* * * * *
First thing the next morning, Sebastian began to pack for the trip ahead of them. He estimated that his traveling time would be cut in half now that he would be walking with pigs and goats. Whatever dangers they would face would take time, and keeping all the animals together would take time. If he managed ten kilometers a day, it would take roughly sixteen days before he arrived at Sancti Spiritu - provided, of course, that he was heading in the right direction. There was enough food to last that long, so Sebastian would not have to worry about provisions. He wanted to take some of his personal belongings, however, but the only thing that he found worth keeping was his mother’s ruby-and-emerald jewelry set, which not only had great sentimental value, but could also be sold for a small fortune. Why take a tapestry or quilt? How could he carry all the silverware and the dishes? With an aching heart, he turned his back to his family possessions and began looking for practical items that would help him survive.
He found a sturdy knife, several swords, a small cooking pot, some flint, a waterproof tarp, a hand axe, some gunpowder and ammunition for the four pistols he had gathered, a plate with raised sides that could be hold soup, a pewter mug, some fish line and hooks, a fork with a broad bowl that could be used as a spoon, several lengths of rope, and other odds and ends that he could fit into his new knapsack.
One of the mares would carry the rooster and five hens. The other carried several bags of feed for the horses and bull. The stallion would carry any items Sebastian himself could not carry, such as the heavy cooking pot. Sebastian fashioned many pouches for the pigs and goats so they could carry their own food, but he realized that they would all eventually have to learn to eat whatever the jungle provided.
It was an hour past noon when they finally started. There would be no way to hide their tracks. Anyone looking for them would be able to find them easily.
As he left camp, one of the dogs let out a whine that sounded like he was in pain. It was an ugly little flop-eared mutt with a stumpy tail - one that was not cut off for vanity’s sake, but torn off during a fight. He raised a paw at Sebastian in sort of a wave.
Sebastian paused, and then realized the dog was asking permission to join them. “You can follow if you like,” he said, slapping his hand to his thigh as a visual sign.
The dog bounded over, pausing to sniff noses with the horses, and then got straight to business. He proved his worth within five minutes, bullying the goats and pigs back into the group whenever they strayed from following the horse.
“You’ll probably starve to death with the rest of us,” Sebastian told him, glancing back from time to time.
The dog gave a yip that could have been a “Don’t bother me, I’m working” or a “So we starve together,” but he did not break his concentration.
Sebastian smiled, grateful for the unexpected help.
It was hard going. Sebastian decided to follow the shore from a distance, so they walked inside the jungle where he could see water, but not so close to the shore that he could be easily seen himself by any more pirate ships.
The goats and pigs seemed to have an easier time of walking than the bull, who was by far the largest creature in the group. Normally a placid animal with a gentle nature, he was upset by all the changes in his regular routine. For four years he had lived in a comfortable stable and had a regular diet; then he had spent the last several weeks, miserable, cooped up below deck with little sunlight and no chance to walk around. Now he was in the fresh air again, but not happy to be breaking through so many plants. And all of them slapped him in the face or chest, leaving raised marks on his body. The goats and pigs could just walk around saplings in their way, but the poor bull sometimes had to break branches or shove his way through the thick growth.
Sebastian did all he could to help the bull. However, he could tell that of all the animals in his pack, that bull would be the one to give him the most trouble. He wondered if he should have left him behind. And yet, of all the livestock, the bull was the most valuable. He just had to survive!
“I’ll get you there,” he told the bull. “One way or another, you and me. We’ll make it.”
He hoped his words would come true.
Sebastian spent the first several days in a state of near-panic, driving his herd as quickly as he felt they could go before he realized that nobody was coming after him. They would have been easy to find, though, with the messy trail they were cutting through the marshland brush.
Those first few nights were worse than anything that had happened to him so far, even when he was lost at sea and had to row to shore in the dark. At least he had been alone then; now he was responsible for his father’s animals, and the responsibility made him more cautious and paranoid.
Fire was the hardest. Striking the flint was an art that proved difficult to master. So was aiming the spark just right to ignite a pile of dry leaves. Most often, when he did manage to draw a spark from the flint, it burned out before landing in the leaves. He soon taught himself to gather dry wood as they passed it throughout the day, and how to stack thin, dry twigs around the leaves and then add enough sticks to sustain an entire log. It was a long and difficult process that took a tremendous amount of time and effort. And with winter ending and spring rains beginning, finding dry wood was a daily problem. Plus, none of the animals liked being so near the flames, especially the bull, but they soon learned to trust Sebastian so they stayed as near to him as they dared.
Worse than fire, though, were the morning disasters. At night, Sebastian was careful to tie each animal individually to a tree or to each other so they wouldn’t stray away while he slept. But when he awoke, he would find one of them gone. The first morning, it was a pig who had disappeared without a single noise. The rope was there, untied, but the pig was not. Sebastian had not heard anything strange, nor had the dog signaled any distress. The second morning brought with it a goat bloated from eating damp grass that caused gas to swell her stomach and suffocate her lungs. When Sebastian woke up, her breathing was labored. He tried to get her to her feet, but she simply lay on the red soil and would not move. Back home, his uncle would have shoved a flexible tube down her throat in hopes of releasing some of the gasses building up inside her stomach. He had no tube with him. Although he searched desperately for any sort of reed that might do the trick, his efforts were futile. She died within the hour. Sebastian cried a few minutes and then led the rest of the animals on their way.
While they walked, he wondered what had happened to the pig and how he could prevent the other two goats from eating damp morning grass. It was good to have a problem to solve; otherwise, he would have fallen into a depression if he dwelled on the long journey ahead of him.
That night, after he built the fire, he drove wooden stakes into the ground in a circle around the fire and then tied each of his animals to a stake. The chickens did not need to be tied; he put their cages near his sleeping blanket so he could hear them if they were frightened. He hoped that the fire would scare away any predators. He was only halfway correct.
On the third morning, September 24th, he woke up to find that a large snake had devoured one of the chickens, and the other two in that cage had died from fright. The snake was still in the cage, a large bulge in its middle. It would be trapped until the chicken was sufficiently digested to let the snake pass once again through the bars of the cage.
Sebastian was disgusted. He wanted to kill the snake but there was no reason to do so; it was not a threat to him, just to the remaining three chickens - and now he had learned to keep them off the ground, covered so nothing could get in through the bars.
The days began to grow warmer, although the nights were still enough to cause him to shiver, even with his woolen sleeping blanket and the flea-bitten dog curled up at his side. He remembered a story he had heard once about a flea-bitten fox who carried a leaf in his mouth and immersed himself over his head in water. The fleas, not liking the water, would hop up to the leaf, which the fox woul
d then allow to float away.
Hoping the story was based on facts, Sebastian decided to give his dog a similar bath. When he had tied up his animals for the night, he called the dog to the edge of the water and tried to coax him in. The dog would have nothing to do with the water, and when Sebastian tried to force him, he became violent. He sliced the air with his sharp teeth, biting at Sebastian, until the boy released him. Then he ran away, terrified.
Sebastian had no time to wonder at the dog’s panicked actions, for at that moment a huge, flat greenish animal darted up out of the water and managed to snag Sebastian’s pant leg. It had rough skin like a log and looked like a serpent. Sebastian had never seen that sort of animal before but knew his life was in danger. The thing dragged at him with incredible strength. It was all Sebastian could do to keep his balance. Finally, the fabric tore and Sebastian ran away to join the dog back at camp. Never again would he walk so close to the shore.
Sleeping that night was near impossible. He kept wondering if the green animal was going to follow them. Eventually his fear was replaced with the realization that the ocean salt water had changed and he had not noticed until today. It was almost fresh. Hope flooded his soul. His father once mentioned that he would know he’d reached the mouth of the Río de la Plata because the water would be brown but sweet.
When Sebastian woke up in the morning, another pig was gone. There was no blood, no trace of it, and the rope remained undisturbed. The mystery of it all perturbed him.
At first when the jungle was so new to him, Sebastian startled at everything. Every call of a bird and every scream of a monkey set his nerves on edge. Especially he remembered his father’s letters about natives who would eat other human beings, or the shadowy black cat the size of a man who could kill a horse in one blow. He had not seen any of these terrors yet, so he was beginning to relax.
The animals slowly adjusted to their new lifestyle of eating twice a day, walking as far as they could, drinking from streams whenever possible, and sleeping under a canopy of tall trees and broad leaves. Sebastian, however, longed for a decent bath, instead of splashing himself cautiously beside a stream, ever alert for another green monster with sharp teeth. He missed his mother’s special egg custards. He even missed his uncle, which told him how lonely he had become.
The fear of losing track of his days inspired him to carve a small nick into his walking stick every night before he fell asleep. That was how he knew that October 8th was the worst day of his life.
It began hours before his usual wakeup time. He had a nightmare that he was being pursued by pirates, and one of them turned into a giant. The giant picked him up in one hand and began squeezing him to death. Sebastian screamed and screamed but the giant only squeezed harder. The pain was too real to be a dream. He woke up – and found himself being strangled to death by a large snake.
It was the snake of death his father had written about. And now Sebastian was in its clutch!
He could not tell where its head was. It seemed to be all body. The harder he struggled, the harder the snake squeezed, and yet he was afraid to stop fighting because then the snake would kill him for sure. Frantic, he found that his arms were pinned to his sides. What to do, what to do? He would die out here, and nobody would know where he was!
He used all of his strength to reach out toward the saddle he used as a pillow; his knife should be underneath it. If only he could reach it, perhaps he could stab the snake to death.
Black. Everything started to turn black. He could not breathe. It would be so easy to give in to the suffocation… he just wanted to sleep… he closed his eyes…
And opened them, forcing all his strength into his hand. He would not die like this! He had to live, so he could make his father proud of him.
There it was! His fingers, almost numb, touched the blade of the knife. It was all he could do to grab its handle.
The squeezing continued steadily. Sebastian thought he heard one of his ribs crack under the pressure. His head felt fuzzy and detached from the rest of his body. Somehow, from deep within him, he discovered strength he had not known was there. He moved his hand, hoping that he was cutting into the snake. He could not tell – there was no feeling in his arms. Hoping and hoping, he kept moving his hand, or at least telling his brain to move his hand.
Was the pressure lessening? If so, why did it hurt so much? Sebastian gasped, and found that he could draw a breath. The first intake of oxygen was an enormous relief. He kept moving his arm. The snake released its hold as slowly as when it had been squeezing. It slithered away, injured and oozing, and disappeared into the thick leaves.
Sebastian lay flat on the ground, gasping. His ribcage felt shattered. Every breath he took caused pain in his lungs, some so sharp that he wished he didn’t have to breathe. He had to force himself to control the intake of oxygen, taking slow, shallow gasps and exhaling around the pain. He knew that he was seriously injured. But what could he do? How could he treat himself? If he didn’t die from the broken ribs, he would certainly become a helpless victim for whatever other predator would take advantage of his helpless state.
His worries and concerns were silenced by the sudden exhaustion that overtook him. He fell into a deep sleep. His last conscious thought was, I almost died and the sun hasn’t even come up. What else will I have to face today?