Second Chances

We'd beached the canoes, six hours ago and ever since we had been headed inland towards the trading posts. We were as silent as a party of several thousand warriors could be, which wasn't all that quiet.

The noise of our passage through the jungle was annoying me in a way that was beyond the normal. What surprise could we hope to bring to the enemy with this amount of racket?

It seemed as if every warrior of the natives had suddenly lost all the forest craft that they had been born and raised into. What's more, they all seemed to be aware of it.

They glanced among themselves as if they thought themselves apart from their natural selves. To say the mood about us as a fighting body of men was less than to be desired was to put it mildly.

Angrily I continued to move forward stubborn to complete the task at hand. My foot fell and snapped a twig loudly. That was it!

I stopped and angrily motioned everybody else to do the same. Something was not right!

It was as if some invisible force was working against me. Suddenly it came to memory the way my wife had been silent on the whole premise of my plan, which wasn't like her to be when I outlined a plan of something.

She hadn't approved of my plan. I'd known that, even though she hadn't said anything.

I reached a hand up to wipe at my forehead and the sudden cold sweat that I found there. My wife was a very prudent woman, while I could sometimes be prone to acts of rashness.

Was this such a moment?

In the silence brought about by my gesture to halt I ruminated on the facts as they were. With a little more insightful logic applied it became apparent that of all things the Portuguese would expect of me to do it was to do something forceful, as I was doing right now, instead of remaining in my position of strength at Arn.

Arn was anything but strong right now, as it was defended by only a quarter of the number of warriors needed to do it adequately.

"What have I done!" I exclaimed inwardly to myself completely aghast at my own blindness.

Abruptly I turned around and strode back the way we had come my actions causing warriors to have to jump out of the way quickly in order to not be bowled over.

"Mahlon?" Sean cried out uncertainly.

In a voice that everyone could hear I said, "We're going back! Now!!!"

As one the warriors turned and with eagerness made back the way we had just come. The level of silence that greeted my ears at our passage through the jungle only echoed to the fact of how we had been miraculously diverted from disaster of the worst kind. The warriors once more moved with the silence of their natural born instincts.

Somebody had been praying and I was pretty sure I knew who it was. "Thank you God for my wife! Without her I…. thank you so much!"

~~~~~~~

Anna

Anna knew the exact moment the attack was imminent. She'd been listening to the sound of a loon calling out. The loon's voice had stopped mid-note and in that instant, somehow instinctively knowing the cause of it she had turned to scream at Tyree standing near the gate, "Close the gate!!!"

He jumped looking startled at her shout, but in the next instant barbed arrows and poison tipped javelins were raining down everywhere within the compound. Men, women, and even children alike screamed out in both terror and pain.

Scores of the villagers and some of the colonists dropped to the ground transfixed by the aerial assault that had occurred almost without warning. Native warriors that had been in concealment on the compound walls straightened up throwing off blankets and sheltering debris to bring their own bows and arrows to bear upon the suddenly visible enemy.

Some of the brightly painted enemy fell in their headlong rush through the settlement towards the compound walls, but not nearly as many as would be desired. Anna dodged out of the way of another downward arcing javelin and dove across the ground to come up beside a little girl that she taught in one of her classes.

The girl was screaming, as she stared at the sight of her mother lying still upon the ground, staring sightlessly up at the sky, as her hands gripped around the poisoned javelin lodged in her stomach that had ended her life almost instantly. Anna wrapped an arm around the girl and drug her into the sheltering overhang of a wagon's wooden bed, as more and more projectiles rained down within the compound.

Holding the girl to her Anna looked toward the gate and gasped at the sight of it still wide open! Headhunters were everywhere beyond the gates and many of the native warriors tasked with closing the gate were either dead or in the process of dying.

"Oh God!" Anna cried out hysterically, as all looked to be soon lost.

Three wildly screaming headhunters suddenly dropped and then two more fell as Tyree swung his sword in a backhanded swish, as he ran in a bulrush toward one of the partially closed doors, which was in the process of being flung wide open. He hit it hard and sent three more headhunters on the outside reeling backwards.

As he crammed the one side of the gate closed his back was exposed to headhunters already spilled over into the compound. Anna was about to cry out to him in warning when Ofunai dodged forward and swung away with two obsidian stone chipped axes into the backs of the headhunters in the process of turning back to the gates in order to halt Tyree from closing them.

Tyree got a hold of the second gate and heaved against it with his one arm and side even as with his other hand, he hacked away viciously at the headhunters trying to barge through the narrowing gap. The headhunters were pushing against the gates again and it was all Tyree and several other surviving native warriors could do to hold them half closed.

Ofunai with a wild scream as ferocious as any headhunter dodged forward to leap through the gap between the gates with both axes swinging. The outside pressure against the gate immediately lessened as Ofunai made a gory impact upon the enemy gathered there.

The one gate slammed closed and the warriors who'd done it immediately reached for the crosspiece bar. Tyree's side of the gate was about to close when he ducked through to the other side and was gone from view for a moment.

During the whole ordeal Anna had ceased to breathe at some point as she watched on in horrored fascination. Breath came back to her starved lungs though, as Tyree reappeared suddenly, as he muscled and out of control and very bloody Ofunai back through the gap in the gate.

Once clear of the gate the other warriors slammed it closed and the crosspiece bar was slammed down into place. The gate was now secure, but was the compound?

People were dead or wounded almost everywhere one looked, half of them being the warriors along the wall top. Those remaining alive, held their places, though as there was no retreat from this fight. It was a fight to the death to keep their children from being eaten and their women from being ravaged all in order to bring forth another generation of corrupted seed that would be trained to prey upon the likeness of its own self.

Tyree and the warriors by the gate were now filtering along the wall tops trying to hold the enemy of all civilized mankind out by any means possible. Twisted together hemp ropes with knots for climbing were being tossed over the wall top everywhere, even as their wooden anchors found purchase along the edges of the wall or on the rampart walkways.

The anchors bit in as the ropes grew taut as headhunters began to climb up the compound walls. It was plain to see that the compound could not hope to hold out against such an assault that was being made upon it with so few left to defend it.

Picking the girl up Anna ran with her towards the palace. Along the way she called out to other children and women to follow her. Some did while others just continued to scream and stare in shock at all of what was transpiring.

Anna ran on with those who would follow to the palace. There were a few sealed off rooms without window access that perhaps some of the women and children could survive in providing that the headhunters didn't manage to break the doors down. It was all she could think to do to save some, but seemingly any positive outcome would be so minute as to be pointless.

Anna came to a halt before reaching the palace doors at the sight of headhunters already dropping down off the compound walls to either side of the palace and heading for her from the direction that she had been running towards. Crying with abandon because of the loss of simply everything Anna dropped to her knees and screamed, "God please help us!"

The surrounding jungle shook as if in answer to her plea and for a moment her heart stopped at the sound of a roar she couldn't place within the framework of events currently happening. Then fuzzily it occurred to her that it was the sound of conch shell horns that she heard.

The main fighting force of men had returned! As if in answer to that arrows suddenly appeared transfixing the bodies of the headhunters on the walls and the sounds of a hard-pressed battle could be heard from just beyond the walls of the compound.

The headhunters that had been in route for her looked undecided as to what to do, but they didn't have long to think about it as Tyree, Ofunai and several others rushed past to cut them down where they stood with superior passion of the moment giving them the edge.

Headhunters vanished from among the land of the living everywhere one looked as native warriors used their ropes to climb up and repossess the interior of the compound. The gates opened towards the far end of the compound and Anna feeling very much in a daze started to walk towards her husband, whom she saw in the distance, as he stood at least a foot taller than most of the native warriors.

She passed by the bodies of the fallen both friend and enemy alike in order to get to the love of her life, who she'd feared that she'd never see again. In her pursuit to do that she missed the vengeful actions of a wounded headhunter intent on evening the score some before being put to death as he knew he would be in short order.

From his prone position on the ground he raised his blowpipe already loaded with a poisoned dart, and with a vengeful puff of air he let it fly. The dart flew true, but instead of connecting and piercing Anna's skin, it lodged into the fast-moving blur of Ofunai, who had seen the fallen killer's movements and even now stepped into the path of the dart that would have stolen the life of his master's wife.

In the next several seconds of time two things occurred. Tyree hacked the headhunters own head off with one swipe of his sword, as Anna caught Ofunai with one arm, while letting go of the young girl with the other as gracefully as she could.

Anna and Ofunai both fell to the ground. With a cry Anna leaned over Ofunai. With his eyes already looking dazed from the effects of the poison Ofunai mumbled out as he gripped Anna's hand tightly, "Thank you for saving my people! I would have liked to learn of your God more." That said, his eyes faded of all life.

Anna burst out in tears, as she knelt over the warrior who'd saved her life at the expense of his own, even as the warriors this man had trained and led gathered about in a silent mass gathering of heartfelt grief over the loss of a truly great man.

~~~~~~~

I stepped past the bodies of the fallen and those gathered around to stand beside my emotionally overcome wife as she wept over the body of one of the few true friends I'd ever had in life. I looked from Ofunai and the silent throng of warriors to the loss that could be seen everywhere one looked within the compound.

How could we have won the fight and yet lost everything it seemed? What peace was there for a victory with no resolution of anything remotely similar to joy?

This was not right and I would not let this moment pass only to leave us as those too old to bear seeing another day of life go by. My faith was stirred within me as I felt an answering willingness of God to effect change and I knew no better place to start than the broken scene of grief that was pouring out before me.

Stretching out my hand towards Ofunai I prayed aloud, "God, I pray right now for Your divine intervention in this life who with his last breath expressed the desire to truly know You and Your Son Jesus. I ask that You give him the chance to do that right now, even as I ask that You would give all of us a second chance to rebuild this kingdom not on a strength based on the thickness of its walls, but rather on a strength that is sourced and based entirely within You as the Divine Creator of everything. Even so, I pray that nothing the jungle around throws at us or all the powers of imperialistic European countries combined will not have the strength to overcome what I pray You establish right now. Ofunai, I ask right now in the name of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for you to rise to take your place, as a leader once more, among your people in order to effect the change that is needed in the hearts and minds of all those gathered and those yet to come in search of a refuge to be found in this kingdom set apart from the darkness that is without."

Ofunai's eyes opened slowly and feeling with a hand he reached down to his side and pulled free the poison dart. Holding it in his blood stained fingers he looked to Anna and said, "Your God is good!"

"Oh yes, He is, Ofunai! Anna exclaimed, as she leaned forward to hug him tightly to her.

I nodded emotionally and looked about with a completely different mindset. Hope had been interjected into this day. Not by my will, but because God had willed it to be so.

With His help I was going to rebuild on the momentum that He offered in this moment of deliverance from death and spiritual decay. My actions would not be in pursuit of riches or the fame of family pride.

No, I wanted something much more. I wanted to help build and maintain all the days of my life a kingdom of righteousness.

Yes, from now on, that would be my goal and constant prayer. It wasn't about the survival of my family anymore, so much so that it was about the survival of those who believed in the only thing worth believing in.

A hand slipped into mine and I looked down into the eyes of my wife. Her eyes red from crying and her dress both torn and bloody did nothing to detract from the vision of beauty she was to me both within and without.

Smiling, she said, "Your faith has grown, my husband."

"Yes it has, and a lot of the reason for that is because of you. Thank you for praying for me Anna! Whatever would I ever do without you?"

I hugged her to me then and she hugged me back with a fierceness equal to my own. Rebuilding the shattered lives of some of my people would be hard, but it could be done now thanks to God.

How things might have gone differently this day if God had not been involved in the selection process of a mate for me as He had so obviously been. God was so good!