Nothing Else Matters (Jungle Cruise)

Chapter Eight

Aguirre held Anna’s hand in his, fear a tight ball in his stomach as he watched her pale form slowly breathe in and out. She was sick. Deathly sick. The doctors had tried everything, and yet she only got worse as each day passed. Aguirre had become desperate for a cure.

He had searched tirelessly for anything that could help her- and he had found it. There was a tree in the New World, stories said, that grew magical petals. A single petal was said to restore a man to full health, no matter the ailment. Aguirre had chartered a boat and crew, and planned to leave soon.

“I will travel far,” Aguirre told her, pained. He didn’t want to leave her, but this was the only way. “But I will come back to you with a Tear of the Moon. And you will run again in the moonlight. Healed.”

Anna weakly took a knife and cut a lock of her beautiful brown hair. She’d gotten it from her mother. She put the hair in her father’s hand and wrapped his fingers around it. 

“So we can be close, no matter how far you go,” she whispered, almost inaudibly. Aguirre leaned in to kiss her forehead and she closed her eyes to rest. 

He looked up and saw Francisco watching, and saw the pain in his eyes too. Aguirre gripped the lock of hair tightly as he stood to meet him.

*

Aguirre’s fingers found the braid of hair at his belt as he trudged through the dense foliage. It had once been soft and brown like the lock of Maria’s hair he kept in his chambers at home. But Anna’s hair, sun-bleached and dry from weeks of exposure, kept him grounded to his mission. They walked and fought the jungle week after week, searching for the Tears.

His men began to fall, and Aguirre fell ill, but he would not turn back. His daughter needed him, and he needed her, more than anything. Eventually, his body failed him, and he fell to the ground. He only hoped that Anna wouldn’t be there to welcome him into death when it finally came for him. 

Something did come, but it wasn’t death. It was hope.

*

The elderly chief looked up at Aguirre as he approached his seat by the fire. Aguirre smiled softly and inclined his head, and the chief nodded, gesturing to the chair beside him. 

"I owe you thanks for saving my men and I," Aguirre said as he sat, feeling the fire's warmth in the cool night. "We are indebted to you."

"But, you have come to ask something more of me," the chief said. Aguirre looked at him, surprised he knew, then nodded. 

"You are wise," he noted.

"Not wise. Just human." The chief said, cracking a smile. "Tell me, friend, what do you need?"

Aguirre took a deep breath and rubbed Anna's braid in his fingers. "My daughter is sick. Near unto death. I made this journey to find a cure for her." Aguirre paused, and the chief nodded for him to continue. "Please, señor, give me just one more petal for her. She is all I have. I will take it to her, and never tell a soul where I got it, if that is what you wish. I couldn't ask you more from my heart."

The chief was silent for a moment, and Aguirre's heart beat heavily in anticipation. After a time, the chief grunted and nodded his head in the direction he was looking. Aguirre looked, and saw the chief's daughter laughing and playing with several children around her in the firelight.

"When I was a younger man, and her mother was heavy with child, she grew sick with fever. The healer told me the child wouldn't survive if her mother was so ill, and that I would likely lose both of them if she gave birth before regaining strength." The chief looked somberly down at his feet, remembering, but cleared his throat and looked back up to Aguirre. "The Tears saved them both, and the lives of everyone in this settlement are better for it. Quila is the light and happiness of my life. I would not wish that loss on anyone. You may have a petal for your daughter, with my blessing. May your life, and the lives of your men, be better for it."