Black Horse and Other Strange Stories

by Wyckoff, Jason A.

  ‘Hola!’

  ‘Yeah?’ Hank answered roughly.

  A pause, then: ‘English?’

  ‘Yeah!’ Hank clarified: ‘American!’

  ‘Do you have coffee?’

  The two men inside the tent looked at each other. Hank frowned; Barclay could tell Hank was displeased with the look of twisting panic Barclay could not hope to hide.

  ‘No coffee!’ Hank called.

  The rain pattered lightly, indifferently.

  ‘This guy drink it all?’ came the gentle mocking from outside the tent.

  Hank rose and took four heavy paces across the tent. Barclay scrambled to his feet, grabbing at the edge of the table. The table teetered on unstable legs and the plastic crate shifted.

  Hank pulled the zipper of the tent flap up halfway and backed towards his corner.

  ‘Come in!’ he commanded.

  Barclay snatched up the cover for the crate and hurriedly snapped it into place.

  The zipper moved further up. Pudgy brown hands peeled back the tent flap. A squat, rotund Hispanic man eased into the tent. He pushed the hood of his dull green poncho back to reveal pock-scarred but jovial cheeks pushed wide by a yellow smile under an untrimmed black moustache. Thinning hair lay matted against a wet scalp. The poncho billowed out in stains and small tears over a body surprisingly copious given its limited height. Faded jeans and mud-caked boots peeked like loosened roots from beneath.

  The man wiggled bushy eyebrows. ‘Any coffee?’

  Hank inched forward. ‘I said before: No coffee.’

  ‘Yeah, but…’ the man nodded backwards toward the dark, ‘that was before.’

  Barclay swallowed. He cringed at his weak, breaking voice. ‘I could make some coffee.’

  Hank scowled at him. ‘Yeah, why don’t you do that.’

  The man clapped his hands together and rubbed them enthusiastically. ‘Good! Good! We shall have coffee together. Such a night is no good for walking without some warmth in your belly. Ah!’ The man expressed delight at the sight of a folding stool. He rotated down to grab it and moved it beneath his bulk. He eased down; the stool, his faded jeans, and all but the soles of his mud-caked boots disappeared as the poncho brushed the ground.

  Barclay stood as though frozen, bent forward at the waist. Only his hands moved, twitching, trembling. The man lifted an eyebrow at him, jolting Barclay from his stasis. ‘Yes! The coffee!’ He spun suddenly and kicked over a small stack of sifting screens. His next step put one foot directly in the middle of one of the wooden frames and through the screen. Barclay tried to shake it free from his foot but the mesh caught on his pant-leg and seemed to crawl further up his calf with each effort. Hank’s right hand clenched down on Barclay’s leg just above the knee. The other pulled the wooden frame free and tossed it to the corner.

  Barclay stammered between thanks and apology. Hank let go of Barclay’s leg and straightened to look his partner in the eye. Barclay turned away and busied himself with the coffee. He poured too much water in a beaker; it sloshed to either side so that the glass was half empty by the time he set it on the hot plate. Barclay turned a dial and pushed the igniter. It cracked four times beneath his thumb before finally sparking. Barclay looked up embarrassedly from his fumbling towards the man in the corner. He was greeted by a thin, uneven smile tilted to one side as the man’s head lolled on a prodigiously fleshy neck.

  ‘Where do you think we are, eh?’

  ‘Look, mister—,’ Hank started.

  ‘Ruis! You may call me Ruis. And I know this area well, very well, yes, but even Ruis can get lost in the dark, eh? Ah! But to be lost on a borderland, eh? It is not so good, I think.’

  ‘We are still in Ecuador.’

  ‘Still! You are still in Ecuador. But it depends on who you ask, yes? Wait a few years and see! El Cordilla del Condor—imagine, trying to set a border with an area named for a bird. What is the border for the bird, right?’ Ruis laughed and his whole body bounced. He directed at Barclay: ‘You know the Cenepa War, amigo?’

  Barclay was familiar with border dispute between Ecuador and Peru, but he felt struck dumb by the intrusion of this strange interloper and could not answer.

  Hank intervened, ‘We know our history. And we know where we are.’

  Barclay moaned indistinctly. Their global positioning system had ceased to function two days prior; at best Hank was being optimistic in his estimation, if not completely dishonest.

  ‘Ah yes. You are still in Ecuador. Which means you will go back the way you came, eh? Back through Ecuador, back to the capital, to the policia?’ Ruis’s eyes flashed to the small table and the crate atop it. ‘Through customs, yes? Honest Americans.’ He smiled showily as though the last statement was the conclusion of a lengthy appraisal.

  Barclay’s head swam. There was a dead man outside their tent. A desire for the archaeologists not to involve the police was an obvious inference for Ruis; but why would he be suspicious of their find? How could he know what was in the crate, which had lain undisturbed in the soil for centuries?

  Barclay found his voice; he barked, ‘Why are you here?’

  Ruis lifted a hand and pointed one pudgy finger. Barclay thought first that the fat man was pointing at the crate. Then he realised the denoted object was the beaker of water behind him beginning to boil. Barclay’s resolve weakened and he set to the menial and familiar task, spooning out coffee into the press, pouring the water over, and setting the plunger on top.

  ‘Very good. If you had instant coffee I would have thought you are savages.’ Ruis sighed happily and slapped his hands against the sides of his poncho. ‘Now we wait.’

  ‘Answer him.’ Hank sat on his bunk with an arm tucked behind him.

  ‘Eh?—Ah! Why am I here? I walk! I walk all over. You may not think so, eh?’ Ruis indicated his bulk. ‘Tonight, I get a little lost. Something calls me this way, I think. I hear a donkey complaining. I see a tent. Ah—then I see a man so sleepy nothing wake him up!’ Ruis roared with laughter.

  Hank shifted slightly on his bunk.

  ‘I am sorry. What do they say—too soon?’ Ruis laughed again. He lifted his eyes and raised his palms upwards. He swivelled slightly in his seat. ‘But why here? This land where nobody goes and nothing happens? Such a busy place! Where nations fight for the spoils!’ Ruis’s belly shook with guffaws between each statement. When the last laugh eased away, Ruis leaned forward. His face seemed to darken. ‘Why, I hear tell even the conquistadors were known to visit.’

  Barclay blanched and began to swoon. His legs quivered.

  ‘Conquistadors with their dreams of gold, eh?’ the fat man continued in a husky purr, ‘Pizarro’s little company can conquer a nation, but here the Spaniards turn back. So here is the border—both for the great Incan empire and for the pale gods who come across an ocean to rule it. Until brother turns on brother and the empire crumbles under their tutelage of greed. But here is the outland where no one takes notice and the balance of justice is buried by time.’

  Barclay collapsed to his knees. He tried to pretend he stooped to pour the coffee. He didn’t dare pick up the cups. His two hands could barely manage the press; he pushed too forcefully and grounds swam freely.

  ‘You English is very good, Senor Ruis,’ noted Hank, ‘by turns.’

  Ruis smiled. He reached down through the torn neck of his poncho to grab something underneath. Hank stiffened. A lump moved up the front of the fat man’s poncho. Ruis slowly withdrew something hanging from a cord around his neck, a small brown thing the size of an apple. He twirled the cord to rotate the object.

  Barclay yelped. A small, brown face stared at him from the end of the cord. The eyes and mouth were sewn shut crudely; the nose was upturned and protruding. A tangle of dirty, brown hair bloomed from the scalp. Black ash highlighted the cracks in the leathered skin. Three thin braids of stiff string dangled from the chin.

  ‘Shrunken head,’ Hank stated flatly.

  ‘Tsantsa,’ Ruis corrected. �
�World famous and mostly fraudulent! But not my companion, no. He is real—made according to Schuar tradition. Again, I must say—such a sleepy borderland, eh?’ The tsantsa danced as Ruis laughed. He covered the stitched lids of the totem with his free hand. ‘Nothing to see here!’

  Barclay saw anger swelling behind Hank’s eyes at every broad-mouthed laugh from the fat intruder. He wondered what Hank held behind him.

  Ruis let the shrunken head drop carelessly onto his stomach. ‘Do you know why the Schuar made these wonderful ornaments?’

  ‘To trap souls,’ Barclay answered.

  Ruis nodded. ‘To trap the muisak—the angry soul of the slain. If you keep his soul stuck there in his little head you control it; most important—you keep it from coming after you!’ Ruis punctuated the last word with a poke towards Barclay.

  ‘Trapped,’ Barclay whispered.

  Ruis nodded again. ‘Even so, it was an honour reserved only for those fallen in battle. For the angry spirit has the greatest power. So it is the one most worthy of possession.’ Ruis flashed his eyes towards the tent wall in the direction where Barclay knew their dead guide lay on the ground.

  Hank sneered. ‘You’re here for Pacha?’

  ‘Him?’ Ruis jutted a thumb. ‘He’s only sleeping!’ He cupped a hand to his mouth and called, ‘Hey! Hey, you! Wake up!’

  Barclay couldn’t help but listen with equal measures of terror and hope. The wind whistled distantly.

  ‘Come on, lazybones!’ Ruis went on, ‘Get up already! Wake up!’

  ‘Stop it!’ Hank hissed.

  Barclay felt sure he heard a low, hollow tone under the whistling wind, an exhale, a groan. Then came a nervous bray from the donkey and a shuffle of hooves.

  Ruis read his face and smiled. ‘Not long now.’

  Hank rose halfway from his bunk. ‘Get out. Get out now.’

  Ruis opened his hands in submission. ‘I will be on my way, I promise. After coffee.’

  Barclay had forgotten completely. Automatically he retrieved the cups. He stepped towards Ruis and surprised himself by not spilling a drop of the contaminated brew on the ground as he handed their guest a cup. Then Barclay withdrew and handed another cup to Hank, who scowled as he accepted and re-settled on his perch. Barclay raised his own cup and scorched his lip. But the hot liquid easing through his throat and down to his stomach brought him some small comfort, some centred sense of self. He felt a sudden appreciation for the strange man in his tent who suggested the pleasing distraction.

  ‘Maybe we can sit in silence,’ Hank suggested.

  Barclay didn’t hear him. ‘Are—are you really here to collect--?’ He couldn’t finish the question.

  ‘The Head?’ Ruis shrugged. ‘I could show you how it’s done. That would be something special for your expedition, eh, amigo? Then you could take him with you!’

  Barclay spat and coughed as he tried to sip the coffee.

  ‘Bottoms up,’ Hank said. Barclay wasn’t sure if Hank was trying to speed Ruis on his way, or if he was making fun of Barclay’s fear-choked clumsiness.

  ‘Or maybe I am Pacha. Maybe I am his ghost.’

  Barclay answered in a hushed tone, as though he thought it necessary to weigh the possibility and endeavour to find the flaw behind it, ‘You don’t look like Pacha.’

  Another shrug. ‘Who says a ghost has to look like the body it fell out of? And if I am an angry spirit—well, that might just mean Pacha has a lot of anger!’ Ruis slapped his belly with his free hand and guffawed. ‘Can you blame him?’

  ‘Maybe we can sit in silence!’ Barclay growled.

  Ruis scooped his cup to his lips primly in mock acquiescence.

  Barclay again failed to abide. ‘I don’t believe you.’ He didn’t even convince himself.

  Ruis pursed his lips and furrowed his brow. ‘Eh. Perhaps I am somebody else’s ghost. Perhaps I am the ghost of the conquistador you dug up and stuffed in that box.’

  Barclay dropped his cup. Hank stood bolt upright. Barclay recognized the T-shaped metal rod in his hidden hand: a three-foot auger.

  ‘You son of a bitch!’ spat Hank.

  Ruis unconvincingly expressed surprise, ‘Oh, I guessed right?’

  Hank took one step forward and clasped his other hand on the auger. ‘Guessed! Hell. Now I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Are we not merely discussing possibilities?’

  Hank put one hand at the ‘T’ of the pin and reared back the metal probe. ‘How do you know what’s in the box, goddammit!’

  Ruis’s smile flattened. He leaned towards Hank. ‘There is no place in the world the greed of men cannot reach. Even here: where the Jibaro gave the conquistadors their fill—in molten gold poured down their throats.’

  The two men stared at each other. A drop of sweat stung Hank’s eye and the lid fluttered. Ruis raised his cup and drank meaningfully.

  Barclay lunged forward. His arms shot out in front of him and smacked the crate from the table. The lid flew free and the contents spilled out. Grey-blonde bones and mottled lumps of gold fell dully at Ruis’s hidden feet.

  ‘Take it!’ Barclay screamed.

  ‘You idiot!’ Hank hissed, ‘Don’t be hysterical!’

  ‘It’s cursed!’

  ‘It is gold,’ Ruis corrected. ‘It knows nothing of curses. Curses are for people. This fellow here,’ he kicked gently at the skull, ‘owns neither anymore. And, despite your generous offer, it is not mine, either. The gold is yours,’ he said to Barclay, then cocked his head and said to Hank, ‘or—yours.’

  Barclay shook his head. ‘Don’t try that. You can’t turn us against each other.’ He looked pleadingly at Hank, who returned a steely gaze.

  Ruis chuckled. ‘You are right, of course. That is beyond my power. Or—it is unnecessary. You ask me who I am?’ He grabbed the front of his poncho as though it were a lapel and puffed out his chest. ‘I am one who goes where there is something undecided, where a sword balances on its point; I wait where the first drop of fallen blood waits for the second.’

  Barclay shuddered: He could dismiss the idea of the rotund intruder as vengeful spirit—the man’s corpulence seemed an irreconcilable contrast—but it struck Barclay as unfortunately believable that his actions had summoned forth some elemental adjudicator from the primal jungle. What else could emerge from the dark in this lonely, mystic place? He could not deny that the drifting tension the two archaeologists had suffered in the tent swelled in Ruis’s presence; Barclay could swear that it saturated the air itself and caused the walls of the tent to bow outward. And the pressure it brought to bear on his head was ever amplifying, second to second.

  ‘Every claim you make is more ridiculous,’ sneered Hank.

  The light from the lantern dimmed suddenly; shadow fell across Ruis’s face. His smile disappeared. ‘Ah—the truth is obvious to you, si? The only plausible answer is that I am an enormous Latino walking through the jungle at night who accidentally happened upon your camp and knows everything you’ve done.’

  Panic seized Barclay. His mind raced without rein. Ruis’s dry remark exposed the unlikelihood of its truth. Barclay considered Ruis’s previous claim and wondered aloud, ‘When will you leave?’

  Ruis opened his arms compassionately. ‘But I am here to help! It is so hard to think at such a time, is it not? I see by your face you agree. You must! Your mind goes a mile a minute and gets nowhere—I know it all too well. You cannot follow. Not like your friend,’ he nodded towards Hank, ‘he is cool under pressure and he thinks things through. While you can only see fragments of a terrible future, he is weighing options and considering outcomes.’

  ‘Shut up,’ growled Hank.

  ‘What—what do you mean?’ Barclay shot a fearful glance at his companion.

  ‘Ah. Let us see. He thinks murder is hard to walk away from, even here. In fact, here you do not walk away from it at all—you have to hike away from it, many days, over rough terrain, with a donkey and a nervous wreck beside you. And the body you leav
e behind—do you put it in the hole where you found the skeleton, I wonder?—he was a muraiya guide, not some anonymous city urchin. It may seem there is no one to care when you are so far away from anyone at all, but you both know very well your guide would not go into the jungle without telling someone where he was going . . . and who he was going with. What will you say—that he stole from you, or that he abandoned you? Ah, but was it not his moral integrity that caused the conflict that led to his death? Those who knew him would know his character. So who would believe the story of two gringos with gold in their bags over that of a trusted friend? No, clearly it is better to avoid that lie. Better to avoid the authorities as much as possible, I think. You could go through Peru, but then you have to explain why you didn’t cross legally. Another problem! No, you cannot disclose your discovery here without those questions being asked. And you could not smuggle the skeleton without disgracing yourselves in your field and arousing even more suspicion back home! Besides, you would have to forfeit the gold. The gold! Ah! You want the gold!’ Ruis rubbed his hands enthusiastically. ‘It would be easier to smuggle without the skeleton, si? There would be some compensation at least, for all your troubles. Tell me,’ he turned towards Barclay, ‘what do you think is a fair split? I mean, it seems as though you have suffered more. Should you not get more?’

  Barclay couldn’t help but think of his wife and his daughter, those motivating factors that caused him to behave so irrationally in the first place.

  Hank broke in on his thoughts, ‘Barclay, don’t listen to him. He is trying to play upon your fears. We have to stick together.’