An old woman grabbed a knife and, all business, jabbed it into one soldier’s stomach. She sawed back and forth, gutting him with all the practice and nonchalance of someone used to doing the same with fish and deer. Once she’d opened his belly up, she reached in and pulled out all his innards, dumping them into a wide, clay bowl. The heart and liver went into a separate, smaller bowl. The eyeballs followed.
Two others joined her and they began hacking the body apart. Blood splattered and dripped as they stripped flesh off the arm and leg bones. Buttocks were carved off like large roasts. The head was detached. One woman took it to a stone slab and cracked it open with hammer and chisel. Then she scooped the brains out into a small bowl.
The cooks never stopped chatting with each other as they worked. If one hadn’t seen the animal they were preparing, it would have looked no different than any other people preparing a feast with a pig or cow. Except this wasn’t one of those typical food species.
These people were cannibals.
The watching English captives wailed and cried and screamed in horror as they watched from their cages. Everyone knew now why the Caribs had taken so much pain to keep them all alive and store them in cages. It was so they could keep their livestock alive and fresh for later.
Mei struggled to comprehend the grotesqueness of the scene in front of her. She turned and retched, bringing up nothing but water and bile. She hadn’t eaten in a while. Then she turned away and tried to do anything but watch the celebratory dinner being made out of the men who had been hunting her.
A pair of little girls came by, neither more than six or seven years old. They had watched her furtively the whole time they’d approached. Now, courage gathered, they stood outside her cell, studying her and whispering to each other.
Mei had no idea what the two who saying in their own language, but from the way the little girls excited pointed at her face and skin, and then seemed to compare her with the white and black people in the other cages, she was fairly certain that they were discussing what flavour she was. Like someone comparing chicken and pork, or who was about to sample a meat they’d never had before. It was sickening. But then again, this was probably what cattle felt like before being turned into hamburgers.
One of the two girls, the younger one, looked at her and licked her lips.
Gross.
Mei backed away from the girls, stomach heaving, pressing herself against the back of the cage. So being shot and stabbed and chained up and raped and tortured, all that wasn’t enough? She could also experience being eaten? And not in the good, sexual way. Actually eaten, like food. Would they carve her into steaks? Grind her into human hotdogs? Spit her alive over the flames and enjoy the sound of her screaming as she roasted?
The old woman who’d started the butchering cackled and held up the dead man’s detached penis. There was a scuffle as several of the tribeswomen exclaimed and reached for it. But the old woman only snatched it back and and chomped down on it, tearing at the penis with her bad teeth. Half of it came away in her mouth before someone else clawed it out of her hand. In seconds, several together had consumed the entire thing, raw. The old woman smacked her wrinkled lips and blood trickled down her chin.
One woman who’d scarfed a bite of the penis patted her belly in satisfaction, then her loins, giving the other women a knowing look. A man, seeing her, hastened over and she happily let him drag her into the nearest hut. Faint sounds of rutting lasted only a minute or two before the warrior came out, crowing loudly and strutting like a rooster. The woman came out shortly thereafter, looking proud of herself. She hefted her bare tits in her hands and shouted something in a challenging voice at the other warriors standing about, before giving them a sly look.
The warriors joked and slapped each other, before another one broke from the group and chased the woman back into the hut.
Another warrior paraded in front of the cages with his chest puffed, spear before him. He pretended to ignore the captives as he marched by in a mockery of an English soldier. Then suddenly turned on them, lunging with his spear, piercing between the bars of the cage.
The captives screamed and tried to evade the thrust, though there was no room to do so in the cramped enclosure.
The warrior threw his head back and howled. He pumped his spear in the air to prove what a great, fearless warrior he was, then suddenly lunged at them again, causing more screams.
The other warriors and some of the women laughed at his antics.
Mei was disgusted. She turned away. And saw the jaguar. Locked in place, it could do nothing but stare at her in helpless fear. Her heart sank. A few minutes ago she’d so casually thought about the Caribs eating the beautiful creature, and yet now she knew that the same would be done to her. Was there really any difference?
There was intelligence and emotion in the jaguar’s eyes. Whether or not a non-human animal could use a calculator or fire a gun, it shared with humans the foundation of what it was to be a living, breathing part of nature. It was just as scared and in just as much pain as she was and that felt so wrong.
She thought back to when it had attacked the marine hunting her in the jungle. Why had it done that? Had it been defending its territory? Had it been angry about the guns? It did seem to hate weapons. Or…and this seemed impossible…had it been protecting her?
Mei wanted to deny the idea out of hand. It was a wild animal, a predator that likely saw humans as prey. And yet, it had had the chance to kill her on the beach after they’d swum together and hadn’t. It had sat with her all that night as well. Though, cynically, it might have just been guarding its breakfast and trying to keep it contained until the next day. But, it knew she was armed, didn’t it? Sleeping overhead the whole night long when she could have shot or stabbed it? Was that some kind of show of trust?
She shook her head. She was overthinking this. Painting an animal with human emotions and thoughts. That was foolish and dangerous.
The jaguar looked at her with its golden eyes. A soft whine came from its throat.
“I know. I’m scared, too,” she told it. Whether it was a mothering part of her or just general human compassion, she wanted to comfort the cat. She reached through the bars of the cage, though she did so well away from the cat’s mouth. Very slowly, she reached around from a safe angle.
The jaguar’s eyes flickered in the direction of her arm.
She held her arm in place for a while, giving the animal time to smell her, to understand that she wasn’t trying to hurt it. She was not a threat. Then, with infinite gentleness, she reached down and laid her hand on the top of its head, ready to snatch it back the instant the cat moved.
The cat did nothing. It didn’t move, didn’t twist away. It just looked at her with sad eyes.
She felt her tears well up. “It’s because you’re using to someone doing bad things to you, isn’t it?” Often, abused animals become aggressive and violent. Others become broken and submissive. This great cat seemed to have some spark of pride in him; she’d seen that in the jungle and on the beach. And yet there was something incredibly sad about the way it just lay there without reacting to her hand.
She felt a spark of anger form amidst her helplessness and despair. “I don’t know who hurt you before. But I’m going to try to get you out of here, I promise. So no one ever hurts you again.”
The jaguar blinked and looked down and away, as if it didn’t believe her words.
Slowly, slowly, she ran her hand over the jaguar’s fur, petting it. She saw water in the cat’s eyes. Did cat’s cry? Of course they did. What a stupid question. “I’ll get us both out of here. I will. If I can break myself out of a jail on a ship at sea and blow the whole thing to hell, then I can get us out of this.”
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