“You never get scared when people shoot at you?”
“White men been shooting at my people a long time. After a while, you get used to it,” he said. He winked at me.
“I suppose you think I should ask how you know someone shot at me.”
“No, I think you should ask me do we drink first or sweat first.”
“I think we’ll have a drink first. That sweating thing didn’t work out so well last time.”
“Yah. I will sit here. You make the drinks. I have walked a long way.”
I had to figure out this Indian. I hadn’t told anyone about my plan to return to Amanda’s cabin. I hadn’t known myself where to go. I wanted to be close to Amanda, but… that was not an option. I poured a stiff measure of gin for the old man and squeezed in a quarter of a lime.
We sat watching the sun slowly slip out of the sky.
“Old man, you got a name?” I asked.
“Sure. Everybody got a name. Even ‘Hey You’ is a name.”
“Is that what they call you, ‘Hey You’? Or more likely, ‘Here Comes Trouble’. How about that?”
“You are pretty funny for a white man with a spider demon inside. I must be careful not to laugh too hard, break my ribs.”
“A touchy Indian spirit-seer.”
“You start. I finish.”
“Okay. Truce. Peace. Whatever. You got a name?”
“My parents give me the name Kahvah Att-un-poon-a-woon-ah. You call me Joe. Most you white men can say Joe.”
“All right, Joe it is.… So, does your other name mean anything in English?”
“I say it Pony Who Sees Far.”
“Well, I get the ‘sees far’ bit, but why pony?”
“Why do your parents call you Sebastian?”
“I have no idea,” I said.
“Me either.”
He took a long pull from his drink.
“Why are you here, Sebastian?”
“You don’t already know?”
“Maybe yes, maybe no. You tell me.”
I thought a moment. As I fled the men in the SUV, I had one goal: See Amanda one last time. After that, I was heading back to Northern Thailand where I still had friends from my Peace Corps days and where Westerners have gone for centuries to escape their pasts. But when I stopped at Amanda’s cabin, I knew I had to see the Indian as well.
“I guess I have to settle something with you.”
“Oh, you think maybe you will kill me sure this time?” he said.
“No. I doubt I could,” I said.
“Why do you think that?”
“Because I think Chief William is right. I don’t think you are real. And if you aren’t real, you can’t be killed.”
“If you believe that, why are you here?”
“Because I’m not certain. And I thought the best way to find out was to ask,” I said.
“You are one the Lost Tribes call a mensch.”
“A mensch? Where do you pick up a Yiddish term like mensch?”
“Someday maybe I tell you the story. But you are a mensch. Too trusting. If I am what you fear, this is your last drink.”
“Well, I don’t think I’m a naive mensch, but…”
“Tell me, Sebastian. Straight talk. What do you want?”
I looked hard at the old man—I mean Joe. He looked back with eyes deep and dark.
I took the empty plastic cup from his hand, stepped into the cabin, lit the gas lantern, and made new drinks.
Dropping back onto the porch step, I searched his eyes again.
“I need to know if you plan to let the spider kill me and move into you,” I said.
“That’s a good question, Sebastian. Straight. No false talk. You are a mensch,” he said.
I hung my head.
“You didn’t answer the question, Joe.”
“No.”
I looked up.
“No, what? No, you won’t let the spider kill me, or no, you didn’t answer the question.”
“No to both. I did not answer the question. I will not let the spider spirit into me. It is very powerful, more powerful than any spirit I have ever seen. And I see many powerful spirits here,” he said.
“But I can keep him from me. I cannot keep him from killing you, Sebastian. I think it will kill you. But not today. Tomorrow, next week, I don’t know.”
*
Joe was gone when I awoke hungover the next day. At least he hadn’t doused me again. I packed up and headed north toward Denver. Joe disagreed with my plan, but what else was new?
Now I crept down the gravel alley behind neatly tended ranch homes in northwest Denver. My truck was parked several blocks away in a strip mall. A lawn mower droned behind me.
“We have been waiting for you, Mr. Arnett. What took you so long?”
Emilio Reina startled me as he walked around the far side of his cement block garage.
“How did you see me? How—?”
“The windows. We’ve been expecting you, and I saw you coming down the alley. Quick. Let’s get inside.”
He lifted the garage door and guided me through, then lowered the door. I found myself inside a one-car shop crammed with woodworking tools and machinery. A partially finished oak rocking chair lay on a work bench beneath a side window looking out at the alley.
I had come to Denver to see Emilio’s wife, Maria. If there was any way to get to Amanda without attracting attention, it was through Maria.
Emilio dusted himself and offered his hand.
“How did you know I was coming?” I asked.
“Oh, Maria and that crazy old Indian talk in their dreams. He tells Maria you are coming to see him; then he tells her he has seen you, and last night he tells her you are on your way here and that you hope to see Amanda.”
I shook my head.
“Do you understand how any of that works?” I said.
“I don’t understand women, especially my Maria,” he said. “How could I understand a woman who talks to strange old Indian men in her dreams?”
“It sounds like you know him well,” he said.
“My wife is from the Aztecs. Her mother’s line makes the drugs for the Aztec medicine men. That crazy Indian is some kind of medicine man, and the Utes and Aztecs speak a similar language, so I guess they are related somehow. This has been going on a long time. She stays with me. I don’t care who she talks to.”
He peered out the window.
“We aren’t the only ones waiting for you,” he said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Two men in suits came to the door. Asked Maria if she has seen you. They say they are Federales, but Mike Owens tells us they are not. They put a camera on the telephone pole by the garage. I took it down. They came again in a van and put it up again. I told them I would just take it down. They didn’t arrest me so we know they are not for real. Sometimes a van drives by; the neighborhood kids throw rocks. Federales don’t want us in the country, and they think we’ll cooperate because we’re afraid. Stupid. Still, no sense making it easy.”
“How can I get a message to Amanda without using a phone?” I said.
“You go to my cousin’s house in Aurora, not too far from here. I will call Maria and tell her my cousin’s wife is having her baby and wants her to come now. You and Maria will work something out.”
“What if they follow Maria?”
“They will see a very pregnant Mexican woman with a very bad temper. Four kids already, and now another one. I tell my cousin that’s enough, but he doesn’t listen. Someday his wife will take care of him.”
Emilio made a slicing motion, and I winced at the thought.
*
When I pulled up in front of the cousin’s house, two boys raced out the front door. The older one, perhaps twelve or thirteen, ran to my side of the pickup truck while the younger boy slid into the front seat.
“Leave the keys in, dude. We’ll take care of it,” the older boy said.
“Can you driv
e?” I said.
“Sure. Come on—out! Mom’s waiting for you, and you don’t want her to wait long.”
“No, I mean, are you allowed to drive?” I asked.
He rolled his eyes. I felt ancient.
“Sorry,” I said.
He peeled rubber as I walked to the front door. My knock was greeted with a commanding, “Come in, Sebastian.”
A tiny, but hugely pregnant, woman came into the living room, wiping her hands on a towel.
“I am Consuela—Connie—and I’m going to wring that boy’s neck. He thinks everything is a race car. Did you have trouble finding our house? Emilio is not so good on directions,” she said.
I followed her into the kitchen as she talked.
“Is it all right for your son to drive? I mean, you don’t look old enough to have a sixteen-year-old son.”
“Santiago does what he wants to do. He drives. The police know him. They pull him over. He asks to race them to our home. Santiago will be a race driver. He is taking your truck to a friend’s house. They will cover it, and no one will know you are here.”
“Thank you. You are kind to help me.”
“You need help, a man with a tattoo like yours. You stick out. People remember you. You should have that taken off.”
Yeah, I had figured that out already. Too late, but I got it now. I changed the subject.
“Do you know when Maria will be here?”
“Soon. She is on her way. Do you want some coffee or Coke? I must go find that Santiago and his brother. I will be right back.”
Hurricane Connie swept out the door. She could not be five feet tall, but she was surely one of the most formidable forces I had ever encountered. If she did exorcisms, I was sure she could drive the spider spirit right out of me.
My spirits sank with her departure. The spider’s tattoo no longer hurt, but it could still kill.
Chapter 39
Reunited
How long would I have to run? Forever?
Charles Simon had died—what?—ten days earlier. I was already exhausted and saw no way out.
I had not contacted family or old friends, not wanting to endanger them. I hoped Maria would take a message to Amanda. She might get in touch with Jan Owens without giving up my location to Mike. Then what? Decide how much, or even if, I trusted Mike Owens and his secretive superiors?
I had to do something about the tattoo. I had tried growing a beard, just to change my looks, but hair would not grow over the tattoo. I blamed that on the scar tissue, but it could just as well be the spider demon. Maybe it wanted everyone to see the mark.
I was sinking deeper and deeper into a funk when I thought I heard my name.
“Sebastian?”
I looked up, expecting Connie.
“Amanda? What are you doing here?”
She kissed me long and hard and deep, like a woman who had reconsidered her decision to dump her man.
“Come on. We have to go. Maria and I were followed,” she said.
She pulled me by the hand toward the back door. Outside, another of Connie’s sons waited.
“Follow me,” he said.
He led us through the neighbor’s yard, across the street, through more yards, down an alley, and into a carport. Santiago and son number two sat on a concrete stoop with three other black-haired boys playing a video game on a cell phone.
“Hey,” our guide said. “Mom says get him out of here and then get home pronto or she’ll tan your hide.”
Connie’s word carried enormous weight. All five boys jumped up and started pulling a worn gray tarp off the truck. Amanda climbed into the passenger side. I peeled a wad of twenties from my money clip and handed them to Santiago.
“Buy a computer game,” I said.
He tried to give the money back.
“We just lift them,” he said.
“Buy everyone a round of ice cream.”
He didn’t argue and pulled the truck keys from his pocket and handed them to me.
“Dude, you know you kind of stick out with that bandage,” he said.
“Yeah, but the tattoo underneath is worse,” I said, starting the truck.
“You should do something about it.”
“I will. Thanks.”
“Which way?” I said to Amanda.
“Left. We’re headed toward 36.”
I followed her directions toward Boulder. I hoped we were heading out of danger.
Miles outside of Denver, I broke the silence.
“Amanda, I’m sorry about Charles Simon.”
We had not spoken since leaving Connie’s house except for my quick questions about directions and her terse responses. I still felt her kiss on my lips, and the scent of her perfume made me lightheaded.
I found myself doing a mental comparison. Cecilia Brant was blondish, lean, and hungry; Amanda had auburn hair and her ample curves were matched with a sense of reserve.
“Sebastian, I’m sorry, too… about before,” she said.
“We don’t have to talk about that.”
“I think we should,” she said.
I turned my head for a quick look at her and found her eyes boring into me.
“I think we do,” she said. “I didn’t know what the tattoo represented. I mean, I knew how you got it, the old woman and all, but I didn’t really understand what Maria was saying. I don’t know what to say.”
“It’s all right. You didn’t believe I could really kill someone. I still have a hard time with it.”
It sounded implausible and impossible and ridiculous when spoken aloud, even to me. I was possessed by a killer demon. In the twenty-first century. Those words belonged in the Middle Ages or seventeenth-century Salem.
“When those two men attacked us, I was afraid they would harm you, because you posed the bigger threat to them,” she said. “And you were afraid they would harm me. I don’t think I would have reacted the way I did, watching you choke them to death, if you hadn’t played with them.”
When she put it like that, I felt ashamed. That is not the kind of person I am—or was.
“I was angry,” I said.
“I know,” she said. “And I think I understand better how hard it must be to have a power like that and not be able to control it. But, Sebastian, did you have to try to kill yourself?”
I glanced over at her. Her chin rested against her chest, and tears rolled down her cheek.
“I didn’t know what else to do,” I said. “This thing is destroying me, and it’ll probably end up killing me before I have a chance to die of old age. Everybody else seemed to want to turn me into some kind of weapon. You were closed off to me. So, living like that, ending it all didn’t seem like such a bad thing. At least I’d be rid of this thing.”
Amanda sobbed openly, heaving long aching cries, gasping in short breaths, her hands covering her face.
“I didn’t mean for you to die,” she said.
She looked at me with tear-drenched eyes.
“I didn’t mean it. I didn’t. Really. I never wanted you to do that,” she said.
I hit my flashers and pulled off the highway. I unbuckled my seat belt, slid toward Amanda, and slipped my arm around her and held her tight. She sobbed and sobbed.
My shirt was wet with her tears when her emotions exhausted themselves.
“Let’s get off this highway,” I said. “We can figure out our next moves somewhere else.”She nodded, still unable to speak.
I took the next exit, a road that headed back to Denver, and pulled into an empty feed lot. Heading back to Denver probably saved Amanda’s life; I already considered mine forfeit.
*
Amanda’s emotional release exhausted her. We found a ten-unit motel about a mile down the road.
While she slept, I rifled her purse for her compact and rubbed makeup on the spider web tattoo. I looked like something out of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, but at least the tattoo wasn’t quite as obvious. It also covered the tan line I had gotten fro
m wearing the bandages on my cheek.
I crept outside quietly so I wouldn’t wake her up and paced the parking lot, trying to keep up with my thoughts. We were the motel’s only occupants so early in the day, and I suspected not many more travelers would be stopping.
I wondered how the old couple who ran the place kept it going. I wondered what Amanda and I would say to each other when she awoke from her nap. I wondered where we should go next.
We had headed northward out of Denver without discussing a destination. I wouldn’t go south again. The Air Force and NSA have large operations near the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, and I felt I had overused the cabin already.
It was time to contact Mike and see what he had to say. I needed to know more about the people responsible for killing Charles Simon. Were they really after him, or did he catch a bullet intended for me, as I suspected? What kind of resources did they have? How “official” were they? Or were they rogue, perhaps friends of Cecilia’s husband? All of a sudden, our tryst seemed like a truly horrendous idea.
Amanda picked that moment to poke her head out the door, looking panicked.
“I thought you’d gone,” she said.
“Not a chance.”
I tried to sound more upbeat than I felt.
“Did you sleep well?” I said.
“Yes, thank you.”
She stepped outside, barefoot and looking all rumpled and vulnerable.
“Why don’t you come back inside?” she said.
“Sure. I was just pacing. I didn’t want to disturb you.”
“I’m awake. I shouldn’t take over your hotel room again. I seem to make a habit of that.”
That set off memories of our first night together—she in one bed and I in another. That led to wonderful memories, then to not-so-wonderful recollections. I sighed.
“Thank you for coming to my rescue,” I said. “You were great. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you in your decisive business mode.”
“Yes, well, you know I have a tendency to take over,” she said.
“Hey, it worked.”
“Are you going to continue making small talk, or are you going to hug me?”
“If I hug you,” I said, “I don’t think I can stop at friendly.”
The Mark of the Spider: A Black Orchid Chronicle Page 20