by Nancy Farmer
Matt felt even colder.
Everyone was in a fine mood, what with the food and wine, wrote Daft Donald. Everyone talked about what an old beast El Patrón was and how they were glad he was dead.
It had gone on for hours when Tam Lin brought out a special wine that had been bottled the year El Patrón was born. It was in a musty crate covered with cobwebs and sealed with the Alacrán scorpion mark. “This is what El Patrón was saving for his one-hundred-fiftieth birthday,” announced Mr. Alacrán. “If he didn’t make it, it was supposed to be served at his funeral. I propose we drink it to celebrate the old buzzard’s death!”
“Hear! Hear!” everyone cried.
Steven opened the first bottle and sniffed it. “It smells like someone opened a window in heaven,” he said.
“Then it doesn’t belong with this crowd!” Tom yelled. Everyone roared with laughter. They passed around fine crystal glasses. Mr. Alacrán said they were all supposed to toast El Patrón at the same time and then smash their glasses on his coffin.
I had a glass, wrote Daft Donald, but Tam Lin came up to me and said, “Don’t drink it, laddie. I’ve got a strange feeling about this wine.” And so I didn’t.
We raised our glasses for the toast. Mr. Alacrán said, “Tomorrow we’ll send a truck down here and haul this stuff away! Here’s to greed!” Everyone cheered and then they drank—except for me. Before the next minute had passed, they had all fallen to the ground. Just like that. As though someone had reached inside and turned off a switch.
“What happened?” Matt asked, gasping.
I went from one person to the next, trying to wake them up, but they were all dead, wrote Daft Donald.
“Dead?” cried Matt.
“I’m so terribly, terribly sorry,” said Celia.
“Not Tam Lin!”
“The poison was very quick. I don’t think he felt it.”
“But he knew something was wrong with the wine,” shouted Matt. “Why did he drink it?”
“Listen to me,” said Celia. “El Patrón had ruled his empire for one hundred years. All that time he was adding to his dragon hoard, and he wanted to be buried with it. Unfortunately”—Celia stopped and wiped her eyes—“Unfortunately, the dragon hoard included people.”
Matt remembered with a chill how often the old man had spoken of the Chaldean kings. Not only were they buried with clothes and food, but their horses were slaughtered to provide transport in the shadowy world of the dead. In one tomb archaeologists had discovered soldiers, servants, and even dancing girls laid out as though they were sleeping. One girl had been in such a hurry, the blue ribbon she was meant to wear in her hair was still rolled up in her pocket.
The plan must have been in El Patrón’s mind all along. He’d never intended to let Mr. Alacrán or Steven inherit his kingdom. Their education was as hollow as Matt’s. None of them was meant to survive.
“Tam Lin knew what was going to happen,” said Celia. “El Patrón told him everything. He was closer to the old man than anyone, except, perhaps, you.”
I laid out the bodies, wrote Daft Donald, as many as I could manage. I was crying. I don’t mind admitting it. It happened so fast. It was so awful. I went outside and got dynamite from a storage shed. I wired it to the entrance passage and set it off.
“I didn’t hear the explosion, but I felt it,” said Mr. Ortega.
“Everyone ran out to see what had happened,” said Celia. “We found the passageway buried and Donald lying stunned on the ground.”
“I felt the explosion too,” Matt murmured. “Just before dawn the ground trembled, and it woke me up.”
“Tam Lin saw it as his chance to free the eejits,” said Celia. “That’s why he didn’t warn anyone except Donald about the wine. I know it sounds terrible, but how else was he to break the power of the Alacráns? El Patron had ruled this country for one hundred years. His children might rule for another hundred.”
Matt could see the buried tomb in his mind’s eye—the broken wineglasses, El Patron’s portrait staring up from the coffin, the bodyguards laid out in their dark suits. Only instead of ribbons, they had gold coins in their pockets.
Tom was there too, his lying, oh-so-believable voice stilled forever. How many times had Matt entertained himself with thoughts of Tom’s downfall? Now that it had happened, Matt felt numb. Tom had been no more in charge of his fate than the dullest eejit.
“Tam Lin did what he wanted to do,” Celia said. “He was guilty of a terrible crime when he was young, and he could never forgive himself for it. He believed this last act would make up for everything.”
“Well, it didn’t!” shouted Matt. “He was an idiot! A stupid, crotting idiot!” He jumped up. Mr. Ortega tried to stop him, but Celia shook her head.
Matt ran through the gardens until he came to the stables. “Get me a horse!” he yelled.
After a moment Rosa shuffled out. “A Safe Horse, Master?” she said. For a moment Matt was tempted to ask for Tam Lin’s steed, but he wasn’t skilled enough to ride it.
“A Safe Horse,” he said.
Soon he was moving through the fields as he had done so many times before. Some were misted with the bitter green of opium seedlings. Some dazzled his eyes with the glory of full-grown poppies. A faint, corrupt perfume hung in the air.
Matt saw the first laborers. They walked slowly, bending down with tiny knives to slash the seedpods. What was he going to do about them? He was their lord now. He was the master of this vast army.
Matt felt utterly drained. Somehow, he’d expected everything to work out. He’d expected himself, María, Tam Lin, and Celia to someday be happy together. Now it was all ruined.
“You fool!” he shouted at the vanished Tam Lin.
Could the eejit operation be reversed? Even with a restaffed hospital, it might take years—that is, if Matt could lure doctors to Opium after they found out what had happened to the last batch. He’d have to get rid of the Farm Patrol. They were felons wanted in countries all over the world. He could tell their police forces to come and get them. He would have to hire other, less violent men to replace them because the eejits couldn’t exist without orders.
It was an overwhelming problem. He’d need to hire another army of bodyguards. Wealth such as Opium possessed lured criminals. Always choose your bodyguards from another country, whispered El Patrón. They find it harder to make alliances and betray you.
Okay, thought Matt. He would ask Daft Donald about it tomorrow. A pack of Scottish soccer louts sounded about right.
He gave the horse a drink and made his way into the mountains. A clear blue sky cast its light over the oasis. The sand next to the water was marked with animal prints, and the metal chest was still hidden under the grape arbor. Matt rummaged through it until he found Tam Lin’s old note.
Deer Matt, he read. I’m a lousy writer so this wont be long. El Patron says I have to go with him. I can’t do anything about it. I put supplise in this chest plus books. Yu never know when yu mite need things. Yor frend Tam Lin.
Matt folded it and put it into his pocket, along with a flashlight for when it got dark. He made a fire and warmed his hands as he listened to the sounds of the oasis. It was too cold to swim.
He would dig up the poppy fields and put in normal crops. Once the eejits were cured, Matt would give them the choice of returning home or of working for him. He would help them find their children.
Matt sat up straight. Of course! Chacho, Fidelito, and Ton-Ton! He could invite them to live with him. He could imagine Fidelito’s wide-eyed astonishment. This is really yours? the little boy would cry. You’re not making it up?
It’s all right, Chacho would say, refusing to be impressed. Matt could give him his old guitar. Mr. Ortega could teach him music. Ton-Ton could have his own machine shop. He could maintain the equipment Matt needed to create his new farms.
He could invite María to stay—and hope that Esperanza was busy somewhere else. María would love reuniting the eejits with
their children. And they could have picnics and ride horses, and she could keep as many three-legged cats as she liked.
Matt looked up at the sky. Sunset wasn’t far off. The light was turning gold, and sunlight shone through a gap in the mountains and made a bar of radiance on a wall of rock just beyond the oasis. Matt saw something dazzle.
He jumped up and ran to the spot before the radiance slipped behind the mountains. When he arrived, shadow had almost hidden the mark, but he saw, in the red light of the setting sun, a shining scorpion. He pressed his hand against it.
Slowly, silently, a door opened in the cliff. Matt felt the rock. It wasn’t stone after all, but a clever imitation. The door revealed a dark passage going down into the earth. Matt shone the flashlight inside.
The floor glittered with gold coins. Farther on were weird statues that might have been Egyptian gods. Matt lay back against the cliff, breathing hard. It was part of El Patróns dragon hoard. It was the first of the underground chambers that stretched all the way to El Patrón’s coffin and his attendants.
Around the old man were bodyguards to protect him in the shadowy world of the dead. There were doctors to attend to his health. Mr. Alacrán could entertain him with matters of business, and Steven could offer opinions about the farming of poppies. There would certainly be an opium farm in El Patrón’s version of heaven. Felicia, Fani, and Emilia could admire him from tables covered with moro crabs and caramel puddings.
And Tam Lin? Matt took out the note again: El Patrón says I have to go with him. I can’t do anything about it.
“You could have done something about it,” Matt whispered. “You could have said no.” He stepped away, and the door slid shut again. He ran his fingers over the surface. He couldn’t tell where the opening had been, but he could find it again with red light.
Late that night Matt sat by the fire and smelled the good mesquite smoke as it spiraled up into the starry sky. Tomorrow he would begin the task of breaking down the empire of Opium. It was a huge and terrifying job, but he wasn’t alone. He had Chacho, Fidelito, and Ton-Ton to cheer him on. He had Celia and Daft Donald to advise him and María to be everyone’s conscience. He also had Esperanza, but he couldn’t see a way out of that.
With everyone’s help, it would get done.
You can do it, said Tam Lin from the darkness on the other side of the fire.
“I know I can,” said Matt, smiling back.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nancy Farmer has written two Newbery Honor Books, The Ear, the Eye and the Arm and A Girl Named Disaster. Other books include Do You Know Me, The Warm Place, and three young picture books for young children.
She grew up on the Arizona-Mexico border in the landscape she evokes so strongly in this novel. She lives with her family in Menlo Park, California.