A Greater Lesson

Chapter 7: Deeper

She looked so sad, so deep in thought.  I looked over at Roux and inspected the markings on his face.  It was impossible to mistake him for another because of the distinctive lines on his face.  A long wide line stretched from under his eye to his ear on either side of his face, and a diamond shaped mark on his forehead.  The rest of him though looked like any other jaguar.  He stared at me with relaxed yellow eyes and licked his whiskers.  I looked back at Rivka staring at the floor.  It was insane the way a memory could stick with you so clearly and attached to each memory was a mixture of emotions.  Each time a memory came back, the emotions came with it and you would relive that experience.  When memories remind you of other memories, the whole thing would start all over.  I knew this all too well and I knew it was happening to her right then. 

I looked away to let her have her moments of reflection.  I thought about the gold flecks that had mixed with my blood.  They must have come from Roux.  I turned to look at him and inspected his paws from my seat on the floor.  When I found nothing I reached forward to grab one of his paws, but he pulled back.  I put my hands up to signify a surrender so that he wouldn’t be tempted to attack me again.  I retreated to my sitting place and sighed.

Rivka looked up at me now.  Her eyes surveyed everything around where I was and she stepped forward.  I stayed silent but my mind circled with curiosity.  She walked towards me, then sat on her bed by Roux. 

“It’s okay,” she whispered to him as she lifted his paw.  She pushed on his knuckles so his claws revealed themselves and pushed them towards me.

“Find what you’re looking for?”  She had watched me.  I sat up and scooted closer.  I turned his paw upward to look in the crevices under the claws.  Roux squirmed but Rivka kept him calm.  I scratched the underside of his claws with my nail, and when I pulled them out to inspect them, I found what I was looking for.  A film of gold dust overflowed from my nail.  I looked up at Rivka.

“Do you know what this is?” I asked her.  She lived in a tree trunk, I didn’t know what all she knew about money.

She scrunched her eyebrows together and looked at my finger, then up at me.

I looked towards Roux.  “It’s gold.”

She lifted his paw towards her face and looked for herself.  Her eyes widened and she dropped his paw to cover her mouth with her hands.  She obviously knew what gold was and its value.  She looked at me and finally lowered her hands.  “Where did it come from?”

I had the same question.  I shook my head and suddenly felt the throbbing again.  “I don’t know.  Roux must know where some is.  Have you ever followed him?”

She shook her head.  “I never thought to.”

“Well you might want to try it,” I smiled.  If I was right, she was about to be a rich woman.  She sat for a while and tried to grasp the thought.  She looked over to the table and reminded herself of the fruit.

“Do you want some breakfast?” She asked casually.

“Sure, is there enough?”

“Eh, it should be fine, I’ve been eating pieces here and there while I was chopping so you can have what’s here.  I’ll be fine.”  She carried the plate of cubed fruit to where I was sitting and handed it to me.

“Are you sure?”

She tilted her head.  “Yea, I’ll be fine.”

I reached up and took the plate.  “Ok…”  I began picking up pieces of juicy fleshy fruit and putting them in my mouth.  It tasted like an explosion of sweetness and tanginess.  My mouth felt like it was in shock.  It was really, really good.  I couldn’t remember the last time I had fruit.  I basically lived off of meat because of my obsession with killing things.  I decided that I would start eating fruit again because this was amazing.

I began putting more and more pieces into my mouth at a time.  I was sad when I came to the last piece and realized it was all gone.  I looked up at Rivka to give her plate back and found her giggling at me.

“What?”  I asked with a stuffed mouth.

She looked down laughing silently and started to walk towards me.  I swallowed my gulp of food and put the plate in the air.

“That was really good.  Thank you.”

She picked up the plate and looked me square in the eyes with a humored expression.  “You’re very welcome.”  She turned and set the plate down on the table.

I sighed and attempted to rise for the first time since the attack.  I put one arm firmly on the ground and the other on my thigh.  I used all of my strength to push myself up and catch my balance.  Rivka looked back at me surprised.

“I think I should be getting back now.”

She moved a little closer and folded her arms.  “Are you sure?  I-I mean do you think you feel well enough?”

I put my hand on my belly and nodded.  “After that breakfast I’m ready for anything.”

She smiled and brushed her bangs away from her face.  “Can you find your way back ok?”

“Yea, I should be fine.  How do you remember how to get around this place?”

She looked around the room.  “I guess I’ve just been out here for so long I have it memorized.  Do you need help remembering how to get here?”

I rubbed the back of my head.  “Kind of,”

“Here, I’ll go with you and mark trees on my way back.”

“Sounds good to me,”

She smiled and followed me out of the tree.

                                    *                      *                      *                      *

I couldn’t hide it anymore.  I was starting to like this guy, but walking him home was a nightmare. I didn’t know where he lived so I didn’t know which way to go.  He didn’t know how he found me so he couldn’t retrace his steps.  It took us like four hours to get out of the jungle, and then we realized we were on the wrong side.  Instead of going back into the jungle we decided to go around so we wouldn’t get lost again.  It was late afternoon before he pointed out his house to me and my part of the deal began.  I showed him how to recognize the break in the canopy I made by the Great tree and once he found that, he could just go in a straight line to my place.  I was still going to mark the trees in the path that I returned on for him to follow.   Marking them just meant drawing a line on the trunks straight down the path with my dagger.

His house was pretty secluded from the village.  I was thankful for that because nobody saw me reenter the jungle.  When I got back to the Great tree, Roux had already done his route and returned.  I would have to follow him some other day.  I walked down the steps to my home.  I stopped on the bottom step and looked around the small room.  Roux was sleeping heavily in his corner with a renewed portion of gold dust in his claws.  The room had grown dark by now.  I walked to the corner and decided to light the lamp in the back shelf.  I immediately walked to the storage area I kept the dried meat.  Having not eaten since a couple of chunks of mango this morning, I was starving.  I picked up the first piece I could reach and shoved it to my mouth.  I sat on my bed and ate, thinking about the developments of the day.  Since waking up this morning, I had told Xik where Roux and my scar had come from.  I had found out that Roux had his own little stash of gold.  I had named Zorxik “Xik,” by accidently shortening his name when I was talking to him.  In turn he named me “Riv.”  I had seen where he lived and created another path in the jungle, this being the first one ever to connect to civilization.

I fell backwards on my bed and closed my eyes.