The Ends of the Earth

by Lucius Shepard

  “Yeah, I…”

  “I want you,” she said.

  Nobody had ever said it that way to him. Let’s fuck, maybe. Let’s go upstairs, or Let’s see what you got, Chapo. Never “I want you.” He almost didn’t know what it meant, and maybe it didn’t mean what he thought. He wasn’t sure how to answer. “Why?” he said, and felt foolish. Acting like it was his first time. But he couldn’t understand why. Just because he’d been helping her? That was a good reason, he guessed. But he hadn’t thought it would be her reason.

  She took his hand and laid it on the silver rose, on the soft weights beneath. The nipple hardened against his palm. He closed his fingers around her breast, squeezing it, and she arched her back, pressing against his hand. She let out a hissing breath. He moved his other hand beneath the blouse, then moved both hands over her breasts, cupping them, rubbing the aureoles with the balls of his thumbs, knowing their shapes. She unbuttoned the blouse, tossed it aside. It floated away like a silver wing. Veiled in her hair, he kissed the milky flesh. So much warmth, so much sweetness. He lost track of where his hands were, what his lips were doing. It was all warmth, all sweetness, and she was whispering his name, saying she wanted him, wanted him now.

  Going into her was like falling into a good dream, and it was different with her…So different he couldn’t say exactly how. He worried about her back on the stone, about hurting her. But soon he stopped worrying, and what he felt at the end was maybe a little stronger, a little more heat, but really was pretty much like all the other times, except for how happy he was at what she felt, at the way her body stiffened, her nails pricking him deep, holding him tight and still, as if were he to move, she’d break into pieces.

  Afterward, becoming aware again of the cold desert wind, they got under the blanket, and Anise began talking excitedly, saying she loved him, saying he couldn’t go back to the Crust, he should return to LA with her and go to school, and she loved him, and her father would help them get started, and Oh, Chapo, how much I love you, and he didn’t know what to say. He had thought he’d known her before they made love, but though now he felt intimate with her, she also seemed a stranger, someone new. He realized he hadn’t known her, that she had been in his eyes an emblem of foreign territory, of wealth and mysterious cities, a border he had finally crossed. Now she was no longer an emblem but real, and he was confused. Who was she? He turned on his side, pushed her gently onto her back and looked down at her, trying to find her inside her eyes, trying to understand what he felt.

  “Chapo,” she said, reaching up to him.

  He laid a finger to her lips and studied her face.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Shh!”

  “I know,” she said after a while, “I know there’s things you want to tell me, but you can’t find the words.”

  He nodded.

  “You’ll find them,” she said. “You will! But you have to come back with me…to LA.”

  She started talking again, but slower, her words as gentle as an easy rain, and everything she said clarified something behind her eyes, something he felt. He could see her strength, her goodness, and his recognition of those qualities seemed to make what he felt equally good and strong…though he couldn’t put a name to his feelings. She told him about her city, the towers, the displays of light in the sky, the exotic pleasures and the roar of fifteen million souls. What she said began to make sense. He would go to LA, he would understand everything. And in that country of light, wealth would be a power, a power he could use in ways that the wealthy Americans had forgotten. He saw this was to be his destiny.

  The sky paled to lavender, the stars thinned and shone gold, and they made love once again. They made love into the morning, into the blazing heat, and though he was bone-weary, Chapo could not stop making love to her. It was too beautiful to stop, too important a connection to break. And when at last they did fall asleep, they were still joined, still tangled like a knot of brown-and-white thread. In Chapo’s dream he thought they were melting, becoming stone, and in the days to come they would be mistaken by other lovers who had climbed this high for a vaguely human shape produced from the rock by a miracle of wind and weather.

  At dusk they drove into the hills and stopped on a rise above the village of San Juan de la Fiebra. At that distance it looked to be a peaceful place of white houses with red tile roofs and lights dancing in the windows. Chapo gave his pistol to Anise and told her to hide among the cactus until he returned. She begged him to take care, kissing him with such passion that when he drove away, he felt he was off on a noble mission and not simply going to find gas.

  Though the rise was only a few hundred feet above San Juan de la Fiebra, the road wound through the hills, and it took Chapo half an hour to reach the village. Entering it, he passed the remains of an enormous bonfire, itself the size of a small hill, from which projected weird charred shapes that reminded him of giant insect legs, and he assumed this had been the source of the green glow. On the walls of the houses were painted horned goats and bearded corpses and creatures half fly and half man, all done in drips and spatters of red paint, making it seem they’d been rendered in a murder victim’s blood. People dressed like campesinos in white cotton and straw hats came into the streets on hearing his engine. They stood in the street ahead of him, and he was forced to weave in and out among them, obscuring them in the wake of his dust. They were mostly wiry people of Indian stock, but he spotted a few with dark skin and blue eyes and a gringo cast to their features; they said nothing, only tracked him with their stares. A cold patch formed between his shoulder blades, and he had trouble swallowing.

  At the far end of the village stood a Mexalina station, also adorned with grisly murals, its green pumps decorated like evil Christmas trees with garlands of cactus buds and wreaths of whitish leaves. As he approached, an amplified voice began speaking from somewhere. “GUARDIANS, AWAKE! FOR IN THE TIME OF THE FURY, THOU MUST BE EVER VIGILANT. BEWARE THE STRANGER WHO BEARS THE SEEDS OF JOY IN HIS HEART, FOR FROM HIS JOY MAY SPROUT THE FRUITS OF CORRUPTION.”

  Chapo pulled up to the pumps and cut the engine. A gaunt man wearing a grease-stained coverall, with coppery skin and gray streaks in his hair, ambled toward him from the door. Chapo ordered ten gallons, having to shout to make himself heard over the voice, which continued its biblical admonitions; it was so loud, he could scarcely think. Pretending to be at ease, unconcerned, he got out of the jeep and went over to the Coke machine. Fed in coins. He uncapped the frosty bottle and took a deep drink. Looked back along the street. None of the people had moved. They were all gazing toward the station. The lights from the windows were unbelievably bright, spraying golden rays into the streets, as if each house contained a sun, and above the crown of the hill where Anise was hiding, the stars were showing this same golden color against the black sky.

  “…SHOW HIM THE MERCY OF MAD JESUS GONE SCREAMING FROM THE TOMB, HIS NAILS TIPPED WITH BLOOD, HIS THOUGHTS LIKE KNIVES…”

  Chapo glanced into the window of the station. And froze. Sitting on the counter beside the cash register was a hologram identical to the one belonging to Don Augustín: a silver rose revolving in its own glow. He didn’t know what to make of it, whether it was a bad sign or good.

  “…HARROW HIM, TEST HIM, FOR ONLY THUS WILL YOU KNOW HIM…”

  The voice was switched off. Turning, Chapo saw that six men on motorcycles were ranged along the street facing the station. Their rides were sleek and finished in black enamel that gleamed like chitin; they wore red helmets, and their headlights were green and faceted like insect eyes. Pistols at their sides. The attendant holstered the pump in its socket and came over. Chapo fumbled for his wallet. But the attendant held up his hand to ward off payment. “No charge, Señor,” he said, and smiled. His incisors were rimmed with gold, and a red stone like a drop of blood was set into one of the front teeth.

  “It’s all right,” said Chapo. “I want to pay.”

  The attendant just kept
smiling.

  One of the motorcyclists revved his engine and glided to within a few feet of Chapo. “Where are you going?” he asked.

  Chapo couldn’t see his face behind the black plastic of the helmet. “To Huayacuatla,” he said.

  “And from where do you come?”

  “The Crust.”

  The man shouted this information to the other motorcyclists, and they absorbed it without reaction. He turned back to Chapo. Lifted his visor and peered at Chapo. His face was bronzed and hawkish, and his eyes were balled and white like a statue’s eyes, with no irises or pupils. Beneath his left ear, tracing the jawline, was a thin scar. Chapo’s legs felt weak and boneless, and gooseflesh fanned across his shoulders.

  “Are you a true believer?” the man asked.

  Despite those eyes, Chapo knew the man could somehow perceive him, and he did not think he could successfully lie. “In what should I believe?”

  “In the mysteries and the drugs.” The man held up a vial of brown powder that dangled from a chain around his neck, and Chapo recognized it to be the drug he’d taken in the cave. “In the power of uncreated things, in the light bred from the final darkness.”

  “I know the drug,” said Chapo. “But I don’t understand these other things.”

  The man leaned toward him over his handlebars. “You are no seeker,” he said, making it sound like an accusation.

  Chapo shrugged. “I gotta be goin’, man.”

  The man settled back on his seat. “Go, then.”

  As he walked back to the jeep, Chapo could sense the man’s white eyes driving nails into his back. He climbed in, switched on the ignition. The needle on the gas gauge stabilized at almost three-quarters full. At least that much was all right. He gunned the engine. Then he pulled away from the pumps, swung the jeep into a U-turn, and passed behind the five motorcyclists. They didn’t bother to turn and watch him.

  Once again he had to weave in and out among the bystanders. But this time they paid him no mind. They gazed intently toward the station as if awaiting instructions. At the site of the bonfire, people were piling cactus limbs onto the charred heap, and Chapo wondered if that was how they got it to burn a funny color, if the cactus limbs yielded a green essence. He listened for the sound of motorcycle engines as he drove into the hills, and heard nothing. Yet he didn’t feel right. How could you feel right in a place where blind men could see?

  He stopped on the crest of the rise, and Anise came scrambling up from a gully. “Did you get it?” she asked breathlessly, climbing in.

  “Yeah,” he said, and was about to add that there might be trouble, when a shot rang out. Pinged off the hood. More shots. He pushed Anise out of the jeep and hauled her back down into the gully, behind a boulder. Grabbed the pistol from her and trained it on the slopes. The moon was just up, and in its light the ranks of cacti looked unreal: an alien army with shadowy upraised arms. Then he heard the motorcycles. They were buzzing, swarming nearby. He glanced right. Left. That way the gully gave out into a pitch of huge boulders. Gray shapes. Like frozen waves, melted statues. Motorcycles would never be able to penetrate them, at least not with any speed. Taking Anise’s hand, he moved in a crouch along the gully.

  Raspy whine of an engine winding out, and one of the motorcycles jumped the gully. Fire lanced down from a shadow hand, and Chapo returned the fire. Knew he’d missed.

  “Who are they?” Anise clutched at his arm.

  “I don’t know.”

  He could still hear the engines buzzing as they entered the field of broken boulders, but he couldn’t see any of them. Like spirits, invisible when you turned your eye on them, reappearing when you looked away. He crawled through the boulders until he found one with a cleft that offered a clear field of fire up and down slope. He drew a deep breath. Fear was stamped on Anise’s face, and he couldn’t think of anything to ease her. The silver rose on her chest heaved.

  Fuckin’ brujo!

  Chapo checked his clip. Seven left. Seven bullets for six riders. He dug the red knife from his pocket, handed it to Anise. For a split second, he thought she was going to fling it down. But then she flicked open the blade and set herself. Ready to fight. Chapo felt proud of her.

  “Listen!” she said.

  The engines had stopped.

  He peeked out over the boulder. Spotted a couple of shadows edging toward them down slope. Maybe this wasn’t such a great place to make a stand. He looked behind them. Adrenaline was pumping his heart, and his eyes were strained so wide, it seemed he could see every weed and pebble. The boulder field declined into the deep shadow of the next hill. Darkness like black gas. What the hell! There might be a cave. A trail. Something. He led the way through the rocks, keeping in a crouch. The amplified voice began to echo up from the village, the words unintelligible, booming out its nonsense. Loud enough that he couldn’t hear the scrape of a boot, the rattle of a kicked pebble. The bastards might have planned it!

  Halfway across the field, he began to feel a presence nearby. It was a trustworthy feeling, a Crust feeling. Tuning his senses higher.

  But it didn’t help.

  As they passed between two of the larger boulders, a rider jumped him. Knocked him flat. Chapo lost his grip on the automatic. The rider pinned him with his knees, smashed a gloved fist into his chin, dazing him. Chapo could see his vague reflection in the visor above him. Then the rider leaped up, a red knife sprouting from his shoulder, and backhanded Anise to the ground. Chapo scrabbled for the automatic, found it. Squeezed off a round just as the rider dived at him. The bullet twisted the rider in midair, and he landed facedown beside Chapo. Muffled wet sounds came from inside the helmet.

  Chapo came to his knees. A serpent of blood trickled from the corner of Anise’s mouth, black-looking. He started to stand, but something cold touched the back of his head, and a hollow voice told him to put down the gun. Three more riders stepped from behind stones and stood over Anise. Chapo dropped his eyes. Studied the weeds springing up by his knees, the pattern of pebbles. He had been waiting for this moment all his life, and now it was here, he almost welcomed it.

  Anise was speaking, but Chapo was too gone into his preparation for death to hear the words. He tried to think about something good. That’s what Moro had told him before they had crossed to Stateside. “If you feel it comin’, man,” Moro had said, “think ’bout somethin’ good. ’Cause then if you live forever, maybe you go with that good thing. And if you don’t”—Moro had grinned—“what the fuck’s the difference?” Chapo called up memories of the red glow, the border. Wild nights. None of it seemed good. His only good thought was that one time with Anise, and that was too much the reason for his dying to give him the peace he needed.

  The last rider emerged from behind a boulder and looked down at Chapo. No way to tell because they were all dressed alike, all hidden behind their visors, but Chapo figured him for the one he’d talked to back at the Mexalina station. The rider nodded, as if seeing exactly what he’d expected. He turned and went a step toward Anise. Two of the men had hauled her to her feet and were gripping her arms. Their leader stopped dead and flipped up his visor. Lifted his chained vial, tapped a little powder onto his tongue. Gazed at her chest. From where Chapo was kneeling, he could see the rider’s warrior profile. One white eye bright as new marble, set in a stern bronze mask. The rider removed his helmet. His black hair feathered in the breeze. He laid his hand flat against the silver rose on Anise’s breast. She squirmed, and the two men holding her applied pressure, making her cry out. The rider tipped his head to the sky and stood absolutely still. After a second, his hand began to tremble. He jerked it away, said something in Indian to the two men. They let go of Anise.

  She hesitated a moment. Then she scuttled to Chapo’s side and kneeled beside him, throwing an arm around his shoulder. The cold thing at the back of Chapo’s head went away. Blond hair curtained his eyes, and he brushed it aside. The rider walked over, holding his helmet under his arm like a knight after a to
urnament; the rest gathered behind him. He gestured to the body, and two of the others picked the dead man up, propping him erect between them. His knees were buckled, his chest a mire of blood and charred fabric. Yet Chapo had a funny notion that he wasn’t dead. Not dead forever, anyhow. If blind men could see in San Juan de la Fiebra, maybe the dead could be reclaimed. The careful way they were treating the body supported that notion.

  “Who are you?” asked the rider.

  Chapo was still halfway to death. He didn’t have an answer.

  “I’m an American,” said Anise tremulously, as if citizenship were at the core of her being.

  One of the men laughed. “They don’t know who they are.”

  “Who are you?” the rider repeated.

  Chapo got slowly to his feet, feeling drained. He looked into the rider’s white eyes. Depthless glowing surfaces like the desert. “Tell me why it’s important,” he said.

  “It’s not important,” said the rider. “I merely wish to know.”

  “I’m Chapo, and she’s Anise.”

  Once again there was laughter, and the rider said, “These are only your names. Perhaps you don’t know who you are.”

  “Well, who are you?” Anise shrilled. “Just who the hell do you think you are to go…” She broke off, cowed by the rider’s stare.

  “I am a Guardian of San Juan de la Fiebra,” he said. “I am the madness of Christ, and the innocence of Moloch. I follow the northern teachings, and I have borne witness to the man in the desert…as have you, apparently.” He indicated Anise’s blouse.

  “Don Augustín?” Anise looked at Chapo, then back at the rider. “Is that who you mean?”

  “By his sign you may pass,” said the rider. “But be warned. Do not return to San Juan de la Fiebra until you have learned who you are.”

  He signaled the others, and carrying their dead companion, they headed up the slope, becoming lost among the shadows of the boulder field.