Thread: Island Captive

Itu'ki took another careful step through the jungle foliage, his placement careful to avoid any twigs or pile of leaves that might alert their prey. His lean, muscular body was stained with random streaks of colored paste green, black, and white, to help him blend in with the surrounding plants. All his life he had been trained to be silent and invisible. In this way, the animals he stalked would not see him until it was too late for them, and his spear would fly with accuracy to end its life and make a meal for his family for days. His family, however, consisted only of him and his son Jenuk'tu. The lean young man was several yards astride his father, echoing his footsteps as they moved in on a large bird feasting on the scraps they had set out the day before. Jenuk's body was almost a twin of his father's, both men having been trained since birth to be hunters and, if necessary, warriors. Their forms, not camouflaged in the dyes their tribe had long perfected, were sculpted of muscle and sinew, with not an ounce of fat to ruin their precise control of their element. Itu was an exceptional hunter, and Jenuk was fast becoming his father's equal. The older man's wiry growth of black hair had the faintest traces of gray, which in his tribe marked him as an elder of great respect. Lesser men did not live to see the appearance of any gray. Yet, despite the coloring, no one would have mistaken the man as anything but a brilliant, accomplished killer. With infinite slowness, his arm and chest muscles flexing, Itu moved his spear into throwing position. Jenuk also cocked his spear, as a backstop in case the bird spooked at the last second. But Itu's spear flew true, piercing through the vulture, which flapped helplessly on the ground for a few seconds before becoming still. Itu and Jenuk were on it in seconds, Itu's knife slicing through the large bird's neck to sever its head. There was enough meat here to feed them for three meals, maybe four. And then the hunt would resume. The two men, dressed only in loincloths held by animal sinew straps, smiled at each other as they set about stripping the carcass feathers, when Jenuk suddenly cocked his head and stood, looking toward the beach and the barely heard crashing waves. Itu was crouched at work, but seeing his son instantly stopped and rose himself. For men attuned to their environment, there was something different about the waves and the cries of the animals they should be hearing but weren't. The animals were spooked by something, going silent in the face of some unexpected presence. With only expressions, no words, the two men signaled a strategy to reconnoiter. Itu tucked the bird by its talons into his loincloth strap leaving it behind would mean it would be stolen away by the rodents, insects, and other carrion birds, and the two men separated again, moving carefully through the rain forest toward the beach. The foliage ended a few hundred yards from the ocean waves crashing into a flat sandy beach. Neither man would venture from the safety of the jungle until they were sure they could handle the threat, or for a reward worth the risk. And treasure is what they saw! The beach strewn with lumber and crates, which could be taken back to the village and used to strengthen their huts against the tropical storms that sometimes blew away huts made of weaker material. And... a wahini, one of the pale skinned humans who they knew traveled the great sea in houses that floated. Yes, The People were aware of the white skinned ones a few had parked their great boats off the beach and come ashore to get fresh water from the mountain streams of The People. A generation ago, one wild member of the white skinned had come to stay, living among them for years. They tolerated his presence as he learned their language and tried to tell them of the white God, but they knew the power of their god that lived in the fire mountain, so the missionary died of fever without converts. But this white skinned was a woman, a young woman of child-bearing age. They could tell that even with her ridiculous covers. And that was a prize more valued than any other, and the two men instantly knew they would claim her. Like any prey, they would approach her in a pincer, trapping her between them. Jenuk, his head shaved as befits one who had not yet produced a son, moved swiftly from the left, and Itu came from the right, boxing her in as she struggled to right herself from the sand. Their spears were sheathed over their shoulders now, for this treasure was not to be harmed.