by Brian Hodge
“Yes.” Like it was the most natural thing in the world. Kerebawa rose and pulled his cloth roll from the car. Held it up a moment as if for inspection. “I brought a powder from home. We call it ebene. It shows to me things. Sometimes things that are important.”
Sounded intriguing, if not entirely plausible. Of course, watching Trent Pollard and his floor show at Apocalips hadn’t seemed very probable either.
“What is it, some kind of drug?”
“So you call it. To us, it is our way of life.”
He nodded. Way of life, right. He’d known a lot of people to whom that phrase applied. “I’ve taken a lot of powders myself. Or at least, I used to. Never saw much of anything very useful with any of them.”
Kerebawa cocked his head, glanced down at his roll. The briefest flicker of a smile. An I-know-something-you-don’t smile. Justin found it irritatingly smug and was quickly amused by that.
“Maybe you did not have the right powders.”
Justin scuffed at the ground. “Sometimes I looked pretty hard, though.”
Kerebawa peered at him, long, unflinchingly. It was a discomforting stare, the scrutiny of culture shock. “The eagle,” he said at last. “That was you.”
Justin blinked dumbly. “Me?”
A simple nod. “Your noreshi. Your spirit animal. You have strength. You have high thoughts, like the eagle flies.”
Justin swatted a mosquito, managed to beam with self-satisfied pride for a moment. Then he remembered: Broken wings, though.
“But,” Kerebawa went on, “you are crippled inside.”
Lofty self-images plummeted in a death spiral. “Thank you, Mister Morale,” he muttered. That was the bad thing about listening to someone who could see into you with the clarity of a sixth sense. Brutal honesty, providing you were equally honest with yourself, was hard to refute.
“You have used the green powder that Tony Mendoza has.”
Justin nodded. “Once. I didn’t know what it was. He lied to me about it. But yeah, I took it.”
“I can feel it about you. You, too, can see important things.” Justin thought it over several moments. Remembering the sole instance when he had transcended the mundane into pure psychic whiplash. That flash-in-the-pan linkup with some girl he did not know, whose exquisite fear of the shape-shifting unknown was nevertheless tangible.
“I thought I did. Once.”
Kerebawa nodded. “You could maybe see clearer if you were not crippled inside.”
They waited without speaking for several more minutes before April returned. Justin was nearly ready to go looking for her when he heard a delicate splishing of water. Soon after, she came into view.
Working both mounted oars of a small rowboat.
Justin and Kerebawa moved over to the shore as she let the boat glide to them, rustling through sawgrass until the prow connected with a gentle thump. She stood, wavered her balance, and then Justin helped her out.
“You’re just one surprise after another.” The admiration was wholly genuine. “Where did this come from?”
“Some old man in one of those houses back there has a little dock. Erik and I went joyriding in this one night at one of those parties.”
They backtracked to the car, for the grislier task at hand. Justin opened the trunk, and he and April stared down at the blanket-cloaked form for several beats. Serenaded by frogs and insects, to which death was an everyday fact of life, an everyday possibility, side-effect of the food chain. Somehow, when elevated to human terms, it often looked far uglier. There was no dignity in this, in being crammed inside a too-small trunk, still wearing the undies that had acted as a catcher’s mitt for the last wastes your body would ever void.
Reality was doing far more than slapping them in the face. Reality was rubbing their noses in itself.
Justin nodded at Kerebawa, and the two of them lifted the stiffening body free. Carried it to the rowboat and stowed it in the center, where the blanket soaked up stagnant water puddle in the bottom. Next they loaded the cinder blocks and hangers. April grabbed a small flashlight from the car’s console. Everything the expedition needed.
They boarded one at a time, pushed off. The rowboat rode considerably lower in the water now. Have to be careful. Justin didn’t relish the idea of tipping it too far and sinking, dropping in uninvited on a family of water moccasins.
April continued to do duty at the oars, slowly dipping them in and straining them back. They glided away from shore and aimed for the treeline, a soft shadow across the face of the water. Forsaking twentieth-century civilization for a little microcosm of a world still as primitive as it might have been long before man had trodden the soil in his present form.
While Justin held the light, she weaved them between the cypress, their flanged and fluted trunks tapering up and out of the water to form a canopy overhead. Now and again, the side of the boat would scrape against a cypress knee. Ephemeral curtains of Spanish moss and spiderwebs brushed his face, shoulders, and Justin shivered and pushed them away. All around, living things seemed to shift and scurry, unseen but heard.
“How deep is this water?” Justin asked.
“Oh, four to eight feet, I think they said once. In the spring and summer at least, with the rains.”
He nodded, feeling vaguely shameful, indecent acts under the cover of darkness. April rowed them in until there was no more light visible from Grandaddy Lane and they were utterly alone with primordial swamp and their own guilt.
“I suppose,” she said slowly, “this is as good as anyplace.”
The cypress rose like gray-brown legs around them, their little floating oasis of light. The air was warm and clinging with misty haze. Somewhere just within the range of Justin’s vision, he saw a flash of eyes and heard the splash as a rat tumbled into the water.
He twisted the tops of the clothes hangers until they came undone and he was left with stout wire. Shifting in the boat, he bound the corpse’s ankles together with one. Used another to securely lash the ankles to the first of the concrete blocks. The second he figured he would wire around the neck.
“I don’t suppose you want to keep this blanket,” he said, fingering the makeshift shroud.
April shook her head. She was hugging her arms around herself as if she were cold. “I never want to see that thing again.”
He moved to the other end of the body, and the boat rocked precariously. Settled. He fumbled with the arms, and one pulled free to rap its knuckles against the gunwale. He looked at the curled fingers.
The ugly turquoise ring.
And felt disgusted with himself for the idea that crept into his mind. This ordeal had really pushed his imagination — and temper — toward the sewer’s edge. He pointed at the ring.
“Maybe we should keep a souvenir to let Tony know we came out on top of this one. When the time seems right.”
April swallowed thickly. “Then you keep the ring. I don’t want to see it anymore, either.”
He breathed deeply. “Anybody can lose a ring.”
She saw in his face what he meant instead. The realization spread across her face like the dawn of the darkest day. “You can’t—”
“I’m not the one that decided the stakes of this mess we’re in. Tony did that. I just want to show him we mean to fight.”
She turned her head away. “I can’t watch this,” she said, and a moment later, pressed her palms against her ears.
Mosquitos whined around his face, his heart thundered. Justin looked at Kerebawa, then the machete he had brought. Pointed.
“Can I borrow that?”
He nodded, offered it handle first. Held fast to the blade for a moment after Justin gripped the handle.
“Do you rather me do it?” Kerebawa said.
He considered it. But Kerebawa had saved their lives to begin with, fired the crucial arrow. April had finished the man off, then had gotten them out here. So easy to let others do the dirty work.
“My idea.” Justin’s throat was
dry and harsh. “I’ll do it.”
Kerebawa relinquished the machete.
Clenching his jaw tightly, Justin maneuvered the second cinderblock into better position. Butcher block. He maneuvered the corpse’s forearm across the flat surface. Positioned it palm down, wrist straight. He passed the flashlight to Kerebawa.
“Hold this.”
It suddenly seemed very important that the blanket not pull free of the dead man’s face. Didn’t matter that he had come to kill them — Justin could not do this to someone with a face. He tucked the blanket tightly around the head.
Held the machete in both hands. Waited until it quit quivering.
No matter what it felt like, looked like, sounded like, he promised himself he would not get sick. Would not. Not for the entire duration of this whole Mendoza mess.
Justin took a bead on the stilled wrist. Practiced his swing a couple of times. Finally then, sucked in a deep breath and lifted the blade. Tensed his muscles.
And chopped it down for real.
Chapter 19
INSIDE THE NORESHI
When he first awoke, Justin didn’t know where he was. There came the heart-prickling attack of nerves, the confusion of an unfamiliar ceiling. Then he remembered. Motel. It all came back.
After their swamp excursion, they had driven back into Tampa. Crossed west to the airport and abandoned the telltale black Fiero in the long-term lot and rented a Dodge Aries. Very bland, the milk toast of cars. But with room aplenty for three humans and their sundry luggage. They then set off for north Tampa again, a refuge to hole up, after getting a cash advance from an automated teller machine to avoid signing in under genuine names. They settled into a quiet motel off Busch Boulevard, six-lane mecca of more motels and fast food, billboards and tourist traps. Busch Gardens was less than a mile east. Tony might very well think to look for them in this transient part of town, but barring miracles, had little hope of finding them.
Justin rubbed his eyes, found himself alone in bed. The low roar of the air conditioner was all he could hear. He sat up, saw Kerebawa on the floor, sleeping in a corner beneath a blanket. They’d rented a two-bed double, but he apparently wanted nothing to do with the other. To each his own.
April was already up, seated at the round table near the curtained window. Sipping from a Styrofoam cup. Another sat capped on the table. Doughnuts too. Glazed.
“I found free coffee in the office.” She tipped up the cup. “Want some?”
More acid on top of last night’s Jack Daniel’s deluge? No thanks. He shook his head. “Maybe just a doughnut.”
“In that case you’ll still want the coffee. It’s the only way to soften them up.”
He got out of bed, underwear only, and joined her at the tiny table. Kissed her, hugged her. She held him too long, too fervently, to pretend this was a typical good-morning greeting. The desperation seeped through. She was nailing up a good front, though.
Justin realized she was wearing one of his shirts, untucked and rumpled over shorts. No bra. He’d always found it mysterious, this proclivity of women to wear their men’s shirts in the morning. An instinct, perhaps, stemming from the male’s tendency to shield himself from the female’s infiltration. If she can’t get into his soul, then his shirt is the next best thing.
Coffee, doughnuts, and handguns. Just your average morning. She’d been right about the doughnuts. He got one down with the coffee’s help, looked at the remaining one sitting on a napkin.
“Better save one for Bomba the Jungle Boy.” He hitched his thumb toward the corner.
“Justin,” she said, disapproving, “don’t be a weenie.”
He smiled. Oh, they were meant for one another, had to be. How many times had he seen the pairing, Mister Rude and Miss Manners? Yin and yang, one counterbalancing the other.
He pushed aside the curtain to peer outside. A scattering of cars in the parking lot; the Aries blended nicely. The day looked gray, dark, the sun hidden by swollen clouds. Be a nice cozy day, were the air not thick enough to wring water.
He let the curtain fall when he saw a maid’s cart a couple of doors down.
“Is the do-not-disturb sign still out?”
April nodded. “I know better than that.”
She scooted down in the chair, propped her feet in his lap. He absently massaged the soles, silently played This Little Piggie with her toes. Wondering how long DO NOT DISTURB would need to hang from the doorknob. They weren’t about to willingly let a maid in to poke around.
At least not while the ice bucket was in use. Packed in cubes from the ice machine was the severed hand. They were keeping it in the bathroom, beneath, appropriately enough, a hand towel.
He finished his coffee along with April, bilious sludge that it was. Decided it was worth it when he felt the caffeine kick in. He slipped into a pair of gym shorts to make himself half decent.
Kerebawa awoke soon after. He’d slept in his pants and appeared to suffer the same disorientation that had plagued Justin upon awakening; then the recognition, the remembering. At first, when the vulnerabilities of life and circumstances were stamped plainly across his face, Kerebawa showed little of the resolute fierceness he’d exhibited last night. He looked frightened. Worse, he looked sick. Overtired, underfed.
And all we’ve got to offer him is a stale doughnut.
Greetings were exchanged; grunted, really. And slowly the fire seemed to reignite in his eyes. He ate the doughnut without complaint, and April got him a glass of water from the bathroom.
“We need to talk,” she finally said to Kerebawa. “More than we did last night.”
Made a lot more sense than kicking back for Sunday-morning cartoons. So many questions. Last night’s post-shooting cleanup had hardly been the ideal time. And once they had arrived here at the motel, it was nearly four in the morning; they’d all been dead on their feet. Justin had managed to sleep soundly for the first time in ages.
“So far,” April continued, “we don’t understand any of this, why Tony Mendoza wanted us killed. Just that it probably has something to do with this new drug he’s turned up with. Whatever it is.” She was keeping her voice steady, cool, rock solid. “I shot someone last night. And I want to know why. And what you’re doing all the way up here looking for the stuff.”
Kerebawa turned away long enough to retrieve his grubby cloth roll and bring it back. He set it on their bed, sat beside it. He unrolled it, removed a smaller cloth roll. It might have been an ancient handkerchief, or bandanna. He treated it with special reverence as he opened it. Inside, cupped within a secondary layer formed from a leathery leaf, was a stash of powder. Green, familiar.
Kerebawa looked to Justin first.
“This is what I told you of last night. This is ebene.” Justin stared, his hand tensed on April’s foot. “And this is what Mendoza has?”
“No. Oh, no.” He carefully rolled it back up to put it away, hands moving with the care one might see reserved for a religious icon. When his humble cache of belongings was intact, he appeared to grapple with words, searching for precisely the right ones.
“Ebene … opens doors for us. As you would walk from this room to that” — his finger traced a path to the bathroom — ”so ebene is for our spirits. We see a wider world when we use it. Sometimes it allows us to meet our hekura. Personal demons is what you would call them. Sometimes they come to live in our chests. The missionaries all hate ebene. Except for one, and he came even to use it himself.”
For the next several minutes, Justin and April sat spellbound as he told them of the life and death of an American missionary named Angus Finnegan, who eventually became far more like the Yanomamö than they became like him.
“Padre Angus came to believe the things about us that the other missionaries laughed at. Or hated and said were lies. He came to believe in the noreshi.” He touched Justin and April in turn on the arms, then himself. “You — and you — and me, we each have the noreshi inside. Our spirit animal. There are times
when I must know something and I am not wise enough to see. With ebene, my spirit-hawk and I become one. The hawk is wiser and shows to me the answer.”
Justin found himself nodding right along, neither swallowing every line nor disbelieving. Keeping that vital open mind. But this was certainly no more bizarre than the things he knew he had seen. Tame stuff, by comparison.
“But your people,” he said, pointing to them both, “don’t remember about the noreshi. They never knew. They have forgotten too much.”
This Justin couldn’t deny. When you have the memories of generations woven into your heritage, you know where you stand in the scheme of things. Solidly connected to past and future. Sometimes he felt so rootless. Bereft of an unshakable identity.
The eagle. That was you. Kerebawa’s words from last night.
Memories of childhood, grade-school Justin. He had doodled a lot, at home and in class. Compelled to keep his little hands busy. He remembered that he’d doodled scores of eagles. Legions of them, in flight or perched majestically atop rocky crags. At least to his burgeoning imagination they’d looked majestic. He had even done some early science project on eagles, magazine pictures cut and pasted into a folder, text carefully hand lettered.
He’d not thought of that fascination for years. Maybe he hadn’t forgotten the noreshi completely. Maybe he had known in some intuitive way. As a child, when it’s easy to accept the hidden relationships between living things as natural, before learning to scoff as an adult.
Maybe you drink to remember. April, on Davis Island.
Perhaps she had slammed the truth right on its head. He hoped. It would mean that his life wasn’t quite as pointless as he sometimes feared. That he wasn’t as rootless as he thought.
“But even when the noreshi is forgotten,” Kerebawa went on, “it still is there, deep inside. Buried. The other green powder … it digs it out.”
Justin and April looked at each other. Now they were getting down to the real dirty business.