Jan of the Jungle (6 page)

The big Negro, who was wise in the ways of wild things, observed her actions and followed her. He found her in a small patch of wild pineapples, devouring one of the fragrant fruits. Selecting a ripe one for himself, he drew his machete and hacking off the leaves and horny rind, ate it with gusto. As he was about to prepare another he thought of Jan and called him. There was no reply.

"Jan!" he shouted again, with all the power of his huge lungs. But not so much as an echo answered him. Chicma, evidently understanding what was wrong, threw back her head and called to Jan in her barking chimpanzee language.

The big Negro bad been raised in the jungles of his native Haiti, and, it did not take him long after returning to the beach to pick up Jan's trail. Chicma was beside him when he discovered the signs of Jan's struggle, and she bristled up with a snarl.

They followed the trail until nightfall, when darkness made further tracking impossible. Then Borno crept beneath the buttressed roots of a huge ceiba tree, and lay down to snatch such sleep as biting insects would allow. The chimpanzee crept in and curled up near him.

In the morning Borno divided his pineapple with Chicma, and they took the trail. Soon they came upon the deserted camp site of the hunters. Toward noon they found a clump of wild bananas and both ate their fill of the fruit. Then Borno shouldered half of a good-sized bunch to take along.

Thus they traveled day by day, Haitian man and African ape, both actuated by the same desire-to rescue the son of a North American millionaire from the savages of a South American jungle.

Near the end of the fifth day, when the man and ape had eaten their evening meal of Brazil nuts, and night had fallen, the hollow booming of a kettledrum came to their ears across the jungle.

Chicma paid no attention to the sound, but when Borno suddenly got up and stole away in the direction of the noise, she followed. The big Negro pushed his way through the jungle as rapidly as possible. Soon he could hear the whoops and yells of the dancers, and the slapping of their bare feet on the packed ground. Then he smelled smoke, saw the flicker of firelight, and emerged into the circular clearing.

Just ahead of him was the huge circle of the community hut. Beside it was the tall stump to which the prisoners were tied, around which the dancers whirled, their faces contorted and hideous in the firelight.

Borno circled and entered the clearing behind the big hut, in order to creep near the fire unobserved. Chicma followed him silently, but when he reached the rear of the malocca she sprang up onto its thatched roof.

Paying no attention to Chicma, as he did not count on her for much assistance, Borno gripped his heavy cudgel tightly in both hands and dashed around the hut. He had heard the crackle of burning wood which told him' that the death pyre was lighted.

With a blood-curdling yell and a swift rain of bone-crushing blows, he leaped among the dancers felling several and scattering the others right and left. At the same instant Chicma, who had poised herself on the thatched roof just above the door, was dropped inside the hut by the breaking of the-roof supports.

The frightened Indians fled in all directions. A few of them started to go into the malocca for their weapons. But when they were met at the door by Chicma-a terrifying hairy apparition wearing a jaguar skin, and frothing with rage-they fled weaponless, fully convinced that the evil demons of the jungle had joined forces against them.

Borno, meanwhile, kicked the burning wood away from the post, and with a few deft slashes of his machete released both prisoners.

As soon as he was free, the captive Indian rushed into the big hut, emerging with a large bundle of weapons and a big basket of smoked meat. Then he threw several flaming faggots onto the dry thatch, which immediately blazed up, lighting the entire clearing.

"Vamos!" he said, with a significant gesture and started away, the basket slung from his brawny shoulders and the weapons carried under one arm.

Borno understood the Spanish word for "Let's go!" and calling to Jan and Chicma, hurried after the tall Indian.

Jan, who had seen the wonderful efficiency of the machete paused for a moment to secure one of the coveted weapons from the belt of a fallen savage whose skull had been crushed by the big Negro's cudgel-then followed, with Chicma ambling behind him on hind feet and fore-knuckles.

The Indian, with remarkable precision, struck a narrow, trail at the edge of the clearing. This led them in a short time to a small stream, on the bank of which a number of dugout canoes rested side by side. Into one of these he dropped his basket of smoked meat and-bundle of weapons. Then he pushed the other boats, one by one, into the water, permitting them to drift away downstream, while Borno assisted.

When the last empty canoe was drifting downstream, the one which contained the food and weapons was launched, with Jan and Chicma riding in the middle. Borno wielded a paddle in front and the Indian in the rear.

Propelled by the silent strokes of the two powerful men, the canoe shot rapidly downstream, passing, one by one, the empty craft which had already been launched.

Huddled against Chicma, Jan was still suffering much from the burns inflicted by his captors, but he did not whimper nor cry out. Silent and wide-eyed, he drank in the brilliant spectacle of the star-strewn sky reflected by the gently rippling water, and strove to penetrate the mystery of the shadowy banks, from which came many mysterious and terrifying sounds-the night noises of the jungle which he had not learned to interpret.

Steered by the deft paddle of the Indian, the canoe soon emerged into a much broader stream. Here the steersman kept the craft in the middle as if he feared some danger from either shore.

Lulled by the rhythmic strokes of the paddles, Jan fell into a deep slumber and did not awaken until the hot rays of the morning sun struck him full in the face. The canoe was still traveling in the center of the broad river, the two men paddling with unremitting vigor.

The Indian presently steered the canoe toward the left bank. They were almost beneath the overhanging branches and vines before Jan saw that he was making for a narrow inlet, barely wide enough to admit the canoe. A moment more, and they were in the deep shadows beneath the densely matted roof of the jungle. The steersman deftly swung the prow of the boat inshore, and Borno, springing out, dragged it high on the muddy bank while two frightened turtles and a small alligator splashed into the water and disappeared.

Opening the lid of the basket, the Indian took out several strips of smoked meat. Then he picked up his bundle of weapons and stepped ashore. Depositing the weapons on the ground, he handed a strip of meat to each of his companions and to Chicma. Then he sat down to munch slowly the strip he had kept for himself.

Jan bit into his and found it tough and of a disagreeable flavor. It was tapir meat, hastily cured, and not only had a smoky taste but was rancid. Observing, however, that the Indian devoured his with gusto and that Borno tore off huge mouthfuls with his large white teeth and chewed them with great relish, Jan resolved to eat his whether he liked it or not. But Chicma merely sniffed at hers, then tossed it aside and waddled off into the jungle to look for something more to her liking.

As soon as the Indian had eaten, and drunk from the stream, he promptly stretched out on the ground and went to sleep. Borno followed his example. But Jan, who had slumbered all night in the boat was neither tired nor sleepy. He wandered along the bank of the small stream for a little way, disturbing a number of frogs and turtles, whose splashing leaps into the water interested him, and hacking off shrubs and water plants' with his newly acquired machete. This was freedom! This was life, and he gloried in it.

Presently there came a summons from Chicma-the food call. She had found something good to eat, and was calling her foster child to come and share it with her. Interested, but in no great hurry to comply, Jan wandered off in the general direction of the sound, lopping off lianas, branches and bits of bark from tree trunks with his new weapon. It was a fascinating thing, and he wished to become skilled in its use.

Despite his lingering gait, Jan soon arrived within sight of Chicma, who had found a clump of wild orange trees and was hungrily devouring the fruit. But he saw something else which brought a low growl from his throat and caused every hair on his body to stiffen. For, stretched out on a thick limb, his spotted sides barely rising and falling with his suppressed breathing, and the tip of his tail twitching nervously, was Fierce One, the jaguar, apparently about to spring down on the unwary Chicma, who seemed to have no intimation of his presence.

With a snarl and a cry of warning which Chicma understood, and which sent her instantly scuttling into a nearby tree, Jan bounded forward.

Surprised and annoyed at this interruption of its hunting, the jaguar turned and with a roar of rage leaped for the youth. The beast was lightning quick, but Jan, who had been trained all his life by a jungle creature, was just a shade quicker. With a slash of his machete at the hurtling beast, he flung himself to one side, just out of reach of the raking claws.

The jaguar was swift at recovery, but no swifter than Jan, for as it whirled for a second spring, he was on his feet, his keen machete ready for a second cut. In a fleeting instant he saw the result of his previous haphazard slash at his enemy--a paw half severed and dangling uselessly.

Then what had previously been but chance and an instinctive movement of self-protection became a fixed purpose. As the angry brute made its second leap, Jan slashed the other front paw and nimbly eluded the snarling bundle of feline fury. The second blow completely crippled the jaguar's other front paw.

Badly disabled and half disarmed though it was, the fierce beast turned again and attempted a leap. But it was a clumsy effort, and Jan found it easy to step to one side and bring his keen weapon down on the back of the jaguar's neck, severing the vertebrae. With the tenacity of life shown by all members of the cat family, the doomed beast thrashed about for some time, then lay still.

Jan stood back, watching the death struggles of his enemy with some curiosity, alert for a trick. But when the furry form lay quiet, he cautiously advanced and spurned it with his foot. There was no response. He seized a hind leg and turned the great beast over. What made it so limp and helpless? This was the first thing Jan had ever killed, and he did not fully understand it.

Perhaps Fierce One was sleeping, and would presently awaken to attack him. Well, let him come. Jan had overcome the awful alligator, the yellow-bearded man, and now Fierce One. With his tousled red head flung proudly back, he strutted over into the clump of orange trees in search of Chicma.

The old chimpanzee was not there, but by calling to her Jan finally got a reply, far off in the jungle. Chicma would, not come to him, but kept calling him to come with her-that Fierce One would surely eat him. Jan only laughed, but he complied, eventually locating the ape at the top of a tall tree.

"Come down, Chicma," he cried. "Fierce One will not hurt you. He is sleeping."

"It is a trick. He is only waiting to spring upon us," replied Chicma. "We must go farther away from him." Then she caught hold of a huge liana and swung out on it into another tree. By means of the vines and closely matted branches, she made rapid progress which only an ape can make, traveling always in a direction away from the orange grove.

Although he could have followed her with ease among the branches and vines, Jan preferred to walk on the ground. He was filled with pride and the sense of power.

After they got away from the river bank the undergrowth became less matted, so walking was comparatively easy. Jan wanted to show these jungle creatures that he was afraid of none of them.

All day they traveled through the jungle, Chicma fearfully keeping to the trees while Jan stubbornly remained on the ground. He thoroughly enjoyed the bright-colored butterflies that flapped through the shafts of sunlight, and the gayly plumed, raucous-voiced parrots and macaws.

There was a great flock of monkeys, too, who fled to the topmost branches, chattering vociferously. Jan, who had learned to know and imitate their simian language since infancy, chattered back at them, assuring them of his friendship. But they did not trust him. He looked too much like a man and smelled too much like a jaguar, for the scent of the great cat's blood was still on his machete and body. The jaguar skin, too, from which his single garment was fashioned, was a danger signal to jungle dwellers.

Jan regaled himself with the cloying sweetness and fragile beauty of the orchids which grew in great profusion and his heart missed a beat when a huge tapir-much bigger than the jaguar he had killed-came crashing through the jungle in front of 'him.

It was not until the patches of sunlight no longer penetrated the forest roof and it began to grow dark that Jan thought of Borno and the Indian, sleeping on the muddy bank of the little stream.

He had grown fond of his big black friend, and did not want to desert him. Nor did he want to leave Chicma, who was leading him farther and farther away from the only human being who had unselfishly befriended him.

He stopped and shouted to the chimpanzee to wait. But the cry had scarcely left his lips when something flashed through the forest shadows striking his left side, and spinning him half around with the force of its impact.

Jan clutched at the long shaft, wet with his own blood, and broke it off, gritting his teeth that he might silently bear the pain. Then he reached behind him for that part which had gone through his flesh, and jerked it out. But the pain and loss of blood were too great. A giddiness assailed him, and he sank limply to the ground.

With a whoop of triumph, and machete flashing in his hand ready to deliver the death-blow, a savage came bounding out of the shadows.

SITTING on a limb fully fifty feet above Jan's head, Chicma heard his call and noticed with bewilderment his actions when the arrow struck him. But when she heard the whoop of the savage, and saw him rushing toward Jan with upraised knife, her mother instinct came to the fore. With a snarl of rage, she swung down from the limb on which she had been sitting, and timed her drop with such precision that she landed on the Indian before he could reach his intended victim.