Surreal encounter in the Guyana bush

Mar 03, 2019 Countryman, Features / Columnists

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By Dennis Nichols
Here’s another story from my repertoire of diversionary tales, as we prepare ourselves for God-only-knows-what in the remaining ten months of 2019. They are set in Guyana’s rugged, pristine, and bewitching hinterland, spoken in hushed tones with somber, humorous or mysterious gestures.
Through the years, Amerindians, porkknockers, and bush men have spoken of strange encounters with spirit folk, alluring water maidens, and the silent, shape-shifting forest Kanaima, or ‘manimal’ as one old head put it.
Even visitors and writers from foreign lands have sampled our enigmatic folklore against the backdrop of the forested-highland and savannah regions shared with Venezuela and Brazil. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s ‘Lost World’, William Henry Hudson’s ‘Green Mansions’ and Evelyn Waugh’s ‘Ninety-two Days’, all explore the region’s myth and mystery, while local writers like Edgar Mittelholzer, Wilson Harris, Pauline Melville, and lately Michael Jordan, pen their intrigue from a more embedded setting.
The following is the retelling of a story originally related by a jolly, North West friend of mine given to hyperbole and leg-pulling. But he swears this one is true, simply because it happened to him. Here it is in his own words, paraphrased for the sake of ‘good English’ readers.
“Many years ago I was employed by a certain government department to act as a labourer and a kind of guide for a group of workmen and surveyors at locations between Matthew’s Ridge and Port Kaituma. My co-workers were clearing paths and opening up an area of about four acres for a small airstrip. At least that was what I was told. I didn’t know the area that well, but enough that I felt capable of doing what I would be paid to do.
It was in 1977, I think in late March, just before the Easter holiday weekend. We had travelled by the slowest train I ever rode, from Port Kaituma to Matthew’s Ridge, before setting off through the jungle in the direction of Arakaka. On the very first night we set up camp in a small clearing near a creek. It seemed a suitable enough place, since there were at least two rough trails nearby heading off at right angles to each other.
The next day the group decided to stay at the same camp, and do some unofficial surveying of the area between the two trails. I told them I wanted to check out one of the trails as I had heard what I thought was the whistling of a bush cow the night before. A young one would provide the eight of us with enough meat for about one week if salted and roasted properly.
With shotgun, cartridges, and a torchlight, I set off at about five-thirty that afternoon, as I knew tapirs were night-movers, especially during the early part. It got dark very quickly, although I could see a half-moon in the sky when space between the overhead branches allowed it. By six ‘o’ clock, I had walked maybe a mile-and-a-half from camp.
The trail grew faint, and was taken over by fallen leaves which I could make out when moonlight brightened it. I heard the grunts and squeals of animals that sounded nearby, but saw nothing. Suddenly the trail, which was in the shape of a gentle curve, took a sharp turn to the left, and I could sense up ahead an air of lightness, and the smell of vegetation after a shower of rain. But no rain had fallen, and I began to feel uneasy.
Two very large trees in front of me formed a sort of natural gate just at the turn, and I could see some of their topmost branches waving from a breeze I couldn’t feel myself. As I edged round the turn, the vegetation scent hit me again, but this time another one was added to it that made me almost gag. It was the unmistakable smell of fresh-kill blood. I was a hunter, and knew it well. But there was no evidence of predator or prey anywhere.
Then in an instant, like a picture dropped before me, I saw a dream scene; that’s the only way I can describe it. A large clearing magically appeared, but it was immediately evident that the ground had not been landscaped by human hands. I can’t explain, but it looked something like a broad cricket pitch, somewhat circular, maybe about 40 yards long. The moon had disappeared behind a cloud, but I could see at the head of the clearing, another huge tree.
My head and eyes began to spin slowly. I knew I wasn’t actually dreaming, but yet I was. It sounds weird now, but that’s how I felt. Then I saw it – the tiger. I knew it was actually a jaguar, since we don’t have ‘real’ tigers in Guyana, but that was the image I saw before me in a circular patch under the tree. When I was a child my priest-teacher, Father Cornelius, used to love to read a poem called ‘The Tyger’ to us, and the first part of that poem now rang in my ears, with paralyzing fear.
“Tyger, tyger, burning bright, in the forests of the night; what immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?
I’d seen a jaguar twice before, but this was different. Although it was crouched, I could see it was very large, its head unmoving. Its eyes even from that distance were like fire and ice. They stared straight into mine. In this dream-trance, I started walking slowly towards it. I knew I was heading towards death but couldn’t help myself.
Then the most unbelievable thing happened. Although I was walking towards the creature, I wasn’t getting any closer. Inexplicably, I found myself back at the turn where I had begun my eerie walk. I was trembling now, and the fear I experienced was something I cannot describe to this day. Then the moon broke through a cloud and I looked up – into the face of my dead grandfather. Inside me, I heard his voice. “Remember the words I spoke to you that you should say and the thing you should do whenever fear hits you. Do it, now!”
Well I cannot tell you the words I spoke; they are only for me, but I can tell you what I did, or what my grandfather did, for he had entered into me – again I cannot describe that to you. I stooped down, and in the half-dark earth where a few fresh leaves were scattered, I searched for the one I instinctively knew would work. I held it in front of my face and said the words, I’d first heard more than 40 years before.
When I looked up, and ahead of me, I saw a man standing where just moments before the jaguar had crouched. He seemed about six feet tall, muscular and scaly-looking, with long, night-black hair; completely naked. And his eyes even from that distance, were like ice and fire, burning into my own.
(To be continued)

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