Terry / A Tale of the Hill People

by Charles Goff Thomson

It was rough and cheerless going. There were no trails. Once, toward noon, while he was munching chocolate to appease his empty stomach, he suddenly came upon a sort of runway, a beaten trail. He stepped into this easier path but had taken but a few steps when he was startled by the vicious rush of a swift object that whizzed up through the air and tore through a fold of his loose riding breeches, then swung back before his eyes to vibrate into stillness. It was a bamboo dagger, sharpened to a keen edge and point, hardened by charring in a slow fire. Fastened to a young sapling, it had been bent down over the trail and secured by a trigger his foot had released in passing. Level with his thigh, it had been designed to pierce the abdomen of the Hillmen's natural foes. He bent to examine the glutinous material with which the dagger was poisoned, and paled as he considered his close escape. Such a death—in such a place....

After assuring himself that his skin had not been broken by the balatak, he stepped gingerly off the trail and made his way upward, carefully avoiding every inch of ground that appeared suspicious. With each mile of ascent the way grew steeper, the forest deeper and darker, the green ceiling reared higher on more massive trunks.

In mid afternoon he noticed that he was passing through a zone of utter forest silence. There were no relieving sounds of voice or wing or padded foot. It was appalling. Nothing in his vivid experiences had approached the menace of these silent trees.

Pausing to rest in an area where an unusual amount of indirect light filtered down through the lofty screen of leaves he looked about him, found no tree he could identify, and felt the hostility that strange growths radiate. His thoughts flew back to the security and friendliness of the elms and maples of his boyhood haunts. As he peered through the endless avenues of trunks that rose from the dark slope, he learned what fear is. But he went on, faster.

An hour later, clambering over the trunk of a huge windfall that blocked his path, he jumped down upon something that half pierced the heel of his heavy shoe. Leaning back upon the big log he tugged till the foot was released. He had landed upon a carpet of leaves which concealed a number of sharpened bamboo stakes bedded deep in the ground, point upward. Raking out the leaves with a stick, he uncovered a nest of sixteen spearheads smeared with the brown venom.

Forced to study his every footfall, he made slower progress. He was far up the great slope when he noticed that the tangled underbrush had given way to a smooth carpet of leaves. Night was near, so he halted when he came to an open spot, a place where volcanic rock precluded vegetable growth. Water, steaming hot, poured from a fissure.

It was the first time he had sighted the sky since morning, and here he saw the only sign of life the day had afforded. Two gray pigeons flew side by side across the opening in the trees, winging toward the crest of the mountain.

Sleep did not come to him. All through the night he sat by the fire, staring out into the ruddy circle of vision illumined by the blaze, peering into the shadows cast by the great trunks. Once a dead limb fell from a towering tree that stood just at the edge of the circle of light: he started violently, his hand darting into his shirt front to his gun. He relaxed, slowly. Big drops of moisture dripped from the invisible treetops. Thinking it nearly dawn he consulted his watch. It was eleven o'clock.

Suddenly he sensed that he was no longer alone, felt the presence of stealthy forms in the surrounding darkness, heard a twig snap in the still forest behind him. He waited, tense, the hair at the back of his neck stiffening as he thought of blowpipes and of darts poisoned by steeping in the putrid entrails of wild hogs.

He felt the scrutiny of hostile eyes. Certain that he detected the movement of an indistinct figure on the rim of the firelight, he threw on a handful of dry twigs hoping to uncover the prowlers, but the flareup revealed only an enlarged circle of great trees and emphasized their shadows. He sat motionless, his eyes focussed sharply upon the spot, and as the fire died down he saw the flicker of a dark form as it darted from the shadow of the tree and dissolved into the bordering gloom.