Prophecy Denied

By Dr. Michael Lee

An international arms broker vanished from this country’s most secure prison and he has four SS-24 Scalpel missiles for sale. The six feet three inch, battle hardened, warrior-inventor, Patton Douglas, tracked the missiles to the land of the endless lightening storms in South America. With help from a lost tribe of rain forest aboriginals, he disarmed the warheads and corralled the villains.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dr. Michael Lee
• Release date: Jan 20, 2011

Dr. Michael Lee

Michael Lee spent some time in the U.S. Army as a Paratrooper and as an administrative officer in the Army Reserve. He completed several degrees after high school, including a PhD in Academic Administration. Dr. Lee is an expert statistical analyst and is a trained historiographer. Lee is a published author and poet and holds a U.S. Patent in his own name. Motivated by dreams of adventure and fantasy and grounded by a Great Grandmother born just after the civil war, Lee’s writing journey began in the eighth grade with a short science fiction story. His experiences included paid sports writing for a daily newspaper while still in high school and eventually evolved into a passion for writing book-length works, both fiction and non-fiction. Dr. Lee takes pride in recently joining the company of other 1,000,000 word authors. He is grateful to the Florida Writers Association for their recent second place recognition of his book-length manuscript in the 2010 Royal Palm Literary Award Competition.

Book preview

Prophecy Denied

(A Patton Douglas Novel)

by

Michael Lee, PhD

Dedication

A very long time ago I promised my son that I would take him treasure hunting in Venezuela. I reneged on the promise. The journey Patton Douglas took in this book will have to do, instead. I hope he forgives me and can take some pleasure in the adventure as it unfolds over the next several hundred pages.

This one is for Michael Edward Lee, II. Enjoy!

Prophecy Denied

by

Michael Lee

Published by Michael Lee, PhD

ISBN #978-0-9825096-4-7

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2011 by Michael Lee, PhD

All rights reserved.

Cover Design by Cherie B. Lee

The characters in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was no purchased for your use only, please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Chapter 1

He was the leader of 200 nearly naked, brown skinned people who wouldn’t tell you their real names. The prophecy that enticed the tiny old shaman to move his band from the Amazon forests of the Venezuelan back-country might seem a bit pretentious to a graduate of the secular public schools in the U.S. or the U.K. I know I wasn’t initially impressed enough to take him seriously, either.

His prophecy has become my story. It is a tale of how innocence and faith helped to protect the world from a nuclear catastrophe, of diminutive people overwhelming monstrous oil tankers and of the effective neutralization of a consortium of international arms brokers. It would be un-truthful of me to pretend it was all my doing. In fact, if it weren’t for my young friend and recent employee we would never have become involved in this adventure.

Like the creature whose name he had chosen, the eyes of Guacharo were still keen. His legs had been changing over the years becoming as those of the oil bird, weak and un-reliable. The great sun in the sky had lowered down behind the mountains and twilight had set his warrior-sentinels to stirring. He made his way across several walkways with rope railings to the center place and came to rest on a modest stool. The stool was in one corner of an equilateral triangle made up of log benches. His was the only stool in the center place.

Stones had been carefully arranged in the exact center of the space and there was evidence of previous fires on top of the stone covering. A thatched roof covered all but the middle section of the center place, in order that communal fires could be started and kept burning for extended periods of time. The main floor of this place had been constructed by splitting logs and then by tying them into a nearly flat surface.

The center place was constructed in a roughly circular pattern. It required the span of three great trees and the placement of those trees dictated the triangular shape of the seating arrangements. Large wooden dowels were constructed by burning holes through the timbers and into the living trees. There were winds sometimes swaying the center place and all the other dwelling lofts, as well. Mostly these places were stable, as Guacharo had intended. He had set it all into motion when he brought them here, the Sentinels. He brought them here to watch and to wait until the right time had come.

Guacharo knew only two languages, the tongue of his Fathers and the voices of the spirits. He didn’t know of the English word Guardian or the Spanish word Centinelas. He realized long ago these people who had traveled here with him had a special task. It would be they who protected the living spirits from the end of time.

As the twilight dimmed, deepest first, in the Northern reaches of the lake basin, the old man watched the spirits gather the tinder clouds high up behind the mountains. Still pinking from the last streaks of sunlight the clouds began to tumble closer, growing as they came. Looking like a great orb in the sky, the Moon, who was the Soul of the night, was rising slowly beside the mountains in the distance. The Soul would be at its brightest tomorrow, thought Guacharo, our time is at hand.

Others straggled in to the center place for the gathering tonight. Guacharo listened for footfalls and estimated the number in attendance. When he had left on this journey, years ago, there had been more among the group. Sickness and accidents had taken a dozen of the strong. Still, the women had given the village twice over the number of warrior-sentinels as had originally come to this new place.

The leader of the Yanomani warriors slipped his hand into a small pouch slung beneath a shoulder strap. Both were made from a mamure like fiber. He removed a small reddish brown substance and placed it into his mouth like chewing tobacco. He chewed the acrid substance and sucked some of the juice down his throat.

Guacharo understood the night and knew when the Soul of the night was strong in its brightness, the animals in the forest moved with much noise. He could hear the sounds of the beasts and of the frogs and of the insects all around him in the forest below. He looked up and saw the first streaks of blue and white flashing in the sky. The vivid fingers of lighting were becoming somewhat less clear to the leader whose vision was now beginning to blur from the substance in his mouth.

Each person trickling in to the center place was nearly a clone of the old man on the stool. The tallest among them stood just over five feet tall. All had straight black hair cut short in a bowl haircut, with bangs in front. Each adult was attired with a single loincloth. The children were naked. Adult women who were married wore a colorful headband, uniquely crafted for the owner. All were deferentially silent, awaiting Guacharo’s comments.

The leader closed his eyes and visualized the Soul of the night getting brighter, the animals in the forest louder and the lightning in the sky more fierce and wide spread.

He opened his eyes and turned to the only male in the group who possessed a headband. The special headband included two feathers, each about fifteen inches long. One feather was crimson and the second feather was yellow. He whispered something to the feathered man and the man quietly left the center place. Guacharo closed his eyes again and waited.

Two men got up from their front row seats and started a fire. The fire was blazing over a diameter of about four feet by the time the feathered man returned. He sat a second stool down at the right hand of the shaman. Guacharo swallowed deeply and took a deep breath. Everyone else took a deep breath and silently held it in. Guacharo spoke.

The time has come when there will be two of us to give voice to the spirits, he pointed to the stool sitting next to him, he shall be known to the Yanomami as the Lightning Stick," he closed his eyes and paused for effect. The Soul of the night was lighting the middle section of the center place from the East and the entire Western sky was boiling with hundreds of intense streaks of noiseless lightning.

The old man had been young once. He was a warrior then and spoke to the wise one about fighting the intruders. The wise one had shared a spirit voice with Guacharo, the warrior, and told him of the Prophecy. Guacharo, the warrior, resisted the prophecy until in the full strength of the brightness of the Moon, the great oil bird came and left a mark on his chest. The oil bird, whose legs are nearly useless, scratched the sign into his flesh. The warrior became Guacharo, the Shaman, who first gathered, then led the warrior-sentinels across the land. They traveled at night, guiding on the silent lightning in the sky. As taught to him by the oil bird spirit, Guacharo designed a community to live in the trees by day and hunt for food by night. He would not fight the intruders but would prepare the Sentinels for the time when the Prophecy would un-fold. He opened his eyes again.

Guacharo rose, unsteadily, to his feet. He reached again into his pouch and extracted something which he threw into the fire. The fire whooshed with golden flames shooting up about ten feet into the air. His audience gasped, involuntarily.

A shadow slid gracefully across the face of the orb in the sky and then downward into the open center of the thatched roof. The magnificent creature had a head like that of an eagle and wings spanning more than three feet. It hovered in mid-air, wings flapping slowly, then rose back up into the night sky and disappeared.

The shaman still did not speak. He looked slowly up and down each row of spectators, nodding at each individual. His hand repeated the trip to the magic pouch and back out again. This time the flames whooshed tall silver flames. The audience simultaneously muttered an audible ahhh sound.

The center place began to sway very slowly. The rocking motion in the trees became noticeably more violent. Sounds in the forest were turning to shrieks of panic rather than the natural murmurings of the night. The flashes of lightning overhead evolved into more violent and frantic spasms of energy. The center place shook vigorously. Guacharo raised his hands to calm his people. In the distance, flames from broken oil wells were shooting high enough into the night sky to be seen from fifty miles away. The flames were bouncing eerie luminescent flashes off the bottoms of the cumulus clouds.

As Guacharo slowly lowered his hands, the shaking subsided. A soft breeze had come up and was blowing the flames in the fire slightly off center.

Your time has come, was all he said. Guacharo tried to focus his eyes on the oil rigs burning in the far away distance. But not this night, old man, he thought to himself.

He closed his eyes again and found he could see everything much more clearly.

Chapter 2

Among the Yanomami there was but a single Anaconda. His many friends had chosen to be represented in the man world by different creatures and objects, but none other shared his personal talisman. Yanomami were expected to choose animal name when they reached adulthood. The animal name would protect the spirit name by which they would be called into the next life. Some of his people would occasionally choose the same name and it was imperative clan members find a way to differentiate between the individuals. Capybara was one of the most common animals in the wet forest and would serve as a good example. Many ways exist to differentiate among the characteristics of the large rodent like creatures. They have heavy bodies and short heads with reddish-brown fur on the upper part of their body…sometimes turning to muddy yellow on their bellies. Capybaras grow to more than four feet in length and may weight upwards of one hundred forty pounds. Capybara possess rear legs slightly longer than their front legs and they have webbed feet. Dark eyes, nostrils, small ears and a blunt snout sit on the front end of the tailess creature. There could be a Big Capybara and a Short Capybara or a Long Eared Capybara or White Capybara and so forth. "It was a good example, thought the small brown man, but who would ever take the name of a rodent? he smiled at his mental picture of two feathers changing his name to Capybara Fur.

Anaconda made much study of the animal whose name he had taken unto himself and attempted to pattern his thoughts and his methods after the large snake. One snake in particular. "It was on a night at the end of the wet season, much as this night, he thought to himself, when he came upon the old one." The Moon was hiding on when Anaconda happened on to such a wonder as he did not deserve. He sat silently in his shallow dugout and watched the green and white phosphorous explosions back light the heavy clouds over his head. He moved his eyes without moving his head and searched for a sign of movement in the marsh. His acute sense of hearing told him a large animal was moving, several hundred yards from his dugout. Minutes passed, then the minutes elapsed into an hour reflecting thousands of silent flashes in his personal sky.

A terrific display in the heavens sprayed jagged lines of fierce light from horizon to horizon. In the brightness and sympathetic illumination of nearby clouds, Anaconda noticed her eyes. "She must have been there, waiting, as long as himself," he pondered the idea. The width between her eyes was more than the width of Anaconda’s hand, even with his thumb extended. Her body was submerged below the surface and he could not observe whether she was hunting or resting from her feed. He watched her through another series of heavenly fireworks, then picked up his paddle. He silently stroked the frail water craft in the direction of the eyes. He made no sound in his approach but the eyes turned in his direction. Anaconda paused in mid-stroke and permitted the dugout to coast forward, at the apex of a series of slight ripples on the water.

The large snake inflated her body and Anaconda could estimate the length and girth of the animal. She was long, perhaps thirty or more feet and as big around as a Cypress tree. There were no bulges along the entire length of her body, "So she was also hunting tonight, like me, he supposed, or perhaps hunting me."

Anaconda’s quarry nonchalantly rotated her head away from the canoe, which was no larger than a medium sized caiman. She began to swim slowly away from Anaconda and then paused. She looked back at him, then re-oriented herself and moved quietly farther into the marsh. Anaconda followed her for more than and hour, during which time she turned her head back to look at him several times. Then she stopped and allowed her massive bulk to sink below the surface. The momentum of the dugout carried Anaconda to within just a few feet of the head of the giant animal. She did not move her head. The eyes just stared at Anaconda, flashes of lightning reflecting off her lidless lenses.

Anaconda just stared back at the eyes. After a few moments he returned to his own hunting routine. He listened hard and heard nothing. He allowed his eyes to swivel independent from his head. Nearby there were hammocks of cypress and in the far distance he could make out the signs for cat tails and other marsh grasses. A small channel from the main lake meandered toward the cypress and in the foreground there they were! Bloodwood, he said out loud to himself and to the snake.

Anaconda returned from his hunt only with the knowledge of the location of the stand of Bloodwood. He shared his secret only with the Shaman, but it gave Anaconda new stature in the community.

There had been many times when Anaconda had returned to visit the old one and not just to hunt or harvest the Bloodwood. He had attempted to pay back her kindness by herding prey into her direction, when his people already had a full larder. In return she had led him to Capybara too large for her to manage. In the first months after a giant caiman injured her with his bite, Anaconda had brought her fish to eat and had used his people to rid the swamps of the giant caiman. He had profited much from the relationship with his namesake, not the least of which was the first encounter and the discovery of the Bloodwood

The Guacharo had given him a mission this night. He was to seek out his cache of Bloodwood and return at the rise of the Sun with a new supply. The Bloodwood was like other bamboo except it was red, and it was rare in the land of the Yanomami. Bloodwood is harder than conventional bamboo and does not grow to such a large diameter as do the yellow variety. Bloodwood grows to straighter, longer lengths between the knuckles than conventional bamboo. The Yanomami use conventional bamboo for eating vessels, for construction, for fish pens and even for bird feeders. Husks from the yellow variety are boiled and beaten into the fiber making Yanomami cloth. Anaconda’s people use the Bloodwood for blowguns, spears, axes and for making flutes.

Anaconda pulled his loaded dugout up, onto the dry land of the cypress hammock that housed his village. He carefully arranged the new supply of Bloodwood beside the small craft then hoisted the canoe above his head. He walked a distance to a special tree where a number of canoes were still hanging, in a vertical position. The man with the name of a large snake selected a hemp rope and attached it to the end of the dugout and jockeyed the watercraft into the branches of the tree so