Chapter 1

The King’s Ransom

Fourteen-year-old Jova gathered with the other Kru people in the village square in front of the king’s great house. He lifted first one bare foot and then the other to get relief from the burning heat of the packed earth. It was a particularly hot day, and the silvery sun high overhead drew beads of sweat from his dark forehead.

There was a rustling in the leaves of the soap trees that towered above the thatched roof of the king’s house as two monkeys jumped from limb to limb. I wouldn’t mind being a monkey sometimes, Jova thought. All they do is play up there where the cool breezes blow.

Just then, the reed mat moved aside from the door on the king’s house, and two servants came out onto the porch carrying ostrich-feather fans. Jova stood as tall as he could, nearly as tall as the men around him. This was no time for playing like a monkey; he wanted to be counted among the warriors. Jova had a strong, handsome face with large, clear eyes that did not shy from looking others in the eye. He kept his close-cropped hair neatly free from nappy tangles.

Jova had already gone through the dreaded "bush-devil" initiation school. Supposedly it had made a man of him, so now he must act like one. He waited quietly for the king to come out and speak.

Everyone waited, but the king did not appear.

While Jova watched the door of the king’s house, he thought about the bush-devil school. Around the age of twelve, every boy in the village was taken out into the jungle to a fenced-in stockade made of tightly woven palm fronds and thorn branches. It was impossible to escape. There, for many months, a "devil" taught the boys the customs of the Kru people and how to be a man, even the art of war. It had been a terrifying experience for Jova. Sometimes, he thought the figure that looked like a walking bush was a man in a bushlike costume, but other times Jova believed that he was indeed a devil. Whatever he was, he had remarkable, magical powers enabling him to hypnotize a chicken, cause a tree to die, or put a curse on an enemy.

Jova’s hand drifted to his forehead, where a small blue tattoo and scar extended from between his eyebrows down to the bridge of his nose. It was the Kru tribal mark and proved that he had gone through the bush-devil school. When he and his friends had finally graduated, they had been permitted to come home, where a great celebration awaited them. All of Jova’s relatives had honored him. His father, of course, was not there. He had been killed in the last war. But his mother, uncle, and aunts had made a magnificent feast.

However, in spite of the initiation, Jova knew that he would not really be accepted as a man among his people until he proved himself with some heroic deed—maybe killing a leopard or fighting bravely in battle or bringing back some treasure to his people—the honey from a hive of bees, an elephant tusk, or some iron for knives and spears.

A fly buzzing around Jova’s head brought his mind back to the present. He brushed it away with the back of his hand, and then noticed the reed mat on the king’s door move.

When the king finally emerged from the dark interior of his mud-walled house, he did not walk proudly in his flowing brown-and-white striped robe. Instead, four of his personal guards carried him out on a wooden chair. As soon as they set him down, the two servants stepped forward to wave their ostrich-feather fans to cool him.

When the people saw their king, they gasped. His head hung slightly to one side, and his eyelids drooped until they nearly closed over bloodshot, watery eyes. His kinky gray hair was matted and dull. It was obvious that the old man was very sick.

When the murmuring finally became silent, the king spoke in a breathy, weak voice. "My people," he said, and then coughed as he drew in another breath. "I am dying."

The men shuffled nervously, and some women around the edge of the group began a moan that rose to the high-pitched trill of grief. But when the king held out a thin, shaky arm from which leathery folds of skin hung like rags, silence returned.

"You must not grieve for me," he said. "There will be time enough for that later. Pray now that when I die you will have no cause to grieve for yourselves."

He wheezed again, trying to catch his breath, and a whisper skittered among the people as they turned from one to another asking what he meant. The king was quick to explain. "When I die, there will be no one to take my place, and without a strong king on the throne, our enemies—the bloodthirsty Grebos—will see our weakness, and they are likely to attack us again."

Another murmur went through the crowd. Memories of long, vicious battles, of lost brothers and fathers, of burned crops and destroyed houses, and women and children taken captive were still fresh in the minds of all the Kru people. For they had suffered a bitter defeat at the hands of the cruel Grebos only a few years before.

The Kru people could not survive another war. They were just beginning to recover from the last one. As the king’s dreadful words began to sink in, the high-pitched trilling wail of some of the women could again be heard around the edge of the crowd.

Finally, the old man raised his hand once more to call for quiet. Then he continued, "There is only one hope. My son, Kaboo, must be found and brought back to rule in my place. Without him, we are doomed. But with a new young king on the throne, we would be safe because the Grebos would know we are strong."

A coughing fit silenced the king, and the crowd held its breath until the spasm stopped. The king sat with his eyes closed as he gulped in air like a fish out of water. When he seemed out of danger, quiet whispering spread among the Kru people.

It had been six years since there had been any news of Prince Kaboo, and most people considered him dead. But there had been reports that he had escaped safely from his Grebo captors and had fled into the forest. Many doubted it, and even those who believed the story had given up hope of him returning safely. Probably, they speculated, he had been attacked by the fierce "leopard men," those cannibals who roamed the jungle at night killing and eating fellow humans who ventured too far away from their village in the dark. Or maybe he had been bitten by a poisonous snake, or pulled into a river by a giant crocodile. Anything could have happened; the jungle was a dangerous place. So, whether he had not escaped, or had escaped but met tragedy in the jungle, most people believed Prince Kaboo was dead.

But the king believed otherwise. His confidence that his son was alive set everyone talking. Where could Kaboo be? How could anyone find him this long after he had disappeared?

"Silence!" shouted one of the king’s guards. "Your king addresses you."

"My good people," continued the king when quiet had returned, "to the brave warrior who finds and returns Prince Kaboo to sit on this throne, I offer a king’s ransom—five balls of rubber the size of a man’s head, twenty goats and twenty pigs, four elephant tusks as tall as a man, plus all the rice one man can haul in a day." He wheezed a great breath and then said, "Only find my son! Find my son!" And he raised both hands as though giving his tribe a blessing.

With that the king’s guards carried him back into his house, and the people broke into an uproar of cheers, arguments, and general confusion as they speculated on whether Prince Kaboo was dead or alive and whether anyone could find him.

"Such a fortune!" said a muscular warrior standing near Jova. "Anyone who wins a king’s ransom would be the richest man in the village."

"How can the king offer that much wealth?" said another. "I know he has that many goats and pigs, and maybe he has the rice. But the rubber and the elephant tusks—they must be hidden somewhere. I’ve never seen them."

"If the Grebos hear he has rubber and ivory, they will attack us for that alone, king or no king," said the first man.

"I don’t think the prince is alive. How could he be after this long?"

But Jova did not cheer, or argue, or talk to anyone. His mind was racing. He would go on a quest that everyone would consider brave. He would prove he was a man. He would bring home to his people a great treasure and get a king’s ransom in return.

These thoughts raced through Jova’s mind because . . . he knew where Kaboo had gone, and, as far as he could tell, he was the only person who knew!