Kanana Read online

  Colonel Roosevelt planned on exploring the length of the River Thalis, who some thought stretched a thousand miles to the center of the continent. He would probably shoot some game along the way, for he had taken a long safari to Africa just a few years before. I on the other hand had no desire in particular to kill animals, and I certainly wasn’t going to waste my time looking for something that didn’t exist. But without any goal at all, I might have difficulty hiring men to carry my luggage, so I decided that at least as far as the natives were concerned, I was a big game hunter.

  There was a knock at the door and I thought it might herald Saral’s return, but it was a courier delivering an envelope. Opening it, I found an invitation to a dinner party at the home of the honorable James Winston-Smith. I had no doubt that the Colonel had arranged the invitation, and though I was not seeking the company of civilized people, I planned to attend.

  A few minutes later Saral returned with his cousin. I was expecting a tough looking man or at least a strapping youth, but what I got was a skinny girl only slightly older than the boy. She had very long black hair and large eyes and could easily be called pretty. I was not expecting pretty though, and didn’t imagine that pretty would be particularly helpful considering.

  “Not to worry, Mr. Henry,” said Saral. “Asika is a master with the knife and every man in town knows it. No one is going to bother anything with her on guard.”

  As if to emphasize his point, she pulled a long thin dagger from beneath the short leather tunic she wore and traced a design in the air with its tip.

  “Alright then, but be careful. I would hate to have a young girl injured on my account.”

  I went downstairs and had breakfast. The dining room was nothing more than three tables set aside in an alcove off the hotel’s lobby. There was no proper kitchen, but the hotel did employ a native woman who cooked out back at a sort of barbeque grill, and a young woman who acted as server. I didn’t expect much and so was not too disappointed when I received an overcooked egg and two pieces of burnt toast. On the other hand there were two thick pieces of ham and a selection of fruit chunks, both of which were quite tasty.

  Saral was waiting for me outside when I was done. I had determined that the only thing I still needed to take care of before venturing off into the wilderness was food for the natives that would be accompanying me. My invaluable new friend led me to a shop at the far end of town run by a Swede named Asplund. There I was able to arrange for food enough for thirty men to last a month. At one of the general stores I purchased six rifles and ammunition for my guards, and thirty canteens. The only thing remaining was the men themselves, whom the boy assured me, were as good as present.

  That evening, decked out in a suit and tie, I walked from the hotel to the home of the Winston-Smiths, who lived in one of the larger colonial homes, set somewhat away from the others. The house and yard were brightly lit with hanging lanterns, and music was playing. Dozens of people wandered in the yard or stood on the veranda and I could well imagine that every white man and woman in Abbeyport was to be present that evening.

  “Good evening,” said a handsome and well-dressed British woman at the door. “I’m Charlotte Winston-Smith. Welcome to my home.”

  “Thank you. I’m Henry Goode.”

  “Oh, you’re an American. How wonderful. Are you acquainted with Mr. Roosevelt?”

  “There isn’t an American alive, ma’am, who isn’t acquainted with Mr. Roosevelt, but I have the pleasure of saying that Mr. Roosevelt is acquainted with me.”

  “Quite, quite. Please do come in.” She took me by the arm and led me through the foyer into the parlor where a dozen men were carrying on a lively conversation.

  “There you are, Henry.” I immediately recognized Colonel Roosevelt’s patrician voice, though I hadn’t initially seen him in the room. He stepped from behind three men to greet me. “I was just telling these gentlemen that we’ve discovered your reason for being in Elizagaea.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, Winston-Smith here knows all about it.”

  Having seen Mrs. Winston-Smith, I expected her husband to be an older gentleman, but he looked to be at least ten years her junior. A handsome man of about my own age, he was tall and thin and sported a splendid handlebar mustache.

  “How do you do?” he said, reaching out to shake my hand. “I was just telling Mr. Roosevelt about the legend of Kanana.”

  “Kanana?”

  “Yes. She’s a legendary jungle goddess: part of the culture of the natives for hundreds of years. Lately though, she’s taken on a new hue, as it were. As the story is told now, Kanana is white-skinned. I would assume this is because of the native contact with Europeans, whom they naturally see as superior to themselves.”

  “So you see, my boy,” said Roosevelt. “I’ve discovered your secret plan. You are going to capture this Kanana, this jungle goddess, for yourself.”

  “I can assure you, sir, that is not my plan. In fact, I am through with women, whether they be civilized or jungle variety.”

  Winston-Smith laughed and Roosevelt chuckled, but I could feel his keen eye taking a deeper look at me.

  “I have decided to hunt some of the big game,” I said.

  “I heartily enjoy hunting,” said Roosevelt. “There are few sensations I prefer to that of pitting my wits against the forces that nature has to offer. But remember that the hunter is a steward of his land and not the conqueror.”

  “This land cannot be conquered,” said Winston-Smith. “The jungle here is untamed and will likely stay that way forever. Why, we lose more than half of those men who head into the bush.”

  “That is the fate of the unprepared,” replied the former President. “A toughness and hardy endurance are necessary to contend with the forces of nature, whether it is to resist cold and wintery blasts of the arctic, or the heat of the thirsty desert, to wander away to new pastures, to plunge over the broken ground, or to plow one’s way through jungles and quagmires. But there can be found no greater beauty than lands untouched by human hands. There are no words that can tell the hidden spirit of the wilderness, that can reveal its mystery, its melancholy, or its charm. The farther one gets into the wilderness, the greater is the attraction of its lonely freedom."

  “Why Mr. Roosevelt,” said one of the other men. “I thought you only waxed poetic about navies.”

  “Colonel Roosevelt has written a great deal on hunting and the wilderness,” I said. “Every young man should read Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail.”

  The Colonel introduced me to the other men present, though I didn’t commit any of their names to memory. After that I wandered around observing the people at the party. Most seemed to be trying to forget that they were no longer in Europe, rather than embracing the idea that they were in a new and wonderful world. I had decided to call it a night when I was pulled aside by the Colonel’s son, Kermit Roosevelt. He was a tall, thin young man of twenty-four whose eyes seemed to belong to someone much older.

  “May I ask which way you will be traveling?” he asked.

  “I thought I would go southwest. I understand there are some broad savannahs with large game.”

  “Then our paths won’t cross. Take notes. America needs to know what lies in the interior. We can’t leave all this to the British.”

  “I’ll try, but I’m no great writer or explorer like your father.”

  “There is no one like my father, but we all must do what we can, with what we have, where we are.”

  “Good luck on your expedition,” I said.

  “The same to you, and Godspeed.”

  I didn’t see either of the Roosevelts again before they left on their journey. Two days after their departure, I was ready to start out. I met my bearers and guards in front of the hotel just after dawn. All in all, they looked like a promising group. Some were men my own age, but most looked to be in their twenties or late teens. There were only twenty-nine of them however.

  “I am the final man,”
said Saral.

  “No, Saral. I can’t take the chance of something happening to you. You are too fine a boy to risk in the wilderness.”

  “I must be there to take care of you,” he said. “Besides you will need a translator. None of these fellows speak English nearly as good as I.”

  I wasn’t sold on the “taking care” part of the argument, as I was sure that I would be forced to take care of him, but I had no answer for the other part. I certainly couldn’t speak the native tongue. I also felt that I could trust the boy with just about everything, so I imagined that he would be a help to me in ways that had not yet come to mind.

  “What about your family?” I asked. “I’ve only met your cousin, but I imagine there are others who might have something to say about your going into the wilderness with a foreigner. What about your parents?”

  “My parents are both dead. I have been living with Asika and her brother, but I am ready to make my own way in the world.”

  “Very well. You may come along.”

  We left Abbeyport, following a road to the southwest. I call this a road, but it was a narrow path through the thick brush, worn down over an unknown number of years by the sandals of the natives traveling from the coast to the nearest village in the interior. This path was overhung on both sides by the jungle brush—lush green broadleaf plants that grew higher than my shoulder and were thick as far as the eye could see. High above was an unbroken canopy of huge trees, including mahoganies, Brazil nuts, and giant kapoks. Some were well over a hundred feet tall, but looking up at the dappled sunlight across the stretch of green leaves, it seemed more like a thousand. Four men bore each of my large steamer trunks, while I distributed the rifles I had bought to the remaining five and to Saral.

  We had not gone very far when I saw my first animal native to Elizagaea. It was nosing through the plants and crossed the path right in front of us. It was a tiny little deer not much bigger than a Chihuahua. It stopped and stared with its huge eyes, its abnormally large ears pointed in our direction, evidently as surprised to see us as we were to see it, before taking a tremendous leap and disappearing once again into the undergrowth.

  “Amazing,” I said.

  Marching all day, we stopped once in the morning, once about noon, and once in the afternoon before finally making camp an hour before nightfall. We crossed over several small streams along the way, but never left the thick, leafy forest. In camp, most of the men, after setting down their burdens, began gathering together brush to pile around the outskirts of the clearing. A couple gathered firewood and started a large campfire. Saral helped me unpack my tent from the trunk and set it up. It was the first time that I had assembled it and I wasn’t disappointed. It was a large structure, more than tall enough to stand in, with three separate rooms. In the same trunk I had a folding cot, a folding table, and two folding chairs, which I sat up, providing myself with almost all the comforts of home.

  The men sat around the campfire that evening, singing songs in their native tongue. I sat at the door to my tent listening to the rich melodies and swatting the occasional mosquito. The splendidly dark skies with twinkling stars peeking between the treetop canopy; the rich baritone voices in a language I could not understand; the background of humming insects, croaking toads, and singing night birds: all combined to almost make me forget the pain and humiliation that had driven me to this distant land. Almost.

  Chapter Three: Danger in the Jungle

  We continued on our way through the thick green jungle for another week. It was quite beautiful, with flowers blossoming on vines and bushes all over. I spotted many interesting animals too; animals that I had never heard of before. None of them inspired me to shoot them though. There were numerous monkeys, mostly small, though I did spy one variety in the very tops of the threes that were almost three feet tall. Tiny antelope, large rodents, and medium sized tapirs were also in evidence. What I didn’t enjoy was the variety and the density of the insect life. I was constantly brushing large creepy crawlies from my clothing, and the mosquitoes that buzzed in huge clouds near dawn and dusk bit me mercilessly.

  Finally we came to the edge of a large river winding its way toward the north. The water was slow moving and appeared deep. The first things that I noticed were the crocodiles lying in the sun on the far bank. I had heard of the prehistoric crocodiles, whose gigantic skeletons had been found in recent years by fossil hunters. None of these creatures approached the dimensions of those, but they seemed plenty big to me, with several well over twenty feet in length. Then I saw that in addition to the crocs, the water was teeming with hippos. I had been to Africa and had seen similar congregations of hippos and crocodiles in rivers there. These hippos, while not smaller than those in Africa, seemed to be built on a lighter frame, with longer legs and slightly less bulbous heads.

  “We will go this way,” said Saral, pointing to the north. “There are rapids several miles away that we may cross. There will be no creatures to fear there.”

  “Alright,” I said. “Are there any people living around here?”

  “No. My people, the Tokayana once lived in these forests but we have all moved to the coast to trade with the Englishmen. The Chikuyana live far to the north.”

  “And how do your people and they get along?”

  “A long time ago we were enemies. There hasn’t been any fighting for many years.”

  “That’s good.”

  The trek north along the river was relatively easy because of numerous game trails and hippo wallows that pushed back the jungle growth, and before long we were at a spot where the river widened to series of rapids flowing between several piles of massive boulders. Though in a few places the water looked both deep and swift, there seemed to be adequate footing to step from stone to stone and get across. The difficult part would be for the bearers, carrying the trunks, one at each corner. There were several places where two could not cross abreast. Fortunately the trunks were waterproof. I took out a coil of rope and cut lengths that could be fastened at each corner. The trunks could then be floated in the water next to the people crossing on the rocks, held under control by the four men.

  We were in the middle of the one hundred yard crossing before there was any hint of trouble. Suddenly one of the bearers cried out in pain and I saw an arrow piercing his chest before he toppled into the churning rapids. Then the air was thick with stone-tipped missiles. Two more men fell into the water after being shot, and a couple dived in to escape that fate. By this time I could see that our attackers were firing from the far side of the river.

  “Go back!” I shouted and the men were attempting to do so, but between the deadly arrows and the panic, most were falling rather than making a successful retreat. Saral was on a large flat rock just ahead of me, next to an upright boulder. He seemed to be frozen in his spot from fear or indecision, so I jumped forward and grabbed hold of him, turning so that between the boulder and my body, he was shielded from attack. Then I felt a horrible pain in my side and looked down to see a stone-tipped shaft protruding from my abdomen.

  “Run!” I shouted at the boy, but he was still frozen.

  My head began to swim and I reached out for the boulder to steady myself, but my feet slipped out from beneath me and I fell. I was submerged in the cool water. A second later, my head smacked into a rock and I lost consciousness.

  I was evidently not out for very long, because the next thing I knew I was trying to push my face above the surface and the rapids were still churning around me. I swallowed a good deal of water, but finally managed to gulp a lungful of air. Disoriented and in pain, it was difficult to see what was happening to me, but something bumped into the back of my head. Turning around, I found it was one of my steamer trunks that had come loose in the attack. I tried to climb onto it, but had no luck at first with the white water swirling around me, so I just held on to one of the ropes.

  At last the river began to slow and I tried once again to use the trunk as a boat, but each time I tried,
it simply rolled over. Knowing that my survival depended on my ability to get atop this piece of luggage, I determined to use my brain where simple brute force didn’t seem to be working. I found the ropes from both sides and moved to one end of the trunk, carefully pulling myself up over the short end. I slid on my belly until I was completely out of the water, great pain shooting through me each time the arrow in my stomach came into contact with the trunk. I then collapsed again into unconsciousness.

  A loud bellow brought me to awareness. I opened my eyes to see the massive maw of a hippo just a few feet away. His four mighty tusks were like giant shiny white daggers. He was evidently not happy that I was invading his territory, but at least the river was carrying me steadily away from him. Raising my head, I looked around. The river was narrower and deeper than it had been at the site of the attack, but much slower. The water was full of hippos and I could see plenty of crocodiles on the shore and in the water. I pulled my hands and feet in as much as possible. Turning my head to look in the other direction, I was horrified to see two massive crocs feasting on the remains of a human body.

  The pain in my side reminded me that I had an arrow sticking through me. It of course had to come out, and I had read enough dime novels about the old west to have a pretty good idea of how I should proceed, but I didn’t have the heart or the will or the stomach to do it just then. Instead I said a silent prayer and went to sleep. I say sleep instead of unconsciousness, though I really don’t know which of the two it was. When I had lost consciousness before, it had only been for a minute or two. This time I was asleep I believe for many hours. I woke up very briefly two or three times to see that night had fallen, but it was already late morning the following day when I was at last fully awake again.