Outlaw (8 page)

He’d been taken captive by the Tulim, a previously unknown tribe who lived a hundred miles inland, just north of the better-known Asmat people whom he was studying. The valley system we were in contained several small peaks within a massive depression bordered on three sides by cliffs, and to the south by a swamp.

He began to speak in more lucid terms now. There seemed to be two parts to his psyche, one that dipped into his academic prowess, and one that had been broken by his imprisonment.

He was well versed in the entire region, having already spent several years traveling all of Irian Jaya. Did I know that all early attempts to make contact with the indigenous people along the south coast had failed miserably? Captain Cook had met with death and disaster when he tried to land in 1770. Even though Dutch missions had been set up along the coast long ago, the inexplicable ways of the Asmat deeper inland were hardly known.

“So then the Tulim are from these Asmat?” I asked.

“No. Heavens, no. Not alike at all. Well, in many ways, yes, I suppose they are similar to an unstudied observer. But the Tulim ancestry is a mixed bag. Influenced by crossbreeding with their slave trade over the centuries, which, to my knowledge, is unique to the Tulim in this part of the world. They are ethnically distinct from other tribes in the region. Taller, darker than the Asmat. Even some of their customs and names have been influenced by far reaches. It’s extremely rare. Staggering, actually. Hidden away here north of the Asmat live an undiscovered people that would deliver any anthropologist to heaven.”

He coughed.

“But they don’t accept change easily,” he said. “They reject most notions suggested by the outside. Whether it was the Japanese soldier they took during the Second World War, or a Chinese merchant, they judge most new ideas of advancement as the foolish talk of wam. And frankly, they might be right.”

“This is all good, but we need to talk about how to get out.”

“Just hear me out, you’ll see,” he said, lifting his hand to calm me. “You’ll see. You need to know what you’re up against if you expect to survive. There’s nothing but hundreds of square miles of Asmat territory between here and the coast.”

I sat and let him continue, though it was clear that the anthropologist in him was more interested in sharing his rare discovery than in discussing an escape he clearly thought was impossible.

While the Asmat were certainly fierce survivors, they lacked the natural resourcefulness that had allowed the Tulim to grow into such a formidable group. The people here were hidden not only from the Western world but from their Asmat neighbors, who consisted of nearly a dozen ethnic subgroups that spoke several languages.

Did I know that there were well over eight hundred distinct languages in New Guinea?

No, I did not. Neither did I care. But he was adamant that I hear him out.

Only a handful of the languages had any alphabet or written form. He was certain that he was the only Westerner who spoke Tulim. Many tribes had lived in complete isolation for centuries, particularly the peoples of the south coast, where the terrain was too forbidding for humans less skilled than the Asmat or the Tulim to navigate.

There were three other factors that kept the Tulim hidden from the world, he said, holding up as many fingers.

The first was that, in addition to the treacherous swamps to the south, the terrain leading into the mountains to the north was as impossible to traverse as the swamps.

Had I seen the documentary
The Sky Above, the Mud Below
, he wanted to know. It was the fascinating and detailed account of a joint Dutch-French attempt to cross this very territory by any means possible. Disastrous. Seven months and numerous deaths later, all but a few of the party were finally airlifted out.

He told me that 80 percent of soldiers involved in campaigns here during the war had perished, not at the hands of the Japanese, but at the hand of the greater enemy, the land itself. Crossing mountains such as these was, as the army engineers had learned, the ultimate nightmare.

The revelation only deepened my anxiety. The man seemed bent on making my case unmistakably certain: I was hopelessly trapped between the mountains that towered against the night sky to my right, and the impassable swamps to my left. I had the distinct feeling he was out to persuade me that I, like him, should just accept my fate here, in the Tulim valley.

He didn’t know me. I hadn’t been raised in privilege to die so far from home.

But then I saw another reason for his presentation. He was an anthropologist paying homage to the land and those who had conquered it. In some respects these included him, and he found some measure of pride in that fact. He could not hide the wonder in his eyes and the slight curve of his lips as he touted the land’s threats.

In some ways Michael was finally giving his report to the only Westerner he believed would ever hear it. This was his opus.

A second factor in the Tulim’s isolation, Michael continued, had to do with their animistic beliefs, which demanded they stay hidden from the evil spirits above. It was forbidden to build any structure under an open sky. They lived under the jungle’s thick canopy and avoided open spaces.

“Clearings like this?” I asked.

“Oh no, they would never build a path directly through this clearing. They would follow the tree line.”

“But the council—”

“You were there?”

“I…my trial, or whatever that was.”

“Neutral space,” he said, waving it off. “But the court is built under trees, yes? And they only meet at night.”

It explained why he wasn’t as eager as I to leave this knoll. We were under open sky, hunkered down among the rocks.

“And the third reason?” I asked.

“All these questions drove me crazy, you know. Why these people have remained unknown. You would think they could have been observed from the air, or that the surrounding tribes would spin rumors of their existence. I eventually understood why that couldn’t happen. But what surprised me more was that no one had ever escaped this valley and lived to tell.”

“No one?”

“No man, woman, or child, once entering the valley, may leave alive. It’s at the heart of their law. They believe they’re the only true descendants of the first humans, created here in this valley. Their protection from evil spirits is limited to this valley. The belief is so ingrained that no one dares try, and any who do are quickly hunted down and killed to appease the spirits.”

“What about the traders who took me?”

“Ah yes. But you were taken by traders who consumed
tawi
in a ceremony that protects them from certain death if they leave—up to ten days at most. Only Sawim, the old shaman, knows the ingredients taken during a ceremony. And only those among the Warik tribe are allowed to ingest it. It’s part of the intricate balance of power among the three tribes that make up the Tulim. So you see, I can’t go.”

“You’re not making any sense. That’s only folklore.”

“Still, they would hunt me down. I would be dead.”

“And so would I if I tried to go alone.”

He stared at me, then nodded. “Yes, there is that.”

“Then there’s no way out for either of us?”

He thought. “No. No, come to think of it, there isn’t.”

He had surely known that from the beginning. This had just been his own way of making it clear to me.

“So I’m stuck. And I will be killed.”

“If they’ve condemned you, then yes. Although you could try.”

“How?”

“You could get into a canoe and hope for the best. Maybe an Asmat party finds you and helps you to the coast. Or they might just take your head.”

“That’s it? That’s your solution?”

“Or you could make an effort to change the council’s mind. Why did they condemn you? You’re too ugly?”

The events of the trial spun through my mind. “Apparently. But Kirutu, the prince from one of the tribes—”

“The Warik. He’s the one who condemned you?”

“No. He made a bid for me. Two clamshells.”

Michael looked astonished. “Kirutu did? Then you’re saved!”

“No. I think I offended him.”

“You
what
?”

“He wanted me to bear him a child.”

“But of course! Do you have any idea how valuable children are in this valley? Can you bear children?”

“I have a…”

I caught myself and turned away, doing my best to suppress the horror of my loss. But I could not stem the emotion easily and this wasn’t lost on Michael.

“It’s OK, my dear,” he said in a soft voice that sounded as if it might belong to an angel. “We all have our crosses to bear.”

The last comment sparked anger in me, but I knew he meant well.

“Better not to resist it,” he said.

This proved too much for me.

“How can you be so insensitive?” I snapped. “My son drowned out there!”

“I feel your loss. And I also know that you’ve arrived at exactly at the right place at exactly the right time. As have I. Resisting that truth will only cause you to suffer.”

“I already
am
suffering!”

“Then you will suffer more.”

He was suddenly sounding far too lucid and I wanted none of his stoic philosophy.

“This isn’t the right place at any time!” I said, shoving my hand at the jungle. “I’m nothing but an animal here! One of their wam. That may be fine for you, a man who made the choice to investigate these people, but I don’t belong here.”

“And yet you
are
here. We both are.”

I dismissed his childish view outright but held my tongue. How cruel that my only hope for freedom was in the hands of a man who couldn’t value my right to it. For a brief moment I think I despised him.

“Well, then,” he finally said. “If you can’t see the world through their eyes, you will die.” His tone had turned matter-of-fact.

“Then why did you agree to help me?” I demanded.

“I
am
helping you. And at great risk, I might add.”

“By telling me that my only hope is to accept my fate here? They’re going to
kill
me tomorrow!”

“By helping you understand what we have here. Someone freed you, am I correct? You’re in a world bound by laws and beliefs that haven’t changed for centuries. There’s conflict brewing among the tribes that you could use to your advantage. A power struggle could blow this place wide open, and, like it or not, you have some of that power.”

“Not if I’m dead.”

“Are you? Dead, that is? No. You can worry about being dead when you’re dead,” he said. “Until then, use the power you have.”

“What power? Having a child?”

I meant it as a preposterous suggestion. Michael did not.

“Naturally.” He stood and walked a few steps to the right, then back again. “But you can’t see it that way, can you? No. And frankly, I’m afraid it might be too late. Changing the council’s mind would be impossible. Maybe a month ago, but things are too hot between Wilam and Kirutu. The chief is practically on his deathbed, and one of the princes will take power when he dies. Kirutu has something up his sleeve. He’s a very powerful man.”

“Now you’re throwing in the towel, after setting me straight?”

“You don’t seem to want to be set straight,” he said.

“I want to live!”

“Then
live
!” he stormed. “Bring life!” The volume of his voice stood me back. Then softer: “Bring life, not death, my dear.”

Bring life
. His conviction was so great I almost believed him.

The memory of Wilam staring at me with his look of amusement filled my mind.

“It wasn’t Kirutu who condemned me,” I said. “I think the other prince, Wilam, was behind it.”

“The prince of the Impirum,” Michael said. “It makes perfect sense that Wilam wouldn’t want his greatest rival, Kirutu, to come into possession of another slave who could bear him children. It’s quite a status symbol.”

“Having a pregnant slave?”

“Fathering children. The women in the Tulim valley are plagued with infertility, something that is either hereditary or perhaps results from their diet, but without testing there’s no way to know. Suffice it to say only one out of three women ever becomes pregnant. Fertile women are highly valued, as you can imagine. I would say it’s a wam’s only leverage.”

The whole thing bothered me to my deepest core. It went against my convictions as much as my desire.

I set my elbows on my knees and lowered my head into my hands.

“You are no longer bound by the laws of a foreign culture, my dear. Bring life into this valley. Love them. After all, I’m sure God does.”

“I don’t even know who God is anymore.”

He sat back down on the boulder and stared at the jungle ahead of us. “Then perhaps you will learn.”

What happened next is still rather foggy to me. My mind was split between my loss of Stephen and the last words spoken by Michael. A soft crack sounded in my right ear and I jerked up, startled. Michael slumped over and toppled off the rock.

A bag was slipped over my head from behind; a muzzle over my mouth and nose smothered my cries. In mere moments they jerked my arms back and bound them. Powerful hands plucked me from the rock and threw me over a shoulder. And then they were running.

But not a sound. Not from Michael, who I assumed was either unconscious or dead. And not from the men who had found us on the knoll.

I hadn’t been recovered, I thought. If they’d only meant to recover me, they would hardly be running or keeping so silent. Why would they see any need for stealth?

My abductors ran on bare feet that slapped lightly on the muddy earth, perhaps a dozen of them, a small army of men. I had been cut free in my pit. My clothes had been returned to me.

Maybe Michael had been right. Perhaps I was meant to live.

I clung to the thought as their feet pounded through the screaming jungle.

The warriors who had collected me carried me on their backs for an hour at a steady pace before slowing, ducking into a house, and setting me gently on a seat. Since being taken from the sea, I had been treated as so much cargo, being traded back and forth between houses and pits and trials, and once again I was bound up and dumped into a holding place.

But the differences in my new environment were not lost on me. The jungle had grown quieter as we’d traveled, if only slightly. I thought it might be because there were fewer insects farther from the swamps, assuming we were headed north, toward the mountains that Michael had pointed out. In addition, the room in which they’d dumped me had a crackling fire and a wooden floor. I could make out very soft whispering from my left, but after a while this abated.

I was alive. I hoped Michael was as well. His words whispered through my mind, urging me to live. To live because I was still alive.

I spent most of that night, my fourth in captivity, in a fitful doze with pain in my joints due to my awkward position. When I finally crawled from sleep the sound of children playing outside was the first to reach me.

The faint giggles of three or four children overrunning each other with exuberant discussion were incongruous with the dark savagery that had characterized the past few days.

My mind filled with Stephen and my eyes with tears. I was surprised at the severity of my pain as I lay there thinking of my poor child lost at sea. There is no picture so perfect as a sleeping baby after a bottle of warm milk, and I had Stephen’s image indelibly etched into my memory. His tiny pouting lips, his long lashes, his soft cheeks and miniature nose. That fine dark hair, floating with the slightest breeze.

The sound of giggling children outside brought it all back, and I began to cry softly. Gone was the hope of life Michael had instilled in me the night before. I found myself both desperate for God and cursing him. For my loss, my predicament, the undoing of all that I had held sacred. Hadn’t the very God I’d given my life to, in heart and deed, turned his back on me?

A sympathetic female voice called my thoughts back to the hut. “
Aye, at eeniki andi, oh. Aye, aye
.”

The floor creaked as she walked in. She
tsk
ed and repeated her expression, which I took as one of consolation.

The bag was lifted off my head and I saw that I was in a round hut perhaps twenty feet across. Like the one in which I’d first met Kirutu, this too had a bark floor, timber walls bound together with vines, a central fire, and a blackened ceiling. But instead of skulls, there hung from the wall carved wooden masks and tall painted shields etched with intricate patterns. They were spaced evenly, one every few feet all the way around.

Three women had entered the hut. The one who’d muttered her sympathy knelt beside me and repeated herself. Then she wiped the tears from my face, helped me sit up, and quickly untied my bonds, now grumbling on and on about something. Perhaps the way I had been treated, though that might have been wishful thinking on my part.

The other two women stood by the fire, watching with fascination. Like some of the women I’d met earlier, they were young and covered only by woven skirts and woven armbands. Their hair was trimmed short and a yellow band perhaps one inch wide hugged each of their necks.

Their skin was black, not merely chocolate brown, and their teeth were white like their eyes. If they were older than twenty, I was judging them wrong. They held themselves upright with that same unabashed stance that I’d come to associate with the warriors who’d taken me. But they seemed nonthreatening. Even amused.

“
Amok. Amok
.” The woman behind me helped me to my feet. She stepped back and shook her head,
tsk
ing as if to say,
No, no, this just will not do
. She reached out and pulled at my blouse, asking me something. She plucked at my capris and the other two women giggled.

The sight of those women laughing, eyes sparkling as they studied me, struck me as altogether absurd, and suddenly, without warning, I saw some humor in it.

“Koneh pok!”

At the order the women immediately swallowed their amusement. A warrior stood at the door, scowling. He motioned at me, barked another order, and ducked back out. The woman who’d untied me shrugged and offered me a sheepish smile.

They guided me out of the hut into the morning sunlight, and it was there that I first laid eyes on a Tulim village. The sight made me stop. I say village, but it was really more of a small town with hundreds of homes that spread out far beyond my line of sight. The whole community was built under the jungle canopy far above us, which allowed streams of light past its leaves which dissipated the tendrils of smoke rising from the roofs. Ahead and to my right lay a large meadow, but there were no structures in the clearing that I could see.

Most of the thatched dwellings were square, not round like the hut I’d been held in overnight, and they were elevated off the forest floor several feet. The ground around each home was built up and flat, forming a kind of grassless yard.

Long wooden pathways built several feet off the forest floor ran between the homes. This, I assumed, was to keep the mud out of the houses. The large spaces between the boardwalks were cultivated. Gardens. I saw that sunlight fell on the leafy vegetables in the gardens but not on the adjacent homes, and I realized that the branches above had been pruned to allow light in only where it was desired.

“Naouk.”

I was nudged from behind and moved forward, still taken by the sight.

So then, this was how the natives lived. It was all muddy and dirty on one level, without the benefit of concrete and green lawns, but surprisingly clean and orderly at the same time. Thatched palm leaves covered each dwelling, and painted carvings were affixed to the outer walls near most doorways, which were covered by rough planks fitted into slots, rather than hinged doors.

We passed several naked children who were squatting just outside a hut in a patch of bright sunlight. Between them sat a black beetle the size of my thumb with a thin string cinched around its body. These were the children I’d heard laughing, now staring up at me with big round eyes.

As I watched, the beetle took flight, circled them at the end of its tether, then settled on one of their heads. The young boy holding the other end of the string did not break his stare. Snot ran from his nose but he seemed not to be bothered by such trivialities.

Everywhere I looked my gaze was returned with curious fixed stares. The people were outfitted with woven bands and sometimes body paint, some with feathers in their hair or tucked into the armbands. The women wore either grass or woven skirts that left their thighs bare all the way up to a rolled cord around their waists. All the men were naked.

The children with the beetle pattered along the wooden path behind us, whispering and arguing. They were soon joined by a few others, then a dozen, all hurrying along, jostling for a better view of me. When I looked at them they fell silent and grinned from ear to ear.

But I was too entrenched in my own predicament to appreciate the children’s obvious wonder.

The walkway rose and fell with occasional steps that followed the change in the forest floor’s elevation, but coming to a steep rock cliff, it rose up a flight of stairs made from seventy or eighty steps. We left the children behind and I made it halfway up before stopping to rest my burning lungs and aching legs. Once again I was the subject of amusement for the women who escorted me. I guessed they couldn’t comprehend how anyone could tire with such little effort.

The moment we stepped onto the upper landing, I thought that we had left one plane and entered another, this one built for royalty.

The manicured cleanliness of this large section of forest reminded me of a botanical garden I’d once visited. The canopy was thinner here, allowing more light to reach the ground than in the village below. A fence of perhaps fifty meters per side surrounded a large round structure in the midst of seven or eight smaller ones. Later I would learn that this was their
Kabalan
—the lords’ royal courts. I assumed the central structure to be their palace, although the Tulim’s version of a palace, which they called the
Muhanim
, was like none I had seen or imagined.

We passed under a tall archway to which were affixed twenty or thirty human skulls. My escort motioned me through but withdrew as I stepped between two tall men who studied me without expression. It took my eyes only a moment to adjust to the dim light, most of it from a large fire at the center, which revealed a floor covered by thatched mats and walls lined with shields, spears, and bark paintings. Tall round timbers, at least a dozen of them, rose from the floor to beams that supported a pitched roof.

Warriors stood or squatted on either side of the fire, watching me as if interrupted by an unremarkable distraction. I don’t know how I had such little effect on the Tulim men in comparison to the women’s and children’s interest, but not once had they seemed either interested or put off by me.

“Amok.”

My eyes darted to the end of the room. There, on a platform holding a large stump surrounded by drums, shields, and hides, sat the man who’d spoken. I recognized him immediately.

This was the prince named Wilam. So I was among the Impirum tribe at the north end of the valley.

Two women sat near him, outwardly unimpressed but unable to hide the curiosity in their eyes. Another knelt in front of the prince with her back to me. I saw the prince’s eyes watching me and I felt chilled by his stare. The quiet in the room stretched out. He’d commanded something but no one was moving.

“You must come, miss.”

My heart jumped at the sound of Lela’s voice as she turned her head. She was the one kneeling.

I hurried forward, pulled by the comforting sound of her voice. All the men and women here were well appointed with golden bands and all of the women wore dyed skirts. The feathers they used were more colorful and the bones on their necklaces whiter than what the villagers wore. But Lela, the young girl from Indonesia, was dressed simply in a grass skirt without any appointments. I could only guess it spoke of her status. As she’d said, she too was wam.

Reaching her side, I didn’t know what to do, so I knelt.

Wilam mumbled something, which was returned by soft chuckling from the men behind me. I kept my gaze directed at the woven floor mats.

“You must stand before this prince,” Lela said quietly.

“Stand?”

“Yes, miss.”

I pushed myself up in front of the platform, which I now saw was made of planks covered in the hides of small foxes. Wilam sat on the large stump, which was topped by the same hides.

He spoke again and Lela quickly stood.

“You must look at this lord,” she whispered, looking up.

I lifted my eyes. He was darker than I remembered. Perhaps his color was accentuated by the bright bands on his biceps, forearms, and thighs. The men in the village below were all fit and healthy enough, but the warriors here, led by their prince, looked supremely healthy. But if Wilam was royalty among these savages, he likely had better food.

He leaned forward and rested an elbow on his right knee, studying me with that look of mild amusement. Then he shifted his eyes off of me and lowered them to Lela, who stood still under his long, firm gaze. Long enough to make me wonder whether she was here only to translate.

He demanded something of her. She answered.

Another question. Another answer.

They went back and forth for several minutes, he demanding answers, she humbly offering them, until my curiosity could bear it no longer. My fate was at stake, and I was lost in the dark.

“What?” I asked during a pause.

Lela kept her eyes on the prince. But then he nodded and she looked up at me.

“This prince say I must now die with you.”

I was aghast. “Why would you have to die?”

“He say it was I who set you free, miss.”

“Was it?”

“It is good to take another slave if they escape. This too will give this prince power.”

“But did you free me?”

She didn’t respond, and I knew she had.

“And what about the man? Michael.”

“This Impirum no want that man. He not good for work or for fight.”

So Lela had told the warriors from the Impirum that I had broken free and they’d retrieved me, which was evidently allowed under the tribal code.

“Why would Impirum men want me?” I asked.

Her eyes shifted. “To make this babies, miss.”

The prince cut in, and they spoke for another minute before Lela turned back to me.

“This prince say I make you free and Kirutu will want blood. But I say you escape and I tell to his fighting man to get you. I say he now has new wam with power to make this babies, and this people will see Kirutu not as strong as this prince.”

About the making babies I wasn’t sure in the least, but she seemed to have talked some sense into the man and for that I was relieved.

“So then it’s good,” I said.

“No, miss. He not believe me. This prince say I lie and now I too must die.”

Contemptuous. That’s what my father sometimes called me as I was growing up. I knew even as heat burned my face that I wasn’t in a position to assert myself, but good sense did not redirect me as I turned to the prince.

“It’s not her fault,” I snapped.

His brow arched. I at least had the satisfaction of gaining his full attention. And I wasn’t done.

“She’s just trying to save me and give you a good thing. Because of her you look strong, you should be thanking her.”

“Koneh.”

But I wasn’t ready to
koneh
, which I assumed meant “shut up.”

“You want babies? I can give you babies.”

Lela translated without waiting to be told.

The prince studied me for a few seconds, then began to chuckle. Lela smiled and returned a tentative laugh as I watched. Seeing Wilam so close, I saw that it was muscle, not fat, that covered the sharp edges of his bones. Kirutu was tall and as wiry as a vine tree, but Wilam was as tall and perhaps the stronger man.