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"O my father, it was not like this! Some of the boys tricked me. They took the feathers that I brought."
"Quiet, boy! Do you not see that Naurú will speak?"
The pagé had stopped laughing and was advancing toward him, with terrifying malice. "We heard that this boy went deep into the forest."
"I did this, O Great Pagé, and I found Macaw."
"Silence! If it is not a lie, why did Macaw's feathers get changed to the pluckings of a Heron?"
Tabajara watched him quizzically. What was in Naurú's mind?
"What do you say, elder?" Naurú asked.
"I saw feathers of Heron," Tabajara said. "But the boy said the others changed his feathers."
The men groaned, and several cried out, "O Great Pagé, we beseech you: Hear what wrongs the spirits of our village. Hear this night, or heavy is the fear in our malocas."
Naurú picked up the sacred rattles and began to shake them, letting the rattles tremble and moaning as if he was in great pain. Suddenly, he stopped. "It is Gray Wing," he announced. "The ancestor's name Gray Wing."
The crowd whispered the name, though no one knew this "Gray Wing."
Naurú's voice was entirely different from his normal tone. "We see Gray Wing gone to fight the enemy. Tupiniquin make war at sunrise when Cariri lie in their hammocks. Long is the battle. Gray Wing is a prisoner." He paused.
"On the second night, Gray Wing shows the enemy no courage in Tupiniquin. He runs from their village."
Several cried out: "This is no-warrior. Here is his son - come to the ancestors with white feathers."
Aruanã tried to flee, but Tabajara stopped him.
"When we met last, I warned about this man," Naurú said, now in his normal voice.
"We heard, O Great Pagé'' the men answered.
"What has come of my warning?"
The elder shoved Aruanã aside. "We have met to know how it will be done," he said.
"Now is the time!" a man called out.
"Find Gray Wing," another said. "Kill him!"
"No!" Aruanã screamed. "He is not Gray Wing. He is Pojucan, my father! Pojucan, warrior of the Tupiniquin!"
The few who took notice of this outburst jeered at the boy.
"You have heard," Naurú said, addressing Tabajara. "Let no-warrior be taken. Let him be silenced!" He turned abruptly, picked up the rattle near Aruanã, and disappeared into his hut.
The meeting broke up. A group of men went to Tabajara, for, as elder of the maloca, it was his duty to lead them to no-warrior. Others began to drift toward the opening in the stockade.
Aruanã was forgotten, in front of the pagé's hut.
O Father, he wept, can it be? Can the one Aruanã has loved be a warrior without honor?
Aruanã ran toward the main clearing, where a group was gathered outside his maloca, and he now saw one of them approach him.
"We must go quickly," the man said. "Your father waits."
"They will kill him," Aruanã said. He recognized the man as the Tapajós prisoner. "I cannot bear to watch."
"They will not find him."
"He will be in his hammock."
"Your father is gone from the village, and I am to join him," Ubiratan said.
"Where is my father?"
Ubiratan motioned for Aruanã to follow him to the side of the stockade farthest from the opening. There he helped the boy over the long poles and then hauled himself up.
In the small forest where the boy had seen the otter, Ariranha, father and son met. The Tupiniquin told Aruanã that they were to journey to the lands of the Tapajós, but that nothing would prevent the boy from remaining in the village.
"I hear my father," Aruanã said simply.
Copyright Errol Uys. All rights reserved. For permission to reprint this excerpt contact the author at http://www.erroluys.com.
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