Wings of Indigo

By Eva-Joy Schönhaar

The tangled jungle darkened around Damon as the sun slipped from the sky.

“We will stop here for the night,” he called to the men trudging behind him. They eased the supply packs from their shoulders and threw themselves to the ground with weary sighs of relief.

All except one.

“Are you sure we can’t press on a little further tonight?” Lord Rathbone asked. “Time is of the essence.”

“Any time we might gain is not worth our deaths,” Damon retorted. For two years he had hunted and trapped the deadly creatures that stalked through the trees. Only a fool would traverse the jungle at night.

Rathbone nodded, but he walked to the edge of their camp and stared into the darkness of the jungle beyond.

Inwardly, Damon shook his head at the man. If Rathbone had not promised gold, Damon would have abandoned him to his ignorance long since. The man had guaranteed a generous bonus should their hunt prove successful. With such money, Damon could buy enough wine to dull the ache in his heart for many months—the ache that came whenever he thought of his daughter.

He sat on a fallen log and watched as the brothers Bernal and Pascal built a fire with shaggy-barked branches. Mauricio, the oldest of their small group by many years, pulled dried meat and vegetables from the packs.

Damon’s attention wandered. Perhaps tomorrow they would at last find one of the mariposas. “Butterflies”, Rathbone called them. According to the stories Damon’s father had told, the mariposas were stunning creatures whose enormous wings dwarfed even those of the mountain eagles. “More beautiful than you could dream, mijo,” Papá had said.

Damon had told those same stories to his daughter, years ago.

A raised voice—Rathbone’s—interrupted the memory and Damon was almost grateful for that.

Rathbone stomped over to the fire, where Bernal and Pascal shrank back a little.

Damon’s brows drew together. What happened?

“What did you say?” Rathbone demanded of Mauricio.

“I was telling Bernal and Pascal of the prophecy.” Mauricio spoke slowly. “If any attempts to harm one of the great mariposas, another will rise to save it. He who meant harm will perish. He who rose will triumph.”

Rathbone laughed. “I do not plan to harm your precious mariposa, old man. Damon will trap it for me, and I will take it home to my menagerie, alive and well. Now what do you say to that?”

Mauricio said nothing. He stared at Damon, the crackling fire between them the only sound. Damon looked away. Mauricio had spoken of that same prophecy before they entered the jungle, his voice full of faith in the legends. But Damon had learned long ago that anyone could say anything.

Had not the doctor predicted a swift recovery for his daughter? Yet in the morning she had died. No legend kept away the plague that killed her.

The mariposa meant no more to him now than the gold it would bring.

The air smelled of salt.

As if a blade had neatly trimmed away the ragged edge of the jungle, the thick tangle of trees gave way to a beach of crystalline white sand and scattered rocks.

Damon stopped on the edge of the jungle, unable to move another step for the awe that filled him. After weeks of searching, he had found it.

The legends, if anything, had fallen short.

Before him, a mariposa perched on a great rock jutting up from the middle of the beach. The creature’s vast, outstretched wings all but hid the horizon beyond the sea. Golden sunlight slanted through the translucent indigo wings, purpling the white sand. Above the mariposa’s head waved spindly feelers.

The other men crashed through the last of the jungle. They, too, stopped short.

Rathbone was the first to recover. “Well? What are you waiting for, Damon?” he asked, his voice hushed, yet demanding. “I’m not paying you to stand here.”

The money, yes. He must—

The mariposa fluttered its great, shimmering wings. Even several yards away, their breeze tugged at Damon’s hair and clothes.

More beautiful than you could dream…

Tears came to Damon’s eyes.

He could not do this, he realized suddenly. He could never net the mariposa, never clip those beautiful wings.  His daughter, were she alive, would never forgive him for doing such a thing.

“Now, Damon!”

Damon opened his eyes and wiped his face. “No.”

“No?” Rathbone repeated.

“I will not trap for you.”

Rathbone stared. “I promised to pay you well!”

“You will take the mariposa back to display it in a cage for your friends. That will only quench its spirit. Not for all the money in your bank will I do it, Rathbone.”

Rathbone’s eyes darted back and forth. With sudden, jerky movements he pulled his musket from his shoulder. “All right,” he bit out. “Then I will take it myself. Even dead, people will still come and applaud.”

He raised the musket.

“No, you must not!” Bernal cried.

“No!” Pascal echoed.

Damon leaped at Rathbone. He couldn’t save his daughter from the plague, but he could save the mariposa from Rathbone. With a strength that seemed hardly his own, he wrenched the weapon from Rathbone’s grasp.

Rathbone staggered and fell backward onto the beach.

His eyes emptied of all expression. Dull. Glazed.

Dead.

Damon threw the musket away and ran to Rathbone’s side. Underneath the man’s head, a rock protruded from the sand—once white, but now crimson with Rathbone’s blood.

Damon looked up and found Mauricio’s gaze bent on him.

“The prophecy claimed him,” Mauricio said. “Just as it has claimed you.”

Damon nodded. But he had not been thinking of the prophecy, only of a little girl who always asked her papá for a bedtime story.

He left Rathbone’s corpse and went to stand with Mauricio, Bernal, and Pascal. They watched, silent and still, as the mariposa stretched its immense wings and flew away, across the sea.

“Adiós,” Damon whispered.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Eva-Joy Schönhaar has been writing since she was thirteen. While westerns are her happy place, she enjoys experimenting with and writing in a variety of genres. Eva-Joy lives with her family in snowy Alberta, Canada. When not writing, she loves to read all the books, watch old movies, and drink copious amounts of coffee.

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