Roosevelt's Beast: A Novel

by Bayard, Louis

  “Bokra came here to bury his friend,” said Kermit. “Only he never finished the job.”

  The Colonel stood for some time, scratching his whiskers.

  “Well, you’ve still one problem, my boy. If Bokra didn’t kill Anhanga, who did?”

  “The Beast.”

  The old man closed his eyes. Tilted his head forward.

  “Dear God, Kermit.”

  “Father, please hear me out.”

  “I have heard you out. There is no point in—”

  “No, you must listen. What if we didn’t kill the Beast? What if we only killed the thing that harbored it? What if the Beast is something … separate? Something that survives the death of its host?”

  “So we’re back to spirits, are we?”

  “Not spirits. Not necessarily.”

  “Then what?”

  “I don’t know! Perhaps it’s some kind of virus that infects a particular creature, drives it to commit terrible savagery.”

  “And when the host dies?”

  “It moves to another. All it requires is some … some living creature to sustain it. It doesn’t matter what.”

  “Then where is it now?”

  “I don’t know. If I knew, I would—” Kermit stared at his empty hands. “It’s somewhere, Father. That much I believe. It’s biding its time, it’s…”

  It’s in one of us.

  The thought flashed on him with such force that he nearly buckled. His mind flew back to yesterday’s tableau: Four hunters standing over their quarry. Kermit bruised and Thiago battered. The old man punctured and leaking from the brow. Luz, painted head to toe in blood and viscera. Surely any of them could have been infected. Any of them might be walking around—at this very moment—with that seed inside.

  And yet how monstrous to even imagine such a thing!

  “Tell me something, Kermit. If you hadn’t seen Anhanga’s body, would you still believe the Beast was alive?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  Kermit paused. “Intuition.”

  “Can you kindly be more concrete?”

  “I can’t. I can only tell you I felt it, Father. Last night. And down in that cave. And standing over the howler…”

  “That chill of yours.”

  “No, it’s more than that. This creature, Father, this Beast, it seems to speak to me—or else I’m able to hear it in some fashion. It’s as if—I don’t know, as if we’re eavesdropping on each other.”

  “Eavesdropping.” With a grim smile, the old man joined his hands behind his back. “Why should you, Kermit—alone among mortals—be so magically attuned to this Beast? Is there some manual you’ve been studying? Some spiritual medium, perhaps, has been blessing you with the fruits of her instruction?”

  “I appear to have a certain…”

  “What?”

  “Quality.”

  “Which is?”

  “Receptivity.”

  “Well, that’s vague enough. To what exactly are you so receptive? I myself am most curious.”

  Would it have ended differently if Father had imparted a different emphasis to the word curious? If he hadn’t lashed it with that whip of scorn? Perhaps then Kermit wouldn’t have felt such a sting. Perhaps he wouldn’t have hurried onward the way he did—past any hope of returning.

  “I see Elliott.”

  The old man took a step to the side. “You—”

  “I know it beggars the imagination, Father. I know we’re not supposed to know of him or speak of him, but I’ve—I’ve seen him! Dear God, a good dozen times. Starting when I was thirteen. I’ve seen him at school, at home, in the woods. I saw him when we first started down the river; I saw him in the cave. For the longest time he’s been trying to tell me something or else warn me—prepare me. Now I think maybe it has something to do with this Beast, only I don’t know what. I don’t—I don’t know anything.”

  As he spoke, he never once looked at his father. There was no need. Everything he needed to know could be heard in the old man’s tremulous voice.

  “I cannot conceive of a more obscene joke than this.”

  “It’s not a joke.”

  “You have transgressed every boundary of decency.”

  “Transgressed, yes, but not decency.”

  “Well, then, if you are not indecent, you are mad.”

  The very word Kermit feared. It landed inside him with the tiniest of explosions.

  “I blame this jungle,” fumed the Colonel. “It’s worked some hideous transformation on you. And here—here!—is the fruit of your malady. Bizarre and outlandish theories. Outrageous, wholly fabricated encounters with a man you have—I have never…”

  The old man wrestled himself into silence, but a second later he was breaking out with even greater vehemence.

  “You should never have come on this expedition in the first place! I should never have allowed it!”

  From the village, all sound had died away. Kermit imagined every last Cinta Larga cupping an ear, straining to make out their quarrel.

  “Allowed it?” he said.

  Even he was unnerved by the calmness in his own voice. He took a step toward the old man. He felt a smile etching itself in acid across his face.

  “Do you truly believe I wanted to come here, Father? Do you sincerely believe I had nothing better to do than chase after you and … and tramp down this horrible … deadening … soul-killing river and starve and suffer day in and day out? All so you could have your little place in the gazetteer—your—your little burst of elderly glory—your scope?”

  “Don’t look at me,” answered the old man. “I never asked you.”

  “Oh! Oh, no, a great man never asks, does he, Father? He has minions to do that for him. A great man need only command—conquer. If one country doesn’t want his canal, he finds another country that will. Makes a new country if need be. If one country doesn’t want him to be its president—”

  Stop! he was beseeching himself. Too far.

  “—well, then, a great man just finds a new country he can preside over. The world is chockablock with new countries, isn’t it, Father? All ready to lie at your feet.”

  The old man was gazing at him now in a kind of awe.

  “I may be mad, as you say, Father, but not mad enough to be your vassal for one second longer. I have my own tiny little scope, my own humble, humble career—I know how low it ranks in your eyes—and I have a woman who loves me, and I’m to be married in June!”

  With that, every last particle of rage and thwarted desire seemed to rise up in a great smoking column.

  “Only I won’t be married in June, will I, Father? I’ll never leave this accursed jungle, and why? Because you decided you had to go and shoot some monkey in a tree!”

  “The men were starving, for God’s—”

  “You knew the rules! We weren’t to leave sight of the camp. But mere rules don’t apply to the great Theodore Roosevelt, do they? He writes his own rules. And his son—his docile border collie of a son—trails after him, as he’s been doing his entire pathetic life.”

  Kermit felt the last atoms of force draining from him as he dropped onto a tree stump and folded his head in his hands.

  “And look. Look where it’s got us, Father. We’ve reached the place where conquest ends.” He swung his arm toward Anhanga. “Unless you can colonize that.”

  No words now. No movement. Kermit sat with his head lowered, like a schoolboy bracing for the cane. But all the Colonel could manage before he stalked off was a strangled cry.

  “Sharper than a serpent’s tooth!”

  * * *

  LEAR, THOUGHT KERMIT. THE perfect choice. From his chest rose a dry, mirthless chuckle.

  A day ago he would have trembled at the idea of driving away his father. But perhaps he was better off alone. He had questions to consider, didn’t he? And he was the only one willing to consider them.

  Question number one: Why would the Beast have chosen Anhanga? Out of a
ll the Cinta Larga, why him?

  Question number two: How had the Beast done it? Surprised him in his hut? Killed him on the spot or dragged him here—snuffed him out before anybody knew he was missing?

  This crime scene was even more hopeless than the last. Whatever square of earth had escaped the trodding Cinta Larga braves had been swept clean by Bokra’s body as they dragged him back to the village. The least disturbed element of the whole site was Anhanga’s eye, which the morning light had wrapped in a gauze of amber, indissoluble from the sweetly souring scent that rose from each pore.

  Kermit squatted down, uncurled the fingers of the dead man’s right hand, then the left hand. Nothing. Still squatting, he scanned the middle distance: surges of black and green that, on closer scrutiny, became riggings of liana, robes of leaves, epiphytes hanging like twine. His knees were cramping now, his eyes dulling over. He was no longer even sure what he was looking for—until he found it. The something that didn’t belong.

  A single print in the square of earth by Anhanga’s left shoulder. A handprint.

  Not the stubby fingers of a Cinta Larga, either, but longer, thinner. A civilizado’s fingers, thought Kermit. And before he quite grasped what he was doing, he pressed the tips of his own fingers into the indentation. Felt the mud retreat at his touch … and then felt it swell back, so that for a second or two the earth seemed to be folding around him.

  He drew his hand back. Stared at the smear of black on the tips of his fingers, then looked down again, half-expecting the print to be gone. But there it was, stamped like a star in the jungle floor.

  I have you, he thought.

  20

  Luz conspicuously absented herself from Anhanga’s funeral. It was his favored wife who strode into the center of the plaza and, with a long trailing moan, sank to her knees. For several seconds, she held her peace. Then she began to claw the earth around her, flinging it up in clouds, hissing and writhing as a group of children circled her and showered her with pothos leaves.

  A gray rain cloud squatted over their heads and broke open with a gun burst. Blue flames flickered down through the trees, and Anhanga’s wife, bent under the force of the rain, smeared herself with the newly hatched mud as the children tilted their faces to the sky. Only there was no sky to look at, because the rain had chased it all away.

  Kermit stood under the overhang of his hut, watching the water pound down: a million tiny fists. He knew Father was waiting inside—he could hear the sighs and wheezes. He knew, too, that if he went in now, he would be expected to apologize—that was the way of the world. The apology would be accepted or it would not. Conversation would resume or it would not. Somehow they would get on again—or they would not. It was amazing and terrifying in equal measure that the bond of a lifetime could be breached by just a few hasty words. That prospect pressed so hard on him now that he could neither stay nor leave.

  From inside, he heard his father say:

  “Oh, I know how it is. Don’t think I don’t.”

  Such a soft voice! Kermit couldn’t help but lean toward it.

  “When my father died, I tell you, I bawled like a baby. And me, a college boy! Humiliating…”

  As quietly as he could, Kermit crept through the entranceway. The Colonel was sitting up in his hammock, with his back turned, talking above his usual speed.

  “I couldn’t help myself. Father was the greatest man I ever knew. Do you know, more than two thousand people came to his funeral? Not just society swells, no—newsboys, orphans. Young mothers. All the people he helped in life.”

  From the shadows, Kermit picked out the seated figure of Thiago.

  “There was so much grief—on every side—I said to myself, Surely the world can’t go on. Surely it will have to stop, a second or two. And when it didn’t—ha!—I recall being quite cross.” He paused for a moment. Then his voice slipped into a huskier register. “I lost a wife, too. She was lovely. The loveliest. Her name was Alice.”

  Kermit lowered his head. It was the first time he had ever heard that name spoken.

  “She died quite young, Thiago, and I thought I’d died, too. Yes, when they—when they closed the coffin, I said, ‘Are you sure I don’t belong there?’ The only thing I could do was go away. As far as I could. Well, never mind. The point is, you see, I found another wonderful girl. Edith is her name. Four wonderful children, as different from one another as summer from winter. That’s what I mean when I say God finds a way, doesn’t he? To heal what’s inside? And someday … someday…”

  Kermit took a step into the hut’s interior, but the old man didn’t see him.

  “What a quiet boy you’ve become, Thiago! Do you know you remind me of my son? Kermit, yes. Silent just like you. But rash! In Africa, he was daring to the point of recklessness. Ran down and killed a giraffe all on his own. A hyena, too. Stopped a charging leopard within six yards. Oh, I don’t mind telling you my heart was in my throat more times than I can—what time is it, anyway? I’ve quite lost track.…”

  Kermit cleared his throat. The old man’s head swung toward him.

  “Ah! There you are, my boy!”

  No mistaking the upward inflection of the voice. The Colonel was happy to see him.

  “Have a seat, why don’t you?”

  In the light from a small, sputtering fire, Kermit could see his father’s parched lips, glassy eyes, the blotches of pink in his face.

  “As you can see,” the Colonel was saying, “I’ve been doing my best to comfort the poor lad. He lost his father, did you know?”

  “Yes. I did.”

  “Oh, but he’s tough as flint, Thiago. They don’t make ’em tougher. Do you remember how he went after that Beastie? Fierce! Indomitable! Full of heart, like all great men. That’s how men become great, Kermit. Hearts. Broken hearts.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “What was I just saying?”

  Kermit very nearly laughed then. He had come to heal a rupture, and now, thanks to the memory-erasing properties of fever, there was no rupture to heal.

  “My!” The old man was fanning himself with his forearm. “It’s warm in here. Must be the fire. Never mind. Makes it all the cozier, doesn’t it? I was about to say something.”

  “Father. It’s time for us to go.”

  “Go?”

  “We must leave here. Go back to our friends.” No light of recognition dawned in the old man’s eyes. “Colonel Rondon is expecting us.”

  “Oh, yes! Work to do. Great and inspiring work. Can’t be put off a moment longer.” The old man paused. “We have lived up to our contract, haven’t we, Kermit?”

  “Of course.”

  “Never let it be said a Roosevelt cheated an Indian.”

  “No.”

  “We brought back a Beastie, I don’t care what … do you know, I was talking with someone about something…”

  While the old man plundered his memory, Thiago did two quite ordinary things. He tipped his head against the Colonel’s knee. Then he stretched out his foot and touched it lightly against Kermit’s boot.

  The moment lasted no more than ten or fifteen seconds, but it seemed to seal off its own cordon of time. No word was exchanged. No word could have been exchanged. The rain continued to thrum, the air to swelter; the heat rose off the old man’s skin like smoke from a griddle. They sat, that was all. And, for the first time, Kermit found himself wishing Belle were with him—here, yes, in this steamy, bug-ridden, fitfully illuminated hut.

  “Aha!” The old man snapped his head forward. “I remember what I was thinking. Wouldn’t Thiago be a … a redoubtable addition to our little band, Kermit? Our expedition?”

  “Certainly.”

  “The problem as always is arranging it. Under the circumstances.” The old man leaned forward, curled a finger under Thiago’s chin. “Boy’s lost a father, Kermit.”

  “Yes, he has.”

  “We must make it up to him.”

  The shout came over them in stages. It began as a lo
ng moan from somewhere in the middle distance. With time, it grew more jagged and hopeless and then accelerated finally into a single unbroken shriek, nearly superhuman in its force. The old man clapped his hands over Thiago’s ears, but nothing could have blocked that noise.

  “There, there,” the old man murmured. “It’ll be done soon.”

  And it was done: as quickly as a spigot shutting off. From outside, a great silence welled up. Even the insects had subsided to a hush.

  There was a rustling at the hut’s entrance. A flash of brown, a flurry of droplets, and now Luz was standing before them, drenched from every side, her hair hanging like kelp over her face.

  “Bokra is dead?” asked Kermit.

  “Yes.”

  “They wasted no time.”

  “It had to be, Senhor.”

  “And why?”

  “Bokra has killed,” she said. “He must be killed. Even the Bible says this.”

  “The first part of the Bible, yes. Did Bokra actually confess to his crimes?”

  She gave her wrist a soft flick. “He told all. How he joined with the demons who sent us the Beast. How he used their powers to destroy Anhanga.”

  “And did he explain why he would do such a thing?”

  She gave her wrist another flick. “There was evil in him, Senhor. There has always been. He should have been killed with the rest of his village, but the chief took pity on him.”

  In the closeness of the hut, she sounded like a child mastering her catechism.

  “Very well,” said Kermit. “Bokra is dead. The Beast is dead. The time has come for my father and me to return to our friends.”

  She paused. Softly fingered the hair from her face. “That will happen, Senhor.”

  “Yes,” he answered. “It will. When will that happen, Luz?”

  “There is one more thing you must do.”

  “Yes?”

  “You must be the ones to put Bokra in the earth.”

  He sat there, parsing her words.

  “Very well,” he said. “Have them dig a grave. We will gladly toss the body in.”

  “No, Senhor. The shamans have said it must be a … a great pit, nearly as high as a man. And…” Her teeth closed around a portion of lower lip. “Bokra must be buried in it tonight. Because the Beast is a creature of night, it must happen under the moon.”