Taterskin & The Eco Defenders: Book 2, Chapter 49
Book 2 ("Tell It to Future Generations"), Chapter 49 of 56
CHAPTER 49
Meanwhile, back at the ranch (the erstwhile cattle ranch in the middle of the forest, that is), the owner showed up to check on the state of affairs at his operation.
He found the state to be one of disarray. His operation was shuttered. He was out of business.
When he saw the pens and corrals empty; the barn doors open, with nothing left inside but hay and fencing material and cattle prods and such; the bunkhouse abandoned; and no pies cooling on the window sill, the gentleman rancher lost his gentility and cool.
“Get a rope!” he sputtered.
But nobody was there to hear or heed him. No humans, that is.
Some Macaws heard him, though, and flew down, alighting next to him on a fence post.
“To hang yourself with?” Scarlet asked (after helping out Chapawee at the river, she had returned to the jungle).
“What now?!? Talking Birds?!?”
“Alexis is a good teacher.”
“So was Socrates! What does that have to do with me?” the distraught rancher said.
Scarlet was surprised that this land baron even knew who Socrates was. It made her shift her perspective of the man a little. She had viewed him merely as a greedy-guts capitalist, bereft of compassion, devoid of the ability to see beyond his bank account, and probably semi-illiterate to boot, but now she wondered if he was perhaps worth saving. She decided to at least give it a try.
“The cattle have stolen themselves,” she explained.
“Stolen themselves? How can cattle steal themselves?”
“They took themselves back. They didn’t want to be here, always standing in the same place, eating the same food, knowing they would end up being slaughtered and eaten by humans. Imagine yourself in such a position.”
Doing so made the man shudder, but then he shook his head and said, “This is ridiculous. I owned them. I made an investment in them. They had no right to steal themselves. And I don’t believe it, anyway. If they could escape, and wanted to, they would have done it a long time ago.”
“Stockholm Syndrome is not just for humans,” Scarlet explained.
She thought what she said was clear and obvious. It turned out, though, that she had to further expand on the tendency of captives to form an emotional bond with their captors and become strangely addicted, in a sense, to their state of captivity.
The rancher was still confused, though. “If what you’re saying is true, then why did they change their mind and leave?”
Scarlet admitted that they had been assisted in realizing the full injustice of their condition, and had also been aided in securing their release.
“To put it plainly,” she concluded, “Ravelle X opened the gates and the barn doors. The Terena warriors are escorting them back to the Pantanal, where they will live in freedom.”
“The Terena warriors?!?”
That’s all he said, at first, but Scarlet was again impressed by the rancher’s sagacity, because she could tell by the tone of his voice and the look on his face that he was wise enough to know better than to try to tangle with the Terenas. They had a reputation not unlike that of Chapawee’s father, Crazy Horse.
Thinking back to who it was Scarlet had said freed the cattle, the rancher asked, somewhat distractedly: “Who’s Ravel? Didn’t he write a Bolero?”
The rancher seemed to have his mind on other things. His shoulders were slumped, and his eyes were apparently focused on something in a to-all-others-invisible dimension.
“Ravelle, not Ravel,” Scarlet answered. “Ravelle X is a person who knows exactly what it’s like to be cramped, both literally and figuratively. He, with the help of the group I am affiliated with, stole himself from his former captors. Ravelle X is now helping others in similar circumstances to liberate themselves.”
Unlike the others the Eco Defenders had dealt with thus far, the rancher’s anger had gradually subsided. And because he had not threatened her, Scarlet had not needed to call reinforcements to subdue the man.
He gradually accepted his new situation, and even began to comprehend the personal benefits of it to him and, more importantly, he conceded, to humankind and animalkind in general, and to the earth.
Some more long conversations were needed, but the upshot of it was that the man, Abilio de Silva, eventually embraced our worldview and even joined the Eco Defenders. He still keeps an eye on things within the Amazon rainforest, convincing all who would sully the land to immediately desist.
At the time of Abilio’s ‘conversion,’ though, things were getting dangerous for Ravelle.
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