EYE OF THE CONDOR

Prologue

Ocampo, Bolivia

May, 1933

The condor soared effortlessly at sixteen thousand feet above sea level, held aloft by the frigid air currents under its nine-foot wingspan.  It glided without movement, suspended like a weightless black cross in the pale blue sky above the long Andean valley, scanning the bleak terrain two thousand feet below.  Snow capped peaks towered majestically above the giant bird on both sides.  Its sharp eyes spotted a movement on the valley floor, and the condor banked slowly in a huge circle.

Carlos Obregon stopped his work, bracing his calloused brown hands on the worn handle of his wooden foot plow, the same type that his Aymara ancestors had used for over eight hundred years, and tracked the bird's path through the clear atmosphere.  Although the sun was behind him, he squinted at the brightness of the high snow and the sky.  He knew the condor had seen something, observing that the circles were gradually decreasing, along with the altitude, marveling at the condor's ability to spot a prey from that height.  His people blessed a newborn male son by saying, "May he have the eyes of the condor, the speed of the puma, and the patience of the llama."

Carlos took his eyes off the circling bird, now almost directly above him, to look for the prey.  He was not afraid for himself.  Condors preferred dead carrion, and never attacked a grown man - a newborn sheep or alpaca maybe, more likely a sick hen or a rodent.  Old stories, told at nighttime in hushed, feeble voices, spoke of condors that snatched babies from their cradles, bearing them aloft to rocky crags, never to be seen again, but Carlos was skeptical.   His ancestors had thought the sun was borne across the sky by a giant condor every day, and he certainly didn't believe that. 

His eyes searched the plowed field and found what he was seeking some fifty yards away.  A wild hare, almost invisible against the brown earth, crouched without movement in the broken sod, its long ears flattened against its furry body.  The hare sensed the presence of a predator, and hoped to go undetected by remaining motionless.  An unwise tactic, thought Carlos, but perhaps the hare's den is too distant to risk a run for it. 

The condor was now only one hundred yards above the ground, directly over the frightened hare, and descending quickly.  Suddenly the hare broke into a mad dash, flinging clods of earth in the air as it wildly changed direction, searching desperately for shelter.  The condor collapsed its wings and fell like a boulder.  At the last minute it spread its wings to cushion the shock, but still hit the ground with an explosion of black feathers and dust.  A wild piercing scream, like that of a woman, rent the air.  Carlos did not know if the scream came from the condor, or the hare, or from another world.

As the dust settled and the blurred figures regained their identity, the condor stood with his wings half-folded, the stunned hare imprisoned under one talon, its soft body quivering.  Carlos saw a flash of silver and red as the giant bird gutted the animal in one stroke.  Perched on top of its dying prey, the condor turned and looked directly at Carlos, fixing him with a steady gaze for what seemed an eternity.  Its eyes burned red in its ugly black head, like glowing coals in a bed of charcoal.  Then the bird extended its massive wings in all their splendor, and rose regally into the air, carrying the dead hare aloft.

Carlos felt no pity for the hare.  It had ventured too far from home, seeking something better, and had paid with its life.  But the condor's stare bothered him.

In the old days, before Catholicism, his people had worshipped the condor.  It was said that from its lofty heights in the sky, the condor could see forever, even into the future.  His ancestors had glorified the massive bird as the god of destiny, able to forecast events to come.  This must be an omen, thought Carlos, for he had never seen a condor so close before, so aggressive, and never had one stared at him as this bird had.  Ten years ago, he would have asked the kuraka for the meaning, but the old diviner was now dead, gone to the land of perpetual water.  Perhaps Carlos' mother would know how to interpret this sign.

While he pondered this, he saw a low cloud of dust rising on the dirt road that reached his village from the west.  In the distance he could make out a brown truck with high sideboards, a type he had not seen before.  He decided to stop his plowing and walk into the village, even though his work was not finished.  Somehow he knew that the condor, its kill, and the brown truck were connected, and that his life was about to change.