Chương 4: B1 Chapter 3

Two animal trails met beside the river. One followed the bank, while the other descended from the jungle toward a shallow place where the current slowed. Everything came here eventually. Capybara entered the water at dusk. Peccaries crossed during the heat of the day. Tapirs left tracks deep enough to fill with water, and caimans sometimes dragged themselves onto the mud to warm beneath the sun. The trap had caught birds, iguanas, agouti, and creatures clever enough to escape before I arrived.

Once, it had caught a young capybara so heavy that I'd needed two hunters to carry it home. Makua had claimed the snare caught it only because the animal was stupid. He'd still eaten two helpings. The river trap was always a mystery. That morning, I heard the answer before I reached it. Something struck the water with enough force to send birds fleeing from the trees. The sound came again, followed by the slap of a heavy body against mud and the strained creak of cord. I extinguished my torch against the wet earth.

Darkness closed around me, and I remained still until my eyes adjusted. The river showed itself first as a faint break between the trees. Then I saw the disturbed bank, the bent sapling, and a pair of red eyes shining low above the mud. A caiman. Its rear leg was caught within the loop. The cord had pulled the limb backward and dragged the animal away from the water, leaving deep trenches where its claws fought for purchase. Each time it lunged toward the river, the sapling bent and hauled it back.

The caiman was young, although it had grown longer than I was tall from the top of my head to the end of my good foot. Its body was thick through the shoulders, and armoured scales covered its back. Mud coated its sides. One foreleg had torn open the bank until roots hung exposed around it. The tree held. The cord might not. I could have left it there and returned with the hunters. By then, the caiman might have escaped, taking my strongest snare with it.

It might also have reached the river and drowned once the cord wrapped around a root beneath the water. Either way, the meat would be lost. I'd never killed a caiman alone. That didn't mean I'd come unprepared. Predators followed trapped animals. Any fool who set snares without preparing for that eventually became the bait. I carried a second length of braided cord around my waist for exactly this reason, already tied into a loop wide enough to pass over a caiman's jaws. The animal lunged again.

I watched how far it reached. Its front claws dug into the bank. Its body slid forward. The trapped leg straightened behind it, and the cord pulled tight a short distance before its jaws reached a pale root protruding from the mud. The caiman bit the root and tore free a piece as thick as my wrist. I marked the place where its snout had reached. Then I waited. It fought the snare until the riverbank became a ruin. Its tail struck mud, roots, and water with enough force to bruise flesh through bone.

Every lunge ended in the same place. Every retreat turned its head toward the water. It knew the river offered safety, and all its strength remained fixed upon reaching it. The caiman never looked behind itself. That was where I needed to be. I removed the sling from my shoulders and hung the three animals from a branch. My knife stayed at my waist. I tightened the spare cord around one hand and took my staff in the other. Love what you're reading?

Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. The caiman lunged. I moved. My weak leg dragged as I crossed the mud, forcing my body lower than I wanted. The caiman heard the scrape and began turning. Its head swung toward me as I reached the edge of its tail. Too soon. The tail struck my staff and snapped the wood from my hand. I stumbled sideways, planted my stronger foot, and threw myself forward before the caiman could complete the turn. My chest hit its back.

Armoured ridges tore against my skin through my tunic. I locked both arms around its body as the caiman twisted beneath me. Its tail hammered my hip, and the world lurched. Mud filled my mouth. One knee slid from its side, leaving most of my weight hanging from my arms. I held on. The caiman rolled. The motion dragged me beneath it, crushing my shoulder into the mud before carrying me over its back. I came down on the other side with my fingers still locked around the cord. Pain burned through my ribs.

The caiman twisted again, trying to bring its jaws around. I climbed with my arms, pulling myself forward over the ridges of its back until my weight settled behind its shoulders. My legs gave me little help. I hooked them against its sides anyway and squeezed with whatever strength they possessed. The head swung left. I followed it. The jaws opened, and I dropped the loop over the snout before they closed again. The cord caught behind the eyes.

I yanked it backward, dragging the loop down until it tightened around both jaws. The caiman thrashed beneath me. Its mouth opened a finger's width before the cord stopped it. The closing muscles were powerful enough to crush bone. The muscles that opened the jaws couldn't overcome the braided fibres. I wrapped the cord around my forearm and pulled. The animal surged toward the water, carrying me with it. Mud slid beneath my knees.

The trapped rear leg reached the end of the snare, and the bent sapling snapped upright, jerking both of us backward. The caiman's head rose. I seized its bound jaws with both hands. This was the moment I'd prepared for. Everything before it had been approach, patience, and survival. Now the animal lay beneath me with its body stretched between two cords and its head trapped within my grasp. I pulled upward. The caiman's neck resisted.

Muscles bunched beneath the scales, and its whole body bucked hard enough to lift me from its back. I fell forward, struck my chin against its skull, and tasted blood. I pulled again. My arms trembled. My shoulders burned. The caiman drove its claws into the mud and twisted, but the snare kept its rear leg extended while my weight pinned its shoulders. I tightened my grip around the jaws and leaned backward. My legs failed beneath me, which only dropped more of my weight behind the animal. I used it.

Every day spent hauling myself upright entered that pull. Every tree root I'd climbed, every fall I'd caught with my hands, and every journey where my arms had carried what my legs could not became part of it. The caiman's head rose farther. Its neck reached the limit of its movement. I continued pulling. Something gave beneath me. The sound was quieter than I expected, almost lost beneath the frogs and insects. The caiman convulsed once, its tail cutting a deep groove through the mud. Then its body sagged.

I kept pulling. The tail struck the bank again, weaker this time. One claw opened and closed against the earth. Reptiles could move after death. My father had taught me that long years ago that a vipers head was still deadly even when not attached. I held the caiman until my arms began to cramp. Only then did I release its jaws and reach for my knife. I pressed the point carefully behind the skull, ready to finish what I'd begun if the eyes followed me or the body answered my touch. Nothing happened.

I sat back in the mud. My hands shook too badly to untie the cord. Blood ran from my chin. One side of my body throbbed where the tail had struck me, and my shoulder protested whenever I tried to lift my arm. The sky beyond the canopy had begun to pale. I looked toward the three animals hanging from the branch, then back at the fat iguana waiting farther along the trail. Finally, I studied the caiman stretched beneath me. Six traps. Five catches. Enough meat to feed far more people than I could carry home alone.

I began to laugh. My laughter died in my throat almost as soon as it had arrived. The entire world bloomed into a rain of purple and blue fire. Light poured through the canopy in burning streams while branches cracked, leaves shook, and ancient trunks groaned as though the jungle itself had shifted upon its roots. The world opened, and words poured into existence beside me. I knew what they were. I turned my face away before I could read them.

Those words belonged to prophets and the anointed, those chosen by the gods to receive their will. I carried no blessing that permitted me to look upon them. The words of the gods were never meant for someone like me. That was what I believed, and because of that belief, I did not look. I look upon those words now, and I see what I was alongside what I have become. I did not understand what had been placed before me.

Within that unquestioning belief, I drew upon strengths I did not know I possessed, yet would need to become the man standing before you now. I truly did not see the path ahead of me. Had I looked down and understood how impossible it was, I might never have taken the first step. Instead, I looked forward. I moved. I never questioned the gods because, to me, they were the truth. They were the one and only truth I possessed. Without that belief, I would never have become the man I am today.