Dangers, Patterns, and Storytelling

After my eventual return to the jungle, I decide to wait for Jan’s faith to be rewarded before I return to his guesthouse. It has been some time since I’ve had to live outside the civilized world, but the story is more important than my comfort. And, on the off chance the story is checked, best anyone that’s asked knows nothing. The next shipment of goods should be coming in seven days. First, I need shelter. Then, food. Those two steps done, all that’ll be left is to wait and watch events unfold. Shelter is more difficult in theory than in practice. I want a place I can lie down and not get rained on or eaten, that isn’t easily noticed from a ways away. But in practice, the jungle is so busy normally that one rarely needs to worry about a small lean-to standing out. So, making a safe shelter is mostly just a matter of choosing a spot out of the way enough to be sure no one would actually get near it. Because, no matter how busy a backdrop might be, once you get close to a man-made shelter, pretty much anyone can spot it. What people need for shelter tends to stand out from nature.

I find a beautiful thick tree that I don’t recognize. Most of the trees around here I don’t quite recognize, but that’s not important. I’ll learn about all this with time. If such information doesn’t already exist, I’ll have someone with time and experience in the field make a study of it all. Once I find someone with actual relevant skills in this place. Perhaps once it becomes more civilized in the islands, those experts of Europe can be politely encouraged to come and do their work here. New worlds and all that. I think about these things as I construct the lean-to of timber I find around and vines, then cover in the leaves of several different plants, larger leaves near the bottom, then smaller ones to cover up the holes and creases. In no time at all, I have myself a shelter that, from every direction save one, looks relatively indistinguishable as an object. The one direction it is a shelter, the entrance, I make sure faces to the south-west. The most inland direction. If there are peoples looking from that direction, they’d likely not care about my little shelter, not with the same murderous intent that the others who notice it might care.

Shelter sorted out, I move on to food. The rivers are a no-go. Too high a likelihood of getting caught. I can go three days without. Four if I’m pushing it. I need at least two full meals out of whatever I catch, which leaves out whatever this area’s equivalent of hare are. Possibly hare, as if I recall my aunt’s lessons correctly, the far east and the plains of Africa also have different hares. But that’s not of import as I need something more substantial. Leaving behind most of my newfound weapons, I make my way up to the tree branches. From above, you can see the prey animals and, at least back in Europe, they rarely notice you. I am around one arpent from my shelter, traveling directly south, when I’m disabused of that notion for this area. Prowling branch to branch, I notice a few trees away, a slender beast doing the same. Similar to the drawings of Grecian Lions, though with even less pronounced mane. In fact, from my distance, it almost seems maneless. We lock eyes for a moment, the cat and myself. A recognition, predator to predator, of territory. I bare my teeth, generally a sign of aggression. A warning. It begins to prowl in my direction. Taking one of the three blades I brought with me and maintaining eye contact with the prowling cat, I slash a nearby vine. It slides clean through, causing the vine to fall to the ground. This seems to startle the beast, who moves slowly back, then bows its head. I head my way, further south, and it heads its own way.

Eventually I return to my lean-to with some kind of deerlike creature. It seems deer are another ubiquitous type of prey animal. And, such a hunt means I will be able to eat every day. Except tonight, of course, because I don’t have salt, don’t want to light a fire, and need to dry it so it’s relatively good eating. Skinning the deer, I take it to the treetop and splay it in the sun burning above. I doubt it will be ready soon, but I figure it will be worth it. Until the vultures come. Carrion eaters are another of those ubiquities, I suppose. These are larger than the vultures I’m used to, but they look near the same. I head back to the corpse, partly eaten, and cut strips of meat out from it. One for each day I’m waiting in the wild. Each strip is roughly an aune long and two pouces wide. Taking these, I leave the corpse for the birds. To sate them, and so that they keep the other predators away. Heading back down, I dig a hole, build a fire, cover it with rocks leaving only a small vent, and lay the strips around the rocks. The heat should help dry them. With time.

I am right, it takes the rest of the day, and the full night, but by morning, the meat is mostly dry. And so my routine begins. I take a single strip off the rocks, head up to the treetops, give a nod to the vultures, and watch the river. It seems my paranoia was unfounded, as through the week the Spanish do not visit. The story worked the way it was meant to work. No repercussions nor suspicion falls upon those that were technically my captors. On the sixth day, one day early, a ship comes down the river flying Dutch colors. The merchant vessel. It stops at the trading post. I decide it is time for me to return to my guest room. Returning to my lean-to, I gather the final strip of meat and head south. On a branch near where I met the large cat, I hang the meat. A peace offering of a sort. Or a cession of territory, depending on how the lion without a mane thinks. Either way does not matter to me, as I doubt I shall return. Heading to the lean-to once more, I rearm myself fully. I don’t want to leave any evidence that I was ever here. I knock over the lean-to and collapse the firepit. Then, I begin the walk back to the estate. The only beings who would think I was anywhere the last few days would be the birds who got to feast on my kill and the predator that respected me. Even if they could tell anyone, I doubt they would.

I cross the river at the rapids, and head through the forest to a short walk from the estate’s guesthouse. Climbing partway up the trees, I peer through the branches to see patrols. Just as it was best before if I simply vanished, the story is most intriguing if I simply reappear. It takes some time, but eventually I figure out a path to the loose stone that, when timed right, no one would notice. I skirt around the forest’s edge to the best angle, wait for twilight, then make my move.

Back in Jan’s guesthouse, I return the stone carefully to its proper place, slide my new weapons between my bed’s frame and my bedding, and return to the smudged and dust-covered drawings upon the floor. I add in some more detail in the local area, including a bean from the tree I slept under to represent the location of the Spanish camp, and the river’s contouring in more detail, a question mark representing my best guess for where the galleon will be, and another where the French ship should be. Well, roughly. Thankfully my map is as distant as it is, because I definitely didn’t do the measurements when I was drifting in the nest.

The next morning, one of Jan’s men notices me, sitting calmly in the cell that the previous day was empty, and rushes off to tell his boss. Jan brings in fresh tea. Two cups this time. “Emile,” he says, “You’re here?” He offers me one of the cups.

“Where else would I be?” I reply in French, taking the tea offered.

Jan looks around, then answers in French himself. “Wherever you have been.”

“I’ve just been off telling a story. It is over now.” Taking a whiff, I can tell the tea is fresh. “So, how have things been going here?”

“Better. It seems the galleon left.”

I nod. “I told you things would work out, you just had to have faith.”

He chuckles. “That you did. Why do I get the feeling that’s not all you did?”

“Me?” I muse, “I did nothing. Not anything anyone would know, in any case. I just told a story.”

“So you say, I don’t know what you mean.”

I shrug. “People, our minds are fascinatingly complex. We like patterns. Especially patterns of warning. Even when they aren’t true. When we see a rope under the leaves coiled in just the right way, we don’t think rope, we think snake.”

“Is this getting somewhere?”

“Of course not,” I reply, “I’m just explaining storytelling.” I wait a moment, see if he pushes back. He doesn’t. “A story is just a more abstract sort of pattern. Think about me. I know exactly what you thought about the day I vanished. First, you thought I was a thief of some kind, but you found nothing missing. Then a spy. As far as my vanishing, you assumed I had help from one of your men, so you moved the group you had patrolling the guesthouse over to the trading post and then took men from the trading post to patrol the estate.”

I can tell from his expressions I am right. I generally am. After all, I excel at telling a story. He asks, “So, what story did you tell then? Just that one to prove a point?”

I bare my teeth, a very different meaning to other people than to animals, though in this instance it does hold a similar display of dominance. “Finally, a good question. It’s a story of a small group of people, discontent with a jungle’s dangers, deciding to leave their post with a great treasure. Perhaps you’ve heard it?”

He has. Good, makes it easier. “And how did you tell this story?”

“It started as a problem. A ship where it ought not be, that could not be discovered. The best way to ensure that is to sink a ship, but so close to shore, anything within might wash ashore, and that would be inconvenient. And if it sank, that would be too many questions without answers. So I tacked and unfurled the sails, raised up the anchors, and let it travel away. But again, I couldn’t have the wind blowing it ashore eventually, so I added a slight modification as I left, a fist sized hole in the bottom of the hull. I returned to shore. Now I had the problem solved. The ship was leaving. But there were still questions. Mainly, why?

“Now, there are many ways one could answer that question, but I chose the easiest one. People, especially those in military units, are by necessity paranoid. They’re trained to expect ambushes. A rumor of betrayal spreads like wildfire in a military camp. Always has. Always will. So, before the sailing of the ship was reported, I found someone who should have been on the ship that wasn’t. And subtly, I got him to convince himself that they pressured him into not being on the ship. Then, I waited and the story told itself. All the best stories do.”

Jan looks at me, an odd mix of emotions in his eyes. “That’s honestly terrifying,” he admits, though his face betrays awe and pleasure as well.

“As I told you when we first met, there are far better ways to remove entrenched threats. That taken care of, would you be interested in a proposition?”