Black Rain

Two hours of tracking and hiking brought them to an area where Danielle noticed a slight smell of smoke. As they continued, the leaves around them began to appear white, carrying a thin layer of fine ash, like dust on the furniture in an empty house.

And then the natives were there.

She grabbed McCarter and stopped him. There were two darkly ta

One of them shouted something, which Devers did not translate, though perhaps he didn’t need to—it was spoken so violently it had to be a threat or a curse. Several others appeared from the forest and in a moment they were surrounded by a dozen Chollokwan men.

It was now or never. “Talk to them, Devers,” she said. “Tell them we come in peace.”

Devers took a deep breath and then managed a few words. But there was no reaction from the natives. Beside her McCarter began to lower his rifle in a gesture of benevolence.

Hawker shook his head.

“Not yet,” Danielle said. “They’ll rush us.”

Devers tried again, explaining that the people from the NRI only wanted to help the Chollokwan, not to fight with them. That they were waiting for the rains to return just as the Chollokwan were, and to help the rains along, they’d brought the crystals that had been taken from the Chollokwan so long ago. They would return them in exchange for help.

Initially, the Chollokwan said nothing, staring blankly at the foreigners as if confused. Finally, the one who’d shouted began to speak. His words had an acerbic tone, and Danielle felt quite sure that the offer was being declined.

Finally Devers translated. “His name is Putock,” Devers said. “He insists that he is not afraid of us, or of Western men. He says he has killed many before.”

“That’s comforting,” Danielle said.

“He says this question is not for him to answer and that—”

Putock interrupted Devers with another shout, and then he and the other Chollokwan turned back into the forest.

“He says the others will decide.”

“What others?” Danielle asked.

“The elders,” Devers explained. “The council.”

She looked at Hawker and then at McCarter. This was what they wanted. They moved off, heading deeper into Chollokwan territory.

CHAPTER 45

Professor McCarter had been caught off guard by the native’s sudden disappearance into the bush. He rushed to catch up, reaching the others just as they arrived at the outskirts of the native encampment.

The village itself sat beside the long curve of a broad stream, one wide enough to part the jungle and let the sun shine down over its waters. McCarter guessed the location to be a deliberate one. Not only did it put the Chollokwan in close proximity to a source of freshwater and fish, but it protected them from attack on two-thirds of their perimeter. The remaining section was guarded by sentries, groups of them on the forest floor and others perched in the trees. Seeing this, McCarter began to wonder if the Chollokwan had indeed stood guard on the ramparts at the Wall of Skulls.

Between the sentries burned a long line of small fires, fifty or more spaced evenly in a long, curving arc that stretched to the water’s edge on both sides of the village, a barrier on the land, forming the front line of defense.

The fires burned hot and filled the air with white smoke and the fine ash that they’d seen on the leaves some distance away. Stacks of wood lay behind them, which the younger members of the tribe were continuously adding to.

The Chollokwan sentries acknowledged Putock as he approached and then sprang to their feet at the sight of the Westerners. Putock waved them back, said a few words and then the group of foreigners passed by, walking between the fires and into the village.

McCarter strained to take it all in. The land itself was almost bare, stripped of anything that could be used as fuel for the fires. Only the larger trees remained. It was more of a camp than a village, the only structures being rickety shelters of animal skins and bundled wood. But then, the Chollokwan were nomads and when the time came, they would tear the place down and disappear, carrying their shelters away with them. McCarter wondered how long they would stay. Until the rains came, he guessed, or until the first wave of rains passed.

As they followed Putock, they passed additional blazes. Around these fires lay the wounded and the dying, and around those victims gathered loved ones who mourned them.

A pair of distraught women hovered over a recent, bloodied arrival, wailing in anguish at the sight. Other men with similar gashes were tended by more stoic guardians—mothers, sisters and wives long since cried out.

All of the victims had been slashed and torn open, skin and muscle cut cleanly to the bone, or torn away in great chunks. Smaller wounds had been cauterized with the scalding heat of stone tools from the fires, while larger injuries were covered with dressings of mud and leaves. McCarter counted twenty badly wounded men and a dozen more that must be dead already. He wondered how many hadn’t come home from their sorties, how many had been taken by the Zipacna and hung in distant trees.

Beside one of the dying, a woman and an older child sobbed. Not far from them, a three-year-old played. Too young to understand, the little boy danced around, chirping like a small bird, throwing a stone at the fire. It reminded McCarter of his wife’s funeral and their grandchild dressed for church, who just wanted to run and laugh. As he thought about the universality of life and death, it grieved him to consider the pain his group had helped cause.

Putock led them past the wounded and brought the foreigners to the largest blaze yet, a huge bonfire near the center of the village, beside which sat a mountainous pile of wood.

The envoys from the NRI stood beside it, enduring waves of heat and murmurs and stares from the Chollokwan crowd. As the number of onlookers grew, they pressed closer together, and McCarter soon felt claustrophobic, encircled by a human wall.

After several minutes a stir went through the crowd, and the Chollokwan bystanders parted. The council of elders had arrived, as promised.

The council numbered five, but of primary importance was the leader, a tiny man, slight of build to begin with and shrunken further with his great age. He moved with a grace born of caution and a frame twisted and bent like an ancient tree. Scaly, mottled skin covered his hands and face, and his eyes lay half-hidden behind folds of wrinkled flesh. He was called the Ualon, the Old One: the Great Father and leader of the tribe. The Chollokwan honored this frail man above all others. His decision would bind them.

Before he would talk, the Old One inspected his guests. He stepped close to them, touching their faces in spots and some of their hands, judging them against a lifetime’s priceless knowledge.

He looked at the bandage around Danielle’s leg, touched the wound on McCarter’s shoulder, the bloody gash etched on Hawker’s cheek. “Warriors,” he said in the Chollokwan language.

The Old One and his fellow council members took a position across from them. Both groups sat down and the crowd closed ranks around them.

A cracking whisper came from the ancient man’s throat, his words forming slowly in the strangely labored Chollokwan tongue.

Devers translated. “He says that the seers have foretold the arrival of the ‘West Men’ and that there would be a struggle between the ancient and the new. He says his father told him this when he was a boy, and now it has come to pass.”

Devers had used the term “West Men,” but McCarter suspected it was one of his own invention, as there was likely no English translation for the Chollokwan word that described outsiders. He was patently aware that to the Chollokwan the NRI team had in fact come from the East, from Manaus, downriver.