Lost City of the Sun

9

"BUT FIRST WE WILL go to my house. I will need to make the tea." She spoke with a native accent that might have carried a British influence. "Great-Grandfather will be sleeping now, anyway. Here, you can carry this."

She indicated a large earthenware jar of water, maybe two gallons, that was in the canoe along with the bag of leaves, presumably for the tea she had mentioned. Skip hefted the water jar as their guide picked up the bag. With Nusiri and Zane bringing up the rear, they began following her into the village.

"Great-Grandfather sleeps much these days. He is very old. The tea helps, but his time is coming soon."

"By the way," said Skip, by way of introduction, "I'm Skip. Skip Hutchins. This is my wife, Nusiri, and our son, Zane."

"Killa," she said, indicating herself."

Quechua for Moon," observed Nusiri.

"That is correct." Killa looked them over carefully.

"My middle name is Yanua," volunteered Zane. "That's Shuar for Star. From my mom's people."

"So, we might not be so different after all," said Nusiri with a reassuring smile. "Look, I don't know why you brought us here, but we mean you no harm. You can trust us. That is, if we can trust you."

Killa gave a small, tentative smile, and motioned for them to come along.

Skip gave a glance to Zane and smiled inwardly. At home, he never used his middle name, was embarrassed by it in fact. It was easier to let his friends think that he was part Hispanic, rather than some indigenous ethnicity that nobody had heard of, or if they did, associated it with shrunken heads. Even Navajo would fit in better where they now lived in New Mexico. Kids were sensitive to those sorts of things. But out here, he seemed to be connecting with that side of his heritage.

They walked through an open forest of palms and tropical hardwoods on a gentle slope up from the river. The small, simple houses were tucked nicely between the trees, and would have been hard to spot from above, as they'd noted on their scouting fly-over. Built in the Incan style, they were of local stone, with peaked, thatched roofs, small doorways framed with heavy timbers, and just one or two windows, high up on the walls. The people's curiosity were getting the better of them, as they were beginning to venture out to gawk at the strangers, but they still cautiously held their distance. From a nearby house, they could hear a baby's cries.

As they walked, Skip noticed that while some wore tunics or cotton dresses, many were clothed in more modern t-shirts and shorts and huarache-style leather sandals. He supposed they must get them in trade. In this day and age, that was pretty much the norm, even for many "uncontacted" tribes. And if these people were who Skip thought they were, they were living in a much different environment than their ancestors. If Killa spoke English, she might also speak Portuguese. Maybe she was also the tribe's merchant/ambassador to the outside world.

Killa's house was up the hill on the right, not far from those rounded hills where the jungle grew denser. Between here and there was a narrow, sunny clearing, planted in manioc, bananas and maize. Inside, they found the house simple and sparsely furnished, with just a few reed mats for sitting and sleeping, a primitive-looking stone oven, and a hand-hewn wooden table. One surprise was the Coleman camp stove set up on the table, adapted to the twenty-pound propane tank below. Acquired in trade again, no doubt.

There were a few shelves holding iron pots and earthenware bowls and a few tools and utensils. Killa took a few handfuls of the leaves she had gathered, coarsely chopped them on the table top, placed them in a pot, added some water from the jar Skip had carried, and set it to heat up on the Coleman stove.