Arthur O. Friel

“ The chief and the sub-chief went their ways, and we crept forward on our own path. Before long we heard sounds of life that told us we were almost at the edge of the clearing; and after I spied ahead and found the end of the trail clear I sent my men into the bush. Most of them were bowmen and blow-gun men, and I gave them no orders, knowing they well understood what they were to do—stretch out along the edge of the jungle and be ready for action.
Those who were clubmen and spearmen stayed with me—six of them, each powerful enough to crush the life out of two ordinary men. ”

“ And soon the great green jungle, which has swallowed many better men, will blot out every trace of them, and only their evil name will live on for a little time at the headwaters of the Amazon, to die out at last and be forgotten. ”

“ Though they were wild, fierce fighting-men of the jungle and eaters of human flesh, they handled me as gently as they could; and when the thorns were out they laid me down and brought me water in big leaves, and gave me to drink. They did even more; they got certain herbs from the forest, and crushed them, and placed them on my wounds; and before long the cruel pain of those hurts grew less, so that I could lie still and not twist and writhe. Then they swiftly made a crude bed of branches and vines and leaves, and put me on it, lifted it, and started straight away through the bush. ”

“ Since the Yellow One’s band painted themselves like the white-lipped peccaries, he said, the wild men would make themselves peccaries of the other kind—those with the white collars; and they would soon show that their teeth were sharper than those of the stinking pigs of the hills.
At dawn we were up and away. There were fully sixty of us, all hard, relentless men. I would have turned northward, whence I had come, but the war-chief shook his head and led the way straight to the west. ”

“ Then from all around rose the exulting yells of the savages. And suddenly the sun dropped behind the mountains, and darkness swept around us.
Somewhere a man set fire to a barracão and quickly the others burst into flame. By the red light the wild men dragged the bodies of the dead bandits into a heap, and attended to their own hurts, and brought all the women before the chief. And there we found that one of the Yellow One’s three women was a girl of this same Indian tribe—a girl who once might have been handsome, but who now looked thin and old from the abuse he had given her. ”

“ Then the Peccaries closed in on them with swinging machetes.
The spearmen drove their weapons into the bellies of some and tore them out again. The clubmen attacked with terrible blows, their tooth-studded bludgeons smashing men’s heads and tearing out their brains. The chief himself swung one of those clubs, and I saw him crush the skulls of four men. The blow-gun men seized machetes from fallen foes and slashed throats open with them. And I stood where I was, snapping a bullet into any Peccary I could hit without shooting one of my Indian friends. ”

“ I soon learned from their talk with our leader, whom they called El Amarillo—probably because of his yellowness—that there were more robbers, but that they now were out on raids of their own, led by sub-chiefs. And during the next few days these bands came in, bringing some rubber, and a large amount of raw gold which they had won by murders somewhere in the hills.
In all, there were fully fifty of them, and I doubt if such a brutal crew ever was gathered before in any place. They were beasts—beasts that walked and talked like men, but had no human hearts. ”

“ They took out the thorns, senhores.
The weight of their charging bodies tore him from the tree. He fell, screaming. But so thick were the beasts about him that he fell not on the ground but on their backs, and fought to his feet again. Yet when he had risen he could not escape; he was wedged among them and knocked back and forth.
Squealing with rage, the devil-pigs seemed to boil up around him, climbing on one another’s backs and leaping upward to strike. With their knife-edged teeth they chopped and slashed his body and arms and legs into ribbons. ”

“ But, bad as they are, they are not so bad as the cruel band of human Peccaries who, not long ago, ravaged the rubber-lands where I and other men employed by old Colonel Nunes were working. Perhaps you have heard of them. No?
Then I will tell you about them, while we sit safely here on the deck and the mighty Amazon bears us on toward our homes; and when you senhores arrive at last in your North America you will have one more tale to tell to the pale-faced folk who dwell in the cities, and use our rubber, and know nothing of the hardship and torment and death that go into the gathering of it. ”

“ I found that he spoke truth; for when we did reach the river there were the boats with a dozen more wild men in them—and with blood-stains on the wood which showed what had become of the Peccary boatmen. Though we filled those boats dangerously full, we went down the stream swiftly. Neither on the water nor on the Peruvian shore did we meet any man, nor even on our way through the hills to the lair of the beastly men-pigs. It seemed that they never suspected Brazilian Indians would come against them or could find their place. ”

“ It is an old saying among us Brazilians that “each ton of rubber costs a human life,” and it is true—too true; for there is many a ton that means not only one death, but several. And the rubber which the Peccaries took from us was measured not by tons but by pounds, and it was stained red with our blood, and with theirs too.
These men were not the wild people of our own Brazilian jungle. They were wild and savage enough, it is true; but they came upon us from across the Javary, which, as you know, is the boundary between Brazil and Peru ”

“ Some time before this I had roamed the jungle with a man from your North America whom I called the Jaguar, because he was a terrible fighter; and we had been captured by Indians said to be cannibals, but had not been killed and eaten by them because the Jaguar dared the chief to fight him barehanded, and killed him; and then a cunning old man who wished to use us for his own purposes made the Jaguar chief of all the tribe, and finally we seized our chance and escaped. ”

“ I fought for my rubber and my friends, and you can not blame a man for that.”
“You have it right,” he answered. “And you have sense also, and you are a good fighter. If you serve us well we may not treat you so badly. Perhaps you may even become one of us, for we need fighting men. If you do become a Peccary you shall have much gold, and women. ”

“ I saw he understood a thing which some men never learn—that a woman taken and kept against her will is not worth taking, because she will surely make trouble when she can.
And so the women did as they pleased. Some came with us, but more took weapons from the dead men who had been their masters and went away in a band, seeking their own homes.
And then, with two wild men yanking the Yellow One along by a rope around his neck and others jabbing him from time to time with machetes, we men from Brazil took the trail by which we had come. ”

“ There are handsome maidens in the Indian villages here and there—yes, young and strong and beautiful—and when they have come to us they love us so much that they never leave us—until they die.”
And he laughed again, cruelly; and the white-jawed men laughed too, so that I shivered, picturing to myself what the fate of those women must be. But I concealed my feelings, and when they ordered me to the rubber tambo I went, with Paulo trailing silently along behind.
There the Peccaries loaded themselves with the rubber, cursing and growling because there were not more men to carry it. ”

“ The wild men only growled in disgust, while their chief stood before him holding the thorns for him to look at. I shivered, senhores, but I could do nothing for him even if I tried; they might seize me and nail me up again too, for those people are easily angered, and their anger is deadly. ”

“ When we had all we could carry the raiders took the weapons from the dead and hid them in the forest, where they could get them when they came again with more men. Then they started westward, driving us like beasts.
For two days we marched, Paulo and I plodding on-silent and sullen. Paulo was suffering much from his broken arm, but our captors showed him no mercy. ”

“ All the men, and the women too, painted themselves anew with curving stripes of black and red, and the chiefs put on their finest feathers and squirrel-tail belts, and the others wore necklaces of the teeth of animals. The women took the hands and feet brought back by the fighters, and stripped the flesh from the bones, and fried it in tapir-lard or boiled it in reddish pots. ”

“ Yes, those surely must have been the white-lipped peccaries; for the white-collared pigs do not travel in such big bands, and they are not so large or so dark, nor so likely to attack a man if they are let alone. Those with the white chest-band, though, are dangerous and bad.
For that matter, all peccaries are wicked fighters if they are aroused, and it is best to avoid them if you can. ”

“ On our trips to this tambo we always carried out with us some rubber to be sent down-stream, but there was much more of it which we left behind; for the journey through the bush was so long that it had been decided to pile up the rubber we made until the flood-time drew near, when a large band of men were to be sent in to take it away. So we had many balls of it, worth much money, waiting out there in the forest when we heard of the Peccaries. ”

“ The spearmen stripped the grass sheaths from the points of their weapons, and I saw that each of the terrible barbs was dark with poison. To them I gave one command: that they walk last, with the spear-heads turned backward. And then we slipped up to the clearing and waited.
The Peccary lair was on a hillside, and our path ran along that hill, so that we now were lurking at a point about opposite the center of the town, with houses above us and below us. We could see into the middle of the place, where stood the barracão of the Peccary chief ”

“ And look around you and see what has come to your men. If I had not decided to make you sweat blood before I finish with you, and so had you struck down from behind, you too would now be meat for the vultures, which are gathering for their feast. ”

“ Then, señor el capitan, tell your men to make no fight, or they will all go the way of those two dogs on the ground. We are the Peccaries—you know of us, yes? Then you know what we do to those who oppose us. ”