By The Piquiri

Luiz chuckled, prodding the snout of their downed tamanduá with the tip of his boot. “Pantera nos trouxeram uma grande fortuna hoje à noite, Actaeon...” In the low light of dusk, the anteater’s characteristic white stripe could no longer be discerned against its darker furs; it’d been well stained in their hunt. A shame.

“We won’t know fortune until God’s judgement finds us,” Actaeon replied, stooping to lift the still warm beast, loading it into the back of their pickup. The dog paced below the tailgate, awaiting the cue to join or pursue another. “We’ve made good time, give Pantera something to eat—I want to check the river.”

“Be careful.”

The black retriever’s interest piqued to the call of its name—eyeing curiously the kill, and those responsible. She followed Luiz, as he went for the gun dog’s rewards tucked away within the truck.

After taking his hunting rifle from his back, Actaeon reloaded a few shells into the bolt action system—ejecting the current cartridge, just in case he’d forgotten. It doesn’t take much to take care of a feasting tamanduá. They could only get their truck so far into the forests and off the roads, the Piquiri’s winding curves were still quite a walk from their embedded base—a trek that’d take longer still as the temperature fell, and the little light that filtered through the thickening canopy dwindled further.

Actaeon went south, stepping carefully over the gnarled roots, rotted trees and branching ferns—Mato Grosso’s floor here wasn’t as thick as it had once been. He kept with him a fresh machete sheathed at the hip, only for if the understory crept low and impeded progress—he knew the terrain well now. Feeling for obstacles and paths as the night crept in, Actaeon steadied himself over the body of an awkwardly felled and sprawling tree. Though unable to see the difference, his fingers aligned well with the unnatural, angular grooves carved deep within its sturdy bark—not the careless scratching of a marsh deer, nor the doing of a man like himself. He thought nothing of it.

The Piquiri herself was a beautiful, winding snake of a river—softening the edges of the forest with its meandering curves. The muddied and eroded deposits along its extremes were privy to serve as watering spaces, as were the oxbows and brooks that split off from the main body. The treeline thinned towards the edges, giving a wide berth around the gravel-beds for the congregation of all who sought to benefit from the Amazon’s bounty. The moon, now high, reflected well in leaf-splintered fragments across the disturbed surface; that and the stars were all that lit the quiet place.

He moved slowly, an alien to the atmosphere here, no matter how many times he’d been—the rubber of his soles squelched against the waterlogged soil, held together by hidden roots and floor-clung plants. Stepping into pre-made indents in the sand, he knew the path most secure to follow, where he would not sink nor slip. As he’d hoped, Actaeon was not alone in his appreciation of this water feature.

Just across the meander stood an Anta in their sturdy, endangered glory. Its steel-toned hide and succulent meat would fetch ample real, if not foreign, dollars. The skin of her thick, tender loins glistened with a dewy finish, freshly relieved from a safe wade in the river. Head hung low, she browsed through the plant life at the water’s edge, this unicorn of prey paid no mind to the watchful hunter. Kneeling in the muck, protected by the cover of night and his camouflage with the earth, he propped his rifle against his shoulder and waited for the perfect moment. Although the distance was shorter than preferable, he’d make do with the blurred grey image, if not just rely and trust in his own eyes.

In the still air, she only continued to drink, to eat. Never minding the watchful eyes upon her hide. As she raised her head to breathe and rest for just a moment, Actaeon felt it, that moment—

Safety clicked off, he worked the bolt forward, “Perfeito…” whispered to himself as the shell and steel clicked into place, he took one last look at the aligned imagery before he pulled that heavy trigger.

A click, and silence.

Nothing.

He froze, as though time had done the same. As his mind caught up to speed, he immediately ejected the cartridge, discarding the misfire beside him into the silt.

The Anta, Tapir, had heard his struggle, the metallic clicking of those alien mechanisms—she looked in his direction, to the elongated muzzle poking through the ferns, the glint of a well-trained predator’s eyes. Her gaze lay beyond where Actaeon crouched, further down the bank and into the brush. Just as Actaeon had steadied and lined up the shot once again, she thrust herself into the sanctuary of the running water—disrupting the cool air with a spray of water, just as safety was relieved.

He couldn’t shoot through broken water. Only then would he look back where her eyes had laid, resting his weapon in defeat. He caught the watch of the time-biding onça, disturbed in its hunt, as she broke through the brushwood to pursue a predator-made-prey. The jaguar closed the distance far quicker than he could respond—she pounced, precise in her ambush.

She topped him easily from his low-down position, shoving him into the mud. Actaeon shot blindly in a last moment panic, heat melting through his skin—the slug lodged into the ground, hurting none despite its deafening sound. Her claws dragged parallel with his spine, carving angular grooves deep within his pliable meat—not the careless scratching of a marsh deer, nor the doing of a man like himself. She thought nothing of it.

Pantera darted to the alarm, a well-trained gun dog in every right. Luiz wasn’t far behind, alerted by the shot just as well. They came across the felled palms, thickened scrubs, the gnarled roots. Then to the garnet trail dragged through weight-depressed silt, the texture of cloth imprinted in the smears, disappearing into the crawling Piquiri.

Luiz had to grab for Pantera’s collar as she rooted about for scents to follow. Luiz knew better. Only then would she look, Pantera-pantera, to the opposite banks: locking eyes with a greater shadow-cloaked beast across the water as she hauled the limp, bleeding man into the tropical morass.

“Merda, Pantera…” he kept his voice quiet, doing his best to look away. He kept a tight grip on the dog’s choker, yet she pulled from him, hoping to push through the river to follow her master's trail as though he remained unharmed.

Luiz retrieved Actaeon’s rifle from its impression in the soil, unable to wipe free the red stain, having only one hand free.

 

COMMENTARY:

When adapting “Diana and Actaeon”, I was first drawn to issues surrounding contemporary hunting in places where it’s forbidden—as Actaeon had stumbled into a place he wasn’t meant to be, let alone hunt in, and was subsequently punished for it. Brazil has an ongoing issue with illegal hunting/poaching, whether it’s for meat, hides, or trophies—the South American Tapir has an issue with being hunted for meat, to extinction or near-extinction in certain areas of the Amazon. “Diana and Actaeon” has a level of death-by-karma in it that I wanted to focus on, doing so by having Actaeon hunted, just as he had been hunted. I found the irony of the dogs’ names in the Ovid story humorous and wanted to repeat that matter here: “Pantera” is a popular dog name in Brazil and seemed fitting as a Portuguese word for “panther/jaguar”. I thought this was an appropriate way to pay homage to the original death, as well as exaggerate the hunter-being-hunted aspect.

All in all, I sought to highlight Brazilian illegal hunting issues through the death of Actaeon by a natural predator, and the objectification of Diana though comparison to an animal hunted primarily for meat and hide.