The Jaguar Hunter

by The Jaguar Hunter (v5. 5) (epub)

  Toward four o’clock dark thunderheads muscled up from behind the volcano, drops of cold rain spattered down, and they retreated into the bar. Lisa did not intend to get drunk, but she found herself drinking to Richard’s rhythm. He would nurse each beer for a while, shearing away the label with his thumbnail; once the label had been removed he would empty the bottle in a few swallows and bring them a couple more. After four bottles she was tipsy, and after six walking to the bathroom became an adventure in vertigo. Once she stumbled against the only other customer, a long-haired guy left over from the morning crowd, and caused him to spill his drink. “My pleasure,” he said when she apologized, leering, running his hands along her hips as he pushed her gently away. She wanted to pose a vicious comeback, but was too fuddled. The bathroom served to make her drunker. It was a chamber of horrors, a hole in the middle of the floor with a ridged footprint on either side, scraps of brown paper strewn about, dark stains everywhere, reeking. There was a narrow window that—if she stood on tiptoe—offered a view of two volcanoes and the lake. The water mirrored the grayish-black of the sky. She stared through the smeared glass, watching waves pile in toward shore, and soon she realized that she was staring at the scene with something like longing, as if the storm held a promise of resolution. By the time she returned to the bar, the bartender had lit three kerosene lamps; they added a shabby glory to the place, casting rich gleams along the countertop and gemmy orange reflections in the windowpanes. Richard had brought her a fresh beer.

  “They might not come, what with the rain,” he said.

  “Maybe not.” She downed a swallow of beer, beginning to like its sour taste.

  “Probably for the best,” he said. “I’ve been thinking, and I’m sure he was setting us up for a robbery.”

  “You’re paranoid. If he were going to rob us, he’d pick a spot where there weren’t any soldiers.”

  “Well, he’s got something in mind…though I have to admit that was a clever story he told. All that stuff about his own doubts tended to sandbag any notion that he was hustling us.”

  “I don’t believe he was hustling us. Maybe he’s deluded, but he’s not a criminal.”

  “How the hell could you tell that?” He picked at a stubborn fleck of beer label. “Feminine intuition? God, he was only here a few minutes.”

  “You know,” she said angrily, “I deserve that. I’ve been buying that whole feminine intuition chump ever since we were married. I’ve let you play the intelligent one, while I”—she affected a Southern accent and a breathy voice—“I just get these little flashes. I swear I don’t know where they come from, but they turn out right so often I must be psychic or somethin’. Jesus!”

  “Lisa, please.”

  He looked utterly defeated, but she was drunk and sick of all the futile effort and she couldn’t stop. “Any idiot could’ve seen that Dowdy was just a nice, weird little guy. Not a threat! But you had to turn him into a threat so you could feel you were protecting me from dangers I was too naïve to see. What’s that do for you? Does it wipe out the fact that I’ve been unfaithful, that I’ve walked all over your self-respect? Does it restore your masculine pride?”

  His face worked, and she hoped he would hit her, punctuate the murkiness of their lives with a single instance of shock and clarity. But she knew he wouldn’t. He relied on his sadness to defeat her. “You must hate me,” he said.

  She bowed her head, her anger emptying into the hollow created by his dead voice. “I don’t hate you. I’m just tired.”

  “Let’s go home. Let’s get it over with.”

  She glanced up, startled. His lips were thinned, a muscle clenching in his jaw.

  “We can catch a flight tomorrow. If not tomorrow, the next day. I won’t try to hold you anymore.”

  She was amazed by the panic she felt; she couldn’t tell if it resulted from surprise, the kind you feel when you haven’t shut the car door properly and suddenly there you are, hanging out the side, unprepared for the sight of the pavement flowing past; or if it was that she had never really wanted freedom, that all her protest had been a means of killing boredom. Maybe, she thought, this was a new tactic on his part, and then she realized that everything between them had become tactical. They played each other without conscious effort, and their games bordered on the absurd. To her further amazement she heard herself say in a tremulous voice, “Is that what you want?”

  “Hell, no!” He smacked his palm against the table, rattling the bottles. “I want you! I want children, eternal love…all those dumb bullshit things we wanted in the beginning! But you don’t want them anymore, do you?”

  She saw how willingly she had given him an opening in which to assert his masculinity, his moral position, combining them into a terrific left hook to the heart. Oh Jesus, they were pathetic! Tears started from her eyes, and she had a dizzying sense of location, as if she were looking up from a well-bottom through the strata of her various conditions. Drunk, in a filthy bar, in Guatemala, shadowed by volcanoes, under a stormy sky, and—spanning it all, binding it all together—the strange webs of their relationship.

  “Do you?” He frowned at her, demanding that she finish the game, speak her line, admit to the one verity that prevented them from ever truly finishing—her uncertainty.

  “I don’t know,” she answered; she tried to say it in a neutral tone, but it came out hopeless.

  The storm’s darkness passed, and true darkness slipped in under cover of the final clouds. Stars pricked out above the rim of the volcano. The food in the bar was greasy—fried fish, beans, and a salad that she was afraid to eat (stains on the lettuce)—but eating steadied her, and she managed to start a conversation about their recent meals. Remember the weird Chinese place in Mérida, hot sauce in the Lobster Cantonese? Or what had passed for crepes at their hotel in Zihuatanejo? Things like that. The bartender hauled out a portable record player and put on an album of romantic ballads sung by a man with a sexy voice and a gaspy female chorus; the needle kept skipping, and finally, with an apologetic smile and a shrug, the bartender switched it off. It came to be seven-thirty, and they talked about Dowdy not showing, about catching the eight o’clock boat. Then there he was. Standing in the door next to a tiny, shrunken old man, who was leaning on a cane. He was deeply wrinkled, skin the color of weathered mahogany, wearing grungy white trousers and a gray blanket draped around his shoulders. All his vitality seemed to have collected in an astounding shock of thick white hair that—to Lisa’s drunken eyes—looked like a white flame licking up from his skull.

  It took the old man almost a minute to hobble the length of the room, and a considerable time thereafter to lower himself, wheezing and shaking, into a chair. Dowdy hauled up another chair beside him; he had washed the dye from his beard, and his hair was clean, free of feathers. His manner, too, had changed. He was no longer breezy, but subdued and serious, and even his grammar had improved.

  “Now listen,” he said. “I don’t know what Murciélago will say to you, but he’s a man who speaks his mind and sometimes he tells people things they don’t like to hear. Just remember he bears you no ill will and don’t be upset. All right?”

  Lisa gave the old man a reassuring smile, not wanting him to think that they were going to laugh; but upon meeting his eyes all thought of reassuring him vanished. They were ordinary eyes. Dark; wet-looking under the lamplight. And yet they were compelling—like an animal’s eyes, they radiated strangeness and pulled you in. They made the rest of his ruined face seem irrelevant. He muttered to Dowdy.

  “He wants to know if you have any questions,” said Dowdy.

  Richard was apparently as fascinated by the old man as was Lisa; she had expected him to be glib and sardonic, but instead he cleared his throat and said gravely, “I’d like to hear about how the world’s changing.”

  Dowdy repeated the question in Cakchiquel, and Murciélago began to speak, staring at Richard, his voice a gravelly whisper. At last he made a slashing gesture, signaling that
he was finished, and Dowdy turned to them. “It’s like this,” he said. “The world is not one but many. Thousands upon thousands of worlds. Even those who do not have the power of clear sight can perceive this if they consider the myriad realities of the world they do see. It’s easiest to imagine the thousands of worlds as different-colored lights all focused on a single point, having varying degrees of effectiveness as to how much part they play in determinin’ the character of that point. What’s happenin’ now is that the strongest light—the one most responsible for determinin’ this character—is startin’ to fade and another is startin’ to shine bright and dominate. When it has gained dominance, the old age will end and the new begin.”

  Richard smirked, and Lisa realized that he had been putting the old man on. “If that’s the case,” he said snottily, “then…”

  Murciélago broke in with a burst of harsh, angry syllables.

  “He doesn’t care if you believe him,” said Dowdy. “Only that you understand his words. Do you?”

  “Yes.” Richard mulled it over. “Ask him what the character of the new age will be.”

  Again, the process of interpretation.

  “It’ll be the first age of magic,” said Dowdy. “You see, all the old tales of wizards and great beasts and warriors and undyin’ kings, they aren’t fantasy or even fragments of a distant past. They’re visions, the first unclear glimpses seen long ago of a future that’s now dawnin’. This place, Lake Atitlán, is one of those where the dawn has come early, where the light of the new age shines the strongest and its forms are visible to those who can see.” The old man spoke again, and Dowdy arched an eyebrow. “Hmm! He says that because he’s tellin’ you this, and for reasons not yet clear to him, you will be more a part of the new age than the old.”

  Richard gave Lisa a nudge under the table, but she chose to ignore it. “Why hasn’t someone noticed this change?” he asked.

  Dowdy translated and in a moment had a response. “Murciélago says he has noticed it, and asks if you have not noticed it yourself. For instance, have you not noticed the increased interest in magic and other occult matters in your own land? And surely you must have noticed the breakdown of systems, economies, governments. This is due to the fact that the light that empowered them is fadin’, not to any other cause. The change comes slowly. The dawn will take centuries to brighten into day, and then the sorrows of this age will be gone from the memories of all but those few who have the ability to draw upon the dawnin’ power and live long in their mortal bodies. Most will die and be reborn. The change comes subtly, as does twilight change to dusk, an almost imperceptible merging of light into dark. It will be noticed and it will be recorded. Then, just as the last age, it will be forgotten.”

  “I don’t mean to be impertinent,” said Richard, giving Lisa another nudge, “but Murciélago looks pretty frail. He can’t have much of a role to play in all this.”

  The old man rapped the floor with his cane for emphasis as he answered, and Dowdy’s tone was peeved. “Murciélago is involved in great struggles against enemies whose nature he’s only beginnin’ to discern. He has no time to waste with fools. But because you’re not a total fool, because you need instruction, he will answer. Day by day his power grows, and at night the volcano is barely able to contain his force. Soon he will shed this frailty and flow between the forms of his spirit. He will answer no more of your questions.” Dowdy looked at Lisa. “Do you have a question?”

  Murciélago’s stare burned into her, and she felt disoriented, as insubstantial as one of the gleams slipping across his eyes. “I don’t know,” she said. “Yes. What does he think about us?”

  “This is a good question,” said Dowdy after consulting with Murciélago, “because it concerns self-knowledge, and all important answers relate to the self. I will not tell you what you are. You know that, and you have shame in the knowledge. What you will be is manifest, and soon you will know that. Therefore I will answer the question you have not asked, the one that most troubles you. You and the man will part and come together, part and come together. Many times. For though you are lovers, you are not true companions and you both must follow your own ways. I will help you in this. I will free the hooks that tear at you and give you back your natures. And when this is done, you and the man may share each other, may part and come together without sadness or weakness.”

  Murciélago fumbled for something under his blanket, and Dowdy glanced back and forth between Richard and Lisa. “He wants to make you a gift,” he said.

  “What kind of gift?” asked Richard.

  “A gift is not known by its name,” Dowdy reminded him. “But it won’t be a mystery for long.”

  The old man muttered again and stretched out a trembling hand to Richard; in his palm were four black seeds.

  “You must swallow them one at a time,” said Dowdy. “And as you do, he will channel his power through them.”

  Richard’s face tightened with suspicion. “It’s some sort of drug, right? Take four, and I won’t care what happens.”

  Dowdy reverted to his ungrammatical self. “Life is a drug, man. You think me and the ol’ boy are gonna get you high and boost your traveler’s checks. Shit! You ain’t thinkin’ clear.”

  “Maybe that’s exactly what you’re going to do,” said Richard stonily. “And I’m not falling for it.”

  Lisa slipped her hand into his. “They’re not going to hurt us. Why don’t you try it?”

  “You believe this old fraud, don’t you?” He disengaged his hand, looking betrayed. “You believe what he said about us?”

  “I’d like to believe it,” she said. “It would be better than what we have, wouldn’t it?”

  The lamplight flickered, and a shadow veered across his face. Then the light steadied, and so it seemed did he. It was as if the orange glow were burning away eleven years of wrong-thinking, and the old unparanoid sure-of-himself Richard was shining through. Christ, she wanted to say, you’re really in there!

  “Aw, hell! He who steals my purse steals only forty cents on the dollar, right?” He plucked the seeds from Murciélago’s hand, picked one up, and held it to his mouth. “Anytime.”

  Before letting Richard swallow the seeds, Murciélago sang for a while. The song made Lisa think of a comic fight in a movie, the guy carrying on a conversation in between ducking and throwing punches, packing his words into short, rushed phrases. Murciélago built it to a fierce rhythm, signaled Richard, and grunted each time a seed went down, putting—Lisa thought—some magical English on it.

  “God!” said Richard afterward, eyes wide with mock awe. “I had no idea! The colors, the infinite harmony! If only…” He broke it off and blinked, as if suddenly waking to an unaccustomed thought.

  Murciélago smiled and gave out with a growly humming noise that Lisa assumed was a sign of satisfaction. “Where are mine?” she asked.

  “It’s different for you,” said Dowdy. “He has to anoint you, touch you.”

  At this juncture Richard would normally have cracked a joke about dirty old men, but he was gazing out the window at shadowy figures on the street. She asked if he were okay, and he patted her hand. “Yeah, don’t worry. I’m just thinking.”

  Murciélago had pulled out a bottle of iodine-colored liquid and was dipping his fingers into it, wetting the tips. He began to sing again—a softer, less hurried song with the rhythm of fading echoes—and Dowdy had Lisa lean forward so the old man wouldn’t have to strain to reach her. The song seemed to be all around her, turning her thoughts slow and drifty. Callused brown fingers trembled in front of her face; the calluses were split, and the splits crusted with grime. She shut her eyes. The fingers left wet, cool tracks on her skin, and she could feel the shape he was tracing. A mask. Widening her eyes, giving her a smile, drawing curlicues on her cheeks and forehead. She had the idea that he was tracing the conformation of her real face, doing what the lamplight had done for Richard. Then his fingers brushed her eyelids. There was a stinging sens
ation, and dazzles exploded behind her eyes.

  “Keep ’em shut,” advised Dowdy. “It’ll pass.”

  When at last she opened them, Dowdy was helping Murciélago to his feet. The old man nodded but did not smile at her as he had with Richard; from the thinned set of his mouth she took it that he was either measuring her or judging his work.

  “That’s all, folks!” said Dowdy, grinning. “See? No dirty tricks, nothin’ up his sleeve. Just good ol’ newfangled stick-to-your-soul magic.” He waved his arms high like an evangelist. “Can you feel it, brothers and sisters? Feel it wormin’ its way through your bones?”

  Richard mumbled affirmatively. He seemed lost in himself, studying the pattern of rips his thumb had scraped on the label of the beer bottle, and Lisa was beginning to feel a bit lost herself. “Do we pay him anything?” she asked Dowdy; her voice sounded small and metallic, like a recorded message.

  “There’ll come a day when the answer’s Yes,” said Dowdy. “But not now.” The old man hobbled toward the door, Dowdy guiding him by the arm.

  “Goodbye,” called Lisa, alarmed by their abrupt exit.

  “Yeah,” said Dowdy over his shoulder, paying more attention to assisting Murciélago. “See ya.”

  They were mostly silent while waiting for the launch, limiting their conversation to asking how the other was doing and receiving distracted answers; and later, aboard the launch, the black water shining under the stars and the motor racketing, their silence deepened. They sat with their hips pressed together, and Lisa felt close to Richard; yet she also felt that the closeness wasn’t important; or if it was, it was of memorial importance, a tribute to past closeness, because things were changing between them. That, too, she could feel. Old postures were being redefined, webs were tearing loose, shadowy corners of their souls were coming to light. She knew this was happening to Richard as well as to herself, and she wondered how she knew, whether it was her gift to know these things. But the first real inkling she had of her gift was when she noticed that the stars were shining different colors—red, yellow, blue, and white—and there were pale gassy shapes passing across them. Clouds, she realized. Very high clouds that she would not ordinarily have seen. The sight frightened her, but a calm presence inside her would not admit to fright; and this presence, she further realized, had been there all along. Just like the true colors of the stars. It was her fearful self that was relatively new, an obscuring factor, and it—like the clouds—was passing. She considered telling Richard, but decided that he would be busy deciphering his gift. She concentrated on her own, and as they walked from the pier to the hotel, she saw halos around leaves, gleams coursing along electrical wires, and opaque films shifting over people’s faces.