Surreal encounter in the Guyana bush (Pt. Two)

Mar 10, 2019 Countryman, Features / Columnists

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By Dennis Nichols
“I saw a man standing where just moments before the jaguar had crouched …. And his eyes, like ice and fire, burned into my own” (Surreal Encounter – Pt. 1)
“Kanaima! The dreaded name jumped at me. My heart stopped for a moment, and then began to race as I stared at the figure. Behind it, a long tail swished – like a cat watching its prey. Then a deep, gurgling sound swelled up around me. It seemed to come from everywhere at once, like waves rising and falling – from the creature, the trees; the earth beneath my feet. It was the most unnatural sound I’d ever heard.
I began to feel sick. My body started rocking slowly back and forth. I tried to turn my head to look away from the creature’s eyes, but they were like magnets. I knew my grandfather’s spirit had left me, replaced now by these strange actions and feelings, and I knew something bad was about to happen. It did. I fell forward – and blackness swallowed me.
How long I lay on the jungle floor I had no idea, but when I came to myself, I felt I was really dreaming this time, because there was complete darkness and silence. The half-moon had disappeared, and if the ‘manimal’ was still there I could not see or sense it.
Fear rose in me again. I didn’t know which was worse – the presence of the creature with its inhuman eyes, or the absence of any sign of life, including mine it seemed. Was I dead? Was this what death felt like? But I soon realized I was alive when I forced myself to turn and felt my shotgun and torchlight on the ground close by.
Up to that point I’d had no need for the torchlight but now in the pitch-black night, I thanked God that I had put in new batteries earlier in the afternoon. As the blackness swirled around me, I knew at that moment that a source of light was more important than a gun to lift me out of the nightmare I was experiencing.
But before I could take them up, I was aware of someone or something behind me. Again fear shot through me. Again I felt myself losing consciousness, but before I could, I felt strong hands grip and lift my body clear off the ground. I didn’t black out completely, and was barely aware of being carried rapidly away from where I had fallen. Strangely enough, the fear began to leave me as we moved swiftly and silently through the jungle.
At some point I must have fallen asleep, and slept deeply, because when I awoke streaks of sunlight were pouring through numerous spaces in the thatched roof of an old, rickety benab. Near to me on a rough wooden table were my torchlight and gun. My ‘rescuer’ whoever he, she, or it was, had vanished, and for the third time I wondered if the whole thing had been a bad dream. I soon found out it wasn’t.
Suddenly realizing that I was very hungry, I glanced at my watch, and was shocked to see that it was almost midday. I had probably slept for about 12 hours. I got to my feet, determined to somehow find something to eat, and to force from my mind the thought that I was lost, hungry and scared, in a part of the jungle that I was totally unfamiliar with.
As soon as I stood up, I felt my head spinning again, and had to lie down back quickly. It was then I noticed with a rush of panic that I wasn’t alone. In a corner of the benab sat someone – a wrinkled, shrunken human form. It was a woman – maybe a hundred years old, or more, and almost toothless when she opened her mouth to speak to me. “Son,” she whispered, “don’t be afraid. I know what happen to you last night. Listen to me.”
She spoke slowly, as if in physical pain, and my fear began to lessen. “The kan—-, that thing – is after me.” She paused. “I tired running from it … can’t fight it no more. No magic, no bina … nothing. My grandson-in-law send it to kill me for something I do a long time ago. Dead woman can’t talk so the living got to pay, and I tired, I so tired son. He coming back tonight. I want you to see, to witness, and when you get back to Matthew’s Ridge, tell my grandson it over. Tell him leave my children alone. I pay the price… Look, I know you hungry. Eat this.”
She didn’t speak again, but reached behind her for a small pot and pushed it towards me. It was a stew of some kind of bush meat, and it looked very tasty. I had never felt so hungry in my life, and in ten minutes I had devoured every scrap of it. The old woman sat watching me for a while, and then she gradually fell asleep, snoring peacefully. I was unaware when I did the same.
When the jaguar came back that night, I knew exactly what it was, and in two minds as to what I should do. I had my shotgun loaded and ready, if needed, to bury a dozen pellets in its head, but I immediately knew if any death followed it would be mine. And I’d promised the old woman. So I did nothing. I simply witnessed the terrifying, brutal, brief encounter.
She was crouched in a corner of the benab, eyes wide open, staring. She didn’t appear frightened but when the creature pounced, she let out a whimpering cry as its claws and fangs ripped into her. (I discovered later that she didn’t die right away, but may have suffered a slow, painful death after two days of poisonous inflammation and unbearable pain. And that I was one of the very few people to witness such an attack)
The jaguar paid me no attention, but after the bloody strike it went and stood at the entrance of the enclosure. Without understanding how, I knew it was waiting for me to follow. I picked up my shotgun and torchlight and advanced to a few feet behind it. It slowly began to move away from the benab, and headed for a path it appeared to know well. I found it easy to follow, trailing behind.
After about half an hour it stopped, and turned to face me. In the moonlight its eyes held no terror now, and I knew my nightmare was ending. But it was waiting for me to do something first, and again, I knew what I had to do. I looked away as it disappeared behind a huge rock nearby for maybe two seconds, and when I looked back, it was gone.
Then I saw it by the rock – the man-thing I had seen the night before, now turned slightly away from me, the muscles, from massive neck to bulging thighs, rippling in the moonlight, shimmering silver-green like some giant, alien reptile. A deep gurgling sound arose and spread through the night air in pulsating waves. Suddenly it reared its head and emitted three sharp, whistling cries. Then with a couple of huge leaps it disappeared, melting silently into the jungle darkness.
Immediately, I heard a voice call my name – a human one from the bushes directly behind me. It was one of my campmates, a member of the search party out looking for me. Emotion overcame me, and for the third time in two days, I collapsed, but this time with relief. The encounter was over.

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