Spy Read Online Free PDF Page A

whistling shafts, instantly calculating the angles, deciding which spear would strike where and how he must dodge them.
    But they all fell short. A quick flurry of spears hit the ground, all striking at a forty-five-degree angle and forming a semicircle around him. The delicate precision of this instant cage, even in his cornered and desperate state, demanded some appreciation. It had to be deliberate, but why trap rather than kill? Then came the dogs. He saw the loopy saliva of the animals flying as they sprung toward him out of the undergrowth, racing toward him with their snapping jaws wide.
    Another spear, then more, at first only a few, but then many, arced toward him. To his complete amazement the upright shafts began to form a more complete circle around him. Hawke braced for the dogs. But, upon reaching this strange and newly formed perimeter, they slowed, then stopped. Howling in frustration, they looked back to their masters, the Indians still in hiding.
    Hawke saw that the dogs might easily go around the cage of spears and kill him, or, in some cases, even slip between them. But they did not. The dogs stood rock-still, eyes blazing and tongues lolling, and waited. Hawke, finished, released his grip on the canes and fell to the ground.
    He heard a man grunt and looked up.
    A tall Indian warrior, a Xucuru whom Hawke recognized from the camps, had stepped into the tiny clearing. It was Wajari, the brutal chief who had been assigned to guard Hawke’s construction site. The man was wearing an old itip, a ceremonial loincloth with vertical stripes of black and yellow and red, the same regalia he wore every day.
    Wajari, who normally carried a rifle on the job, now wore a machete, stuck inside the cinched waist of his loincloth. He approached Hawke, withdrawing the blade. It was almost over. A swift blow from the machete would put an end to his suffering. But there was something very odd about his eyes. Gone was the fierce expression, replaced by something new and terribly strange.
    It wasn’t fear, exactly. No, it was worry.
    Seeing those troubled black eyes, Hawke knew his life had taken a sudden turn for the better. His head might actually remain attached for a few days longer.
    “Hawke,” Wajari said, making it sound like “Hoke.” Then he was gently taking Hawke’s arm and helping him get to his feet.
    “Wajari,” Hawke said, letting himself be taken. The running was truly over. He felt a sense of relief flood through his body.
    “Lord Hawke,” Wajari said, seeming to like the sound of it.
    “So glad you could make it,” Hawke murmured as he was led toward the trees. “One doesn’t receive an invitation to a beheading every day.”
    Wajari ignored his ramblings. Hawke collapsed at the feet of a fierce looking group of savages whose faces were painted in bright yellow and red. All held machetes above their heads.
    To his enormous surprise, the blades did not fall.
    Not only did these ferocious cannibals not behead him, but they treated him gently, with a strange blend of caution and respect. They gave him a bowl of manioc beer, which he drank in great gulping draughts. Wajari, who seemed to be presiding over this ceremony, ordered him wrapped in a blanket and placed carefully on a grassy mound.
    They moved away, leaving him in the care of a single warrior with a spear. It occurred to Hawke that for some strange reason he was now worth more alive than dead.
    Hawke lay under the shade of the trees, watching as the Indians hacked at the canebrake with their machetes. For an hour or more, they were busy cutting sections of four-inch-thick green cane, some about ten feet in length, some shorter. A female member of the war party came forward and presented him with a gourd of water followed by a small bowl of manioc bread.
    He ate greedily and, after a time, feeling much revived, Hawke understood what it was the Indians were building.
    They were using the bamboo poles and lengths of ropy vines to construct a