Hunt Along the Iron River and Other Timeless Tales Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Hunt Along the Iron River

  Chill Out

  A Gift That Keeps On Giving

  Words Unspoken

  Pork Futures

  Late Bloomer

  Dog's Best Friend

  A Message from Orrin Jason Bradford

  In the Spirit of Ray Bradbury

  About the Author

  Porpoise Publishing

  Title Page

  HUNT ALONG THE IRON RIVER AND OTHER TIMELESS TALES

  Orrin Jason Bradford

  Hunt Along the Iron River

  “Hey, Senor Webb!" The old man leaned out of the doorway of the shack, the only trading post in two hundred miles. "Telephone, eh. States on the line!"

  The old man's long white hair tattered in the wind like a prayer flag; his necklaces, a dozen or more, some glass beads, some amber, one strung with chunks of raw emerald from the beds upriver, glinted in the sun.

  "Who is it?" Taylor Webb yelled back without looking up from his clipboard. Though scheduled to be a relatively short collecting expedition, they were already three days behind schedule. Taylor was not interested in any further delays.

  "A woman. Says her name is Penny."

  Good God, how in the hell did she track me down here? Taylor wondered. What could she possibly want bad enough to go to such lengths to find me? Only one thing, the child support check. I already mailed it two days ago. He felt like screaming it loud enough for her to hear on the other end of the line. He hesitated for a moment. He should take the call, just in case. But with Penny, it wouldn't be quick. It never was.

  He stopped checking off items on his list. "Do me a favor, will ya? Tell her I left a couple days ago. If she asks, tell her I mailed a bunch of letters before I left."

  The old man nodded, his necklaces tinkling like wind chimes. He disappeared back through the doorway.

  Taylor handed his clipboard to a short, brown man dressed in Army fatigues standing next to him. "Moises, how about finishing this while I get my gear from the jeep. We've got to get the hell out of here."

  Moises nodded, taking over the task without a word. Moises seldom spoke, which was one of his attributes Taylor admired most. In the ten years they had worked together on various expeditions, Taylor had grown accustomed to Moises' quiet style. On top of which his military training in survival techniques made him an excellent guide in the remote jungles of the Rio Yavari, on the border between Peru and Brazil. Moises would be particularly valuable on this expedition since he knew several of the local natives of the tribe they were to visit.

  The expedition, sponsored by the Atlanta Zoological Society, had run into delays ranging from supplies not being available, to carriers disappearing in the middle of the night. As with most expeditions, this one was on a tight budget. Taylor's contract was to find a dow-kiet, a rare tree frog and to bring at least one of the brilliant green amphibians back alive. The local Matses tribe honored the frogs for their ability to secrete sapo, a vital element in the tribe's pharmacopeia.

  Taylor had his own reasons for wanting the expedition to be a success. He had been the one to tell the Society about sapo from previous expeditions he had made to the Peruvian Amazon. It had a reputation for being "powerful medicine." Taylor hoped he wasn't leading the Society and himself on a wild goose chase.

  He walked into the shack that served as a store and the only telephone service for miles around. He needed to pick up an animal carving for his son’s collection anyway. He could already see the bright smile of satisfaction spread from ear to ear on Peter's face. It would make a great show-and-tell for the second-grade class. Peter had a large collection of animals from all over the world, a testament to his father's many trips. And to the many birthdays and other special occasions I've missed, thought Taylor.

  As he entered the store, the owner hung up the phone and gave Taylor a thumbs up sign. Another fight with Penny avoided for at least a few more days.

  ****

  Two days later, with the expedition finally under way, a Matses hunter approached the party on the trail in the late afternoon. The slender man appeared on the edge of the camp, bow and arrow in one hand, palm-leaf basket in the other. He waited until Moises motioned him to come forward. His mouth was tattooed with dark vertical lines and his face adorned with cat-like whiskers. A baby monkey clung to his black hair and squealed from time to time, to be answered seconds later by its mother from inside the basket.

  After a brief conversation with Moises, the hunter led the expedition to his village. On their arrival, Taylor watched the hunter turn the baby monkey over to a young woman nursing a child. She took the monkey and allowed it to nurse at her free breast. The hunter then turned the mother monkey over to another woman who stunned it with a blow to the head, then began roasting it over an open fire, oblivious to its cries.

  Taylor stared, frozen by the contrast of compassion and cruelty, then realized it was this contrast that drew him back to the Amazon time and time again.

  His thoughts were interrupted by the sight of a familiar face. Pablo, a Matses he'd been introduced to by Moises on a previous trip, walked across the camp towards him. Like most of the male Matses, his face was adorned with the vertical tattoos, although his upper lip lacked the whiskers of the hunter.

  He nodded, pointing approvingly to Taylor's earring, a gift from the young Matses on their last trip, then turned and spoke to Moises in a mixture of hand signals, Matses and pidgin Spanish. Moises turned and translated for Taylor.

  "He is inviting us to a celebration tonight at his pueblo to prepare for the hunt," Moises said.

  Taylor nodded. He started to instruct Moises to ask about the dow-kiet and sapo then thought better of it. Time enough for that later.

  "We'll be honored to attend," he replied, smiling and nodding in Pablo's direction.

  ****

  Pablo's pueblo stood on the crest of a hill overlooking one of the tributaries of the Rio Lobos. Each of Pablo's four wives had her own hut and they shared the pueblo with Pablo's brother, Alberto, who had two wives of his own, so there were several huts grouped closely together.

  They entered the largest one where Pablo lived with his main wife, who served them a meal of roast sloth and yucca. After the meal, Pablo pulled out a long hollow reed and a brown beer bottle. From the bottle, he poured a fine green powder with which he filled one end of the reed. He then placed the filled end of the tube in Alberto's nose and blew through the other end.

  Moises leaned over to Taylor and whispered, "Nu-nu, good medicine." He then went on to explain that the medicine was used to bring visions to the hunters as to where to find the animals.

  After a few seconds, during which Alberto coughed and sneezed several times, he lay down next to the fire with his eyes closed, his sinewy body twitching, the fire glistening off his bronze skin. After a minute or two, he started talking, his words slurred at first then clearer. As he spoke, Moises whispered a translation to Taylor.

  "He's in the woods, near a stream. He says he knows the place. It is familiar. Less than half a day's journey from here. It is daylight, early morning by the look of the mist still hanging over the water.

  "He sees animals, many animals." Moises' voice rose in pitch, matching Alberto's telling of the vision. "Tapir, monkeys — many monkeys, and wild boar. The boars are charging towards him. They stampede. Now, many fall and lie still where they fall." Suddenly Alberto stopped talking as he fell into a deep sleep.

  Pablo sidled over to his brother, checked his eyelids and smiled before passing the tube to Moises, who repeated the filling ac
tion, then held the tube out to Taylor, who looked at him uncertainly.

  After another moment of hesitation, Taylor shrugged and allowed Moises to blow the nu-nu up his nostrils.

  Within seconds, the green powder flared deep into his nose, scalding the sensitive tissue. Taylor coughed, sputtered, coughed again, bringing up a thick clod of green phlegm. Then the pain dissipated and he closed his eyes. At first, a velvety darkness met him, sparkles of light blurring the edges.

  When nothing else happened, he decided the nu-nu was only a bad joke played on foreigners. Then out of the center of blackness, a bull elephant thundered, bellowing and tossing his ivory tusked head from side to side. An elephant in South America, Taylor thought. It can't be. What kind of vision was this?

  He watched, enraptured by the fine detail of the vision—the left tusk of the elephant cracked and discolored, the cloudiness of one eye, its inner corner matted with flies. He inhaled the overwhelming heated stench of the great body, making him gag, his head rolling on his shoulders, saliva drooling down his chin. His sweat smelled sour, fetid. Darkness frittered at the edges of his vision, threatening to close the scene down like an old movie fade, from the outside in, reducing everything to a pinpoint of light and then gone. Another elephant passed, then another. Taylor felt sick like he might throw up, but he forced himself to watch. He noticed the elephants held each others' tails.

  As the first elephant passed by, Taylor noticed they were heavily loaded down with large parcels covered in faded canvas and tied with hemp rope that encircled each elephant's girth. A caravan, he wondered? If so, traveling where?

  As the last elephant filed by, the darkness reappeared for a moment then cleared again. This time, he gazed down on a quiet setting. The elephants, he assumed they were the same ones, lumbered along a narrow stream which fed into another larger stream. They were at a headwater of some large river, with a dozen or more small tributaries coalescing into one wide body of water.

  Across the river, one he did not recognize, stood the only part of the vision which seemed to fit into the Amazon setting he had expected. A lone wild boar stood quietly lapping water from the stream. Several yards away from it, a bonfire roared, casting orange highlights on the boar. As he watched, the boar raised its small head, water mixed with saliva drooling from its mouth. Its black eyes bore tunnels of hate through Taylor.

  He couldn't remember ever feeling such hate transmitted through a stare. Not from Penny, not even from his first wife, despite their many years of drunken arguments. This animal, the wild boar, knew how to hate. It continued to stare at Taylor for several minutes, and then with a flick of its short tail, it turned and trotted into the fire. As it was consumed by the flames, the vision lost all detail, fading once more to black. Taylor slept.

  ****

  The last strains of “Your Cheating Heart” echoed through the bar. Cal Wicker, known by his few friends as Hawg, burped and swallowed the bile that tried to leap from his throat. With a great deal of effort, he picked his head off the bar and attempted to focus on his reflection in the mirror in front of him. He only partially succeeded, barely able to make out the Braves baseball cap cocked precariously on one side of his head.

  He turned to his right, searching for the bartender but the only person he saw was another drunk, even larger than himself, who'd passed out before him. Against the side wall, a too green TV picture of American Gladiators. He watched for a moment, his eyes fighting to remain in focus as two Amazonian women beat on each other with padded poles. I’d like to boink the blonde, Cal thought, then burped again. What was her name? Biff or Barf, some shit like that. Finally, with eyes threatening to cross out of focus, he turned to the left and was rewarded with the scraggly figure of the bartender.

  " 'Nother beer," he slurred. A sharp knife wrenching pain mounted behind his eyes. Unable to focus, he relaxed and watched the bartender divide into twins. What day was it anyhow? Let's see, couldn't be Friday or Saturday. Even this low-life dive would have more fucking business on the weekend. Not Sunday. Place closed on Sundays. Where was I on Sunday? He had a vague feeling he should remember Sunday. Something special had happened. Oh well, not Sunday. Then it must be Monday. Surely his binge hadn't lasted more than three or four days.

  "No more beer for you, Hawg. Bar's closing; time to head home."

  The bartender seemed to have magically appeared in front of him. What had he said? No beer? He's refusing to give me another beer? Give me a fucking beer, you stupid son-of-a-bitch. Cal raised his head from his chest where it had lapsed, intending to point to the tattoo of the warthog on his left bicep with the inscription, "Hawgman — Wildman." He planned to use the move as a diversion to throwing his first punch but before he could raise his arm, he was stopped by the image floating in front of him. Was it in the mirror? Was someone standing behind him? He squinted his eyes. Shook his head. Ohh — big mistake. Waited for the explosion of lights to clear and opened his eyes again. The image was still there.

  It was of the head and torso of a man, but not anyone he had ever seen. The man was mostly naked, his bronze skin glistened as though well oiled. He held something long and skinny in his hand, like the Gladiators' weapons but without the padding. Something did not match but for the life of him, he couldn't figure out what it was. Then it suddenly came to him. The man was dressed like an Indian, or maybe a native you'd expect to see in some ad about Hawaii or some other far off tropical country, but the face was that of a white man. No native there. The only thing about the face that matched the rest of the picture was the earring dangling from his right ear.

  "Cancel the beer," Cal said as he slipped off the barstool and nearly fell. "I'm going home—get some sleep." As he stumbled across the floor, he remembered what had been special about Sunday. Sunday had been the day he'd blown away the kid.

  "Oh fuck, I'm Lord," he slurred as he lost his balance and fell through the doorway.

  ****

  The morning after the hunting ritual, Taylor awoke refreshed and invigorated. He couldn't remember the last time he had rested so well, despite sleeping on the hard ground of the hut. He was relieved the nu-nu hadn't left him with a hangover. They had a long day ahead of them if they were going to find the dow-kiet. They were fortunate to have found Pablo though. Among the Matses, he was known for his ability to talk to the tree frogs and to call them out of their hiding places.

  After the rest of the men had awoken, Taylor shared his vision with them. After listening quietly to the translation, Pablo spoke excitedly to Moises.

  "He says you are about to embark on a great hunt," Moises translated.

  "How can that be?" Taylor asked. "I had visions of animals that don't even exist on this continent."

  "No matter," Moises insisted. "Visions are unique unto the person. Give it time."

  After washing up and having a small meal of cold tapir and yucca, Moises explained to Pablo the purpose behind their visit. The two men talked for a brief time before Moises returned to Taylor.

  "He says not to worry. Pablo will call the dow-kiet. You will have your frog and sapo before the sun rises in the morning."

  Pablo proved to be a man of his word and by nightfall they had not one but two of the tiny amphibians. While sitting around the fire joking about the great hunt of the tree frog, Pablo pulled out a small leaf bag that hung next to the cooking fire.

  “Sapo," he said simply, then handed the bag to Taylor. "For the hunt."

  Taylor turned to Moises, confused by the comment but sure he wasn't ready to try another "powerful medicine" so soon, asked, "Can I wait til later to try it?"

  Moises repeated the question. "He says you will know when the hunt is about to begin. Take it then." Moises went on to explain that Pablo had shown him how to administer the sapo on a previous trip, and he would be sure to instruct Taylor on its use before he headed back to the States.

  Taylor thanked Pablo in his limited Matses and after a short time, the three men retired to bed. As Taylor drifted of
f to sleep, he thought of how successful the trip might prove to be. He had heard rumors of the power of sapo ranging from medicinal to hunting magic. Although he didn't intend to try it himself, he felt certain there would be a number of lab rats back in Atlanta that would get a kick out of it.

  The following morning, they said goodbye to Pablo and headed back on their two-day trip to the trading post. From there, Taylor would travel by boat to San Juan and then back to the States. As they arrived at the trading post, the store owner handed Taylor a telegram.

  "From States, day after you left," he explained as Taylor slit the yellow envelope open and read the message inside:

  Tried calling — stop — Peter shot and killed on Sunday — stop—

  Funeral on Tuesday — stop — Please come — stop — Penny

  Taylor read the staccato message over and over, hoping that just maybe if he read it enough times, the words would change. They did not. He felt Moises' hand on his arm.

  "What is the matter?"

  He handed the telegram to Moises but continued to stare at his hands, the words still emblazoned on his retinas.

  After a moment, Moises took him by the hand and led him to a stool at one end of the store. He slumped onto it, his eyes burning. He closed them, squinting in an attempt to squeeze the words from his brain. It couldn't be. Somebody's cruel heartless joke. In a moment, the store owner would rush forth and, with a nervous laugh, beg to be excused for such a tasteless joke. But no one stepped forth. Everyone stood still, frozen in time.

  Images of Peter flashed through his mind. The first time he had held him, minutes after the doctor had pulled his son from Penny's belly by C-section because Peter had been too large to be delivered by normal childbirth. The first time Taylor had changed his diaper and had been surprised by the spray of urine that almost hit him in the face. Peter in the backyard playing catch. Peter proudly showing off his collection of carved animal figures to his friends. Peter . . . Peter. . . Peter. Someone has killed my son.