Uncivilized

  "Sam... get their bags and bring them up to their rooms," Randall says to the man, who doesn't cut us a glance but does as he's told.

  "There you are," Randall says in welcome, and I can feel Zach tense up beside me. Randall's eyes drink in every bit of Zach, starting from his head and working down. When his eyes come back up, I can tell he's a bit taken aback at the icy look on Zach's face. Randall turns to me, and says, "It's lovely to see you again, Moira."

  I shake his hand and turn to Zach. "Randall... this is Zach Easton."

  Randall beams and holds his hand out to Zach, who reluctantly but politely takes it. "Of course, this is Zach. He looks just like he did when he was a little boy. Welcome, Zach. Welcome to my home, and I want you to feel like this is your own home."

  Zach grimaces and doesn't say a word. Randall releases his hand, and the silence gets a little awkward.

  "Yes... well, come in. I'm sure you're tired from your travels. I'll have Sam show you to your rooms, and we'll plan on doing dinner around seven tonight. Zach... I have a lot of pictures of your parents I'd love to show you, and of course, I want to get to know you all over again."

  Zach still doesn't respond, so I jump in. "That sounds like a great plan, Randall. I'm sure we could use a bit of a rest before dinner, right Zach?"

  "Sure," is all he says, and we follow Randall into the house.

  We step into a marbled foyer with twin, curving staircases that lead up to the second floor. The walls are paneled in a rich mahogany and studded with expensive-looking oil paintings. A large, round table sits in the middle of the foyer with a fresh flower arrangement of stargazer lilies that has to stretch upward at least four feet and fills the air with their heavy perfume.

  "Sam... could you show Zach to his room? I'd like a word with Moira for a moment."

  Reaching out, I touch Zach lightly on his elbow. "I'll stop in to see you in a little bit, okay?"

  He nods and follows Sam up the staircase.

  "Let's go into the library," Randall says, and I follow him into a room off the foyer that takes my breath away. Three stories tall, the library is stacked floor to ceiling with shelves of books in the same dark mahogany wood. Each floor has a balcony that lines each wall, and a massive spiral staircase winds upward to allow you to climb up the stacks of books. The furniture is leather, deeply cushioned, and a deep blue color. A large fireplace takes up one wall, but it's empty, given that we are in the middle of summer in the south. An ornately carved, wooden desk that is curved into almost a horseshoe design is at one end of the room, with a single laptop sitting on top of it.

  The room reeks of elegance, but it's also cozy, as I would expect a library to be. It totally fits the man, and I remember back to the first time I met Randall Cannon in his office in downtown Atlanta.

  "Dr. Reed... Mr. Cannon will see you now," I heard from the receptionist and looked up to see her smiling at me.

  I stood from the plush leather chair I was sitting in and followed her down a wide hallway decorated with sumptuous carpeting, fabric-covered walls, and artwork that looked like it would belong in The Met.

  Hastily wiping my hands against the wool fabric of my slacks, I took a deep breath.

  This meeting was huge.

  It could change the course of my career, and I was willing to do whatever it took to make this deal go through.

  Opening a large, wooden door, the receptionist pushed it open and motioned me in. I briefly took in the dark green carpeting with a woven, gold border around the edges where dark hardwood flooring peeked out. A huge and ornately carved wooden desk sat in the middle of the room with a large, burgundy leather chair studded with brass buttons. The skyline of Atlanta, Georgia rose up on the other side of the window with clear, blue skies and fluffy clouds all around.

  "Doctor Reed." I heard a gruff voice, and I turned to see a short man with snowy-white hair approaching me. He was dressed in an expensively tailored black suit with a pale blue tie that I bet cost more than my entire outfit.

  He held his hand out to me, and I shook it. "Randall Cannon," he said while we clasp hands. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

  "The pleasure is all mine, Mr. Cannon," I told him sincerely. And it was... truly all mine, because when this man contacted me three weeks ago, it was to offer me the chance of a lifetime.

  "Please... call me Randall. And come... come... sit down."

  Still grasping my hand, he escorted me to a low, black leather couch and motioned for me to sit. He took his own seat in a chair opposite of me, with a mahogany coffee table separating us. There was a full tea service laid out.

  "Would you like some tea? Coffee? Water?" he asked.

  "No, thank you." I was far too nervous.

  He bent forward in his chair, and I watched as he poured himself a cup of tea with swift efficiency. As he was adding a cube of sugar, he said, "I've been eager to meet you and discuss this project I have."

  I'd been eager too. Those last three weeks while I was finishing up teaching a class at Northwestern University had been brutal. While I loved the academic environment and was thrilled to have an associate professor teaching post, I felt like my brain had been stagnating. I wanted to learn something new... I wanted to be involved in something that was cutting edge.

  So, when Randall Cannon contacted me about an anthropological project he thought I might be interested in, I was more than eager to hear what he had to say. Of course, it could be nothing I was interested in, but it was definitely worth the plane trip here--at his expense, of course.

  Randall Cannon was famously wealthy. At sixty-five, despite the snowy-white hair he sported, still had the look and feel of someone in his forties. His eyes were lively and quizzical, his skin very smooth. I read up on him before I came, and I knew he made his money building one of the largest department stores in the nation, Cannon's. It was now located in practically every mall in America.

  He had never been married, but I found plenty of photos of him online with various young beauties on his arm. It seemed he only dated women about half his age, which hey... more power to him.

  "I'm very eager to hear more about your project too," I told him. I watched as he sat back in his chair and balanced the teacup with both hands.

  "I did a lot of researching before I contacted you," he said. "Your expertise in indigenous tribes of the Amazon is exactly what I'm looking for."

  "There are many anthropologists with that expertise," I told him humbly.

  "Yes, but very few of them focus their research on the cultural evolution as they make contact with the modern world. Most just seem to want to study how they exist and survive--not how they are forced to develop in unusual circumstances."

  Yeah... that wasn't really accurate. As the Amazon got perpetually raped of its trees, and more and more tribes were forced to acclimate to the modern world, there were slews of researchers watching this marvel unfold. Many of the Indians took jobs with the loggers, earning a wage that did them no real good when they returned to their homes in the jungle.

  But where I was different was in following and studying Indians that had left their existence behind and moved solely into the modern world. My Ph.D. thesis was a study of five indigenous Indians from Amazonia who moved to major metropolitan cities and learned how to enter the workforce. I followed them for one year, documenting everything from how they learned a new language to how they learned to eat with a fork. Three of my subjects ended up returning to their tribes, unable to cope with the civilized world. Two had acclimated well, with one just finishing his undergraduate degree in Rio.

  "You said you had a project that was similar to my thesis work," I said to him.

  "I do, in fact. It's quite an amazing tale, one that isn't known but to a select few. Do you believe in miracles, Dr. Reed?"

  "From a scientific standpoint, I'm afraid I don't. But from a spiritual standpoint, I believe in the possibility. Without possibility, we have no hope."

  Randall flashed me a bright smile. "W
ell... a miracle has happened for me, and I need to tell you the full story so you understand the opportunity being presented to you."

  My stomach started to sink, as I was starting to think that this guy may be a religious zealot and wanted me to go hunt down some relic in the rainforest. I had made two other expeditions into the jungle since graduating with my Ph.D. two and a half years ago, but I was by no means an expert on the Amazon.

  "Just humor me," he said with understanding as he looked at what must have been doubt and skepticism on my face.

  "Okay," I said carefully. "Tell me about your miracle."

  Leaning forward to put his teacup down on the table, he leaned back with a bright smile on his face. "This story starts thirty years ago... when I was a much younger man, and let's just say, quite stupid in my youth. I was egotistical, wealthy, and felt I was untouchable."

  I smiled, because wasn't that the way of all youth?

  "One afternoon, after a day of sailing with my friends, I was driving home... quite drunk, when I ran off the road and flipped my car into a wide ditch that was swollen with rainwater. I was knocked unconscious, and the car filled up fast. I would have surely drowned had it not been for a young man who saw the accident and managed to drag me out before that could happen."

  Didn't seem like much of a miracle to me, but definitely a world of a good luck for him.

  "That man was named Jacob Easton. He had just graduated bible college and was on his way to an early evening study group. Needless to say, I owed this man my life. I offered him money, but he wouldn't accept. I offered to buy him and his fiancee a house, but he politely declined. I offered him the world, and yet he wanted none of it. He only wanted a sincere thanks, which he got, and then he was fulfilled. He was convinced that God had put him on that road at that exact time of day so that he could save me."

  Afraid that this story was, indeed, going to turn into some type of request for me to find God in the middle of the jungle, I couldn't help but saying, "I'm sorry, Randall, but the scientist in me doesn't view that as a miracle. Maybe coincidence, maybe luck, but I'm not sure about miracle."

  "Ah, my dear Dr. Reed... that's not the miracle. Let me continue on."

  I nodded my head at him, mentally calculating how much longer this meeting was going to take, because I'd heard nothing so far that would lead me to believe he had a project that I would be interested in.

  "What developed over the next few years was an amazing friendship. While Jacob and I were very different--he was passionately following his call to the Lord, I was still a hedonist who was happy to make and spend my money. Still... we became very close, visiting each other and having long talks about God, life, and humanity."

  Randall trailed off, and his eyes were reflecting a deep fondness for the man he was telling me about.

  "He was my very best friend," Randall said sadly, and I didn't miss the past tense of his reference.

  Clearing his throat, his voice became softer. "At any rate, Jacob married his college sweetheart, Kristen, and they became missionaries. They worked mostly with indigenous tribes in Brazil but went on a trip to Africa once."

  Now my attention was perked, because he had said the words that put the conversation back on track.

  Indigenous tribes.

  "While they traveled in these countries for much of the year, whenever they came back to the States, they would come and spend a few weeks of vacation at my home with me. Our friendship grew even stronger. I was so honored when they got pregnant with their first child, and they asked me to be his godfather. You see... Jacob had been an orphan most of his life and bounced from foster home to foster home. Kristen's family pretty much disowned her when she married a man that carried her away to the dangerous jungles."

  Randall took a moment to reach for his teacup, taking a tiny sip. When he set it back down, he told me, "While some missionaries are crazy enough to do their work while pregnant, Jacob wasn't keen on that. They lived with me until their son Zacharias was born, and then they bought a tiny house not far from where I lived. They stayed in the U.S. for three years, Jacob working as a day laborer, Kristen as a stay-at-home mom. And me? Well, I continued to amass my fortune but we spent much of our free time together. I would invite the Easton family to lavish parties I would throw, and they would invite me to their tiny little home for Sunday dinners. I watched little Zach grow, and I loved that boy like he was my own."

  Randall stood abruptly from his chair and walked over to a huge cabinet against one wall. He opened it, reached inside, and pulled out a small box. When he returned, he chose to sit next to me on the couch.

  Opening the box, he pulled out a stack of photos and started flipping through them.

  "Here is Jacob, Kristen, and Zach when he was about a year old, I think."

  I took the photo and stared at it. Jacob had blond hair and an easy smile. Kristen was very lovely with long, dark brown hair and pale eyes, although I couldn't tell the exact color. Zach was a cute kid... as far as kids go. I didn't have much experience with them, but he had the same dark hair as his mother and chubby baby cheeks.

  Randall handed me another one. "This is when Zach was three years old."

  This was a photo of whom I immediately recognized as Randall holding the toddler as they posed for a toothy smile at the camera.

  "I cared for Zach on the first mission trip that Jacob and Kristen took after he was born. They didn't want to bring him to the jungle, and their trip was only three months long. They had no qualms about leaving him with me though... Zach called me 'Uncle Randall' and I was more than happy to do anything to help out my dear friends."

  Randall and I took a moment to look at the other pictures, and I watched as Zach got progressively older. Randall told me that Jacob and Kristen made another trip to Brazil when Zach was five and, when they returned, they had told him that they felt he was old enough to go on the next one. They even talked about other missionaries having their entire families there, and he'd have plenty of other kids to play with.

  "I was not keen on that idea. I knew Zach was their child, but we had grown extremely close, as sometimes Jacob and Kristen would be gone a few months at a time. But, it wasn't my place to say anything, and I dreaded the day that they would take him away on a trip."

  By the tone of Randall's voice, I had a feeling this story was not going to have a happy ending.

  "But they took him?" I guessed.

  "Yes... when he was seven. And they were never heard from again."

  My body jerked because I wasn't expecting that. I turned halfway on the couch to face Randall, and his face was so sad. "What happened?"

  "No one knows. I spent considerable resources trying to find them, but it was difficult. Most of the tribes moved often, going deeper and deeper into the jungle as the rainforest was harvested. I sent a couple of expeditions with no luck. I then contacted every church and missionary organization with pleas for people to keep their eyes peeled. Nothing... not a single thing could I find out about them. Of course, I had feared the worse... that they had been killed by the Indians."

  Taking a deep breath, Randall stood from the couch and turned to look down at me. "My life moved on, and my broken heart healed. I still kept fresh contacts with missionary groups, sending written requests for help, but after a few years, I gave up hope. I assumed they were dead."

  "But they're not, are they?" I asked because now I was starting to understand what the miracle was.

  Randall gave me a small smile. "Sadly... Jacob and Kristen are dead. Killed by dengue fever. I was contacted by a Catholic priest by the name of Gaul a few months ago... right before I contacted you... who has been ministering to the Caraica tribe that live in the northwest portion of Amazonia. He lived his entire priesthood in the rainforest but unfortunately suffered a terrible broken leg. While he was convalescing in a hospital in Sao Paolo, he learned of my search for the Eastons. Another priest had apparently visited him and just in a random discussion, the other priest had aske
d Father Gaul if he had any knowledge of the Eastons."

  "And he did," I butted in, because I was starting to get excited.

  "Indeed... he had been working with the Caraicans and he said that there was a white man living there as one of the tribesman, who was twenty-five years old and went by the name Zacharias."

  "Jacob and Kristen's son is alive... after all these years," I said with awe.

  "Yes... Zach is alive and has been living with the Caraican tribe. But I want him to come home. He's my godson and the closest thing I have to a child. I want him to have a different life."

  Shaking my head, I couldn't imagine the implications of this situation. An American child having first been raised here, then spending eighteen years living in abject poverty and in an entirely strange culture, now coming back to live in a modern world?

  My head was spinning.

  "I need your help, Dr. Reed. I want you to travel with Father Gaul to Brazil, and I want you to bring Zach home. Then I want you to help him acclimate. You're the only one I've found that has the skill set to do that. He needs someone that understands the cultural differences and how to learn them. I need you to help civilize him."

  "Zach's not happy to be here," Randall said, breaking into my memories.

  I give him a kind smile. "He's not, but let's give him a chance. He's been acclimating well, and I think he's even found some small joys in his time here."

  At least, I think he enjoyed his time with me... when he was fucking me so hard I had rug burns on my knees.

  "I want to invite you both to stay for as long as you like. I know you have several months off from your teaching post."

  "I do, and I'll stay for as long as Zach wants to, or for as long as I'm needed."

  "How hard has it been on him?" Randall asks.

  "Actually, he's adjusting amazingly well. He remembers a lot of things from his childhood. Certain foods, words, and customs. He got lost the other day when he went out on a walk and recognized that a police officer was someone you could trust. The officer brought him back to my home. He's smart, inquisitive, and soaks things up like a sponge."

  "Excellent," Randall says with pride. "I'd expect no less of him, though. He was such a bright boy."