At Play in the Fields of the Lord (37 page)

Boronai spoke sadly, in simplicity.
It was this enviable simplicity which in those bright green early days he had thought within his grasp that Moon felt himself on the point of losing.
Even the sense of the universe he had glimpsed under
ayahuasca
had slipped away from him; was that because he had not really earned it?
He was sick to death of thinking, of
words
.
One knew the jungle best when one no longer struggled, when one flowed with its rains and wind, breathed with its creatures, drank from its rivers out of green-leaf cups, took shelter from it in the common warmth of the night fires.

The headman was silent again.
Moon watched a huge blue butterfly bounce across the sunlit clearing; it lit on a passion flower at the jungle wall, then closed its wings and disappeared.

The spirit in the white man was evil, and his teachings were evil, but these white men had not yet done the Niaruna harm.
Therefore, like the bushmaster and fer-de-lance, the great anaconda of the backwaters and deep swamps, the missionaries must be approached politely.
They must be told that there was no home for them in Niaruna land, that they must return to their kingdom to the West, that if they did not do so their house here would be destroyed, that the Niaruna were a brave people and would kill them with their arrows.

Boronai raised his hand.
To his people he said, “Aeore will lead you, and Aeore will speak for you.”

There was a murmur of approval.
Aeore gazed at Tukanu to see if he would make objection.
Tukanu was silent.

Moon agreed that the missionaries must be driven out; this first step would activate the federation.
The headmen of the Yuri Maha were coming to the village frequently and were clamoring for massacre; nevertheless, with his reverence for protocol, Aeore would obey Boronai’s last command.
After that, the missionaries would be in danger, for the new headman had lost all awe of Moon and scarcely listened to him.

That night Boronai’s wives lay with other men.
Even the Ugly One was taken by a virgin boy.
When Aeore left for the
mission the next day, Boronai did not ask to come, and was not asked.
He lay in silence in his hammock, his eyes closed, expressionless, while the women barged past him and chattered loudly across his body, as if he were invisible.
With his heavy somber dignity, his lined heavy face, his heavy stillness, he reminded Moon of the monolithic old men of his boyhood.

Moon accompanied the twelve warriors who arrived at the mission a short while after daybreak, when the river mist still strayed in whorls among the stumps and skeletons of the felled trees.
When one of the white men came into the yard, they stepped out of the jungle in a file.
They were in full paint and feathers, and each held a long black chonta bow and long cane arrows.
Aeore took his place at the end of the line, where the Niaruna leader always stood, with open space on his right hand, his arrow hand.

Leslie Huben had a white face towel across his shoulders and both hands full of toilet articles.
He stared at the savages, at Aeore’s blackened body, and made obscure small sounds; he spread his hands and dropped his things to show that he was unarmed.
Then he said in English, very loudly, “Praise the Lord!”

At the edge of the forest, the Indians remained motionless; they muttered excitedly about Leslie’s pretty toothpaste tube.
Huben called out again, over his shoulder, “Praise the Lord!”
and came toward the Niaruna, his arms wide.
He wore a flesh-colored bathing suit with rust spots on it, and a two-day beard.

“Niaruna!
Welcome to the House of Kisu!”

The Indians glanced at Moon and grunted, all but Tukanu, who sniggered without smiling, and Aeore, who raised his bow in a careless way, as if he were stretching, and drove an arrow into the ground a few yards in front of Huben.

The missionary halted.
“Niaruna!
We are your friends!
We have presents for you!
We will eat with you!”
He held out his arms imploringly, still smiling, and Moon shifted in discomfort.
He recognized Huben’s courage at the same time that he despised him.

Now Quarrier appeared, and behind Quarrier came Andy Huben.

“
S-ss-tchuh!
There he is,” the Indians murmured fearfully.
“The Hairy One.”
Tukanu, who had seen Quarrier’s naked chest, had told them that this missionary was the white man’s
guhu’mi
, that he taught evil, that his penis was so gigantic that he wore those long cloths on his legs to hide it, that his glasses, which served as mirrors, enabled him to gaze for hours into his own head.

Andy came forward firmly and took her husband’s arm.
“Welcome, friends,” she said.
She looked them all straight in the face until she came to Moon; she started, but did not avert her gaze.
And because she was not ashamed, he suddenly felt foolish in his nakedness.

Quarrier’s face was set and angry.
He had halted beside Huben, glaring at the arrow.
Then he searched the faces.
“Welcome, Aeore,” he said.
“Tukanu, you are welcome here.”
He smiled briefly at the Indians he did not know.
“We are happy you have come,” he said.
While saying this, he stared straight at Moon; then he moved forward, past Aeore’s arrow.
A second arrow thumped into the earth, so close to his shoes that dirt flecked at his khakis; when he moved past it as well, all the bows came up.

“Martin!”
Huben said.

Moon murmured to the Indians that they must not harm him.
Quarrier, who had halted, came forward once more until he was opposite Moon.
To the Indians he said, “Where is my friend Boronai?
Tell him he is welcome here.
Tell him we have planted a new garden.”

Aeore raised his arm and pointed at the river.
His voice mounted angrily as he spoke.
With his finger, in eight sweeping arcs, he traced the sun’s course across the sky.
When the moon was old again, he shouted, the white man must be gone.

“I wish to speak to my friend Boronai,” Quarrier said.

“This is what Boronai has said!”
Aeore banged himself upon the chest with the heel of his hand.
“This is what Aeore has said!”
He stalked away into the forest, and the others followed.

Moon was at the end of the file, and as he turned to go, the missionary said softly, “Moon.”
He was not looking at Moon, but
at Leslie Huben, who had rushed to the jungle wall and was pleading loudly with the invisible savages in Jesus’ name.
Quarrier said quietly, “You are a madman.
This is your doing, isn’t it?”

“Paleface speak with fork-ed tongue,” Moon said, and grinned.
He was surprised that Quarrier had recognized him; he felt naked and absurd.
And the sound of his own name pronounced aloud had startled him; with the use of it, a spell had been rudely broken.

In his realization that Moon’s presence had made the whole episode a farce, the blood rushed into Quarrier’s face, and his big hands rose in fists.
“Curse you!”
he grated.
“May the Lord curse you!”
He grasped Moon roughly by the upper arm.
“This is your doing, isn’t it?
Now answer me!
And you made them destroy our garden!”

“This is
your
doing, Quarrier.”
Moon pried the man’s fingers from his arm.
Over Quarrier’s shoulder he saw Andy gazing at her husband, apprehensive; Leslie was still exhorting the vanishing Niaruna at the top of his lungs.
“Does she know, too?”
Moon said.

“You are a monster!”
Quarrier exclaimed.
“Just look at yourself!
A painted demon!
How can you stand before her in your nakedness—” He stopped short.
“How dare you?”
he muttered.
“How did you dare?”

Moon said, “You people better get out of here.”
He started away again, but now Leslie Huben was coming at him, the terrible smile still fixed upon his face.
“Welcome!
You are—we are your friends in Christ!
Eat!
Eat!
Kin-wee?
Kin-wee?”
Huben made eating motions.
“Kin-wee?
Kin-wee?”
In English he cried, “Help me, Martin!”

“You’ve undone all my work,” Quarrier muttered.
He held Moon by the shoulders and was shaking him rhythmically.
He spoke dully, thickly, surprising Moon by the strength in his grip.
“All that hard work,” he said, “which cost me my son and now my wife.”

“Martin, you know better than to touch an Indian!”
Huben snapped.
“And you’re speaking in English!”
When Quarrier let
go, Huben whirled once more on Moon.
“Kin-wee?
Kin-wee?
Niaruna
mori
Quarrier,
mori
Huben,
mori
Kisu?
Eat?
Presents?
Kin-wee?
”

“Leslie!
Stop it!”

Andy held a handkerchief to her face, and as she came close Moon could see that she was feverish.
Her skin was soft and flushed, and her eyes blurred, and she was not steady on her feet; nevertheless, she was looking him straight in the face.

“Andy, keep away!
Go back to bed!”
Huben exclaimed.
“Do you want to give them flu?”

Moon said, “So you’re sure it’s flu?”
Quarrier nodded.

“Eat?
Kin-wee?
Presents?”

“Leslie, don’t!
It’s Lewis Moon.”

A cricket whistled.
Turning his back on them, Moon went off into the forest.

O
N THE EVENING OF HER ENCOUNTER AT THE RIVER
, A
NDY HAD
spoken to Quarrier in the same flat voice: “I think it was Lewis Moon.”

Quarrier had jumped to his feet.
“Why, that’s impossible,” he said.
He picked up a stone and hurled it at a silk-cotton tree; insanely, it bounced straight back at him, making him skip clumsily out of the way.
“No!
Why, even Moon wouldn’t run around naked like that, barefoot.”
He trembled with outrage.
“And anyway, Moon is dead!”

And now Andy said, “It’s Lewis Moon,” in that same odd noncommittal voice.
And Moon went off into the trees without a word, before Huben could react.

“How?… What do you … How?
In the name of Christ—” Huben’s passion, when it came, astonished Quarrier—“how could you let me make a fool of myself, talking to Satan in Jesus’ name … How
could
you?”
And to Andy: “You were looking at his nakedness, and you knew he was a white man!”
He whirled
around again, but Moon was gone, and this set him howling at the looming faceless wall of the still jungle.
“How dare you!
How dare you stand there and flaunt your filthy sinful nakedness in front of Christian women!”
He rushed at the forest in a frenzy, became entangled in the vines and fell.
“Moon!”
he screeched.
“You’re leading these people to damnation!
You will suffer, Lewis Moon!
The torments of the damned!”

“Hee, hee!
You hear that, Moon?”
Hazel, laughing in the doorway, shook her fist at the jungle wall, then collapsed backward to a clatter of fallen pots.

At Quarrier’s glance, Andy said, “No, I didn’t tell him.”
She went to her husband, who scrambled to his feet; he shook her so violently that when he released her suddenly, she crumpled to the ground.

“How could you!”
he gasped.
“How could you look—” He stared at both of them in hatred, then turned his stricken face at the mute forest.
“We’ve lost them,” he muttered.
“We’ve …”

“Leslie—”

“We’ve
lost
them!
Don’t you understand that, Quarrier, you stupid oaf!”

Andy said, “Why is a white man’s nakedness too filthy and sinful to look upon, when a red man’s nakedness is not?”
She was still seated on the ground.

“Go back to your bed!”
Huben shouted.
“It’s the intent!
His intent was sinful, it was mocking, he made fools of us!”

“Make a fool of us, will you!”
Hazel shrilled.
“Take
that!
” She smote the open air with her prized fly swatter.
“And that!
And that!”

“It’s more serious than that,” Quarrier said.
“He’s leading the tribe against us.”

“He wouldn’t let them kill us!”
Huben sneered.
He glanced uneasily at his wife but did not help her to her feet, as if this would acknowledge that he had laid violent hands upon her.
He was beside himself; in another moment, Quarrier thought, he is going to weep or wring his hands.
“But … a devil like that!”
Huben burst out again.
“I’m not going to take any chances, I’ll notify Guzmán!
Wait till he hears about this outlaw threatening
us!
Why, he’ll have soldiers here so fast—” He broke off and trotted toward the radio shed.

“Leslie, listen, you can’t do that!”

But Huben only raved and choked and raved again.
He insisted that the Lord’s work would never be done among the Niaruna as long as Satan had his demon there corrupting them.
Quarrier shouted angrily that neither could the Lord’s work be done if the Niaruna were all dead.

“Better dead than to live in sin!”
cried Huben, livid.
The words hung in the air between them.

There, thought Quarrier, it’s out.

Huben was fiddling feverishly with the radio set, his muddy toothbrush stuck behind his ear.
Startled himself by what he had said, he added quickly, “What’s the alternative?
Do we run away with our tails between our legs?
You ought to know Leslie Huben better than that!”

As Huben’s voice railed at the transmitter, Quarrier turned away and went back into the yard.
“How do you feel?”
he said to Andy, helping her up.

“I don’t feel,” Andy smiled.
“I’m not feeling these days.”

“So you didn’t tell Leslie about the business at the river?”

Andy glanced at him as if his question were insane; she did not answer.
Instead she said, “You weren’t very happy about his nakedness either, Martin.
You were accusing, too.
And Leslie has more cause to be upset than you have.”
She eyed him carefully.
“After all, he is my husband.”
His face reddened; he was shocked by a new hardness in her, he felt betrayed by her hostility.
“I talked to you because I thought you were a man,” she said.
“Leslie is a boy.”

Because her bathrobe was drawn tight, he stared at the firm shifting of her hips as she walked back to the hut; he despaired of his peeping, but he no longer struggled to control himself.
Since knowing that Moon had seen her naked—oh Lord,
touched
her—he himself could scarcely think of her any other way.
His spiritual love had been ousted unceremoniously by a lust so brutal that he despised himself, despised his thick red body and its thick red needs; he thought with envy of the self-flagellation
said to be practiced by the Opposition.
He could taste Andy Huben, he could smell her—her mere proximity made him twitch.
He was enslaved by the pretty body in boy’s blue jeans, knew every crease and swelling of it when it moved or bent.
Once, squeezing past her at the stove, he had scarcely restrained his fingertips from brushing across her hips.
Hastening off, hand tingling, he was grateful to the Lord for the strength that had restrained him; yet he did not dare to glance back, for fear that the radiation of his hateful lust had given him away.
The whole situation was ludicrous, but every time he tried to laugh he would weep and tear his hair.

H
UBEN’S
message was transmitted to Guzmán, and the next morning word came back: El Comandante would be delayed for a few days, but would arrive on the Espíritu with a punitive expedition before the moon was new.

Leslie was chastened by Guzmán’s phrase, but he could not bring himself to consult with Quarrier about what to do.
On the third day he radioed Madre de Dios that the mission could handle the situation and that no expedition would be necessary.
This decision restored to him his brisk bearing and the bold crooked smile of the buccaneer.
“We’re going to
fight
Moon, mister!”
he declared.
“We’re going to win this big one for the Lord!”
And he laughed a two-note laugh of triumph, big and booming—“Huh-
ho
, boy!”—and shook his handsome head; this challenge was just his meat.

Leslie’s idea was that they would take the women out to Remate and come back with four more soldiers.
Even Moon, he said, would not be so cold-blooded as to risk his Niaruna against firearms.
But the next day Guzmán’s answer, mentioning both the savage raid on Remate de Males and the bloodthirsty murder of the Tiro family on the river, advised them that El Comandante could no longer sit idle while his people were being slaughtered by savages under the influence of international adventurers; the expedition would arrive in a few days.

At night they listened to the insects, the moths and lantern
flies and locusts which clacked and fluttered at the light.
The insects nagged at Quarrier’s nerves—what drove them to seek the light like that, what made them flail themselves to death in pointless struggle and bewilderment and pain?
One kind of locust made hideous small sounds when its wings burned, then fell to earth and crawled in circles around the lantern.

Quarrier was desperate to warn Moon of what was coming, but there had been no sign of Indians since their last appearance, and he had no idea how to reach their village.
The atmosphere at the mission—even Hazel was aware of the hopelessness of their alternatives—was silent and hostile, with discord seeping in all directions.
Hazel was the only one who spoke at all, offering dark little fragments from the bitter tumult of her mind.

“The Ambassadors of the Lord,” she snorted.
Or, “
He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it
.
Matthew 10:39.”
Or, “We are enjoying the profits of a business deal we entered into with the Lord.
We have thrilled to see our new brown friends grow so rapidly in Jesus …”

“Please, Hazel,” Quarrier said.
“You must help us pray for guidance.”

“Let not your heart be troubled!”
Hazel shouted.
She added quietly and sadly,
“Neither let it be afraid.”

“That’s it, Hazel,” Leslie said.
“Let us speak the Holy Scriptures with respect.”

“John 14:27,” Hazel said.
“Please pass the Ajax Flavor-Sealed Canned Tuna that He hath sent us in His wisdom and His mercy.”

O
N
the third day they heard a motor on the river; Guzmán’s invasion had begun.
Toward noon a flatboat came, with eight armed men; they did not put their carbines down until they collided with the bank, and they held the flatboat hard aground by running their pandemoniacal old motor full speed ahead, the thick mud churning.

All eight shouted tempestuously above the smoke and din.
“Hah,
evangélicos!
Where are the
salvajes?
We saw no sign!”

They were not soldiers but rivermen, delivering the shipment of barbed wire.
They were barefoot and mustachioed, lean grinning brigands; they shared a mangy wild-eyed boldness, like a dog pack, and a furtive wild-eyed fear, not only of the savages but of these
protestantes
.
Fortified by cane alcohol and by the news of the Tiro massacre, they were anxious to shoot Niaruna and take women.

“Hah,
evangélicos!
You do not have the women here?
Where are the women?
Let us speak with them!
See!
We have presents!”
The halfbreeds held up beads and liquor, like pilgrims bearing alms.

But when they saw that there would be no sport, they jeered and cursed among themselves, pricking their hands as they dumped their cargo on the bank.
One, grinning, held up his twin bleeding palms:
“Estigma!”
Departing, they shouted innocent obscenities to console one another, and fired their carbines at the descending sky.

T
HAT
afternoon, unable to sit still, Quarrier took one of the boats upriver; it relieved him so to break out of their dungeon that at first he felt unafraid.
But the small river soon became a creek, dark and tangled where the jungle swarmed across it; the outboard went aground on shoals of mud.
Sure suddenly that he was being watched, he crouched there in a bursting silence, half blinded by his sweat, then fought the boat into the clear and fled downriver.
The next day he set out on foot, seeking the Niaruna trail; a few yards past the gift rack, where the remnants of the dead snake oozed and stank, all signs of man gave out entirely.
He pushed farther, unwilling to go back and at the same time wondering what he would do if he actually found a trail.