“You’re both out o’ your bleedin’ minds. Jon-Tom, you ask too much this time, you do.”
Jon-Tom pleaded with his friend. “It won’t be dangerous. Cautious and I will sneak up there when no one’s watching and cut the ropes securing several of those corral posts. Then we’ll run him out of there. Meanwhile you and Weegee can be stealing a boat. We’ll meet you where the stream flows into the lagoon. Cautious and I and maybe the stallion will swim back to join you. We’ll all be out to sea before anyone in there realizes that their main course has departed for parts unknown.”
“That’s fine, mate. You write it down. We’ll make copies to pass out to them cannibals in there just so’s they know for sure ’ow they’re supposed to play their bloomin’ parts.”
They waited until the sun fell behind the palms. Mudge watched as Jon-Tom and Cautious started across the stream.
“You better make it downstream on time, mate. I ain’t ’angin’ around waitin’ on you. Not this time. You ’ear me?” But Jon-Tom’s ears were full of water and he didn’t hear. Or maybe he did hear but chose not to reply.
“Bloody idiots. I tried to warn ’em.”
Weegee put a paw on his shoulder. “They’ll make it. Don’t worry.”
“Worry? Why the ’ell should I worry about them? They’ve got plenty o’ time. We’ve got plenty o’ time.” He turned to embrace her but she pushed him away.
“Not to be distracted we don’t. Let’s go get that boat.” She trotted toward the water. Grumbling, Mudge followed.
A single drum kept up an unvarying, monotonous rhythm that imbedded itself in Jon-Tom’s consciousness. He would hear it in his dreams for days thereafter, he knew—assuming this improvised rescue attempt came off successfully. With Cautious leading they picked their way through the reeds, dripping wet from having swum the stream. It was a warm evening and Jon-Tom felt refreshed instead of chilled. More than ever he knew they were doing the right thing.
They stopped behind a hut, crouching low. “See anything?”
“Most people over making preparations for big fire,” the raccoon whispered. “Here I don’t see anything and nobody. We go quick now.”
They raced across a small open area and found themselves standing next to the corral. The stallion saw them, glanced anxiously back over a shoulder, and trotted toward them. His voice was deep and resonant.
“Who are you, where’d you come from?”
“Friends.” Jon-Tom tried to see past the horse. “How’d you come to be in this fix?” Cautious was already using a knife on the thick ropes which held the corral posts together.
“I was traveling to visit friends. A terrible storm struck one night and the small craft I was traveling on foundered. I fear many of my shipboard companions were not strong swimmers. There were high waves and then rocks. I washed ashore alone and came this way looking for help. Instead I found these terrible people.”
Cautious had freed one of the posts. Jon-Tom helped the raccoon tie it down quietly.
“You’d better hurry.” The stallion was looking toward the fire pit. “My name is Teyva, by the way. Hurry or they will eat you as well. This is a terrible land.”
“Depend which part you live in.” Cautious strained against the knife.
“Why don’t you just fly out of here?” Jon-Tom indicated the black leather collar. “Surely that doesn’t weigh that much.”
The stallion glanced down at the ring around his neck. “No, it’s not heavy. I think the meaning is more ceremonial than anything else. This is what they place on the people they plan to eat. The fence is too high for me to jump.”
“I didn’t say jump, I said fly. Why don’t you fly away?”
Teyva looked at the ground and his voice fell. “I can’t.”
“Have this in a minute.” Cautious grunted as he pulled on the post. “Why not?”
“I just can’t.”
Something struck Jon-Tom in the small of the back, propelling him into the corral through the gap he and Cautious had opened. The raccoon sailed in alongside him. Man and coon rolled to their feet in time to see a dozen grinning, well-armed villagers starting to put the posts back in place. Cautious’s knife lay next to the feet of a muscular wolf. He picked it up and stuck it into his belt. They’d approached so quietly neither Jon-Tom or Cautious had heard them until heavy feet landed in their backs.
Now they resecured the posts. Their tongues hung out as they regarded their new prisoners. Not a word was spoken.
“Plenty quiet people for sure.” Cautious started forward. “I can climb this fence, I think.” He started forward until an arrow landed in the ground a foot in front of his big toe. Jon-Tom looked up into the trees. There wasn’t much visible among the branches. Intimations of bows and flashing eyes.
“That’s where they came from. That’s why we didn’t hear them sneaking up behind us. They’ve probably been watching us ever since we came out of the river, trying hard not to laugh.”
“Plenty dangerous people all right. Think nobody watching, they watching all the time.”
“Not wasteful, though.” Jon-Tom nodded at the arrow. “That could have gone through your foot.” He turned away from the corral wall. “Pretend we’re stuck, that we’ve given up.”
“We are and maybe I have.” The raccoon sat down heavily.
“Not necessarily.”
“What are you talking about? You’re just as helpless as I am,” said Teyva.
“There’s a six-inch blade concealed in the bottom of my staff.” Jon-Tom gestured with his ramwood stick. “And I have an instrument in my pack.”
“I don’t think music will help.”
“You don’t understand. I’m a spellsinger.”
“You’ll never be able to spellsing yourself out of here, man. You won’t have time.”
Jon-Tom turned, studied the dark silhouettes of the trees. “Maybe, maybe not. Is that why you haven’t flown off? Because you’re afraid they’ll put an arrow through you before you can get above the treetops?”
The stallion turned away. “Oh no, that doesn’t worry me. I could be up and gone before the quickest among them could take aim. They don’t worry about that, though, because they know I can’t fly out of here. Because they know what’s wrong with me.”
