Espeon's guide was dying a terrible death by these natives' poison arrows and he narrowly avoided death himself begging for his life in what few words he knew of their alien tongue. All that was known of it to the rest of the world was learned second-hand from neighboring tribes for no missionary or anthropologist had ventured among them and lived to tell of it. They were a fierce people who ate their enemies and clung tenaciously to this forgotten corner of the Amazon. The thing that brought him here was just a legend but one he had to see for himself and hopefully well-worth all the risks.
Just outside the shaman’s hut his guide still writhed on the ground slowly suffocating as naked children prodded him with sharpened sticks. Shaking, Espeon carefully unfolded a piece of paper. It was drawn in ballpoint pen on stationary from the Centro Hotel in Macapa, from which he had departed sixteen long days ago. The paper was damp from weeks in the jungle and nearly falling apart but the Shaman, when handed it, knew at once what he had drawn. The old man scowls and spits and the other natives shy away from this outburst. In a rasping voice the Shaman speaks to a young man at his side who quickly exits not only the hut but the village into the darkness beyond.
With a simple squint and nod that rustles his headdress, the shaman lets his guest know this is the time to do business. Espeon digs in his pockets for what few trade goods he has left. To these people, travelers checks and cash mean nothing though he would give them all he had for this opportunity. The best he can do is a packet of three Bic lighters in pastel orange, blue, and purple. Producing a flame draws awes from all those gathered except for the shaman who simply nods and puts out his hand for the gift as though it is nothing special. His wrinkled hands add these new lighters to a small animal-skin bag at his side with two others like them but much older; this is the bankroll of his tribe and he has single-handedly more than doubled their wealth.
The young man sent out earlier returns with the treasure and it is handed gingerly to Espeon. It is more breathtaking than he could ever believe: the legendary fruit. It is perfectly shaped in every way, the size of an adolescent boy’s fist, firm and hard to the touch with a thick skin, covered in rows of teardrop shaped nodules that arch and rise from its surface. My God, he mutters to himself and races outside in search of his backpack. The natives have torn into it already and have distributed amongst themselves all he brought with him. Men wear his tattered shirts and nothing more, women wear stripes of toothpaste across their faces, and children are oiled so that they glisten in what little light filters through the dense canopy above.
Losing all composure and forgetting the people he’s amongst he shouts at them, “How the fuck am I supposed to shove this up my ass without lube??!”