Bear Bob's Story as told to Edward Summer

Chapter Eight
The Cave
 

All the cold night I huddled next to the others who were tied to me. We did not dare to  speak. Their bodies kept me warm for it was very cold. There was a harsh wind that came from the sea. Cold. Very cold.

     In the night I had a dream of a strange demon. The demon was black. The demon was shiny like the black beetles that rolled dung near our village. The demon was a big as a man. The demon was as cold as I was, but there was something wrong. Out of the demon’s eyes came flames! Out of the demon’s chest came flames! All over the demon’s body were terrible, hot flames! And yet the demon’s heart was frozen and cold. Only his body was tortured and burning. Burning. Burning.

    When morning came, the light showed how big the sea was. It shone like an eye filled with tears! I had never seen so much water.

     The terrible men came and dragged us to our feet. They pulled on our ropes until we were all walking fast again.

     We followed the shoreline of this sea until we came to a huge cliff. There we stepped into the water itself and followed the sand around the corner of the cliff.

     Then I saw them. They were like black skeleton fingers thrust into the sky. They swayed back and forth like dead fingers grasping for the clouds. How could they stand so tall against the sky and not fall over?

     We walked farther and now I saw how. The long fingers were stuck into huge black logs that floated on the sea. Then I knew. These were the boats my father spoke of. These were the boats that held many men and sailed on the sea. There were dozens of these boats. They floated at the base of the cliff.

     As we got closer we heard a terrible noise. The noise of women crying. The sound of men groaning. We smelled a terrible smell. The smell of men who were not clean, of men who did not wash. The smell of men who had bled and not washed the dry blood from their limbs. The closer we got, the louder the cries. The closer we got, the worse the stench.

     We saw them then, the unclean men. They were like us. They were tied together, they were tied to stakes, they were tied to walls, they were penned up inside wooden fences like animals in a village. They spoke to each other in languages I had never heard. Louder than the languages were the cries and moans.

     This was not the end of the horror. No. No. The horror had only begun.

     Down a long flat piece of wood, down from the huge boat with the skeleton fingers walked a man. But such a man as I had never seen. You could not see much of his flesh for it was wrapped all around with bright red and white cloth. And the horror was this: where his flesh stuck out, his hands, his face - oh, his face! -- where his flesh stuck out, it was white! White as the clouds! White as the bones of death! And yet he walked and he moved and he spoke in a language so strange.

     What sort of freak was this with no color in his flesh? I wanted to run, but could not. We drew closer, and I saw more. There were more white skin men like him, wrapped in cloth. And they laughed! They laughed and pointed at the tied and unwashed people. Laughed.

     Oh, they came closer! Now they walked toward us. Laughing.

     I could see their faces clearly now. Some had hair all around their mouths. Hair like the big animals that we saw in the jungle. Their eyes looked like ours, but their lips were thin, thin as though cut into those white faces with a knife.

     From this slit came a language like no other. Sounds I had never heard. Words I did not know.

     They came close. Too close. They stared into our faces. They had faces like animals. Hair all around their mouths. Maybe that is why the sounds came out so strange. Maybe this is how dead skeletons with white bones speak.

     The black men who held our ropes spoke to the white men. They spoke in some different language that I could not understand either. Could there be so many languages in the world?

     Then the white men handed some bags to those who captured us. There was something in the bags. Clink, clank. Something hard and heavy.  One of our captors reached inside a bag and took out a shiny round object. He put it between his teeth and bit down hard. His white teeth smiled out from between his wide, dark lips. He smiled and put the shiny round thing back into the bag. He smiled with white teeth. White and wet with his spit.

     More black men came over to us. They were black like me, but they were dressed in clothes almost like the white men.  So strange they looked! So strange. They were like me in the skin, but hidden in cloth like the others.

     "Move!" they said in something like our language. "Move fast!" They dragged on the rope and we nearly fell down. We had no choice but to follow.

     "You must be on the ship before the tide!" they said. What is "ship?" I thought. What is "tide?

     They dragged us toward the boats with the black skeleton fingers sticking up into the sky. High up on the fingers were more white men. They were moving and talking and making a noise like singing. It was not like the singing of my tribe, but I could tell they were singing.

     "Hooo-ray up she rises, hoo-ray up she rises, hooo-ray up she rises, errr-lie in the morrrrr-ning," they sang.  What did this mean? They sang it so many times it has burned forever into my brain.

     Then there was a flapping sound! Loud! Something flapping like a large wing in the wind. I looked up and suddenly a cloud appeared on the tall black fingers. It must have been a cloud. It was so huge and white and it blew and flapped in the wind. The men up high tugged on ropes and kept the flapping cloud from blowing away.

     Now we were lead up a wooden ramp. Up above the water. Up onto the flat wood on this boat. This huge boat with the fingers and clouds high over our heads.

     But now we were tugged down into a black hole like the mouth of a cave.

     "Move!" the black men screamed at us. "Move!" They dragged us down into the black cave.

     "Ouch!" I said as they shoved me down onto a hard, hard surface in the darkness.

     A clanking sound. A fire. A fire in the cave. Another clanking sound.

     Something cold around my ankle. Three men grabbed me.

     Something hot! Something burning near my ankle! Bang! Blam! My body shook. My ankle was burning. I wanted to scream, but I made no sound this time.

     In the glow of the fire, I saw a heavy metal loop around my ankle. Clank! Clank! A heavy rope of metal was through the loop. It was too tight. My foot was numb. I wiggled it, and the blood flowed to my toes again.

     They chained us all. All of us, chained in the cave. Only a thin stream of light came through the mouth of the cave.

     "Hooooo-ray up she rises! Errrrrrrrr-lie in the morning." The song came in with the sunlight and echoed in the cave.

     There were footsteps and shouting everywhere.

     The walls began to creak. Above there was shouting and the flapping of the huge clouds.  The cave began to sway from side to side.

     I could hear water rushing somewhere down below us. We were floating on the great water. Floating, swaying, moving. Moving. Moving.

     But to where? Where? Where?