Watermelon Knights With Trueberry Hearts

By Erik Bundy

An Iguana, a Texas Toad and a Swamp Rat. They laugh, they cry, they sing country songs. Be prepared for a new perspective on the world, one that conquers it from close to the ground. And chuckles while it pokes it with a sharp stick. It's the story of Endraq, a jungle iguana, who's captured and trucked north. Things are bad in the iguana box but they get worse, and Endraq must find a way out.

Written by poet and novelist Erik Bundy, who lives in the magical North Carolina woods where chocolate is a vegetable, female chipmunks are called chipnuns, coyotes come by to tell him fairy tales about cunning coyote heroes, and mice claiming to be cousins move in for the winter then take the towels when they leave in spring.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Erik Bundy
• Release date: Aug 10, 2011
• ISBN: 9781452455396

Book preview

A Lucky Bat Book

Watermelon Knights With Trueberry Hearts

Copyright 2011 by Erik Bundy

All rights reserved

Cover Artist: James Beveridge

Published by Lucky Bat Books

Discover other titles by the author on www.erikbundy.com

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with other people, please purchase additional copies. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com for your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Watermelon Knights & Trueberry Hearts

By Erik Bundy

~~~~~

dedication:

For Eleanor and Henry B.

animal lovers both

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. Eden Violated

Chapter 2. Escape

Chapter 3. Broken Field Running

Chapter 4. Pain and Prison

Chapter 5. Moving On

Chapter 6. Bully in a Box

Chapter 7. The Native Guide

Chapter 8. You Done Me Wrong

Chapter 9. Reteh's Prophecy

Chapter 10. A Little Cloak and Dagger Clown

Chapter 11. Road Show

Chapter 12. Dogfight

Chapter 13. Damsel in Distress

Chapter 14. A Distressed Damsel

Chapter 15. Hard Knocks

Chapter 16. Baptism

Chapter 17. Fire Lizard

Chapter 18. Foggy Thoughts and Fiery Action

Chapter 19. Hoboing

Chapter 20. Digging for Money

Chapter 21. Night Work

Chapter 22. Advancing Against the Enemy

Chapter 23. The Joke

Chapter 24. An Almost Mailed Knight

Chapter 25. Reunion

Chapter 26. History

Chapter 27. Letter Imperfect

Chapter 28. A Near Miss

Chapter 29. Wounded Sorrow

Chapter 30. Epilogue

About the Author

Chapter 1. Eden Violated

Endraq the iguana lay basking in the mid-morning sun with his tough, scaly body stretched along a limb hanging over a muddy stream. He was still young and so had not yet grown to be among the largest green iguanas in his part of the delicious jungle, but he was as stubborn as a rock and never backed away from a tooth-and-claw brawl until he had won. His tenacity and willingness to take pain made others respect him. Even the most dominant males were polite to him as they took first choice of the food or sunning spots.

It was the season before the jungle’s monotonous rains, a time when dark waters ran shallow in their stream beds, a time of danger for iguanas. Many of their kind had disappeared with no more sound than a fish sinking into the depths, but as Endraq lounged on his favorite limb, half-dozing, he felt too Nature-blessed to worry. He yawned. The sun warmed his muscles, making them supple, and aroused his senses: downstream a brown jay scolded something in a shrill voice, and a frog grunted from a shady spot across the sun-streaked water, its sound muffled by thick heat. A fusty smell drifted up to him, an animal odor that stiffened the leathery crest along his backbone. He snorted to clear his nostrils, glanced down, and almost fell off his branch when his body jerked in surprise.

Under Endraq’s fig tree, a man stared up at him with the merciless eyes of a predator, a man carrying a long bamboo pole with a noose dangling from its upper end. Like most humans Endraq had seen, this one had black hair and wore simple white clothes over his mud-colored skin. His thin lips curved upwards in an arrogant sneer that made Endraq tremble: this was a hunter who had skill and did not have to rely on luck.

The human dropped his attention to Endraq’s brother, Jual, who rested on a lower limb of the same tree.

A red mist of anger and fear rose up before Endraq’s eyes. His chest felt tight; his breath came in shallow gasps. How could this human have come upon them with such stealth, with so much quiet cunning? To cover his agitation, Endraq raised his head to display the dewlap under his long chin and inflated its leathery pouch, thus increasing both his head size and confidence. Let the man beware: his teeth were sharp, his tail stinging, and he would wound anyone who threatened him or his brother.

With meticulous steps Endraq crept backwards to the solid protection of the fig tree’s trunk. If the bamboo pole’s tip swayed in his direction or even twitched, he would hurl himself into the dark stream below and dart away underwater. When Endraq’s nervous, striped tail tapped against the trunk, he squatted down, not sure what to do next. He watched the man’s slender brown hands for movement, while on a branch below him, Jual bobbed his head up and down, up and down, in fierce rage.

Endraq did not understand the use of this tall bamboo pole, and sniffed at it, but the stick was too far away for him to catch its scent. It was not sharp at one end, not a long claw that would stab him, but he had no doubt that its purpose, like that of any tool carried by a hunter, was to catch prey. He must keep his thoughts water-clear and stay alert. He must watch the fingers for they would tighten around the pole a moment before the man attacked.

His belly cramped with fear as he pictured himself in a market stall, still alive, with his broken forelegs twisted over his crested back and his toes tied together in knots. Most animals killed their prey immediately, but not humans, they–

Quick as a monkey the man jumped. Endraq scrabbled sideways. The tip of the bamboo pole stabbed close to his neck, and the noose swung toward his head. A twig near him snagged the rope, causing it to slap against his front leg, as he threw himself off the fig tree’s gnarled limb. His stomach lifted in the sudden fall, air rushed upward around him, he gulped a breath, and glanced down. His mouth opened in terror: instead of the soft, liquid back of the river, a spine of white gravel rushed up at him.

His belly and feet smacked against a mound of river-packed pebbles, and he bounced. Warm stomach fluid burst into his mouth, its acid burning his throat. His breath flew off like a startled bird, and noise vibrated inside his head. Comets danced crazily in a brilliant, red sky before he slid sideways into smooth darkness.

~~~~~

White light flooded his vision, and Endraq winced when a jolt of pain passed through his dry eyes. He stared at a fuzzy world while his thoughts tumbled over each other and the harsh odor of vomit stung his nose.

Are you well? he heard someone ask.

Endraq realized his brother stood near him. He focused an eye on Jual’s blunt green face and saw worry wrinkles furrowed across his brother’s forehead. Endraq snorted. His stunned body had no more feeling in it than a snapped-off twig. How could he know if it was well? He tried to say this, but his lips and tongue were numb and stumbled over the words without making the correct sounds. He stopped trying to answer, ignored the pity on Jual’s face, and looked past his brother at crisscrossed strands of wire held in place by splintery slats. Beyond these was a short black-metal wall scarred with silver slashes. He realized he was inside a cage that rested on the bed of a small truck.

A spasm of pain pierced his stomach, causing him to grimace. Feeling was coming back into his body, and he knew it was not going to be pleasant. The taste of sour vomit made him convulse, and he fought down the impulse to retch again. How could this be happening to him? What had he done to deserve it? Seeing Jual’s worried frown, he sighed and said in slurred speech, A-a-ah, Jual, why did I not look before I jumped?

It is surprising that you did not burst open like a ripe fruit. Your belly left a hole in the gravel.

Endraq burped and stomach acid burned up into his throat. You did not escape?

I followed your example, Brother. My landing was softened a little by shallow water, but the river was no refuge for me either. He glanced through the wire. The two humans have gone back into Mother Jungle.

Two?

Yes, two.

Endraq groaned. There is never only one human. Now these corn-growers infect our home and will shrivel the jungle’s skin when they burn it black to make their fields. Even the jaguar must flee. May Nature curse this disease called humans.

Endraq rose up and stood on quivering legs until his blurred eyesight cleared, and the trees around him stopped swirling. He leaned against the crate’s wire side and tested a strand with a claw and found it too strong for him.

My spirit burns with sorrow, whined Jual. Why has Nature cursed us?

Annoyed, Endraq frowned at his brother’s weakness. Who are we to guess at Nature’s reasons? At least we are alive.

For now. They keep us alive so our meat will stay fresh until they decide to break our legs and kill us. Jual’s bottom lip trembled, and the black slits in the centers of his brown eyes narrowed in self-pity.

Courage, Jual. Nature always honors the bold and the stubborn. Though his body felt as if it were full of bristles, Endraq knew now was the time to test the stoutness of their crate. Come, we must escape. If not now, we never will.

Something heavy lumbered through a nearby bush, followed by the swishing sounds of it shoving itself through ferns and large-leafed plants. Both iguanas tensed. From instinct, Endraq waited to see if he should run or fight, then he snorted at his own stupidity. Where could he run in this wide, low crate?

Two men stepped out of the shadowy foliage onto a path not far behind the pickup truck, each carrying ripe guava fruits. The waist of the human Endraq had never seen was layered in jiggling fat. They strolled to the truck, the thin man silent and sneering, the fat one jolly and booming jokes. Endraq feared this new man, the fleshy one, because he would always think of food. Endraq imagined himself skewered, roasting over a snapping blue flame, his skin peeling off in blackened strips, and began panting in desperate fear. Please Nature, he prayed silently, do not let them cook me.

The men got into the cab. Metal labored against metal as the engine rasped into a coughing start. Black smoke spewed forth, and Endraq sniffed at the wet stink of oil, then held his breath until the truck drove away from this foul machine-made cloud.

The pickup ran along the rutted road like a meandering beetle scuttling through moist, rotting vegetable matter, tilting first one way then the other. A loop in the road slid the cage across the slick truck bed and smashed it against a metal side. Both iguanas were flipped off their feet. A twinge of pain passed through Endraq’s belly ribs, the ones that had smacked the gravel bar. He rolled up onto his feet and balanced on the crate’s wire floor, bobbing and swaying with the truck’s erratic jostling.

When the pickup finally stopped, Endraq doubted whether he would ever feel well again. The cab’s doors squeaked open then slammed shut, making him wince.

A shadow slid over their cage. Endraq looked up and saw the thick-lipped man standing by the truck’s side, smiling down at them as he wiped his forehead with a yellow rag. His smell reminded Endraq of a sweating horse. The man’s cruel eyes did not match his worried smile, and Endraq knew that here was one who would want to please other people, but who would club a burro to death if it did not work hard enough for him. Here was one who had mercy only for himself.

Not wanting to show weakness, Endraq raised his aching head and stood tall on his wobbly legs. He stared into the beefy man’s vicious eyes with a bold and steady gaze. The human puffed up his hairy chest, gloating over his victims like a jaguar kitten with a fluttering bird under its paw. Then the man slapped the crate, making Endraq stagger, and laughed. Endraq bobbed his head to show he would fight. A red mist rose up in front of his dry eyes.

Raoul, this you should see, boomed the moon-faced man. This little meat knows his master already. He is bowing to me.

The big human hit the cage a few times to irritate his captives, but Endraq and Jual refused to respond. So the man moved to the tailgate where he leaned against the pickup truck. He sucked in a long breath, blocked one nostril with his thumb, and snorted mucus out through the open side of his nose. He was studying the glob he had blown out onto the dirt, when a bottle clinked somewhere, its sound loud in the drowsy heat. A woman tittered, then guffawed, and the fat man hurried away as if he had heard a mating call.

Silence folded its wings around the cage, soothing Endraq a little, though the midday sun’s heat was beginning to make him dizzy. Would these miseries never stop? Perhaps there was a way to unlatch the clasp on top of the crate. Endraq looked up through the wire-mesh roof of the cage, gasped, and fell down in a fit of belly-wrenching terror.

Chapter 2. Escape

Above Endraq loomed the most terrifying sight of his life–a wide yellow sky with no top to it. His bowels twisted in a spasm of fright and his leg muscles went slack and again a red mist rose up in front of his eyes. He had often seen patches of sky but always with the lacy protection of high trees gathered around him. Now he stared up into naked emptiness, huge and boundless. He panted, afraid if he moved, he would fall off into this emptiness, fall forever in nothingness.

Then it came to him: he had not yet been sucked away from the ground. If humans took the trouble to catch him, would they, a tribe more cunning than monkeys, let him just fall away into this yellow void? Would they be so careless as to throw away the food they caught? Endraq took a shuddering breath; his dizzy sight began to clear.

He had just seen two men walk in the open, and the sky had not sucked them away. Nature somehow kept them, and this truck, and all things in touch with solid ground, even though trees stood many lengths away. So now he knew that rooted trees did not keep things from falling into the hungry sky. Nature was truly glorious.

He glanced at Jual, whose claws clenched the wire floor. So! He too had seen this vast horror. Endraq watched Jual fight to slow his rapid breathing, watched until finally some of the stiffness leaked out of his brother’s tense green body.

How deep is this abyss? Where does it end? Jual asked in a hoarse voice.

Do not ask.

With a throaty grunt, Endraq pushed himself up and stood on quaking legs. He staggered and fell against the warm wires of the cage and leaned there, huffing. He then climbed a mesh side with his front claws and rested his sore, growlly belly flat against the steel threads. The landscape spun before his dry eyes, but he clung to the wire as fiercely as a blood-sucking tick until his sight settled back to normal.

The truck was parked in front of a hovel, a jacal. Its walls were made of thick upright poles lined side by side and its roof of dry grass. Near its open doorway, a flock of turkeys with purple bodies and red heads strutted about as if they owned the yard’s crusty dirt. Endraq scowled: on one side of the jacal was a squatty outdoor oven made of brick, its pit full of gray ashes. Would he and Jual be sacrificed, roasted, and eaten there?

A young woman wearing a red skirt and sleeveless white blouse flounced out of the jacal, causing a flutter among the turkeys. Her hair was parted along the middle of her skull and pulled back into two long braids. She spun around and planted her feet wide apart on the hard-packed dirt and placed her fists on her hips. She shouted a rude remark through the dark doorway. After a hushed moment, Endraq heard a fist hit something wooden inside the hut. A man swore, another laughed. Then a withered woman in a flowery shift, whose hair was also tied back in two black braids, shuffled outside. The two men came out behind the women.

Endraq slid down the wire side to a standing position on the mesh floor. The truck jiggled as both women climbed over the tailgate into the back. Endraq snorted, trying to blow away their stenches: the old woman stank of smoke and ashes while the other smelled of jungle flowers.

Each woman picked up an end of the crate and handed it over the truck’s side to the men. The fat one smelled of tequila, the liquor Endraq knew humans preferred over water. The men carried the cage past the front of the hut around to its side and dropped it on a flat-topped stump.

Endraq sighed: at least now they were in the shade of a lone palm tree and heat began to radiate off his feverish body.

Jual whispered, When the cage opens, I will distract them. You must jump out and escape.

Endraq smiled without joy. His brother knew that whoever was left behind might not live long enough to see the return of the one who had escaped. I will get their attention, he whispered back.

No. You will run and hide. Then you will come back to free me.

Endraq shook his head and felt pain knock at the back of his skull. I think–

It is not something to discuss, Brother, Jual broke in. You will go.

Endraq knew that though his own reputation for being strong-willed was well known in the jungle, it was no match for the turtle-like character of his brother. Once Jual picked a path, he traveled it as stubbornly as a powerful river. So Endraq shrugged in agreement. Their lives would depend on how well he ran.

While both men stayed back, the two women crowded close to the sides of the cage, so close Endraq had to snort to blow away their scents of smoke and flowers. Each female picked up a pair of rusty pinchers. The old woman flicked loose the latch on top of the crate and lifted the roof halfway up. Endraq could hardly believe the crate was now open, that the moment of life or death had come. Her empty hand glided towards his thick neck, the undersides of her fingers looking leathery, the wrists knobby with bone. It became so quiet Endraq could have heard a leaf patter to the ground.

Then Jual scrambled up a wire-mesh side.

With rattlesnake speed the old woman threw her body halfway across the cage, diving under the lid which came down on her shoulder. She grabbed the back of Jual’s neck and tried to pull him off the steel strands. Endraq scuttled out from under her arm and sprang on top of it with his front legs. The old woman let go of Jual and yelled, Jahh! She jerked her skinny arm up, pulling Endraq, who was leeched to it, partly out of the cage.

The lid slammed down on his back and bounced. His hind feet scrabbled until they found the cage’s top rim. He let go of the woman’s arm and sprang off of the cage’s wooden lip, exploding into the air with his front claws slashing like those of a squalling cat. The old woman hopped backwards with her hands up to protect her face, staggered, and fell on her butt with head-snapping force. Endraq landed with his front legs in her lap and felt a jab of pain pass through his sore ribs. For half a breath he was on her, then he leapt off her body and ran for his life.

Chapter 3. Broken-Field Running

As soon as he leapt off the old woman’s lap, Endraq realized the two men stood between him and the wide cornfield that lay behind the jacal. He dared not try to sprint through them, so he dashed across their front, running straight for a side field. He made it past the fat man, who stood dumfounded by surprise, but the other one, the hunter, began trotting beside Endraq fast enough to prevent him from escaping into the open field. The man yipped with glee. A surge of rage thumped Endraq’s stomach. The female in a red skirt threw her rusty tool at him, missed, and began chasing him.

The hunter’s hands were near his waist, too high to catch a lizard on the ground, so Endraq darted sideways, hoping to brush past the man’s shins. A kick caught him under the ribs just behind his front legs, causing him to wince in pain as he was lifted into the air. He heard the bully behind him guffaw.

The hunter crouched and began stalking him, herding him backwards into the semi-circle of waiting humans. Endraq dodged back and forth like a cornered fox. The four people came at him, each bent low with hands ready to catch him. The old woman dropped to one knee and lunged at him, her fingers scratching along his tail as he spurted out of her hold.

Endraq ran towards the jacal. The hunter, laughing, glided along beside him, not two tail lengths away. Endraq’s stomach went hollow with fear: only a man of magic and power could run this fast – fleet as a jaguar.

The hunter crowded Endraq close to the hut’s wall as they neared its back corner. He shouted a quick command to the other humans, then began to yip and whoop as he ran: for him this was just sport. Endraq galloped at full speed a few paces along the side wall to draw the man forward, then braked in a dirt-raising skid, his claws scraping across the packed earth. Quickly he threw his body back in the direction they had come, trying to dodge behind his enemy, but the hunter proved nimble as well as fleet. Before Endraq could skitter away to freedom, he found the thin, dark man again blocking his path.

Endraq lurched into a slithery run toward the front of the jacal. The man skimmed along beside him like a shadow. Endraq again dodged sideways, charging his enemy, hoping to jump through the man’s spread legs. The hunter bent low with his arms spread wide, and Endraq saw a glint of mirth in his moist eyes.

When he was nearly under the man’s slender brown hands, nearly at the hunter’s bare feet, he threw himself to the left. With a swift kick the man sent him sprawling and quick-stepped in front of him. Endraq realized he might fail Jual. He darted about like a water strider, testing the agile human’s reflexes, but the hunter made no mistakes, always moving at the correct angle.

The man began hopping about with his hands extended in front of him as if he held a cloth, shouting Hola, hola, to draw his charges. The old woman rushed up behind him. Endraq, frustrated, lashed out at her with his tail. She skipped over it with the agility of a monkey. For a breath or two, Endraq was off-balance, helpless at the hunter’s feet, but the man didn’t bother to grab him. This was just a game to him. Endraq turned and ran grimly towards the front of the jacal with the human running along beside him.

They burst into the front yard side by side and scattered the startled turkeys. Endraq slowed, saw the black pickup truck, and raced for it. Beyond it lay a short field and beyond that the protection of Mother Jungle. Once under the truck, a place where no human could follow him, Endraq would change direction.

The hunter stomped on one of Endraq’s hind feet, jerking him to a body-snapping halt. The man whooped and again didn’t bother to reach down to grab Endraq, who grunted a curse. Why did Nature not help him? With the old woman almost stepping on his tail, he leap forward again and ran for the black pickup truck with a cornfield beyond it. Endraq’s legs unfolded, singing with released strength, and his toes tingled with energy.

Before the humans could catch him, Endraq had rushed across the yard and scuttled under the truck. He veered toward the blurred blob of a front tire and dashed out into sunlight again. The humans had to run around the black bulk, giving him a long lead. The hunter chased him, running with choppy steps and his torso bent forward. Endraq knew the slim man’s speed was not fast enough to overtake him before he entered Mother Jungle.

He dodged around a broken clay pot lying in the ash-covered field. The ground under him was loose