# The Peccaries

Bandits of the worst type they are, these loathsome outlaws who, painted like jungle-pigs, torture and rob the Brazilian rubber-gatherers. And their retribution, like their crimes, also bears the stamp of the peccaries.
The Peccaries $^{by}$ Arthur O. Friel
Author of “The Sloth,” “The Jaguar,” etc.
PARDON me, senhor, but I think you are mistaken. Those peccaries which attacked you while you and your companions were exploring the headwaters of the Javary must have been those with the white lips and jaws, not those with the white band across their chests.
You say there was a big drove of them, and that they were large, black, and ugly. 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. 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.
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; and they were not merely barbaros who killed for the joy of fighting or because they ate human flesh, but an organized band of desperate men who hunted plunder in the form of rubber, or gold, or women, or whatever else they valued.
They were merciless, and were led by a yellow devil more pitiless than they. And nothing could stand before them until they met another band of human Peccaries, brought upon them by a man who escaped them after torment. I was that man.
We first heard of them from our fellow workmen down the river, who had the news of them from other men who brought supplies. We ourselves were toiling in a rubber district which was very rich, but very far out from headquarters, so that we had to go a long distance through the jungle at intervals in order to renew our food, which was brought up in boats to a large tambo where another of the coronel’s gangs was working a number of good estradas.
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.
Our friends told us the Peruvian side was being raided by a large band of marauders whose leader was a yellow half-breed, and who painted their jaws a whitish color like the white-lipped peccaries; and from this, and their savagery, they got their name. That was all that our men knew of them at that time. So we went back to our district, talking about this new peril of a region that is always perilous enough, but fearing it not at all; for none of us thought those robbers would ever come into our place, so far away from the hills of Peru.
NOW, as you have been among peccaries, senhores, you must know the fetid smell that comes from them, especially when there are many of them together. It comes from a gland in their loins, and if you kill one for his meat—which you probably will not do if you can find anything better—you must cut this thing out at once.
And one day some time after our trip outside, while we were lounging around the tambo in the heat of noon, this smell floated to us from the thick forest round about. It grew strong and rank in the heavy air, and we looked at one another and arose to get our rifles. But the beasts that burst out upon us were not what we expected.
A voice snarled an order, the bush rustled, and we were surrounded by a score of evil-looking men. They were Indians and half-breeds, almost naked, armed with rifles, revolvers and knives, and smelling most foul. We saw at once that they were Peruvian caboclos, for they had the slanting eyes and high cheek-bones. Then I grew cold inside, for I observed that their lips and jaws were daubed a dirty white; and that and their peccary-smell told me who they were.
Shots crashed out, and I turned to see two of my men, fall dead, killed because they had seized their rifles. Then the yellow-faced, black-mustached leader of the raiders strode before me and snarled in Spanish—
“Who commands here?”
“I do,” I snarled back.
He grinned a mocking grin, and said:
“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. But we would spare you for a time, because we can use you.”
“For what?” I demanded.
“For beasts of burden, illustrious señor. You have much rubber, which will be carried out for us. And you will do the carrying.”
As my rifle was not near my hand I leaped at him with my machete drawn. He sprang away from before me and hissed something through his yellow teeth. A sudden shock smote the back of my head, and I fell.
When I came to myself the fight was over, and of my eleven men only two were left alive. One was Jorge Tourinho, who was very ill with fever; and the other was Paulo Pereira, a big fellow who was very powerful but rather slow of thought and action. All the other nine lay where they had died fighting those devils who would not only rob us but enslave us too.
And though they had been outnumbered, surrounded, and caught by surprise, they had fought well, those mates of mine. Among their bodies lay those of six dead Peccaries, and four more of the raiders were shot and slashed so that they would soon die. The yellow leader, however, was unharmed, and as I started to rise he sprang and kicked me down. And then, grinning that cruel grin, he said:
“Stay where you are, dog, until I tell you to get up. 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.”
And I looked up as I lay there, and saw that he spoke truth, for the black urubus already were settling into the trees around us.
Swiftly I rolled over and sprang up and attacked him again in fury—with my bare hands this time, for my machete was gone. I got his throat in my hands and throttled him. But another blow smashed on my head, and for the second time I was knocked senseless. And when the light came back to me I could not fight more, for I was sick—sick from a terrible headache caused by those blows, and sick because I had been brutally kicked in the stomach while I lay there.
And as I looked around I grew yet sicker from what I saw. For those demonios were mutilating the bodies of my comrades in a manner such as I can not tell you about, and such as-only fiends could ever have thought of.
I looked at Paulo, who lay near me, and saw his face was gray-white. As I moved he caught my eye and said hoarsely:
“Do not fight more, chief, or they will do to us what they are doing to the dead—and do it while we are alive. Their yellow capitão has said so.’
I made no answer, but my face may have shown my thought, for he added:
“Do not look so at me—I can not fight. See, my right arm is broken. And I was struck down from behind even as you were, and I am sick.”
BEFORE I could say anything, if I had wanted to, a voice arose in a babble of meaningless words. The sound came from the tambo, where Jorge lay racked with fever, and I knew it was he, raving in his illness. The Peccaries turned and looked toward the noise, and the leader went to the hammock where Jorge lay.
“Ah! The fever?” he purred. “That is very sad, my friend, that you have fever. If you were well you might be a beast of burden for us, but you are far too weak to be useful. And since I am very tender of heart, and it grieves me deeply to see you suffering so, I will cure you at once.”
Then Jorge’s babbling burst into a sudden scream, and after that he was silent. And the yellow man came grinning, and carrying a red-stained knife.
The foul-smelling cabaclos laughed harshly at his murderous humor. A cold, deadly rage filled me. I ached to kill them all. Yet I saw how hopeless my position was, and swiftly determined what I would do. Though I would rather die fighting than be their pack-animal, yet I would not fight, nor die either; for if I were dead I would be of no use to myself or any one else, while if I lived and awaited my chance I might find a way to destroy this band, or at least some of them, and avenge my mates.
So when the chief murderer ordered me roughly to get up I did so meekly, though with some difficulty because of my aching stomach. And when he called me dog again, and told me that if I made more trouble he would cut out my bowels, I answered:
“I will make no trouble, senhor. You have won, and I am no fool. 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.
“But first we shall see how you act. If you try treachery, you will scream for death a long time before it comes to you.”
“Gold and women?” I asked as if that bait tempted me. “Where do you get your women, senhor?”
He laughed then, a vile laugh, and stared at me with glittering eyes so evil that I secretly felt ashamed that any man should think of me what he thought. And he said:
“So you are interested, yes? We get the women wherever we find them. 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. They loaded me and Paulo, too, until we could scarcely walk under our burdens.
The yellow man scowled at Paulo’s broken arm a minute before he was loaded up, and fingered his knife as if half-minded to kill him because he was crippled. But then he looked him all over, and saw how big and strong he was, and decided to keep him alive because he would be able to carry much weight when the broken arm should mend; so he had that arm tied up roughly with creeping vines.
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. Because of this he soon developed a fever, and between this and his pain he could not sleep at night, but turned and groaned so that I could not sleep much either.
Of course, I did what little I could for him, and whispered encouragement, telling him we would live to repay these murderers for all they had done to us and our comrades. But he said:
“Chief, I shall not live. I feel that I shall see few more dawns, and I am glad.”
And he was right. For whenever the band paused to drink from a stream they always let us drink first, and waited a while before taking water themselves, which puzzled us somewhat. And on the third day Paulo drank heavily from a little brook while I lay where I dropped to snatch a moment’s rest, too tired even to creep to the water. And very soon after that be began to writhe and squirm, while the Peccaries looked at him with gleaming eyes and nodded to one another as if they had expected this.
I went quickly to him, and said—
“Comrade, what is it?”
He gasped—
“Poison!”
And soon he died in great pain.
I turned on those caboclos then and cursed them. But they only laughed, and the leader said:
“Why waste your temper? He was only a cripple. Do not curse us, but the Indians who poisoned the water because we took some of their women and made them happy. We have been very polite, and have always allowed you to drink first; is it not so?”
Then he cackled his hideous laugh, and,I burned to kill him. But there was nothing I could do, and so I swallowed my hate and went on with them, trying to comfort myself with the thought that now Paulo was at peace. `
WE REACHED a river, and they drew out canoes from concealment under the bank, and we went downstream for quite a long distance. Then we landed on the western shore, hid the canoes again and kept on westward.
Though I staggered on under my load like an unseeing brute, I was really using my eyes all the time and remembering our course, so that I could use it again by myself if the chance came. And at last, when it seemed I could go no farther, we came into a village which was the lair of the Peccaries.
It was a filthy little town with barracãos built much like ours, except that these houses did not stand high on poles as ours do; for the place was in hilly country, far above the reach of the floods. There were few men about, but quite a number of women—Indian women, all young, some not bad-looking, but all seeming sullen and hopeless. The men were as hard-looking and foul-smelling as those with us, and they had the same white-daubed jaws.
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.
Nobody paid much attention to me, except to curse me or throw vile jests at me, and see that I did not escape. This I made no effort to do, for two reasons: I was so worn down by my hard march that I wanted rest above all else, and besides I hoped to work out some way to destroy them, which was really what I had undergone all that hardship for.
But I could see no way to do this, for I was one unarmed man among half a hundred cutthroats, and all I could think of was to set fire to their barracãos at night. This idea I discarded, for there was little chance that I could do them much harm by burning their houses. And so for the time I did nothing but watch and listen.
I saw that the rubber they had brought in from their raids was taken away again by a gang of stolid Indian porters, commanded by a villainous caboclo with one eye, who probably delivered it at some place where it could be sent to a market and sold.
I saw also why these men smelled so; for they killed peccaries in the forest, and ate their flesh, and smeared themselves with the musky fat from those pouches in the pigs’ loins; and as they never washed themselves this odor quickly became most vile. Besides this, I saw something of their treatment of women.
As ten of them had died in the fight with my men, and all of them had had women, the Yellow One now decided to give these girls over to other men. He had them brought out and lined up before him like cattle, and picked the best-looking for himself, although he already had two others of his own. Then he gave each of his sub-chiefs one, and those who were left he handed over to men who had none.
The girls made no protest, but went dumbly with the men who got them—all except one. She was one of the youngest, and she turned from the bandit to whom she was given and begged El Amarillo not to make that man her master. He snarled, and told her to go as he ordered.
Then she broke away and fled very fast, trying to escape; and the big brute who now owned her ran after her, cursing. He caught her by the hair, and his knife flashed, and she fell; and then he picked her body up and threw it out to one side for the urubus and came back, muttering with rage.
The Yellow One grinned his beastly grin, and the others said nothing, but walked off as if such things were common. And I went away and sat down by myself, sick at heart.
SOON after that a dozen more Indian carriers came in, and the chief took them and me and four of his fighting-men, and we started back to my old tambo to bring out more of the rubber. Before we went the Yellow One ordered that large boats be kept waiting for us at that place on the river where we had first taken to the canoes, as several trips through the bush would be necessary to clean up all the loot.
At first it seemed strange to me that he should go back himself instead of sending a lesser man and devoting his own time to new work elsewhere. But as we marched back to the river I learned from his talk with his fighters that it was not alone the rubber that took him back, but that he planned another raid in my country, and a foul one.
For he was not satisfied with the three women he now possessed, but wanted more; and he knew of an Indian tribe who lived in the Brazilian bush in a great maloca, or tribal house, and who were lighter in color than most Indians and had among them many handsome young women. So, after our rubber should be all brought out and sent down the river, he intended to lead his men against this tribal house by night, when the Indians were asleep, burst in its single door, and, in the darkness and confusion of the sudden attack, to seize a number of girls and drag them swiftly away to a fate which I knew only too well.
I learned, too, from their talk that this would not be the first time they had assailed those Indians and carried off their women, and that in a previous raid they had captured, among other girls, the one whom I had recently seen murdered.
Now, though I had been unable to help that girl, because she had fled and met her death so swiftly that I could not interfere, I had noticed her particularly among the women, and had wondered whether she came from a certain tribe of Indians whom I knew. 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.
And though we had been among those people only a short time, quite a number of their faces stayed dimly in my memory, and it seemed to me that the girl murdered by the big brutal Peccary had been among them. So now, when I heard this talk of a woman-stealing raid, I became sure that the tribe these men were about to attack was the same one which had held me prisoner.
And though those Indians meant nothing to me, the knowledge of what these beasts were scheming to do made my hatred for them all the more bitter; for it brought back to me burning memories of a time when I had a girl for whom I cared much, and lost her when she was carried away by a fiend even worse than the Peccary leader. And, brooding over this, and the deaths of my men, and the brutality from which I myself had suffered, I resolved that from this journey either El Amarillo or I would not come back.
We reached the river, and took the canoes up-stream, and resumed our march through the jungle. The Yellow One walked near me several times leering at me and calling me beast and dog, and taunting me with the fact that I should soon look upon the torn remnants of my brave comrades who had died fighting.
I bit my tongue and kept silence. But from the corner of my eye I studied his weapons, as I had done a number of times before. He carried a rifle in one hand, a machete and dagger at his left side, and a revolver at his right.
The thought of snatching one of these grew in my mind. I wanted one of the knives, which would do its work quickly and surely if I once got a grip on it; but somehow he always walked at my left, in such a way that the knives were on the other side of him and out of my reach.
The rifle, too, he carried usually in his left hand, and I knew that if I seized it there would be a struggle, and that probably one of the other Peccaries would kill me before I could wrench it from his grasp. Thus the revolver would be best, for I could get it more easily, and perhaps kill the other robbers with it as well as their leader. Whether the Indian carriers would attack me I did not know, nor care.
Then came my chance. The yellow man came up beside me once more—on the left, as before—and jeered at me, and stepped ahead. Ina flash I swooped at the revolver, caught its butt, yanked it from his belt.
He whirled like a cat. As he faced me I pointed at his body and pulled.
The hammer snapped down, but no explosion came. I pulled trigger again—and again and yet again. The weapon only clicked. It was empty.
Then, swift as a striking snake, the Yellow One’s rifle-barrel hit my hand and knocked the revolver from it. And the Yellow One burst into a shrill, screeching laugh, and I saw I had been tricked.
I sprang at him. But he jammed his rifle into my stomach, stopping me in my tracks and knocking out my wind. Four men seized me and held me powerless.
“SO AT last you have come to life, my illustrious pack-animal!” he mocked me. “I have been testing you, waiting to see if you would not seize that unloaded weapon which I brought near your hand. You were so slow about it that I began to think you could be trusted to become a Peccary—but you bit at the bait, yes!
“And now do you remember what I told you, señor—that if you tried treachery you should scream for death long before it came to you? I see you do. And since my conscience is so tender that I could not rest if I failed to keep a promise, I am compelled to see that you receive what I pledged you.”
Though I wrestled and kicked and bit, the men holding me dragged me to a big tree and held me there while their leader went into the bush seeking something. When he came back he carried a double handful of long thorns, as hard and sharp as nails.
At sight of these the other Peccaries chuckled as if they had seen them used before and knew what was to be done with me. More of them grasped me and held me against the tree so that I could not move at all. They twisted my hands up behind me and around the tree-trunk, and the Yellow One picked up the revolver he had knocked from my fist and held it by the barrel like a hammer. Then he stepped around the tree behind me. A moment later a sharp pain pierced one of my hands.
Yes, senhores, that is how I received these ugly scars on my hands and arms, at which I have seen you glance. more than once, though you were too polite to ask me about them. And these are not all, for there are other scars all down my body and legs, made in the same way. With those thorns the grinning Amarillo nailed me to that tree so that I hung in torment, unable to escape.
“There, señor, you will not have to carry any more burdens for us,” he jeered when it was done. “You will have nothing at all to do but.to hang here and scream curses after us when we are gone. When we come back we will let you watch us eat and drink, for you will have hunger and thirst by that time.
“Oh no, dear friend, you will not die before then, for I have been very careful not to break any large blood-vessels, which would let you die too soon. You will last for some days, unless a wandering jaguar should happen to find you. In that case—well, a jaguar must-eat; is it not so?”
And all the Peccaries laughed. But I kept my jaws locked and made no sound. After watching me a minute he added:
“The thorns hurt, yes? That is very sad. Perhaps I can find something that will take your mind off the thorns for a few hours to come.”
He went away again, and returned with a folded leaf. Keeping it closed, he shook it violently. Then he flipped it open and snapped it at me.
Out from it flew several ants, maddened by the shaking they had had—and they were the aracaras, the fire-ants whose bite gives keen pain that is felt for hours afterward. The instant they struck my body. they bit me, and ran over me biting furiously, until I groaned in unbearable pain.
Then those beast-men laughed again harshly, and one of them went and caught a couple of tucandeira ants—those terrible black ones which are more than an inch long. He would have thrown these on me too, but the Yellow One struck them from him and destroyed them with his rifle-butt.
“Fool!” he snarled. “Bitten as this man is already, those black ants would kill him. Would you spoil all the enjoyment we shall have with him in the next few days?”
The man muttered something and turned away. And after spitting in my face the bandit chief turned away too, saying:
“We have more important things to do than to stay longer with you, you Brazilian dog. But we shall return, and then you shall have new things to think about.”
And soon they were gone in the bush.
HOW long I hung there, senhores, I do not know. It seemed eternity. Burning with the torment of the fire-ant poison and the thorns and my wrenched and twisted muscles, I know I raved and screamed after those men had gone. I know, too, that if it had lasted much longer I should have gone stark mad, and that when the Yellow Man returned he would have found me only a yelling idiot. But before my mind gave way a new thing happened. Without a sound two men suddenly stood before me.
THEY were Indians. For an instant I took them for a pair of the Peccary porters who had sneaked back to torture me anew. But then I saw that they were lighter in color, their faces were shaped differently, and they carried big bows.
They were men of the cannibal tribe in the big maloca where I had once been assistant chief, and their faces showed that they knew me. They had little love for me, I felt, for when the Jaguar and I had been among them we had killed their chief and five others of their men. Still, a quick death at their hands would be a mercy to me now; and as I had learned some of their language during the time I spent among them, I begged them either to kill me or set me free.
They grunted to each other, and one asked me how I had come there, nailed to that tree. I made them understand that a band of human Peccaries had left me there. At once they flew into a rage, and I knew my guess had been right, and they were of the tribe whose women the beast-men had stolen.
They gritted their teeth, and beat their chests, and acted as if about to start off in pursuit. But I managed to tell them they were much outnumbered, and their foes had firearms, and so they must have more men before attacking the bandits.
They scowled, but talked it over between them and agreed that I was right. And then they laid down their bows and set to work taking out the thorns.
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.
They marched a long time—so long that once when they paused to drink I asked them what they had been doing so far from their village. They said they were hunters, and had been following a tapir’s track. Then they lifted me and were off again.
It was nearly night when our journey ended at a cleared place, in which stood a great round house about forty feet high, its sides made of palm-trees and its roof of palm-leaves—the maloca where my rescuers and some two hundred other Indians made their home. There my carriers laid me down and left me while they crept through the one low door of the house to report to their chief.
Men and women and children crowded around me as I lay there, and I thought how different was my first arrival among them. Then I had come fighting, hating and despising them as eaters of men.
Now, after what I had just gone through, they seemed friends and decent people; for I knew they ate only their enemies, and that the eating was due not so much to savagery as to some obscure religion; and I knew also that they washed themselves daily, and that a man who allowed himself to stink like the Peccaries would quickly be punished or banished. I saw, too, that they seemed sorry for me in my present condition, and felt that they would be kind `to me. And it was so.
Soon the hunters came out again, and with them their chief and two lesser chiefs, painted red and black, and wearing blue and red feathers bound on their heads, shoulders, and loins. The chief, who was a powerful young fellow, I did not remember; but one of the sub-chiefs was the crafty old man who once had saved my life, and the only one in all the tribe who spoke any words of my language.
This old man looked at me and nodded and talked to the other two. And I was lifted again by the hunters and carried in through the little door and put in a hammock, where women soon brought me a gourd of broth that strengthened me much. And then I told my tale to the head men of the tribe.
They listened in grim silence, except when I told of the murder of the young girl. Then a growl ran among the men around me, and the three chiefs snarled in rage. When I was through I felt sick, and my wounds burned again, and I gave no more attention to the chiefs or any one.
But soon an old woman came with two younger ones, and they put a thick, dark liquid on my injuries which stung like fire for an instant, but which soon eased my pain wonderfully; and then they gave me a drink of some sweetish stuff, and before long I fell into a deep sleep.
WHEN I awoke the sun was glaring down through the big smoke-hole in the roof, and women were cooking at their little fires scattered through the maloca. At once I was offered food by the old woman, and as I ate it I noticed that the tall young chief was gone.
The old sub-chief was there though, and he came and sat by me and told me that the Peccaries already were being hunted down. The big chief and twenty of his best fighters, with the two hunters to guide them, had taken the trail at the first light of dawn. He added with a frightful grin that to-morrow much peccary-meat would be eaten here, and that if I did not care to taste it I should have the head of the Yellow One to kick about when my legs healed.
He was not quite right; for the wild men were gone two days instead of one, and when they came they did not bring the head of the yellow demonio nor any other part of him. But they did bring with them the hands and feet of all the rest of that brutal gang—even those of the Indian carriers.
They had ambushed the raiders in the act of carrying my coronel’s rubber to their boats, and in a swift fight had killed them to a man—except the leader. How that cunning devil had escaped they did not know; he had been there, and then he was not there, and they could find no trace of him after that.
They were angry over this, and all the more so because before he disappeared he shot three of their mates; and the chief asked me to tell them the way to the headquarters of the Peccaries in Peru, so that he could lead a war-party there before the Yellow One should bring his men to attack their maloca with their guns and bullets. This I could not do—I tried, but they could not understand me well. So then I told them that as soon as I could travel again I would lead them there myself, and we would kill all the Peccaries in their own homes.
At once he became more cheerful, and promised to make me strong as quickly as possible; and he gave orders to the old woman who seemed to know so much about curing hurts, and she nodded. Then everybody prepared for a great feast to celebrate the victory they had already won.
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.
Much monkey-meat also was cooked, and parrots, and fish and other things; and all that day there was much eating and drinking, and a sort of ceremony that I could not understand and did not try to. They offered me none of the man-meat, and I was glad, for it angers those people to refuse any of their food. I ate some monkey, and then tried to sleep and forget what they were doing.
For days I lay there while my hurts healed—and they did heal with surprising swiftness. For the old woman was by me day and might, brewing different things in jars over a little fire and putting some of them on my injuries and giving me others to drink; and I grew strong and well much faster than I could have done otherwise.
While I was recovering the Indians were not idle. Some got plants with blue blossoms and small pods and yellow roots, and crushed the roots into pulp, and went away into the jungle; and the old sub-chief told me that with that root-pulp they were poisoning all the streams for a long distance around, except those which they themselves used.
Others went out and made man-traps, such as pits and spring-guns, to kill any one approaching the maloca. And those who did neither of these things worked on their weapons, fitting new cords to their great bows, or fastening barbed sting-ray bones on three-pronged spears, or testing the sharp jaguar-teeth set in big war-clubs, or dipping arrows and blow-gun darts into that brown poison which swiftly paralyzes and kills anything scratched by it.
And while this went on the young war-chief sat with me at times and had me tell him about the Peccary village, so that he could get a clear picture of it in his mind and know what to do when we should reach it.
THEN came the time when I was whole again. I asked for weapons, and the war-chief gave a command, and men brought in all the guns and cartridges and knives taken from the Peccaries they had killed. From these I took the best rifle, and two revolvers, and cartridges, and a machete.
I tried to have other men take the rest of the guns, but the chief would not have it so; for he said they were not skilled in the use of such weapons, and would do the expedition more harm than good with them. They did take the knives and machetes, however, for these they could use. And that night we all slept early, for we knew we had before us a long, hard journey with a death-struggle at the end of it.
Before we slept, though, the fighting-men painted themselves once more. I noticed that this time they added a new stripe—a broad whitish curve around their chests and collar-bones; and from the way they grinned at it I thought they were not used to it. So I asked the old man what it meant, and learned it was a savage joke.
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. When we should reach{the river, he told me, we should find there the Peccaries’ own boats, which the Yellow One had intended for carrying away my rubber, but which now had been brought up-stream for us. And when I asked about this he said he had sent men to get the boats, and that they would not fail.
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.
Still, we went quietly and carefully, lest we either fall into a trap or allow our enemies to learn we were coming. When at last we did come upon one of the guards they always kept out we were traveling so silently that he did not hear us at all.
I saw him first, for I was the guide; and I recognized him as one of those who had thrown filthy insults at me when I was a prisoner there. Hot with the memory of those things, I lifted my rifle.
But the chief, at my heels, caught my arm and shook his head; and I read his thought—that the explosion of the cartridge would be heard. So I lowered the gun, and he whispered something to those behind.
A bowman crept up to us. His cord twanged. A war-arrow whirred. A gasping groan broke from the outlaw, and he fell on his face. We moved forward again.
Soon after that I halted, and told the chief we now were near the village. As I have told you, I had described this place to him before we started, and he knew there were three trails to it—one from the east, where we were now; one from the north, by which the robbers’ loot was taken out to some market; and one from the southwest, which they often used in starting on a raid toward the high mountains. Each of these trails was always guarded.
I knew the chief planned to attack from all three trails at once as well as from the thick jungle around the clearing where the barracãos stood; so that now it was necessary to creep around the town, kill the outposts on the other two trails, and arrange the warriors so that all could sweep into the place at the same time.
It was late in the day, but there would be time to attack before darkness dropped on us; and the chief quickly divided his forces into three parties. One, which he would lead himself, was to go to the northern trail; another, under the younger sub-chief—for the old sub-chief, unfit for fighting, had stayed at home—would take the south-western path; and the third division would remain with me.
TWO orders were given—that no man should attack until the chief himself began the fight; and that if the Yellow One was there he must not be killed, but taken alive. For an instant I was angered by that last command, for I had long thirsted to repay that yellow devil for what he had done to me and my mates.
But then I saw the hard gleam in the chief’s eyes, and knew that what I might do to that Peccary would be merciful compared to what the Indian intended. So I determined that neither I nor any other man should kill him quickly if I could help it.
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. 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 we saw that the men of the bandit gang were at that house.
Then, in the darkness of the doorway I spied the sickly yellow face of the man who had nailed me to the tree and who now, no doubt, was putting some fresh deviltry into the heads of his followers. And for the first time since my comrades and I had smelled those peccaries in the bush, senhores, I laughed as I thought that even while that merciless band plotted more murder and torment, death was creeping silently around them, and the fate they planned for others soon would burst upon themselves. And the savages, understanding, grinned back at me a sharp-toothed grin of death and hate.
The time dragged. We knew that in the forest around the clearing our men were slipping into their places, that the guards on the other trails were dying or dead, that we should soon spring out on our enemies. But it seemed that night would come before we moved. I could feel my heart pounding as if it would break my ribs, and hear the wild men grind their teeth with the lust for battle, though they made no other sound or movement.
And then the waiting ended. From the north rose a deep, roaring yell—the war-cry of the chief.
Instantly a rain of arrows whizzed into the Peccaries grouped at the barracão. And as they yelped and jumped under the shock, and some fell dead, out from the northern forest burst the fighting-chief and his spearmen, and up from the southwestern trail rose the shrill yell of the sub-chief’s men breaking cover.
My own six savages surged forward; but I sharply ordered them back and opened fire with my rifle. I shot fast, but I shot straight, and at each explosion a Peccary staggered and fell.
And then, dropping the rifle, I drew my two revolvers. And with a frightful roar my men dashed forward with me.
As we ran a burst of arrows and poisoned darts whirred around us and. over us into the bandits. And as we ran we saw that most of the Peccaries were running also—running for their rifles—though some stood and shot with their revolvers. Already the ground was littered with dead, and more than one of those who ran for guns never lived to use them because of the poisoned blow-gun darts that had struck them. `
And now behind us and all around us rang the screeches of the bowmen, who came charging to closer quarters, lest they hit their own men closing in. The air was full of yells of hate, cries of fear, screams of dying men, the snarl of arrows ripping into bare flesh and the smashing reports of guns.
SHOOTING with both hands, I ran straight for the barracão of the Yellow One, who had suddenly disappeared. A few men who still stood in our path and answered my fire went down quickly. Others, terrified by the ferocious charge of my clubmen and the long spears, fled from our path.
So fast did we run that we reached that barracão just as the Yellow One came bounding out of it with a rifle. He shot instantly, and one of my wild men coughed and fell dying. Then I leaped at him, dropping my revolvers, and caught him by the throat so savagely that he went down, losing his rifle in the fall.
As we struck the ground I clamped my legs around his hips so that he could not draw his revolver or knife, and then I sank my fingers deep in his throat. Surprize and fear flashed across his face as he recognized me.
Then he squirmed like a snake and fought like a jungle-cat, so that I had all I could do to keep my grip. But I kept it, and as I crushed the breath from him I forgot the chief’s orders and my own resolve not to kill this man. I throttled him, senhores, until his face was black and his struggles grew weak. And then I remembered, and let go, and started to rise.
His right hand went to his revolver. But I grabbed one of my own revolvers from the ground and struck him on the head with it. He fell back senseless.
Swiftly I disarmed him, and looked about for something to tie him with. Finding nothing, I bounded into his barracão, where his three women were huddled in a corner in fright; and there I found ropes, and ran out again, and bound him so that he could not move when he should get his senses back, and dragged him to the side of the house and threw him down there. And then, with his revolver and my own, reloaded, I turned back to the fight.
By this time the battle was raging all over the village. Near me stood the war-chief, roaring his war-cry to his men and around him a little knot of clubbers, spearmen, and blow-gun men were rushing back and forth, killing Peccaries as the chance came, but never going far from their leader.
But now a solid group of Peccaries came charging straight toward me, probably intending to free the Yellow One. The chief and his men sprang into their path. Shots cracked out in a ripping volley, and several of the wild men fell. 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. It was a bitter fight, and a fast one. Soon the charging Peccaries were only mangled corpses.
Then I knew the fight was won. For the crash of gun-fire died out, and only a few scattered shots cracked out here and there as some cornered wretch fired his last bullet and went down under club or arrow.
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. In her own language, which I did not understand very well because she spoke fast, she told the chief her story; and the Indians growled and hissed as they heard her and glared at the Yellow One, who now had his senses back and lay with his yellow face a very pale yellow indeed. But the chief ordered that no man touch him, and set me and a clubman over him as a guard through the night. And you may be sure, senhores, that we gave him no chance to escape.
Once in the night El Amarillo asked me in a whining tone what would be done with him. This I did not know, but I did not tell him so. I told him to remember what he had done to me and to others, and that he would be well repaid for all his kindness to helpless prisoners.
At the thought of enduring himself what he had done to those in his power he groaned and squirmed and struggled to break the ropes. When he tired of that he offered me much gold if I would free him. I ordered him to be quiet, or I would make him so. And he said no more, though he tried again and again to loosen his bonds as the night wore away.
AT SUNRISE the ropes were taken from him, and he stood up in a circle of Indians, and the chief sat and looked at him with eyes hard with hatred. And whether he was desperate with fear and hoped to anger the chief so that he would be killed at once, I do not know; but he began to sneer and boast. The woman who had been his and who was of this tribe repeated what he said, so that all the wild men understood.
He boasted of his evil deeds, of robbery and murder and worse, and called himself King of the Peccaries, who feared no man. If he sought quick death he came near getting it, for the savages, hating him bitterly already, were maddened by this. But the chief spoke sharply, and nobody touched him. And then the chief answered him.
“So you are King of Peccaries!” he said. “We shall see whether peccaries know you for their king.”
He laughed then with all his pointed teeth, and we wondered. Not even his own men knew what he meant. But he said no more to the Peccary, but turned to me and asked me what I would like to do with that man.
And thinking of Paulo and his broken arm and of my own toil under a burden, I replied that I should like first to drive him many miles under a heavy load and make him “sweat blood.” He grinned again, did the chief, and said it should be so.
When he understood that he was to be made a beast of burden the Yellow One snarled and tried to fight. He only got himself a terrible thrashing. The barbaros beat him with the flat sides of machetes until he could hardly stand. Then they locked about for something to load him with.
The Indian girl came forward again and told us that under his burned barracão was buried gold which his gangs had brought in from raids. And since gold is very heavy, and also because it pleased them to load him with the yellow dirt for which he had committed so many crimes, the wild men forced him to dig up his treasure, and made rough bags from the scanty clothing of the dead Peccaries, and lashed them on him with ropes and vines.
And they got large balls of rubber which had been scorched in the burning of the town, and fastened these on him too, until he was bent far over by the weight—as Paulo and I once had been. Then they drove him eastward toward their own land.
Before we departed, though, the chief proved himself a wise young man as well as a good fighter. For instead of forcing all the women to come with us he told them they might go wherever they wished, and make their way back to their own people if they could. 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.
In the next few days El Amarillo learned what it meant to be a pack-animal. He carried that load at all times; he slept with it on him at night, and was never free from it for an instant.
And he carried more than that—the weight of the death and misery and agonized curses of the men he had tortured and killed for that rubber and gold, and the knowledge that for him there was no escape, and the terror of the unknown death that finally should come to him. And that, senhores, was all of my own revenge on him—driving him like a beast. In what came to him later from the wild men I had no hand.
As we went down the hills to the river, and up the river in the boats, and on through our own jungle, all of us remembered the chief’s puzzling words about the peccaries knowing the Yellow One for their king; but none of us knew what he meant by them, and he did not tell us. The only time he spoke of peccaries was soon after we started, when he ordered his men to watch for the wild pigs on their hunts—for of course we had to hunt as we went, and kill game to eat.
Twice there came hunters who told him they had found peccaries in the bush, and then he asked what they were; and when the men said they were few and white-collared he shook his head. So most of us saw none of the pigs until we were nearing the maloca and the long march was nearly done.
THEN came men hurrying through the forest and told their chief they had sighted a herd of the white-lipped peccaries. At once he gave orders to a number of others, and they went into the bush with the hunters who had seen the pigs. He also called two more savages, and I saw they were the same ones who had found me hanging in torment; and after a word from him they went into the bush by themselves.
With a knife he then cut the ropes around the Yellow One, and the gold and rubber fell from him. He had been bent under that crushing weight so long, senhores, that when it dropped he dropped also, falling forward, unable to keep his balance. But he was up again soon, rubbing himself and scowling at the savages. Fear showed in his eyes, though, as he glanced around him.
And when the two wild men came back and gave something to the chief the Peccary glanced at it, and his face turned sickly white. I looked too, and my recently healed wounds seemed to burn again as I saw what the chief held—a handful of those terrible long sharp thorns.
With a yell of terror the bandit sprang away and tried to dash into the jungle. But men caught him, threw him down hard, and dragged him to a tree. And there, faced at last by the fate he had made more than one victim suffer, he screeched and whined and sniveled for mercy—the mercy he had never shown to his prisoners.
It did him no good. 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.
Then the chief ordered all but those who held the yellow man to climb trees. And while we climbed he fastened the Yellow One’s hands to the tree—yes, only his hands; he did not use the thorns elsewhere on him. Then the chief himself and the other men followed us into the branches, so that nobody except the evil Peccary remained on the ground.
Shouts came to us, and the sound of bodies crushing through the tangled forest, and the grunts of pigs. Soon a huge white-lipped peccary trotted out, followed by others. From his perch in the tree over El Amarillo the chief bellowed at the animals, and the first ones stopped, looking around them, while the rest of the herd came running in from the bush until more than forty of them were crowded under us.
The chief roared again, and answering calls came from the hunters he had sent out to drive the beasts here. We heard sounds of climbing, and knew they too were taking to the trees. And then the chief spoke to the man below him, at whom the pigs were staring wickedly.
“Here are peccaries. Show them you are king. Make them take out the thorns!”
The Yellow One broke into horrible cursing. He howled the vilest words I ever listened to, raving until froth was on his mouth. And he kicked out at the stinking pigs.
His voice and his movements maddened them. Suddenly they surged at him.
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.
Then he went down again, and rose no more. His body was thrown on the heaving mass as it was struck again and again by the furious animals. Then it rolled down among them, and his ghastly yellow face disappeared.
LONG after he was dead the peccaries tore him and trampled him into the dirt. And other pigs dashed at the gold-bags made from Peccary clothing, and ripped those also into tatters, and scattered the gold all about.
Some leaped up against the trees where we perched, their vindictive black eyes fixed on us and their teeth clashing together. But as we made no move, but only stayed beyond their reach, they soon abandoned us.
And at length, grunting among themselves, they all moved slowly away, their white lips now stained deep red, and leaving behind them only a torn thing that had been a man, fragments of cloth that had held gold and their own disgusting smell.
We came down again. The savages fell into line and started away as if nothing had happened. But I felt sick, and I wanted to see no more of these men. So I told the chief that now I would leave him and go back to my own people and tell them how he and his brave fighters had destroyed the foul pig-men of the hills.
He nodded, pointed the way I should go and strode away. And without a farewell word or a backward look the whole band of wild men passed on into the forest, and I was left alone.
So, senhores, that is the tale of the Peccaries. Up in the hills of Peru the vines are creeping across the place where once stood their village, and where now remain only sodden ashes and scattered skulls. Out in the pathless land beyond the farthest rubber-workings, where only wild men and wild animals prowl, lie the bones of their leader and the blood-stained gold he gathered.
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. For that is the way of the jungle.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1959, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 64 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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