by Marc Laidlaw
All the subconscious power he’d wasted on worry, diverted to thoughts of Lupe and his own survival, now came rushing back free and clear. It was as if a lever had been thrown, switching his mind to full power. He could think of no better use for the fresh energy than drawing. He didn’t need to fish for ideas, either. Dozens of them had been wriggling morbidly away in the back of his head, sprung from the text of Scott’s novel. So he had pulled out the dogeared manuscript, refreshed himself with the first few pages, then set to work.
The sound of footsteps on the landing above didn’t distract him for more than a second, nor did the murmur of voices. It was one of Ryan’s friends, or someone from the party next door.
The next thing he knew, the footsteps were right over his head, as he worked at the desk in the closet. He found himself hesitating, listening as they paused on the landing outside his door.
Someone knocked, and Ryan peered in. “Hey, a friend of yours is here.”
It must not be Edgar or he would have said so. Puzzled, Mike put the pencil down and went to the door.
The hall was dark. He didn’t recognize the kid at Ryan’s shoulder, even when he stepped toward the light.
“I don’t—”
A silver gleam stopped the words in his throat. The boy held one hand up, offering the key. “I thought you might want this.”
Mike abruptly grasped that everything he believed was based not on truth, but on desire; his world was a fake. One moment, believing one thing about this world, he’d been frigid with terror; the next moment, believing something far more insubstantial, he’d felt relaxed and vigorous. How was he supposed to feel now?
Ryan was already halfway down the stairs, leaving them alone. He called back, “Show’s just getting good, I gotta hurry!”
Mike stood facing the stranger. The boy? Lupe.
He took a step back before the other stepped forward. Lupe came into the room, holding the key ahead of him. He brushed the door, closing it quietly behind him.
“You can have it back,” he said.
In the brighter light, among the painted hills, Mike could only stare. Not a boy after all, it seemed. Not quite a man either. It was hard to be sure about anything. The sharp, unpleasant smell of sage flowers filled the room—it was stronger than the animal smell of sweat. Lupe’s face was round and smooth, full-cheeked, dark Spanish eyes set in nut-brown skin, swept by dark oily hair that looked freshly combed. He had the body of a pioneer—one who had hiked ten thousand miles, cut down sequoias in the North woods, broken boulders with his hands. But it just didn’t go with that babyish face. The voice was especially wrong.
“Go on,” he said, soft and fluting. “Take it.”
Mike reached out automatically, desperate to regain the stupid key that had started all this. As his fingers closed on the tiny bit of metal, he felt much more than that pressed into his hand. Lupe grabbed his wrist, seized it tightly, and forced his fingers closed around something he couldn’t see, but which he knew by feel.
It hadn’t been that long, after all, since he’d held the other hand grenade.
He managed to choke back words, knowing they would only get him into trouble and solve nothing now.
Lupe worked quickly. He had a length of string, thick scratchy jute, which he wound around and around Mike’s hand and the grenade, binding them together. Mike waited like a spectator to see what would happen next.
“Okay,” Lupe said, apparently finished. Without releasing Mike’s wrist, he turned the hand palm-upward, as if showing off his workmanship. He had left the trigger free. Now he curled Mike’s fingers around it, forcing them down tight.
“Don’t let go,” he said, as he pulled out the pin. “You see how I tied it? You can’t throw it away now. And you can’t untie it without letting go, not one-handed anyway, not till I put the pin back in.”
“Please . . .”
“You’ll be fine.” He held up the pin, grinning. “I’ll give this back, too, when we’re in a better place.”
“What—what did I ever—” Mike’s voice rose to a high-pitched shriek until Lupe clamped a hand over his mouth and put the pin to his lips.
“Shhh. You don’t want to go making a lot of noise.”
Mike backed toward the window. Lupe didn’t stop him. The key lay on the floor between them. The disco music thudded steadily, but he could hardly hear it over his heartbeat. For an instant his mother’s laughter pierced the spell. He looked down at his hand. It was white as marble, and shaking. If he relaxed his grip, the room would vanish; a huge hole would appear as if by magic. This house, and probably those on either side, would be destroyed. His mother, Jack, Ryan downstairs—how many would die in addition to himself? All for the sake of killing Lupe.
Lupe grinned at him, tossing his head toward the moon wall. “I like this a lot. You did it?”
Mike tried to shake his head. It came out as more of a spasm.
Lupe looked disappointed. “No? But you’re an artist, right?”
Mike choked. “S-sometimes.”
“Only sometimes? You mean you can turn it on and off?” He shook his head. “I wish I could do that.”
Why isn’t he in jail? Mike thought, oblivious to Lupe’s words, remembering suddenly the news Ryan had brought, which he had relied on. Craig Frost’s killer . . . and now Sal’s, too. The cops were supposed to have him, but here he was.
Who was in jail, then? Who had really killed Craig and Sal?
Lupe spun the pin on his fingertip to catch Mike’s eyes.
“I’d like to stay longer, but I don’t want you thinking you can, you know . . . get away in there.”
He was looking at the painted hills. Get away how? Mike wondered.
Lupe started toward the door, then turned back abruptly, as if remembering Mike. He beckoned with the pin.
“Come on. You don’t want this getting away from you.”
Mike shook his head.
“Put on a jacket, something with pockets. It’s chilly. Fall’s on the way.”
Mike grabbed a sweatshirt. It was hard pulling it on one-handed; his swollen fist barely squeezed through the cuff. Lupe offered no help. His eyes were on the painted moon the whole time.
Lupe went behind him up the stairs and out onto the front porch. Men from the party were climbing into a car next door.
“Put your hand in your pocket,” Lupe said.
He could hardly move his arm; the elbow had locked up. His entire hand was numb. He couldn’t feel his fingers. What if they started opening?
They waited until the car pulled away, splashing them with light, then Lupe nudged him across the carport and into the street.
“Which way?” he asked.
“Up.”
Lupe walked beside him, up the hill and across the vacant lot where he had hid his first night in Shangri-La. Dry grass crackled around their legs, his shoes and cuffs caught in stickers. On either side, lights glowed in shaded windows, but no one looked out to see them pass. It had been the same on the night this all began: people safe in their homes, none knowing what went on outside.
In the middle of the lot, he wondered if Hawk’s boys were out here. Maybe Hawk himself was hiding in the shadows. But why would they, when everyone thought Lupe was in jail? It didn’t make sense. Who had they locked up for the murder of Sal Diaz, if not Lupe? Who else could have been mistaken for him?
It came to him then.
A cross, Ryan had said. A cross up the butt.
The cross was Hawk’s thing. If the cops found a cross on Sal’s body, Hawk would be their first suspect. Stories would come out about the night with the key and the shotgun, the avocado smear, and who knew what else?
Hawk was in jail.
He felt certain of it suddenly.
Lupe jabbed in him the ribs. He had stopped dead, there in the middle of the field. “Keep walking.”
So none of the One-Way Gang was here tonight, watching over him. With Hawk in jail, they were probably in hiding themsel
ves. Without a leader, they’d be helpless. The field was empty. No one would help him. His life wasn’t bait, or even a sacrifice. It was just going to be wasted.
He could hardly walk. He was without hope. At Lupe’s urging, they threaded their way between houses, emerging on the farthest street of Shangri-La. It was darker here, as always. The thought occurred to him that he would never live to see this neighborhood fill up.
Mike looked over at Sal’s house. It was completely dark tonight. He remembered Sal standing silhouetted in that doorway, shapes pouring out around him, one of them Lupe. He felt sick at the thought of Sal’s death. Because of him . . . yes? A stupid prank that backfired, bringing Hawk to the rescue, and now Sal’s death in order to distract the cops from Lupe.
My fault, all of it . . .
“Keep going.”
They crossed the street and clambered up the dirt bank. Lupe had to help him up the slippery slope. Glancing back from the top, he saw the neighborhood spread out behind him, the ramparts of houses facing the wilderness like little forts grouped together for safety on a hostile plain. From now on he was beyond their pale. He desperately hoped to see Hawk’s boys streaming across the street after him; hoped he was wrong about Hawk being in jail. But he knew he was right, and he saw nothing.
Lupe spread the barbed wire for him and he ducked through.
On the other side of the fence, they went on walking. His eyes adjusted slowly to the dark. Moonlight made the distances deceptive. Sometimes he thought he was on firm ground, but then he would step into a hole. Once he tripped and barely caught himself one-handed. He walked into bluffs and brambles. Lupe seemed to know the way intimately; he walked at Mike’s side and never stumbled. They moved in silence over the uneven ground, and the hill moon shone steadily down.
I’m alone, he thought. Hawk isn’t going to save me. Not now, not ever. No one is.
He’s going to—to kill me. He killed Craig Frost, didn’t he? Now he’s killed Sal. What chance do I have? I’m not nearly as tough as either of them.
In self-defense, Mike’s mind clenched like his fist. He would not think of the future, for that was only death. He would think of nothing but the urgency of each and every moment. He would survive this moment, and this one, and the next. That was all he could ask of himself. He wouldn’t try to look beyond the instant, wouldn’t wonder where Lupe was taking him, since there was no resisting anyway. The grenade was only one way Lupe controlled him; there were many more, subtler. The night—the entire universe—might have conspired to bring them here together.
Full moon. Blue-black sky. Hills rising and falling in the distance. It all looked artificial, and somehow familiar.
With growing certainty and little sense of shock, he realized that he was walking on the wall of his room.
Yes . . . it was so right.
He hadn’t left the house at all. The acid trip had never really ended. The strangeness wound on and on, carrying him to new levels. He had walked right into his bedroom wall. Lupe had stepped out of that hole gouged in the hills, right out of his nightmares, and dragged him up into a two-dimensional world. No wonder he couldn’t run or shout or even think. This wasn’t real! It was less than a dream; it was all taking place on a small, flat space. On the moon wall.
How fascinating to explore it finally. He had so often wondered how it would be to roam these hills, exploring unpainted canyons that only the painted moon could see. He and Lupe were the first through this place, apart from the artist. Now that he could see it for himself, it was a revelation.
He looked back from a ridge, before they started their descent into the canyon, and saw lights. They might have been streetlights, or windows in the farthest row of houses; but it seemed more likely they were seeping through the blinds in his room, falling on the wall from the party next door. As they started down, the painted hills rose up to hide his lights. The painted moon hung full overhead. He could hear the clock-radio on the nightstand by his bed; its rolling numbers crackled as they turned to midnight, making a sound like wind in weeds. If he could only penetrate the illusion for an instant, wake up enough to make out the dimensions of his room, then he would happily lapse back into unquestioning dreaming. But he couldn’t quite manage the trick. And sometimes, in a nightmare, even waking was a dream, proving nothing.
The trail followed a dry streambed that brambles gradually choked. Cactus fingers poked from dusty soil, moonlight glittering on the spines. The trail led steeply downward, seeking and then finding a deeper ravine to trace. At one hand was a sheer drop; at the other, gray cliffs rose up. Far ahead of them, the canyons opened into a broad darkness of fields and meadows where a thin silver stream lay peacefully gleaming in the moonlight. He hoped that might be their destination. It was beautiful.
Lupe stopped him with a word: “Here.”
Here, Mike thought. Here we are. Time to die now. Time to step off the wall and back into reality.
Then he looked up, and found he was on the wall after all. It was another false awakening.
Above the trail, partially hidden by bushes, was the mouth of a cave. The very cave Lupe had carved on his wall. Mike looked over at Lupe in surprise and saw a knife in his hand. Lupe pointed at the cave, making a stabbing gesture. Mike thought he was trying to enlarge the opening, gouging the moon wall still further.
He scrambled up a few yards of rugged sandstone, one hand flailing for balance, the other, throbbing, thrust deep in his sweatshirt pocket. He began to cough at the clouds of dust that rose. Lupe climbed up next to him, waited for the dust to settle.
“Give me your hand.”
Lupe fit the pin into the trigger, then slowly untied Mike’s hand. Needles pricked him as the blood worked slowly through the skin and through his joints. Even with the twine undone, he could not straighten his fingers. Lupe pried the grenade from his hand; the knuckles snapped as he forced them. Finished, Lupe dropped the grenade into his own pocket. He nudged Mike toward the darkness, relying on the knife now.
Ahead, there was no light for his eyes to grow used to. He found himself on a steep uphill slope; he kept stumbling and falling to his knees, several times thinking that he was about to slide or roll all the way to the bottom again. Each time, Lupe grabbed his arm and pulled him to his feet.
Once, when he fell, his half-clenched hand closed on a strange brittle shape, smaller and lighter than the grenade, and far more mysterious. He tried to understand it as he climbed. It felt capsule-shaped, about two inches long, an inch in diameter; the texture was that of brittle, compressed twigs. He realized that he was treading on more of the things, crunching them underfoot. He clung to it as he climbed, as if it were a talisman; besides, his hand was locked in the perfect shape to hold it, since his fingers still refused to uncurl.
Suddenly the slope leveled out. Misjudging a step, he fell face forward. They must have come nearly to the crown of the hills, high inside the cliff.
He got slowly to his knees, robbed of breath, dust in his mouth, clutching the capsule of twigs. Looking back, he saw a pale glimmer of moonlight far below; the cave’s entrance looked like a dead eye.
A match hissed. Light filled the chamber, flickering over smooth sandstone walls, hardly penetrating several black niches. In the choking dust, his eyes began to water and his nose to sting; he sneezed several times, then gasped for breath. He could smell wax and ashes and sweat, urine and rot and faint perfume. Lupe touched the match to a candle stub, which he set on a small rock shelf. As the light settled down, the shadows took up assigned places.
Glancing down at his hand, Mike saw a tiny fanged skull staring at him—if stare is the word for eyeless sockets—out of a dense mass of little crushed bones and clumps of matted fur. He dropped the pellet in the dust; many like it littered the powdery ledge. He brushed his hand clean, working to uncramp his fingers as he looked around.
Lupe had managed to find what was probably the only true cave in Bohemia Bay. It was deeper than any he’d ever dreamed could exi
st in these hills. All the “caves” he’d seen were merely shelves of rock, pocks in sandstone faces. Up here, the main chamber had a high, almost domed ceiling. Overhead, fifteen feet up the farthest wall, was a dark pocket full of shadow.
“Big old owl lives up there,” Lupe said, noting his interest. “Only he’s not here tonight.”
The chamber had numerous alcoves, recesses so dark they looked like doorways into other caves. Lupe must have been using some of them as toilets, judging from the rank, putrid smell. Only the coolness kept it bearable.
Pushed back against the middle of the far wall was a large green trunk with black letters stenciled over it: PENDLETON.
Stoner’s hand grenades, he realized. That whole trunk must be full of them.
The trunk was in use as a makeshift table, holding neat rows of pens and colored pencils, lined up next to a drawing tablet. Mike recognized his own materials.
“These were for you,” Lupe said. Mike found the “were” ominous. “I—I was going to have you draw my boys, all of us together. But then I remembered how I used to be pretty good at it myself. And I thought, well, why not? It’s been so long . . . I was rusty. If you don’t do it, you lose it, I guess. But I don’t know, they’re better than I thought I could do. Maybe I should have stayed with it. I mean, you’re an artist. What do you think?”
Lupe set the grenade on top of the trunk like a paperweight, took a stack of pages from underneath the tablet, and shyly handed them to Mike. He seemed timid in the face of a critic. Still, there was that knife.
Mike started to thumb quickly through the pages, nodding and making approving noises to calm Lupe. But when he realized what he was seeing, the urge to lie went out of him. There was no need.
The sketches, gritty with dirt from the cave, smeared by grimy hands, were very fine. Lupe had worked deftly in pencil, pen and ink, with only slight shadings of tint. He couldn’t help thinking of the sketches in Da Vinci’s notebooks, quick strokes that captured an essence of nature. The grubby, aged condition of the paper added to his sense that he was gazing at the works of an ancient master, idle scribblings in a genius’s notebook.