A full adventure of Sandoval

Puppets created by Fabio Sombra

FOREWORD

My name, dear friends, is Sandoval. For the last few years I have been working as a wildlife tour leader for a lodge in the wetlands of the Brazilian Pantanal. I show foreign visitors the animals and birds of the region. I respect the environment and my mission, as I see it, is conservation.

I have to confess, though, that when I was a lad I used to go hunting. In those days, sad to say, hunting was not illegal. As my experience grew, I gained a reputation as a first-class tracker and even today people remember me for my courage and my skill as a hunter.

At the same time I acquired another talent, that of a storyteller. Now some might call me a bluffer, others, less charitably, a liar. But that’s pretty unfair, just a slur by jealous folk who only care for tittle-tattle. To be fair, I may sometimes exaggerate a detail here or there in my stories, but I swear on the Holy Cross that I am not in the fiction business.

So, let me tell you my adventures and then you can make up your own minds.

THE JAGUAR’S REVENGE

So, my friends, I was once out hunting and in all the excitement I found myself on my own, face to face with an enormous jaguar. To make matters worse, I had no ammo left. The beast pinned me with its yellow eyes and growled like thunder.

I still had a bit of powder in my gun, but not a single shot. Then I had a brainwave! In my pocket I had some tangerine seeds, so I took them out and poured them down the gun barrel. I grabbed a stick, tamped the seeds against the powder and pulled the trigger.

Wow, that was some shot! It hit the jaguar right in the middle of the forehead, the seeds penetrating deep into its hide. The force knocked the monster back and by some miracle I’m still around to tell the tale today…

But the jaguar didn’t die. It ran towards a muddy river, jumped in and gave me a withering look, as if to say:

“Man, I’ll make you pay for this.”

I have to tell you that the jaguar’s threat unnerved me and from that day on I was very wary. I’d still go walking in the bush, but always on the look-out, taking extra care.

*****

Seven years passed and the jaguar finally got its chance for revenge. I was hiking along a trail, my mind on other things, when without warning the monster jumped me from behind. My shotgun fell to the ground and I was dead scared. I shouted:

“God almighty, help me. My end is nigh!”

The jaguar got ready to pounce again and I was struck dumb. It pierced me with murderous eyes and charged. Fortunately for me, it got caught in some vines that were hanging down from a tree.

At that point I realized what a bloody lucky chap I was. Can you guess what was growing out of the jaguar’s forehead? That’s right, a large tangerine tree. And its branches were all ensnared in the vines. A tangerine tree that my very own seed-shot had sown seven years ago!

Well, the animal was furious, kicking and roaring, trying to disentangle itself and even though I was still in shock, I had the presence of mind to sneak up close and pick twenty tangerines to bring home to my neighbours and prove the story true.