All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes By

by John Farris

  He pushed the door open wide. He entered the bedroom.

  She was reclining naked on the bare mattress of the bed, but naked in a way he'd never seen before. Her gorgeous scales shimmering, cascading with desire. Tongue flickering in and out of her mouth. His erection was unbearable, ejaculation near.

  He heard nothing, except for a slight grunt of effort, as Early Boy came charging through the doorway, head lowered, arms reaching out to seize him. The impact of the football tackle lifted Jackson off his feet and in the next instant they smashed through shade and window and went tumbling down the slant roof of the porch to the overflowing gutter, fell without slowing and crashed down hard into drenched shrubbery, the muddy soft turf of the yard.

  Jackson got up first, but sagged immediately. Early Boy, the wind knocked out of him, was scrabbling in mud. Jackson turned toward the house.

  "Nhora!" he shouted.

  Early Boy caught him from behind and yanked him toward the street. Above them, behind the torn, dangling shade of the window, there was a pulsating, greenish glow.

  "You dumb son of a bitch, don't you know how close you came to looking like Old Lamb? All you had to do was get your dick out of your pants and she would've blown you sky high. Get in the car!" He slapped Jackson hard. "I'm tellin' you, she ain't through yet with you; rain's the only thing keepin' her away. We got to get a move on."

  "My medical bag," Jackson said. "Need my bag."

  Early Boy groaned, gave him another push in the direction of the car and ran into the house. He was out again in a few seconds, the bag in one hand. He grabbed Jackson on the fly and pulled him to the cm.

  He opened the car door and shoved Jackson in, ran around the driver's side. Rain pounded the roof of the coupé.

  "Give me the key."

  Jackson, shuddering, fumbled in his jacket pocket, unable to take his eyes off the house. Through the heavy rain it looked dark now, and deserted. He came up with the key and Early Boy snatched it, started the car. They lurched down the street, then picked up speed. Jackson turned his head to stare at Early Boy.

  "Your face is bleeding."

  "Hell, yes, we're both cut. What do you think this is, a cowboy movie? Lucky we didn't cut our throats. But I couldn't think of any other way."

  "I don't know—what happened. It was like being in a trance."

  "Yeah. That's the Ai-da Wédo; she's Nhora, or part of Nhora—I don't know how that works. Tyrone got to messin' with voodoo a couple years ago, and called her out. Now look."

  "Nhora—doesn't know."

  "Maybe she doesn't. Maybe she can't help what's happening to her. But she's got to be killed all the same. Both of 'em."

  "Killed!" Jackson grabbed Early Boy just as he was making a turn onto a deserted stretch of highway. The car, slithered on the wet road, spun around twice before he had it under control.

  "Chrissake, I just about cracked up this heap! Get your hands off me, doc."

  Jackson slumped back in the other seat, once again finding it hard to breathe. He resorted to the amyl nitrite again. Early Boy caught a whiff of it.

  "That's powerful stuff; what else you got in that bag?"

  "Why do you want to know?"

  "She's chock full of poison. Just one scratch from the lady and you're a goner. So my question is, how do you kill somebody that should be dead already?"

  The car was fishtailing again, and Jackson panicked. "You're driving like a maniac!"

  Early Boy grinned sardonically. "You're on borrowed time anyway. And if we don't get to Tyrone before he closes up shop for the night, maybe we don't get him at all."

  "Do you know—where he is?"

  "At his alternate house of worship, down by the river." Jackson nodded. "I know the place. The Stephen Mulrooney. Nhora and I found it by accident early this morning." He sat shuddering in the wet, filthy suit. They passed a single streetlight in a Negro settlement, the thin vein of a neon beer sign in a lonesome window. Then blackness again, rain flooding the unsteady headlights. He had seen blood on Early Boy's tense knuckles as he drove. He heard Early Boy's rasping, painful breath. "How bad are you hurt?"

  "I'll find out later. Maybe a busted rib."

  "I can drive."

  "Just sit back and enjoy the ride."

  "Do you still have your revolver?"

  "We don't have to—kill Nhora."

  "It ain't just your funeral, it's Champ's too."

  "I think I know—what this is about."

  "I got a little free time right now, doc. Why don't you fill me in?"

  Jackson talked considerably longer, drawing the threads of the past together in a comprehensible pattern, for himself as well as Early Boy. It had begun with his father's encounter with the inhuman Gen Loussaint a quarter of a century ago, and ultimately involved the fortunes of two families. He explained what little he knew about Nhora's sojourn among the Ajimba, and tried to deduce the rest.

  "I never really believed she existed, till now. Gen Loussaint must have lived for a year or two after my father treated her. She was a—a goddess in a decrepit body, badly in need of a successor. I didn't know why a child was chosen. Perhaps she was the image of Gen herself as a child. At any rate they must have planned to raise her as a superbeing, capable of living 150, 200 years, a new leader for a once-great tribe. But by then the Ajimba had been decimated, their tribal identity destroyed. They were wanderers, occasional raiders, confused and desultory in their religion. Whatever plans the aging, reptilian old monster may have had for Nhora, they were forgotten when ultimately the body died. The goddess herself—Gen-loa—didn't die of course, her spirit persevered within Nhora, but dormantly. Gen-loa was helpless to exert her power without the tradition, the force of belief the pathetic tribe no longer had.

  "So Nhora was returned to civilization, still a child, but deadly beyond her knowledge. I think they must have fed her on the poison which they fed their hunting dogs, little by little saturating her body so that as she matured she retained the poison. It may even have become more concentrated, with the passage of time."

  "What about this fetish thing your daddy made out of your skull bones? Old Lamb talked about that too—he called it 'baka.' Said while you had it, the Ai-da Wédo couldn't touch you."

  "That's right. My father died a different sort of violent death, in the war, but he was safe from her, as long as he kept his fetish near to hand. So Ai-da Wédo bided her time, as Nhora grew older. Waited for the voodoo adept, the believer who would come along and set her free of the innocent one. Nhora is innocent, I swear! And totally helpless."

  "Not as long as she's got that poison in her system. If one of those damn killer dogs was runnin' around loose, you'd shoot it, wouldn't you? Use your head, doc!"

  They had reached the levee; Early Boy turned off the car's lights.

  "No sense givin' him time to scram if he's down there makin' his mumbo-jumbo. See if there's a flashlight aboard, doc."

  Jackson found one in the glove compartment.

  "Some dinky light," Early Boy complained. "It'll have to do. Come on."

  Jackson got out of the car clutching his medical bag. If Nhora was down there with Tyrone then there were drugs he would need immediately. He was afraid again, mortally afraid after his encounter with the seductive serpent-goddess, to descend into the thicket. But it might be true that the power of Ai-da Wédo was diminished by rain, or water of any kind. And his concern for Nhora's safety was stronger than his conviction that it was a fatal mistake to tempt Ai-da Wédo again.

  Early Boy wheezed from effort, from the pain in his side as they climbed together down the embankment. He had his revolver in one hand, the small flashlight in the other. The light had only limited effectiveness. Jackson sensed the nearby presence of the hard-flowing, swollen river, recalling its treachery, the sudden whirlpools.

  Despite the dark and the rain, Early Boy seemed to know where he was going. For Jackson it was a prolonged, slogging, panic-filled nightmare, tangled masses of branches and swi
rling waters from which there might be no escape if he lost his footing and went under, to be swept beneath submerged dead trees. Every grasping vine that fell across his body reminded him of the fate he'd so recently and narrowly avoided. He sobbed aloud, but the sounds were lost in the downpour. When he faltered Early Boy was quick to lend a hand, to urge and prod, demand that he keep going.

  At last they came to more solid ground, approaching the Stephen Mulrooney from a different angle. The old steamboat was lit by the wavering glow of a hundred lighted candles in the peristyle of the oum'phor. They surged toward the dryness beneath the roof, curl of smoke from the coals in the pit, candlelight, the illusion of warmth.

  Early Boy cocked his revolver, looking slowly around. He approached the buried fire, the forge of the Ogous, and touched the iron bar, the okou-bha-sah, half buried in the live coals. He jerked his hand back. It wasn't red hot, but it was hot enough to sear the skin.

  "Tyrone!" he called.

  "Here."

  They both looked up. Tyrone emerged from the pilothouse of the steamboat, walked to the railing around the Texas deck, leaned on it and stared down at them. He was nearly naked, his body decorated with elaborately drawn, beaded white lines. It was an impressive, eerie show by the bar sinister.

  "Even', Beau," he said.

  "Good even', nigger," Early Boy said with quiet malice.

  Tyrone shook his head slowly. "That's the way your brother Clipper would talk. But I did expect better of you." He looked at Jackson. "You still don't look so good, Dr. Holley."

  "I've had a rather trying time of it tonight," Jackson said hoarsely. "Where's Nhora?"

  "Just won't give up, will you? Don't you know by now she's not good for you?"

  "Come down, nigger," Early Boy demanded.

  "Might as well," Tyrone said with a slight, elegant, disdainful shrug. He came down a curved broken staircase to the boiler deck, a one-man parade, body glistening, swaying, his nostrils and eyes dilated with excitement. Rain poured down all around them; the air beneath the peristyle was sultry, becoming ominously sweet.

  "I'll just have a look on the boat—"

  "Stay put," Early Boy said tensely, his revolver trained on the advancing Tyrone. "Don't you smell it?"

  "The perfume of Erzulie. My God—"

  "I know, I know. Anything comes, you light out and stay low." He shifted his attention to Tyrone. "Nigger," he said, his voice cracking like a whip.

  Tyrone stopped, smiling, but he still swayed and throbbed to a spectral rhythm which they didn't yet feel.

  "Suh," he said, formal in bearing, cynically deferential. "Let it be known, I have always thought the best of you. I respect you, Beau, for what you tried to do for my people. For having the courage to leave Dasharoons, in shame and rage. You shouldn't have come back, Beau. But I'll allow you to leave again."

  "About Clipper. How'd you do it?"

  "He was eager to be corrupted. Ai-da Wédo obliged. With a suggestion or two from me."

  "Thought so," Early Boy said, and without appearing to aim he fired the revolver. The bandaged little finger on Tyrone's left hand disappeared in a burst of blood. Tyrone whirled around, clasping the shot hand, mouth open in astonishment. Early Boy cocked the double-action revolver again, coolly raising his sights. Tyrone screamed piercingly. In one smooth motion he pulled the okou-bha-sah from the pit of coals and lunged. Early Boy shot him very near the heart but missed the breastbone and so failed to knock him down. The pointed iron ran through Early Boy's belly and emerged sizzling to strike the ground as Early Boy was slammed backward by Tyrone's weight. For several moments he lay motionless, pinioned, Tyrone leaning over the hot iron that was frying his hands, his eyes nearly bulging out of his head. Then Early Boy raised the revolver under Tyrone's chin and blew most of his face off.

  "Doc," he gasped, beginning to writhe. "Doc, Jesus, get it out of me!"

  Jackson leaped over the splayed ghastly body of Tyrone, seized the hot iron, feeling no pain in his anxiety. He planted a foot on Early Boy's chest and heaved, hurling the okou-bha-sah away as it came out of Early Boy with a quick sucking sound. He knelt and clawed the poncho aside and saw the location of the wound, and knew it was bad. Not hopeless, but very bad. He would need expert surgery within the hour in order to survive.

  Jackson broke open his medical bag for a syringe and morphine. Early Boy was crying from the agony, clutching at his belly as if he were trying to rip himself open. Jackson got the needle into him and depressed the plunger.

  "In a minute you won't feel a thing," he assured the desperate man.

  There was faint, suggestive laughter in the air. He thought he heard his name whispered. He looked up in horror, holding Early Boy tightly to keep him from doing violence to himself during the spasms.

  "What's—matter, doc?" Early Boy whispered, as soon as the morphine began to work.

  "She's coming. I've got to get you out of here, but she's coming!"

  "Doc, listen. How am I?"

  "You've got a chance."

  "How much of a—chance?"

  "I don't know, it's beyond my skill. But if I get you to a hospital—"

  "What about Champ? Tell me, doc. How much chance has he got, with—the Ai-da Wédo?"

  Out of the corner of one eye Jackson saw the surreal, shimmering light.

  "Nothing—stops her, right? Except the fetish. Doc, come on, doc, snap out of it or you're a goner for sure!"

  "I hear her!"

  "Can you make one of them things?"

  "I—I think so. But it's no use. It wouldn't be powerful enough, without—"

  Early Boy's hand was on his arm, fingers digging in as a spasm of pain was partially suppressed by the morphine. "Without the bones. Okay, then. You're—all set." He grinned wearily, and raised a hand to tap his forehead. "Take what you need. Make it powerful, doc. Get rid of her forever."

  Laughter, mocking them both. Daring Jackson.

  "I can't. Don't you understand, if I get you to a hospital, then you may live. But if I perform crude surgery here and now, then it's the same as murder!"

  "I don't feel lucky anymore, doc. I know how bad I am inside. So it's all the same to me. If I go—here, or in a hospital."

  The level brilliance of her eyes. The infatuated, flickering tongue.

  "Jackson."

  "Carry me—out in the rain. Where she can't get at you. And get the job done, doc!"

  When Jackson didn't respond Early Boy gritted his teeth and made an effort to rise. Jackson caught him as he fainted, stood bewildered with Early Boy in his arms.

  Hearing the laughter, seeing the flowing, lightsome coils.

  He closed his eyes and staggered, medical bag in hand, with Early Boy, carried him out of the peristyle and into driving rain. Laid him on the ground. Sat hunched over him, blinking, clutching his medical bag against his body.

  Then, slowly, he opened the bag and took out an ampule of sodium pentothal.

  Her sharp hiss of disapproval sounded louder than the rain. She hovered just below the roof of the sheltering peristyle, posturing seductively.

  Trembling, Jackson injected Early Boy with enough sodium pentothal to insure that he would never feel another moment's pain, nor wake again.

  Nhora awoke in sweltering darkness on the floor of the railroad car, body numb from the shock of passage, and she began to cry with near-hysterical relief before she was well awake, as if she understood that she had been badly used for the last time.

  Rain beat on the roof of the car, as it had for hours. She felt a desperate need for the cleansing rain and got to her feet, naked but uncaring, left the car and walked aimlessly along the unlighted platform, arms crossed on her breasts, before venturing into the cold downpour.

  In the dark, walking with her head up, mouth open to drink the rain, she stumbled and fell over the body of the dead stallion, striking her head painfully against the slick clay ground.

  Lights drilled through her head. She looked up, dazed, rose to her feet, sa
w a car racing out of the rain toward her. She threw up her hands to ward it off.

  The car stopped in time. She stood with her back arched, hands high, blinded. The car just sat there. She edged toward it, timid, then a little afraid, finally conscious of her blazing, wet nakedness.

  A car door slammed and he came running toward her. He was as wet as she. His arms went around her. He had a bloody odor; vanishing quickly as the rain washed down.

  "Jackson—Jackson!"

  He was silent, shuddering, holding her with an almost violent need. She sought to kiss him. Something pricked her in the left buttock, and her eyes widened in surprise. She looked around, and down, and saw the syringe in his hand just as he withdrew it and tossed it aside.

  "What—?"

  "Don't worry," he said, but something in his eyes frightened her and she struggled instinctively. Too late, as her knees buckled and she slipped slowly down to meet the warm rising tide of the drug, allowed herself to be engulfed without making a sound.

  In Nhora's room Jackson went through drawers and closets, making blind selections, throwing whatever came to hand in the large suitcase he had opened on the bed.

  Hackaliah, in trousers and undershirt, appeared in the doorway, blinking, nodding, shocked.

  "It's three in the mornin', Dr. Holley. What this all about?" He stared at Jackson's wrecked suit, the mud in his hair.

  Jackson slammed the suitcase shut and turned. "Put this in the boot of the car while I bathe and change."

  "Miss Nhora goin' someplace?"

  "I'm taking her to a hospital. She's very ill. Critical. We must hurry. Do as I say."

  "Dr. Holley, you all right?"

  "Certainly. Are you referring to the way I look? I had—problems with the car. Had to change a tire. Nhora's sleeping in the seat. Be sure you don't disturb her."

  "Yas, suh," Hackaliah said, coming for the suitcase. Jackson brushed by him without further word and ran to his own room.

  In the foyer Hackaliah pulled on a slicker and trudged outside with Nhora's case. Something about the slack tilt of her sleeping head made him uneasy. He went around to look in on her. She was naked. He withdrew, and attempted to open the trunk of the car. It was locked. He took the suitcase back up to the veranda to wait for Jackson.