seen in the village with the Army groups, shifted the position of the spears so that all four spears were pointing at me, chest high.
They just stood there. They said nothing as though silence was their language. But something was changing.
At that moment, I felt I had nothing to lose by turning my head to see if my father was there or anywhere. What was he waiting for? The gambit had worked and I was still alive, not captured yet. What were his next moves? He had noise-sticks, the local tribes’ name rifles, long guns. When was he going to use them? What would they do? Where was the lamb?
I then heard the whistle, my father’s one-hand, two-finger whistle. He used his index finger and thumb to spread his mouth like he did when he inserted his denture. It made a distinctive FWEET sound, not a jungle sound. Short. Brief. Once. But I had forgotten what the one whistle meant.
The whistle turned out not to be a good idea. The Ayoré got to live as long as they did because they knew their sounds and this one didn’t sound right.
The feathered foursome, as I think of them now, started to fidget. The one with the most paint stripes was pawing at the dirt with his calloused bare foot, signaling the others on their next move. There was no way my father had seen that and no way he would have known what it meant.
Then it happened, like the sight and sound of a bolt of lightning on a hot summer night. Abruptly there was a very large commotion in the jungle just in front of me and I was shoved in the back by the shaft of spears. I stumbled forward and fell, my arms sprawling to protect me. I thought the best thing to do was just lie there and forget the sudden pain on my stomach and the burn on my knees, the scratches on my arm, the dirt on my face, the hurt on my head, and a few tears I didn’t feel until they had rolled down my mouth. I was surprised I didn’t yell or scream.
Dirt in my eyes blurred everything. The jungle seemed ten times bigger from the ground, out of proportion, more threatening. The rumble in the jungle was accompanied by an eruption of scurrying monkeys, the flutter of feathers, grunts, human hooping, hollering, the sounds of machetes on underbrush, and the appearance of the most frightening creature I had ever seen.
It was a man of some sort, a giant wild man. I might be exaggerating here, but he was big, very big. Maybe it was because as a kid I was looking up at him — up close. I know I was not mistaken about his head — it looked part jaguar, part toucan, part vulture. He had a wide strip of jaguar hide wrapped around his forehead, a headband. Lots of feathers. A ruff of vulture tail feathers spiked his hair.
I decided that whatever happened next, I would be better off standing or on my knees. At least, I must have wildly imagined, I could then make a break for it.
Before I got halfway up, another shove came, this one feeling like a swift karate kick in the back. I went flying, crashing to the ground, fast and hard.
That’s all I remember.
Part 3 of Bait to be posted Tuesday, February 21, 2023
