A Greater Lesson

Chapter 11: Where Are You?

We traveled south, a little farther than Xik’s village.  As we traveled, we stayed hidden.  The hooded man finally gagged me with a long strip of cloth so my sobs wouldn’t call attention to us.  He kept a dagger to my back to make sure I didn’t cause trouble.

I thought about Roux.  Had anyone found him?  Had Xik found him?  Xik!  Was he even still alive?  That blow to the head could have killed a man.  The thought that I might have lost the only things left in my hideous life felt like a stab in the chest.  I thought about him laying in the dirt.  I prayed he was only unconscious like when Roux smashed his head against the floor.  I checked then though.  I knew he was alive.  This time I was standing back.  I couldn’t tell if he was alive or not.  I blinked and a few more tears streamed down my face.  Tears of concern.

We walked in silence most of the time in order to stay hidden.  Every now and again the men would go off on side conversations. 

“So how are we gonna make money off her?” asked the bearded man.

“Look at her.  Have you ever seen her before?”  The hooded man wasn’t going to just give up his plan.  He was going to explain why first.  I couldn’t see the men’s faces because the hooded man forced me to look down the entire time, but I knew who was who by their voices and where they came from.  A pause told me that they probably shook their heads.

“Have you ever seen anyone dress like her?”  The pause came again.

“Tell me, what does she remind you of?”

There was a short pause and then the long-haired man spoke up.  “A jaguar.”

“Precisely!”  The hooded man said smugly.   I could see where this was going.  It worried me.

“What is everyone in town out searching for?”

“A jaguar.”

“What if that jaguar was a shape shifter?”  He had just confirmed my fears.  I didn’t know what would happen if people thought I was the golden jaguar.

“But, if she was the golden jaguar, wouldn’t she be golden?”  The long-haired man was definitely a little slower.

“She isn’t really you bonehead!  But we can make it look like she is and sell her.”

I turned my head to look up at the hooded man in response to his idea.  He laughed and smacked my head back down towards the ground.  He pushed the dagger further into my back, quickening my pace.  I was afraid for what lay ahead of me.

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I woke up with a knot on my head.  The last thing I remembered was a nod from the hooded man and the terrified look on Riv’s face.  Then it all went black.  I looked around me.  The men had taken my weapons, and I assumed they took hers as well.  I saw my small satchel laying empty a few cubits away.  Rivka was gone.  They had taken her.  I was instantly filled with a mixture of anger and sadness.  I had to find her.  What would they do to her?  I didn’t want to think about it.  I stood up and retrieved my empty bag before heading back to the tree.

As I began to walk away, I noticed something white buried by the trunk of one of the nearby trees.  I bent down to pick it up.  It was Rivka’s eagle necklace.  It must have come off in the altercation.  I held it tightly in my fist and hugged it to my chest.