Sacrifice to the Emerald God (32 page)

      Tom had hired a local adventurer to go to
Porto Vaca
to find out what he could. Two weeks later, the man returned with information that a white woman had been brought there by the infamous bandit, Diego Badayo and then lost in a deadly game of poker to a man known only as Armando. She had been seen a month or so later being led to a boat which took her up river, deep into the uncivilized jungle. The boat had retuned without her.

      Tom, who had reluctantly returned to Chicago, sent the agent back to watch Armando carefully. Some weeks later, the agent reported that he had followed Armando to a town on the
Rio Carimba.
The villain was organizing a trip up river. Tom, after pleading with his law partners for another opportunity to save his bride, flew down to Brazil and pressed the authorities into helping him. That took another week of overcoming doubts over the possibilities of success of his enterprise and a mountain of red tape that had to be sliced apart with the judicious application of American currency.

      Tom and the Brazilian Army captain and his squad of soldiers had waited patiently for weeks for Armando’s boat to return. It never had. Finally, he had convinced the captain to go up river and hunt the man down. Because he was also wanted on suspicion of some rather heinous crimes back in
Sao Paolo
, the captain agreed.

      They had found the village only by chance. It was rumored that natives in the region were in possession of an emerald mine, but the village had never been found by anyone who had lived to tell about it. When the overloaded boat they had come up river in had turned one of the ubiquitous bends in the meandering river, there had been a small boy asleep on its banks. The boy had apparently been fishing and had dozed off. When he saw the boat, he threw away his pole and ran off into the jungle. Tom and the soldiers had followed his trail and discovered the village.

      Sitting cross legged in front of the assembled natives, Tom was feverishly anxious to learn of the fate of his beloved. “
She must be here!
” he thought. “
She has to be!
”

      The Brazilian captain began a long, frustrating discourse with the native shaman. He first tried Portuguese, but that resulted only in the shrugging of the old man’s shoulders. With Spanish had had more success.

      It always took a long time to get to the point with these ignorant savages. The captain greeted them formally on behalf of the Brazilian President, their Great Father, he told them. The shaman translated this information to the assembled men and women. He then ordered some refreshments delivered to the white men. He specifically warned the priestess not to dose them with any of her potions. The priestess smiled knowingly. She returned with a gourd of their potent alcohol and a bowl of fruit.

      The liquor and fruit were ceremonially passed around and the excruciating give and take between the captain and the shaman continued. No, they had not seen any white women, or men either. The sandals, he had never seen them before. The shaman made to ask the natives assembled around him and they all gave out noises of surprise and ignorance. The sandals were passed around several times, each villager scrupulously examining them.

      An hour later, the shaman instructed one of he elders to go find the woman whose hut the sandals had been found in. It belonged to the family of one of the young girls who had been serving as Margie’s lustful handmaidens. When she was summoned, she, too, expressed ignorance of the sandals until, after about twenty minutes, she broke into tears and confessed.

      It seemed that one of the bachelors of the village had given them to her as a gift of betrothal. The girl had not told her parents since they were intent on her marriage to another boy. The boy was sent for and there was an hour of excited recriminations and tears between them all. The girl’s father made threats against the boy with his
machete
, only to be calmed down by the shaman. Finally, the young man answered the question as to where he got them.

      Shame faced and defeated, the young man explained that he had traded a puma skin for them to a man from a village far over the mountains. It was common for the bachelors of the village to seek brides among neighboring tribes so as to keep the blood line of the village healthy. He had gone there to inquire as to the eligible young ladies and had seen one wearing the beautiful, strange footwear. He had traded the puma skin to the girl’s father for the sandals, much to her dismay, and brought them back to win the heart of the girl he really loved.

       Tom had sat anxiously, bursting with impatience as the charade unfolded before him. When told the story by the Brazilian Army captain, he exploded.

      “This is bullshit!” he yelled. “These lying pieces of shit have got Margie or they did something with her. Why else would Armando have come up river here? They’re lying.”

      The American trial lawyer was an expert at prevarication and he knew a rat when she smelled one. There was no way to check the story without going to the other village. But he bet that if they put a bullet in the heads of a couple of the villagers, they would soon get the truth. He told the captain just that.

      “
Signor
,” the officer asked him politely, “are you suggesting that I murder an indigenous person or persons on the basis of a pair of shoes?”

     Tom bristled at the soldier’s question. He knew all about evidence and shit like that. But this wasn’t a court of law. “Okay, okay,” he answered. “Then let’s tear this place apart. There’s got to be more evidence of her here. I know it.”

      “
Signor
,” the captain patiently replied, “the reports that you supplied me with indicated that the white woman was naked except for a pair of yellow ribboned sandals. What other evidence would you expect to find? Fingerprints? Her bones, perhaps? Unfortunately, I did not bring a forensics laboratory. Believe me, if these people do not want to tell us what happened to the unfortunate signora, they will not tell us. Assuming that the boy’s story is untrue, they could have sold her off to another tribe. They could have burned her up as a sacrifice to their gods. They could have her hidden deep in the forest. It would take months, maybe a year to search everywhere. And as to your assumption that Armando was seeking to recover the blond woman he sold upriver, that is just speculation. He may have come here, if in fact he did since we have seen no evidence of it, for a completely different reason. The appearance of the pretty, little sandals may be pure coincidence. I’m afraid that you are at a dead end,
Signor
. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is.”

      Tom, realizing that his search to find his lost bride was at an end, suppressed the great sob that had welled up inside him. He clutched at a straw.

      “But what about the other village, the one the boy says he bought the sandals from. We could go there. If he’s lying, then that’s proof that these animals did something with her.”

      “I’m afraid it’s impossible,
Signor
,” the officer replied coldly. “The village that the boy described is almost certainly across the border in Venezuela or perhaps even Colombia. I have no jurisdiction there.”

      Tom’s head sank onto his chest as a wave of despair flowed through him. So his odyssey to find his lost bride was at an end. He had lost the vibrant, beautiful Marjorie forever to some horrible, cruel fate. And all because he did not go with her when she went to buy that stupid statue. Tears came to his eyes as he fondled he only thing that he had left of her, her silly, Italian sandals that she loved so much.

      The captain let the man sulk in his misery for several minutes and then he spoke. “
Signor
, I suggest that we return to our vessel. Our business is done here.”

      Tom, realizing that the captain was right, gave a loud sigh of unhappiness. “Okay,” he said dejectedly. “Let’s go.”

      The dismally disappointed American lawyer rose to his feet, clutching the only evidence of Margie’s fate that he would ever have. He moved to walk away but the captain shouted out at him. “
Signor
! You are taking the shoes. They belong to this girl! You’ll get us all killed!”

      Tom turned in surprise. “What do you mean? These are stolen! They belonged to Margie!”

      “They belong to this young girl now,” the captain said. “If you want them you must trade for them.”

      “Fuck that!” Tom exclaimed.

      “
Signor
,” the captain replied, moving to his feet, “take a look around you. Where do you think that the men of the tribe are right now? They are all around us. It would be lucky if any of us got back to the boat. The men are hidden in the jungle and would cut us down like pigs if we offended them. There,” he pointed, “look up in that tree. There’s someone there. And they’ll be waiting for us all along the trail back to the boat.”

      Tom cast his glance where the Brazilian Army captain had indicated. It was at a tall, dense tree that stood high overlooking the village. At first, he could not see anything. And then, when a gust of wind caught the tree’s branches, he could just make out the figures of some people hidden amongst its leaves. For a moment, he imagined that he saw a flash of pale, white skin, but just then, the harsh midday sun glinted off of the foliage and it was gone.

      Dejectedly, Tom turned to the girl. He wanted the sandals desperately. He would preserve them until the end of his days, a last remembrance of the only woman he had really loved. What could he give her that would satisfy her primitive desires? And he her thought of it. His ring. He had purchased Margie a large, brilliant diamond ring as her wedding token and she had selected a plain, but elegant gold ring for his finger. He wore it still in his foolish belief that he would find her and reclaim her. He twisted it off of his finger. “Here,” he said to the girl dispiritedly. “Take this.”

      The girl looked at the ring with greedy eyes. It was beautiful. She nodded her head energetically.

      Tom tossed the girl the useless emblem of his star-crossed marriage to the beautiful Marjorie McCall. It hit the ground in front of the girl on its side and twirled around in a small circle before finally coming to rest at her feet. She picked it up and smothered it in her small, dainty fist. Tom, the sandals dangling from his hand, turned and began his sorrowful journey back to civilization and a lifetime of regret.

      Margie had watched keenly while Tom and the army officer negotiated with the shaman. She tried several times to call out to them, but each time that she did, her mouth filled with streams of the mind boggling drug from the minutely punctured animal bladder. The men who were with her in the tree drove her bodily passions by intermittently caressing her breasts, her rear and the furrow between her thighs. She was in a state of intense lust enhanced by the priestess’s milky white potion when she saw Tom stand. She could sense his dejection from way atop her lofty perch. When the army captain pointed at the tree, Tom looked directly at her.

      “…om! ...om! …mmm …ere! …mmmm  …ere!” she tied to shout as she pulled and tugged uselessly at her bound wrists and ankles. She was rewarded by a blast of dizzying sensations as the drug seeped into the pores of her mouth. Her pussy burned with need and her breasts ached from the hot blood that filled them. She moaned miserably as she saw Tom take his wedding ring off of his hand and toss it onto the ground. She watched, dismally, through a heavy fog of lust, as he turned to walk away, her pretty, yellow ribboned, imported sandals, the last vestige of her former self, swinging and knocking together gently in his dejected hand.

      As Margie sobbed in self pity, one of the native men who had been sharing her view of the proceedings below brought his body up behind her. She felt strong, gentle hands encircle her chest and encompass her dangling breasts. The hands gave them a knowing, lust inspiring, gentle squeeze. The heat from them caused a wave of electrified passion to pass through her. All thoughts of Tom and rescue fled from her mind. A cock presented itself to her fevered hole and slowly eased its way into her seeping, attention craving canal. When the man’s motions began, Margie cried out in welcome to his meat’s friction along her fevered tunnel. The image of her lord, her new, unearthly spouse, loomed before her. “Oh, God! Oh God! Oh God!” she called out through her muffled mouth as her orgasm overwhelmed her. She screamed when the man’s hot liquid jetted inside her. “Ohhhhhhhhh!” she moaned, causing a fresh release of the infernal drug within her mouth. “
Two days!
” her mind screamed. “
Two days!
” Two days to the full moon and reunion with her Emerald Lord!

* * *

Two nights later, just as the full moon crested the tall trees that surrounded the village, the moaning, delirious white woman was being carried along atop a bier of fresh, colorful jungle flowers, a procession of happy, chanting and clapping villagers behind her. Mounted to her frame, her loins ached with desire and her mind swam with expectation of imminent fulfillment. Her mouth was filled with the lust giving potion of the priestess. Her nose now carried, dangling from her septum, the shiny, gleaming gold ring that the white men had left behind. Marjorie had accepted it happily earlier today as the symbol of her troth to the great, green god, Guarito, her only, true mate. Her neck was encircled with bright flowers, and her loins were forcibly proffered and waiting for her lord’s touch. As her fevered body was carried along, she joyfully thanked the green deity for calling her to him, yearning for the taste of his thick, pleasure giving cock in her hungry mouth.