The next day, I awoke to a sea-blue sky with wisps of cloud feathered in the atmosphere. The early-morning dew glistened silvery off the grass, and the wind whistled through the high branches of durian trees as we ate our breakfast. I sat next to Uriah, who massaged his forehead with a finger.
“Another migraine?” I asked.
“A stinger,” he said. Uriah’s condition had worsened. His head had swollen noticeably. For those whose lives he had saved, the changes were sorely felt. We sat in silence eating until Des interrupted us, arriving with Seee’s orders to gather around The Pit.
I stared longingly at the runny scrambled eggs on my plate wondering if they would be the last thing I would eat. I touched my forehead with the back of my hand and felt my hot skin. The previous night I had woken in cold sweats, my body shaking with fever, joints aching. By morning, I knew I had contracted a flu, or perhaps something worse—yellow fever of malaria. Now, fear of the day welled up in me, and I felt as innocuous as a puffed-up rain frog. Sitting across from us, Grus said, “Well, I guess this is it.” He stood with a tin plate in one of his hands. “Maybe I’ll get picked today.”
“I have the same hope,” Uriah said, misinterpreting Grus’s hesitant tone. “But I don’t count the odds in my favor.”
“Why not?” Grus asked.
Uriah leaned over, and I saw the swell of his back, the hunched disfigurement, a tortoise-man stuck in a shell of discontent. Split had asked Seee to let Uriah leave the camp for a hospital. Seee agreed, on the condition that Uriah would accept. But Uriah refused, laughing at the notion of doctors, saying his pending fate no doctor could alter.
“Seee has already seen me with a sword,” Uriah said, returning to Grus’s question. “He seeks courage of those untested.”
“Maybe you’ll be picked,” I told him. “But maybe one of us won’t be as lucky as Split and Drake.”
A silence crept between us as Grus moved off. Uriah and I acted as old men playing chess, taking our time, thinking three moves ahead but with bodies three moves behind. We stood and walked slowly out of the woods to the clearing. Light pushed through the trees, stabbing us in the face. As it fell on Uriah, I had difficulty finding his true features. His face changed as dynamically as a growing child’s.
“At sunrise, I imagined my death,” Uriah said. “I let my sword drop and my head was lopped off.”
“What did it feel like?”
“A relief,” he joked. We both laughed at this, him licking the sides of his mouth with his lizard-like tongue to catch a string of drool running off his chin. He stared at me with the strange lopsided jaw as if he had more to say, but in the end he was content with silence. Gazing into his large dark eyes, he seemed to understand my thoughts. Imagining being him, my eyes saw a simple reason why he longed for The Pit. He put a crooked arm around me, and we edged into the clearing.
“Are you feeling okay, Isse?”
“I feel fine. Leave me be.”
He grabbed my bare arm. “You’re burning up.” He brought a hand up to my forehead and I brushed it away. “You can’t fight like this.”
“Maybe I won’t be called.”
“But maybe you will.”
“Then so be it,” I said. “Besides, what can be done about it?”
We walked for a ways as he thought this over. I loathed the silence, so I said, “Back to your death. Who killed you?”
“I don’t know. I normally don’t attach a face. I guess I wouldn’t mind if it was you.” I nodded. Putting my arm around him, I felt the mound of flesh between his shoulder blades, the hump a weight on him, noted its massive growth since our days of grappling near the river. He smiled, but then his face grew serious. “Are you meditating on your death?” he asked, as if this were of paramount importance.
“I am clasped in the hands of Fate no matter what happens.”
We reached The Pit, and Seee stood staring at us. Des, Merrill, and Kumo were draped by his side, each wearing fatigues and gray T-shirts. Merrill stared at us, arms folded at his waist, a pack of cigarettes rolled up in a sleeve. Uriah and I took our places in a semi-circle around the Laddered Pit. Finally, the Cannibal Crew arrived, and as they sought their spots within the circle, Des spoke. “Edward Conroy, please step forward.”
Conroy obeyed, stepping forward with arms rigid at his sides.
“Edward Conroy. Are you ready to prove yourself worthy in front of the eyes of these men?”
“I am,” he said.
“Do you honorably accept the challenge put forward to you?”
“I do.” Each man had been asked the question, but was there really a choice? It was Join, or Die.
“Isse Corvus, step forward,” Des ordered. Upon hearing this, Conroy caught my stare, and I was suddenly the archetype of nemesis.
I stepped forward. Des repeated the words to me, and with each question I echoed the same words as Conroy.
Seee then spoke. “With The Minutemen as witnesses, I hereby command you to fight with weapons of your choosing until one or both of you is dead.”
The men remained unmoved, but Uriah protested. “Sifu, why are we turning brother against brother?”
“Perhaps they would like to explain,” Seee answered.
Conroy quickly said, “I will admit I was sent here to report what was happening in this place.”
“But that’s not the whole of it, is it?” Seee said, deep-set eyes gleaming at Conroy. A coy smile lined his mocking lips, chiding us, as if to say, Brothers, I know all of your secrets, do not think to lie to me.
My eyes questioned him, asking, If you know, why have you kept me alive? I cleared my throat. Better to heave the boulder of fact rather than throw a rock of truth. I said, “My mission was to—”
“Reasons aren’t important!” Seee shouted, cutting the rope as I jumped from the gallows. Again, I questioned his intent. “Both of you have committed crimes against the camp, and a crime against The Abattoir is a crime against The Minutemen.”
“People don’t do this!” Conroy cried. “Pit agents against one another.”
“You aren’t an agent, Mr. Conroy. You are a mole, and pitting agents against one another is exactly what you signed up for. I’m not asking you to die. I’m asking you to fight. Are you a coward, Mr. Conroy?”
“You will kill me anyway,” Conroy said.
“I promise you I will not. For a man without hope has nothing to fight for.”
I gazed at Uriah, but his eyes darted from Conroy to Seee in a state of confusion. I said to him, “I admit what I have done, and I am sorry if I misled you. It is in the hands of Fate now, and I am willing to accept whatever hand might be dealt to me.”
Uriah reached up and cupped me around the ears. “Fate is not your master,” he said. “You are. I know your heart has turned. Go, and prove this to yourself.”
As I climbed wearily into The Pit, I gazed up at the sky and caught a glimpse of Briana. She glanced in my direction and tried to hide her tears. This broke my heart the most. Someone actually crying for me. The last person who’d dropped a tear for me was my brother, the afternoon he hijacked and beat me, yelling how badly I had fucked everything up with Dad. Tears stopped him from killing me, his weakness the strength of blood. Staring at me now was Seee, so much like my brother in both toughness and the stark way he looked at the world. Compared to them, I seemed like a winsome dreamer.
At that moment, I didn’t know how to react to Briana’s tears. A great need willed me to not be a disappointment. Then she lipped the words, “It was me,” and “I’m sorry.” So Burns hadn’t lied. I suppose I should have felt guilt over strangling the man, but it didn’t come.
I nodded at her, lipped, “It doesn’t matter.”
Behind her in the sky, a pale contrail spread out white and foamy across the blanched atmosphere. It appeared to be heading in a straight, vertical climb. But this wasn’t reality, only a misinterpreted viewpoint. I thought about Seee’s parable of Heaven and Hell, how the taste of the fr
uit from the Lushing Tree was simply a matter of perspective. Perhaps I had lost perspective. The original intent of assassinating Seee seemed clouded and obtuse. I couldn’t grasp any reason behind it beyond a promise, more to my father than to Pelletier, the act of unquestioned patriotism. How cruel it was I realized this now.
I stooped down onto my ankles and grabbed as much dirt as one hand could hold while Conroy climbed down. I closed my eyes and let the grains trickle through my fingers. Then I imagined my death—there in The Pit—Conroy darting into a flurry of offence, wearing me down with sweeping slashes, overhead strokes, riposting the scant offence I could offer, my parries losing force, and then his sword piercing my chest, deep into the flesh, tearing through muscle, shattering ribs—the pain a scourge, a cry galloping from deep within a body that hardly seemed my own. Eyes open on the wound, blood gushing onto the blade, my hands naturally float there to get it out—a quick glance down the shaft, higher up, near the hilt, I see my reflection in the steel.
Then Conroy places his foot on my chest, pulls out the sword, and I fall. He is over me with the blade, dark pupils merciless, blue irises rotating inside sandy sclera. He is Hercules coming to bring me back to the Underworld, my bushido death complete.
The grains withered in my palm, and I released them to the wind. I stood, caught Uriah’s eyes and nodded, then turned to face Conroy, already at the rack.
Conroy’s lips quivered. A tear streamed from an eye, and he swept it away quickly. My mind swam in tactics, and then Blue’s voice popped in my head quoting his hero, the old fighter, Iron Mike Tyson. Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. The air stretched, thinning with the coming moment.
My hands shook like brittle leaves about to blow off a branch. I mesmerized over the tiny fissures within my palms, rivers of fortune soon to run dry. I longed to burst into tears. I bit a lip and realized I was holding my breath.
I turned outward. The clouds above blew by in a trance, the contrail now melted, replaced by wispy sheets torn across the blue atmosphere. Green in the fluttering leaves of trees sharpened and then dulled. The locusts rattled their wings, bewitching the men. A million little horns screeching together. A discordant battle call. Life’s clock ticked down and neither of us would escape it.
Someone was going to die here and no one above us doubted it. The cold steel truth of it waited in the rack of weapons mounted on the rolling cart on the wall of The Pit. One of the blades held a secret, and I thought about which one it might be. I gazed up at the faces looking down. The men stayed rooted, eyes bulging as they counted down each ticking second, their hearts beating with muted anticipation. Where did their eyes drift, to Conroy or me?
I turned to the rack. Selected a weapon. Split yelled out, “Do what you have to do, Isse!” The Cannibal Crew yelled for Conroy. Everyone broke out of rank and screamed for a man until Seee silenced them.
As I pulled off my T-shirt, I realized I had forgotten to wear the Earth picture over my heart. My mood sunk. Cursing myself, I put on a breastplate and a centurion helmet, the bronze metal slipping over my cheeks and coiling around my eyes. A great plume of Mohawk red stiffened the air. I must have looked seven feet tall. Vapors of the next world blew around me. I imagined myself entombed in a bomb suit like Split. Fogging up a mask with my hot feverish breath.
My martial arts career had been one without anxiety before a fight. I would loosen up in the locker room with sun salutations. I would dig into some punches—roundhouses, uppercuts, jabs—slowly pumping myself up. Then I would kick Blue halfway around the goddamned room as I psyched myself out with my own feral power. The boys would help me feel it. Wailing punches into my washboard stomach, throwing kicks into my arms, whipping pain into me so I wouldn’t feel it out there. “Pain is in your mind,” Blue had said. “It doesn’t exist. To tap is to die.”
But now, out here under the crisp sun, courage abandoned me. Sweat poured down my forehead and stung my eyes. Not the sweat of toil, but the drip of fear. I looked past the men hovering above us, out past the tree line and into the deep distance. Blue wasn’t with me now. His spirit had disappeared into the forest amongst the trees. He would be no help here where snot poured out of me in a constant drip.
Everyone fell silent with ominous anticipation, eyes hungry and fixating on Conroy and I below, waiting for the signal. The air chilled and my stomach lurched. I tried to stretch the stiffness from my joints, high-stepping, rotating my back and hips. I swiped my blade through the air. Death swept in on the wings of the wind blowing on a breeze.
We faced off, eyes already stabbing one another. In his, I recognized fear, deeper than mine, and I realized an edge presented itself to counter my physical weakness.
“No rules,” Seee had once said. “In Nature, the cost of life is death.”
Suddenly, my eyes burned staring into his, and the instinct to cling to life jolted me alive.
“Fight!” came the call.
We step toward each other. Conroy attacks with a thrusting sword. I retreat, slip in the sand. He lunges stiff-armed, gladius sword deflecting off my shield. Clanging of metal as the roar of men erupts. Adrenaline jolts my heart. Errant steps have almost finished me. Back and back, he pushes me. A relentless charge. My shoulders now pinned against the ballasted wall. I parry his thrusts. Block his overcuts. Push him back with my shield.
He pauses, breathing heavily.
I glide toward him. Rake my sword against the ground. My legs awaken. The Earth breathes beneath me, its shake blowing through my body. Dust clouds push up into the air in tiny puffs as I step forward. A primeval call, an ancient scream with a gnarled voice. Fear is in Conroy’s frantic face, a grin that doubles over into a frown. He throws an overanxious swing. Inexperienced body movement. He has not trained as hard as me. Nothing more than a raging man lashing out with a prayer. My eyes gleam at him as he uncovers the battle secret.
He recognizes my look, and a new brand of fear leaps out of him. He backs up in a new, more dogged retreat. The blade is an extension of myself. My veins wrap around it. Nerves, skin, and arteries tighten. I find an opening. Then my steel slashes through his arm as if it were air. It’s over, but not over.
I climb out of The Pit and stomp a path toward Seee. The men part as I pass. Seee has a surreptitious smile on his curvaceous lips, looking at me as if I am the wolf he knew was lurking inside. I wonder what kind of man I have become, solemnly trying to remember Conroy’s first name. I think if I looked down, I might have the answer, as if it might be the last thing on his lips. Then I was there, staring into Seee’s eyes, and from somewhere the name suddenly came.
He stared into my eyes and nodded. My eyes said it all. This was the vanquished and the champion. This was the fed, and the eaten. This was the hair of another curled around my fingers, a weight both burden and relief. This was courage and fear, Nature and evolution. This was not only a command, but a plea, held tightly in his name. This was his blood coursing through me, as my eyes appeared in his. This was death and the first head of a revolution. And unlike so many others, in front of me was a leader who I knew was worth following.
“Edward Conroy, sir,” I said, dropping Conroy’s head at Seee’s feet. And with these words, I became sworn to The Cause.
Chapter 16
“The duty of a true patriot is to protect his country from its government.”
-Thomas Paine
Seee and I moved into the forest, entering the same trap door I crawled out of the day I was released from The Hole. Seee closed the hatch, smothering the light from above. The familiar gritty concrete scraped underfoot, and the days in darkness rushed back to me. Where was that naive prisoner now?
Moving in the opposite direction of my old cell, we came to a dead end after about twenty yards. A blip of red light flashed from Seee, and the massive concrete wall opened, sliding on squeaky wheels rolling on a track. Seee produced two headlamps and offered one to me.
“Welcome to The Anthill,” he said at the ent
rance. “There’s a ladder here.” He waved his headlamp at the metal rungs of a ladder at the foot of the opening. “One thing you have to understand is that knowledge is like a bridge. You only allow someone to cross if it’s absolutely necessary. This requires the strictest discipline, as inevitably human desire urges us to share with people we believe we can trust. But what is even more difficult is sometimes it becomes inevitable that one must share secrets with dubious persons out of pure necessity.”
I smiled slightly at his words. “And am I one of those dubious persons?”
“Most certainly.”
“What is down here?” I asked, but he simply told me in Yoncalla I would have to wait and see. Over the ledge, I peered down with my headlamp. No end to the darkness below, and I felt like Lazarus again, heading in the wrong direction. It appeared to be an old, dried-out well. The walls in front of me were pocked and blackened. “Why are the walls this way?” I asked.
“We have practiced engaging the enemy should they come.”
We climbed down. No end to the rungs in the iron ladder we descended. The air was stagnant, a dank smell of moss and decay.
After a long silence, I finally asked a question still burning throughout the camp. “Tell me, who were those guerillas that stormed the camp? What was their purpose?”
“It was a turf war,” Seee said. “But it had nothing to do with land. When we get below, it should help answer the question.”
The sounds of hands and feet stepping and sliding on the ladder echoed throughout the chamber. As we climbed downward into the mouth of some beast, the air smelled as foul as the imagined breath. Seee seemed content to descend in silence, but my agitation grew. “How do you think you can win?” I asked. “The U.S. government is a giant much bigger than you. What is your plan to fight it?”
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