Dinner was awkward, but in a good way. Amanda asked me about Maria’s warning. I confessed that Borneo had changed me in ways that I didn’t understand. Yes, I felt tortured. Yes, I yearned for vengeance for Johnnie and Chik and Sammy. I hadn’t made up my mind about whether I truly had some strange power of life and death.
Then I laughed about it.
“I mean, Amanda, it would be insane, literally insane, to think I have some kind of power like that. I don’t believe in ghosts. I’m not religious. I acknowledge there are things I can’t explain, but I can’t explain calculus either.”
“You do that intentionally, you know,” Amanda said.
“Do what?”
“Make light of serious things. You joke about the tattoo, but I know it bothers you. It doesn’t bother me. It didn’t bother Jan and Mike or their boys. It’s a tattoo. You didn’t choose it, and it really bothers you.”
“If only they had picked a different color,” I said. “The black just accentuates those gray hairs I’m getting.”
“There you go, making light of it,” Amanda said.
I shrugged.
“I don’t know what else to do. You’re right. I don’t like it. I’m self-conscious about it, but I can’t change it.”
“I can’t change the fact that my husband left me for another woman, a series of other women. But I don’t joke about it,” she said.
“You picked a loser. That was just poor judgment on your part when you were a kid. It happens,” I said.
I thought I was being sympathetic.
“There you go again, making fun of something that really hurts,” Amanda said.
“I didn’t mean—I don’t mean—to hurt you,” I said.
“Sebastian, you have to take this seriously. Something happened to you in Borneo. I’m all right with that. But you have to acknowledge it. Mike believes you have this power. Maria tells me I have to be careful about you. You need to take that seriously.”
So she knew about Mike’s concerns. Obviously, Mike blabbed to Jan, and she confided in Amanda. I had no secrets.
Eventually we reached a stalemate and turned the conversation to other things, like what I would do now that I had canceled the final trip of my spring dream.
We strolled hand in hand back to Amanda’s car, discussing the future. Just where the commercial district ends and houses take over, two punks stepped out of the shadows and blocked our way. Both of them pulled knives and threatened to hurt Amanda if we didn’t turn over our money and car keys.
Keys and money, they could have. But they threatened Amanda. That, that they couldn’t do and get away with it. I didn’t give them a chance. I didn’t argue. I didn’t reason with them. I didn’t warn them. I gave the demon permission—I don’t know how, it just happened—and they died. Not in cold blood. There was no blood. And not quickly—they clawed at the ground, writhing. Amanda freaked out. Her screaming brought people out of nearby restaurants and homes. She wouldn’t let me near her to comfort her, and the good Samaritans who responded to her screams made me keep my distance. Everyone understood she was a victim of some sort. They weren’t sure what I was, not with that dark tattoo blotting one side of my face and two guys lying at my feet.
The Denver Police arrived. The bodies were hauled away. Amanda was gently guided into a police cruiser and taken home. I was less gently escorted to the back seat of another police car. I tried to restrain myself, but the two cops who drove me to the police station wheezed and coughed the whole way there.
I refused to answer questions without a lawyer present, and every interrogator staggered from the room as though it were filled with smoke and toxic fumes. I suppose, in a way, it was. I had become toxic.
Sometime in the middle of the night, Amanda’s personal lawyer arrived in a three-piece suit with a three-part name: Charles Ivo Simon. It took him mere minutes to spring me.
On the way back to Amanda’s, Mr. Simon broke the news when I asked him how Amanda was doing. Amanda wasn’t at home, he said, and she wanted me to move out, to take a little time and think about things.
What was I supposed to think about? Two thugs had threatened Amanda. I was happy to have escorted them out of this life. What I did was right. And this time, I knew I had done it.
The guy seemed sympathetic in a lawyerly way. He didn’t know what was going on between Amanda and me, but she was his client first, not me.
He suggested I spend some time at a cabin Amanda’s family owned in southwestern Colorado near the Four Corners area. The time and distance would do us both good.
Maria met us at the house. She made coffee and helped me load my belongings into my truck.
I shook hands with the lawyer and thanked him. He reminded me that the police were likely to call me back for more questioning and said his firm would represent me, at Amanda’s request. I told him not to bother. I wouldn’t be coming back. He showed no surprise.
Maria kissed me on the left cheek. “Vaya con Dios,” she said.
I had enough Spanish to understand that. Not likely, I thought. Not likely I’ll be going anywhere with God. My destiny lay in the other direction.
Empaya Iba Speaks
Children of the far forest,
Delight of my soul,
Iba speaks from afar.
Our time together is coming.
Our shaman resists,
But he tastes the fruit of the midnight flower,
And what he tastes pleases him.
Our time together is coming.
Prepare my return.
Come from hiding, come from the hills.
Bring your offerings.
Iba and his shaman will protect you.
So say I, Empaya Iba, spirit of the Black Orchid People, guardian of the Mother Soil, giver of the Long Sleep, seer of the Many Eyes, mage of the Many Legs.
Chapter 23
The Indian
I dropped my key card with the guard at the gate and headed southwest.
Amanda’s cabin lay inside an Indian reservation near Tawaoc, 400 miles away over two-lane loads that eventually petered out into an unpaved path. The Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, descendants of the Weeminuche band, arrived in the area before the turn of the twentieth century, but Amanda’s silver baron ancestors arrived earlier, built the cabin, and refused to cede the land. By then, they had the money to make their decision stick.
Simon had told me that Amanda’s forebears had gotten along with the Indians by mainly not visiting the cabin often. I wasn’t quite sure what it meant that Amanda thought I should stay there. But I didn’t feel like camping out, and I didn’t know where else to go while I planned my dismal future.
The muggers had threatened to kill Amanda, but I had acted first, purposefully, mercilessly, viciously. I had raised my hand and then watched them struggle to breathe, drop to the ground, thrash, and squirm like worms on hot concrete. Finally, with their eyes bugged out, they twitched no more.
My power was no longer hypothetical. It was real, and it had shocked Amanda. I might just as well have put my hands around her throat.
*
It took me most of the day to find my way to the reservation office. Simon had told me that I didn’t need to check in with the tribal council, but I was protective of other people’s property.
The headman, a William Walks-With-Something-or-Other, told me I was expected and gave me directions to a shortcut to the cabin. Apparently, Mr. Simon had covered all bases; I guess if you work for someone as rich as Amanda, you do that.
I stopped at the reservation store and overpaid for enough groceries to get me through a couple of days. After that, I would be gone, one way or another.
My truck bumped and jolted over five long miles of narrow, fried clay. I’d have to spend the next day putting everything in the camper back in place.
Finally, a pimple appeared on the horizon. I could tell it wasn’t a rock because white smoke drifted above it. An Indian with a deeply furrowed face and long white hair was si
tting on the porch step when I pulled up in front of the one-room cabin.
He rose as I climbed out of the truck and came to meet me.
“I have never seen this mark,” he said, running his calloused hand up and down my cheek. “But you are one.”
*
The old Indian acted as if he owned the place, and I wondered if I had taken a wrong turn.
Or maybe he had moved in. I didn’t know, but he held the screen door open while I carried food, the cooler, and my overnight bag into the cabin. Not only was the cabin old, but everything in it might have been original furnishings, starting with the bed frame, table, and chair. Someone had kept the place clean; there were no cobwebs or mouse droppings anywhere. A cast-iron hand pump sat next to a porcelain sink. I assumed the outhouse was behind the cabin.
When I finished draping my sleeping bag over the rope bed, the Indian spoke again.
“Come with me. We will sweat.”
I was sweating already and hardly needed more.
“I have a better idea,” I said. “Let’s drink. I have beer and gin.”
“You got lime?”
“Of course.”
“Ice?”
“In the cooler.”
“We will drink now and sweat later,” he said.
“Gin or beer?” I asked.
“Gin.”
“Tonic?”
“No. Gin and lime.”
“I’ll have tonic with mine,” I said.
“What kind of gin?”
“Tanqueray.”
“Number Ten?”
“No. Just plain.”
“Number Ten is better. Even better is Hendricks.”
“More expensive, too, especially if you drink a lot,” I said.
The old man looked me up and down.
“You drink a lot?” he asked.
“Often as I can.”
“Good. You will sweat pretty good then.”
“Actually, I don’t plan to sweat,” I said.
“You will sweat. You need it.”
“I need a drink.”
“That, too.”
“You live here?” I asked him.
“Sometimes.”
“Who keeps the place clean?”
“You think I don’t?”
His black eyes bored into mine.
“You don’t look like the domestic type,” I said.
“What do I look like?”
“The old type.”
“Hah.”
It could have been a cough or a laugh. I wasn’t sure.
“My granddaughter cleaned today when I told her you were coming.”
“The lawyer must have told everyone.”
He gave me a look that let me know he was sizing me up.
“No, no lawyer. Just spirits.”
“Spirits?”
“Yes. You make the drinks. Then we will talk. I will be outside. Not so warm there.”
Huh. He says we will sweat, I thought, but it’s too hot to drink in the cabin. Crazy old Indian.
I prepared two strong drinks in Mason jars, the only glassware in the place, and carried them out to the porch. Behind the cabin, darkness gathered, but before us, the sun was setting in glorious hues of red, orange, and gold.
“Cheers,” the Indian said, holding his glass up.
“You, too.”
We drank the first and second drinks in silence. He was drinking 100 percent gin; I mixed mine 75 percent gin, 25 percent tonic. Before preparing the third drink, I lit an old oil lantern and set it on the table.
“What you going to do about this spirit?” the Indian asked.
I sipped my drink and kept silent.
“It’s a powerful one,” he said. “Very powerful. Maybe the most powerful one I have felt.”
“You some kind of medicine man, go around feeling up spirits, do you?”
“I don’t look,” he said. “They find me. Like Maria Reina found me. You know her.”
It was a statement, not a question.
“I know her. She pretty much spoiled a good thing I had going.”
“Why you blame her, not you?”
“She was the one blabbing to Amanda, telling her to watch out for me, not to trust me,” I said.
“You think maybe letting the spirit kill two men in front of her had nothing to do with it?”
“Maria set it up, put the bad spin on it before it happened. Without her, I could just as easily have come out of it a hero.”
“You tortured those men,” the Indian said. “You were no hero.”
“Maybe I wasn’t in control of myself.”
“Maybe you gave up control because you knew what would happen. Why you don’t talk to the spirit?”
“Because I don’t believe in ghosts.”
“This is no ghost. This is a spirit. Real. Just like you and me. It is taking over, I think. You think so, too.”
*
The old Indian doused me with water the next morning, and I flew out of bed, gasping and sputtering.
“You don’t like water,” he said.
“No. No water.”
“Come. Time to sweat.”
“No,” I said.
I wiped my face with my hands and leaned against the wall, half in and half out of the sleeping bag, trying to slow my pounding heart.
“Why not?” he asked.
“No point. There’s no point in any of this,” I said.
He stared at the blackened fireplace.
“No damned point at all,” I repeated. “I’m pulling out. Going back East. You can keep any supplies you want. Do you need a ride someplace?”
“You can’t go,” the Indian said.
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I can. I’ve already had my shower,” I said.
“You can’t go. You don’t want to sweat, fine. But you can’t go. You must talk to your spirit,” the old man said.
“I don’t talk to ghosts.”
I climbed out of the sleeping bag, rolled it into a ball and carried it to the truck. The sun was high already. I spread the damp bag on the hood of the truck. The wet end could dry while I cleared out the cabin.
“You afraid of the spirit?” the Indian asked. “It’s okay to be afraid.”
He had followed me outside.
“I told you, I don’t talk to ghosts. I don’t believe in ghosts. There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Why you think you can kill people? Pretty handy thing,” he said.
“So far, having people dying around me has been a royal pain in the ass. It keeps attracting assholes.”
“You think I’m an asshole?”
“You’re certainly a pain in the ass,” I said.
“Those people you killed. Maybe they think you are pain in the ass.”
I laughed in spite of myself.
“I suppose so,” I said.
Still dressed in my boxers and a T-shirt, I plopped onto the warped floorboards of the porch and leaned against a post. Even in the shade, the early heat of the day brought beads of perspiration to my face and neck.
“So,” I said, “you got a spirit in you, too?”
“No. But since I was a little boy, I see spirits in people,” the Indian said. “Maria Reina, she has a spirit in her. It looks like a mother bear. Very strong. Very protective. It fights for people she loves.”
“Well, she doesn’t love me,” I said.
“She does not know you. She just sees your spirit. She protects the Campion woman.”
“She saw my spirit, huh? What does it look like?”
“Spider. Angry black spider. Small, but scary,” the old man said.
I didn’t know who this guy had been talking to, but he sure seemed well informed.
“So how do I squash this bug?”
“You can’t. You got to put it back.”
“Back? Back where?”
“Where you got it.”
“I got it in Borneo,” I said. “Apparently in a village that no longer exists. Be
yond that, I don’t know where I got it. I certainly don’t know how I got it.”
“Man with a big knife. You killed him.”
“He killed my friends.”
“That was the spirit.”
“So, the spirit likes taking heads.”
“I don’t know. Not easy to understand what it wants. But it is very powerful, very angry. You should talk to it.”
“And why would I want to talk to a pissed-off, mad as hell spider spirit?”
I gave him a look that said, Take that. He ignored me.
“You know, this makes no sense,” I said. “The ethnologists talk about primitive people taking heads to placate spirits. A lot of people have died since those people killed my friends and took their heads. Why isn’t the spirit satisfied?”
“Maybe spirit didn’t want those people. Maybe you did. You got your own anger.”
“Well, I’ve certainly got it now.”
“No, you don’t. Tattoo is sleeping today.”
“You’re crazy,” I said and shrugged.
“What you angry about?”
“Life. I’m angry about life. I’m tired of it, and I’m getting tired of you.”
“You going to kill me, too?”
“No.”
“Why not? I don’t make you mad?”
“That must be it,” I said.
“You maybe angry about your wife, too?”
How could he know about Sarah? Leaving that question alone, I answered: “That was four years ago. I shouldn’t still be angry about her death.”
“How she die?”
I looked at the old man, then stared up into the sun, blinding myself with the white-hot light.
“Cancer. A long, slow cancer that turned her into a skeleton, took away her dignity as a human being, then finally just sucked the life out of her.”
I could feel my face getting red as I conjured up the agonizing past.
“Maybe that’s why the spider chose you. Maybe your anger was bigger than machete man. Maybe that gives the spider stronger medicine.”
“So how do I get rid of the spider? How do I fight it?”
“If you fight it, it will kill you. That’s why you got to talk to it.”
“If I don’t?”
“It will still kill you, just not quick.”
The Mark of the Spider: A Black Orchid Chronicle Page 14