7th Sigma

by Steven Gould

“Ba is officiating at the opening of the new buildings at the Pecosito Zen Center. We came down last fall for the groundbreaking. We stopped here then, and I saw the bed girls going from room to room and asked Ba. He said they are heavily yoked to the wheel.”

  Kimble shook his head minutely as Mrs. Joffrey’s bustling became more pronounced. “Tell me about the Zen Center, Little Dove.”

  “You don’t want to hear what else Ba told me about the bed girls?” She glanced aside toward Mrs. Joffrey and grinned.

  “Little Imp, I will beat you. Your ba will let me.”

  She laughed. “Very well. The monastery is below the bluff but above the high flood, on the shared irrigation canal. They have several fields of good bottomland and a high-volume solar still.” Suddenly she frowned and the cheerfulness of her earlier mood left. She poked the ground with her finger.

  “What?”

  “The still. Someone threw rocks from up on the bluff and broke the glass panels. And they threw shit.”

  Kimble’s eyes grew wide. “They messed with their water? Their drinking water?”

  This was vandalism by any standard but in the water-poor areas of the territory this was more extreme than a mere misdemeanor. In some of the smaller communities people had been killed for such an offense and their killers acquitted of wrongdoing.

  Thayet nodded. “Several times.”

  “Is there any dispute about the water rights?”

  “Not exactly. The rancher who donated the site deeded the water rights, too. It’s complicated.”

  Kimble raised his eyebrows.

  “Ask Ba.”

  After supper Kimble brewed a large pot of peppermint tea and offered it around. He slipped Thayet a large lump of sugar for hers with a whispered, “Brush your teeth well.” The sky was clear, awash with stars, and the temperature dropped, making the group move closer to the fire and cup their tea in both hands.

  When they were settled, he asked Thây Hahn why the land situation at the Zen Center was “complicated.”

  “Complicated?” He considered his teacup. “It is awash with suffering, like all life, with desire and the desires of attainment.” He held his right hand before his chest, forefinger extended skyward. His posture, always straight, became somehow even more erect and grounded.

  “Attend,” he intoned. “A rancher named Ronson left his ranch, split into quarters, to his three children and Roshi Mallory.”

  Kimble found himself sitting up. “Are questions permitted, Thây?” Thayet, on the other side of the fire, rolled her eyes at Kimble’s respectful tone.

  Hahn smiled. “Merit may be gained through seeking knowledge.”

  “Was Ronson a Buddhist?”

  “Oh, no. He was, in his words, an indifferent Methodist. But the Roshi was the caregiver for his wife’s passing.”

  “Doctor?”

  Hahn shook his head. “Hospice care. She had colon cancer that metastasized throughout her abdomen. They caught it much too late, though they made the trip outside, to M.D. Anderson in Houston. They offered massive chemotherapy but they gave it less than a five percent chance. She’d been through one round already and wanted to die at home, without the nausea. It took two months.”

  “Oh.”

  “Roshi Mallory also sat with Ronson for the month after his stroke, until he died. The two sons maintained the will was changed then, when Mr. Ronson was non compos mentis and challenged its validity.

  “The court found that the final version of the will had been witnessed several years earlier, right after his wife’s funeral, by a county magistrate and their own sister, Ronson’s daughter. The brothers appealed the ruling at the district level and then above. The Territorial Court awarded damages as well as court costs to Roshi Mallory, this last time, and they held the brothers and their lawyer were in violation of Rule Eleven of the Federal Rules—the part where they must perform due diligence to ascertain the factual basis of their case. They almost held the lawyer in contempt but, in the end, they just severely cautioned him never to come before their bench with any case so lacking in merit.”

  “Sounds like you were there.”

  Hahn smiled. “Oh, yes. Mallory stayed with us for the appellate hearing—the court is five blocks from the temple. Mostly I meditated, but I was there to support Roshi Mallory. I learned far more than I ever wanted to know about the laws of inheritance. The ACLU lawyer was very good about explaining things.”

  “Wait a minute—why was the ACLU involved? You’ve left something out, I think.”

  Hahn frowned and looked up for a moment. “Oh, yes. There was the religious intolerance part. The Church of the New Paradise hired the law firm for the challenge and the appeals.”

  Kimble mouth formed a silent, “Ah.” The Territorial Church of the New Paradise was part of the Prosperity Gospel movement. Believe and you shall receive wealth here on earth. The leaders certainly received. One of the ways of expressing your “belief” was by giving heavily to the church. The movement was big outside the territory, too, where they were responsible for some of the mall-size churches you found all over.

  They weren’t so big in the territory, though they were growing. You couldn’t support the same concentrations of people without metal-based tech. No cars, no mass transit, meant no giant churches. The message itself wasn’t unattractive and certainly found its willing recipients. Who wouldn’t like to become wealthy just by believing, especially when you were breaking your back trying to farm a drought-ridden patch of desert?

  “I take it one or both brothers belong to the congregation?”

  “Both, I believe,” said Thây Hahn.

  Pecosito was a largish town for the territory, perhaps four thousand people, straddling the Pecos south of the ruins of Ft. Sumner. “How big is the church there? Congregation-wise?”

  Hahn shook his head. “I don’t know. There are many churches there.”

  “My brother belongs to Church of Christ in Pecosito,” volunteered Mrs. Joffrey. “He said they’ve got about three hundred members.”

  “Is that where you’re headed?”

  She nodded. “We were farming but we were struggling because of last year’s dry spell. Then while Michael was plowing, he uncovered an old pipeline that ran across our place. The bugs moved in big time before we could cover it up and that was that. My brother in Pecosito recently expanded his fish farm and needs the help.” She poked the fire a bit. “That’s the plan, anyway.”

  There was a burst of laughter from the direction of the inn, several voices, male and female, mixed.

  Thayet said, “And the drinking has begun.”

  Thây Hahn sighed and shook his head. “Prepare for bed, child.”

  “Yes, Ba.”

  * * *

  LATER, in the night, Kimble awoke, chilled, and sat up to reach for his second blanket. The moon had risen and he saw that Thayet’s bedroll, near the fireplace, was empty. He listened carefully. He could hear the horses and Mrs. Perdicaris stirring at the makeshift corral, the slight wind through the trees, and the occasional pop and crack from the dying fire, but the most obvious noise was some raucous singing from the direction of the hotel.

  He waited. If she’d just got up to pee she would be back shortly, but when five minutes passed, he sighed, pulled on his moccasins, and crawled out from under the cart. A breeze tugged at his shirt and he shivered. He reached back under the cart and took one of the blankets and draped it, shawl-like, over his shoulders.

  He moved slowly through the grove, pausing to listen. A group of the teamsters had gathered in a puddle of lamplight outside one of the long rows of rooms with their “guests.” Dress was apparently optional. A woman, wearing nothing but one of the teamster’s hats, was dancing before the porch while the others sang and cheered her on.

  She was easy to look at, but it wasn’t why he was there. He settled down by a tree, in deep moon shadow, but instead of looking at the lamplight, he watched the grove.

  There she was. A silhouette,
perched in one of the trees, was visible against the moonlit sky. From the porch, the figure would be lost in the bulk of the grove’s crowns. He thought about getting her attention, a thrown stone perhaps, but it was just as likely to get her noticed.

  He glanced back toward the dancer. She was winding up her dance by twining around her client. The singing had stopped and the couples were moving back to their rooms in pairs and, in one case, a trio.

  Thayet’s branch broke with a sudden and loud “crack,” and she fell down onto the ground with a startled cry. She scrambled to her feet and ran back through the grove, but there was a sudden burst of drunken interest from the hotel and four men headed back into the trees.

  That’s torn it, thought Kimble.

  Shrouded in his blanket up against a tree, he was practically invisible. As two of the teamsters ran past, he stuck out his foot. The first one tripped and the second one fell over his fallen compatriot. Kimble jumped to his feet and ran off to the west, parallel to the hotel, scuffing his feet deliberately and snagging tree branches with outstretched hands to make lots of noise.

  The two who’d fallen and the two lagging took the bait. One of them was a sprinter, with better night sight than the others, and he was well ahead of his fellows, just a few yards behind Kimble. Kimble slowed, letting him close, then, when the man’s reaching arms brushed his blanket, he turned and dropped to his knees. The man tried to jump over, but he was too close, and Kimble snagged one of his legs as he went over.

  He was already up and running before the man came crashing down, so he didn’t see it, but it sounded very impressive, involving branches, a flailing impact, and lots of loud swearing.

  Kimble led the trailing three men down toward the alkali flats but, before he reached it, he ducked behind a young tree, its branches still low to the ground, and edged quietly up against the trunk. He pulled the blanket up, like a cloak, over his head, and watched them run stumbling past.

  He just sat there and tracked them by the sounds they made. They went all the way to the start of the flats, even splashing into the runoff from the hotel’s springs, before they gave up. He heard them stumble back toward their rooms after a while, congratulating themselves on scaring off the intruder.

  He shook his head and wondered what on earth they’d been thinking.

  If you’re going to drink, don’t think. If you’re going to think, don’t drink.

  Thayet was in her bedroll when Kimble walked softly back to the cart, still and quiet, as if she’d never left. He didn’t know if Thayet had trouble getting back to sleep, but the memory of the naked woman dancing in the lamplight mixed with the memories of his night with Martha and it took him a long time to fall asleep.

  * * *

  “I DON’T know what you’re talking about,” Thayet said.

  “Then maybe you should wear long sleeves. You scratched yourself on your forearm when you fell out of the cherry tree.”

  “You saw that?”

  Kimble was grumpy. To cross the worst of the alkali flats while it was still cool, the entire group—the Hahns, the Joffreys, and the teamsters—had all risen well before dawn, watered the stock, and headed out at the first hint of predawn gray. He glanced ahead at the long line of teamsters’ wagons.

  But at least I’m not hung over.

  “I led them down to the flats. Otherwise you would have had this conversation with your father and a bunch of drunk teamsters last night. I hope they would’ve taken you to your father. They were pretty drunk.”

  “Stupid cherry tree,” said Thayet.

  “Oh, blame the tree. I suppose you just happened to wake up and decide to climb trees, and you just happened to pick the one over by that wing of the hotel.”

  She grinned, unrepentant. “I was curious.” She looked sideways at Kimble. “Are you mad about the guy who got hurt?”

  One of the teamsters had been working one-handed. He’d badly sprained a wrist when he tripped over something in the dark.

  Kimble snorted. “I’m not really going to spend too much sympathy on someone who thinks it’s a good idea to go running around in the dark while intoxicated. Though it wouldn’t have happened if someone else hadn’t been climbing trees, trying to see a little skin.”

  “A little? Did you see that girl dancin’?” She lowered her voice, “And some of those guys weren’t wearing much either.”

  Kimble cleared his throat and tried not to think about his own sleepless thoughts. “You’re a little pervert.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I just have healthy curiosity. It’s perfectly normal for someone of my age.”

  “Perfectly normal. Your father wouldn’t mind at all. So I can tell him about it, right?”

  She glared at him.

  He laughed. “Okay. I won’t tell him, but you take the reins. I’m going to climb in back and catch up on some of the sleep I missed last night.”

  They cleared the flats in the early afternoon and started climbing up to the high plains between the Monzanos and the Pecos watershed. They spent the worst of the afternoon heat under a stand of cottonwoods lining a dry creek bed.

  “Wouldn’t normally stop so long,” said Graham, “but my guys really tied one on last night.” He laughed. He certainly didn’t look like he’d spent the night in dissipation. “You’d think that drinkin’ and…” he glanced sideways at Mrs. Joffrey, “uh, other stuff would be enough, but they also had to go haring through the night after lord knows what.”

  “Snipe hunt,” suggested Mr. Joffrey.

  “Close enough,” Graham agreed. “Probably some village kids pokin’ and peekin’. Might as well be snipe—they certainly didn’t catch any.”

  Kimble was showing Thayet how to make hampers using split willow for the stakes and green cattail for the weavers. He’d done the hard part, the spokes on the bottom transitioning to the upright staves, and now she was building the sides.

  Thayet had been listening raptly to the teamster and Mr. Joffrey, and now she opened her mouth to say something. Kimble darted his hand out and rapped the back of her hand with his knuckles. “Tighter. Snug it up before you start the next row.”

  She blinked and stared at him, startled, rubbing the back of her hand.

  Kimble scratched his upper lip and, while she was watching, drew the fingertip sideways across his lips and then scratched his cheek.

  She bent her head back down and concentrated on threading the cattail through the willow stake.

  Later, when they were back in the cart and couldn’t be overheard, Thayet asked, “Why’d you do that? Keep me from talking to Mr. Joffrey.”

  “What were you going to say?”

  “If you didn’t know, why’d you hit me!”

  “’Cause you were going to talk about the noise the teamsters made last night, weren’t you?”

  Thayet’s mouth opened but she didn’t say anything at first. She shifted the hamper she was working on in her lap. “Maybe.”

  Kimble tilted his head and looked at her.

  “Okay! Something like that.”

  Kimble looked back at Mrs. P and clucked again, to keep her moving. He was sitting on the reins and weaving a square box basket, all of cattails, a good size for organizing shelves. He’d made six of them in the last two hours.

  “A partial truth is almost as bad as an outright lie. You start by letting them know you were awake and it’s not much of a leap from there to the thought that you might’ve gotten up. That you could’ve been the one his teamsters were chasing around the cherry grove last night.” He reached back into the bucket of soaking reeds and snaked out another weaver. “Open your mouth and you either have to tell the truth, part of the truth, or an outright lie. Keep your mouth shut and you don’t have to worry about any of those.”

  Thayet said, “I wasn’t going to lie. I know that trap. Easier to remember the truth. Less confusing.”

  Kimble nodded. “Very good.”

  “But you’re saying even the truth is a problem.”

/>   “Ah, Little Dove, not if you don’t care what others know. If you lead a completely transparent life. Your father, for example, can always tell the truth. But if your life includes spying on others—”

  “Like yours?”

  Kimble laughed. “I was talking about your life.”

  “I don’t spy for the territorial government,” Thayet said. Kimble gave Thayet a look and she added hastily, “Not that I know anyone who spies for the territorial government!”

  “I’m glad that’s clear.” He clucked again. “Less is more. It’s always easier to make mistakes with your mouth open than with it closed.”

  They camped on a distant tributary of the Pecos, where feral cats in heat serenaded them in the night until a coyote pack moved in and ended the romance. There was much yowling and hissing.

  Thayet listened to the distant byplay. When it was over, she asked, “What do you think happened?”

  Her father shrugged. “The wheel turns. The cats may have made it into the cottonwoods. Or the coyotes may have eaten.”

  “Cat tastes like rabbit. It’ll take two more days to get to Pecosito,” Graham said, “but it’s downhill from here.”

  17

  Baskets, Posole, and Water Under the Bridge

  When Kimble arrived at the Zen Center with Thây Hahn and Thayet, he took the offered guest room gladly. But two days later, after he had talked with Roshi Mallory, he asked permission to camp on the bluff above.

  “You would normally be welcome to do so,” he said, “but I’m not sure it is safe. We’ve had some trouble with vandals—”

  “Thây Hahn told me about the vandals and your solar still. When was the last time you had trouble?”

  “Just last week. Rocks were thrown, but we’ve devised an awning to stretch across the glass, to protect it. We don’t put it up until after dark. Otherwise they might throw bigger rocks, or something to tear or burn the awning. Anyway, the rocks were deflected. They didn’t throw feces this time—perhaps because they didn’t hear the glass break.” He shook his head. “In any case, you can see why it is unsafe.”

  Kimble smiled. “Perhaps, but I’m thinking that if someone were up there, they wouldn’t come. A deterrent of sorts. Have you set watch before?”