The Gutbucket Quest

by Piers Anthony

  But now, if T-Bone had hurt Nadine, Slim would gleefully fold, spindle and mutilate the man without a second thought. Would that make him cruel or coldhearted? He didn’t think so. He thought, perhaps, it only made him human.

  Two forces warred inside his soul. There was a childish, irrational urge to commit himself to some grand, futile gesture, ending in his death, most likely, trying to heroically rescue Nadine. There was that within him that was drawn to that death, that within him which believed it would prove the truth and purity of his love. Opposed to that was the part of Slim that knew death would accomplish nothing, that he’d rather live with Nadine than die for her. And, as they had all his sad life, his grand gesture would likely do more harm than good. It would be misunderstood, as had been all the grand gestures he had made. People would see only the stupid futility in it, not the love and need behind it. Besides, he thought, pulling into the driveway, Progress would know what to do.

  Progress was sitting in the yard, picking at an old battered guitar when Slim walked up to him. His eyes widened and he put down the guitar, stood up and grabbed Slim’s arm.

  “What happened, son?” he said. “You knows you got blood all over you?”

  “Blood?” Slim said weakly. He rubbed his hand on the back of his head. His fingers came away sticky red. There must have been a sick look on his face because Progress led him inside the house and sat him down at the table.

  “Let’s get you cleaned up,” Progress said, going into the kitchen for a washrag. “You tell me what’s happened.”

  “They got Nadine,” Slim said, wincing as Progress washed his head gently. “It was my fault, all my fault. I wasn’t paying attention. We were coming out of Mitchell’s and all of a sudden they were all around us. Nadine fought. Man, she fought good” he said proudly. “There were just too many for her, though. They were holding on to me. I tried to get loose, to help her, but one of ’em bashed me on the head, knocked me out. Oh, man, Progress. It’s all my fault”

  Progress folded the bloodstained washrag and threw it back into the sink. “You hush, now,” he said. “I gots to say, yes, you should have been payin’ more attention. But so should Nadine have. It ain’t your fault, get it through your head. You fought and you tried. Your heart was in it. I can see by this lump and cut on your head that you wasn’t in no shape to be movin’ around or goin’ after ’em much. So you just gets the idea of fault out of you. It won’t do you no good. You puts the blame right where it belongs, on T-Bone. You keep on blamin’ your own self, you won’t be no good at all gettin’ Nadine back.”

  “How do we do that, Progress?”

  “I got me some ideas. Lot of it goin’ to be up to you. Right now, we needs Belizaire and a gun.”

  “Why,” Sum asked, “do we need a gun? I don’t like guns.”

  “There’s liable to be some mighty nasty folks shootin’ at us, son. Can you handle a gun?”

  “I can shoot,” Slim said thoughtfully. “I mean, I can handle a gun for like target shooting and stuff. But I don’t think I could do much of anything about someone shooting at me. I don’t like guns, so I never learned much about them.”

  “Don’t like ’em much my own self,” Progress said. “But Belizaire, he can shoot the grease out of a biscuit and never break the crust. He’s got that and he’s got the gris-gris. Might be we could use somebody that can shoot if need be.”

  “I guess you’re right,” Slim said.

  “You knows I am, son. Now, why don’t you take you a shower while I call up Belizaire. Then we’ll go out on the porch and listen to the wind walk and talk for a while.”

  The dry heat of the day felt good, and Slim’s head had almost stopped pounding by the time Belizaire drove up in his rusty old truck. He looked as if he was still wearing the same clothes, with the same food stains on the stomach of his overalls, but now he was carrying a long, heavy-looking rifle.

  When he saw Progress, he held the rifle up, shaking it as if it weighed nothing. “Dis be a bad business, papa,” he said grimly. “Me, I don’t be using no gun ‘less death, she be at the door.”

  “That’s where it be,” Progress said. “You bring the bones?”

  “Yeah. Me, I brung dem.”

  “Bones?” Slim asked. “What bones?”

  Belizaire reached into his pocket. Then he walked around, bouncing, snapping his wrists, making sharp, rapid clacks with four things that looked like big ivory dominoes.

  “Dese de bones,” he said. He showed Slim how to hold the bones, one on each side of the middle fingers. Then he flung out his his wrist and sounded a pop like the crack of a whip. “Try dem in your hands, you,” he said, handing them to Slim.

  The bones were smooth, like old jade. Slim carefully inserted them between his fingers and snapped his wrist. Only a small, weak clack-clack was produced.

  “You don’t got it,” Belizaire said. “Dese bones, dey carved from a buffalo steer’s leg. You got to have de right bone, or da sound, she muffle. And de steer got to be big for da good ringing bones. I work at dis forty years, me. And just now getting good. Dat’s why only ole, ole men play da good bones.”

  “Where’d you learn them?” Slim asked,

  “Old man, he work on da zeppelin. He’s got nuttin’, him, but he loves da music, so he play da bones. He one day show me da carvin’ and da playin’. Now, people axe me, ‘Play da bones.’ But da bones, I use dem only for da gris-gris.”

  “So what are we gonna do with ’em?” Slim asked.

  “Belizaire’s gonna help you find Nadine,” Progress said.

  “How are we gonna do that?”

  “I’m goin’ play de bones, me. And you goin’ sing a finding song. You hooked up close wit’ Nadine. You da only one can find her. You sing de right song, then you know what to do.”

  “But how?”

  “The power, son. You gots it, now you’re gonna learn how to use it. Just sing,” Progress said. “Find the right song in you and wrap it around Nadine. You’ll know.”

  Belizaire started playing the bones, clacking slowly, barely in a rhythm, waiting. Slim tried to think of a song that would connect him with Nadine. He thought, first, of “The Miss Meal Blues,” since Nadine was connected in his mind, somehow, with food. But that didn’t feel right. He listened more carefully to the clacking, snapping of the bones, his eyes closed. The clacking seemed to evolve into a pattern, a rhythm that pulled a strange and obscure old jug-band song from inside him. “Fishin’ in the Dark.” It wasn’t the kind of song he’d have thought of with Nadine. But, if he stopped to analyze it, which he did, maybe it was right. Blues songs always meant more than the simple words; there was always an undercurrent of expression. Fishing, in the blues, was a euphemism for sex, and fishing, itself, was a kind of finding or searching.

  As the bones continued clacking, holding the rhythm, Slim began to sing without thinking of anything but Nadine,

  “Now look here, when I go fishin’, that’s no crime,

  When I’m fishin’, I’m fishin’ after somethin’ of mine,

  Aw, fishin’ in the dark,

  Fishin’ in the dark’

  Aw fishin’ in the dark,

  Honey, that’s my birthmark.

  Goin’ down to the river, jump in the spring,

  I catch the first fish, it don’t mean a thing,

  Aw, fishin in the dark . . .”

  As he sang, Slim felt a connection growing, or the connection already there solidifying and changing. It was like a hunger, a craving.

  He could feel Nadine, alive and hidden and hurting. There was a hook in his heart pulling him to her. He didn’t know where she was, but he knew, beyond any doubt, that he could find her. He could also sense machinery around her—powerful, dangerous machinery. And when he felt that, he knew that, even if Pickens wasn’t personally on the scene, it was his power that held her.

  Progress had told him that the man was basically a coward, always hiding in his office while other people did his dirty work.
That was why they were having the festival. Progress thought it was the only way to draw T-Bone out personally. “He has all the Vipers he needs,” Progress had said. “We could fight ’em for years without touchin’ T-Bone.” Slim felt Nadine in danger, felt her hurt and fear. He would find her, he determined. And somehow, he would hurt T-Bone. Hurt him bad. He waved his hands and the bones went silent.

  “Let’s go get her,” he said.

  They were on the industrial side of town. Dirty, brown and half-abandoned-looking, the old brick buildings exuded a sense of threat that even Stavin’ Chain, bandaged and limping, riding in the back of the pickup, howled at. This was Pickens’ territory, that was clear. Many, if not most, of the buildings were empty and old with living businesses, here and there scattered among the derelicts.

  Their direction seemed aimless, but Slim knew Nadine was somewhere in the area. It was just a matter of being able to feel where she was and follow the pull. He began, again, to sing his finding song, his fishing song. He sang quietly to himself, trying to get a better sense of her. He worked hard to recall the feeling of her, the smell of her hair and skin, the taste of her lips, her breasts in his palms, the way her toes curled against his. He worked to recall the way her pubic bone bruised down on his, her teeth as she bit his neck or shoulder when she came, the sound of her moans and laughter. It was all part of finding her inside himself, and then letting that point out her presence.

  They drove past an abandoned motel. Stavin’ Chain started barking and, for just a moment, Slim thought they’d found it. The feeling of Nadine was there, but not quite right, as if she’d been and gone. Then, behind the motel, in the next block, he spotted a large brick building, its whitewash dim and years old. He could feel the building’s existence like a stone in his shoe. There was a bitter, metallic taste in his mouth, a taste of power. He knew, without any doubt, that that was where they would find Nadine.

  “It’s that building there,” he said, pointing.

  Progress pulled up on a side street about half a block from their destination, where they could get a good view. Slim started to get out of the truck.

  “Wait, you.” Belizaire grabbed his arm. “Mo’ better we wait, us. We see what she look like, dis building. See what de struggle is.”

  “That’s a Tejas Public Service building,” Progress said. “They generates electricity in there. Mighty powerful place to keep Nadine. Now, look there at the parking lot.”

  Slim looked. Four black cars sat low and shiny in the lot.

  “That means we gots to face from four to twelve Vipers,” Progress said. “Plus who’s ever in the buildin’ already.”

  “Is Pickens in there, you think?” Slim asked.

  “I doubts it, son. Like I told you, he don’t do his own dirty work. He’s in his office, workin’ with his money, or with other folk’s money, more like. But you can bet he’s got some strap bucklin’ plan here. We gonna have to do some coonin’ to solve this here problem.”

  Belizaire sniffed the air and pulled his gun closer. “I smell death, me,” he said. “If Nadine, she in there, she in trouble, some. Dere too much power dere. It make my head buzz.”

  “So,” Slim said. “What do we do now?” The power was pulling at him, drawing him to rush into the building to Nadine.

  Progress looked at him, shrugged. “Darned if I knows what to do, son. I ain’t never rescued me no one been kidnapped before.”

  “We gotta do something,” Slim said, a little desperately. “Have a plan. We can’t just walk right in there and get her.”

  “Dat a good plan, yes?” Belizaire laughed loudly, his stomach jiggling, shaking the truck. “Walk in dere and get her, us? Bon. Dat what we got to do, walk in dere open eyes.”

  Slim looked at the big man, and saw nothing but good-humored confidence on his face. “Okay,” he said, shrugging and opening the pickup door. He got out, and Progress got slowly out the driver’s side. He got Stavin’ Chain out of the back and attached a leash to the hound’s collar. Belizaire clambered out after Slim, cradling the long gun in the crook of one huge elbow. Then they started walking slowly toward the building.

  It was an intimidating structure, even without the power they could feel emanating from within it. A solid box of dirty white bricks with only a front door and a few high, narrow windows to show any sign of life or habitation. The blood-red TPS insignia above the front door seemed to signify, beyond any doubt, that the building was owned by Pickens.

  Slim could feel the power from within the building, an almost physical pressure, as the three of them walked toward it. But the harmful effects of the power seemed to flow around them, being absorbed, somehow, by Stavin’ Chain. Slim looked down and saw the dog’s hackles were up and stiff and his mouth was curled in a snarl. He’d seen hounds before, but this was the first time he had seen one look angry or mean, the way Stavin’ Chain looked. Of course the dog had good reason, after the way T-Bone’s minions had beaten him and taken the Glory Hand he guarded. He probably smelled some of the same brutes here.

  They got close to the building and Slim could hear a low hum. It made his skin crawl and he could feel oppression and despair trying to infect him, creeping through his body, a sense of emotional and spiritual exhaustion. He knew that he had to resist it, but it was strong and so hard to fight.

  They struggled their way to the front door and Belizaire reached into a pocket of his overalls and pulled out a gris-gris pouch. “I’m through the door first, me,” he said. “I take good care of de people inside de front. Den we get into de back so no one sees.”

  Slim and Progress and Stavin’ Chain stood to one side as Belizaire opened the door and tossed the opened pouch inside. They heard a muffled whumpf and sensed, more than saw, a flash of violet light. Belizaire counted off fifteen seconds, and they they walked inside.

  The lobby offices were smoky. A dusty, mold smell suffused the air. Slim glanced around. The offices were crowded with gray, unhappy-looking people sitting at desks and standing behind counters, but they were frozen in place, stiff and unseeing. Belizaire’s gris-gris had done its work well.

  Progress tapped Slim’s shoulder. “Where to, son?”

  Slim looked around the offices at the steel doors set in the back wall. One stood out from the rest. He pointed to it. “Through there,” he said.

  They walked to the door and tried the knob. It opened easily, and they entered the back room. It was huge and dark and filled with noise. Generators were spaced in even rows in all directions, their humming and turning almost too loud to hear. Stavin’ Chain whined and cowered, and they could all feel the blast of oppression that beat down on them from the screaming machines. Belizaire brought the rifle up and held it ready, on guard.

  “You go first,” Progress said, his attempt at quiet raised nearly to a scream. “You the only one knows which way through here.”

  If Slim thought about it, the vision, the feel of Nadine retreated from him. But if he simply followed his feet, the tug of power, as if he’d walked this way before, his feet led him. Visions whispered through his mind, as of things he had seen before. But sometimes the angle was different, as if he’d looked down on them from above.

  The room was dry, too dry, shaped as if by spirits trying to duplicate the facade of humanity. The walls and floor were covered with sheets of black granite, worn by the passage of uncounted feet. On the floor, scattered, lay the twisted frames and shattered glass of huge lamps that had once hung from the high ceiling. All scraped along the walls was the detritus of what looked like years of trashy neglect. There were oily spills on the floor. Some had soaked in, some was fresh and glistening. There was also evidence, unrepaired, of fires in the generating plant’s history.

  It was like passing through a cavern that had been transformed into a vast dwelling place for the huge machines that sat spaced and hulking on the floor. The struts and rods and boards of freestanding catwalks were indistinguishable from crowds of stalactites in the darkness.

&nb
sp; And through it all, Slim saw nothing but the signs of ruin and decay, held together by artificial power and will. He felt the oppressiveness, as though a heavy weight of futility were being hammered into his mind. He thought he saw or heard rats or lizards, and he smelled the stench of rot. In the hot air, the hum of the generators filled his body with unpleasant vibration.

  He moved forward to crouch in what he thought would be the shadow of one of the generators. Belizaire, with his gun, and Progress, leading Stavin’ Chain, followed behind him. He closed his eyes and concentrated on feeling Nadine. It was strange for him to think about what he was doing. Was he using magic, he wondered, or ESP, or what? The power of the blues? The power of love? Whatever it was, in this world, it seemed to work, and work well, so far. He could feel Nadine’s existence, her breath and her life, straight ahead of him. With his eyes closed, looking into darkness, Nadine’s location showed as a dim blue glow that he started moving toward.

  As he crept forward, so did the strange, unwanted thoughts in his mind. What if he were to die here? He’d done so little with his life and there were so many things he wanted to do. So much he hadn’t experienced. He’d never thought of death as something imminent, inevitable; never imagined it as real. Death was something that had always been somewhere down the road. He couldn’t conceive of his life ending without him making love to Nadine once more, without him knowing her, having the chance to know her. He couldn’t imagine or tolerate the thought of dying without having the time to prove he could make a relationship work, to prove to himself he could be a good husband, a good man. It would be too unfair for him to die before he’d even begun to live.

  His thoughts were interrupted by a loud crack! next to his ear, immediately followed by an even louder explosion from behind him. His eyes focused on his surroundings and he saw a man lying motionless on the floor, a few yards ahead. There was a pistol in his limp, outstretched hand. He looked back and saw a look of distaste and displeasure on Belizaire’s face. The barrel of the long gun was smoking.