Jungle

Zach seems destined to dark times.

After I killed Hiram Crane I was plagued with dreams for years. I tried everything I could to make them go away, even went to war a time or two, but nothing helped. That was until I met a woman. She was pretty, she was sweet and I got to thinkin on settlin down. Thing was, when I asked her she turned me down because her father didn't like me. It was the first time I ever hurt over a woman and I tell you, it sure cured the dreams. Never had another dream and didn't do a thing worth remembering for years. After a while I got to feelin restless, I couldn't take living one day the same as the other, so I went lookin for a war.

Thing about war, there's always one goin on somewhere and I found one in jungle country. It was rainy season and we were heading for some objective when we came under heavy fire. Most of the platoon died right off and a bunch more during the firefight. Our captain figgered we'd had it and called for a surrender. I told him it was a bad idea. "We'll die if we don't surrender." he told me and I said, "We'll die horribly if we do." He looked at me a minute then yelled, "Throw your weapons into the clearing." I thought about killing him but the others had already started throwing their weapons out. I knew this was going to be bad but I threw my weapons out anyway.

They marched us for days with little water and nothing to eat until we came to a prison camp. They started questioning and beating us right away. They took the captain away first and when they brought him back it didn't even look like him anymore. They dragged another fella out and he came back unrecognizable, too. This kept up until they got us all. After we ate some watery rice one of the fellas asked, "Do you think they're done with us?" They all looked at the captain and he shook his head, "Be strong. We'll get through this, we don't have any information for them." I knew none of us would live through this.

I lost track of how many times we were questioned, but when they finally figgered we had nothing for them there were only three of us left. The captain said, "The beatings have ended, we're going to survive this." I just looked at him and figgered they really didn't teach these fellas a whole lot about war. The next morning they marched us out of the prison camp, the captain died before we got to the labor camp.

Every time I tried to escape I took a bad beating and got put back to work. After a while I couldn't escape anymore and then I couldn't work. They kept tryin to encourage me to get back to work then they got tired and left me in the jungle to

I woke up in the place of light again. I was getting pretty sick of all the questions and punishments and deals so I hollered out, "Im getting sick of yer game!" The next thing, I was in the dark place again. I hollered out the same thing. Then I was some place in between. It was all gray and that was all I had a chance to see because I woke up in a village by the sea. Night and day I was plagued by dreams of my life and I didn't feel much like going anywhere or doing anything so I stayed in the village. The people there were happy to have me because I was a good hunter and fisherman, I pulled my weight.

I learned the language of the people and realized they'd been calling me Sad Hunter. One night after dinner when it was time to talk and tell stories they asked me, "Why are you sad?" It was their first time to ask me to talk at the fire and they'd done right by me so I figgered I'd give it to them straight, "I lived a hard life. I wronged people and killed people and spent most of my life warring. I have dreams that come to me every night and bring me sad memories." Some looked like they didn't understand but all the old ones nodded their heads. That was it, nothing more was said but that was their way, they didn't spend a lot of time talkin about what they were going to do, they just went and did it. What they did was find me a woman.

Her name was Mist Dance. She was a gentle soul and every night she would sing me to sleep. My dreams would be so peaceful, happy memories, life by the sea with Mist Dance, but they would always end with someone dying. I was happy during the day and most of the night, that was fine by me. We had a fine boy and when he became a man I gave him the name Warrior's Eye. As a child he loved to hear all my war stories. There was no war among these people but he took to warring ways. He looked at everything and thought about them in terms of defense and strategy. We talked late into the night about ways to defend our land from invaders.

It was good we did, our land was invaded.

Mist Dance and I were sleeping when I heard a shout from the beach. It sounded like trouble so I told Mist Dance to wait in the hut and I went down to the beach. Fifteen long canoes were heading for the shore and one had already landed. The person who shouted, a fisherman named Night Walker, was dead. I ran back to the hut raising the alarm the whole way. I got my gun and then went for Warrior's Eye. I told him to gather the men and put together a plan of defense. I'd hold off the attackers as long as I could.

I was low on ammo, I figgered I could put down a dozen of them but that still left about fifty we had to deal with. There were forty men in our village and none of them knew a thing about fighting except my son and he'd never been tested. We were in trouble. I did what I could then I moved back with the rest of the men and we put up as best a fight as we could. It wasn't good enough. When the fighting ended the huts were on fire, many of the men were dead and many of the women had been taken away. Mist Dance was among them.

The men that weren't totally whipped were all for going right after them to get the women back. Warrior's Eye spoke what I was thinking, "If you go after them now you will be dead and the women will be theirs. They are expecting us, we can not fight all of them, we could not even fight the ones who came. I have a plan." It was a good plan, the plan of a seasoned fighter. My son had really earned his name.

We left for the enemy island two days later and arrive at night. We slipped past the beach side of the island and anchored on the cliff side. When there was enough light we climbed up and waited for the next nightfall. When we got to the village it was like Warrior's Eye expected, there were very few sentries and everyone else was busy drinkin and messin with our women. We had to restrain a couple of men from trying to rush in right then. When they all had either gone to their huts or passed out we moved in. We took out the sentries without an alarm and proceeded to cut the throats of the rest of the men. When we finished with the ones outside we started on the huts.

I'd spotted what hut they took Mist Dance into and I was headin for it when I heard a ruckus. Sounded like someone woke up in one of the huts and was fighting one of our men. I ran for Mist Dance's hut before everyone started waking up and this raid turned into a nightmare. When I got inside the feller was awake but was stumblin around pretty drunk. I was about to knife him when I started thinkin about all the dreams I'd been having and I figgered I didn't want to add this drunk dude to the list, so I knocked him out. I grabbed Mist Dance and we started runnin for the beach. Well, I should have taken the dreams because all of a sudden the drunk was rushing us. I knifed him and he went down but it was no use, on his way down he drove his knife into Mist Dance's back.

I sat with her for two days as she fought to live. She lost. The dreams went away. I left.

Excerpt from The Godz of Earth by S.E.Estes