Nirvana Effect

2



Edward clambered back to the bench and tried to pry his way through the gap in the wall, to no avail.

He was trapped. The only way out of the hut, full of holes as it seemed, was through the doorway and through Nockwe.

Nockwe’s hand gripped the dagger at his belt. Edward was happy Nockwe’s spear had shattered. The chieftain edged toward Edward as he spoke in Onge.

“You are a foolish white man. I told you not to leave the hut.”

Edward kept eyeing the sheathed dagger. He felt numb and out of breath.

Nockwe moved closer still. “You will pay a fool’s gamble to feed your curiosity.”

Here was a shimmer of hope. Nockwe was still talking. As long as Nockwe was talking, he was not dead. Edward abandoned all pretense of not knowing Onge. “I heard shouts. I thought there might have been violence.”

“You left the hut!” shouted Nockwe.

“I feared for my life.”

Nockwe shifted his feet and checked his back. When he addressed Edward again, he spoke quickly and softly. “You were right to fear so. You are a good white man but a stupid one.”

Edward was barely able to keep pace translating in his mind. Onge was definitely not second nature to him yet.

“There is nothing you could gain,” said Nockwe, “and everything you could lose. This we call the fool’s gamble. By the laws of the tribe you will die.”

Edward could not press back any further to the wall. He scanned the room for weapons, anything that could help him. He had nothing but his bare hands to defend himself from Nockwe. Edward waited for him to make his move.

Nockwe’s move never came. “I’ll not be the one to kill you,” he said. “You are a good white man - you see my peoples’ hardships and you help. But you are victim of your curiosity. If the tribe learns what you saw, either I or someone else will have to end your life.”

Edward started breathing again, sagging from the wall. Nockwe would bend the rules so long as there were no witnesses.

“What is happening?” Edward asked.

Nockwe shrugged after considering his question. “You just saw a coming of age.”

“But he didn’t ask for a hog. He was supposed to ask for a hog?” asked Edward.

“But he asked for a panther.”

“Yes, a panther. Why?”

“I don’t know. There is a legend…”

“With a panther and a child’s staff?”

“You came before the yelling.”

Edward smiled weakly. “I am a very stupid white man.”

Nockwe grinned. “You speak very good Onge for being such a stupid white man. There is a legend, it must be what Mahanta is thinking. But it is only a fable. No boy can kill a panther with a toy. No man can even find a panther to kill. The panther finds and kills him. This is the way of panthers and men.”

“He took a drug,” Edward said.

Nockwe furrowed his eyebrows and searched Edward’s eyes. Finally Nockwe nodded, accepting the truth in his statement. “What sort?” he asked.

“I thought you’d know.”

Nockwe shook his head. “There is no drug or potion for the ceremony. Nothing to dull the senses. Even with the hog half-dead and drugged we do not want to lose any of our youth to an accident.”

“It was by some sort of…umm…infusion,” said Edward. He had to use the Onge cooking term; they had no medical vocabulary.

“Perhaps that explains it.” Nockwe’s eyes glossed over momentarily. He looked disheartened.

A cry reached them from the jungle. Nockwe whipped back into action. “You will follow me, white man,” he instructed, “and stay very close if you want to live through the night. I am no threat, but the tribe is. And I am a threat in the presence of the tribe.” He gripped Edward’s shoulder. “You are a friend to my people, but they are no friend of yours. So remember when I am your friend and when I am not. Come with me.”

“Should I just go back to my hut?” Edward asked. At that moment, his hut was very appealing.

“The hut is not safe for you there. You were right to fear for your life in the hut, if that is true. But only because of what is now occurring.”

Nockwe backed toward the entrance.

“Follow me, white man,” he said in English to Edward. “Stay close.”

Edward numbly followed. Nockwe‘s English was better than he had before pretended. And I thought I had Nockwe fooled. “Where are we going?” Edward asked.

“To the jungle.” There would be no arguing with him. He was already moving out the doorway. “Perhaps we can help young Mahanta survive the night,” he said quietly. They heard another shout from the jungle. “We must run.”

Edward plunged into the jungle, trying to keep up with Nockwe. Edward had never dared travel the jungle at night.

Nockwe wasn’t running so much as swimming through the jungle, leaping across crevasses and darting between minute openings in the foliage with ease and fluidity. He somehow always found footing despite the irregular undergrowth, and Edward had a hard time emulating him. The missionary was in good shape, but nowhere near the physical prowess of the head of the Onge tribe.

As he sprinted deeper into the jungle, Edward’s need to keep up with Nockwe grew. If he lost his guide, he had no way back to the village. Nockwe changed direction unpredictably, and Edward’s lungs heaved the humid air until they felt ready to collapse.

Nockwe stopped suddenly, but Edward didn’t see him in time. He slammed into the chieftain. Nockwe’s firm hands grasped him and kept him from falling headlong. “Shteck!” whispered Nockwe. It was the Onge injunction for silence.

Edward strained his ears over his own desperate breathing. Far in the distance he heard the shouting and running of the villagers.

Edward and Nockwe twisted their heads back around. An animal was shrieking not far from them. Edward scanned the trees. At any moment it might drop on him.

“There,” said Nockwe. “The panther.” Edward was relieved to see Nockwe point in the distance. It had like it was right there.

An Onge battle cry drowned out the last of the roar. It sounded like Mahanta.

“Quickly,” urged Nockwe. He rushed toward Mahanta, away from the mob of villagers closing in behind them. Edward had to fight his every impulse in order to follow. His only comfort was that there would be only one panther, but hundreds of angry Onge in the opposite direction and thousands of jungle animals should he simply flee into the darkness.

They broke into a clearing. At the far end of the open space was a huge, ancient tree, its branches arching down to kiss its far-reaching roots. Mahanta and the panther danced back and forth before it, silhouetted by the moon.

The panther was furious, yowling, jabbering, hissing and scratching, pouncing at Mahanta. Mahanta bore the stick in his hand and pounded the panther’s skull every time it made a pass at him.

The young man moved as though he were some sort of animal, himself - something far more wild and threatening than the jungle cat. Edward had never seen a human being move like he did. The panther struck with an inescapable power and agility, and yet here was this boy who dodged it easily.

Neither Nockwe nor Edward advanced closer than the edge of the clearing. The chieftain muttered a curse.

Edward wrenched his eyes from the fight to look at Nockwe. His moonlit eyes watched the fight, but Edward could tell by his frozen pupils that he was thinking, not watching. Unexpectedly, Nockwe wrenched his head to the right as though he were a deer reacting to the crack of a rifle. “DOWN,” he whispered furiously in English, shoving Edward into the grass.

Edward soon saw that Nockwe had good reason for his abruptness. The sharp pain of Nockwe’s rough handling faded into the back of Edward’s mind as he tuned his ears to the soft sounds of hundreds of footsteps nearby. The tribe had reached the clearing, too. Peeking up from the grass, he saw the villagers exit the jungle here and there. They cautiously kept to its edge, just like Nockwe.

Edward turned his eyes back to the roaring panther and the quiet youth. The panther was further enraged and had lost all caution in its pouncing. As soon as it landed it launched into the air again, trying to reach Mahanta. It may as well have been pawing at its shadow.

Mahanta only struck the occasional blow as he dodged the cat. He kept glancing at the tribe gathering at the edge of the clearing. He wasn’t looking for help.

Seems like he wants an audience. Edward dismissed the thought as soon as it came to him. Mahanta was fighting a real panther. This was life or death, and though he fought with a child’s toy, it was no game. Surely he didn’t care whether or not there was a crowd. Surely by now whatever drug-induced delusions of grandeur he had were shattered by the necessities of survival.

Edward thought about the injection Mahanta had taken. This is a drug-induced insanity. It must be stopped. Mahanta’s drug might have been an effective upper, but it was only a matter of time before that panther tore him limb from limb.

Much to Edward’s amazement, no member of the tribe moved to intervene, not even Nockwe.

“Is there anything we can do?” asked Edward emphatically from the grass.

“Not if you wish to live,” whispered Nockwe. “You can’t even be seen here. And no Onge can intercede in the coming of age. It would be death.”

“It’s death right now! That boy will die! He’s not in his senses!”

“Be as that may, there is nothing that can be done.” He sounded resolute, but his shadowy face was slack and his eyes looked empty. Edward knew Nockwe wanted to save the boy. Nockwe’s power was simply not absolute; he could not break with the Onge tradition.

There’s too much dissent in the tribe for Nockwe to make a move like that. Edward had seen the politics at the campfire. “Please, help him,” Edward pleaded.

Nockwe did not answer. His eyes were riveted on Mahanta.

Mahanta looked back to the crowd. The panther had tired and was circling again, growling at its pray. Mahanta yelled in the formal Onge tongue, “You shall die, panther, and so shall my earthly flesh! No mortal Mahanta leaves here tonight!” He pulled his staff to the ready.

The panther pounced as if to answer, swinging for him with its huge paws. Mahanta deftly side-stepped and brought his staff down with both hands. The staff shattered on the panther’s skull.

It wobbled for a moment, giving Mahanta enough time for a fatal blow. He jabbed the splintered remains of his staff at the panther’s face.

The cat flinched back, however, before Mahanta could drive his weapon in. It struck back, swiping Mahanta’s torso with its wicked claws. It was the first hit the panther had gotten in all night, and it was a vicious one. Edward cringed as Mahanta dropped. He wouldn’t be coming up from that one.

From the grass, Edward could no longer see Mahanta. The panther dove, disappearing from Edward’s view as well. It sounded like the two were struggling.

Edward’s desire to run was overshadowed by an impulse to go jump into the fray and help Mahanta. He craned his ear as though the extra six inches would give him some insight as to what was happening.

The noises vanished. The clearing was quiet as the moon. The night felt robed in an unnatural calm.

The native figures looked like statues all around the clearing edge. Edward watched the faces of the nearest from his hiding place. Their hopefulness slowly gave way to disappointment as the silence reigned. Silence was the way of a panther, not a man.

Then came a cry.

First, soft, then stronger - a victorious, human cry.

Mahanta’s figure surged up from the grass, hefting the carcass of the panther over his head.

“T’ley’to’ni,” cried Nockwe. Literally it meant, “Death God,” but he was certainly using it as a curse. Edward cursed, as well. Though he was glad to see Mahanta alive, he did not feel relieved. The shock overrode any sense of that. The wiry young man was shaking the panther over his head like a trophy. Edward’s scientific mind was not willing to absorb it all. He doubted his own perceptions, as a magician might watching another illusionist’s tricks.

Nockwe muttered, “He lives. He shall be a god.”

Mahanta’s fulfilled a prophecy… Edward wondered what Nockwe meant by “god”.

“What does this boy hope to do?” Nockwe asked himself, vocalizing Edward’s own thoughts. The words echoed between Edward’s ears.

To the left of Edward came an angry Onge curse. Edward jerked his head in that direction. No more than twenty yards away, an older Onge was screaming and pointing directly at him. The thin grass did little to hide Edward from that angle of view. “Nockwe!” shouted the native. “Behind you! The white man sneaks behind you!”

Nockwe was startled, but it only took him an instant to regain his composure. The last thing Edward remembered seeing was Nockwe’s face. He looked sorry. His foot crashed into Edward’s head. It happened so fast that the missionary could hardly perceive the motion.

Edward was unconscious before he hit the ground.