At Play in the Fields of the Lord (26 page)

O
NE
evening in this period the young warriors who had served that day as scouts returned from the mission with the new machetes and packets of salt put out on the gift racks.
The village split immediately into hostile groups.
One of these, led by Aeore and composed largely of those who would not share in the booty, ranted furiously that the white man had come to stay, that he had come as an enemy—had he not brought in Green Indians with their guns?—and that he must be driven out or killed; this group then broke into factions of its own, disputing ownership of the four guns that would be captured in the victory.

A second group was led by Tukanu, who had acquired one of the machetes, and who—though he had never seen a gun actually fired—asserted forcefully that the Green Indians could kill ten Niaruna with each shot, and that any survivors would be deaf as stones.
This estimate of the power of guns had been passed down to Tukanu from those forebears who had participated in the great massacre at the rubber camp, long, long ago.

The two groups faced each other in the center of the clearing.
The men were stiff as stalking dogs, exchanging insults in a vibrant whining singsong and fingering their weapons; much of the abuse was ritualized, one side looking past the other as it spoke, while the recipients of the abuse politely awaited their turn.
Then a remark was made which caused both sides to shout at once; Aeore called out that one of Tukanu’s allies had long wished to kill Aeore himself.
Since Aeore had ambitions as a shaman, he was simply making a discreet threat on the accused’s life.
The threat, with its overtone of sorcery, frightened all the men on both sides, and Boronai, seeing the village on the point of self-destruction, commanded the scouts to return all presents to the racks by sunrise, in the exact position they had found them.
The scouts agreed to this more readily than Moon expected, though not before a last sulky exchange which nearly upset the compromise.
But once it was seen that nobody would get the presents and that the band would revert to its usual custom of sharing food, feather headdresses, canoes and, under certain circumstances,
dogs and wives—everything, in fact, according to the need, except for bows and cooking pots—the hostility vanished quickly, and by the next day all was as gay and amicable as before.
After this episode, nevertheless, the factions led by Aeore and Tukanu remained intact.

So far, Moon had forestalled Aeore’s demand that Boronai attack and kill the missionaries.
Guzmán must not be given his excuse to wipe out the Niaruna.
He tried to persuade Aeore that if the Niaruna took no notice of the mission, the white men would soon go away; if they did not, the mission gardens could be destroyed and the white men threatened.
But Aeore insisted that the white men wished to make slaves of the Niaruna, as the Niaruna once made slaves of the filthy Tiro; that the white men were teaching evil—
emita
—to Kori’s band, and would do as much for them.
Moon tried to understand the latter point, which had something to do with Kisu; but when pressed for an explanation, Aeore only spoke more angrily and incoherently.
Boronai and Tukanu, as well, were extremely uneasy on this subject, and refused to talk to him at all.

The scouts continued to watch the mission, and the day came toward the end of the rainy season when the Hubens and the Green Indians went away downriver, leaving the Quarriers alone.
Meanwhile, Tukanu had been seized once more with love for his Taweeda.
He wished to abduct her from the mission, and would have done so had not Taweeda herself refused to go along.
Taweeda had now become addicted to beads and bandages, and could not understand why Tukanu did not present himself to the missionaries and avail himself of the same supply.
At a loss, Tukanu decided to comply.
As the band suffered from a shortage of adult women, and since Tukanu seemed convinced that Taweeda would come away with him sooner or later and perhaps bring her husband with her, Boronai gave the love-struck man his blessing.

Aeore, having first denounced Tukanu, then proclaimed that he too would go along, to make certain that the Farter spoke the truth.
Moon persuaded Boronai to go with Aeore, lest Aeore provoke some lethal incident.
The headman agreed to this on the
condition that he be accompanied by his young wife Pindi, who had come originally from Kori’s band in exchange for the captive nuns, and wished to see her people.
For a moment it seemed that the entire group, which a few days before had shouted fiercely for the slaughter of the Quarriers, now meant to go there and befriend them; Moon only suppressed a mass evacuation with the greatest difficulty.

As she left, Moon studied Pindi’s gait, knees close together and feet out to the side, hips shifting prettily, despite her noticeable pregnancy; he was not consoled by Tukanu’s last-minute offer of an old woman to tide him over during Pindi’s absence.

In the days that followed, Aeore and Boronai stayed at the mission; they could not persuade the stubborn Tukanu to come back home with them.
Not that any of the three were happy there; unlike Pindi, who was much amused by mission life, the three men were soon dispirited by evidence of their own inferiority.
The white man, it seemed to them, had everything, and the Niaruna nothing.
This idea was encouraged by the people of Kori, with their beads and mirrors and machetes, their bright blue shorts and their familiarity with the white man’s ways; Kori did not waste an opportunity to treat Boronai and his men like savages.
For psalm-singing, translating, and doing women’s work, which the three refused to do, these cowards were well paid in gifts, and the discrepancy increased.

Tukanu told Moon later that for his part, he would have sung psalms willingly for a knife, but that Kori had told Quarrier that Boronai’s men were dangerous and lazy, and Boronai himself, offended that no deference had been shown him, had forbidden Tukanu to save his soul, much less wear blue shorts.
Boronai remained at the mission only because Tukanu’s woman would not leave with them; he feared the loss of one of his best men.
Taweeda had a bright red dress to wear, and had been promised giant beads when she found Kisu; she had found Kisu instantly, experiencing a miracle right on the spot, but Quarrier was not generous like the other white man.
He had not accepted her conversion, and she would not leave the mission without her beads.

Quarrier’s woman had learned all about Tukanu and had told Taweeda that she was bad, bad, bad, but as Taweeda’s husband knew all about Tukanu also, and accepted his lot with the serenity of the wise coward, Taweeda did not understand what all the trouble was about.
On the other hand, she needed giant beads more than she needed Tukanu, and as Tukanu himself thought this logical and fair, he was content to wait.

With his companions gone, Moon quickly became restless; even the fishing and hunting began to bore him as he became expert, and like the Niaruna, took his expertness for granted.
He began to think again, and the more he thought, the more an ambition hardened.
What had not occurred to him in the beginning was how he might help the Niaruna; nor had it occurred to him soon after his arrival in the forest, so intent had he been upon survival.
But now he saw that he could help protect these rivers from the white man; with any sort of leadership, the Indians could rule their wilderness indefinitely.

Aeore’s ambition was an alliance with his own People to the East.
Why not?
Boronai said that before the rubber slavers had scattered them, the Niaruna and the Yuri Maha had been a single people, and that the clans had banded together to destroy the rubber camp in the year that he was born; why wouldn’t they do it in a new emergency?
From the Niaruna world, the jungle spread eastward, all but unbroken, for two thousand miles—a new Indian nation, the greatest of all time, greater even than the Iroquois!

When the resolve burst upon him, filling him with energy, he was lying in the midday dust of the maloca doorway, his head nestled on the Ugly One’s old yellow dog.
Excited, he jumped to his feet, sat down, jumped up again.
In his impatience, he got the revolver out and cleaned it.
He had not looked at the gun in months, and after rubbing it bright, he turned it in the sun and marveled at it; the gun was the one piece of metal in the village.

T
HE
R
ÍO
E
SPÍRITU
,
ON WHICH THE MISSION STATION WAS LOCATED
, was a small tributary of a river system which flowed northward, draining the Andes, before turning east into the Amazon; the upper Espíritu was separated by a few miles of high ground from a nameless stream which, flowing directly eastward, joined the system of the river Purus.
Both systems carried swiftly in the rainy season to the Amazon, but they traveled through different countries, losing themselves in ever greater rivers which in turn lost themselves, at points a thousand miles apart, in the great Río Mar.

Months had passed, and a second coming of the rains, and Billy Quarrier’s world of birds and light, glades, rivers and bright-feathered arrows had again shrunk to a dungeon of rain-beaten huts, cut off by dark high dripping walls and a mud river.
For some days the boy had lain in bed, limp from malarial delirium; quinine had not helped him, and Hazel had refused to give him a potion brought in a wooden bowl by the Niaruna.
Because of bad
weather it had not been possible to fly him out from Remate de Males.

Then one morning came a forecast of clear weather.
As he spoke on the radio beside the cot, Quarrier watched a dark stain spread slowly on Billy’s sheet.
He had just arranged with Far Tribes Headquarters for a pontoon plane which would meet them the next day at Remate, but now he removed his earphones.
He could not speak.
He stared at the sheet, then drew it back and lifted the child out of the cot and stood him on the floor before his pot.
Billy was half asleep and weak and had to be supported; his skin felt hot and damp, and for the first time since his birth Quarrier was conscious of the odor of his breath.

“Billy, honey,” he said, “you were wetting your bed.”

“Oh,” the child said, opening his eyes, “I didn’t mean to, Pa.”

“No.
What I mean is, I want you to do a little more, into the pot.
Can you do it?”

“Yes.”
But the child began to urinate with his arms and hands limp at his sides, and Quarrier reached down and took the small thing between his fingers, turning it toward the pot.
The sensation was vaguely disagreeable.
This strange tiny scrap of flesh was part of his own son, and his own son, by the next morning, would be dead.

For the urine was dark and discolored; in the pot it looked vile black.

From the doorway Hazel said, “Is it all right then?
Are they going to meet us?”

“Billy has wet his bed.”

At his tone, she darted forward.
“For goodness’ sake, what do you expect?
Poor baby!”
Worried and irritable, Hazel forsook the Indian child whose infection she had been bandaging; expressionless, the little girl watched the bandage unravel and drop onto the mud earth of the shed.
After a time the child rose and came over and looked at the dark stain on the sheet, then at Quarrier and then at Hazel; she ran out of the hut.

Hazel stood there, gazing at the stain.
In an odd voice, the
more grotesque in this large woman who had never used baby talk in all her life, she said, “Now Billy-Willums, you’re much too big a boy to wet your bed.”
She crashed down on her knees and grabbed the child’s body in her arms.
The act stirred him awake, and his arm rose slowly and wrapped itself around her neck.
Over her shoulder his eyes widened, then focused vaguely on his father.

“Papa,” he said.
“Pa, I’m thirsty.”

Hazel’s face came around, glaring fiercely at Quarrier.
“You see?
The Lord has heard our prayers!
He’s better!
We’ll take him out of this dreadful place—is it all arranged?
The Lord willing, we’ll take him out this very day.
Now get him water, do you hear me?
Get him water!”

At Quarrier’s elbow the receiver said,
“Niaruna Station, Niaruna Station.
I repeat—is anything the matter?
Over.”
A
moment later it said,
“We assume your transmitter is out of order, Martin.
Les Huben called in this morning and is on his way to you—look for him on your way downriver.
The aircraft will come to Remate de Males tomorrow at 1700 as arranged.
If you do not make contact, we will try to get help in to you.
The Lord’s will be done.
Amen.
Over and out.”

Quarrier put on the earphones and took up the mouthpiece.
“This is Niaruna Station.
Do you read me?
Over.”

“Come back, Martin.
What happened to you, fella?
Over.”

“Billy Quarrier has blackwater fever,” Quarrier said.
“We will stay here.
We are not coming out.
In the name of the Lord.
Amen.
Over and out.”
Once again he removed the earphones.
He got down on his knees and put his arms around Hazel and his son.
Like his wife, he was dry-eyed.
“Our Father which art in heaven,”
he began,
“Hallowed be thy name …”

She wrenched away with a little grunt of pain.
“You’re insane,” she said.
Billy, hearing her tone, opened his eyes again.
She laid him back on the bed, then lumbered to her feet and hurried toward the door.
When Martin caught her in the yard, she struggled with him.
“I’m going to fetch water,” she said.
“You’re insane.
Have you ever seen blackwater fever?
No!
It’s just malaria,
no more, no less, a bad case of malaria!”
Hazel’s face was stern and brisk, but her voice was rising to a scream.
Out of green and brown walls at a little distance the Indians materialized.
“I told you this was no place for a child!
I told you, Martin, as the Lord is my witness!”
And there sprang from her throat a terrible sound, quite unlike anything he had ever heard, and she sat clumsily and hard on the mud ground, as if struck backward.
He hauled her to her feet again and tried to take her in his arms, but she broke free and pitched away toward the river bank.
She was crying now, little shuddering cries of pain.
“We are leaving this den of Satan!”
she screeched at him over her shoulder.
“Get them on the radio, do you hear!
Do you hear me, Mr.
Quarrier?”

He went back into the hut.

“… lost contact temporarily with Niaruna Station … blackwater fever … repeat, all stations, all stations … pray much for the salvation of Billy Quarrier who, though only nine years in this life on earth, is a fine ambassador of God among the savage Niaruna … for Martin and Hazel Quarrier, that the good Lord may assist them in this time of need … now Praise the Lord …”

Into the mouthpiece Quarrier said, “Now Praise the Lord.”
He turned off the machine, then went outside and switched off the small generator.
Billy’s friend Mutu slipped past him into the hut, and when Quarrier returned, was crouched by the bed talking rapidly to Billy.
The sick boy’s face was staring through the mist of fever, and his hand was clenched on his friend’s wrist.
When Quarrier tried to lead the Indian boy away, Billy cried out weakly, “No!”
And Mutu, his face urgent and frightened, repeated a question several times, tugging each time at the sheet.
Quarrier did not understand the question, but it was clear that Billy did; his son had long since spoken the language better than himself, and this awareness reminded him that sometime before morning came again this child before him whose name was Billy Quarrier—Billy Quarrier, he thought, Billy Quarrier; what did such words
mean
—and who had not lived long enough to commit a sin, would die.
When he realized that Billy was watching him,
he turned away and wiped the tears from his cheeks with both hands.

“Billy, what is he asking you?”
he mumbled.
Good Lord, I am talking to him, and he is going to die!

“He wants me to name my enemy,” the boy said in a strange voice.

Going to die, going to die, going to die … “You have no enemy,” Quarrier said.
“My Lord!”
He turned around.
The Indian boy was speaking rapidly again, in the thick breathless speech of the Niaruna.

“He says the tribe will kill my enemy,” Billy said.
When his father took his face between his hands and kissed his forehead, the child began to cry, but while he cried he kept on talking peacefully.
“He says that Boronai will find out who my enemy is, because if I die it means I have an enemy.”
He yawned through his tears and closed his eyes, smiling forgetfully, then opened them, afraid.

To the Indian boy Quarrier said, “He has no enemy.
He is very sick.
He was made sick by the mosquito.
His only enemy is the mosquito.
Tell Boronai that no one must be killed.”
The child stared at him, not understanding, then turned to Billy once again and repeated the question.
Billy told him slowly what his father had already said, but his voice was vague, as if he did not understand it either.
To his father he said, “The Indians say I am going to die, but here I am, alive.”

“Yes,” Quarrier said.
He forced himself to meet the boy’s gaze.
Before he could stop her, Hazel came in and took Mutu by the ear and hauled him toward the door of the hut; the boy cringed from her and ran.

“Pa!”
Billy yawned again, eyes closed.
“It’s kinda scary,” he murmured.
“Am I really going to die?
I mean,
really?
” He began to cry again.

Quarrier took him in his arms.
Turning to face Hazel, he said, “Yes, honey.
You are going to die.”

The water in her cup slopped onto the floor.
“Curse you,” her mouth said silently.
She stopped crying; later it occurred to
him that she never cried again.
“May the Lord curse you.”
To Billy she said aloud, “Of course not, honey.
Of course not.
Papa is only fooling.
Why, you’ll be up and around in no time, and this afternoon we’re going down the river, and you’ll have a nice ride on the airplane, you—”

While Hazel spoke she made tentative movements toward Billy, but her husband, sitting on the cot edge with his son in his arms, made no gesture of relinquishment.
They watched each other.

“Did you arrange about the plane?”

“We’re going to stay here.
Our work is here, and this is Billy’s home.”

She whirled and went outside, where she awaited him.

“You’re a devil!”
she said.
“A devil!
How dare you!”
Her voice rose.
“All your life you’ve been a stupid, stubborn man, and all your life you have been wrong.”
Her voice rose.
“We won’t talk now about the cruel and sinful thing you told that child.
But how dare you claim to know this is blackwater fever—or even if it is, that he is dying!”

“Even the Indians know, Hazel.
Please don’t do this.”

“
How
do they know?”
She took him by the shirt and shook him.
“The chances are they’ve never seen blackwater fever in their lives!”

“They may not know blackwater fever.
They know when somebody is dying.”

“
How?
I asked you, how?
You’ll drive me mad!”