Off the Mangrove Coast (Ss) (2000) (14 page)

Raj edged closer, he seemed jumpy, his fingers toyed with the hilt of his parang.

"You were right, boss." He whispered, although we were a good half mile away. "This is the long house of Tuan Jeru."

I was surprised by his use of the term "Tuan," which indicates respect, and by his nervous whisper. I had seen Raj stand calmly by and thrust the same parang he was now nervously tapping deep into the side of a boar that attacked one of our workmen on a construction job. He had then pivoted like a matador and finished the enormous animal off when it turned to attack him instead. He had been barely fifteen at the time.

"Are you afraid of going in there? Tell me why?" I wasn't feeling too good about it myself but I figured I better know as much as possible.

Raj's chin came up and the dying light in the sky glinted in his eyes. "I am not afraid of any man!" he stated flatly. "But it is said that Tuan Jeru is a bali saleng, a black ghost, that he has killed many mans and taken their blood to bless the buildings of the English and Dutch and now for the oil companies."

"Do you believe that?" I demanded. "You've worked with me on many buildings. Have you ever seen a foreigner take the time to make a sacrifice of blood or anything else?" "No..."

I wasn't sure that this was really the right argument to use and I actually had a fair amount of respect for the beliefs of Raj and his people, but if he went in there scared, witch doctor or not, Jeru would take advantage of the situation.

"How many do you think are down there?" "If the stories are true, twenty mans, maybe ten worn-ans, maybe more."

"What else do the stories say?" I asked. "The mans of Tuan Jeru are sakit bati; they are killers and rapists from the oil camps and towns on the coast. No village would have them. They are collectors of blood and they take heads to make magic."

"Do you want to stay here, guard our backs?" I gave him a chance to get out with honor.

"I will go with you, boss," the boy said. , "Good. Now, what do you think is going on down there?" "I think they have big arak party. Everyone get very drunk. They have all new trade goods, shotgun shell, fancy rifle. I think we wait."

"What about the Lacklans? Will they be all right?" Raj paused, he wanted to tell me what he thought I wanted to hear but he knew I would press him for the truth. "I don't know, boss," he said. "I think maybe they cut off man's head. The woman, I don't know ... These people, they not Iban, not Kayan, not Kelabit," he named off the three major tribal groups, "they something different now ... outlaws, you know. I bet they get drunk like Iban though, you'll see."

I hoped so, because outlaws or not I was betting that just like a normal village they had plenty of dogs and roosters. The typical long house celebration in Sarawak was a roaring drunk and I hoped that was what they were building up to because otherwise we weren't going to get in there without raising an alarm.

I wanted to be ready when the moment came, so we moved in closer, carefully waded through the rushing waters of the stream, and circled away downwind of the skeletal silhouette of the long house We settled down just inside the secondary tree line and waited to see what would happen. The noise from inside was getting louder and I was sure that Raj had been right about them working themselves up to an all-night drunk. I just wasn't sure what was going to happen to John and Helen ... or when.

They might be dead already and I couldn't wait much longer without trying to find out. I decided to split the difference; wait another hour but if I heard a commotion I'd go in with the rifle and hope for the best. If there were twenty men in the long house at least five would have the cheap single-shot shotguns that were common in the backcountry of Borneo. Someone in there had possession of Lacklan's deer rifle and certainly there would be a full complement of spears, blowpipes, and machetes. My only hope was to get in and get as many of them covered as possible before anyone thought to grab a weapon. It wasn't much of a plan; get in fast, get out fast, and put my confidence in the local arak's potency.

Now, in my experience, arak has the punch of the best (or worst, depending on your expectations) moonshine. It seemed to have the chemical properties of torpedo fuel or the infamous "Indian whiskey" that was made in the old days in Oklahoma. One shot would make you stagger, a couple more would make you stupid. Imbibing further could leave one blind or even dead. Waiting for a level of intoxication that would give me an edge was a risky business.

About a half hour later two men staggered out on the verandah and hung over the railing. They alternated between what sounded like telling jokes and laughing hysterically with being violently ill. After three or four rounds of this odd combination of social interaction they parted, one going back into the light and noise of the long house the other slumped, snoring, against the railing. The sound of the crowd inside had taken on a harsher tone and I figured I'd better move in before something bad happened ... if it hadn't already.

Touching Raj on the shoulder I slipped past him and made my way down toward the river. We crept in past the outer circle of trash and one of my worst fears came suddenly true.

Three dogs rushed us out of the darkness under the long house Barking and snarling they rushed through the moonlight like dark missiles, low to the ground ... missiles with pale flashing teeth.

I took a swipe at the first with my rifle butt and connected heavily. It backed off yelping. Raj moved quickly, snatching up the smallest of them by grabbing a fist of I flesh on either side of the dog's neck just below the ears. He spun in a tight circle with the frantic beast snapping in I his outstretched arms and let go, hurling the dog far out I into the river. I clubbed with my rifle again, and drawing I his parang, Raj swatted an animal with the flat of the blade. The two remaining dogs backed up, growling but no longer I willing to attack. I was just beginning to curse our luck I and wonder if we should either hide or charge the ladder to the long house when a door above us slammed open and a man staggered out onto the verandah and called out into the night in what sounded like Iban.

Instantly Raj answered in an angry adult tone I'd never heard him use before. The man above us muttered something and then whistled sharply and called out some kind of command. We stood frozen in the darkness as he wandered back inside and closed the door.

Raj heaved a sigh of relief and I turned to peer into the darkness where he was standing. "What, in the name of God, was that all about?" I demanded.

He laughed, a giddy, semi hysterical cackle. "I told him to call off his damn dogs!"

We were a moment getting our wind back, then we worked our way under the long house and edged toward the back where, because of the slope of the gravel, the stilts were not so long. The ground beneath the building stank from garbage and worse. Above us feet tramped rhythmically on the ancient plank floor and shrill voices cried out. Toward the back the floor was low over our heads and then I was boosting Raj onto the verandah, and swinging up myself. Moving carefully on the weathered boards we eased up to a crack in the wall and peered in.

The light was probably dim, but with our pupils dilated by hours in the darkness it was blinding. Raj backed up for a moment and I blinked and squinted. In the center of a seated group a dancer leaped and whirled, his moves theatrically depicting ... something, I couldn't tell what. There were men and women in the room, but fewer women than I had thought. Bottles, mostly old beer and wine, were lying about. Some were obviously empty, others still in use. I knew from past experience that they no longer held beer or wine; they had been filled and refilled time and again with arak.

The dancer disappeared from view and another took his place. He was a thin old man but he moved with an energy that, while not youthful, was surprisingly vigorous. He whirled and stomped, spinning a parang over his head with a glittering flash of steel. I suddenly saw that the dark area that I had noticed on one side of his face was not a shadow or a tattoo but a deep and twisted mass of scar tissue. He mimed climbing onto something higher than himself, something that moved unsteadily. He fought, he carried something away. He was raiding a ship or a boat... this must be Jeru! Not only was he here, still alive after all these years, but he was telling his story in a dance.

I bent to Raj's ear. "Is that him?"

The boy nodded, his body alive with fear and excitement, j "You watch our backs," I told him. I didn't want him working up a scare by watching this man that he believed to be a witch and I didn't want both of us to be night blind.

When I turned back to the crack Jeru was hacking his way through the forest and then something ... he mimed men marching and everyone laughed. He was showing them he'd been chased by soldiers, paddled up a river, cut off men's heads with his parang. He stepped out of sight for a moment and came back with a long Japanese military rifle. He shook it in the air and then after handing it to someone, mimed cutting off what I surmised to be the Japanese soldier's head. He pointed to the roof with a harsh cry and, crouching, I could see a cluster of dark spheres hanging from the rafters. Severed heads. No doubt the unfortunate Jap was one of them.

The story continued with Jeru finding something in a stream. He held the imaginary something up to the light, turning it this way and that. He reached for his neck and pulled a leather strap off, over his head. In a setting or basket of leather there gleamed a stone.

This was it. The huge diamond that he had used for many years to lure men upriver, never to return. A diamond of fabulous size and quality, so the story went; from where I was all I could tell was that it was large and wrapped in braided strings of leather. It glowed rather than flashed, for this was a raw stone with none of the facets of a cut one, but there was a white fire hiding deep within it.

The old man took on a posture of humility, he moved stiffly, portraying a sense of age that obviously was not his natural state. Again, he got a laugh. He was showing the stone to someone, offering it, walking away as if disinterested, then leading them on. He took an old stove-in pith helmet from the place it hung on the wall and wore it for a moment as he paddled an imaginary boat. Then he was himself again and beating his companion to the ground he drew his parang and cut off the man's head.

The audience was silent now and a sense of tension penetrated the wall and clutched at my heart. Even Raj, eyes turned to the night, could feel it and he moved closer to me, his hand on his knife.

John Lacklan staggered into view, pushed along by the rough shoves of the boy who had been his guide. His hands were tied, his clothing torn, his body scratched and bruised. How badly he had been treated I didn't know; the I trip through the jungle might have left him in the condition that he was in. I admired him in that moment, though, for he held his head high, in his eyes was the look of fear but he didn't beg, or cry, or even tremble. He was keeping himself together although I thought I could tell that it was a near thing.

Without looking away I ran a shell into the chamber of; my rifle and set the safety. I wasn't at all sure about my original plan of barging in and spiriting them away; there were easily as many shotguns in the room as I had expected plus the Japanese rifle and the boy carried Lacklan's Win-' Chester over his shoulder. Not only were there more guns than I would have liked but several were cradled in the hands of Jeru's outlaws, held casually but ready for use.

The boy stepped in behind Lacklan and kicked the back of his left knee, knocking him to a kneeling position. Lacklan started to get back up but the boy unlimbered the rifle and poked him hard in the kidney with the muzzle. John Lacklan gave a choking cough of pain and collapsed back to the floor. Old Jem whirled his parang and then tested the edge against his thumb.

"Find me a door!" I whispered to Raj. "Damn quick!"

Now there was a commotion somewhere in the room. "Get off me!" I heard Helen call out. Then she lurched into view, a portly Iban trying to drag her down by one arm. She shook him off; he was surprised, I think, by that same physicality that had caught my attention. She was bigger than he was and lithely powerful.

"Stop it! You stop this!" she yelled at them. Raj was back tugging at my sleeve but the boy, sunglasses pushed up on his forehead, stepped in quickly and pressed the rifle barrel against Helen's throat ... even if John Lacklan got his head cut off I wasn't going in there if it risked Helen's getting killed.

The boy yelled at her in Iban, then in English. "Sit, missy. You sit or I kill you." He jabbed at her with the gun barrel. "Everybody die, you don't sit down." She didn't even move.

"You can't kill him. Take our things, our money. You can't kill him!" she cried.

"We're Americans, damn it. Let us go or you'll regret this." John's voice wavered.

In my travels around the world I've noticed that identifying yourself as an American never helps, it just makes the locals get violent or want more money.

The boy shrugged, "We kill Englang, Dutch ... America, who cares." He suddenly spoke in his own tongue for a moment and everyone laughed. Old Jeru the hardest.

"You don't want John's head." Helen spoke in a manner that let me know she wanted all to hear. "I know that Dyak tribesmen only take the heads of powerful enemies, of warriors. The head of a strong man is magic but a weak man ... a weak man is nothing. My husband is not a warrior, he's not even a strong man. Did he walk here? No. You had to carry him over the last hill..."