“Settle down, Barb,” says a mustached man by the window. “Have another drink.”
Jessica kneels down in front of Michael. She smells of soft floral perfume, feminine and intoxicating.
“Heya, Joe, whatcha’ know?” she says and salutes with the sign, hand over her throat, deliberate and unmistakable as Trent had shown him that morning.
“Less than you, Jessica,” he says.
“You talked to Trent?”
He nods rather than speaks.
Jessica stands up and collects a martini. She takes a slow sip nodding appreciatively to the bartender.
“Michael said that Mother showed him the ground,” Trent says to Jessica.
“That’s what I saw,” says the man in the suit Jessica arrived with. “Tyler you agree?”
The other newcomer nods, “I saw him dying there though,” he says. “Mother took him. That’s what I saw.”
“So they don’t agree,” says the bartender. “Bryce saw one thing, Tyler something else, Jessica a third thing. Mother’s playing with us. Give thanks she gave us the approver. I claim the right to finish what I began.”
“Don’t be so hasty,” says the man in the business suit. “Four visions,” he says.
“Three, and they contradict,” says Barb.
“Four,” says the man, “Michael says he had one.”
“He could be lying,” says the marine.
Michael chuckles and draws malevolent stares. Then Trent chortles, then Perez and then the others see the irony.
“No contradiction,” says Jessica. “He had a fever. He died. Actually, he died a couple of times.”
“Not enough,” says Barb.
“Howard was pretty enthusiastic downstairs,” adds Trent glaring at the bartender. “Add another one to that.”
“I died?” says Michael. “Again?”
“If at first you don’t succeed,” says Barb.
“If Mother had wanted him dead, she’d have taken him after Crystal Springs,” says Jessica. “He had a fever, Barb. A fever. Not a bullet, not a car. A fever.”
“But is wasn’t cholera,” she says.
“Wake up and smell the ashes,” says Tyler with a grin. “Are you denying this?”
Barb looks around the room for support. Michael follows her gaze.
This group is so different, varied by age, shape, and coloring, no two look to be linked by genetics, and yet he feels he’s in the middle of a family reunion. His place among them is unclear. He’s not sure if he’s a cousin, a date, or the main course.
“So what does it mean?” asks the soccer mom.
“I don’t know,” says Jessica.
“So it could mean, ‘here my Faithful Tigers. Have an approver, bury him deep,’” suggests Barb.
“It could,” agrees Bryce.
“What do you think it means, Michael?” says Jessica. “Why do you think you’re here?”
He shakes his head not because he does not have an answer, but because he doesn’t want to give it.
Poulson speaks for him. “He’s one of us,” he says. “I saw the smoke from across the road and I haven’t had jaggery since Festival.”
“I saw it in Vegas,” says Tyler.
“Same here,” said Perez. “Like a beacon. You should have seen him at Crystal Springs, man. He was on fire. I couldn’t believe no one else was seeing it. Hell, you know what? I could even smell it.”
“At the hospital,” says Jessica. “I smelled it.”
“Thanks for the cactus, by the way,” says Michael. Jessica smiles, and it warms him to see it.
“How often do you see smoke without the jaggery?” asks Perez. “I never have.”
“I did once,” says Trent, then pointing to Michael, “twice.”
“He’s the first,” says Tyler. Bryce nods.
“Makes sense,” says Poulson, “If the stories about his eating the Jaggery are true.”
“We can’t let him go,” says Trent. “In case anyone was thinking about that. I laid it all out and we have people from every streak in the region in this room. We gotta’ kill him if we come up with nothing else.”
“Bury him deep,” says Barb.
“Is this messing up the hunt?” asks the woman who could be a secretary.
“No,” Jessica says. “We’re on schedule.”
“You know,” says the man in the banker’s suit. “Barring Festival, this is the biggest assembly of active streaks I can remember. How does that play into this Michael thing?”
“It puts us in serious danger,” says the bartender.
“What’d you tell the cops?” Trent asks Michael.
“Would you believe me?”
“Don’t know. Try us.”
“You’d know if I’d said anything after Barstow.”
“Because you don’t remember?” says Trent.
“That, and you’d have seen the results.”
“Keep talking,” says the marine.
“What about Crystal Springs?” asks Tyler.
“Same thing. I didn’t know. I still don’t know.”
“You knew enough,” says Bryce.
“I’m an investigator by trade,” he says. “I investigated. There were lots of guys looking for you, or rather, the laser. I just got lucky. I didn’t know I was jeopardizing anything until after the hospital.”
“What’d you do then?”
“Me? Nothing. But my partner told them about three possible hijackers from Reno and sent them to Poulson’s for a tape.”
Bryce and Tyler exchange looks.
“Can I have some more water?” says Michael. “Cold this time?”
The bartender sets up another drink. Jessica brings it to him and pours it in his mouth. No one makes a move to untie him.
“Thanks,” he says. “When I found out that they were on to you, I felt sick. I didn’t know why, but I see it now.”
“What do you see?”
“I’m a part of this. I’m not to betray… us.”
“He’s bargaining now,” says the bartender.
“Give him a break,” says the soccer mom. “He’s one of us.”
“Was one of us.”
“Robert, what happened with the tape?” asks the marine.
“Nothing,” he says. “After the ground was discovered, I erased ’em. I had one that I had to keep, but you couldn’t see anything. I made sure of that.”
“Why do you keep tapes?” says Bryce. “Really?”
“Insurance,” he says. “I gotta’ have ’em or no insurance. I can’t get gas without it. It’s fine. Nothing happened. Feds came by, saw the tape they’d seen before. They didn’t even take it. It got stopped.”
Bryce flicks his thumb at Michael and says, “Will he be missed?”
“Will you be missed Michael?” asks Jessica.
“Estranged family for a while,” he says and shakes his head. “I live out of my car.”
“You’re making it easy to kill you,” says Trent.
“I don’t think I want to die,” he says.
“What do you want?”
Michael remembers the vision of Kali, the black woman drinking blood from a severed head, gore dripping from her chin, her arms waving cruel steel of destruction. He remembers also the pale mother with ten arms that held the universe in Her eyes. They are one, the black and the blue, the mother who loves but kills her children, the teller of lies who alone shows him the truth. He has seen the infinite, it is terrible and black but it is true. It will die. It is finite, as he is finite.
He may not have been born to Her, but he was bred to Her, and these creatures around him, these plain men and women who hold his life in their murdering hands are his brothers and sisters. He loves them and wishes to know them all as well as he can, for as long as he can, before Mother cuts him down and absorbs him back into time.
He tastes blood and smells ashes, and feels his face flush with heat. He gasps, suddenly aware that he has neglected to breathe. “I want to come home
,” he says in a cracking voice.
“We can’t let you go, Jim,” says Trent. “You know that.”
“I didn’t say I wanted to go home,” he says, tears rolling down his cheeks. “I said I want to come home.”
“Mother sent him,” says the banker.
“Mother kills her children,” says the marine.
“The stupid ones for sure,” says Tyler. “Did you hear about that streak in Arkansas? Got blown up in a meth lab fire. Five of them. Catching a shoe box of cash and two clays when someone kicks over a Bunsen burner and kaboom. All kinds of heat on them now. The whole Dixie clan is shut down for a season at least.”
“Who told you that?” asks Barb.
“Fletcher,” he says. “You met him. Red headed kid, freckles. Redneck type. He came to Festival a couple years ago.”
“Kid with the ears,” says the man the bar.
Barb nods. “I remember him now.”
“He’ll be here soon,” says Tyler.
“From Dixie?”
“They need work. We need help,” says Tyler.
“How many streaks do you have coming in on this?” asks the concierge.
“Eight,” says Jessica. “Our seven here and Fletcher’s.”
“How big’s the take?”.
“Five million dollars,” says Jessica. “Maybe more. It’s in cash. No fence. No cuts. A box of money.”
Perez whistles and says, “High stakes.”
“And here sits… this guy,” says Barb.
“And seven streaks. Over thirty tigers,” says the marine.
“What are the signs?” Michael hears himself say. His father talked about the signs. He remembers walking with Christopher and Lynette, listening for birds, watching for cats, returning with their sightings. He remembers doing that. He remembers it was important before they set out. His question is met by this group with admiring looks of surprise.
“You mean what are our chances?” says Bryce.
He shakes his head. “What are the signs?”
“Old school,” says Poulson. “I like that.”
“Unclear,” says Jessica answering Michael.
“Abort,” says the marine. “Not worth the chance. Baby Michael is an omen. Abort.”
“What do you think, Michael?” says Trent. “Are you an omen? Should we abort?”
“How should I know? I just got here.”
“Five million dollars,” says the Hispanic man with a mustache. “What did you get for that laser?”
“Two hundred,” says Bryce.
“Plus twenty for the truck,” adds Tyler.
“That little?” says Michael.
“How much you make last month?” asks Bryce.
“This is less exposure than the laser,” says Tyler. “No insurance investigator will come looking here.”
“We’ll kill the whole party,” says Jessica. “Should be a clean hunt.”
“Can we not outline the entire plan in front of the possible approver?” asks Barb.
The room falls silent.
“I’ve been hunting my entire life, fifty-two years,” says the Hispanic man slowly. “It’s a job. It’s how things are. It’s how I feed the family—my family, not The Family. I go to Festival, I hunt for a couple months, I go back home and all’s good. I don’t think of Kali except at the moment, you know when you have to, when you can’t not think of her. I don’t think She ever thinks of me. I don’t expect Her to. But I think She thinks about this man, and we should tread carefully. Mother is not merciful and only fools and saints welcome death.”
“You don’t talk much Carlos, but when you do…” says Perez.
“Was there a woman in the five?” says Michael.
“What?”
“Tyler,” he rasps. “In Arkansas, was one of them a woman? Was she pregnant with twins?”
“How the hell would you know that?” says Tyler.
“I had a dream of burning tigers. One was pregnant.” Staring into a St. George cul-de-sac, seeing Kali on a suburban street, he’d seen also the tigers dying but not known what it meant. He still doesn’t.
“A dream?”
“A waking dream.”
“Ah shit,” says Perez. “I haven’t had this much religion since Festival. Hell, not even then.”
“Damn, son,” says Poulson. “You got a hotline to the other side?”
“So was there a pregnant girl?” asks the soccer mom.
“Yes,” says Tyler. “Fletcher’s sister.”
“Mother’s hand is in this,” says the banker.
“Is there a boat in your plan?” says Michael turning to Jessica.
She spits her drink. “Holy shit,” she says.
“I saw…” Michael splutters. How can he tell them about the strange vision he had at the library? How can he interpret what it means? A shadow-play of ships and tigers. He’d nearly written it off as a sick flashback from Life of Pi.
“My father told me to ask for God’s blessing before doing anything great or important,” says Michael. “You should do that.”
“What’s he talking about?”
“Old school,” says Poulson with a grin.
“He’s right,” says the soccer mom. “There are so many of us here, if we ignore the forms, Mother might be displeased.”
“This hunt is turning into a prayer meeting,” says Barb.
“What’s your point?” says Trent.
She shrugs.
“It’s good advice,” says Jessica. “I can push it off a day. That’ll give Fletcher’s streak a chance to settle in and us a chance to recover from a feast.”
Michael is pleased to contribute something positive to the meeting, something that doesn’t necessitate his immediate death. He’ll die eventually, but like any thinking creature, he’d rather it was later than sooner. He does not tell them that the bromide he offered them did not come from his Kali worshiping father, Greg Kalson, but from his twice a year Christian father Adam Oswald. It is only when Jessica speaks again that he realizes an important distinction between the two faiths.
“Let’s go all out for a feast,” she says. “Someone get us a kill.”
Chapter Thirty
In a wave of recall, Michael remembers a Festival in flashes of images and sensory recollection. He remembers jugglers and music, songs and games, tables of food, playmates and friends. Smells, sounds, sights and laughter the likes of which he has not seen again. It was a party that went on for days.
A feast is a mini-festival and could happen any time; is a mobile holiday, a prayer to Kali, and he loved them like Christmas. They usually happened after a hunt as an offering to the Goddess, when the kill was still fresh. But sometimes they could happen before the streak went out, when a special blessing was needed and the way was not clear. One feast he remembers now clearly as if a veil had slid away.
Christopher and Lynette were there. And his parents. They’d set up camp at Yellowstone. He remembers a white aluminum camper, an awning outstretched over a picnic table. He recalls the trip, the smell of sulfur in the air, the long wait for a geyser, and his mother warning him to keep the food locked away for fear of bears.
They were in good spirits. They sang songs by firelight and then mother laid out a table of steaks and coal baked potatoes, corn on the cob, and fresh bread with butter. He remembers the meal. After dessert, they sang to Kali and danced around the fire holding hands. It was bliss.
The night settled in on them. The fire died to embers. The stars were so bright Michael could read under them. The moment came like a breeze and everyone knew it was time.
“Time for bed little tiger,” his mother told him.
“You’re going without me again?”
“When you’re older,” his father said.
Christopher had stuck his tongue out to tease him. Lynette elbowed the older brother in the ribs and came to help tuck Michael in.
The night was cool and he had a quilted blanket. His parents kissed him good-night and bu
sied themselves until they thought he’d fallen asleep.
Michael could see them through the little window above the cab. He watched mother fetch the jaggery from the camper, a lump of orange-brown sugar in a modest earthen bowl. Father retrieved the offering from the cooler.
It was a simple thing, gray in the starlight, but he knew it was pinkish brown in the plastic Ziplock bag.
“It is the life-force,” Lynette had told him once. “It comes from the chakra here.” She touched his solar plexus. “It is yellow and shines.”
It is flesh. Michael saw the blood on it as father took it into his hands and squeezed the gland over the sugar like a ripe fruit.
Mother kneaded the sugar with the offering. She rolled it in a pan and added water and spices from a kit she kept under her seat. The fragrance was warm and gentle. It wafted through his little window. In an iron skillet over the dying embers, the spices crackled and popped. Mother used water to cool the pan. After a time, during which she sang an ancient song, it was done. She returned it to the wooden bowl and kneaded it a final time, fashioning four bite-sized morsels from the mixture. She took one before passing the bowl to father who took one himself before passing it on to Christopher and finally Lynette.
“One day Michael,” his father had promised him. “One day soon you will take the jaggery too. When you are older. Now, it is too dangerous. It could kill you.”
And after a final prayer to Kali, they ate the sugar.
Michael watched their faces as they chewed. He loved jaggery. Mother would give him tastes of it before it was made sacred with the flesh. She’d let him pour it on his cereal, lick it from a spoon, but never after it was consecrated, not after it was Holy with the life force of an enemy’s chakra.
“Yet do I fear thy nature. It is too full o’ the milk of human kindness,” Lynette said before her eyes rolled up into her head and she fell softly back onto a bed of pine needles. She was always saying things like that.
“Lightweight,” quipped Christopher and then followed her down.
“Sing us a song, Kali,” mother said before she too fell back into the dream.
His father said nothing but stared across the fire into the blackness of the cold Wyoming night until he sighed deeply and lay beside the foundlings which were his family.
When they were all down and dreaming, Michael stole out of the camper and covered them in blankets. He stoked the fire back to flame, and waited for them to wake, eager to hear of the places they had gone, the marvels they had seen, the love of Kali.
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