by Glover, Dan
Still, she knew enough to realize how Mexico could be a dangerous place for those without a roof over their heads or pesos in their pockets and she had little in the way of money. No, it was better to stay in Texas. Something must have set Yani off, otherwise the girl would've never mounted an assault on the chabola.
It was Rancher Ford's illness. Yani must have figured out that he contracted it after his last visit to the cabin... that Evalena was behind it all. The girl wasn’t as stupid as she took her for... she would have to take more care in the future when dealing with her, if indeed the future portended such happenings.
"I should have killed her when I had the chance."
As she spoke she heard the sound of light footsteps overhead. Someone had entered the cabin and they were more than likely looking for her. Was it Yani come back to finish what she started?
The hinges of the trap door to the cellar creaked the way they did when it was opened. A set of boots appeared on the top step, men's shoes. It wasn’t Yani so it had to be Church. He had come just as he promised.
"Tia? Are you still down here?"
"Yes, boy... are you by yourself?"
"I'm alone, Tia. It's safe to come up now."
Something in the boy's voice set her nerves on edge. He was lying. Church should have known better by now... she always saw right through his deceptions.
"Do you have what I told you to bring, Church?"
"Yes, Tia, I have it here."
"Throw it down the stairs. When I see it then you'll have the reward I promised to you."
"Okay, Tia... here you go."
An object tumbled through the air before lodging in the sandy floor. It wasn’t what she expected and the sound of running footsteps on the floor above alerted her to the danger before she could make out what he had thrown... four cylinders about a foot long and taped together along with perhaps the most distressing part: the sparkle in the dark.
It was a bomb and the fuse was burning too quickly for her to reach before it exploded. She had always known death was stalking her. Even though she'd successfully eluded its grasp for centuries she also knew one day it'd reach out with its icy grasp, pull her in, and there'd be nothing she could do but accept her fate.
Had the day finally arrived? Looking about the cellar there was no safe place, not even a crease in the walls where she might seek shelter from the blast. Besides, the entire shack would cave in upon her anyway once the supports were blown away.
It wasn’t fair. She didn’t deserve to die like a caged beast trapped in its own fear. On the other hand, death meant nothing... it was only a pause, a short respite, and soon she'd be back again drawn to those she both hated and loved.
It was strange how she often had trouble separating those emotions. Perhaps in time she'd learn what it meant not to yearn for that which wasn’t destined but now, only anger remained.
The anger brought a memory to the surface... a way to escape when all avenues were sealed... she'd only to see the lines with her dark eye and to dream of a place and wake there. But was there time?
Chapter 38
He never knew a body could be so tired.
It was as pretty an autumn morning as he could remember but the drive into Guthrie caused his eyes to close, though he wasn’t quite sleeping... at least he didn’t think so. Suddenly though, instead of Yani, Lorraine was right beside him. They were no longer riding in the Jeep... instead they were back at the little shack where they first met ages ago and she was as young as a spring shower and he couldn’t help but smile at how she was wearing one gray shoe and one black.
Since her death he'd dreamed of her often though most times she was as he remembered her when she left him to go east never to return, ungainly and fat and old before her time. He was startled to see how pretty Lorraine really was, or perhaps the distress in her voice was more fetching than it should have been under the circumstances.
"You can't kill her, Rancher."
"Who are you talking about, Lorraine?"
"You know who I'm talking about, Rancher. Listen to me... if you kill Evalena, you'll die along with her. She holds the key to your salvation and to Billy's as well. You must do your best to keep her alive."
"I don’t even know where she is... how am I suppose to help Evalena survive?"
He suddenly realized it wasn’t Lorraine at all... the face morphed into something hideous and obscene and when he screamed out in terror a hand long dead reached out to grab hold of him pulling him down into the cold and the quiet earth where he was finally at peace.
Waking from his half remembered nightmare he looked across the seat at Yani so intent on the road and looking as wondrous as the day she first arrived at the ranch along with a pack of vagabonds seeking work and a place to shelter from the storms of life raging around them.
He'd always wanted to be buried on the Triple Six. Many of his friends and even his own wife had often told him how he didn't belong on a ranch in the middle of the most barren countryside ever created but he loved it there. Ever since the day he leaped out of that box car and sauntered into Guthrie he felt he was finally home.
He recalled everything about that day. The sun wasn’t even up yet but the soil and the pavement were warm under his bare feet as he danced along Main Street inhaling the fresh morning air and loving his freedom. The raging maniac known as his father was a thousand miles behind him and his mother too and though Rancher hadn’t a penny in his pockets he felt renewed and ready for the grand adventure called life.
When the people he met asked his name and he said Rancher they invariably laughed at him thinking he had made it up to use as a nick name. It didn’t matter what they thought so he let them keep on thinking it. Later when the rain stopped and they needed to sell out they weren’t shy about calling him by that name, however.
"What does ruthless mean, father? Some of the boys at school said how you steal people's land... how you give them barely enough money to leave town and take the farms they've lived on their entire lives."
Billy had come home his first day of school with a ripped shirt, a black eye, and questions about his father's business dealings. Apparently some of the neighbor boys were enlightening his son as to the father's many and sordid sins.
His own father back in Indiana had been good enough to teach Rancher the manly art of fighting. Many were the times the boy had been knocked to the floor after absorbing one of his father's blows to his body. One time the man had stood over him smiling and opening the palm of his hand revealed to Rancher one of his secrets. Now, he shared it with his own son.
"Some people don't have the sense to pour sour piss out of their boot before putting it on, Billy. Those boys telling you stories and beating on you have fathers who never realized what a hard and unforgiving land this place can be.
"They expected someone to come along and just hand them all they ever wanted. When they found out that wasn’t going to happen, they started to blame other people... men like me who've worked their whole lives to acquire the things they desired, things like a nice home and a place large enough to sustain them.
"Now listen to me, Billy... tomorrow I want you to take a roll of pennies with you. Here... put this in your pocket. So when those boys come after you again... and they will... stick your hand in your pocket, take that roll of coins in your hand, and make a fist around it. Pick out the biggest and meanest boy of all and hit him squarely on the nose."
He never knew if the boy took his advice but he did notice Billy never came home bruised and battered again. Was he ruthless? Maybe he was but he knew what he wanted and he went after it fair and square. He'd never cheated a man out of anything though he did pay rock bottom prices it was true.
Rancher Ford often wondered if he was merely attempting to please his asshole of a father even years after news of the old man's death reached him... someone had sent a clipping of an obituary from out east proclaiming the man was dead... he never found out who it was but he always suspected it was Ha
nk.
Hank Jordan had rescued him. It was unlikely anyone else would have taken in an underage and starving boy from Indiana, given him a job and a place to sleep, and taught him a trade. And how had he paid Hank back? By stealing his property at a dime on the dollar... it wasn’t right but there it was.
The act still haunted him even now as he lay dying. Or perhaps it was on account of the dying that the old memories were rushing back washing over him like the flash floods that often ravaged the parched lands.
"You did me dirty, old partner... I never thought I'd live to see the day."
Hank seemed to grow old right before his eyes that year. Nothing had gone right. The big estate he bought up in Winston, Nebraska turned out to be a load of junk. The thing was, Rancher knew it was junk yet he hadn’t said a word to Hank about it. Though he'd been told of the hoax by someone in the know he just stood by and allowed Hank to sink ten thousand dollars into an estate not worth a hundred.
He knew the drug store was going under too but that was common knowledge. Ever since the big pharmacy chain came into Guthrie and opened an outlet everything Hank sold was badly overpriced in comparison. As the customer base dried up like a Texas summer Rancher had noticed Hank himself manning the counter in an effort to save the cost of employees but he also knew it was simply a matter of time before Hank approached him.
Not too much later the bank that Hank had a stake in went under. Apparently there was talk of malfeasance and the grand jury was convened to look into Hank's involvement. After the bank failed the whole house of cards came tumbling down. The man appeared at the new hacienda late one night with his car packed and the deeds for all his properties in his hands.
He could have been more generous with the man. Rancher's ranch was one of the few in the county that was actually thriving and after marrying Lorraine he had access to her vast fortune as well. Still, he had been miserly with Hank offering him a pittance for the man's life's work. No one else was buying and Rancher knew it. So did Hank.
Not long after he received in the mail the obituaries concerning the deaths of his father and mother, Rancher Ford heard of Hank's demise. Rumor had it that the man had moved back east taking a job as a black jack dealer at a casino on the lake in Gary, Indiana. The story went that a customer caught Hank dealing from the bottom of the deck and before security could stop him had pulled out a snub-nose .38 and shot the dealer between the eyes.
Rancher Ford told himself that some men weren’t meant to be high rollers and Hank Jordan was one of them but it was poor consolation for his conscience. The thing was, he had grown used to taking advantage of the downtrodden, even those he knew and loved, like Hank Jordan.
There came a moment when he realized he was no longer breathing. It seemed a strange thing, to shelve the need he'd felt all his life, to put it away like a bad habit. He wondered in passing if he should be afraid of what was happening to him. But it was so still that it seemed a shame to disturb the silence with something as mundane as a breath. Besides, the effort seemed more than he could muster.
Was this what it was to die?
The world that had grown so small suddenly opened up before him like a dark Texas sky on fire with stars and planets and if he looked long enough he was sure he could see eternity.
Chapter 39
The Triple Six was too quiet without her men around.
Though she broke the law she kept her promise and buried Rancher and Billy on the south quarter of their beloved ranch. Anyway, who would know they were buried there? No one but her and the migrant workers she hired to dig the holes and to cover them up again... to build the coffins and to carry them to the burial ground.
It broke her heart to see them lying in those plywood boxes so still and solemn, their bodies shattered, and their lives ripped from them way too soon. It was her fault... if she had stayed where she belonged none of it would have happened... if she'd done what she knew needed doing and sent Evalena packing Rancher and Billy would be alive today.
Church had vanished again. She knew he had the piedra in his possession and like her he was loath to give it up. He would die first. Even if she suspected that she knew his whereabouts and could go to him and entreat him to let it go she knew he would fight her over it perhaps even to the death.
She wished she would've had the strength to destroy the stone while she had the opportunity... but something told her that would have been impossible. Still, she might have taken a ship to the deepest part of the ocean and dropped the cursed thing overboard or perhaps journeyed to a volcano and heaved the piedra into the cauldron where it could trouble no one again, at least until the world was remade.
The willpower simply wasn’t there. She was trapped up in the desire to possess the stone just like everyone... even giving it to Church had taken all her strength... after she handed it over all she wanted to do was to follow him and retrieve it once again, to get down upon her knees and beg him to give it back.
She still felt its pull. Luckily, Church hadn’t told her where he'd been or where he was going but she could sometimes hear the piedra singing early in the morning as it once did while it was buried beneath the Five Angels sycamore tree for so many years. Listening, though, she realized the sound was not in her ears but in her head. Of course it'd always been in her head.
She wanted to go home... not the pretty little valley of the monarchs where she lived in Mexico but to her real home... her island home, the place where she'd grown up. She missed the ocean breezes, the warm winters, not too hot summers, and all the fresh fruit that used to grow in the backyard on so many trees she had never been able to count them all.
She'd heard it was easier to legally travel to Cuba now though without proper identification and citizenship papers she had doubts she'd make it. Besides, there were probably still people waiting for her on the island who held no affection in their hearts and her homecoming would be a short-lived affair.
That was where Evalena went. Yani had no way of knowing it with any certainty other than the feeling in her heart. The island was the only remaining link between Africa and America, the place where Evalena could find succor and people that loved her.
Evalena would be back in Texas sooner rather than later, however, and their reunion wouldn't be a happy one. She'd caught Evalena unawares that night when she had the girl in her sights but missed... it would have been better to finish her then but she failed. The next time they met the girl would be ready.
The hacienda was too large and unnaturally quiet. She'd auctioned off the livestock and fired the staff after Rancher and Billy died telling them she needed the time alone but in truth her body was beginning to change in ways she didn't wish anyone else to witness... not yet.
Evalena had cursed her... she knew it. The girl had powers that eclipsed both time and space. Wherever she was, Evalena had begun sending out malevolent waves of energy that wrecked havoc upon Yani.
She told herself she didn’t believe in such nonsense but it did no good. Age was rapidly catching up to her... in truth, though she was well over seventy something in her constitution had always kept her mind and body as young as a teenager. As the years rolled by she had come to believe she'd always stay that way. It was for other people to grow old, not for her.
Now, when she looked into a mirror, an old withered hag gazed back at her. She always wondered if the aging process which had heretofore spared her its wrath might one day begin but she never realized it would happen so quickly... a month ago she was still as young and fresh as she was at fifteen.
Now, her teeth had begun to fall out, her hair was streaked with gray, and her face was lined with a million crevasses reflecting the reality of the hard dry earth in northern Texas with each wrinkle growing deeper by the day. Her joints ached with arthritis and she could hardly walk across the room without gasping for breath.
Would the piedra help to mitigate the symptoms? She wasn’t sure, nor did she have any idea where Church had taken it. She did know that unless
her son returned to the Triple Six soon, she would die of old age without having the chance to say goodbye.
Still, death didn't trouble her as much as it might have a year ago. She was ready for it... perhaps she even welcomed it. The world and its constant moil weighed on her a little heavier with each passing year. Sometimes it seemed as if her whole life was one long struggle to get back to somewhere that she knew didn't exist and perhaps never had.
Rancher and Church were her only family... with one dead and the other gone to keep going seemed pointless. Still, she could think of better ways to die... old age didn't suit her at all.
Her longest journey of the day was a trudge to the mail box each morning. After the deaths of Rancher and Billy she'd applied for a visa to travel to Cuba using forged documents... the identification papers of Lorraine Ford. It was a calculated risk. Without any official birth certificate of her own much less any proof of citizenship Yani knew she wouldn't be granted a visa... the only thing she might expect was arrest and deportation.
Each morning she searched through the piles of envelopes for the one from the Cuban Interest Section in Washington D.C. informing her that her application had been received and her request granted. She knew she could make the trip on her own if she was still young and strong but now it would be all but impossible.
It was a long shot but the only chance she had... unless she found Evalena and either convinced her to lift the curse—or more likely to kill her—she would continue to age... the way things were going Yani gave herself a month, maybe less, before she succumbed to death.
The lady at the travel agency in Guthrie had advised her to fly to Mexico and from there take a flight to Cuba. Yani needed a passport, however, and without any real identification she had no way of procuring one. Even if she did, the time it would take to process the document might find her dead.
She did have Lorraine's state-issued identification card that she found filed away in one of Rancher's many desk drawers. Though the woman was larger, their faces were passably similar and Yani thought that if the picture was not examined too closely she could get away with using it.