“It’s a good thing you told me about that phone call,” he says, “or I might have made a complete ass of myself. I wonder if he—I mean ‘she’—pulled the appearance switch just to jerk my chain?”
“Who knows?” Bill says. “I’m only sorry that class made me miss the show.”
“Show!” Chris snorts. “I’d like to know if you would have done any better. No one bothered to tell me that the Wanderer is a cross-dresser!”
“I checked his/her file,” Bill says. “The Wanderer—or the Vagrant as he/she is commonly known—is listed as a limited ability shapeshifter—not a transvestite.”
“Still,” Chris grumps, “someone could have told us.”
“I suspect that getting surprised is going to be par for the course for this job.” Bill grins. “Remember how we both felt when we learned that ‘Rob’ Trapper was really ‘rebecca’—and a sasquatch to boot?”
“Stunned,” Chris says, remembering and smiling despite his pique, “scared, and positive we didn’t want to show any of it. I’ll never forget.”
“At least the Wanderer is one of the athanor who likes humans,” Bill continues. “The ones I’m afraid of are those who think we’re spies just waiting for our chance to reveal their big secret to the world.”
Chris rises and paces; halting, he strikes a mock-solemn, stagy pose, miming as if reading from a sheaf of notes.
“‘Immortals Among Us,’” he pronounces in the tones of a television news anchor. “‘Myths and Monsters Real! Film at Eleven.’ Damn it, Bill. We wouldn’t live twenty-four hours if we told, no matter what kind of insurance we tried to take out.”
“But the important thing is,” Bill reminds him, “that we don’t want to tell. Right?”
“Right,” Chris says, slumping back in his chair. He wonders at the lack of conviction in his own voice.
“Witches! I say that witches brought the illness that killed my baby!” weeps Aduke, still half-mad with grief and rage. Her infant had been buried that morning, wrapped in a cotton shroud dotted in red, black, and white. A deep cut had been made on the lobe of his right ear. “That baby wanted to live. He was no àbikú, longing for the other side!”
Oya, knowing that the mutilation of a corpse already ravaged by disease had been the last straw for the young mother, gathers the girl in her arms and hugs her to her ample breast, crooning as she does so.
“Easy, easy, little mother. We on the earth do not know what fate the soul chooses before birth, only Olodumare knows this, and he tells only Ifa. When you are stronger, we will go to the babalawo and have him cast the palm nuts for you. Then you will know how to name your next son.”
Aduke sniffles something incoherent and Oya continues:
“Don’t blame the old mothers for marking the boy before he was returned to the earth. They did it for love of you and love of him. If your next son is born with the same mark, then you will be warned and know to take precautions against those companions from the other side who try to lure him back to them.”
Aduke raises her head. Her pretty face is smeared with tears, but she is no longer crying.
“I understand, Oya,” she says meekly.
Oya is an odd woman. When first met, she introduces herself as Oya, adding no family name nor praise name. That the name she gives is that of one of the old Yoruban goddesses is quite interesting. That she gives the name not as part of the àbíso name given by her family, as would be common enough, but as if it is her own name is fascinating.
This adoption of a goddess’s name would be impertinent except that the name fits Oya so very well. Some of the old people mutter that this woman who calls herself Oya is the goddess come among them in these bad times. No one, not even the chiefs or diviners (who between them claim to know the answer to every mystery) contradict this.
In this moment of intimacy, Aduke almost asks Oya who she is and where she lived before she came to Monamona a month or so before. The words are on her lips, but they shrivel into silence as she meets the older woman’s knowing eyes. Instead she says:
“Oya, when can I consult the babalawo?”
“Not today,” Oya says firmly. “We will wait until you are a little farther from death.”
“But if there are witches!” Aduke protests.
“Shame, shame!” Oya tuts. “And you educated at the best schools and even the university in Ibadan. What would your professors and white friends think if they heard you talking about witches?”
“They might laugh,” Aduke says defiantly, “but they have not had their baby taken by a disease that is supposed to be dead. They have not seen what walks the streets of Monamona or how we are bound into ourselves by a conspiracy of silence.”
Oya chuckles softly, not in mockery, but a warm sound, like the clucking of a sitting hen.
“I forgot, little one, that you are not only an educated woman, you are the child born after twins. The gods have given you power and, it seems, they have given you wisdom as well. Very well, Aduke Idowu, we will go to the babalawo soon and inquire after witches and other such dangers.”
“I am ready now,” Aduke says, surging to her feet.
“Wait,” Oya cautions. “If there are indeed witches attacking Monamona, then we must take precautions. Do you remember what you said when the boy had just died? You accused someone then, and not just a witch.”
Aduke’s eyes grow wide as she remembers. “I said that the King of Heaven had taken my son,” she whispers.
“You are Idowu, the child born after twins,” Oya says solemnly, “and Olodumare has let you chose a special destiny. Listen to yourself. There may indeed be witches in Monamona, but these may not be the usual witches. These witches may be in the service of a terrible god.”
Singing country western tunes, the Wanderer drives along the long, empty Colorado roads. They’d crossed onto Frank’s land about ten minutes before, and she had phoned ahead to alert him of their imminent arrival.
She suspects that Saint Frank had not needed the warning. Jays and crows have been pacing the van, flapping alongside for a few yards, then wheeling off, cawing and screeching alarm to their fellows, one of whom will certainly relay the word to Frank. Old MacDonald owns miles of the surrounding territory in fact and still more (owned in theory by various government agencies) is under his unofficial administration.
The Changer rides beside her in the passenger seat, not complaining about her singing. She doesn’t know if this is indifference or because he likes the sound. It’s impossible to tell what goes on behind the impassive countenance he slips on when they’re not actually chatting. The Wanderer has decided not to worry about it.
Shahrazad is asleep in a kennel cage in the back, the latter having been deemed necessary when she wouldn’t obey her father’s injunctions to stop dashing back and forth—sometimes jeopardizing the Wanderer’s ability to see the road. The young coyote had cried for a while, then resigned herself to sleep.
“We’re almost there,” the Wanderer says. “Maybe ten minutes to the main gate, but we’re already on OTQ Ranch land.”
“What,” the Changer asks, “does ‘OTQ’ stand for? I’ve always meant to ask.”
The Wanderer chuckles. “Frank’s official job is raising quarter horses. ‘OTQ’ stands for the ‘Other Three Quarters’—as in, ‘If they’re a quarter horse, what’s the other three quarters’?”
The Changer laughs, a thing that lights his otherwise neutral features and makes him handsome. The Wanderer feels a distinctly female awareness of him and wonders... Then she suppresses the desire. She’s not at all certain she wants even a passing involvement with the Changer. Her own history is strange enough; she can’t even begin to comprehend his.
She knows that some athanor believe that she herself (or more precisely her “his” side) is the source of the tales of the Wandering Jew. Others hint that she is the original for the story of Cain, sentenced by God to walk the Earth in permanent exile. The Wanderer neither acknowledges nor denies these rumors, taking ple
asure from people’s uncertainty.
Compared to the Changer, however, she is just a child. Some say that he is the oldest of them all. Certainly, she cannot remember a time when legends of the protean shapeshifter had not been told whenever the athanor gathered. The same uncertainty she delights in evoking in others keeps her from getting too comfortable with him.
She wonders if he knows. Something in the sardonic expression that flickers across his features as he turns to look at the jay now pacing them makes her think that he quite possibly does.
They walk into downtown Monamona from the bus station. Superficially, the city is nearly as busy as Lagos. Goods are hawked in the street. Food, clothing, electronics, shoes, plastic jewelry, photographs: The offered wares are a strange mixture of useful items and cheap trash—much of it stamped “Made in Taiwan.”
Quickly enough, though, they see that things are not all right. Numerous shop fronts are closed and locked. Idlers cluster on street corners, not dancing or singing to pass the time, as had been common in Lagos, but absorbed in intense conversation that quiets as they pass and then picks up again.
They spend the first night in a cheap hotel where the owner inspects them carefully before agreeing to give them a room. Now, as the sun rises on another hot, dusty day, they breakfast in their rooms while Anson outlines their plan of action.
“The hotel keeper, he will keep our bags for a fee.”
“And rob us blind,” says Eddie, who had not liked the sly-looking fellow at all.
“No, he won’t do that,” Anson says. “I have locks and locks to protect them, eh?”
Eddie nods, understanding. “Where do we go from here? Do your friends have family here?”
“They do, but first I want to go to the local god’s shrines. We will hear gossip there, and someone may have left me a message.”
Monamona is not as large as Lagos or Ibadan, not so revered as Ife or Oyo, but it is large enough and revered enough to be home to all the many aspects of modern Yorubaland. So Eddie and Anson make their way through streets bordered by modern concrete high-rises, breathing air contaminated with automobile exhaust, hearing confused fragments of the latest musical sensations, all the while heading toward a place whose ultimate root is in the oldest traditions of the Yoruba people—the place where the traditional gods are enshrined within a grove of wind-battered baobab trees.
“The Yoruba people have always been city people,” Anson explains, as they thread their way through the crowded streets. “Even before the British came, they preferred to live in cities and villages.”
“I thought they were farmers,” Eddie says.
“They were that, yes,” Anson agrees, “but the farms were outside of the towns, in land cleared from the bush. Only hunters (who most people think are touched by strange influences) stay in the bush overnight.”
“So the farmers went out to farm during the day and came home to their houses at night?”
“That’s right,” Anson has acquired some fried yam strips from a chop bar and is chewing on them complacently as they walk along. “Families lived in compounds—a man and his wives and children, sometimes several generations lived so. The precise arrangement depended on how wealthy the family was—and how dominating the father.”
“Some things never change.” Eddie chuckles, snagging a strip of yam for himself. He lacks the shapechanger’s demanding metabolism, but the sweet, almost granular, yam’s flesh is tasty.
“Too true,” Anson agrees. “When the family had its own compound, each had its own shrines. Sometimes a town had shrines, too, especially for cults or secret societies. When the Yoruba moved into the modern cities, there had to be changes. A family shrine doesn’t fit too well in an already crowded high-rise apartment.
“Moreover, many of the families are—a least in name—Christian or, more rarely among the Yoruba, Moslem. I think, too, there was a desire on the part of those who held to the traditional ways to make a public display, like that of their competitors. So here in Monamona, we have the Grove of the Gods.”
“And you hope to learn something there?”
“Oh, yes. When trouble comes to call even atheists decide there is no harm done in burning some incense or making an offering, eh? Those more in touch with traditional ways will be holding sàarà for their friends.”
Eddie nods. His magically installed vocabulary defines sàarà as an offering to the gods, a sort of shared feast. Beyond that, he is ignorant, but he trusts that if the time comes for him to take part in such a ritual banquet, someone will teach their poor Americanized guest how to mind his manners.
The Grove of the Gods is as busy as Anson had predicted, so Eddie’s last trepidation, that they would be easily noticed strangers, fades away.
The Grove is divided into two sections. The outer area is an unfenced cluster of baobab trees under which old men drowse or play ayo or watch the little children who dash hither and yon.
A few are carving wood, and Eddie recalls that the Yoruba are considered masters of this art. In the old days they had made everything from intricately carved doors and house posts to ceremonial staffs and wands. Today their work is more likely to find its way into the hands of tourists, a sad commentary on both Nigeria’s economic and spiritual health.
“Many Yoruba creation myths,” Anson explains in a soft voice, “say that when Olodumare commanded Obatala to create the Earth, the first thing created was a baobab tree. Thus these trees have remained sacred. The center of a traditional town would often be beneath their shade. Here, then, is an attempt to recreate that village closeness. Public festivals, dances and such, would be held here.”
He shrugs. “We, however, must go down that path.”
Eddie looks to where Anson has gestured. A trail traveled by serious-looking men and women, many in their best clothes, leads through remarkably thick scrub growth. At its end, he can just glimpse an ornate iron fence.
“That’s where the shrines are?” he asks.
“Yes.” Anson nods. “Later I will come out here and listen to the elders’ gossip. Most of what they say will be useless, but perhaps one àgabàlagbà will have more than dust between his ears.”
In silence, they pass through the iron gates. Within, unlike the tree-shadowed area without, is a roughly circular open space. There are no formal temples here. Instead, intricately carved wooden statues, each at least twice life-size, are set about the perimeter. Before each is an altar.
Though Eddie had been born Enkidu the Wildman in ancient Sumer, had served in the courts of both pharaohs and medieval kings, he cannot escape the sensation that this place is old—though by strict count it is certainly younger than he is. Yet a persistent aura of antiquity, of primal desires and fears, clings to the shrines and to the rituals carried out among them.
Obediently following Anson and mimicking his gestures of respect, Eddie tries to identify to what deity each shrine is dedicated. He recognizes enough to feel certain that Anson is right. The Yoruban people of Monamona are turning to their gods for assistance in this time of crisis—whatever the crisis may be.
Osanyin, the Master of Herbalism, has obviously received many sacrifices, as has Olodumare, a deity often conflated by missionaries with the Christian god. He grins to see that his fellow athanor, Ogun, has ample offerings spread before his ornate shrine.
Interestingly, Oya, a goddess his magically installed vocabulary/ reference memory notes is associated with storm winds and the River Niger, has received as many appeals as either Osanyin or Olodumare. This seems odd, for though multifaceted Oya is not particularly associated with healing. Perhaps, he thinks, this is a turning to the mother figure in a time of crisis, or perhaps since this is the harmattan season, when the dry winds blow strong, the residents are playing it safe.
Eddie is still musing on this when he notices that Anson is squatted alongside a makeshift shrine so heavily covered with offerings that Eddie cannot tell to whom it is dedicated. Coming to join Anson, Eddie realizes that
this shrine lacks the dominating statue. All it holds is a crude clay figure of a seated man sitting on a chunk of rough laterite. The figure’s surface is embedded with cowrie shells so that his skin seems pitted.
Clearly this shrine was erected in some haste.
“I don’t suppose that this one is for you,” he teases Anson. “Isn’t the shrine to Eshu a piece of laterite?”
“Household shrines, yes,” Anson replies abstractedly. “Here Eshu has a shrine like those of the other gods.”
His voice low, his tones measured and without any trace of his usual humor, Anson continues, “This shrine is to Shopona, the God of Smallpox. In modern times, Nigerian government has made his worship illegal. They feared that priests might actually be spreading the disease. You see, the priests of Shopona’s cult would claim for themselves the goods of those who died of the disease.”
“Nice job if you can get it,” Eddie says.
Anson remains serious. “The government may have been right to forbid worship of Shopona, but here is a shrine to the King of Heaven, decked with offerings.”
Eddie frowns. “But I thought that smallpox had been wiped out. I’m certain that I read a World Health Organization report to that effect in the early 1980s.”
“Apparently that is not so,” Anson says, straightening, “for all that I have seen since we have come here indicates that smallpox is precisely what the people of Monamona fear.”
Long, thick brown lashes are the first thing anyone ever notices about Frank MacDonald; afterward one feels his calm, soulful presence, like that of a saint in a Renaissance painting. Average in height, weathered and muscled from a long life spent mostly out of doors, Frank stoops a little as if under the great burden he bears, though that burden is self-assumed and welcome.
At the main gate of the OTQ ranch, Frank meets the van. He is dressed for riding, a Stetson atop his long brown hair. Waving to them, he leans down from the saddle of his black quarter-horse mare to unlatch the gate before waving them through.
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