Part two
John told me one of these stories after we’d driven into the middle of the Mojave, in Joshua Tree, for a few hours of work before the sun went down. His girlfriend Kat was with us too, and naturally, a small flask of whiskey.
About halfway through the shoot, he handed me a small antelope skull and told me to think, ‘warrior woman’. Being a suburban girl who buys her meat pre-killed and plastic-wrapped for convenience, I must have given him something of a blank look. He paused and said he’d tell me a story about one he’d met. I took this as my cue to sit down and try some of the whiskey.
John had spent one of his holidays sailing around the Galapagos Islands, which are a group of small islands formed by volcanic eruptions off the coast of Ecuador in South America. The small boat he had hired contained an even smaller crew, just himself and a friend, plus the boat owner and guide- a wiry-looking Ecuadorian man and his daughter.
According to the story, they hadn’t taken a whole lot of food supplies on the journey, since they were all pretty handy with a fishing rod and figured they could eat whatever they caught. This plan had worked pretty well so far, with the only downside being that, for two weeks, they had been living on a diet consisting solely of fish.
On the last day of the second week, about an hour before sunset, they anchored at one of the larger islands to stock up on fresh water and a few more fishing hooks. However, no sooner had they anchored when the guide’s daughter stood up and announced that she’d had enough of fish and was going off to get them something better. John had described the girl as being fairly shy up until this point, a skinny teenager who seemed close to her father and hadn’t said as much as two words to the rest of the crew. So, they thought it odd to see her suddenly so confident and decisive, although they were all in unanimous support of the suggestion. The father seemed unsurprised, and after a few quiet words with his daughter, he dug around in the luggage hold until he found one of the hunting rifles and a small knife, and handed them both to her. She stood up, and taking both, jumped into the shallows and headed off without a backwards glance.
John had described it as being one of the strangest things he’d ever seen, this slim dark-haired girl, wearing nothing but a hunting rifle and a bikini, heading out barefoot along the smooth black volcanic rock. After walking for two hundred metres or so up the coast, she turned and headed up towards the scrub, disappearing behind a small hill.
The remaining four in the boat had been waiting less than five minutes when they heard the report of the hunting rifle. John expected to see the girl back in a matter of seconds, maybe carrying a ground bird, but instead they waited another ten, then fifteen minutes without seeing the girl at all. Suddenly, after about twenty minutes, and just as the sun was setting, John spotted a strange shape making its way out of the scrub.
It seemed lopsided, although it was moving steadily and appeared much darker on one half then it was on the other. When it got closer, they began to make out the shape of the girl, hunting rifle over one shoulder, and a large skinned goat over the other. The blood from the opened throat of the goat had spilled out and over the girl, covering almost half of her body, neck to foot, in blood. As she walked back towards the boat with the sun behind her, John remembered thinking that he had never seen anything so proud or so beautiful in his life.
He told me that this was what he wanted me to imagine, to put myself in the place of this tough Ecuadorian huntress, who could shoot and skin a goat in the time it took me to get dressed in the morning.
I'm not sure how good a job I did, but I remember thinking that only John could have a story like that to tell.
About halfway through the shoot, he handed me a small antelope skull and told me to think, ‘warrior woman’. Being a suburban girl who buys her meat pre-killed and plastic-wrapped for convenience, I must have given him something of a blank look. He paused and said he’d tell me a story about one he’d met. I took this as my cue to sit down and try some of the whiskey.
John had spent one of his holidays sailing around the Galapagos Islands, which are a group of small islands formed by volcanic eruptions off the coast of Ecuador in South America. The small boat he had hired contained an even smaller crew, just himself and a friend, plus the boat owner and guide- a wiry-looking Ecuadorian man and his daughter.
According to the story, they hadn’t taken a whole lot of food supplies on the journey, since they were all pretty handy with a fishing rod and figured they could eat whatever they caught. This plan had worked pretty well so far, with the only downside being that, for two weeks, they had been living on a diet consisting solely of fish.
On the last day of the second week, about an hour before sunset, they anchored at one of the larger islands to stock up on fresh water and a few more fishing hooks. However, no sooner had they anchored when the guide’s daughter stood up and announced that she’d had enough of fish and was going off to get them something better. John had described the girl as being fairly shy up until this point, a skinny teenager who seemed close to her father and hadn’t said as much as two words to the rest of the crew. So, they thought it odd to see her suddenly so confident and decisive, although they were all in unanimous support of the suggestion. The father seemed unsurprised, and after a few quiet words with his daughter, he dug around in the luggage hold until he found one of the hunting rifles and a small knife, and handed them both to her. She stood up, and taking both, jumped into the shallows and headed off without a backwards glance.
John had described it as being one of the strangest things he’d ever seen, this slim dark-haired girl, wearing nothing but a hunting rifle and a bikini, heading out barefoot along the smooth black volcanic rock. After walking for two hundred metres or so up the coast, she turned and headed up towards the scrub, disappearing behind a small hill.
The remaining four in the boat had been waiting less than five minutes when they heard the report of the hunting rifle. John expected to see the girl back in a matter of seconds, maybe carrying a ground bird, but instead they waited another ten, then fifteen minutes without seeing the girl at all. Suddenly, after about twenty minutes, and just as the sun was setting, John spotted a strange shape making its way out of the scrub.
It seemed lopsided, although it was moving steadily and appeared much darker on one half then it was on the other. When it got closer, they began to make out the shape of the girl, hunting rifle over one shoulder, and a large skinned goat over the other. The blood from the opened throat of the goat had spilled out and over the girl, covering almost half of her body, neck to foot, in blood. As she walked back towards the boat with the sun behind her, John remembered thinking that he had never seen anything so proud or so beautiful in his life.
He told me that this was what he wanted me to imagine, to put myself in the place of this tough Ecuadorian huntress, who could shoot and skin a goat in the time it took me to get dressed in the morning.
I'm not sure how good a job I did, but I remember thinking that only John could have a story like that to tell.